The Breath of Night (25 page)

He fell asleep, to be roused by an alarm call at eight, with only the standby light on the TV to remind him of his earlier unease. Maribel was appalled by the mess, smoothing sheets, plumping pillows and arranging dirty dishes on the trolley. It was all he could do to keep her from running them under the tap, as if to remove any compromising residues from the eyes of the chambermaids. They breakfasted in the room, with Maribel saving four miniature pots of jam to take home, which Philip supplemented with a diverse collection of shampoos,
conditioners
, shower gels, soaps and moisturisers, which he had set aside for her over the previous week. His delight that such a trifling gift could give her such pleasure faded when, on the brink of leaving, she dashed into the bathroom and brought out two spare lavatory rolls which, with a wordless entreaty, she slipped into her bag.

Maribel’s gentle presence was replaced by Dennis’s abrasive one when, half an hour after she had left the hotel, he arrived to drive Philip to San Juan for his meeting with Hendrik van Leyden. Reaching the Society’s headquarters, a grey clapboard house that might have been transported from a plantation in Virginia, Philip pressed the doorbell which, to his surprise, was
answered by Hendrik himself. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with grizzled hair in a de facto tonsure and a single bushy eyebrow that stretched across his face. His skin was startlingly white, as if he had not caught the sun in forty years, which must have impressed the Filipinos. Unlike Julian, who had been eager to break down the barriers between priest and
parishioners
, he wore a cassock, albeit one that was frayed, stained and so shiny at the elbows and knees that the black cloth looked silver. He clasped Philip’s hand in his spatulate fingers and led him through the sombre hallway to a study, which was in total disarray. Even the books on the shelves were arranged at odd angles, while those on the floor were piled with flea-market abandon. Papers, letters, bills and journals were scattered on the desk, sofa and chairs. A Dutch passport, its cover scorched by a coffee cup, lay next to a pair of broken spectacles and a heap of coins.

‘Please, sit down,’ Hendrik said in a guttural accent. Philip looked helplessly at the cat curled on his allotted chair. ‘Nancy, bugger off!’ The cat did not stir. Hendrik moved towards her. ‘This is what I get for taking you off the streets.’ He turned to Philip. ‘I rescued her from a pimp who’d been maltreating her. I named her Nancy after
Oliver Twist
.’ The cat pre-empted her eviction by jumping to the floor and limping away on her three legs. Philip sat facing a large framed sampler with the delicately stitched motto:
Whosoever touches pitch will be defiled
.

‘I see you’re admiring my sampler.’

‘Very much. I’m trying to place the quotation. Is it St Paul?’

‘Ecclesiasticus. I commissioned it from one of the girls in the Angeles refuge. Can I give you something to eat or drink? Tea? Juice? Water? I know I have biscuits somewhere.’ He shifted a stack of papers on his desk.

‘That’s very kind, but no, thank you. I had an enormous breakfast at the hotel.’

‘Very wise! What I’d give to have my meals cooked again! Ever since the Regional brought me back here on my seventieth
birthday, I’ve had to fend for myself.’ Philip wondered whether the rest of the house were in similar chaos. ‘But enough
chit-chat
! Tell me about your great enterprise. Are these islands any closer to having a new saint?’

‘If they are, it’ll be no thanks to me. I’ve been here two months and I’m not sure that I know much more about Julian than when I arrived. If my being here has accomplished anything, it’s been to focus the minds of the Bishop and his team. I feel like my mother visiting my great-aunt in her nursing home. There was nothing she could do for her – my aunt didn’t even recognise her – but she showed the staff that there was someone looking out for her interests. That’s the most I can hope for now, unless you come up with some leads.’

‘I wish I could, but I’m not that familiar with Julian’s life here. We weren’t close.’

‘Are you talking physically or emotionally?’

‘A bit of both. I suspect he would have been confused and embarrassed and maybe even – yes – angered by the
investigation
. He used to say – tongue-in-cheek, of course – that I was the saint. There’s no need to write this down,’ Hendrik said, as Philip opened his notebook. ‘He called me Nick – after St Nicholas – in his letters.’

‘Have you kept them? I’d love to take a look.’

‘I’m afraid they were lost years ago. I find it so hard to keep track of things.’ He gestured abstractedly at the clutter. ‘Besides, they were largely about private matters, of no relevance to the
Positio
. Nick! Yes, I had forgotten that. Although, by the end, we were back to Hendrik. I suppose he found Nick dangerously equivocal.’

‘In what way?’

‘Nick – Old Nick. From our Dutch word,
nikken
.’

‘Would that be after your estrangement?’

‘Our what?’

‘I’m sorry, maybe I’ve misunderstood, but in one of his prison letters he wrote that your friendship had run its course.’

‘
Run its course
?’ Hendrik ruminated. ‘How very Julian! I’m not sure how long its course was to begin with. Ours was a
friendship
more of circumstance than choice. If you want someone close to him, the “beloved disciple” as it were, you need Father Benito Bertubin.’

‘That’s all very well, but he appears to have vanished off the face of the earth.’

Hendrik looked at him in bemusement. ‘The refuse dumps of Manila may be hell on earth, but they’re still on it.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Father, no, plain Benito – I may be mistaken but I think he left the priesthood – is working just a few miles from here with the people who live on refuse: that is
on
it and
off
it.’

‘Even if he’s no longer a priest, surely the Church authorities would know that? The Vicar General of Baguio told me
categorically
that they had no idea where he was.’

‘They may not.’

‘Do you think that’s likely?’ Hendrik shrugged. ‘Then why should he lie to me? Benito knew Julian better than anyone. They were locked up together for a year. Are they afraid that his politics will be a black mark against Julian with a conservative Curia?’

‘Maybe Benito himself will give you the answer?’

‘Do you have his address?’ Philip struggled to keep the
excitement
out of his voice.

‘No, but you don’t need it. Just ask any taxi driver to take you to the Payatas refuse dump.’

‘Is it that big?’

‘Estimates vary, but some say 60,000 people live on it.’

‘You mean
off
it?’

‘No.’

‘I’m finding it hard to get my head around this. A high-
ranking
priest deliberately misled me. I suppose, given all the clerical cover-ups of recent years, I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m sorry; I don’t mean to offend you.’

‘You haven’t.’

‘And I mustn’t abuse your hospitality, that is your time. I’ll go to Payatas of course, but meanwhile, if there’s anything you can think of to tell me, anything at all… Julian wrote that he met you in Brabant, which seems a strange place for an Englishman to study.’

‘There’s always been a strong Dutch flavour to the Society. Our founder, Henry Vaughan, sent one of his closest
associates
to establish the seminary at Roosendaal in 1890, which was where I met Julian some seventy years later. We liked and, I trust, respected each other. But that was as far as it went. Intimacy was frowned upon. We were cloistered young men. Well, I don’t need to spell it out for you with your English public schools.’

‘Most of them now admit girls.’

‘Progress or merely change? Not that the Church is
particularly
keen on either. Discipline at the seminary was very strict. We were required to gather in groups of three or more. “
Numquam duo, semper tres
.” The Master of Novices even chose our companions for walks. In any case, Julian was something of a loner. Though maybe that was forced upon him. People were wary of him because he’d been to Oxford.’

‘But I thought he read theology.’

‘Quite. Oxford was regarded as a hotbed of heresy. Everyone – staff and students alike – were afraid that his spiritual values had been put at risk by his course.’

‘Nonetheless, you must have formed a special bond since he invited you to Whitlock.’

‘I can’t have been the only one.’

‘You’re the only one he mentions. But then you’re the only one he met again out here.’

‘I was so nervous. It was my first time – and my only time – to visit one of your old English houses. Julian told me not to worry if I broke the rules. His parents would make allowances for me as a foreigner. You may imagine how much that put me at my ease!’

‘Did you meet the whole family?’

‘Just his parents and his sisters. His brother was working – in London, I think.’

‘And what was your overall impression?’

‘That they were the oddest people I’d ever met. Not his mother – she was a very gracious lady – but as for the rest of them, I think that the polite word – the English word – is eccentric. At our first meal, the maid brought round a tray of chops. We ate a lot of chops. Julian’s older sister – I forget her name…’

‘Agnes.’

‘Agnes, that’s right.’ Hendrik smiled. ‘She refused it and I asked if she was a vegetarian. She looked as horrified as if I’d asked if she was a virgin. “Certainly not,” she replied, “but I only eat meat that I’ve killed myself.” And the maid brought her a slice of game pie.’

‘I thought it was his younger sister, Cora, who was the
eccentric
one.’

‘That’s putting it mildly! She was obsessed with a television newsreader. She used to copy down passages from his
bulletins
and decipher his secret messages to her. Later that summer Julian was called home because she had fallen pregnant. She swore that the newsreader was the father and stirred up a lot of trouble, writing letters to him, to the papers and to the BBC. To make matters worse, she swelled up – Julian said it looked as if she was carrying twins – and her father blamed one of the men working on the estate. Then the newsreader was taken off the air – I’m quite sure there was no connection – and, overnight, Cora’s stomach shrank. It was as though she had had the baby, except that there was no baby. For the rest of his life Julian felt guilty that he had not done enough to help her, that he had spent so much time away from home. On the other hand he was convinced that if he’d stayed, he would have ended up like her.’

‘Mad?’

‘Disturbed,’ Hendrik replied with a frown. ‘To my mind, most of the problems stemmed from their father. He had the coldest
smile I’ve ever seen. I kept out of his way as much as I could. Though there was no escape when he invited me fishing. To everyone’s surprise, I caught a large salmon. “You’re not feeding the five thousand, you know,” he said icily, before remembering to shake my hand.’

‘A curious remark to address to a trainee priest!’

‘He had no love for the Church, much to Julian’s regret. I’m sure you know the story of his vocation?’

‘Only the barest outline. If you can fill in any details…’

‘Not many, I’m afraid. His father had been captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He spent years in a prison camp, long after the fighting in Europe had ended and other boys’ fathers had come home. All the children prayed every night for his safe return, but Julian went one further and vowed that if his father survived, he’d become a priest. The irony – no, the tragedy – was that, by pledging himself to God, he’d done the thing most
calculated
to alienate his father, who had lost his faith in the war – at least Julian claimed it was in the war, although I suspect that he was trying to justify it.’

‘Do you think he’d still have become a priest if his father hadn’t returned from Burma?’

‘Most definitely, but then I believe that a priest is called by God.’

‘That must be a comfort.’

‘It was once.’

Hendrik’s face clouded and Philip preferred not to probe.

‘It must have been a shock – it was for Julian – when you met up again in Manila.’

‘Absolutely. He was the last person I was expecting. I thought he was still in Liverpool.’

‘Yes, what was that about? It seems an unlikely place to send a missionary.’

‘Especially Julian! He was our star student and we assumed that he’d be given one of the more challenging postings. I remember when I first heard about it. The Rector of the House
was hosting his traditional post-ordination party for family and friends. Halfway through, he announced that the
Superior
General was ready to see us in his study. One by one we went in, then came back and shouted out where we were going, to be greeted by a burst of applause. I was off to Pakistan – a remote part of Sindh province. Then Julian came back and called out “Liverpool!”. There was a deathly silence, until at last someone started to clap and everyone else followed suit. The Rector explained that because of his exceptional qualities, Julian had been chosen to stay at home and nurture the next
generation
of missionaries, and Julian insisted that he was happy to fulfil whatever task God had assigned to him, but there was no denying that it was a blow.’

The cat limped back into the room.

‘So how long did you spend in Pakistan?’

‘Four years: the four happiest years of my life. I lived there among the Kutchi Kohli, a Hindu tribe who worked as
sharecroppers
for feudal landlords.’

‘Much like the tenant farmers in San Isidro.’

‘Except that they were already Christians, whereas I had the inestimable blessing of saving souls for the Lord.’

‘Yet you moved here?’

‘Not from choice, believe me! I was deeply reluctant to come to a place where the Church was so well established.’

‘It does seem strange to send missionaries to such a
fanatically
Catholic country.’