The Sacrifice Stone (28 page)

Beth and Adam shook their heads.

‘You don’t read the right magazines.’ Joe commented. ‘Derek Hill has been reporting regularly on Chantal Bordanado. And not only her visions — he’s interviewed her extensively, met her family, talked to everyone who knows her. I wrote to him back in July, when I read his article on the first vision, and we’ve been in contact ever since.’

Wanting to laugh, Beth thought, I’ve been maligning him. When he was muttering on the phone to late-night callers and disappearing for hours on end, I thought he was planning his assault on Gemma’s double sleeping bag. And all the time he was hanging on every last syllable of the Reverend Derek.

‘And what is this chap’s conclusion?’ Adam was asking. ‘Clearly he believes she’s genuine, but —’

‘Of course she’s genuine.’ Joe was more condescending than indignant, as if he had nothing but pity for poor mortals who hadn’t seen the light. ‘As I said, come with me to the church, and see for yourselves.’

Beth said, ‘What’s going to happen, the day after tomorrow?’

‘Chantal has had warning that she’s going to see another vision.’

‘What sort of warning?’ Beth could hardly believe he was taking it seriously.

‘In a dream. She’s been told to be there, in front of the statue of St Theodore, at sunset.’

‘And she’s told the Reverend Derek, who has told you, and probably the world’s press too?’ Adam, too, sounded sceptical.

‘Derek wouldn’t do that,’ Joe said. ‘He’s only told a few select
sympathetic
journalists’ — the look he gave Adam suggested he didn’t consider Adam could possibly have been one of them — ‘and he has their word that they won’t leak the story before the event.’

Adam muttered, ‘He has an over-optimistic view of the press.’

But Beth was struck with the enormity of what Joe was saying. In two days’ time, the world was going to watch as a child had a vision, and the legend of St Theodore of Arles would be the subject of a thousand headlines, news reports, articles.

Do
not
fail
him
now
.

Dully she said, ‘Let’s have your notebook, Joe. We may as well get on.’

He looked at her, and beneath the triumph she thought she saw pity. Don’t! she wanted to shout. Don’t remind me what you are to me, when I’m trying my darnedest to upset all that you believe in!

He held out his notebook, and she took it. Then he returned to his work.

She held the notebook for a moment, summoning strength. Then, finding the place where Joe had copied out the Lucius Sextus references, she gave it to Adam. Dropping down to kneel on the floor, she picked up the book Joe had pointed to.

It was entitled
The
Canonization
of
the
Early
Christian
Saints
. She opened it at the marked place, and was confronted with an illustration of the simpering saint from the little church behind the Place de la Redoute. Realizing she’d been holding her breath, she let it out and began to read.

*

In the last quarter of the second century AD, the authorities in Roman Provincia were forced to take a hard line with Christians, especially an enclave of the new faith who had settled near the ancient town of Glanum. In 173 or 174, a group comprising two families and their friends, preferring to live according to the dictates of their own faith, established a commune in the hills behind the town.

Although at first the authorities left them alone, their continuously defiant attitude eventually left the Fréjus magistrate no choice. Not only were the Christians refusing to make sacrifices to the Imperial Cult and the other Roman gods, they were actively interfering with the religious observances of others: an attempt was made to tear down and deface the Jupiter statue in Glanum, and a Temple of Mithras was attacked.

In 175, six of the group were arrested, tried and condemned and thrown to the lions in the amphitheatre at Arles in October of that year. The official records show that a capacity crowd attended.

A retributive attack by the Christians on the Temple of Mithras near Glanum was mounted, although it appears that the Christians, possibly demoralized by the deaths of their friends and family, lacked sufficient force to be effective. They were overcome, and a young boy in their number was killed when he held out against pressure to make sacrifice to the god.

There seems to have been some doubt over the boy’s identity. The records of the magistrate imply that the Glanum Christians may have claimed the boy as a member of their community in order to win for themselves the kudos of having their own martyr: the magistrate comments that this is contrary to what he was led to believe, which was that the child, whose name was Theodore, came from Arles.

The Christians’ persistence in associating themselves with Theodore served only to hasten their inevitable fate. The remaining Glanum Christians perished in the Arles amphitheatre in 176.

Later Medieval tradition embellished the story of Theodore, borrowing elements from other ‘miracle’ tales. Theodore, it was said, went on breathing after his throat was cut, moreover he was killed on his way home from choir practice, and his dead body went on singing Ave Marias. There is a suggestion that his pure and holy singing kept the body safe from the depredations of wild beasts as he lay out on the hillside.

The Christian church canonized Theodore in 1156, in response to continual pressure from the people of Arles, who claimed he had effected countless cures over many centuries, primarily of ailments connected with the throat. In commemorative images and statues he is represented as a small child, usually indicating his slit throat.

*

Beth went on staring at the page for some time after she had finished reading. Gradually it dawned on her that, despite her initial excited response, in fact the extract had told her little she didn’t already know. And the mention of the Fréjus magistrate was distinctly familiar — his doubts over the origins of St Theodore of Arles sounded very similar to what good old Lucius Sextus had said.

Depressingly, it looked as if the writer of
The
Canonization
of
the
Early
Christian
Saints
had done no more than write out his own account of what Joe had copied from Lucius Sextus’s original text.

She glanced up at Adam, but, engrossed in Joe’s notebook, he didn’t notice.

I’ll wait till he’s finished, she thought. Maybe he’ll spot something I’ve missed. And it’d be a pity to dash his hopes until I have to.

Idly she turned the pages of the thick book. Theodore the Studite, Theodore of Canterbury, Theodosius the Cenobiarch. Flipping back, she came to Thais, Thaddaeus, Teresa. A couple of Teresas. And a Teodoro, from some place in Italy — he seemed to have been a forerunner of St Francis, being similarly associated with a simple rural life ...

She skipped the next few sentences. Then, moving on to what the book went on to say, she stiffened. Leaning forward, feeling her heart beat faster, she read the paragraph again.

No. It’s just coincidence, another example of — how did the author describe it? — later Medieval additions embellishing the story.

It
can
only be that! Otherwise —

No, she told herself firmly. I’m not even going to think about ‘otherwise’, it’ll be too disappointing when, inevitably, I find I was wrong.

She read the whole entry again.

And found that it was increasingly difficult to convince herself that coincidence was the only explanation.

27

Despite her eagerness, growing almost uncontrollable, there was no chance to show Adam what she’d found out: just as he was closing Joe’s notebook and reaching out to take
The
Canonization
of
the
Early
Christian
Saints
from her, there was a loud banging at the door and a voice shouted, ‘Joe? We’ve come to disturb you, you’ve worked enough for one day!’

She noticed the irritation on Adam’s face. Then, glancing at Joe, saw that his response was similar.

‘Shall I send them packing?’ she suggested hopefully.

Joe sighed. ‘No. I said they could come back, provided they cooked supper.’

‘But you’re getting on so well!’ It was an assumption, since he hadn’t actually said he was; she was only going by the fact that he hadn’t said a word nor stopped typing since she and Adam had settled down to reading.

Joe grinned. ‘I’ll tell them to cook quietly, then we can work till the meal’s ready.’ He got up and went to answer the renewed poundings on the front door. ‘I’m coming!’ he shouted.

Adam was staring at her. ‘Have you found anything useful?’ he asked.

‘I think —’ No. Don’t tell him what
I
think, let him look for himself and see if he comes to the same conclusion. ‘I’ll show you later.’ She got up. ‘I’m going to see if Joe’s got a map of the Mediterranean. There’s something I want to look at.’

‘Okay,’ he said absently, going back to Joe’s notebook. She smiled — she didn’t think he’d heard her last remark. Now, she thought, searching on Joe’s desk for his road atlas, I just have to wait.

It took all her control not to shout out her discovery there and then.

*

It turned out that Joe’s friends were celebrating their last night in Arles; they’d packed up their van and were moving on in the morning, and, as Nick engagingly explained, had wanted to do a special supper for Joe in exchange for his having let them ‘crash’ in his house.

Beth was resigned to having to wait to talk to Adam; he seemed to have thrown himself into enjoying the evening, and there was nothing she could do but copy him. It wasn’t difficult to have fun in that company; now that she knew she was highly unlikely to meet any of them again after that night, Beth found she could tolerate them much more readily. Even like them — she warmed to Trish, who had been training as a nurse back home in Nottingham, but given it up as a bad job when she found that her earnings from a sixty-three-hour week, once she’d paid out for necessities such as accommodation and food, weren’t even enough to keep her in tights.

When Beth asked her how she was funding her travels, Trish said Gemma was paying.

‘Very decent of her,’ Beth commented.

‘She’s my sister.’

Beth found herself warming to Gemma, too.

They ate out on the terrace, and over the prolonged meal — the girls and Nick had cooked a succession of Chinese dishes and a vast tub of rice — she listened to the lively conversation of Joe’s new friends. Soon to be former friends, she thought, unless they’re planning to meet up back home. Even that wouldn’t be happening for a while: Gemma, Trish and Nick were heading next for Turkey, with the loose plan of going on to India, ‘if it’s not a hassle’.

Beth found it hard to imagine how going to India in a converted ambulance could be anything but a hassle.

‘Aren’t you tempted to go with them?’ Adam asked Joe. Beth, who happened to be looking at Gemma when he spoke, decided he might have been, only he hadn’t been invited. She was on the point of feeling sorry for him when he said, ‘Not in the least. I have unfinished business to see to —’ he glanced at Beth — ‘some of us haven’t the time for six-month holidays.’

Gemma banged her glass down on the table.
‘Some
of us left school at fifteen and have been grafting ever since,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Some
of us were putting aside the money for our travels when others were swanning it at college.’

‘University,’ Joe muttered.

Adam, clearly realizing he’d inadvertently put his foot in it, tried to make amends. ‘How did you come by your van?’ he asked Nick. ‘Did you fit it out yourself? I’ve always wondered what —’

‘It’s mine,’ Gemma said neutrally. Then, turning to Beth, she added conversationally, ‘Have you noticed how people always assume it’s the bloke who owns the vehicle?’

Beth smiled. ‘Indeed I have.
And
how they also assume he’s the breadwinner.’

‘Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’

‘It does.’ What on earth, she wondered, would Gemma make of Father? She suppressed a laugh: the prospect of Gemma putting Father right on a few matters made it almost worth hoping the relationship with Joe would survive Gemma’s absence along the India trail.

But Joe had just pointed out caustically that Gemma would in any case be lost without Nick to keep the van on the road, and Gemma had retaliated by saying she’d done motor mechanics at evening classes. Then she’d called him a misogynist pig.

It didn’t really look as if there was much chance of the relationship even surviving the night.

Adam stood up and stacked a few of the dirty plates. ‘Shall we start washing up, Beth, since the others cooked?’

‘Good idea.’ She reached for the almost-empty rice bowl. ‘We’ll put the coffee on while we’re out there.’

In the kitchen he said quietly, ‘Sorry to land us with the dishes, only I thought a diplomatic withdrawal was in order.’

‘Quite.
I
thought she was going to hit him.’

He was running water into the bowl, rinsing the plates before immersing them. Efficient in the kitchen, she thought absently. ‘I suppose they haven’t really got anything much in common,’ he said.

‘Except sex.’ She’d said it without thinking.
Damn
. ‘I mean, they obviously fancy each other, or they did, and ...’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said as she trailed to a stop.

There was a slightly awkward pause. She dried a few dishes then, having caught him up, went to get out mugs for coffee.

He said suddenly, ‘Do you think we have much in common?’

She spun round, but he had his back to her.

What’s he saying?

It’s a straightforward enough question, she told herself. So give him a straightforward answer.

‘Professionally, almost nothing. As regards our interests, I’d say quite a lot — it hasn’t been any hardship for you, has it, all that we’ve been doing these past days?’ She saw him shake his head. ‘Nor for me. But surely ...’ She stopped.

‘Go on.’ He’d turned away from the sink and, leaning against it, was watching her.

‘We have your Roman in common. We’ve both felt him, both seen him. For his own good reasons he’s appealed to the two of us. Somehow it makes me feel ...’

No, I can’t, she thought. Can’t say it makes me feel as if some man who lived nearly two thousand years ago seems to want us to work together. To
be
together. Or why else would he have involved me, too?

‘Do you think he reckoned we’d do better as a team than on our own?’ Adam said softly.

‘Something like that.’

He stepped forward, putting his hands on her shoulders. ‘And do you agree?’

She stared up into his eyes. I liked the look of you, she thought, right from the first, when you made me jump out of my skin in the Alyscamps. And, all this time we’ve been so preoccupied with your old Roman, part of me has been aware I’ve been enjoying
you
.

Until this moment, I wasn’t sure you felt the same.

She whispered, ‘Who am I to question the judgement of a Roman ghost?’

His arms went round her. She stood on tiptoe as he bent to kiss her.

*

After some time he said, ‘Do you think they’d mind getting their own coffee?’

Belatedly she noticed that the voices from the terrace had got louder and more acrimonious.

‘I don’t really care. What were you going to suggest we did instead?’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘I’d like to stroll with you round the amphitheatre, then look at the gardens in the moonlight. I’d like to find a quiet bar where we can drink to finding an answer to our mystery, then —’ he kissed her again — ‘I’d like to take you back with me.’

‘But I —’

‘Only to make sine you get a good night’s sleep!’ he said hastily. ‘I don’t hold out any hope for you at all here, if that lot are going to be arguing into the small hours. But please, don’t think I was suggesting anything else.’

Standing wrapped in his arms, she thought that was rather a pity.

Then she started to laugh.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘This morning — God, doesn’t it seem a long time ago? — I realized I didn’t want to be here any more. For pretty much the reasons you’ve just mentioned — too much of other people’s pushy presence. I thought I’d either find a hotel, or ...’ She hesitated, then decided that, since he’d already made the offer, it was all right to admit to what she’d hoped might happen. ‘Or I’d ask you if you had a spare room I could use.’

‘I have,’ he murmured, hugging her to him. ‘And, funnily enough, it’s all ready for you.’

‘For me? But you didn’t know I was going to need it!’ She pulled away, looking into his face.

Slightly sheepishly he said, ‘A man can always hope.’

*

She left a note for Joe propped against the kettle, on the assumption that sooner or later he’d notice the coffee hadn’t arrived and would go out to make it himself.

She’d hesitated over writing ‘I’ll be staying with Adam’: there was no way to say in a brief note ‘but don’t go assuming we’ll be sleeping together because I’m having the spare room’.

In the end, deciding it was absolutely none of Joe’s business
what
she did, she just said, ‘Adam will put me up for the night.’

Joe, she concluded, can think what he bloody well likes.

*

A long time later, they collected Adam’s car from the Place de la Redoute and he drove her the short distance across the town to where he was staying.

It’s such an atmospheric place, Arles, she thought as they went slowly through the now-empty streets. Even without your own Roman standing at your shoulder. He had left them alone tonight: she’d been surprised, then grateful, when no urgent presence manifested itself outside the arena.

Is it because you don’t need to tug at our sleeves any more? she asked him silently. Because you’re aware we’re quite determined to put it right for you, if we possibly can?

She remembered what she’d been longing to tell Adam before dinner. It’ll keep a little longer, she thought. Although, bearing in mind we only have until the day after tomorrow, not
much
longer. And even this is such a faint hope, I’m probably making far too much out of nothing ...

Adam was parking the car outside a small apartment block. ‘Not as lovely as your Maison Jaune,’ he said, ‘but it’s low maintenance. And there’s no garden.’ They went into the hall and he led the way to the stairs. ‘I don’t usually bother with the lift — it’s only two floors up.’

It must, she decided, have been a very early example of an apartment block — it reminded her of a turn-of-the-century hotel she’d once stayed in on the Boulevard Hausmann in Paris, which had been complete with grey-clad concierge and a lift like a cage. There was a faint aroma of garlic and Gauloises, and from somewhere she heard the yapping of a dog.

‘They don’t have a “no pets” rule,’ she observed.

‘That’s Madame Perrichet’s Pekingese. Bloody thing bit my ankle last summer.’

‘Didn’t you complain to the management?’

‘She
is
the management.’

Last summer. He comes here regularly, then. ‘Is it your own flat?’

They’d reached the second-floor landing, and he was opening his front door. ‘It was what my father called his southern retreat. He left it to me when he died because he said I was the only one of his children who’d use it.’

He reached to switch on a light, then stood back for her to precede him inside. She had an impression of cream walls, old dark-wood furniture, white floaty curtains at the long windows blowing in the breeze.

He went to close the shutters. ‘To keep the mosquitoes out,’ he said.

She sat down on a dark red leather-covered sofa. ‘It’s delightful. Every bit as lovely as the Maison Jaune.’ And, she nearly added, it has the great advantage of belonging to you.

He came to sit beside her. ‘Would you like coffee? A drink?’

She looked at him. I know what I’d really like, she thought, but I’m far too tired.

And — she was quite shocked at herself — I don’t know him
nearly
well enough!

Yet.

She took his hand. ‘I would absolutely love a bath. And then I’d like to go to bed.’