The Sacrifice Stone (32 page)

Beth had lost the thread of his argument, but Adam agreed that one might.

‘As representatives of the Church of England, we’ve been allotted seats inside the church,’ Joe said. He was having to shout now to compete against the hymn-singing; the French had given up on ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and had begun on something of their own. The Reverend Derek’s expression suggested he considered this typically traitorous of them.

‘Drop us off outside, then,’ Beth shouted back, ‘we’ll —’

Joe’s eyes had an unaccustomed brilliance. ‘You’re coming in,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I just say? When Chantal Bordanado has her vision, you’ll be right beside me.’

For the first time, Beth felt a tremor of fear.

Adam helped her down off the truck. They fell into step behind the French clergymen, the Reverend Derek and Joe; the Frenchmen’s robes commanded respect even if the Reverend Derek’s sleeveless pullover did not, and the crowd fell back for them, leaving a clear way up to the church.

Inside, every pew was crammed full, every chair taken, with as many people again standing around the areas without seating. There was a smell of sweat and garlic. What air there was felt unpleasantly damp; the humidity was building up, as if rain were on the way.

The priests went forward up the aisle, pausing to take holy water from the stoup and cross themselves. Joe and the Reverend Derek ostentatiously refrained. Beth felt embarrassed.

They sat down on a bench a few feet in front of the altar steps, on the right-hand side; Beth was crushed between Joe on her left and Adam on her right. There was only just room for them all in the small amount of space remaining; it looked as if everyone else in religious orders in the Arles area was already there.

In a wooden chair immediately in front of Beth, under a statue of St Theodore remarkably similar to the one in the Arles church, sat a little girl, dressed in a frilled and starched white dress. Her hair was in two plaits tied with huge white ribbons, and on her head, concealing her face, she wore a net veil held in place with a coronet of white flowers.

Beth studied Chantal Bordanado.

At first sight, the girl’s small size suggested she was about eight or nine. But then, almost as if she felt Beth’s curious eyes on her, she made a gesture of shaking back her plaits which momentarily moved aside her veil.

The face wore make-up, giving the impression of a painted doll. The eyes, beneath the crude blue eyeshadow and the mascara, held the last expression Beth would have expected to see on a devout child who genuinely believed she was about to witness a miracle.

Chantal, who was clearly nearer fourteen than eight, didn’t look awestruck, nervous; or even plain scared.

She looked bored.

Then she lifted a hand whose nails were painted bright pink and gracefully drew her veil back into place.

Beth looked at the rows and rows of people. With the exception of herself and Adam, everyone else appeared to be praying.

She put her mouth right up to Adam’s ear and whispered, ‘Did you see what I saw?’

He nodded. He whispered back, ‘The saintly child looks, as my old mum would say, like a right little madam.’

She murmured, ‘Is it all just a great big con?’

‘Can’t be. Everyone else is fervent enough, you can feel it in the air.’

Beth shifted her weight on the narrow bench and waited to see what would happen.

Perhaps, she thought, as the minutes went by and nothing did happen, it’s because nobody really knows what’s meant by ‘at sunset’. We’ve arrived too early — Chantal’s dream messenger ought to have been more specific.

One of the French priests detached himself from an enclave of his colleagues and walked up to the altar; he knelt down on the steps, crossed himself and spent a few moments in silent prayer. Having thus commanded the rapt attention of the entire congregation, who stopped their muttering and shuffling, he turned to them and began a long address. He spoke too fast for Beth to understand exactly what he was saying, but he seemed to be reciting the details of Little Saint Theodore’s martyrdom.

He was a fine preacher; the force of his conviction flowed from him out over the awestruck congregation. Beth found it didn’t matter that she couldn’t manage to catch every word — she was with him, prepared to believe him ...

As he reached the core of the tale, the priest raised his arms out wide in an expansive gesture to match the power of his voice. But the words that spoke of the slaughter, of the brutal Roman hand that cut the throat of an innocent Christian child, were drowned by a sudden appalling sound.

It could have been the first clap of thunder that heralded one of those swiftly burgeoning Mediterranean storms which beset the Midi in late summer.

To Beth, it sounded like the bellow of an angry bull.

Clutching on to Adam, she felt her own fear mirrored in the hundreds of people in the church. The priest felt it, too; instead of repeating the lost words, he turned back to face the altar, and once more knelt in prayer.

Beth was watching Chantal. As the priest returned to his bench, the girl, almost as if she were responding to a cue, slowly got to her feet.

Moving as if in a dream, she approached the altar, where she sank to her knees. The congregation was utterly still.

Then, as if obeying a silent command, suddenly she stiffened, stood up, and strode over to the statue of St Theodore. For some moments she stood beneath it, then, throwing back her veil, she gave a great cry.

Her words rang out in the hushed church,
‘Il
pleure!
Regardez
,
regardez
lui
,
il
pleure!
’

The congregation responded with a collective gasp, and Beth felt an enormous pressure build up behind her as people strained forwards, desperate not to miss the miracle.

The cry was taken up by a reedy, cracked voice: ‘
Il
pleure!
’
An elderly nun in the row behind Beth was on her feet, thin body swaying, ecstasy on the face. The rheumy old eyes were swimming, as if she were weeping in sympathy with the little saint.

And another voice joined in. An English voice, male: Beth felt a violent, surging movement beside her as Joe leapt up and shouted, ‘He’s crying!’

For several minutes the whole congregation, which was rapidly rising to its feet, was loud with a buzzing of joyful reaction.

But then it faded. There were no more shouts; no one else claimed to see the saint’s tears.

With an effort, Beth had turned her attention from the bland pink face of St Theodore, unmarked by any suggestion of a tear, to the figure of Chantal, now on her knees before the statue. Close enough to see what almost everyone else would have missed, she saw the child glance over her shoulder towards the priest who had addressed the congregation.

It was conceivable that Chantal might have sought guidance as to what she should do next, even if she had just witnessed a vision, although Beth felt that such an experience would surely have rendered most children incapable of anything but a shocked numbness.

What surprised Beth was the angry scowl on Chantal’s face; it was as if she were saying, I’ve done my best, now get me out of here!

‘Adam,’ she whispered, nudging him.

He had his eyes on Chantal. Without turning round, he nodded.

As the girl had done earlier, the priest, too, now took up his cue; striding once more to the altar steps, he exhorted the congregation to pray in thankfulness for being present at such an event. The Reverend Derek got up to join in, but Joe, who seemed to be quite overcome, clutched him round the knees as if he were tackling him and refused to let go; the Reverend Derek, not to be denied his moment of glory, merely began to belt out a prayer where he stood.

But priest, parson and faithful people were all silenced by another great blast from the darkening sky above; as the echoes of the furious sound died away, the rain started to hammer down on the roof.

It sounded like galloping hooves.

The last light of the sun must have been obscured by clouds, for it was very dark now inside the church. Whispers of panic crept from the corners; a child’s frightened cry was abruptly hushed, an elderly man’s querulous voice broke on a nervous sob.

One of the priests pushed past Beth, grabbed a handful of the tall votive candles from the box beneath St Theodore’s plinth, lit them and stuck them in the holders before the statue.

Behind the little saint, a shadow seemed to leap across the stone wall of the church. The young bull’s strong muscles bunched as he ran, the cloak of the figure on its back flew out behind him. And the face of the god was kind, full of love ...

Beth blinked, shook her head; the god and the bull were gone.

Other candles had been lit — the storm must have blown the electric lights — and the growing panic had disappeared with the coming of the light. People were leaving, calmly, contentedly, as if they had forgotten what they had been there for and were setting off for home after some ordinary, pleasantly everyday gathering.

Adam stood up, grabbing her hand. ‘Come on — let’s mingle with the crowd, see if we can pick up any reaction.’

‘But what about Joe?’ She turned to look at him; the Reverend Derek had sat him down on the bench and was fanning him with his prayer book.

‘He’ll be all right.’

Adam was shouldering a way through the massed ranks of clergy towards the central aisle, and, her hand held too firmly for her to wriggle it free, she went with him.

Outside, their inhibitions removed once they were no longer in the church, people were chatting, relating what they had seen. Or hadn’t seen: there were shrugs, smiles, remarks to the effect that whatever had been revealed to Chantal Bordanado had remained hidden from everyone else. The elderly nun, it was suggested, was probably almost blind, and the young man who had shouted — my brother! Beth thought, struck with the familiar mixture of affection and irritation — had probably had too much sun.

‘ “
On
voit
ce
qu’on
veut
voire
”: you see what you want to see,’ Adam said. ‘That’s the judgement.’

Beth said softly, ‘Did you see the shadow on the wall? Like we saw up at the Mithraeum?’

He hesitated, then said, ‘Yes.’

‘Did anyone else?’

He looked down at her. ‘Don’t ask me.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I doubt it. I imagine we only did because we’d seen something so similar before.’

‘Yet it calmed them. Didn’t it?’

‘Something did. More likely it was the sudden light shining out in the darkness.’

They were gradually moving away from the church. Conversations around them were now showing a degree of scepticism: a woman remarked that she’d heard the Bordanado girl had a history of attention-seeking, and her companion replied she didn’t see what all the fuss was about. A man said he’d have been better off at home watching the football than listening to some priest spouting ancient legends that no one believed in any more.

By the time they’d got back to the car, they’d heard enough; public opinion, it seemed, was that the evening had been an interesting diversion, ultimately unconvincing.

The practical men and women of Arles, Beth decided, all looked slightly embarrassed.

They went back to The Yellow House where, some time later, Joe joined them.

He was alone: when Beth asked what had happened to the Reverend Derek, he merely shrugged.

She and Adam watched from the doorway of the study while Joe started to pack up his books and his papers.

I’ve got to ask him, she thought.

‘Joe?’

‘Hm?’

‘Did you really see the saint crying?’

He didn’t answer. She glanced at Adam, who silently shook his head.

‘Er — we’re going out for a drink,’ she said. ‘D’you want to come?’

Without looking up he said, ‘No thanks.’

Outside, Adam said, ‘I have a feeling his paper may not now have the conviction it once might have had.’

A part of her wanted to cry. ‘No.’

‘Beth?’

‘I’m all right!’

They walked on in silence. Then Adam said, ‘Where are we going? Do you really want a drink?’

‘No.’ Suddenly she knew exactly what she did want. ‘Let’s go to the amphitheatre.’

What had once been the heart of Roman Arles was as full of strolling, chatting people as it would have been after an afternoon’s entertainment in the arena. The bars and restaurants were full, and there was singing from one of the pavement cafés. Beth and Adam were not the only ones to be drawn to the amphitheatre; several groups had settled on the curved rows of seats, and occasional bursts of laughter rose into the clear night air.

The storm had passed as if it had never been.

Beth led the way, going in through the arched entrance and setting off around the shadowy colonnade. Without comment, Adam walked beside her.

It’s gone, she thought. Whatever it was I was picking up — despair, grief, hopelessness — is no longer here. Not for me, anyway. It’s just an old ruined building.