'If you take my advice,' she said shortly, 'you'll start your family right away. We waited, with the result we've had no children. Oh yes, I tried everything. Opening the fallopian tubes, the lot. It didn't work. The doctors told me they thought Jim was probably sterile, but he wouldn't take a test. Now, of course, it's all too late. I'm plumb in the middle of change of life.'
Jill did not know what to say. Everything Kate Foster told her made her feel more guilty.
'I'm so sorry,' she said.
'No use being sorry. I've got to put up with it. Be thankful you're young, and have all your life before you. Sometimes I feel there's absolutely nothing left, and that Jim wouldn't give a damn if I died tomorrow.'
To Kate's dismay, Jill Smith suddenly burst into tears. 'What on earth's wrong?' Kate asked.
Jill shook her head. She couldn't speak. How could she explain the wave of guilt, of remorse, that was sweeping over her?
'Please forgive me,' she said. 'The thing is, I don't feel very well. I've been tired and out of sorts all day.'
'Got the curse?'
'No ... No ... It's just that sometimes I wonder if Bob really loves me, if we're suited. Nothing seems to go right with us.'
Oh, what was she saying, and as if Kate Foster could possibly care anyway?
'You probably married too young,' said her companion. 'I did too. Everyone marries too young. I often think single women have a far better time.'
What was the use, though? She had been married to Jim for over twenty years, and despite all the anxiety and stress he caused her she could never consider parting from him. She loved him, he depended upon her. If he became ill he would look to her before anyone else.
'I hope he's all right,' she said suddenly.
Jill looked up from blowing her nose. Did she mean Bob, or Jim?
'What do you mean?' she asked.
'Jim hates crowds, always has done, that's why as soon as I saw the mob of pilgrims in that narrow street I wanted him to come with me to the Mosque area, where I knew it would be quieter, but he would go tearing off with you in the opposite direction. Jim panics in crowds. Gets claustrophobia.'
'I didn't realise,' said Jill, 'he never said ...'
Perhaps Bob also panicked in crowds. Perhaps Bob, and Jim too, were at this moment trying to fight their way out of that terrible mass of people, those clamouring street-vendors, those chanting pilgrims.
She looked around her at the silent garden, at the scattered shrubs somebody had planted, at the dreary little empty tomb. Even the official had moved out of sight, leaving them alone.
'It's no use staying here,' she said. 'They'll never come.'
'I know,' said Kate, tut what are we to do? Where can we go?'
The thought of plunging back into the hated city was appalling, but there was no alternative. On, on, searching the faces of the passers-by for their husbands and never finding them, always coming upon strangers, people who did not know, did not care.
Miss Dean waited until the stream of visitors to the church of St Anne and to the Pool of Bethesda had cleared, and then she walked very slowly towards the entrance to the pool and the flight of steps descending to it. A strange and rather wonderful idea had come into her head. She had been hurt, deeply hurt, by what she had overheard the night before. A thorn in the flesh. Jill Smith had told Mr Foster that Father had said to her mother that she, Mary Dean, was a thorn in his flesh. Had pursued him for years. It was a lie, of course. Father would never say such a thing. Mrs Smith had told a deliberate lie. Nevertheless, the fact that such a thing could be said, that possibly stories were told about her all over Little Bletford, had given her so much pain and distress that she had hardly slept. And to have overheard this above the Garden of Gethsemane of all places....
Then that dear little Robin, who seemed to be the only one in the party who ever read his Gospel, had explained to her that she was standing close to the Pool of Bethesda itself, and that a child had already been carried down to the pool to be cured of some disease. Well, perhaps the cure was not instantaneous, perhaps it would take some hours, or even days, for the miracle to show. Miss Dean had no disease, she was perfectly healthy, and strong. But if she could fill her small eau-de-cologne bottle with some of the water from the pool, and take it back with her to Little Bletford, and give it to Father to put in the holy water stoup in the entrance of the church, he would be overcome by her thought, by her gesture of faith. She could picture his expression when she handed the bottle to him. 'Father, I have brought you water from the Pool of Bethesda.' 'Oh, Miss Dean, what a tender, wonderful thing to have done!'
The trouble was, it might be forbidden by the authorities to take water from the pool, whoever the authorities were, but the man standing near the entrance doubtless represented them. Therefore--and it was in a good cause, a holy cause--she would wait until he had moved away, and would then descend the steps and fill the little bottle with water. Deceitful, perhaps, but deceitful in the name of the Lord.
Miss Dean bided her time, and presently--and the Lord must have been on her side--the man moved a short distance away towards a group of people who were obviously questioning him about some excavations further on. This must be her chance.
She moved gingerly towards the steps, placed her hand carefully on the handrail and began to descend. Robin was right in a sense. It did look rather like a drain, but there was plenty of water, and it was in a deep sort of chasm, and after what the Rev. Babcock had told them about everything being underground then there was no doubt about this being the genuine place. She felt truly inspired. Nobody descending to the pool but herself. She reached the slab at the bottom of the steps, and glancing above her, to make quite sure nobody had followed and she was not observed, she took out her handkerchief, knelt upon it, and emptied the eau-de-cologne on to the stone beside her. It seemed rather a waste, but in a way it was a kind of offering.
She leant over the pool and allowed the water to flow into the bottle. Then she stood up and replaced the cork, but as she did so her foot slipped on the damp stone slab, and the bottle fell out of her hand into the water. She gave a little cry of dismay and tried to retrieve it, but already it was out of reach, and she herself was falling, falling, into the dank, deep waters of the pool.
'Oh, dear Lord,' she called. 'Oh, dear Lord, help me!'
Thrusting outwards with her arms she tried to reach the slippery wet slab on which she had stood, but the water was entering her open mouth, was choking her, and there was nothing and no one around her but the stagnant water, and the great high walls, and the patch of blue sky above her head.
The Rev. Babcock had been almost as moved by the pavement floor below the Ecce Homo convent as the Colonel, although his reason was less personal. He too saw a man being scourged, guarded by soldiers, but it was happening two thousand years ago, and the man who was suffering was God. It made him feel utterly unworthy, and at the same time privileged, to have stood on hallowed ground. He wished he could in some way prove himself, and leaving the Praetorium, and watching the stream of pilgrims proceed slowly up the Via Dolorosa, halting at successive Stations of the Cross, he knew that no gesture of his, now or in the future, could atone for what had happened in that First Century A.D. He could only bow his head and follow, with equal humility, those pilgrims who went before.
'Oh Lord,' he prayed, let me drink the cup that you have drunk, let me share your suffering.'
He felt someone pluck him by the arm. It was the Colonel. Will you carry on?' he asked. I'm going to take my wife back to the hotel. She's had a slight accident.'
Babcock expressed concern.
'No, it's nothing really,' the Colonel reassured him. 'An unfortunate mishap to her front teeth. She's rather upset, and I want to get her away from the crowds.'
'Of course. Please express my sympathy. Where are the others?'
The Colonel looked over his shoulder. 'I can only see two of them, our Robin and young Bob Smith. I've told them not to lose sight of yo
u.'
He turned back towards St Stephen's Gate and disappeared.
Babcock resumed his slow progress towards Calvary, hemmed in on either side by the devout. We're really a cross-section of the Christian world, he thought, every nationality, men, women, children, all walking where our Master walked before. And in His day, too, the curious stared, pausing about their daily business to watch the condemned pass by. In His day, too, the traders and shopkeepers sold their wares, women brushed past, or halted in doorways with baskets on their heads, youths shouted from stalls, dogs chased cats under benches, old men argued, children cried.
Via Dolorosa ... The Way of the Cross.
Left, then right again, and now, on the turn, the band of pilgrims beside whom he walked mingled with another group in front, and yet a second and third dovetailed into them. Babcock, turning for one backward glance, could see no sign of Robin or
Bob Smith, no sign of any of his flock. His pilgrim partners were now, immediately in front of him, a company of nuns, and behind him, bearded and black-robed, a group of Greek Orthodox priests. To move either to right or left was out of the question. He hoped he was not too conspicuous as the one lone figure bunched between them, the singing nuns ahead, the chanting priests in the rear.
The nuns were saying the Hail Mary in Dutch. At least, he thought it was Dutch, but it could have been German. They went down on their knees when they came to the Fifth and Sixth Stations, and Babcock, fumbling for his little pilgrim's handbook, reminded himself that the Fifth was the spot where the Cross had been laid upon Simon of Cyrene, and the Sixth where the face of Our Lord had been wiped by Veronica. He wondered whether he should kneel with the nuns, or stand with the Greek Orthodox priests. He decided to kneel with the nuns. It showed greater reverence, greater humility.
On, on, ever upwards, ever climbing, the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre rearing above him, and now a final pause because they had arrived in the paved court before the great basilica itself, and in a moment the nuns, he himself and the priests would be passing through the imposing door to the final Stations, within the church itself.
It was then that Babcock became aware, though not for the first time--he had known a momentary queasiness within the Ecce Homo convent that all was far from well with his own inside. A sharp pain gripped him, passed, then gripped him again. He began to sweat. He looked to right and left, but there was no means of extricating himself from the pilgrims who surrounded him. The chanting continued, the door of the church was before him, and despite his efforts to turn and go back the priests barred his way. He must go on and into the church, there was no other way.
The church of the Holy Sepulchre enveloped him. He was aware of darkness, scaffolding, steps, the smell of many bodies and much incense. What can I do, he asked himself in agony, where can I go, the lingering taste of last night's chicken ragout rising from his belly to confound him, and as he stumbled up the steps to the Chapel of Golgotha in the wake of the nuns, with altars to right and left of him, candles, lights, crosses, votive offerings in profusion all about him, he saw nothing, heard nothing, he could only feel the pressure within his body, the compelling summons of his bowels, which no prayer, no willpower, no Divine Mercy from on high could overcome.
Bob Smith, bunched in behind the Greek Orthodox priests some distance in the rear, with Robin at his side, had been the first to observe the signs of distress on Babcock's face. He had noticed that when Babcock knelt for the final time, before being swept through the door of the church, he was looking very white, and was wiping his forehead with his handkerchief.
'I wonder,' he thought, 'if he's feeling ill. Faint, or something.' He turned to Robin. 'Look,' he said, 'I'm a bit worried about the parson. I don't think we ought to let him out of our sight.'
'All right,' said Robin. 'Why don't you follow him? Perhaps he feels awkward walking with all those nuns.'
'I don't think it's that,' replied Bob. 'I think he may be feeling ill.'
'Perhaps,' said Robin, 'he wants to go to the toilet. I wouldn't mind going myself, as a matter of fact.'
He looked about him for a practical solution. Bob Smith hesitated.
'Why don't you stay here,' he suggested, 'and wait for us to come out? That is, unless you're terribly keen to see inside the Holy Sepulchre.'
'I'm not at all keen,' said Robin. 'I don't believe it's the correct site anyway.'
'Right, then. I'll see if I can find him inside.'
Bob pushed through the door, and like Babcock before him was met with darkness, scaffolding, chanting pilgrims, priests, a flight of steps and chapels on either side. Most of the pilgrims were descending, the nuns amongst them, closely followed by the priests. The figure of Babcock, so conspicuous in their midst winding his way up the Via Dolorosa, was no longer to be seen.
Then Bob Smith spied him, huddled against the base of the wall in the second chapel, his face buried in his hands, a sacristan --Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Bob didn't know which--crouching by his side. The sacristan raised his head as Bob approached.
'An English pilgrim,' he whispered, 'taken very unwell. I will go to find help.'
'That's O.K.,' said Bob. 'I know him. He belongs to our party. I'll manage.' He bent down and touched Babcock on the arm. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'I'm here.'
Babcock motioned with his hand. 'Ask him to go away,' he whispered. 'The most frightful thing has happened.'
'Yes,' said Bob, 'it's all right. I understand.'
He gestured to the sacristan, who nodded, and crossed the chapel to prevent the incoming batch of pilgrims from approaching, and Bob helped Babcock to his feet.
'It could happen to any one of us,' he said. 'It must be happening all the time. I remember once at the Cup Final ...'
He didn't finish his sentence. His unfortunate companion was too distressed, too doubled up with weakness, with shame. Bob took his elbow and helped him down the steps, and out of the church to the court beyond.
'You'll be better in a moment,' he said, 'in the fresh air.'
Babcock clung to him. 'It was the chicken,' he said, 'that chicken I had last night for dinner. I particularly didn't touch any fruit or salad, Miss Dean warned me against them. I thought chicken would be safe.'
'Don't worry,' said Bob. 'You just couldn't help it. Do you think ... do you think the worst is over?'
'Yes, yes, it's over.'
Bob looked about him, but there was no sign of Robin. He must have gone into the church after all. What the hell should he do? The child ought not to be left to himself, but then no more should Babcock. He might be taken ill again. Bob should escort him back to the bus at St Stephen's Gate. He would return for Robin.
'Look,' he said, 'I feel you should get back to the hotel as soon as possible, to change and lie down. I'll come with you as far as the bus.'
'I'm so grateful,' murmured his companion, 'so terribly grateful.'
He no longer cared if he had become conspicuous. It no longer mattered whether people turned and stared. As they retraced their steps downhill, back along the Via Dolorosa, past more chanting pilgrims, more tourists, more crying vendors of vegetables, onions, and the carcasses of lambs, he knew that he had indeed descended to the depths of humiliation, that by his final act of human weakness he had suffered a shame that only a man could suffer, and to which perhaps his Master had also succumbed, in his loneliness, in his fear, before being nailed to his criminal's cross.
When they came to St Stephen's Gate the first thing they saw was an ambulance drawn up alongside their bus, and a crowd of people, strangers, grouped round it. An official, white in the face, was directing them to move away. Bob's first thought was for Jill. Something had happened to Jill ... Then Jim Foster, limping, his hair dishevelled, appeared from the midst of them.
'There's been an accident,' he said.
'Are you hurt?' asked Bob.
No ... no, nothing wrong with me, I got caught up in some sort of demonstration and managed to get away ... It's Miss Dean. S
he fell into that drain they call the Pool of Bethesda.'
'Oh God in heaven ...' exclaimed Babcock, and he looked despairingly from Jim Foster back to Bob. 'This is all my fault, I should have been taking care of her. I didn't know. I thought she was with the rest of you.' He moved forward to the ambulance, then remembered his own plight and spread out his hands in a gesture of despair. 'I don't think I can go to her,' he said. 'I'm not in a fit state to see anyone ...'
Jim Foster was staring at him, then glanced enquiringly at Bob Smith.
'He's not in good shape,' murmured Bob. 'He was taken ill a short while ago, up at the church. A bad tummy upset. He ought to get back to the hotel as soon as possible.'
'Poor devil,' replied Jim Foster under his breath, 'what an awful thing. Look ...' he turned to Babcock, 'get up into the bus right away. I'll tell the driver to take you straight to the hotel. I'll go with Miss Dean in the ambulance.'
'How bad is she?' asked Babcock.
'They don't seem to know,' said Jim Foster. It's shock chiefly, I imagine. She was practically unconscious when the guide fellow pulled her out of the water. Luckily he was only at the top of the steps. Meanwhile, I can't think what has happened to either Bob's wife or mine. They're somewhere back in that infernal city.'
He took hold of Babcock by the arm and steered him towards the bus. Funny thing how other people's misfortunes made you forget your own. The panic he himself had experienced had vanished at his first sight of the ambulance as he stumbled down through St Stephen's Gate, giving way to a deeper anxiety that Kate might be the victim the stretcher-bearers were carrying to it. But it was only Miss Dean. Poor wretched Miss Dean. Thank heaven, not Kate.
The bus rumbled off with the pale, unhappy Babcock staring at them from one of the windows.
'Well, he's on his way, that's one thing,' said Jim Foster. 'What a calamity, what a situation. I wish the Colonel was here to handle it.'