Chapter Thirty-Nine
The light inside the small chapel is dim, sepulchral.
Its heavy wooden doors are partially closed, with just enough room for the odd intrigued visitor to slip in. Most are content to wait outside.
A massive float rests on the ground in the semi-darkness, her ancient gold glistening. Candles are being carefully lit and freshly-cut flowers strewn, awaiting the final adornments. The Blessed Virgin looks down on her devoted band of brothers and sisters, as patient and indulgent as ever.
This paso reminds William of a prone camel, patiently resting in anticipation of an important passenger and a strenuous journey.
The legs it requires to unfold, flex and ease itself jerkily upwards, however, are not its own but those of the devout huddle of white-vested men, the costaleros, currently swigging from water bottles and deftly winding thick cloth “turbans” around their heads, as they await the orders of their boss, el capataz.
Outside, in the narrow streets, the cohorts of Nazarenos and cross-bearers chat volubly and swap news, in order to get in as much soccer, gossip and bullshit before the long, slow silence of the procession.
William wonders if silence is more excruciating for Spaniards.
He doesn’t, however, express this notion to his guest, as it might appear inappropriate and she is in any case too involved in whatever she is looking at.
Which he prays – to whoever is around – approximates in some decent measure to what he himself is observing.
As if on a signal, the sturdy men manoeuvre themselves beneath the enormous structure, ready to hoist it up.
“Lucky they’re all much the same height,” remarks William, “or Mary’d be in for a bumpy ride.
Mind you, I’ve seen them stop at times for liquid refreshment and it hasn’t hasn’t always been water.
” He laughs to himself. “By the end of a long evening, Mary and her special son can be seen bopping around up there like they’re having quite a party.
” He wonders for a moment if he is being disrespectful.
After all, this Luisa still wears the tiny silver cross at her throat.
Yet he doubts Lu is listening. She watches spellbound – curiously, she has never thought to catch a procession at salida, its very commencement.
Glancing at her, William begins his hastily conceived and most probably supremely inept master plan.
He looks again at her guidebook, as if he has the power to reach beneath its glossy covers.
Here goes.
“Someone once told me, Lu, that there are 115 processions this week! Imagine, 115! And each one starts off from its own wee parish church – just like this one – at exactly the same time every year.” He turns nervously towards her.
“You can see the float, Lu?” She looks at him as if he is mad, then simply nods.
Perhaps in order not to derange him further.
“Anyway,” he continues, briskly. “See, each one sets off on its own journey – same time, same place.” He pauses, because he needs his next words to register, however mundane they may sound at first hearing. “Unless, of course, it rains.”
She simply nods. Makes sense. As his daughter would probably say, no biggie. But he has more.
“Then obviously it’s far too risky. I mean, some of these floats go back to the thirteenth century.
That’s even older than me!” He laughs, so she smiles politely, clearly more fascinated by the preparation than the conversation.
“So – if rain stops play,” he persists, “and things aren’t exactly right, Lu – she just waits patiently for the next year.
” He waits not quite so patiently. Finally, after some seconds, she responds.
“And if it is raining the next year?”
Now she is on board – now he can dial up the intensity. “Well – there’s a right time for everything, isn’t there? Y’know, processions, honeymoons—” He turns to her and raises his voice above the clamour that is slowly building around him. “—Ninos.”
She looks at him and is clearly surprised by the fervour that makes his blue eyes gleam in the darkness, like the tiny facets of her antique ring.
“Aye. Time it wrong, Lu, and things can get spoiled. As Rabbie Burns said, ‘the best laid schemes o’ mice ‘n men gang aft a-gley’.” As she stares he ramps it up, to compensate for the dimness in the lighting and perhaps the obscurity of his reference.
“Aye, plans can get ruined, Lu. Maybe forever. Trust me, dear, I know whereof I speak.”
William fears he may be seriously overdoing it, metaphoring himself into obscurity. Yet he can tell that she is listening. He can almost see her mind processing this, accustomed as he is, after all these years, to the slightest shift in her expression. Time for a lightness of touch.
“Which is probably why we Brits always carry precautionary measures.” As she turns to stare at him, he digs into his laptop bag and pulls out the least expected item from within its folds. “Our trusty brollies! Da dah!”
He waves his cheap, retractable umbrella jokily in the air and is relieved to see her smile.
And indeed offer a slight nod, as if she might just possibly be starting to catch on.
Big if, he thinks, but then notices, as the sleeve of his jacket glides up, that her attention has shifted to his watch.
Without asking, she touches it, yet so delicately that he barely feels the pressure on his wrist.
She looks softly into his eyes.
It’s a look he hasn’t seen before, at least not this time round.
Or at least not aimed at him. He intends simply to stare back at her and smile in a deeply meaningful way, as if somehow to nail down the points he has made so obliquely.
To etch them into her mind. But as he moves towards her, his face just inches away from her own, he breathes in that familiar scent, takes in the almost painful loveliness, and finds himself dissolving, falling into her.
“Luisa—” he murmurs.
A blast of light suddenly hits them as the doors to the church are flung wide open and the huge, gleaming float is finally hoisted up with enormous love and strength to its full, processional height.
His lips gently brush her forehead.
The ancient float moves out of the darkness into the light, like a child leaving the womb.