Jubilate by Michael Arditti Page B

to make a film of the holiday.’
    ‘In the Grotto?’
    ‘We’ll certainly do some shooting there.’
    ‘Shooting?’ He sounds alarmed.
    ‘With the camera.’ I mime a tracking shot, which I trust will not be seen as condescending.
    ‘I’m going climbing in the Grotto.’
    ‘It’s not that sort of grotto, darling, I’ve explained.’
    ‘You can’t stop me. I’m forty-six years old. You’ve no right to tell me what to do.’ He starts to cry. Louisa pats his arm; I wince; his mother remains impassive.
    ‘Please don’t be alarmed,’ she says. ‘Sometimes he’s worse than a child.’ Her voice darkens. ‘That’s what he is now: a child. If only you’d known him before. He had fifteen men working under him, to say nothing of the casuals. The youngest president of the Surrey Rotary since the war, elected unopposed when his father retired. Then one day he had a haemorrhage on the golf course. Just like that. The blood poured into his brain and wiped out so many of the connections , so many of the hundreds of thousands – or is it millions? – ofconnections that make us who we are. And it’s left him a boy. But a boy with the strength and … and the urges of a man. Which is very hard: hard for him and hard for us. So we’ve come to ask the Blessed Virgin for a miracle, to give him back those connections, to give him back to himself.’
    ‘Do you honestly expect one?’ I ask, more abruptly than I intend.
    ‘Aren’t you a Catholic, Mr O’Shaughnessy?’ she asks.
    ‘With a name like mine?’ I reply evasively.
    ‘You’re very like my daughter-in-law.’
    ‘Really? In what way?’
    ‘Faint-hearted. “What’s the point of being a Catholic,” I said, “if you can’t ask God for a favour?” It’s not easy for her. Richard can be a handful. It’s no wonder she gets headaches. I sometimes think she doesn’t want help from anyone. Are you married, Mr O’Shaughnessy?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Really?’ she asks. ‘I’d have thought some bright young woman would have snapped you up years ago.’
    ‘Some bright young woman did,’ I say, refusing to elaborate.
    ‘I brought Vincent over to discuss the release form for the filming,’ Louisa interjects, sensing danger.
    ‘Didn’t I send it back? I’m sure I did.’
    ‘Yes, of course. Everyone has, except your son and daughter- in-law . Well your daughter-in-law …’
    ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. She worries herself to death over trivial things and neglects what’s really important.’
    ‘Perhaps you’d remind her?’ I say, desperate to escape the skein of regrets and recriminations.
    ‘Why not tell her yourself?’ she says, gesturing to an approaching figure. ‘This is my daughter-in-law, Gillian. Gillian, this is Mr Vincent O’Shaughnessy, the film director.’ She cites my profession as if basking in the reflected glory of an Oscar-winner. As I hold out my hand to the tall, stiff, slightly frowning woman, I feel such a looseness inside me that I fear I may be losing control of my bowels. I cannot explain my response. She is undoubtedly attractive, with delicate features, full lips, piercing blue-grey eyes and chestnut hair pinned in a chignon, a style which, schooled in my mother’sdevotion to Princess Grace, I have long seen as a sign of refinement; but her looks are not the kind to make grown men melt. So I ascribe my fluttering stomach to pre-shoot nerves and a hurried breakfast rather than to her cool, firm touch.
    She too is more elegant than the standard pilgrim in an ivory tailored jacket and knee-length floral skirt with a chunky suede belt buckled loosely around her hips, but the wooziness in my head keeps me from appreciating the effect. Smiling, I introduce myself but she ignores me.
    ‘Where’s Richard?’ she asks, looking round and, although her words take unusually long to reach me, I immediately register her concern. ‘I left him with you,’ she says to Patricia.
    ‘He was here a moment ago.’
    ‘You’re