Fifty-Minute Hour (62 page)

They're so high up, I can hardly make them out, but I try to spot Saint Thecla, whom I remember in particular, since she cut off all her hair and disguised herself in man's clothes, then followed Saint Paul from Iconium to Myra and all over Asia Minor – a first-century groupie, as mad for her apostle as I was for John-Paul. She eventually stopped tagging him and retired to a rock-cave in the wilderness, where she worked miracles for seventy years, on a diet of black bread. Then some ruffians tried to rape her at the age of ninety-odd, but the solid rock-face opened up miraculously to afford her an escape. She was never seen again, vanished like a sigh. I envy her today – not the rape at ninety, but her absolute extinction. I long to disappear myself, to be rubbed out like a pencil-mark, so the page is clean and white again, undefaced, unstained.

I let my eyes fall from the statues, which are only looming shapes, so I can't tell man from woman, or Thecla from Saint Paul. The twin colonnades below them reach out like two huge arms, embracing all mankind. And all mankind is here – pale faces and black ones, and most shades in between; flapping shoals of nuns from every country in the world; tonsured friars in fancy dress, sober-suited priests; bubbly blushing schoolgirls in pleated navy pinafores and white bows in their hair, and whole coachloadsful of English from as far afield as Sunderland and Birkenhead, judging by their accents. I'd no idea I had so many fellow countrymen in Rome. Where have they been hiding, or have they only just arrived – bluff Yorkshiremen in anoraks with polyester wives, or Surrey spinsters all dolled up in honour of their Saint?

I feel a different breed – a foreigner, an aristocrat, in my mantilla and black fur. I'm no longer a Saint Thecla, no longer wearing man's clothes, but an elegant black dress (with nothing underneath it), and stylish high-heeled shoes. God knows where Seton found the shoes, especially in my size, nor how he dug that coat out. It may be fake for all I know, though it's long and very glossy, gives me instant class. The whole thing seems a fake – not just the coat, but the very notion that our plan could ever work. They'll never let me in, never pass my camera-case, will nose out the gun immediately, arrest me as I climb the steps which lead up to the church. The police are already clustered at the bottom of those steps, the special branch security men who are so heavily armed themselves I don't stand the slightest chance.

My compact little gun weighs as heavy as a howitzer as I steer a slow and zigzag course between scrubbed and tethered children straining at their parents' arms, television cameramen dropping ash and cable, and troupes of English matrons carrying coloured silken banners proclaiming ‘Guildford Catholic Widows Group' or ‘Union of Catholic Mothers – Bridlington sub-branch'. I ache to swap with them, carry just a banner, or a prayer book, or a baby, and not a deadly weapon. Seton's armed the gun already, so I won't waste vital seconds doing it myself, or arouse suspicion by a sudden jerking movement. All I have to do is pull the trigger – and make sure whatever happens, I don't drop or bang the camera-case before I'm due to fire. With the safety-catch released, that impetuous Beretta is just chafing to go off.

The leather strap keeps slipping off my shoulder, sliding on the fur. I haul it back, clasp the case against my hip as I skirt around a boisterous group with Saint Edwin plastic badges, Saint Edwin carrier bags. Most of them are also carrying cameras, so I don't look out of place. Apparently, you're allowed to take photos in St Peter's, even during a solemn papal Mass. Several men are already snapping furiously, taking pictures of their smirking wives, their podgy well-fed priest. There's an air of great excitement, a sense of celebration spread so thick on everything it's like a sugar-coating, or instant spray-on tinsel; swarms of people milling round in eager restless flurries, voices bubbling over. Surely they can tell I don't belong? I'm coated not with gold, but black; carrying my banner labelled ‘Death'. If you took blood-tests from us all, theirs would register exhilaration, fervour; mine reveal I'm dangerously ill. My heart isn't simply beating, it's hammering so violently I'm scared the crowds can hear it knelling like a warning above all the other racket in the square. My hands are wet with sweat, my whole body cold and clammy, despite the fur, the sun.

I squint up at the sun, implore it not to shine. It makes everything much worse, that immaculate and trusting sky, summer-blue in January and cotton-wooled with clouds – weather for a chocolate box, or a cosy Disney movie, not a callous murder. Some ironical Director seems to have set the scene today, laid on soft and sweet vignettes to underline my pain: two lovers with their rosaries entwined; a skinny shaggy mongrel, all bone and bounce and tongue, leaping up to lick a toddler's nose; the child kitted out in strawberry-pink, which is colour-matched exquisitely with her strawberry ice-cream cone. I stoop down to pat the dog, more for my sake than for his – to hide my face, turn my guilty eyes away from those other fervent friendly eyes which keep meeting mine and smiling, trying to claim me as a fellow – fellow pilgrim, fellow human being.

‘Don't smile,' I beg a woman who's attempting to squeeze past me with her gangling teenage daughter, her fat and freckled son – a woman twice my age with a worn but kindly face, who seems to think we're instant cronies, one happy jolly family. I dodge her, turn away, struggle back the way I've come, feeling infectious and polluted, as if I ought to wear a bell, a leper's bell which keeps tolling out ‘Unclean!'. And yet I'm not wholly bad – I can't be. I'm doing this for Seton, my one perfect act, to save him, set him free. He's already made his getaway – left this morning, early, in the cold raw empty dawn; kissed me very briefly, so I was left with just his taste, my lips still smarting from last night, and the first birds breaking silence, sounding out of tune and querulous as his footsteps died away. I can't betray him, can I, change my mind (again), when he believes in me and trusts me? It's not often that I'm trusted, or given such a major part to play – the lead, the starring role.

I force my steps and body back towards the square, though my mind is still on Seton, wondering where he's gone, wondering what his feelings are – fear for me, dull horror, admiration, longing? I weave my way between the crowds, keep on going this time until I reach the crush of pilgrims seething round the steps, the impatient queue of ticket-holders who must be frisked before they're allowed into the church. Frisked. The word appals me – a jumpy, nervy, startled word, which seems to leapfrog through my stomach, judder in my chest. I remember my deep breathing, count to five as I inhale, to ten as I breathe out; try to look relaxed and almost nonchalant as I shuffle up each slow and dragging step, avoiding careless elbows, other people's bags. The queue moves very slowly, while my fear gallops, bloats, distends. I distract myself by admiring the basilica, its grand façade now rearing up in front of me; huge central marble columns dwarfing us mere mortals, more lofty statues preening from its roof. I can only think of bones – Saint Peter's bones, which were buried here in a crevice in the rock, nineteen hundred and twenty-seven years ago, before all this pomp and splendour was ever dreamed or thought of – a pathetic headless skeleton which some say is still there, crumbling in the crypt.

Death seems to smite my own bones as the security man runs his metal-detector up and down my coat, along both sleeves, down each black-stockinged leg. I'm so rigid, so shit-scared, I'm sure he'll guess there's something wrong from just the tension in my limbs; call an ambulance, if not a Black Maria. I can smell his breath – garlic doused with peppermint – see the coarse black stubble pricking through his chin, shadowing his squarish bullish jaw. I haven't brought a handbag (need one hand free, at least), but a second flint-eyed officer has just reached out for my camera-case and is checking it inside. He hasn't got a metal-detector, but even so, I realise it's all up; shut my eyes, wait to feel the handcuffs snapping on my wrists, his vicious truncheon jabbing at my back. Two minutes crawl like months, and when I dare to look again I'm still standing on the steps, but the security men are miraculously behind me, and checking someone else. My camera-case is hanging on my shoulder. They've put the camera back all wrong, crushed my cigarettes, which I slipped in down one side, but it still weighs heavy, still bears its crucial load. I simply can't believe it. I want to shout, berate them: ‘Look, you didn't find the gun. If you're so lax, so fucking casual, you'll endanger the Pope's life. Arrest me. Stop me
now
!'

No one stops me. I'm right on the top step, the bronze doors of the basilica only a pace or two away. I push the heavy central door, urged on by a marshal, step into the church, feel dazzled for a moment by its sheer overwhelming grandeur. The whole place seems to writhe with decoration. Your eye can't rest or settle, but is constantly tugged back and forth by gilding, carving, sculptures, bronze, and shimmering mosaics. Pilasters lead your gaze up to the ceiling, which is so awesomely elaborate you're forced to cast them down again, overcome and reeling; admire the complex patterns of the floor. Every surface gleams, every inch of floor and wall has been burnished, chiselled, fretted. Cherubs pout and simper, solid angels hover in mid-air, majestic Popes stretch out their hands in frozen marble blessings. There've been two hundred and sixty-three Popes since the original Saint Peter, and half of them seem buried in this church, judging by the monuments, the papal tombs and effigies. I close my eyes a second, see myself embraced not by Giovanni Paolo, but by the first apostle, Peter; the unbroken line of Popes between cementing time and history; John Paul himself the only living institution still surviving from the Roman Empire. I let my eyes drift open, almost surprised to see twentieth-century people in the pews, dressed in modern clothes and even jeans, instead of ancient Romans, wearing togas, flowing robes.

I've seen St Peter's before, of course – we've been here half a dozen times to check our plans, get our bearings, orientate ourselves. And a weird friend of Giuseppe's showed us round our second day in Rome. That was what I call our guided tour, and far better than the official ones, I reckon, since the guy spoke fluent English and talked nonstop for two hours twenty minutes; told me all the stuff about Saint Thecla, and so much else my head was almost bursting. But every time I've been here the place has been half-empty – just a few score gawping tourists, a disembodied priest (or three) penned in the confessionals, and one or two old dusty crones huddled by the candle-stands and talking to themselves. Today it's crowded, totally transformed – Saint Edwin banners fluttering from the walls; the scent of heady hothouse flowers choking down the usual smell of damp piety, cold marble. And the atmosphere's quite different – explosive and electric, as if the whole place has been charged.

I'm still standing semi-mesmerised when an usher in a stiff white shirt and what looks like morning dress checks my ticket, inclines his head most graciously, then motions me to continue up the aisle. I walk slowly on, past throngs of jam-packed pilgrims already sitting waiting in the rows and rows of chairs. They seem just blurs of colour – black swathes of silent nuns, a twitchy giggly Boys' Brigade with blue and scarlet banners; the sudden shout of purple slashed with orange as I pass a tall Swiss Guard, halberd shining, helmet scarlet-plumed. Someone suddenly jumps up from a seat beside the aisle, leans across the central wooden barrier and grabs my free left hand. I freeze in instant terror. They've realised who I am, got wind of my wild plan, are about to march me out again, clap me into jail. Half-paralysed, I turn my head a fraction, see that pretty, rather vacuous-looking woman who lent me her lace hankie when I was blubbing in that bar on New Year's Eve. What did she say her name was? I don't think I even heard it, was too lost in my problems.

‘Mary,' she says, reminding me, and gesturing to herself. ‘It's Nial, isn't it? I hardly recognised you.'

No, you wouldn't, I think rudely. I've changed my gender, changed my role. Trust her to be a Mary – fair and sweet and fey, and looking almost smug today, with a happy trusting smile spreading from her glowing face to her plumply rounded body. I've no wish to stop and burble sweet inanities – not now – it's far too dangerous, will only draw attention to myself, but she's already started whispered introductions, seems to have at least three scowling husbands and a whole scout-troupe of small boys. And I assumed she was a loner, like myself. ‘Pleased to meet you,' I murmur
sotto voce
, as each male shams a smile.

‘Perhaps we could meet afterwards,' she mouths. I nod, arrange to find her by the obelisk at noon. More sham, more empty lies. There won't be any ‘afterwards', and I shan't be meeting anyone save jailers and police. I mumble something indistinct about having to find my seat, toss her a goodbye. I'm feeling strangely shaken by the whole coincidence, and still more scared to fire that shot at all. I need this congregation to be faceless and anonymous, just cardboard cutouts, stolid plaster dummies; not living feeling people with families, soft hearts. I could spatter all those boys with blood, give them nightmares, screw them up for life.

I shrug the thoughts off angrily, try to clear my mind of everything save each slow step up the aisle; fix all my concentration on my laboured hurting breathing, the dead weight on my arm. I've practised this same walk towards the altar – once with Seton, twice alone – but it never seemed so far before, so endless. Five hundred feet, Seton guessed approximately, but I've walked five miles already and still not reached the ornate
baldacchino
where I turn right at the transept for my seat. And it felt completely different when we were rehearsing it stone-cold, without the props and costumes, without the congregation, this air of sheer excitement which only fuels my fear. Another usher stops me, but flutters quite obsequiously once he sees my ticket, waves me further on. I've no idea how Seton got that ticket, a special VIP one which somehow gives me clearance to glide right to the front, upstage all those pious paid-up pilgrims. I can feel their eyes boring through my back as I'm guided to the transept, shown into the second row, which is so close to the altar, I not only have a perfect view, but feel a fraction less paranoid about missing when I shoot.