Therapy

hotel’s housekeeper to be ironed, and I took a cab back to Labacolla to pick up my car, which contained a linen suit I hadn’t previously worn on the trip.
    So we didn’t disgrace the hotel’s elegant dining-room that evening. The food was amazingly expensive, but very good. Afterwards we went out into the square and squeezed into the vast crowd waiting to watch the fireworks. This is easily the most popular event of the fiesta. Spaniards love noise, and with this display they seemed determined to make up for their exclusion from World War Two. The climactic setpiece resembled an air raid on the Cathedral, with the whole structure apparently on fire, statues and stonework silhouetted against the flames, and cannonades of rockets exploding deafeningly overhead. I couldn’t see what it had to do with St James, but the crowd loved it. There was a huge collective sigh as the vast stage faded to black, and a burst of cheering and clapping when the street-lights came on. The crowd began to disperse. We went back to the Reyes Catolicos. The doorman greeted us with a smile.
    “Goodnight Señor, Señora,” he said, as he held open the door.
    We took turns to use the bathroom. When I came out, Maureen was already in bed. I stooped to give her a goodnight kiss. She put her arms round my neck and drew me down beside her. “What a day,” she said.
    "It’s a pity sex isn’t allowed on pilgrimages,” I said.
    “I’m not on a pilgrimage any more,” she said. “I’ve arrived.”
    We made love in the missionary position. I came — no problem. No problem with the knee, either. “I’ll never knock St James again,” I said, afterwards.
    “What d’you mean?” Maureen murmured drowsily. She seemed to have had a good time too.
    “Never mind.” I said.
     
    When I woke next morning, Maureen wasn’t there. She had left a note to say that she’d gone to the Cathedral early, to bag a seat for the great High Mass of St James; but she came back while I was having breakfast to say the church was already crammed full, so we watched the mass on television instead. It’s a state occasion, broadcast live on the national network. I don’t think Maureen missed much by not being there. Most of the congregation looked stupefied by the heat and the tedium of waiting. The high point of the service is the swinging of the botafumeiro, a gigantic censer, about the size of a sputnik, which is swung high into the roof of the cathedral, trailing clouds of holy smoke, by a team of six burly men pulling on an elaborate tackle of ropes and pulleys. If it ever broke loose at this mass it could wipe out the Spanish Royal Family and a large number of the country’s cardinals and bishops.
    We took a stroll round the old town, had lunch, and retired to our room for a siesta. We made love before we napped, and again that night. Maureen was as eager as me. “It’s like giving up sweets for Lent,” she said. “When Easter comes, you make a bit of a pig of yourself.”
    In her case Lent had lasted for five years, ever since her mastectomy. She said Bede hadn’t been able to adjust to it. “He didn’t mean to be unkind. He was wonderfully supportive when the tumour was diagnosed, and while I was in hospital, but when I came home I made the mistake of showing him the scar. I’ll never forget the expression on his face. He couldn’t get the image out of his head, I’m afraid. I tried keeping my prosthetic bra on in bed, but it made no difference. About six months afterwards he suggested we changed our double bed for two singles. He pretended it was because he needed a special mattress for his back, but I knew he meant that our sexual life was over.”
    “But that’s terrible!” I said. “Why don’t you leave him and marry me?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
    “I’m perfectly serious,” I said. And I was.
     
    That conversation took place on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic ocean. It was our third evening since arriving in Santiago, and our last together in Spain. The next day Maureen was flying back to London, with a ticket purchased months ago; after seeing her off at the airport I would drive the Richmobile to Santander to catch the ferry to England.
    We had driven out of Santiago that afternoon, after a particularly passionate siesta, in search of a little peace and quiet — even Maureen had had enough of the crowds and clamour of the streets by now. We found ourselves on a road signposted to