He smiled, that strange, melancholy smile of his. ‘Not me, General, I haven’t been to church in years. It’s not my scene and neither is this. I’ve got my own coffin to carry. You’re on your own.’
And on that definite and rather sombre note, he turned and walked into the cottage.
The Iglesia de Jesus is no more than a ten-minute drive from the town and stands in the middle of some of the richest farmland in Ibiza. An area criss-crossed with irrigation ditches, whitewashed farmhouses dotting a landscape that is strikingly beautiful. Lemon groves and wheatfields everywhere, even palm trees combining with the Moorish architecture of the houses to paint a picture that is more North African than European.
The church itself is typical of country churches to be found all over the island. Beautifully simple in design, blindingly white in the Mediterranean sun. A perfect setting for one of the most glorious pieces of Gothic art in Europe.
When I opened the door and went inside it was like diving into cool water. The silence was so intense that for a moment, I paused as if waiting for something though I hadn’t the slightest idea what. A sign perhaps, from heaven to tell me that everything was for the best in this best of all possible worlds. That my own experience of life and its rottenness was simply an illusion after all.
There was the usual smell of incense, candles flickered down by the altar. There was no one there, and I suddenly knew with a kind of anger, that the girl wasn’t going to come. Had never intended to.
And then I saw that I had been mistaken in thinking I had the place to myself for a nun in black habit knelt in front of the Reredos, head bowed, hands clasped in prayer.
I took a deep breath, fought hard to contain the impulse to kick out at something and made for the door.
A soft, familiar voice called, ‘Mr Nelson.’
I turned slowly, too astounded to speak.
The central panel of the Jesus Reredos portraying the Virgin and Child is a masterpiece by any standard and beautiful in the extreme. But it is an austere beauty. Something quite untouchable by anything human with the quiet serenity of one who knows that God is Love beyond any possibility of doubt and lives life accordingly.
Standing in front of it in that simple, black habit, Claire Bouvier might well have been mistaken for the artist’s model had it not been for the fact that the Reredos had been painted in the early years of the sixteenth century.
It could only be for real - had to be - I didn’t doubt that for a minute, for in some strange way it fitted. At least it explained the cropped hair and I sat down rather heavily in the nearest pew.
‘I am sorry, Mr Nelson,’ she said. ‘This must be something of a shock for you.’
‘You can say that again. Why didn’t you tell me last night?’
‘The cirumstances were unusual to say the least as I think you will agree.’
She sat down rather primly in the chair next to me, hands folded in her lap, those work-roughened hands which had so puzzled me. Then she looked up at the Reredos.
‘I didn’t realise it was so beautiful. Everything is so moving - so perfectly part of a whole. Particularly the scenes from the life of the Virgin on the predella.’
‘To hell with the …’ She turned sharply and I took a deep breath and continued. ‘Look, what do I call you for a start?’
‘I am still Claire Bouvier, Mr Nelson. Sister Claire, if you prefer it, of the Little Sisters of Pity. I’m on leave from our convent near Grenoble.’
‘On leave?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that a little irregular?’
‘There are special circumstances. I’ve been in East Pakistan for the past couple of years or BanglaDesh as they now call it.’
The whole thing seemed to move further into the realms of fantasy by the minute. I said, ‘All right, just tell me one thing. You were dressed like a nun last night when our friends grabbed you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you said it wasn’t just an ordinary assault. You wouldn’t let me take you to the police, for instance, which I would have thought reasonably strange behaviour for someone of your persuasion.’
She got up abruptly, moved towards the altar and stood there gripping the rail. I said quietly, ‘Our friend in the red shirt tried to run me down in a truck last night after I left you. When I got back to my cottage at Tijola, I found a note telling me to mind my own business.’
She turned quickly, a frown on her face. ‘From whom?’
‘Redshirt and friends. It has to be. You’ll be interested to know they also towed my seaplane out into the middle of the channel and sank it in sixty feet of water, just to encourage me.’
There was genuine horror on her face at that, but she turned away again, head bowed, gripping the rail so tightly that her knuckles whitened.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her round roughly. ‘Look, that plane was all I had in the world and it’s not salvageable, so I’m finished, Sister. A ruined man because I played the Good Samaritan last night. At least I’m entitled to know why’
She looked up at me calmly without struggling and nodded. ‘You are right, dear friend. I owe you that at least. Perhaps there is a quiet place you know of? Somewhere we could talk …’
I took the road to Talamanca then followed a cart track that brought us after a couple of miles to an old ruined farmhouse in an olive grove above the sea. There wasn’t a soul around. She sat on a low stone wall which had once marked the boundary of the grove and I sprawled on the ground at her feet and smoked a cigarette.
It was a marvellous day and quite suddenly, nothing seemed to matter very much. I narrowed my eyes, watching a hawk spiralling down out of the blue and she said, ‘Did you really mean what you said back there in the church? That you are ruined?’
‘As near as makes no difference.’
She sighed, ‘I too, know what it is like to lose everything.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
She looked down at me sharply, something very close to anger in her face for the first time, but she controlled it admirably.
‘Perhaps if I told you about it, Mr Nelson.’
‘Has it anything to do with this present affair?’
‘Everything.’ She plucked a green leaf from a caper shrub, shredding it between her fingers as she stared back into the past. ‘I was born in Algeria. In the back country. My father was French, my mother, Bedu.’
‘An interesting mixture,’ I said. ‘Where do you keep your knife?’
She ignored me completely and carried straight on. ‘We had a large estate. Two vineyards. My father was a wealthy man. When de Gaulle declared Algeria independent in 1962 we decided to stay, but by 1965 things were very bad. All agricultural land owned by foreigners had been expropriated and most of the French population had gone. When my mother died, my father decided it was time we left also.’
‘How old were you then?’
‘Just fourteen. He decided to fly us out secretly, mainly because he considered it unlikely that the authorities would allow us to leave with anything worth having.’
‘There was another reason?’
‘I think you could say that.’ She smiled faintly. ‘There was a convent of the Little Sisters of Pity not far from our place at Tizi Benou. An old Moorish palace built like a fortress. I received my education there. During those difficult early