Free The Breath of Night by Michael Arditti Page A

Dennis.’
    Grinning triumphantly, Dennis went out, leaving Philip in two minds about having hired him. It was true that he would profit from Dennis’s native cunning and gain a greater insight into Filipino life than he would from Max; nevertheless, he would need to remain constantly wary of a man who would not scruple to take advantage of him and anyone else with whom he came into contact. It was clear that, no matter how much at odds they might be elsewhere, Max and Dennis were as one in their belief that they could manipulate the callow Englishman. It would be both a duty and a pleasure to prove them wrong.

Three

    17 November 1972

    My dear Mother and Father,

    As you see, I’m writing this myself, so you can stop worrying. Three weeks of bed rest in Baguio and I’m as right as rain. I was under sisters’ orders which, believe me, are far stricter than doctor’s. I now have an inkling of what Agnes and Cora went through at school. No books meant no books. Not even the Bible slipped under their radar, although they took it in turns to read psalms to me in the afternoon. I wasn’t allowed visitors, cigarettes or a radio, and Lights Out was at seven. I’ve warned them that I’ll have my revenge when I come back to hear their confessions; they’ll be working off the Hail Marys for the next twenty years. ‘It’ll be worth it, Father,’ the Mother Superior said, ‘to know that you’re fully recovered.’ They’re wonderful women and I’m for ever in their debt.
    It takes a serious illness to make a priest stop and pause. I spend so much time ministering to the sick and the dying that it’s easy to suppose myself indestructible. Then one insect bite and wham, my head’s cracking, my chest’s crimson and my joints feel as if they’ve been set alight. On the positive side, I was deeply touched by the parish’s concern. From now on, whenever I feel daunted by my own inadequacy or by the casual cruelty of everyday life, I’ll look back on the constant stream of well-wishers, some of whom walked thirty miles or more to see me, bringing food that they could ill spare but which it would have been the gravest insult to refuse. Even the
baylan
came – she’s the local wise woman (think a Philippine Miss Thurrock in a white wrap and armlets). Staying safely outside the gate, she handed Consolacion a green paste made of powdered larvae and palm oilwhich she swore, if rubbed on my chest, would cure me at once. Dismissing Consolacion’s protests, I insisted that she threw it out, although I suspect that she’s kept it for her own use.
    I begged the Regional not to bother you, but he said that he had no choice. He told me that Greg had offered to fly out at a moment’s notice. That was decent of him. I know we’ve had our differences but, to me, he’s still the twelve-year-old boy whom Nanny sent to bed in onion-filled socks when he had flu and who’s not eaten an onion since, rather than the junior Home Office minister. As soon as I’m feeling 100 percent – and not just the current 97.5 – I’ll write to thank him. With my convalescent scrawl even harder to decipher than usual, it’s unfair to inflict it on anyone but you (I mean that as a compliment). On which note and in belated answer to your query, Mother: yes, it is BAT I’ve been eating. Please don’t think that I’m piling on the agony, let alone trying to outdo John the Baptist with his locusts – which, incidentally, are regarded as a delicacy in some parts of Luzon – but bat is a much undervalued source of protein. Besides, after Great-Uncle Lennox, it ill behoves a member of the Tremayne family to cast aspersions on anyone else’s diet.
    I’m back in harness, although not in cassock. I’ve made use of my enforced break to bring in a change that I’d long been contemplating. In a bid to remove the barriers between priest and people, I’ve resolved that, except in church, I shall wear the same clothes that they do… well maybe not