Free Jubilate by Michael Arditti

leading us in the Five Joyful Mysteries. I seek solace in the landscape, but the relentlessly flat countryside convinces me that south-west France looks better from 25,000 feet in the air. So I am doubly grateful when we reach town, dropping off passengers at three hotels on the way to the Bretagne. I note, with a mixture of relief and alarm, that there are only three other Jubilate guests besides ourselves: two elderly West Indian women, one with synthetic blond curls, and a gaunt middle-aged man with a disconcerting amount of luggage for a four-night stay. The short straw scratches my hand.
    From the moment we enter the hotel it is clear that its three stars have been awarded very liberally. The walls are bare, apart from two large noticeboards plastered with information about current pilgrimages , a black-and-white poster for son-et-lumière at the town castle and a brightly coloured one for a funicular railway. The only decoration is a life-size statue of St Bernadette holding a chipped crucifix, with a vase of plastic lilies at her feet. A stylishly ageless woman with long fair hair, porcelain skin and half-moon glasses, an autumnal scarf draped artfully around her neck, looks up from her desk to greet us. We huddle behind Sophie who introduces us in fluent French, only to be trumped by the proprietress’s flawless English. We fill in the registration forms while she perfects a look of exquisite boredom that puts me in mind of a penniless countess forced to open her stately home to hoi polloi. Her contempt seems more admissible when two plain girls in their early teens, dressed in bright pink shell-suits, run through the foyer, carrying cans of shandy.
    ‘Tell us where’s the shops please, Miss?’ one asks.
    ‘What is it you want to buy?’ she replies coldly.
    ‘Oh you know, things.’
    ‘Ah things , of course. If you want souvenirs, there’s the hotel gift shop. If you want clothes or shoes or cosmetics, climb the hill to the main square. If you want food, try the market. But, if you want things , I’m not sure that we can help you in Lourdes.’
    Bewildered, the girl takes a gulp from her can and drags her companion outside. The proprietress returns her attention to us.
    ‘Do you get a lot of British guests?’ Jamie asks, with such exceptional politeness that for one ghastly moment I fancy he may be applying his law of averages to her.
    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘Perhaps it’s the name?’ he says.
    ‘Thank you, I have never thought of that,’ she replies dryly. ‘The meal times are printed on your bedroom doors. Breakfast is six thirty to eight thirty, lunch twelve thirty to one, and dinner at seven.’
    ‘Seven to when?’ Jewel asks.
    ‘Seven.’
    She hands us our room keys, each attached to an oblong blockof a size that would make Mae West blush. ‘When you go out, you should leave them on there.’ She points to a half-filled board in full view of the door.
    ‘What about thieves?’ I ask, exercised by the lack of security. ‘Surely someone could walk in off the street and pick them up?’
    ‘The desk is always manned. We have never yet had a problem. Not even from gypsies. Of course there’s always a first time.’ She smiles grimly, as if she would welcome it in my case.
    ‘I suppose they’d target the grander hotels,’ I say, goaded to retaliate.
    ‘We don’t aim for grandeur , Monsieur,’ she replies, opting for the native pronunciation. ‘We’re very basic Jesus.’
    She turns back to her computer screen, underlining our dismissal. We go up to our rooms in a lift so rickety that Jewel starts to panic.
    ‘Basic Jesus, indeed,’ Sophie says with a snort. ‘Did you see the Hermès scarf?’
    Jamie and Jewel get out at the fourth floor, the latter so desperate to escape that she is willing to haul her case up a flight of stairs. With Jamie’s foot wedged in the door, we agree to rendezvous in the street in an hour, to avoid the frosty foyer. Sophie and I brave the lift for a further