The Breath of Night by Michael Arditti Page B

many memories for Father? Please don’t let all my horror stories scare you off. There’s some spectacular scenery, such as the 2,000-year-old rice terraces, which are only a few hours’ drive away. Accommodation in the parish may be basic (although I’m sure that the Pinedas or the Arriolas would be happy to put you up), but the hotels in Manila are excellent. As for food, I guarantee that the bats and locusts will be confined to the cellars. Joke! The moment I know that you’re coming, I’ll shave off my beard so you won’t need to disown me. Truth to tell, I was a little hurt when Greg wrote that you were spending New Year with Alice’s parents. I can promise you that our seas are just as blue and our beaches as golden as any in St Bart’s. Plus, the people are a lot less pompous than the Leveringtons, but I won’t go into that. I treasure your letters, both Mother’s chatty and Father’s concise ones (that’s a hint that you’re allowed to write on both sides of the page), but they’re no substitute for seeing you face to face.
    On the subject of letters, I should warn you to avoid anything intimate. I’ve been reluctant to say so before because I’d hate to inhibit you, let alone deter you from writing at all, but letters here are opened – not clandestinely steamed but blatantly slit. At first I blamed it on the censors, but I soon learnt that news is regarded as communal and, when the mail is delivered every Wednesday (to the town hall, not to the door), it’s almost a case of first come first served. They’re inveterate gossips with as detailed a knowledge of bloodlines as the most ardent devotee of
Debrett’s.
Having exhausted their own family’s news, they turn to their neighbours’. It’s quite harmless but there are things, about Cora for instance, which you mightn’t wish to share with the world. It’ll sound far-fetched, but it’s possible that some titbit will be passed to another priest and then to Manila, where it’llreach the ears of the Regional who’ll report it back to his aunt in Cheltenham and, hey presto, it’s all over Catholic England.
    One last request if I may: I know you’re proud of our ancestry, Father, and rightly so, but I’d rather you didn’t put ‘the Hon’ on the envelope. People here, who know no better, assume that I must be related to the Royal Family or, at the very least, heir to an ancient dukedom. Which is exactly the sort of nonsense I’m trying to escape. Plain Father is enough.

    Your loving son,
    Julian

    No twenty-first-century tourist entering Intramuros could be in any doubt as to the enduring legacy of colonial power. The grey stone walls that had once marked the confines within which only Europeans were permitted to live might now be crumbling and dotted with Buddha belly bamboo; the conquistadores and courtiers might long since have returned to Spain; but the wooden relief of St James trampling four Moors underfoot , which adorned the main gateway, attested to the abiding influence of the Catholic Church. In its heyday, Intramuros, the city within walls, which the Spanish with supreme arrogance defined as the city itself, had been home to one cathedral, twelve churches, several monasteries, convents and church schools. It now housed the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines building, where Philip was due to meet the Vicar General of Baguio at three o’clock, an appointment for which, as usual, he had arrived early.
    Afraid that his undue punctuality betrayed a deep lack of confidence or, worse, a desperate desire to please, he envied those who could turn – no, roll – up for meetings at the last minute, but whenever he tried, even for meals with his mother or godmother, it reduced him to panic. So, finding himself with an hour to spare, he asked the taxi driver to drop him in front of San Agustin, the oldest surviving church in the city, which he had been planning to visit. It presented an unusual picture: the lopsided pink