IT WAS FRIDAY MARCH 17, and the Portuguese mountain rain had been falling from the heavens all morning on our 60-mile walking pilgrimage to Fátima when my phone pinged. We were in the Valeda Mata, still three days’ march from the shrine, on a barren goat track miles away from any village, let alone a cafe or bar. “Gus left early this morning,” said the message from his wife Maria. “He is no longer in pain and is enjoying soufflé suissesse up above.”
Fittingly, it was St Patrick’s Day. I had seen my old friend, and best man at my wedding in 2014, just a few days before at London Bridge Hospital, before setting off on my Fátima Camino which I had dedicated to our Lady of Fatima to cure his laryngeal cancer. Alas, Gus died two days before I arrived. Instead of throwing a wax replica of his lungs into the furnace-like pyre where pilgrims pray at the shrine, I sellotaped a photo of my friend to a large wax candle and prayed for his newly anointed soul.
