You know how I'm drawn to churches - not that I have any profound sense of Christian belonging - more that I find myself utterly consumed by 'what man hath wrought', the sense of the ancients, the weight of history, the genuis of craftsmanship.
I also find them comforting. I nearly always get tearful, and they give me room to think and remember you.
I always think of you in churches. I think you'd like to shout in them.
Anyway, the map had failed me, I had lost my way again and, having left that great church of the consumer age, the department store, found myself wandering along the busy high street that is Rue Neuve.
Amongst the modern shopfronts, the fashion houses, the fast food emporiums, nestles, quite unexpectedly, L'Eglise de Notre Dame de Finistere.
It's out of place, it really is - though of course, it can certainly claim it was there first.
No question of walking by. I pushed through the glass door marked 'poussez'.
I suppose the nearest I can get to describing the sensation on walking through the door is to say it was like taking a step off life's conveyor belt. Like walking through a wardrobe and finding a lamppost.
It didn't fit, if that makes sense. It was impossibly unexpected.
I decided to sit down right in the centre of a block of chairs. There were a few others seated in quiet contemplation and, unlike the other churches I'd visited, there didn't seem to be much walking about and exploring.
The bells tolled noon, and then began a one-tone repetitive chime which I should have realised was a summons.
Entranced, as I always am, by the carvings, the ornate beauty, the sheer vastness of this beautiful building, I didn't really notice the seats had started filling up.
And then the organ struck up. I can't recall the tune, though I did know it - a mournful, gentle, piece comforting in its familiarity but funereal enough to turn my thoughts to you again sweet boy.
So the tears sprang again. And it's not really possible or proper to pick up and flee when the chap in green robes who's clearly in charge is moving to the front and bowing to the altar.
He pauses, looks about him, looks at me, for all I know sees me for the fraud I feel I am, and then begins.
Today was Tuesday so the service was in Flemish.
They alternate between Flemish and French, apparently, depending on the day of the week.
I did my best to join in. The Amens and the Hallelujah's and, while I can never say I am devout, there is something in such a familiar service, something that is there in your roots, in your childhood, that means you hang on to it, and you know it and you feel it. Language isn't really a barrier.
The communion bit was a worry though. I'd have scarpered if I'd known bread was being broken. Having never been confirmed it feels forbidden - more so when you see the utter devoutness of those around you. Several of the congregation, quite old and infirm, have struggled down to their knees on the hard, tiled floor. Another is holding her arms outwards, palms raised and a third is quietly weeping.
A member of the congregation walks beyond the altar, as far as you can go, to a tiny door, opens it, and bows low before a golden chalice. He carries it with great state and solemnity to the altar - and I start to inwardly panic. I should not be here.
But you can hardly flee at the moment of transubstantiation - so I stood. Rigid. Embarrassed.
A little ashamed.
And when everyone stood and started to move to the front, I stood, drew deep breath and sat down again. Waiting for the curt glances, waiting to be exposed.
But nothing happened.
And no-one wondered about the new girl they'd never seen before who mumbled when they sang and genuflected with the wrong hand and didn't join in with the responses to the vicar's singing. Or if they did, they didn't show it.
I liked turning to my neighbour and saying 'peace be with you'. I liked making first contact. The congregation wasn't large but it was varied and ordinary and, I think, kind.
After the service I spent some time looking around and, for a short while, I sat in a small chapel to the side of the main church. It houses a statue - 'Our Lady of Good Luck', brought to Finistere from Scotland at the time of the Reformation.
I watched a woman in her 50s light a candle and pray over it before placing it with the others at the statue's feet. I wanted to know what had brought her there and the journalist in me almost stopped her to ask. Almost.
Had she lost someone too, I wondered?
xxxxx
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