The Way the End Begins Page #7

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"Dear Lord,

"may this stone, a symbol of my efforts

on the pilgrimage,

"that I lay at the feet of the cross

of the Saviour,

"weigh the balance in favour of

my good deeds that day

"when the deeds of all my life

are judged.

"Let it be so.

"Amen."

It's a beautiful church, Jack.

Have a look.

Where I come from,

the church has a lot to answer for.

Temples of tears, Tom.

I don't go in them any more.

You've been taking

an awful lot of notes.

That's right.

End of your writer's block?

Thank you.

Glad to be of service.

I trust you will treat us all kindly

when the book goes to the publisher.

Oh, you know, the darker it is,

the bigger the sales.

That's what my editors will surely

be asking for.

I understand.

You know,

when I was an undergraduate

at Trinity College, Dublin,

I wanted to be W.B. Yeats.

Or James Joyce.

But good writers usually die broke,

so after I left college,

I wrote for travel mags.

Thought I'd do that for a while,

put some money away

and then get down to the novel.

Twenty years later, here I am

still writing for travel magazines.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself.

It's the life I chose.

Jack, you write whatever you want

about all this.

What you saw, how you felt.

You write it like it happened.

You write the truth.

I'll do my best.

And after Santiago? Home?

- Back to the real world?

- Lf you wanna call it that.

You know, Ishmael said

that after Santiago,

I should take Daniel's ashes to Muxia.

What do you think about that, Boomer?

I don't know. He seemed to think

it was very important that I go.

Oh, it's all Gypsy hocus-pocus, man.

Well, you're on your own, Tom.

Santiago is as far as

this Dutchman is going.

Me too, mate.

I've been away for three months.

I gotta get back.

Santiago de Compostela for me, Tom.

It's the end of the Camino for me, too.

And at the foot of St James, I shall

put these down, once and for all.

Uh, I'm sorry?

- I swear!

- Well, good luck with that. Yeah, yeah.

# It's a long way to Santiago

# It's a long way to go

# It's a long way to Santiago

# To the sweetest saint I know

Oh, well, I'm here now.

It's the Portico of Glory.

Ah! It's him. St James.

"Tradition commands that pilgrims

approach the statue on their knees.

"El Cid, St Francis, van Eyck,

"kings, queens and millions of pilgrims,

"they all collapsed to their knees

out of gratitude."

- Hola.

- Habla espanol?

Ah, no. English.

- Can I have your passport, please?

- Yeah, sure, sure.

Here you go.

Your name is Joost DeWitt?

- Joost Michael DeWitt.

- Joost. Okay.

Sarah Marie Sinclair.

- Jack Emerson Stanton.

- Thomas Avery.

- Where did you start the Camino?

- In Saint-Jean.

- In Saint-Jean-Pied...

- Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, okay.

- In Paris, at Notre Dame. Mmm-hmm.

- Really?

Canada.

- Have you walked the whole way?

- Yes, we did.

I did.

Unfortunately, yes.

Unfortunately? You didn't enjoy it?

Oh, no, no! It was fantastic!

So what is your reason

for walking the Way?

What are your reasons

for having done this pilgrimage?

I mean, do you have some kind of

religious or spiritual motivation, or...

Religious, yes.

I mean...

Leprechauns. I was looking for

leprechauns at the end of the road.

I needed to lose weight.

Um, well...

It's also because my...

My wife didn't want to sleep with me

any more but it's because I'm too fat.

I thought that I...

I should probably travel more.

I was a writer. I stopped writing.

And now I'm writing again.

Your passport, with the official stamp

of the cathedral.

And this is your compostela.

It's in Latin.

It's written in Latin because this

document dates from the Middle Ages.

Uh...

I'm terribly sorry. Uh...

I gave you the wrong name.

Yeah, but I've already entered it.

I see that, but, um...

Could you please change it?

Okay. As you wish.

Name, please?

Daniel Avery.

Okay. Here you are.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Writers.

They always want the last word.

But this?

This was never about

quitting these things.

But you knew that.

I needed a new suit anyway.

You made it.

Yeah.

I came here to bring you home.

I don't have anything to take back.

Yeah, you do.

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