by Marele Day
Like Easter, Shearing Day wasn’t on the same day each year. The liturgical calendar was overlaid with the turning of the seasons. Shearing was done in the spring, after the cold of winter, when the wool had risen, the yellow greasy wool of last year’s growth lifted by the new white wool underneath.
The best time was on the morning of a fine day, when the fleece was dry and the sheep’s stomachs relatively empty. Despite the gentle nature of the shearing, the experience did produce a frisson of stress in the sheep, especially if it was the first time. And the way sheep’s memories are it was always the first time. Occasionally, an Agnes sister would bring up her meal from one of the four separate stomachs that processed her food, a pungent smelling green sauce, and usually, as it happened, over the hand of the shearer, in a warm runny stream which left a stain.
The three nuns came round behind the flock, Margarita in the middle, Carla and Iphigenia taking care of the flanks. They walked very slowly, calling the lambs to them. ‘Kiri, kiri.’ As they approached they chanted in quavering voices resembling baas. ‘Lambs of God, oh blessed lambs of God, meek and mild. Blessed Shepherd, blessed Shepherd, suffer the little lambs to come unto Thee.’
Ignatius followed. Despite the nun’s lumpy bodies, they glided along as if they were standing still and the landscape was moving behind them, gracefully through the grass like clouds through the sky. Their voices were good. The sounds rolled resonantly out over the fields. The nuns chanted chords in a way that the ear was pleased, not only by the ensemble but by the quality of each individual voice. Carla’s soprano, the bright crystal clarity of a prepubescent boy as she now rounded one side of the flock. The basso of Iphigenia, moving the flock from behind, and Margarita with her fine tenor. They would be perfect in the choir. It was only in spontaneous speech that their words came out in grunts. They rarely had a conversation with each other. Perhaps, he reflected, they were shy or uneasy in his presence. Tongue-tied.
Three sheep were now inside the enclosure, the rest of the flock milling around, the ones inside and the ones outside baaing to each other, keeping auditory contact across the barrier of the fence like prisoners on visiting day. One sheep was encouraged into the courtyard. The nuns took up positions like sentinels, Iphigenia blocking the entrance to the chapel, Carla near the holding pen, Margarita with her shears, ready but unobtrusive.
All the time the nuns kept chanting but now the words changed. ‘Lambs of God, oh blessed lambs of God, meek and mild, stand in the light and let the servant of God unclothe you, shed the old that the new may be blessed and sanctified in the Lord’s name.’ Then an ‘amen’ echoed through the world. And soon the ovine baas came into harmony with the nuns’ voices as one voice accords to the other, the music of the spheres. Oh, how inadequate, how paltry, was this word to describe the sound emanating from these servants of the Lord. Not the cursory amen that the congregation said at mass, a thanks be to God that mass was over and they could go home and relax. No. It was an infinite resonance that might endlessly circumnavigate the globe, gathering itself unto itself with each round like the hosts of peoples standing up to be counted, each individual voice joining the multitude to become one. It was a sound that could at the same time charm birds from the trees, sheep into courtyards, cause granite to vibrate, calm the savage beast. It was the A-M-E-N that God might have uttered after creating the world, bringing forth the multitude of things, the sound billowing from His mouth when He woke on the seventh day and saw that it was good. He could rest. Amen.
The sound died down, the sole sheep in the courtyard transfixed, as if hypnotised. It was easy for Margarita to put her arm around Agnes Teresa’s head, leaning her back slightly and to the right. With the other hand she clipped the wool from the sheep’s belly, the muscles in her arm twitching to life as she gripped and relaxed, squeezed together the blades of the shears. Then she did the hind legs. Agnes Teresa sank blissfully back into Margarita, into her woolly clothes. Two woolly bodies, the larger arched over the smaller as in a dance or the act of fornication.
Margarita worked down one side of the body with short clips then cleared the wool from her partner’s back. Placing Agnes Teresa’s head between her knees, she clipped the wool from the head and shoulders. Then she pulled the sheep over and completed the remaining side. Finished. She gave Agnes Teresa a friendly little scratch on the head, a pat on her rump. The sheep trotted off, hesitant at first, then with a spring in her step, light and airy having sloughed off last year’s old and matted pelt.
Iphigenia came forward, swept the breakfast crumbs off the table, then spread the fleece and rolled it up tightly, starting at the rear.
With each successive sheep Margarita felt better. The topsy-turvy night, the unpleasantness of being tossed about like a cork on the ocean had retreated and everything had settled. She immersed herself in the salty tang of hard work, flicking her tongue up to the beads of sweat and smacking her lips. The breeze played lightly around her head bent to the task, God blowing his cooling breath on the delicate nape of her neck. She became one with the sheep, with all of Creation, with the growing grass, the growing wool, the growing hair, the nurturing, benign Beneficence.
Four down. Time for a break. Margarita joined her sisters for a cup of tea, chunky fingers around thick ceramic mugs, lanolin unctuous on her hands, the smell of sheep and sage intertwining.
The visitor was bending down, searching for something. Like the sheep looking for their fleeces, mused Margarita. During the shearing, she had almost forgotten about him. Now she saw him again, distorted by the veil of steam rising from the cups. He walked over to the table, scratching the pinpoints of black which had sprouted around his jaw. It made a rasping sound.
‘Did one of you move the battery?’ he asked. The three of them sat in front of his looming presence. ‘It was over there in the sun.’ He gestured in the direction.
‘No,’ said Iphigenia, feeling obliged to speak on their behalf.
Ignatius discovered that the battery wasn’t the only thing missing. He looked around for the mobile. He had left it on the table. Perhaps it had been inadvertently rolled up with the pelts. He started feeling them. The fleece was unpleasant to the touch, greasy and sticky at the same time. He especially didn’t like it when his hand came across a lumpy bit. ‘The phone,’ he said, trying to explain what he was doing. It couldn’t have been the shearer, he had watched her working all morning, she’d never left her post. His eyes bounced from Iphigenia to Carla, backwards and forwards, a game of ping-pong. He couldn’t very well search them or start pulling the place apart but he wanted to get to the bottom of this.
‘Sheep?’ Iphigenia suggested the next time his eyes swung in her direction.
He sat down with a slump. He was overreacting. He must stay calm and alert, make sure his behaviour was appropriate. Insinuating that the nuns were responsible, it was uncalled for. A cup of tea would put a perspective on things. It probably was only a sheep. Dislodged the battery and nudged it into the grass. The phone too.
The tea was bitter and astringent. Ignatius smacked his lips back and ran his tongue over his teeth. They felt furry and he remembered he hadn’t cleaned them, nor had he shaved. He would have preferred a cup of coffee but it didn’t appear to be in their repertoire. The thought of coffee naturally led to cigarettes. He felt his jacket. Yes! A packet in the inside pocket. It was crumpled, as were the remaining cigarettes but hopefully they were salvageable. He tapped the packet on the table, as if to make the cigarettes stand to attention. Using two fingers he slid a cigarette out. Bent but not broken. He straightened it then flipped it to his lips. Every move he made was watched intently. ‘Oh, excuse me, would you like one?’ he offered the packet around.
Somehow it was not the question that should have been asked. It was an attempt at politeness but it fell short of its mark. Margarita and Iphigenia had not seen smoking for years but they knew what it was. Margarita’s father had smoked. What he said in the company of strangers was, ‘Do you mind?�
�� She saw him again, sitting in the big leather chair, occasionally dabbing ash into the glass ashtray on the wide arm of the chair, her mother knitting or mending a basket of socks, Margarita and her brother sitting on the floor, the whole family listening to the wireless in its walnut casing, listening to serials. Margarita leaning against the chair taking in the smoke and leather, the brown comforting smell of Daddy. ‘No,’ said Margarita, surprised by the loudness of her own voice.
Ignatius took out his lighter, tried it a couple of times, shrugged his shoulders, more for the benefit of his audience than anything else, put the lighter back in his pocket and reached into the fire for a smouldering twig. The cigarette finally alight, he inhaled its calming smoke, felt a slight dizziness then relaxed.
It was a picture-book day; a china-blue sky, tufts of cloud sprinkled over it, a mirror image of the ground with the stray tufts of wool caught in the grass sprouting from the cracks between the paving stones. Though the breeze here was slight and whimsical the movement of clouds across the sky told of a strong high wind. Mingled with the smell of the smoke was the tang of the sea. Who could have imagined the existence of this little oasis? From one side of the island, if you looked up from sea level to the forbidding cliff, all you saw was a bank of brambles. From the other, more hospitable side facing the mainland, the hilltop blocked any view of the monastery.
He looked at the tableau framed in the archways—white sheep, noses in the grass, some patches more verdant than others. It was a pity he’d left the camera in the car, it was exactly the idyllic scene one sees in tourist brochures. The high walls, the barrier of brambles that had sprung up over the decades had acted as a windbreak and created a veritable Eden here. He thought of how he had broken through those barriers, how he would bring this place to life again.
The smoke from the cigarette recalled the coil of smoke from the fire. How surprised he’d been to find three women living in the ruins, themselves sinking back into nature along with the architecture. He’d come along just in the nick of time. He snorted, forcing jets of smoke out of his nostrils.
‘Dragon!’ It was Carla, staring, eyes glittering, nostrils flared.
‘Oh. Yes,’ he said, acknowledging her comment with a flourish of his cigarette hand. She continued staring, wanting more. The other two were waiting, mildly amused. Ah well, he thought, no harm in it; showing off was only a minor sin, and this time it was for a greater good. He inhaled the smoke with deliberation, held it in for a second then made a little fish mouth and sent out a volley of smoke rings. Oh, and wasn’t Carla delighted! Yes, the rings had been impressive.
Carla reached for the cigarette, wanting to join in the game, have a try herself. Ignatius hesitated, he didn’t really want her slobbering on his cigarette. On the other hand, he felt that with the perfect harmony of this moment he had broken through an invisible barrier of brambles and he didn’t want them springing up again. The cigarette was almost finished anyway.
He handed it over. Carla, the perfect imitator, held it between her fingers the way he had, then brought it to her lips while he nodded encouragement. She poised, as if about to jump off a cliff, then drew in a deep sucking breath. An instant of surprise, a coughing and spluttering, then she crushed the cigarette in her hand as if it were an insect that had stung her. When she recovered from her surprise Carla started laughing, the remaining traces of smoke wisping out of her nose and mouth. Then they all started laughing, the bleating sheep as well, till everything was drowned in an avalanche of laughter.
In the late afternoon when the sheep were resting, the three nuns and the priest went collecting tufts of wool. These weren’t the best locks, they were used for stuffing pillows and the like. Nothing was wasted.
Bending, stooping. The thorn hidden in the fleece. Sweet penance, love’s labours. Sheep big and bold as lions, ranging round their rocky home, fleeces were manes, brilliant as the sun. Psyche moved among the sleeping lions fearlessly, gathering swatches from every bramble, every stone, every crack and crevice where the lion-sheep might leave traces of their golden fleece.
When she did this task Carla imagined she was Psyche. Gathering the fleece of ferocious sheep was one of the tasks Venus made Psyche do. She also made her sort a big mound of wheat, barley, millet, peas, and beans into separate piles, gather water from a dangerous spring on a mountain top, go into the underworld and fill a box with Persephone’s beauty. And all because her son, the God of Love, took Psyche as his bride.
Pysche waited on a high lofty mountain. ‘The voice of my beloved! Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.’ The wind came for Psyche, gathered her up and transported her to the palace of the God of Love. Then the God of Love laid her down on a bed of flowers and enfolded her in his wings. ‘Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast dove’s eyes within thy locks; thy hair is as a flock of goats.’
A buttercup! Such delight. Carla bent and plucked it from its grassy bed. A rich velvety cup, saturated with sun. She popped it in her pocket with the locks of fleece. She looked forward to finding it later when she did Psyche’s task of sorting. Carla didn’t like Venus much. Such a jealous and spiteful mother, she was more like a witch. Much nicer was the Blessed Virgin. She knew the nuns were the brides of her Son, Jesus, but she never went into a spiteful rage. In the chapel, the Blessed Virgin always smiled down on them. She listened when you prayed and didn’t mind anything that you did.
Carla harvested another fleecy lock from a thorny bush. Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, St Anne, the saints, the hierarchy of angels, the apostles, disciples, all were God’s creations. They were there when Carla prayed and chanted, they were in the air she breathed. They were forever stories, with no beginning and no end. Venus was like Arachne and Briar Rose, knitting stories. Once-upon-a-time stories, that had a pattern, a beginning and an end. They were made-up stories. Like the knitting. You started with thread and needles and you made something up. A blanket, a garment. Something that had form and substance, something you could touch and feel, put on and take off.
Carla had a pocketful of locks now, Margarita and Iphigenia were already making their way back to the courtyard. Psyche’s task was complete. Only the man kept on. Though he had the same smooth skin as Jesus, Carla didn’t think he was the Saviour who would come. That Saviour would drop from the sky like an angel, not start off on all fours. Carla looked behind. He was on all fours now. He appeared to be sniffing the ground.
He had deliberately dawdled, held back from the group. Ignatius reflected that the nuns, seen at a distance, looked like clumps of wool themselves, moved by a slow breeze, stopping where the wool had caught, plucking it from a fold in the mantle of Our Lady, from her feet, bending to pick it out of a broken edge of stone. Sometimes swirls of it lay on the green grass like fairy rings.
Though he felt resistance give way in the moment of shared laughter, a genuine sharing of Christian love and fellowship, he couldn’t shake that niggling feeling that they knew more than they were letting on. He couldn’t even begin to guess what possible use an inoperative mobile phone could be to them. Although it didn’t completely allay his doubts and suspicions, lack of logical motive turned him to other explanations. Perhaps it was one of those things that mysteriously disappear and then just as mysteriously reappear. As he bent to gather wool he kept his eye out. In the course of his search he examined a lot of sheep droppings, small hard beads compacted into longer shapes which at first glance looked deceptively promising.
He flicked a squashed poo pellet off his trousers. Foolish, he supposed, not to have changed before climbing up to the monastery. He had picked the car up, thrown his holiday gear in the boot and driven straight down from the palace. The clerical dress served as a sort of passport, especially in the country where priests were held in higher esteem than they currently were in the city. Twice he’d got lost on the unmarked country roads and had been forced to stop and ask directions. He had been received most cordially, given s
cones at one house and a glass of whisky at the other. He knew it was because he was wearing the clothes of a priest.
The grounds were vast, he had already ascertained that from the acreage, and had at one time supported a large self-sustaining community. The land was good, there was a supply of fresh water. The buildings were in a shocking state but he was confident that the medieval flavour could be faithfully restored. He had discovered quite a number of valuable relics: gold chalices, some interesting statuary, antique books, illuminated manuscripts.
He would recommend 4WD access, a helipad and a marina. He felt sure he could present the women with an attractive alternative. There were no problems that money couldn’t solve. A very pleasant place altogether—sunshine, clean air, the great outdoors—he was beginning to feel as if he were on holidays himself, despite his cramped quarters and his unexpected companions. By the end of the afternoon he had a pocketful of wool. But that was all.
Boiled nettles and swedes. They came steaming out of the pot and onto the plates. A faint murmur of Grace then the nuns’ hands scooping them up to their mouths, slurping in the pap of green, biting chunks off the ochre-coloured swedes, the steam condensing into tiny drops of moisture that dribbled down their chins, to be wiped off, although not always, by the backs of hands and grubby sleeves.
He might have had a laugh with them, he might have mucked in and helped them with the chores, much as he disliked the odour of sheep building up in his throat like catarrh. Things had been pleasant enough but, Lord Almighty! They snuffled, they slopped, they gurgled and at the end of it all they belched. Even pigs didn’t belch, though not having spent a lot of time with pigs he couldn’t be sure.
No ablutions before dinner, they shoved food into their mouths with hands that had spent the day sorting through fleeces, picking off stale, encrusted sheep faeces. ‘Dags’ is what they called them.
His mouth fixed into a determined slit. In Rome one didn’t always have to do as the Romans. If one had a better, more hygienic and civilised way of doing things, perhaps one could teach the Romans a thing or two. As the Romans, in fact, had taught the world.