Memoirs of Many in One

by Patrick White

  ‘Careful,’ I warn. ‘If your feet don’t balance on the joists, you may go through the lath and find yourself in the presence of HILDA the frustrated saint.’

  ‘Rely on me,’ mutters the Mystic, clutching the tin of Fray Bentos as his mainstay.

  I am so relieved as I slam the door to find myself alone.

  Isn’t this perhaps what I’ve always wanted from away back? No husbands lovers fathers children saints mystics. Only when you’re stranded amongst the human furniture, the awfulness of life, you’ve got to set out on a search to find some reason for it all.

  But now the great worrier starts worrying again. What if I bolted the door to the priest hole on the wardrobe side? And forget or don’t want to remember – will a mummified corpse be found, smelling of a mystic’s metho instead of the traditional eucalyptic piss of the entombed possum?

  I climb into bed. I am determined not to think. But nobody can protect us from the reality of dreams. I hear a dog, no ordinary one, but Dog, baying at the three cornered moon. I go downstairs, made dizzy by the branches of the paperbarks. A wind is let loose around me, a warm moist wind ballooning the skirt of my nightie round the varicose veins I have always hoped to hide.

  Dog has returned from the Park. He is waiting outside the glass doors, on the tiled veranda. His yellow eyes. His yellow fangs bared in a kindly, doggish grin, if they didn’t suggest the bars of a prison from which I’ve always been hoping to escape.

  I let him in.

  ‘Good dog,’ I encourage, I kiss one of my many saviours. ‘Remember that what I did to Danny was done while I was of unsound mind. Professor Falkenberg will tell you that.’

  But the dog appears not to have heard me. He starts scampering upstairs, admittedly on felted pads, but with a devil’s thumping which shakes the whole house. He must have been here before.

  I start after the infernal beast. What if Hilda …? What if the Mystic …?

  Oh, Dog! Oh, God!

  He has landed on my bed, and lies there in the lion couchant position, fringed paws outstretched, the purple tongue waiting to savour the salt of human flesh, or do his real job of absolving sin.

  From the priest hole a rattling of the bolted door leading to the wardrobe. A frail bolt to anyone endowed with average strength, let alone supernatural gifts. Across the landing, Hilda turning in her dreams.

  Dare I get on the bed with Dog? He glares and stares. Waiting.

  I pray with all the violence I am capable of injecting into my prayers. I pray to be removed to another situation. And as usually happens, my prayer is answered. (If I keep up this sort of thing I may qualify as a candidate for canonisation. I may even pass the Test and contribute something to the Australian tourist industry by becoming Centennial Park’s Very Own Saint.)

  Twigs break and crackle under our boots. Some of the older, more nervous Sisters hope it is not the crackle of fire. It has been one of those summers when natural outlines are blurred by smoke or mist. It is often difficult to decide which, unless by a change of temperature. The weather is unpredictable: one minute the black cockatoos screaming as they are pursued by flames, the next rejoicing in the white mists, the natural element of gang gangs, which seep through the gullies and swirl about the heights.

  ‘I love to hear the gang gangs,’ I remark to Bernadette when conversation is running short.

  ‘Gang gangs?’ in her old tremulous voice.

  ‘The black cockatoos. I’ll show you in the bird book in Sister Barbara’s libr’y.’

  Bernadette exists above the habits, the language of birds. She has this disbelieving smile. In spite of my love for her, there are times when her sanctity gets me down. Now I have to take hold of myself, as I guide her by an arm fragile as a wishbone, through bush blurred by smoke or mist. Around and ahead of us nuns are calling, squawking at one another, in fear of their surroundings – or for pleasure at their escape from routine.

  Reverend Mother has ordained the picnic for the Friday before Epiphany. In spite of the obvious advantages, I know she already regrets her daring, but a sense of her own authority will never let her down. Her voice twitters through the scrub at her party of nuns and schoolgirls. Most of the boarders are away at their homes, only those who live at a distance remain in our care during the Christmas holidays. Some of these girls, Narelle for instance, and Philomena, have excused themselves from the Epiphany picnic, claiming they are unwell. One or two of the less dedicated nuns, hinting at a period, are also absent.

  Despite her authority, Reverend Mother sounds jittery as she hustles her white cockatoos through the bush. She picks on the sumpter mules, Finbarr and slave labour from the kitchen laden with the wherewithal for this picnic. Here Reverend Mother can congratulate herself on her miraculous idea, the Feast of Kippers. What more appropriate and modest than a raw kipper on the Friday before Epiphany? The father of one of her girls, an export-import agent, developer, shipowner, engaged in other less mentionable – but even more profitable pursuits, has unloaded this cargo of kippers on our House. God-sent in Reverend Mother’s book. The smell of sweating, smoked kipper should be whetting our appetites as we tramp in disarray towards some destination still to be revealed to Reverend Mother.

  I hope I am not cynical. ‘Have you ever chewed on a raw kipper?’ I ask Bernadette.

  ‘A what?’

  No matter. We drop the subject.

  I look towards Finbarr weighed down with baskets and carrier bags more heavily than any of her slave assistants.

  I should offer to help, but know that I am jealous of Finbarr, of her strong, freckled hands caked with bran and pollard, her smell of the piglets and poultry she tends. She is both strong and indispensable. Benedict longs to challenge her strength and indispensability. But since I am in charge of Bernadette, the oldest, frailest member of our Order, I can only cast regrettable glances of jealousy and dislike at the stalwart Finbarr – almost a man in her nun’s habit.

  Pooh!

  Somewhere around the appropriate hour a suitable clearing reveals itself to Reverend Mother for the Feast of Kippers. Finbarr and the sumpter mules shed their panniers on the meagre, scrub grass. Some of the less dutiful Sisters and more exhausted schoolgirls plump down without further ado. Bernadette’s old light-weight, music-hall boots only skim the ground supported as she is by Benedict. Her smile suggests she is enjoying her gratuitous levitation. I settle her on a bed of grey, fallen leaves, her ancient back propped against the butt of a giant redgum. She plays automatically with her girdle of beads, while Benedict is free to take part in other, more material activities.

  It is soon clear that Benedict’s dislike of the full-time farm hand is reciprocated by Finbarr. As I unload the contents of basket and carrier bag, the freckled hands are constantly interfering, the coarse voice muttering disapproval. Crockery and food are re-arranged from where I have laid them. ‘Not there, Sister. Here, as Reverend Mother would expect.’ I am almost asphyxiated by Finbarr’s red smell, disgusted by farmyard pollard encrusting the Bride’s ring.

  Envious, too. The ring I wear has fulfilled too many purposes. Finbarr, not Benedict, is the true Bride of Christ.

  Everything goes more or less according to Reverend Mother’s plan. Grace is said. Bread is broken. We appear to enjoy our ginger-beer – too gaseous for some of us. Lips express largely unconvincing appreciation as we mumble fragments of sweated kipper. There is for each a runtish, worm-eaten apple from the tree in Finbarr’s garden.

  Benedict sits beside Bernadette holding to the old nun’s lips a cup of tepid ginger-beer. The old thing’s age, her humility, and gratitude, suggest she is partaking of a sacrament.

  What to do about the Kipper? Shall I masticate a few shreds and feed it between the lips of this elderly, helpless fledgling? She will accept it as another sign of grace.

  Reverend Mother is frowning, jittering worse than ever as she glances skywards. I am always fascinated by the little black hairy mole at the entrance to her left nostril. Now it is almost jum
ping off her skin like some demented insect. As she claps her hands. As she directs directionlessly. ‘Sister Finbarr, we must hurry, please.’ It is anybody’s guess whether the white to greyish skeins tangling with the upper reaches of the trees, are smoke, mist or a judgment. The world as we know it is temporarily obscured. ‘Sisters – all you girls – Mary, Angela, Josephine, Diana – lend Sister Finbarr a hand.’

  Chaos on the droughty, scrub grass. Josephine has broken a cup.

  ‘Benedict,’ no longer ‘Sister’, it could not have been more pointed. ‘You are in charge of Sister Bernadette.’

  You’re telling me! I can be common when I choose, especially amongst this gaggle of crummy suburban nuns and new-rich schoolgirls. I stare back long and fiercely at the demented black hairy mole performing its antics at the base of Reverend Mother’s left nostril.

  We are more or less organised at last. We have our marching orders. We move off, except for the broken cup, fragments of born-stale bread, and the skins and backbones of tainted kipper.

  Sisters Bernadette and Benedict are somewhat removed from the main body of the army. A wing of our own. Are we covering a retreat, or preparing to fight battles the Lord prepares for those he will receive into his bosom as well as those he plans to reject?

  By now Bernadette’s little-bird’s cheep can scarcely be heard. ‘Hold hard, Sister. My bunion is givun me gyp.’

  ‘No reason, dear, why we shouldn’t rest a little.’ Just as if we were sisters of the everyday world.

  As the cries of the cohorts recede, we sink down on a bed of leaves.

  ‘That’s right, Sister. Say a rosary or two …’

  In the whirling grey, of leaves, mist, smoke and gusts of doubt to which we who have surrendered the will to decide are prone.

  Early light has strewn the twitched sheets of my bed with a pearly grey opalescence, gentle enough in tone if it did not also convey grey bodies almost strangled by their dreams. I am still wearing my grey frock. I am not lying on my bed, which is almost fully occupied by Dog.

  ‘Dog, darling, do get down,’ I hear myself whimper. ‘Let me take you back to the Park. Don’t you feel we were both mistaken?’

  Obviously Dog still has to make up his mind. He lays his muzzle on his front paws, the yellow eyes investigating a situation he can only half believe in. Even Dog has his beliefs, and I am not, I never have been, one of them.

  I hear Hilda moan from across the landing, ‘Oh God, can’t you let me off the hook? I never – never asked – to be born to any of it …’

  Dog growls back huffily.

  Then I begin to hear this distraught jiggling from beyond the wardrobe, from inside the priest hole, as its prisoner struggles to burst the bolt on the connecting door.

  What shall I do? If only I had the authority of Reverend Mother, tic and all, the sanctity of Sister Bernadette. Instead, I am I.

  O God …

  I hear the bolt give. I’ve got to accept it. I fling open the wardrobe door. The Mystic plunges head first through the racks of – let’s face it – musty dresses. He is bleeding at the mouth. He is clutching the half-opened tin of Fray Bentos bully.

  ‘The key they give yer with the tin don’t work,’ he bellows. ‘Bring a bloke a bloody can-opener.’

  His tongue is protruding like a bull’s pizzle.

  ‘Plenty of good meat if only yer could get at it.’

  Smelling blood and meat, Dog almost barks his head off, making little scampering thigh movements on the bed.

  ‘Listen,’ I tell my deranged Mystic. ‘You should know the difference between meat and flesh. You should know when your faith is being tried by your reactions to Our Lord bleeding on the Cross – and what the Holy Spirit expects of us believers.’

  The Mystic only looks mystified, as though the metho is still stirring in his blood.

  ‘You’re the one,’ I begin to scream, ‘the one I expected guidance from – when now it seems I must guide you – you and this poor misguided, mongrel of a dog – back into the Park where you belong, along with the garbage, the plastic, and the flashers.’

  ‘Never went much on dawgs,’ he complains, then after a pause, in which several drops of blood drop from his human tongue to the floor-boards, ‘any’ ow, I’ll take me bully with me.’

  ‘Come,’ I order them, and it could have been Reverend Mother in the flush of her calculated authority, ‘I don’t doubt you’ll find your way. You have the double benefit of moon and daylight.’

  Burping, panting, stumbling, padding, my pair of scrapped idols follow me down the path. The gate squeaks. I offer them the freedom of the street, where they vanish, perhaps gratefully.

  As those who have failed to make it are grateful for small mercies.

  As I am grateful for the bed of leaves on which I have experienced a sort of rest holding a prospective saint in my arms after the Feast of Kippers the Friday before Epiphany.

  I shall remember the night Bernadette and Benedict were lost in the bush as the most peaceful I ever spent. Spiritually peaceful I mean, because of course there have been, blissful, invalid episodes after a plate of trahaná or galatoboúriko, and barely conscious memories of the breasts of my sweet Smyrna nounoú.

  Bernadette and Benedict settle and re-settle together like two birds in the cold of morning in the nest we have rounded out at the foot of the giant redgum. What is so delicious about the situation is that we have temporarily abandoned those concepts of vocation, of sanctity, of aspiring to fulfil the wishes of the Holy Spirit. We are two birds suffering from goose-flesh, in fear of being plucked by the Almighty Poulterer if he doesn’t overlook us in the mist – or smoke-ridden dawn light.

  Bernadette and Benedict, sisters in a lost world. Reduced to this common sisterhood, I am not the one who could tell my adored Bernadette the story of my true life. Yet Bernadette, through inherent innocence and truthfulness, offers the documentary of hers.

  ‘I was born, dear, the middle one in a family of seven, to parents from Galway and Glasgow. Me mother ran a little corner shop in Woolloomooloo, me dad was lost to the grog and the racecourse. Father … I forget … Damien Xavier …?’

  ‘So be it, darling. I expect it was Father Damien Xavier.’

  ‘That’s right, dear. You got it. Father D.X. saw me as the salvation of me family. More than the family, it seemed, after he had taken a glass above what he ought!’

  We, the sisters, snuggled deeper to warm the leaves we depended on this night in the bush.

  ‘It was easy for me, I tell you, dear, not to commit a sin – see? ’Cos that was the way I was born. Only once I committed one.’

  Painfully Bernadette munched on a mouthful of old teeth.

  ‘What was this sin, my darling?’ I clasp her tighter to my breasts, they have become all ears now that we are promised revelations for the Sunday morning press.

  ‘I stole, Benedict, a pinch of jellybeans from a jar in me mother’s shop.’

  ‘Poor darling, I bet they tasted good.’

  ‘No, dear. They didn’t.’

  Her old teeth are wheezing in the frosty dawn.

  ‘Then I absolve you, darling – if Father X.D. or whatever, and the Lord Himself, don’t. I absolve you from the sin which wasn’t.’

  She sighs feebly. She isn’t dying, surely, in my arms? Or is it that she knows she was born above sin and jellybeans – in other words, she was earmarked for beatification long before Pope Thingummy decided Australia should have a Saint.

  I kiss her, I hug her, as a sister of this world. Her old body makes faint fluttering bird sounds and motions. Oh God, is she departing this life? Is Benedict strong enough to cope with an ascension? My own body is unbelievably strong and helpless.

  Dawn, from insinuating, is mercilessly streaming like a whole orchestra of alarm clocks. Only, my dear little Bernadette seems unaware. Currawongs, crows, kookaburras, magpies, the lot, have begun shouting at anyone deaf enough not to hear. Finally, most dreadful, human voices.

  I shak
e my little cotton-filigree bird, my rag doll, crying, ‘Wake up! Wake up! They’ll be on us – the rescue party – before you can say knife …’

  She barely lifts her tired little, wrinkled, bird’s eyelids.

  If a Popemobile arrives with the rescue party, I see that the intermediate stages will be skipped, and our Bernadette elevated to the same level as every Thérèse in the calendar. All hail to Mum and her corner shop, Dad the racecourse tout, and Father X.D. (or D.X.) for his hard work after the second glass.

  As for me, Benedict is the only one consigned to desolation, for love of my pure little unattainable darling. I am not fit to swing on the hem of her skirt as she shoots like a muslin rocket skywards. I shall remain I – Empress Alexandra of Byzantium Nicaea Smyrna Benha and Sydney Australia.

  O God have mercy on all turds, whether dropped by elephants, goats or humans – Ameen.

  Men are arriving on the scene in boots stouter than nuns wear. Gorgeous brutes in blue shirts and clone moustaches. They massacre a couple of saplings and improvise a stretcher by uniting them with a great-coat.

  ‘OK, love – sorry – Sister!’

  They lay my little scrap of divine love and failing flesh on their lopsided stretcher.

  They are so pleased with themselves it is touching. (They must go to early mass.) Benedict they ignore. They can never ever have been to the Australian Opera, or they would have seen a drag version of a nun.

  We start off.

  The stretcher pitches alarmingly as they tramp over rock, through wiry tussock. Their precious burden may shoot off if they don’t take care. She would rise above it, of course. To Saint Bernadette no worse than landing on a bed of angels’ feathers.

  Even so, I call out to this pack of clowns, ‘steady on, you clumsy yobs! Can’t you see you’ll drop Sister Bernadette, and if you do, your conscience and history will never let you forget,’ to show I am standing in for Reverend Mother. But Benedict is superfluous by now. These toiling males are only doing one of the duties expected of the Force. They are rescuing an elderly bush walker who has given cause for concern by losing herself in the Blue Mountains.