‘How are your boys?’
Breda groaned and started the car. ‘Don’t ask! They drive me bonkers.’ She grinned at Cecilia. ‘Mad as cut snakes but, you know, they’re fine.’
‘Youngest still sleeping all day?’
‘And partying all night! And Sean told me today that he was going to spend the money he’d saved for a car on a luxury holiday. Luxury, if you don’t mind! At twenty! Backpacking isn’t good enough for him. Excuse me, I said, but …’ She laughed at herself. ‘Sorry, I’m raving.’
‘It’s okay!’
They’d exchanged basic information by email, but had agreed to leave the past for when they met. After leaving the convent, Breda had retrained as an intensive care nurse. She’d married but had recently been left a widow with four boys. Three of the boys were in their early twenties and had left home, were at university and were doing well. The fourth one was in his last year at school.
About to reverse out of the parking space, Breda suddenly flipped the car back into neutral, clasped the steering wheel with both hands and began to squeal with laughter.
‘Oh, God, I just can’t believe this!’
‘Me either!’
‘Do you remember us, Nuncie? Do you?’
‘I do. I do.’ Cecilia smiled with delight. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Remember how clean our shoes were?’
‘Oh yes!’
‘Remember sneaking the extra bath when we knew Holy Angels had gone to that conference?’
‘Yes!’
‘Remember us going together to ask permission to say our final vows in English instead of Latin?’
Cecilia threw her head back and began to laugh properly.
‘Remember what she said?’
‘How dare you!’ Cecilia mimicked the Novice Mistress.
‘That’s right!’ Breda chortled. ‘How dare you!
’ They were both rocking with laughter now inside the car in the airport car park, harsh fluorescent light blasting from the cement ceilings.
‘It was you who asked,’ Breda gasped.
‘Me? No! No. It was you. I would never have dared’
‘You said, “Mother, I think Rome has just recently given official approval for the vows to be said in English.”’
‘Did I?’ Cecilia squealed.
‘And she said …’ Breda had tears running down her face. ‘She said, “You are not here to think, Sister Annunciata.”’
‘Oh God. Did she say that?’
‘You’re not here to think!’
It was as though the last few decades hadn’t happened. All that time simply collapsed into a thin wedge of complete ease.
‘So much to catch up on, kid,’ Breda said at last. ‘But let me get you home in one piece first.’
They remained quiet until they were out of the airport and on the freeway heading back into town. Cecilia wound down the window and took a few deep breaths of the cool evening air. Oh it was good, so good, to be home.
The laughter had done her good too. She stared out at the billboards, at the slick guys in their sunglasses and the girls in their underwear, and wondered if her daughter wore such things. She would be the right age now. Nineteen.
‘You never made your final vows, Breda.’
‘No.’
They went quiet for a while, thinking.
‘I missed you so much,’ Cecilia said quietly. ‘You were my rock.’
‘Annunciata, I was a ratbag!’
‘But … we needed you’
‘Yes.’
‘You never said goodbye.’
‘I just couldn’t, Nuncie. If I didn’t leave then, I knew I never would. She loved me, you know?’
‘Mother Gabriel?’
‘Yes.’
Cecilia nodded and smiled. ‘You were her favourite. Everyone knew it.’
‘I loved her too,’ Breda said passionately. ‘She was a complex woman, but in the end I thought … if I stay here she’s going to eat me alive! I loved you all. I wanted to be a nun so much. I truly did believe it was what God wanted for me.’
‘Me too.’
‘And I loved the girls,’ Breda went on. ‘I loved our work. But I could see it was all wrong … I was angry all the time.’
‘Yes.’
‘Just furious … all the time.’
It had been against the Rule for anyone to speak of any Sister who left the Convent. Only Reverend Mother was told, and after arrangements with the family were made the Sister simply disappeared without speaking of her decision to anyone else. The other Sisters might raise an eyebrow at the empty space at table where once a dear friend had sat, or the empty bed in the dormitory, or the new space in the chapel every morning, but nothing official was ever said and no discussion among themselves was permitted. Convent life went on as though that Sister had not existed.
But the Rule couldn’t stop them from privately wondering and grieving. Sister Jane Francis had found the stepladder by the back gate, along with the laundry girl Ida’s nightdress and Breda’s rosary beads, and the news spread like wildfire around the noviciate. Perpetua had gone with Ida Bakewell from the laundry.
‘Did you really jump over the wall?’
‘Yes.’ Breda giggled. ‘Ida held the ladder for me because I was smaller and we thought there would be more chance I would break my leg! Then she came after me and we made a dash for it.’
‘Where to?’
‘To the nearest busy road.’
‘Did you have any money?’
‘Ida had a few quid that her aunt had given her, so we jumped in a cab and went to my aunt’s place in Moonee Ponds.’
‘Did she know you were coming?’
‘No … but, apart from home, it was the only address I knew.’
Cecilia had missed Breda deeply. She’d been unable to believe it at first, and was incredibly hurt. But after some time passed she began to see that Breda had had to do it like that. It was who she was. She didn’t want to have to explain herself to anybody – probably least of all the Provincial Mother Gabriel.
‘Not far to go now.’ Breda squeezed her hand.‘Tell me about you.’
‘Two years after you.’
‘Really?’
‘You were my inspiration.’
‘Oh, so blame me!’ Breda laughed. ‘So when did you first …?’
Cecilia shook her head.‘Right back in the noviciate odd thoughts would fly in from nowhere and then … when my brother … they didn’t let up.’
‘That was so tough for you when he died’ Breda took her hand briefly.
‘Snatches of his letters would come into my head. Why did we stay for so long, Breda?’
‘We hung on because we believed we should, Nuncie. The doubts were part of it. And we were happy a lot of the time, weren’t we? We were part of the Renewal. Remember Mother reading out that missive from Angers telling us how everything was going to change. I remember being so excited. And happy too … so much of the time!’
‘That’s true.’ Cecilia smiled. ‘There was great happiness.’
‘So many good days.’
‘And bad days.’
‘Remember the tennis?’
And they were both laughing again.
1965
‘I’m going to ask her,’ Breda said. The four other novices, Cecilia, Paula, Jane Francis and Beatrice, looked up in surprise. What?
It was evening recreation and they were sitting down one corner of the community room on straight-backed chairs pretending to concentrate on their needlework. It was Reverend Mother’s Feast Day the following week and every novice was expected to have worked at least one item especially for the occasion. The pieces would be set out on the ornately decorated table as an offering to Mother, and then gone over with a hard eye for detail by all the older Sisters.
‘When?’
‘Tonight?’
‘You’ll go over Holy Angels’s head?’ Jane Francis whispered disbelievingly.
‘Yep.’ Breda gigg
led. ‘Straight to the power zone!’
‘You won’t!’ Paula was only eighteen, and her eyes were wide open, bright with merriment. ‘I bet you won’t be game!’
‘Shhh, Paula,’ Beatrice pretended to chide, ‘Perpetua knows exactly what she’s doing.’
Paula was an incessant giggler. The slightest excuse and she was off. She often got the whole group of novices into trouble for being unable to suppress her giggles, but no one could find it in themselves to mind, because her high spirits were so infectious.
‘Just watch me,’ Breda said.
Recreation was after the evening meal, and Cecilia looked forward to it. Although everyone was required to sit and do something constructive – needlework usually – there was a full hour to do it in and freedom to chat. After a whole day of prayer, work and silence, when Reverend Mother’s bell rang to announce the commencement of recreation the Community room came to life with the sound of female chatter and laughter.
‘Oh damn!’ Paula’s young face fell as she looked down at her needlework. ‘Damn,’ she muttered again. She’d been so busy laughing that she’d pricked her finger and a drop of blood had seeped onto the altar runner she was working on. ‘Holy Angels will have me on toast!’ She looked at Breda hopefully. ‘Help please.’
Breda’s mother was a beautiful seamstress, and Breda must have picked up some skills without even knowing it. She took the grimy, lace-edged cloth from Paula’s hands and considered it.
‘We can’t all be gifted in every field, my dear,’ she mimicked the Novice Mistress’s dour tones. ‘But we can at least start well by washing our hands!’
‘Shut up, Pep! Just fix it for me.’
‘You’ll have to wash it.’
‘Okay. But what about the stitches?’
They all knew the Novice Mistress would take it as a personal affront if the offerings this year were inferior to previous years. Cecilia’s doily depicting the Ascension of Our Lady into Heaven in blue tones had been keeping her busy for months and was far from finished, but Paula’s altar runner was in a much worse state. As the Feast Day got closer, Mother Holy Angels was at them the whole time, demanding to see progress every day.
Breda checked to see that the Novice Mistress was nowhere, then threaded a needle and began working on Paula’s runner.
‘Oh thanks, Pep,’ Paula sighed in worried relief. ‘I’m so hopeless.’
‘You have other gifts, Paula!’ Cecilia smiled.
‘Such as?’ Paula moaned despondently.
‘Paula’s gifts have yet to be discovered,’ Beatrice declared dryly.
‘You might be surprised to know,’ Paula was giggling happily again now that Breda had taken over her sewing, ‘Mother said I was making some headway at last!’
‘That’s only because Pep does it for you,’ Jane Francis grumbled. She looked around at the others. ‘Wouldn’t it just knock you rotten if Mother chooses Paula’s as the best piece when she’s barely done a stitch of it herself?’
‘Sour puss!’
‘Don’t think we need to worry on that score,’ Beatrice murmured.
And they were all off again, laughing and teasing each other.
‘Shhh,’ some sisters in a nearby group cautioned them. Mother Provincial was frowning and looking their way, which meant they were making too much noise. They bent their heads and pretended to concentrate on their work.
‘Mass got interesting this morning, didn’t it?’ Beatrice whispered, and the rest of them dissolved all over again into gales of silent laughter.
Cecilia, who had been in charge of snuffing the candles after Mass, had gone about the task too strenuously. First she’d caused one brass candlestick to fall with a crash onto the stone floor, and then, completely unnerved, she went back to her seat the wrong way, bumping into the beautiful vase full of Mother Holy Angels’s lilies sitting on one of the wooden pedestals. The whole congregation of one hundred and fifty nuns had watched breathless as the vase had teetered left and then right before steadying. Father Mac had come out of the sacristy to see what the kerfuffle was about, and by the time Cecilia was back in the pew with the others, her face was like beetroot.
It might have ended there, but while they waited for Mother to begin the De Profundis after Mass, Sister Paula got a fit of the giggles which proved contagious.
‘Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord; Lord hear my voice …’ Mother’s low voice intoned.
‘Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication,’ the community of nuns answered. But by the time the prayer had ended, the two front pews of novices and postulants were shaking and gasping with laughter in full view of the older nuns.
They were called aside straight after Mass, admonished by Holy Angels, and afternoon recreation, which, if the weather was good, consisted of a half-hour stroll around the grounds after lunch, was cancelled .
‘It was you that set me off!’ Paula protested.
Me?’ Cecilia protested. ‘I merely made a mistake and the rest of you had to humiliate me!’
‘A mistake!’ Beatrice snorted. ‘She pushes the candlesticks off the altar and then bulldozes her way through the flowers! What was your next trick going to be, Annunciata?’
All of them were now helpless with laughter.
‘You looked mortified.’
‘I was!’
‘And by the way you were right off for the Kyrie,’ Jane Francis declared.
‘Was I?’
‘Totally!’ Jane was very musical. ‘It starts on D and then goes to A-flat for the Christe eleison.’ She began to sing it to demonstrate her point.
‘Oh shut up, Jane,’ Beatrice groaned. ‘We don’t want a lesson, thanks very much!’
‘I was the bane of my mum’s life,’ Cecilia admitted ruefully when they’d all calmed down. ‘She being so musical and me … barely able to hold a tune.’ Cecilia looked at Jane hopefully. ‘Am I getting any better?’
‘Nooo,’ they all chorused. ‘Worse!’
Staying with the same group for the whole hour of evening recreation was not encouraged. Sisters were meant to get up and change seats every now and then to sit with others they didn’t know, so that special cliques and friendships wouldn’t form. But the rule was often ignored.
Cecilia noticed a certain glint enter Breda’s eyes when Mother made her way over to them and felt suddenly nervous.
‘Good evening, Sisters!’ Mother folded her thin hands easily in her lap as she settled herself in the middle of their little group. ‘How are you all, my dears?’
‘Good evening, Mother,’ they all replied. ‘Very well, thank you.’
‘Sister Annunciata.’ Mother Gabriel leant over and took Cecilia’s hand briefly. ‘Have you got over your cold?’
‘Completely, Mother. Thank you. I’m fine now.’
In fact, she wasn’t over it. She’d been quite ill for a few days, along with Jane Francis and a couple of the postulants, but it didn’t do to tell Mother. The Provincial never got ill herself and became quite genuinely bewildered when anyone else did. When she’d come to see them in the infirmary the week before, they’d all felt as though getting sick had been their own fault. Good health was a prerequisite for entering the convent. If a postulant or novice proved to have a sickly disposition then she could be sent home for good, and they all knew it. So no one ever wanted to be sick.
‘It’s been a terrible winter.’ The Reverend Mother shook her head. ‘Mother Bernard tells me that three more of our girls in Sacred Heart have gone down with it.’
‘That makes twelve, Mother.’ Jane Francis frowned. ‘Will there be room in the hospital?’
‘We’ll have to make room, Sister.’ Mother shook her head impatiently. ‘You’d think girls that age would be able to ward off a few germs. They get so miserable when they’re ill.’ She smiled around at them in a kindly way. ‘So, my dears, you must look after yourselves. Eat well and keep warm.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
The eating
well was taken care of. It was mandatory to attend every meal and eat everything on their plates. As a consequence, most of the novices had put on weight. Keeping warm was more problematic, in spite of the layers of clothing, because the heating was so inadequate.
‘Well well.’ The Provincial pulled her little silver watch out from under her guimpe and checked the time. ‘Almost time.’ She smiled at them all. ‘And some of you look very tired. Sister Beatrice, have you been getting enough rest?’
‘Yes, Mother,’ Beatrice admitted guardedly. Beatrice had come into the order having almost completed her degree, and she had special permission to finish it so long as it didn’t interfere with any other activities. Which meant she had to study when everyone else was asleep.
‘Nothing is worth your health, my dear,’ the Provincial said severely.
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Oh Mother, I was wondering,’ Breda said suddenly, her face pink, ‘if I might … ask something?’
‘Yes, Sister Perpetua.’ Reverend Mother smiled warily.
‘That old court down near St Mary’s?’
‘Yes, dear?’
Breda hesitated. ‘I was wondering …’ She looked around at the rest of the group. ‘We were wondering if we might play tennis on it?’
There was a collective sigh of release and anticipation. It was out now.
‘Tennis?’ the Reverend Mother repeated, and everyone nodded enthusiastically.
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘You mean … with racquets?’
‘And a ball, Mother,’ Breda said brightly, and Cecilia almost burst out laughing.
‘But when would …’ The Provincial seemed mystified rather than dismissive, which was a good sign.
‘Saturday afternoon before Benediction, Mother,’ Breda chirped, quite as though it was a normal request. ‘For an hour.’
‘But, my dear,’ the Reverend Mother smiled as though the silly idea could be put to rest quickly, ‘clothing?’
‘We could tuck the outer layers up a little, Mother. Into our belts like this.’ Breda stood up and demonstrated. The various petticoats were shorter than the outer garments. The Reverend Mother watched her, nodding thoughtfully.
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