‘Life isn’t fair, though, is it?’
The nurse stared at her.
‘You think it’s fair that mothers all over the world have to see their children die of hunger?’
‘We’ve been trying for eight years.’
‘So do something else!’ Cecilia snapped. ‘Do something for children already born. Why is it that people think they have a right to children?’
‘That’s just heartless,’ the nurse mumbled.
‘Not heartless, actually,’ Cecilia said. ‘I’ve had a child and I’m going to give her to someone who really wants her. I don’t think that is heartless at all. I think that it is rather big-hearted of me.’
The nurse walked out and let the door slam shut behind her.
Cecilia was so angry that she wanted to fly after her and give her a good shaking. How dare she? How bloody dare she? Cecilia’s hands were trembling and it took her the rest of the day to get over it.
But now the compact beauty of the tiny face had transfixed Cecilia completely. I will remember this, she thought to herself. I will make sure this image stays with me. She had a sudden strong urge to undress the baby and look at her little limbs one last time, but she didn’t dare.
On the farm she’d watched newborn lambs stumbling to stand, their mothers licking them all over. She would have liked to do the same, smell her, kiss her, lick her feet and the tiny limbs. Very gingerly she unwrapped some of the swaddling and then chickened out. It would be terrible to upset the poor little thing. But she did take off the booties and study the tiny feet. Then she lifted the sleeping child up to her face and wished she could cry.
The door opened and the older nurse came back. She smiled and walked over to where Cecilia was looking out the window, still holding the child close to her face.
‘So how are we doing?’ she said softly.
‘Are they here?’
‘Yes,’ the nurse said, ‘but no hurry. They’re having a coffee.’
Something about the older woman’s kind manner caught Cecilia unawares. Her throat suddenly ached with a million unshed tears.
‘So I guess we should … I should …’ Her voice petered out and she looked around the room in bewilderment. Where was she again? What exactly was happening? Is this really me?
‘I guess I … I should just …’
‘No should about any of this,’ the nurse said firmly. ‘You take all the time you need.’
‘No no.’ Cecilia held the baby out for the nurse to take. Then to her complete shock a terrible sob broke from her. It was followed by another and then another. The nurse stood there a few moments without taking the baby, then moved to put an arm around Cecilia’s shoulders. ‘You hold her a bit longer, love. There is no hurry.’ The firm grip of the woman’s hand on her shoulder felt like a lifeline. Tears splashed the front of the new pink-striped shirt she’d bought the week before.
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t expect that I would be like this … Are there any tissues?’
The nurse pulled a wad from her pockets without letting go of Cecilia’s shoulders. ‘Don’t be sorry.’
‘But … I don’t understand it … I really don’t. I didn’t expect to … feel like this.’
The nurse smiled and gently took the baby.
Still gasping, Cecilia went right up to the window and put her hands on the sill. She was getting a headache, but in a way it was a relief to feel the grief rolling through her. It was inside and it wanted to get out.
Maybe ten minutes went by. When Cecilia turned around, the nurse was sitting in the chair holding the baby in the crook of her arm.
‘I’m okay now.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
The nurse stood up and smiled.‘There is just one thing, Cecilia.’
‘Yes?’ Please just go. Take the child and go.
‘They wanted to be very sure—’
‘I’m absolutely sure,’ Cecilia cut in. ‘Please let them know that there is no question that I want anything else. Please, Helen, make that clear.’ Damn it. I have signed all the papers. Just go. Take the baby and go.
‘Are you still happy for them to name the child?’
‘Well, of course … She belongs to them now.’
‘They were very clear that you must feel free to name her.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Cecilia was a little dumbfounded.
‘Would you like a little more time with it?’
‘No no … well … So they said that?’
‘Definitely.’The nurse smiled. ‘They were adamant.’
‘Well then.’ Cecilia had been thinking about her convent days a lot in the last months of pregnancy. She’d thought about herself as that girl of eighteen, and also Breda, who’d become Sister Perpetua on the day Cecilia had become Sister Annunciata.
‘Well, if they don’t mind, I have … I would like to name her.’
‘I think they’d be pleased.’
‘Really?’
‘Honestly, I do.’
‘Then I’d like to call her Perpetua.’
Cecilia waited for the nurse to raise an eyebrow and maybe comment that it was old-fashioned and that maybe such a strange name wouldn’t go down so well with the parents.
But she gave no such reaction. She simply smiled. ‘Do you have a second name?’
‘No no, let them choose that. Tell them if they hate Perpetua, they should feel free to change it. It’s just that I …’ She looked away and said softly, ‘I will always think of her as Perpetua.’
‘I’ll tell them that.’
Peach
Cassie is in a stink. She barely nods when I front up at exactly five to seven. No smile, no little chuckle when I try to make a joke. Nothing. Luckily Sam is there to take the ice off.
‘Welcome.’ He looks at the time and grins. ‘Good start.’
I know what Cassie’s mood is about, of course, but it still isn’t pleasant, especially on my first day in a new job. Thankfully I’m so busy that it doesn’t matter too much at first. I’m put to work on the coffee machine, and it takes all my concentration to remember how to hold the jug so the milk doesn’t froth over and when exactly to start each coffee. Luckily there are not many customers until about half-past seven, but after that we’re hit with a steady stream of people wanting coffees and pastries on their way to work. By eight, all the people working at the convent site are around too. Whenever I have to ask Cassie something about where things are, or tell her that a coffee is ready, she nods coldly and studiously avoids my eyes. After a while her coolness starts to get to me and I lose concentration.
‘Where is the flat white?’ she snaps.
I’ve just put six perfect lattes on the tray and forgotten the flat white. ‘Oh God, sorry! I’ll have it in a jiffy,’ I say.
She sniffs as though I’ve made an unforgivable blunder. I’m being paid back for not coming along to tell Det what to do. Normally I’d be the one to broach the subject and we’d have it out in the open, but apart from not having the opportunity, I don’t much feel like doing that.
Just when I start to feel like I’m going to snap, Nick walks in on the dot of nine o’clock.
‘Hey hey hey!’ He high-fives me as he comes behind the counter, ‘The two babes!’
I smile in relief. ‘You look wrecked.’
‘Yeah, well,’ he groans and starts piling the fresh bread into the baskets at the back of the counter. ‘What about you, young Cass?’
‘What about me?’ she says curtly.
Nick takes a moment to look at her again, and then at me. ‘Just asking if the universe is treating you kindly,’ he says.
‘Not particularly,’ Cass snaps.
‘What’s with her?’ he says under his breath when I next pass.
I shrug and smile. She might be driving me crazy, but there is no way I’m going to backbite her.
So we work on for another couple of hours and I begin to forget about her. I stay at the coffee machine, and Ni
ck is right alongside taking the orders. Cass is serving the cakes and baguettes and running the coffees outside when she isn’t busy.
‘Two lattes and a weak long black, thanks.’ The suited businessman is smiling at me.
‘Okay.’ I smile back. ‘Where are you sitting?’
‘Outside.’
So far so good. Four hours into the job and I’ve more or less got the hang of it. I’m starting to calm down.
There is a lull in proceedings, so I go outside and bring in two armfuls of dishes and pack them into the dishwasher.
Suddenly Cassie is standing over me with her hands on her hips, glowering.
‘So you don’t want to know what happened with Det?’ she asks. I look up. ‘She wouldn’t listen to me,’ she says. ‘Honestly, it didn’t matter what I said, she just wouldn’t listen.’
‘Well, it’s her decision,’ I say calmly, trying to concentrate on getting as many cups and mugs into the washer as I can.
‘But we’ll be the ones doing everything!’
‘How can you be so sure, Cass?’ I say.
‘Have you forgotten?’
‘It was depression last time.’
‘You think she’s not going to get depressed with a kid?’
‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ I sigh. ‘And nor do you.’
‘Yes, I do know!’
A sudden flare of anger catches alight in my head. How come she thinks she can tell everyone what to do? How come because her life is all set up with the perfect family and perfect boyfriend she thinks she has everything sewn up?
‘No, you don’t actually, Cass,’ I say, straightening up. The dishwasher is full so I switch it on and look around for something else to do, because I sure don’t want to stand here arguing with her. But Nick is serving the only two customers.
‘So you’re on her side?’
‘I didn’t realise there were sides,’ I say.
‘But it’s so irresponsible,’ she says furiously.
‘When has Det ever been responsible?’
Cassie stares at me. The devil lands on my shoulder. All thought of reining myself in disappears. I want to pay Cassie back for the last couple of hours, when I needed a bit of help getting used to the job.
‘I’m glad, actually,’ I say angrily.
‘What?’
‘Yeah. I am. I’m glad she’s having a baby.’
‘What?’ Cassie is looking at me as though I’ve gone crazy. ‘She doesn’t even want it. You heard her!’
‘Words, Cassie, just words! Some part of her obviously does want it, don’t you think?’
There is a stand-off for about five seconds. I pick up a dishcloth and start wiping down the benches; she stands there looking at me.
‘Well, I think it’s a disaster,’ she says coldly, turning her back, ‘for her and the kid.’ I keep on wiping down the bench.‘And also for us.’
‘Not everyone can live an ultra-neat life, Cassie,’ I spit back.
She turns around and gives me a sharp look. She knows I’m having a shot at her. She has already confided to me that she thinks that she and Stephano will probably get married.
‘Not everybody meets Mr Right and settles down in a big house full of stuff and has their kids at the perfect time,’ I add for good measure. Whoa! I tell myself to pull back. I’m really twisting the knife now, and I’m ashamed even as I want to say more.
‘Try to imagine not being wanted!’ she shoots back. ‘Imagine having a mother who doesn’t want you! Could anything be worse than that?’
‘What?’ I say furiously. Did I hear right? Could anything be worse than that?
‘I’m asking you to imagine what it would be like not to be wanted!’
‘I heard you the first time!’ I shoot back.
She stares at me uncomprehendingly and then the click moment happens. I see it. Her face falls. She knows she has trespassed into dangerous territory, and I see that she is sorry about the turn the conversation has taken, but I’m in no mood for forgiveness.
‘Your birth mother is dead,’ she says defensively, trying to climb out of the hole she’s just dug herself. ‘I remember you said once that your mother was probably dead.’
‘I would, wouldn’t I?’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Well,’ I say viciously, ‘since yesterday I know that my birth mother is alive and well, and that she gave me away because she didn’t want me.’
‘How … how do you know that?’ Cassie’s face has drained. She really looks as if she might be sick. But what do I care about that?
‘I got a letter.’
‘From who?’
‘Her mother … my grandmother.’ I laugh but it comes out hard, more like a bark. I feel like crying.
Cassie’s mouth falls open. ‘God! What did she say?’
I shrug, because a crowd of people have come in and are standing by the glass counter looking in at the cakes.
‘Hey, that is big news. I’m sorry,’ Cass says before turning away to serve them.
My shift is longer, so when Cassie finishes up at midday I still have a couple of hours to go.
Stephano arrives on the dot to pick her up. He stands by the door, smiling at both of us as he waits for Cassie to get her things together. She hesitates before walking out the door and comes back to face me. I’m behind the coffee machine making three lattes.
‘Peach, I’m sorry about today.’
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘me too.’ But I’m not really. It’s too raw.
‘So when can I talk to you about all this?’
‘Later … whenever.’
Cassie flushes. ‘I’ll ring you later.’
‘Okay.’ I shrug.
I take the coffees outside to the waiting people and watch Cassie and Stephano walking hand in hand out those huge gates, and a flash of bitterness unfurls inside me like a horrible worm. How come she gets everything she wants?
At the end of my shift I walk out along the path into the enclosure and look up; all those windows that used to be nuns’ bedrooms are now little studios. I walk over to the big tree in the centre, wondering which one would have been hers. I shut my eyes and breathe in.
‘Cecilia,’ I say under my breath. ‘Annunciata.’
It’s ridiculous but I can’t help it, so I say it again and again. It’s as if I want to roll the name around in my mouth and sort of feel it. Cecilia Madden who became Sister Annunciata. Where are you now? What made her come here to lock herself away? All I’ve ever heard about the sixties is that it was a time of change and social upheaval and music. Nothing about … nuns! Cecilia became a nun here while the rest of her generation were rocking out to the Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin and getting high on acid and grass. Why did she join and why did she leave? I close my eyes and try to imagine what it would be like to believe in God. What kind of God did Annunciata believe in?
But I can’t get my head around it. I have no idea. The only image that I can summon is a solemn-faced old man with a long beard looking down through the clouds. What about Jesus? But my image of him is hardly any clearer and feels almost as crazy, the tortured body writhing on the cross. Why would you pray to that? He died and then came alive again. Oh come on! None of it makes any sense. But I’m intrigued anyway. Deeply intrigued.
‘Hey, up here, fatso!’
I open my eyes and look up, and there is Det hanging out the window on the top floor waving her arms.
I laugh.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she screams out for all to hear.‘I’ve been looking down at you standing there like a post for ages.’
‘Contemplating my navel.’ I laugh.
‘Seriously, what were you thinking about?’
‘My mother,’ I say.
‘She okay?’
‘The other one,’ I say.
Det takes a moment to process this. ‘No shit?’ she says more carefully.
‘She was a nun here apparently,’ I call up as though it’s
nothing. ‘Her name was Mother Mary Annunciata.’
‘What?’ Det begins to laugh.
‘I found out yesterday.’
‘Goddammit girl, get up here!’ she shouts.
I give Det the letter, slump down onto the unmade tangle of her bedclothes in the corner of the studio and close my eyes. She stands by the window, frowning as she reads. Finished at last, she drops the letter to the floor, sits down on her chair and props her legs up on the desk.
I look over at her for a sign of what’s going through her head, but Det remains silent, her head thrown back, eyes closed, arms crossed over her chest.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ I say after a while.
‘Oh yeah?’ Det sighs without opening her eyes.
‘That I’ve got to write back to her. Go see her. Make her my new best friend. Hold her hand when she’s dying and tell her I’m so glad I found my real grandmother at last. Then they’ll do a show about us on television. And then my real mother, the nun, will come on at the end and hug us and cry.’
Det smiles and raises an eyebrow. Then she gets up and plonks herself down next to me.
‘Wrong.’ She grins at me.
‘Really?’
‘Do nothing. Sit tight.’
‘But …’
‘Stuff like this can blow up and become completely shitty,’ she says wryly, ‘as we both know.’
‘Yeah.’
We’re both thinking of Stella.
‘Any word from the spiritual mother?’ Det asks sarcastically.
I shake my head.
‘No one needs two mothers, Peach.’
‘Couldn’t agree more. So how should I proceed?’
‘Don’t,’ Det says.
‘You think I should just ignore it?’
‘She doesn’t even know where your mother is.’ Det shrugs. ‘So why bother?’
Hearing her say ‘your mother’ in relation to someone other than the mother who brought me up is sort of shocking. My mother is in Paris. I want to put her right but I don’t.
Det gets up to make us both a coffee in the machine that she bought from the Salvos. She stretches and sighs and stares hard at her painting.
‘She might die soon,’ I say weakly, wanting her to keep her mind on my problems.
The Convent Page 17