Det gives me a really nice framed drawing of Stella sitting cross-legged on the floor eating an apple. And for Stella there is one of me looking thoughtfully out the window. Stella immediately hangs them both on the wall and wraps tinsel around them, which looks totally awful, but anyway …
My present for Det is two bright cushions for the bungalow that I thought looked really fantastic in the shop. Once I see them in our kitchen I see that they’re totally not in the least way fantastic.
‘Hey thanks, Peach.’ Det grins and puts one under her bum and the other one under her shirt. ‘They’re really nice.’
I groan and get myself a block of chocolate from the fridge. I’m known for this. I take forever to choose a present and it’s always wrong.
‘Oh wow!’ Stella tries to sound pleased as she slips the combs I bought for her into her hair. ‘Really great, Peach. Thanks!’
‘Do you really want a couple of bunches of rotten grapes in your hair?’ Det is suddenly helpless with laughter. ‘Or some old geezer’s haemorrhoids!’
I throw a screwed-up ball of wrapping paper at her, but I have to laugh. She’s right. They’re awful.
That night, Mum and Dad ring us again to say that Dad’s mother’s health is a lot worse than they thought, and that they’ll probably have to extend their stay.
‘How long?’ I ask in alarm.
‘Well, love …’ Dad says guardedly ‘I don’t think your grandmother is going to get better … so we’ll have to see.’
My grandmother? No. My grandmother is an old lady living in an Australian country town.
Cecilia 1972
‘Whose side are you on?’ The young priest looked around at the packed lecture hall and smiled. ‘My friends, that is a question some of us have to ask ourselves every day.’
Unlike the other speakers during the week-long Church Conference, he didn’t use the lectern but strode up and down in front of them, cracking jokes and gesticulating with his hands and occasionally laughing at himself. It was very different to anything Cecilia had heard before.
She’d known nothing about poor sugar farmers in the Philippines, but he made them come alive for her. His descriptions and anecdotes let her feel what it would be like to be in the sweltering heat of Manila, amid the open drains and mosquitoes.
‘Being on the side of the poor is not only dangerous,’ the priest went on, ‘but it is beset with all kinds of contradictions. Is it right to baptise the landowner’s child and officiate at his daughter’s wedding when we know that he is behind the disappearance and death of a local union organiser? What do you think?’ he asked the audience.
What do I think? Cecilia stopped breathing.
‘We are sometimes the only ones standing between the peasants and those who rule over their lives, and believe me, it’s fraught and sometimes gets dangerous.’
A very old nun down the front, only a few seats from Cecilia, tentatively raised her hand.
‘Sister?’ The priest broke off from what he was saying.
‘In what way dangerous, Father?’
‘Well, our lives are threatened sometimes.’
There was a gasp as the audience took this in.
‘You must get some support, though, Father, from the bishops?’
‘The only contact we get is to tell us to stop what we’re doing. It’s not surprising,’ he added with a dry laugh. ‘The wealthy have lived off the backs of the poor for centuries. They’ve got very good at intimidating people who ask questions. After all, a priest’s only role is to save souls,’ he added.
Cecilia leant forward in amazement.
‘Last time I looked that was our role,’ a male voice came from the back of the audience. ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’
‘And what if Caesar demands your children don’t eat and don’t go to school?’ the priest asked mildly. ‘Rich countries – France, England, the USA, Australia – also have poor and marginalised. Isn’t it time to speak on behalf of the indigent, the dispossessed and the poor?’
There was an uneasy silence for a few moments before a young nun in the middle of the room raised her hand.
‘With respect, Father, that is exactly who most of us are serving,’ she said quietly, ‘in our hospitals and schools and outback missions.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ the young priest cut in, ‘that is what most of our religious orders were originally set up to do. But things have changed and we haven’t. Governments have stepped in with money and know-how. So what is the Church’s role now? And let’s ask ourselves, why is it so often on the side of the conservative and repressive?’
Whose side are you on? When the lecture finished, Cecilia had a lump in her throat and she was hardly able to speak for the rest of the day. Whose side was she on?
Ideas spun and danced in her head. After the last speaker, late in the afternoon she sought the priest out.
‘Father, I need to know something.’
‘Yes, Sister?’ He turned away from the men he was talking to and indicated that she should sit down at the table.
‘Your talk confused me.’
‘Well, that is a good start.’ He smiled, and she saw that he was older than she’d first thought – well into his thirties – and that his eyes were warm.
She relaxed a little. ‘Did you baptise the corrupt landowner’s child?’ she asked and when he sighed deeply and nodded, she went on awkwardly, ‘I would like to know how you decided to do that.’
‘Why?’ His eyes twinkled with laughter. ‘Has Rome come through at last?’
She looked at him, not understanding.
‘With the ordination of women, I mean?’ He laughed at her shock. ‘Of course women should be ordained,’ he went on, smacking one hand down on the table for emphasis.
‘But …?’ Cecilia was suddenly hot with confusion because she had the feeling that he was actually serious. What could she say? The very idea was preposterous.
‘Well, you tell me why not.’ He leant forward, his brown eyes gently mocking her. ‘What makes me better than you?’ He stuck a finger down his dog collar and rolled his eyes.
She laughed at that and he motioned at all her garb – the stiff white casing around her face, her voluminous dress, the cape and long veil – and shrugged as though it was a whole lot of nothing very important.
‘In fact, probably the opposite is true. The nuns we work with in Manila are much better than most of us. Men have such big egos, Sister!’ He laughed at her confusion again. ‘You might not know that, but it’s true. Why shouldn’t the Sisters baptise children, say Mass and hear confessions? Tell me, please?’
Cecilia was dumbfounded. She had never heard anyone, much less a priest, talk like this. When he understood that she was truly shocked he smiled.
‘Anyway, Sister, to answer your question: How do we decide what to do in difficult situations? Well, there are ten of us in the house: six priests and four lay brothers. We decide together how to go about things.’ He smiled again. ‘There are a lot of arguments because everyone has a different view, but in the end we always come back to the same thing.’
‘Which is?’ she asked curiously.
‘What else is there?’ He shrugged, then smiled disarmingly. ‘There is only the Jesus of the Gospels. So we ask ourselves, Where is Jesus in all this? Whose side would He be on?’
Cecilia got up. ‘I see,’ she said slowly, ‘thank you, Father.’
‘You’re welcome, Sister.’
Whose side was she on?
Finally Cecilia decided she must at least see her daughter. Just that. See her. She would not try to talk to her or make any other kind of contact.
So she found herself walking the bike path along the river towards the convent, dressed in a long dress and big sunglasses with a scarf covering her hair.
To Cecilia’s incredible surprise, when she entered through the big convent gates she was overcome with a deep flood of joy. It flowed through her like soft rain on parch
ed ground, and was so unexpected that her first instinct was to sit down on the grass and cry. Instead she leant up against one of the gateposts to steady herself and stared around. There were people everywhere, ordinary people, walking around as if they had a perfect right. She almost burst out laughing. There they were, sitting at wooden tables, eating, drinking and talking.
Along with the gladness came an unfamiliar tenderness towards her own younger self. That girl who’d come so willingly through these gates to embark on the biggest adventure of her life. Where was she now? And the others who’d entered with her. Where were they all?
Cecilia forgot her initial reason for coming and wandered around, staring at everything, peering into rooms, walking up stairs and along corridors, intrigued and amused by how the place had changed, and at times utterly moved by the way every room was somehow just as she remembered it. Memories bubbled up only to be replaced by more. Here was an ATM in exactly the place where she’d lost her veil that day in the high wind and had been reprimanded by Mother Agnes as a scatterbrain. A scatterbrain! She was the least scatterbrained person she knew. As a young novice she’d been so serious and methodical, way too much so in fact. If only she’d been more like Breda, easily distracted, quick to laugh at the ridiculous and respond from the gut.
But the smell of coffee was new. Yes, she would have one of those in a little while. She would sit in that little cafe and remember sweet Mother Our Lady of Fatima O’Reilly who worked with the old Italian gentleman whose name she couldn’t remember, making the bread every day for over a thousand Sisters, girls and women.
She walked up the front steps and stood in the lobby outside the Bishop’s Parlour and saw herself on her first day, feeling grown up and worldly in her sleeveless red dress with the black high-heeled sandals, her hair tied back with a clip-on bow.
Except for Dominic, her whole family had come. Patrick was dressed in stovepipe pants and a daring black cotton shirt, his hair slicked back in rocker style. Brendan was wearing the pink-striped shirt that Mum had begged him not to wear because it would ‘shock the nuns’. The twins were eyeing everything warily as if they might have landed in jail.
Mother Gabriel had come out of a side room in full regal splendour, tall and straight, her fine Gallic features on display inside the stiff white bandeau encasing her face. She raised her chin as she greeted them, holding out her hand like a queen deigning to greet her subjects.
‘Ah, the Maddens!’ she said. ‘You are all so very welcome. Was the drive long? And in such heat. Well, you must be ready for afternoon tea.’
They’d traipsed meekly after the Reverend Mother through the vast building, out along the path and into a large high-ceilinged room, which was cool despite the heat outside. There was a big polished-wood table in the middle laid with fine china and silver spoons and tiny cakes and stiff white table napkins, and already a couple of family groups were sitting at the table, all looking uncomfortable as at least a dozen smiling nuns hovered over them offering more tea and hot water.
‘Now I’m going to leave you in the capable hands of our Mistress of Novices.’ The Reverend Mother gave one of her high musical laughs and motioned with a slight lifting of one hand for Mother Mary of the Holy Angels, who was speaking to a very anxious-looking older couple. ‘So nice to meet you, Mr and Mrs Madden.’
Cecilia’s family, even her father, had chorused humbly, ‘Thank you, Mother Gabriel. So nice to meet you too. Thank you.’
But her father had muttered, ‘I can’t stand these places,’ as soon as the Reverend Mother was at a safe distance. ‘If Cecilia left tomorrow it would be a day too late.’
The boys had all laughed, but her mother had said, Hush, they’ll hear you!
Now Cecilia peered through the old refectory window, hardly seeing the artwork on the walls or the new coffee machine and modern chairs. Instead, she was wishing Breda was with her. And here is where we ate, they would say to each other. This very spot was where I lay in disgrace after keeping that photo. Do you remember? Where have all the long tables gone? Do you remember?
She wandered up the stairs to where they’d slept, to the long corridors with the cells on either side. Things seemed very quiet, and a little musty and worn. But she loved it that the old paintwork was still there even if the polished boards had been replaced with fraying carpet. There were names on the doors now, notes stuck on with sticky tape, jokes and posters. A couple of young arty types ignored her as they passed, talking animatedly. A little redhead in jeans smiled before disappearing into one of the rooms, and she could see a few people at the end of the corridor standing right where the Sacred Heart statue used to be, drinking coffee. My God. Cecilia was filled with a mad impulse to run over and tell them to stop. She wanted to ring the bell, knock on the doors, call everyone to order and tell them … what? That they must never forget that the rooms did not belong to them, but to the hundreds of women who’d gone before, to those who’d willingly sacrificed their young lives to silence and ritual and prayer in a quest for holiness?
She passed the cell that had become hers after her final Profession, but the door was closed and she didn’t dare knock although she stood outside for a full minute and thought about it. Instead she headed back downstairs again.
How many times had she rushed across that bit of ground from the Sacred Heart enclosure, worried that she’d be late for lunch, the day’s dramas and the girls’ sad stories swirling around her brain?
Would Leanne ever learn to iron properly? Why was that girl Sonia so quiet? Would they get the Windsor Hotel laundry done by the end of the day? If not, she’d have to stay up with some other Sisters and get it done, and there was her university work to complete.
The memories were flooding in so fast now that she had to sit down. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but found a stone seat outside the refectory and made herself take some deep breaths. Then she went and stood under Breda’s tree again, and looking up she laughed aloud.
After wandering through the front gardens she walked back towards the cafe the other way, noticing that the high iron gates which used to lead into the Sacred Heart section were now leaning up against one of the walls. They must have only recently been pulled down. A shiver of disquiet went through her when she saw the heavy hot water pipe along the top. At least one girl had been badly burnt trying to escape over that gate.
Cecilia hesitated a moment, then walked straight into the enclosure and stared at the bleak grey cement buildings that surrounded her on every side. She’d seen it first as a nineteen-year-old postulant, but now the miserable reality of the place stunned her. With no women and girls to break the monotony, the main purpose of the ugly buildings was so … obvious. She took hold of the iron balustrade and stared at the high walls, the barbed wire. It was a prison.
No, it wasn’t.
Yes, it was.
The huge laundry complex was up one end and the little chapel down the other, and only one tree to relieve the drabness.
She saw herself in her early twenties, not yet fully professed, locking the gates on the girls when it was time to go to her own lunch. How relieved she’d been to get away from the clank of the machines, the never-ending baskets of sheets and tablecloths and shirts, the sullen faces of the girls working in the heat, the smell of their sweat and their periods. That room where they changed their rags!
Why hadn’t she ever suggested painting the wooden window frames a bright colour or insisted that there be some pot plants for the girls to tend? Why hadn’t she demanded the younger girls go to school for at least part of the day? To be put to such hard work in the laundry at age fourteen, fifteen or sixteen for a full day was cruel. Anything! If she’d just said … anything.
When had she ever asked a question? Cecilia leant by the wall, memories gnawing at the edges of her brain. Because to ask why was always wrong. It meant you hadn’t learnt the first thing about the life you had freely chosen. She closed her eyes, overcome with an odd sensation that her who
le self was being sucked down a long grey pipe and out into an empty nothingness.
1966
‘Why are you a nun, Mother?’ Lizzie asked. She was such a pretty girl with a long childish plait of blonde hair down her back and blue mischievous eyes that sparkled when she spoke. Cecilia could discern a real inquiry underneath the bold question from the girl not much younger than herself.
‘Well, a vocation is like a calling, Lizzie.’
‘But you’re pretty,’ the girl interrupted with a smile, ‘you could get a bloke.’
Cecilia had been about to answer that prettiness had nothing to do with it and nor did ‘blokes’ for that matter, when they were interrupted by Mother Michael the Archangel, who’d sidled up behind them without either of them noticing.
‘Off you go now,’ the older nun had snapped at the girl.
‘Mother, I was just—’
‘I know what you were just doing, and if you don’t want to miss out on the film on Sunday night you’ll do as you’re told!’
The girl trudged off to join her friends and Cecilia was left looking after her.
‘Remember, Sister, it is a mistake to fraternise with the girls.’
‘Mother, she was only asking—’
‘It is not our job to answer their questions, Sister.’
Cecilia had seethed for the next hour. Why hadn’t she been able to answer the girl’s question? It just didn’t make sense.
But by the Saturday night Cecilia had convinced herself that she was in the wrong. To question her Superior’s wisdom was tantamount to disobedience. And so when her turn came she confessed the incident to the rest of the congregation. ‘I want to confess that I questioned Mother Michael’s advice and I solemnly ask forgiveness and I ask that you pray for me.’
But the incident had left her feeling rattled. Was there no end to this daily struggle with herself? True, some days were better. She’d go through the whole day in a state of placid indifference to such petty things as whether the food was to her liking or that her body felt grimy and unclean. At the end of such days she was buoyed by the fact that she was getting on top of it all, moving closer to the goal of true holiness.
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