The Convent

by Maureen McCarthy

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  She shrugs. ‘I’m a lot better now.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Tell us.’

  ‘Later. Dad misses you so much,’ she says, taking hold of her battered case. ‘I just hated leaving him but … he has to see his poor old mum out. There is no one else. And I needed to get home to my girls.’

  We head out into the fresh blue day, and Cassie leads us towards the car.

  ‘What a job you’ve done with Stella,’ Mum whispers in my ear when we’re getting in the car to drive home.

  I have to shake my head. ‘It’s all her doing, Mum, honestly.’

  In the car, Mum begins the usual after-flight babble.

  ‘Is the house still standing?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Is the garden still alive?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Was Christmas really okay?’

  ‘Yes, Mum!’

  She tells us in a jumbled way about the trip, the people she met, and the fun they were having, and then about Dad’s mother. And the months they’ve spent at her bedside, expecting her to die every day, and the amazing way she rallied when her only son was with her.

  ‘It’s like she’s hanging on so they can have a bit of uninterrupted time together at last.’

  ‘How old is she now?’

  ‘Nearly ninety.’ Mum sighs and winds down the window. ‘Oh, this fresh air is making me drunk! You know, I really wish you girls could have known her.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘Such a lively woman! Tough too, of course, except she can hardly speak now.’

  ‘Not as nice as your mum, though?’ Stella says innocently.

  ‘No way!’ Mum says, and we all laugh.

  Mum and me are in the back seat and Stella is with Cassie in the front.

  ‘How is Stephano?’ Mum calls to Cass, and I listen to them talking about Stephano’s latest magnificent achievements, thinking of my other grandmother, Ellen, in the country.

  Then Mum begins to cough and cough and cough. It just goes on and on. It’s the worst cough I’ve ever heard, and in the end she has to ask Cassie to stop so she can get some medicine out of her case.

  ‘Look at you!’ Mum exclaims as Det opens the door for us when we get home. ‘Just look at you!’ There are tears in her eyes and her hands go straight to Det’s huge belly.

  ‘Get a grip, Elizabeth,’ Det says, but she turns side-on so Mum can get a better look at her bulge.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  ‘So, boy or girl?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Det shrugs.

  ‘You care?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Long as it’s healthy,’ we all chorus together.

  Det’s one culinary skill is scones, and she’s made mountains of them to welcome Mum home. The smell is absolutely wonderful. Bowls of cream and jam sit on the table. Cups are out and everything looks festive.

  ‘Why do this to me?’ Stella moans.

  ‘It’s a special occasion,’ I say tentatively, ‘maybe you can have one or—’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’ll give you a dispensation.’ Det flicks Stella with her tea towel.

  Mum pats Stella. ‘Just a little bit won’t hurt, will it?’

  ‘Fluke has got me new scales,’ Stella wails, ‘and there’s a weigh-in tomorrow morning!’

  ‘Fluke?’ Mum looks at me.

  ‘Ask her.’

  ‘Fluke is my weight-loss guru,’ Stella says.

  ‘You mean Fluke Robinson?’

  ‘The very one,’ I say dryly.

  ‘He’s fantastic!’ Stella sits up.

  ‘But what does he know about losing weight?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say.

  ‘Peach’s nose is way out of joint,’ Det sings.

  ‘It’s working,’ Stella snaps defensively.

  ‘Well, if you’re happy, that’s wonderful,’ Mum soothes. She looks at Det. ‘How did you know I’ve been dreaming about your scones?’

  We sit down and Det serves the tea and describes the feelings of tiredness and aching legs she’s been having and how she wishes it was over. And Mum goes into doctor mode explaining what is happening, feeling Det’s tummy this way and that, and asking questions.

  I sit back and listen, trying not to be offended because Det has said more to my mum in the past minute or two about being pregnant than she has in the last eight and a half months to me.

  Stella sits eyeing off the food like a hungry lioness. I can tell it’s killing her to see some of the scones left begging on the plate. Her eyes keep edging back to the table. When everyone is more or less finished she dips her finger in the cream and brings it to her mouth, and when she thinks no one will notice she casually does the same with the jam.

  ‘Stella,’ Cassie says warningly, ‘no.’

  ‘Have a friggin’ scone, Stella,’ Det growls and pops one on her plate.

  This is too much for Stella. She picks it up and breaks it in two.

  ‘Don’t undermine her, Det,’ Cassie says sharply and smacks the scone right out of Stella’s hand before it reaches her mouth. It rolls under the table.

  ‘Let her eat it!’ Det orders.

  ‘No!’

  Stella dives under the table and has already stuffed the scone into her mouth by the time she is sitting up in her chair again.

  I don’t really know why we all start laughing, but when I get up to clear the dishes I fall over and drop two cups on the kitchen floor. That only makes us laugh harder.

  ‘I’ve got appendicitis,’ Cassie groans after a while, holding her belly. ‘I’ll die if this doesn’t stop soon.’

  ‘And I’ve got a baby.’ Det leans against the wall, holding onto her belly too. ‘Which is worse.’

  ‘And I’m starving, which is much worse,’ Stella shouts.

  ‘Please stop laughing, Det. Please!’

  ‘Why me?’ Det sounds as if she is choking.

  ‘The baby …’

  ‘What if she has it here?’ Stella squeals.

  ‘Go on, Det!’ We shriek with laughter. ‘Have it here. Now!’

  When we come to our senses I look across at my mother only to find her looking at me, and there is such love in her eyes it makes me want to fall on the floor and bawl my eyes out.

  But we just smile at each other and look away.

  When I come out from my shower the next morning, Stella, Det and Mum are sitting at the table drinking tea and I … I just know that she knows what has been going on. Mum looks more frazzled and worn out than she did the night before, and it makes me frightened to see her so. I look at the others.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I pour my tea and get the milk and sit down.

  No one speaks.

  ‘I’ve just heard about the trip up to … Castlemaine,’ Mum begins. I nod and concentrate on my tea. They are all looking at me and so I get up and put in some toast.

  ‘And Det has met her. Your … birth mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you okay about it all?’ she asks tentatively and when I look up I suddenly see the fear in her eyes, and I know what I’ve always known to be true, although nothing was ever said – this stuff is actually huge for her. I’m overcome with guilt. She has come home, sick, only to find that she has to start being brave about one of her deepest fears.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I shrug. ‘I suppose.’

  Mum gets up and stands looking out the window.

  When I go to her I see that her face is ashen and drawn. ‘What is it, Mum?’

  ‘Sorry, but … I just hate her now,’ Mum whispers.

  What? This is so not Mum. What happened to the idea of being appreciative of my birth mother? The idea that she’d given Mum the most precious gift in the world?

  ‘Mum, what do you mean?’

  ‘Of course you’ve got to meet her.’ Mum is wringing her hands wildly. ‘But
if she thinks she can muscle in on your life and upset you and the rest of us … If she thinks she can somehow be part of this family, then she has another think coming!’

  ‘She won’t, Mum! I promise. I won’t let her!’

  Mum bursts into tears and I take her in my arms and she feels as thin and fragile as a tiny bird, all skin and bone. ‘You’ll always be my mum,’ I tell her. ‘You told me that and I believed you.’

  ‘But you were little then!’ she cries desperately. ‘Now you’re an adult!’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘When you see her you might feel differently.’

  ‘I won’t, Mum.’

  ‘But you don’t know!’ she sobs. ‘None of us knows.’

  It turns out that Mum is really sick. It takes a while for the doctors to work out that she has picked up a very nasty parasite, and by the time they do she is worse. Her immune system is run down and the drugs she has to take are very strong. Basically she has to stay in bed to let them do their work. You would think her being a doctor would make her understand what she has to do to get well, but the opposite seems to be true. She is the worst patient. As soon as she regains a little energy she is up wanting to get on with everything. Within an hour or two of rushing around ringing people up and organising things she collapses in a heap, unable to even get up to her feet. In the end Stella takes over and starts bossing her around.

  I write to Ellen to tell her that my mother is home and sick and that the trip to the cemetery must be postponed. She writes a nice letter back. But even in the few months since I got that first letter her handwriting has gone downhill. The words on the envelope have taken on a shaky, fragile quality that wasn’t there before. What if she dies? I will never forgive myself. I so very much want to take her to her mother’s grave. I owe her that much.

  It is an astonishing thing to admit, but … I love that old woman. A few letters and a visit and she feels part of me in some weird way.

  Cecilia 1979

  It was more out of curiosity than anything else that Cecilia went along to hear the priest speak at a seminar called The Church in the Third World. He turned out to be just as mesmerising as the first time she’d heard him all those years before. It pleased her so much to see that the fire was still in his belly.

  She was wearing a long red skirt with boots and a fitted black jumper. Her hair had grown and was blonde and curly, spilling all over the place. When the talk was over she decided not to approach him. Apart from the fact that he probably wouldn’t recognise her out of the nun’s habit, she was nervous. Her life had begun to ever-so-gradually come together. She was living on her own in the city, she had a job and a plan to go overseas as soon as she could.

  But on her way out of the room she met a couple of older women she recognised and stopped to talk. After ten minutes of chitchat she was at the point of saying goodbye to them when she felt a hand on her arm. She turned around to find him standing there smiling at her, and it was as if someone had pulled open a blind in a dark room and let a flood of bright sunlight in.

  ‘Annunciata,’ he grinned, ‘so you did leave!’

  ‘Yes. And it’s Cecilia now.’

  ‘I couldn’t believe it when I looked down and saw you.’ His eyes had the same warmth, and so did his smile.

  ‘Here I am.’

  ‘So, you’re working?’

  ‘Yes. Teaching.’

  ‘What are your plans?’

  ‘I want to go overseas.’

  ‘Good.’

  They went for a cup of coffee and exchanged information. There was so much to talk about and not enough time and so they agreed to meet again the following day.

  Cecilia made tea and they sat on the floor of her tiny apartment. Did it begin with hands touching? Maybe just a thumb stroking the inside of her wrist as they jabbered on about … What did they talk about? A lot of the talk was about God. God and Mission and Life and Politics. They were two idealists in love with the grand order, wanting to put things right, wanting to find the right way to live. They wanted all the good in their hearts to connect up with the way they lived their lives in the world.

  But in the end they were just two bodies gravitating towards each other as nature intended. Cecilia was thirty-five and had never been with a man before. Peter was nearly forty and had entered the seminary at twenty-three, living a celibate life since. But what they lacked in expertise they made up for in desire and, yes, love. It was love-making in the truest sense of the word and it was wonderful. He wasn’t a handsome man exactly, his features were too roughly hewn, his nose too big, the chin his brows too heavy and yet … his eyes were so warm and bright, and his mouth was moving all the time, smiling, laughing and screwing up with concentration, trying to understand things. The dark, coarse hair springing from his head reminded Cecilia of a horse’s mane. When she wasn’t with him she yearned to feel it in her hands, up against her arm, rubbing like a soft brush against the skin of her breasts.

  What saved them, or perhaps doomed them depending on how you wanted to look at it, was the fact that he was due back at his mission in the Philippines in a few weeks.

  ‘So, do you make a habit of this, Peter?’ Cecilia asked.

  ‘What?’ he said dreamily.

  ‘Sleeping with women?’

  ‘No!’ he said, shocked, sitting up. ‘Why would you think that?’

  They were lying on her narrow bed with bodies still entwined. Cecilia was high on the warmth of him and the hair on his arms and the fact that his face was pressed up against her ear.

  ‘Why not? You’re handsome. There would be plenty of opportunity … everywhere you go.’

  ‘I’m a priest,’ he said, as though that was adequate.

  ‘And yet here you are,’ she said.

  He said nothing for a while. Then he spoke quietly into her ear. ‘Some priests can live dual lives, Cecilia, but not me. I’ve got to be able to look the people in the face. I owe it to them to be who I say I am.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘Marry me.’

  ‘What?’ It was Cecilia’s turn to sit up.

  ‘I’ll leave the priesthood if you’ll marry me.’

  She was overwhelmed, terrified because she could see he meant it.

  And she almost said yes. Let’s buy a house together and have a family.Let’s go on picnics and barrack for the Bombers.

  But in the end she couldn’t. She knew his heart was with his work, and she didn’t want to stop him being able to do the tough, great things he was doing. Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d broken her own solemn vows? The idea of being the cause of someone else doing the same would have been too much to bear.

  The right to personal happiness was not something she’d ever taken all that seriously. It was more important to live with integrity, and that was proving difficult enough. To take the hard road through the narrow gate. The road that leads to Life.

  And so they’d parted without any agreement to meet up again or even to write.

  It was over.

  He would confess his fall from grace to his brothers in Christ and get on with his work. She would finish her Diploma of Education and get a job overseas.

  Neither of them had any idea then that there was a child involved.

  Peach

  Sometimes the most extraordinary days begin in such an ordinary way. I wake on the morning of Det’s launch to the now-familiar sound of Stella coming in from her run with Fluke. She barges around the kitchen whistling and singing, getting the coffee. Mum must be downstairs too, because I can hear both their voices.

  I watch the light playing across the top of my bed and wonder idly how many will turn up to the launch. We all want Det to do well out of it financially. Apart from two paintings which are still not completely dry, all the work was hung two days ago and the final two go up this afternoon.

  I go downstairs and find Mum and Stella sitting at the table, and Cassie, dressed uncharacteristically in old stretch pants, is at t
he door on her way out and looking agitated.

  ‘Cassie?’

  ‘Mild pains on and off yesterday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have a guess!’

  ‘But … it isn’t due yet!’

  ‘False alarms happen all the time.’ Mum shrugs. ‘Stop panicking.’

  ‘She can’t have it today,’ Cassie declares. ‘Elizabeth, is there something we can give her to stop it?’ Mum and Stella and me raise our eyebrows at each other. ‘I don’t mean anything drastic!’

  ‘Some little pill, Mum?’ I laugh.

  ‘I only mean something to see her through the launch.’

  ‘Not really, Cass,’ Mum says mildly. ‘Odds on it will all be fine, though. First babies are usually late, not early.’

  After uni I go down to the convent, where they are hanging the final two paintings. Det’s in the middle of the room yelling at some guy that one painting should be higher and that another isn’t in the right spot and that another isn’t straight.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She looks at me like I’m stupid.

  ‘You … having pains or something?’

  ‘No …’ ‘So?’

  ‘How is your mum feeling?’ Det asks.

  ‘Bit better.’

  ‘I want her here tonight.’

  ‘She’s planning to come.’

  But when I get home Mum says even though she feels so much better she won’t be able to manage the launch. She’ll go see the paintings during the week when she feels stronger.

  ‘Will you be okay here tonight on your own?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I run my eye over the list of guests. Apart from our friends, most of the names are unknown to me except for … Fluke. I consider garrotting Stella, but decide that it’s not worth the effort.

  ‘Who asked him?’ I say. As though I don’t know.

  ‘Me.’ Stella is completely easy about it.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s my friend now.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He and I haven’t set eyes on each other since the Castlemaine incident, even though he and Stella have been running almost every day. He never responded to my phone message, which is humiliating. And Cassie has told me privately that she’s seen him twice eating Saturday breakfast with some girl in a Fitzroy cafe. Of course I’m desperate to know who the girl is. Cassie didn’t know, but said she’d find out. When I pressed her she admitted that the girl was very good-looking.