‘You go home,’ I say when Stella clicks off the phone from telling Mum what has happened. ‘I’ll just go up and make sure Det’s studio is locked.’
‘You want us to wait?’
‘No thanks.’
I don’t turn the light on immediately but stand against the door and breathe in the faint smells of sweat and blood that are still there in spite of the half-opened window.
How strange to be in this quiet room now when less than half an hour ago it was filled with people, and the noise and drama of someone being born. I walk over to the window and look out.
I can just see Stella in the dim light standing near the gate with Nick, along with some other figure I can’t make out. Three dark shapes in the strange light. Remnants of the launch crowd trickle past them, chattering and laughing and calling their goodbyes as they make their way towards the big gates.
Across from me is the other wing of the convent, so pretty with the few yellow lights blazing, and above it the spires and roofline against the big, bright, star-filled sky.
Did she come tonight, I wonder. The launch was well advertised. Did my mother sneak in to look at Det’s paintings? Did she see Blood Ties too?
A baby has been born in this very room and it fills me with an odd kind of wonder. I know it happens a million times every day in every country, yet I feel as though I have just witnessed a miracle.
Tonight I need God and … not just any God. I don’t want some vengeful old man in the sky, or some self-proclaimed prophet hanging on a cross. I don’t want Zeus or Buddha or Shiva.
I want someone or something bigger than me to care about this child. Not only that, I need that same being to be prepared to put in motion all that needs to happen for that little boy to be safe. I’m not saying I believe this will happen, only that I must at least ask. So where do I find God?
It’s not my father or my mother, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer …
Not my father or my mother but … me.
The old spiritual that we sang at my last school speech night comes to mind. I remember liking it at the time, all the the sadness and the longing in it. I had no idea what it was about then, but I do now.
That’s what I need. Prayer. But how do you do it? I don’t kneel down. That would be too much. But I stand with my elbows on the windowsill. I close my eyes and try to conjure up something that feels like God. It shouldn’t be that difficult, I tell myself; after all, my own mother presumably did this every single day at my age in a room just like this one. And my grandmother is still doing it.
But it turns out I’m no good at praying. I only get as far as a star-spangled sky with galaxies gliding grandly through space, our little planet so tiny and helpless, spinning around the outside of the sun, and a sort of cosmic breath blowing through it all and … I lose focus. The whole edifice crumbles away.
I have come into this room to find God and … he isn’t here.
I pull down the window, lock Det’s room and walk downstairs into the night. I let myself out the side door and through the main gate.
Passing the big bluestone church, I see that the door is open and I walk into its gloomy interior. There is some kind of ceremony going on. I don’t know what it is, but an old priest is tottering around mumbling something; there are only a few other lonely souls in the pews.
I walk up the aisle and park myself in one of the pews and stare up at the mural above the altar.
Mary is ascending through the clouds towards heaven, with a legion of angels accompanying her on either side. Hands joined in prayer, she is on her way to some better place. Her expression is serene rather than happy, as though she might be holding a great secret. My grandmother would have seen this image every morning at Mass and likewise my mother.
And now … here I am.
But my knowledge of Mary is as scant as my knowledge of her son. Jewish and poor, she had a baby in a stable and then had to watch that same child get horribly murdered thirty-three years later. And now, two thousand years after the event, here she is caught mid-flight on her way to the next life.
We have all fallen in love with a baby, I tell the floating woman swathed in veils and soft drapery as she glides through the clouds. Please help her. Let her find a way to keep him.
When I open my eyes, the woman is still drifting peacefully upwards through the clouds. Around me the polished wood shines in the light of the small lamps, and the low mumbled prayers of the old ones continue. It is easy for me to forget who I am and where I belong.
When I come out of the church I see just one dark figure waiting by the gate, and my heart skips a beat.
I hope it is who I think it is, and … I hope he is waiting for me.
Fluke is driving. Here we are, travelling east out of Melbourne towards Springvale and I’m so damned nervous I can’t sit still.
In spite of a few downpours over the summer, the state is still very dry. For the third year in a row there are water restrictions and bushfire warnings in place. But now the bright autumn afternoon is closing over right in front us. The blue has all but gone, leaving the air dank and grey. Colours take on an unnatural, almost spooky, intensity in that dim light. It is going to pour. Good news.
I ask Fluke if he minds if we have the radio off. But the silence is too much so I turn it on again. He puts a hand on my knee and I flinch like a horse.
‘It will be okay,’ he says. We pull up at the entrance. ‘You’ve got the map?’
I nod and take it from my coat pocket.
He bends over my shoulder and points to our position and then traces the route I have to take with his finger. ‘Just walk through the gates, turn right and follow this path,’ he says. The smell of him makes me heady for a second, until I remember that I am here on another mission altogether.
‘What if they’re not here?’ I say.
‘They’ll be here,’ he says. ‘I’ll wait.’ He pulls a book with a picture of the ocean on the front out of the glove box. ‘Take as long as you like, Peach.’
I walk past rows and rows of straight, neat rose bushes with plaques underneath. Part of me wishes I was lost, but every signpost corresponds exactly to the map. What sort of person would want to meet you for the first time in a cemetery?
You’re nineteen years old. You can handle this.
I come to a patch of ground with trees and a few old-fashioned gravestones lying about in no particular order. They look odd in this straitlaced place, like a group of old-timers sitting hunched over the bar in their local pub staring at the newcomers who are too well dressed and neat and making too much noise. I see a couple of women standing on a slight incline looking at me.
This is it. One foot in front of the other or … you could still run.
‘Perpetua.’ Ellen comes towards me, smiling, both arms outstretched.
‘Hello, Ellen,’ I hug her back. She grabs me by both wrists and looks me up and down a few times, staring right into my face, and I see that she has aged even since I last saw her. She is more stooped under her navy-blue winter coat, and her faded grey hair seems thinner. But her eyes are still bright. She turns around to the other woman.
‘And this is your …’ She stops, flustered, but I’m not in any position to help.
‘I’m Cecilia,’ the other woman says.
I nod, biting my lip, hardly daring to look at her face. When I do, I want to laugh. We are exactly the same height, both fine-boned with bright blue eyes and fair, curly shoulder-length hair pulled up at the back in exactly the same way. She is wearing a red coat, and so am I. The deep red lipstick and gold rings in her ears make her look quite glamorous and I have a moment to think, Wow! So this is how I’m going to end up when I’m in my fifties!
I’m not wearing make-up, but I’ve got jeans on and so does she. Hers are tucked into classy red-leather high-heeled boots; mine are black and flat, but we’ve both got small feet.
She gives me a shaky smile and holds out both hands. I give mine to her.<
br />
‘So good to meet you,’ she says. Her eyes are full of tears, but she makes no move towards me. We stand there staring at each other. Her voice is vaguely familiar.
‘I feel as if I have met you already,’ I say.
‘We spoke at the convent one day.’
‘Oh.’
‘I was in disguise.’ She smiles. ‘Sunglasses and a hat.’
‘Oh.’
‘I overheard you telling someone you didn’t like your name,’ she blurts out nervously, ‘one day when I was having coffee and you were collecting the plates.’
‘Really?’ I say. ‘I have no recollection.’
‘Well, it wasn’t … important.’
‘I tend to go onto autopilot at work,’ I mumble by way of explanation.
‘Did your friend have her baby?’
‘Yes. A boy.’
‘What did she call him?’
‘Gabriel.’
We all smile at that.
‘And is she well?’
‘Yes. Det is fine.’
‘And the baby?’
‘Yes.’ I smile, remembering Gabriel that morning in his pram in our kitchen, his black hair sticking up like a punk, so solemn and thoughtful, watching us watching him. Nick calls him Buddha because he seems to know so much already. When he smiles for no reason and kicks his feet like he is having the best time, I swear that the whole world is smiling too.
‘And this is my mother.’ Ellen points down at the brass plaque on the ground beside us. ‘Was my mother, I should say. I wanted you both to see it before … I go.’
‘Go?’
‘Well, I am nearly eighty-nine,’ she says.
Sarah Reynolds (Sadie). Much loved.
1889 – 1935.
Cecilia squats down and runs her hand over the edges of the plaque.
‘This is really something, Mum,’ she says without looking up. ‘Thanks for bringing us here.’
‘Thank your daughter. I mean …’ Ellen flounders with embarrassment, ‘Perpetua is the one who found the site.’
‘It’s okay, Ellen,’ I say gently.
‘I just thought …’ Her voice trails away in confusion. ‘She belongs to you both as well.’
The situation is thick with tension. Poor old Ellen is fiddling nervously with the buttons on her coat. A family group passes. A man holding a little girl, and his wife holding the hands of two nicely dressed boys. Ellen looks at them longingly as if she’d like to be part of their group. I don’t blame her. She bends down to rub one foot where her shoes are cutting into her.
‘You feel like a cup of tea?’ I say.
‘Oh!’ Relief fills her old face. ‘Do I what?’
‘There is a cafe right near the entrance.’ I look at Cecilia who nods.
‘Let’s go then, before the rain starts.’
We walk along the well-kept paths and I breathe in the stillness of the place. All the rose bushes. All the dead people. All the lives already over.
Dark clouds hover low, and it seems as though the whole world is on the brink, waiting for the right moment to lay itself bare and spill out its furious secrets.
‘Send it down, Hughie,’ I whisper, and think of Dad, the way he always says that before rain. I think of the creases around his eyes and how one side of his mouth goes up higher than the other when he smiles. Almost on cue there is a loud crack of thunder and the first hard bite of rain hits the skin of my face.
Ellen gasps and begins to hurry.
I take her arm and Cecilia takes the other.
‘Not far now,’ I say, thinking that just to be alive is probably enough. I mean, here and now and alive. I think of the many millions already gone and think of those that never got a chance to live, and when we reach the cafe I open the door and smile.
‘We made it,’ I say, ushering them inside first.
‘We did,’ Cecilia laughs.
Ellen hurries over to the nearest table, shakes off her coat and sits down.
We made it.
Sadie, Ellen, Cecilia and me.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book was on my mind well before I put pen to paper. Recently I found a note to myself dated November 1991:
Must look closer into where Mum grew up! How come she ended up in the Abbotsford Convent? Why won’t she ever talk about that? What actually happened to her mother, I wonder? Who was her father? Why did he put her in that place at three years old when he lived so nearby? He came to see her every Sunday but … who was he? Feel strongly about all this for some reason. Might make an interesting story. Too close to the bone maybe?
So the essential starting point was there, twenty-one years ago.
My mother lived as a ward of the state at the Abbotsford Convent in the 1920s, from the age of three to fifteen and I heard many vivid stories of life behind those high walls – about the eccentricities of the nuns and other girls, the special feast days, the end-of-year concerts, the violin classes held under the broad branches of the Separation Tree in summer, the annual elocution competition and poetry prize, along with Archbishop Mannix’s weekly visits to take tea with the Reverend Mother. My mother was a positive woman and so her stories were mainly positive. At the Convent she learned to play violin and piano well, and passed her exams with flying colours. But why she was made a ward of the state when both her parents were still alive was never open for discussion. When pressed, she’d resort to clichés to fob us off. ‘No point raking over dead coals,’ she’d say. ‘We didn’t ask questions then’ or ‘Why wash dirty linen in public?’
Living in an age when everything is spoken about, it is hard for us to remember that things used to be so radically different. The shame of my mother’s illegitimacy and her ignorance about her early life was a pain that sat deep within her for the rest of her life. I believe she was barely able to think about it, much less talk openly of it.
A few things coincided over the last few years to firm my resolve to tackle this project. Mum died, and so I felt free to pursue the story without stepping on her toes. Then my elder sister, who in a previous life had been a nun for twelve years, moved back to Victoria. Talking with her about why she’d chosen the religious life all those years ago further ignited my interest. I was living in Collingwood by then – only a short walk from the Convent – and so the place and its magnificent surrounds, the cafes and former nuns’ cells transformed into rented studios, were now part of my neighborhood. Each time I visited the place, the stronger became my sense of proprietorship. This is my place and … I’m going to write a book about it!
By the time I did get around to actually beginning the book, my focus had widened. I decided that my mother’s story should be told in the context of a bigger exploration of some of the Convent’s history and so, some time later, armed with an Australia Council grant and a publishing contract, I hired one of those studios as my new workspace and set to work.
Most of the research involved meeting with people whose lives had intersected with the Convent at various points in its history: nuns and ex-nuns, pupils and of course the ‘fallen’ women whose young lives had been spent working the huge commercial laundry. Some of these latter were bitter about the way their lives had been stolen from them. Others spoke warmly of individual nuns even as they described the harshness of the daily routine and laundry work. The pathos and poignancy of their stories were as compelling as the nun’s stories.
History is so often told from the male point of view, with the female experience either ignored or trivialised. The Convent was home to an enclosed community of hundreds of Good Shepherd nuns for more than a century, along with the thousands of girls and women in their care. Behind the high walls and with the varied communal spaces of dormitories and refectories, gardens, schools and kitchens they lived lives very different to our own. And so it was from a strong personal connection and a desire to explore some of that untold female history that I set out to research and write this novel.
Once I decided on the basic structure
of four generations within the one family, everything just seemed to fall into place. I suppose because so much of it was there in my own background. I had the relinquishing mother (my grandmother), the orphan (my mother), the nun (my sister) and the present-day student (my friend’s daughter) working a summer job in one of the Convent cafés: they were all there, in my own life. Many of the deeper issues to do with religious faith and family tension were based on what I’d seen and heard, felt and believed. The ceremonies, the music, the prayers and ways of thinking were so familiar to me that writing the book felt a bit like coming home after a long time away.
Like no other book I’ve written The Convent feels like mine!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing a novel can be a fraught and lonely business at times. And losing heart is just part of the game. I want to thank so many people who helped me to the finishing line.
In particular, Erica Wagner and Susannah Chambers from Allen & Unwin. Your enthusiasm and support of my work over the last few years has been unwavering. That you both managed to turn it up a notch or two for The Convent says a lot about what fine publishers you are. Thanks for all your hard work.
My very sincere gratitude to the Literature Board of the Australia Council and Arts Victoria for grants enabling me to complete this project on time.
My sincere thanks go to members of the Good Shepherd Community, who agreed to meet and talk with me. Special thanks to Sister Bernadette Fox, who in spite of ill health, was kind enough to see me a number of times, to answer questions as well as write a letter of support on my behalf. (And thanks to Mary Dalmau from Reader’s Feast for putting me in touch with Sister Bernadette.) Thanks to Sister Monica Walsh, for showing me around the Convent, giving me a sense of when and where things happened, along with some lovely memories of being a young novice at Abbotsford back in the sixties. Thanks to Suzanne Gardiner who was a member of the Good Shepherd Community at Abbotsford for fifteen years. I really hope that some of her warmth and humour have managed to seep into the pages of my book. Thanks to Sue Gorden as well, who took the time to talk to me at length about her motivation and experiences as a Good Shepherd sister for around five years in the late sixties.
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