Sisters of the East End

by Helen Batten

  ‘That sounds rather exciting.’

  ‘Well, I think there is a fundamental difference between Roman Catholic and Anglican Communities. Most of our Sisters have become nuns for reasons of their family background, tradition, because a lady of the family always did become a nun. In your case you have made a choice based on conviction alone.’

  She gave a mischievous grin.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. You only have to look at how many of our Sisters are leaving now to know that this was a path not of true vocation but of earthly considerations.’

  It was true. In the years following Vatican II many nuns left their Communities, unable to cope with the change.

  So there I was, preparing to join a way of life that most other people seemed to be fleeing from. The next day I started my obligatory four-day retreat before taking my vows. As I wandered through the woods surrounding the Mother House between my long hours of prayer, I pondered the seminar and it seemed to me that, as is often the case, the most profound bit of the day was not the formal agenda, but the encounter round the edges. For me, God was at work in my meeting with Sister Sophia. We were not diluted, I was called and I was called into a life that was changing and opening up. There were opportunities to bring God closer to the world and part of my calling was not to be a barrier to the winds of change but to go with the spirit and take down the barriers, add my own breath and life to it. God was moving and taking me with Him.

  My life profession was to take place in the middle of the early morning Eucharist in the chapel at the Mother House in Hastings. I couldn’t quite believe that because it started at 6.30 a.m. It would all be over by breakfast. ‘The Bishop of Chichester is having an early start,’ I thought to myself as I removed the silver Sister’s ring from my right hand and put on my new habit. I was having a late start – I hadn’t slept, but had spent all night in prayer.

  In the chapel the service ran smoothly as it did every day, the familiarity of the words seeming too casual for the step I was about to take. But after the Gospel reading, it all started to happen. I was asked to step forward, the Bishop asked me a series of questions and I read my ‘Declaration of Profession’, which was signed and witnessed, and which I then placed on the altar. My signature was shaky; Mother Sarah Grace’s much more firm. Then Mother Sarah Grace solemnly put a girdle around my waist that had three knots in it, symbolising the three vows of poverty, consecrated celibacy and obedience. The Bishop placed a gold ring on my right hand to be an outward symbol of my consecration to Christ and someone gave me a bunch of three white carnations symbolising my vows.

  I stood there feeling awkward and thought, ‘these will have to go’, and then wondered why I was having the thought. Then unbidden the words ‘revolution from within’ came into my head and I felt guilty. It was as if no sooner did I make what was supposed to be the final step up the ladder then a whole new radical subversive one was opening up. When the service was over, I quietly went round to the side chapel and placed the carnations in the vase in front of the Statue of the Virgin Mary. There, as the early morning sun sent a shaft of light onto my head, I made my own little pact with the Divine: ‘I’m going to work to take down all those barriers that come between me and You, I promise.’

  A few years later I saw Ivy Bucket in the chemist’s, but she wasn’t in the queue: she was in a uniform, standing behind the till.

  ‘Oh, hello, Ivy. What are you doing here?’ I asked, intrigued.

  ‘Morning, Sister, I’ve got a job.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yes. I was fed up sat in that bleedin’ tower block all on my ownsome.’

  ‘Good for you!’

  ‘Yes, well, the kids are all at school and as you know, I’m not going to get up in the Pudding Club again.’

  She gave me a wink.

  ‘I’ve got me own bread and honey now and if I make it, I keeps it, and he can’t blow it on the dogs.’

  I took another look at Ivy. Her hair was tidy and had been cut in a fashionable bob – in fact, it might have even changed colour slightly – and she was wearing pale pink lipstick and eyeliner. She was looking years younger.

  ‘You look very well, Ivy. Work is obviously suiting you.’

  ‘Oh, it is, Sister! It’s good to get out and meet new people. I’ve got a whole new lease of life.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed! God bless progress, eh?’

  ‘Yes, Sister, thank the Lord!’

  The next thing I heard, she’d run off with the chemist …

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

  ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ is a famous Rolling Stones song. The lyrics then go on to point out that if you try, then you do sometimes get what you need. I heard the song playing on the radio in many of the houses I visited at this time in my life, and it never failed to put a wry smile on my face. Indeed, Amen.

  In my first month at the Community I had been taken aside by Mother Sarah Grace and given a special mission.

  ‘Sister Catherine Mary, this Community only survives and thrives through its members. We are a family and like all families, we need a new generation in order to grow and prosper, and prevent the Community from dying out. Of course we all regularly pray to the Lord to send new members to us. However, it is the special job of our newest addition to pray with great earnest for a new Sister. I want you to apply yourself with diligence to this task,’ she said, before adding seriously, ‘Do you understand, my child?’

  I nodded obediently and applied myself by including in my prayers every day without fail the request for a new recruit. But as the days turned to years and no one turned up (or at least no one who stayed), veiled comments about the lack of interest from the outside world began to seem like a personal reproach; as if I wasn’t praying hard enough or in the right way. It wasn’t through lack of desire; I was only too aware that since Cecilia had left, the nearest Sister in age to me was 15 years older. I longed to sit at the table with someone who had at least been born within ten years of me. It was fun to have the pupil midwives around, but I could only join in and get close to them to a certain extent; my habit created a real boundary. Of course it would also be something of a relief not to be the lowest in the religious pecking order.

  There were some false dawns. Word would get round that someone with an interest in the religious life was on her way. I used to get quite excited, but after a while I learned not to get my hopes up. People came and went. Some stayed a few months, others a couple of years, but for different reasons they all turned out not to be called to the religious life. A couple left of their own accord, one was ill, and then there were a couple who were gently told they were not suitable because it wasn’t right for them.

  The Community of St John the Divine had never been large. Even at its largest in the 1930s there had only ever been 30 or so Sisters. Our Community only wanted people they believed were called. There was one person who stayed for quite a while, but despite her intelligence and religious commitment, she found it difficult to move among us. There were arguments and atmospheres, and she was gently advised that life in Community was not for her. She regularly applied to rejoin, but her requests were always turned down. I began to lose hope, but eventually someone came to test their vocation who did stay.

  Sister Ruth took me aside, looking almost excited.

  ‘Next week we have a novice coming to Poplar! Yes, Marie-Louise will be joining us.’

  She paused as if for dramatic effect.

  ‘She has started her novitiate at the Mother House and Mother Sarah Grace has asked that she start her midwifery training with us. She will be spending a couple of weeks here before going to the London Lying-In Hospital for her Part One and of course will then return here to complete Part Two. I would like you to look after her for the next couple of weeks – show her around, take her on your rounds with you. Take care of her, she shows great promise.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Sister.’


  There was another pause and then she said something a little off piste.

  ‘You must be so pleased. Well done!’

  In that sentence Sister Ruth confirmed everything that I had suspected, that somehow in a cosmic sense I was being held responsible for the recruitment process. No one said anything directly, but over the coming few days as the Sisters prepared for the new arrival, I could sense that they were more excited than usual: they thought she was actually going to stay.

  My first impression of Marie-Louise was positive. She was a pale, slender young woman, with rather piercing blue eyes. We went for a walk around the district, ostensibly to help her get a feel for the place; really, it was so we could get a feel for each other. She immediately started to ask me questions, the sort of questions she couldn’t really put to our Reverend Mother, like ‘So what’s it like being in the Community?’, ‘Are they really strict?’, ‘What do you do every day?’, ‘Do you like being a midwife?’, ‘Do you ever get sick of praying?’ (that last question made me sit up a bit!). I was impressed, though.

  They were proper big questions, important – the sort of questions you should ask if you are seriously thinking of making this your life. But at the end of our walk I was also left with a feeling that I hadn’t really managed to get a feel for her. There was something elusive. A bit like herding cats: when I was asking the big questions like ‘Why the religious life?’, ‘Why the Community of St John’s?’, I realised she had managed to slip through my fingers without giving any real answers or indeed anything of herself away, despite the fact that I felt I had been open and honest with her.

  I was left feeling a bit short-changed, especially as I was quite longing to connect and encounter someone new. Later on I came to realise Marie-Louise’s natural reserve was not coldness but shyness. But at that moment while yes, I did think she might well stay, I was left feeling the Cecilia gap was not about to be closed any time soon, or so I thought. Sometimes things happen when you are looking the other way.

  The local clergy often visited us at the Mission House. They would pop in, sometimes stay for dinner, and we were often invited to their services or we had joint services. Our Bishop encouraged us to feel like we were all one big extended family. A particular vicar, let’s call him Father Ian, was a frequent visitor to the Mission House. He was in charge of a particularly troublesome parish in our diocese, and he also struggled with his own personal demons. A difficult childhood of abandonment had left him anxious and prone to depression; he couldn’t sleep at night.

  Father Ian was quite attractive, with rather striking green eyes (the tiredness and pain behind them only added to their appeal), wavy chestnut hair and a large, athletic frame (not having the custody of the eyes, one does look at faces and therefore human thoughts about the nature of the other in front of us cannot help but occur!). But still I didn’t think it was any accident that he hadn’t married; as I said, he had personal problems. We had always got on well, though. For me, it was just such a joy to be around someone religious and relatively young (witness my excitement at the arrival of Marie-Louise). Then one day he asked to speak to me privately.

  I took him into the Community Room, which happened to be empty; shut the door and motioned to the chair next to the unused piano. He sat down, leaned forward, and ran his fingers through his hair with an expression approaching anguish.

  ‘Sister Catherine Mary, I find myself in a difficult position. I’m wrestling and struggling with some issues, and I don’t know who to talk to.’

  ‘Oh well, I’m sure the Bishop …’

  ‘No, I’ve tried. While I have the utmost respect for the Bishop, I find it difficult to talk about matters that aren’t strictly spiritual or connected to parish affairs.’

  ‘Oh! Yes, well I can see how that might be a problem, but your spiritual director?’

  ‘I think the Sisters do not have choice over their spiritual director, either.’

  He gave me a wry, almost cheeky smile. A picture of the chaplain came to mind, so I said, ‘Yes, indeed, Father Ian, I understand completely. How can I help?’

  His face immediately crumpled and he put his head in his hands. He told me how his warring parishioners were threatening his already fragile self-confidence and turning his thoughts to very dark places. I felt a wave of concern and a desire to reach out to him. For a long time I had been practising having an openness to the other and a heart ready to give in love. Every day, as much as possible, I tried to extend the huge love I felt from my God to those around me, and I felt it all too easy to extend this love to this tortured, beautiful soul. So that afternoon was the beginning of a different relationship between Father Ian and me. He started to visit me regularly and I visited him in his parish and even cooked for him sometimes. Standing at his stove with an apron around my waist as he chatted to me sat at the kitchen table, it felt comfortable and natural, actually amazingly comfortable, like we had been doing this all our lives. He invited me to a couple of religious talks and services. I began to miss him when he didn’t appear and find him creeping into my head when I was out and about, delivering babies. When I heard the doorbell ring, my heart leapt and I waited with butterflies in my stomach, listening in case there might be footsteps approaching to tell me that I had a visitor.

  It was a kind of madness, like an infection. He’d got under my skin in a way no man had ever done. When I looked into those green eyes I felt a connection, like I could see his soul and he could see mine. For the first time I felt as if I was seen for myself; not Sister Catherine Mary, but Katie Crisp, a younger, more human person. I experienced a whole host of emotions and a depth of feeling I didn’t know I possessed. It was powerful and seductive and terrifying. These emotions weren’t just in my mind, but expressed themselves in my body too. My heart missed a beat when I saw him in the distance, I felt physical pain when he didn’t appear, thoughts of him made my stomach lurch as if I was turning a loop on a rollercoaster. I missed him.

  One day he took my hand and pressed my ring. I felt a shock run through my body. I knew I should gently remove my hand from his touch, but I didn’t; instead, somewhat disingenuously, I pretended not to notice he was still holding onto it.

  Were these feelings mutual? He never said anything but he kept looking for me and finding me. One day he quoted part of a line from a poem by W. B. Yeats at me, ‘Tread softly on my dreams’. Would he have done this if he had known I knew the rest of the poem only too well? It is beautiful love poem, the sort that Mother Sarah Grace would have had removed from the library of the Mother House for being ‘emotional’.

  But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

  I have spread my dreams under your feet;

  Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

  Another day he said to me, ‘Catherine, no one understands me the way you do. I have never met anyone like you. You are so special, you light up my world. I thank God that He’s brought you to me.’

  But had He? Or was it someone darker, the other bloke, the fallen angel? Sometimes it felt pure heavensent and sometimes something much more earthy and tempting and wrong. And actually, the more I fell under the spell of Father Ian’s seductive company, the more it felt wrong.

  Every year we had a Service of Thanksgiving for the work of the Diocese. All the local clergy would gather and the Bishop would preside. Everyone would be in good spirits; it was a coming together, a happy day. But this year I was aware of a difference: I was distracted, looking over my shoulder; indeed looking for him. And that whole service I was aware that he was sitting just a few rows in front of me and instead of watching the Bishop, I was looking at the back of his neck. By the time we got to the blessing I hadn’t managed to say anything meaningful to my God except, ‘Why now God, why tempt me now, when I have just taken my final vows?’

  Father Ian was creeping into my prayers and distracting me, and it was then that I knew he was coming between me and God, and I was in danger of breaking the lifelong commitment
I had made to Him; a kind of emotional adultery. I went back to the Mission House and immediately made an appointment to go down to Hastings to see Mother Sarah Grace.

  The night before I was due to go, there was an unexpected arrival at the front door of the Mission House. It was a wild, stormy night – gusty wind, rain lashing down in torrents, and for a moment I wondered whether or not I had really heard the bell ring. I decided to investigate and opened the door to find a soaking Marie-Louise, with her cape flapping and glasses covered in drops of rain. For a moment it felt like the scene from The Princess and the Pea, where the castle door swings open to find a random, drenched girl on the doorstep, claiming to be a real princess. I couldn’t help but wonder if I put a pea underneath Marie-Louise’s bed whether I would find out that she was a real Sister; and then I immediately asked God’s forgiveness for such flippancy in light of what could only be an emergency. I hustled her in.

  ‘Marie-Louise, what on earth are you doing here, on a night like tonight as well? Come in quickly.’

  She started babbling.

  ‘Oh, Sister Catherine Mary! Something dreadful has happened. I just couldn’t stay. It was horrible. Just too, too horrible.’

  ‘Oh, my dear! Let me fetch Sister Ruth and we must get you out of these wet clothes …’

  ‘No,’she put her hand on my arm. ‘I’m not ready to speak to Sister Ruth yet. Can we just go to your room? I really would like to speak to you alone. Perhaps we don’t need to let anyone know I’m here yet? Please?’

  Well, this was all highly irregular and even though we had experienced nearly a whole decade of the Swinging Sixties’ revolution, I automatically felt a pang of fear at doing something that would be considered ‘irregular’. But Marie-Louise was beginning to sound a bit hysterical, so I said, ‘OK then. Let’s be quiet, though. Best not to frighten the horses, eh?’

  She looked so alarmed, I had to put my arm round her. As we quietly went up the stairs together, I wondered what on earth had happened to break Marie-Louise’s normal composure. The whole story came tumbling out as soon as we got to my room. I wanted to get her into dry clothes first, but she didn’t seem to care.