From the other side of the tennis court a rapturous Alice barked joyfully and bounded towards her. Sister Joan thrust the photograph deep in her pocket and stood up, banishing the past.
‘Alice! Come on, girl! Here, girl!’ Alice came, trailing her lead with a shameless air. ‘You are a wretch,’ Sister Joan said, slipping her hand through the loop. ‘Come on! Let’s go and check out the postulancy. You don’t know it yet but we may be greeting visitors quite soon.’
Two
On the rare occasions Sister Joan was obliged to visit London she was always torn between excitement at the bustle all round her and nervousness as the crowds swirled past, each person seeming to know exactly where he or she was going and how to get there. Living in a convent, even one that was not entirely enclosed, was rather like living in some long-term institution, she thought wryly, keeping a close eye on the names of the stations as the Tube train screamed through tunnels and doors opened and closed, engorging and disgorging passengers. The train itself was fairly full but not uncomfortably so. She had noticed with a feeling of mingled amusement and hurt that the space next to her had remained unoccupied. People still hesitated before sitting next to a nun.
‘I don’t believe it!’ A slim, dark woman, her hair drawn back into a French pleat, her beautifully cut suit of dark-green velvet complementing her colouring had stopped and was staring down at Sister Joan, a smile curving her lightly painted mouth.
Sister Joan stared back blankly, the beginnings of embarrassment tinting her throat as she racked her memory for a name to put to the face. It was always dreadful to run into someone you couldn’t recall, insulting to them somehow.
‘Barbara,’ the woman said, lowering herself into the empty space next to Sister Joan. ‘Barbara Ford.’
‘Good heavens!’ Sister Joan said, forgetting tact in the force of her surprise. ‘I’d never have recognized you!’
Barbara had been at college too, but had left after the second term, called home to nurse a dying father. During her time there she had made so little impression that it wasn’t until several days after she’d gone, moving out silently and with no fuss, that anyone had noticed. And then it had been one of the tutors who had told them the reason. Barbara herself had confided in nobody. She had come and gone like a pale grey shadow, seldom initiating a conversation, always crouching over an easel in the corner where she worked with irritating slowness and produced work as forgettable as herself.
‘You haven’t changed at all,’ Barbara said, apparently not taking offence at the remark. ‘I’d have known you anywhere. But then nuns never look old, do they?’
Barbara had been prone to make vague generalizations on the rare occasions she’d ventured an opinion, Sister Joan remembered. She had worn a shabby smock and jeans and tied back her hair in a tight ponytail. Brown hair surely, not this gleaming black.
‘I dyed my hair,’ Barbara said as if she’d just intercepted the other’s glance. ‘To tell you the truth I always wanted hair your colour – that lovely blue-black!’
‘It suits you,’ Sister Joan said truthfully. ‘You look lovely.’
‘Thank you.’ Barbara inclined her head slightly.
‘But what are you doing in—? Oh, this is my stop! Can you—?’
‘It’s my stop too,’ Barbara said, rising and making for the door in one swift fluid movement.
On the platform Sister Joan said, ‘You’re going to the Abbey too?’
‘Someone sent me a copy of the photograph,’ Barbara said.
Sister Joan opened her mouth to say, ‘But you weren’t on it!’ and had the sense to close it again as they made for the stairs, Barbara bringing out the shiny snapshot and holding it under her nose, one well-manicured figure pointing at the vague figure next to Dodie Jones.
‘I must have moved slightly,’ Barbara said. ‘It’s a bit of a blur.’
‘Yes.’
She hadn’t even noticed the figure at the end, never allowed the thin outline, the faint impression on features to register on her consciousness. It had been the same in class or in the lecture hall. Barbara had simply disappeared into the general background. Even at the pub when they were all relaxed and laughing almost inevitably someone had had to go to the bar and get Barbara’s forgotten drink.
‘Did you send the photo?’ Barbara asked, putting it away as they emerged into the daylight.
‘You didn’t?’
‘No. I’d forgotten all about it. In fact I don’t think I ever had a copy of it. I remembered what we’d arranged, of course, when it came.’
‘One of the others must’ve sent it,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Have you met any of them since you left?’
‘I saw Derek Smith on a late-night television chat show a couple of years ago,’ Barbara said. ‘Of course I didn’t finish the course – my father—’
‘Yes, we were very sorry to hear,’ Sister Joan began.
‘Father didn’t die.’ Was there a hint of amusement in the clear grey eyes? ‘He was very ill, of course, for a long time, but he eventually recovered. It would have been possible for me to take up my studies again but I felt the right time had gone past.’
‘And he’s still well?’
‘He remarried and went to New Zealand,’ Barbara said.
If she resented being discarded the moment her filial devotion was no longer necessary she gave no sign of it.
‘And yourself?’ Sister Joan hoped that Barbara hadn’t made a name for herself in art circles or something equally embarrassing not to know.
‘I went out to New Zealand with them – with father and Claire. That’s the woman he married. She’s very nice. About five years ago I came back to England. I’ve got a good job in public relations now.’
‘It sounds important.’
‘Not really but it’s interesting and well paid. Do you still paint? I mean are you allowed—?’
‘Now and then I’m given permission,’ Sister Joan said, sounding more resigned than she often felt.
‘I suppose the praying doesn’t leave much time for anything else,’ Barbara said, sending her a sympathetic look.
‘Oh, we manage to fit everything in,’ Sister Joan said cheerfully. ‘Even nuns have to earn some kind of living for the sake of the community. In fact we’re branching out a bit; we’re going to run a series of weekend and week-long retreats – you know, holidays for people who want a peaceful few days without any stress or strain.’
Listening to herself she thought uneasily that she sounded like a walking advertisement for convents, but Barbara looked interested.
‘It sounds like an awfully good idea,’ she said warmly. ‘You must tell the others about it. I mean, if any of us have a few free days we could all book in together and carry on the reunion!’
‘If there are any others here,’ Sister Joan said, pausing briefly as they entered the Abbey so the security guard could conduct a cursory inspection.
‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ Barbara said, lowering her voice in deference to the sacredness of the place. ‘Do you remember exactly where in the Abbey we were supposed to meet up?’
‘By the tomb of Elizabeth the First.’
‘Yes, of course! Did you see the Glenda Jackson series? Wasn’t it splendid? Of course, I suppose you prefer Queen Mary, being a Catholic and all.’
‘Not really.’ Sister Joan felt a tiny spasm of irritation. ‘I never had much time for religious fanatics. Burning my fellow men and women at the stake never struck me as the best way of getting converts.’
‘I suppose not. We live in more tolerant times,’ Barbara said.
Sister Joan bit her lip, repressing the impulse to retort that toleration of some things like cruelty and prejudice was just as undesirable. She was remembering more and more how Barbara Ford had been like a pale, insignificant insect that could hover and swoop in a maddening fashion.
A tall, dark man was striding towards them, hands outstretched, white teeth gleaming under a close-clipped moustache.
‘Joan and – Barbara!’ There was the merest flicker of hesitation before he spoke the second name. ‘I was starting to imagine this was some damned practical joke! How are you both? You look absolutely marvellous! You’ve forgotten me?’
‘Nobody could ever forget you, Derek,’ Sister Joan said, amused, shaking hands.
‘Once seen never forgotten, eh?’ He flung an arm about each of them as they walked on beneath the echoing stone. ‘Which one of you sent the photo?’
‘Neither of us,’ Barbara said. ‘You didn’t?’
Derek shook his head. ‘I’d shoved all the old college stuff in a suitcase and forgotten about it,’ he said. ‘Tempus fugit and all that. You’ll know the Latin better than I do, Joan – or is it Sister Someone or Other now?’
‘Sister Joan. Whenever possible we keep our own Christian names in the order.’
‘In the order!’ His eyes glinted as he repeated the phrase. ‘Of all the girls at college you’re the very last one I’d imagine would run into a convent. Which order are you in anyway? Not Carmelite or Poor Clare! Not in a grey habit.’
‘Daughters of Compassion,’ she told him. ‘It was founded during the war by a Dutch girl who died in a concentration camp. After her death it was given the official seal of approval from the Vatican.’
‘And they let you out?’
‘Now and then,’ she said demurely. ‘Of course we’re all electronically tagged in case we leave the country.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ Barbara’s perfectly made-up face betrayed a shadow of anxiety.
‘I’m joking,’ Sister Joan said.
‘And what about you, Barbara? Married? Divorced?’
‘Single,’ Barbara said.
‘Wish I’d known,’ Derek said, heaving a sigh as he dropped his arms from their shoulders. ‘If I’d realized you were going to blossom into a beauty I’d have kept tags on you, believe you me!’
‘What about yourself? Are you married?’ Sister Joan asked.
‘You didn’t hear?’ For an instant the laughter shrivelled at the back of his eyes. ‘I married Sally – you remember Sally Mount?’
Pleasant, plump, good-natured Sally with her attempts to draw something that would earn one word of praise from her tutor. Sister Joan thought fleetingly that of all of them she’d have chosen nice, ordinary Sally Mount as the one least likely to be chosen by Derek Smith.
‘Sally was always very nice to me,’ Barbara said.
‘She’s not with you?’ Sister Joan stopped abruptly, deciding that if he had married Sally it was unlikely the marriage had lasted. Derek had always been the one eager for new experiences, eager to move on, deciding one term that Dali was the only artist worth studying, the next term arriving with a boisterous enthusiasm for Renoir.
‘She died,’ Derek said.
‘Died!’ Sister Joan automatically blessed herself. ‘Derek, I’m so sorry! She was always so – full of energy, so healthy. I’m really very sorry.’
‘She wasn’t sick.’ He had paused, reaching out to caress the outlines of a tiny gargoyle carved on a pillar. ‘She fell.’
‘Fell?’ Barbara echoed the word.
‘A couple of years ago. She was in a multistorey car-park,’ he said. ‘One of those towering blocks of steel and stone with openings all round. She had parked the car there and she must have gone over to look out – she was always keen on views – and fallen out.’
‘Surely there was a guard rail or something!’ Sister Joan exclaimed.
‘There was, but it was low. There had been a couple of complaints and the council had promised to do something about it. There were temporary wooden barriers up, but Sally must have stepped round one and leaned out to get a better view. It was an accident.’
He sounded as if he were forbidding speculation.
‘Someone saw it?’ Barbara asked the question that Sister Joan wanted to ask.
Derek ran his hand down the pillar with a small scraping sound.
‘It was late afternoon,’ he said. ‘Just after the rush hour. The lights in the streets were just being switched on. Sally loved the lights, the patterns they made – she must’ve gone over to look down at them. The irony of it is that I’d offered to go shopping with her but she wanted to buy me a birthday present and insisted on going alone. Death through misadventure. I went abroad for a bit to wander about, get over it. Which I did, of course.’
‘That’s terribly sad,’ Barbara said. ‘We’re both so sorry. Aren’t we, Joan?’
‘It’s over. These things sometimes happen. No need to make a federal case out of it,’ Derek said gruffly.
‘Well, we’re very sorry anyway,’ Barbara said, touching his arm lightly. ‘Had you any family?’
‘We decided not,’ Derek said, beginning to walk on again. ‘My career was taking off in a fairly big way and Sally was terribly good at all the business side of it. Arranging the exhibitions, checking contracts, you know.’
And that was why he had probably married her in the beginning, Sister Joan mused, as they walked slowly on. Sally hadn’t had an ounce of talent worth cultivating but that meant she wouldn’t have provided any competition. She’d have worshipped at the shrine of her brilliant husband and counted herself lucky to be his wife. Yet had she been truly content? Leaning out of a multistorey car-park in order to get a better view of the lighted panorama of streets beneath struck her as an odd thing to do.
‘Well, here’s the tomb,’ Barbara said, breaking the silence that had fallen. The elaborate tomb of Elizabeth of England was separated only by the nave from that of the Queen of Scots, buried almost within spitting distance of each other, Sister Joan thought with a twinge of amusement, and jumped slightly as a figure emerged from the side of the stone catafalque and stood, regarding them with head tipped slightly to one side.
‘You won’t remember me,’ Dodie Jones said in her breathless little voice.
‘Who could forget our Dodie?’ Derek stepped forward and enveloped her in a bear hug from which she emerged, slightly flushed, straightening the unfashionable beanie hat stuck at the back of her greying head.
Dodie hadn’t changed, Sister Joan thought, joining in the greetings. She had always been slim, small and neat, much given to Peter Pan collars and oak-leaf brooches and barely-there lipstick. Now her face was slightly lined, her indeterminate hair colour faded to grey, but the essence of Dodie was all there.
‘I wondered who had sent me the photograph,’ she was saying. ‘I’d remembered about it, of course, and I’d warned Colin that I might be deserting the nest for a day – Colin’s my husband.’
‘You married?’ Sister Joan couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
‘We had our fifteenth anniversary in June,’ Dodie said. ‘He’s an engineer. We live in Maidstone. Two children. Simon is twelve and Cecily ten, both at boarding-school, so Colin and I are a twosome again.’
She smiled at them, each tooth small, white, perfectly even. There was something smug about Dodie. There always had been, Sister Joan thought. Dodie had never been late for class, never stayed up late drinking and setting the world to rights with her tongue. Dodie had been elderly in her teens.
‘Of course I’m Dodie Mason now,’ she was saying. ‘Tell me about the rest of you. Derek, I heard about Sally, of course, and sent a card. It was very sad. Barbara, I heard a rumour you’d emigrated to New Zealand. Are you back for good now?’
‘Probably. I’m really not sure’ Barbara said.
‘And you became a nun.’ Dodie had turned to Sister Joan. ‘You look about twenty-five, honestly! Doesn’t she look about twenty-five, Barbara?’
‘It’s leading a pure life,’ Sister Joan said ironically.
‘And you don’t get cancer either, do you? I read about it,’ Dodie said, missing the irony completely.
‘Oh, you mustn’t believe everything you read,’ Sister Joan said lightly.
‘It looks as if we’re the only ones who are going to turn up.’ Derek consu
lted a handsome watch on his tanned wrist.
‘Surely someone else will,’ Sister Joan objected. ‘The one who sent out the photos isn’t likely to miss the reunion.’
‘Well, it doesn’t seem to have been one of us,’ Dodie said, looking at them. ‘Did any of you get a letter? There was no letter with mine.’
‘Just the photograph,’ Barbara said, glancing at the other two who nodded.
‘Here comes the possible culprit!’ Derek said, half turning to watch a plump woman wend her way towards them.
‘It’s Serena,’ Dodie said.
It couldn’t have been anyone but Serena, with her fringe still untidy and streaked with grey, her overflowing flesh inadequately corseted, her fringed scarf trailing over her shoulder and catching in the strap of her outsize shoulder bag. Serena was Serena yet after twenty years. She was shaking hands now, rings flashing fire against the dark surrounding stone.
‘Well, but this is marvellous! You all look wonderful! I’ve been so excited ever since I received the photograph, trying to picture if you’d all have changed.’
‘You didn’t send the photograph?’ Barbara queried.
‘No.’ Serena shook her head, pushing back her fringe in an old familiar gesture.
‘None of us did,’ Dodie said. ‘Well, we’re all here nearly, aren’t we? You, Barbara, Sister Joan, myself, Derek.’
‘That’s only five people,’ Serena said.
‘Yes, but Sally won’t be here,’ Barbara said tactlessly.
‘You and Sally got divorced? I’m on my second divorce at the moment. Hellish, aren’t they?’ Serena said.
‘Sally died a couple of years ago,’ Derek told her. ‘You hadn’t heard?’
‘Not a word. Seth – that’s my soon-to-be ex-husband – and I went off on a world cruise year before last. An ill-fated attempt to patch up our differences, which didn’t work though the holiday was brilliant,’ Serena said. ‘I’m awfully sorry. I liked Sally. Wasn’t she terribly young to die?’
‘It was an accident,’ Derek said.
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