The Convent (19 page)

For he who loses his life for my sake shall save it
.

Unable to stay still, she walked around in little circles, crossing and recrossing her arms across her chest to stop the tingling feeling.
Am I going crazy? Maybe I'm just … What about …?

But no! Her brother was right. If you believed, then something huge
was
called for.

By giving we receive, by dying we find … life!

How many times had she heard those words? Words that made no logical sense and yet she had always recognised the wild truth behind them.

Anything worthwhile had to be fought for. Think of the hours a great ballet dancer had to put in before she could pirouette her way around the stage. Think of that party of adventurers making their way through the blizzards, the ice and the fear to the South Pole. Think of Christ Himself on His mission to save mankind. He'd accepted His terrible fate on the cross.

The easy way, the comfortable way, the sensible way was …
no
way at all.

Cecilia could smell the leftover heat in the grass around her, and all was quiet, but her mind was shooting off in all directions.
Oh yes.
A fire had been lit in her head and she was being pulled ever deeper into it.

She looked over at Dom, who was sitting in the car, staring straight ahead and looking so dejected that she only just managed to refrain from running back and blurting out her thoughts.
Do I
really believe? Well … why not find out?

Cecilia sat on her decision for a week before she told anyone. She went first to Sister Jane, who only smiled when Cecilia blurted out the news.

‘You've always been an interesting girl, Cecilia. It doesn't surprise me at all to know you have a vocation,' she said mildly. ‘Are you thinking of joining
us
?'

‘No, Sister,' Cecilia said shyly. ‘Teaching isn't for me. I've been looking into it and I'm thinking about the nuns who brought up my mother. The Good Shepherds in Abbotsford.'

A frown crossed the nun's face. ‘The French orders are very austere.'

‘Yes.'

‘And the work they do is … very difficult.'

‘Yes.' Cecilia smiled. ‘That is why—'

‘You know they take in girls from the courts? Some from very rough, sad and desperate backgrounds.'

‘I
want
to work with girls like that,' Cecilia said vehemently, ‘with girls who have nothing. The ones who need a new chance in life.'

The nun nodded thoughtfully.

‘And Mum always speaks so well of those nuns. I would like to do it for her.'

‘But it is your life, Cecilia.'

‘I know,' Cecilia said defensively, ‘but to help girls who are on the wrong path would be … useful.'

‘Oh yes, indeed,' the nun sighed. ‘But you'll be lucky to see the inside of a university lecture hall, Cecilia. The Good Shepherds are not big on education, and you're so bright.'

‘It's what I want, Sister,' she said, more sure than ever.
What is
university compared to changing a life? Maybe a whole lot of lives?

When she told her mother and father they looked at her in complete shock.

‘No.' Her father banged the table with one heavy fist. ‘I won't allow it.'

‘Dad, I have to.'

Out of his depth completely, he looked at his wife. ‘She's too young. It's wrong.'

‘I'll be nineteen soon.'

‘Go to the university first,' he yelled and stormed out of the room. Within two minutes he was back and to her utter dismay angry tears were streaming down his weathered cheeks. ‘Please!' he begged. ‘You are the brightest girl in the school. Think how wonderful it will be to go to Melbourne University!'

She had never seen him cry before and it broke her heart. He'd had virtually no education himself, and she knew how important it was that any of his children who had any aptitude got a chance at it. But she held firm.

‘Dad, I have to do this.'

‘You don't have to do anything.'

‘But it's God's will.'

He closed his mouth abruptly.

She knew then that she had delivered the fatal blow. To go against the will of God in such an important matter would be putting himself at risk of mortal sin, and so there was nothing he could say.

Still, he did his best. They fought head to head for a week, upsetting her mother dreadfully, but Cecilia stayed firm, and in the end he gave in.

‘Go then and get it out of your system,' he muttered one day on his way out to check the lambs. ‘I can't stop you.'

Cecilia laughed and pretended not to care that her father would not give his blessing. He could always hurt her and he knew it too.

When she told Dominic, he said nothing for a full three minutes; he kept looking at her, opening his mouth as though he wanted to speak and then closing it again.

‘Are you sure?' he said at last. ‘I mean, it's so bloody
drastic.
'

‘I'm sure. What do you think?'

He shrugged unhappily and looked away. ‘Well, if it's what you want,' he muttered.

‘It's what I want,' she said. But she knew what he was thinking.

How would she go without those slow walks home after a gallop through the paddocks, the sun sinking low over the hills against a brilliant summer sky splattered in crimson and gold, the quiet of evening settling in around them like a blanket? How would she manage not watching out for the first star coming into view over the roof of their house?

‘Well then.' He tried to smile, but she could see that her news had brought him undone in some deep and terrible way. ‘I hope that you'll be happy.'

She was unable to sleep that night thinking of the hurt that she was causing to the people she most loved. In desperation she got up at two a.m. and read again from the booklet on the Order of the Good Shepherd's worldwide mission. It was in the words of the Foundress that she managed to find her resolve again.

To save one soul is worth more than the whole world.

That idea had set her heart on fire the moment she'd read it and it was working its magic now. It was her life. The only one she had.

She would do what she must do.

You may find in that far-off land to which you go, sorrows which
may often fill your Chalice to the brim. Yet I say to you, Go! My dear
Daughters, go with great courage where God calls you!

Peach

Det is waiting for me at the bar. I'm wearing my new high heels with jeans and a loose red top, and I feel very jittery. My hair is pinned back and I've got on my red lipstick. When I left the house my eyes in the hall mirror looked too bright. They were glittering. And my cheeks were uncharacteristically pink.

I'm flushed, as though I might be coming down with something.

Det is pale, as usual, and is dressed in an old black trench coat. She notices my colour and mood immediately.

‘What are you on?'

‘Nothing,' I whisper.

‘Peach!'

‘Oh, I'm just … Nothing. What about you?' I ask in a bid to get her eyes off me.

‘Brilliant.' She grins.

‘How come?'

‘It's called food.' She flips my hair a couple of times playfully. ‘I'm actually trying to cook food and it's working wonders!'

‘God,' I murmur and take a look around at the crowd, ‘bit dramatic, isn't it?'

‘I chuck a lot of it up every morning, but still … Hey, you look hot, Peach,' she teases.

‘I need me a drink,' I say, pulling out my purse. ‘Seriously.' I have this nervous edgy feeling in my guts that won't leave me alone.

‘Okay,' Det says wryly.

‘Vodka,' I say to the young barman. ‘Double shot.'

Det tucks my purse back into my pocket. ‘My shout.' She grins. ‘Least I can do is buy my mate a drink when she needs it. So what's up?'

I shrug, on the edge of telling her everything, but I pull back because … well, if I start actually discussing the letter, it will become real and I might have to do something about it. Part of me thinks if I keep it private then it might just fade away.

I notice Det's glass full of ice and a clear liquid which looks blue in the bar light.

‘
Water?
' I ask disbelievingly.

‘Well, yeah.' She grimaces. ‘H2O certainly is a new experience for me.'

‘So, not even a splash of happy juice?'

‘Just water.' She laughs. ‘Can you believe it, Peach? Me and
water
? Water and me!'

‘Doesn't sound right,' I agree, and we both laugh.

We're joined by Nick and two of his fellow band-members. Dicko, whose real name is Richard Head. Can you believe his parents would be that stupid?

The drummer, Kooloos, is commonly known as Screwloose. He is a forty-year-old classical guitar lecturer at the VCA, but moonlights as a heavy rocker in Nick's band, when they get a gig.

They sit alongside us at the bar. Nick picks up Det's glass and smells it, then pretends to fall off his chair, but she only shrugs.

‘Just trying to stay nice.' She smiles, her eyes sliding past him to the crowd of guys who've just come in.

‘A first for everything, eh?' Nick winks at me. ‘You're looking hot, Peach!'

I slide one hand over his balding head and hug him. ‘So you'll dance with me?' I ask.

‘Thought you're never ask.'

I scull my double vodka and we walk through to where the band is playing. I'm feeling very cool, very sharp, very much on top of things. Admiring eyes run over me and I know I must be a little inebriated, because for once in my life I like it.

‘Great arse,' someone murmurs into my ear.

I toss my head and think,
Yes. I do look good in jeans. Hey, this
might just be fun. Better than being a fucking nun anyway! I wonder how
old she was … when she became one.
I pull out my long blonde hair and fluff it out with both hands, and I feel every male eye around me taking it in. Nick is right behind me, calling out to people he knows. He is proud to be with me, and I like that too.

The music blasts into my head like steam, setting my blood alight. Tonight I don't care who the hell is watching. Nick grabs my hand and we let rip. He's a good dancer too, and I'm so far gone with that quick double shot on an empty stomach that I figure I am too. By the end of the set I'm wrecked, drenched in sweat and loose, and I'm not thinking about nuns or brides or old women, or babies either. I don't see much of Det until midnight when Nick's band comes on. She and I dance for about another hour, then I remember I have to start my new job in the morning.

‘I'd better go home, Det.'

‘Me too,' Det says.

We edge our way through to the bar and then over to the corner where we left our coats with a couple of girls.

‘Stay at my place?' I suggest, putting my coat on.

Det pauses. ‘Okay,' she says, which surprises me. She is usually so determinedly independent. Never needs a ride; won't stay overnight; doesn't want a meal unless she is bringing half of it. Then you find out later that she had to catch a taxi or she had no food in the house. It's almost pathological. Det is the quintessential loner.

‘Good.'

At the door someone yells goodbye. I turn around and lock eyes with Fluke, who is standing at the bar. Was it he who called? But he gives no indication. We stare at each other for a couple of seconds before I turn away. I walk out into the wet night feeling oddly pleased that he would have seen my raunchy dancing.

The rain has stopped and the streets are gleaming, but it's not cold.

‘So how is … everything going, Det?'

‘I gotta get out of my place,' she mumbles, ‘find somewhere else. The guy bought another dog yesterday. I just can't stand it. I'm the only one who cleans up the fucking shit.'

‘That is
still
going on?'

‘Oh yeah.'

Det has lived in some crumby places, but the current one is the worst. The backyard is the size of an envelope and the kitchen is disgusting. She lives with two guys who simply don't know the meaning of a clean sink, and one of them has some miserable mongrel who not only whines and barks day and night but shits everywhere. The other guy,Travis, isn't so bad, but he has a demented girlfriend virtually living with him who is constantly pissed and who doesn't know how to clean up either.

‘Cassie is seriously bugging me too,' Det complains. ‘She called me this afternoon, after she stormed off. I don't mind her opinion, but I don't want orders.'

‘Fair enough,' I mutter.

‘She thinks the only reason I'm keeping the baby is because I feel guilty about the other two abortions.'

So why are you having it?
I want to ask.

She must know what I'm thinking, because she stops to look me squarely in the eye. ‘I don't care what
anyone
says, Peach. I'm going to have it.'