The Convent (33 page)

The memories were flooding in so fast now that she had to sit down. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but found a stone seat outside the refectory and made herself take some deep breaths. Then she went and stood under Breda's tree again, and looking up she laughed aloud.

After wandering through the front gardens she walked back towards the cafe the other way, noticing that the high iron gates which used to lead into the Sacred Heart section were now leaning up against one of the walls. They must have only recently been pulled down. A shiver of disquiet went through her when she saw the heavy hot water pipe along the top. At least one girl had been badly burnt trying to escape over that gate.

Cecilia hesitated a moment, then walked straight into the enclosure and stared at the bleak grey cement buildings that surrounded her on every side. She'd seen it first as a nineteen-year-old postulant, but now the miserable reality of the place stunned her. With no women and girls to break the monotony, the main purpose of the ugly buildings was so … obvious. She took hold of the iron balustrade and stared at the high walls, the barbed wire. It was a prison
.

No, it wasn't.

Yes, it was.

The huge laundry complex was up one end and the little chapel down the other, and only one tree to relieve the drabness.

She saw herself in her early twenties, not yet fully professed, locking the gates on the girls when it was time to go to her own lunch. How relieved she'd been to get away from the clank of the machines, the never-ending baskets of sheets and tablecloths and shirts, the sullen faces of the girls working in the heat, the smell of their sweat and their periods. That room where they changed their rags!

Why hadn't she ever suggested painting the wooden window frames a bright colour or insisted that there be some pot plants for the girls to tend? Why hadn't she demanded the younger girls go to school for at least part of the day? To be put to such hard work in the laundry at age fourteen, fifteen or sixteen for a full day was cruel.
Anything!
If she'd just said … anything.

When had she ever asked a question? Cecilia leant by the wall, memories gnawing at the edges of her brain. Because to ask
why
was always wrong. It meant you hadn't learnt the first thing about the life you had freely chosen. She closed her eyes, overcome with an odd sensation that her whole self was being sucked down a long grey pipe and out into an empty nothingness.

1966

‘Why are you a nun, Mother?' Lizzie asked. She was such a pretty girl with a long childish plait of blonde hair down her back and blue mischievous eyes that sparkled when she spoke. Cecilia could discern a real inquiry underneath the bold question from the girl not much younger than herself.

‘Well, a vocation is like a calling, Lizzie.'

‘But you're pretty,' the girl interrupted with a smile, ‘you could get a bloke.'

Cecilia had been about to answer that prettiness had nothing to do with it and nor did ‘blokes' for that matter, when they were interrupted by Mother Michael the Archangel, who'd sidled up behind them without either of them noticing.

‘Off you go now,' the older nun had snapped at the girl.

‘Mother, I was just—'

‘I know what you were just doing, and if you don't want to miss out on the film on Sunday night you'll do as you're told!'

The girl trudged off to join her friends and Cecilia was left looking after her.

‘Remember, Sister, it is a mistake to fraternise with the girls.'

‘Mother, she was only asking—'

‘It is not our job to answer their questions, Sister.'

Cecilia had seethed for the next hour. Why hadn't she been able to answer the girl's question? It just didn't make sense.

But by the Saturday night Cecilia had convinced herself that she was in the wrong. To question her Superior's wisdom was tantamount to disobedience. And so when her turn came she confessed the incident to the rest of the congregation.
‘I want to
confess that I questioned Mother Michael's advice and I solemnly ask
forgiveness and I ask that you pray for me.'

But the incident had left her feeling rattled. Was there no end to this daily struggle with herself? True, some days were better. She'd go through the whole day in a state of placid indifference to such petty things as whether the food was to her liking or that her body felt grimy and unclean. At the end of such days she was buoyed by the fact that she was getting on top of it all, moving closer to the goal of true holiness.

But the bad days.
Oh, the bad days.
The days when her personality asserted itself were torture. At the end of such days she was overcome with a weary pessimism. Back to square one, just like the man in the Greek myth who was destined to pull his heavy boulder up the mountain forever. Such effort, only to have to repeat that effort again and again and again. On such days outrage would rise in her, uninvited and without warning, over some silly thing, like being chastised for being late when Mother had asked her to do something that made her late.
It's not fair
. She'd been on the point of screaming at the Novice Mistress.
You know why I'm late. You
made me late. Why are you doing this to me?

On the bad days she was riddled with longings she couldn't seem to subdue. Longings for impossible things like fresh oranges or the feel of sunshine on her limbs, for a swim on a hot day, or for throwaway pads instead of the rags they were issued when their monthly periods came around. On good days she joyfully accepted the humiliation of having to convey the small bag of bloody rags down to the laundry in front of everyone. It was nothing, a small cross to bear, and if she approached it with an open heart it would bring her nearer to the divine sufferings of her Saviour.

Other days she could barely bring herself to pick up the bag. Only the fetid smell of the dried blood getting stronger could make her do it. And when the bag of rags was in the hands of the old women whose job it was to boil them clean, the overwhelming relief sent her into a fresh spin of angst. In truth she had no right to feel such gladness at being out of that sweltering, stinking room, away from that semi-daft fat woman who took her bag of rags with a knowing imbecilic grin. Oh, this relief was more akin to pagan ecstasy than to the quiet inner joy that St Augustine described as befitting a true Christian.

On such days she couldn't win. She was a cat turning around and around in circles chasing her own tail. What was the purpose?

If her soul was a garden to be tended and cultivated with the fresh water of daily prayer and sacrifice, then it took monumental effort to keep the weeds at bay.

Cecilia wandered over to the stairs at the northern end of the old laundries and climbed as far as she could. A bundle of barbed wire at the top was still there. She thought of the girl who'd tried to jump over and broken both her feet, and the other one who'd torn her hands trying to get past it.
Trish
…
Patricia … or maybe it
was Nola.
But the name eluded her. Trish or Nola's bid for freedom had surprised them all because although she was bright and cheeky, the small sharp-faced girl had never caused any real trouble.

Cecilia sat for a while halfway up the iron stairs, resting her back against the banister, and thought of the desperation the girl must have felt.

On her way out towards the cafe, Cecilia noticed a hunched-up figure tucked away between the chapel wall and the old hall. The woman's face was hidden in her hands. Cecilia hesitated and then walked over and stood for a moment a few feet from the woman.

‘Can I help you?' she asked quietly.

The woman flinched at the sound of a voice so near. She looked up and tried to smile.

‘No, but thanks anyway.'

The crying had made her eyes puffy and red and her face blotchy, but Cecilia could see that the woman, probably about fifty, had once been lovely looking. The good skin and the large hazel eyes were still there, under the nicely dyed red hair that was pulled back with pins. Her slim frame was dressed for the warm day in a cotton dress, tucked tightly around her knees.

‘Let me at least go and buy you a cup of coffee.' Cecilia suggested. ‘It would be no trouble. I'll bring it back.'

But the woman shook her head again.

Not wanting to intrude, Cecilia turned away.

‘It's my first time back,' the woman blurted out. ‘I suppose I'm in shock.'

‘Oh … really?' Cecilia waited.

‘This place stole my childhood,' she said, her voice low. ‘I was here from the age of thirteen until I was twenty-four.'

‘What years?'

‘1961 to 1973.'

Cecilia gulped in surprise and sat down next to the woman. ‘Where were you before?' she asked, a dull roar of dread beginning in her head.

‘St Joseph's in Ballarat, which was even worse than here, if that's possible.'

‘And before that?'

‘My mum died when I was eight and my brother was six, and there was no one to take us. Dad drank and … it was all hopeless.'

‘So it was hard for you here?' Cecilia murmured.

‘I was bashed by the older girls because I was pretty and they were jealous of me, and I was belted a few times by those auxiliary monsters too. You know about those nuns that weren't really nuns?'

‘Yes.'

The woman threw her head back and laughed.

‘The foot soldiers, we used to call them.'

‘Yes.'

‘But I reserve my real hatred for the
proper
nuns.'

‘Really?' Cecilia gulped.

‘This was a jail,' the woman spat angrily, ‘and what had I done to deserve jail? What had most of us done?
Nothing
. I just ended up here because I had nowhere to go.' She looked hard at Cecilia. ‘I came here at thirteen and never even saw a book or had a pen in my hand! No school. Just work. That is just criminal.'

‘Yes,' Cecilia sighed.

‘Just work and … bloody prayers all day, every day!' The woman's mouth was tight with fury. ‘We couldn't move but we had to pray about it. Fat lot of good it did us. Or them, for that matter. I would like someone to pay for what went on here. I really would.'

Cecilia nodded.

‘There might be some compensation …'

‘I don't want money!' the woman cried. ‘I want someone to admit what happened to me!'

Cecilia nodded and said nothing.

‘It wasn't just the work. It was the horrible way they treated us. The lack of any …' But the woman couldn't go on. Tears were gushing from her eyes, but she was wiping them away angrily. She had things to say and she was going to say them whether Cecilia wanted to hear it or not. ‘I was a young girl with no one, and the lack of any understanding or kindness was just unbelievable.'

‘Tell me,' Cecilia whispered.
Don't tell me. I don't want to know
about it. It's over now. What good can come from going over this stuff?

The woman stood up abruptly and Cecilia suddenly recognised her. That same oval face
had
once been extraordinarily beautiful. She saw her again as that gutsy sixteen-year-old who'd stood up to Sister Bernard in the dormitory that night.

‘You worked in the mangle room,' Cecilia said quietly. ‘I remember you.'

The woman stared at Cecilia in surprise, her eyes narrowed slowly. ‘Yes.'

They stared at each other.

The woman was the first to turn away. She sat back down as though her outburst had depleted her of everything. She put her face in her hands and leant her elbows on her knees, shuddered a few times and was still.

‘Marie?' Cecilia said.

‘Yvonne, actually,' the woman whispered. ‘I wasn't even allowed my own name.'

‘It was about having a new start,' Cecilia murmured.

‘We were
children
,' the woman said dully. ‘So many of us had had terrible things happen to us before we even got here. But we weren't allowed to talk about it.' She was staring at her shaking hands. ‘We were just kids and we needed to tell somebody.'