God's Callgirl (23 page)

The poor woman took days to die, in terrible agony. I don’t know how people die in common hospitals, but I can’t imagine anything worse than such a slow death in absolute terror, suffered in full consciousness but without
the ability to ask for relief, with the only wisdom offered being a mixture of sympathy and platitudes. We nuns, who witnessed this for days, could have stopped to question what was wrong with our lives if they had to end this way—but no, we were living in basic ignorance and denial. Truth filters very slowly through to consciousness that believes it’s got everything right already.

THE SEASONS OF
autumn and winter taught me something about surrender. I often sat near the large bay window of the library on the first floor, up among the branches of the linden trees. In autumn the trees’ branches relinquished all their leaves, and in winter they bore a couple of inches of snow. My heart went out to the trees, especially the one closest to me. It seemed so patient, so long-suffering. The thought brought tears to my eyes. I wrote a poem, in which I asked the tree what it had done for it to be condemned to stay frozen and carry the burden of snow instead of leaves. Sentimentality comes easily to people who keep their sorrows to themselves. I told the tree that one day the birds would come to sing among its leaves again, and it would feel the warmth of the sun on its branches.

The season of my sorrow would last much longer than this winter. It would take many years for me to wake up to an inner sunshine that no one could ever take away.

I GAINED MY
teacher’s diploma after three years at Sedgley Park. The day for goodbyes came.
I shall see Alice at last, and speak to her, and for once it won’t be wrong of me!
I hoped it would be an especially good time, an excuse for a loving
hug, but it wasn’t like that. I stood in front of her shaking like a leaf, trying to hide it while extending a hand, being as casual as possible.

‘Goodbye, I’m leaving now,’ I said, and was unable to say any more. How I detested my awkwardness! Why did I have to be this stultified, tongue-tied Dutch clod of a person, the opposite of Irish sociability?

Alice took my hand politely. There was no sign on her face of any special recognition. She was distressed at losing another friend, Sister Imelda, a Canadian, who, like herself, was blessed with the gift of the gab. Standing before Alice, I felt I could read her mind, her feelings, and a realisation swept over me like a betrayal. Alice had felt nothing more for me than occasional pity. She had not shunned me just because my love for her was against the rules, but because she simply didn’t appreciate me. She wasn’t beyond strong attachment herself, for someone more inclined to her own ways. It was a bitter moment of clarity, draining away any hope I had ever entertained of being loved by her in return.

How was it possible that great love did not produce love in return?

I ran outside to say goodbye to the magenta rhododendron bush, hoping against hope that it would have some flowers on it in June, but of course it didn’t.

My years at Sedgley, then, had been the years of my absorption with Alice. When I finally stepped in front of a classroom in 1965, I might as well have come straight off the street, so useless had my training been to my preoccupied mind.

SILENT MADNESS

STELLA MARIS
, ‘Star of the Sea’, the mother house near Broadstairs. I was sent back there for a refresher course as a Faithful Companion of Jesus, an intensive year or more of relearning obedience and practising silence.

I was not alone. All of us six Australians who had arrived in England three years ago travelled south together. We left sooty Manchester to emerge onto the glorious green fields of England, and then to London, where we were met once more by our streetwise nun-guide and stayed overnight.

Off again at the crack of dawn to avoid the crowds. I had time to admire the magnificent old ceilings of Victoria Station filling with steam; enjoy the thunderous clatter of incoming trains, the dignified whistle of others announcing their way out. I revelled in the beauty of the old-world wrought-iron gates and seats, the detail of the paintwork on the trains and, after we were ushered into our sequestered first-class carriage, the luxurious comfort of the leather-padded seats.

We left the train after many hours and boarded a bus. The double-decker wended its way through small villages built well before the time of motor cars, lurching through their narrow streets and allowing the passengers close-up views of quaint crocheted curtains in the upstairs windows.

From Broadstairs town we were chauffeured to North Foreland, a patch of coastline that was mostly owned by the order. At last we had arrived.

It was as if I was seeing the place for the very first time. I had forgotten how long it took to walk from one end of the property to the other, and that a public road ran right through the middle of the complex of gardens and buildings.

‘We welcome our Australian sisters to Stella Maris! Have you travelled well?’ The choreographed welcome came from the ancient nun who had greeted us at the door three years earlier. She was the Vicar, the second-in-command, a bit like royalty, and she knew how to quickly make us feel at ease. The old dame had been a grand duchess once, and had been allowed to keep her graces.

The Vicar’s house was a former mansion which retained the feel of English country homeliness. We were shown our sleeping quarters: large rooms made into upstairs dormitories. The building was close to the convent’s exclusive little primary school, and from our dorm window we had the exquisite pleasure of hearing the Kentish children reciting their prayers at assembly. Their accents were so pure and song-like that it brought tears to my eyes.

Our duchess-Vicar ordered high tea for us, after which we were shown through the orchards and gardens to the main residence. Although we would sleep at the vicarage, we were to study, work and eat in the main house.

It was the height of summer and espaliered pear, apple and peach trees were in fruit along the south walls of the vegetable garden. Roses of all colours climbed up every available wall, ramblers and large-flowered cultivars. Wallflowers graced the sunny bay windows along the front of the main house, their perfume luscious in the late afternoon.
Ivy crept up the red-brick walls, trying to enter the open upstairs windows, reaching right over the chimneys.

We were shown around the creaking complex: the study rooms, the linen room, the kitchen, the bright convening room and, in a separate building, the laundry. An enclosed wooden passage joined the two main houses. There were odd little rooms and useless spaces, and the toilets were in a row of five. These were new: the pine cladding still gave off a refreshing scent. We weren’t shown the parlours at the front of the house, nor the sleeping quarters of the resident nuns, or the General’s quarters. The General lived in a secluded part of the complex (she was expected to arrive back from a journey the following week).

I so wanted this to be a good place. It was beautiful: such precision in the garden, contrasting with the crumbling grandeur of the old mansions. It all promised the possibility of homeliness, of comfort, even of friendliness. All this turned out to be true at times, and yet the place was dominated entirely by the influence of one stern woman: Margaret Winchester, the Reverend Mother General. She was treated with extraordinary reverence, not only because of her position but because of her force of character—something I was to experience first-hand.

She was very tall, with a wide broad face and staring eyes made larger by the many circles of sagging wrinkles around them. She reminded me strongly of an orang-utan. I smiled at her when she met us upon her return to the convent, thinking that she was deliberately trying to create a funny impression, but was soon stared down by her steady eyes. Neither feminine nor masculine, she had a power bestowed by enigma. While she was imposing, she walked with a humble gait on feet that always ached with gout, head bowed, watching her step. Her hands flailed beside her
swaying body to keep balance as she walked, typically orang-utan-like; something we would never dare do ourselves, no matter how unbalanced we might feel, because it would look too ostentatious, or out-of-control.

The General had a very poor constitution by the time I knew her. She burped constantly and her devoted personal attendant took infinite pains to find recipes and cook her meals that might suit her stomach. The General took her job extremely seriously. In time I would find out that this woman, to whom I had sent loving letters during my postulancy and novitiate, believed that her main mission in life was to make sure nobody had a swollen head, that we all remained humble.

To be humble meant being slavishly submissive, never speaking up, and never complaining or arguing. We were also to be obedient without question, and our obedience was measured by the degree of self-abnegation or mental, emotional or physical suffering we could endure in the execution of orders. We were frequently given contradictory orders to confound and confuse us, and publicly humiliated whenever we failed to carry out these orders based on impossible expectations.

The General got away with it because her subjects willingly bestowed a sort of infallibility upon her as the mouthpiece of God—although it takes English stoicism (which I did not share) fortified with heavy doses of religious fervour (which I did share) to ascribe a special holiness to the whimsical madness of an ageing, eccentric woman—and because Stella Maris was a testing place anyway. It was a place where the wayward were pulled into line, and the as-yet unshaped—or perhaps crookedly-shaped, like us college graduates, influenced by lay studies—were moulded in the true spirit of the order. She also got
away with it because of her mad sincerity and her innovative flair. Her innovations were cruel, but their shock value drew respect. Lastly, and incredibly, she had a sense of humour, and sometimes a kindness in her eyes that belied her madness. She may once have been an especially gifted woman, but she had become a victim of her own institution and her own convictions. The General was often with us in chapel, and gave us talks at least once a week, yet she remained a terrifying mystery because she hardly ever conversed with us on an individual level.

The nun in charge of tertiary novices was Mother Mary John; she was about sixty-five years old, rotund and serious but with a little smile close to her brown eyes. Her olive skin gave her an Italian or Spanish look and tiny, dark whiskers grew above her lips. She was a tower of stability and kindness, but steadfastly refused to become a mother figure of the consoling kind, which might have been her natural tendency. She was stern whenever she thought it necessary, not habitually like the General. She sat at the head of the long narrow L-shaped table at which novices and lay sisters sat in the refectory. There was hardly enough room for so many of us.

Conversation, when it was allowed, was supposed to go around the corner of the L shape, to people who couldn’t actually see each other. This peculiar arrangement encouraged witty asides that were tolerated by Mother Mary John if they did not too obviously reach her ear. She appreciated laughter, and that was our saving grace. It was like balm to our young adult souls to be allowed this indulgence in high spirits at table and at recreation time. Her large body would shake when she laughed; her eyes would close up and her lips would soften and she would lift up a serviette to hide her mouth. I loved the way she could
not control her mirth; she was obviously enjoying our company. She had a way of sending us into stitches too, with unexpected moments of dry wit, but mostly she was quiet, keeping aware of the group dynamics, checking that each of her charges was there and seemed to be all right.

It was Mother Mary John’s job to bring to our notice directives from the General, to coordinate household tasks, to hold monthly interviews with each of us to check on our progress or otherwise, and to correct us when necessary and impose punishments. She also presided over some of our afternoon recreation sessions. I had the distinct impression that although she was thorough in carrying out the punishing chore, it went against the grain for her. Somehow that made receiving punishment from her more palatable—and more hurtful. The question arose: ‘Why punish if it feels wrong?’ and the answer had to be, ‘God’s ways (meaning the General’s rules and ways) are mysterious, and we are here not to question but to make a sacrifice of our obedience.’ Mother Mary John had compassion, but her sense of devotion took absolute precedence.

Since space at Stella Maris was terribly cramped, we Australians often did our morning meditation in the Vicar’s chapel to reduce crowding in the main chapel. It was a small stone building, set apart in a garden, with tiny archaic windows at just above head height. The wicker prie-dieux were only two deep on each side of the aisle, and there were about eight rows of them. The windows were usually open, winter and summer, and the sweetest fresh air would drift in. At six o’clock in the morning even the dew had a smell, and many a meditation of mine was but a pure appreciation of the roses and wallflowers and the song of the birds. The air was like a pure angel, cool to the brain, bringing on a kind of euphoria.

I would let my poetic nature have its head and joy filled my heart. I would remember some line from Gerard Manley Hopkins, like ‘
The world is charged with the grandeur of God
…’ or something else I’d read. This little stone chapel was a precious jewel, as still as stillness itself, exuding a rare atmosphere that the darker and larger chapel at Stella Maris did not, even with its wonderfully carved and polished wooden sanctuary rails and pulpit, beautifully architraved ceiling, wooden pews and parquetry floors. There, the smells were all traditional—of wood and the remains of incense. The Reverend Mother General knelt at the back—a vantage point for her watchful eye.

STELLA MARIS EMPLOYED
a professional groundsman who knew how to grow vegetables and flowers all year round. He would often get disgruntled when he received contradictory orders from week to week and ended up doing a lot of work for nothing. Early that autumn he gave up and left. This was something quite unexpected from a mere servant! The nuns forgot that he had not made a vow of obedience. ‘He loves his garden, and he has a great respect for his work. He’ll come back,’ I heard them say, but they were wrong. The weeds accumulated in the vegetable patch and still he didn’t come back. That’s when we were asked to fulfil one of the General’s unforgettable crazy orders—about ten of us were told to pull up nettles with our bare hands. We were not to stop until the last nettle was gone.