God's Callgirl (58 page)

Once my guide felt sure I had regained my awareness of the lie of the land, he let me wander by myself. I felt like a
ghost returning; neither nun nor student. The whole place looked like a giant, empty stage set for the drama that had played itself out when I was there. I walked through the corridors to that spot where the drains were blocked during the flood and I’d taken off my bonnet to go underwater. I grinned with pleasure as I saw in my mind the horrified faces of my lecturers.

The greatest gem in that place was still the chapel with its marble and wood and superb acoustics. I climbed the winding set of stairs to the loft, the oak creaking under my feet. I found the old organ still there, her worn-out bellows testimony to the sweet music conjured out of her over the years. I touched her reverently, a corpse without any breath left in her, but precious all the same. In that chapel loft, I felt ecstatic with gratitude. What a privilege to return to where I had once felt so broken, and now to feel so free! Outside in the gracefully sloping grounds once more, I kissed the leaves of the rhododendrons and thanked them for the part they too had played in my drama.

I sat down on a familiar wooden bench and gazed at the front of the complex; its religious architectural imprints were still visible in the shape of crosses on the walls. I recognised the windows of the library, tall trees still nearby. Thirty-four years didn’t seem such a long time; back then, who could have guessed that the administration would be changed so soon? The bricks and mortar of Sedgley Park were still intact, but not a single nun was left.

Before I left, I had lunch in the mess and for the first time understood what it might have been like to be a lay student there, enjoying a meal with friends, talking to those close by, not obliged to be silent like we nuns were. I left Sedgley Park with a full heart, glad that so much had been preserved among all the things that had changed.

Back at Alice’s home, I tried to tell her what I’d experienced, but quickly saw that Sedgley represented a past she no longer had any interest in. Instead, I relaxed into the strange and delicious feeling of being close at last to the object of my once-vehement obsession, and focused on appreciating her for who she really was: a woman full of strengths and apprehensions, like all of us, but with a charm that will always be uniquely hers. Her eyes are darker now, but still lively, and her smile as wide and generous as ever when she forgets the cynicism she feels towards the world.

Alice and I never did manage to speak frankly about the past. For years I felt keenly the sorrow of inflicting a wrongness upon her and myself, but now I am at peace. Although I don’t know whether Alice agrees, I believe that neither of us were ‘wronged’, that we both chose our roles in that particular play.

WITH SOME FINANCIAL
help from Alice, I flew to Dublin and took a bus west to Limerick to see my old friend, Sister Antoinette. Surprisingly, the taxi driver did not know the address, so I had a chance to wander around, asking for directions. Once upon a time, there would not have been a soul who didn’t know where Laurel Hill Convent was.

When I knocked at the door, I received a right royal welcome. The convent’s superior, Sister Catherine, and a bevy of ancient nuns, all nearing or topping eighty, came crowding around. They were full of gentle curiosity and pleasure at this interruption to their daily routine, and full of blessings for the visitor who had come from so far away to see their beloved Antoinette.

I was shown to Sister Antoinette’s small room. She was ninety now and frail, but her memory was excellent. Her
sweet smile was the same, lighting up her eyes behind the glasses, and we chatted and laughed until she was tired out. She couldn’t believe that I had come all this way to see her. I apologised for being out of contact for so long, and let her know again and again during my three-day stay how much she had meant to me.

Each day I spent as much time as I could with her, leaving her to rest when she needed to. Antoinette rocked gently in her chair as we talked. She showed me photos of her community celebrating her fifty years of convent life, then sixty, and we reminisced about how it used to be, back in Benalla, with her reminding me of things I had forgotten. But Antoinette had grown tired after sixty-five years as a nun and ninety as a human being; she could no longer read, write letters or watch television. At times we just sat together, our eyes meeting in silence, and I felt glad to the depths of my soul for this meeting.

Back in Australia, I received a reply to the card I sent her for Christmas: Sister Antoinette had died peacefully not long after our reunion. God bless her sweet, kind soul.

GOD’S GIRL

BACK HOME IN
my cosy unit in Denmark, I made time to be quiet and consider what I had learned on my travels. I felt I had come ‘home’ in more ways than one. I was happy, finally, to be with myself. It is a satisfying thing, to go to hell and back and end up at home laughing because you carried
home
with you all the way and didn’t know it!

Now that I knew I truly loved my parents, I understood for the first time that they had truly loved me. It must have been hard for them, especially my mother, that I lived so far away and shared so little of my life with them, but she had accepted me the way I was and hadn’t pushed me or interfered by complaining or giving me advice. What is that but unconditional love? And my father—how he had loved! Thinking himself inadequate—like so many men who were humiliated as children by their parents—he compensated by being strong. It has taken me all these years to feel the tenderness with which he made our toys for us, the pleasure he took in watching us play with them, and his anxiety to be the best man he could be. The torture of his guilt only grew because of his silence. He paid so very dearly for this.

In the grounds near Grange Hill, a monument with a plaque was erected to the memory of my father, the
gardener of Genazzano. It was unveiled by the chairman of the college board on 22 August 1998. My father deserved this late recognition of his creative and passionate dedication to the beautification of the convent grounds and the many years of service he gave to the nuns at Genazzano. I wasn’t there for the dedication ceremony, but attending family members were deeply moved.

The FCJ society, once so prominent in several countries, is in a steep decline. Most of the remaining nuns pray for a miraculous survival of the order. They live in a world of their own, and God bless them. The few relatively younger nuns have spread themselves all over the world in the hope of recruiting new members from countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Romania. There are still some astute girls who are willing to combine their love of God with the opportunity for an education by entering the convent.

Both Sister Anna and Sister Benedict quit the order a few years after me. Anna married and had a son before she disappeared from my life. I met up with Benedict after her departure; she was suffering deep grief about having left. Here was someone who was truly a nun at heart, but whose convent had fallen short of being a genuine home. She died of cancer many years ago.

Vaucluse, where I endured my secondary education even as I enjoyed the congenial buildings and grounds, has been closed down for lack of pupils. There are no FCJ nuns teaching at Benalla and the small community has left the convent to live in a nearby house. In Australia it is rare to find any nuns still living in a convent community; most live alone in flats, some in houses. The hospice for the elderly at Genazzano will soon close because of the lack of trained FCJ nurses and declining numbers.

Sister Kevin is still one of the family’s old favourites. I recently enjoyed a long friendly telephone conversation with the feisty ninety year old who now suffers from lung pains. She told me some of the history of Genazzano: how the pioneer nuns had struggled, and how welcome my sister Liesbet and I were when we came to help with the laundry and the ironing to lighten her tremendous workload. To Liesbet she confided once that, ‘If we had listened to Carla, and had been kinder towards her and more understanding, then I think she would still be with us.’ I thank Sister Kevin for her kind words, but I believe that everything happened the way it was supposed to.

When I was in Melbourne recently for Liesbet’s sixtieth birthday, my youngest sister Teresa and I decided to go and have a look at Genazzano convent—late at night, so we wouldn’t bump into any nuns, students or caretakers. All the gates were locked, but we scaled the walls where we knew they weren’t so high and sauntered around in the moonlight, reminiscing about the past and identifying where things used to be in our time. It was a strange lifetime ago now.

When I left the order, my whip was the only thing nobody asked me to return, so I still have that inelegant memento of a severe and judgmental life—a very strong, cotton-twined and plaited whip, discoloured from years of vigorous use. I found out from Anna that she only ever used hers desultorily, unimpressed by the macabre process. I doubled up with laughter to see her re-enactment of her half-hearted pretence at beating herself.

It never occurred to me in the convent, but I am sure that Jesus had a sense of humour. Wouldn’t a true spiritual teacher want to help those who had lost their sense of humour to regain it? I finally came across a print of Jesus
laughing heartily. He was holding a cup of wine in a toast.
For Christ’s Sake
, read the caption. For Christ’s sake remember that human enjoyment of life is at one with spirituality! I treasured that picture until it fell to pieces from being put up on so many different walls in rented houses.

NOW THAT I
am wiser, it is easy to look back and see why many of the therapies I tried didn’t work for me. I was at an impossible starting-point as long as I thought of myself as fatally flawed, in dire need of fixing. All therapy could do was try to lay down some more positive beliefs on top of that mess. How can the mind heal the mind when the mind is the problem in the first place? With every attempt to fix my mind, I was also telling it that it was wrong and that I was rejecting it!

Self-acceptance, on the other hand, warts and all, is the action of the true self. People ask me how they can be more present; because they have heard of the power of being in the present; well, I always say that whenever I accept myself, there is more of my true self present. The radical understanding that made all the difference to me was that at core I am an eternal being, never tarnished, never broken, never lost. How can a devil continue to live in a person who no longer doubts her own goodness?

I have spent a fortune in my desperate attempts to get rid of a self that I didn’t believe good enough. If I’d been fearlessly, relentlessly honest from the very start, I would have discovered my true self, the one that is at peace naturally. But how could I be honest when I believed my core to be rotten? Who can say what I should and shouldn’t have done? We can only do what we are ready for; one little
step at a time until our legs get stronger. In the words of Byron Katie: ‘We do what we do until we don’t.’

The one thing the ego-devils do not like is disclosure: simple, honest communication about what is going on. Telling your misgivings to a friend, or just to yourself, can remove the mystique, the danger. That is what I tend to do these days, and I turn my stories around ceaselessly.

I have been celibate for a long time, redressing the balance, I guess. It has been my challenge, even if I didn’t recognise it until recently, to be thoroughly happy as a single woman. To find my worth without a man; to find my beloved in my self and everything around me. However, as a relationship could be fun and a rich ground for
living
love, I feel myself opening to the possibility of a special intimacy. It’s a bit of a wild statement since I can’t be sure if anything works in the sexual department any more! I am a blooming, fit and healthy woman, still appearing at parties showing off my stunning legs and weird outfits, but now entering the wise old crone stage of my life. My most real and intimate relationship is with myself. Intimacy with myself is precious and sweet, and it comes from being totally honest with myself, compassionate and tender. A lover would now taste my contentment, not my lust.

I enjoy being with people, animals and especially children. I take great delight in my two grandchildren, Victoria’s son and daughter. Victoria has become a strongly protective mother, imposing the strict boundaries she never had herself. Her practical nature makes her turn up her eyes to heaven sometimes when she encounters me. Her life is a private thing and, like my mother did, I now let her learn her lessons her own way. Whenever I do come in with a suggestion, I get reminded that I am interfering and judging. She is a great teacher.

My other daughter, Caroline, is a musician. She has deep spiritual understanding and our communications are frank and sweet. Having a very tender heart, she says she never wants to have children because they take so much loving and caring and can get hurt so easily and, it seems to her, so inevitably. Victoria’s children adore her.

James, my ex-husband, never remarried and lives happily in his house near Fremantle in Western Australia. He is still a generous, kind, typically Taurean man, with such strong ideas of how relationships should work that he believes no woman would ever enter one with him, and he may be right. His favourite book is
The Tao of Pooh
; he has a great love for children and is one of my friends.

When Hal got married, I helped my family members get ready for the wedding. With all my heart I wanted him to be happy and understood about not being invited. Our friendship is a given, although we hardly ever talk.

My friend George is a Denmark identity. For the last few years he has suffered from very bad health and a lot of pain. He has complained endlessly whilst staying patiently alive, to my amazement. Sometime in the past he thanked me for the chance to be his own boss after we left the valley. He is now more interested in helping others, offering to do practical jobs for the financially challenged. It was he who put up the fencing for my chookyard, banging six-inch nails into two-by-fours with the back of an axe.