And Then There Were Nuns (11 page)

My personality flatlined. I used to be high-spirited; always game for a bit of fun. Laugh? I'd laugh plenty and tell dirty jokes, to boot. But all that evaporated. Gone. Just like that.

This metamorphosis had all the markings of a midlife crisis, but in the deepest reaches of my being I knew it was not; it was the long beginning of an awkward awakening.

What I did not realize at the time was that my actions were typical of someone wrestling with post-traumatic stress. The desexing, the defiance against the status quo are as much a reaction as they are coping mechanisms for those of us who have sustained physical and emotional abuse.

In advance of my long stay in Whitby, I decided to spend a few weeks at St. Cecilia's Abbey, home to a community of Benedictine nuns on the Isle of Wight. They were renowned for their Gregorian chant, and I longed to bathe in that music so that its crystalline sounds could flow over me and flush away the toxins of cynicism, weariness, pride, shame, hurt, anger, disappointment, fear, stress—oh, it was a long list—and purify me.

However, St. Cecilia's could only accommodate me for a week, so it was suggested that I contact the monks at nearby Quarr Abbey. I had never heard of Quarr Abbey—not that a males-only monastery would have been on the radar of a wannabe nun—but nonetheless, I sent off an email to its guestmaster, who accepted my booking for the week preceding my stay at St. Cecilia's. A week at Quarr would, I reasoned, ease me into the routine of religious life.

St. Benedict was not a fan of religious tire-kickers. He considered these “gyratory monks” to be aimless, “restless servants to their own will and appetites.” What choice did I have? Either I risked Benedict's scourge for being a dilettante or I ignored the tug inside me that propelled me on my way.

Both Quarr and St. Cecilia's were Roman Catholic communities, but given my dual religious upbringing and my ease at toggling between the Anglican and Roman Catholic traditions, I did not think it would be a problem.

Meanwhile, Colin, bless his heart, offered to drive me from London to the Isle of Wight and drop me off at Quarr.

As much as I tried to remain upbeat about my upcoming journey, the truth was that I was scared. Now I was working through two issues: finding out whether I was being called to be a nun, and finding resolution to the rape.

God never makes these things easy.

················

Quarr Abbey

Isle of Wight, England

MY FIANCÉ IS
driving me to a nunnery.

The words drummed steadily in my mind like a mantra as I tried to make sense of the ludicrous reality of it all. I turned my face toward the passenger window and quietly shook my head.
Why does my life have to be this weird?

Colin's car clipped along the A36 (or was it the M2?) through the Somerset countryside (or were we in Wiltshire now?) toward Southampton and to the ferry that would take us to the Isle of Wight.

My mind was swirling with enough what-ifs, whys, and what-was-I-thinking admonishments to trigger a breakdown. Perhaps that was where I was headed: toward a breakdown. I invoked some calming strategies—deep slow breaths, imagining a blackboard eraser wiping clean the clutter in my brain, even commanding myself to relax—
Relax!
—but nothing worked for long. I tried to distract myself by turning my attention to the English countryside that was whizzing past the car window—
Look how green everything is! Like spring! The leaves on the holly and azalea bushes are so glossy you can practically see your reflection in them. You'd never get a January like this in Canada.
But as soon as I locked onto the lichen-covered tree limbs, vines, and tree trunks, my thoughts disassembled into word association:
They look like they've been wrapped in a mossy veil of chiffon. Veil. Gown. Wedding.
Gulp. The distraction-therapy tactics came to a screeching halt, and the mantra resumed:
My fiancé is driving me to a nunnery.

I alternated between weepiness and excitement. I couldn't decide whether I was doing the right thing or the wrong thing. A babble of voices in my head jeered in unison:
Why are you doing this? Are you mad?
Each time that happened, the Voice Within would calmly intervene:
Have faith. There's a reason for this. Keep going.
I was beginning to wish I had never paid attention to those voices.

We missed the entrance to Quarr Abbey, not once but twice. On the third attempt we spotted a small sign partially obscured by dry, desiccated vines at the edge of a narrow roughly paved driveway and turned in. The car bounced over and around ruts and potholes as Colin steered it with care. It lent a jaunty air to the excursion, and combined with the unusually sunny and warm January weather, it felt like we were going on a picnic.

The road eventually brought us to an uneven parking area set amid barns and garages.

I got out of the car, stretched my legs, and took a measure of the place.

Quarr Abbey's rose and yellow brick bell tower loomed over us. It was a curious style of architecture: a fusion of Moorish, medieval, and masonic sensibilities that made you wonder whether the architect had been channeling Fritz Lang. The dome of the bell tower resembled a minaret topped by a squat cross. On the main building, sharp triangular shapes like eyebrows raised in surprise topped the stylized gothic windows; broad gothic arches marked doorways; and the partially crenellated façades and blind arches gave the monastery a severe, almost militaristic look.

By contrast, the landscaping was soft and undulating, from the serpentine contours of the flower beds and hedges to the rise and dips of the terrain. Tall, dark green iron fencing delineated the gardens from the main buildings, and benches and pieces of religious statuary encouraged contemplation. Everything pointed to a property tended with great care and affection, a place where peace and stillness were sacraments.

( 3:ii )

“I'M AFRAID
, because you're, um, female, you can't eat in the refectory with us. We'll serve you your meals in this dining room instead. I'll make sure the door is left open between the two rooms, though, so you feel part of us. Oh, and you can't enter the church through this door: it leads to our cloister and, well, men only, you know. Your room is on this floor: you can't stay upstairs, because that area is for men only, too.”

In the space of thirty seconds, Father Nicholas had uttered three
can't
s. The word caused a jerking reflex in my shoulders.

As Quarr's guestmaster, Father Nicholas had the duty of providing an orientation to guests. His slightly rushed delivery left the impression he would rather be doing something else.

The three of us were standing in a long, narrow dining room where I would take my meals. The dining-room table, which ran almost the length of the room, easily accommodated the dozen chairs that had been neatly arranged around it. A side counter held a toaster, bread, coffee mugs, and kettle; on a far wall stood two massive and somewhat forbidding armoires that I guessed served as a pantry for cereal boxes and dishes. A pair of doors, now closed, separated the dining room from the monks' refectory. I was hoping Father Nicholas would permit a peek.

“Let me show you your room.”

Guess not.

He turned on his heel and headed out of the dining room, his voluminous black habit swishing and fluttering in his wake.

Colin and I scurried after him like children, down a long white corridor on the main floor of the abbey's guest wing. Halfway down the hall, Father Nicholas stopped abruptly at a door on the right-hand side, drew a key from beneath his black scapular, unlocked the door, and flung it open.

The room was adorable, if that isn't too girly a description for a monastic cell. The walls were white; the floors were polished natural pine. The door and window frames, skirting boards, fireplace mantel, and window shutters were painted a pale sage. All the furniture was natural pine: a single bed—which had a neatly folded stack of crisp white linens atop a pale green bedspread—a bedside table with drawers, two chairs, and a desk in the corner. The window faced a courtyard abutting a quaint-looking outbuilding that housed Quarr's book and gift shop. There was an en suite with tiled terracotta floors, a pine tongue-and-groove ceiling inset with pot lights, a small tiled shower, and a large bowl-shaped sink fashioned out of polished concrete or stone that sat on the tiled countertop. It was all very fresh and modern.

“Does this work?” I asked excitedly, pointing to the fireplace and envisioning cozy evenings curled up with my Bible in front of a cheerful fire.

“Ah, no,” Father Nicholas said with a tight smile, as in, “Nice try.”

“This is quite nice,” Colin murmured with surprise as he surveyed the room, his hands clasped behind his back like a police officer conducting an inspection. It was a posture that came naturally to Colin because he was, in fact, a police officer, though a more unlikely member of the London Met you will not find. He had been sure of his vocation, certain that joining the police would enable him to help people and make society better. (We are all eventually disillusioned by our chosen vocations.)

I was pleased that Colin was concentrating on the physical surroundings rather than on the fact that he was dropping off his fiancée at a monastery so that she could decide whether to marry him or be a nun. If he felt any weirdness or discomfort, he never let on. I would like to think that I would have been equally magnanimous if he were the one exploring a religious vocation. I glanced up at him and imagined him in a black cassock and scapular.

I had been unsure how to introduce Colin to Father Nicholas. To call him my fiancé seemed contradictory, given that I had told Father Nicholas I was discerning a religious vocation. “Boyfriend” sounded desperate, and “friend” would have sounded denigrating to Colin. In the end I just stammered over it all until Father Nicholas, rocking on his heels and looking at Colin, jumped in with a jovial, “So, you're the one who brought her, eh?”

I guessed Father Nicholas to be in his mid-fifties. He was of medium height and build—though it is tricky to determine someone's physique when it is hidden beneath a shapeless floor-length habit—and he had short, wispy light brown hair. I could not determine whether the crown of his head bore a tonsure or indicated naturally thinning hair. His dark-framed glasses gave his long, sharp features an engagingly nerdy and punctilious quality; he struck me as the type who, as a youngster, probably relished reminding the teacher to assign homework. He was chatty, perhaps more out of nervousness than a desire to be chatty. He didn't appear to favor eye contact. When he became excited or agitated, his arms flapped like a penguin.

“We don't really have anything written down for you, but here's the schedule: vigils at five-thirty—doubt you'll make that; lauds at seven; then breakfast, followed by Mass at nine. Then it's...”

Whoa, buddy!
He rhymed it off so quickly I could not keep up. There was a mention of lunch, but when was that again?

“... by which time it's vespers at five, supper at seven, and then it's topped off with compline at eight-thirty. Of course, you don't have to come to any of the offices, you're free to do whatever you like—walk around the gardens, walk into town, read, whatever you fancy. So, shall I leave you to say good-bye to each other?”

And with that Father Nicholas swooshed out of the room. The sound of the door closing echoed loudly.

Silence hung like humidity between Colin and me. We embraced stiffly and lightly at first to avoid the stickiness of the situation, but gradually our bodies melded together in their natural way.
Who knows: this might be the last time I hug a man.
We reconfirmed that he would pick me up in Yorkshire at the end of my convent crawl, in three and a half months.

As we walked to the parking lot, I kept up a light patter to prevent the conversation from veering into the maudlin and to keep my own doubts at bay. “Aren't the grounds beautiful?” “I wonder if there are other guests here.” “Not sure this place has Wi-Fi, so don't get worried if I don't email.” “How long do you expect it will take you to drive back to London?”

The next thing I knew, I was waving good-bye as his little car vanished into a cloud of gravel dust.

( 3:iii )

I WANDERED
back to my cell and sat on the edge of the bed in a state of mild shock with only that nagging, recurrent question for company:
What the hell am I doing here?
How much easier and more fun it would be to plan a wedding and a celebratory reception, to mull ideas for a honeymoon, or to shop for furniture and feather our future nest—maybe a quaint stone cottage in Devon for the two of us to grow old in—than go into a sort of self-imposed exile to see whether I was really meant to live a silent and austere life.

I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to connect the dots of reason. Had I been too hasty, too naïve about all this?