Symposium (11 page)

Sister Lorne is furious because the Bishop sent a
dictionary to Sister Marrow. He said he had been given to understand she was at
a loss for words, how to express herself. He wrote something like that. And he
recommended she should study the dictionary or look it up when the accurate
epithet was called for. We had a meeting about the letter. Sister Lorne has
written back to the Bishop that this was an insult. She said that four-letter
words were the lifeblood of the market place, the People’s parlance and
aphrodisiac, the dynamic and inalienable prerogative of the proletariat.
Sister Marrow added a PS. Fuck your balls Bishop, you are a fart and a shit. I
posted the letter myself. The Bishop can’t do a thing. Sister Lorne remarked
that there is no power in Church or State that can stop the inexorable march of
Marxism into the future.

The old Mother Superior is in bed. Such a tragic case.

Kisses to Mum and all.

Margaret

This letter was shown to
Magnus the next Sunday, after lunch. He was tweedily dressed, with a
deerstalker hat which he kept on in the house in case of cold. ‘Conceivably’,
said Magnus, ‘what she says is true. But some of it may be the fruit of a
fertile Scottish imagination. The Murchies of old were great cursers, oath-takers
and foul-mouthers; it was known of them on both sides of the Border. I could
cite the manuscript sources.’

‘I
never thought of her account not being genuine,’ said Dan. ‘Greta and I just
felt she had got in with a funny lot.’

‘Undoubtedly.
But as she is still under shock, she probably sees things double, treble, not
as they really are.’

‘Of
course this nun-business won’t last,’ said Dan. ‘She’ll be out before long. At
the same time, as a picture of what the churches are producing her letter
doesn’t seem too exaggerated. A friend of mine in Suffolk — the vicar wears one
ear-ring and his boy-friend serves at the altar in a dazzling gold cope lined
with black satin. The Bishops can’t do a thing about it, and half the time
they’re just as bad.’

‘I
don’t like the sound of the old Mother Superior lying sick in the attic,’ said
Magnus.

‘Attic?’
said Dan, lifting the letter to scrutinize it. ‘She doesn’t say attic.’

‘It
sounds like an attic,’ said Magnus. ‘I hope nothing is going to happen to the
old lady.’

‘Oh, God!’
said Dan. ‘Oh, God!’

‘Hot
water to drink on week-days and a drop of sherry on Sunday,’ Magnus remarked as
Greta came in with whisky, water and two glasses on a tray. ‘One for the road,
Magnus,’ said Greta.

‘I just
showed Magnus the letter I got from Margaret,’ said Dan. He poured neat whisky
for Magnus and one for himself with water. ‘Don’t overdo it,’ Greta said.

‘Magnus
has just raised the question whether what Margaret says is true or not,’ said
Dan.

‘Oh, I
daresay it’s true,’ said Greta. ‘We have a friend in Suffolk — you have no idea
the carry-on. The vicar wears an ear-ring and —’

‘Dan
just told me,’ said Magnus. ‘All I say is, true or not is neither here nor
there. The fact is we don’t know a thing about what Margaret does with her life
at night. I don’t, myself, see Margaret getting into bed by ten.’

‘She is
very sincere about this venture,’ Greta said.

‘Sincerity
is neither here nor there. The fact remains that madness commonly takes the
form of religious mania,’ said Magnus, not in the least troubled by any thought
that this might apply to himself. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘Margaret is a Murchie,
Covenanting stock who refused to accept the rule of bishops. It is written in
the scriptures, Samuel 9: 11, “According to all that my lord the king hath commanded
his servant, so shall thy servant do.” Which you should meditate: Margaret
might well be under divine orders. And again it is written, Proverbs 26:17, “He
that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one
that taketh a dog by the ears.” You can work that one out for yourselves.’
Magnus swigged down his whisky and reached for more.

‘No
more, Magnus, it’s bad for you,’ said Greta. She looked very wild-eyed.

‘Time
to go home, Magnus,’ said Dan, standing up. Magnus heaved himself up, chuckling
to himself. He followed Dan, but turned at the sitting-room door and said to
Greta, ‘Do you know anything of hypnotism? It’s at the bottom of witchcraft,
you know. Remember Orpheus with his lute.’

‘Come
on, Magnus,’ said Dan.

‘Yes,
goodbye, Magnus,’ said Greta.

Shortly after Margaret’s
arrival at the convent the BBC television came to do a profile of the Sisters
of Good Hope. The preliminary arrangements had been made some months before
between the Mother Superior and the director of the programme, a young woman
with long yellow hair and hard blue eyes who wore dark skirts to her ankles and
heavy boots. The short-skirted Mother Superior, then in fairly good health, had
shown her over the premises and given a rational account of what the Sisters
did with their time. Rita Jones, the young director, was introduced to the nine-nun
community. She made copious notes in her desk-size filofax. ‘Of course, Miss
Jones,’ said the Mother Superior, ‘we are not all cut to measure like the more
ancient monastic orders. We are extremely individualistic in our tastes, in our
personalities, in our backgrounds, in our views on life and society, including
religion and politics.’ Miss Jones took note of this on a blue page of her
filofax.

‘There
has been talk that your community might be leaving the Church of England. Is
that likely to happen?’

‘Oh, it
could happen, but not for a good while,’ said Sister Lorne, perceiving that the
question was, basically, whether it was worth planning a programme if in fact the
community was in a state of flux.

‘Sister
Marrow — she’s our Novice Mistress, except we have no novices at present — has
not yet finished painting her masterpiece, a mural in our refectory. It will
take time, months, years. Sister Marrow is an artist.’

‘Can I
see the painting?’

‘Oh,
not yet. I’ll have to ask Sister Marrow. But we can promise to have something
ready to televise if you decide to come.’ Sister Lorne lowered her voice.
‘Sister Marrow has temperament. Naturally. But she’s very sound basically.
Very with it, very
politicized
like myself.’ She raised her voice again
and pronounced, ‘Religion pure and simple is not enough.’

‘About
the hospital visiting,’ said Miss Jones. ‘That is your main concern, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,
it’s our mission,’ said Sister Lorne. ‘We do just that. Whatever criticism may
be levelled at us, nobody can say that we don’t visit the sick. It’s a very
important work. We are widely appreciated.’

‘Yes, I
know. That’s why we thought of a profile.’ Rita Jones evidently smelt a possible
good programme in that phrase ‘whatever criticism …

She
asked, ‘Can you say something about the criticism?’

‘No,’
said Sister Lorne.

Miss
Jones changed tack: ‘Would it be possible for us to take some shots of the
members of your community visiting the sick in hospital?’ And on hearing that
the Sisters of Good Hope would have no objection, the programme had been agreed
upon.

Before
she left Miss Jones said, ‘Take care of your chest, Sister Lorne. It sounds
like bronchitis.’

So it
happened that shortly after Margaret Murchie had joined the community as a
novice the BBC duly arrived: Miss Jones, a team of five and their cameras. The
first thing they did was to change the lighting arrangements in the recreation
room and the refectory, clobbering through the hall with their unnecessarily
stout boots. Sister Marrow appeared in the hallway. ‘What the fucking hell do you
think you’re doing?’ she enquired of the chief cameraman, who was immediately
joined protectively by the other four technicians.

‘Are
you a nurse, then?’ asked one of the men.

‘No,
I’m a Novice Mistress. Now, what are you doing with this trail of crap?’ She
indicated the photographic gear and a long trail of wiring leading out from the
refectory. Just then Margaret appeared through the front door. ‘Sister Murchie,
our new novice,’ said Sister Marrow. ‘Meet the team,’ she said to Margaret.
‘They think they’re going to film the fucking refectory but they’ve no bloody
right. My work, my unfinished painting is there. Not ready for the crapulous public
to take in.’

A voice
from the landing above said, ‘Sister Marrow, I
did
promise …’ It was
Sister Lorne leaning over the banisters. Miss Jones was with her. ‘The
refectory is an essential,’ she said. The bemused camera team looked up towards
Miss Jones for further orders.

‘Follow
me,’ said Margaret. ‘I’ll explain the painting to you. It is by far the most
important thing in the convent. Sister Marrow is much too modest.’

‘Shit,’
said Sister Marrow.

Sister
Lorne and Miss Jones came tripping down the stairs to join the bewildered crew
and Margaret in the refectory. Sister Marrow, tall and skinny, followed behind.
‘She hasn’t been here three weeks and she fucking well runs the convent,’ was
Sister Marrow’s comment on young Sister Murchie. But she seemed pleased that
Margaret was about to draw attention to her mural.

It was
so far only a sketch, stretching along one side of the refectory wall. It
depicted a long, huge, antiquated monster, blowing clouds of smoke. ‘Is that a
dragon?’ said Miss Jones, avid for symbolism.

‘No
it’s the sketch of a train. A steam train,’ said Sister Lorne loud and clear.

‘Oh, a
train,’ said Miss Jones. ‘Would that be Freudian?’

‘Freudian
my arse,’ said Sister Marrow in a booming voice from the doorway.

‘Are
those saints?’ said one of the camera crew, a slight and sensitive-looking
youth.

‘Saints?
What do you mean?’ said Sister Lorne. The vaguely painted-in figures standing
beside the train did indeed have some sort of halo or bushy cloud around their
heads. One particular figure seemed to have descended from the train, his halo
bigger and bushier than the rest, with one arm raised, his finger pointing
upwards.

‘As I
am given to understand it,’ said Margaret in a quiet civilized tone of voice
that implied a lack of civilized perception in all the others present, ‘this
mural painting is a depiction of the scene at the railway station in St
Petersburg on 16 April 1917, when Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov known as Lenin arrived
from Switzerland to be met by a great crowd of comrades.’

‘You
give them haloes, then?’ said Miss Jones.

‘Those
are fur hats, you silly cow,’ muttered Sister Marrow.

‘I
don’t quite get the religious significance,’ said Miss Jones. ‘— Oh, well, yes.
I do. I think I do. That half-naked figure with the beard and the loincloth
lying along the cloud of steam and leaning his torso over the cloud to touch
Lenin must be God.’ The figure she referred to was up near the refectory’s
ceiling. Lenin was looking up at it with his raised arm, so that his finger
touched the pointing finger of the bearded man.

‘Not
God. Karl Marx,’ said Sister Lorne, wheezing heavily. ‘You must get your
points of reference right.’ She looked hard at a member of the BBC who had
reflectively lit a cigarette. ‘No smoking,’ she said.

One of
the cameramen moved to set up his tripod in the doorway where Sister Marrow was
standing. She blocked his way. ‘Watch your balls, Sister,’ he said.

‘You
like pushing women around, don’t you?’ said Sister Marrow.

‘Yes, I
do.’

Five
days of filming and interviewing ensued, including a round of visits to the
hospitals where many of the staff and patients put up a resistance to the
intrusion. Margaret, being extremely photogenic, was induced to be
photographed administering to the more grateful of the patients; she arranged
their pillows and the flowers on the ward tables. But it was inside the convent
that the team got their supreme moments. Rita Jones was delighted. The eventual
public were divided into two parts as they always are when religious questions
arise, and this ensured the success of the programme. It was repeated two weeks
after its first showing, in spite of the protests of the protesting half of
the public. Only Sister Marrow’s speeches were modified, although not quite.
Sister Rooke, a round-faced girl with warts and a cheery smile, large but
compact, wearing her veil but with a plumber’s overalls, explained in her
television-worthy North Country accent how she had come to be a master plumber;
and she described the various ecclesiastical places whose complicated drainage
systems she had to plumb. In reply to Miss Jones’s questions she recounted her
experiences at the installation of washing machines, dishwashers,
central-heating arrangements, bathrooms and showers. About Sister Rooke, at
least, the total television audience was unanimous. Everyone loved Sister Rooke
and also the plumber’s mate, a certain Sister Rose, very young, equally veiled
and overalled.

Sister
Lorne’s statement in the course of an interview was perhaps the most impressive
to one part of the public and offensive to the outraged other: ‘The march of
Marxist philosophy and politics etcetera will not stop at the borders. Our
young will pour into the Eastern European countries pleading asylum from the
capitalist-consumer system. We will live to see the day.’ The outraged part of
the public were not in the least concerned with the probability or otherwise of
Sister Lorne’s prophecy coming true; they were indignant only that a nun of the
Church of England had said it.