The Convent (46 page)

A kiss is just a kiss. It can be as sweet as a bunch of freshly cut mint, or as stale as week-old bread. But even a small kiss can take you on a ride that you never come back from. A kiss can mean everything in the world, or it can mean absolutely nothing … ‘This means nothing,' I say sharply.

‘Okay,' he says.

We pull apart and stand there not touching, looking out at the trucks passing, both awkward, slightly ashamed … and totally amazed at what has just happened.

Then he grabs my hand. I resist until I hear him speak.

‘Peach.'

His voice is so ragged that I fall into his arms and we kiss again, for longer. He is first to pull away this time.

‘Nothing,' I say again firmly. ‘Absolutely fucking zero. So don't get any ideas.'

‘Believe me, I haven't,' he snaps.

‘What?'

‘Ideas.'

‘Don't lie!'

I turn away and try to walk off towards the petrol station, but he puts one arm around my shoulders and steers me back towards the car.

‘I want to be alone,' I say.

‘I know that,' he says quietly, ‘but there is no way except by road.'

‘I'll get the train.'

But we're back at the car now, and he is opening the door. I get in warily, all ready to flee again as if I'm some kind of shy animal caught in the headlights. One sly grin or smart comment from Stella or Det, who would have seen us kissing, and I swear I will take off again and not allow myself to be diverted.

But no one jokes or says anything for that matter. Det and Stella don't even look at me.

When Fluke has the car out on the road again, Det mutters under her breath, ‘I'm sorry. I should have told you.'

‘It's okay, but just don't talk to me now, okay?'

‘Okay.'

Cecilia
1968

She was four days into the six-day retreat. Apart from prayer and what was absolutely necessary she'd not spoken at all during that time. But one of the very old Sisters was motioning her into the front parlour.

Two visitors had arrived unexpectedly and the old nun didn't know what to do with them. It was five o'clock in the afternoon and the whole community was at prayer. Cecilia recognised Mr and Mrs Bryant immediately. Nice people, the parents of one of the six new postulants who'd entered eight months before. Cecilia had met them during last month's visit.

But they stood nervously now, trying to smile at her.

‘Mr and Mrs Bryant from South Australia.' Cecilia smiled and held out her hand in greeting, her own voice sounding strange after such a long time of not speaking. ‘How are you both?'

But she could see for herself that something was wrong. They looked exhausted. Their clothing was grimy and dishevelled. She guessed that they'd been travelling all night.

‘How can I help you?' she said.

‘There has been … news, I'm afraid, Sister,' Mr Bryant said quietly. ‘And we have to … We want to tell Monica ourselves.'

‘I see.' Cecilia hesitated. Was it up to her to tell them that there could be no visits during retreat? This rule was adhered to very strictly.

‘I'll go and find Reverend Mother,' Cecilia said carefully, ‘and ask if that will be possible.'

‘Thank you, Sister. We'd be most grateful.'

Cecilia slipped out of the room wondering what had brought them such a long distance. Someone must have died … She shuddered and tried not to remember the Reverend Mother breaking the news to her that Dominic was dead. Reverend Mother had begrudgingly allowed her a quarter of an hour with her parents before they were ushered out again.
Fifteen
minutes for my brother's life and no relaxation of the Rule to attend
the funeral.
She doubted Monica would be allowed to see her parents at all.

She found Reverend Mother coming out of the chapel, her head bowed.

‘Excuse me, Mother.'

The older woman stopped and stared at her blankly.

Cecilia's resolve to speak wavered as the steel eyes met her own.
This better be important
was what the nun was telling her.

‘Mother, Monica Bryant's parents have arrived.'

‘
Pardon
?'

‘I'm afraid old Mother Seraphina showed them in, Mother.'

‘Did she now.' The nun frowned. ‘And what do they want?'

‘They want to see Monica, Mother.'

‘Did you tell them that that is impossible?'

‘No, I didn't, Mother.'

The older nun frowned in exasperation and then spoke quietly. ‘Sister, we are on retreat. Visitors are not allowed. Please go and tell them that.'

‘They've come all the way from Adelaide, Mother.' Cecilia was looking at the ground. ‘They seem very upset and worried. I think … there might have been some terrible thing happen. Some death in the family.' Cecilia felt her Superior's whole stance still in the momentary silence between them.
She remembers my brother.

‘Sister Annunciata, would you please go and tell the Bryants that their daughter is on retreat and that it will therefore be impossible to see her,' the Reverend Mother said.

Cecilia found she couldn't move. And with each passing second it seemed more unlikely that she ever would. Her eyes were on the ground, but she could feel the air rushing around them both. It was thick with tension.
Go now. Right now
. Still she couldn't move. Cecilia edged one black shoe back a fraction so it was in line with the other one and saw again the faces of the old couple. How tired and worn and sad they'd been.

‘I can't do that, Mother,' she said softly.

The five simple words swung in the space between them.
I can't do that, Mother …

There must have been something in Cecilia's tone that convinced Mother Gabriel. Her own expression didn't change but she took a breath, turned on her heel and strode off, leaving Cecilia standing by herself in the small courtyard.

Cecilia stared around in a state of shock, half expecting the buildings to crumble down around her or the sky to cave in.
Oh, what have I done?
But the sky didn't cave in and no buildings crumbled. In fact, everything remained remarkably as it had been three minutes before. She looked at her watch and began to walk back to the chapel. It was time for Vespers.

At the chapel steps such a wave of feeling swept over her that she had to hold the door to steady herself. She could not have said if it was happiness or fear or astonishment. But by the time she took her place between Sister Marie Claire and Sister Jane Francis she was quite calm. She picked up her breviary and began to sing.

Deus in adjutorium meum intende,

Domine ad adjuvandum me festina

O God, come to my assistance,

O Lord, make haste to help me

Peach

I'm in a lecture when I hear the ping of my phone and see that it's Det. A shiver of apprehension galvanises me. Det doesn't ‘do' text messages. So this means it's something serious. She told me that she doesn't want anyone to come to the hospital with her, but I've told her that I'm not turning off my phone for the next few weeks, just in case. She didn't say anything but I could tell she was sort of in agreement that it might be a good idea.

She's here.

I want to ask who, but I don't because I know.

Where?

Cafe. Ride down if you want to see her.

I'm in a lecture!

Okay then don't.

The lecturer is explaining the way drugs work in the blood.

My best friend is sitting drinking a coffee with my birth mother. Are they talking? What about? Me? This doesn't feel right.

Are you talking to her?

No.

Ignoring her?

Moi?

So what gives?

She cuts out at that point, leaving me hanging, and of course that pisses me off. Part of me wants to jump up and ride down there and check her out for myself. I imagine introducing myself. Holding out my hand. ‘
Oh hi there, I'm Perpetua and you must be
…' ‘
Cecilia
,' she'll say, looking me up and down as if I'm kind of interesting but maybe a bit disappointing too.

Why am I thinking this rubbish? There is no need for introductions. She already knows my name. Anyway, I'm in a lecture, a very interesting lecture, so why should I go running after her?

Except the lecture isn't interesting. So far this year I've found university totally boring. I have to drag myself to the lectures and make myself do the reading. I've always been such an enthusiastic and industrious student, I can't get used to the idea of myself as one of the plodders.

I manage to push aside all thoughts of my mother and am concentrating on what the guy up the front is saying when there is another ping. Fluke's name comes up. A rush of excitement hurtles down into my gut.
At least wait until the end of the lecture,
I tell myself.
At least do that, you weak idiot!

But there has been nothing between us since the trip home from Castlemaine last week. So I read the message.

You okay?

Why shouldn't I be?
I write back before I even think.

Drink?

No.

I look up. The lecturer is telling us about spinal cord fluid and how it works.

Where is he? What is he doing? Why does he want to see me? Did he mean a drink now or … some other time? What makes him think he can text me out of the blue? How come I'm behaving like such a jerk? Against all my better instincts I pull out my phone again.

Maybe,
I write,
when?

He doesn't write back and I'm left hanging again.

How do you catch the moment when things shift up a notch or two? Or down? Something changed after Fluke and I kissed on the highway.

But it isn't just him that's making me toey. I keep thinking about Sadie, about Ellen and my birth mother. Cecilia. Any day now, a woman who looks a lot like me is going to stand in front of me and tell me her name is Cecilia and then …
what?
Maybe unconsciously I want it to happen, but I'm also dreading it.

When my shifts in the cafe are over I've been wandering through the place thinking about where things might have happened and trying to imagine them. I walk in and out of the gate where Sadie would have come to petition for her child back, and I stand in the chapel where Ellen would have sung, and where my own mother made her vows.

I wander through the corridors of Det's floor trying to imagine Cecilia coming out of one of those rooms. It feels pretty close to crazy. And sometimes I find myself crying without knowing why.

Cecilia
1973

Courage, Cecilia,
she told herself as she walked up and down between the rows of girls.
Take courage.
She'd taken to calling herself her old baptismal name again without making a deliberate decision to do so. Strange, the way for close on ten years she'd learnt to forget that she'd even had another name. Almost. Thinking of herself as Cecilia again felt reckless.

After lunch, Cecilia went back to her cell and changed the bandeau under her black veil, which was damp with sweat, and checked her shoes were clean. Mirrors were forbidden, but she peered at her reflection in the glass vase on the pedestal at the end of the corridor. Just as well too. There was a tiny spot on her guimpe. On her way downstairs she ran to the basins and rubbed it off with a hand towel.

Feeling almost as if she wasn't walking on her own two legs but on someone else's younger, lighter ones, she hurried out towards Mother Gabriel's office. It was happening. She was doing it. She knew if she waited even one more day she would lose her courage.

She took a deep breath, threw her shoulders back and knocked on the shiny wood.

There was a pause and Cecilia thought she'd better knock again, but just as she raised her hand, the door opened and Mother Mary Gabriel the Archangel was there, opening the door in person, smiling at her.

‘My dear Sister Annunciata!' the older woman exclaimed, ushering her in with one hand. ‘Do come in, my dear!'

‘Thank you, Mother.'

Cecilia stood in the middle of the beautiful room as the Prioress carefully closed the door. The ceiling was high and two long windows were partially draped in heavy curtains to keep out the heat. The carpet was a muted green and all the furniture was polished wood. Cecilia longed suddenly to lie down on the floor. She would have liked to close her eyes, breathe in the cool, calm air and listen to the small sounds of a big empty room.
Tick
tick tick
as the hands of the big clock on the wall slowly shifted.

The roar and clank of the laundry only barely discernable. She would lie ever so still and wait for … whatever was going to happen next. The longing for peace was suddenly so intense that she wanted to cry.

The Reverend Mother stopped a few feet from Cecilia and, still with the faint smile, looked her up and down.

‘Please sit down, my dear,' she said, pointing to the two identical green armchairs near the window. ‘You do look tired and thin!'

Cecilia would have much preferred a hard straight-backed chair with the desk between her and the Superior, but she did what she was told.

‘Are you quite well?'

‘Yes, Mother.' Cecilia was taken off-guard by the concern in her Superior's voice. ‘Perfectly well, thank you.'

‘You were on laundry before lunch?'

‘Yes, Mother.'

‘And … the girls?'

‘Oh well,' Cecilia said, ‘it was very hot.'

‘They do tend to act up when it gets hot,' Mother Gabriel sighed. ‘It makes everything more difficult.'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, now.' Mother Gabriel smiled coolly and then turned to the window. A breeze was making the blind rattle slightly. ‘Dratted thing,' she murmured and got up to fiddle with it.

When she slammed down the window Cecilia jumped, then had the strange sensation that her Superior was locking her in.