The Convent Read online

  ‘No chatter, please, until you’re outside,’ Cecilia said sharply.

  There was a sudden scream from the back of the room. She craned forward to see what was happening. Josie Dalton, of course, making trouble for someone. Cecilia walked towards the lumpy, tiresome girl, trying to hide her distaste. She had light, pink-rimmed, protruding eyes, a small mean mouth, and her hair hung like damp straw about her face.

  ‘What is it, dear?’

  ‘She took my comb, Mother!’ Leanne Harris whined, another misfit who always managed to wheedle some sympathy from somewhere.

  ‘You are not meant to bring combs into the laundry, Leanne.’

  ‘I know, Sister, but … I forgot.’

  ‘Please try to act your age!’ Cecilia was unable to hide the exasperation in her voice. ‘You are both over sixteen and you behave like primary school girls!’

  ‘But we get treated like children, Mother,’ some cheeky voice muttered behind her. The comment was followed by a ripple of agreement, but Cecilia didn’t turn around. It was too hot and she needed to be gone. Anyway, it was the truth. Half of them were over twenty and they had no personal autonomy at all.

  ‘But I want my comb back!’ the girl wailed.

  Josie threw the comb hard at the window and then let out a shout of nasty laughter.

  A sudden flare of rage suffused Cecilia. She imagined grabbing that great lump of a girl by the back of the neck with both hands and drowning her in the nearby sink of dirty, soapy water.

  ‘Pick that up, Josie!’ she hissed. ‘At once!’

  ‘But, Mother!’ The girl was enjoying herself now. ‘She said I was a fat bitch!’

  The rest of the room stilled. Swearing in front of a nun was defiance on another level altogether.

  ‘I will not have that language in here!’ Cecilia sounded rattled even to herself and that wouldn’t do. Unlike Margaret, Josie was clever in her own sly way, with an unpleasant cruel streak that made her unpopular with just about everyone.

  ‘Josie,’ she lowered her voice to an ominous whisper, ‘do you want to stay in here over lunch?’

  Josie smirked. She could tell Cecilia’s heart wasn’t in the threat. ‘Not really,’ the girl shrugged.

  ‘I beg your pardon!’

  ‘Not really, Mother,’ Josie sighed insolently, and began to tap a rhythm with her feet, as though she was bored. There were titters of laughter from the other girls.

  ‘Not really?’ Cecilia repeated warningly.

  ‘No, Mother.’

  ‘Then pick up the comb, please, and give it back.’

  Josie looked around and saw that all the other girls were tired of her antics. She lumbered over to the window, picked up the comb.

  ‘Here.’ She smirked as she handed it over.

  ‘Thank you, Josie,’ Cecilia said.

  ‘That’s okay, Mother,’ the girl replied.

  This too is one of God’s precious creatures! Cecilia reminded herself. And yet … I loathe her. I loathe her and this terrible laundry and the fact I have to be here and …

  The patches of sweat under the girl’s heavy arms had fanned out onto her back and chest and Cecilia’s heart softened even as she shuddered in revulsion. ‘Please go and change your dress before lunch, Josie.’

  ‘Haven’t got another one, Mother,’ the girl sang as though it was a big joke.

  If it had been any other day, Cecilia would have let the others go and tried to talk to her. Her insolence was getting worse. Something must be happening with that wayward father who brought a new woman with him every time he came to visit. But after lunch was the meeting with Mother Mary of the Archangels, and she didn’t have time.

  ‘Then go to Mother Bridget and say I sent you for a clean dress from the spare linen closet.’

  ‘Nothing there will fit me, Mother!’

  ‘She’ll find you something, Josie.’ Cecilia clapped her hands. ‘All right, girls! Is everyone ready?’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ they all chorused.

  Cecilia peered into the centre of the room at two girls who were having a heated discussion under their breaths. Sandra and Janice were a little older than the rest of the group and had to be watched. The small, dark-haired Sandra slipped an envelope into the front pocket of Janice’s pinny.

  ‘When you’re ready,’ Cecilia said icily.

  They both looked up when they realised that everyone was waiting for them. Sandra went red with fright.

  ‘Sorry, Mother,’ they said in unison.

  Cecilia made no comment. ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost …’ At the end of the prayer Cecilia told the girls that they could all go except for Sandra and Janice. They came over reluctantly, eyes downcast.

  ‘Thank you, Janice.’ She held out her hand for the envelope.

  ‘But, Mother, I—’

  ‘I’ll have it, thank you. Then you can go.’

  With a sigh of relief Cecilia locked the door behind them.

  The next day she was searching for a hanky when she saw Sandra’s letter, fallen behind the pile of singlets and petticoats. She’d dumped it there and forgotten it. The Rule demanded that she give it immediately to Mother Bernard, but a perverse sense of justice made her open it.

  Breda had gone and so too Jane and Monica. She was unsure now … about the Rule, about everything.

  Ricky,

  You gotta help me get out of here. It is way worse than jail, I swear! I wish I was in a proper jail; they’d leave you alone sometimes there. Everything about this place is hell. We get up at six, go to boring church, eat some shit and then work in this hot steamy laundry from half-past eight until five. One hour off for lunch. The bloody crows are on our backs the whole fuckin time! We’re unpaid slaves and that is the truth of it. If we’re not working, we’re on our knees. Mass every day. Rosary after work and prayers before everything we do! No let up. ‘Yes, Sister! No, Sister!’ Every day! It never ends. Working and praying! That’s it. If I can’t get out of here soon, then I’m going to do myself in. I mean it. I’ll neck myself or I’ll jump from the roof, so help me. You gotta help me!

  The old one in charge hates me. So what? I hate her too. The ugly old cow! All their bullshit prayers and boring singing. It’s so creepy some of that stuff that I actually feel sick half the time. I can’t stop thinking about how I’d like to get into the Church at night and chuck stuff everywhere. I’d like to spit and piss on the altar and smash everything. Seriously. Get those gold candlesticks and shove them through a window. And the only thing stopping me is that if I get caught they’ll make it even worse.

  Why should I love God? He hates me. Why else would he have taken my mum when I was only four? And make my dad a dirty old geezer? Answer me that!

  Am I still your Princess, Ricko? If I am then stick by me, please. Help me get out of here. I got a plan. (Read this next part carefully.)

  On the 23rd of this month I’m going to try to cut loose. Some of these morons are putting on a play. The costumes and sets are kept down under the stage. They leave the windows open down there. Everyone will be in there watching the play. At interval I’m going to get in there, and climb through the window, run down to the river and swim across. You gotta be waiting for me on the other side. Please Ricky. If it’s the last thing you do. Don’t forget me.The 23rd of this month is opening night. Interval will be around nine o’clock.

  Love and a million kisses to you,

  Sandra (Sandy, to you)

  Cecilia put the letter back in her pocket. She would give the letter to Mother Bernard at second sitting. The boy, whoever he was, would have to be chased up, threatened with the police if he so much as showed his face. And the girl would have to be hauled up too. How old was she? Seventeen or eighteen? Cecilia couldn’t remember her family background except that the father did sometimes turn up to see the girl and there was something shifty about him. Did he really abuse his daughter? She shuddered. Impossible to believe, and yet some of them had been forced into s
ex with uncles and stepfathers and brothers if the whispers and the innuendos were to be believed. But when she’d spoken of her fears about the whole murky world that many of these girls had come from to Mother Bernard, she’d been told that it was preposterous, that the girls exaggerated and shouldn’t be believed. Sisters should refrain from listening to such talk; it only encouraged the girls’ wild imaginings. At the door, Cecilia stopped and pulled the letter out again. Then, hardly knowing what she was doing, she ripped it up into little pieces. No, she would not give it to Mother Bernard. The girl was right, the woman was an old cow!

  Oh God, what is happening to me that I can think that?

  ‘Well, that didn’t take you long.’ Det was in bare feet and wearing a paint-splattered man’s shirt, which almost but not quite hid her pregnant belly.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’

  ‘Come in.’

  Cecilia walked into the room and stopped. She gasped as she looked around at the dozen or so paintings, big and small, lining the walls. She forgot to be nervous, forgot, too, about her previous connection to the room.‘Are these all yours? I mean, you did them?’ she added stupidly.

  ‘To the best of my knowledge,’ Det said.

  ‘God, they’re so strong, Det! And … beautiful.’

  ‘They hold up okay?’

  ‘They certainly do.’

  The smaller canvases were hung in a line around the room at about eye level, with the bigger canvases above them. The images were of rivers and lakes, children, people, trees and foliage. All of the paintings, even the smaller playful ones, were painted in oils, the layered colours giving each surface a rich glow of hidden light. But there was a dark side to every image as well, a wild, urgent strain running through the highly realistic pools of flat water, the night skies, the rampantly growing succulents and the blank faces on the people. Each one had a kind of weird underhand humour that was not immediately obvious. Small monsters lay in wait under bushes, ladders ran out of windows to nowhere and teenage girls preened in front of mirrors with their hair on fire. The paintings spoke of the quirkiness of life, the caprice and mystery lurking under the everyday. Cecilia was awestruck.

  She particularly loved a series of four small paintings hanging side by side, with the same figure in each, a thin lone ghost of a man who was either smoking or just standing by himself in a surreal landscape. In one he was in the middle of the red outback with only one tired acacia tree to keep him company. In another he was surrounded by a crowd of city shoppers, all busy and harried-looking. He stood by himself at the edge of the painting, his face averted, staring down at a photo of a little child. In the next he had assumed an ominous sneering presence under a blistering sky with a collection of cans crushed at his feet. Cecilia could almost smell the beer in that one, the lush rainforest and river in another, the searing heat in a third.

  ‘They belong together,’ she muttered, ‘in spite of being so different. That man holds them together.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hope you can sell them like that.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Him? My father. Dead now.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cecilia moved around the room to look at each painting. ‘They are going to look so brilliant hung properly,’ she said softly.

  ‘Hmmmm.’ Det was screwing on the paint tube tops.‘Yeah, I’m looking forward to that.’

  ‘When’s the exhibition?’

  ‘Six weeks.’

  ‘You excited?’ She turned around and saw that Det was sitting in a chair with her feet up on the little desk, scrutinising her dispassionately.

  ‘The work is wonderful, Det,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks.’ The girl shrugged.

  ‘So April exhibition?’

  ‘End of March it opens.’

  ‘The baby?’

  ‘About the same time.’ Det looked at her and they both laughed.

  ‘Well, with a bit of luck …’

  ‘Yeah.’ Det got up, went to the kettle and switched it on. ‘With a bit of luck it won’t come while I’m handing out the champagne on opening night. Tea?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Cecilia sat down in the funny worn old armchair in the corner. ‘Do you have help with the organisation and publicity?’

  ‘Yep. Cassie. She’s in charge.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yeah. Cassie, Peach and me are best mates.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cecilia smiled weakly. Mention of her daughter had brought all her nerves back.

  Det brought her over the tea.

  ‘Are you normally a coffee drinker?’ Cecilia asked, politely taking the mug.

  ‘Yeah … and a heavy smoker and a junk-food addict.’ Det grinned. ‘And an intermittent drug taker.’

  ‘You smoke much now?’

  Det hunched her shoulders and sighed. ‘I’ve got it down to three a day,’ she said, ‘never more than that now. It’s … it’s the best I can do.’

  ‘What does the doctor say?’

  ‘They say everything looks fine, but … I dunno.’ Det sat down at the desk and closed her eyes.

  Cecilia took another look around at the extraordinary work. ‘Do you have a partner, Det? To help with the baby, I mean?’

  ‘No.’ The girl shook her head and doodled on her notepad.

  ‘Does he know about the baby?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see.’

  Cecilia was overwhelmed with a sense of the girl’s vulnerability. She wanted to wrap her arms around her, to shield her in some way. ‘So you’ll go on living in the bungalow?’

  ‘I have my name down for public housing.’

  ‘Have you got someone to take you to hospital?’

  ‘I’ll get myself to hospital.’

  ‘But what about someone to be there … during?’

  ‘I want to be alone.’

  They were quiet for a moment, staring at each other over the table.

  ‘Did you have someone?’ Det asked.

  ‘No.’ Cecilia shook her head.‘But that was a long time ago and I wouldn’t recommend it.’

  ‘I want to be alone,’ Det said again.

  ‘What about your friends?’ Cecilia said softly.

  ‘Cassie thinks I’m crazy, and Peach … your daughter … well, I don’t want to put her through it.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Cecilia gulped.

  Det shrugged and took a long sip of tea and stared out the window. Then she suddenly smiled and put both hands on her stomach. ‘I’m growing quite fond of the little critter, to tell you the truth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the whole thing is … viable.’

  Cecilia nodded.

  ‘I don’t need a whole lot of other people there telling me how fantastic it is and how beautiful and all the rest of it. I want to see for myself and then … decide.’

  ‘I understand what you mean.’

  ‘Yep. I guess you do.’ Det got up. ‘I guess you do.’

  ‘But it is a mistake to think that—’

  ‘Sorry to cut you off, Cecilia, but if you’ve finished your tea. I have to keep working.’

  She was being dismissed just when things were getting interesting. Cecilia stumbled to her feet.

  ‘Are you going to contact your daughter?’ Det asked bluntly when they got to the door.

  ‘I want to,’ Cecilia said. ‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’

  Det made no reaction as she pulled the door open. Cecilia waited in the doorway.

  ‘You should know that this,’ Det pointed at her belly, ‘is confronting for her.’

  ‘Confronting?’

  ‘She’s shoved the whole thing of being adopted away for most of her life, but now she’s having to think about it. Me having this baby has made it real for her.’

  ‘Are you thinking of …’ Cecilia began and then thought better of it. ‘Thanks for showing me your work.’

  ‘Pleasure. But listen, don’t come here again,’ Det said grimly. ‘Peach is my best friend. I
don’t want to go behind her back.’

  Cecilia nodded and bit her lip as a hot wave of humiliation coursed through her chest and up to her face and neck.

  ‘Of course,’ she managed, before turning to go. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She stumbled down the corridor towards the stairs, already half blinded by tears. What had possessed her to think that she’d set up a friendship with her daughter’s best friend? She must be out of her mind.

  What have I done?

  It was the same panic that had beset her that first night in the convent when she felt her shorn head.

  And that last night in Paris.

  What have I done?

  Peach

  ‘Hey, stranger, can I come in?’

  I’m up early for my Saturday double shift, so when I hear the shower going in the bungalow I decide to pay Det a visit. We haven’t seen each other properly for ages. She’s working hard towards her exhibition and often stays overnight in her studio.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  I walk in and look around. Nothing has changed since the day she moved in. Everything is neat and in its place. Det comes out of the shower cubicle with one towel around her head and another big one around her body. The bulge is huge now. It juts out as round as a ball because the rest of her is still so thin.

  And it hits me hard. I can feel tears starting in my eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Peach,’ Det says quietly.

  ‘For what?’

  She pulls on a singlet and then one of her outsized shirts over the cheap maternity jeans she bought from Target. Her back is as thin and white as ever.

  ‘For what?’ I say again.

  ‘For being here.’

  ‘Det,’ I say too loudly, ‘you’re my best friend. I’m glad you’re here!’

  Her body becomes still, but she doesn’t turn around to face me.

  ‘And if it weren’t for you, I’d have to deal with Stella on my own.’

  She turns around then and we both laugh a bit. ‘You have your own stuff,’ she says. ‘I can see that.’