Family Romance

by John Lanchester

  It is in the nature of life in an enclosed order that nothing can be known about what happens there, except what the participants themselves choose to tell. The only other document touching on this period in Julia’s life is a short story from more than twenty years later, when she was living in London and beginning to write autobiographical fiction. The story was written and broadcast on the BBC under the pseudonym Shivaun Cunningham. It is one of only two written accounts she gave of her life as a nun. Again, I saw it only after her death.

  ‘Minding Mother Margaret’ by Shivaun Cunningham

  Mother Margaret looked me up and down. ‘Put your hands under your cape, Sister,’ she ordered. ‘It’s a cold day and they’ll be warmer that way; besides postulants aren’t supposed to walk swinging their arms.’ I tucked my hands under the waist length cape only to whip them out again in a flash as Mother Margaret threw her veil back, hitched up her habit and said, ‘Me crutches dear, get me m’crutches, I’m goin’ for a walk.’ It was my first day in the convent, and instead of sending me to the school to teach, as I had expected, I had been told that I was to ‘mind’ Mother Margaret. Mother Superior had just taken me along to present me to Mother Margaret and I was sorrier than ever that I hadn’t been sent out to take a class. She was small, broad rather than fat, forthright in manner and quite ugly looking. She seemed to read my thoughts as I stood there. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll make the best of each other and don’t forget I like my tea hot and strong and not slopped in the saucer.’

  Mother was old, eighty-two, I believe, ‘a member of an old county family, my deah’ as she soon and often told me. She had slipped on one of the polished corridors of the convent some months before my entrance and broken her hip. This accident kept her in bed for several weeks but now she was mobile again – with crutches – and something of a hazard to ordinary convent routine. So Mother Superior decided that the newest postulant should look after her. Luckily for me, Mother Margaret approved of the decision. ‘I know the Cunninghams,’ she declared, when the Reverend Mother brought me along to meet her, ‘an old family, decent stock – is your face painted, child?’ I assured her that it wasn’t and hoped that Mother Superior believed me, and then we got down to the business of going for a walk.

  The walk was taken on the long upstairs corridor which ran the entire length of the convent. Mother Margaret’s crutches made it impossible for her to go downstairs. I gave her the crutches and steered her out the door and along the corridor. ‘Did you attend a ball before you entered?’ she asked as we progressed. ‘Well,’ I stammered, quite unprepared, ‘there was a party or two last week.’ ‘When I was a girl,’ she went on, ‘I went to all the balls. My poor father, God rest his soul, was one of the ffrenches of Frenchpark – old county family – you know, my mother was just a peasant girl – pah – he believed in the social graces, he made me practise the piano and do watercolours for four hours every day and then he allowed me to go to the county balls. Just before I entered,’ Mother Margaret went on, ‘I attended a ball at Mooncoin House – very fetching I looked in a simple white dress with a rose over me ear – I had hair like yours then m’dear – tuck it in, like a good child, the cap is supposed to hide it. I was, if I may say so, the belle of the ball, a gentleman there …’

  Here Mother Margaret interrupted herself as another old nun passed by – unattended and crutchless. ‘Do you see her?’ she whispered hoarsely. She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘There she goes – the deaconess from Waterford and her great-grandfather was a stableboy at Curraun House.’ I discovered afterwards that there had developed in recent years a feud between these old souls, both very conscious of their superior birth, both in their eighties and bosom friends in their youth. I found out, too, that this feud was a very personal one in which no other member of the community dared even seem to take sides. Any criticisms made were made by themselves of each other and each was quick to defend the other from the slightest censure by anyone else. ‘Ah, the old stock’, sighed Mother Margaret as the deaconess passed by. ‘Now my family could …’ ‘But the ball, Mother,’ I ventured, ‘did you enjoy it?’ ‘I always enjoyed meself, child: me poor father, God rest his soul, used to say it was a sign of good breedin’ to enjoy yourself. Very fetchin’ I looked with a simple white dress and a rose over me ear – turn your toes out, child. I remember when I entered I was quite knock-kneed – after all the ridin’ you know – the Duhallow hounds – me father was master – old county family.’ ‘But the ball, Mother,’ I tried again: ‘You looked lovely.’ Would I never hear the end of the story? ‘Ah yes the ball. A gentleman there paid very marked attention to me, sister; it was just before I entered. He took me in to supper, booked all the waltzes in my programme – do you waltz, child? A most graceful dance. Very fetchin’ I looked, just a simple white dress.’ ‘And a rose over your ear,’ I finished, hoping to get to the next part of the story. ‘Yes a rose over my ear, very fetchin’ too. Me poor father always admired me hair – called it me crownin’ glory, you know. Push your shoulders back, child. You should always watch your deportment, dear – sign of good breedin’. I never slouched.’

  ‘But the ball, Mother,’ I urged. ‘Ah yes,’ she went on. ‘A gentleman there paid me very marked attention – very eligible, a very good catch. He took me to supper and after that he said “Please may I have the pleasure of the last dance and then I shall escort you to your home and tomorrow I shall call at Frenchpark and speak to your father!” Very correct he was – get me my hankie dear, and turn your toes out.’ Mother blew her nose vigorously. I waited, tongue almost hanging out for the story to go on. ‘He was going to offer for me, Sister,’ she continued. ‘And I said to him, “You needn’t bother. I’m joining the convent in a few days.” “Why didn’t you tell me that at half past seven this evening and not have me wasting my night?” said he.’ Mother Margaret sighed. ‘Crazy about me he was, dear. I remember after I entered I was given charge of the playground at dinner. Very fetching I was, in me postulant’s cap. This gentleman, from a very good family too, child, came to Castleport (this was the town where our convent was situated) for the races. He dined with His Grace the Archbishop and afterwards, do you know what he did, Sister? He came to the back gate and peeped into the playground just to get a glimpse of me in my postulant’s dress. Crazy about me, he was, dear – put your shoulders back, now.’

  This was the first time I heard Mother Margaret tell her story but I listened to it every day for the next six months that I looked after her, and it never changed by so much as a syllable. Not that Mother’s behaviour was usually as predictable as the next line of her story.

  There was the day the Papal Nuncio called. A visit from a Church dignitary, especially one such as the Nuncio, was usually a highlight of convent life and it was customary to summon the Sisters by ringing, not the ordinary single bell, but the two main bells. Double bells was a signal for everyone to drop what she was doing and come quick. Well, on this particular day, the Nuncio’s visit was a private one. He was not meeting the entire community – just the Mother Superior and her assistants – or so he thought. He reckoned without Mother Margaret. Mother’s cell, as a nun’s tiny room is called, was situated to the front of the convent and gave her a clear view of the main door.

  I was occupied at the time doing my ‘charge’ – as one’s daily cleaning chore was called – cleaning and polishing a corridor downstairs was my charge at the time. Mother Margaret was alone in her cell. Suddenly, as I crawled on all fours, busy with a polishing mop, I heard Mother Margaret’s throaty voice above me. ‘Quick, my deah, pass me the horse.’ The horse was Mother Margaret’s own private name for the ropes of two of the big convent bells. I had learned by then to do as I was told and no questions, so I passed the horse as she asked. Mother Margaret seized the ropes and rattled out a crashing and unsynchronised version of double bells. ‘Follow me, my deah,’ she commanded. For some reason best known to herself, Mother had her habit tucked up around her; she was wearing ov
er it an unkempt looking check apron which was hitched round to one side and I saw with horror that she had only one crutch. So instead of following her, I acted as a second crutch and supported her as she headed straight for the main reception rooms. Throwing the door open, she slithered across the floor with me and the other crutch in attendance, extended her hand to the astounded Papal Nuncio, favoured the Mother Superior and her assistants with an outraged glare, and remarked in her loftiest county family accents: ‘Pardon me, Your Excellency, they don’t know how to receive a Church dignitary in this house.’ She then seized the Nuncio’s hand and kissed it with a resounding smack.

  I cannot remember now, how I got Mother Margaret out of the parlour; my chief problem at this time was how she managed to get downstairs without me and with only one crutch. That was going to take some explaining to Mother Superior afterwards. ‘But you could have hurt yourself, Mother,’ I protested. ‘Why didn’t you send for me or wait until I came? How in the world did you get downstairs without me?’ There was a twinkle in dear old Mother Margaret’s eye as she told me, ‘Not to make you a short answer, Shivaun, my deah, I came on me bottom.’

  Mother Margaret had a remarkable memory – as old people often have – and she had a genius for telling her stories at exactly the right moment. There was the time that I got into trouble for running noisily downstairs from my cell to the basement and for a penance, and to teach me the first rule of convent deportment, ‘The sisters shall not be found running giddily through the house,’ I was told by my novice mistress to climb the stairs and come down again, kneeling and saying a Hail Mary on every step – both journeys. There were over ninety steps and so over 180 Hail Marys. Mother Margaret’s tea was neither hot nor strong that day and I slopped it in the saucer too. She grumbled a bit and then saw I had been crying and dragged the story out of me. ‘Never mind, Shivaun dear,’ she consoled me, ‘when Josephine was a novice’ (Josephine was the name of my novice mistress) ‘she got apples from the gardener once, tied her apron up round her waist to hide them and hid them there. She forgot all about the apples and when she went into chapel and let her apron down, they rolled all over the choir and she had to crawl round and pick them up while the whole Community waited to begin Vespers. For a penance she had to eat her meals alone in the middle of the refectory for three days with sixteen apples lined out in front of her. But don’t let on I told you, there’s a good girl – and now for goodness sake, go and get me a proper cup of tea – hot and strong, and don’t slop it in the saucer.’

  When I left a withered flower in a vase on one of the altars, I was ordered to wear the flower on my cape for a week as a penance but Mother Margaret insisted that I remove the wretched thing while with her. ‘I can’t abide fresh chrysanthemums, my dear,’ she told me, ‘and withered ones are quite unbearable – vulgar blowsy looking things – take it away at once.’ She knew I hated wearing it and how glad I was to be rid of it even for a little while every day.

  It was rather awkward though when Mother Margaret insisted on doing my mending for me. My former sewing teacher had told her that ‘poor Shivaun could never sew’. I had improved a little since my junior days but Mother Margaret could never be convinced of that. The result was that before darning my stockings I had to unpick the knotted jungle of yarn that she had already worked over the holes, which were then bigger and more jagged than my heels alone could ever have made them. How I wished that she were less kind-hearted or a better darner.

  I continued to look after Mother Margaret until her death about six months after I entered. She remained forthright to the end and never forgot the old county family she came from. She took as few drugs as possible – ‘like to keep me faculties about me, dear,’ she would say, grey with pain. But she came to depend on me to remind her of her various obligations and I had strict orders not to feed her with a spoon when anyone else was in the room.

  ‘Spoon feedin’ is for infants – undignified, slovenly, I don’t like it,’ she insisted. ‘Have I said me Rosary, Child?’ she would ask. She had said several, I assured her. ‘But have I said a Rosary for me poor father, God rest his soul?’ I wasn’t sure so we would say one together. ‘And now we must pray for Gerry.’ Gerry was an old friend of hers – a distinguished prelate, recently appointed to an even higher ecclesiastical honour. Mother knew of the honour but evidently couldn’t remember its exact nature. ‘Come on, child, we’ll pray for dear Gerry’, and ‘De profundis clamavi’ she began. Now the ‘De profundis’ is the prayer one normally says for a recently departed soul, and as her friend Gerry was still good for several years, I managed to persuade her that some other prayer might be more suitable and then settled on a Te Deum instead.

  The night before she died I was sitting with Mother Margaret. ‘You’ll pray for me, child?’ she asked. ‘Of course I will, Mother.’ ‘I’m goin’ home, goin’ home,’ she said. I thought her mind was wandering but she added, more or less to herself, ‘I’m goin’ home to the Lord, and He understands me. You know, dear,’ and she smiled at me, ‘the Lord is a gentleman.’

  The following day Mother Margaret died.

  3

  One of the sweet things about ‘Minding Mother Margaret’ is the deep impression made on Julia by the first posh person she ever met. The Good Shepherds, like most religious orders, were divided between ‘Choir’ and ‘Lay’ members. The Choir members brought a dowry to the convent and lived a life concentrating on prayer and retreat – a brutally harsh life, too, before Vatican II. The dowry could be symbolic rather than financial – for Julie, her dowry was her education. The Lay members brought no dowry. They took the same vows and lived in the same enclosed conditions, but they took no part in religious services. All sisters did the cleaning, cooking, sweeping, and general running of the convent, including – as in my mother’s short story – the looking-after of the older nuns, as and when it was needed. But only the Choir sisters read the offices in chapel. To a secular observer it seems like an unusually harsh and straightforward class division between middle-class and working-class entrants to the convent. Not that, in this story, ‘Shivaun Cunningham’ seems particularly to mind.

  So the surface of ‘Minding Mother Margaret’ gives away little about the difficulties lurking beneath it. But you don’t have to look too hard to see shapes in the shadows. For one thing, the ‘school’ at which ‘Shivaun’ had been hoping to work – quite an ambition for a sixteen-year-old with no Leaving Certificate – would in actuality have been a Magdalene orphanage. Although the story complains about having missed out on the experience in the orphanage, I’m glad that my mother was spared it; glad that she took as little part in the activities of the Magdalene asylums as possible. The brutal discipline of the convent is caught in the story about the 180 Hail Marys, and going up and down steps on her knees, and the passing mention of the tears it caused her. The short story also discreetly notes the rivalries and animosities that beset convent life. If two nuns came to hate each other, as could all too easily happen in an enclosed community, the resulting battle could be lifelong, all day every day until the death of one of the parties. The same could happen with bullying. In institutions with no external supervision and no possibility of redress, appeal, or intervention, bullying had the potential to be a lethal problem.

  ‘Minding Mother Margaret’ contains another clue, perhaps an even more important one, about the difficulties facing the young postulant. The story describes an eighty-two-year-old nun at the end of her life; and what is her main topic of conversation? The ball she attended just before she entered the religious life, and the man she met there. So her most vivid memories are to do not with the convent but with the life outside it, before it. The young nun, just after going into the convent, meets an old nun whose thoughts turn mostly to the time when she was still free. ‘Minding Mother Margaret’, which looks like a character sketch about a snobbish but lovable old dear, carries its real emotional charge as a study of regret. If this story from 1960 represents anything about J
ulia’s state of mind in 1937, it is that her thoughts turned, before too long, to the question of what she was giving up in joining the Order of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. A big part of the work a postulant undertakes is an internal scrutiny of her vocation: how much she believes in it herself. She tests her own thoughts and feelings and beliefs. This internal scrutiny is as important to the postulant as the external pressures and tests she undergoes. Christianity is a religion of works and also of self-examination, a test of the concordance between the self and the world and beliefs. In the course of scrutinising her own feelings, Julia came to suspect that she did not have a genuine vocation. She had chosen the monastic life out of pride – spiritual pride – and a desire to help her family. The inner calling was missing. She was being propelled not by a summons from God but by the realities of poverty and peasant life.

  Julia had been in New Ross at the Good Shepherd convent for nearly a year, and was on the point of taking her vows and becoming a novitiate nun when she became ill. The symptoms were diagnosed as appendicitis, and Julia was taken by ambulance to the Mater Misericordiae hospital in Dublin. Her appendix was successfully removed but the infection had been quite advanced, and the mother superior of the convent, on medical advice, allowed Julia to go home to rest and recuperate before returning to the order and preparing to take her vows.

  My aunt Peggie described Julia’s triumphant return to Mayo. ‘She came home wearing her long black postulant’s dress, with the white collar and the little cape, white cuffs and the little short veil. She was wonderful, my father and mother went proudly with her everywhere, sat beside her in church, all the neighbours came to visit and brought presents, she was taken out to places.’ Julia was the centre of attention and praise. That in itself may have caused things to stir inside her. As I have said, her big complaint about her childhood was the feeling that she was ignored. Now that she was lionised and made the focus of her parents’ love, home had never seemed more appealing. At the same time, she allowed herself to admit to herself just how crushing the weight of the convent actually was. The discipline was too heavy, the lack of private life too oppressive; most of all, perhaps, she quite simply missed the world. So as she was being praised and loved for her decision to give up the world, she was coming to realise that she could not do it, and that all her parents’ happiness for her was based on a lie.