Family Romance

by John Lanchester

  Now please, PLEASE, Peggie, do write at once. Send a letter to me direct to Church Park (just to allay suspicion) and in it ask me have I heard from M. General, and when do I hope to get away and ask what clothes I have got (if any) etc. Let it be in answer to my last letter from Kodai. It need not be long just so as I hear from you – I don’t want them to suspect that I am getting letters by another route. Note Miss Forrester’s address is School for the Deaf not School for the Blind as I told you by mistake the last time.

  Now, Peggie, if I go to London in the religious dress (as I probably will since my passport is made out for Sister Eucharia) I suppose I will be met by one of the Sisters – maybe Mother General herself – and taken to a Convent to change – perhaps to Hammersmith. Now, I am sure you won’t want to meet any of our Community and I don’t blame you, so if I am being met, I will fix it that when I have changed I will go by taxi, myself, to your flat. Now, will you please tell me how to direct the taxi man to find the place – Tachbrook Street may be a difficult place to get at and I have no idea of where to find it. Is there any way I could phone you or Vincent once I arrive in London? Then, don’t forget to tell me, will it be enough if I just bring my rug across my arm – if I fly it won’t be easy to pack blankets. What about sheets and towels? About what money would I need to get a reasonably complete set of clothes in London – including a good warm overcoat and a suit? Please let me know when you write.

  And Peggie, darling, how are you keeping yourself? I am very worried about you in case this extra load of anxiety about me just now would have a bad effect on you. Are you having regular check-ups? If by chance this letter has to follow you home – for goodness’ sake keep it out of Mammy’s hands! I will write again as soon as I have any news for you. Will it be inconvenient for you and Vincent if I arrive in London in September? Now, do please write me two letters at once – one to Church Park and one to Miss Forrester’s address. The latter is due back in Madras from Delhi today – so there may be a letter from you waiting for me at the address. Don’t forget to put J. Gunnigan on letters sent to her not Sister E.

  Fondest love to you and Vincent and God bless you for everything.

  WRITE, please write soon

  Julia

  The fussing over details, the tremendous sense of displaced emotional force in her worries – now this is my mother. She is gradually turning into the person I knew. The streak of ruthlessness in her is there too. The sense of isolation, of living in the world but cut off from it, is also strong. And it wasn’t long before Julia returned to the all-important subject of clothes.

  If I manage to get work, then I could have some of my earnings saved for the January sales that you spoke of. Thank God I have you to advise me on what to buy etc. I was quite staggered to read the winter costume of slacks – boots – furlined jacket etc. that you say I will need. But, Peggie, surely if I am teaching I won’t be allowed to dress up like that going to school? – and wouldn’t it be just looking for trouble in the way of catching chills etc. to wear such a warm outfit out of school hours and then to change into skirts, stockings, shoes etc from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day? Do, please, tell me the answer to that one!! It strikes me that it is just as well that I have lost a good deal of weight if I have to venture forth in slacks! – God preserve me from the skin-tight variety!

  Now, Peggie, darling, about the bra. It is quite impossible to get one to fit me here. I wonder would you be an angel and make another attempt to get one out to me. Do you remember I sent you a duchess set to Matlock once? [A duchess set is a posh type of linen tablecloth.] I stitched each piece of it between the pages of a newspaper. Now, if you were to get some nice bulky paper like, say, the Sunday Express, and flatten out the bra between the middle pages and then tack them together and then parcel it up the usual way one does a newspaper and address it to Miss J. Michael, Church Park Training College, Cathedral P.O. Madras-6 – it will come to me. Don’t put your own name on any part of it. I have two students called Michael in the College – neither of them has the initial ‘J’ so I will know that a paper addressed to J. is for me. And please, Peggie, send it Air Mail. I know it will cost more, but if it comes by sea, it will take ages and I might not be here when it arrives. If you can do that, it will mean a lot to me as I am getting a little knitting done for London and having a bra will mean I can get a good fit. The size now is 35″ (not 36″) and I imagine the cup should be medium size and the deeper fitting the bra is the better. I have seen Twilfit ads in English magazines here and they seem to have the kind that would suit me the best. I hate worrying you like this Peggie, and indeed I wouldn’t bother you, if there was anyone else I could turn to. Miss Forrester looked at my hair yesterday evening. [She was the first person to see Julia’s hair since she entered the convent in 1944.] She said to tell you, it was growing very nicely and the really extraordinary part of it is that it has a bit of a wave and a curl in it now – I used to have curls as a small child but they grew out and now in my latter years they are back again – I can’t understand it! Has your scientific mind any explanation to offer?

  Oh, Peggie, I almost forgot to tell you. Poor Nancy Lyons (Sister de Sales) is now in Church Park and quite definitely a mental case. She is having shock treatment from a psychiatrist here in Madras. She was fine in Kodai at the end of May – went back to Themi and has gradually gone off since then. She has all sorts of hallucinations, thinks she killed a woman and I believe has said that there is insanity in her family – did you ever hear that before? It would break your heart to see her. She has a haunted look in her eyes. She was asking for you in Kodai and actually got your address from me to write to you. I am very sorry for her.

  Love again to you and Vincent.

  Some of this is like a nun’s version of the Great Escape. Some of the rest of it is like Black Narcissus, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s steamy 1940s film about repressed sex, madness and nuns in the Himalayas.

  My next big problem – in fact the biggest one of all just now – is my passport. It is made out for Sister Eucharia Gunnigan and is valid until 18 vii 1959. The passport gives my profession as Religious and has, of course, a photo of me in the religious habit – I don’t mind that last as they rarely look at the photo, but I would like if it is at all possible to get a new passport now instead of next year and to get it made out to Julia I. Gunnigan omitting my religious name. I wonder do they issue passports at the office of the Irish High Commissioner in London? Could you find that out for me, Peggie? You could explain why I want the passport changed now. It is due to be done next year in any case, but I think it is better to have it done now. You see then they could give me the dispensation here (or at least in Bombay) and I could go home in ordinary clothes. If I went in ordinary clothes with a passport made out for Sister Eucharia and my profession down as religious they might think I was a spy or something. There will probably be a form to fill in – please get it and send it to me and find out if I should send my passport to you or what should be done.

  Anxiety about passports and ID was to play a significant role in Julia’s life from now onwards. For the moment she kept the religious passport, on the grounds that changing it would take too much time and might cause difficulties of its own.

  The procedure for leaving the Presentation Sisters was that the ‘instrument’ would be issued by the Congregation of Religious in Rome, and passed on to Julia through her order. By the end of August, she had still heard nothing from her Mother Superior. She was by now seriously antsy.

  Well, Peggie, since I heard from Mother General on July 24th there hasn’t been another word. I told you, I think, that she was having treatment and there was a possibility of an operation – well, she had the op. (gall bladder removed and stones from bile duct) on August 22nd in Derby and the latest news is that the doctor has said she is not to come to India until after Xmas – she was to come in September, you know. In a way I am glad as I half expected her to keep me waiting until she came out herself. As things a
re now, it looks as if Sister de Sales will have to go home as she is not responding to treatment and they might decide to send me home with her. Then my going home from here could be managed without too much publicity. In fact I am thinking of making this suggestion to Mother General when I write: as I know they are worried here about getting de Sales home. Anyhow, as usual, we will have to wait and see. As you said, M. General likes long dramatic pauses.

  As far as I am concerned, I have not told my Rev. Mother here in Church Park – I daren’t mention it as she is an APPALLING talker and it would be the gossip of the nation if she knew. I haven’t told a soul in any of the convents here except for Sister de Chantal (Bridget Cummins that was – you probably know her from Castle Connell). She is doing her training here in the College and she is a rock of sense, God bless her. She has knitted a very nice jumper and cardigan for me and she will never open her mouth. She is the only one who knows. Let the General tell them if and when she wants them to know. She will be able to insist on them keeping quiet about it – I cannot. And if it becomes public that I am going, there will be a great to do. I know that.

  More weeks passed, and still Julia heard nothing. Acting on advice from her friend Miss Forrester, she made copies of all the correspondence so far – her letter to her mother superior, her letter to Rome and so on – and sent them to the Papal Internuncio in New Delhi, ‘with a covering letter asking for immediate action’. There was a hint of threat in that. Sister Eucharia was, as principal of one of the Indian Church’s highest-profile educational institutions, a fairly prominent figure. If she chose to walk out and make a big fuss in doing so, there would be a considerable scandal. The letter to the Internuncio was sent on the second of October. Four days later Julia had her reply.

  6 October 1958

  My dearest Peggie,

  This is it!! Thanks be to God! I think my letter must have produced results. Anyhow, Rev. Mother came over this morning to say (this is the FIRST time she has referred to the matter) that the papers have already come from Rome and are actually in Madras. (I thought as much, you know.) She has been to the Archbishop about them and I must say she was very nice about the whole thing. The final decision, which is just as I would like it to be is that I leave here in the night plane to Delhi on Thursday October 30th. I have meetings in Delhi for the four days following, and I am very glad I am attending them as they have been pressing me to do so. Then I leave by an Air India International Flight and arrive in London at 5 p.m. on the next Wednesday. That means I will be at the air-terminal in the City about 6 or 6.30 – I will find that out later or you can enquire there. Now I haven’t heard yet if any of the sisters will meet me – I hope NOT. In that case, could Vincent take me to some waiting rooms – say at a Railway station – where I could change. I would rather not go to your flat in the Religious dress. Think about it and let me know. Then you promised to borrow a coat for me – that would have to be brought to wherever I change. And, Peggie darling, I will need a nightdress that night – please buy one for me as I am not bringing any home with me – those I have are worn out. Do, please, write as soon as you get this. I will send a ‘formal’ letter to you from C.P. tomorrow. Must rush now to catch the post. I have just got notice of Government Inspection – on the 27th and 28th – so that will keep me occupied up to

  The letter breaks off and is not signed. She must have got most of the way through, then had to hide it when someone came into the room and sealed it on the spot.

  Julia had spent, by this point, fifteen years in convents. She had been crushed, suffocated, by her experience of life in the Church. And yet the first thing she says when given her freedom to leave is ‘Thanks be to God!’ The easy term given to moments like this is ‘ironic’. That implies that they have two different meanings, one to the person speaking and a different one to others. Julia’s thanking God might seem ironic if she was missing the large point that her devotion to God was what got her into this predicament in the first place. I think, though, that she was perfectly aware of what she was saying, and knew very well how it sounded, and that she knew also that Peggie of all people would understand. The problem was not with God – she never stopped believing in Him – but with the Church and the choices she had, she felt, been forced to make. I find a certain comfort in that. If she had spent a decade and a half in convents, giving a huge part of her life away, with nothing in return, the story of my mother’s youth would be sad to the point of desolation. And it is still pretty sad. But the fact is that she loved God, felt a direct and personal love of Him. The sense of contact with God she experienced, especially through prayer and the Eucharist, was a real feeling and a real comfort. Thank God indeed, because otherwise the story of Julia’s first thirty-eight years would be too sad to bear.

  Now, Peggie darling, the next thing is – when am I to tell them at home? You can have no idea (though indeed I know well that you can) of how the thought of it is torturing me. Could you write and do it for me? I am afraid of Mammy collapsing or something. My idea is that they should keep it as private as possible for their own sakes. I am so long gone from home and I have written to so few people that it doesn’t really matter much and the best thing for them is to talk as little about it as possible. Please tell me what you think I should do or if you can do anything. But don’t upset or worry yourself, Peggie. I wish they knew at home; I see your wisdom now in insisting that I shouldn’t say anything until the deed was done. I hope they will be more likely to accept a fait accompli – though I doubt it. You wonder how I am looking – well pretty worn out I’m afraid. All this has taken a lot out of me but I suppose I’ll pick up quickly with you. I can never tell you how grateful I am for all you have done for me, Peggie. I appreciate every bit of it more than I can say. I hope I’ll be able to do something for you in return. When do you expect to go into hospital? I am glad you are feeling so well – that is very reassuring. Don’t worry about anything, you and the baby will be all right, D.V. [Deo volente, ‘God willing’]

  Thank you very much for promising to have some night wear ready for me. As you say, pyjamas are much warmer and I’ll probably be glad of whatever warmth I can muster up! Please thank Una, too, for taking me to her hairdresser. My hair has grown quite a bit so he will have something to work on. But I wouldn’t like any extreme type of hair style. I’ll be glad to have someone to help me decide, since you won’t be there, yourself.

  You mentioned in your last letter that I might try to get some temporary work in one of the stores during the Xmas season. I would like it, if it was possible, to get into a book shop – the only type of merchandise I know anything about. Anyhow, we will see. I can’t think of anything else now, Peggie. Please will you drop me a line as soon as you get this and tell me what I should do about telling them at home – my God! I get sick when I just think of it. That alone is what has kept me here so long – fear of facing the upheaval. That is all for now. Please look after yourself. Fondest love to you and Vincent. God bless you Peggie

  Your loving

  Julia

  Julia thought long and hard over what to tell her mother and the family at home. The subject tormented her: should she give them some notice, or just let them face the shock cold? In the end she decided there was no way of making her mother less aghast and angry. So she did what came naturally, and wrote the following letter avoiding all mention of the subject.

  Mrs M. Gunnigan

  Lurgan

  Kilkelly

  Co. Mayo

  Ireland

  Presentation Convent,

  Church Park,

  Madras-6

  28 October 1958

  My dearest Mammy,

  Thank you very much for your letter yesterday. I am glad to hear you are all well at home and that young Pat is getting on so nicely, God bless him. [Pat was her brother John’s first-born child.]

  We have just finished our two days of Government inspection here and before that, on Saturday, we had a Commission here all morning going i
nto the type of training given; so with all that and lots of other work besides, I am quite addled just now. We have had a lot of rain, but the weather is still very stuffy and humid – that means, of course, that there is more rain coming.

  There must be great speculation all over the world as to who will be the next Holy Father. [Pope Pius XII had died on 9 October. He was succeeded by Pope John XXIII, who convened Vatican II.] It will not be easy to find anyone with the qualifications to fill the shoes of your greatly loved Pope Pius XII. As you said, he really seemed closer to us than any other Pope has been, and especially so for you at home who can get broadcasts from Vatican Radio without any great difficulty.

  I was very sorry indeed to read in your letter that Dillie’s baby is giving her a lot of trouble. Is he a strong child? Could it be that there is something wrong and that he is in pain? What does Mary Teresa think? [Mary Teresa was, and still is, John’s wife.] Is Dillie happy otherwise? I hope she is; for goodness knows she deserves to be.

  That is all for now. I am rushing to get this out on this evening’s post, and if I don’t hurry I’ll be late. Fondest love to all at home. Please pray for me.

  Your loving

  Julia

  The caption on the back reads: ‘The plane I left Madras on, to travel to Bombay en route to London and the rest of my life’

  That was the last letter Julia sent from the convent. By the time Mary Gunnigan received it, her daughter was no longer in India and no longer a nun. The silence she kept on her real plans is a truly magnificent act of passive aggression. The next day she signed the form releasing her from her vows, gave back her wedding ring, and Sister Eucharia became Julia Immaculata Gunnigan again. She left the convent without saying goodbye to anybody – as she had been ordered to do; her last act of obedience to the order – and took an Air India flight to Bombay and then a connection to London. She had been in the Presentation Sisters for fourteen years and was weeks away from her thirty-eighth birthday. She was dressed as the nun she no longer was, travelling with a passport made out in a name which was no longer hers. She was carrying a suitcase, containing the underwear, blanket, and towels about which she had corresponded with Peggie. She had no other possessions, apart from the £10 she’d been given for travelling expenses.