Sister Agatha

by Domhnall O'Donoghue

  Instead of taking the nurse to task for her abrupt manner, Sister Agatha thought the quickest way out of the disagreeable encounter was simply to hold her tongue and comply with orders. She even ignored the fact her tights were now the embarrassed owners of a large ladder along the side. “Silence is golden” was Sister Agatha's mantra, one that had stood her in good stead over the years. (Her first Mother Superior had the temper of a Spanish bull, and so both she and her cohorts at the convent implemented that maxim time and time again.)

  Job finally complete, the patient sat alone once again, unsure of what she should do next. Her stomach, which had been doing somersaults similar to those performed by the Russian Olympic Gymnastics team only moments earlier, now started to grumble. Her body was reminding her that it was fast approaching lunch time, and while she was never one to overlook a good feeding—particularly when Sister Josephine’s delicious tomato, lentil, and orange soup appeared on the menu—she wasn’t sure if she could handle any food at that moment in time, such was her anxiety.

  “Something is amiss, I know it!”

  Unable to stand the suspense any longer, she boldly marched over to the door, took a deep breath, and swung it open—an action she regretted doing almost immediately. Before her, Doctor Manus stood beside a colleague, but they were not chatting about some innocuous sporting event as she had secretly hoped. Instead, the pair discussed something much more gruesome than anything a spectator might witness at a boxing match or a rugby game: her imminent demise!

  “Ye could give her a week, but I think it’s best to put her out of her misery straight away.”

  “I think you're right, James,” his colleague agreed, as he solemnly nodded his head.

  Sister Agatha stood aghast. Not only was she being told that it was curtains, but to add insult to injury, her seemingly ambrosial Doctor McManus intended to send her to the slaughterhouse right there and then! If she had Sister Josephine’s hot tomato soup in her hand at that very moment, she would have drowned the swinish barbarian in it! (What’s more, if it emerged that he did, in fact, have Bell’s palsy, it was no more than the cad deserved.)

  As the pair continued to rabbit on, a dumbstruck Sister Agatha thought it best to break tradition and skip Godspeeds and cheerios, given what she had just heard. And so she disappeared out the door with the same alacrity shown by a manic housewife running towards the oven after realising that the bread has been left within ten minutes too long.

  No wonder that nurse was in such foul form, Sister Agatha decided as she emerged into the car park; who wouldn’t be, working under such a duplicitous, silver-tongued brute of a man as Doctor McManus?

  * * *

  Lolita the cat had experienced something of a tumultuous start in life. Her original owner, an English professor at Trinity College, fell pregnant and developed a strong reaction towards cat hair. While it broke her heart, Professor Poulter was forced to send the fat feline packing.

  The second home that Lolita ended up in was one owned by an elderly Chinese lady, who had few friends on account of her dramatic tendencies and eccentric ways. (She once saw a couple of teenagers innocently smoking cigarettes close to her house and became so certain that they were going to set fire to her bricks and mortar, she called upon the garden hose to cool the situation down.)

  Just as Lolita happily settled into her new lodgings, a terrifying roar sounded throughout the house. On enquiry, the cat discovered Old Lady Yip holding aloft a picture of an elderly man wearing a large conical hat. Tears cascaded down her cheeks as she mumbled, “Lolita, Lolita, Lolita!” Apparently, the batty woman had convinced herself that her new pet was the reincarnation of her late grandfather, and that just wouldn’t do—she’d had little interest in the old man when he lived, she had even less now that he was pushing up daisies. So, the four-legged scamp was shown the door once again.

  The third and final dwelling place for Lolita transpired to be a much more favourable arrangement—well, initially, at least. Doreen Cooney had become quite lonely since her husband had secured employment on an oil rig close to the Shetland Islands. With her grown-up children having long since fled the nest, she thought she might like a little company in the evenings. When she saw Old Lady Yip’s advertisement in the shop window, she knew it was an inspired idea.

  Lolita was an extremely playful and affectionate cat, and while most humans found Doreen to be somewhat insufferable, animals weren’t nearly as judgmental, particularly if they were fed up with going from pillar to post the way Lolita had been. In fact, it soon emerged that they were the perfect partners-in-crime, constantly larking about—so much so, the pair often wished that there were more hours in the day.

  But this initial happiness wasn’t to last for long, unfortunately. When Doreen had come down with a dose of tonsillitis, she took herself to the always lovely Doctor McManus for some help, leaving Lolita to enjoy a little downtime on her own. Sadly, that adage about curiosity killing the cat certainly rang true that day.

  When the fluffy Persian explored Doreen’s converted garage, she became rather taken with the treadmill that her owner had purchased several years earlier to shift a few Christmas pounds. (As it turned out, the machine had never been used nor had the weight ever been lost.) Unable to resist temptation, Lolita jumped onto it with such enthusiasm that the contraption immediately sprung to life, hurling the poor creatúr against the wall with a ferocious bang.

  Mrs Monaghan, Doreen’s next door neighbour, dashed over to investigate the source of the racket when, through the window, she saw poor Lolita sprawled out on the floor, clinging to dear life. No longer entrusted with the spare set of house keys since she had ransacked Doreen’s make-up box when the Cooneys were once out of town, Mrs Monaghan called the doctor’s surgery to report the sad news instead. Having worked as a veterinary nurse in her earlier days (she had gotten the boot from that job, too, thanks to her pilfering predilection), Mrs Monaghan instructed the receptionist to inform Doreen that Lolita could last the week, but it might be for the best to put her out of her misery right there and then.

  In the surgery, Doreen, despite her fragile tonsils, released a roar that would shame a thunderstorm.

  “Why do all the things that I love the most leave me?” she demanded to know, before fleeing the building.

  Doctor McManus, who had been examining Sister Agatha at the time, left his star patient alone while he investigated the cause of the uproar outside. Having been an animal lover all his life—in fact, he had been late to work that morning because he had to free a lamb caught in barbed wire—the revelations saddened him. When he discussed the situation with his colleague, he couldn’t help but agree with Mrs Monaghan’s recommendations.

  “Yes, ye could give her a week, but I think it’s best to put her out of her misery straight away,” he opined.

  If only Lolita were more like Sister Agatha, Doctor McManus mused. She was a cat who certainly had nine lives, and if the examination he had just completed suggested anything, it was clear that she probably had another good ten years left in her.

  * * *

  In the surgery’s busy carpark, Paul, Sister Agatha’s loyal and faithful taxi driver, waited while listening to some trashy talk show on the radio. Being something of a sucker for a good old-fashioned debate, Paul’s life of burning up the roads of Meath with the wireless on full blast was nothing short of heavenly. He always looked forward to discussing in detail the various arguments being aired with Sister Agatha following her monthly consultations—often too much detail, she felt.

  Incidentally, for many years, Paul had dined out on the time he had called one such radio programme. The topic under discussion concerned itself with the fairer sex and whether they should be more mindful of their age when it came to kitting out their wardrobes. The majority of callers were adamant that women over forty should not be permitted to wear revealing garments such as bikinis or miniskirts.

  “It’s disgustin’—I don’t wanna be lookin’ at their wrinkly b
its and bobs.”

  Having ferried around a gal who predated radio broadcasting itself, Paul, on the other hand, was of the opinion that the elderly—his female counterparts in particular—should be revered and not criticised for whatever garb that they chose to wear. If they wanted to strut about with nothing more than a couple of fig leaves to protect their modesty, hadn’t they earned this right?

  And so, having seen red, Paul swore black and blue at all the sanctimonious so-and-sos for being so pious and judgmental.

  “Why don’t you go and shove your opinions up your dirty fu—”

  Beep, beep, beep.

  He was so enraged, Paul didn’t realise he had been cut off for over five minutes. As a direct result of spending the wild, blue yonder in the company of Sister Agatha, Paul concluded that age was indeed just a number. Had he a bottom dollar in his possession, he would have used it to bet that the old-timer was going to outlive everybody and everything—even his immortal cactus plant!

  He often told the lads in Bermingham’s bar what an honour it was to drive her around. Should he reach half her age, Paul often hypothesised, he would die a happy man. (He was only forty-one but he’d already had two triple by-passes: sixty cigarettes a day, compounded by little exercise and nightly takeaways—as well as those tipples in his local—came at a high price, he had discovered the hard way.)

  Today, Paul didn’t get an opportunity to relay his opinions about some sleep-deprived plumber who had just revealed live on the radio that he reluctantly shared a bed with his wife due to her unbearably odorous feet. When Sister Agatha abruptly jumped into the back seat, she looked visibly upset and muddled, and not in the slightest bit interested in engaging in any conversation.

  “Is everything alright, Sis—”

  “Get out of here, Paul. No time for idle chitchat!”

  This unusual suddenness also led to Paul forgetting to tell his favourite passenger all about that silly Mrs Cooney’s hysterics moments earlier, and that it looked as if her new cat hadn’t long left for the world. Instead, Paul put his foot on the pedal, as ordered, and hoped the gal sitting behind him was all right. If not, who else was going to give out to him for continuing to pile on the pounds? And, who else had any interest in chastising him for being unable to show moderation when it came to his nightly libations?

  * * *

  Whether it was Navan Carpets, Tara Mines, or the beloved shopping centre, when it came to the Royal County’s largest and most affluent town, there were many things that were part of the furniture but none more so than its most famed resident, Sister Agatha.

  While local hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort invented the universally celebrated scale to measure the wind, the two-hundred-year-old apparatus could easily have been created with Sister Agatha in mind, as it was she who was the truly incalculable force of nature. Wherever she was, be it at adoration in Saint Mary’s Church or cheering on the county football team in Páirc Tailteann, or even getting some fresh air into her well-worn lungs in the nearby Dalgan Park, Sister Agatha was always surrounded by a legion of fans. But, so long as she was kitted out with her tinted glasses and continued to master the knack of being able to doze off while vertical, she was more than happy to be the centre of attention.

  In truth, she relished being fussed upon. Except when she was enjoying her weekly cappuccino. Following her successful examinations on the first Wednesday of every month, Sister Agatha would treat Paul to a cup of coffee and some delicious cake in the Ardboyne Hotel. Those rare moments of indulgence demanded peace and quiet, with nary a sinner being afforded the right to interrupt.

  Like every other Irish person, she had been a tea connoisseur all her life but when the introduction of coffee in their many guises swept the country in the nineties, rather unashamedly she jumped horses. While some might have viewed such a move as heretical, Sister Agatha argued that she limited her caffeine intake to cappuccinos alone, which were, after all, named after the famous band of Italian, brown-robed monks. Therefore, her switch was simply a celebration of her religious vows, she boldly claimed.

  Today, however, the gal was in no mood for any such blissful refreshments and demanded to be taken back to the convent post haste. She didn’t want to cause Paul any alarm—she was very fond of him, even though an infant could take better care of himself—so she decided to keep what she had just heard under her veil.

  As they passed Watergate Street’s imposing, stone-clad Town Hall, one of Sister Agatha’s favourite buildings in Navan, before continuing out the traffic-heavy Ring Road, the distressed, old gal looked out the car window where she spotted a lone magpie flying over the chirpy Boyne River. She couldn’t help but think that there was little need for a bird to tell her that today was a day of sorrow.

  They made their way out the Dublin Road, towards Johnstown where the rather austere-looking Order of Saint Aloysius had stood for almost three centuries. Sister Agatha’s mind was ablaze with questions: was it something she had done or not done that had now led her all the way to death’s door? She had religiously followed that dictum about your body being your temple, so she was at a loss as to why Doctor McManus appeared convinced she was on the verge of kicking the bucket. Unlike her driver seated in front of her, cigarettes had never passed her lips while alcohol was a relative stranger to her, so both of those life-shortening vices could be counted out. Granted, she was certainly no Sonia O’Sullivan, but the nun had proudly made light work out of numerous pairs of runners in her youth, jogging up and down the leafy ramparts every other afternoon. And as for all of those sunny, summer days she and the other sisters had spent enjoying endless games of rounders…

  What’s more, when it came to cooking, Sister Josephine was nothing short of a culinary doyenne, always ensuring that the inhabitants of the Order of Saint Aloysius received all that was needed to maintain a healthy body. So, Sister Agatha’s downfall had nothing to do with being starved of her five-a-day, either.

  No, in terms of her health, she had always ensured that she was in mint condition, so why was she now being punished?

  Her mind was at war with itself, trying to ascertain why she had been the unfortunate recipient of such ill-fated tidings. If she hadn’t taken those vows all those years ago, a four-lettered word that the gardener had once used when a wing of the convent had accidentally caught fire might have passed her lips at that moment. And even if it did, who could blame her? After all, it had been revealed that her one true ambition had—just like the conservatory—gone up in smoke.

  To be the oldest person in the world.

  Chapter Two

  It almost happened overnight: one minute their daughter was rolling around on all fours; the next, she was a beautiful, intelligent young lady, ready to take on the world. While it was extraordinary to see, it was, nonetheless, heart-breaking for the Millers to realise their little girl was no longer their little girl.

  Neither parent had dedicated much of their lives to their education, but they were most encouraging when Butsy proved to be something of a clever-clogs. A general all-rounder, geography, in particular, was her strong point. As a student, she had been completely spell-bound by all the other countries that existed in the world, other than her dear Ireland. She had read Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days time and time again and thought it the most fantastic adventure ever told. She spent hours wondering if, one day, she would get an opportunity to visit such exotic places for herself.

  “Cowsheds don’t clean themselves,” Mr Miller continuously reminded her when he caught her daydreaming about such things.

  Those initial suspicions about her future beauty proved true, and each and every time she passed Kilberry village, every head—whether it be young or old, drunk or sober—would turn. But, there was only one person whose attention Butsy craved, and that was Pádraig Keogh—the debonair son of her parents’ disagreeable landlady, and three years her senior. What’s more, no detective was needed to deduce that he was equally smitten, if not even more
so.

  Every time the tall, sallow-skinned chap would cycle past the Millers’ farm, he would eagerly ring his little bell and wave frantically at his beautiful and statuesque Venus. Once, the lad had been so excited to see her, he failed to notice a large branch that had fallen from one of the trees. Lickety-split, the poor infatuated chap went head-first over the handlebars, landing in the middle of a thorny ditch with a bump. Love is blind, after all.

  While Butsy often had her head in the clouds—much to her father’s frustration—her feet were also firmly rooted in reality. She had enough smarts to realise that any relationship with Pádraig was going to be a bust. Yes, she may have been a walking encyclopedia concerning the Great War that was currently ravaging the world, for example, but being scholarly is about as much use as a hill of beans when negotiating a girl’s dowry. Butsy Miller was a humble farmer’s daughter, while Pádraig Keogh was the heir to an estate that could be used to settle a king’s ransom.

  “The fella who is lucky enough to win your heart will love you, warts and all,” the romantic and sentimental Mrs Miller told her one night, as she brushed her daughter’s dark, curly hair.

  However, being unfamiliar with this particular expression, the seventeen-year-old became paranoid that her skin was the victim of a host of unsightly blemishes—something that Pádraig had no business in seeing—and so, she didn't leave her bedroom for two whole days. When the teenager and her impeccable skin finally did emerge, waiting for her was a letter from her flame. As she quickly scanned it, her heart racing, she saw that he was inviting her to the annual Bealtaine dance in a week’s time. She also noticed that his spelling was abysmal, but her excitement about his delightful request superseded any interest in being pernickety.

  “I will bee passen your house at to o’clok this aftarnune when you can give me your anser.”

  Butsy had just under an hour to beautify herself—but she didn’t want to transform herself too much; a girl should always give the impression that she woke up looking that well.