by Martha Long
‘Good girl! How are you getting on in secondary school?’ asked the Reverend Mother, standing out on the landing talking te her.
‘Oh, very well, Mother!’ I heard her gasp. ‘I love it!’
‘Yes, of course you would. A clever child like you would have no trouble with your studies,’ I heard her say.
Right! I know exactly what I’m going te do. Mousey has given me an idea. I was outa the bed at the crack of dawn and flying down te the chapel for Mass, leaving the rest of the creeps sleeping the sleep of the dead, while I shuffled in, hearing the rustle of habits and the yawns stop halfway in shock while I pushed Mousey up in the bench te make room for me. She had the whole chapel te herself and sat herself right on the edge. I wanted te make us a matching pair. The two goody-goodies! She was raging, moving herself miles away from me down te the far end of the bench, letting the nuns know, watching from the back in their prie-dieux, she was certainly not associated with the likes of me!
So here I am, now thinking of becoming a nun. I could go on the missions. Just like in the film The Nun’s Story. Dressed in a white habit, with little black babies swarming all around me, and me carrying one in each arm, and getting the rest of them te follow me, hanging on te me habit like some of them do here with Sister Eleanor. She moans all the time, but she really likes being a nun, rushing up te get her prayers and singing the office. I sit listening te them sometimes at night when I have te work late, and hear them chanting the vespers. I know it off by heart. So that’s a start.
‘What are you up to, Martha?’
‘Aah! Ye gave me an awful fright, Matron!’ I roared, looking up at her creeping inta the room. For some reason, she always creeps on her toes; I suppose it’s because of living with the nuns so long, you always have te be quiet, not disturb them in their prayers.
‘What’s that ye’re reading?’ she said, squinting down at me book. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘From the convent library,’ I whispered.
‘Oohh! Don’t let them catch you with that. They’ll have your guts for garters. What are ye reading that old tripe for?’
‘Ah well, I don’t know, it’s about nuns.’
‘So, don’t you see enough of them without having to read about them as well?’ she laughed.
‘Yeah, but maybe I might be interested in finding out all about them.’
‘Why? Aah, would you go on outa that.’ She nudged me, digging me with her elbow. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of joining them, are you?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Aah, you wouldn’t last two minutes with the like a them. They would drive ye crazy! Put that nonsense outa your head. You’re full a life. Go out into the world and enjoy yourself. Are you listening to me?’ she said, belting me arm.
‘Yeah!’ I was thinking about what she just said. ‘But what has being full of life got te do with being a nun? Does it mean I couldn’t become a nun if I wanted te?’
‘That’s not the point. You would end up in the funny farm after spending a bit a time with them aul nuns. They drive each other crazy. Back-biting about each other, ignoring one another. No, no! It’s not the life for you, Martha. You were never meant to live this kind of life. Now, promise me you will put it out of your head. Will you promise me that?’ she said, bending down and looking inta me eyes.
‘I still don’t understand,’ I said, shaking me head. ‘What about Sister Eleanor? All the kids love her, and she’s a great nun!’
‘Ahh, she’s different. Her father is a big shot in the medical world. Sure, she even has two sisters surgeons, and a brother a top medical professor in one of the big hospitals in London, and the rest of them are all doctors, too, even her mother was a doctor. They live in a big mansion down in the heart of the country. No, she’s one of the few who was cut out to be a nun. But the rest of them! Listen, Martha. I have lived with these nuns now for more years than I can count. They go very peculiar after a while. That is, if they’re not peculiar to begin with! It’s the life they lead. Shut up in here, nowhere for them to escape. Living with each other day after day, looking at the same faces, they end up losing their health a lot of them. No! Say nothing to anyone, and don’t go telling that chaplain! God knows where it might lead you. Even the young ones who come and try it out have a hard time getting back to themselves. So make plans that get you as far away from these people as you can get. No good would come of it. You must mark my words. If I had my time over again, I would never darken their doorstep,’ she said, looking faraway, the light going outa her tired eyes.
Poor Matron! It looks like she has wasted her life, she thinks. I don’t want that te happen te me. ‘Maybe you’re right, Matron,’ I said slowly, thinking about it.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘A lovely young girl like you should grab everything life has to offer you.’
‘Why did you stay, Matron?’ I asked her quietly, moving over te the windowsill and sitting down beside her.
‘I wish to God I knew!’ she said, dropping her shoulders, giving a big sigh. ‘To be honest, I came in for a rest. I had seen too much, and I thought working here for a while would give me a breathing space. It took me a long time to lick my wounds.’
I could see the pain in her eyes; it still hurts, whatever she went through, even after all this time. That must be over forty years. I stayed quiet, listening te her.
‘Life was short, so cheap! Out there it meant nothing. It was kill or be killed! The men suffered! Oh, many is the dark night I sat in this place picturing those young men; like the walking dead they were, Martha,’ she said, looking at me. ‘Life meant nothing. I suppose to be truthful to myself, I gave up on life after that. I stayed on here, dead inside myself. Going through the motions, happy enough with the routine and order, that’s really what kept me going. The quiet routine, nothing to disturb the weak balance of my mind. The aul nuns and their crabby ways didn’t bother me. I hardly noticed them half of the time; I was so locked up in my own world. Some of them acted like they had the world on their shoulders, and that would make me laugh. The contrast of how they lived their lives and what went on in the real world, or what happened in Belgium, anyway, was beyond most people. You couldn’t talk to anyone; they didn’t want to know, and they wouldn’t have understood anyway. There was a lot of suffering and poverty in them days, Martha. A lot of things have changed for the better with the social welfare and housing. Most of the slums, the aul tenement houses are demolished. Yeah, things have changed all right. For a lot of people, anyway. But underneath, nothing changes. I see the helpless children coming in here, some of them half dead.’
‘Yeah,’ I murmured, remembering some of them. ‘Matron, do you remember the little baby girl who went straight inta hospital when Doctor Blightman took one look at her? She never came back.’
‘No, she died in the children’s hospital,’ the Matron said, shaking her head, thinking about it.
There were other children, too. Scabs in their shaved heads, skin and bone, brought straight from the city centre. The other kids staring at them like they were outa a zoo. Laughing at the idea of the little girls, two sisters they were. ‘Do we have te share them sausages or do we do wha wit them?’ they asked the other kids. I knew straight away what they were going through. Somehow it was like looking at meself at their age, and I knew then what I must have looked like. They didn’t stay here no more than a few nights. Then they were gone again. ‘Yeah, I know what you are talking about, Matron,’ I said.
‘So that’s the way it goes,’ she said, shaking her head slowly, thinking back on her life. ‘So here I am. I wake up one day and find I’m nearly at the end of my days. It was short yet very long,’ she said, miles away in herself.
I sat looking at her sitting on the deep windowsill, her white frilly linen cap sitting on top of her head, with the grey wisps of hair hanging out around her face, and I knew she tied it up in a bun on top; her white face falling in folds hanging under her cheeks, and her faded-blue eyes with veins in the whi
tes, still lit up with the kind of life ye only see in a very young child who gets the idea of doing something great gas but very bold. She has more life in her eyes than a lot of the kids here have, and the nuns never had it. Most of the time their eyes are like stone. Dead!
We sat in silence, her swinging her legs with the thick woollen stockings falling down in rolls inta her black-laced soft-leather high-heel boots. With her long, white, heavy linen uniform covering her legs, and letting her white wrinkly hands rest in her lap while she stared at them.
I lifted me head slowly, resting me eyes on the bare trees, with the fruit rotting on the wet grass and everything dead now in the orchard, having had their time, and waiting for the spring te come and the new life will start over again. I suppose that’s somehow like life. Matron Mona has had her time, and it starts all over again with a new generation. I’m one of the lucky ones who was born and have a chance te have a go at making something outa me life, I thought, looking back te Matron Mona, who lifted her head, giving me a smile – full of contentment the two of us. Like there was no age difference between us. She understands me and I understand her, and we are easy in each other’s company. She’s me one real friend here.
CHAPTER 20
Isat with me legs dangling over the edge of the armchair, taking it easy after a day of scrubbing and polishing, leaving the convent shining and the floor looking like glass. The nuns might, with a bit of luck, slip and land on their arse. I was fed up having them walk on me newly scrubbed stairs, then having te run back up and wipe their muddy shoeprints after they come in from their praying along the wet paths on the Cloistered Walk. All this so they could give themselves an airing, then creep past me, whispering, ‘Oh, the weather is beautiful and crisp. I enjoyed that. Goodness! Look at the shine off that floor, Sister,’ te the one making her way up behind her, stepping onta the wet floor and missing the bar of Sunlight soap – too bad! Then the two of them standing on me polished floor, looking like overgrown bats, saying, ‘Tut, tut, she’s a marvellous girl,’ moving over, dragging the mud across the floor, and leaning down the stairs te tell me, ‘You’re a grand girl; sorry, dear, to disturb the hard work,’ then lifting their habits and running off, leaving me te run back up the stairs and wipe off the mudprints sitting on me lovely white rubber lino and across me newly polished floor. I take great pride in doing a good job. But one of these days . . .
The door flew open and I dropped me legs, expecting a roaring match from Sister Eleanor, screaming, ‘Get your legs off the side of my armchairs at once! How dare you treat my chairs with such disrespect?’ Flying herself in all directions, sending us landing on the floor, getting her long navy-blue knickers hanging down te her knees in a twist. When the shagging springs of the chairs, sitting exposed, send ye flying inta the air with a ping up yer arse, the pain burns yer arse for hours afterwards. That’s if ye forget yerself and throw yer full weight inta it, not making sure te sit yerself down easy. An she thinks they’re lovely, wanting ye te treat them like priceless silk!
Tubby Jeffries put her nose in, looking around te see who was here. She looked at Sarah Manson, sprawled in the other armchair, chewing on her long rats’ tails she calls hair, then landed her face back te me.
‘Here! Do you want this Bunty, Martha?’
I looked at it dangling in her hand, reaching over te me. ‘Eh, dunno. No, not really,’ I said, not in the mood for the Bunty. I’d prefer a magazine with the problem pages. Forget it! Ellie whips them faster than we can get them!
‘I want it!’ roared Manson, flinging her rats’ tails behind her back and reaching out, snatching it. Then the door closed, leaving me staring at Manson with my comic.
‘Here! I want it after all,’ I said, grabbing it back, seeing the value of it because she wanted it.
‘Give that back here!’ Manson roared, jumping te her feet.
‘No! It’s mine!’
‘She gave it to me!’ screamed Manson, jumping up and down, getting all excited.
‘Well, she offered it te me first.’
‘Give me back that fucking comic,’ she roared, making a run at me.
I laughed, tearing out the door with yer woman tearing down the passage after me.
‘Give that back to me, Long! I’m going to fucking kill you!’
‘Temper, temper!’ I laughed, enjoying the chase down the passage. I looked back, seeing her tearing after me, grinding her teeth, looking like she meant business, grabbing air with her hands out, like she already had me in her paws.
I tore off down the back passage and headed inta the kitchen. I switched the light on and made a run for the other side of the kitchen table, hanging on te it, hopping from one foot te the other, laughing and watching her come flying in the door and stopping te gauge the distance between us. I laughed, watching her bang the door slowly shut with her foot, never taking her eyes off me.
‘Jaysus, Manson, ye’re acting like someone outa the bleeding cowboy fillums!’ I laughed, thinking this is great gas.
‘You’re not getting out of here alive,’ she said, staring at me like someone sleepwalking. ‘I want that comic, hand it over.’ She spoke slowly, putting out her hand.
I started te get hysterical, thinking she’s very determined te get the comic back, and I collapsed meself on the table, laughing at the whole idea of it. Yer woman thinks she’s a fucking cowboy or something. She’s acting like the tough guy outa the O.K. Corral. All she’s short of is spitting out a bit of chewing tobacca. ‘Nope! You is not goin teh get my here comic,’ I said, sounding like something outa a Western fillum meself, and holding it up for her te look at, screaming me head laughing.
‘Fuck you, Long! You are going to regret this.’ She suddenly sprang at the table, opening the drawers and spilling all Sister Mercy’s cutlery onta the floor, and picked up a huge carving knife, lifting it above her head, saying, ‘Are you going to give that back?’
‘No!’ I leapt from one foot te the other, watching her eyes glinting with madness, having seen that look before. Fuck! She’s outa her mind. ‘Stop, ye silly cow! This is no longer a joking matter!’ I screamed.
‘No! You’re right there!’ She lifted the knife over her shoulder, flicking it back, staring at me for a split second, then aimed it straight for me head. I ducked, grabbing the chair, and came up holding it, and flung it across the table straight at her, going for another knife, hearing the old clock that sat up on the wall since the bloody nuns arrived here hundreds a years ago smash.
Fuck! I raced for the door, trying te get it open, and Manson grabbed me, wrapping her arms around mine and pinning me. I swung around, knocking her outa the way, and headed for the scullery. She tore after me and I stood with me back against the sink, hoping te knock her off balance and escape out the door.
‘Bitch!’ she screamed, sounding like a banshee, then threw herself at me, sending me flying against the big machine for peeling the potatoes and knocking against the switch, and the machine started grinding away like mad with nothing in it. I held her arms, trying te pin them down, and she used her feet, pushing against the floor, trying te bear down her weight on me, and heaved and pushed until she had me head hanging over the potato peeler.
‘Stop, ye mad fucking bitch!’
Then she pushed her hand down on me head, bearing all her weight on it, trying te get me head inside the peeler. I could hear us grunting and her giving a little squeak of laugh, determined te do whatever it took te get what she wanted. Fuck! Help! I’m going te get me head mashed! This is not about a comic; this is about who is going te back down. Or maybe fucking not! This mad cow won’t stop until me head topples inta the basin. All peeled and mashed, ready for tomorrow’s dinner.
‘Aah! This is not funny, Manson! Ye’ll have me head in the potato peeler. For the love of Jaysus, stop!’
‘Yeah! I’m going to fucking shred you!’ she grunted, heaving herself more against me.
‘No, ye’re’ . . . grunt . . . ‘fuckin not!’
‘Hah
!’ . . . grunt . . . ‘Long! You’re mincemeat.’
‘Ah!’ . . . grunt . . . I pushed back with me arse and pushed until I could get a grip on the floor, and lifted me foot, slamming it against the press and sending the two of us flying across the room, landing against a metal rack holding all Sister Mercy’s metal heavy pots. The whole lot came tumbling down on top of us as I tried te crawl away, managing te get a grip on a pot just as Manson sent me flying with a kick up the arse and grabbed hold of a big pot and flung it at me. I ducked sideways, putting the pot out in front of me, and it banged away from me, and I sent my pot flying at her and ducked down for another one. The pots started flying in all directions, and she took a flying leap at me, and we locked on each other again, rolling around the floor.
We didn’t hear the door open until Sister Mercy stood over us, screaming, ‘Stop dis! What in the name of all dat is holy is going on here?’ She was too shocked te say anything else, and just stood looking at the two of us and sweeping her head around the kitchen that looked like it had been hit with a bomb!
‘We heard you up in the chapel,’ she said, white as a sheet, her eyes staring outa her head.
I let go me fingers, uncurling them from Manson’s hair, and she stopped trying te throttle me with her hand wound tightly around the neck of me jumper.
Mercy suddenly came te her senses and ran at us screaming, ‘Get up! Get up! You pack of savages!’
I dived outa the way, hopping te me feet and making past her out the door. She grabbed a hold of Manson, shouting, ‘Pick up all dem pots! Me kitchen! Oh my God,’ she said, turning herself around, seeing the clock hanging by its springs. ‘Jesus! Me clock.’ Manson got an unmerciful clatter. ‘You stupid clown,’ she screamed. ‘Where’s dat other one? Long! Martha Long,’ I heard her screams after me as I flew up the passage, wanting te make as much distance from all the madness as I could manage in the shortest time.
I shot along the convent passage, feeling me heart going like the clappers, the sweat pouring outa me. I landed meself in the chair of me little waiting room, sitting in the dark, not wanting te draw attention te meself by putting on the light.
