Hilary’s annoyance all but seeped away. This girl understood, understood completely. She longed to talk to her in private, find out when she’d left, how long had it taken her to adapt, adjust, stop agonising. But other girls were talking.
‘They’re ridiculous, those habits. I mean, a lot of nuns still wear them, yet they cost a bomb, far more than normal clothes.’
‘It’s not just that. It’s psychologically wrong for women to have only one outfit, which they have to wear for everything from a major feast like Christmas to mucking out the henhouse.’
‘No, but the money thing’s important. I mean, what about dowries? All those convents raking in the cash, investing it and living on the interest, then daring to talk about vows of poverty. I read about a convent just last year, which had only nine nuns left, rattling around in a fifty-five-room mansion with grounds to match. When at last they pulled it down, they built housing for four hundred. Yet the Reverend Mother defended it for years, kept out the developers, said her Sisters needed peace and space to preserve their interior life. I ask you! What about the interior life of Bangladeshi families living in one room?’
Hilary flushed, still felt a sense of loyalty to her own eleven sisters in their spacious Georgian mansion. Yet she herself had criticised their easy sheltered life.
‘Well, that’s true of the Church in general,’ someone else chipped in. ‘The Vatican’s sitting on a gold mine, while peasants starve in Ecuador. And the C of E’s as bad. Those fat-cat Church Commissioners own so much land and property, they can hardly …’
‘Oh, don’t start that again, Pat. We’ve been talking politics since ten o’clock. We’re meant to be discussing the Charismatic movement.’
‘It’s still relevant, isn’t it? I mean, what do Charismatics do to help the starving world, or even help the hungry here in England? For lots of them, it’s just an ego trip – people getting high on their emotions, then calling it the Spirit. And even for the saner ones, it’s still all prayer and praise and meetings – letting off spiritual steam, hanging loose with God. But what difference has it made to our society? And it’s even worse in the States. There’s this Charismatic pastor in Dallas who’s a multimillionaire and says God made diamonds for His own flock to enjoy, not for Satan’s crowd. He even believes in segregated churches. I suppose he fears his faithful congregation might feel a bit uncomfortable with poor blacks and shabby Spaniards envying all those sparklers.’
Hilary glanced up at the speaker, a tall and angry-sounding girl, who was snapping used matches into splinters. Why had she come to a Charismatic conference when she seemed so disenchanted with the movement? She longed to slip away herself, felt more and more uneasy in this cramped and ugly room, with its overflowing ashtrays, its scuffed and speckled lino. The girls themselves looked shabby and unkempt, one in just her raincoat, with bare legs underneath. She tried not to notice the dirty toenails, cheap blue vinyl sandals. She was becoming far too critical, expecting elegance, good taste, in her surroundings, other people, just because the Kingsleys all stressed style. A different girl was speaking now, a small and rather sallow one, with ragged cropped brown hair.
‘Another thing – take the role of women. D’you realise, not one single speaker at this conference is a female? Oh, I know they’ve got women running workshops, but all the “stars” are men, and yet it’s meant to be a democratic movement which gives power to the layman. Layman, true, but what about us laywomen?’
‘That’s not fair, Jane. I can think of lots of women who’ve made it in the …’
‘Name just one.’
‘Heather Tait.’
‘Okay, her. Who else, though?’
‘Mary Clarke. Mary Holdsworth.’
‘Interesting they’re Marys, when it’s Mary who’s to blame – the BVM, I mean.’ Elaine again, stubbing out her cigar in a puddle of spilt coffee. ‘In the Catholic Church, anyway,’ she added. ‘What a model for us women! A virgin who produced her child without a man, and apparently no pain; was hauled straight up into heaven, rather than plain died, and was always passive, docile, silent and submissive. No wonder most Catholic girls feel guilty, or end up in a mess. And look at Southern Ireland. Divorce and contraception and abortion are all still mortal sins there, not to mention masturbation. Bloody hell! If we read that Soviet Russia had forbidden wanking, or refused to allow the sale of contraceptives, we’d call it tyranny and all be signing petitions to allow them greater freedom.’
Hilary sat aghast. Elaine’s language was more outspoken even than Della’s. And the way she talked of Mary, God’s own Mother … Could she have really been a nun, undone those years and years of training so completely?
‘I couldn’t be a Catholic,’ said a young and skinny girl, munching biscuits in the corner. ‘No way! Just that whole Virgin Birth thing is enough to put me off. I mean, you’re either a virgin or a mother. You can’t be both at once.’
‘Oh, yes, you can.’ Elaine was grinning now. ‘I was, for fourteen years. Mother Immaculata. What a name! The first thing I did, once I’d returned to plain Elaine, was to get rid of my virginity, as well – just to prove I could, I suppose. When you’ve been called “Immaculate” for fourteen years, and you’re not the Virgin Mary with a Holy Ghost on tap, it’s not that easy.’
Some of the girls were looking quite uncomfortable, others laughing outright. Hilary kept glancing at ex-Mother Immaculata, hardly able to believe what she had heard. Elaine wasn’t even pretty – downright plain, in fact; with a lumpy figure, coarse-pored greasy skin. Yet she’d found a lover, been to bed with him.
‘They say it’s the most pleasurable experience known to human beings, so I didn’t want to miss it. Better late than never!’ Elaine let out a loud and vulgar laugh.
Hilary heard the noises from the next door room again – gaspings, moanings, sudden whimpering cries. It hadn’t sounded pleasurable, rather animal and painful. If only she knew more. She was so ignorant, so sheltered. Had all these women had sex, all except for her – even single Catholic girls like Bridget, ex-nuns like Elaine?
‘I was lucky, really,’ Elaine went on, lighting up a fresh cigar. ‘A lot of women in my group were still living as half-nuns, even years after they’d left. I remember one poor soul. She fled straight back home and stayed there, a little girl of fifty-three, doing what her parents said.’ Elaine guffawed suddenly. ‘Her convent name was even worse than mine – Sister Mary of the Seven Dolours. I ask you! No wonder she was suffering from depression. Even when she changed it back to Brenda, she wasn’t exactly a ball of fun. And she knew absolutely nothing about sex. She came to me once in private, after the meeting, terribly concerned because her Ma had mentioned something about her father having a bulge in his left side, and Brenda thought that must be his … you know – whatsitsname. In fact, the poor chap had a hernia, but she was so completely unclued-up about male anatomy, she assumed that men kept their vital bits and pieces on the side.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ Pat reached out for the biscuits, passed them round.
‘It’s true, I swear. You just don’t know what goes on in these convents – the mixture of plain ignorance and sort of creepy fascination with anything remotely sexual. I mean, even the way they called us “Brides of Christ”, and had these quite explicit prayers about “panting for our spouse” and “fruitful seeds” and things. What was it we used to say?’ Elaine took two biscuits, shuddered. ‘ “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His divine mouth”. Just the stuff for virgins.’
Hilary put her cup down. She had said it, too, had never even thought of it as sexual. She had loved the bridal imagery sung at her Profession. ‘Come, my chosen one, the King has greatly desired your beauty’; had felt cherished to be chosen by the King of Heaven. And when they’d placed the veil upon her head, she had repeated twice, three times: ‘Christ has put a mark upon my face, that I should admit no other lover but Him.’
‘That “Brides of Christ” thing really gets me,’ Pat said with a
grimace. ‘I mean, what does it make monks – homosexuals?’
Everyone was laughing now, everyone save Hilary, who sat shocked, incredulous. She had always considered it the greatest of all privileges to be the Bride of Christ, a soul He wanted entirely for Himself. Man’s love could cool or slacken off, whereas God’s love was eternal.
‘It wouldn’t appeal to me,’ the skinny girl was saying. ‘He’s married to too many. I’d choose someone more available.’
An aggressive-looking woman in glasses and a bun jerked forward in her chair. ‘Look, let’s be serious, can’t we? Whether we’re Brides of Christ, or brides of plain John Smith, we’re still mere appendages to men, and that’s the whole damn …’
‘I am serious,’ Elaine interrupted. ‘In fact, I’m bloody furious, wasting half my life like that. What do you think, Hilary? You haven’t said a word yet, but you can’t support the system if you left it.’
Hilary fiddled with her teaspoon. All the faces had turned to her expectantly. She longed to hide, sink down through the floor, melt away to nothing like the wisp of steam still drifting from her cup. ‘Well, I only … I mean, there were other sorts of problems, private ones, and …’ Her voice tailed off. Was it any wonder Elaine had guessed she’d been a nun? She had none of these girls’ confidence, or spirit, no opinions of her own, no voice above a whisper, and she was looking down again. She forced her eyes up, found herself lassoed in a ring of curious stares. Elaine broke the sudden silence.
‘I just can’t understand why you’re not bloody raving mad. I mean, the way we were treated like small children, with no freedom or responsibility. Worse than children. Kids aren’t made to recite a sixth-century Rule, written for male masochists, off by heart and on their knees. Or forbidden to have friends. I mean, all that crazy stuff about the danger of “particular friendships”. All friendships are particular, otherwise the term’s quite meaningless. Anyway, Christ Himself had friends, though not a bunch my abbess would have liked – adulterers and tarts and such, but definitely “particular”. Mind you, there weren’t a lot in our community I was that keen to be pals with – a load of crooks, crocks, cranks and creeps, I’d say. But then what can you expect, when you break nuns’ spirit, muzzle them, load them down with sin and guilt, but still keep on insisting God is Love?’
Hilary felt scared, not angry – scared of Elaine’s own anger, her depth of bitterness. She hated being lumped with her: two ex-nuns, fanatics. And yet hadn’t she felt something of the same resentment – far more furtive, maybe, and never actually expressed, but still present, nonetheless?
‘I’m a thorough-going feminist now. Okay, it may be just reaction, but no wonder, after all those years and years of having the traditional female virtues like meekness and submissiveness dinned in to us by Holy Mother Church. God! That’s a fraud, if ever there was one. The Church is Patriarchy pure and simple. Male cardinals elect a male Pope who consecrates male bishops who ordain male priests who worship a male God in a male-orientated language.’
‘You ought to stand for politics, Elaine. You’re wasted on us here.’ An older, grey-haired woman grinned around the circle, then turned to Hilary. ‘Were you one of those enclosed nuns – you know, who never go out at all?’
‘Y … Yes, I was.’
‘That’s another way men keep women powerless – shut us up, in all senses.’ Elaine was on her feet now, like an orator. ‘D’ you realise there are far fewer enclosed Orders for men – in fact, far less monks than nuns. A lot of men wouldn’t take what we did. I mean, I got a First in Maths, from Bristol, and as soon as I’d graduated, they stuck me in the kitchen to humble what they called my pride, wouldn’t let me teach for five whole years, and then RI instead of Maths. And as a bit of extra penance, I had to swab the refectory floor – all ninety feet of it – with a tiddly little dish-mop, made for washing cups. It took me three whole hours. I could have done it in twenty minutes if they’d let me use a floor-mop. But a nun obeys blindly, doesn’t she? And even when I was teaching, all the footling rules continued. I couldn’t borrow someone’s pencil, or throw away a scrap of paper, without permission from a superior.’
‘Please, Reverend Mother, may I have permission to go to bed?’ The small girl on her knees, hands clasped, face demure. Everybody laughed.
‘Yeah, I’m shagged myself. And there’s no hope of a lie-in. What time’s breakfast? Eight o’clock?’
‘Seven-thirty.’
Groans all round. The girls started stretching, getting up; collecting lighters, kicked-off slippers, shuffling to the door.
‘Coming?’ Elaine asked, as she paused by Hilary’s chair.
‘Er, not just for the moment. I think I’ll have another cup of coffee.’ She prayed Elaine wouldn’t stay and join her, try to strike up a friendship on the flimsy grounds of what they had in common. What they didn’t have in common seemed far more fundamental.
‘See you at breakfast then, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Hilary watched Elaine slouch across the room, then stop a moment, heave up her pyjamas, scratch crossly at her bottom. This girl astounded her. Her language was so violent and fanatical, yet she must be brilliant to have got a First in Maths. And what about the other girls, who all seemed so critical and bitter? What had made them come at all, if they were so contemptuous of the Church, so obviously unspiritual?
She sank back in her chair. At least they had convictions, whilst she herself was totally confused, still a child, an innocent, living as a half-nun, to use Elaine’s own words. She picked up the cigarette packet, which Elaine had left behind, one long thin brown cigar thing crumpled at the bottom. She hesitated a moment, glancing round the room, as if to make sure she was alone, then found a match, tried to copy Elaine in the way she lit the thing, held it in her mouth, sucked in very deeply. She choked immediately, swallowed smoke and air, gagging at the rough taste of tobacco. She tried again, refusing to be daunted. If one ex-nun could do it – smoke and swear and sleep with men – then why not her, as well? She inhaled more slowly this time, managed not to cough, but now her eyes were streaming, tears running down her cheeks. She mopped them with her sleeve, stubbed out the cigar. She was just a baby, a crying clueless baby, who should never have ventured from her sheltered Brignor nursery.
Chapter Fifteen
Hilary sat in the far corner of the canteen, hoping no one else would join her. At least two hundred other people were queueing, jostling, eating, most in jolly parties, exchanging chat and laughs. She was astonished at such hubbub on Good Friday. Even in her childhood, the day had been a gloomy one, her mother tense from fasting, her father irritable because he was expected to survive on pilchard salad and a pot of tea. Here, nobody was fasting. The counter groaned with food – eggs boiled, poached, scrambled, fried; bacon, sausages, baked beans and tomatoes; a whole row of different cereals, fruit juice, porridge, prunes.
She shook a douse of salt on her small helping of dry All-Bran, helped it down with black unsugared tea. However much she’d relaxed her fasts this Lent, Good Friday was still sacrosanct, still meant rigorous penance, though she’d no wish to draw attention to herself, which was why she’d chosen a table on her own. It was also quieter in the corner, further removed from the swarm and scrum of bodies, the rowdy kitchen staff bumping trollies, clattering knives and forks. She put her cup down, wiped her mouth. Someone was approaching – a nun in a black habit, the old-fashioned full-length habit, very like the one she’d worn herself. She stared at it in shock. She had never realised before how conspicuous it looked, how much it marked you out from other people, how cumbersome, impractical, it seemed. She could feel herself shrinking from that drab funereal black. Had her parents felt the same, seeing their own daughter as a depressing, even menacing figure, who had stepped out of another, sadder century? She’d always imagined herself as gracious in the habit, dignified – set apart in the best sense of the word. And, even now, she missed it; felt not just distaste, but a confused irrational envy for the portly Sister s
tanding by her table. At least the habit gave you status, denoted your role as a professed religious, made you part of something so much bigger than yourself – the Church with its history and its hierarchy, an Order with authority and purpose.
‘Mind if I join you?’ The nun put down her tray, introduced herself as Sister Mary Lucian. She envied that as well – the title, the tradition – was tempted to reply with ‘Sister Mary Hilary’. But someone else had joined them, a balding burly-shouldered man, who seemed to know Sister Lucian well, exchanged greetings, even banter, as he pulled his chair out, installed himself beside her. Sister Lucian flashed them both a smile.
‘Do you know Brian – Brian Pagley? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Hilary.’
Brian murmured a few pleasantries, then turned back to Sister Lucian, started discussing a past conference, where the two of them had met. She and Brian were probably roughly the same age, though the nun looked much the younger. That was another advantage of the habit. If your hair was grey or scanty, nobody could see it; veiny legs were hidden, thickening waists disguised. Sister Lucian seemed totally at ease, laughing, almost flirting with the man, insisting that he move his tray, to make more room for hers. Hilary tried to hide her sense of shock as the nun unloaded Sugar Puffs and fruit juice, bacon, eggs and beans, three pieces of toast. The Brignor nuns would be standing now, in silence, as they drank their lukewarm water, ate their one dry piece of bread; would stand again for dinner – just swedes and boiled potatoes – nothing else all day. Good Friday was the strictest day of the year, a day of penance, total silence. Yet Sister Lucian was sprinkling extra sugar on her Sugar Puffs, drowning them in milk, talking through a mouthful. She and Brian were now discussing the recent reforms in convents and why some nuns wore mufti – as if they’d read her thoughts.
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