CHAPTER
TWENTYFIVE
We could put our two hands inside the waistbands of our
skirts. Colette put it down to our regular smoking. She had
given up smoking in the cattle pen. Now we smoked in an old
shed that had a hole in the roof. Trish often climbed up on
the roof to look out for us. She didn’t smoke but liked
being on the farm. We never worried about the silent farm
nuns.
‘Those creatures would be afriad to even
look
at
Paul!’ Colette said and I agreed.
I cringed at the thought of Sister Paul blasting those
gentle creatures with her tongue. ‘I suppose they have to
talk to her at meal times. Pass me the butter on the
rectangular plate, if you please, Sister Mary Stanislaus!’
I bellowed, imitating Paul and Trish nearly fell off the
roof.
The lay nuns were nice. I told Colette and Trish what one
of the Leaving Certs told me. Lay nuns had to do all the
menial tasks because they hadn’t brought a dowry when they
joined the convent. Colette and Trish said it was fucking
awful and I felt satisfied, sitting there smoking and
exposing injustices.
‘I can’t understand it. I mean they’re supposed to believe
that Jesus preferred poor people and Paul has a plastic
carrier bag of Dubliners
cassettes in her
bedroom. The capitalist pig.’
‘It’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle
than a rich man to get into Heaven,’ said Trish, wisely.
‘I wouldn’t like to be getting Paul through the eye of a
needle,’ Colette stubbed out her cigarette on a stone
jutting out from the wall.’
We all nodded, seriously. Thinking about the size of Paul.
‘The bitch had the cheek to ask me what I’d had for dinner
yesterday,’ Colette said.
‘I said that I had two chops, three potatoes and four
helpings of carrots.’
‘And did she believe you?’ I couldn’t get over the way they
let Colette talk to them.
‘She’d no bloody choice,’ said Colette, looking thundery.
Colette was quiet these days and she rarely joked like she
used to. It was an effort for her to get around because she
was so weak all the time. I wished things were like they
were in the old days. Colette had got so serious,
constantly studying and writing out French verbs on the
back of her hand, I didn’t worry any more about getting
caught smoking. Things like Maupassant and how thin our
arms were seemed more important.
One Sunday we were walking towards the refectory when a
wild crowd of girls surged down the stairs screaming, ‘Buns
for tea, buns for tea!’
We didn’t get buns often now and when we did, there was
even less to go around. Paul had some theory that girls
needed more brown bread and butter to fatten them up.
Colette looked disgusted.’They’re like wild savages We’ll
go down to that radiator for a few minutes to let that
racket die down.’
We passed the tangle of bottle-green uniforms and sharp
elbows, spilling in the refectory door. I thought that I
could hear Mother Colm’s grumpy voice as I passed and
wondered why she was there. It was usually Sister Carmel
who supervised tea. We walked down to the tall cream
radiator at the end of the corridor and inserted our purple
starved hands into the spaces. Mother Colm passed. I heard
her fast heels clicking as she walked quickly in her
sensible shoes.
‘Bloody hell,’ Colette muttered and I turned.
My mouth fell open to see Mother Colm hurrying past with
her head down. She was almost unrecognisable, her head
completely bare, showing a surprisingly small head covered
in short clipped grey hair. She clutched her veil to her
quaking chest and passed us quickly not meeting our eyes.
‘Something must have happened in the refectory,’ I watched
the back of Colm’s grey head, as it retreated down the
corridor, small and vulnerable-looking.
We went down to see what it was. ‘It’s about time we went
anyway, I’m really dying for my coffee,’ I said, thinking
hopelessly about duck loaf.
Colette smiled and looked superior. She did not admit to
having any physical needs and liked to give the impression
that she went to the refectory because she had nothing else
to do. We got our jars of coffee from our lockers and went
to the corner of the refectory where Sister Carmel left the
pots of hot water.
My stomach was growling and rumbling like a tormented bear.
Colette looked disapproving. ‘You’ll have to get that thing
under control,’ she said severely.
I noticed that
Sister Carmel seemed distracted. Some first years were
going back for third and fourth slices of duck loaf and she
didn’t even seem to notice. Colette told me to stop looking
at Carmel and to drink up my coffee. She put four teaspoons
of coffee in each cup and we swallowed down the scalding
liquid, quickly. We drank the coffee so hot it burned,
Colette said it was good to mortify the throat. To stop it
from swallowing too much. The caffeine raced into our
bloodstream and I felt a bit high.
Trish ran into the refectory and almost collided with
Carmel.
‘Will you have a cup, Trish?’ Colette said, firing several
more spoons of coffee into her mug.
‘No, I won’t, thanks. Listen, there’s been the most
terrible thing. Colm came in to help Carmel and there was
so much pushing and pulling for buns, her veil was pulled
off. There’s going to be absolute war. She’s gone to get
Paul.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, and not only that but Father Hognett was kind of
attacked.’
‘Attacked?’
‘Well, not exactly
attacked, but….shh…tell you later.’
There was a loud banging on the bell. Paul had arrived,
fury swelling her habit and veil like the sails of a ship
in a storm.
I have never heard the likes in all my born days! Hand me
that speaker, Sister Carmel.’
Carmel fumbled with the megaphone.
‘Jesus, look! It’s the thing they use for the May
procession,’ Colettte whispered behind her hand.
‘Give me the speaker,’ Paul said to Carmel, really snappy.
Carmel dropped it and caught it with her knee. Paul gave
her a filthy look and wrenched it away from her. ‘If you
don’t know how to handle it!’
I was raging, I looked around to see if everyone else was
outraged but Colette nudged me, ‘Stop drawing attention to
yourself!’
Paul switched on the megaphone. A screech filled the
refectory. She turned it down. ‘You might wonder why I am
using this equipment but I have a very serious matter to
announce.’
How could anyone be serious now? The room was heaving with
giggles. I felt sorry for the girls in the front row. Trish
was in a terrible state. I thought that Colm would say
something to her. Colette gave her a hankie, she put it
over her nose and mouth.
Paul’s voice was fierce funny, muffled and loud at the same
time. ‘Father Hognett knocked to his face on the terrazza
floor and Mother Colm’s veil torn off! I’ve never seen such
greed in all my life! You’re like barbarians.’
Trish whispered, ‘Father Hognett was taking a short cut
from the convent through St Joseph’s dormitory and …’
‘Do I hear whispering at the back there?’ Paul turned up
the megaphone. It screeched again. ‘Stand out where I can
see you, Patricia Cronin. The poor man’s having his knee
dressed in the kitchen at this moment. Only that the man is
a saint, he’d have you all arrested.’
Paul went on and on. Loud, low and then medium volume. The
megaphone screeching and beeping. ‘…whose parents have
sacrificed everything. Such selfish greedy girls I have
never witnessed in all my years as principal of this
school. But I will get to the bottom of this. I will and
I’ll find the ringleaders.’ She turned up the volume for
the last bit.
When we put our mugs away, we could see into the kitchen
where Father Hognett was drinking a cup of tea. His foot
was resting on a chair. But he didn’t look too bad and he
was eating a slice of duck loaf.
Everyone had to eat dry bread and water for a whole day. We
didn’t give a damn. Paul said there would never be buns for
tea again. Colette was laughing. Two second-years were
suspended. I felt bad about that although Colette said it
was their own fault. They shouldn’t have been eating buns
in the first place. She was jubilant about the bread and
water fast. ‘They can’t touch us. We are above food.’
But I knew if they took away our coffee we would collapse.