Collected Short Stories (17 page)

‘'Tis going to be a lovely day, thanks be to God,' sighed Sister Paul to herself, as she rubbed her wrinkled hands together and looked out at the thrushes hopping across the lawn. ‘And it was a lovely day last year and the year before,' she mused, and in her mind saw the fresh face of the sea where, in an hour or two, she and the rest of the community would be enjoying their annual trip to the shore. ‘And God knows it may be my last trip,' she said resignedly, and gazed abstractedly at a butterfly that was purring its wings against the sunny pane. She opened the window and watched the butterfly swing out into the sweet air, zigzagging down to a cushion of flowers that bordered the lawn. ‘Isn't it well Sister Clare wasn't here,' she said to herself, ‘for she'd be pestering the very soul out of me with her questions about butterflies and birds and flowers and the fall of dew?' She gave her girdle of beads a slight rattle. Wasn't it lovely to think of the pleasure that little butterfly would have when it found the free air under its wings again and its little feet pressing on the soft petals of the flowers and not on the hard pane? She always maintained it was better to enjoy Nature without searching and probing and chattering about the what and the where and the wherefore. But Sister Clare! – what she got out of it all, goodness only knew, for she'd give nobody a minute's peace – not a moment's peace would she give to a saint, living or dead. ‘How long would that butterfly live in the air of a classroom?' she'd be asking. ‘Do you think it would use up much of the active part of the air – the oxygen part, I mean? … What family would that butterfly belong to? … You know it's wrong to say that a butterfly lives only a day … When I am teaching my little pupils I always try to be accurate. I don't believe in stuffing their heads with fantastical nonsense however pleasurable it may be …' Sister Paul turned round as if someone had suddenly walked into the room, and she was relieved when she saw nothing only the quiet vacancy of the room, the varnished desks with the sun on them and their reflections on the parquet floor.

She hoped she wouldn't be sitting beside Clare in the car today! She'd have no peace with her – not a bit of peace to look out at the countryside and see what changes had taken place inside twelve months. But Reverend Mother, she knew, would arrange all that – and if it'd be her misfortune to be parked beside Clare she'd have to accept it with resignation; yes, with resignation, and in that case her journey to the sea would be like a pilgrimage.

At that moment a large limousine drove up the gravel path, and as it swung round to the convent door she saw the flowers flow across its polished sides in a blur of colour. She hurried out of the room and down the stairs. In the hall Sister Clare and Sister Benignus were standing beside two baskets and Reverend Mother was staring at the stairs. ‘Where were you, Sister Paul?' she said with mild reproof. ‘We searched the whole building for you … We're all ready this ages … And Sister Francis has gone to put out the cat. Do you remember last year it had been in all the time we were at the shore and it ate the bacon?' As she spoke a door closed at the end of the corridor and Sister Francis came along, polishing her specs with the corner of her veil. Reverend Mother glanced away from her, that continual polishing of the spectacles irritated her; and then that empty expression on Sister Francis's face when the spectacles were off – vacuous, that's what it was!

‘All ready now,' Reverend Mother tried to say without any trace of perturbation. Sister Clare and Sister Benignus lifted two baskets at their feet, Reverend Mother opened the hall-door, and they all glided out into the flat sunlight.

The doors of the car were wide open, the engine purring gently, a perfume of new leather fingering the air. The chauffeur, a young man, touched his cap and stood deferentially to the side. Reverend Mother surveyed him quickly, noting his clean-bright face and white collar. ‘I think there'll be room for us all in the back,' she said.

‘There's a vacant seat in the front, Sister,' the young man said, touching his cap again.

‘Just put the baskets on it, if you please,' said Reverend Mother. And Sister Clare who, at that moment, was smiling at her own grotesque reflection in the back of the car came forward with her basket, Sister Benignus following. Sister Paul sighed audibly and fingered her girdle of beads.

‘Now, Sister Paul, you take one of the corner seats, Sister Clare you sit beside her, and Sister Benignus and Sister Francis on the spring-up seats facing them – they were just made for you, the tiny tots!' And they all laughed, a brittle laugh that emphasised the loveliness of the day.

When they were all seated, Reverend Mother made sure that the hall-door was locked, glanced at the fastened windows, and then stood for a minute watching the gardener who was pushing his lawn-mower with unusual vigour and concentration. He stopped abruptly when her shadow fell across his path. ‘And, Jack,' she said, as if continuing a conversation that had been interrupted, ‘you'll have that lawn finished today?'

‘Yes, Mother,' and he took off his hat and held it in front of his breast. ‘To be sure I'll have it finished today. Sure what'd prevent me to finish it, and this the grandest day God sent this many a long month – a wholesome day!'

‘And Jack, I noticed some pebbles on the lawn yesterday – white ones.'

‘I remarked them myself, Mother. A strange terrier disporting himself in the garden done it.'

‘Did it!'

‘Yes, Mother, he did it with his two front paws, scratching at the edge of the lawn like it was a rabbit burrow. He done it yesterday, and when I clodded him off the grounds he'd the impertinence to go out a different way than he came in. But I've now his entrances and exits all blocked and barricaded and I'm afraid he'll have to find some other constituency to disport himself. Dogs is a holy terror for bad habits.'

‘Be sure and finish it all today,' she said with some impatience. She turned to go away, hesitated, and turned back. ‘By the way, Jack, if there are any drips of oil made by the car on the gravel you'll scuffle fresh pebbles over them.'

‘I'll do that. But you need have no fear of oil from her engine,' and he glanced over at the limousine. ‘She'll be as clean as a Swiss clock. ‘Tis them grocery vans that leak – top, tail and middle.'

Crossing to the car, she heard with a feeling of pleasure the surge of the lawn-mower over the grass. Presently the car swung out of the gate on to a tree-lined road at the edge of town. The nuns relaxed, settled themselves more comfortably in their seats and chatted about the groups on bicycles that were all heading for the shore.

‘We will go to the same quiet strip as last year,' said Reverend Mother, and then as she glanced out of the window a villa on top of a hill drew her attention. ‘There's a house that has been built since last year,' she said.

‘No, no,' said Sister Francis. ‘It's more than a year old for I remember seeing it last year,' and she peered at it through her spectacles.

Reverend Mother spoke through the speaking-tube to the driver: ‘Is that villa on the hill newly built?' she asked.

He stopped the car. ‘A doctor by the name of McGrath built it two years ago,' he said. ‘He's married to a daughter of Solicitor O'Kane.'

‘Oh, thank you,' said Reverend Mother; and the car proceeded slowly up the long hill above the town.

Sister Francis took off her spectacles, blew her breath on them, and rubbed them with her handkerchief. She took another look at the villa and said with obvious pride: ‘A fine site, indeed, I remember last year that they had that little gadget over the door.'

‘The architrave,' said Sister Clare importantly.

‘Aye,' said Sister Paul, and she looked out at the trees and below them the black river with its strings of froth moving through the valley. How lovely it would be, she thought, to sit on the edge of that river, dabble her parched feet in it and send bubbles out into the race of the current. She had often done that when she was a child, and now that river and its trees, which she only saw once a year, brought her childhood back to her. She sighed and opened the window so as to hear the mumble of the river far below them. The breeze whorled in, and as it lifted their veils they all smiled, invigorated by the fresh loveliness of the air. A bumble bee flew in and crawled up the pane at Reverend Mother's side of the car. She opened the window and assisted the bee towards the opening with the top of her fountain-pen, but the bee clung to the pen and as she tried to shake it free the wind carried it in again. ‘Like everything else it hates to leave you,' said Sister Benignus. Reverend Mother smiled and the bee flew up to the roof of the car and then alighted on the window beside Sister Paul. Sister Paul swept the bee to safety with the back of her hand.

‘You weren't one bit afraid of it,' said Sister Clare. ‘And if it had stung you, you would in a way have been responsible for its death. If it had been a queen bee – though queens wouldn't be flying at this time of the year – you would have been responsible for the deaths of potential thousands. A queen bumble bee lays over two thousand eggs in one season!'

‘'Tis a great pity we haven't a hen like that,' put in Sister Francis, and they all laughed except Sister Clare. Sister Francis laughed till her eyes watered and, once more, she took off her spectacles. Reverend Mother fidgeted slightly and, in order to control her annoyance, she fixed her gaze on Sister Clare and asked her to continue her interesting account of the life of bumble bees. Sister Paul put her hands in her sleeves and sought distraction in the combings of cloud that streaked the sky.

Reverend Mother pressed her toe on the floor of the car and, instead of listening to Sister Clare, she was glaring unconsciously at Sister Francis who was tapping her spectacles on the palm of her hand and giving an odd laugh.

‘Your spectacles are giving you much trouble today,' she broke in, unable any longer to restrain herself. ‘Perhaps you would like to sit in the middle. It may provide your poor eyes with some rest.'

‘No, thank you,' said Sister Francis, ‘I like watching the crowds of cyclists passing on the road. But sometimes the sun glints on their handlebars and blinds me for a moment and makes me feel that a tiny thread or two has congregated on my lenses. It's my imagination of course.'

‘Maybe you would care to have a look at
St Anthony's Annals
,' and Reverend Mother handed her the magazine.

‘Thank you, Mother. I'll keep it until we reach the shore, for the doctor told me not to read in moving vehicles.'

The car rolled on slowly and when it reached the top of a hill, where there was a long descent of five miles to the sea, a strange silence came over the nuns, and each became absorbed in her own premeditation on the advancing day. ‘Go slowly down the hill,' Reverend Mother ordered the driver.

Boys sailed past them on bicycles, and when some did so with their hands off the handlebars a little cry of amazement would break from Sister Francis and she would discuss with Sister Clare the reckless irresponsibility of boys and the worry they must bring to their parents.

Suddenly at a bend on the hill they all looked at Sister Paul for she was excitedly drawing their attention to a line of young poplars. ‘Look, look!' she was saying. ‘Look at the way their leaves are dancing and not a flicker out of the other trees. And to think I never noticed them before!'

‘I think they are aspens,' said Sister Clare, ‘and anyway they are not indigenous to this country.'

‘We had four poplars in our garden when I was growing up – black poplars, my father called them,' said Sister Paul, lost in her own memory.

‘What family did they belong to? There's
angustifolia, laurifolia
, and
balsamifera
and others among the poplar family.'

‘I don't know what family they belonged to,' Sister Paul went on quietly. ‘I only know they were beautiful – beautiful in very early spring when every tree and twig around them would still be bleak – and there they were bursting into leaf, a brilliant yellow leaf like a flake of sunshine. My father, God be good to his kindly soul, planted four of them when I was young, for there were four in our family, all girls, and one of the trees my father called Kathleen, another Teresa, another Eileen, and lastly my own, Maura. And I remember how he used to stand at the dining-room window gazing out at the young poplars with the frost white and hard around them. ‘I see a leaf or two coming on Maura,' he used to say, and we would all rush to the window and gaze into the garden, each of us fastening her eye on her own tree and then measuring its growth of leaf with the others. And to the one whose tree was first in leaf he used to give a book or a pair of rosary beads … Poor Father,' she sighed, and fumbled in her sleeve for her handkerchief.

‘Can you not think of what special name those trees had?' pressed Clare. ‘Did their leaves tremble furiously –
tremula, tremuloides
?'

‘They didn't quiver very much,' said Sister Paul, her head bowed. ‘My father didn't plant aspens, I remember. He told us it was from an aspen that Our Saviour's rood was made, and because their leaves remember the Crucifixion they are always trembling … But our poplars had a lovely warm perfume when they were leafing and that perfume always reminded my father of autumn. Wasn't that strange?' she addressed the whole car, ‘a tree coming into leaf and it reminding my poor father of autumn.'

‘I know its family now,' said Clare, clapping her hands together. ‘
Balsamifera
– that's the family it belonged to – it's a native of Northern Italy.'

‘And I remember,' said Paul, folding and unfolding her handkerchief on her lap, ‘how my poor father had no gum once to wrap up a newspaper that he was posting. It was in winter and he went out to the poplars and dabbed his finger here and there on the sticky buds and smeared it on the edge of the wrapping paper.'