worn parquet floors made a dull, lowering clatter, leaden with hesitation and regret.
‘Move along now, children. We haven’t got all day. You, slow-coach, get up here with you, or it’ll be the worst for you.’
And Sister Mary Bede, taking a powerful pincer grip on the ear of some poor laggard, would drag him forward wailing into the refectory.
Watery tea poured from large tin pots. Only one teaspoon of sugar per cup was permitted. Sister’s eagle eye was on us.
‘Stir your tea clockwise,’ she warned. ‘The other way is the devil’s way.’
The rules of the table were exacting. Backs straight, no slumping on the benches. No elbows on the table. Chew each mouthful twenty times, mouth closed, hands folded quietly on the lap. A thin spread of marmite on the bread was allowed at breakfast, a scrape of jam at tea. The jam, roughly of a strawberry type, was rumoured to be made of marrow, artificially flavoured, with little pits added for effect. On Sundays, there was a sticky but pleasant stuff called peanut butter. Porridge with horrid lumps was a detested staple. Nothing could be refused, and all food had to be eaten.
‘Remember the starving children of Europe,’ Sister admonished. ‘What wouldn’t they give for such delicious food? Don’t let me see as much as a crumb left on your plate.’
War could not afford the luxury of waste, and to express a preference in these times was a selfish act bordering on the sinful. When one of the parents brought in an iced birthday cake, to be shared among the children as an exceptional treat, Sister descended on those who left the icing and the marzipan to the last and swept the longed-for delicacies from their plates. ‘God,’ she sniffed, ‘does not send His gifts for you to pick and choose.’
Every act was measured against the iron rod of religion. At the centre of our lives stood the mystery of faith. In the convent, the chapel dominated the buildings and regulated all the activities of the day. Everything we did circled round it or pointed to it. For me, it became a place of dread. When the great oak door opened, with a stealthy quiet that belied its bulk, the unwholesome perfume of stale incense pinched my nostrils. The wink of the sanctuary lamp – a wizard’s eye – made the heart skip with apprehension. In the cave of the church sombre light drifted onto heavy fittings, lying like dark dross betweenthe pews. Pushed into those pews in rows we clutched at one another for support, forgetting our usual bickering and glad for once of human contact. From the hard bench I watched the strange man in the vestments mouth at the altar the magic Latin words that we did not understand. His gestures were languid and mournful, while the servers in lace-fringed white surplices soft-footed around him in a slow but difficult dance.
In the small morning hours, or in the tired dusk of evening, it was hard to take it all in. Solemnity is a drug of a kind, a hypnotic. Even so, our attention often wandered. A tired child would fall into a doze, head lolling on a neighbour’s shoulder. Others gaped into the great spaces of the roof, or stared at plaster saints with haloes of tarnished gilt. Candles in clusters, gummed with molten wax, waited to be lit by the matches of suppliants.
Then, with the climax of the Mass approaching, the nuns drove us to our knees with fierce whispered reminders or with a knuckle poked in the back of the neck. The priest raised the Host in the air to the tinkle of a tiny bell. I did not know what this gesture meant. It looked like some petition or pleading. But I recognized in the weight of the uplifted arms a sadness beyond tears but also beyond my understanding.
The big oak door opened again and let us out, from interior dark to the grey light of ordinary day. Going back and forth between these two worlds I learnt that there were two Gods (the third one of the Trinity was a conundrum beyond even our powers of belief). The first, the grim
‘Move along now, children. We haven’t got all day. You, slow-coach, get up here with you, or it’ll be the worst for you.’
And Sister Mary Bede, taking a powerful pincer grip on the ear of some poor laggard, would drag him forward wailing into the refectory.
Watery tea poured from large tin pots. Only one teaspoon of sugar per cup was permitted. Sister’s eagle eye was on us.
‘Stir your tea clockwise,’ she warned. ‘The other way is the devil’s way.’
The rules of the table were exacting. Backs straight, no slumping on the benches. No elbows on the table. Chew each mouthful twenty times, mouth closed, hands folded quietly on the lap. A thin spread of marmite on the bread was allowed at breakfast, a scrape of jam at tea. The jam, roughly of a strawberry type, was rumoured to be made of marrow, artificially flavoured, with little pits added for effect. On Sundays, there was a sticky but pleasant stuff called peanut butter. Porridge with horrid lumps was a detested staple. Nothing could be refused, and all food had to be eaten.
‘Remember the starving children of Europe,’ Sister admonished. ‘What wouldn’t they give for such delicious food? Don’t let me see as much as a crumb left on your plate.’
War could not afford the luxury of waste, and to express a preference in these times was a selfish act bordering on the sinful. When one of the parents brought in an iced birthday cake, to be shared among the children as an exceptional treat, Sister descended on those who left the icing and the marzipan to the last and swept the longed-for delicacies from their plates. ‘God,’ she sniffed, ‘does not send His gifts for you to pick and choose.’
Every act was measured against the iron rod of religion. At the centre of our lives stood the mystery of faith. In the convent, the chapel dominated the buildings and regulated all the activities of the day. Everything we did circled round it or pointed to it. For me, it became a place of dread. When the great oak door opened, with a stealthy quiet that belied its bulk, the unwholesome perfume of stale incense pinched my nostrils. The wink of the sanctuary lamp – a wizard’s eye – made the heart skip with apprehension. In the cave of the church sombre light drifted onto heavy fittings, lying like dark dross betweenthe pews. Pushed into those pews in rows we clutched at one another for support, forgetting our usual bickering and glad for once of human contact. From the hard bench I watched the strange man in the vestments mouth at the altar the magic Latin words that we did not understand. His gestures were languid and mournful, while the servers in lace-fringed white surplices soft-footed around him in a slow but difficult dance.
In the small morning hours, or in the tired dusk of evening, it was hard to take it all in. Solemnity is a drug of a kind, a hypnotic. Even so, our attention often wandered. A tired child would fall into a doze, head lolling on a neighbour’s shoulder. Others gaped into the great spaces of the roof, or stared at plaster saints with haloes of tarnished gilt. Candles in clusters, gummed with molten wax, waited to be lit by the matches of suppliants.
Then, with the climax of the Mass approaching, the nuns drove us to our knees with fierce whispered reminders or with a knuckle poked in the back of the neck. The priest raised the Host in the air to the tinkle of a tiny bell. I did not know what this gesture meant. It looked like some petition or pleading. But I recognized in the weight of the uplifted arms a sadness beyond tears but also beyond my understanding.
The big oak door opened again and let us out, from interior dark to the grey light of ordinary day. Going back and forth between these two worlds I learnt that there were two Gods (the third one of the Trinity was a conundrum beyond even our powers of belief). The first, the grim
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