Fitz had insisted that they dress up for the occasion – their first time at St Brigid’s without uniforms. She’d persuaded Ali to backcomb her hair and put on a baggy pinafore dress. With kohl round her eyes, she had looked bohemian in her bedroom mirror. Now she felt like a big demented farmgirl.
Mary Paul cleared her throat.
‘Now that we’re all here,’ she directed a quick nod at Fitz, ‘I wanted to express how very, very proud I am of the girls from our class of 1984 who are aiming to move on to university and third-level colleges. We hope there will be twelve of you who will be successful in this, if your results are good enough, and I have to say this would be a very proud result for St Brigid’s, and a testament to the fine quality of teachers that we have here.’
Wrinkled faces creased deeper into smiles and a lukewarm spatter of applause emerged from the girls. Ali looked around and was relieved to see a couple of the others had also dressed for effect, one in a leather biker’s jacket, another in a rainbow jumper down to her knees.
‘I couldn’t be prouder of your achievements, which is why you’ll heed me when I say that wherever your God-given brains take you – to the highest levels of commerce or the halls of academe, or even the furthest reaches of the known world – promise me that you will not deprive yourselves of the real joys of womanhood. The fruits of the material world are very seductive, but they can’t replace the simple satisfactions of home and family. Ireland needs intelligent mothers and wives just as much as she needs bankers and doctors. Think about that, and remember you can come back to see us at any time.’ She raised her hands in exhortation: ‘Our doors are always open!’
Again the girls clapped dutifully, eyes drifting to the buffet table.
‘What the hell is the “known world” anyway?’ Ali said sideways to Fitz. ‘Does she think there’s still a big undiscovered bit somewhere?’
‘Don’t be worrying your womanly brain with that.’
‘How long do we have to stay?’
‘Give it ten minutes, max. I can’t look at that food with this hangover.’ Fitz made a gagging face. Ali was ravenous.
With a bit of shuffling, Ali manoeuvred herself into prime position at the table and put three triangular ham sandwiches onto her paper plate. She was edging her way towards the cocktail sausages when a tremulous black shape docked beside her.
‘Alison Hogan. Don’t you look great?’
Tiny Sister O’Dwyer, not the worst of them. Long past teaching, but still in nominal charge of the gardening club, which Ali had joined in her first year and signed up for ever since, not entirely for horticultural reasons.
The nun’s raw-looking fingers were already locked on Ali’s sleeve, and she decided to give herself up to the old soul. It was easier than fighting her off, and more bearable company than she might otherwise get landed with. She peeled another paper plate from a stack, urged the nun to accept a finger of quiche and steered her to a pair of the straight-backed chairs that ringed the room.
Ali wolfed down her food while the nun talked about her gratitude for all that Ali had done for the Rosary Garden, stirring the air with her untouched plate.
‘There’s not many girls would put in the effort, but you and your friend Carmen – what is it you call her: Fuzz?’
‘Fitz, Sister.’
‘Well, you were both great. Always there at lunchtime. To be honest, it’s become a trouble rather than a pleasure to me lately. You need to be able to get down on your knees in a garden, even more than in the chapel. The weeds would break your heart.’
‘Sure, you’ll get some new girls, Sister. Some young ones, with plenty of bend in them.’
‘I suppose. It won’t be me that trains them up, though. Sister Bernadette’s taking over.’
Sister O’Dwyer nodded towards a tall nun who was talking intensely with Fitz. Sister Bernadette was known among the girls as Red Bernie, but Ali had never been sure whether it was because of the ginger hair that peeked out of the band of her short veil or her attachment to social justice. She was always recruiting girls to visit hospices or crochet blankets for Africa.
Mother Mary Paul clapped again, sharp as a rifle shot, and announced that there would prayers of thanksgiving in the chapel. Ali saw Sister Bernadette turn away from Fitz to put her plate down, and Fitz took the chance to signal to Ali. She held two fingers up to her lips, blew through them and pulled an invisible cigarette from her mouth.
‘Is she blowing a kiss at you?’ asked Sister O’Dwyer, alert to any hints of an unsuitable attachment.
‘No, it’s something else.’
Fitz was pointing towards the window now and Ali nodded her head.
‘What’s she doing?’ said the nun.
‘Let me help you up, Sister.’
It took a minute to ease Sister O’Dwyer into the small herd shuffling towards the chapel. Ali stepped back into the emptying parlour, where a couple of younger nuns in big blue aprons were clearing the tables. Fitz had disappeared.
She retrieved her overnight bag from under a chair and hurried back out into the corridor. One side was lined with glass cases full of dull geological specimens and stuffed animals whose fur had been bleached blonde by decades of sunlight slanting through the windows opposite. All these familiar things. She passed the arched alcove that housed a mural of the Assumption, Mary taking off into the wild blue, supported by a cushion of disembodied angel heads. Down the big staircase next, her lone footsteps echoing up through the cold hallways, the empty classrooms, the ranks of desks.
I never have to come back again. She was almost running now, past the cloakrooms to the double doors that led to the grounds. One push and
