‘Jan Heinz,’ Samantha said. ‘Just like the baked beans. He’s part Dutch and part German and altogether rather backward. He speaks hardly any English at all.’
‘That certainly doesn’t mean he’s backward,’ Sister Joan reproved. ‘You will have to help him learn the language. You helped Kiki — what was her name?’
‘Kiki Svenson. She spoke English in a funny kind of way. She was nice,’ Samantha said wistfully.
‘You said she left suddenly.’ Sister Joan tried to sound casual.
‘In the middle of the night,’ Samantha said.
‘But how could you know that? You’d have been asleep and in bed,’ Sister Joan said.
‘I was,’ Samantha said, ‘but when I got up in the morning Kiki wasn’t around. My mum said she’d upped and gone in the middle of the night. She’d taken all her things and just vanished. I daresay she didn’t much like having to do housework.’
‘When was this?’
‘About three weeks ago. Why?’
‘This is such a beautiful part of the country,’ Sister Joan said vaguely. ‘Well, I have to get Sister Hilaria to the dentist. Try and talk to Jan. He will soon pick up English, I’m sure.’
She sent a brisk encouraging smile towards the young man who smiled back uncertainly.
‘Are we coming to school tomorrow, Sister?’ Samantha asked. ‘We don’t have to stay away because Petroc’s missing?’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow,’ Sister Joan said encouragingly. ‘Certainly there’ll be school for everybody.’
‘I hope he comes back,’ Samantha said as Sister Joan started up the car again. ‘He is a nice person, I think. Handsome.’
‘Very handsome.’ Sister Joan felt a twinge of amused sympathy as she drove off. Samantha was growing up, beginning to notice the opposite sex, to fix her affections on first one and then another, rehearsing for the real love that would doubtless grip her one day. That it was highly unlikely Petroc would ever regard the plain little Olive girl in any romantic light gave a poignancy to her childish feelings.
‘I’m sorry for the delay, Sister.’ She flashed an apologetic glance at her silent companion. ‘Samantha Olive is one of my pupils and as we are all worried about Petroc I felt obliged to stop for a moment.’
‘I was looking at the young man,’ Sister Hilaria said, lowering her scarf slightly to reveal a swollen cheek. ‘I was recalling that Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels.’
‘Hardly Lucifer, Sister, merely a young foreigner hoping to learn the language. It is quite fashionable these days to employ a male au pair or nanny, I believe.’
‘Modern life is very bewildering,’ Sister Hilaria said. ‘You would be astonished at some of the things my two postulants tell me. Ah, we are coming into Bodmin now, aren’t we? The last time I was here was six years ago when I had my tooth filled, so it is quite a treat to see it again.’
‘If I leave you at the dentist’s and go to buy the trousers‚’ Sister Joan said, ‘you won’t mind waiting?’
‘Not at all, Sister. I recall I had an injection last time that froze my face and made the subsequent treatment completely painless,’ Sister Hilaria assured her.
Sister Joan slowed to a crawl and negotiated herself and her passenger through the Thursday afternoon traffic with a trepidation that was scarcely justified. It was astonishing how quickly one became used to being behind the wheel again.
The dentist’s was easily located. Sister Hilaria, assured that she would be called for in half an hour, alighted from the car and went in. Sister Joan drove on into the car park and congratulated herself on getting into a free space with the minimum of difficulty.
There was a new supermarket at the end of the street, wire baskets fitted together at the entrance with a notice informing intending customers that a deposit of a pound was required. The deposit would be returned, but Sister Joan, looking in some bewilderment at the large slot machine with its pulleys, decided she could buy a pair of pants without a basket, and bravely marched into the air-conditioned, neon-lit interior.
In every direction stretched long aisles lined with shelves containing every possible variety of merchandise. It was an Arabian Nights’ cave of temptation and wonder, she thought, and felt a sense of unreality. It was six years since she’d entered a shop of any kind and, for a moment, she felt completely disorientated. Then she saw the ranks of skirts and jeans and slacks and headed for them like a Bedouin making for his local oasis.
‘Need any help, Sister?’ A salesgirl with a pert, pretty face was hovering.
‘I am supposed to buy a pair of hard wearing trousers for riding,’ Sister Joan said, ‘but I’m spoilt for choice.’
‘We don’t do jodhpurs, Sister,’ the girl began.
‘A decent pair of jeans will do very well, in my size. I ride a horse to the school where I teach,’ Sister Joan said, feeling that some explanation was required.
‘You’ll be from the convent up on the moors. I didn’t think they ever let any of you out,’ the girl said artlessly.
‘Oh, I got remission for good behaviour,’ Sister Joan said mischievously. ‘I’m waist twenty-five inches, hips thirty-six.’
‘It’s all centimetres now,’ the girl said. ‘Look, these seem about right. Take this pair along to the changing-room and see if they’ll do. If they’re OK then you just take them to the check-out and the assistant there removes the magnetic tag. Easy.’
‘Thank you very much. You’ve been very helpful.’ With the jeans over her arm she turned in the direction of the changing-rooms, and went into one of the cubicles.
There was a full-length mirror against one wall. For an instant she felt an actual, physical shock at the sight of her own full-length reflection. During the past six years she
