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have money, going into those convents.'
But I turned a deaf ear to him.
'The Lord will provide,' I said, if it's His will for me to be a nun
He'll find a way out of all difficulties,' I said grandly, and in a voice
I imagined to be as near as I could make it to the ladylike voices of
the Visiting Sisters.
But I hadn't much hope of getting into the Visiting Sisters. To
begin with, they always seemed to take it for granted I'd get mar-
ried.
'I hope you're a good girl,' they used to say to me, and you'd
know by the way they said it what they meant. 'Boys may like a
fast girl when it comes to having a good time, but it's the modest
girl they pick when it comes to choosing a wife,' they said. And
such-like things. They were always harping on the one string. Sure
they'd never get over it if I told them what I had in mind. I'd never
have the face to tell them!
And then one day what did I see but an advertisement in the
paper.
'Wanted, Postulants,' it said, in big letters, and then underneath
in small letters, there was the address of the Reverend Mother you
were to apply to, and in smaller letters still, at the very bottom,
were the words that made me sit up and take notice. 'No Dowry,'
they said.
'That's me,' said I, and there and then I up and wrote off to them,
without as much as saying a word to anyone only Sis.
Poor Sis: you should have seen how bad she took it.
'I can't believe it,' she said over and over again, and she threw
her arms around me and burst out crying. She was always a good
sort, Sis.
Every time she looked at me she burst out crying. And I must say
that was more like the way I expected people to take me. But as a
matter of fact Sis started the ball rolling, and it wasn't long after
that everyone began to feel bad, because you see, the next thing
that happened was a telegram arrived from the Reverend Mother
in answer to my letter.
it can't be for you,' said my mother, as she ripped it open.
'Who'd be sending you a telegram?'
And I didn't know who could have sent it either until I read the
signature. It was Sister Mary Alacoque.
That was the name of the nun in the paper.
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Mary Lavin
it's for me all right,' I said then, i wrote to her,' I said and 1 felt
a bit awkward.
My mother grabbed back the telegram.
'Glory be to God!' she said, but I don't think she meant it as a
prayer. 'Do you see what it says? "Calling to see you this afternoon,
Deo Gratias". What on earth is the meaning of all this?'
'Well,' I said defiantly, 'when I told you 1 was going to be a nun
you wouldn't believe me. Maybe you'll believe it when I'm out
among the savages!' I added. Because it was a missionary order:
that's why they didn't care about the dowry. People are always leav-
ing money in their wills to the Foreign Missions, and you don't
need to be too highly educated to teach savages, I suppose.
'Glory be to God!' said my mother again. And then she turned
on me. 'Get up out of that and we'll try and put some sort of front
on things before they get here: there'll be two of them, I'll swear.
Nuns never go out alone. Hurry up, will you?'
Never in your life did you see anyone carry on like my mother
did that day. For the few hours that remained of the morning she
must have worked like a lunatic, running mad around the room,
shoving things under the bed, and ramming home the drawers of
the chest, and sweeping things off the seats of the chairs.
'They'll want to see a chair they can sit on, anyway,' she said.
'And I suppose we'll have to offer them a bite to eat.'
'Oh, a cup of tea,' said my father.
But my mother had very grand ideas at times.
'Oh, I always heard you should give monks or nuns a good meal,'
she said. 'They can eat things out in the world that they can't eat in
the convent. As long as you don't ask them. Don't say will you or
won't you! Just set it in front of them - that's what I always heard.'
I will say this for my mother, she has a sense of occasion, be-
cause we never heard any of this lore when the Visiting Sisters
called, or even the Begging Sisters, although you'd think they could
do with a square meal by the look of them sometimes.
But no: there was never before seen such a fuss as she made on
this occasion.
'Run out to Mrs Mullins in the front room and ask her for the
lend of her brass fender,' she cried, giving me a push out the door.
'And see if poor Mr Duffy is home from work — he'll be good
enough to let us have a chair, I'm sure, the poor soul, the one with
the plush seat,' she cried, coming out to the landing after me, and
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437
calling across the well of the stairs.
As I disappeared into Mrs Mullins's I could see her standing in
the doorway as if she was trying to make up her mind about some-
thing. And sure enough, when I came out lugging the fender with
me, she ran across and took it from me.
'Run down to the return room, like a good child,' she said, 'and
ask old Mrs Dooley for her tablecloth — the one with the lace edg-
ing she got from America.' And as I showed some reluctance, she
caught my arm. 'You might give her a wee hint of what's going on.
Won't everyone know it as soon as the nuns arrive, and it'll give
her the satisfaction of having the news ahead of everyone else.'
But it would be hard to say who had the news first because I was
only at the foot of the steps leading to the return room when I
could hear doors opening in every direction on our own landing,
and the next minute you'd swear they were playing a new kind of
postman's knock, in which each one carried a piece of furniture
round with him, by the way our friends and neighbours were rush-
ing back and forth across the landing; old Ma Dunne with her
cuckoo clock, and young Mrs McBride, that shouldn't be carrying
heavy things at all, with our old wicker chair that she was going to
exchange for the time with a new one of her own. And I believe she
wanted to get her piano rolled in to us too, only there wasn't time!
That was the great thing about Dorset Street: you could meet
any and all occasions, you had so many friends at your back. And
you could get anything you wanted, all in a few minutes, without
anyone outside the landing being any the wiser.
My mother often said it was like one big happy family, that land-
ing - including the return room, of course.
The only thing was everyone wanted to have a look at the room.
'We'll never get shut of them before the nuns arrive,' I thought.
isn't this the great news entirely,' said old Mrs Dooley, making
her way up the stairs as soon as I told her. And she rushed up to
my mother and kissed her. 'Not but that you deserve it,' she said.
'I never knew a priest or a nun yet that hadn't a good mother be-
hind them!' And then Mrs McBride coming out, she drew her into
it. isn't that so, Mrs McBride?' she cried. 'I suppose you heard the
news?'
'I did indeed,' said Mrs McBride. 'Not that I was surprised,' she
said, but I think she only wanted to let on she was greater with us
than she was, because as Sis could tell you, there was nothing of
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the Holy Molly about me - far from it.
What old Mr Duffy said was more like what you'd expect.
'Well, doesn't that beat all!' he cried, hearing the news as he came
up the last step of the stairs. 'Ah, well, I always heard it's the big-
gest divils that make the best saints, and now I can believe it!'
He was a terribly nice old man.
'And is it the Foreign Missions?' he asked, calling me to one side,
'because if that's the case I want you to know you can send me
raffle tickets for every draw you hold, and I'll sell the lot for you
and get the stubs back in good time, with the money along with it
in postal orders. And what's more—' he was going on, when Mrs
Mullins let out a scream:
'You didn't tell me it was the Missions,' she cried. 'Oh, God help
you, you poor child!' And she threw up her hands. 'How will any
of us be saved at all at all with the like of you going to the ends of
the earth where you'll never see a living soul only blacks till the day
you die! Oh, glory be to God. And to think we never knew who we
had in our midst!'
In some ways it was what I expected, but in another way I'd have
liked if they didn't all look at me in such a pitying way.
And old Mrs Dooley put the lid on it.
'A saint — that's what you are, child,' she cried, and she caught
my hand and pulled me down close to her — she was a low butt of
a little woman. 'They tell me it's out to the poor lepers you're
going?'
That was the first I heard about lepers, I can tell you. And I
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