I walked away from the house, away from the castle, along a narrow roadway. The route was heavily shaded by the thirty-metre-tall native oaks, ash and yew which lined it. It smelled sweet. The ground was soft, thousands of years of falling foliage and bark laid on the earth, giving me a spring in my step as if I could run from corner to corner in Lycra doing somersaults. It was a hot day, but I was cool under the elderly trees. The birds were like hyperactive monkeys, with constant chirpy calls and doing Tarzan-like swoops from one tree to another. Tired from my all-nighter with my friends, I just kept walking, my head bursting with their conversations, the things I had learned—Laura had had to take the morning-after pill—but none were as loud as the conversations I was havingwith myself in my head. That, I could never switch off. I don’t think I’d ever thought so much, and talked so little, in my life.
Every now and then, when the trees broke their security barrier, I could see the castle in the distance, looking out over its lawn, at the lakes that dotted the grounds, at the majestic trees that stood alone punctuating the landscape. Lone tall and elegant poplars raised up like feathers to tickle the sky, wide oaks with heavy caps spread like wild mushrooms. Then the castle disappeared again, playing peekaboo with me, and the pathway began to curve to the left so that I would soon be able to turn and face the keep head on. Another twenty minutes’ walk and I could see the main gateway further up ahead on my right. I immediately slowed. The darkened gothic entrance did not appeal to me, all chained up like some prisoner of war left to rot along the side of the road. Long grasses and whatever else decrepit weeds there were climbed the relatively new gate and poked out through the rusted bars, like long gangly starved arms waving at passing cars to be fed or released. The once grand roadway that led directly to the castle had been ignored, unused and unmaintained. It was overgrown and hidden by grasses, like the yellow brick road in the Return to Oz. I shuddered. Despite losing its glory, I didn’t take to it as I had to the castle. Its scars were grotesque. Unlike the castle’s which made me want to raise a hand and trace them with my finger, these scars were ugly and made me want to look the other way.
I decided to find another route to take, anything to prevent me from passing that ghastly gothic gate and so I broke through the trees and walked across the grounds instead. I felt safer then, cocooned in the bosom of the trees rather than on that well-worn path which Normans and their horses had pounded, wildly waving in the air peasants’ severed heads on the tips of their swords.
The tree trunks were fascinating, aged and wrinkled like elephants’ legs. They twisted around one another like lovers. Some rose from the ground arched as though in agony and reaching out, then growing on, turning and shifting to a new position. The roots snaked their way from under the surface, rising above the ground and back down again gracefully, as though they were slippery eels in the waters. I tripped often on a raised root, and was caught each time by a helpfully placed tree trunk. The trees did that—tripped me and caught me, tickled me with their leaves and webs, and smacked me in the face with their branches. I pulled back branches in order to pass by, and felt them immediately spring back like catapults to spank me cheekily on the behind.
From one city of trees I made my way to another. The air smelled sweet, bees filled the flowering trees, greedily hopping from one cluster of petals to another, wanting it all, too impatient to choose just one. Around me on the floor was fruit of some kind, there from seasons ago, some decayed and rotten, some dried out like prunes. I stopped to pick one up and tried to decipher what it once was. I smelled it. Vile. As I dropped it and wiped my hands, I realised the trunk beside me was covered in engravings. The poor tree had been carved into over and over again, like a pumpkin emptied of its flesh to bear its fangs. Clearly it hadn’t been inscribed all on the same day, nor the same year, not even the same century. From seven feet up all the way down it was covered in various names etched into the bark, some framed by hearts, others in boxes, but all declaring eternal friendships and loves.
I ran my finger over the names ‘Frank and Ellie’, ‘Fiona and Stephen’, ‘Siobhan and Michael’, ‘Laurie and Rose’, ‘Michelle and Tommy’. All declared eternal love. ‘2gether, 4ever’. I wondered if any of them still were. None of the other trees bore the same scars. I stepped back to examine the area and discovered why. There was more of a clearing around this tree. I could imagine blankets laid down, picnics and parties, friends gathering and lovers sneaking out to be together under the fruit tree.
I left the orchard and searched for the next tree town. A wall came into view ahead of me and suddenly my game with the trees was over.
I tried to tread carefully without making a sound, but the woods gave me away. Exaggerated sounds and echoes of twigs snapping and crunching beneath my feet and leaves rustling as I pushed through them alerted the walls to my arrival. I didn’t know what building was ahead of me but it wasn’t the castle, for that was too far away. I didn’t know of any other buildings on the grounds apart from the dilapidated cottages at the other three gate entrances, long closed up as though there was a day, the unspoken day, when everybody upped and left. The stone of the wall wasn’t the same as the castle’s but to my unexperienced eye it wasn’t far off. It was old and crumbling. The top of the wall was uneven, it no longer touched what it once reached for. There was no roof, just a wall. I couldn’t see a door or a window for the wall’s entire length, and for the most part, unlike the castle, it had survived the bites life liked to take for energy to keep going. I stepped to the edge of the woods, feeling like a hedgehog that has just left its natural habitat to be faced with a main road, revealed by headlights, and tentative. I left my tall friends behind, and under their watchful eyes I walked the length of the wall.
When the wall ended, I turned the corner and saw it continue down another way. Then suddenly I heard a woman humming, from behind the wall. I got a jolt. Apart from my uncle Arthur, I wasn’t expecting to come across any other human. I hugged the book close to my chest and listened to the humming. It was soft, sweet, happy, far too liberated to be Rosaleen, too joyous to be my mother. It was passing-the-time kind of humming, a distracted sound, a tune that wasn’t familiar to me, if it was a real one at all. The summer breeze blew and it brought a sweet smell and her song along with it. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall, directly the other side from her and I listened.
As my head touched the brick, she stopped humming and my eyes opened quickly and I straightened up.
I looked around. She wasn’t in sight, and so I couldn’t have been spotted. When my heart slowed to its normal rhythm she began humming again. I moved along the wall, my fingers trailing over the grey stone, tracing the wall, cobwebs, crumbling rock, the smooth of some parts, the rough edges of others beneath my hot fingers. The sun beat down on me, the trees no longer my personal parasol. The wall came to an abrupt stop and I looked up to see a large ornamental stone archway marking the entrance.
I peeked my head inside so that I wouldn’t be revealed to the mystery hummer and discovered a walled garden, immaculately kept. From my position outside the arch I could see a rose garden, large formal beds set against the backdrop of climbing roses, fully bloomed, which lined both sides of the footpath from another entrance. I dared to move a little more to see the rest of the garden. In the centre were more flowers—geraniums, chrysanthemums, carnations, others I couldn’t name. Flowers tumbled out from hanging baskets and oversized ornamental stone pots that lined the central walkway through the garden. I couldn’t quite believe this little oasis amidst all the green, as though somebody had taken a fizzy drink, shaken it and opened it here in the middle of these crumbling walls and this colour had burst out, spraying every inch with different shades. Bees were flying from one flower to the other, vines climbed up the walls twined around beautiful flowers. I could smell the rosemary, lavender and mint of a nearby herb garden. There was a small greenhouse in the corner of the garden, beside that a dozen or so wooden boxes on stand
s, and then I realised that swept away by my curiosity I had unknowingly wandered into the garden and the humming had stopped.
I wasn’t sure what to expect but I definitely wasn’t expecting what I saw. At the end of the garden the source of the humming, and the person that was currently staring at me as though I had arrived from another planet, was dressed in what appeared to be a white spacesuit, her head covered in a black veil, her hands in a pair of rubber gloves and on her feet a pair of calf-length rubber boots. She looked like she’d just stepped off a spaceship and into a nuclear disaster.
I smiled nervously and waved my free hand. ‘Hi. I come in peace.’
She stared at me for a little longer, frozen still like a statue. I felt a little bit nervous, a little bit awkward, and so when that happens, I did what I usually do.
‘What the fuck are you staring at?’
I don’t know how she took that, seeing as she had a Darth Vadar helmet on. She stared at me a little longer and I waited for her to tell me that I was Luke and she was my father.
‘Well, now,’ she said brightly, as if snapping out of a trance, ‘I knew I had a little visitor.’ She took her entire head attire off, revealing herself to be far older than I expected. She must have been in her seventies.
She came towards me and I half expected her to jump from one foot to the other as though there was no gravity. She was wrinkled, very wrinkled, her skin falling downward as though time had melted her. Her blue eyes sparkled like the Aegean Sea, reminding me of a day out on Dad’s yacht where when you looked down, the sea was so clear you could see the sand and hundreds of multicoloured fish beneath. But there was nothing beneath her eyes, so translucent they practically reflected back all of the light. Then she took off her gauntlets and held her hands out.
‘I’m Sister Ignatius,’ she smiled, not shaking my hand, but holding it in both of hers. Despite the hot day and the heavy gloves, they were as smooth and as cool as marble.
‘You’re a nun,’ I blurted out.
‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘I am a nun. I was there when it happened.’
It was my turn to smile, and I laughed, everything making sense then. The cabinet of honey jars, the dozens of boxes around the walled garden, the ridiculous spacesuit on an old woman.
‘You know my aunt.’
‘Ah.’
I didn’t know quite how to take that response. She didn’t register surprise but nor did she question me. She was still holding my hand. I didn’t want to move my hand, seeing as she was a nun, but it was freaking me out. I kept talking.
‘My aunt is Rosaleen, and my uncle is Arthur. He’s the groundskeeper here. They live in the gatehouse. We’re staying with them for…a little while.’
‘We?’
‘Me and my mum.’
‘Oh.’ Her eyebrows lifted so high I thought they were caterpillars about to become butterflies and flutter away.
‘Didn’t Rosaleen tell you?’ I was a little insulted, though quite thankful for Rosaleen’s respect for our privacy. At least the whole one-horse town with no horse wouldn’t be talking about the new folk.
‘No,’ she replied. And then without a smile and with an air of finality she repeated, ‘No.’
She seemed a little cross and so I jumped in to defend Rosaleen and save whatever friendship they did or didn’t have. ‘I’m sure she was just protecting our privacy, giving us a little time to deal with…it…before she told people.’
‘Deal with…’
‘The move here,’ I said slowly. Was it bad to lie to a nun? Well I wasn’t exactly lying…I kind of panicked then. I felt my body heat up and go clammy. Sister Ignatius was saying something, her mouth was opening and closing, but I couldn’t hear a word of it. I just kept thinking about lying to her and of those Ten Commandments and hell and everything, but not just that, I thought about how nice it would be to say the words aloud to her. She was a nun, I could probably trust her.
‘My dad died,’ I blurted out quickly interrupting whatever nice thing she’d been saying. I heard the terrible tremble in my voice as I said that sentence and then all of a sudden, from absolutely nowhere, just as it had happened with Cabáiste, tears were gushing down my cheeks.
‘Oh, child,’ she said, immediately opening her arms and embracing me. The book separated us as I still clung to it, but even though she was a total stranger, she was a nun, and I rested my head on her shoulder and didn’t hold back, making snotty and throaty noises and all, while she rocked me a little and rubbed my back. I was in the middle of a really embarrassing wail of, ‘Why did he do it? Whyyyyy…?’ when a bee flew directly into my face and bounced off my lip. I screamed and pushed myself out of Sister Ignatius’ arms.
‘Bee!’ I shrieked, hopping about and trying to dodge it as it followed me. ‘Oh my God, get it off me.’
She watched me, her eyes lighting up.
‘Oh my God, Sister, please, get it off me. Shoo, shoo!’ I waved my arms around. ‘They must listen to you. They’re your bloody bees.’
Sister Ignatius pointed her finger and shouted in a deep voice, ‘Sebastian, no!’
I stopped jerking around to stare at her, my tears gone now. ‘You are not serious. You do not name your bees.’
‘Ah, there’s Jemima on the rose, and Benjamin on the geranium,’ she said perkily, eyes bright.
‘No way,’ I said, wiping my face, embarrassed by my breakdown. ‘I thought I had mental problems.’
‘Of course I’m not serious,’ and then she started laughing, a wonderful clear throaty childish laugh that instantly made me smile.
I think that’s when I knew I loved Sister Ignatius.
‘My name is Tamara.’
‘Yes,’ she said, looking at me and studying me as if she already knew.
I smiled again. She had a face that made me do that.
‘Are you allowed to, like, talk? Shouldn’t you be quiet?’ I looked around. ‘Don’t worry I won’t tell.’
‘Many of the sisters would agree with you,’ she chuckled, ‘but yes, I’m allowed to talk. I haven’t taken a vow of silence.’
‘Oh. Do other nuns look down on you for that?’
She laughed again, a sweet, clear, singsong laugh.
‘So have you not seen people for ages? Is this against the rules? Don’t worry, I won’t tell. Though Obama’s the US President now,’ I joked. When she didn’t respond, my smile faded. ‘Shit. Are you not supposed to know stuff like that? Stuff from the “outside world”? It must be a bit like being in Big Brother, being a nun.’
She snapped out of her trance and laughed again, her face seeming so childlike in a Benjamin Button way when she did that.
‘Aren’t you a peculiar thing?’ She’d said it with a smile and so I tried hard not to be insulted.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ she asked looking at the book that I was still hugging.
‘Oh, this.’ I finally stopped squeezing it. ‘I found it yesterday on the…oh, actually, I owe you a book.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘No, really I do. Marcus, I mean, the travelling library came by the day before yesterday looking for you and I didn’t know who you were.’
‘Then you owe me a book,’ she said, a twinkle in her eye. ‘Let me see, who’s it by?’
‘I don’t know who or what it is. It’s not the Bible or anything, you might not like it,’ I said, reluctant to hand it over. ‘There could be sex scenes in it, swear words, gay people, divorced people, things like that.’
She looked at me and pursed her lips, trying not to smile.
‘I can’t open it,’ I said finally, giving it to her. ‘It’s locked.’
‘Well, I’ll see to that. Follow me.’
She immediately set off out the other entrance of the walled garden with the book in her hand.
‘Where are you going?’ I called after her.
‘Where are we going,’ she corrected me. ‘Come and see the sisters. They’ll be delighted to meet you. And I’ll
open the book while you do so.’
‘Uh. No, it’s okay.’ I ran to catch up with her and take the book back.
‘There’s just the four of us. We don’t bite. Particularly when eating Sister Mary’s apple pie, but don’t tell her I said,’ she added under her breath and chuckled again.
‘But, Sister, I’m not very good with holy people. I don’t really know what to say.’
She laughed that laugh again and waddled in her funny-looking suit towards the orchard.
‘What’s the deal with the tree with all the engravings on it?’ I asked, skipping alongside her to keep up.
‘Ah, you’ve seen our apple orchard? You know, some people say the apple tree is the tree of love,’ she said, her eyes widening, and when she smiled dimples pierced her cheeks. ‘Many of the young ones around here have declared their love to one another on that tree.’ She power-walked on, snapping out of her magical love story. ‘Plus, it’s great for the bees. And the bees are great for the trees. Oh, that rhymes,’ she chuckled. ‘Arthur does a wonderful job of keeping it. We get the most delicious Granny Smith apples.’
‘Oh, so that’s why Rosaleen makes three thousand apple tarts a day. I’ve eaten so many apples they’re literally coming out of my…’
She looked at me.
‘Ears.’
She laughed and it sounded like a song.
‘So,’ I panted, trying to keep up with her pacy strides, ‘how come there’s only four of you?’
‘Not so many people want to be nuns these days. It’s not, what you’d say, cool?’
‘Well, it’s not just that it’s not cool, which it totally isn’t by the way but, no offence to God or anything, it’s probably just a sex thing. If you were allowed to have sex I’d say loads of girls would want to be nuns. Though the rate I’m going, I’ll be joining you,’ I rolled my eyes.
Sister Ignatius laughed. ‘All in good time, my child, all in good time. You’re only seventeen. Almost eighteen, my word.’