A tall nun wearing a long brown habit and a large set of rosary beads around her waist was striding towards me with her arm outstretched, ready to shake my hand. ‘You must be Joseph Riley. Welcome to the Farm. I’m Sister Agnes, the School Principal.’
The only nun I’d ever met before was Sister Monica, the nurse at St Bart’s. I’m not exactly sure she was a nun, but she was an angel sent from heaven. Sister Agnes doesn’t look like an angel – she walks and talks more like a man. I could feel the bones in my hand crunch as we shook hands.
‘Unfortunately you missed Mass this morning – it’s the highlight of our week. Father Brian comes out from Dapto early every Sunday morning to hear confession and celebrate Mass with us.’ She put her hands together and closed her eyes. I wasn’t sure if she was thinking hard about something or praying. Half a minute later she opened her eyes and smiled, rubbing her hands together. ‘I’ll show you the classroom on our way to your cabin. You’ll need to get changed into some work clothes.’
I followed her along the verandah around to the side of the house, and then through some open doors.
‘This is our classroom – on Sundays it serves as a chapel.’
There were five rows of desks facing a blackboard with a big crucifix and pull-down charts at the top. In one corner there was a lectern, and in the other, a statue of Our Lady surrounded by vases of fresh flowers. The room was very neat and didn’t look like it had been used very often.
We walked around to the back of the house and looked through the window at the big kitchen, then we stopped to admire a long table and four benches on the verandah.
‘Henry made all of these from trees that had fallen down on our property,’ she said, running her fingers along the grain of the smooth wood. ‘Most of your meals will be served here. And over there’s the barn where you’ll go for milking duty twice a day.’ She pointed to a huge tin shed that was much bigger than the house.
There was a strong smell of fresh cow manure in the air, and I could hear cows mooing not too far away. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
We started walking towards two cabins that were opposite the barn and looked like shacks with crooked verandahs out the front.
‘There are sixteen boys in each cabin, and you’ll be sleeping in this one.’ she said, as we stepped onto a creaking verandah, crowded with broken beds, two buckets and a large wooden box. Inside, the cabin was set out like a dorm with eight beds on either side.
‘This is your bed,’ she said, pointing to the fourth bed along on the wall closest to the barn.
I lifted my case onto the rusty metal-framed bed with no bedspread, just a grey woollen army blanket tucked in with a grey sheet.
‘The showers are outside in the shed and the toilet is down the back near the flame trees. These are your work clothes to change into. You can put your case under the bed – you won’t be needing it for a while.’ She clapped her hands together – they were thick and fleshy like a man’s and her fingernails were black with dirt. ‘I’ll wait for you outside on the verandah.’
The cabin wasn’t quite what I’d expected – some of the panes of glass in the windows were broken, and there were bars on the outside and no curtains on the inside. My home away from home, I thought. Above the doorway was another big crucifix, while a cracked and faded painting of Our Lady holding baby Jesus looked down on me from the cabin wall.
It felt good to take off my St Bart’s uniform and stow it away under the bed. It was hard to believe that earlier that day, I was still locked in an isolation room at St Bart’s wearing a woollen blazer, tie and black leather school shoes; and then five hours later I was at a reformatory in the country putting on overalls and going barefoot. Teddy would be proud of me, I thought, as I walked out onto the verandah.
‘Find a pair of gumboots that fit,’ Sister Agnes said, pointing to the wooden box and then closing her eyes. While I rummaged through the box of gumboots, she rubbed her rosary beads and prayed.
I tried on one boot after another until I found a matching pair that I could walk in without falling over. They all seemed to be either large or extra-large.
I stood there waiting for Sister Agnes to stop praying and open her eyes. She looked so peaceful – I didn’t want to disturb her.
‘The boys are working down in the vegetable garden,’ she said, suddenly looking straight at me. ‘Go over the first cattle stop, past the barn and the cattle and sheep paddocks, then over the second cattle stop. Sister Cornelius will be waiting for you.’
Sister Agnes walked back to the house, leaving me to find my own way. I had no idea what a cattle stop was and I wasn’t sure that I deserved her trust at this early stage of the game.
On my way to the barn, I crossed a small bridge built into the track with wide gaps between the timber slats. Must be a cattle stop, I thought, because it’d be impossible for cows to get across without falling through the gaps.
Walking past paddocks with cattle and sheep grazing, I felt a sense of freedom that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I couldn’t believe that this was my punishment for punching Brother Felix in the face and breaking his nose. It was heaven compared to the isolation room at St Bart’s.
I wasn’t watching where I was going and tripped over what must have been the second cattle stop, getting splinters in my hand. I got up and looked around but couldn’t see anyone.
Further along on my right was an orchard with apple, orange, lemon and other fruit trees. There were only a handful of apples left high up in the trees but lots of oranges and lemons ready for picking.
As I stopped to pull the splinters out of my hand, I watched the sun sink behind the mountain, which was so close I felt that I could reach out and touch it. The pink sky was fading to grey and a cold wind was blowing; it was the start of winter.