We have come before the throne of God
To share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
EVER SINCE WAKENING, the Canticle for the Festival of the Transfiguration of Our Lord has been running through Sister Emily’s head. It seems appropriate now that so many people are being transfigured with new hope. Clem is happier than any of them have yet seen him; Father Pascal is brimming with plans and ideas. Even Mother Magda – now that Bishop Freddie is so enthusiastic – has cast aside her habitual cloak of anxiety and is entering into this new climate of expectation with a positive determination. She has even written to Mr Brewster explaining why they will not be accepting his offer. Only Sister Ruth refuses to be swept along on the new transfiguring tide of excitement; Sister Ruth … and Janna.
We have come before God’s holy mountain … the city of the living God …
The words sing in her head as she goes about her tasks of dusting and polishing. Passing through the rooms lightly, like a little fragile-boned bird, Sister Emily flourishes her yellow duster and rubs industriously, and ponders on Janna. Father Pascal and Clem are worried about her too.
‘Janna’s inner angel has been packed about with fear,’ she said to Father Pascal. ‘Its light shines out – we can see it – but is obscured and fogged by her need to belong and her terror of commitment.’
He smiled at the imagery: ‘Odd, isn’t it,’ he mused, ‘to be driven by two such conflicting forces.’
He’d gone on to speak of genetics, of nature and nurture, and she said rather impatiently at the end: ‘Yes, yes, but we must hold on to her. If she leaves us now it will be disastrous for her.’
He understood her. ‘But how can we make her stay? We can’t forbid her to go.’
‘I know,’ Sister Emily answered wretchedly, ‘but we can pray that her inner angel might have a chance of being unpacked at last.’
Father Pascal smiled and nodded. ‘And what about Sister Ruth’s inner angel?’ he asked teasingly.
She laughed with him. ‘Sister Ruth’s angel is not so deeply buried. In all the years since her profession her angel has had many shining moments, some longer than others, before the wrapping goes back on – but at least we know it’s a strong and healthy angel.’
He hadn’t asked about her own angel – or his – but had gone away, still laughing, waving his hand.
We have come before countless angels making festival …
Still singing the canticle Sister Emily whisks onwards, unable to prevent an uprush of joy, even with her fear for Janna so much in her thoughts. After dreary days of rain, of thick soft cloud from the Atlantic rolling over the headlands and lapping at the windows, the sun is shining again.
‘I suppose,’ she said tentatively to Mother Magda, ‘it would be impossible for Janna to remain in her caravan once we move into the Coach House.’
The anxious little frown returned between the feathery brows. ‘Is it a problem?’ Mother asked. ‘Oh, yes, I see. How foolish of me. Yes, dear Janna must be feeling a little bit nervous at the prospect of living with us. And I know that Ruth isn’t keen on it either, though she’s been used to having a nurse or a carer in our wing when we’ve had problems with sick and elderly Sisters.’
‘Janna is neither a nurse nor a carer officially,’ Sister Emily pointed out, ‘though she’d make an excellent one. But we’ve agreed that she is necessary to us and we are necessary to her.’
‘I quite see that,’ Mother Magda answered gently, and Sister Emily felt relieved; not that she really doubted Mother’s great wisdom and insight, but it was good to be assured that they were all thinking – and praying – along the same lines.
‘But,’ Mother Magda went on, ‘we shall need the orchard for our private use. It is essential that we are able to retain some kind of privacy. You do agree?’
‘Yes,’ Sister Emily answered reluctantly. ‘I do agree, but we need some solution to Janna’s fear.’
‘We shall pray for it,’ Mother answered with that quiet, gentle spiritual certainty that springs from her own inner angel when she allows the veils of anxiety to be drawn back from it.
We have come before God … we have come before Jesus …
Peace flows into Sister Emily’s soul as she finishes dusting the library and opens a window wide to the blustery sunny day. She can see Clem mowing the grass and, beyond him, the flick of scarlet on the path to the beach: Janna escaping to the freedom of the cliffs. Yet this does not make her anxious now. The peace continues to hold her heart in quietude. She closes the door behind her and goes through the hall and along to the kitchen where breakfast has been cleared and lunch is already prepared: a special lunch for the Feast.
Sister Emily smiles in anticipation, puts away the polish and prepares to wash out her duster.
We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken: so let us give thanks …
Out on the cliff Janna wanders in the golden blowy air. Below the wall, adders are hatching: writhing gold bootlaces are side-winding away over the sandy grass. The mallows and the thrift have finished flowering but pale pink convolvuli climb amongst the granite stone, and there are bright red poppies growing amongst the rain-drenched barley on the wide headlands. The great gull-spaces of clear blue sky are empty but she can see the flocks wheeling down low over the sea: shining white against the bright green, then black against the brilliant dazzling surf. If she were to lie on the grass with her ear to the ground she would hear the booming echoes of the sea-tide surging and retreating in the secret hollow chambers far below.
Walking quickly, with her face to the west, she tries to grapple with the problem of the future, but she is simply too tired to think clearly. She feels herself being drawn inexorably along on a great tide of change and just at present she has no strength to swim against it. Nevertheless, she has no intention of letting herself be carried away by it. When the moment comes she must harden her heart and fight for her freedom.
A middle-aged couple come striding towards her, dressed in shorts and T-shirts and sunhats, and carrying rucksacks. They greet her cheerfully. ‘Glorious, isn’t it?’ they cry, gesturing to the sun, the sea, the dramatic stretch of coastline, and she nods and answers in return that yes, it is glorious; wonderful. They all beam approvingly at one another and pass on their separate ways. Beside a smooth grey boulder is the man whom she knows now is called Mr Caine and is supposed to be writing a book about the north Cornish coast. He sits staring out to sea, his mobile clamped to his ear, and she slips past him unnoticed.
On the cliff above Trevone she looks down at the children playing on the beach, at their parents tucked behind gaily coloured windbreaks; at the surfers, crouched and swaying on their boards as they skim the long steep rollers that pour in between the headlands. She wonders if she might know any of them, whether they are the same group with whom she cadged a lift from Padstow that day last autumn when she first went to Chi-Meur.
She stands watching them, seeing their cars and vans parked on the beach, with other surfers changing, drying themselves, talking. Suddenly she longs to be down there with them, idle and easy, following the surf – yet she knows that they won’t remember her. She always sat too loose to the people she met to make real friends; here one day, gone the next. Even with Nat, whom she loves, she guards her freedom. This is the first time she’s had anything like a real home and a family who truly love her: Father, Mother, Sisters: Clem and Jakey …
Janna hesitates. She can go down the cliff path to the beach, chat to the surfers, make friends, cadge another lift, or she can return to her family. Suddenly it seems that she hears Sister Emily’s high clear voice in the blowing wind. She is singing the grace that she always chooses when it is her turn, emphasizing certain words in her own inimitable way:
God bless to us our bread
And give food to those who are hungry
And a hunger for justice to those who are fed.
God bless to us our bread.
Today is a Feast Day and Sister Emily, as usual, is looking forward to her lunch. Janna draws a deep sighing breath. She hears Clem’s voice saying: ‘… please promise you won’t do a runner’ – and she turns away from the beach and the surfers, and begins to walk home.
‘You have got to be joking,’ Mr Caine is saying. ‘You mean she’s actually written to you saying, “Goodbye and thanks for all the fish”? Jesus! His Royal Highness will go ballistic when he hears this. And what’s a retreat house, anyway? … Bloody hell, Phil, how am I going to tell him? He thought it was in the bag … Yeah I know that’s what I get paid for. Thanks for that. There’s no possible doubt, I suppose? … Where are you now? London? Well, lucky you… Nah, I’m still stuck in this wilderness. I get away when I can, mind … I’d better do a bit of earwigging before I phone him; see what I can find out. It might not be absolutely cut and dried.’
He sees the girl from the convent go whisking past and slips down a bit lower behind the boulder until she’s out of sight. He’ll go back down to the village and see if he can pick up any odds and ends. The old priest might be in the pub for a lunchtime pint; they’ve got quite matey now and he might get something out of him. He stares out to sea: he’s still got that bad feeling and he wishes he was anywhere but here.
Dossie walks in the lane with the dogs; last outs before bed. She keeps her hand over her mobile phone in her pocket, hoping and waiting for a message from Rupert. Tomorrow he is away again for the weekend, checking out his properties on the south coast, and she is hoping that he might have time for a quick moment on his way. John the Baptist chugs along beside her, pausing briefly to check out a scent here and there, but Wolfie is far ahead on a rabbit’s trail and she follows him, her brain busy with ideas.
Ever since Pa’s conversation about having B and B-ers again at The Court she’s been thinking of little else. Almost at once she could see the advantages: she knows that it might be some time before Rupert can be persuaded to change his way of living but he might, in future, look at properties to convert near at hand so that they can spend more time together. She’ll be able to keep her weekends and evenings free, instead of dashing about doing weddings and dinner parties, and one day, way ahead, perhaps he might live with her at The Court.
She pauses in a gateway to give Jonno a breather before the long plod back, and stands looking out across the pale stubble of the new-cut fields. One small star is tangled in a long fleece of cloud and she can see a ghostly illumination running like pale fire along the black edge of the distant horizon. The moon’s bright curved rim appears above the long low hills and it seems as if she can feel the movement of the earth as it tilts towards it. Holding her breath, she watches as the moon rises: full and mysterious and magical. The deep silence is broken only by the querulous cry of an old ewe, the settling and stuttering of small birds in the hedges, and two owls calling.
When her mobile vibrates with its double ring, her hand closes on it with shock. She stands for a few moments, still entranced, before taking it from her pocket and reading the message:
Early picnic midday my place?
She smiles with relief and anticipation, sends a reply and puts the mobile away. Calling to Wolfie, patting old Jonno’s head, she turns back towards home.
That night Jakey sleeps restlessly. He’s spent the day with Pa and Mo, making a little house in the garden which he can have for his own during the summer holidays. It was once a wood store but the logs got damp so Pa keeps them in the barn instead and now the little lean-to shed is almost falling to pieces. He and Pa worked very hard, making it dry and tacking some felt on the sloping roof, and Mo found a little stool and an old card table to make it look like a proper house. John the Baptist was persuaded to come inside and lie down on an old blanket but Wolfie simply wouldn’t. He barked and got silly and dashed round in circles on the lawn.
Jakey dreams fitfully: the house has grown much bigger and all his friends have come to tea but Wolfie stays outside barking and barking …
He wakes suddenly, surprised at how bright it is and thinking it is morning, and then realizes that it is moonlight streaming into his bedroom. He climbs out of bed, a certainty in his heart, and goes to the window. She is there, as he knew she would be: Auntie Gabriel, standing amongst the trees across the drive. She is looking up at his window with her hands clasped as usual, though he can’t see the red satin heart that she holds. He can see her white dress, though, gleaming in the moonbeams that shaft down like tiger-stripes between the smooth boles of the trees.
Jakey raises his hand and waves to her. She doesn’t return the wave, she never does because of holding the heart, but he knows that she is smiling at him. He sees that she bows her head a little, in acknowledgement, and he waves again. He wonders whether to go out to her but he knows that Daddy will be cross if he goes outside without telling him. He watches her hopefully, wishing that she would come inside, and then he gives one last wave with both hands to show that he loves her and climbs back into bed, clasps Stripey Bunny, and falls asleep.
Kitty stands at the sitting-room window watching Rupert getting into the Volvo. It is a dull, drizzling day and the trees look weighty with the burden of their leaves. As she waits while he puts his bag in the car she is prey as usual to a whole muddle of emotions: sad that he’s going, yet certain that she mustn’t allow herself to be coerced. Rupert slams the tailgate and opens the driver’s door. He glances up and raises his hand in a last farewell. The car disappears and Kitty moves back into the room, arms crossed, trying to will away her feelings of anxiety and guilt. For the first time in their married lives, a real battle is joined and she knows that she must continue to fight her corner.
She stares up at the large, gilt-framed oil painting that hangs above the fireplace: an atmospheric seascape full of drama, and evoking memories of her gypsy life with Rupert. A bank of thrift on a stony headland bows before the wind that carries the sea birds on its thermals and whips up long curling breakers to crash upon the sandy shore. Just for a moment she can hear their cries above the restless sighing of the sea and her heart contracts with pain, as if she’s lost something precious, and then her mobile rings and she runs to answer it, longing for it to be Rupert, knowing it isn’t.
‘Kitty.’ Sally’s voice. ‘I expect Rupert’s just gone and I wondered if you were feeling a bit miz and if you’d like me to pop in. I’m just down in Whiteladies Road.’
‘Oh, Sal, I’d love it.’ Kitty seizes on this distraction with relief. ‘Honestly, it’s so weird. Rupert was really sweet this weekend, and now I feel guilty. It sounds crazy but it’s almost easier when we argue about it all. No,’ she pushes her free hand through her hair, ‘no, I don’t mean that. Oh hell …’
‘Hang on. I’ll be with you soon.’
Kitty hurries about, tidying, checking on Mummy, who is dozing in her chair in the little sitting-room, making coffee.
‘It’s a waiting game.’ When Sally arrives she is firm. ‘You simply can’t give in and go back to living like a gypsy. He’s got to compromise a bit. He doesn’t have to do it all himself, does he? He could still keep his hand in a bit and spend much more time with you here.’
‘I don’t think he likes the flat much. I think Rupert still feels like a guest, especially with Mummy in the state she is now. It’s OK for a weekend but it’s not really home.’
‘But that’s the whole point, lovey, isn’t it? You and Rupert never had a home.’
‘I suppose not.’ Kitty heaves an irritated sigh. ‘It could be such fun to think that at some future point we could relax and enjoy ourselves but I just wonder if he’ll ever be happy doing that.’
‘At least he could give it a try,’ her friend cries. ‘You were prepared to fall in with his way of life, to follow him around and never have a settled place of your own. Well, now it’s his turn to give you a chance, for a change. At least he could try it out before he denounces it.’
Kitty is silent: she feels slightly uneasy when Sally is so forceful. Sometimes she wishes that she hadn’t been so open about the ongoing problem between her and Rupert. Sally has never quite believed that her dear old friend could have been quite as happy as she’s always claimed in such uncertain and peripatetic circumstances. It is as if, now, those fears have been justified and Sally cannot quite hide her glee.
‘He’s got to finish the cottage,’ Kitty says at last. ‘He’s talking about buying another one …’
‘What? Not in Cornwall, I hope?’
‘Yes, well, not necessarily.’ Kitty stares down at her coffee. ‘He needs to be doing something, that’s the point. I thought maybe a property here in Bristol, but he was a bit wary about it.’
‘Why?’ Sally pounces at once. ‘Why wary?’
Kitty shrugs. ‘How should I know?’
‘Look, lovey.’ Sally’s voice takes on its silky note: the old school chum caring about her best friend. ‘There isn’t anything going on down there, is there?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, you know. Another woman. We all know that Rupert is an absolute pushover for a bit of flattery. He loves women, doesn’t he? Plays up to them, flirts. Well, that’s nothing new and we all know that he wouldn’t actually do anything, but Bill was only saying last night that he was surprised that Rupert doesn’t get back a bit more. We’ve hardly seen him in the last few months.’
‘It’s always a busy time just at the end of getting a place together,’ says Kitty. She can hear the defensiveness in her voice and her stomach churns at the mere thought of what Sally is suggesting. Her mind quickly ranges back over the weekend: Rupert was on top form and ready to fall in with anything she suggested. He was sweet with Mummy, really patient, and made no attempt to discuss the future. Kitty mentioned her idea of doing up a house as a student let but he simply said, ‘Let’s leave it a bit and see what happens.’ She thought he meant with Mummy but now she isn’t so sure.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘I’d know at once if Rupert was being unfaithful to me.’
She sees Sally raise her eyebrows and would like to smack her. She feels slightly sick and suddenly frightened but she won’t admit it to her dearest, oldest friend.
‘Want some more coffee?’ she asks brightly.
Rupert drives westward. No hold-ups today: no delays. It’s still raining a dank, mizzling rain. He too is thinking about the weekend, confident that it’s the right decision to step back and let things develop naturally now: no more persuading and cajoling and arguing, just allowing himself to go with the flow. He is pleased that he managed to maintain a cheerful attitude – and Kitty responded to it with relief, and everyone had a good time instead of engaging in the bitter little arguments and sniping that have been the hallmark of the last few months.
As he drives past Exeter and turns onto the A30 he feels almost elated. Even the dismal sight of Dartmoor shrouded in cloud, or the overgrown faded hedgerows where the leaves are already beginning to turn, hasn’t the power to depress him. Maybe, he tells himself, he should be more anxious but, just for now, he simply can’t imagine his two worlds colliding: Kitty in Bristol and Dossie in Cornwall. He can simply coast for a while, finish off the cottage, and give Kitty a little longer to get this easy life in Bristol out of her system. After all, she’s already grown tired of it once.
He can remember when he met her in that very first cottage he converted and the instant buzz that passed between them. She was bored with her predictable life, with her wealthy parents in their big house in Clifton; with their photographs in Country Life and the regular round of social and charity events. She was bored too with her work as a PA at the university and, when he showed her the future they might have together, she simply took wing. Soon, he has no doubt, she’ll be as bored again with city life as she was back then.
Perhaps he ought to be feeling a bit guilty about Dossie but – he shakes his head – Dossie has her own agendas: she’s thinking of resurrecting her parents’ bed and breakfast business and it’s clear that she’s very excited about it. He’s encouraging her, of course. It sounds a very good plan and he’s glad to think that her life is taking a slightly different direction; more new challenges and less dashing around in that little Golf. Funny that she and Kitty have identical cars; even the same dark blue.
It’s good, talking things through with Dossie, taking time off with her, making love occasionally. She’s such fun – and she has so many people to love and cherish; she isn’t lonely or needy … Rupert frowns a little: he’s glad though that he’s decided not to buy the cottage near St Endellion. Perhaps some kind of self-protective instinct warned him that it might be just a little too close to The Court for comfort – and, anyway, the owner is still holding out on him. It isn’t a problem. He still has his own cottage to finish and there’s always plenty of work to be done on his existing properties through the winter months. At the same time the familiar creative urge is stirring. He needs new projects, new challenges.
He decides, as he passes over the River Tamar into Cornwall, that he won’t text Dossie just yet. He told her that he was going down to check over his properties on the south coast so he’ll have to watch what he says; let a few days elapse, perhaps. He hates lying – of course he does – but just sometimes it’s necessary to stretch a point or two to cover his tracks. At the same time he longs to see her. Odd how Dossie has captivated him …
When he arrives at the cottage he feels the same sense of relief and release he experiences each time he comes back from Bristol. He gets out of the car, stretches and looks around contentedly. A bedraggled pheasant pecks disconsolately beneath the seed feeders on the little lawn, the stream brims at its banks and the valley is full of the sound of rushing water. Rupert takes a happy breath. He’ll light the wood-burner; give the cottage a real warm through. Then he’ll wander up to the pub for lunch.
Ever since lunch Dossie has been on edge; wandering around aimlessly, continually checking her mobile, preoccupied. Mo watches her thoughtfully, wishing she could ask Dossie outright about the new man in her life. It is perfectly clear that there is someone who is making Dossie exalted or anxious or distracted. Yet still Dossie makes no move to talk about him or introduce him. It’s been several months now since she began to behave differently, and the big fear for Mo and Pa is that the man is married.
‘Dossie wouldn’t do that,’ Pa said uncertainly, whilst John the Baptist sat beside him, head on knee, exuding comfort.
‘I’m not accusing her of being a home-breaker,’ Mo said irritably. ‘It might simply be that the man is just coming out of the relationship and there are complications.’
‘What kind of complications d’you mean?’ he asked, puzzled, and she felt even more irritable and said, ‘For goodness’ sake use your imagination.’
Mo fetches the secateurs and potters out into the garden. At least, during the weekend, they all had another conversation about restoring The Court to its old status, and Dossie agreed to give it a go. Pa was exultant.
‘In which case,’ he said privately, while Dossie was out, ‘I’ve made up my mind, Mo, and I hope you’ll agree with me. I’m going to gift the house to Dossie outright. If she’s prepared to start bed and breakfast again then I’m going to make sure she’s secure here.’
Her heart jumped and banged with anxiety. ‘What about Adam?’ she asked fearfully. ‘What will he say?’
‘Shan’t tell him,’ Pa answered. ‘No. Wait.’ He held up his hand in magisterial mood. ‘Look, Mo, this sounds a bit heavy but I can’t help that. This house has belonged in my family for generations. My father left it to me and I’m leaving it to Dossie. That’s it. End of story. And I’m doing it now in the hope that I shall live another seven years so she’ll be free of death duties and before we go back into business. It needs to be gifted to her before we take in any revenue and I shall go and see Glyn about it first thing Monday morning.’
She was speechless with shock.
‘Adam doesn’t need to know,’ he said. ‘Come to that, nor does Dossie. Luckily old Glyn is her lawyer too, so that makes it nice and simple. Nice surprise when Glyn reads the will. Obviously it’ll mean Dossie could throw us out if she wanted to, but no need to be anxious about that …’
Mo shrugged away his remark; she had no fear of Dossie throwing her out of her home – only of Adam’s anger.
‘But what shall we say to him?’ she said. ‘He’s our son.’
‘I’ve made up my mind,’ Pa answered. ‘This is not something we can discuss with him in any sensible way, and if Dossie wants to live here and make her living out of this house then I’m going to back her. You never know, Jakey might take it on when the time comes. He loves it here. Adam has never given a single, solitary damn about The Court or about us either, if it comes to that. Oh, I know, I know. He’s our son and we love him but I feel strongly about this, Mo, and it’s not a subject for negotiation.’
And this morning he went dashing off to Truro, leaving her to watch Dossie working herself up into some kind of state, and still wondering how on earth they could keep this from her or from Adam.
John the Baptist appears beside her, pushing his head against her thigh, and she strokes him gratefully, glad of his company.
‘What shall we do, Jonno, old fellow?’ she murmurs. ‘Whatever shall we do if Adam finds out?’
But he can give no answer to her questions; he can only give the comfort of his presence.
Clem straightens up and stretches his aching back, looking back along the hedge-line to see how much he has accomplished. The grass is still wet after days of rain but it’s looking tidier now. He lays the strimmer on the grass and picks up the rake. There is a glimmer of blue in the dappled shadows of the buddleias and Sister Nichola comes slowly forward, leaning heavily on her stick. She is wearing her working habit and two hats: a wide-brimmed straw and a cotton sunhat perched on top of it. Clem glances instinctively around for Sister Ruth, who is usually never far away, but today Sister Nichola is alone. She stands watching him, smiling almost shyly, and he smiles back at her.
‘Hello, Sister,’ he says. ‘It’s good to see the sun for a change, isn’t it?’
She nods, rather unsteadily, and takes a firmer grasp on her stick. Clem puts down the rake and goes to her and guides her to a nearby bench. She accompanies him quite willingly, peering up at him from beneath the brim of the ancient straw hat, and sits down beside him. There is a little silence; very peaceful, not in the least awkward. Butterflies float and flit over the dark purple spikes of the buddleias, and a squirrel runs across the grass and flees swiftly up a tree. Clem looks down at her, eyebrows raised, wondering if she’s seen it.
She nods, as if in answer to his unspoken question. ‘Tree rat,’ she says clearly.
Clem almost jumps with surprise; then he laughs. ‘They do a great deal of damage,’ he agrees. He smiles to himself, at his assumption that she’d see the squirrel as a fluffy Nutkin kind of creature. He feels an odd affinity with her and they continue to sit in an amicable silence; she leans heavily against his arm.
‘So why do you wear two hats?’ he asks, wondering if she might have begun to doze and whether he should escort her back to the house.
‘One has a hole in it,’ she answers.
‘Ah.’ He nods.
She looks sideways at him, a searching look that slightly embarrasses him, and then she reaches out and takes his hand in her own. She turns his hand and studies it whilst he sits quite still, waiting.
‘Do you forgive me?’ she asks, very low. ‘Do you? I couldn’t help it, could I?’
Her hand tightens on his, and he presses it in return, though he is suddenly anxious.
‘Of course I do,’ he hastens to reassure her, looking into her brimming eyes. ‘Come, Sister. Let’s go and ask Janna to make us some coffee, shall we?’
He stands, bending over her, trying to help her up; and she stares up at him, her eyes still full of tears, trying to obey him and get to her feet.
‘There you are!’
The cry startles both of them, and they turn together. Sister Ruth comes at a run across the grass; her expression is a mix of relief and irritation.
‘I couldn’t think where you’d got to,’ she says to Sister Nichola, nodding to Clem. ‘We were picking beans for lunch,’ she explains, ‘and suddenly she’d gone.’
She is still breathing hard and Clem senses her very real anxiety. ‘We’ve been sitting in the sun,’ he says, smiling at Sister Nichola – who now looks vague but calm – hoping that she’s recovered from whatever had upset her. ‘All is well.’
Sister Ruth takes the older woman’s arm. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s go back. You’ve had your little adventure.’ She glances again at Clem, giving him a brief, tight-lipped smile and a nod, and they walk away over the grass together.
Clem gives a little shrug and turns back to his strimming and raking. He wonders what has upset Sister Nichola and for what she might need forgiveness – and from whom.
* * *
Dossie drives Jakey back to Chi-Meur in the early evening. There is purple loosestrife growing in the long faded grasses beneath the thorn hedges, and some melilot, but it is clear that summer is nearly over. The stubble glimmers beyond the ragged hedgerows, bleached and pale, and a flight of house martins swoop and turn above the fields.
‘I’m five now, Dossie,’ Jakey says suddenly.
‘So you are,’ she agrees. ‘You’re a big boy now.’
‘How old is Stripey Bunny?’ he asks.
‘Well.’ She hesitates, wondering how old Jakey would want him to be. ‘Is he five, too?’
‘No, of course he isn’t,’ Jakey cries derisively. ‘He can’t walk yet.’
Dossie makes a face to herself. ‘Fine. OK. So how old d’you think, then?’
‘He’s nearly two,’ Jakey answers.
They drive in silence for a while; passing through Crugmeer and out towards the coast, beneath a wide empty infinity of sky that indicates the proximity of the sea. That sky and the sudden gleam of water on the horizon always raises Dossie’s spirits; she glances in her mirror. Jakey has put his thumb in his mouth and is staring out of the car window.
How lucky we all are, Dossie thinks, that he is such a good child; that he fits in so well and is so adaptable. Gran’mère and Gran’père have visited from France, spending a week with them all and they’ve had such fun.
She wonders how they will manage once Chi-Meur has become a retreat house; whether it will make a great deal of difference. Jakey will continue to spend most of his holidays with her and with Pa and Mo and, in between, he will grow used to the changes.
‘It won’t be very different,’ Clem said. ‘Some retreat houses are run by young couples with families and the guests enjoy having children around. Of course, there will be certain rules but Jakey’s already used to that. We shall stay in the Lodge so we’ve got the garden for him to run around in and, between us all, we shall make certain that he’s looked after. I shall start training this autumn but I shall do most of the course work at home, though I shall have to go away for a few weekends. Father Pascal will still be the chaplain here until after I’ve been ordained, and we’re hoping that I can do my curacy here in the parish but I shall be heavily involved with it all, of course.’
He was so excited that she didn’t raise any negatives; Jakey is happy to be at The Court and now, with her new plan for B and B-ing, she will soon be able to be there for him whenever necessary. And she will have more time to spend with Rupert. She thinks about Rupert and is energized and excited by the joy of having him in her life. She slightly wishes that he’d be a bit more ready to talk about the future, but she can wait. There’s so much to plan for; so much to enjoy.
‘I think that Stripey Bunny should have a birthday party when he’s two,’ Jakey says unexpectedly.
Dossie smiles. Jakey enjoyed his own birthday party enormously – a boat trip with three small friends, followed by fish and chips in Padstow – and is clearly angling for a replay.
‘That’s a good idea,’ she agrees. ‘Where would he like it, d’you think?’
‘In Janna’s caravan,’ he answers, surprising her. ‘To cheer her up.’
Dossie frowns, peering at him again in the mirror. ‘Why does she need cheering up?’
He shakes his head, puts his thumb back in, and Dossie, worried now, turns into the narrow lane and drives between feathery tamarisk and trailing blackberry down to the gates to the convent.
‘The whole difficulty about loving,’ Father Pascal is saying, ‘is that it opens us up to the pain of rejection, and the fear of losing someone – or something – we value.’
‘I feel I can’t win,’ Janna says wretchedly. ‘’Tisn’t that I want to be difficult, but I can’t see myself in that Coach House with the Sisters. I shall feel like a prisoner. And then I shan’t be any use to anyone, however much I love them.’
He watches her, praying silently for guidance, thinking of a very similar conversation with Sister Ruth.
‘Janna doesn’t know our ways,’ she said. ‘That’s not her fault. Why should she? But to live enclosed with us is very different from the way we manage now.’
‘The important thing,’ Father Pascal said gently, ‘is to try to do what we can to continue to embrace all of you at Chi-Meur. There must be compromises; changes. Janna is a very unusual girl. She doesn’t want to give parties nor have friends round. She is by nature solitary; she loves the wild empty silent places. You could say – in fact, Sister Emily does say – that she is heaven-sent.’
He saw by the tightening of Sister Ruth’s lips that it was unwise to mention this.
‘Sister Emily has always been avant-garde,’ she murmured. ‘It was she who introduced the Taizé courses. I suppose there will be a great deal of that kind of thing with this new retreat house idea.’
‘Probably.’ He refused to be drawn into this long-held argument. ‘The fact is, Sister, that you will need someone with you in the Coach House to care for you all. Why not Janna?’
She was unable to answer without displaying her prejudices: that Janna was not an educated girl, that she was not even a Christian.
‘Janna lives Christ,’ Sister Emily said firmly when this charge was levelled against Janna at one of the Chapter meetings. ‘She is loving, giving, kind, and she has the great gift of humility. She is not asking to become a postulant; only to serve us.’
Now, looking at Janna’s face, Father Pascal is filled with frustration.
‘I can see why the caravan wouldn’t work for much longer,’ she is saying. ‘They need someone close at hand in case there’s an emergency. They’re all so frail, aren’t they, and that’s not going to get any better? But wouldn’t it be better to have someone qualified, like a nurse or something? I mean, what do I know, if anyone is taken ill.’
‘The crucial thing is love,’ he says, ‘and trust. They feel safe with you. We can always call an ambulance or find a carer or a qualified nurse, if that should be necessary. They love you.’
‘Sister Ruth doesn’t,’ she says bluntly, and then suddenly she laughs. ‘Sorry, Father,’ she says contritely. ‘I don’t mean to keep coming down here and droning on at you, honestly. It’s just I can’t see how it’s going to work out between her and me. Can you?’
‘No,’ he answers honestly. ‘I can’t. The initiative is with God. I shall continue to pray for an answer.’
She looks at him, still smiling. ‘It’s a big ask.’
He smiles too. ‘He’s used to that,’ he says cheerfully.
Stripey Bunny’s birthday party is held a few days before Jakey goes back to school. The wet, dreary August has given way to a warm blowy September; gold and red nasturtiums tumble across the grass at the bottom of the caravan steps, and Janna’s silver vase is full of late sweet peas.
Dossie mooted the party to Janna, who responded with enthusiasm.
‘Jakey says he thinks you’re sad,’ she said in her usual direct way. ‘Not Sister Ruth getting you down, I hope?’
‘Sort of.’ Janna shrugged. ‘But it’s not her fault. It’s me, too. I can’t quite see myself as part of this new set-up. That’s all. Never mind that.’ She changed the subject. ‘How’s it going with Rupert, then … ?’
Now, as she puts out plates of tiny salmon sandwiches and sausage rolls on the rug outside the caravan, Dossie is still worrying about Janna.
‘Father Pascal’s on the case,’ Clem said. ‘We all are. She’s promised me that she won’t do a runner.’
The mere thought of Janna doing a runner shocked Dossie and filled her with a kind of dread. By now she knows a little of Janna’s dysfunctional past, her fear of commitment battling with her need to belong. As she goes about her own work and begins to prepare to open The Court again to B and B-ers, Dossie has a growing horror of Janna disappearing; of being set adrift again. Even more worrying is Janna’s refusal to be drawn on the subject; to be open. Lately she’s begun to turn aside all discussions about her own feelings and Dossie fears that she is already moving apart.
She’s relieved by Janna’s ready agreement to use the caravan as the venue for the birthday party. One thing has not changed: Janna’s love for Jakey.
‘There, my lover,’ she is saying to him. ‘I’ve brought Stripey Bunny a present. D’you want to open it for him?’
Jakey takes the package, surprised into silence. He hasn’t thought of actually giving Stripey Bunny a present. Janna winks at Dossie above the gilt-blond head, and Dossie smiles at her with love and appreciation. Janna is wearing a T-shirt printed with the words ‘Jesus loves you but I’m his favourite’. Sister Emily has said, smiling, that it’s probably true. Dossie wonders how any of them will manage now without Janna.
‘You’d better wait for the rest of the guests to turn up,’ Dossie tells Jakey. ‘Look, here come Sister Emily and Father Pascal. Oh, how lovely. Sister Nichola is with them.’
Janna looks round quickly, almost fearfully, but Sister Ruth is not with the little group who are advancing beneath the boughs of the ancient apple trees.
‘Apple-picking soon,’ cries Sister Emily gleefully, who is passionate about any kind of gleaning. ‘What fun. You’ll be able to help, Jakey. Sister Nichola has come with us. Is there a chair for her?’
She is helped into one of the deck chairs that Dossie has set around the rug and she sits smiling happily. Jakey goes up close and stares into her eyes. He knows Sister Nichola quite well, though mostly at a distance, but seems struck by something new in her peaceful, sweet old face.
‘Did you bring Stripey Bunny a plesent?’ he asks her.
She looks at him as if he delights her, but doesn’t answer.
‘We have brought nothing but ourselves,’ says Sister Emily regretfully, and Father Pascal shakes his head sorrowfully.
‘But we’ve made him a lovely tea,’ says Dossie quickly. ‘Look at his cake.’
The cake indeed is a masterpiece: rabbit-shaped and striped with coloured icing, red, blue, green and yellow. Everyone exclaims with delight; even Sister Nichola stares at it with puzzled pleasure.
Jakey is tearing the paper from Janna’s present: a truck to go with his train set.
‘I know how much Stripey Bunny likes playing trains,’ she says, smiling at Jakey’s glowing face. ‘You’ll have to help him with it, though.’
He places the truck carefully on the rug before Stripey Bunny, who sits with his plate in front of him as well as the Peter Rabbit mug, which he’s been allowed as guest of honour. Sandwiches are passed around and Dossie pours tea. A game of I-spy is started which the birthday boy is allowed to win, with Jakey speaking for him. The strong warm wind blows the wrapping paper from the rug and bowls it away between the trees with Jakey in pursuit. Sister Nichola smiles and shivers a little, and Janna gets up from the top step and goes inside. She brings out her precious Indian shawl, pale silk with frayed gold threads, and puts it around the old nun’s shoulders. It is faded and thin, but Sister Nichola strokes it softly and draws the long silky fringe through her fingers.
Jakey comes panting back with the wrapping paper. ‘Is it time for the cake?’ he cries. ‘Can we light the candles?’
The two candles are lit, and Jakey helps Stripey Bunny blow them out, and the whole party sings ‘Happy Birthday to You’.
It is only much later, when the party is over and Janna is alone again, that she realizes that Sister Nichola has taken the shawl away with her.
Clem finds her at dusk, sitting on the steps, listening to the robin, with the banties pecking round her feet. He sits down in one of the chairs and smiles at her.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘The birds seem to stop singing in July and August and now they’ve started again. You always think of birds singing in the summer, don’t you? I’ve never noticed it before.’
‘I think it’s because they moult,’ he says. ‘They disappear into hedgerows because they can’t fly so quickly. And they’re not defending territories any more because their babies have flown. Something like that. I hear the party was a great success. Dossie’s bathing Jakey so I thought I’d dash down and say thanks. He had a great time.’
‘Jakey or Stripey Bunny?’
Clem grins. ‘Both of them.’
They sit in a companionable silence for a moment, listening to the robin. Clem reflects on the vulnerability behind Janna’s happy-go-lucky façade: her need to be loved, to be part of a family, and the fear that drives her from just such a commitment as soon as it begins to make demands upon her. He is working up his courage to suggest a solution to her fear.
Janna draws up her feet and laces her fingers around her knees. ‘Want a cuppa?’
He shakes his head. ‘I wanted to show you something, actually, over in the Coach House. There’s nobody around and it won’t take long. Come on, before I shut the banties up for the night.’
She gets up slowly, reluctantly, and goes with him through the orchard and round to the front door of the Coach House. He leads her along the hall and up the stairs, branching left at the top, away from the main bedrooms, and passing along a short corridor to a room in its own wing at the end. He opens the door and lets her go ahead of him. She goes in slowly, looking around at the large, light room that was once full of lumber. It has a big window looking west across the fields and the village out to sea, and a roof-light facing north. She goes at once to the big window.
‘I’ve never been in here,’ she says. ‘’Twas never used for guests, was it?’
‘It’s never been needed,’ he says, trying to hide his eagerness. ‘There’s so much space here, isn’t there? We thought, Father Pascal and I and the Sisters, whether you might like it as your own room … if you were to move in here.’
She stands at the window, staring out, and he can feel her unwillingness to be persuaded or coerced into any immediate decision.
‘It’s just an idea,’ he says quickly. ‘It’s on its own here at the end, and there’s a room below it that’s been used as a bed-sitting-room by visiting priests on silent retreats, which you could have as a living-room. It’s got a tiny kitchen and a door out into a little courtyard so you could have your own outside entrance and, when the other alterations are being done, we thought that we could put in a spiral staircase from the corner over there directly down to it. That way you’d have doors connecting you to the rest of the house but you could move freely within your own quarters.’
Clem waits whilst she turns and looks around the room and finally at him. He raises his eyebrows hopefully and she smiles rather doubtfully.
‘Just think about it, that’s all,’ he says. ‘Now, come and have a look downstairs.’
‘Phil?’ Mr Caine is on the cliff path, looking down on the beach where a few of the locals are playing football in the dusk. ‘Have you heard the latest? … Thought you hadn’t. Listen. His Serene Bloody Highness is only over the moon, that’s all … I know, I know. We thought it was all over and then the solicitor boyfriend says that if it’s a retreat house then it isn’t a convent. And even better, the nuns, so I hear, are moving out of the house and into the Coach House so even more ammunition … Yeah, that’s why I’m still here, well, some of the time. You never know what crumb you might pick up in the pub or in the shop … He’s well pleased, I can tell you … So you’re back in the frame, mate. He wants you to get a letter from the old duck in charge … Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I know you’ve had one already but that was just mooting the possibility of the retreat house. He wants you to write asking her if she’s really certain about these plans and if she’d like to reconsider your offer. We’re hoping she’ll come back with something really positive this time. It might not be necessary in the long run but it might speed things up a bit. See? … Get on with it then, and I’ll tell him it’s all in hand. Might get a bonus for this one, mate.’
He’s reached the bottom of the path and suddenly he’s surrounded by yelling, shouting boys, who jostle and push him so that he has to duck and dive and fold his arms around his head to protect himself. It seems that they are trying to snatch his mobile and he shouts then, gripping it tightly in his hand, lashing out with the other. And just as suddenly they are gone again, racing across the sand with their ball, screaming harshly like the gulls above them.
‘Bloody lunatics,’ he shouts, heart pounding, and then glances round quickly to see if he is being watched. His cover is wearing thin, he knows that, but he must keep up appearances a little longer. He walks quickly through the village to where he has left his car, and climbs in and sits still for a minute, regaining his poise before he drives back to the farm.
* * *
‘I’m sorry, sweetie,’ Rupert says, ‘but you know how it is, don’t you? There’s simply nothing I can do about it. I’ll definitely be up the following weekend. Look, the plumber’s just arrived. I’ll phone again this evening. Must dash.’
Kitty slams her mobile down on the table. Sally, who has popped in to bring Mummy some flowers, raises an eyebrow.
‘Problems?’ she asks sympathetically; hopefully.
‘No, not really,’ snaps Kitty. She would like to scream with frustration but she won’t let Sally see any cracks in her relationship with Rupert. There is something about Sally’s watchfulness that is wearing her down, but she can’t bring herself to let off steam or to voice her tiny fear that Rupert is less keen to get home these days. She doesn’t want to see the flash of triumph in Sally’s eyes; to hear the satisfied note in her voice. Sally has always resented the fact that her best friend escaped the round of ordinary married life by disappearing to Cornwall and living an almost gypsy existence with a deeply desirable man and having a really good time, while her contemporaries were juggling with jobs and babies and childcare.
Sally has always predicted that payback time will come for the evasion of such responsibilities, and now she asks, ‘So he isn’t coming home this weekend?’
‘No,’ answers Kitty brightly. ‘No. Crucial things are happening and the plumber’s booked in for Saturday. He’ll be up for Mummy’s birthday, though.’
‘Why don’t you pop down to see him?’ suggests Sally. ‘Take him by surprise.’
Kitty stares at her. ‘I can’t leave Mummy,’ she begins uncertainly.
Sally smiles. ‘I can look after your mum,’ she says. ‘Or you can get that nice carer in. You went before, ages ago, when the weather turned nasty and you got snowed in. And once or twice since, just for the day. This time you could just dash down unexpectedly. Give him a nice surprise.’
They look at each other.
‘Go on, lovey,’ says Sally softly. ‘It might do you both good. After all, he’s always on your territory here, isn’t he? Much more romantic down there, I should think, in all this wonderful sunshine and no dear old Mummy down the corridor. Why don’t you give it a whirl?’
‘I might,’ says Kitty uncertainly, wondering why her stomach clenches with anxiety at the thought. ‘I just might do that.’
‘Just imagine how he’d feel if you were driving up this minute and getting out of the car and he’s working away like mad at whatever and suddenly sees you. Imagine how thrilled he’d be.’
‘I’ll definitely think about it,’ says Kitty. ‘Are you staying to lunch?’
‘This weather is amazing,’ Dossie is saying to Rupert, sitting at the picnic table with the remains of a shared lunch between them: pâté and fresh rolls and cheese. They’ve just made love and she feels energized and relaxed all at once. ‘After all that dreary rain it’s so wonderful to feel the sun on my back again. I feel I can manage anything if the sun is shining.’
She is so happy; so full of hope. She’s got The Court a listing on the West Country Tourist Board website, and Pa and Mo have sent emails to some of their special old B and B-ers. Already they’ve had delighted answers back from couples who loved to walk the coastal paths and explore the beaches and the pubs, booking up for the spring and summer. The Court is back in business.
‘And what about you?’ she asks Rupert, having told him all her good news. ‘What will you do when you’ve finished here? What a shame that you couldn’t get your offer accepted on that cottage we saw.’
This is the one little flaw in her happiness: that Rupert won’t be nearby working on another cottage. He’s frowning a little, pursing his lips regretfully.
‘They keep telling us that it’s a buyers’ market but it’s not true,’ he says. ‘It was way over price but the old devil wasn’t giving an inch and I simply couldn’t risk it.’ He shakes his head, shrugs. ‘Something else will come along. It always does.’
‘And meanwhile you’ll stay here?’
‘Through this winter, probably. I shall finish it and then I might let it on a short-hold tenancy next spring. It hasn’t been a brilliant summer for holiday letting and I’m thinking that this might be the way to go forward.’
She nods. ‘It’s probably crazy going back into B and B-ing after a terrible summer like this but we’re lucky that we’ve got a long list of people who will be happy to come back to us. At least, that’s the theory.’
‘I feel absolutely certain you’ve made the right decision,’ he tells her. He smiles his sexy smile and grips her wrist for a moment and gives it a little encouraging shake. ‘I can just see you all. You and Mo and Pa. Sounds magic.’
‘You must come and meet them,’ she says lightly, heart knocking in her ribs. She’s made a little plan to move things along a bit and now she broaches it.
‘It’s Pa’s birthday at the end of the month,’ she says. ‘We’re having a tea party so that Jakey can come, and Sister Emily thought she’d rather like a little outing. There will be some of Pa’s friends too, and Clem, I hope. Perhaps you’d like to come along?’
He nods. ‘Sounds great.’
She is so relieved she feels quite faint. ‘Good. That’s good.’
They both turn at the sound of an engine: a van comes slowly down the lane and pulls into the verge. Rupert gets to his feet, a hand raised in greeting.
‘Damn. It’s the plumber,’ he says to Dossie. ‘Bloody awful timing. Sorry, love. I’m going to have to get on.’
‘It’s fine.’ She stands up, picking up her bag. ‘I ought be on my way. See you soon.’
‘Very soon, I hope. I’ll text you.’
She wonders if he might kiss her and he does, holding her tightly, though briefly. Then he is away across the little lawn to meet the man who’s climbing out of his van. Dossie hesitates and then calls, ‘’Bye then,’ and goes to her car. She drives away with a cheerful little hoot on the horn but Rupert is deep in conversation with the plumber and doesn’t seem to hear it.
Sister Emily and Janna are blackberry picking in the meadow below the house. Wasps crawl, heavy and slow, on the ripe fruit, drunk on the sweetness; thorny brambles trail over the grass, catching at the skirts of Sister Emily’s blue working habit. As they reach cautiously for the blackberries, stretching up as high as they can, other luscious globes dislodge and fall just beyond their grasp. Each time this happens Sister Emily cries out, vexed at losing even a single delicious berry.
Janna groans in sympathy. ‘Why are the best ones always out of reach? Look at those whopping great big ones up there on that bramble. Look, pull him down with your stick; easy now, nearly got them. Ooooh …’
And they cry out together in frustration as the blackberries drop into the thicket of thorn hedge. Picking up their big plastic containers, they move a little further along the hedge where clouded indigo-blue sloes ripen in the September sunshine.
‘Sloe gin?’ Janna suggests. ‘What d’you think?’
Sister Emily pauses, her eyes sparkling with the prospect of more gleaning.
‘But will you be here to share it with us?’ she wonders, and Janna turns quickly away as if she’s been stung by a sleepy wasp or pricked by one of the sharp thorns.
‘It’s going to be so exciting.’ Sister Emily drags a particularly clinging bramble from her skirt; the blue cloth is already snagged, threads pulled, from other past excursions. ‘Courses, workshops, Ignatian retreats. We’re getting feedback from other retreat houses now and there’s so much to learn and look forward to. We shall all be very busy. Is it being needed that frightens you?’
Janna is silent, trying to define her own feelings, and then speaks honestly.
‘I s’pose it does a bit. But it’s more than that. Sister Ruth and I just don’t get on and I can’t see it working at such close quarters.’
‘And have you always got on with the people you’ve worked with? If so you’ve been very lucky. Of course, there’s no place like a community for generating misunderstandings and quarrels but that’s simply a symbol of the general failing of one human person to understand another. Is it really all to do with Sister Ruth? I have seen great changes in you, Janna; a growth of confidence.’
‘Have you?’ She is pleased – and puzzled. ‘I’m not sure I feel it.’
‘Didn’t I see Sister Nichola wearing the shawl your mother gave you?’
‘Oh, that.’ Janna picks a few more berries. ‘Well, I wrapped it round her at that party we had for Stripey Bunny and she sort of went off with it. I haven’t had the heart to ask her for it back. She seems to wear it rather a lot.’
They both smile at the incongruity of the faded Indian shawl, with its glittering gold threads, wrapped about Sister Nichola’s ample shoulders over her sober habit.
‘But once,’ hazards Sister Emily, ‘I think that you’d have wanted it back, wouldn’t you? You cherished it and needed it. It was an important symbol.’
Janna does not answer immediately but continues to pick the fruit. The slanting afternoon sun is hot. Velvet-winged butterflies – meadow browns and tortoiseshells – flit and settle on the fruit, whilst shimmering clouds of midges dance in the still air; above them a pilgrimage of swallows cluster on the telephone wire, discussing routes in high sweet voices.
‘She seems to get some sort of comfort from it,’ Janna admits unwillingly at last. ‘Just now she needs it more than I do, that’s all.’
‘We all draw comfort from you, with the possible exception of Sister Ruth,’ says Sister Emily softly. ‘Commitment is hard, isn’t it? Commitment to God in a community can mean that we might be crucified by proximity or by loneliness, and so it is not to be undertaken lightly. But you need make no such undertaking. You can still walk away whenever you feel like it.’
‘I don’t want to walk away,’ Janna cries. ‘I love it here. If only we could have gone on as we were.’
‘What is the difference?’
Janna hesitates: what is the difference in living in the caravan or in the rooms Clem has shown her? Slowly she fumbles towards the truth.
‘When I first came to Chi-Meur you had Penny taking most of the responsibility for the cooking and that. I was happy just doing what was needed round the outside and helping her out, and then, when she was ill, it was like an emergency. You step in, don’t you? You cope somehow and then you find you’re OK with it. I’m used to that. Turning up for a job, filling in, helping out, moving on. That’s what I do. Now,’ she takes a breath, ‘now it’s got to be deliberate. There’s all these new ideas, new plans. And I’m part of it. I’ve got to take a proper role from the beginning. So, yeah, like it’s a total commitment to the future here and I don’t want to think that I can walk out on it. That’s not what it’s about, that I can go if I don’t like it. I’ve got to really want to do it, haven’t I? ’Tis like you said just now about being crucified. You chose that. You took a vow. Now, it’s like I’ve got to take a vow somewhere inside me and I don’t know if it’s right or if it’s what I want. I just don’t know!’
She looks suddenly as if she might cry, and Sister Emily puts an arm about her shoulders.
‘It’s never clear,’ she murmurs. ‘Sometimes it has to be a leap of faith. And it is never easy or perfect, just the best we can do at the time. But we are vouchsafed people on the journey to sustain and encourage us. We value you and feel that you have a special role here with us so we are reluctant to let you go simply because, just at the moment, you can’t see clearly. That’s all.’
There is a cry, a shout of greeting, the wild ringing of a bell, and they see Jakey wobbling over the meadow on his bicycle with Stripey Bunny in the basket on the back and Clem striding behind. Janna swipes away the tears from her eyes and waves back.
Sister Emily chuckles. ‘Saved by the bell,’ she says.