What Hanna now desperately needed was to think. But inevitably, two women turned up in the last ten minutes of opening time and stood in a corner discussing the relative merits of Barbara Cartland and Barbara Pym. Hanna covered the computers, pulled down the blind on the door, and announced that the library was closing. But the women took no notice. Eventually she had to chivvy them over the threshold, receiving the same outraged clucks and beady-eyed looks that she’d got as a child from the intrusive hens in Maggie Casey’s kitchen. As soon as they were gone, she set the security alarm, locked up, and crossed the courtyard, wondering where to go to find peace and quiet.
It had been a glorious summer’s day and as she approached the parking lot she was acutely aware of sunlight in the garden beyond it. When a corner had been carved out of the convent garden to provide parking, the boundary had been established with a low brick wall. The neglected garden beyond it now retained little sense of the gravel walks and well-kept beds between which generations of nuns had walked in quiet seclusion. All the box hedges were overgrown, the trees were unpruned, and the statue of the Virgin in the railed area that was once the nuns’ graveyard was lost among rambling roses.
Now, with her keys in her hand, Hanna hesitated by her car, listening to the birds singing in the nuns’ garden. She didn’t want to go home to the bungalow. But where else could she go? She couldn’t drive over to Maggie’s house. For all she knew, Fury might be there. And even if he wasn’t, how could she sit in a place she had come to love and contemplate the ruin of her plans for it? The house with its sloping clifftop field was to have been a sanctuary where she would face an unknown future with renewed confidence. To sit on the stones above the shining ocean with nothing in prospect but debt and unemployment seemed unbearable.
As she hesitated, she heard footsteps behind her. In a moment someone would turn a corner and see her. And having to stand and make small talk seemed the worst option of all. Almost without thinking, she stepped over the low wall and slipped between two ash trees into the nuns’ garden.
It was nothing like Maggie’s field where the tops of the rough grasses had been crisped by the wind from the ocean. Here the untended grass grew lush and green under tall elder and alder trees and frilled mushrooms glowed in the leaf mold under the oaks. The little railed graveyard was set against the wall of the convent building, with the headstones facing the stained-glass windows that had once lit the nuns’ refectory. The rest of the garden was laid out in a series of gravel paths and formal beds. Generations of weeds had sprouted in the unraked paths and straggling plants now grew among briars. Where four paths met, a statue of St. Francis with arms extended stood on a plinth in a wide granite basin. Water had once flowed from lead pipes concealed among the stone flowers around the statue’s feet. Now the basin was dry.
Treading carefully, Hanna moved farther into the garden. Beyond the statue of St. Francis was a bench, half-hidden by a blowsy hydrangea. She walked toward it along rutted gravel that scrunched underfoot. The bench was made of silvery wood, bleached by time and lack of care. Hanna sat down on it, leaned back, and closed her eyes. Though she had attended the convent school she had never before been in the nuns’ garden; back then it had been presented as a secluded sanctum steeped in holiness, an idea fostered by the fact that it could only be accessed from the nuns’ side of the building, where the pupils never went. For a few moments she concentrated on switching her focus back and forth between the distant sound of traffic and the song of a robin behind her. The mental gymnastics occupied her brain and eased her troubles briefly. Then the robin was silent, and, opening her eyes, she saw that she wasn’t alone.
Startled, she sat upright. In front of her was a stocky, white-haired woman dressed in a neat navy-blue skirt and cardigan, a white blouse, and black laced shoes. Her hands, which were linked at her waist, were knotted by rheumatism, and, though she radiated a quiet energy, she must have been well into her eighties. Hanna automatically assumed the voice she used for the old dears in the library.
“Are you lost? Can I help you?”
The woman sat down beside her and folded her hands in her lap. “No, I’m not lost. I live here.”
“Here?” Hanna looked around at the neglected garden. Clearly this was a demented old biddy who’d have to be taken care of. She had reached for her phone and was already mentally calling the police station when, glancing at the wrinkled face beside her, she caught a look of amused intelligence. Then the faded blue eyes blazed with humor and the old woman held out her hand.
“Technically, of course, you’re a trespasser but, sure, I wouldn’t let that worry you. I’m Sister Michael.”
It took several seconds for Hanna to remember what she’d vaguely known ever since she’d returned to Finfarran—that two elderly nuns still lived in the convent building. Apparently this was one of them.
The old woman looked at her inquiringly. “Were you a pupil here yourself?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid I’m not sure that I remember you.”
“No, well you wouldn’t, I wasn’t a teacher. I worked in the kitchen.”
She must have been one of the lay sisters whom the pupils had occasionally glimpsed in the corridors. Usually they were the daughters of large families, who had gone into the nuns, as people used to say, because they had no dowry to bring to a marriage. But the nuns, too, required a dowry from those who joined the order, so girls without money provided domestic help in the convent. In her school days Hanna had always thought of them as a bit downtrodden, but the woman beside her had a quiet air of confidence that was extraordinarily restful.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a chuckle. “Not exactly Miss Havisham, am I?”
It was so precisely what Hanna had been thinking that she found she had nothing to say. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had an image of the surviving nuns as veiled figures drifting through shuttered rooms, lit by a Gothic glow from tarnished candlesticks. Sister Michael in her laced shoes and polyester cardigan didn’t fit the picture at all. The nun laid her hand on Hanna’s arm. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
Taken aback, Hanna shook her head and said of course not; she was a trespasser in this woman’s garden so she could hardly say anything else.
“What has you so angry?”
Hanna could never quite explain to herself what happened next. The direct question seemed to unblock something inside her and suddenly tears were spilling down her face. What sort of an ass must she be, that men could so easily fool her? First Malcolm and now Tim. She had trusted them. Not in the same way, of course, because Malcolm was her husband whereas Tim was just a friend. But in the end it all boiled down to the same thing. They had both lied to her because they’d both known she’d be fool enough to believe them. Prompted by the occasional quiet question from Sister Michael, she poured out the whole story of Malcolm’s betrayal, Tim’s perfidy, her own vision for Maggie’s place, and the shocking discovery that now she was threatened with unemployment and unpayable debt. Of course she was angry, she wailed, she felt like a total fool for not seeing what was happening. And she had no one to blame but herself. There was a long pause in which she heard the song of the robin again and the sound of cars on Broad Street. The old woman sat beside her, saying nothing. Eventually, Hanna reached for a tissue and blew her nose. She felt incredibly tired. Resisting an urge to rest her head on her knees, she turned and looked at Sister Michael. The faded blue eyes met hers thoughtfully.
“Do you know what it is, girl, I’d say you were a terrible time-waster.”
It was the last response that Hanna had expected. Sister Michael planted her sensible shoes in the gravel.
“Your husband was a cheat and this Slattery man’s a liar. That’s no shame on you, girl. But sitting there snuffling when you should be getting organized! That’s a mortal sin.”
Hanna opened her mouth to reply but, to her amazement, the nun winked at her.
“I’d say what you’d want to do now is forget about your feelings and start fighting back.”
“But what can I do?”
“Well, the first thing we’ll do is attend this consultation meeting in Carrick. We’ll keep a low profile, mind, but we’ll check out the lie of the land. I’d like to see your Tim Slattery for myself.”