The House at Mermaid's Cove(6)

“Could I have something to read?”

“A Bible?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want him to think that I was turning away from all that. But the Bible was all I’d been permitted to read. I longed for something else. Something unfamiliar. “That would make me feel very much at home,” I said, “but could I have some other book, too? Anything you have—it doesn’t matter what.”

This time, when he left me, he didn’t lock the door. While he was gone, I slithered off the heap of sailcloth and got myself into a kneeling position, which allowed me to fashion the jumble of fabric into something resembling a bed. When I’d finished, I glanced at the cobweb-frosted window above my head, wishing I could get outside to open the shutters and let in some light. Was this morning or afternoon? I had no idea how many hours had elapsed since he’d found me. There was no bell to tell me the time.

In Africa my days had been regulated by the mission bell. It began with matins. I never really got used to being torn from sleep when it was still dark, to dress and go to chapel. Then, at daybreak, came the act of praise called lauds. The Divine Office continued at regular intervals until lunchtime, with prime, terce, and sext. At three the bell rang for none—afternoon prayers. Vespers came at five, and the final bell, for the anthem to the Virgin, was at eight o’clock. Whatever you were doing, when the bell rang you had to stop. Often it made me seethe inside. How could God want me to run off to the chapel when I was holding the hand of a patient who was dying?

I wondered what my days were going to be like now, without the rhythm and ritual of the religious life. I wasn’t turning my back on God. I couldn’t imagine giving up those daily prayers—but there would be nothing and nobody telling me to offer them up at a certain time, in a certain place. Obedience was the thing I’d struggled with more than anything. That vow was broken. But what about the others? Poverty? Chastity?

I knew nothing about money: how much things cost, how much I would need to earn to live independently. Men were another matter. Sister Clare had warned me on my first day at the mission hospital that a nun’s habit wouldn’t stop men from being interested in me. I’d worked with them, taken care of them. Belgian doctors, Congolese nursing assistants, patients from the villages, the mines in Katanga, and the government offices. I wasn’t immune to the surreptitious glances I sometimes attracted. But I’d always had the starched white wings of my wimple to hide behind. What would it be like to go out into the world without that protective armor?

I dropped onto all fours and began crawling across the room in a bid to distract myself from the bewildering chatter inside my head. There was a row of shelves between the windows. They were filled with all kinds of fishing paraphernalia: reels, hooks, knives, floats. But as I paused to look, something else caught my eye. Tucked in a shadowy corner of the middle shelf were five small, slim books. By stretching up I was just able to reach them. I pulled one out, angling the cover to the light cast by the lamp. Tide Tables for Falmouth and South Cornwall 1938. Cornwall. The finger of England that pointed west, to America. So that was where the sea had brought me.

The other four books were the same, but for different years. Each gave the times and heights of the local tides for every day of the year, along with the times of sunrise and sunset and the phases of the moon. There were blank pages at the end of each of the books, some of which had been written on. There were dates with the names of different fish alongside them: sardines, mullet, bass. I wondered if this was Jack’s handwriting.

I put the books back and crawled on, to a door to what turned out to be a toilet. There was a bucket of water beside it and strips of newspaper threaded onto a loop of string that hung from a hook on the wall. I wondered how I was going to be able to get myself onto the seat. I glanced behind me. Perhaps I could fashion a crutch from something. The fishing rods looked too flimsy. And the oars were too long. I shuffled my way to the stove and rummaged through the sticks on the floor.

“Alice.”

I hadn’t heard him come in. It was so odd, hearing him call my name—as if it were another woman he was addressing, not me. Alice had been left behind with my hair, my watch, and the photo of my parents the day I became Sister Anthony. As I battled to become that new person, it had often felt as if I were standing outside my body, watching myself wrestle with a stranger. A girl with fierce eyes and wild hair whose stubborn traits I was trying to subdue.

“Alice—are you all right?”

“Yes . . . I . . . I was looking for a stick. To help me get around.”

“I should have thought of that.” He put down the sack he was carrying and went back outside, returning with an ax in his hand. He reached for one of the half dozen oars propped against the wall. In a deft movement he chopped it in half. Then he emptied the sack and wrapped it around the broad end of the broken oar, securing it with a piece of string. “It’s not ideal,” he said, as he brought it to show me. “But hopefully it’ll do the job.”

I practiced hobbling around while he stoked up the fire. The ball of my right foot was very painful, but the left one was only sore around the ankle. I found that I could hop with that foot if I leaned on the improvised crutch. There was a pair of Wellingtons near the door, and I asked him if I could borrow them.

“They’ll be very big on you.”

“It doesn’t matter—it’s just to stop the bandages getting dirty.” When I’d done a circuit of the room, I asked him if I could go outside and open one of the window shutters to let in a little light.