Sisters in Sin. Primula Bond

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      ‘I’ll keep my mouth shut on one condition. That you spill it all out to me.’

      She shook her head, tucking imaginary strands of hair behind her ears and tugging the hood over her veil. A blast of cold air whistled round the corner, and we shrank back into a doorway.

      I tried again. ‘Sister, tell me what’s wrong. Something is bothering you, I can tell, and I’m extremely good at keeping secrets.’ I lowered my voice. ‘You can use me as your confessor, if you like.’

      A tear sparkled in the corner of her eye. I swear if I didn’t know better I’d have had her down as some kind of actress. Because it got me right where it was supposed to. I was already putty in her hands.

      ‘They’re tugging me every which way. Him, and them. They’re all ripping me in half!’

      Now I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Calm down with the melodramatics, honey. It can’t be that bad.’

      She hesitated, then clasped her hands together. ‘Carlo, he’s my old boyfriend, you see, from when I was young. We bumped into each other last summer, just before I was going in to the convent, literally when I was on my way there. I had just left my family. Well, my cousins. The others won’t speak to me. I was saying goodbye.’

      ‘Goodbye?’

      I decided to be patient, almost unheard of for me. After all, it hadn’t taken much persuasion for her to pour her heart out. It would be worth it just to hear what else had been going on up there in that bedroom.

      She was quiet for a moment so we restarted our snail’s pace, past tourists studying maps, workers carrying briefcases, a crocodile of children coming home from school. On a wider stretch of canal a barge chugged past us, a grand piano lashed to its deck. Nobody looked at us. Two women, deep in conversation, a nun and a sharp-looking businesswoman – what was to notice?

      ‘It’s a closed order. We are not allowed to speak to outsiders except through a grille. It’s silent, and it’s bliss. We’re not even allowed to speak to our Sisters unless we’re working, and then we chatter like starlings though we’re not supposed to. We’re not even supposed to have favourite friends, though of course we do. I work in the winery. I have just produced my own label. La Religieuse. I trained as a wine taster in London, you see. It’s very potent, and pre-order sales have already meant they can afford to restore the frescoes in the chapel.’

      ‘Yes, yes, enough already about all that. What I want to know is, if it’s all such bliss in there why do you keep running away to see Carlo?’

      That flush as she considered the question. Those parted lips. Having heard what sounds she could make I could easily imagine that lovely face melting as she flung herself in ecstasy under the muscular body of her lucky boyfriend. It must be like Christmas every day for him when he heard the secret knock, saw his hooded visitor at the door, when he pulled her into his grotty little house and unpeeled her cumbersome clothes to get to the white nakedness beneath. Her pale thighs opening for him on that creaking bed, him falling on top of her, pushing himself inside her, the shadows falling upon their writhing, bucking bodies …

      I sat her down gently on the steps of a church. Hell, I was the one who needed to sit down. We watched some old men in a workshop hammering and moulding various slim pieces of wood to form the curved ribs of a gondola.

      ‘I told you! I’m torn between the two! I love him, but I love my Sisters and my other life, too. It’s what I have chosen. One day soon I’ll either be locked in for good. Or locked right out.’

      ‘So how did this thing with Carlo start over?’

      She swallowed and stared back the way we’d come. ‘I’d said my farewells and I was walking along the beach on the Lido, trying to calm myself down before I took the vaporetto back to the city, and there was Carlo coming out of the sea like some kind of god. When I last saw him he was a skinny teenager and now he’s, oh God, he’s all man, he was in these tight swimming shorts, really tanned and muscled, big shoulders.’

      ‘Big everything?’

      A little snuffle of laughter escaped her. She clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Yes! You couldn’t miss it! And there was me trudging along, no make-up, hair already chopped off, eyes red from crying.’

      ‘He saw you in this get-up?’ I plucked at her skirt, expecting her to slap my hand away. I lifted it a little. Her ankles were dainty in the hideous shoes. I lifted the skirt a little higher. I couldn’t stop myself. And she didn’t stop me. Higher, and I saw that she was wearing thick black stockings, which should have been ugly but were enticing in a St Trinian’s kind of way, and even more so when I saw that they were fastened at the top by black suspenders. My stomach gave a surprised clench of desire at the sight of her smooth white flesh above the industrial-strength wool. I had a mad urge to see what kind of knickers a nun would wear, but belatedly she slapped my hand away.

      ‘Oh, this isn’t a proper habit. This is just for novices, and they make it as scratchy and hot as hell. But I always wore very plain clothes, no jewellery, no heels. No adornment at all.’ She sighed. I smelt sweet, chocolatey breath. ‘I hadn’t looked at a guy for years. Not been interested. I guess it made the call from God all the easier to answer.’

      The way she said it made it believable. If I had to listen to someone banging on about a call from God while sitting in a pub in Clapham or on a rooftop bar in Manhattan I’d have snorted with derision. But sitting here on the steps of this church in a corner of this magical maze of a city? Listening to this very real, almost petulant girl? Being called by God somehow made perfect sense, however inconvenient it must have been. I felt a physical tug to get closer.

      ‘So how old are you? You look too young to have been struggling with this, this call, for years.’

      ‘I’m twenty-three. Nearly twenty-four.’ She pulled herself up like a little soldier and something in my heart gave way a little more. ‘And I was – I am – more than ready.’

      ‘Go on, Sister. I want all the details of this wicked assignation.’ I nudged her. ‘It’ll make you feel so much better.’

      ‘He’d changed so much, but he recognised me instantly.’

      ‘Your face is the same.’

      ‘Oh, signora! That’s exactly what he said!’ She clasped my arm with her little fingers. ‘Oh God, those old feelings came rushing back, even though he was the one who hurt me! He was my first – my last – and I was trembling, churning stomach, weak knees, breathlessness, and he was right in front of me, and he knew, he told me later, he knew exactly what I was planning to do, he could tell from my horrible clothes and hair and also the grave expression on my face, and that’s why he barely said a word, he just dragged me off the beach into this little hut where he’d been painting tourist portraits all summer, just a few blankets, cooking stove, glasses, beer, and we just kissed and kissed, and his mouth and his tongue pushing in and he practically had a beard, oh, I had such a scratched sore chin when I finally got to Santa Maria!’

      I presumed that was the convent and the name was like a cold shower over both of us.

      ‘Tell me, Sister,’ I urged her, pressing my hand on her thigh. ‘Offload all this angst. Indulge an embittered old bag and tell me!’

      ‘You’re not an old bag, signora! You’re so beautiful!’

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