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There is something intensely bleak about January.
The magic, the wonder, the excitement of Christmas are as if they’d never been; New Year celebrations nothing now but a general malaise to remind you that you are not a well person.
Oh, you have been here before, there have been other Januarys, a bus that brought you on a cold day to a cold town. End of holidays, beginning of term. Crystal clear, will the memory ever fade. I don’t think so. You have been sick on the bus journey and are in the misery of that feeble post vomiting state; the change from swaying bus to firm ground makes you sick again. You would gladly die but that is not an option.
A sprinkle of navy-clad figures in black stockings trudge the streets from the bus terminus dragging heavy suitcases past homes where it is still Christmas. Through lighted windows there is a glimpse that knifes, Christmas trees, families seated together for evening tea in the cosiness of home - other people’s homes. In my home too they are sitting down to tea.
Ahead is the vast unheated building that is the convent and tea in a cheerless refectory. Tea arrives in gallon-sized aluminum teapots and you drink from sturdy teacups. Later, there will be unpacking. But first you must find your bed. Traditionally there is a reshuffling of the previous term’s sleeping arrangements. Why? Who knows.
Impetuous child, what madness seizes you. You will not wait, not for one night, nor even one hour. You are out the gate running, on the street running, running, for there is a bus to catch.
Two nuns alighting from an incoming bus might have seen you, had they looked but, as is the way of nuns, they did not. Even so that causes you momentarily to hide. Then you are on the bus, hands clenched tightly in your pockets round your fare. It is all you have.
Town left behind, the bus hurtles through the gathering darkness of the countryside. You study the other passengers fearfully, what if they realise you are running away. In Mitchelstown you crouch low in your seat and ease a sigh of relief as the bus pulls out on its way. You are undetected. Arrival in Fermoy contrasts sharply with a similar arrival the week before Christmas. Then it was all excitement, welcome, hugs and kisses. Tonight it is cold and nobody waits. You feel unwanted.
Alighted from the bus you are still miles from home, but unfazed, you call on a rarely remembered aunt who arranges a lift home for you with a neighbour.
It is a night of bright moonlight. On the unfamiliar country road he passes your gate. You panic and begin to flap about - which annoys him. I have to turn, he snarls. He turns and you hop out, in too much of a hurry to thank him, good Samaritan that he is.
You’re home. Your happiness is tinged with anxiety. Even the dogs know you’re home and do not bark. Before knocking you stand at the door and hear the murmur of voices reciting the nightly Rosary. Then you knock; there is a prayerful pause while feet in slippers shuffle towards the door.
At the opening door your father, who never takes the holy name, swears mightily. “Jesus where are you going?”
Almost immediately there is a visit from a local garda. Briefly you have been a missing person, reported missing by the convent. Assured that you are safely home he goes on his way.
In the warm security of your bedroom you lie in bed, opening your eyes occasionally to make sure that the walls you see are the pink washed walls of your bedroom, not pallid convent walls.
The week that followed was a kind of strange hiatus. All the big guns, parents, local priests, are trained on you ignoring your pleas to be allowed remain at home. Tricky negotiations between them and the nuns result in a mellowing of the stance taken at first by the nuns. You are reinstated.
It is not what you wanted. Nor will it ever be. But it’s all there is.
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