I think Veronica sent you to Lagos to test your vocation. And that’s fine too, Keelin. It’s much easier to leave now than it was when I joined, and if that’s what you decide to do, at least you will have peace of mind knowing the life of a nun was not for you.

Try and be happy,

Your loving aunt,

Brigid

Her aunt’s letter came as a shock. She hadn’t expected Brigid to urge her to leave so easily. She couldn’t leave. She wouldn’t leave this early in her novitiate. Keelin shook her head angrily, remembering her mother’s prediction: ‘It will all end in tears.’ She’d stick it out for at least six more months, which would bring her up to a year as a novice, and then she’d consider her options.

*

Four months in, Mère Benedict told her the Reverend Mother wished to see her. Keelin’s heart sank. She’d very little to do with Mère Gertrude, a wry, spry seventy-year-old Frenchwoman who had spent most of her life in Africa. Was the Reverend Mother going to tell her she wasn’t good enough for the Order? Keelin wondered anxiously, thinking how ironic it would be if she got the boot rather than resigning. Perhaps Mère Benedict had complained about her attitude. Keelin found it hard to restrain herself sometimes when the nuns bossed her around. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the Reverend Mother’s office door.

‘Entrez,’ came the command. ‘Ah, Soeur Michael. Please sit down.’ The Reverend Mother gestured to the empty chair at the other side of her burnished teak desk. ‘You speak French, reasonably well, is this true?’ The question, in rapid French, caught Keelin off guard.

‘Oui, Mère Gertrude.’

‘Excellent. One of our teaching nuns on the Ivory Coast has been stricken with TB and must return to the Mother House in Paris to recover. The nun we had selected to replace her has suffered a nervous breakdown, so we are temporarily stuck. It has been decided to send you there until we sort out a permanent replacement from our professed nuns. The position is in one of our smaller compounds along the coast. Are you agreeable to this?’ The nun, sitting straight-backed with steepled fingers, eyed her keenly.

‘Certainement, Mère Gertrude.’ Keelin tried to keep the excitement out of her voice, for fear the offer would be withdrawn. ‘I am God’s willing servant,’ she added in a humble voice, hoping this would make her seem less eager and more pliable.

She wouldn’t be in a convent compound in the city. She’d be out where she’d always imagined, in the countryside, the real Africa, and it was going to be a smaller community, hopefully something like Brigid’s where she’d have much more freedom from the ‘nunny’ stuff.