Free Vow of Sanctity by Veronica Black Page B

she heard herself hailed from behind.
    ‘Sister Joan? Good afternoon.’
    ‘Good afternoon, Mrs McKensie.’
    Sister Joan paused and turned to enable the older womanto catch her up.
    Dolly McKensie, out of her shop, looked curiously rootless, the sunshine inexorably deepening the lines on what had been a pretty face, the grey in her hair more pronounced. She had taken off her flowered overall but her print dress and cardigan looked limp and depressed.
    ‘I’m not interrupting you?’ she asked, catching up.
    ‘I’m glad to have the opportunity of thanking you for the extra groceries,’ Sister Joan said cordially. ‘I was hoping you’d allow me to pay you for them.’
    ‘It was a gift.’ Dolly spoke almost sullenly.
    ‘Then I thank you for it,’ Sister Joan repeated.
    ‘Been over to the monastery?’ Dolly glanced out towards the island. ‘I’ve never been there myself. Seems a funny way to live, shutting yourself away from everybody like that – begging your pardon.’
    ‘It takes a particular kind of vocation. Like marriage.’ She stopped abruptly, feeling like kicking herself for her tactlessness.
    ‘Which my husband never had,’ Dolly said, the dark residue of an old bitterness in her voice. ‘Funny when you look back to see how clear everything is, isn’t it? Alistair married a non-Catholic from out of the district. I used to think that he’d chosen me because he loved me too much to let rules and regulations matter, but the truth is that he married me because he intended to carry on with his bachelor pleasures afterwards and he’d not insult a girl of his own faith by doing that. Not that he was any great shakes as a Catholic for all that. Never went to mass from one year’s end to the next. It was me who saw to it that our Rory got to go to First Communion and all the rest of it. His dad took no interest in any of it, but I’ve a couple of aunts over in Aberdeen – not Catholics themselves but High Church. They got the local Catholic priest to see to Rory’s First Communion and his Confirmation later on. We went over to stay with them while it was all being done. Alistair never came near.’
    ‘I’m sorry. It was very good of you to take such trouble,’ Sister Joan said gently.
    ‘Not that it did any good in the end,’ Dolly McKensie said. ‘After his dad went off Rory took right against religion of any kind and I never did much to try to argue him out of it.Anyway that’s a long time ago. Are you enjoying your stay here?’
    ‘My period of retreat – yes, very much. I teach in a small school most of the year, so it’s wonderful to get a breathing space.’
    ‘Oh, you do work then?’ Dolly sounded unflatteringly surprised.
    ‘Yes indeed,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Ours is not a completely enclosed order. Those sisters who are constrained to earn a living outside the convent have leave to do so. Our earnings go into the general kitty. At the moment I’m the only one with an outside job, but one of the other sisters grows and sells vegetables and some of the others make illuminated cards and calendars. So we aren’t as idle as many people suppose.’
    ‘So a retreat makes a bit of a holiday for you,’ Dolly said. ‘Well, there’s many a time I’ve thought of doing the same thing myself – just shutting up shop and heading for the Costa Brava or somewhere.’
    Sister Joan, privately disagreeing as to the similarity between the Costa Brava and a cave high up a Scottish cliff, murmured something indeterminate.
    ‘Mind you, when things get a bit much I can always put the Closed sign up for an hour and come for a walk,’ Dolly said.
    ‘Doesn’t Rory mind the shop while you take a break?’
    ‘Rory has his own life to lead,’ Dolly said shortly. ‘You haven’t seen him this afternoon, by any chance? Sometimes he – he does a bit of fishing.’
    So she had followed her son, Sister Joan thought. And she doubted if Dolly had been interested in checking on his fishing. She was