In praise of nuns

Although I was ten minutes early, Vernon was there ahead of me, framed in the ancient chapel doorway, chatting up what is by general agreement the prettiest of the nunnery’s seven sisters. Vernon is a great bear of a man, raised in poverty in the Appalachian mountains, now wealthy, whose speaking voice is Jack Nicholson’s. A new friend, Vernon excites me because having endured real poverty he fiercely repudiates the glorification of anything that might be categorised under the heading of low life and calls me to order if I err in that direction conversationally.

Vernon had brought the nuns three bottles of his homemade olive oil in a carrier bag. I bowled up as he was handing them over. Framed by the ancient chapel door, the sloppily dressed giant and the tiny nun in the huge starched wimple, a supermarket carrier bag suspended between, made a striking composition. When I drew level, Vernon introduced me to the nun. I’d never met a real nun before. The nun’s face, showcased in the perfect oval of the wimple, turned to mine. From 18 inches away, her youthful prettiness, gentleness and radiant saintliness so wildly exceeded every stereotype in my imaginative arsenal that I laughed at her. Vernon looked faint and pale with desire. The sister took her leave with smiling grace and passed inside to prepare for Vespers. Vernon shook his face as though he’d walked through a spider’s web and we followed the nun inside.

The chapel interior is dark and austere. A few rows of pews, then tall, park-sized railings separating the holy from the public area. But it is the acoustics one notices first on entering. You can literally hear a pin drop. The lifting of the door latch rings out like a gunshot. And when the nuns begin to sing, their soaring, piercing voices make you look for a microphone.

The present Benedictine nuns have been recently imported from Argentina to replace the previous community of terribly old French pied-noir refugees from an Algerian nunnery.