Farewell To The East End

are expected to behave. The reaction of the drivers can only be imagined. Sister Monica Joan would have been wearing the full monastic habit of her Order. If you were a businessman going to your next appointment, such an apparition weaving its way unsteadily into the road must have looked like a visitation from God – or perhaps the devil. When the apparition tapped on your window and started a long, convoluted yarn about pretty nieces in Richmond, and how she had got a new lotion from the woman in the market for the one with spots, but she suspected blackheads really, guaranteed to make them go away, and that was why she needed to get to Richmond, but buses were so difficult, you would probably have thought you were going a bit mad, particularly if the business lunch had been of the liquid variety.
    Without exception the drivers refused, but Sister Monica Joan persisted in what to her mind was a perfectly reasonable request. The man had a car, and she did not, she would point out. It would surely be no inconvenience to him to make a small detour to Richmond? She knew the address – what was the difficulty? She was a lady inclined to become extremely cross and snappish if she did not get her own way, and many of the conversations ended in acrimony.
    Several times, while she was still talking, the lights turned green, and the traffic started up again. Lorries in the free-moving lane passed alarmingly close as she stood in the road. The car driver, who would still be trying to reason with her, could not start, and there would be honking and hooting and shouts from frustrated motorists piled up behind. Eventually (and this happened several times) she would accept that the car driver was not going to Richmond and would not divert his journey to take her, and she would totter back to the pavement, only to try again when the lights turned red and another car stopped on the nearside lane.
    After half a dozen such attempts she was caught in the act by two policemen, who observed her actions for a few minutes and then apprehended her for causing an obstruction to the traffic and for endangering her life and that of others. Sister Monica Joan was very sensitive about policemen and protested violently at finding herself between two of them, and being escorted back to the convent.
    After this little escapade, Sister Julienne begged her to take taxis, and hang the expense.

    A printed letter arrived for Sister Monica Joan from Wandsworth Borough Council, stating that a lady’s hand bag containing a little money, a prayer book, a pair of spectacles and a set of false teeth had been found and awaited her collection at a lost property office in West London. Sister Julienne was taking no chances. A taxi was ordered to collect Sister Monica Joan, to take her to the address on the letter and to return her to the convent.
    Four hours later the taxi returned. The driver said that when he reached West London, she said that she had forgotten or lost the piece of paper giving the address. She knew she should be going to a lost property office but she was not sure which one. So she had instructed him to drive to all the lost property offices in the area, which amounted to fifteen throughout Fulham, Putney, Chelsea, Wimbledon, Kingston, Twickenham and as far west as Hampton Court. No handbag was reclaimed. He must have missed the one where it was, he said. Anyway, the old lady seemed to have enjoyed herself. She’d had a nice day out. She had enjoyed going over Hammersmith Bridge so much that she had instructed him to go back, and then to go over it again, he said. He had looked after her and brought her home safely. The cost was so astronomical that Sister Julienne thought she would have to consult the Reverend Mother again. Where would it all end?

    Novice Ruth was the first person up that morning. She was approaching her first year professional vows and wanted an hour of private devotion alone in the chapel before her Sisters joined her. The time was four a.m., and it being summer, the dawn was breaking and light was returning to the world. She walked quietly along the passage, turned the corner and found Sister Monica Joan lying on the floor. She was breathing, but her eyes were wide open and staring, her pulse was bounding and she was twitching intermittently. She had wet herself and could not be roused. Novice Ruth fetched a pillow and placed it under her head and wrapped a warm blanket around her. Then she telephoned the doctor and