Midnight Feast

Martina Evans

Description

'Midnight Feast', winner of a Betty Trask Award, is the dark and funny story of love in a convent boarding school. When sixteen year-old Grace arrives at Mayo, she immediately falls for the mercurial and glamorously thin Colette MacSweeney. She soon finds herself descending with Colette into life-threatening anorexia, entangled in the dysfunction that seethes below the surface of Colette's family. This is a new and revised edition."A story of charismatic starvation (rather like an anorexic Madchen in Uniform), Evans's prose shimmers somewhere strange and changeable between peculiarly heightened realism and sheer fever." - Ali Smith, Times Literary Supplement"She'll give the Dublin Boys a good run for their money one day." - Amanda Craig, Literary Review"Superb" - Kate Figes, The Independent on Sunday"A nightmarish tale of two convent girls' descent into life-threatening bulimiacommunicates the irrationality of childhood fears and passions as well as the incomprehensible affliction of eating disorders." - The Irish Times

Informations

• Publié par: eBook Versions
• Date de parution: 06 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781843962724
• Langue: English

Extrait

Martina Evans





MIDNIGHT FEAST






BLOOM BOOKS
Published in 2013 in the
United Kingdom by Bloom Books
[e-mail]

Author’s website
www.martinaevans.com

Copyright © 1996 Martina Evans.

Martina Evans has asserted her right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
1988 to be identified as the author of
this work.

ISBN 978-1-84396-244-1

A CIP catalogue record
for this ebook is available
from the British Library

Cover design by
L ad in Evans and Joanna Bryniarska

Kindle edition production
www.ebookversions.com

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form
or by any means electronic,
photomechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without
the prior written permission
of the publisher. Any person who
does any unauthorised act in
relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution.
Acknowledgement


The author wishes to acknowledge her
debt to Women s Secret Disorder:
A New Understanding of Bulimia
by Mira Dana and Marilyn Lawrence
For L ad in
Contents


Title Page
Copyright Credits
Acknowledgement
Dedication

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
One


September 1977

My mother loved it. She could never get enough of it. And she got plenty of it, the night I arrived at Mayo.
I liked sympathy, too, but I got hardly any. And none from Sister Paul.
Bringing up your daughter on your own. Without a man in the house and struggling against it all, to send her to the best of schools. Are you pure thankful? Paul asked me.
Well, it hasn t been easy, my mother said.
Easy! How could it be easy? Sister Paul s grey eyes were on me. Too good is what you are. Isn t she, Grace? And are you proud of your mother now getting back into the civil service. A woman all by herself. Later in life. Thanks be to God they removed the marriage ban and gave hardworking women a chance. There mustn t be another woman like you, Mrs Jones in the whole of Ireland. Is there?
Her eyes pinned me down, and I hope you will be half the woman your mother is.
I wanted to look away, but I couldn t. I stared back at the two grey eyes, which fused into one desperate big eye. Like Balor the Fomorian.
You won t be able to lie back here and pretend you re not brainy with that example before you.
Listen. Listen now to Sister Paul, Grace. She knows what she s talking about, my mother stood with her limp tan gloves in her hands.
Sister Paul s voice softened towards my mother, But sit down, sit down, Mrs Jones and take the weight off your feet. You must be worn out altogether, Paul looked at me as if I was doing the wearing. Sister Carmel is getting you tea now so.
Footsteps came along the corridor. Too quick for a nun. They stopped and the door opened and I saw her. Like a band of white light, kneeling over her spilled luggage. Fair-haired. Fierce thin. Her eyebrows were like Spock s, except they didn t curl up at the ends as much as his did. Pulling the edges of the old bag together, she stuffed the clothes back. Small Sister Carmel had put the tea tray down on the hall table and pushing her veil back as if it was an embarrassing head of long hair, she was trying to help. Tinny music came out of the blonde girl s pocket.
Sister Paul and my mother had their backs to the door. They couldn t see her. I stared down the V between their two bodies. She smiled at me. The way a boy would. Taking a long time.
It s all right, Sister, I ve got them now. The girl pulled the bag away from Sister Carmel and ran off down the corridor.
Sister Paul and my mother turned around.
What was that? asked Sister Paul, her red mouth hanging open.
A transistor radio, Sister Carmel answered straight away. I told them to turn it off.
And who had the cheek and audacity to be playing a radio in the convent premises?
I don t know, said Sister Carmel, her head bent over the tray as she put cups and saucers on the table. She wasn t wearing a uniform. It must have been one of the visitors.
Sister Paul had a habit of pinching herself when she was thinking. She did it now, pulling out a bit of her cheek. It looked painful. I thought I heard a familiar voice. I wonder, was she any relation to that MacSweeney girl? Oh, a troubled family! Let me tell you, Mrs Jones, the things we hear in this convent. We re like priests. We get all the problems. Confidential. Her grey eyes wandered over my face and back to my mother s.
Do you? my mother leaned closer.
We do, said Sister Paul and she looked at me again like she was in desperate agony. My mother looked at me, too. I was in their way. I was in the way of Sister Paul opening up . It was one of my mother s favourite things. She opened up to me, my mother would say, pure delighted. People were always opening up to her because she was so sympathetic. To everyone except me, of course. There was no sympathy for me.
Sister Carmel s tray was empty. She put it down and going to a small drawer took out a bundle of white damask table napkins. She put them on the table beside Paul and then stood with her small red hands folded at her waist.
How is everything going? Paul interrogated.
Grand, Sister Carmel said, softly.
And what about Mother Lorenzo s flower bed?
Sister Peter is clearing it up.
What a mess! I ve never seen such pillage!
I stiffened, feeling the back of my neck redden.
It looks like some wild animal. There was talk of a fox seen on the farm, Sister Carmel said, pursing her lips as if she was trying to be firm with Paul.
Fox, my eye! Paul said. It was a human fox, as you well know.
My mother bent over the silver spoons, examining them, running her fingers over them, feeling the design. I stared at the tips of her hairpins, glinting inside her bun and tried to will the blaze on my face to simmer down but it was beyond me.
Mr Cronin! I m sure of it. He s so awkward. Who gave that man a Volvo? Paul asked Sister Carmel who nodded and looked down. I could see now that Sister Paul s questions were not for answering. My mother lifted her dark head and darted me a look of pure triumph.
You ll have to excuse us, Mrs Jones, Paul said, but we ve had a flower bed ruined here tonight. Some vandal drove a car into it and broke all the railings. He didn t even have the gumption to own up. And we re all so upset. It belonged to Mother Lorenzo, she died only last year, the creature.
Ah, but, Sister Paul, I ve been through the mill myself with gardening, said my mother. Ask Grace. I m just mad about flowers. I was admiring that lovely Mahonia Japonica. Well, I ve never seen one look so good in September.
That s the one. You must have been the last person to see it in its glory.
'Oh no ! My mother flinched as if it was her flower bed that had been wrecked.
Some parents! said Sister Paul, You know, only that I can t say
You don t have to tell me, my mother said. I mean none of us are perfect but some parents...
They couldn t say what some parents did. Their eyes met in fierce frustration, waiting for me to go.
I looked at Sister Carmel. Her eyes were lowered.
I know the type. My mother put her hand on Sister Paul s black arm. Nouveau riche.' She gave me another delighted look as she pressed in the clips in her bun.
There was a fox seen on the farm, Sister Carmel persisted. Two chickens were found in a faint outside the henhouse.
Don t be bothering Mrs Jones now with talk about chickens, Sister Paul cut in. Why don t you take Grace along to the convent refectory so that she can meet some of the other girls? She turned to my mother. We always have a special tea in the convent for the girls, their first night back.
The openness of you. The trust. Sure, girls were never allowed into the convent in Grace s old school.
What a beautiful mother, you ve got, Paul said to me. You know you only look sixteen yourself, Mrs Jones, and your hair! That lovely French roll.
Well, I can t afford a hairdresser, my mother said. Oh but your skin, Sister Paul, I ve never seen anything like it. I have always noticed that nuns have the best skin.
Ah no, said Sister Paul.
My mother forgot to kiss me. She jumped when I put my cheek against hers and that made me jump back. At the door, I looked back, but they were whispering already, As I sit here before the picture of the Sacred Heart... the MacSweeneys... and As God is my judge... And their eyes were on each other as their hands were busy with the jug and the sugar bowl and the spoons.
You can tell me, it won t go beyond my mother was saying, as Sister Carmel clicked the door shut behind us.

The refectory was bursting with girls in bottle-green gymslips and white blouses. A long table covered with a white tablecloth held cake and sandwiches. She was there. I could see the outline of her arms through her transparent white blouse. She was talking to two small girls. They looked like first-years. Their faces were full of admiration and my heart started knocking.
Sister Carmel held my arm and guided me across the floor. We must find someone in your own year. Someone from Saint Joseph s dormitory.
Why Saint Joseph s?
That s where you ll be sleeping.
Sister Carmel was moving towards her. I held my breath. She looked about my age. She knew we were coming. She stopped