I have been dreading this part of the blog, questioning why I am so bothered about writing it, because it is the part of my life that makes me feel a heaving sort of pain in my stomach. It is the point in my life when I had to go to boarding school. Before any reader decides that my parents are cruel and all that malarkey, please be aware that the only option in Malaysia after Alice Smith was a dodgy American International school where all the graduates, if they could be called that, emerged on drugs and with few qualifications, so there was no choice for them. Or stop reading. Or read. Your choice. Just don’t make judgements that are ill informed.
We left Malaysia to go around Germany and Switzerland to see my mother’s family over the summer, but I was unable to concentrate on any of it’s loveliness because my imagination was already taking me to the terrors that lay before me, the ones that my dear brother already knew only too well.
The first place was a little convent called Notre Dame in Lingfield, where most of the nuns were strange little Canadians, (I have nothing against Canadians, but Nuns? Not so keen) some with distinctly furry faces. The headmistress was a German lunatic, who shall be known in the blog as Sister Blister (it rhymes with her real name) who wore a bright orange wig under her habit. I hated her because within a month of setting foot on the damp earth of cold, miserable Great Britain, she approached me, at the time aged 11 years.
“Caaaatreeeeen. Come here raaaiiiiggght avay.”
“Yes, Sister Blister?
“You owe us £80. Das ist achtzig pfunds.”
“How so, Sister Blister? My parents are the people to turn to, if money is owed.”
“It is for your games skirt. It has not been paid. You owe it. I wish to receive it.”
“I don’t have the money, Sister. And I do not know how to obtain it other than writing to my parents. There is currently a postal strike, electricity strike and other things going on that I don’t understand. So how am I possibly going to reach them before Christmas. It can wait until then, can it not?” (It is possible my language was not as mature as I am pretending, but you get the general idea. I felt positively Dickensian)
Her answer, was of course, “No” or “Nein” (for dramatic effect).
This confrontation was a month after the worst four weeks I had experienced in my little life. I had found myself in a dormitory of about eight girls, all of whom struck me as weird and sad. I had cried myself to sleep every night having watched my parents who were also crying, walk down the corridor to the front door and leave me. I had been unable to eat any food, and had a sense of wanting to kill myself, if this was what life was to be for the next endless amount of years. My parents had taken me out for the weekend before they left the country and I had been in shock. I kept thinking how this could be resolved but with no answer, as getting a proper education appeared to paramount for anyone’s life to be good.
The bill, in the end got paid by friends of my parents, who were duly notified by snail post and repaid their friend gratefully. No one knew how the mix up had come about, but I continued to sit at the back of the sitting room in my dressing gown every night, trying to get a view of the small television above the heads of the bigger girls, so that Abba or the Dukes of Hazard could be enjoyed. I have never enjoyed them since.
Two years followed in which there were some nice memories and some terrible ones. The nice ones included becoming friends with a few of the day girls. One, who was a sweet, latch-key kid, took me to see Grease and Star Wars. I was a little concerned how her mother was never there, and she had to cook supper and clean the house (not very well but who would when they were 11years old with homework). Another girl, of Afro Carribean origin, who had a scholarship there took me to her home and I was very warmly received by her family. I also stayed with the prettiest and most popular girl in the class,( which at our age was obviously a bit of a coup), whose home was in Forest Row, very near the Rudolf Steiner school, so we hung out a bit with the BOYS and girls there. I was introduced to luxury as it was recognised in the 1980s which included shag pile carpets and Vidal Sassoon shampoo that smelt of sweet almonds.
She pierced my ears, which was against my mother’s agreement so what happened after that sent me into a somewhat religious phase. Another friend, now my oldest friend, known in this blog as the Italian, became livid with me going off and having these good times as she felt it was a rejection of her. So she, (she regrets all this by the way and apologised a billions times, so we have left it in the past), and the rest of the class sent me to Coventry at least six times in two years. This is no joke when you are with these people 24 hours per day, seven days a week. No one spoke to me no matter what I asked them. I can only describe it by memory as hell. But hey ho, I survived. But I became certain it was God’s punishment for piercing my ears, so I let them grow back together and wrote copious apologies to God for going against my mother’s wishes.
Another happy memory was when my Uncle took me out in his Jaguar and when I stayed he introduced me to my cousin and also did not force me to go to church. In the convent, we were only allowed a bath once a week, so for the rest of the time we had to strip-wash at basins. However, I, having been used to the nudist club, took all my clothes off when washing and was immediately yelled at by the nuns for lacking any modesty. Ludicrous people, I hope they are rotting in their own little hells, the ignorant, daft, twits.
Life became much better when I was moved to the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Woldingham or Wolditz as we liked to call it. I will describe that later in another blog but below is a passage that I wrote in my last year there, knowing that freedom was round the corner.
Summer evening, at school (Catie Walsh, maiden name, 1984)
The summer evening glowed. Birds were chirping and chatting playfully, and the sound of a clarinet filled the sweet, balmy air.
Tranquility reigned amongst the trees whilst people excitedly sang and clapped. Bats were having a ball, flipping against the
windows and then down to the ground, swooping like swallows, flapping like crows and squeaking like new shoes.
A light glowed at the lodge where someone was silently swotting. The picturesque building that was surrounding it had
shadows and nooks from which I expected living statues to poke their faces and glower oddly. The night seemed so quiet, yet so
very noisy, that the air was charged with unspent energy, and yet with mystery. It was almost unnerving, yet wonderfully
thrilling. I wish I knew exactly what the ingredients were for such a splendid feast for the senses, but such a situation, like
my mother’s Irish Stew, is unrepeatable and different every time.
Kate Terence's Letters from London 