The Nuns/The Statue

by Graham Mort

IN CIVVIES, THE NUNS. Both wore a silver crucifix on a fine chain, so that was a clue. Nuns take holidays? Who knew? They were in their seventies, at least. They had the apartment three doors down. Courteous and kind, wearing almost identical spectacles and sandals, they introduced themselves when they heard us speak English. They were both Northern Irish. Rosheen from Dunmurry. Patricia from Lisburn. Though both lived in Glasgow now. Doing whatever nuns do when they retire from teaching in those Catholic schools. 

Now, here they were, taking a late holiday in a once-devout country. A Spanish fishing village heading up market. A stark white church hanging over the town, re-built after looting during the civil war. New villas climbing the hillside behind. New roadways to reach them. They seemed to walk up and down a lot, the nuns. Nodding at whatever the other one was saying. They told us they came back to the same place every year to improve their Spanish, giggling like schoolgirls at that.

The statue stood just at the top of a short flight of steps, where a gravel walkway led from the harbour to a coastline of rocky inlets, moored fishing boats and pleasure yachts. It stood across from the fishing cooperative, with its lobster pots and fork-lift trucks. Just a few metres from a line of shops—a butcher, a pharmacy, a baker. We were staying in an apartment above an art gallery that had once been a carpenter’s shop, with a balcony overlooking the bay. 

The statue was cast in iron, rust red. It showed a naked man stepping out in agony or ecstasy, his arms outflung behind him, as if he’d just escaped hell or was fleeing to heaven. He was hollow, so you could see into him from the back. He was naked and stood in one of the busiest parts of the town, just below our apartment. His cock lay nestled against his thigh as if he hadn’t thought about it in years. 

Each evening, we sat on our balcony with a beer, watching the town quieten. It was amazing how many people—men and women—stopped to be photographed with him, mimicking his pose. They laughed affectionately or admiringly. They let their hands find his, trailing behind his body. Kids stopped on the cycling path to reach out and touch his penis. Maybe to stir it to life. As if the iron man was a totem to fertility, to life itself. A rusting patriarch, returning his molecules to nature. 

Older women made a small noise of amusement or contempt as they passed. They’d seen it all before. Even the nuns, probably, though how they’d seen that all before could lead you down a labyrinth of speculation. What seemed to pass them all by was the look on the man’s face. That expression of extremis, that look of existential torment. Except for Rosheen and Patricia, of course. They were aficionados when it came to suffering.

There were two other versions of that statue in the town, both at the end of jetties. The first, was finely worked and had a similar look of deep-felt emotion. Here the iron had been cast as if it was dissolving into the sea or into the darkness that came slightly earlier each day now that we were at the end of the season. His penis hung freely between his thighs, less shy, somehow, though less appealing, too. The second, was a simple cookie-cutter outline without obvious gender. Father, son and holy ghost. Though the nuns took a less purely ecclesiastical view.

—They have the look of migrants stepping out from the sea now, poor things. 

Sister Rosheen.

—And this one, he looks really desperate, so he does. For all the world as if demons are chasing him.

Sister Patricia. 

The crowd of tourists that surrounded him had an expectant air, as if he might be the site of some miracle, a sudden resurrection in the flesh. 

The statues haunted the town all that fortnight of our stay. A few of the bars and shops had already put up their shutters, exhausted by another tourist season. Elsewhere, in Italy and Greece, there were real bodies crawling onto the beaches for salvation. Arriving in rust-bucket fishing boats or overloaded dinghies. Being detained and processed in the migration centres that were trying to keep track of them all across Europe. Like fish quotas, said Patrick staring at the images and headlines on the front pages of the Spanish newspapers in Mosquera’s shop that also sold life-jackets, snorkels and diving masks. 

I got some of the statue’s back-story from Isabela, the flustered woman who rented us our flat on the seafront. 

—He causa big argument on town committee. Some want, some did not want. Some think good for tourists, some think could be bad always. But…

And she smiled putting her hand to the window glass. The smile that we were to see on the face of the people that passed him by each day.

—We like now. He’s a father, el padre. 

She shrugged unpacking the wine glasses she’d brought because the previous occupants had been a little wild. Hombres locos! Then she smiled, shook her head, slipping our wad of Euros into her pocket. Cutting out the middleman and his commission. Cutting out the taxman, Patrick said. 

I’d damaged my Achilles tendon playing tennis the week before our holiday, and it still hurt like hell. Playing a guy from Politics in my lunch break. Six-two, six-four to him. Culture, Politics and Religion, to give that department its full name. Patrick was brilliant, really. Shopping, cooking when we didn’t fancy going out. Lending me his arm to get down to the cafés and bars that littered the waterfront. Making sure I was OK before he went off each morning to swim. Knifing into the water on the rocky beach. Just as I’d seen him flip from the diving boards at the university. Which is where we’d met, sitting together in the staff dining room when the place was packed out, getting into conversation, trying to work each other out. 

All in all, a limping start turned into a very pleasant week. An actual holiday, to my surprise. After a few days I was able to make it to the sea and to swim a little. Of course, we were surrounded by young people with their perfect bodies. Then the not-so-perfect. Then the ravaged elders, mainly locals, who seemed at ease with what age and years of sun had done to them. They all sought out the sea. Swimming. Walking through salt-water. Cold at first, heating up as you waded deeper into its warm currents.

The sea suffused your body and skin and bones. It was a balm to the mind. To my mind, at least. The bay was a chalice filled with the wine of the sea. Fanciful, I know. But maybe that was what Homer meant by his “wine-dark sea.” He was blind of course. Well, allegedly. But there it was, glittering each morning as the heat rose on the hills. Then darkening at dusk as the land cooled and fish moved nearer to shore, flickering along the quayside, then disappearing into its depths.

Every day, we passed the agonised statue, there above the steps that led onto the gravel walkway. Most days we met the nuns, Rosheen and Patricia, who spoke to us in their lilting accents, always quick to laugh, living in the glory of God, but not needing to talk about it. 

We weren’t out then. Hardly to each other. Certainly not at home. Nor at the university. That hotbed of liberalism and overheated identity politics where we knew it hardly mattered anyway. We were just about us, being us, not anybody else. Taking our time. After all, those nuns had their own lives of sublimated desire. We wondered how they saw that now. After a lifetime of devotion, living in a world where anything was suddenly possible. Unlike Northern Ireland in the nineteen-seventies, where you could be killed for walking on the wrong side of the street.

We met them on our last night, the sisters. We were walking home from a bar as they took their evening stroll. Both were wearing long dresses, their silver crucifixes gleaming, their silver hair cut short. Of course, it would be just our luck to encounter them right next to the statue. It burned crimson in the last rays of light that flamed out where the sea was dousing the sun. Patrick seemed to be savouring the irony, his hair tousled with salt, a wry grin playing about his face. We chatted about our homeward journey for a few moments, then Sister Rosheen touched a hand to the iron man’s shoulder.

—Lord, love you. It’s almost time for your rest…

A little hush fell on us then. The nuns turned to go, wishing us goodnight, walking home, deep in some intimate conversation or silence. 

The next day we woke to the sound of an engine running. I pulled up the shutters, flinching at the sun. Municipal workmen had arrived in hi-vis jackets. They chained the iron man to a crane and lifted him. Then they loaded him, swinging gently—el padre que sufre—onto their flat-bed truck and drove him away until next year when he’d be brought back to the sea. When he’d be resurrected.

We’d already packed our bags and tidied the flat. Patrick waited with the luggage and I picked up a takeaway coffee and croissants. We breakfasted in the street, waiting for our taxi outside the farmacia. Patricia and Rosheen appeared on their balcony to wave to us, their crucifixes catching the sun. We returned their wave as if we needed something from them. The sign of peace. Their final greeting, which was really a farewell. Which was really a blessing.

oOo

Graham Mort lives in North Yorkshire, UK. He is emeritus professor of Creative Writing at Lancaster University and writes poetry and short fiction. He was winner of the Bridport short story prize in 2007. His short story collection, ‘Touch’ (Seren, 2010) won the Edge Hill prize in 2011. His collections, ‘Terroir’ (Seren, 2015) and ‘Like Fado’ (Salt, 2021) were both longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. 
Connect at grahammort.com