The shadowy charisma of the Mater Dei sisters

Catriona has a commission to paint the 17th-century façade of the chapel of St Joseph’s. She’d made a start when she decided that a foreground figure would lend greater interest and perspective to the composition. Following an email exchange, one of the nuns agreed to pose on the stony path leading up to the chapel for a photograph, from which Catriona would complete the work.

At the appointed time she clanked the bell beside the pointed nunnery door. I was her out-of-breath photographer’s assistant. After two long minutes, the door opened and the youngest and prettiest of the seven sisters stepped from the cloister into the windy world.

Two years ago the ancient white Algerian nuns who were here for as long as anybody could remember disappeared, and seven Argentinian nuns appeared in their place. This great replacement was a sensation among the small côterie of regulars who trekked up to the chapel at five o’clock to meditate on the sung Latin mass. The old Algerian nuns’ voices had rung out thinly but beautifully in the thick chapel silence. But this younger Argentinian choir was sublime. We couldn’t believe our ears at the exquisite purity of their soaring praise. When trying to tell others about it, I failed words.

‘Just go,’ I urged.

The new religieuses’ shadowy charisma and our peasant-like awe has remained a barrier to even formal acquaintance. Though I remember Vernon cutting one out after the service, like a cowboy deftly separating a steer from the herd, to present her with two litres of his first of that year’s olive oil pressing. The audacity shocked me. She was tiny beside him and he had her pinned up against the outside chapel wall by the sheer force of his personality.