Great Shiners
The nun was reading Patricia Cornwell. She saw me glance at the cover. I said, “I prefer Kathy Reichs.”
There's no answer to this. No polite answer anyway. I asked, “Am I too early?”
She reluctantly put her book aside, said, “There’s half an hour yet. You could walk round the grounds.”
I did.
The Poor Clare Convent is smack in the centre of the city. Every Sunday, at 5.30, there’s a Latin mass. It’s like a throwback to fifty years before. Downright medieval. The ritual, the smell of incense, the Latin intonations are a comfort beyond articulation.
I dunno why I go. Ask me for belief and I reach for the racing page. In an unguarded moment, I told Cathy B. She’d been plaguing me ever since I said.
“Why? You’re some kind of English heathen.”
“I’m a Buddhist.”
“Jeez, see
