The Book of Opposites

By Chloe Campbell

This book is a book of opposites. It is a work of fiction and tells the true story of my own life from the age of five at convent boarding schools to the present day.

In between, it tells of love and death and suicide, of murder and addiction and catastrophic breakdown. But mostly it tells of love and isolation.

The story takes place in Cornwall in a small village by the sea, where I spent most of my life. It tells the story of Rachel and her two children. Four years after her husbands death because of cancer, she meets and falls in love with a Catholic priest. This love story then becomes a brutal obsession and bears witness to the complete disintegration of her mind, and it takes her to the edge of madness.

Everything has an opposite good and bad, evil and redemption. This book also contains passages regarding astrology and Greek mythology and of animals and birds that continually speak to Rachel and warn her of her downfall. These passages are meant to convey a sense that Rachel is pursued by her demons from the start. They are playful and enigmatic, but also dark and spiteful, a kind of childlike/adult magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jan 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493140121

Book preview

Chapter One

H er mother sang to her within the womb, a pure and simple melody, a fragrant gentle tune. A song so soft and sweet, frail and undiminished, so complete and yet so incomplete, but the unborn child was soothed, it made her feel that she was swimming in the sea. and she knows there is no other place that she would rather be.

Almighty shadows thrived and multiplied and blotted out the sun. The angel of the dead of night became the darkness and the light. It was peaceful were she was, she was not awake and she was not asleep. She was not sad; she did not cry or weep.

At night, she thought she heard the sea, but didn’t know it was the sea. She didn’t know it would destroy her and she didn’t know that it would set her free. Her memories had not yet begun, but she remembers running through the barley fields where she would laugh and turn her face towards the sun.

Black and white are both the same, aren’t they?

They moved from one country to another, Germany, France, Belgium, but these are all really one country. Billets and barbed wire, square box houses that looked and smelt the same. In Germany Rachel played in the snow, she learnt to count to 10 in German, and her mother taught her to sing Silent Night in German too.

Her mother took her outside the front door of their house to witness a spectacular thunderstorm.

She remembered a school that she attended there when she was attacked by another girl who threw a large stone at her which hit her on the forehead and she still today has a small dent in her skull as a result. What could she possibly have done to incite such an act of violence, to be assaulted in such a way.

She stole a penny from her mother’s purse to buy a hot cross bun at school, her mother said she couldn’t have one, but all the other girls would have one, so she would feel left out, and she would be teased because of it. She would not be teased and made fun of, she would not be humiliated in such a way, it was too unbearable.

And she sat at the back of the class and she understood nothing.

She went to her friend’s house and they ate hot buttered toast.

She went tobogganing in the snow and she flew down the steep and snowy slopes and her mother caught her at the bottom.

She remembers her parents trying to cook a live lobster, and as they struggled to get it into the pot of boiling water the sound it made a sort of high pitched squealing noise frightened Rachel and she ran and hid in her bedroom, she was scared the lobster would escape from the pot and come after her.

In France she played on the beach beside the sea, she knew this because as an adult she found many small black and white photographs of her on a beach in France with her mother, building sandcastles and paddling in the sea. And in Belgium she rode a little coloured pony on the carousel at the end of the pier. She thought the horse was real and stroked its smooth and shiny coat.

I am real. Said the pony I will take you for a ride.

The pony sped across the gold and silver sky,

burning stars were raging in the night.

Suns that threw out mighty storms of fire and coloured light,

They hastened through beleaguered habitations, that ruined the world and spoiled the sun, and sealed the daylight in a tomb.

They waited for the birth of Christ and all the things they thought were beautiful and wonderful, but really they were not.

A million dying roses were scattered in the air,

And their wings were made of firelight, and they settled everywhere,

and the air was charged with burning petals, and their wings were burning too, and the sky became an incandescent raging cobalt blue.

absent minded glow-worms that forgot to glow, fireflies could not fly, birds and butterflies, and tiny silver falling stars that fled across the sky.

We must go back now." Said the pony. But Rachel didn’t want to go. This was the most exciting moment of her life so far.

"If we do not go back now the wizard’s spell will dissipate and we will be trapped here in this negativity forever."

And they returned, and she remembered everything that she had learned.

Rachel had shoulder-length blonde ringlets that framed her face. She had little rosy cheeks and was always dressed in white. She looked exactly like a china doll. She had few toys because the constant travelling meant they did not have room for many things, but she remembered with affection a little wooden truck stacked with coloured bricks which she pulled around behind her. Her favourite toy was a large doll with brown curly hair and a yellow dress called Christine. Christine became her imaginary friend and constant companion.

Her playgrounds were tired and friendless hotel rooms, closed doors, burnished corridors, and dusky half-light. The only time she was allowed to play outside was when she was accompanied by her parents. She remembered wistfully and with a strange kind of tender pity how one of the hotel owners had bought her a stick of rock which she treasured as a rare and special treat. She kept the wrapper and she cared for it as though it was a prize for being who she was, for being Rachel.

When she was five, Rachel was separated from her mother—a grim and harrowing ordeal. She was enrolled in a local convent as a boarder, and as she made those final steps of separation that would change her life forever, she remembered the bewilderment of seeing the Reverend Mother standing in front of her completely dressed in black. But she was not her mother.

She was a raven, she was dead.

She was the bogeyman beneath her bed.

The mind was a mystery—life before life, life after life, and life itself.

Rachel wore a pretty yellow dress, short, white socks and shiny shoes with silver buckles. She looked so tiny. The long, bare corridors of the convent were always spotless and the floors shone like glass. There was the smell of soap and polish and another sweetish smell which later she would come to know as incense. She remembered the complete and utter silence as the nuns appeared to glide along, never quickly, never slowly; their soft-soled shoes made no sound on the highly polished floor. They rarely spoke and always walked with their hands folded neatly inside their long black sleeves. Their faces were framed by the white coif covered by a thin layer of black fabric. How curious and extraordinary it all was.

There were rituals which everyone observed. As the Mother Superior passed the chapel, she would genuflect and make the sign of the cross. Throughout the convent, there were statues and paintings of Our Lord or the Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, or the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Occasionally, the silence was broken by the sound of a door closing far away, the echo carrying, fading.

Reverend Mother was astute and aware that the newest pupil at the school was lonely, frightened, and distressed. So she found her a bedroom next to hers and told her that the guardian angel of her childhood, would always keep her safe. She had no friends to share her room and so she slept alone. But she did not sleep alone.

She shared her bedroom with a mole.

The mole was grumpy and cantankerous and irritated Rachel with his lies and visions of the future,

She told the mole to go away,

but the mole was heedless of her childish outcry and scuffled noisily within his dismal habitation

and then invited all his friends to come and stay.

Rachel didn’t care; at least, he didn’t bother again now that all his friends were there.

She felt a kind of despair, a sense of doom, of death again. When would she next see her mother and where was Christine and her magic pony from the carousel, her two most precious friends in all the world who knew and understood her?

Angels came and sprinkled music in her hair.

They made a daisy chain and placed it there.

They danced and sang and whispered in her ear.

But they were not really angels, they were demon beings with their mighty demon tails.

They spread pestilence and sickness and disease.

They raged and clamored and they roared across the Gothic sky.

She saw a silver spider spin a silver web.

Stardust settled on the surface of the earth.

When she woke she found a music box beside her bed and flowers

in her hair.

The demons had been kind to her because she was so small,

And they were always there.

The library was her favourite room. Here she grew to know the glorious delights of reading and quickly lost herself in a world of fables and imagination. The book she loved the most was The Small Miracle by Paul Gallico which she often read. It was the story of Pepino, a poor orphan, and his donkey, Violetta. Rachel loved the donkey and always cried when he got sick. Her father, knowing how she loved the story, bought her a little brass donkey that she could keep beside her bed.

The donkey said, ‘Do not be afraid.’ Rachel tingled with excitement, a feeling she would come to know and recognise more than any other state of mind, especially of touch. But for now she was excited because the donkey spoke to her.

‘You will be released,’ he said. ‘Your father will remember you and come and take you home.’

‘When will he do that?’ asked Rachel eagerly.

‘In a thousand years,’ replied the donkey. He brayed and shook his head; he swished his tail and pawed the ground.

Rachel remembered nothing else that happened to her in those early days, but how much could a five-year-old be aware of?

As a child you have no real memories as yet, but you remembers fire and silence.

Rachel had developed severe eczema due to her constant state of apprehension and anxiety. Because she used to scratch her skin at night and make it bleed, the nuns tied her hands to the bed to stop her tearing at her skin. She looked peculiar covered in a bright red rash that oozed and bled. A screen was placed around her bed. This made the other girls curious, and they used to peer around the screen and stare at her as if she were a creature from another world.

A chimera came and took her to a land of magic spells.

He was a lion, he was a goat, he was a serpent, he was a wish, he was a dream.

He was a moment caught in time, he was a forest fire, he was a mountain stream

He was a spirit of the night, he was a spirit of the day,

He was near and he was far away.

He was everywhere and he was everything

He was the summer and the winter,

He was the autumn and the spring.

He was a child,

and he was running wild,

He was the oceans and the raging seas

He was the summer breeze.

He was a demon spirit with his falsehood and his lies.

He was a shadow with his whispers and his cries.

He danced and sang and took her out to play,

And then he healed her

Despite her nervous disposition, Rachel was a happy child who had lots of friends. Her best friend was called Bridget Nicholson. Bridget’s parents lived in Africa, and sometimes she came home with Rachel her for the holidays.

Rachel favourite game was playing Jacks—ten jacks and a rubber ball in a dark blue bag: onesies, twosies, threesies, foursies, cavsies, and double bounce. It was a craze that swept the school; everybody played it everywhere and all the time. And everyone had a set. But then they were confiscated by the nuns, because they played them during homework sessions or when they should have been in bed.

At mealtimes, she was made to drink sour milk, and because she was so scared, Rachel wouldn’t tell anyone that it was sour. She was made to sit there on her own until she had drunk it all, and before she could finish it, she would physically be sick, and as such was punished.

A goblin sat hunched and chuckled to himself. He scratched about. But her guardian angel came to subjugate him and he ran away.

‘Be gone,’ she urged. ‘Return unto your loathsome hollow, and do not bother us again!’

‘But’, replied the goblin, nervously approaching them once more, ‘I have so much to say.’

‘Well, say it to the wind, the forests, and the mountain streams. We do not want to hear it,’ said the angel.

‘But you will hear it. Maybe not until a hundred years from now, but you will hear it.’

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Each child had their own set of silver cutlery with their initials engraved on the handles. Rachel’s were made of Sheffield plate and were more ornate than those of all the other children. They were, however, much too big for her, and she had to clutch them tightly in her fists so that she could use them.

With her increasing rapid understanding of games and words, Rachel started writing home. She didn’t say much about her life at school, but asked for sweets and lollipops. She drew doll’s houses, sailing ships, fields full of horses. Her companion was a teddy bear called Cuddy, and she told her parents she was getting on and playing with Lamb and Dogy. In another letter, she asked her mother to buy a musical box, a new picture book, some holy pictures, and a nice new watch, and she told them that she was saying little prayers for them both before she went to sleep at night. She also asked for new red dancing shoes and could they come and take her out. She asked how many miles away their house at Windrush was from the school and that she was missing them. In fact, the letters were sent to a house only five miles away from school, and Rachel didn’t understand why she could not go home and live with them. However, she knew no other reality and believed that all children were sent away to live at boarding school.

In every letter sent home, Rachel told them she was missing them and would they please come and take her home. The letters continued, but her parents never came. She told them she was missing Bunny with her dress on and would they please send it to her, and could she have a ball of yellow wool so that she could knit a scarf for Cuddy and when were they coming to take her home.

A stream of fading sunlight settled in the breeze, but there was no breeze, just silence and the firebirds rising up to cleanse the sun. The nymphs had long departed; it was raining but the sky was blue. The sky was blue, the sun was out, and yet there was no rainbow.

‘This is horrible,’ said Rachel to herself. ‘What is wrong? What is happening to me?’

‘Everything is happening to you,’ said the sky.

‘Everything and nothing.’

Rachel remembered nothing of these letters and only discovered them as an adult when she was going through her father’s black dispatch box. When she found these letters, she felt so sad and grieved for that tiny girl who was abandoned there on that day, in that place, all those years ago.

During those early years at the convent, her parents moved to Bournemouth to a house close by the sea. Rachel loved the sea. It made her feel protected. A long shale beach stretched out in front of their enormous house. She walked along the beach collecting shells with her father. Her new best friend was Deborah King, and she came to stay with Rachel in the holidays and at half term. During this period, there are photographs of Rachel with her Sooty puppet on her hand, Deborah, and her parents. Her father always wore a bow tie when he wasn’t in his army uniform. H was indeed sartorial.

The next house they lived in was called The Gables, and her most affectionate and sentimental memory of this place was a giant black poodle called Rollo. These were rare and special times, as most of her holidays were spent in damp hotel rooms; nowhere she could really call her home.

Rollo said, ‘This is where you will live now.’

‘Forever?’ asked Rachel eagerly.

‘No, you will live in 30,000 places and still not find a home.’

‘Why not?’

. ‘Because you are not intended for a home. Everywhere will be your home and nowhere.’

And Rollo disappeared. It was two days before she saw him again.

Rachel went outside to play. She waited for her fairy friends; she hid behind a bush to catch them out. But the naiads were too quick for her; they travelled at a thousand miles an hour

They gathered cluster stars and tiny yellow shells, forest fires and tinkers bells,

They drank from sweetly coloured springs and bathed in fountains by the sea,

for they were gods of water and showed Rachel where the water was and how to set it free.

Rachel was abused by an older girl when she was seven. The girl asked her if she would like to come and play a game. She was flattered that the older girl wanted to spend time with her, although she found it rather odd. She told Rachel that they were going to play in an overgrown field close by the tennis courts. Rachel followed her without a second thought.

Once they were out of sight of the playground and the school she told Rachel that they were going to play a kind of game. Rachel was happy to oblige, but she didn’t like this game, it was strange and unfamiliar. It was a game of touch. But not like ‘Tig’ or anything or ‘You’re it’ It was unpleasant and distressing, but believing it was normal, because she thought all the other girls were playing it as well, she endured it in a grevious and humiliating silence But she didn’t like the way this game made her feel; it opened up a dark and empty pit inside her that remains until this day.

Despite years of intense therapy, Rachel never mentioned what had happened to her on that day; she was always too ashamed and could not say the words. Later on in that same year, and much to Rachel’s relief, the girl was suddenly expelled. She watched from her dormitory window as her parents drove the horrifying child away. Shrouded in a veil of secrecy, no one knew what really happened—but Rachel knew.

There was a Spanish girl in her dormitory called Paloma, who sometimes used to defecate on the floor at the bottom of her bed. The other girls could not believe she did this, and she was also sent away.

She became resilient and resourceful and developed coping mechanisms of her own. When she reached the age of eight, her life was going to change again. She believed that she was going to attend the secondary school at Farnborough Hill, but instead her father came one day and told her they were going to live in Ireland. The donkey had been right.

Chapter Two

Ireland

I n Ireland, they settled in a place called Dalkey, just south of Dublin and Dun Laoghaire. They lived in a little terraced house opposite the pier, with a huge, fat black cat called Billy Gleason. There she attended Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham. Loreto Abbey was another convent school, but this time it was beside the sea, and it was her that went home every night this time and the boarders envied her. Its sweeping lawns descended to the water’s edge. The girls climbed down over to the rocks at low tide and played in rock pools and caught tiny little crabs. Rachel was delighted; at least for now she lived at home.

The chimera taught her how to fly,

he taught her how to reach the sky.

He taught her how to dance

And he taught her all the rules of opportunity and chance

He showed her how to make a fairy ring

He taught her how to sing

He taught her all the games he knew

He taught all the false beliefs that were untrue

He told her who would be her enemy and who would be her friend

He told how her life would end.

A shadow of a shadow,

a life within a life,

and memories of a seashore where there was no sea nor any shore

just loneliness and strife.

These days of sunlight and good fortune were happy days for Rachel. She spent precious time with her father, who taught her how to swim. When the tide was high, he took her to the jetty and as she swam he held her underneath the chin, and when eventually he let her go she found that she could swim alone. After that and every day on reaching home from school, her mother took her to the jetty for a swim. There she swam and swam in her light green puckered swimming costume. She didn’t want to leave the sea. She never wanted to leave the sea. She also learnt how to fish, and she spent hours with the fishing rod that she had made herself hooking pollack from the pier or catching crabs and tiny shrimps in her home-made fishing net.

Often her father took her to Coliemore Harbour in Dun Laoghaire to watch the ferries arriving from England. They used to take bets on whether it would be the Caledonian or the Hibernian ferry that was crossing on that day.

They moved into a small blue cottage with a balcony that overlooked the sea, called Dolphin Cottage. Here she could fish directly from the balcony when the tide was high. Sometimes her father would hire a small boat and take Rachel out to Dalkey Island, which was a few miles out to sea. You could see the tiny island from the mainland; it was the perfect swimming place at high tide from the jetty anywhere. The water was deep and clear and luminous and sweet. These were precious times; she loved it when her father took her there. She loved it when her father took her anywhere. The island itself was uninhabited, but there were still a few remains of houses, a church, and a Martello tower and was renowned for its ancient and historic remains. The Martello tower was among the many built as small defences for the ports by the British Empire during the nineteenth century.

The next house they moved to was really a large flat, called Sorrento Terrace. From the huge enormous windows, there was a beautiful, enchanted view right across the sea towards the Connemara Hills. This house had lawns as well which swept down to the sea. Her father took her swimming there, but there was so much seaweed in the sea it looked dark and scary and she was afraid, as she might have been of a bogeyman beneath her bed. She never really swam in there; she sat and watched her father.

And so the game played out and Morgana goddess of the night created fire and silence. And Prometheus stole the fire, and there was only silence.

She made new friends but somehow didn’t quite fit in. When she was invited back to play, her friends would often tease and leave her out of games. Why were they cruel to her? Because Rachel was a willing victim, she felt sorry for herself. Everything about her said

Poor me, poor me!

and that made her everybody’s fool, and open to all sorts of unpleasantness and cruelty. Should she have met these children later on in life when they were adults they would

have laughed about it and thought of it as nothing.

But as a child it damages, as a child it ruins your life. The chimera was unable to intervene in such matters, he was not of magic and chicanery and incantations, he was not a wizard or a witch, he simply cared for her and kept her safe and healed her when he could, for she was an only child, and as such incited exile, banishment and persecution

At Mary Dorsey’s house, the family used to say the rosary every night. They all knelt in the drawing room and chanted Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and Glory be. The glorious mysteries of the rosary, the sorrowful mysteries, the joyful mysteries, and the mysteries of life—these things reminded her of when she was at convent boarding school. Her time there had been sorrowful, never glorious or joyful. And she was sad and lonely. She was teased for being an only child and frequently came home in tears. But she didn’t tell her mother anything because she was too ashamed and frightened. She thought her mother would complain to