by Orna Ross
"Good land?"
What had that to do with anything? "Yes, good enough. A bit waterlogged b'times maybe."
His lips pursed. He made another note, this time on one of his clean, separate pieces of paper. "Is there insanity elsewhere in the family, do you know? Any other relatives?"
"I don't know, Doctor. The O'Donovans are not from Wexford. They moved here from Cork some years ago."
He took off his spectacles, rubbed the inner corners of his eyes with finger and thumb. Two red pressure marks marked each side of his nose. He asked: "Would your friendship extend towards ensuring that her keep was paid for here?"
So that was it.
Mr O'Donovan mustn't be paying for Norah's upkeep. It was a constant complaint of the asylum, that many of those who could well afford to pay didn't. The governors were always writing in the local paper about it.
"Certainly, Doctor. Of course. That would only be right."
He clasped his hands together on top of the open casebook, white hands with blue veins raised to tracks along the skin, and let another long silence lapse, so long she began to wonder if he would ever speak again. When he did, his tone had changed, become conciliatory. Confiding, nearly.
"What you need to understand, Miss Parle, is that insanity is a dissolution: a regression to a lower nature. In this respect, your friend is a classic case. For years, she goes about her business, a seemingly respectable young girl, until the underlying insanity manifests itself and her true nature is revealed."
He circled one thumb around each other, paused a moment. "You know, I presume, the chain of events that led to her committal here?"
Did he mean what she thought he meant? Peg opened her mouth but shut it again, unsure of what to say. She could feel herself starting to blush. The doctor, also embarrassed, hemmed a small cough. "You will pardon me if I speak frankly. It is essential to your understanding of the case. You are aware of the circumstances that brought her first to the Holy Sisters?"
Peg bowed her head.
"This, as I say, is a classic example of female insanity. In your friend's case, after her gestation and delivery, the balance of her circulation was greatly disturbed."
Peg didn't know where to put her eyes.
"This made her liable to disorder from the application of any exciting cause. Something as simple as a cold affecting the head, a violent noise or the want of sleep distresses a puerperal patient before her milk comes in, and if there is any underlying weakness there, such an impetus is readily converted to the head and may produce either hysteria or insanity."
What was he talking about? He had lost her completely.
She didn't understand the medics, but the whole thing sounded unlikely. Whatever was afflicting Norah, it was nothing to do with head colds or loud noises. The girl had good reason for any mental strain she might be suffering. In the last year, she'd gone against the politics of her family, to the open ire of her father; broken with her closest brother; lost her sweetheart in a shootout; learned that it might have been that same brother who killed him; and found herself in the worst trouble a girl can get into — with the father of the child deceased — and so must have had to ask whether that was the reason her brother might have done it.
Who wouldn't be having a breakdown?
"Insanity of lactation is only one such disorder that may affect a woman. We suspect that this is the cause of your friend's condition, but we cannot be sure. Ovarian madness is also a possibility. We have given her the general diagnosis of puerperal mania."
He looked at her as if he expected her to say something.
"Are you saying, Doctor, that women are more inclined to insanity than men?"
"Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. The female reproductive organs are frequently the seat of disease or abnormal function. And men, even when predisposed to insanity through heredity or other factors, have superior powers of resistance that can overcome their latent tendencies."
"But I thought there were more men in the asylum than women."
His eyes opening wide behind his glasses. Oh, why had she gone and said that? Now he thought she was being smart with him. "Maybe there are other reasons for that, Doctor?" she said, in her most compliant voice, the one she kept for Father John and the master at school.
"Indeed. These things are never as simple as they seem."
His eyes still held her, uncertain.
"How is Norah now, Doctor?"
He looked down at the big casebook. "She has improved somewhat. When she was admitted here by the Holy Sisters, she had forsaken all vestiges of self-control and become a prisoner of her passions. Here, she has learned to exercise self-restraint. For some time now, we have witnessed an improvement. However, we would not consider her cured. No. Far from it, indeed. She does no work, for example. She does not mix with the other patients. She is subject to delusions" — here he glanced again at the case notes – "yes, delusions of persecution."
It was all wrong, Peg thought, turning Norah's life into a package to be wrapped up in fancy words that parcelled her off from the rest of us.
"Is she well enough to go home, Doctor?"
"Miss Parle, I do not think you understand what I am explaining to you. At the moment, Miss O'Donovan is moving from acute mania to a more chronic stage that looks like it may settle into one of the many forms of melancholia. I think it unlikely that we shall witness any real improvement for some time. Perhaps never."
"But maybe at home...?"
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I could not recommend such a course of action."
"I can't believe it, I really can't. Norah was as sane as myself the last time I saw her."
"It may have appeared so to the untrained eye, Miss Parle, but I assure you, insanity does not occur in people who are of sound mental faculties. It does not — like smallpox, for example — attack indifferently the weak and the strong. It will only raise itself in those whose mental constitution was originally defective. Your friend's immorality...and her insanity were both symptoms of an underlying flaw. Now do you —? Oh my..."
The door crashed open, interrupting his flow. Though Norah's arrival was expected, they both jumped off their seats.
"My goodness," Dr Kennedy said, crinkling with disapproval.
Norah was standing in the door frame, breathless, holding on to the handle, her chest rising and falling, looking as if she might fly off again. A sheen of sweat glowed on her forehead. An attendant came running up behind, panting. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I couldn't hold her..."
The doctor waved her away her with the hand of a man who doesn't have time for excuses. "Come in, Miss O'Donovan," he said, curt as he could. "You have a visitor."
It made Peg want to laugh, or it would have, if the sight of Norah clinging to the door handle wasn't so alarming. Lunatics of every order paced this place and the doctor was getting himself in a stitch over how somebody entered a room. Pretending he thought sanity a matter of manners, of keeping your desk tidy and your record book straight.
Norah was transfixed in the doorway. Everything that had happened since she and Peg had last seen each other was flooding the space between them. Awareness of the gap between what she had been and what she had become was leaving her stranded.
Peg took a step towards her, but Dr Kennedy stopped her: "No, Miss Parle, please."
To Norah, he repeated his order: "Come in, I said."
Peg longed to meet her halfway, but under the doctor's eye, she waited. Waited and watched her friend walk towards her, walking as she never walked before, like it hurt her to make contact with the ground. So it was true, she had lost her sanity. Oh God, dear God, would she be able to get it back?
When Norah was almost at the chair, she slumped down. For a moment, Peg thought she had fainted, then realised she was kneeling, and reaching for Peg's hand, and then her other hand.
Peg tried to help her back up onto her feet, but Norah wouldn't let her. Instead, she brought Peg's hands to her lips and kissed them. "Thank you," sh
e said, into Peg's skirts, trying not to let the doctor hear her. "Thank you, thank you..."
"Oh my God," Peg said. "Don't do that, Norah. Please. Don't be doing that."
* * *
"No, Peg!" Máire pulled herself up on her pillow. "Holy Mother of God, what are you thinking of? To even ask such a thing!"
Hold on, Peg orders herself in her mind. You knew she wouldn't say yes straight off. Take your time, best words out. "Mammy, it's not right, is it, that she should be left to rot in that place? That she should have to bear it all alone?"
"I know it's hard on the girl, I'm not saying it isn't. But don't you think we've had enough trouble ourselves?"
This was the first word Peg ever heard her mother say that was anywhere close to self-pity. She was having one of her weak mornings: unable to get out of bed. The good days were becoming fewer, the bad days getting worse. The blood in her sputum had changed in colour from a dark, venous red to bright crimson, and she had passed from the world of the healthy to the separate, shunned world of the tubercular.
Peg sometimes felt she was locked up in that world with her. The house had to be swept and disinfected daily and kept well ventilated. Her eating and drinking vessels and cutlery had to be kept apart; her utensils and bedclothes cleaned separately from everyone else's. They had lost custom in the shop. And nobody ever came all the way into the house to visit any more, except loyal Lil Hayes.
After all Máire had done for the community, and the country, since the first rising in 1916, she was now left alone to her disease.
"You better get started on that porridge before it gets cold," Peg said. "It's made on milk, the way you like it."
Máire picked up her spoon, sliced through the thin skin that coated the surface of the cereal, swirled it round in the milk, releasing steam. Peg could see the effort of will it took for her to lift the spoon, open her mouth, swallow the food. After a couple of spoonfuls, she paused. "Even supposing," she held her spoon aloft. "Even supposing we were to do such a thing —"
"Yes?" Peg felt her head spin.
"Could we not set her up in Dublin or somewhere?"
"That wouldn't work. The asylum would only let her go to us if we were to take charge of her care. Anyway, she wouldn't be able to look after herself in Dublin. She's not what she was."
Máire made a face. "Another person to look after, that's all you need."
"I don't think it would be like that always," said Peg. "I don't believe that old doctor. She'd get better herself if she were out of that place, I'm sure of it. If she were..." Peg paused. This was the tricky bit. Dear Mary, Mother of God. Mother of all that is holy. Help me here now. Give me the strength to say it. "If...if she were to be reunited with her child..."
"Dear God in Heaven! That's not what she wants, is it?"
"It is."
"Are you sure?"
"She's told me. You can talk to her same as ever, you know. She's troubled, but she's no fool."
"You haven't encouraged her in this madness, I hope?"
"Is it madness, Mammy?"
"Pure, utter, complete, unadulterated madness. And there's some excuse for her to talk lunacy, she's in an asylum. But you...You have to help her, Peg, to see the errors of her thinking. To help her reconcile to the inevitable." Máire sighed, put her spoon back in the bowl with the half-eaten porridge. "Will that do for today?"
"Mammy, you haven't even had half."
"I'm sorry, a ghrá. Not this morning. Maybe later on."
She pushed the tray away. Peg took it from her, put it over on the dresser. Guilt pricked her: it was encouraging her mother to eat she should be, not arguing with her and springing surprises that would put anybody off their food.
"Come back over here, Peg, and sit on the bed where I can see your face," Máire said. "Good girl, that's it. That's better."
She took a breath. Peg could see her reaching for the strength to talk through all she wanted to say.
"I don't want to say no to you, Peg. I know you are trying to do right and that's what I've always taught you to do...But think about it. Really think about it."
When Peg said nothing, Máire went on. "Think about the O'Donovans. They'll be furious, so they will, and they'd be within their rights. We already have Barney and all that business between us. Do we want to further it into an unholy row that will make it irrevocable?" She stopped, reached again for breath, holding up her hand to stop Peg saying anything. "No...wait..."
The rise and fall of her chest hurt Peg to watch, but she knew better than to suggest they might leave it, talk about it later. If Máire had something to say, she would be heard.
"Then...What about Norah herself?' Máire asked, strength marshalled. "Do you think she could settle in here, could be happy in herself, knowing that her mammy and daddy were a small walk away and so upset? Knowing what the whole place would be thinking and saying about her? Is it fair to do that to her after all she's been through?"
Peg let her head fall. Her mother was raising the very questions that had most worried herself when she considered the plan.
"I'm sorry, Peg," Máire said, in a voice that declared the argument over. "I know what good friends you were, but if her family won't help her, we can't. It wouldn't be right to go against her family."
She broke into the coughing fit she'd been staving off and her face took on the unmistakable mask of her disease. On the peak of her cheeks, two bright red spots appeared, as if dabbed on. Her eyes turned glassy and perspiration broke across her forehead. Peg handed her the bowl, stood by while she coughed and spat. Once, not long ago, she used to find this nearly too distressing a job to do; now she was so accustomed to it, she stood holding the bowl while her attention wandered off into the distance. She understood what her mother was saying.
Oh, but the feel of Norah's lips scorching into her hands...
After Máire recovered, Peg covered the bowl with its special clip-on top and put it outside the door. She walked across to the window, where the pale morning sun fell onto her arms.
She asked gently, "Mammy, why should we bother about the O'Donovans? If they object, what do we care?"
It was not something they discussed, Peg and her mother: Dan's part in Barney's death. The subject was too raw. What could be said that wouldn't widen the wound? Each morning still, Peg tumbled out of the comfort of sleep into the heavy weight of consciousness. How could he? was still the question that drove her out of bed as soon as her eyes fell open and that stayed with her all through the business of the day. She no longer had any doubt but that he did it. He'd stood in front of her and lied so completely about Norah that she now knew all he said to be false.
Her mother didn't answer. So Peg said the other thing, the thing she had held back, the thing she'd hoped she wouldn't have to say. "After all, Mammy, it is Barney's baby."
Her mother put her hands over her ears. "Holy God, child! Hush!"
"It's Holy God's own truth I'm saying." She sensed a weakness, and pressed on. "Are we going to let Barney's child be brought up by some strangers from God knows where? Or leave her — yes, her, she is a little girl — leave her to grow up in an orphanage?"
"Stop that talk: we all know what happens. There's no need for that kind of talk."
Peg looked out the window. She was getting to know the view from this room as well as she knew the one from her own on the other side of the house. Everything that made this room Barney's was gone. Since her mother had moved in, that had been swallowed up by the paraphernalia of sickness. Medicines and peppermint drops on the bed table and facecloths and handkerchiefs to cool down or mop up. Bed-bottles and a good fire going all day. The window open for ventilation, no matter how cold. Porridge and soups and beef tea.
"Oh, Peg, I don't know...All my life I've done what I thought was right and I have to say that it hasn't got me very far. And now I'm dying —"
"Ah, Mammy!"
"It's the truth, isn't it, God's own truth, like you said. If that's what we are to hav
e here this morning, then let that be said, along with the rest. I can't say it to your father, you know that, so let me say it to you."
Peg went back over to the bed, sat beside her.
"It's only a matter of time for me," Máire continued. "So here I am. I've lost one child and I'm leaving the other behind with an ageing father and an ailing business. If I thought what you wanted was the best thing for all involved, I'd say go ahead, and the O'Donovans and all the tattlers of the village could go to the devil. But is it, Peg? Is it?"
Peg hung her head. How could she know the answer to that?
"I can't read the future, Mammy. All I know in this moment is that leaving her there might make everyone feel easier — but I can't believe it's right."
Máire lay back. The clock ticked loud in the room, reminding Peg to get up and wind it. When she was finished, she sat back down in the bedside chair. After another silence, Máire spoke. "The child could have been adopted already by somebody else. Have you thought of that?"
"She hasn't been."
"You've checked?"
"I've checked."
Another silence. Then: "But Peg...Tipsy Delaney?"
"Tipsy will do it. I know it's not many men would but —"
"That's not what I meant. I know he'll do it, the poor eejit would jump onto Coolanagh sands if you asked him." She smiled a dead smile. "No, it's you I'm thinking of."
"I'll be all right."
"No." She turned in the bed to take hold of Peg's wrist. "You're not listening to me, girl."
"I am, Mammy, and I understand what you're saying. It's not like I haven't thought it through. I know what it means and I'm happy to go ahead."
"You can't know what a marriage is like until you're in it. And think of this: supposing Norah doesn't get better? Supposing she's a hopeless case and she ends up back inside? You'll be left tied to..."
She let the sentence trail, worn out maybe, or maybe just afraid to put a word on the man who might become her son-in-law.
"The child has to have a father and a mother," Peg said. "They won't give it to us otherwise. Tipsy is the only man who'd do it."