“I went to a doctor yesterday.”
“You did not tell me. I would have gone with you.”
“I wanted to be sure. I went to a doctor in Raheny. He did not know who I was. I think I am about ten weeks on.”
He threw his arms around her and could only stutter that he loved her. “This is the greatest news. I want to dance about and shout. We will go to India together.”
She placed a finger on his mouth to hush him. A man out walking his dogs stopped and stared before turning away, shaking his head.
“But darling, now is the time to travel to India, where we will look after you until our baby can be delivered.”
“Vik, I am only ten weeks. I need time to think. I have to talk to Martin. He is a part of this, whether we like it or not.”
Vikram jumped up and began to kick at a gorse bush. “Grace, you can’t do that. I am afraid for us. We have to plan to leave. I don’t care whether you are married or not, we have to go. Have you a passport?”
Grace came behind him and, putting her arms around him, leaned into his back. “I never thought of a passport. Can’t I talk to Martin? I am hoping if he sees how unhappy I am he will release me from the marriage. There are grounds for annulment. He will know this can’t be his baby.”
“I don’t care about any annulment, Grace, I just want us to be together. You can be my wife in India. We can have such a lovely life with our child. You will love India, my darling, I just know it.”
“Vik, I am going to tell Martin. I don’t want to run off in the night. I have done nothing I am ashamed of. I love you and I will love our baby.”
She started to laugh and he kissed her. “Darling, you will be such a lovely mother.”
Not caring who passed comment, she reached out and took Vikram’s hand and they walked close to each other, along the promenade towards the train station.
Only as their train pulled into Connolly Station, Dublin, did Grace pull her hand from Vikram’s. “I want to tell Martin when I am ready, not when some nosy parker decides they have gossip to impart.”
Vikram shook himself awake. He had a dreadful headache and he still had not heard from Rhya.
*
Rosa was standing on her bedroom balcony, watching the road, waiting for her mother to arrive.
When the servant opened the door, Rhya swept in. Anil was sitting watching TV.
“I see my wife has called in reinforcements. She is upstairs, has locked herself in the bedroom for some reason,” he said, without turning from the screen.
Rhya ignored him and made her way upstairs. Rosa was already out in the corridor.
“I want to come home with you. I am not staying in this house a minute longer. I have packed my bags.”
“Hush, Rosa. Don’t let the servants hear you, they will have no respect.”
“What of the servants? They know too much anyway.”
Rhya ushered her daughter back into the bedroom, closing the door behind them. “What is all this talk, Rosa? What is wrong?”
“I came home early to find a woman here with him. He was entertaining her in the sitting room.”
“What did you do?”
“I caught her by the hair and threw her out of the house. What else would I do?”
“And the servants witnessed all this?”
“What do I care?”
“What rot you talk, girl, you should care. You are making yourself a laughing stock.”
“Mama, how can you talk to me so?”
Rhya went to her daughter and took her by the shoulders. “Do you think any of us found it easy at the start? Admittedly, this man of yours has behaved badly, but you need to outwit him. You should have sat and been openly civil to this girl and offered her a drink and some snacks until she felt so guilty and so bad she left of her own accord. Then your husband would have respect for you and you could begin to call the shots in this marriage.”
“How can you let him get away with it?”
“That is the last thing I am doing. I am making sure he will suffer for what he has done for the rest of his life.”
“It is too late now.”
“It is never too late to assert one’s authority. Granted, your behaviour has made it more difficult, but not altogether impossible.”
Rhya kicked the cases lined up on the inside of the bedroom door. “Get the servant to unpack all your clothes. Go to that husband of yours and tell him you will spare him the shame of leaving him. Tell him you will stay and, from now on, he will behave like a husband should.”
“That is not going to work, Mama.”
“It is, if you tell him his behaviour will directly influence his position as the operating manager of the city office of the coffee estate. Tell him he is on his last warning.”
“But I don’t speak with the authority of the company.”
Rhya turned to her daughter. “You do now. I, as acting president, appoint you vice president. Maybe you should share the good news with your husband.”
“You can’t do that, Mama.”
“I can and I have. When Vikram was ill he appointed me, and I will stay in that position until he comes back from his trip abroad.” Rhya pulled her sari pallu tightly around her. “And before you go downstairs, tidy your make-up. Wear lipstick, clip on some expensive jewellery and change into the royal-blue sari. Represent the family well.”
Rhya walked quickly from the house, not saying a word to Anil, who was still lounging in front of the television, his two feet tucked under him on the sofa, a bowl of nuts beside him.
Rosa took her time getting ready, calling the servant to help her with her pleats.
“Ma’am is going out?”
“No questions. Unpack the bags,” Rosa snapped as she sprayed perfume behind her ears. Before she left the room, she checked herself in the mirror, flattening the taffeta silk of the sari so it did not stick out.
In the sitting room, she sat at the end of the couch without even addressing her husband. She picked up the Deccan Herald and scanned the headlines. She saw him sweep his eyes over her before he spoke.
“Are you going out, Rosa?”
“Why?”
“You are very dressed up.”
“I was trying on this outfit, wondering if I should wear it to the coffee estate offices tomorrow.”
“Why are you going there? There is no special occasion.” He let his feet drop to the ground and stretched his arms to the ceiling.
“It is an occasion for me.”
“What talk, woman? What is this?”
Rosa stood up, walked over to the TV set and switched it off.
“What has got into you, woman?”
“I would rather you hear this from me, Anil . . .” She paused to steady herself and saw him smirk, which made her intensely angry. “Anil, I have been appointed vice president of the coffee company. It is widely known that Uncle Vik, when he passes, intends me to take over and now I begin my training.”
“What nonsense, you know nothing about the business.”
“I will delegate to you, as operating manager, but you will report to me, starting tomorrow lunchtime.”
“This is your revenge, isn’t it?”
He jumped up and, for a moment, she felt afraid of him, but she stood firm. “Take whatever view you prefer, but this is the way it is.”
“Rhya has put you up to this. She never liked me. What about your job?”
Rosa took a step towards her husband. “This position pays a great deal more. Anil, I want us to be partners, but to do that you will have to first stop this silly whining and accept the situation.”
Anil, whose one great attribute was to know when he was defeated, smiled and opened his arms wide to hug his wife.
“There is so much to do,” she said, passing him by, leaving him standing in front of the blank television screen.
23
Our Lady’s Asylum, Knockavanagh, March 1960
Grace pressed the needle through the double edg
e of linen. Her thumb scraped and bruised, she ignored the stinging pain, distracting herself by examining a patch of sky where a kerfuffle of clouds was gathering.
Outside, the cherry blossom was spraying its flowers, the light breeze ruffling the circle of daffodils that somebody years ago had pushed in the ground so the poor things at the asylum windows could take in a splash of colour.
She remembered Vikram was slightly ahead of her as they walked through St Stephen’s Green. He stopped and put his hand out and she slipped hers into his.
“I never want to let it go,” he said, kissing each finger.
She had laughed and told him he was a silly, emotional man.
New voices below in the yard made her stop to look out the window. A man in jeans with a small child approached the gate. About two years old, the little girl, still unsteady on her feet, ran to the daffodils and pulled at a bloom. She said something and the man laughed, scooping her up into his arms. A breeze swirled the spent cherry blossom sprays and dust around as they danced away towards the director’s house and out of Grace’s sight.
A twinge of pain brought her back, the nick of the needle making her stop to suck the blood.
“Daydreaming will never get those handkerchiefs done. They are sending a boy around for them this afternoon. Matron says to hurry up,” the attendant called out. She looked over to the nurse bent over painting her nails. “She has been lost since that Mandy one started working every day for the priest. Mandy and Gracie, like peas in a pod, those two. She only talks these days when Mandy is about. Mind you, not that either of them have much to chat about.”
“I reckon they must know what each is thinking.”
“That is easy. Poor Gracie, she would give anything to get out of here, even after all these years.”
“A beauty still. She had the world at her feet, but it did not stop her going mad.” The nurse looked at Grace, who had returned to her sewing. “She is always looking out the window. What does she look at every day?”
“Beats me. Sure, the garden is not even tended properly any more.”
“Why is she even in here? Mandy too. They seem such nice ladies.”
“And murderers never look like murderers. Their families had their reasons, I am sure. This is your first week: give it a month or so, you won’t be bothered asking the questions, just looking forward to the pay packet at the end of the week.”
“Gracie, is she the judge’s wife?”
“That’s the one, old geezer in the criminal courts, the one who would jail a fly for buzzing too close.”
“He was older than her.”
“Which is probably why she had a fling with a handsome Indian who left her in the lurch. She is a quiet one now, but in her day she was feisty, ended up in isolation a few times. There isn’t much fight in her these days. Nobody cares about Gracie. She might as well be dead too, poor thing.”
“She seems so quiet.”
“I think you could open up all the doors and she would just stay sitting at that window until the tea trolley came round.”
“Is it true what happened to Mandy?”
“Another feisty one gone quiet. The father committed her after she had a baby in the mother-and-baby home. That’s their big new house on the hill: the brother took over the farm and sold off a lot of land for development. They are rolling in it, not that that poor thing knows anything of it. I am not saying anything about recent events with that one.”
“Jesus, I hope they caught the men who raped her.”
The older attendant looked fiercely at the new nurse. “Don’t ever mention it. They didn’t even tell the Gardaí. The chief at the time had the caretaker and the gardener call to the homes of those involved and threatened them that if they came near the asylum again he would have them arrested. Three of the young fellahs left Knockavanagh that night and the other two have given this place a wide berth since.”
“At least she gets to work for the priest. It must be like a day out for her.”
“Poor man, he does his best, says you can’t give up on a human being. He believes a person can be rehabilitated even after decades in here. Sure, he is half mad himself. One of these fine days we will find him murdered in his bed.”
“Not Mandy, surely.” The young nurse, who was holding out her hands in front of her to dry her nails, looked shocked.
The older woman grabbed her by the shoulders, her face so near she could feel the force of the delivery. “Why not her or Gracie? They might not have been mad when they were brought here, but don’t you think the last years have done something to their brains, slowed them down, dulled them? What are they? Only two fat slobs, their arses too big for the chairs by the window. Imagine all the pent-up frustration that is going to come out some day. Just pray it is not on our shift.”
The young nurse shrank back and began tidying away her nail accoutrements into a vanity case.
Grace watched the road. Since they had lowered the asylum walls and called the place a mental hospital, people walked past slower. Sometimes they sat on the walls. Around this time each afternoon, the women with their young children walked by, some harassed and busy, others strolling, having time to stop and stare.
She would never be a grandmother sitting beside Vikram at the coffee estate or breathing in city life.
She did not hold it against him, that he had not come back for her. Did he even know she was here? The only thing she held against him was that he had made her love him so much, and that he loved her, because the pain of being apart was truly unbearable. There was not much they could say or do in here, to match the pain of losing Vikram and a chance of a family. What he would make of her now, she did not know. Her hair was too long, coiled into a bun. Her skin was flabby. She had pains too, along her fingers. One thumb was bent a funny shape, from all the times she had hemmed handkerchiefs into the night, to meet orders for people she did not know.
That last time they met he had held her close, whispering plans into her ear. She had said she wanted to give birth in Dublin and he was annoyed.
“Grace, we need to leave here. I promise I can look after you, trust me. I want to look after you, to look after our child. We have to leave.”
She agreed to tell her husband as soon as she could.
If she had known she would be spirited down the country and kept away from Vikram, she would never have returned to Parnell Square. She would have said something important to sustain him until they met again. Vikram, too, would never have let her go back to No. 19.
Grace paused and shook out the handkerchief, like she was trying to eradicate what might have been. She put her head down and concentrated on the stitches at the corner of the white linen square.
“Grace is slowing down. They are beginning to complain that she is not doing next to enough hankies these days. She will soon have to be moved on to a quieter ward,” said the attendant.
“I feel sorry for Gracie,” the young nurse said, concentrating on her nails again as she applied a clear coat on top of the pink polish.
Grace conjured up the primroses, the day in Skerries when she picked a bunch. On a whim, they had jumped on the No. 438 bus to the sea. They had climbed up the dunes and into the fields beyond. Pockets of primroses were stuck into the raised ditches under the trees. She ran between them, gathering up clumps, picking until she had a huge bunch.
“I will bring primroses to India. We have to have primroses. So lovely and so fleeting,” he said.
Pulling a ribbon from her hair, she wrapped it around the thin stalks and held the bunch in front of her. He kissed her and told her everything would work out.
She saw Mandy walk down the road, leaning into the wall as she passed a group of schoolboys. At the gate, she stopped and talked to the caretaker before making her way to reception.
Grace hoped she managed to smuggle in some sweet cake, so they could eat when everybody else was asleep. Mandy called it “moonlight cake” because the moon was the only light they had as they
munched slowly on the dry, shop-bought fruit cake.
Grace put away the handkerchiefs and sat watching the door, waiting for her friend to arrive.
24
Parnell Square, Dublin, April 1984
Emma pulled on her jeans and rummaged in a box marked “Grace. Jackets/Tops”. At the bottom, folded in tissue paper, was a cream silk blouse, simple with soft pleats at the front. Opening the window of the blue room, she hung it there so that it could air out the mustiness of decades, be pummelled gently by the fresh, cold breeze sweeping into the city from the Irish Sea. A blue-flecked tweed jacket she shook out, hanging it up at the other window.
Sitting at the dressing table, she smoothed on light foundation, wondering how many times Grace had sat by the long windows, planning her wardrobe for the day. Pulling a silk blue-purple scarf from the pile on the floor, she released it, watching the emerald-green thread rippling through the blue shimmer before wrapping it around her neck. It was not musty but had the faint hint of the soft perfume that made up Grace. Playing with the blue and green silk fronds, she felt a great trepidation rise up inside her about the journey she was about to embark on.
Slipping on a T-shirt before the silk blouse, she checked in the mirror that it did not take from her smooth line. The jacket was a snug fit, the scarf at her neck picking up the bobbles of colour in the tweed.
She was standing at the bedroom room window watching the street below when she saw Andrew drive his car up and park outside the house. He opened the bonnet to check the engine oil, wiping the oil stick with an old cloth when he was finished.
When the doorbell sounded, Emma jumped, even though she had seen Andrew make for the front door. On her way downstairs, she quickly stopped to check her reflection in the hall mirror. When she opened the door, Andrew was standing there with a big yellow tin jug in his hand.
“I had better put some water in the engine. Can I fill up the jug?”
“Go ahead.”
Emma stepped out onto the stone steps. From here, she could see across the park, over the Rotunda Hospital to the city below. The breeze did not seem so strong at this level, but she stuffed her hands in her pockets to ward off the early morning chill.
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