As she twirled, the pleated linen spanned out slightly, and she felt at that moment happy, like a young girl who had sneaked into her parents’ room to try on her mother’s clothes.
3
Bangalore, India, March 1984
“Rosa, come with me. Just two weeks.”
“Uncle, Anil won’t like his wife travelling so far. Have you told Mama of your plans?”
Vikram laughed out loud. “Tell? You know how Rhya will react.”
“Maybe she is right, it is too soon after the all-clear.”
Vikram took off the reading glasses he had been wearing as he glanced over the Indian Express. “When will the women in this family realise we men are capable of making our own life decisions?”
“Mama won’t be happy – she hates that country. Let’s go somewhere with a bit of history. To London. See the queen?”
Vikram patted the cushion of the rattan chair beside him on the balcony. “Sit. I have something to tell you.”
Sighing loudly, she slumped down beside him.
“I need to go to that side to visit the grave of the one woman I truly loved.”
“What?”
“Grace died. I came back to India.”
“Grace? Who was this Grace?”
Vikram hesitated.
“She was Irish?”
Vikram nodded, getting up to finger the lilac blooms of the jacaranda tree. “I must do this, Rosa.”
“Uncle, you are beginning to sound as if you are getting ready to expire.”
“Quite the opposite, dear Rosa. I want to stand at the grave of the woman I loved. What is wrong with that?”
“Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“When a man comes so near to death as I, there are many things he decides to revisit if given the chance. Grace was everything to me. I have loved her all my life, I want to stand quietly at her graveside. I would be honoured if you felt you could do that with me.”
Rosa reached out and took Vikram’s hand. “Anil will just have to put up with it. Tell me about this Grace.”
“Grace, Grace who?” Rhya padded down the balcony in her cotton housecoat, plaiting her long hair, ready for bedtime. Glancing between her brother and daughter, she stopped threading her hair. “Rosa, you should go home. Won’t your husband be wondering where you are?”
“Hush, Mama, with the old-fashioned talk.”
Vikram shook out his newspaper elaborately in an attempt to distract the two women from arguing. “We will talk more tomorrow, Rosa. I suspect your mother is going to order me to my bed.”
Rhya threw her hands in the air. “Vikram, you were once a medical man. You know rest is so important at this stage of your recovery.”
Before Vikram had time to answer, she turned and walked away with Rosa.
“You should have brought him a drink, Rosa, the poor thing sweats so much, still. Poor Vik: life has been so unkind.”
“He is not complaining.”
Rhya, deftly twisting her long, grey hair, once more swung around fiercely. “Isn’t that what was always the problem with Vikram? Too kind, too easy-going.”
Rosa put her hand on Rhya’s shoulder. “Hush, Mama, he has got the all-clear. No need now for so much worry.”
Rhya gave up on her hair, letting it fall loose across her shoulders, as Rosa rooted beside the couch for her handbag.
“You shouldn’t have left it there. I do not trust this new servant, you know that,” said Rhya.
“I will come by early, bring him his favourite snacks from Nilgiri’s.”
When she heard Rosa get in the lift and go downstairs, Rhya marched back to her brother. “You are cooking something up with Rosa. Aren’t you?”
Vikram put down the newspaper and beckoned to Rhya to sit. “I want Rosa to take a trip with me.”
“What sort of trip?”
“A foreign trip.”
He hesitated, and an agitation welled up inside her at what she was to hear next.
“I am going to go to Ireland, Rhya. I would like Rosa to accompany me.”
“Are you mad, Vikram Fernandes?”
“There is no need to be like that. It is time I went back. I have to find where Grace is interred. I want to pay my respects.”
“And how can you do any of that without telling the child the truth?”
He held out his hand to Rhya, but she ignored it. “She is not a child any more, Rhya, maybe it is time she knew.”
“And what about me? What is she going to think of me?”
“Rhya, you are her mother. She adores you.”
Tears were streaming down Rhya’s face. “You can’t do this to me, Vik. It will ruin me with Rosa for ever.”
“You know that is not true.”
“Did she say she was going with you?”
“Rhya, which is worse? To keep this whole thing from her or to tell her at last? Rosa needs to be told.”
Rhya pressed her fingers across her brow. “You don’t get it, do you? That child has loved me completely all her life. I have loved her and still do, beyond anyone in this place. You can’t risk running a knife through it, just because you can’t throw away the past. You can’t deliberately discard my life like this.”
Vikram reached for his newspaper, intending to block out his sister, but Rhya got to it before him.
“You stay and fight me, Vikram Fernandes. I won’t let you hide behind that stupid paper.”
“I don’t think there is anything else to say. I do not want a row,” Vikram said, his voice flat.
“Of course you don’t, you just want your own way. I am telling you, Vikram Fernandes, if you utter a word of the truth to Rosa, I will never speak to you again.”
Rhya stood for a moment on the balcony, afraid she had said too much.
Vikram reached and picked up the newspaper, rustling it loudly before starting to read the cricket match report.
Quietly, Rhya retreated to the side balcony, taking deep breaths so she could consider what had happened. Her hands were shaking and her head ached. Vikram was good at creating a storm and leaving her to deal with the fallout. Downstairs, she heard the nightwatchman clear his throat and settle on to his cot bed. She should lie down, but her agitated mind would not let her.
Moving to her bedroom, and picking a key from the big bunch she usually carried around her waist, she unlocked her sari cupboard. Whenever she was troubled, she rummaged among her saris: amid the history, bright colours and luscious fabrics, she could find some solace and peace.
Sliding her hand over the shelves, her fingers hovered over the heavy silk saris, many only worn once, for occasions never repeated. Reaching into a small pile at the back, she pulled out the sari she had worn on the night they gathered to send Vikram to Ireland, all those years ago.
Letting the pink silk billow across the bed, the purple and gold border shimmering under the bare electric bulb, Rhya felt a sea of loneliness overcome her. She was too old for such a colour now, she knew that. The servant Rani had helped her dress that night, making sure her pleats were stiff and straight. Her blouse was a slightly deeper purple-pink, the colour contrasting with her long hair swept into a high bun. Her mother’s gold drop earrings dangled and glinted in the light. Vikram was going to Ireland, but she was beginning on the road to marriage. The Pintos had been invited to the celebration, so that Mrs Pinto and Rhya’s mother, aided by Flavia Nair, who had been called in specially to oversee the match, could discuss future plans.
There were many times she wanted to throw the sari away, but the softness of the fabric and the memory of being young and hopeful for a future, for both herself and Vikram, was so compelling, yet so painful, she had to keep it. She sighed to think of all that happened within a year afterwards, throwing their whole family sideways. Before she married him, she had only known Sanjay Pinto to see, but without him and his steadfast presence, she would never have got through the scandal that crawled through their family.
The night Vikram celebra
ted his move to Ireland, their mother’s sari had been green raw silk with a pink border embroidered thickly in gold. Rhya kept it now at the back of the wardrobe, not wanting to see the folds of fabric her mother had worn to honour a country she would later come to hate.
Quickly, she balled up the pink sari and hurled it back on the shelf, moving to happier times: the navy and gold for the celebration of her daughter’s marriage at Bangalore Club, a grand sari for a grand night alongside the diaphanous silk in autumnal russet and green for her son’s graduation from medical college. Saris that now made her glow with the beautiful memories of great pride and joy.
This cupboard gave her the freedom to pull up the memories she dared to ruminate over: the happy days at the front, so easily accessible, while others, which raked up the sad and bad family stories, were stored at the back, where they could be easily ignored.
On the top shelf was her mother’s wedding sari, laid out flat for as long as she could remember. Every so often Rhya remembered Shruthi in a quiet moment, pulled down the layers of fabric and shook them out to let the air through, the rich silk weave shimmering in the light. The border, in real gold thread, was heavy and wide. Some of her friends had their wedding saris melted down and were left with a tiny gold nugget, but Shruthi could not let hers go. It was a kind memory of a sweeter time. Rhya fingered the heavy silk. What of Rosa? Would she keep her mother’s wedding sari so carefully? Would she even want to talk to her when she came back from that place? Vikram was being selfish. It was more than she could bear. This daughter she loved so deeply: even the thought of possible discord between them hurt her to her core. Tears swelled through Rhya. She fingered the heavy gold border. She must remember to hang the sari over the balcony early tomorrow and sweep it back in before the sun bore down too hot.
4
Our Lady’s Asylum, Knockavanagh, March 1954
The blanket was too short. Whatever way she tried, she could not keep her toes covered, and the cold seeped up past her ankles, settling in her knees, slow, damp pains groaning through her. She dozed off but woke with a start shortly after.
The cry of a baby was eating into her brain. She sat up, staring into the half-darkness, the lights of the moon throwing strange shapes of grey across the beds.
The midwife had attended to her for nine solid hours. The shutters at No. 19 Parnell Square were pulled across; if anybody heard the cries of a woman in labour, they ignored them.
She imagined the judge had sat at his desk, his head dipped low over his work.
The midwife chastised her for making too much noise, for calling Vikram’s name, for asking somebody to tell him. She strained her hands to reach when she heard those first cries in the shadows of the room. Two women she did not know, lingering at the bottom of the bed, slipped away like ghosts, holding bundles of blankets.
Screaming until her throat hurt, she punched, kicked out, trying to get out of bed. Her legs would not follow, only her pleading and tears.
Summoned to the bedroom, Aunt Violet had come in, standing stiff by her bed.
“Dead. The doctor will give you something to help you sleep.”
Grace slipped down her mattress, pulling the blanket over her head.
At the end of the ward, the patient who sang all day now shouted, angry words spilling from her, like she was a channel for all the angst and pain resting deep in the walls.
Grace woke again at daylight, as the woman in the bed next to her tugged furiously at her shoulders. “Quick, get out of bed, stand out.”
“Why?”
“Do it.”
Grace got up and was standing when a stout woman with a big set of keys dangling at her waist walked down the narrow corridor between the rows of steel beds, calling out names and ticking a clipboard. When she came to Grace, she stopped and spoke over her shoulder to the nurse shadowing her.
“The judge’s wife. Make sure she sees Dr O’Neill today,” the matron said as the little group moved away.
The woman beside Grace sniggered, digging her in the ribs. “Do I call you the judge’s wife or are you going to tell me your name?”
“Grace.”
“A nice name. Call me Mandy. Maureen is the real name, but Mandy sounds better, like a secretary in London or something.”
The two of them joined the queue at the trolley, for tea and bread.
“You think I am definitely mad, don’t you?” said Mandy.
“It is not for me to say.”
“You are thinking the doctors have certified me to stay here, so that is the way it is.”
“I am sure they do their job.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” said Grace.
Mandy guffawed loudly so that one of the attendants walked back to check the line.
“Move on, we don’t have all day,” she snapped, clicking her fingers.
Each patient was handed a tin cup of milky tea.
“Go for the buttered bread, the butter softens up the staleness,” Mandy muttered as the young woman handing out the food called out in a lilting voice, “Buttered or plain?”
Grace took a thick slice of bread with butter and followed Mandy to sit on her bed.
“It is quite good today. No spots of smelly green mould either,” Mandy whispered, examining her slice carefully. “They take the stale bread from Connolly’s Bakery in town. My aunt works there, throwing old loaves and currant buns into the cloth sacks for the lunatics.”
“The judge’s wife: Dr O’Neill will see you now,” called out an attendant reading a magazine, without even raising her head.
Mandy pulled Grace close. “A tip: don’t let on to hearing voices.”
“But I don’t.”
“That’s all right, then.”
A nurse snapped at her to tidy herself up before escorting her off the ward and down the corridor to a small office at the end.
“Dr O’Neill, here’s the special one.”
The doctor pushed his glasses up his nose and took in the young woman. Not even the faded nightgown could take from the beauty of her face. Her eyes were soft and her hair still had enough of a fashionable shape that it framed her face in loose curls.
“Mrs Moran, do you know why you are here?”
“My husband had me admitted. I lost my—”
“Are there voices in your head, Mrs Moran?
“No.”
A young nurse walked into the room and began fiddling with the drawers of the filing cabinet. She winked at Dr O’Neill, who turned again to his patient.
“You are not well, Mrs Moran?”
“I am tired. I want to go home.”
“What will you get from being here?”
“I don’t know.”
“That will be all, Mrs Moran. We will review your case again in time.”
“What do you mean?”
He indicated to the nurse lingering beside his desk to take the patient away. The nurse, blocking Grace’s view of the doctor, called an attendant to escort the patient back to the ward.
“Call me if there is any noticeable change: depression, aggression, anything like that,” Dr O’Neill muttered to the nurse, as he quickly wrote out a prescription and handed back the file.
Grace made to say something else, but the nurse remained solid in front of her.
“Come along, we don’t have all day.”
“I want to go home.”
The doctor and nurse laughed. “Don’t we all?” the nurse said.
Grace stiffened, not budging when the nurse gently pushed her. “I should not be here.”
She heard the doctor sigh deeply as he opened another file on his desk. “Mrs Moran, just give it time,” he said, a weary tetchiness in his voice as he called out the name of the next patient.
“Please, I should not be here,” Grace said, her voice high-pitched, but neither the doctor nor nurse answered. An attendant came into the room and took Grace by the arm, pulling her roughly away as the nurs
e swung around to talk to the doctor.
5
Parnell Square, Dublin, March 1984
The phone was ringing in her head before she woke. For a moment, Emma did not know where she was and a fear rose inside her, only half dissipating as she recognised the judge’s study. She had fallen asleep on the purple chaise longue after sashaying around in the linen skirt. The phone jumping on the desk, its ring twirling across the shelves, bouncing between the books, made her rush to pick up the receiver, a strange agitation rising inside.
When she answered, Sam’s voice was strong and comfortable, causing loneliness to swell through her.
“How did you get the number?”
“I found it in your desk.”
“What do you want, Sam?”
“Em, I am sorry about everything. Your dad . . .”
“No need.”
“I have an offer on the apartment, but it will just cover the mortgage. We are not going to make anything extra.”
“After five years of marriage, zero.”
“I am afraid so. Can I accept the offer?”
“I don’t care.”
“Okay, but what about your things?”
“Dump it all, there is nothing there I want.”
“How are you, Emma?”
“It is bit late for polite chit-chat, Sam, don’t you think?”
He sighed, making her feel intensely angry. She banged the receiver down, flares of pain rushing through her.
She saw the judge sitting back, his two hands folded in front of him, quietly watching her. The rows of law books stood sentry over him: rows and rows of books nobody would ever read now. She could feel him here, still cosseted by these laden shelves, this library his haven from the world, a place she only ever entered if she had something important to say. Once, as a young child, she rushed in after tripping on the front steps and grazing her knee. Sobbing, she had hoped to throw herself into his arms, to hear words of comfort, but he put up his hand like a traffic warden slows a speeding driver approaching a crossing.
The Judge's Wife Page 2
