He would never use it, he did not like handkerchiefs, but he would never tell her that and would carry it in his pocket all the time because it pleased her so.
It was much later that night when the hunt was on for Mandy.
“Do you know where she is?”
An attendant was standing over Grace.
“Who?”
“Maureen McGuane, that is who.”
“You mean Mandy?”
The attendant walked off, grumbling to herself.
“A man was going to give her flowers and they were going dancing, just like Barry and me,” Bertha shouted out.
The matron, who had arrived at the station, walked over. “What did you say?”
One of the nurses stood between the matron and Bertha. “Take no notice of her, she is always full of that talk.”
The matron, wearing a navy dress, pointed at Grace. “Are you friends with Maureen?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“In the kitchens, working.”
“I hear she was very dressed up for a woman going to empty bins. Would you know why?”
Grace took up a bunch of linen handkerchiefs. “I did forty today. Do you like my stitching?”
“I was asking about Maureen.”
“In the kitchens, working.”
The matron stamped her foot. “A dead loss. Conduct a search of every ward and tell Paddy O’Brien to look around the grounds and alert the gateman,” she snapped to two nurses standing at her elbow. The matron picked up one of Grace’s handkerchiefs. “It is nice stitching. If you play your cards right, make yourself better, we might be able to get you work in a local factory.”
She looked to Grace’s face, expecting some sort of gratitude, but she was staring off into space. The matron turned on her heel and told the attendant to alert her as soon as the patient was found. Using a key from a big bunch around her waist, she unlocked the ward security door and left.
“She has run for the hills,” Bertha said, and Grace looked to her in surprise, but the old woman was picking her nails and muttering to herself.
Grace lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Vikram whispered in her ear, his arms enfolding her. He had rented out a room in a small hotel in Bray. It was a small room, washed up and forgotten, overlooking the railway line, but the sheets were clean and the proprietor willing to take cash and ask no questions. When Grace first went there, she was nervous. Vikram held her close, whispering in her ear, slowly unzipping her dress. They made love, laughing when the mainline train thundered past, making the room shake and the pictures on the walls shudder. He liked to stroke the top of her arms, all the time whispering his love for her, so that she felt loved and safe. Feeling his touch, she drifted away, imagining they were far away on the coffee estate, locked in by the heavy monsoon rains.
*
It was much later when she woke up. She knew by the way the grey light on the ward threw up shapes on the far wall. Bertha’s heavy snoring punctuated the air: she had fallen asleep, sitting on the chair by the window, her head dipped into her chest. Teresa was beginning to shout for her supper and other women were also grumbling.
“They are very late tonight. Don’t they know we are starving?” the old lady at the end shouted.
Another woman pulled on a coat and stood at the door, as if she wanted to be top of the queue for the dining hall. As the attendant pushed her roughly back to the beds, the door opened and a man with a trolley walked in. First they were quiet, then someone let out a screech and another pulled up her skirt to show her heavy stockinged leg. The man’s face went fire-red as he ladled out bowls of soup and handed out bread.
“Sonny, you can stay and entertain us, we could do with a bit of cheering up,” the old woman shouted, and the others laughed.
A young woman still in her nightgown sidled up to him, making to touch his hair. One of the ward attendants slapped her back. “Behave and let the poor fellah do his job.”
“Why aren’t we in the dining hall?” Grace asked.
The attendant spun around. “Always the questions. If your friend ever comes back to this ward, you can ask her that.”
“Mandy – has she been found?”
The attendant didn’t answer but sniggered, whispering something to the man doling out the food, which made crimson seep up his neck.
“Is she all right?”
“Let’s just say she won’t be worrying about whether the bread is speckled with green tonight.”
Some of the women stopped to listen. Mindful she had an audience, the foolish attendant continued.
“Best to keep the rules: remember that and you won’t end up discarded at the well. Must have been gone in her head to think any man would look at a woman in an asylum.” The attendant laughed heartily at her own joke. “Not right in the head, sure, ye are all wrong in the head, ye poor things.”
“What happened?” Grace asked.
The attendant pulled her aside fiercely. “Five men, that is what happened to her, and her wearing a red skirt. The skirt was found down the holy well. She was only barely alive. You did not hear any of this from me, understand? Or I will have ye.”
The attendant clapped her hands, shouting, “Time to bed down.”
“Did he bring her flowers?” Bertha asked.
“Faith, it wasn’t flowers she got,” the attendant sniggered, putting her hands together loudly to move the women towards their beds.
Grace climbed in. She was shivering, but not from the cold. Teresa was singing at the far end of the ward, over and over, the same line: “Mandy fell down the well. Mandy fell down the well.”
Grace, not caring her feet would get cold, pulled the blanket over her head and shut her eyes tight, afraid to think of what had happened to her friend.
12
Bangalore, India, March 1984
Rosa seemed on edge, fidgeting with the strap of her handbag.
“There is something wrong, my Rosa?”
“Anil is not happy that we travel next week.” She shook her head. Her lips curled and she sighed deeply, the arch of her shoulders tightening. “I am afraid what will happen if I go away, Uncle. Anil is womanising, I know it.”
Vikram checked the servant was not throwing an ear into their conversation. “How can you know such a thing, Rosa?”
“I heard talk.”
“Talk counts for nothing. Have you spoken to Anil about it?”
Rosa jumped up. “Uncle, he is never home.”
“It is still only talk, Rosa. How have you been getting along?”
She turned away and began to finger the hibiscus, brazen-red in flower. “We used to enjoy being together, Uncle, but now . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Vikram, embarrassed, coughed loudly and cleared his throat. “Maybe your mother is right: you should not be turning up here so much and should spend more time at home.”
“Why? He is never there. He comes in very late, and when he is home there are all sorts of phone calls. I answered the phone the other day. A girl was giggling on the line, until she realised it was me. I hate going anywhere, because I know everybody feels sorry for me.” Tears were flowing down her cheeks, but she did not appear to notice.
Vikram held out his two hands and she grasped them.
“Grace was a very lucky woman, Uncle, to have a man like you on her side.”
“Was she? I don’t think so.” He squeezed her hands tight and changed the subject. “You still love Anil?”
She flopped on to her knees on the marble floor beside Vikram and lay her head in his lap, like she used to when she was a young girl and had fallen out with her friends. “I love him more than anything, but when he is at home I am on edge. I pick fights. He likes to argue, because if we do he does not have to love me.”
Vikram released one of his hands from her grasp and stroked her hair. “Marriage is a difficult contract at the best of times. It often requires renewal and further negotiation.”
“That I would not mind: it is the constant telling me I am in the wrong when he is running around the whole of Bangalore with girls half his age.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
“No offence, Uncle, but he is not afraid of you.” Rosa laughed. “I think Mama would be a better bet. Would you ask her for me? I can’t bear the interrogation she will put me through.”
Vikram smiled and nodded. “My sister is a wonderful woman, but a High Court judge would be hard pressed to match her in cross-examination. Much preferable to have Rhya on side.”
Rosa got back on her chair. “Tell me more about Grace.”
She was smiling, and it gladdened Vikram’s heart to see a softness return to her eyes.
“You would have liked her, Rosa. She was so sweet and gentle. We had arranged to meet at the park a few days after the Parnell Square party. I was a bit late arriving at the Green. She was sitting on the bench her shoulders hunched.”
*
Vikram stopped and took her in: the smart suit and cape, a cloche hat to match the fleck of the suit. She did not see him at first and he noticed she was drumming the bench lightly with her fingers. When she turned and saw him, a smile curved across her face.
“I am sorry, but the ward was so busy this morning I am afraid I can only stay about twenty minutes.”
“So there are people who let you treat them.”
“Some are so sick they can’t voice their objection.”
She laughed.
“Shall we walk?” he suggested.
“I thought you may not come after what happened at Parnell Square.”
“Nothing was going to stop me.”
“I like your company, Vikram, I am not going to let anybody like Aunt Violet spoil it.”
He detected a firmness in her voice, though she looked at him shyly and they walked on. When they got to the far corner of the Green, he said he had to rush back.
“I have a day off tomorrow. Maybe we could meet again and have a cup of tea after our walk.”
She nodded enthusiastically and stood watching him as he pelted across the road back to the hospital.
The next day, he was the one who was early. Grace arrived fifteen minutes later, her cheeks rosy with exertion.
“I was afraid you would not wait. Aunt Violet insisted I accompany her to the dentist. It was as if she knew of our plans. We met Claire Fitzpatrick, the judge’s wife, there and she wanted us to have tea with her. I had to tell a lie to get away from them.”
“What did you say?”
“I told them Miss Connolly had scheduled a last-minute fitting and I had to go, as the judge wanted me to have a new ballgown for the King’s Inns dinner. But enough. I want to hear all about India and the coffee estate.”
“You would love the plantation, Grace, it is the one place in the world that brings such peace to my heart. There are times it is so quiet you fancy you can hear the plants grow and stretch to the sun, the snakes slide across the paths. There are other times, the peacocks are crying so loud it feels haunted. The wind among the trees high and hoarse, the birds settling into their nests, the sweet scent of the flowers of the Robusta plant, they are all dear to my heart.”
“I would love to go there.”
“I will bring you to where the river widens, where the elephants lie about waiting for their mahouts to scrub them after a day’s work.”
She clapped her hands in excitement. “I have to go, Vikram, I just have to.”
They crossed to the top of Grafton Street and down the street to Bewley’s. He faltered and she turned to him.
“Are you worried to be seen with me?” he asked.
She looked insulted, her eyes sweeping across him anxiously, trying to read his face. “I rather hoped you had a better opinion of me, Vikram.”
“I just worry for you. In India this would not be acceptable unless we were related.”
She stood and looked Vikram in the eyes. “People gossip in any language, Dr Fernandes, and good luck to them if they do. Now, let us have tea.”
*
“Rosa, I was caught in a whirlwind. It happened to both of us, within a short time.”
The sound of the front door banging made both Vikram and Rosa jump.
“Oh my, what a squall there is today. Rosa, come help unpack the marketing bags.”
As Rosa got up to help her mother, Vikram reached out and took her hand. “Stay tough, Rosa, stay brave. It will all work out, one way or another.”
“That is what I am afraid of, Uncle.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rhya, so tugged away her hand before her mother began to question her.
Vikram watched her help her mother and he wondered how Anil could look anywhere else. Not only was Rosa beautiful, with a lovely tip nose, but she also had her mother’s warm heart.
Closing his eyes, he felt Grace about him. The lovely, warm-hearted Grace. Sitting in Bewley’s after their tea, she had started to cry.
*
“Grace, what is wrong?”
“Everybody has been so awful to you. I don’t know what you make of us.”
“I don’t think badly of you, Grace.”
She pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and blew her nose. “I have to leave. I don’t want to arouse Violet’s suspicions.”
She made to open her handbag, but he put his hand up to stop her. She blushed and giggled, then, flustered, called the waitress for the bill.
*
The breeze surging past the jacaranda tree ruffled his hair. Grace whispered in his ear, her breath warm against his neck, her perfume enveloping him, and he felt young, felt a sense of excitement to be in her presence.
When Rosa returned to the balcony, she thought he was asleep, so she slipped quietly away to go home and talk to her husband.
13
Parnell Square, Dublin, March 1984
Emma, a wool blanket thrown over her and another rolled up as a pillow, slept on the library chaise longue. She woke up stiff and cold down one side. At first she thought she was in her apartment near Sydney Harbour, that she heard the neighbours noisily pass on the outside corridor to go to work. She lay there cramped with cold, wondering why she could not hear Sam in the shower. They had married in an enthusiastic rush, but she had no inkling he was not happy. Grumpy, unkind, inattentive of late, but she had thought she had nothing to worry about, until he came home one day and told her he had a new partner. A child with a nice-sounding name was also mentioned and Emma ran from the apartment. Two days later she returned while he was at work, snatching some clothes, her passport and her mother’s necklace, three strands of aurora borealis stones with a silver clasp. The judge had given it to her when she turned eighteen. Reaching into a drawer on his desk, he had taken out the bunch of stones, sparkling in the afternoon sun. He let them drip from one hand to the other as the necklace uncoiled.
“This was your mother’s favourite necklace. I hope you look after it well,” he said. No other explanation was offered.
Now, the curtains were not drawn in the library, so she lay in the gloom of the wet and cold morning looking out over the back garden, which was so overgrown it was hard to see where it ended. She creaked off the chaise longue, pressing on the lamp at the judge’s desk, her eye travelling down the room. When she was very young, she had thought he was a prisoner here, only visiting the dining room when they had company. More often than not he had supper on a tray as he worked. Sometimes, she heard him climb the stairs late and would duck under the covers, pretending to be asleep. Once, she moved too fast and he spotted she was awake, stepping into the room and telling her off sternly, so that she shut her eyes, afraid to open them even when she heard him continue to his own room, across the landing.
Angie had arranged for Andrew Kelly to come later in the day to oversee the transfer of the judge’s law books to the Four Courts. When the Irish Law Reports were taken away, the last vestiges of the judge would go out the door with them. There w
as nowhere else in the house that held the judge’s spirit.
She shook her head to push thoughts of the judge away, wishing she had a room that would so neatly tidy away her life with Sam.
*
Andrew Kelly rang the bell early. Wearing jeans with an open-neck shirt and cardigan, he looked very different.
“Mrs Hannon got in touch, said you needed the law books moved. I have brought along a few people to help with the lifting, if you don’t mind us doing it now.”
Emma pulled back the front door as about ten young men and women traipsed in.
“Martin never set it down on paper, but he often said he would like his books to be donated to the Law Library.”
“You knew my father well, Mr Kelly?”
“Please call me Andrew. Yes, your father was a very good friend over the last ten years . . .” His voice trailed away and he turned to direct the operation.
Emma watched as each student was assigned a set of books, lifting them carefully from the shelves and placing them in cardboard boxes. Slowly the grey shelves were revealed, naked without their heavy load. Rows and rows were packed together, box sets of the law to be treasured now by others. With the books gone, what had been Judge Martin Moran would be gone as well, in this place at least. A desk, a chair and a few bent folders would be all that was left to sum up the father; precedents laid down in bound law books to sum up the judge.
“Is there anything you want to keep as a reminder?” Andrew asked gently.
“Maybe Salmond’s Law of Torts. Even the judge had secrets.”
He looked oddly at her, letting the book slip through his fingers.
“Apologies, I am all thumbs this morning,” he said, and she smiled, crouching down to pick up the book. Spying a small pink envelope under the hall table, she reached for it, tucking it into the book as she stood up.
“Do you need me here? I thought I would go upstairs, continue on the rooms there,” she said.
“You go on, it is just heavy lifting here.”
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