Mandy stopped what she was doing. For a moment, Emma thought she was going to ask her to leave.
Slowly Mandy turned around, tears shimmering in her eyes. “It had started off such a happy night. She had stitched a lovely dress for herself. I had got the fabric when I was out in the town. She made me put it on so she could judge the length. Next thing there was this awful smoke. Everybody started screaming. The ward doors were locked.
“She ran to a window, but when she realised I was not with her she came back to where I was hiding. She pulled me out from under the bed and told me I would definitely die if I stayed there. Next thing she had pushed me out the window. I was knocked unconscious in the fall. I broke my ankle, hurt my back. I don’t know what happened to Grace, why she didn’t make it.”
They sat quietly until the kettle boiled, switching off with a loud click.
“I am raising ghosts, I am sorry,” said Emma.
“It is only natural that you would want to know about it. She saved my life, but by the time they let me out of hospital she was already buried. I didn’t even get to the funeral. Everybody in the asylum was scattered all over the place. There was no interest in rebuilding it. Father Grennan said he would take me in and be responsible for me, so I had a home.”
“My father, did he ever visit the grave?”
“He paid for the whole plot. That is why it looks so nice. He sent a cheque every year for the upkeep, but he never set foot in the place after the funeral. You are the first of Grace’s family to come here.”
Emma traced a pattern on the oilcloth covering the kitchen table. “I should get back. I promised my friend I would help her with her patchwork quilt: she has to finish it for some competition.” Emma stopped, rattling the car keys in her pocket. “Do you like sewing at all, Miss McGuane?”
Mandy looked taken back. “In my day, I was good at the stitches.”
32
Bangalore, India, May 1984
Vikram did not sleep, so by the time Rhya woke up he was sitting reading his newspaper. His case was packed, his passport left on top.
“Are you still going, Vik?”
He closed his Deccan Herald, folding it with extra precision. “More than ever, I have to go now. Rosa rang. We will have lunch here and go together to the station in the evening, after our rest.”
“Vikram, this is madness.” Rhya’s voice was low with defeat. “What has to happen to make you stop wanting to go to that country. That place is going to be the death of you.”
“Rhya, don’t you see? I have to stand at Grace’s grave, to ask her forgiveness. I have to do it.”
“I am so worried about you, Vik.”
“Rosa won’t let anything happen to me.”
“Madness, unadulterated madness.”
“It is the right thing to do.”
“Right, wrong, what does it matter? It is not going to bring back the lost years or bring Grace back to life.” As soon as she said the words, Rhya regretted it. The pain inflicted by her careless words crawled across her brother’s face. “Is there any way I can stop you, Vikram?”
“Not even if you stand in front of me, Rhya.”
Rhya threw her hands in the air. Everybody thought she was the stubborn one, but Vikram won hands down every time. “Your room, you cleared it?”
He did not answer but reached into his pocket and handed her a folded page of lined paper. “Read it to understand my mood. I have told my man to replace what is broken and fix the chair.”
Opening the letter carefully, Rhya sat down, but when she heard Rosa downstairs she stuffed it quickly back in her pocket. “Call it off, Vik. No matter about the money.”
He jumped up, striding out to the balcony. Rhya knew better than to follow.
Rosa arrived, her voice ahead of her as she instructed two servants where to deposit her luggage. Taking in the nervous twitches of her mother, the hunched figure of Vikram on the balcony, she asked what was wrong. Rhya threw her hands up in the air.
“Call it all off. That country is no place for our family, that is what is wrong.”
Rosa burst out laughing. “Mama, you are nervous for us going on a long trip. We understand.”
They heard Vikram sigh loudly as he went into his room, locking the door behind him.
“Rosa, I don’t want you travelling to that place because of what it did to your uncle. It practically ruined our family. This family almost floundered after Vikram was arrested and charged with the most heinous crimes. What do you think it took to stop the news spreading? We managed, but at a terrible price. You going back just digs it all up again.” She stopped, afraid she had said too much.
Rosa put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “Mama, nobody has ever told me exactly what went on. Isn’t it time?”
Rhya called the servant girl and sent her on an errand before closing the front door and snapping the lock. She did the same with the door to the balcony.
“There are those who have their own theories, but they will never hear anything in this house.” She dropped her voice and motioned Rosa to sit close. “Vikram appeared before a court and was charged. You know the charge, I can’t bear to repeat it. It took several weeks for the letter to arrive. Imagine the consternation when my mother opened it.
“She fainted, fell on the floor in front of us. My father sent us all out and carried Mama to the bedroom. There, he also read the letter. I can still hear his weeping. We all stood beside the jackfruit tree in the garden, us children and the servants listening to Rudolph Fernandes weeping like a child. We all thought Vikram was dead.” Rhya stopped to swallow hard. “They told us Vikram was very ill and Father would have to travel to Ireland. We all cried as he prepared to take the night train to Delhi. I was a married woman at this stage, but my parents told me nothing.
“When my father came back from Ireland, he was a broken man. He was not the man he had been and he did not bring any hope with him for Vikram.” Reaching for the end of her pallu, Rhya dabbed her eyes as she continued. “My father offered everything we had to get poor Vikram out on bail, but the court would not accept any terms, so he had to leave him there in a jail, where he had already been attacked and was now in solitary confinement for his own protection. Father employed a solicitor, but it was still nearly six months before Vikram was released and the charges against him dropped.
“Nobody apologised, nobody did anything about the false allegations, nobody cared that Vik’s job and reputation were gone. He was left with no option but to return home.” Rhya began to pace around the room. “It was the worst of times, Rosa.”
“Wasn’t I born around then?”
Rhya stopped patrolling. “You came into our lives at a very strange time. When Vikram returned to India, he could barely talk. If it wasn’t for the good standing of our father he would never have got work again, even if it was a much inferior position than he had hoped for. There was that and the fact that nobody knew the truth of what went on in Ireland. They still don’t. If that happened even now, we would not be able to hold our heads up.”
“It was a false allegation. Did nobody do anything about that?”
“What to do? We looked after Vikram, that’s all we could do, and our poor mother went slowly but surely mad. It started the day father set off for Ireland. She was certain we had lost our two men to that country. She barely ate, paced the veranda, up and down, all night long. She aged in front of our eyes, and then after father came back, it continued. She was constantly going checking on Vikram, almost as if he was her baby again. This went on for months, before she took to her bed.
“The only time she got up was at night, walking the house looking for Vikram, shouting that bad people had got him. When she started getting angry with us, the doctors tried to find out what was wrong. The only conclusion was the stress had triggered something that should have happened much later in her life. Poor mother was losing her mind.”
“I don’t remember Grandmother.”
“Merci
fully, she died before you were three years of age, but those years ground us down to nothing. She could not be left on her own and we had to get in extra servants to help at a time when the coffee estate was in trouble financially.”
“Uncle Vik turned around the coffee estate, didn’t he?”
“He hated the job he had in the Bangalore hospital and begged father to let him take over the coffee estate. Father, feeling defeated, thought it could do no harm and Vikram moved to Chikmagalur and took over operations. He made a surprisingly good fist of it. He buried himself in the mountains, working all hours until our coffee estate was one of the foremost in the area.”
Rosa noticed that Rhya’s shoulders had straightened with pride.
“Vik wanted to make up for the pain and hardship he had caused the whole family. He was gutted about what happened to our mother. When the day came, she did not recognise him. He said it was for the best, maybe she had forgotten, too, the awful shame he had piled on her shoulders.”
Rhya went to the kitchen to run a small towel under cold water, squeezing it out to swipe it along the back of her neck.
“You surely understand why I don’t want you to go to that place.”
“Times have changed, Mama. What can happen to us now?”
“You are beginning to sound too much like Vikram,” Rhya said as she unlocked the apartment door. A small breeze passed through the room.
“Two weeks only, Mama, and we will be back.”
“I know, Rosa, but what will happen in the meantime? Tell me that.”
They were both quiet when Vikram unlocked the bedroom door and opened it wide.
Rhya called out to him and he walked over to his sister. Gently running a hand along her cheek, he spoke to her in a low, comforting murmur. “Please don’t worry, but understand this is something I must do.”
Rhya let tears coast down her face as she hugged her brother. Grasping her daughter’s hand, she spoke in an almost cross voice. “Come home safe, both of you. I insist on it.”
It was late evening when Vikram and Rosa called a car to bring them to the station to catch the sleeper train to Delhi. Rhya did not go downstairs to say goodbye but stood on the balcony, watching the car until it was out of sight.
All day she had fingered Vikram’s letter in her pocket and now she had time to read it. Settling on her bed, she took it out, flattening it to the edges. Curse the Morans and their small country, she thought as she set about reading. Soon she would have to tell Rosa the full truth, but at least now she could wait until she came back from Ireland and until Vikram was stronger.
19 Parnell Square
Dublin
February 18, 1984
Dear Dr Fernandes,
This is a very difficult letter to write and I won’t insult either of us by enquiring after your health. Time, I find, is snapping at my heels and due to a cancerous tumour I do not expect to be alive for very long. I know by the time you are reading this I will have passed on. At this moment, when the pain of cancer consumes my body, it is indeed a comforting thought.
As happens when an approximate date to leave this world is flagged, I have been assessing my life on this earth and moving to right any perceived wrongs .For obvious reasons, your name has come back in focus, and I feel I must alert you to something important. I believe you loved my wife Grace and I know she loved you, something she could never offer to me. Ours was an arranged marriage. It is something I will regret beyond my dying day. Yet there is another matter that is altogether more serious and has over the years troubled me greatly.
When I told you to take away your daughter, I led you to believe she was the only survivor of a terribly difficult birth. That is not, however, the case. Another girl, who I have brought up as Emma, was born that night. When the two were born, we were faced with a difficult dilemma and to split them up seemed the appropriate and only solution.
I saw no need to consult you then and neither do I offer an apology now, merely an explanation and information you may want to act on. The other baby was for all intents and purposes a white child and I brought her up as my own daughter. Emma had a good education and, while she suffered because of the lack of a mother in her life, she has turned into a fine young woman. It is with regret I have to say I have not spoken to her in several years, since she left home in something of a fury at what she perceived to be my interference in her life. She emigrated to Australia and my reports from there say she is married. I hope beyond anything she has found some happiness. No doubt, having brought up a daughter, you will understand the difficulties a parent experiences trying to steer them on the road to success and achievement.
This information will come as a shock to you. The following information may also be of some assistance. I put it in your hands to pass on as you see fit.
As you know, I am a wealthy man and I have given much thought to the following. I intend to leave my house in Parnell Square, Dublin, my apartment in Paris and my London apartment to my daughter, Emma. However, I feel that I must be fair to the other little girl who, through no reason other than her father’s origins, missed out on the same upbringing as her sister.
I leave also to this girl, who is the daughter of Vikram Fernandes and Grace Moran and a twin sister of Emma Moran, a significant amount of cash and have instructed my solicitor as such.
There is another matter that requires to be addressed. I know Violet McNally took you aside and told you Grace was dead. I know now, but I swear I had no knowledge at that time, that she was the one who arranged for the charges against you to be dropped, providing you leave the country. I tell you most sincerely I knew nothing of any of this. When you came to me after the case had been withdrawn, I honestly thought the wheels of justice had been turning. It made sense you would want to return to your home country. It also made sense you would take away the little girl, who had no future and would not fit in here in any way.
Violet McNally, before her death, told me you thought Grace was dead when you came to my house that night. She also admitted she was behind the vile and false accusations made against you.
To my eternal shame, I did nothing about either admission. In these regards I have done wrong, and I sincerely apologise. I have my own cross to bear. Grace died at the asylum, a fact that tortures me every hour of every day.
I realise the above will come as a shock to you and no doubt to your daughter. All I ask in return is that I am not thought of too unkindly. I wish you and your daughter well.
I suppose I have to refer to the nasty business that went on between the two of us. All I can say in mild mitigation is that, at the time, I believed it necessary. There were extraordinary excusing circumstances which led to the decisions made. That they caused you pain and will again now, I profoundly regret. If we could all look back and say with alacrity that we stood by every decision we had ever made, we could indeed be regarded as superhuman. Unfortunately none of us can lay claim to that badge, not even a judge.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Moran
The letter dropped from Rhya’s fingers, floating to the ground. A white child? What would they do with a white child? What sort of man was the judge to separate twins? Maybe it was a sick lie, a joke made by a man insane with the prospect of death.
How could a woman give birth to one brown and one white baby? Scooping up the letter, she balled it tight and fired it across the room. A white girl, a daughter he knew nothing about: no wonder Vikram wanted to risk everything by returning to that place. She should have read the letter before he left, talked it through with him. What was he going to do? Try to find this white woman who was his daughter? What would they do if she came to Bangalore?
Rhya put her head in her hands. Ireland had thrown so much at them and this, she felt, was the last straw, shame, decades after the event, decades in which she had worked so hard to present a cool outward appearance, decades in which she put her brother and Rosa, the girl she called her first child, before herself. Was this now t
o be trampled on by a white woman who would want a stake in the thriving coffee estate? She hoped above anything that her brother would keep his wits about him in Ireland this time round.
She heard the servant leave and she lay down, all alone in this big old apartment. There was little she could do until they returned. She could pray, but for what?
33
Dublin, Ireland, May 1984
They were both wearing heavy coats, but still they felt the damp creeping up inside their clothes as they walked along O’Connell Street. The cold wind against them as they paced up to the junction of Parnell Square made both Vikram and Rosa wonder if they could survive two weeks in this climate without catching a chill.
Vikram had insisted, after checking in, that they dump the bags and go to Parnell Square. He refused to let them rest, maintaining he had arranged a meeting with a solicitor later on. “Rosa, we have to do everything. I am sure the solicitor can help us. She passed on a letter from the judge and may be able to help us track down Grace’s grave.”
Rosa, too tired to object or to raise a question about the letter, trudged along beside her uncle, her hands deep in her pockets.
Stopping at the junction, they could see the houses at the top of Parnell Square perched on the small hill, as if the builders intended the occupants to get the best view over the city. The front of No. 19 was at first obliterated by a double-decker bus. When the traffic moved, the tall red-brick building that was like any other on the square was exposed. It looked jaded and worn, the good days long since gone. Both wondered if they should knock on the door or chance peeping in the letter box.
“We should at least see if anybody is home,” Rosa said almost impatiently, and they climbed the steep stone steps. No good might come of it, but above anything she wanted to know what this place looked like inside. When she pressed the brass buzzer, the bell sounded through the house, bouncing through the rooms, as if seeking out an answer as it echoed through empty rooms. Rosa pressed again.
The Judge's Wife Page 20
