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 nurse swung around to talk to the doctor.