Grace pressed the needle through the double edge 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.