She seemed to sense something, as I lingered at the gap in the curtain. People know more instinctively than they know in their conscious brain (perhaps medically a dubious notion but there it is).
'So, Doctor,' she said. 'Have you assessed me?'
'What?'
'Have you made your assessment?' 'Oh, yes. I think so.' 'And what is the verdict?' 'You are blameless.'
'Blameless? I hardly think that is given to any mortal being.' 'Blameless. Wrongly committed. I apologise. I apologise on behalf of my profession. I apologise on behalf of myself, as someone who did not bestir himself, and look into everything earlier. That it took the demolition of the hospital to do it. And I know my apology is useless and disgusting to you.' Weak as she was, she laughed.
'But', she said, 'that is not true. They showed me the brochure for the new hospital. I suppose you will let me stay there for a while?'
'It is entirely your decision. You are a free woman.'
'I was not always a free woman. I thank you for my freedom.'
'It is my privilege to pronounce it,' I said, suddenly very odd and formal, but she took it in her stride.
'Can you step back to the bed?' she said.
I did so. I didn't know what she intended. But she just lifted my hand, and shook it.
'I wonder will you allow me to forgive you?' she said.
'My God, yes,' I said.
There was a short silence then, just enough of a silence for the breath of a dozen thoughts to blow through my brain.
'Well, I do,' she said.
The next morning, I went round to the old stableblock. I wanted to ask John Kane while I still could the few questions, with now all the more reason to do so. I knew it was unlikely that he would be able or even willing to answer me. I supposed at the very least I might offer him profoundest thanks, for all his strange work.
There was absolutely no sign of him. His quarters was a single room with an old-fashioned gramophone sideboard, the sort of one where you had to open the right-hand door for the sound to escape, because the door hid a simple wooden amplifier. There was a collection of 78 records in the niche supplied by the manufacturers (Shepherds, Bristol). It contained Benny Goodman, Bubber Miley, Jelly Roll Morton, Fletcher Henderson, and Billy Mayerl records. Otherwise the room was empty, except for a neat little iron bed, with a coverlet crudely sewn with flowers. I thought immediately of Mrs McNulty's work as described by Roseanne. I have no doubt that to get his way, or what he thought was the best way to serve Roseanne, he used all the pressure he could bring on the McNultys and their secret. The first wife who did not legally exist, and about whom the second family of Tom McNulty was probably never told. The mad wife who was not a wife, but nevertheless was flesh and blood. I am sure Mrs McNulty and her good daughter went as far as they humanly could to humour John Kane, even to the extent of supplying my new name, and my story up to that point. I do not know what he intended to do after he had found me, and can only suppose that having found out I had miraculously trained as a psychiatrist, he adapted himself to this, and hatched a better plan than the first, which after all, if it was a simple reunion he had in mind, might have resulted in my refusal to see Roseanne, or having seen her, my rejection of her. Because why would I not reject her, when everyone else had?
Well, I supposed all these things. It is not history. But I am beginning to wonder strongly what is the nature of history. Is it only memory in decent sentences, and if so, how reliable is it? I would suggest, not very. And that therefore most truth and fact offered by these syntactical means is treacherous and unreliable. And yet I recognise that we live our lives, and even keep our sanity, by the lights of this treachery and this unreliability, just as we build our love of country on these paper worlds of misapprehension and untruth. Perhaps this is our nature, and perhaps unaccountably it is part of our glory as a creature, that we can build our best and most permanent buildings on foundations of utter dust.
I should also memorialise a box of Cuban cigars by John
Kane's bed, which, on opening it, I discovered to be half empty. Or half full.
Otherwise nothing, except this curious and important little note on top of the gramophone:
Dear Doctor Green,
I am not no angel but I took the baby off that island. I run to the doctor with it. I would like to speke to you but I am bound to go. You will ask why I done it all for Roseanne and the anser is because I loved my father. My father was killed by Peerpoint. I got Doc Sing to right you a letter and it was a miracle he did and that you came. I am glad you came. Someday I was going to tell you the truth and now that day is come. You know the truth I am certan and plese now you do do not throw off your mother. No one among us is perfect look at me but that is not the idea. If we do not come to the gates of heaven with love averred, St Peter cannot let us in the gates. Now I say goodbye, Doc, forgive me, and God also forgive me.
Faithfully,
Seanin Keane Lavelle (John Kane)
PS. It is Doran attacked that Leitrim woman, the one that went home safely.
The other nurses and attendants did not know where he was. It wasn't as if he had packed a bag, or crept into the woodland behind us to die. There was simply no trace of him. Of course the police were informed and I am sure the gardai are keeping a weather eye out for him, and spot him everywhere and nowhere. Max Doran, the orderly referred to by John Kane, quite a young fellow and rather handsome and who has a girlfriend, confessed privately to me about the Leitrim woman, about which he is obviously ashamed and, more to the point, worried. He confessed, but then retracted. When the solicitors are ready he will go to trial, which may be some time. As the hospital and its staff are dispersed, I cannot say morale has been harmed. Perhaps something small has been gained. I would like to think it is the start of safety for our patients but alas I am not so great a fool.
chapter twenty-two
Now here is the autumn and she is in good quarters. Purpose-built, state of the art, really, in truth, an asylum worthy of that ancient and desirable name. No doubt with her great age it is only a matter of time, but then, what is not? Many a good man died long before my own age. Many days she is silent, and difficult, and won't eat, and asks me brusquely why I have come. Sometimes she tells me she doesn't need me to come.
Like John Kane, I am trying to pick my moment. I see very well the difficulty he had.
One day as I was going she stood up and came the few inches towards me like a scrap of parchment, embraced me, and thanked me. Even her bones have lost weight. I was so moved I almost told her. But I still did not.
I think I fear, though she may be satisfied hopefully with me as a doctor and a friend, she may be disappointed with me as a son, as being not sufficient recompense for all her travails – a ridiculous, sober, ageing, confused English Irishman. Furthermore I am terrified of shocking her in the wrong way, medically, psychically. On this I might consult with Dr Wynn, but it might be a shock well beyond the business of medicine, beyond what he knows, and what I know. Something subtle, gentle, and fragile might be broken, beyond our clumsy fixing. The kernel of her endurance. But I believe it will keep, it will keep. The important thing is, she is safe and cared for. And she is free.
The month after I returned from England the asylum was demolished. They decided to do it by controlled explosion, so that the top four floors would collapse when the ground floor was blown away. That morning it was like going out to see my life being erased, with wires and dynamite and beautiful calculations. We all stood back on a little hill, about a quarter mile from the building. At the appointed hour the engineer pushed down on the box, and after an eternal second we heard a massive noise and saw the underside of the old building dissolve in a fiery crown of mortar and ancient stone. The huge edifice immediately headed earthward, leaving only a hanging memory of its old positions against the sky line. Behind it was an angel, a great man of fire the height of the asylum, with wings spread from east to west. It was evidently John Kane. I looked about me at my companions and asked them if they saw what I saw. They looked at me as if I was mad, and I suppose, having lost my asylum and now being only the superintendent of an enormous absence, filled by an unlikely angel, I suppose I was.