The Judge's Wife by Ann O'Loughlin

Author:Ann O'Loughlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2016-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

21

Our Lady’s Asylum, Knockavanagh, July 1955

Mandy slipped out of her shoes and pulled off her socks before the attendants saw her.

“Feel the grass between your toes.”

Grace looked around to make sure nobody could see her and did the same.

“It tickles and it is damp,” Mandy whispered.

“Do you think if we run, they will panic?”

“Are you mad? Walk slowly, let’s trudge, and they won’t know the difference.”

“Why are we even doing this?”

Mandy lifted up her skirt, like she had just walked into the sea. “Because we can. There is so much, girl, we can’t do. We might as well get any snip of pleasure we can.”

Bertha was standing at the central flowerbed. “My husband is visiting on Friday,” she mumbled, yanking the tight pink rose blooms and tapping the spent flowers so that the petals scattered across the ground.

The caretaker rushed over. “Missus, can you just stop doing that? You are making more work for me.”

Bertha looked at him. “My Barry buys the biggest bunch of flowers.”

“Don’t be touching the roses, please.”

“They are my flowers and I will touch them if I want.” Bertha took a swipe at the rose bush nearest and a flurry of rose petals dropped away. The caretaker shouted, making the attendant scoot over.

“She can’t be doing that. I don’t know what ye are doing bringing this lot out here. It is a recipe for disaster. The man is coming in to cut the grass, so ye better move back inside.”

Bertha reached over and snapped a rose at its stem. The caretaker shouted louder this time, making the gateman bolt down.

“We had better get these in, before they cause any more trouble,” a nurse said. One of the attendants walked slowly in circles, her arms out, herding the women like they were sheep in a field. When Bertha refused to move, the caretaker and gateman grabbed an arm each, half pulling and half carrying her.

Mandy and Grace quickly stepped into their shoes and stuffed their socks in their pockets. “Pity the old bag had to make a scene, otherwise we could have stayed for longer,” Mandy sniped as they were told to hurry towards the door.

Back on the ward, Grace sat by the window. From here, the rose petals looked like small dots on the green grass. Vikram had promised to sow grass seeds for her at their home in India: “I will order the servants to water three times a day, so you can feast your eyes on green grass.”

Closing her eyes, she tried to make out in her head how it could have been different.

When she had come downstairs to the drawing room that morning, the judge was sitting bolt upright on the couch, his arms folded across his chest. Aunt Violet was perched beside him, leaning over her walking stick.

“Aunt Violet has told me. Is it true, Grace?”

Hardly able to answer, she pulled her silk dressing gown around her and sat in the armchair near the fireplace. “I was hoping to talk to you on your own, Martin.

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