strange hardship. His face has a veil of dark-blue veins in it, like a soldier's face that has been too near a cannon mouth when it exploded. In the gossip of this place he has a very poor reputation.
'I can't see how you want all them books, missus, since you have no spectacles to read them.'
Then he swallowed again, swallowed.
I can see perfectly without spectacles but I did not say this. He was referring to the three volumes in my possession, my father's copy of Religio Medici, The Hounds of Hell, and Mr Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
All three brown and yellow with thumbing.
But conversation with John Kane can lead anywhere, like those conversations with boys when I was a young girl of twelve or so, a gaggle of them at the corner of our road, standing in the rain indifferently, and saying things to me, in soft voices – at first in soft voices. In here, among the shadows and the distant cries, the greatest virtue is silence.
Those that feed them do not love them, those that clothe them do not fear for them.
That is a quotation from something, what or where I do not know.
Even gibberish is dangerous, silence is better.
I have been here a long time and in that time have learned the virtue of silence certainly.
Old Tom put me here. I think it was him. It was a favour to him, for he himself worked as tailor in the Sligo Lunatic Asylum. I think he put money in with me, because of this room. Or does Tom my husband pay for me? But he could not still be alive. It is not the first place I was put, the first place was -
But I am not concerned with recrimination. This is a decent place, if not home. If this were home I would go mad!
Oh, I must remind myself to be clear, and be sure I know what I am saying to you. There must be accuracy and rightness now.
This is a good place. This is a good place.
There is a town not far off, I am told. Roscommon town itself. I don't know how far, except it takes half an hour in a fire engine.
This I know because one night many years ago I was roused from my sleep by John Kane. He led me out into the hallway and hurried me down two or three flights of stairs. There was a fire in one of the wings and he was leading me to safety.
Instead of bringing me to the ground floor, he had to cut across through a long dark ward, where the doctors and other staff were also gathered. There was smoke coming up from below, but this place was deemed to be safe. The gloom gradually brightened, or my eyes adjusted to it.
There were maybe fifty beds there, a long thin room with curtains drawn everywhere. Thin ragged curtains. Old, old faces, as old as my own now. I was astonished. They had lain there not too far away from me and I did not know. Old faces that said nothing, lying in stupor, like fifty Russian icons. Who were they? Why, they were your own people. Silent, silent, sleeping towards death, crawling on bleeding knees towards our Lord.
A tribe of onetime girls. I whispered a prayer to hurry their souls to heaven. For I think they crept up there very slow.
I suppose they are all dead now or mostly. I never visited them again. The fire engine came in half an hour. I remember because one of the doctors remarked on it.
These places unlike the world, with none of the things we praise the world for. Where sisters, mothers, grandmothers, spinsters, all forgotten lie.
The human town not so far off, sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking, forgetting its lost women there, in long rows.
Half an hour. Fire brought me in to see them. Never again.
Those that feed them do not love them.
'Do you want this?' says John Kane in my ear.
'What is it?'
He was holding it in the palm of his hand. Half the shell of a bird's egg, blue like the veins in his face.
'Oh, yes, thank you,' I said. It was something I had picked up in the gardens many years before. It had sat in the window niche and he had never referred to it before. But it had lain there, blue and perfect and never ageing. Yet an old thing. Many many
'I can't see how you want all them books, missus, since you have no spectacles to read them.'
Then he swallowed again, swallowed.
I can see perfectly without spectacles but I did not say this. He was referring to the three volumes in my possession, my father's copy of Religio Medici, The Hounds of Hell, and Mr Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
All three brown and yellow with thumbing.
But conversation with John Kane can lead anywhere, like those conversations with boys when I was a young girl of twelve or so, a gaggle of them at the corner of our road, standing in the rain indifferently, and saying things to me, in soft voices – at first in soft voices. In here, among the shadows and the distant cries, the greatest virtue is silence.
Those that feed them do not love them, those that clothe them do not fear for them.
That is a quotation from something, what or where I do not know.
Even gibberish is dangerous, silence is better.
I have been here a long time and in that time have learned the virtue of silence certainly.
Old Tom put me here. I think it was him. It was a favour to him, for he himself worked as tailor in the Sligo Lunatic Asylum. I think he put money in with me, because of this room. Or does Tom my husband pay for me? But he could not still be alive. It is not the first place I was put, the first place was -
But I am not concerned with recrimination. This is a decent place, if not home. If this were home I would go mad!
Oh, I must remind myself to be clear, and be sure I know what I am saying to you. There must be accuracy and rightness now.
This is a good place. This is a good place.
There is a town not far off, I am told. Roscommon town itself. I don't know how far, except it takes half an hour in a fire engine.
This I know because one night many years ago I was roused from my sleep by John Kane. He led me out into the hallway and hurried me down two or three flights of stairs. There was a fire in one of the wings and he was leading me to safety.
Instead of bringing me to the ground floor, he had to cut across through a long dark ward, where the doctors and other staff were also gathered. There was smoke coming up from below, but this place was deemed to be safe. The gloom gradually brightened, or my eyes adjusted to it.
There were maybe fifty beds there, a long thin room with curtains drawn everywhere. Thin ragged curtains. Old, old faces, as old as my own now. I was astonished. They had lain there not too far away from me and I did not know. Old faces that said nothing, lying in stupor, like fifty Russian icons. Who were they? Why, they were your own people. Silent, silent, sleeping towards death, crawling on bleeding knees towards our Lord.
A tribe of onetime girls. I whispered a prayer to hurry their souls to heaven. For I think they crept up there very slow.
I suppose they are all dead now or mostly. I never visited them again. The fire engine came in half an hour. I remember because one of the doctors remarked on it.
These places unlike the world, with none of the things we praise the world for. Where sisters, mothers, grandmothers, spinsters, all forgotten lie.
The human town not so far off, sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking, forgetting its lost women there, in long rows.
Half an hour. Fire brought me in to see them. Never again.
Those that feed them do not love them.
'Do you want this?' says John Kane in my ear.
'What is it?'
He was holding it in the palm of his hand. Half the shell of a bird's egg, blue like the veins in his face.
'Oh, yes, thank you,' I said. It was something I had picked up in the gardens many years before. It had sat in the window niche and he had never referred to it before. But it had lain there, blue and perfect and never ageing. Yet an old thing. Many many
Similar Books
The Last King of Lydia
Tim Leach
Sharpshooter
Chris Lynch
House Arrest
K.A. Holt
Memoirs of Lady Montrose
Virginnia DeParte
Clockwork Prince
Cassandra Clare
The Wandering Island Factory
TR Nowry
Dance For The Devil
S. Kodejs
Young Lions
Andrew Mackay
In Your Corner
Sarah Castille