Patricia Falvey (32 page)

“There you are, Mrs. Conlon,” he said, holding out his hand.

It seemed an odd thing to shake hands with the man at this stage. I had seen him enough times before and never done so, but I supposed he was showing good manners. His hand was surprisingly firm, even though the long fingers had always struck me as delicate. As soon as the thought came over me, I dropped his hand as if it were on fire. I was suddenly all business.

“Well, where do you want me to start?” I asked.

He nodded. “Indeed. Well, I thought we could start on the men’s ward in the main wing. That is where most help is needed. So many chaps are being wounded in the fighting.” He sighed. “I thought you could meet Sister Rafferty.”

“Right,” I said.

I followed him up a dim, winding stairway. The smells of disinfectant and urine brought my memory into sharp focus. I swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat. A nurse in a white uniform passed us, her shoes squeaking on the floor. As we reached the second floor, the low drone of coughing and moaning grew louder. Owen Sheridan pushed through the swinging doors and greeted a nurse who stood just inside the ward.

“Ah, Sister Rafferty! I’d like you to meet Mrs. Conlon. She has graciously agreed to become a volunteer.”

Graciously agreed my arse, I thought, but I smiled politely. Sister Rafferty wore a dark uniform and a tall, white starched cap, signifying that she was the head nurse. She was not an old woman, but she looked worn out. She sighed.

“Ah, Mr. Sheridan, you are our guardian angel.” Then she turned to me. “Welcome, Mrs. Conlon. We need every pair of hands we can find. Let me show you through the ward.”

We followed her down the ward between rows of single iron-framed beds. As I looked from one bed to the next, I expected to see old men. But instead they were mostly young, some only a few years older than my brother Paddy. Some were missing arms, others were missing legs. Some were bandaged so you could hardly see their faces. Some grinned and waved, some moaned, others lay still as the dead. On the wall over each bed hung a medallion—blue for Protestant, red for Roman Catholic, Sister Rafferty explained—so the priests and the ministers would know which fellows to pray over. I tried to do a quick count. The reds and the blues looked to be about equal.

“We are getting so many poor lads in every day, we can’t take all of them,” said Sister Rafferty. “If they’re not so bad, we patch them up and send them home. Or if there’s nothing we can do for them… Well, there’s no sense taking up a bed.”

“Are there no visitors?” I said suddenly.

“Ah, no. Only the clergy. They’re too sick in here to be bothered by all the blather of visitors.”

It seemed odd to me. Would not the sight of a wife or mother ease their suffering? But I said nothing. I thought of my own ma. I had a sudden urge to see her.

“Our nurses can use any sort of help you want to offer,” Sister Rafferty said to me. “It would even be a great help if you would just sit and talk to the patients, so the nurses can get on with their other duties.”

I nodded. A strange feeling crept over me as I looked around. All of a sudden, it didn’t seem to matter to me so much whether there was a blue or red medallion above their beds—they were all just young lads in awful pain and in need of comfort.

“Of course.” I nodded. “I can manage one night a week, and a couple of hours on Sundays.”

“That would be grand, Mrs. Conlon. Will we expect you this week, then? Maybe Friday? Friday’s a hard day to get volunteers. The young girls like the dances better than coming here.”

I was about to say I played at the Ceili House on Friday nights, but something stopped me. Instead, I smiled. “I can give up the dancing for one night,” I said, and Owen Sheridan broke into a grin.

When we were back in the corridor at the top of the stairs, I said suddenly, “I’ll leave you here now. I need to go see my ma.”

Owen Sheridan bowed. “Ah, of course, your mother is here, isn’t she?”

I shrugged. “In the wing for the insane,” I said sharply.

“I will accompany you, then,” he said.

I started. “No. I’ll go alone.”

He smiled. “I’m afraid you won’t be let in without me, Mrs. Conlon, unless you want to wait until six this evening for visiting hours to begin.”

He was right, of course. Visiting hours in the insane wing were very limited. Jesus, the last thing I wanted was for him to meet my ma in the state she was, but I had such a strong urge to see her, I would have to give in.

“All right,” I said.

When we reached the main hall of the insane wing, Nellie, the round-faced nurse P.J. always talked to, sat at her desk. She looked up in surprise.

“Why, Miss O’Neill,” she said, “it’s been a while since we’ve seen you.” She looked over my shoulder. “Is Mr. Mullen with you?”

I had never corrected her on my name. I suppose I liked hearing myself called O’Neill every now and then. “No,” I said, and her face fell in disappointment.

“Well, I’m afraid you’re far too early for visiting hours.”

Owen Sheridan strode over to her and put out his hand. “I am Captain Sheridan, Nurse,” he said smoothly. “I was hoping you would allow Mrs. Conlon a short visit with her mother. I shall accompany her, of course.”

I watched him in awe. It must be grand to be able to take over any situation just like that and have people do your bidding. Nurse Nellie flushed under his gaze.

“Ah, well, since it’s yourself, sir, I would say there’s no problem. Shall I fetch a nurse?”

“No,” I put in sharply. “I know the way.”

She watched us go. Whoever Nellie knew would get a grand story out of this, I thought. It would not be long before it got back to the mill.

We mounted the stairs to the top floor and went into the main ward. I led the way. The same women were there, cackling and cursing. When they saw Owen Sheridan, some of them made dirty gestures and loud kissing sounds at him. I didn’t turn around to get his reaction but kept walking toward Ma’s room at the far end of the ward. I opened the door slowly and peered around it. I expected to see Ma in her usual chair by the window, but today she was lying in bed. She looked like a ghost, her face the color of bleached linen and her long graying hair spread out wildly on the pillow. I choked back a cry. I went over to the bed. I heard Owen Sheridan close the door, and I could hear his breathing in the stillness of the room.

I bent down. “Ma?” I whispered. “Ma, it’s me, Eileen.”

She opened her eyes. They glistened with tears. “Have you been crying, Ma? What’s wrong?”

In answer, tears rolled over her cheeks. I took her hands. “Och, Ma, don’t be crying. Everything’s all right.”

I tried to lift her up. Her bones felt loose inside her skin. I set her against the pillows and smoothed her hair. She stared at me. I knew that she recognized me, but only as the woman who came to see her sometimes and not as her daughter. I fought back my own tears. Suddenly, she looked around the room and then down at my hands.

“What is it, Ma? What is it you want?”

“Flowers?” she whispered. “Flowers?”

My tears let loose then. “Och, Ma, I didn’t bring flowers, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was coming. I’ll bring some next time.”

But she closed her eyes again and turned away from me. I had lost her.

“I WILL GIVE
you a lift home,” Owen Sheridan said when we reached the open courtyard. The wind gusted now, and the rain beat sideways. I shook my head.

“I have to collect Aoife at P.J.’s,” I said, “then I can get the tram home.”

“I will not let you ride on the tram in your present state,” he said firmly, “you are much too upset. We will stop at the Mullens’ and I will explain the situation. I’m sure they will keep the child overnight. Then I am taking you home.”

He led me to his motorcar and opened the door for me to get in. I sank down on the soft leather seat. The car smelled strongly of wood polish and faintly of tobacco. Idly I recalled the first time I had ridden in a car, when I went with James to hear Michael Collins. But this time there was no excitement in me over the novelty of it. I was in too much pain. We stopped at the Mullens’, and I waited in the car as Owen Sheridan knocked on the door and went in. He was gone only a short time. I wondered what P.J. and his wife were making of the whole thing, but I was too tired to care. As we drove on toward Queensbrook, the steady rhythm of the rain beating on the windshield sent me into a numbing trance. Between seeing all the young fellows broken and crippled in the ward, and then seeing Ma the way she was, I was suffocated with feelings I could not identify. I was in a fog as thick as the one that surrounded the car. When we reached my street, I thought I should tell him to leave me off there, and I would walk home. But I could find no words. There was no alarm in me over what the neighbors would think. All I felt was weariness.

He parked the car and walked behind me into the house. I sank onto a chair at the kitchen table. He found the kettle and filled it with water. Then he bent and lit the bits of wood and newspaper that lay in the grate. I watched him in silence.

“Do you have any whiskey?” he said.

I nodded toward one of the cupboards.

“Good.”

He made tea and poured it into two cups, along with a shot of whiskey in each. He handed me one and sat down at the table beside me. His presence was oddly comforting. I should have been scandalized, I realized, having this man in my kitchen making me tea, and him a British Army soldier, and me a married woman with a child. But somehow none of it mattered. I took the teacup from him and sipped it, trying to thaw the numbness that enveloped me. I said nothing, and neither did he. Instead, he looked around the kitchen, studying the pictures on the wall and in particular the framed photograph of the Yellow House. He stared at it for a moment. Then he got up and cleared away the cups and stirred the fire.

“I’ll be getting along now,” he said. “Will you be all right?”

I nodded. “Thank you, Captain Sheridan.”

He looked down at me, his eyes filled with concern.

“It’s ‘Owen,’” he said. “I think we know each other well enough now for you to call me that.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Owen,” I said. I liked the feel of his name on my tongue.

He came over to me and put his hand lightly on my shoulder. My tears came again.

“I should have brought her flowers,” I whispered.

He stood for a moment, his hand still on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Eileen,” he said. And then he was gone.

AS EXPECTED, IT
took no time at all for news of my visit to the hospital to get around the mill. On Monday night, Theresa caught up with me as I was walking out the door. She linked my arm and looked up at me, her eyes bright. I knew what was coming.

“There’s a lot of talk about you today, Eileen. I thought you should know.”

“I don’t give a tinker’s curse what they’re saying,” I snapped.

I had not slept at all the night before. I sweated as if I had the fever, and when I got up I was soaked to the skin. I thought maybe madness had overtaken me, just like Ma. It was in the family, after all, wasn’t it? I had always been a strong woman, but my energy had ebbed away, and it took everything I had to get out of bed. I had no emotion at all, not anger, not sorrow—just a hollowness that left my heart rattling around inside me.

Theresa sniffed. But she carried on as if I’d not spoken at all.

“They say you’re stuck like glue to that Sheridan fellow. And I’d say they’re right. First you went to his house. And yesterday you were seen up at Newry Hospital with him. Nellie Leonard that’s a nurse up there is a sister to Mary Leonard, the doffer, and she was telling all.” Theresa stopped to draw a quick breath. “And then his motorcar was seen outside your house last night.”

I stopped and faced her. “Look,” I said, “I ran into him up at the hospital when I went to visit Ma. He gave me a lift home because it was lashing rain.”

Theresa looked doubtful. “Nellie Leonard says you came too early for visiting hours, and if it wasn’t for his nibs, she would not have let you in at all.”

Theresa folded her small arms in front of her chest and looked up at me, waiting for an explanation.