The Lost Bookshop

Chapter 40

Chapter Forty

OPALINE

F or those precious few seconds before I opened my eyes, I had forgotten where I was. My mind told me that I was at home in bed, but my body knew different. I was freezing, and the rough blanket around me was not my own. I opened my eyes and the horrible truth was confirmed. It hadn’t been a bad dream. I was incarcerated at the hand of my brother.

I heard boot heels resounding heavily down the uncarpeted hallway, like a small army on the march, and my door clattered open.

‘Six o’clock, time to get up,’ a nurse announced, without looking me in the eye. She opened the window and let the freezing cold air in.

Rationally, I knew it was useless to plead my case with her, but emotionally I couldn’t help but beg for my freedom.

‘Please, I have to speak with Dr Lynch. This has all been a big mistake. You have to let me go!’

The nurse, who had jet-black, greasy hair, parted severely in the middle, and dark eyes that seemed both vacant and piercing, completely ignored me. It was as though I hadn’t spoken at all.

‘Down to the hall with you, breakfast is on the table.’

‘Yes but—’

‘You’ll speak to his assistant, Dr Hughes, later, you can take it up with him.’

She handed me a horrible grey flannel dress and told me to put it on. After dressing, she bundled up my own clothes and took them away to a place I knew not where. I was shown to a washstand, where all the other patients were rubbing their faces with icy cold water. They didn’t look particularly crazy to me. They looked tired and afraid.

The nurse, whose name I found out was Patricia, hurried us along like cattle and into what I assumed to be the dining room. There was a long wooden table with a bench either side and on it were enamel cups of some sort of broth and in the middle was a basket of hard bread. At a glance, I estimated that there were about sixty women in all. At the far end of the hall there was a separate table seating about ten women who seemed to be suffering from some kind of intellectual disability and two nurses keeping watch on them. I sat down and tried to spoon some of the broth into my mouth, but I couldn’t stomach it. My throat locked and it refused to swallow. I tried dipping the bread into it when the old woman beside me grabbed my hand.

‘Don’t eat it, it’s poisoned!’

I dropped the bread instantly and at this she began to laugh mercilessly. I couldn’t tell if she was crazy or just plain cruel.

‘Leave her alone, Agatha.’

I looked around to find the speaker of these words and was surprised to see a young woman, scarcely twenty by my reckoning, who spoke with an authority beyond her years. I nodded my thanks. It was hard to tell how old any of my cohabitants were, given their state of dress and the mental toll it took being in a place like this.

‘My name is Mary,’ she said, with a gentleness I hadn’t expected. ‘Why are you here?’

‘My brother—’ I found I could not finish the sentence for fear I would burst into tears.

At the sound of whimpering, I saw another grey-haired woman at the end of the table crying aimlessly, and the woman beside me began muttering to herself, a senseless conversation that seemed to have no end or beginning.

‘Go out into the yard!’ This yell from another nurse announced the end of breakfast and everyone was given a threadbare shawl to walk around an enclosed courtyard. It was midwinter and bitterly cold. Added to this, the yard was north-facing and would never see the sun. The thought was like a heavy anchor, pulling my heart southward. It was all too much to bear. I froze to the spot while the others shuffled around me.

‘Get in line!’

I ignored the order. I was too weak to move.

‘Carlisle, get a companion and walk.’ I wasn’t used to being given orders and refused to obey.

‘How many times must I tell you!’ To my utter shock, this order was administered with a slap on the ear.

Suddenly, my life force came flooding back with rage. I was about to hit back, when I felt an arm slip through mine and almost drag me forward.

‘Best to do as they say,’ a voice whispered softly.

I looked to my left and saw Mary, the young woman who had spoken up for me at the table.

‘I shouldn’t be here,’ I said.

‘Do you think any poor creature should end up here?’

I shook my head, but, honestly, I didn’t care about anyone else in that moment. The other women frightened me, their naked faces, devoid of any normalcy. I pulled the shawl around me tightly. I was shivering so badly with cold that my teeth were chattering wildly. I could see the other women’s lips turning purple with cold. It was inhumane.

‘Carlisle, come here.’

It had been so long since I had used my real name that it took me a moment to realise that the nurse, Patricia, was speaking to me. Thank God , I thought to myself. They’ve realised that this is all a big mistake and will release me. I pulled my arm from Mary and thanked her for her kindness, feeling sure I would never see her again.

I followed the nurse apace and once back inside, she led me to a room where I was weighed, measured and then approached by another nurse with scissors who cut my nails to the quick.

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked.

‘You are to see Dr Hughes,’ she answered.

I told myself that this made perfect sense – a final examination before letting me go. For administrative purposes. Surely that was all it was.

After this perfunctory physical exam, I was led to another room. There, in a white coat, sat a man who introduced himself as Dr Hughes. Now was my chance to speak up for myself, but I found I did not know where to start.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, opening a cream-coloured folder and taking the lid off his pen.

‘I … my name is Opaline Gr—. I mean …’

‘Oh, well, that’s hardly an auspicious start, is it?’ His ability to find humour in such desperate circumstances set me on edge.

‘My name is Opaline Carlisle, but I have been living under the pseudonym of Opaline Gray in order to protect my identity from my brother, who is a violent maniac.’

There. I was clear, coherent and concise. Surely this man would see that I was sane.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Ha'penny Lane, Dublin. I run a small bookshop.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘And you are pregnant?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many men have you had intimate relations with?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sexual intercourse, Miss Carlisle.’

I felt a rage coursing through my body and took several deep breaths. This is what he wanted, to see me react.

‘Just the one,’ I replied coolly.

‘Your brother informs me that you have led an immoral lifestyle, is that so?’

I wasn’t sure what to respond, so I said nothing.

‘Do you see faces on the wall?’

‘Not at the present moment, no.’

He looked at me with a kind of scorn and I cursed myself for getting smart with him.

‘Do you hear voices?’

‘No, doctor, I do not hear voices. There is nothing wrong with me, you must see that. My brother has engineered this entire charade. He is angry with me because I refused to do his bidding and marry a man I hardly knew. This is his way of punishing me, don’t you see?’

The room fell quiet, save for the sound of his pen scratching his thoughts on to clean, white paper. I wondered where my clothes were and if there was a bus that would take me back to Dublin.

‘That will be all for now, nurse,’ he said, calling for Patricia to come back inside.

‘Can I go home now?’

‘Oh, I’m afraid it will be quite some time before you are ready to re-enter society, Miss Carlisle. If ever.’

His words were like a scripted play, something I expected to hear an actor speak in a theatre. This could not be real life.

‘You cannot be serious! This is the extent of your examination? Asking me if I see faces on the wall? Dr Hughes, you must see that I am as sane as you are.’

‘Your brother—’

‘Forget my brother! Is his word more valuable than mine?’

He said nothing, but replaced the cap on his pen. I had my answer.

I pressed my hands flat on the desk between us.

‘He is lying to you! I can prove it. I have discovered a very valuable manuscript and he wants to steal it, don’t you see?’

The doctor smirked at the nurse who had taken hold of my arms and was half-dragging me from the room.

‘Come on now, Carlisle, it’s better if you don’t struggle,’ she said.

‘Give me any test you like. I will prove that I’m not crazy!’

‘Oh, I think we know all we need to on that score, Miss Carlisle.’

‘No! Please! Where is Dr Lynch? Let me speak to him!’ I was shouting myself hoarse, my useless screams echoing down the hallway. Another nurse was bringing a patient to the doctor’s room and Patricia called to her, saying I’d have forgotten all of this in an hour. They truly believed me to be crazy and every reason I used to protest this fact only confirmed their beliefs.

I was thrown back into my filthy room and I curled myself into the corner and cried for what seemed like hours. As the room grew darker, I looked up and saw a woman sitting on the bed. How long had she been there?

‘Best to get those tears out. They won’t be much good to you in here.’

‘Mary?’

I pushed myself up from the ground, a difficult task with my pregnant belly, and I sat on the bed beside her.

‘Why are you here?’ I asked her, looking at her properly for the first time. Her hair was wild and stuck out all sides, her eyes dark and deep, but her cupid’s mouth spoke with a measured tone beyond her years.

‘Hysteria. That’s what they told me.’

Hysteria; it could have meant anything.

‘And how does it, um, manifest itself?’ I asked, realising now that we would be sharing this room.

‘I become highly emotional when my father beats me.’

‘Dear God.’

She gave me a little smile, as though humour was all she had left.

‘When I fell pregnant, I told him it was the priest that done it to me. But he wouldn’t believe me; said I was a filthy whore. He wanted me out of the house, so he told them I had demonic fevers. That my wounds were by my own hand.’

I buried my head in my hands. How had we ended up here? I had left home inspired by the suffragettes, the modern women who were going to achieve equality and the freedom to pursue their own happiness. With the stroke of a pen, we were locked up. Troublesome women with inconvenient ideas.

‘How long have you been here? You look so young.’

‘Three years. I’m twenty-two.’

My tears spilled forth once again. It all seemed so hopeless. She gave my hand a firm squeeze.

‘You have to be strong for the baby,’ she said, then got up and undressed before climbing into the other bed.

I lay down on the thin mattress and looked up at the moon shining between the bars on the window. Mary was right. I had to look after my little Rosebud. I would eat the food, go outside and breathe the fresh air into my lungs and keep as healthy as I could. If this was the way it had to be for now, then I would accept it. For her good. I couldn’t let myself get worked up like I did today. I knew it wasn’t good for her. So I would be calm and, when the time came, they would take me to a hospital to have my baby and that would be my chance to escape.

* * *

Two weeks passed, with every new day identical to the last. One could never have imagined the length of days when there is nothing to do, say or think. The most remarkable feature was the cold. I could see my own breath when I spoke. An elderly woman took a fit one morning at the breakfast table, shivering and convulsing with the cold. She was practically hopping off the bench, such was her suffering.

‘Let her fall on the floor, it’ll teach her a lesson,’ said Nurse Patricia.

The nurses wore their overcoats and despite every fibre of my being instructing me to keep quiet, I simply had to speak out.

‘Can you not see that she will perish with the cold in this place? Surely you can spare her some extra clothing?’

‘She has the same as everyone else.’

And that was the end of that discussion. I gave the woman my cup of hot tea when it came. It wasn’t a great loss, watery as it was and tasting peculiarly of copper.

A new woman arrived that day, which gave us all something to focus on. We welcomed her in as best we could and I could now understand the thirst for information that had greeted me when I first arrived. Everyone wanted to know why she was here, mostly to drown out the mind-numbing boredom. I hoped to be proved right by her story – another innocent victim. But we couldn’t make any sense out of what she was saying and before long she was taken away to be treated, whatever that meant.

Word came back that she came direct from the courthouse where she had stood accused of drowning her child. She believed it was a changeling, that her real baby was taken by the fairies. I almost got physically sick when I heard. I knew I would go mad myself if I didn’t get out of that place. People imagine that the worst thing about incarceration is the thought of being locked inside, but there is another trauma to endure. Whilst some of the women were simply anxious or depressed, I was now living with women suffering all types of physical and mental disability and not only that, was considered to be one of them. That has a profound impact on one’s sense of self; of what is true.

* * *

That night, I thought my time for escape had come. The pains in my stomach felt as though I were going into labour and the water that wet my bed confirmed it. I called out to Mary and asked her to alert the nurse. She banged on the door and shouted, but no one answered for a very long time. Of course, it happened in the early hours of the morning, as these things often do, and there was only the elderly nun on duty. She thought I was exaggerating the agonising pain of labour and said she would not wake the poor doctor from his sleep to come and tend to a spoilt English brat like me.

‘Stop your play-acting,’ she said, through the grille in the door.

‘I don’t want you to call the doctor, I need to go to a hospital!’ I was so excited at the thought of leaving, that I hardly noticed the pain.

‘Hospital? Sure, didn’t the cat have a fine litter the other week and managed it all on her own.’

That was her final word on the matter, and all I could hear were her footsteps fading away.

‘They’re not going to leave me here, are they?’ I asked Mary, who now sat at the end of my bed, patting my back.

‘Not to worry,’ she said.

Another contraction came and I groaned my way through it, twisting the ends of the blanket tight around my wrists. The night carried on that way and I must have slept in between contractions. Mary stayed with me all the while. Any time I asked a question, she would tell me again not to worry, in a way that made me very worried indeed. As though all hope was futile. At six o’clock, Nurse Patricia came to get us up and when she saw the state I was in, called for the doctor.

‘Please,’ I begged her, all pride forgotten. I was in agonising pain and hadn’t had so much as a glass of water. ‘Please get me to a hospital.’

‘You don’t need to go to hospital to give birth. Maybe that’s how things are done in England, but not here. Childbirth is the most natural thing in the world,’ she said, pulling my nightdress up and shoving her cold hand between my legs.

‘Get your hands off of me!’ I spat at her and she responded by slapping me across the face.

I’m not sure what would have happened if Dr Hughes hadn’t arrived at that very moment. He took charge immediately and sent her to fetch towels and a basin of boiled water. Two hours of contractions which felt like I was being ripped apart and I no longer knew or cared whose hands were on me. They were shouting at me to push and I pushed. Someone kindly placed a cold flannel on my burning face. I screamed for my mother, even though I knew she wouldn’t come. I begged Armand to come and rescue me. And then another push; different this time, the pressure released. Voices whispered and I saw a nurse carrying away a bundle.

‘Where’s my baby? Where are you taking her?’ I couldn’t be sure if anyone had heard me, my voice was weak and my throat raw. ‘My baby? Please give me my baby!’

A man’s voice and words that made no sense. The cord was wrapped around her neck. She suffocated. Born blue. I don’t remember very much after that. I suspect I started to go mad.