The Lost Bookshop

Chapter 46

Chapter Forty-Six

OPALINE

Connacht District Lunatic Asylum, 1941

A war has been raging overhead, or at least that was what I was told. At St Agnes’s, all remained deathly still. The place was like a vacuum, sucking life away from the people who were trapped within. Food was scarce; we subsisted on vegetables that grew stunted and undernourished in the dry ground outside. I became numb over the years, unsure when that set in, like rot. My skin would itch and flake and I would scratch until I bled, just to feel something. Eventually, I felt nothing.

Our numbers shrank. The appetite for reforming women had dulled somewhat since a madman decided to reform Germany. War made everyone question the status quo. It appeared to me that men in particular seem to need a war to find meaning in what they already have. To feel that heady sway on the verge of losing everything before waking up and stepping back from the brink. Why was that?

I had become a competent seamstress thanks to Mary’s instruction and it was the only thing that gave my day any semblance of order. I began stitching words from Emily Bront?’s story of Wrenville Hall into my skirt. At first it was something I did to amuse myself, but then it became a way of remembering that I did have a life before this place. Some sections of the manuscript came clearly and intact, but I knew there was no way I could remember it by heart. The joints in my fingers ached as I strained to make my stitches as tiny as possible.

I have devoted an entire lifetime to escaping the confines of this wretched place, only to find myself further entangled in its gnarled roots and oppressed by its looming towers.

Only two nurses remained. Two more than necessary, in my opinion. The only one who did anything worthwhile was Daisy, a young local girl who thought a job in this place was a step up in life. God bless the child. She was innocence personified, yet no stranger to hardship. I concluded that she was the only beauty left in the world, and for her part, she never made me feel like a hideous, frightful woman to be feared. She said she enjoyed the place, that it was quieter than the racket of living with four brothers at home. We shared a strong dislike for brothers.

One bright morning, I heard shouting and laughter and footsteps rushing along the corridor. Daisy ran into my room; I was lying prone on my bed, my head empty of thoughts. At least I stopped calling them thoughts. All I had then were images of a past life that may or may not have happened. Did I have a child?

‘I have a letter for you!’ she said, as though it were the most wonderful thing to have ever happened, and she ran off again, zig-zagging like a spring lamb. I lifted myself off the pillow and looked out through the bars on my window. The frost had created beautiful patterns on the glass. I became aware of a letter in my hand. From Jane, of course. Dear Jane, she had never given up on me. Even though I rarely replied, if ever, she was not going to abandon our friendship.

I read it in the haphazard way my eyes worked then, reading up and down rather than side to side: Your mother has passed away .

My mother has passed away, I repeated internally. I was an orphan, I realised, in some abstract way. Childless. Motherless. The world at war. My eyes began to blink.

And suddenly, I was awake.

* * *

In all the years of my incarceration, my mother never once came to visit, never wrote. I excused her behaviour because I knew she was under Lyndon’s influence and, even if by some miracle she had refused to believe his version of events, she would never openly defy him. Yet she was my mother. How could she abandon me in a way Jane could not? Her own daughter. Why hadn’t she helped? In fact, she was the only one who could have overruled my brother. Why didn’t my mother love me enough to risk everything? Those thoughts would forever haunt me. It was true that I had been closer to my father, and my mother was never affectionate towards me. But I had to assume that there was some love there. Not enough, clearly.

As I made my way to Dr Lynch’s office with a purpose I had not felt in my bones for a very long time, I thanked my mother briefly for at least giving me an excuse to get out of this place. Surely they would not refuse my request to attend my own mother’s funeral. And once I was back in the UK, I could work out my release, with Jane’s help.

I sat patiently on a hard wooden chair facing Dr Lynch, who sat in a leather chair at his walnut desk. His glasses perched on the end of his nose, he was carefully peeling an apple with a knife, as though I were not even there. The nurse had gone out to attend to someone screaming bloody murder, to which I had grown entirely immune. Satisfied that he had managed to peel it all in one go, he finally looked up at me, almost surprised to find me sitting there.

‘Miss Carlisle, you’re not due for a check-up until next month.’ He had a way of speaking that always made me feel as though I were an idiot. No matter what he said, simply his tone implied that I had all the intelligence of the piece of fruit on his plate. It was something I endured. Until today.

‘I am not here for a check-up.’ I told him that I had just been informed of my mother’s death and that I wanted to attend her funeral.

‘Ah yes, my condolences. Mr Carlisle wrote to inform us, oh, it must be a fortnight ago. Your mother has already been laid to rest, so you see, there’s no reason for you to leave St Agnes’s.’

‘I-I …’ I was so confused. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Jane’s letter. Checking the date, I saw that it was written over a week ago.

‘Why wasn’t I informed?’

‘Oh, were you not? I’m sure I told Nurse Patricia to pass the message along.’

I looked down at the letter, the words swimming in front of me. My hands began to shake with a rage that boiled inside of me. Not for my mother, but my last chance of escape. I couldn’t take it any more. I jumped up and grabbed the knife off the table, pressing it to the artery in my neck.

‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ he said, scrambling to get out of his chair.

‘Don’t move or I’ll kill myself, I swear!’ I shouted.

He froze, halfway off the chair, and raised his hands in surrender.

‘And don’t shout for the nurse.’

He shook his head and kept showing me the palms of his hands as he sat back down on the chair.

‘You see, the thing is, Dr Lynch, I no longer care if I live or die.’ I surprised myself by meaning every word I said. It would have been a sweet relief to end it all. St Agnes’s had been like entering a sort of purgatory, with no hope of redemption. All of my humanity had been stripped from me. And yet some part of me must have subconsciously kept up the search for a way out, for the words that came out of my mouth next sounded as though they had been waiting inside of me for a very long time.

‘But I think you do.’

‘Of course I care, Opaline, now put the knife down—’

‘Yes, of course you care, because as long as I live, you receive a handsome stipend from my brother. Isn’t that correct, Dr Lynch?’

‘That is to pay for your care—’

I pointed the knife as sharply as I could bear it against my skin.

‘Come now, doctor, it’s just us here. We are half-starved and barely clothed, with no heat to speak of. You pocket that money for yourself, don’t you?’

‘I resent the implic—’

‘Oh, shut up. SHUT UP!’ I screamed at him. Standing there in a ragged, stained dress, unwashed hair sticking out from my head, dark circles around my eyes and a knife at my throat, I had never felt more clarity of mind. He was scared. I could see it.

‘If I die, you stop receiving Lyndon’s payments.’

He looked rattled and his eyes searched the room. I knew I didn’t have much time to convince him.

‘We can help each other. If you let me leave, right now, I will never tell Lyndon and you can keep getting your money. You will never hear from me again. I’ll change my name, I’ll go to Europe. I have friends there.’

I could see him thinking about it.

‘No one ever has to find out.’

He wiped his face roughly with his hand, then started biting his lip. He was looking at the framed photograph on his desk of his wife and children. He looked back at me and I lifted my chin higher, showing him that I was not bluffing.

‘If not, I will cut my own throat right now and bleed out all over this rug. Then you will have nothing.’

I had succeeded. He was willing to consider it. My freedom was tantalisingly close and I was suddenly aware that I was no longer quite so free about sticking a knife in my throat. Yet I had to keep it there.

‘Oh, what does it matter now anyway?’ he said, slowly getting up.

He opened another door on the opposite side of the room. It led directly to a short passageway with an exterior door. He shouldered it open and I could see the backyard, which must have been used by the staff to come and go, as it led straight on to the road rather than the long drive. I looked back at him.

‘If your brother finds out—’

‘He won’t,’ I said, unable to keep the tremble from my voice.

‘Then get out.’

With that, I realised that he had known all along. I should never have been locked up here. It was all a lie.

A mixture of relief and revenge pulsated through me. I still had the knife in my hand. I wanted to slit his throat. Pictured it; blood spattering the walls. Whatever I lacked in physicality, I could make up for with the passion of my anger. He moved back and kept his hands aloft. I couldn’t believe my freedom was finally in front of me. I dropped the knife and ran.