Two Lives

13

The women talk of different times. For the years they have known one another they have marked out in their conversations certain periods they favour. Just as Mary Louise claims 1957, so Mrs Leavy of Youghal returns regularly to her infancy in 1921 and ‘22, Dot Sterne to 1984, Belle D to the advent of the Beatles, the Spanish wife to destitution in Gibraltar, 1986. Others have more precisely held to themselves days or moments or occasions, the hour of a tragedy or an act of violence.

People are claimed also, special and belonging, the personal baggage of the house’s inmates. To a conversation that is endlessly renewed Mary Louise contributes the people of Culleen and of the town, her cousin and her aunt, her husband and his sisters. In turn she hears about people she does not know. Every day the house is thronged, the crowds impenetrable sometimes.

‘God knows, it’s nothing new,’ the faded woman who is usually silent alleges in a quieter conversation. It’s nothing new, reflection has revealed to her, that mad women should walk the roads and streets of Ireland. Once upon a time they did, in the old times, before the great brick asylums were built, before each town possessed a barracks for hiding the insane in.

‘What’s she talking about?’ Bríd Beamish, wearing lipstick, asks.

‘Loonies on the loose is what.’ Dot Sterne has rolled her stockings down, hoping Miss Foye will notice and not put her back where she came from.

‘Oh, of course,’ Mrs Leavy agrees. ‘We all knew the brickwork asylums. Many’s the time me and Elsie looked over the wall.’

‘I’m saying the time before the asylums were in existence,’ the faded woman corrects her. ‘I’m saying long ago.’

‘Loonies on the loose,’ Belle D repeats.

‘Crazies,’ a woman who was a priest’s housekeeper adds. ‘The brain in tatters.’

‘It’s a different kettle of fish now,’ Mrs Leavy reminds them. ‘The days of the old crazies is over. We don’t use them expressions no more. This day and age, the nurse told me.’

‘Swallow your medication.’ Small Sadie’s laughter cackles. ‘Right eejits if you don’t swallow the medication.’

‘There’s some would never have set foot in this place if the drugs had been to hand. A bottle of medicine would have kept them well.’ Mrs Leavy has taken the lead. She has placed herself at the head of the inmates who are soon to be released. She is stating their case. She is offering the medical evidence as she had it personally from Miss Foye and a doctor, the bald one, not the one with the beard.

‘Mary Louise should never be setting a foot out of it,’ Small Sadie snaps back. ‘Heathen bloody strumpet.’

She cries as soon as she has spoken, putting her arms around Mary Louise and saying she’s sorry.