THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE Page 20

  Too much, the black bottle said. Nearly empty. You are drunk. You drink too much.

  Drunk? And why not, nobody’s to mind, nobody minds if I’m anything. Nobody, not a single soul. I’m free. I’m — falling.

  The bed, not mine at all. The hotel. The drink spilled on the bedspread. I’ll have to pay, who cares? Only money as Dan Breen used to say. Only money. And meanwhile, as long as I’ve fallen on this bed, I might as well sleep. My shoes, I should take off. Off with my shoes. Sleepy shoes.

  Sleepy smiling shoes.

  Sleep.

  And then, later, the clock says it’s after nine and the noises outside on the street, such a noisy place. Royal Avenue. Put the lights off and draw the curtains. I feel quite rocky.

  A drink. That will put me right. Stop this giddy feeling. There, it’s horrible tasting, the first sip.

  Right as rain. Well, not really, but it helped. And today is a gay day, in a fine hotel, money to do whatever takes my fancy and nobody or nothing to worry about. Except him. Maybe if he heard I’ve left Camden Street, he might come after me. Down to the hotel here. No, he won’t, he said those things. Don’t worry about him. I have other friends, good friends, the finest friends any girl could ask for. The O’Neills, they adore me. And Edie Marrinan. And Sister Imelda and all the other nuns; O, I have no lack of friends. Now, Edie, for instance, Edie and I used to have rare sport together. Poor Edie.

  She thought of Edie, lying in bed at Earnscliffe Home, looking old and sick, arthritis it was, poor Edie, in among all those old people and nuns. Edie that used to be such a gay one, and now to tell the truth, I hate to go and see her, so depressing and such a long way out, it takes you fifteen minutes to walk up to it from the main gate. Or it did. Delightful thought. A taxi can get you there in no time. And why not? Edie was the gay soul, why a drink is just the very thing she needs.

  Wearing her red raincoat and her red hat, with her cheeks heavily rouged and with a bottle of Gordon’s gin in her big handbag, Miss Hearne waited in the lobby of the hotel until the commissionaire told her he had a taxi. She gave him three shillings.

  The taxi driver was very respectful and he seemed to know where Earnscliffe was. It was a nice big taxi with little jump seats folded down so that they acted as foot-rests, and grey upholstery, very clean and comfortable. Pleasant to have one’s own car and chauffeur like some of the people who lived on the Malone Road, driving down into the city every morning to do your shopping, the liveried man waiting to open the door of the car and help you with your packages.

  A grande dame, Miss Judith Hearne of Bellavista, Malone Road, Belfast, relaxed among the soft cushions as her Daimler purred politely past lesser cars. Musical, she thought of the musicale she would give that evening. Gieseking had promised to be present and there would be a small recital. ‘Cello and piano, the Steinway grand in the large alcove of the drawing-room. The butler would announce the guests, yes, they were all there, the handsome soldier she had admired so much in the advertisements for The Greys’ cigarettes. A diplomat, French, but with a face like Lord Louis Mountbatten, bowing over her hand, an old lady who wore a strange sash, Maude Gonne MacBride, once the most beautiful woman in Ireland, Judy, how delightful to see you again. And in a corner, dressed properly in evening clothes, affable in the manner of his race, James Madden, impressed, hardly daring to speak to her. Gracious, she smiled at him over the Lord Bishop’s hand. Your Excellency, scarlet robes, princely priest. Father Quigley, the bishop said, O my dear Miss Hearne, I don’t seem to recall his name. Quigley? O, yes, a very good man, no doubt. But my dear Miss Hearne, I will advise you, I should consider it an honour. Only my duty. Princely, the bishop passed, made way for Moira O’Neill gushing, O Judy dear, what a wonderful evening! Eyebrows slightly lifted: O, did you enjoy it, Moira dear? And how are the children? So long since I’ve seen them, yes, it was Paris this time, the Due de Guise simply insisted I stay another week. I’ve been so terribly rushed. Yes, I must try to get over some Sunday.

  ‘Is this it, mum?’ the driver asked, stopping the car before a set of heavy iron gates. He sounded the horn.

  A man, a weary old pensioner with a bald dirty head and a stained brown corduroy waistcoat, appeared at the door of a small gate lodge. He saw the car and opened the gates. Slowly the driver accelerated and like a royal limousine entering some great demesne, the car squished forward over the gravel and went whirling up the avenue under the tall trees. Miss Hearne looked out, saw the sky above her in gulps of speed. Earnscliffe. Poor Edie!

  Earnscliffe Home had been built as a private mansion by a mercantile family in the spacious days of the turn of the century. The main building with its Grecian columns on either side of the door reminded Miss Hearne of the Georgia mansion she had seen in Gone With The Wind. But the stone was granite and the symmetry of the house was destroyed by long redbrick pavilions which stretched like crucified arms on either side of the main building. The gravel approach was covered with rotting leaves and the withering trees behind the home sighed and crackled like old abandoned newspapers. The windows were small and dark and those on the ground floor were equipped with iron bars. The trees, the large sweep of the grounds and the country quiet of the air, gave Earnscliffe the look of a deserted house. But the iron bars, the crucifix which hung over the door, and the smoke from the ugly red-brick pavilions said that this was an institution, that people lived here, and that some lived here against their will. Miss Hearne was always saddened and frightened when she came to this place.

  She rang and waited. Wondered how long she should wait before ringing again. Time always seemed longer in a place like this. Better not be impatient. Carefully she clutched her big bag, holding the neck of the bottle inside the cloth. Then there was a sound. It was a sound of keys and linen and, although Miss Hearne did not recognise it, of the heavy black rosary beads, large as liquorice lozenges, knotted around the waist of the nun who opened the door.

  She revealed herself slowly as the door swung back; first, her hand, old, clean and withered; then the black stuff of her habit, and finally, her face, framed by the black veil with crimped white linen edging, her cheeks scrubbed clean and reddened to an apple brightness by years of vigorous ablutions with hard cheap soap. A lay sister labouring for ever at humble tasks.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like to see Miss Marrinan.’

  ‘But it’s not visiting time.’

  ‘O? But couldn’t you make an exception? I’m a very dear friend of hers, and I’ve come specially.’

  The old face shook from side to side like the trees outside. She had her orders. No. No use to appeal. Orders of the Order. No exceptions. No.

  ‘But this is ridiculous,’ Miss Hearne cried. ‘Let me talk to Reverend Mother then.’

  ‘What is it, Sister?’ A softer voice, behind the door.

  ‘O, Sister, a lady.’ The old lay nun opened the door wider in the face of superior authority. Her head bobbed respectfully.

  The other nun wore white. White from head to foot, a nursing sister. Starched white robes, broken in the middle by a thick black leather belt with big beads dangling from it. Brass Christ on black wood crucifix agonised against her bosom.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Good morning, Sister. I wanted to see Miss Marrinan, on a personal matter. I’ve come here by taxi, a long way. Couldn’t you make an exception, Sister?’

  The nursing sister’s pale blue eyes catalogued the red raincoat, the rouge, the distracted manner. Still, she seemed respectable, if odd. And the taxi there. Hmm!

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But you mustn’t make a habit of this, you know. We have to keep to our visiting hours, otherwise we’d never get any work done. Marrinan, you wanted. Yes, on the second floor. Turn to your right when you go up.’

  The old lay sister opened the door wide and Miss Hearne stepped into a clean, unornamented hall-way, smelling of Jeyes Fluid, floor polish, the perfumes of an institution. The white-robed nun nodded and turned on her heel. Alone,
Miss Hearne crossed the hall, hearing her footsteps echo on the mosaic of yellow and white tiles. She reached the staircase. Ah, these nuns here, they weren’t like the Sacred Heart nuns at all. What was it old John Harvey once said: the Sisters of Mercy have no charity, and the Sisters of Charity have no mercy. And it was true.

  A senile woman passed on the stairs, not looking at her, her old eyes on the ground. Watching her step. It puts me off, Miss Hearne thought, this place. All those old women, poor old creatures, nobody to care about them, nobody.

  At the top of the first flight of stairs she reached a ward. Some of the women were lying in the ugly white institution beds, reading or knitting. Most of them, wearing grey institution dressing-gowns, were clustered around the stove in the centre of the room. Their hair was bundled up on top of their heads. They wore no powder, no make-up at all. Women together, living where they were seen only by other women, they felt no need for beauty. And old, most of them, they had reached an age where illness is all engrossing and comfort the only standard, the only desire. They sat around the stove with its big black funnel rising to the ceiling and she heard them whisper, their voices like the sound of mice behind the walls of an old house.

  Giddiness came upon her as she climbed the second flight. Her heart had a nasty trick of acting up lately, plucking inside her chest like a bird in a bag. A drink, she said, I need something to steady me. And Edie? She stopped on the stairs for breath. Why did I come? she cried mutely. It’s depressing, depressing, and Edie will only be depressing too. Why? Why?

  Because she is my friend. And I need a friend.

  She went on. When she reached the second floor, she turned right and walked into a ward. There were about fifteen women there and they stopped all talk at once. Those in bed dropped their knitting and the group around the fire turned their heads to look. Like browsing cows, they stared at the strange animal in their midst. One of them tittered.

  Edie? Miss Hearne’s shifting dark eyes sought her friend. But the women all looked the same.

  ‘Is Miss Marrinan here?’ she said, stopping by the stove.

  ‘She’s ova’ tha’,’ a toothless old woman said, pointing.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The bed nearest the corner. And under the yellow blankets, someone asleep. Miss Hearne put her handbag carefully on the bed-table.

  ‘Yes?’ the woman on the bed said. Her face was turned to the wall. She did not move.

  ‘Edie?’ Miss Hearne bent over and saw Edie’s profile, wan, lack-lustre, against the pillow. ‘It’s me, Edie. Judy Hearne.’

  Slowly, with infinite care, the sick woman turned over on her back. The greying widow’s peak of her hair was wet with perspiration. ‘Judy. Nice of you to come and see an old wreck like me. O, it’s killing me, this pain.’

  ‘The arthritis?’

  The sick woman nodded. Miss Hearne sat down by the bedside. Jolly Edie Marrinan, always a plain girl, but such fun. Such a hearty, good-natured soul, you knew she’d never get married, but that was because men were so foolish, for she was a wonderful cook and she adored children. A jolly cousin to all the other Marrinans, and she had a big circle of girl friends too, girls who worked and girls like me, Miss Hearne thought, who lived at home with relatives. And now: a sick pained woman, crippled by the disease. Bent over double, they said, when she stood up.

  ‘O, Edie,’ she said. ‘And I thought of you this morning the minute I woke up. Early and all, I decided to come over and have a little chat, we could cheer each other up. I brought a little “tonic“, just a secret, the two of us, I thought it would be cheerful.’

  The sick woman smiled. Her twisted hand stiffly caught at Miss Hearne’s sleeve.

  ‘You brought something?’

  ‘A little gin,’ Miss Hearne whispered. ‘I thought it would be best. They wouldn’t smell it.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Edie said. She pulled Miss Hearne closer. ‘Be careful. They’re watching. Don’t look now.’

  But Miss Hearne peeked. The dressing-gowns had moved into a wider circle around the stove, the better to observe. There was conversation, but their eyes and minds were not on it.

  ‘Take the glass,’ the sick woman said. ‘Put it in the glass and give it to me.’

  But this is not right, Miss Hearne screamed silently. This is like giving drugs to a sick person. Poor Edie, why shouldn’t she enjoy herself? O these silly rules that nuns invent. They think everybody should live the way they do. But the rest of the world didn’t take the veil, don’t they know that?

  She put the water-glass on top of her bag. Then, without taking the bottle out of the bag, she uncorked it and bent its mouth towards the glass.

  ‘More, more,’ the sick woman said.

  ‘But you want me to put some water in it?’

  ‘No.’

  Miss Hearne, acutely aware of the inquisitive dressing-gowns, held out the half-filled glass to Edie.

  ‘My hands. I can’t hold things any more. Just lift me up.’

  Skilfully, remembering her dear aunt and the stroke, Miss Hearne lifted the sick woman, slipping her arm under the head and neck. She held the glass to Edie’s lips. Edie coughed and choked at the first sip, but then she sucked at the gin like a man after a day’s work in the hot fields.

  ‘Was that good?’ Miss Hearne asked, letting her friend rest back gently on the pillows. The sick woman closed her eyes. ‘Ah, you’re an angel, Judy, a perfect angel. I’m so glad you came, I was wondering if you’d ever be back. It seems so long here.’

  ‘But it was only last month, Edie.’

  ‘They all stop coming, sooner or later. Who wants to come all the way out here to see a creature like me?’

  ‘O, now, Edie!’

  ‘My own brother, Eamon, yes, my own brother, he hasn’t been here for two months. Too busy, he says. Judy dear, you’ll never know how lonely it is here.’

  ‘O, now, Edie, you mustn’t say that. Why, you’ve got heaps of friends. You were the most popular girl in Belfast, really you were. And you still are, don’t you worry. People are always asking about you.’

  The sick woman moved her stiff neck like a tortoise. ‘Popular, my eye. When you’re sick, you’re popular with nobody. You’ll see, Judy, you’ll see. And when you’re sick and alone in the world the way I am, everybody’d be glad to see you dead.’

  O, why did I come here? Miss Hearne asked herself. Poor Edie. She took the glass from the table and filled it up as if the gin was water. ‘I’m going to have a nip to keep you company,’ she whispered.

  It burned, it burned like fire. But she drank it all down. ‘O Edie,’ she said. ‘I miss you, really I do. When I think of the good times we used to have together, you and I, in your old digs on Cedar Avenue. And what fun we had, laughing and joking about all the things that happened, the little funny things that used to happen in your office. Do you ever see any of the people you used to work with, Mr Henry, or Mr Flannery, or any of the girls?’

  ‘Would you have a sup more gin?’ the sick woman said. ‘It does wonders for the pain.’

  ‘Yes, dear, just a moment now.’ Miss Hearne pulled the neck of the bottle out of her bag and tilted it into the glass.

  ‘Nurse!’ an old woman called in the background. ‘Sista! Sista!’

  ‘What is it?’ A nun, white robed, with flashing steel spectacles, appeared at the ward door.

  ‘Them two women is drinkin’,’ the old woman cried. ‘Them two. That one over there wi’ the red coat.’

  ‘O, you dirty sneak. Wait till I get you,’ Edie Marrinan cried. Perspiration ran like rain down her face. ‘You see, Judy, you see what I have to put up with? Dirty old hags, filthy, back-biting old sneaks.’

  ‘Now, what’s this, Miss Marrinan?’ the nun said, coming up the ward with a swish of stiff white skirts. ‘What’s this I hear?’

  ‘Nothing, Sister, nothing,’ Edie Marrinan said, turning carefully towards the wall. ‘My pains are bad, Sister, leave me alone.’

  ‘How did you ge
t in here?’ the nun said, turning angrily to Miss Hearne.

  ‘By the front door. With permission. I never heard of such a thing,’ Miss Hearne said. ‘You’d think I was a thief or something.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to leave now,’ the nun said suspiciously.

  ‘Goodness me, Sister, you’d think I was a criminal, the way you talk to me. I was just visiting my friend.’

  She stood up, clutching her big handbag with a tottering attempt at dignity. But the bottle had not been corked. Under the nun’s shocked stare, she looked down and saw the gin seep through the bag and fall in splashing wetness on the floor.

  ‘Well!’ the nun said, her pale face flushing. ‘Did you ever? Do you know this woman is sick? Do you know the seriousness of coming in here and feeding her that vile stuff, whatever it is, without a doctor’s permission? O, you should be ashamed of yourself, really it’s scandalous. I don’t know who let you in but I’ll report this to Reverend Mother immediately.’

  The grey dressing-gowns, joyful at this break in the dull daily routine, had clustered around the nun.

  ‘Luk at her, luk at her wi’ her red coat,’ a woman said in broad Belfast accent. ‘That ’un’s a bad woman, Sista.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Miss Hearne said icily. O, my God, I must get away.

  ‘Edie,’ she said. ‘Good bye, Edie.’

  But the sick woman stared at the wall.

  ‘Out you go this minute,’ the nun cried in anger, taking Miss Hearne by the arm. ‘Outside at once. I’ve a good mind to call a policeman.’

  And she marched Miss Hearne down the ward, followed by the slippered clop-clop of the grey dressing-gowns.

  ‘A booza, a booza,’ a woman chanted. ‘She must be on the wine, Sista.’

  ‘Out with you,’ the nun cried, giving Miss Hearne a rude push at the head of the stairs. ‘Out with you, this minute.’

  O, the mortal shame of it. And the cheek of that nun, pushing at me as if I was a fallen woman or something. With giddy drunken dignity, Miss Hearne descended the stairs. A kind act, a corporal work of mercy, visiting the sick, and look what happened. You got treated as if you were trying to kill poor Edie, instead of cheering her up. And Edie, she might at least have stuck up for me. Turning away like that as if it was my fault she’s sick.