The Lost Bookshop(80)

Martha, Martha, I love you, can’t you see?

I couldn’t take it any more. I let her go and stepped backward.

‘Sorry, I have to go.’

I tried to walk out of there with as much dignity as I could, which was to say, very little. I reached to pull the handle of the front door, but it wouldn’t budge.

‘For God’s sake …’ I muttered, pulling it with all my might.

‘Henry!’

I turned around to see her standing there, her face full of pity. That was the last thing I needed. I felt completely exposed. The only way out was to pretend.

‘You were right. About us, I mean. It never would’ve worked.’

‘Oh.’

Her face was unreadable. I had to get out of there. I turned to try the handle again, but it still wouldn’t budge.

‘Leaving so soon?’ Madame Bowden asked.

God, that woman was omnipresent!

‘It’s fine,’ Martha said to her. ‘Thank you for coming, I mean it.’

I nodded, shoving my hands into my pocket. That’s when I felt the box.

‘I forgot to give you this.’

She peeled back the paper and opened it. Her eyes widened and her hand went to her chest. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘What is it?’ the old lady asked, struggling to put on her glasses.

‘It’s a Mont Blanc pen.’

‘On ne voit bien qu’avec le c?ur.’

‘Henry, I can’t accept it. It’s too much!’

I just smiled and hoped she knew that she was worth so much more than she knew.

‘I thought you’d need a good pen for university.’

She took it out and held it close to her chest. ‘I love it. Thank you.’

‘Now, I really must go,’ I said, my voice breaking slightly, ‘but your door seems to be stuck.’

Madame Bowden reached out her hand and opened it easily.

‘Goodnight, Henry,’ she said with a wink.





Chapter Forty-Three





OPALINE





Connacht District Lunatic Asylum, 1923


I don’t know how long I lay on that bed, if it was cold or warm, or if I was alone or in company. All of my senses were dulled by one overwhelming urge – to hold my baby.

‘Sure, why do you want to hold a dead baby?’ the nurse snapped, probably not for the first time.

I hadn’t the energy to answer, or cry. My only hope was that I would die too. Mary tried to bring me food but I wouldn’t touch it. They came in and stripped the clothes off the bed, opened the window to the cold January air, but I did not move. They lifted me and brought me to the bathroom, washing away the dried blood between my legs. I didn’t care any more who saw or touched me. I wanted to die and be with my baby.

Then it was night and I woke screaming from a nightmare – Lyndon was tying a noose around my baby’s neck.

‘What is it?’ Mary was beside me, stroking my brow.

I grasped her hand. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t live.’

‘You have to.’

‘You don’t understand,’ I said, turning away from her.

‘Oh, but I do. He punched my baby out of me, and the guilt—’ She stopped short. ‘That’s why he put me in here. He couldn’t live with what he did either, so it was easier to blame me. Lock me away.’

I turned around to face her again. It was dark, but her features held a grace I could never have imagined possible in such dire circumstances.

‘Mary, I’m so sorry.’

‘I don’t need your pity, Opaline. I need you to survive. We need each other if we’re going to get out of here.’

She seemed so strong and independent, I hadn’t thought that she needed me at all.

‘Let me help you now and you will get stronger. You will survive this.’

‘But what’s the point?’ I asked, raising myself up on my elbow. ‘What kind of future can we hope for?’

‘I don’t know, but hope is all I have, and I felt my prayers were answered the day you came here.’

I laughed bitterly. ‘I would advise you to pin your hopes on anyone else in this establishment; you will find in them more inspiration than you will ever find in me.’

‘You feel that way now but—’

I sat up and was almost nose to nose with her. ‘I will always feel this way.’

She went back to her own bed.

The next morning, however, she brought me a saucer of oatmeal. I knew the risk she took; taking food out of the hall was expressly forbidden and was punished with solitary confinement. I said nothing, but sat up in my bed and began to eat. Later that afternoon she came with a piece of unbuttered bread and an enamel cup with some tea. The following morning, I leaned on her and walked to the hall myself.

‘Can you sew?’ Mary asked.

I had watched as she mended the threadbare clothes of the other women. She was the only one trusted with the use of a needle in that place.

‘Before I came to this place, I was a dressmaker. My mother taught me. You have to keep busy, Opaline.’

‘I could try,’ I agreed, never even having sewed a button in my life.