‘Henry.’
It would have helped greatly if she didn’t say my name with that Irish accent of hers.
‘Yes?’
‘We’re here.’
The bus chugged and rattled to a halt at what passed for a bus stop around here – a hard shoulder with a statue of the Virgin Mary inexplicably keeping watch. The engine made a whining noise as it pulled off again, leaving us in a cloud of dust.
‘Is this it?’ I asked, as I strained to look up the laneway beyond the wrought-iron gates.
‘Looks like it,’ Martha replied, pointing to the small sign that said Saint Agnes’s.
‘You’re a natural.’
She gave me a withering look. I had to stop being such a dickhead. Was it possible I was just jealous? Who was Logan anyway? I dragged my thoughts back to the present. The laneway was lined with pine trees that had overgrown and merged into one thick, dark wall. As we walked along the curving drive, the building itself loomed into view around the corner. It was a dark grey block of a thing, hunkered down into the land. It could have passed for a stark kind of monastery, if it weren’t for the bars on the windows.
I stopped walking.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s just so … real.’
I’d never had a sensation like it. As though something heavy was pressing on my chest. It was one thing reading about these things on paper, but being here was entirely different. I hoped that my hunch was wrong and that Opaline had not been incarcerated here. Martha put her hand on my arm, as though to steady me and I came back to my senses. There were three old doorbells outside and it didn’t look as though any of them worked. I pushed the buttons and waited.
‘Have you thought about what you’re going to say?’
‘I’m going to ask if Opaline Carlisle was a, um, resident here.’
Martha shook her head, making it clear that this approach was utterly useless.
‘You don’t know much about Catholic Ireland, do you?’
‘In what sense?’
‘These kinds of places, they’re not exactly known for offering up information.’
I decided to knock firmly on the door. After several minutes, there was still no answer.
‘Right.’ I smacked the palms of my hands together. The universal signal to leave. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘But we came all this way!’
‘Yes, and now we’re leaving,’ I said. ‘What time is the next bus back to Dublin?’
‘You can’t leave now. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Because it’s just another wild goose chase. It’s not bringing me any closer to the manuscript, is it? People can waste their whole lives chasing shadows and I can’t let myself become one of them.’
I refused to stand there arguing about it. I’d made my decision. I didn’t owe her an explanation. I started walking briskly down the drive, assuming she would follow eventually.
‘Can I help you?’ A middle-aged woman held open the heavy wooden door and addressed us in a tone that left no doubt – the last thing she wanted to do was help. She had short, tight curls and wore a white nurse’s uniform. I didn’t blame her for being miserable, I would be too in a place like this.
‘Yes, I would like to establish if a woman by the name of Opaline Carlisle was a resident here at one point?’ I said, rushing back.
‘Do you have an appointment?’
No greeting, just direct animosity.
‘No, but I—’
‘You have to make an appointment.’
She was about to close the door when I stuck my boot in the door.
‘Excuse me, what are you doing?’
I didn’t know. I’d seen it done so many times on TV I just did it without thinking of a follow-up plan. I stammered something incoherent. I just wanted to pull my foot back out but I couldn’t seem to move it.
‘We’re from the Department of Health and we’re running a spot-check,’ said Martha.
I couldn’t even look at Martha. I knew if I did, I would give the game away. What the hell was she doing?
‘I wasn’t informed about this,’ the woman replied, suspicion narrowing her gaze.
‘It’s a spot-check, that’s the point.’
I didn’t know who this person beside me was. For all I knew she was an undercover spot-checker for the Department of Health, such was her conviction.
The woman shifted her weight from one foot to another and she looked even more cross than she was when we’d first arrived.
‘I’ll need to see some identification.’
‘Mr Field, show her your ID,’ Martha said.
Was she talking to me? Where the fuck was I going to get ID? I finally looked across at her, trying to express my what-the-fuckness with my eyes. She widened hers as if to say just bloody do something. So I pulled out my ID card. The one from university. The one that said I was a rare manuscript specialist.
‘Very well, Dr Field’ she said and let us both inside. ‘I hope this won’t take long. We close at four o’clock.’
Doctor Field? That was what she took from my ID? Not that I was a PhD candidate?
The place was eerily quiet. Inside, it looked as though the building was slowly deconstructing itself and nobody had bothered to fix it. The walls, painted a sickly green, were peeling and there were damp patches everywhere. Black mould spread out from the windows and the lino on the floor was curling at the edges. The smell was toxic. A mix of bleach and boiled cabbage. It was old and uncared for – just like the residents, I imagined.
‘We just need to check some records, isn’t that right, Dr Field?’
‘Um yes.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Pertaining to the Freedom of Information Act, we would like to look at how the records of past residents are, you know, filed.’
The woman glared at me. ‘Oh. Aren’t you going to inspect the ward?’
‘The ward? You still have—’ I stopped myself before saying the word ‘inmates’。
‘Another time,’ said Martha. ‘We wouldn’t want to keep you, and this is something that the minister really wants to get on top of before the new legislation comes in.’
‘New legislation?’ the woman asked, falling for Martha’s spiel.
‘It’s being put before the Dáil next year.’
I looked at Martha with new star-struck eyes. It was a revelation to see her so confident and unfazed whilst lying through her teeth. I was so impressed, I almost forgot why we were there.
We were led into a narrow office on the first floor with a thin brown carpet and a flickering light overhead. There were rows upon rows of steel-grey filing cabinets.
‘Sharon normally takes care of the admin,’ the woman explained, immediately absolving herself and again checking her watch.
‘Not to worry Ms …？’
‘Mrs Hughes.’
‘Mrs Hughes,’ I said, ‘this won’t take long. Any chance of a cup of tea in the meantime?’
‘No.’
With that, she left the room and we both waited until her footsteps were far enough down the hall.
‘What the hell was that, Angela Lansbury?’ I whisper-shouted.
‘I don’t know! It just … happened.’