Immaculate Heart Page 7

  “What occurred to you?”

  “That if I’d seen her—if we’d really seen her—everything should have felt clearer than it had before. Not the other way round.”

  “That makes sense.” I reached for a ginger biscuit and took a bite. “How did you manage to move past that period of your life?”

  “I didn’t.” Orla set down her mug and looked at me. “It faded over time, but it’s never truly left me.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. The cookie turned to cardboard in my mouth.

  “As for my sister, you could say it was the beginning of her unraveling. It happened slowly. The first breakdown happened after she got to university. Ended up in hospital and everything. Mam and Dad thought it best if she came back to Ballymorris, but with her home, things only got worse. She waited tables for a while, but apart from that, she hardly bothered looking for a job. She’d either stay up all night painting her canvases or go out with guys who’d turned into even bigger tossers than they’d been at school. She fought constantly with our parents, so much so that I dreaded coming home at the weekend. So I usually found excuses not to.

  “Finally, when she was twenty-two or so, she had a massive row with our mam and dad. Smashing glasses, ‘I wish ye were dead,’ and that. I remember it because I’d come home that weekend, and regretted it the minute I walked in the door. I remember thinking, ‘I wish we could put her in a room somewhere, lock the door, and let her sort out the demons in her head instead of letting her unleash them on everybody else.’” Orla sighed, passing me a mildly embarrassed look over the rim of her mug. “Of course, now that I have what I asked for, I still can’t say I feel much better about the situation.”

  “But she left to travel at some point, is that right?”

  Orla nodded. “She took off in the middle of the night soon after that. Left a note on the kitchen table just saying she was leaving and not to worry.” Orla snorted, and it was not a pleasant sound. “Can you imagine! To this day, I haven’t the faintest notion where she got the money for that plane ticket. She claimed later that she’d saved it, and that she supported herself doing odd jobs wherever she happened to be—but as I said, Síle was never much of a worker.”

  “People change,” I said, and she snorted again.

  “You sound like an only child.”

  I thought of my sister’s face in the white casket, the gash on her forehead showing through the mortuary makeup, her hands folded primly over her heart.

  “Shit.” Orla hid her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry. They told me, years ago, when it happened. I forgot.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  Orla looked at me. Somehow she knew to leave it. “So there Síle was,” she went on, “living out of her rucksack on the far side of the world, free as you please. She hardly ever rang home—maybe once or twice a year, that was it. Never came back for Christmas, not once in six years. When she did ring, she told Mam and Dad all sorts of tales. Always on the move, always having adventures as if she were the only person who ever did anything worth doing.” Her eyes were hard, glittering with the anger she’d never been able to let go of. “It wasn’t a secret that she believed she was meant to do bigger and better things than any of the rest of us. Síle always believed that, even when she was small.”

  “I guess you could say that about most people with an artistic temperament,” I remarked, and Orla huffed in agreement.

  “And anyway, I don’t know that she got to quite so many places as she liked to say she had. But all the while, she’d be sendin’ things home for birthdays and Christmas, things Mam would never need or want.”

  “So what finally brought her home?”

  The look she gave me was the sharpest yet. “I did. She wound up in hospital again—someone found her passed out on the side of the road someplace in India. A complete mystery as to how it happened, of course. I told our mam and dad I’d go to her—somebody had to, and it wasn’t as if Síle had any real friends—and swearin’ all the time it was the last thing I’d ever do for her.” She paused for breath, as if to remind herself that it was long since over and done with. “I spent a fortnight in a place called Madurai before she was well enough to fly home. Longest two weeks of my life.”

  “So when you brought her back, after India—was that when she went to live in Sligo?”

  Orla shook her head. “She spent a couple years in Dublin and Galway, trying to make a living with her painting. Síle always thought she was a great artist—or at least she was going to be a great artist. I don’t know much about art myself, but even I could tell you she’s mediocre.” She sighed. “I suppose none of us did her any favors by not telling her so. Not that she would have listened.”

  Mediocre? I wanted to say. Have you looked at your life lately?

  “Then came another breakdown,” Orla was saying, “the worst one yet—and that’s when Mam and Dad put her at Ardmeen House.”

  I swallowed that irrational little blip of indignation so I could ask, “What kind of a place is it?”

  “It’s a big old house by the sea. It’s like she’s on a holiday that never ends.”

  “So it’s not like a—”

  Orla laughed. “A madhouse? Not entirely, though I suppose some in town think that’s the sort of place it is. She can’t come and go as she pleases, but that’s for her own good.” She sighed. “Síle is sick, there’s no denying she’s sick, and Ardmeen is a safe place. She may not be happy, but at least she’s safe. And it really is lovely up there.”

  In truth, Orla seemed more concerned about everyone else’s so-called safety. I gave her a look. “A very pretty view through the bars on the windows?”

  She sighed. “It pains our mam and dad, having her hidden away like that, but we can’t risk her having another meltdown somewhere it would take us ages to get to. I’ve had three children since the last time; I can’t be leavin’ them to go and rescue her again.”

  I dipped another biscuit in my lukewarm tea. “It sounds like you and Síle still don’t have much of a relationship.”

  “We have no relationship. I don’t speak to her, I don’t visit her. I must seem awfully cold to you, but perhaps you’ll understand: all I wanted was a happy family life, a peaceful home for my children. I needed a life that had nothing to do with what I was meant to have seen on the hill—no illusions, no superstitions, no phantoms—no more of that interminable selfish drama.” She gestured toward the only remotely untidy thing in the room, a laundry basket of brightly colored children’s clothing on a kitchen chair. “And in the end, I got what I wanted, believe me—more dirty nappies than I know what to do with.” She laughed softly, and as if on cue, I heard her baby cry out from upstairs.

  Orla rose from the table, and I caught another glimpse of her ridiculous orange midriff. “Now,” she said, “that should give you plenty to work with. Only don’t go writin’ down anything I said about Síle. Our parents have been through enough.”

  * * *

  I drove northwest out of Ballymorris, past Sligo town and the churchyard where William Butler Yeats was buried, arriving at Ardmeen House around one o’clock. The building was more or less as Orla had described: a large Georgian perched on a hill above the north Atlantic. Beyond the high brick wall, I imagined, the back garden stretched all the way down to the dunes. From a distance, the building had looked like a deluxe bed-and-breakfast, and then I drew close enough to see the grilles on the windows. The parking lot afforded a decent view, so I sat in the driver’s seat staring out at the sea as I scarfed down a bacon and mayonnaise sandwich out of a triangular box. The beach they’d taken us to was long and sandy, like this one. Paudie’s car had broken down a few miles into the return trip, and we’d had to consolidate three carloads of people into two before stopping in Sligo town for fish and chips.

  I rang the bell at the front door, and a young woman in cartoon-print scrubs showed me to the director’s office. When Dr. Kiely appeared after a five-minute interval, sh
e did little to conceal her irritation. “You really ought to have rung first.”

  “I did,” I said. “I called yesterday morning. You didn’t get my message?”

  “You ought to have waited.”

  I folded my hands in my lap. “I apologize.” I could submit when the situation called for it. “Will it be possible for me to speak with Miss Gallagher?”

  The doctor narrowed her eyes. “What is your connection with Síle, exactly?”

  “We have a mutual friend, who asked me to pass on some news best relayed in person.” Dr. Kiely looked at me askance, as if a person in a mental home couldn’t possibly have any friends. “A mutual friend, is it?”

  “Mishka Beatty-Harkins,” I said. “A childhood friend of mine. She and Síle met in India.” The name Mishka had been a stroke of inspiration, and a double-barreled surname would sound too complex to be invented on the fly. I wish I could say I’m a terrible liar, but there it is.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll allow you to see her for a short while, but if she shows any sign of distress—”

  “Distress?” I cut in. “She isn’t a danger to herself, is she? I was under the impression that Síle isn’t too far removed from being able to live independently.”

  “I’m afraid that assessment is rather too optimistic.” The director gestured to a young man in blue scrubs who’d just appeared in the doorway. “If Síle becomes overwhelmed at any point, Martin will escort you back to my office.”

  Dr. Kiely watched with a bored look on her face as the attendant patted me down and turned out my pockets, telling me he’d return my Swiss army knife at the end of my visit. On our way down the hall to the stairs, Martin said, in not so many words, that Síle had always been his favorite. I hadn’t laid eyes on her since 1982, but I wasn’t surprised.

  * * *

  Síle was at her easel when Martin showed me in, and she did not turn to greet me until he’d closed the door behind him. Everywhere there were canvases of all sizes, easels, a drafting desk at the window, and another table covered with brushes in glass jars of murky water, palettes spattered with the rainbow, squeezed-up tubes of oil paint, and tins of turpentine. The figure and portrait sketches pinned to the walls certainly seemed better than mediocre to me. Two tall iron-barred windows looked out over the back garden, the ocean visible beyond a jagged stone wall. I watched the muscles in Síle’s pale, slender arm tense beneath her skin as she laid down one more brushstroke.

  “So you’re a friend of Mishka’s?” She turned to face me then, and I held my breath as the unmade bed taunted me out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and fling her onto it. “Dear old Mishka,” she said. “We whispered obscene things round the dome of the Gol Gumbaz at Bijapur—all of which echoed eleven times, as legend promises—and afterwards we were marched to the police station before an angry mob. Did Mishka ever tell you that?”

  She wanted to entertain me, and for a second, I forgot I’d invented Mishka myself. I shook my head, smiling, and offered my hand. Síle clasped it—I noticed then that she was left-handed—and I caught the scent of sweet musky soap under the nose-curling odor of turpentine.

  “May I ask you something?” she asked.

  “Anything,” I said.

  “Who is Mishka, anyway?”

  I tried to keep a serious look on my face as I replied, “I don’t know, but she asked me to give you her best.”

  She sighed, smiling. “Dear old Mishka.”

  I looked at the aquamarine paint on the tip of the brush she held between slender blue-streaked fingers, and the glistening strokes along the canvas on the easel. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve interrupted your work.”

  “I suppose you have.” She dropped the brush in a jar of turpentine and looked at me intently as she wiped her hands with a rag. “But I’ve all the time in the world to finish it.”

  I couldn’t wait any longer. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “Of course I do. You came to Ballymorris that summer. They took us out for an afternoon by the sea.” She applied the rag to a fingernail caked with blue paint. “But you haven’t come here to reminisce about our childhoods.”

  My pulse switched to double time. “I haven’t?”

  “You haven’t,” she said. “I know why you’re here.”

  “Oh?” I tried to sound casual. “Who told you?”

  “Some things nobody needs to tell you.” She turned back to her canvas and gave it one last appraising glance. “You’re here about Her, aren’t you?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.” We locked eyes, and I lost my nerve completely. I took a breath and turned to the wall. “May I have a look around?”

  “Of course.” She moved like a cat to a sink by the door, washed her hands, and began filling an electric kettle at the faucet. “You’ll have tea?”

  “Yes—please—thanks.”

  The charcoal portraits were pinned to the walls all the way up to the molding, half a dozen variations per model: a young man in owlish eyeglasses with his hands always touching his face, an old man with a beard best described as epic, a woman with a long nose and eyes bulging like a frog’s, her unbuttoned blouse thrown off the shoulder to reveal one glass-cutting nipple. Other people who lived here? They had to be.

  “I’ve lots of different kinds. Assam, Ceylon, or Darjeeling?”

  “Whatever you’re having,” I said. I didn’t know much about art, but I did know more than Orla: everything about Síle’s work exuded professional confidence. She could have sold any of these pictures quite easily. “You’re very good,” I said.

  “I’ll keep at it,” she said dryly, and I laughed.

  I pointed to a signature at the bottom right of one of the paintings: Síle Ní Ghallchobhair. “Is that the Gaelic version of your name?”

  She nodded. “Irish, not Gaelic.”

  “Sorry.”

  She smiled as she rinsed out a metal teapot. “Keep saying ‘sorry,’ and you’ll fit right in.”

  “Did you go to art school?”

  “For a time.” Síle drew a couple of bags out of a tin as the water came to a boil. “It didn’t agree with me.”

  “Maybe you didn’t need it.” I watched her pour the water into the teapot and place two mugs, a ceramic sugar pot, and a package of ginger biscuits—the same brand her sister had offered me that morning—on a plain wooden tray.

  “I don’t drink cow’s milk,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  I shrugged. “Have you had many journalists visiting you here?”

  “I’ve lived here nearly four years, and you’re the first. Most people have long since forgotten about it, and I suppose that’s for the best.” She brought the tray over to a narrow table beside her bed, and we sat down opposite one another.

  “Best … for you?” I asked.

  “Now, that I couldn’t say.” Síle flicked me a sardonic look. “They tell me I’m the last person to know what’s best for me.” She poured the tea and nudged the sugar pot toward me with the back of her hand.

  It was too soon to be asking any more questions along that line. I turned to look out the iron-barred window. To the left the sea was dark and roiling, and to the right I could see a strange knob of a mountain in the distance. “You’re right on the Atlantic,” I said.

  “Pity the weather’s so foul. I’d love to go for a walk on the strand.” She smiled deviously. “Like old times, you might say.”

  “It’s the same beach?”

  “The very one.”

  I tried to picture us running along the sandy strip between the water and the rocks, but with the weather this bad, it was impossible to imagine. The irony of her living here now—trapped in an old house overlooking a place where she’d once been as free as children ever get. It made me shudder.

  “We’ll go out the next time you come,” Síle said.

  Again my pulse quickened, and a little voice behind my ear said, You can’t even remember why
you came here. “Would they let us do that?”

  She shrugged. “I can do what I like.”

  “It seems like you’re happy enough,” I said as I glanced at the drawings on the walls. “Like you’re making the best of it.”

  “Which is what I’d still be doing, were I anywhere else.” Síle smiled as she brought her steaming mug to her lips. “They’re spending massive amounts of money to keep me here. Have you any notion what a place like Ardmeen House costs?”

  “No idea.”

  “What do you reckon? ‘Ballpark,’ as you Americans say.”

  “Two hundred a day?”

  She laughed, knowing I’d aim much too low. “Nearer to eight hundred.” I gasped and muttered a four-letter word. “Insurance covers most of it, and my mam and dad pay the rest. When I first got here, it kept me awake nights, the feeling burdensome, but I don’t worry about that anymore. It’s for their peace of mind that I stay here, so I don’t feel guilty for saving the money I make from my paintings.”

  “Where do you sell them?”

  “There’s a gallery in Sligo,” she said. “I’ve sold some there, and at a couple other places in Derry and Athlone. And there are a few cafés in Donegal that sometimes hang my pictures as well. The owners come to visit me here, and they choose what they like. I don’t make a lot, but it’s a much more useful thing to do than just sitting in a corner carving up the insides of my arms.” I winced. “Sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I go too far.”

  “Does your family visit you?”

  She smirked to herself as she topped up our mugs. “More often than I’d like.”

  “How often is too often?”

  “Once a month. Always on a Sunday.”

  “I met your sister this morning.”

  She lifted her brows, but I could tell she wasn’t surprised. “Did you?”

  “You’re very different.”

  Síle laughed. “How is Orla?”