Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture

I almost said, Thank God, but managed to keep the words in my head only.

'Although the file pertains to quite a long time ago, I understand the mother is still alive, and of course, the child himself…' 'So there was a child, is a child?'

'Oh yes, most certifiably,' she said, smiling broadly. Though I cannot place Irish accents, I inevitably have a go, and was thinking maybe Kerry, or certainly the west. Her slightly official use of words I supposed came from long acquaintance with these records. I must say she was an appealing person, very polite, and seemed intelligent.

'You are with me so far?' she said.

'Oh, yes.'

'There is a birth certificate,' she said. 'There is also the name of the people to whom the child was given in adoption. This latter party however would never have seen the former document, or only briefly. Enough to know the child was Irish, healthy, and Catholic.'

'That sounds sensible,' I said, rather stupidly I thought, as I heard the words come out. I was actually a little in awe of this woman, there was something formidable about her.

'The thing that gave the community a certain desire to find a good home for the child was of course its relationship to Sr Declan, God rest her. As a young woman I remember her well. She was a lovely west of Ireland person, an enormous credit to her mother and to us. She was in fact in her day the finest mendicant nun in Bexhill. That was a very great achievement. And the orphans in general loved her. Loved her.'

There was gentle but clear emphasis here.

'You might want to come out later and see her little grave?' said Sr Miriam.

'Oh, I would be delighted…'

'Yes. We recognise here at Bexhill that things were very different in the forties, and personally I think it is impossible to travel back in time adequately to appreciate those differences. Even Dr Who himself might find it hard.' She smiled again.

'There is a great truth in that,' I said, immediately sounding pompous even to myself. 'In the arena of mental health. God forbid. But at the same time, one must…'

'Do what one can?'

'Yes.'

'To make reparation and undo hurts?'

I was very surprised to hear her say so.

'Yes,' I said, flustered by her unexpected honesty.

'I agree,' she said, and like a cool-handed poker player, laid two documents before me on the desk. 'This is the birth certificate. This is the adoption paper.'

I leaned forward, taking out my reading glasses, and looked at the pages. I think for a moment my heart stopped and the blood was suspended in my body. Just for a moment those thousand rivers and streams of blood ceased to flow. Then flowed again, with an almost violent sensation of force and movement.

The child's name was William Clear, born of Roseanne Clear, waitress. The father was given as Eneas McNulty, soldier. The child was given to Mr and Mrs Grene of Padstow, Cornwall, in 1945.

I sat there before Sr Miriam in a daze.

'Well?' she said quite gently. 'So, you didn't know?'

'No, no, of course not – I am here on official – to help and aid an old lady in my care -'

'We thought you might know. We didn't know if you knew.'

'I didn't know.'

'There are other things here, notes of conversations between Sr Declan and a Sean Keane in the seventies? Do you know anything about that?'

'No.'

'Mr Keane was anxious to find you and Sr Declan was able to oblige him. Did he ever find you?' 'I don't know. No. Yes.'

'You are very confused and of course that is understandable. It is like the tsunami, no? Something sweeping over you. Carrying people and things with it.'

'Sister, excuse me, I think I am going to be sick. Those cakes…'

'Oh, yes, of course,' she said. 'Just go through there.'

When I was sufficiently able, there was the bizarre experience of looking at my 'aunt's' grave. Then I left that place and made my way back to London.

I wished, I wished and I longed for Bet to be still alive so I could tell her, that was my first thought.

But every subsequent thought I had, I shook my head at it. The other passengers must have thought I had Parkinson's. No, no, it was impossible. There was no door in my head where the information could go in.

That old lady, whom I had been barely aware of for years, and yet who had taken such a grip on my imagination in these recent times, that old lady, with her oddness, her histories, her disputed deeds, and yes, her friendship, was my mother.

I hurried back, hurried home as one might say. The hours of the journey didn't bring me much clarity. I was homing though, hurrying, fearful suddenly that she would be dead before I got there. I could not explain to anyone that feeling. Pure feeling, nothing else. Feeling without thought. Just to get there, to keep going and get there. I rushed across Ireland, driving I am sure with certifiable stupidity. I parked clumsily in the carpark of my hospital, and without as much as a greeting to my staff, strode on into the ward where I hoped and prayed she still was. There was a curtain drawn about her bed, although there was no one else in the room. I thought, oh, yes, of course this is the conclusion, she is dead. I looked round the curtain only to see her face quite awake and alive, turning now a few degrees, quizzically to look at me.

'Dr Grene,' she said. 'Where have you been? I'm back from the dead, apparently.'

I tried to tell her, there and then. But I hadn't the words. I will have to wait for the words, I thought.

She seemed to sense something, as I lingered at the gap in the curtain. People know more instinctively than they know in their conscious brain (perhaps medically a dubious notion but there it is).

'So, Doctor,' she said. 'Have you assessed me?'

'What?'

'Have you made your assessment?' 'Oh, yes. I think so.' 'And what is the verdict?' 'You are blameless.'

'Blameless? I hardly think that is given to any mortal being.' 'Blameless. Wrongly committed. I apologise. I apologise on behalf of my profession. I apologise on behalf of myself, as someone who did not bestir himself, and look into everything earlier. That it took the demolition of the hospital to do it. And I know my apology is useless and disgusting to you.' Weak as she was, she laughed.

'But', she said, 'that is not true. They showed me the brochure for the new hospital. I suppose you will let me stay there for a while?'

'It is entirely your decision. You are a free woman.'

'I was not always a free woman. I thank you for my freedom.'

'It is my privilege to pronounce it,' I said, suddenly very odd and formal, but she took it in her stride.

'Can you step back to the bed?' she said.

I did so. I didn't know what she intended. But she just lifted my hand, and shook it.

'I wonder will you allow me to forgive you?' she said.

'My God, yes,' I said.

There was a short silence then, just enough of a silence for the breath of a dozen thoughts to blow through my brain.

'Well, I do,' she said.

The next morning, I went round to the old stableblock. I wanted to ask John Kane while I still could the few questions, with now all the more reason to do so. I knew it was unlikely that he would be able or even willing to answer me. I supposed at the very least I might offer him profoundest thanks, for all his strange work.

There was absolutely no sign of him. His quarters was a single room with an old-fashioned gramophone sideboard, the sort of one where you had to open the right-hand door for the sound to escape, because the door hid a simple wooden amplifier. There was a collection of 78 records in the niche supplied by the manufacturers (Shepherds, Bristol). It contained Benny Goodman, Bubber Miley, Jelly Roll Morton, Fletcher Henderson, and Billy Mayerl records. Otherwise the room was empty, except for a neat little iron bed, with a coverlet crudely sewn with flowers. I thought immediately of Mrs McNulty's work as described by Roseanne. I have no doubt that to get his way, or what he thought was the best way to serve Roseanne, he used all the pressure he could bring on the McNultys and their secret. The first wife who did not legally exist, and about whom the second family of Tom McNulty was probably never told. The mad wife who was not a wife, but nevertheless was flesh and blood. I am sure Mrs McNulty and her good daughter went as far as they humanly could to humour John Kane, even to the extent of supplying my new name, and my story up to that point. I do not know what he intended to do after he had found me, and can only suppose that having found out I had miraculously trained as a psychiatrist, he adapted himself to this, and hatched a better plan than the first, which after all, if it was a simple reunion he had in mind, might have resulted in my refusal to see Roseanne, or having seen her, my rejection of her. Because why would I not reject her, when everyone else had?