The Butterfly State Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,

  characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the

  author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook Published 2012

  by Poolbeg Press Ltd

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  E-mail: [email protected]

  © Carol Coffey 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Typesetting, layout, design, ebook

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-78199-0292

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.poolbeg.com

  Note on the author

  Carol Coffey grew up in Dublin and now lives in County Wicklow. She has a degree in Education and has worked in the area of special education for over twenty years. The Butterfly State is her first novel.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Paula Campbell of Poolbeg Press for the opportunity to publish this book. Thanks also to Gaye Shortland for her wonderful editing and to all the staff at Poolbeg who have shown such interest in this book and to T & C who encouraged me all the way.

  For Dave, for his endless support

  Chapter 1

  1981

  Tess Byrne had thought it would be a sleepless night until she awoke to the sound of the cleaners mopping the long corridor outside her room. It was a comforting sound that she had become used to over the ten years she had spent at the institution. She placed her bare feet onto the cold tiled floor and walked gingerly across her room to look out into the bright, frosty February morning. This was the first thing she did each day. Tess enjoyed the ritual of seeing the same things: traffic passing by on the road, cyclists taking a short-cut through the grounds on their way to work, nurses arriving in taxis or on foot. However, this morning was different because this was the last morning she would ever see these things, this was the last day she would ever spend in this place. Today she was going home.

  Tess dressed slowly and methodically, carefully unfolding each item of clothing separately. She took her small suitcase from beneath her bed and packed in silence. She did not have much to pack, mostly her drawings and coloured pencils along with a few clothes. When she finished she sat on the bed and stared around the sparsely decorated room. Apart from her bed and locker, the only other piece of furniture was an old wooden wardrobe that smelt of mothballs. The walls of the tiny room were painted white, which made the quiet room appear colder than it was. Apart from a few of her own drawings that she had decided to leave behind, there was nothing on the walls except for a round white plastic clock and a large wooden crucifix that she had taken a long time to get used to. What she liked most about her room was the large shuttered window, which had a deep windowsill in which she often sat and painted.

  Tess settled down to wait to be called for breakfast which was more than half an hour away. She took a small notebook from her suitcase and opened the first page. Written there in large red letters was a list with the word “Apologise” written neatly above.

  Apologise

  Seán

  Kate

  Ben

  Dr Cosgrove had asked her many times what the list meant but she would not tell him. It was her secret and you had to keep secrets. She put her list back into the suitcase and took a deep satisfying breath. Today was the first day of her new life. She was going home and she had work to do.

  Dr Martin Cosgrove lowered his large body into the black leather chair in his stuffy office overlooking the institution’s exercise yard. He leant forward, his thin blond hair falling over his dark-rimmed glasses, and watched as rows of children played under the watchful eyes of two orderlies. He sighed as he thought of the responsibilities of his job and knew that he could not say with any certainty that he had helped any of the hundreds of disturbed children who had passed through this institution’s doors.

  And Tess Byrne was no different. Looking through her file, he found it hard to believe that she could ever have hurt anyone. There had been a few small incidents in the early years which resulted in her being placed in a room on her own. Later, when her behaviour improved, none of the other children wanted to share with her, saying she was odd and stared at them. He had spent years trying to talk to the selective mute, with some success, yet in almost ten years he could count the number of times he had heard her speak at any length. Cosgrove exhaled loudly. Tess’s family, who were farming in a remote part of County Wicklow, would collect her today and for all he knew she would spend the rest of her life cut off from people, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  She was twenty-one years old and, apart from her detached personality and occasional loss of emotional control, she showed no signs of mental illness. He understood a little about her condition, autism, and knew that she had a younger brother with a more severe form of it, but he could never claim to have understood her. All of the children who passed through his office had behaviour problems, most of them due to mental illness, but he felt that Tess had never really belonged here. This saddened the weary psychiatrist and made him wish he could have done more for her over the years.

  It worried him that he had never met Tess’s siblings. This had spurred him to contact the local GP, who informed him that while Tess’s older brother had a drink problem, her sister was a strong, capable woman who would take good care of Tess. Cosgrove wanted to talk to Tess’s siblings in person so he phoned. He found Kate Byrne to be a soft-spoken woman whose voice gave the impression of a mildly depressed person and not the strong woman Dr Doyle described her to be and this concerned him a little. This was a big move for Tess and he had to be sure he was doing the
best for her. Cosgrove decided to organise for the local community nurse to check in on Tess when she arrived home. That way he would have a pair of eyes within the house to be absolutely sure that she was okay.

  When he had told Tess the news, the young woman had stared back at him, absorbing the information and fidgeting with her jumper. Tess had turned into a beautiful woman with porcelain skin framed by thick black hair, her expressionless face making her seem almost doll-like.

  “Are you pleased, Tess?” he had asked, smiling at the girl, whose expression had not changed and who continued to stand staring as usual over his shoulder. She did not answer but simply nodded and walked away.

  Cosgrove raised his body slowly from his chair and stood there, holding Tess’s file tightly in both hands, lost in thought until awakened by the sharp shrill of the exercise yard’s bell. He lowered the file slowly into the tall metal filing cabinet. He gently shut the drawer, picked up files on the two new children who had arrived today from his desk and prepared for his rounds.

  Dermot Lynch was a serious man who at age thirty had found himself not only landless but also homeless following a dispute between him and his headstrong, domineering father. Despite being long past retirement, Dan Lynch had still been interfering in how his eldest son ran the farm and Dermot had finally had enough.

  Dermot thought of going to London or New York or even as far as Sydney. He had family in all those places, but he knew he was not cut out for the building game and definitely not cut out to be cooped up in a factory. Instead he had come here to Wicklow, where he worked in his aunt and uncle’s pub and also worked part-time as a farmhand for the Byrne family. That farm would never be his but at least it kept him in the work he loved. Like his own family farm in Galway, it was a livestock farm. The climate was milder over here in the east with much less rain. He liked it, worked hard, and generally kept out of the way of his employers – not that they bothered him much. The brother, Seán, had a drink problem as far as he could see and rarely helped out. The sister Kate wasn’t a bad-looking woman and ran the house, caring for a younger brother, Ben, who never spoke and rocked and hummed to imaginary music. The silence in the house was always palpable and Dermot usually kept his visits to a minimum, eating whatever meal was put in front of him and trying to ignore the boy’s staring eyes before darting back out to his work. He couldn’t actually say he minded the strange atmosphere at the farm. No one asked him any questions, which suited him fine. The last thing he needed was small-town gossip about how he lost his own farm to a younger brother. It may have been 1981 but things changed slowly in Ireland and he had no wish to be the focus of gossip in the small County Wicklow community that he now called home.

  Dermot spent each day in the same way, tending to the livestock, cleaning out barns and going to marts with Seán Byrne whenever he was sober enough to go. This morning, however, was different. Dermot thought it strange that the family did not drive to Dublin themselves to pick up their sister who a little local gossip had informed him “was not all there”. He felt uneasy about this task and uncharacteristically wished one of the Byrnes would accompany him. Why weren’t they collecting her themselves? Why was she living in an institution? Would she be some kind of nutcase that might attack him on the way back to the farm?

  All these questions clouded Dermot’s usually calm mind until he arrived at the institution with a throbbing headache and sick stomach. His father would be laughing his head off if he knew what he was doing this morning and the thought of this made Dermot angry.

  In the waiting area of the hospital, he shifted uneasily from foot to foot. Eventually a large official-looking man approached him with a smile that looked more nervous than happy.

  “Hello, I’m Dr Cosgrove,” the man said, shaking Dermot’s hand a little too enthusiastically. “I’m a psychiatrist. You must be Seán, Tess’s brother?”

  Dermot could feel himself turning bright red. He was not used to speaking to educated men like this psychiatrist and the man seemed to be expecting his employer instead.

  “Eh, no, I’m – I mean – I work for the Byrnes – they sent me to collect her – Tess, I mean.” Dermot recognised the look of shock on the doctor’s face and had no idea what else to say.

  Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the doctor spoke. “Are they ill, the family – is something wrong?”

  “No,” Dermot replied, not knowing what answer would cast his employers in a kind light when he himself thought it downright bad manners not to have come here themselves. “They just asked me to come. I’m Dermot Lynch, I work at the farm . . .” His voice trailed off as he could see the look of disbelief deepening on the doctor’s face.

  “She does know you though, she’s seen you before?” the doctor asked.

  “No, sir, eh, Doctor – I just started on the farm a few months back. Do ya want to call them? I mean, check who I am and all that?”

  Dr Cosgrove stared incredulously at the young man. He could not believe that Tess’s family, knowing her condition, would send a complete stranger to collect her. He suddenly had grave misgivings about releasing her into their care but knew that there was nothing he could do. She was, after all, an adult now and could no longer stay in this section of the institution. She was supposed to be moved into the adult wing once she turned eighteen and he had done everything in his power to prevent this, citing that her disability would make the adult ward unsuitable for her. There were times during her early years when he thought she would end up there and would remain in care for the rest of her life, but she had eventually settled in and he had seen no reason not to release her into the care of her family. Until now. He was aware that the family had not visited over the years and the fact disturbed him though he knew Tess’s siblings were under pressure caring for their younger brother and running the farm and that their parents were dead. In reality, Tess could have been returned to her family some years back but they hadn’t responded to his requests to attend progress meetings. The older sister sent Tess a present on each birthday and at Christmas but he had often wondered why they couldn’t visit even a couple of times a year. But to do this! She needed to see a familiar face, not the face of a stranger he knew she would be afraid of. The doctor ran his fingers through his hair and turned slightly to look around the large foyer, as if an answer lay in one cold corner or another, and then he saw her, packed, waiting, watching.

  “Tess! Em, this is Mr, em, I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

  “Dermot, Dermot Lynch.”

  “Mr Lynch. He has come to take you home today. How did you get downstairs?”

  This was an afterthought. He was always meeting Tess on stairs she shouldn’t be on, in rooms she had no access to, staff never knowing how she got there. After many incidents he stopped investigating her whereabouts as she never once went outside the grounds and did not seem to be doing anything wrong. So everyone got used to seeing her anywhere she wasn’t meant to be and not finding her where she was expected.

  “I’m sorry, Tess. I was expecting your brother or sister to come. I’m not sure what’s happened but I will telephone immediately and ask that they come on another day to collect you.”

  Tess shook her head at the doctor and walked slowly towards the shy young man.

  Dermot felt as though he was on one of those television programmes where a joke was pulled on you and everyone watched you look like a complete idiot.

  Dr Cosgrove thought that she didn’t understand. “Tess, this is not your brother but I will telephone him to sort this out. I’m sorry, Tess.” He knew she had been looking forward to this day.

  “I’ll go,” Tess said flatly.

  Dr Cosgrove was taken aback but recovered quickly. “I’m sorry, Tess,” he said again and knew that he was not apologising for this mix-up but for the years he had failed her. “Goodbye and keep in touch. If there’s anything you need or . . .”

  But she was already walking out of the building, sailing past nurses and orderlies
who had been part of her life for so many years. She did not look right or left but carried on straight with her suitcase. With ease she climbed up into the truck, pausing only to look for her window from a different angle, from the outside. She had promised herself she would do that although she didn’t know why and she pondered this as the truck started up and headed for home.

  Árd Glen was a small farming community in the south west of Wicklow county. Although a beautiful scenic place, surrounded by mountains and lakes, its population count of about three hundred people remained generally unchanged over the years. There was little to do here, most families having small livestock farms, the land too hilly for crops. Spring was busy with new lambs to tend to. Summer brought the usual snippets of tourists, mostly Americans looking for their great-grandfathers’ or grandmothers’ graves, but in autumn and winter a heavy grey sky descended on the village, confining all within to their memories, good or bad.

  It was these memories that made Seán Byrne pace the kitchen floor of the modest house in which his family had lived since he was a baby. The house had a long dark T-shaped hallway. The room to the left of the hall, once a bedroom, was now a sitting room that they rarely used. To the right was Seán and Ben’s room. Kate and Tess’s room was around the corner to the right at the end of the hallway and faced the small bathroom which Seán had built on to the back of the house, his father being too mean to allow the family such “luxuries” in his lifetime. The kitchen was at the end of the hallway to the left. It was dominated by a large old-fashioned range that had blackened the once whitewashed walls. A small sink stood underneath the window that faced out onto the back yard and was flanked either side by two cupboards, their doors peeling and flaking. An old-fashioned wooden kitchen table and four worn upholstered chairs sat in the middle of the kitchen, using up the limited space.