Exclusive extract
The renowned singer-songwriter Johnny Duhan has just completed his second volume of autobiography titled The Voyage. In this exclusive extract, he recalls, when he was 21, a traumatic visit to his mother in hospital after she had suffered a mental collapse. “My mother’s struggle had the most profound influence on my life. Had I never witnessed her ups and downs, I believe the pattern of my life would have been completely different. So it was essential for me to take my markings from her grief and the deep religious faith that grew out of it, and then try to make sense of it in the various chapters, each being a story in itself, as well as a link in the overall chain of events of my journey.”
Entering the main grey building of St Joseph’s, I made my way through a maze of hallways till I reached St Camillus’ locked ward. As I rang the bell at the side of the glass-panelled door, a male patient with glazed eyes shuffled past me in the narrow corridor, mumbling to himself. The translucent glass I was facing turned wavering white and a key turned in the lock inside. As the door opened, a middle-aged nurse leaned her head forward and squinted through a pair of thick-lensed glasses. “How can I help you?”
“I’m here to see my mother, Chris Duhan.”
The nurse stepped to one side. “Come in, Mr Duhan. She’s sitting at the front of the office. I think she’s sleeping. But go on, you can go down and sit with her. I don’t think she’d be up to going to the visitors’ lounge in her present condition. She’s been finding it hard to walk these past few days; she’s on strong medication.”
Following the nurse, I glanced at a framed picture of Our Lady on one of the pale green walls above a line of seated elderly women with grey impassive faces. A pungent smell of disinfectant fused with urine and ordure made me wince and wonder why some windows weren’t open.
The nurse pointed towards the slumped figure of my mother in a corner and kept walking towards the office. “If you need me, just tap on the glass.”
Though my sister, Kay, had warned me on the phone a few days earlier that my mother was in a poor condition, I was shocked as I approached her. Slouched over the arm of her metal chair, she was nothing but skin and bone. Since I’d last seen her, she’d lost two or three stone in weight.
I sat beside her and touched her shoulder. Her eyes opened briefly and closed again. I tapped her arm. She pulled away and groaned, shifting her frail body slowly back in the chair. Her eyes opened again. She gave me a blank look and started shaking her head. “It’s no good; no good I tell you. No good.”
“Mam, it’s me, Johnny. What’s no good?”
She stopped muttering and sat forward, looking into my eyes. For a moment I thought she recognised me, but then her pupils retracted and she started groaning, as though in great pain.
Other patients sitting around the ward were gazing in our direction, some with irritated expressions, annoyed by the disturbance my mother was making. One old woman sitting close by gave me a sympathetic smile and turned away bobbing her head and squeezing her hands.
I looked towards the glass office. The nurse who had let me into the ward was sitting at a desk with a mug in her hand, talking to another nurse reading a file. I thought of questioning them about my mother’s condition but decided to put it off till the end of the visit.
I took my mother’s hand and started rubbing it. I could feel the hard bone through the withered skin. The back of her hand was a mass of bulging veins and wrinkled, prune-coloured tendons. I noticed that her marriage ring was loose on her nicotine-stained finger.
“Mam, can you hear me? It’s me, Johnny.”
Her eyes opened and she started getting to her feet. Before I could stop her she moved away from her chair and took a few shaky steps in the direction of the door. I followed and tried to take her arm as she mounted a step near the visitors’ lounge. She pulled away from me in a sudden jerk, lost her balance