A Parachute in the Lime Tree

by Annemarie Neary

  ‘I reckon the golf’s off,’ said Bobby. ‘It’ll be a bog out in Portmarnock.’

  The three of them headed off towards O’Neill’s, where, on race days, Bobby used one of the snugs as his office, fielding queries and dispensing tips. Charlie whistled through his teeth as they barrelled along Grafton Street, heads down against the rain. ‘There’s no bloody end to this weather. I tell you, when this is over, I’m off to the Transvaal like a shot.’

  ‘You’ll be taking up the German, so,’ said Bobby. ‘The way your man Rommel is headed, it’s German they’ll be speaking there by the time the war’s over.’

  ‘All I know is I’ve seen enough rain to last me a lifetime.’

  ‘It’s a whole new kettle of fish out there,’ said Des. ‘Dengue fever and dysentery and God knows what. There’ll be a deal more book-learning before you’re any use out in Africa.’

  ‘How’s the volunteering, Bobby?’

  ‘Not a bother.’

  ‘Not a rifle, more like.’

  ‘Well we’ve a new lot of Springfields arrived last week. We’d give them a run for their money anyhow. Mind you, it’s patchy.’ Bobby dragged the base of his glass back and forward over the beer mat. ‘In some places, it’s just a farce.’ He took a swig from the pint.

  ‘I heard about one unit up in Dundalk. All they had was a couple of powder-and-ball efforts. Last seen action in 1798.’

  ‘Sure that’s nothing,’ said Charlie. ‘I knew a lad was given a blunderbuss. Fellow says he felt like Captain Hook. Just shows you, whatever MacNeill might think with his Division up there facing North, the British could walk over the border tomorrow if they wanted to. Knife through butter.’

  Charlie wondered if Bobby really believed that anyone could defend Ireland if it came to the bit. But Bobby had moved off the subject. By now, he was preoccupied with the arcane ailments that seemed constantly to plague his horses. Des was telling him he’d be better off in the veterinary field, and it was clear that even Bobby could see he had a point.

  Now that the golf was off, Charlie was at a loose end. He had little time for the horses himself, and his eye lit on a Feis Ceoil poster pinned to the snug door. He could hardly believe it was that time of year already; the spring weather had been so bad. He’d always enjoyed a bit of music, even though he’d refused point blank to learn the piano with his sisters. Singing, that was more his style. He had a light tenor voice and lately he’d been going along to the Rathmines and Rathgar. Billy Fitz had told him they were always short of tenors and that there was a great social life to be had, with so many girls in the chorus. There seemed to be three classes on this afternoon, one of them for Lieder. He had a soft spot for a bit of Lieder and he remembered then that a chap from the Society, Ulick perhaps, had entered one of the singing classes at the Feis. More than likely, there’d be a crowd there to cheer him on. Charlie made his mind up there and then, and the thought that he’d escaped an afternoon exploring the left ventricle cheered him up no end.

  He left the others poring over the afternoon’s runners at the Phoenix Park and crossed the river to the hall in Abbey Street where the Feis was being held. When he got there, the hall was already full and he had to stand in one of the side aisles. On the stage, a trestle table was laid with a thick velvet cloth. There was a row of highly polished trophies and an extravagant arrangment of lilies. On one side, an accompanist was sorting through sheet music in preparation for the next competitor. On the other, two ladies in kilts took turns to change the competitor numbers displayed on a wooden easel. The adjudicator was an elderly man with a face like a weasel. Seated on a raised platform in the centre of the hall, he presided like an ugly little god. On his desk was a flat round bell, which he slapped now and then with the palm of his hand.

  The first singer had a pinched face and wore a tight-knotted tartan tie. The adjudicator tapped the bell after a few bars, which struck Charlie as unnecessarily brusque, even for a reprise. It was only when Ulick sauntered out onto the stage, and a great whoop went up, that Charlie realised that half the Society seemed to be up there in the front few rows. Ulick gave someone the thumbs up, then settled his gaze on the middle distance as he prepared to sing. The adjudicator gave Ulick no more than a raised eyebrow for his trouble; another R&R man got no discernible reaction at all. In the case of one plump little man with prominent teeth, the adjudicator rubbed irritably at the end of his thin nose, as though he was allergic to the sound the man was producing.

  Charlie’s concentration wandered to a trio of girls on the other side of the aisle. He wondered if they were pianists; they were sitting with their hands on hot water bottles wrapped in large ragged towels. The younger two might have been twins, with their long thin faces. The third girl, though, was older. Eighteen, maybe even twenty like he was himself. The two younger girls began to giggle as the little adjudicator mounted the stage and cleared his throat with elaborate emphasis. But it was the girl nearest the end of the row that Charlie wanted to see. He craned his neck to get a better look. Her thick hair fell around her in heavy waves. On each side, a lock was drawn back, and they were tied at the crown of her head in a long blue ribbon. She looked delicate, too pale to be healthy. A little anaemic, perhaps. Her eyebrows, which formed a single heavy line over the bridge of her nose, gave her an appearance of intense concentration.

  The adjudicator waxed lyrical for such a weaselly looking man. He said the standard of performance easily surpassed anything he’d experienced at festivals across the water. There was a collective murmur at this; the little god had hit the right note. Charlie was more interested in the girl. He imagined her consulting him at the surgery, coughing delicately but fatally. She caught him gaping at her, and it was a moment before he realised that the man being presented with the prize was none other than Ulick himself. Acknowledging his supporters, he spotted Charlie and saluted. The girl decided Charlie was worth a second look. She smiled this time, now that he was a winner’s friend.

  ‘Would all competitors for the Esposito competition for pianoforte please form a queue with their entry cards to the side of the stage.’

  He didn’t know a great deal about the piano and after a couple of performances he wondered why he was sacrificing his drink with Ulick and the others. But then the girl with the blue ribbon left her seat. She looked like she was used to this game; she bowed as she reached centre stage, then took as long as she needed to settle herself at the piano. She fiddled with the knobs on either side of the stool to adjust the height, then flexed her fingers over the keys. Charlie felt for those fingers. He wondered were they still warm enough or had she been sitting in the wings so long that the benefit of the hot water bottle had worn off. He held his breath as her hands seemed to hover over the keys a moment before plunging down into melody.

  By the time she had finished playing, even the little ladies in the kilts who marked off the competitors were gawking up at the stage. A woman in a brown pillbox hat who’d been knitting furiously throughout the singing class had laid the knitting to one side. When she stopped playing, the girl herself seemed dazed. As she rose from the stool, she gripped onto the side of the piano to steady herself. Her two young companions – sisters maybe – clapped energetically and the hall was alive with gasps and excited chatter.

  He overheard the usher remark to the woman with the knitting, ‘They’re quare piano players. There’s no bating them at that caper.’

  Charlie didn’t take in either of the performances that followed hers. The result was a foregone conclusion anyway. When the adjudicator presented the girl with a large silver urn, he lost sight of her face a moment and found himself straining to catch her again. He searched for her name in the programme and by the time he looked up, Elsa Frankel had left the stage and the adjudicator was presenting second and third place medals. The aisles were clogged with competitors arriving for the next class. There was no way of getting through and he watched the three girls disappear through the back door. He was mad at himself for no
t having gone over there when he’d had the chance. He could have paid her a compliment, instead of just staring at her like she was something in a specimen jar.

  That evening, back in his digs, Charlie was restless. There wasn’t much room to pace but he couldn’t sit still. While he recited to himself the anatomy of the heart, he marched back and forwards across the space between his narrow bed and the desk he’d moved to face the window. Once he had it off pat, he threw himself onto the bed and all the springs twanged. All he could think of was Elsa Frankel: who she was and where he could find her again. He ran a bath without getting Mrs Curran’s permission and scrubbed vigorously at his back to get the circulation going. Even after he’d soaked in the bath for so long that Mrs Curran came banging on the bathroom door, he still felt agitated. Despite the banging, he lay on in the water and contemplated his wrinkled fingertips. He wished he knew the name of the piece she played. It was beautiful, but it was also the saddest thing he’d ever heard. Like a great snowy plain that stretched away as far as the eye could see.

  The Bohemian Girl

  Next morning, Charlie ate the breakfast that Mrs Curran made him every day, winter or summer: fried eggs with crispy edges, sausages, rashers, white pudding, black pudding. The only other lodger, another Surgeons man, had left at the end of the Michaelmas term but Mrs Curran still served up the same quantity of food. He’d no idea where she managed to get all the eggs and pork, unless she had people down the country with a farm. When he asked her once, she just tapped the side of her nose and bustled off again. He didn’t really want it but he hadn’t the heart to tell her that. Once he’d hinted that she really didn’t need to cook every morning but she wouldn’t have it. ‘It’s all included in the price, Mr Byrne. Room and board.’

  So, each morning, he ate what he could. He drank the strong tea awkwardly because his fingers were too large to fit into the delicate handles on Mrs Curran’s pink and gilt cups. She never sat down for breakfast herself, but shuttled between kitchen and breakfast room, munching on morsels from the sideboard, relaying the latest news from the wireless she kept on the kitchen shelf.

  ‘More bombs, Mr Byrne.’ She’d just offered him more toast, so it took a moment for the word to register with him. He looked up to see her neat barrel of a body disappear through the kitchen door. Her head protruded through the hatch in the wall. ‘Belfast, Mr Byrne. Bombed again.’

  Mrs Curran was a woman of few words. Charlie thought she might be from the North herself. ‘You don’t have people up there, do you Mrs Curran?’

  ‘Indeed I do not,’ she said and bustled off.

  They said no more about bombs and Charlie headed off towards the college. The news of Belfast left him feeling melancholy as he walked towards St Stephen’s Green. The day was fine; a season away from the day before. His first lecture was not for an hour, so he stopped and bought a copy of The Irish Times in the hope of finding a report on the previous day’s competitons at the Feis. He went into the Green and sat for a while on a bench by the duck pond, skimming through the pages.

  News of the night’s bombing raid had not yet made it to the paper, which was full of the innocence of the day before. There was a picture of some golf club members down in Waterford, bent double in their plus fours, planting potatoes on the section of the course they’d dug up for the purpose. He hoped it would not come to that at Portmarnock. He looked for Bobby’s horse in the results of the Laidlaw Plate but it wasn’t placed. In amongst the advertisements for Guiney’s anniversary sale and the Bracer that Builds you up, he found Elsa Frankel.

  The large audience … two important piano competitons … Dublin’s interest in piano work continues unabated. Competitors should eschew the modern craze for speed in favour of a concentration on clean detail and a proper singing piano tone … highest praise for the winner of the Esposito Cup, Miss Elsa Frankel … Extraordinary maturity … emotional depth …

  The report gave her address as Stamer Street but it didn’t say which number. He knew Stamer Street; the houses were tall, narrow, red brick. He might have to go knocking on doors until he found her. But what would he do then? He didn’t think she was the type of girl you would ask to a dance. The cinema, maybe? He’d noticed that the new picture with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald was on at the Metropole. It had a romantic sort of a name, something to do with the moon. Maybe she would like that. He didn’t know if there was opera on at the Gaiety or if there was, how much it cost to buy a ticket. He wasn’t sure the opera was up to much, anyway. He’d heard they had some awful fellows singing the leads now that there were no Italians coming over to fill them. It might be safer to stick with the pictures. The idea of finding Elsa Frankel was such an appealing one and the day so fine that Charlie decided the pericardium could wait another day.

  The unexpected sunshine had him full of the joys. When he reached Stamer Street he marched straight up to number 1 and gave it sharp little rap. The man who answered the door had his shirt open to the top of his vest and a drip of lather on the end of his chin. Charlie came straight to the point. ‘I’m looking for a girl called Elsa Frankel,’ he said.

  ‘So why’d you come here then?’ the man replied and closed the door in his face.

  He worked methodically through the numbers. He’d got to number 9 when a man emerged from one of the houses he’d already tried. ‘I hear you’re looking for the German girl, the one who’s living with Bethel and Hilde,’ he said and pointed Charlie in the direction of number 17.

  As Charlie approached the house, the sound of a gramophone wafted across from the other side of the street. I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls. The sound was faint and cracked but the voice was unmistakeable. It was Margaret Burke Sheridan, the opera singer his father worshipped, the one they all referred to at home as Maggie from Mayo. But I also dreamt, which pleased me most, that you lov’d me still the same. The Bohemian Girl. Charlie took this as an auspicious omen, and it fortified him as he made his way towards Elsa’s house.

  When he got closer, he passed two women who were standing in the street with their shopping baskets, speaking a strange guttural language he couldn’t place. He could tell they’d noticed him but they pretended they hadn’t. Just then, the girls who had been with Elsa the other day at the Feis came bounding through the door of number 17. If he hadn’t stood aside they’d have crashed right into him as they raced down the steps and went skipping off down the road.

  He’d already had his foot on the bottom step but now he changed his mind. The moment had passed and his courage failed him. He imagined her in the hallway, putting on her coat and getting ready to leave the house herself. It was probably an awkward time. And anyway, he’d come on a whim without announcing himself or even thinking out what he would say. He walked away in the direction of town. Instead of trying to catch the end of his lecture he went back to his digs. He wanted to do this properly and he decided a letter to her parents would be the proper way.

  Dear Mr and Mrs Frankel,

  I am taking the liberty of writing to you in English in the hope that you have the language. I am aware that you are a German family. I do not have a knowledge of that particular tongue but I’m sure you will agree that the love of music transcends such barriers.

  As a music lover myself, and a medical student at the College of Surgeons, I am writing to say that I was privileged to witness the piano playing of your daughter Elsa at the Feis Ceoil the other afternoon. I am not one of the cognoscenti but I take an interest in light music myself, being a tenor with the Rathmines and Rathgar.

  I wonder if I might be so bold as to ask whether I could come and meet Miss Frankel. I thought it would be more appropriate for me to approach you in the first instance so that you could discuss it with her. It would be a great honour to be introduced to Miss Frankel and perhaps even to hear her play again.

  Yours sincerely,

  Charles Carolan Byrne

  Mrs Curran left a letter on his side plate at breakfast a few days later. She busied he
rself at the sideboard, waiting for him to open it, but he took it off to his room and sat down on the edge of the bed to read it.

  Dear Mr Byrne,

  I am in receipt of yours of the 4th inst. You are welcome to call for tea on the afternoon of Thursday coming, if that would be convenient for you. Elsa is staying with us for the time being and she has a brave bit of English now. I hope you are a lover of Chopin as that is the usual bill of fare.

  I look forward to making your acquaintance.

  Yours, etc.,

  Bethel Abrahamson

  The next Thursday, the two men sat together in the front parlour of the house in Stamer Street. The tall, narrow room was dominated by a large lithograph depicting bearded men in flowing gowns, so ancient and knowledgeable they might be prophets. There was that much in the picture, what with garlands of leaves, inscriptions and a whole menagerie of beasts, that Charlie found it hard to tear himself away from it. In fact, the whole room, lined with heavy carved furniture so dark it was almost black, was as crowded and richly decorated as the print. Every surface was laid with fine embroidered cloths and there were huge bolts of cloth piled up beneath the sideboard.

  ‘Right then, Byrne,’ said Abrahamson, rubbing his hands together heartily. ‘You’d like to visit Elsa.’

  ‘I would, Sir.’ He slid the posy he’d brought with him onto the floor, not quite sure what to do with it.

  Bethel cracked the knuckles of one hand, then the other. He looked at Charlie, sizing him up. ‘She’s an only child, Byrne, from Berlin originally. The father was a professor of some kind, back in the day. Of course, that’s all changed now.’ He seemed distracted a moment. ‘Things got very hot for them in Berlin, so they had to get out of there, went to family in Amsterdam. Elsa was the lucky one. And now, with Holland occupied …’