Bobby made his way down the steps, then stopped a moment to look at her over his shoulder. ‘I suppose we’ll leave the Zoo Dance then?’
When Elsa was a child, Papa had given her a picture book of dinosaurs. The one that captured her imagination was the pterodactyl. Even then, she used to consider how she might hide from it, deep in the undergrowth of some prehistoric jungle. Although it was immensely powerful – fed on the blood of its victims – it seemed almost too heavy for the air to bear it up. She imagined a time when it would fall to earth, defeated by its own inexorable growth.
Some tried to say the bombing wasn’t the Germans at all; just the English trying to make it look like it was the Germans so that Ireland would join the war. Elsa dreaded the thought of that, because she clung onto the hope that Ireland might still receive refugees from Amsterdam, even now. Deep down, everyone knew it had been the Germans but no one knew why, and that was the most terrifying part of it. Elsa felt the fragility of her refuge. Then guilt that she had a refuge at all when Mama and Papa did not. Then fear for what else might come.
Before the bombing, she’d seen Charlie almost every day. Not once since. It was Bethel who said the hard thing to her, when she sat at the window at teatime and looked out to see if Charlie was on his way. ‘Perhaps, Elsa, he just decided to stick to his own. You know, sometimes that’s the best for everyone.’
She shut herself in Hilde’s parlour and played all the Nocturnes – Chopin and Field – until she no longer knew whether she was playing them for Oskar or Charlie or just for their own sake. She tried to work out what reason there could be for Charlie’s absence, then she realised she’d no idea how to contact him. She knew none of his friends; didn’t even know his address. That’s when it struck her that she hardly knew him at all. She was sure that something had happened between them at the Shabbat dinner, and that he cared enough to want to make her happy, but perhaps she was mistaken. Then again, perhaps he felt something that he just wasn’t ready to feel. Maybe he’d frightened himself into stepping back from her for a while. Perhaps he realised she would be harder work than some girl from home. Yes, she thought, maybe Bethel was right. Maybe, like Oskar, he found in the end that he wanted to stick to his own.
Another week, and a man she didn’t recognise came to the door. He was small, shabby-looking, and his glasses were bottle thick. He asked for Bethel first, then Hilde, but everyone else was out. ‘Well, Missy,’ he said, ‘I suppose you must be Elsa Frankel.’
She said she was but when she saw the nod of his head, the small victory in him, she wished she hadn’t. He said he was from the Castle, that he was some kind of government employee come to serve a notice.
‘There’s a letter here for Mr and Mrs Abrahamson,’ he said. ‘Pass it on now, Missy.’
That night, the Professor came back. Over the years, he’d become no more than a childhood bogeyman, a shadow glimpsed at the end of a very long corridor. Now he had returned, with his gaping mouth and his slurred eyes and the Party pin in his lapel. He was wearing the official’s bottle-thick glasses and slavering like a dog on heat. Oskar was in the same dream, standing at the gate between their gardens. He didn’t speak, seemed barely to notice her. He was holding something but she couldn’t see what it was. She smelt the bonfire in the Müllers’ garden, heard the clang as they hacked at her piano to add it to the flames. When she awoke, her pillow was wet. She thought of the photograph forgotten on the hall table, the lock of Oskar’s hair she’d thrown away. She wished she had Herr Goldmann’s spools, the ones she’d twirled and worried in her pockets until the threads became all tangled, orange, purple, pink. And then it dawned on her; Oskar had been holding the painted-over icon, the thing that had absorbed all their hatred and kept the Frankels safe. Because she hadn’t got to the end of the dream, she’d never find out if he had retrieved it for her or whether he was about to add it to the fire.
The last time she’d written to Mama, just before Holland was overrun, she’d broken another spell. ‘How are you really, Mama?’ she’d asked. There were no more letters after that. What happened when all the magic charms had gone, when all the things that kept you safe were lost? What happened when pterodactyls could grow and grow and still stay aloft?
Charlie was used to hospitals but at first he couldn’t work out why he was the one in bed. The nurse looking after him said her name was O’Neill and that she was from Monaghan. He liked Nurse O’Neill. She was very sensible, with large pink hands. She sluiced and primped him for the doctors like she was preparing him for a dog show. In spite of all her attentions, Charlie was troubled, his memory incomplete. He could still see the man who had beckoned him to jump but he could not picture the child, and it worried him to not be able to put a face on her. He’d no idea how long he’d been in the hospital but his memory of things beyond the fire had only just started to return. At first, Elsa was like a vapour for him. Something, he knew, had made him happy once. The touch of his own skin one day made him sure it was a girl and, little by little, Elsa took shape in his mind. He remembered her hiding the fish that Hilde had served up for the Shabbat dinner under a layer of mashed potato, her thick dark hair dancing on her shoulders as she turned to look at him. When Nurse O’Neill brought him his morning porridge, he asked her if he’d had many visitors.
‘Droves,’ she said. ‘Now eat up.’
He tried again later, when she took him in a bite of lunch. She laid down the tray and stood back from the bed with her arms folded. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘spit it out. Did I remember?’
‘Who came?’
‘Well I wasn’t asking for their birth certificates.’ She cocked her head and sought inspiration from the long crack that ran down along the side of the wall. ‘Okey dokey. Here goes. Your sister’s been in here umpteen times. There was a rake of fellows from Surgeons. Another crowd who said they were from a musical society. There’ve been a couple of lads in sports jackets. I suppose there might have been a few girls in the musical crowd,’ she looked at him shrewdly, ‘but I couldn’t put a name on any of them.’
‘Was there a girl came on her own at all?’ He tried not to sound too pathetic.
‘No,’ she said, straightening her belt, preparing to get on. ‘Definitely not. I’d have noticed that.’ She was all efficiency again but then she stopped a moment. ‘Are you sure she even knows you’re in here?’
He’d just assumed that all the different parts of his life would magically connect without him. The thought that Elsa mightn’t have any idea what happened troubled him all night. His memory was returning in a haphazard, random fashion. By morning he had remembered Stamer Street.
It was the day for the consultant’s ward round. Mr Dowling seemed to take particular exception to Charlie, perhaps because he was a medical student who therefore shouldn’t also be a patient. For this reason, Charlie normally tried to keep a low profile. Now, though, he was desperate. He blurted out his question when Dowling stopped at the foot of his bed, his students trailing behind him like a streak of misery. ‘Have you any idea how much longer I have to stay here?’
Dowling took off his little gold spectacles. Charlie didn’t need to hear anymore. He was already an expert at reading consultant mannerisms.
‘Do I have any idea?’ He looked at Charlie with disdain, ‘I thought Dr Kenny already told you it would be another week at least? Sister tells me that you have some medical training yourself?’
Charlie nodded.
‘Then you should know better than to shop around for an opinion that suits you.’
As the last of the students trailed out of the ward, Charlie realised that compared to them, he was a free man. At the end of the day, he could do what he pleased, and he’d no intention of staying here longer than he had to. He shuffled over to the side of the bed and began to lower himself off it, gripping onto the metal bedstead and bracing himself for pain. Once he realised that he was able to hobble painlessly away from the bed, he was mad at himself for not having left days ago. H
e concentrated all his energy into mastering that walk from bed to wall, and back again. By the time he’d managed three trips back and forward, he had already decided that he would make his way over to Stamer Street, even if it took him all day and all night. He scribbled a message for Nurse O’Neill across the top of his medical notes and that was that. Nobody stopped him, even though he spent half an hour or so trying to negotiate the back stairs. Once he was outside and no longer had a handrail for support, his progress was very slow. Although he’d managed to grab his overcoat, he’d not been able to change out of his pyjamas. He probably looked like an escaped lunatic but he stuck his thumb out anyway, on the slim chance that someone would offer him a lift. No luck. The few vehicles on the road were already stuffed to the gills. By the time he reached Stamer Street, he was exhausted and his leg had begun to throb.
Bethel’s face was solemn. Normally, he’d have thrown the door open right away but this time he only opened it a crack. Charlie tried to smile, though by now his leg was killing him. His ribs, too, had begun to hurt again, though he thought they’d healed. He held out his hand but Bethel didn’t take it.
‘Can I see her?’
‘She’s not here.’
‘Don’t shut the door on me, Bethel.’ Charlie tried to keep his voice level, ‘For God’s sake, say something. What’s happened to her?’ He noticed that Bethel was only now beginning to take in the leg, the pyjamas. He began to try to explain but Bethel turned away. ‘We’ve had a terrible time ourselves.’
‘Just let me see her, Bethel. Please.’
‘Some Jumped-up Johnny came calling on us last month. External Affairs, Justice: one or the other. Did I know it was a crime to harbour an illegal alien? Alien, if you don’t mind. Like she was something dropped out of outer space. Miss Frankel, he said, your lodger, she’s liable for deportation under section something or other. Deportation? I ask you, Byrne. Deportation to what?’
Charlie had begun to feel weak, and the pain in his ribs had sharpened. Bethel took his arm. ‘You look like death warmed up, Byrne. Let’s get you sitting down inside.’
They sat in the front parlour, as they’d done that first day. Charlie felt a little better now that he was in a place he’d been with Elsa, though his head refused to stop spinning.
‘I wouldn’t let the fellow in, so he had to say his piece on the doorstep there. On and on, he went. “Haven’t we hungry mouths of our own to feed?” That kind of blather. “Wouldn’t we be overrun if we took in every hard case?” Blah, blah, blah. Elsa said you’d know what to do. “He’s so practical,” she said. Then, a fortnight on, there was no show from you and one day it all got too much for her. Hilde got a terrible shock to see her. She was sitting at the piano but she wasn’t playing a note. Just rocking. Back and forward. Back and forward. You just couldn’t stop the rocking.’
‘But where is she now?’
‘She’s in good hands.’ For a moment it looked like that was all he was prepared to say, but then he seemed to take pity on Charlie. ‘She’s being cared for down in Wicklow. They’re the same people who tried to get visas for the parents and placed her with us in the first place. She’ll have fresh air and a bit of peace and quiet. Esther will know how to look after her. She’ll sort out those civil service Johnnies, too.’ The thought seemed to cheer him up a bit, and he chuckled to himself, ‘She’s pull at the top, you see, Esther, and she’s not afraid to use it.’
‘When can I see Elsa, Bethel?’
‘We have to go easy. I’ll send word, and then we’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t want her upset.’
‘You know I’d never do anything to upset her, Bethel. Surely to God, you know that by now.’
‘Esther’s very wary of visitors. When she came to pick Elsa up, she had a strange story. She told me that someone had come out to her, looking for Elsa. I thought it was some other penpusher, some other pain in the backside. But no, she said, not at all. The boy was a German. He wasn’t one of us and yet he claimed to know Elsa. Esther was wary of the fellow, though she didn’t think he could have come from the German Legation, dressed as he was. His clothes were filthy, she said, like he’d been sleeping rough. There was – how did she put it now? – a kind of desperation about him. He wouldn’t give her a straight answer to anything, and she worried then that he might be someone trying to make trouble, though he seemed a gentle enough type. He did have some wild story about jumping out of a plane the night they bombed Belfast. Very strange, she said. A fantasist, I suppose. Who knows? Anyway, we decided to say nothing about it to Elsa. She’d been through enough as it was; no need to worry her any more.’
‘If I saw her, I could bring her back. I know I could bring her back.’
‘You’re a good fellow, Byrne,’ Bethel said, looking at him full-on for the first time that day, ‘and you’ll make a fine doctor. But, and excuse me if I sound like an old man talking down to a young one, even doctors can’t fix everything. Just like love doesn’t fix everything either.’
‘It can’t do any harm, though, can it, Sir? How can it do any harm?’
Bethel thought a moment. ‘Esther’s place is called Whitecrest.’
Charlie held out his hand, and this time Bethel took it. ‘Good luck to you, Byrne.’
Apple Pie
Sean Galligan brought the gig to meet Kitty at the station. They sat in silence, a couple of Mother’s heavy blankets spread across their laps. Kitty tried to strike up a conversation: carrots and leeks, Sean’s brother over in Ballymeade who had the TB. She even resorted to raising the matter of the dampness of the summer weather, but Sean just sat there, barely moving, the whip licking at the horse’s back.
When she got back to the house, Mother was waiting for her in the parlour. It was as though she hadn’t moved a muscle in the weeks since Kitty had left. The only change was the black mantilla she slid down over her face as soon as Kitty appeared. ‘You’re back so?’ she said, her breath puffing out the lace a little.
‘What’s the matter, Mother?’
‘I got caught when the wind was on the turn. I look a fright.’ She patted the mantilla down on each temple. ‘You’ll be grand in the old nursery, won’t you pet? I had to give Bridie your room.’
‘Who’s Bridie?’
‘Brigid Farrell. She’s been helping me out this last while, since you went on your travels. The poor old stick spends that much time traipsing up and down to the house that when her sister died I thought she’d be as well with a bed here.’
Kitty said nothing, because there was nothing for her to say.
As she passed her old room on the landing, Kitty looked through the half-opened door. There were little grey rectangles on the sprigged wallpaper where her ballet prints had been. The mat had been rolled and stood upright in the corner, propped up behind the easy chair. In place of her old eiderdown, there was a crocheted blanket, and on the dressing table, little circlets of white lace and a statue of the Sacred Heart.
She was left to contemplate her comeuppance; the only daugher, so useless she had to be replaced with paid help. She stood at the window. You couldn’t see the lime trees at this time of year, with all the other growth in the garden. She wasn’t upstairs more than a few minutes when the rain whipped in from the sea. Down it came on the corrugated iron of the hen house, down into father’s St Brendan bath. Not much of a homecoming.
In the old nursery, she lay down where Oskar had slept the night Mother was away. The bed sagged in the middle on account of all the childhoood trampolining she and Desmond had done, limbering up for the double somersaults that never were.
‘From Timbuktu to Katmandu–’
‘Up the Khyber–’
‘And down the Orinoco–’
‘The amazing–’
‘The stupendous–’
‘The Flying Hennessys!’
Downstairs, Brigid was standing on a chair dusting the old jam jars Mother kept on top of the dresser. Kitty greeted her usurper with elaborate friendliness. �
��I hope you’re finding the bed comfy, Brigid,’ she said.
‘The missus told me to stay put. She’ll not hear of me moving.’
‘Don’t worry yourself. I’ll be off back to Dublin in the morning. I’m only looking in, that’s all.’
‘There’ll be no train until Monday, Missy,’
‘Well, Monday it’ll be then.’
Brigid crossed the room to shut the door. ‘Poor Mrs Hennessy,’ she said, confidentially. ‘Went out in an east wind with damp hair. You can’t make light of the damp.’
‘Has she tried anything?’
‘There’s no cause to be visiting the doctor. The doctors don’t understand the likes of the Bell’s palsy.’
‘And you do, I suppose.’
Brigid didn’t miss the insult. ‘I’ll be here when she needs me to close up the eye at bedtime and tape it shut for the night. Even now, don’t I do all her messages in the village, and there’s no talking for her to do if she doesn’t want to. I’m here on the spot, you see. I’ve no gallivanting to do.’
Later, Brigid cooked their own homegrown cabbage with some salty bacon. After dinner, she and Mother sat on either side of the fire, Brigid mending, jabbing nervously at a piece of frayed traycloth, Mother with her feet up reading The French Huzzar. Mother seemed to have stopped listening to the wireless. Whether that was a good or a bad thing, Kitty couldn’t decide. Before she left, Brigid gave her some letters that had arrived while she was away. There was one from McWilliams’ Commercial College saying she could have a place in the course that had started the previous month, one from Rita, and one with a foreign postmark, all stamped over with official markings.
Dear Kitty,
I am having a sheltered kind of a war. We have not seen much in the way of action so far but I think that is about to change. I wanted to tell you before we left here that yours is the face I took away from Ireland with me. If I’d said it then, I’d not have known if it was true, but now, each night, I think of you sitting up on a rock on Dunkerin Strand with your shells and your bits of seaweed you keep for God knows what. I would give a lot to smell that sea now and to see your dear face.
A Parachute in the Lime Tree Page 17
