by Maynard Sims
“Michael?”
She nodded again, came back to the bed and sat down.
“Michael O’Herlihy.”
“Then you knew him?”
“Quite well. He was at St. Joseph’s with his brother, Tim…and then he wasn’t.”
“What do you mean, ‘and then he wasn’t’?”
“It happened all the time. Some children, the lucky ones, got adopted. When we stopped seeing Michael around, we assumed that was what happened to him. His brother had been chosen a few months before, so nobody thought it was unusual.”
“Why didn’t you ask the nuns what happened to him?”
“It wasn’t something you brought up. They didn’t like it if you questioned them…about anything really. Besides, they had their stock answer—‘God will answer your questions, child’. The problem was that he never did, so you stopped asking.
“But I missed Michael, missed him hugely. He was at St. Joseph’s when I first arrived. He was a few years older than me and he kind of took me under his wing, showed me how things worked at the home, which of the nuns were kind, and warned me of the ones not to cross.”
“You sound as though you were sweet on him,” I said.
“Oh, I loved him, loved him very much. It’s why I fell for Andy. He reminds me a lot of Michael…the same smiling Irish eyes, the same gift of the blarney.”
“Well, didn’t you find it strange that Michael left without saying goodbye?”
“Of course I did,” she snapped petulantly. “But that’s what happens when you’re adopted. You go on to your new life without looking back. Michael going broke my heart. I cried over him for weeks…and now you’re telling me you’ve seen him…here.”
“I’m telling you what I saw in the dormitory. I didn’t say it was him. I never met him so I wouldn’t know.”
“What was the music that was playing?” There was urgency in her voice now, that had been absent before.
“I don’t know,” I said, wondering why on earth that mattered.
“Think,” she said. “It’s important.”
I tried to picture the record’s label in my mind. “It was a march,” I said. “Very oom-pah-pah. Blaze something.”
“Blaze Away?”
“Yes, that was it. ‘Blaze Away.’ How did you know?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “It was his favorite. He was always playing it. What else did he say?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just like I said.”
“But there must be more. Why should he ask you to help him? Was he in some kind of trouble?”
I hesitated, not really sure that I should continue.
“There was something else, wasn’t there? Tell me. I need to know.”
“It was his face,” I said.
“His face?”
“He flicked his hair out of his eyes…”
“He was always doing that. I wondered why he never got it cut, but he said he liked it that way. Is that it?”
I shook my head. “His face. One side of it was pretty smashed up.”
A kind of sob broke in her throat. “How badly?”
“It was pretty grim,” I said.
“His beautiful face,” she said and looked away as the tears began to flow once more.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just telling you what I saw.”
I reached out to touch her shoulder, but as my fingers brushed the cotton of her nightdress, she flinched.
“Amy?” I said softly. “Why me? If you two were so close, why didn’t he appear to you? You’ve been here much longer than I have.”
She turned her tear-streaked face and stared at me for a moment or two. Finally she said, “I don’t know,” and then gave another sob and buried her face in the pillow.
Worried that if I stayed, I’d cause her more pain, I slipped from the bed and returned to my own room, only to spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, unable to get the horrific image of Michael O’Herlihy’s bruised and battered face out of my mind. It was there, hiding behind my eyelids, appearing in stark detail every time I closed my eyes.
I heard the grandfather clock in the hall strike three before my brain finally gave up its struggle with Morpheus and resigned itself to being awake.
When it struck four, I climbed out of bed and went to fetch my book from the dressing table where I had left it. I hoped that the book would help me finally get off to sleep, but I was sadly mistaken.
I knew the instant I picked it up that something was wrong. My fear was confirmed when I took the book back to bed, opened it and watched in shocked silence as fifty or more loose pages fluttered down onto the counterpane.
The book had been ripped up. The pages that remained had been scrawled on in orange crayon, childish scribble mostly, but as I leafed through the damaged book I saw there had been crude attempts to form letters with orange wax. By the time I reached the end of the book, the letters had formed proper words—three words in particular. HELP ME JAMES.
I tossed the book down to the end of the bed and sat for a long while staring at it, maybe waiting for something to happen to it again.
As dawn broke, I was still staring at the book, but it remained inert, just lying there on the counterpane as if mocking me.
I heard the clock in the hall chime six times and, finally, sleep claimed me.
I awoke around noon and went down to the dining room, but I’d missed breakfast. The table was bare, as was the sideboard. Hearing my stomach rumble, I went through to the kitchen, hoping to find Amy to beg a sandwich, but the kitchen was empty. There was no sign of Amy or the cook, Mrs. Ebbage.
I went out into the garden and walked around to the garage. The door was open and the car was missing, and I guessed Mrs. Rogers had gone into town. Perhaps taking Amy and Mrs. Ebbage with her, so I went to the library again and picked an Eagle annual from the steamer trunk and took it down to the summerhouse to sit and read.
For about an hour I stared at a Dan Dare comic strip with glazed eyes, not really seeing the colorful panels. My mind was elsewhere, going over the events of the past few days, searching for explanations, but finding none.
In the end I closed the annual and dropped it to the rush mat that covered the floor. I climbed out of my deck chair and went across to the doorway, planting my hands on either side of the frame and stretching.
Through the trees I could see Barnes pushing a wheelbarrow on the path down to the pond. I trotted across the lawn, found the path again and followed it down to the water.
Andy Barnes was standing in the pond, up to his thighs in the water. He was wearing heavy rubber waders and was dragging weed from the pond with a rake, depositing the dripping green clumps on the bank.
“Hello,” I called as I approached. “Do you need some help?”
He stopped mid-drag and looked around, brushing a stray curl of his ginger hair away from his eyes.
“I’m clearing the blanketweed,” he said. “And you’re not really dressed for it, are you?”
I looked down at my tee-shirt, khaki shorts and sandals, and shrugged. “I suppose not,” I said.
“Then you’d better take off,” he said. “I’m busy.”
“Can I stay and watch.”
He turned back to the pond but I saw his shoulders shrug. “Please yourself,” he said and started to drag more weeds from the water.
I went down to the spot where I’d sat with my uncle the previous evening, plucked a long blade of grass and stuck it between my lips.
“I was looking for Amy,” I said. “Has she gone to town?”
“Don’t know,” came the surly reply. He didn’t look round.
“Only I can’t find her in the house.”
No response.
He turned and dumped another mound of weeds on the bank a yard away fro
m me. Water drained out of it, and as the weeds settled I saw that it was alive with small pond creatures—some water boatmen, three or four thin, black leeches, a newt and a couple of sticklebacks. Had I a jam jar, I would have collected them.
Instead, I just watched as the leeches squirmed and the sticklebacks gasped for life. The newt managed to crawl across the weed and drop back into the pond.
“Were you here when the children from the orphanage used to come for their holidays?”
The question made him pause. He pulled the rake upright, rested its head on the bottom of the pond and seemed to lean on it. “Why d’ya ask?”
“Well, were you?”
“Yes, I was here. Why?”
“I was wondering if you remembered any of them.”
He gave a sort of rueful grin and shook his head. “I stayed away from them. Bloody kids with their stupid questions…a bit like you.”
“So you don’t remember any of them?”
He shook his head again. “Don’t think so…apart from Amy. I remember her.” His face twisted into a kind of lewd, lopsided grin I decided I didn’t like very much.
“Do you remember Hugh, Mrs. Rogers’s son?”
“Yeah, of course, but he wasn’t from the orphanage.”
“But Michael was. Michael O’Herlihy? He was. Remember him?”
He glared at me. “What is this? Twenty bleedin’ Questions?”
“I just wondered if you remembered him, that’s all. He was Irish, about my size, with light hair that flopped over one eye.”
A spark of recognition flared in his eyes. “What if I do?”
I took the blade of grass from my teeth and replaced it with a fresh one. “I just wondered if you knew what happened to him. Amy said he just disappeared one day. She thinks he might have been adopted.”
“Well, there you go then. These kids, they were never here very long. There was lots of coming and going. I never got involved with them. I left that to them up at the house.”
“But you do remember him.”
“I remember him, the cocky little sod. Full of himself. Thought he was better than…well, thought he was better. I was glad when he didn’t come here again. Adopted, you say? Well, God help the poor people who got lumbered with him.”
He threw out the rake again and started to drag. When he turned back to the shore to deposit another load of stinking blanketweed, he saw me still sitting on the bank.
“Are you still here? Go on, bugger off. I’ve got work to do. Can’t spend all my time blathering to you.”
“Amy seems quite worried about him,” I said. It was stretching the truth, but it seemed to engage his attention again.
“Worried? Amy?”
I nodded. “She thinks something might have happened to him. Something…nasty.”
He frowned. “Well, him and Hughie were always getting the rough edge of old Mother Rogers’s tongue…the old witch…always getting themselves into trouble.”
“He left too,” I said. “Hughie?”
“Damned right. As soon as he was old enough, he packed his bags. I ran him to the railway station.”
“You drive?”
“Motorcycle combination. Stowed his luggage in my sidecar and he rode pillion.”
“Did he say why he was leaving?”
“Christ! Who do you think you are, Sherlock Holmes?”
“Just curious, that’s all.”
“Well remember what curiosity did to the cat.”
“So why did he leave?”
“Fell out with his mother, I think. He didn’t tell me what the row was about, but it must have been serious for him to up and leave like that.”
“Where did he go?”
“I know he bought a ticket for Waterloo in London, but where he went after that is anybody’s guess. All I know is that he’s never showed his face down here again. Shame really. Hughie was okay. Always treated me fairly…as an equal. Unlike that little shit O’Herlihy.”
He turned back to his work.
I wasn’t going to get any more out of him, so I got to my feet and started back to the house.
“You tell Amy,” he called after me, “that if she’s worried about anything, anything at all, she should come and tell me all about it.”
“Do you love her?” I called back boldly.
The unpleasant smile crawled over his lips again. “Yeah,” he called, “something like that.”
As I was walking back through the trees I heard a car crunching over the gravel drive. I stepped out from the trees and saw Mrs. Rogers’s Mini sweep around the side of the house towards the garage. Mrs. Ebbage was unlocking the kitchen door, Amy beside her, holding two brown-paper carrier bags.
I wanted to call out to her but didn’t want to get her into trouble. Instead I went back to the summerhouse and the Eagle annual.
I sat down in my deck chair, opened the book and my jaw dropped.
Dan Dare’s chiseled features had been obscured by orange crayon. In fact, all the panels had been defaced in a similar fashion. I looked frantically around me but I was alone in the summerhouse. “You want me to help you,” I said aloud. “But how? How can I help?”
The pages of the annual began to flip over, as if unseen hands were turning them. After a few seconds they stopped, and I looked down at the pages that now lay open in front of me.
More orange crayon—more scribble—but this time the letters TB were written large across the two pages.
TB—tuberculosis. Was this why he was making contact with me? Did he know that it was tuberculosis that killed my family and nearly killed me?
“Tuberculosis,” I said aloud. “Is that what you had? But how can I help you now?”
The annual slammed shut and was ripped from my grasp. It flew across the summerhouse, crashing into one of the windows and sliding to the floor.
“Oh, very helpful, very grown up,” I said.
I picked the book up, tucked it under my arm and went back to the house without looking back.
Neither my uncle nor Mrs. Rogers was present at dinner that evening. After missing both breakfast and lunch, I devoured in record time the meal Amy set down before me.
“My, you were hungry,” she said as she took my plate.
“He made contact with me again,” I said.
“Michael?”
I nodded.
“When?”
“This afternoon in the summerhouse. And there was last night.”
“But how?” she said.
I heard someone approaching from the hallway.
“Not now,” I whispered. “Meet me in the library later.”
“Okay.”
“Sorry I’m late for dinner, Jimmy,” Mrs. Rogers said as she swept into the dining room. “I had to attend to some business for your uncle.” She stared at the dirty plate Amy was holding. “Ah, I see you’ve eaten. Good. I’m glad my tardiness didn’t spoil your meal.”
“It was very nice,” I said, not sure if she was being sarcastic. “Pork chops.”
She sat down opposite me. “It sounds lovely. Perhaps, Amy,” she said without looking at her, “you’ll fetch mine now.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Amy said and scurried back to the kitchen.
“Your uncle sends his apologies but he won’t be joining us tonight. He has some important work to attend to, so he’ll be in his rooms.”
“It’s all right. He must be a busy man.”
“Indeed he is, Jimmy. Indeed he is.”
When Amy returned she was carrying two plates—one containing Mrs. Rogers’s pork chops, the other a delicious-looking slice of apple pie smothered in rich yellow custard.
She laid the plates down in front of us. “I asked cook to give you extra custard,” she whispered as she set mine down.
“Thanks.”
“Yes, well, that will be all for now, Amy. I won’t be having dessert tonight, so come back in half an hour or so to collect our plates.”
Amy inclined her head and went back to the kitchen.
Mrs. Rogers sliced a piece of pork from her chop and popped it into her mouth, chewing assiduously. She swallowed. “My, that’s good. Mrs. Ebbage has surpassed herself.”
She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “Now, Jimmy, I think it’s high time we had a chat.”
I looked at her uncertainly. “Okay,” I said.
“So, tell me, are you starting to settle in here?”
I nodded. “I think so,” I said.
“Teething problems,” she said. “That business yesterday, when I found you in the west wing. I can understand your desire to explore your new surroundings. It’s quite natural for a boy of your age, but I think your uncle made it very clear when he said the west wing was out of bounds.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
She waved away my apology. “I won’t mention it again, so long as we’re clear.”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re clear.”
“Splendid. Perhaps we can play cards after dinner?”
“Actually, I’m a little tired tonight. I was going to the library to read before I go to bed.”
“And that’s fine too. Sensible, in fact. What are you reading?”
“It’s a book by Geoffrey Trease—No Boats on Bannermere.”
“Really,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever read that one.”
“It’s about a brother and his younger sister who go to live in the Lake District, where they find the skeletons of Vikings and a hoard of buried treasure.”
“My word,” she said. “That sounds exciting…a bit too rich for my blood, I’m afraid. I’m a big fan of Barbara Cartland. Have you ever read anything by her?”
I shook my head.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Not really your cup of tea, I suspect. Lots of romance and kissing.”
I pulled a face.
“Yes, as I thought. Far better to stick with your Vikings and buried treasure.”
The conversation continued in a similar vein for another twenty minutes or so. Eventually she stopped eating, crossed her knife and fork, and laid them on her plate.
