2004 - Dandelion Soup

by Babs Horton

  He looked more closely at the photograph. On the bottom, in a fine hand, someone had written, Tenth birthday of Henry William Fitzallen.

  Of course! He’d forgotten all about poor Henry. He was the little boy who had hanged himself. There he was, standing in front of his mother, Lady Fitzallen, her hands resting protectively on his shoulders. He was a big-eared self-conscious-looking boy dressed in a sailor suit his head tilted to one side, squinting into the sun.

  Donahue shivered.

  He’d hated hearing that story when he was little. Nelly Jones, Nancy’s mother, had gone to call Henry William one morning as she always did, but had found his bed empty and discovered him hanging from a rope in the bathroom.

  Apparently he’d had a beating off his father the night before for some wrongdoing or other. They never knew whether he meant to hang himself or if it was a prank that went wrong.

  “He was a sensitive little fellow, a darling little boy. He thought the world of his mother. You can bet your life that there was more to that than met the eye,” Donahue’s mammy had always said.

  Nelly Jones had been so distraught that she’d left Kilgerry soon after.

  Donahue smiled; he used to get really jealous when he was a little boy because every time his mammy had looked at the photograph she’d put up her hand to touch Henry’s face. Many a time, on the sly, Donahue had glared up at the little boy and poked out his tongue when his mammy was out of the way.

  Lady Fitzallen was never the same after the boy took his own life. She went to pieces completely and even though she had two more children she never recovered properly.

  A year after Henry’s death she’d given birth to another son, George, the same year Donahue had been born, and then a daughter many years later. They were a family cursed. There was some gossip about the boy George; Donahue seemed to remember that he had been sent off in disgrace. And then, years later, the only daughter had disappeared and never been found.

  Dear God. Anyhow, his own parents had got well acquainted, a bit of how’s your father and then Bob’s your uncle and there was a quick wedding and a swift exit from Kilgerry and a long and happy marriage.

  Nelly Jones, the nanny, had surfaced again a few years later, now called Mrs Carmichael, recently widowed, with a toddler, Nancy. She’d bought the little house in Clancy Street and lived out her respectable widowhood in Ballygurry. He’d never liked Mrs Carmichael much, she was a funny old stick with her airs and graces and swanky talk.

  “She didn’t get the money to buy that house by scrubbing floors, 111 be damned. There’s more to Mrs Carmichael than meets the eye for all her swanky ways!” his mammy had muttered many a time, but she hadn’t been a one for gossip and Mrs Carmichael’s secret had been safe with her.

  Donahue wondered how the hell beaky-nosed Drew had found out Nancy’s secret. Nancy would never have told her. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure if Nancy even knew, herself. Poor old Nancy, when she got back she wouldn’t be welcome in some quarters. She didn’t deserve that, the poor bugger. She hadn’t had an easy life with that mother of hers.

  Donahue sighed. The world was a topsy-turvy old place for sure.

  He was tempted again to pour himself a whiskey but he reminded himself that he hadn’t taken a drop of drink since the day the old nun had taken her life. It had really shook him up badly that, even though he’d hardly known her. He’d thought of ending it all himself a few times, mind, after his wife had left but he’d never had the stomach for it.

  Donahue replaced the photograph on the wall. He looked for a long time at his mammy. Tell the truth and shame the devil, she always used to say. And stand up for what is right Listen to the little voice inside you, Marty. You have to face up to the facts.

  He sighed heavily, walked to the door and pulled across the bolts. For the first time in many months he climbed the creaking stairs to the bedroom. He hadn’t slept up there since Eileen had left him. For a long time after she’d gone he used to go up there and sit on the side of the bed for hours at a time just staring ahead of him.

  The bedroom still had many reminders of Eileen. Most of her clothes she’d taken with her but her perfume was still there in the royal-blue bottle on the dressing-table along with a pink hairnet a shocking-pink chiffon scarf and a handful of hair clips. There was also a pile of ironed, dusty hankies with a day of the week embroidered in each corner. They were all there except for the One with Wednesday on it. That was the day she’d upped and gone without a word of warning.

  He picked up the pillow from her side of the bed and held it to his nose. He could no longer smell the sweet oily smell of her hair or the pungent whiff of setting lotion. Now the pillow smelled only of dust, cat hair and mildew.

  He sat down on the bed and raised a cloud of damp dust that made him sneeze. He sat there for a long time until suddenly, in a moment of long-pent-up anger, he got unsteadily to his feet, swept the perfume bottle and other knick-knacks from the dressing-table to the floor. He screwed up the hankies, hurled them to the floor too, and dashed them all beneath his feet. Then shaking uncontrollably he lay down on the bed as big hot tears rolled down his large face. Eileen wasn’t ever coming back, that was for sure. Like his mammy’d said, he had to face up to the facts, but God, it was awful hard.

  Michael Leary walked slowly along the beach and sat on an upturned boat. He took out the letter from his pocket, put on his glasses and began to read it again as he felt the first tears prick his eyes.

  My darling Michael, why did you stop writing to me? All the letters I sent to your last address were returned to me. I waited so long for your letters I thought that you had forgotten me…I had no address for you until now…and my getting one is the strangest coincidence, but that’s another story.

  Michael Leary was confused. He’d written to her every week since he’d left Spain. He read on.

  By the time you get this letter I will be a married woman.

  Married! It hadn’t taken her long to forget him then! He read on through a blur of angry tears.

  I cannot bear it but it must be so. I will always remember you, my sweet one…

  What was the date today? He checked the date on the top of the letter…God almighty! She was already married.

  She must have got his letters! That was bollocks! This was just her way of letting him down gently.

  He stood up, ripped the letter into small pieces and threw it up into the air. The breeze caught greedily at the fragments and carried them off on the early evening air.

  Michael Leary stalked across the beach, spat between his teeth and lit another cigarette.

  He climbed up the slipway and walked up Clancy Street.

  Outside Donahue’s the strings of summer sandals were swaying in the breeze and the tin buckets and spades clanking restlessly. He passed the horse trough. The water rippled and stirred.

  He stopped in his tracks and a shiver of fear riffled up his backbone. Christ! Seeing the face of that old nun staring up at him from the horse trough had knocked the bloody stuffing right out of him, especially with what had happened afterwards.

  It was the night before the pilgrims had left for Spain. He’d been restless all that day and just before midnight he’d left the schoolhouse and walked along the beach, almost as far as the Giant’s Cakehole. He’d lingered there a while, listening to the whistle of the wind as it got trapped in the cave. Then he’d walked back up the beach and along to the village. He didn’t know what made him do it but just as he’d got level with the horse trough he’d heard the clock in Dr Hanlon’s chime midnight He’d never believed in all that rubbish about seeing faces in the water. Ballygurry was awash with old wives’ tales.

  He’d had a good look round in case anyone was watching out of their windows, kneeled down and peered into the water, laughing at his own stupidity. His breath had stirred the water. What a load of old codswallop. All he could see was his own wobbling reflection.

  Suffering angels, he’d nearly had a bloody heart atta
ck.

  The wrinkled old face grinning at him like that over his shoulder, the wide toothless grin, and then the mouth moving as if she was trying to tell him something.

  He’d begun to breathe too fast felt a nauseous faintness creep up on him, and then he must have blacked out; he’d come to seconds later with a shock, face down in the cold water like a prize bloody eejit. Then he’d struggled to his feet blowing and puffing, and looked all around Clancy Street, but not a sign of the old nun. Yet for a few seconds afterwards he could still smell the mustiness of her clothes, camphor and candlewax.

  It made him come over all queer now just thinking about it. It wasn’t a bloody magic vision, though, it was her in the flesh all right. He should have tried to find her, at least have reported it to Sister Veronica, but he’d not wanted to get her into trouble. Instead, he’d hurried home, drawn all the bolts across the door and poured himself a very large, very stiff whiskey and then another three.

  The next morning he’d woken with a head as thick as a simpleton’s, and a mouth like the inside of a skunk’s arsehole.

  It was later that afternoon, after they’d seen the pilgrims off from the station, when she’d been discovered missing. The nuns had searched the grounds and the station and even scoured the Dark Wood but to no avail. She must have planned it all carefully, slipped away in the night and taken her own life. God help her, the poor old bugger must have lost her mind, gone daft in the head to do a terrible thing like that.

  He couldn’t rid himself of the vision of her face. At night when he closed his eyes he could still see her. A wobbling reflection, a maniacal smile. Sometimes the face would distort and grow younger. There was something, a fleeting expression in the eyes, that made him think of another face he’d seen somewhere. His head was full of jumbled thoughts and faces. Padraig’s face. The painting Padraig had done of the wide-eyed girl in the wood holding a bunch of dandelions. A blur of eyes and noses and lips that kept him from sleep. He stepped quickly now into Donahue’s; what he needed was a stiff drink.

  Sister Veronica crossed to the window of her study and looked out across the scrubby lawns of the orphanage garden. Soon, when all the orphans were gone, she’d make a few changes to the place, put in some benches for the old folks to sit on, a nice little fish pond with goldfish, maybe an archway with yellow roses growing over it. Old people would appreciate that kind of thing.

  Just then the telephone rang.

  “Sister Veronica. St Joseph’s orphanage.”

  “Ah, sweet Jesus, the organ grinder herself, just the job.”

  Sister Veronica winced. The voice on the other end of the phone was overloud and brimming with confidence.

  “How may I help?”

  “I wanted to have a word with you about a young man currently in your bounteous care.”

  “To whom am I speaking?”

  “Willy Flanagan of the Abbey school at your service, ma’am.”

  A hiccup and a giggle travelled down the line.

  “I have been sent courtesy of the illustrious and winsome Michael Leary, who may I say set the ladies’ hearts in Cork all a flutter when he posed naked for the life class…But I digress; I have been sent some paintings done by a young man in your charge. You know I daresay of the artist to whom I refer.”

  “I do not.”

  “Patsy, no, hang on, Padraig, that’s it, Padraig O’Mally. And I’m telephoning to say that you may send the boy to me post haste. No need to take the examination. There will be a place kept warm at the Abbey for him, a place to hang his hat. Does he have a hat? Every budding artist should have an outrageous hat, don’t you think? The boy, Padraig, oozes flair, he paints with the eye of an angel and the palette of the devil himself.”

  “Padraig O’Mally is not here at present.”

  “Well, when does he return?”

  “That is of no consequence, but when he does return, Mr Flanagan, he will be boarding a boat, and when he gets off it he will be safely in Australia, where please God he will come across no more drunken Protestant schoolmasters.”

  “Well, bugger me backwards, Leary said you were a difficult woman and he wasn’t exaggerating. May I take this opportunity to wish you a long and incontinent life, madam.”

  Sister Veronica slammed down the telephone and sat down heavily on her chair.

  Michael Leary had a damned nerve. She’d been quite emphatic about Padraig not going to the Abbey school. And yet Leary had obviously been behind her back talking to this drunken lunatic of a man. Well, by God, Padraig would not go to the Abbey school come hell or high water. Padraig O’Mally was a brazen, troublesome little brat and she would put paid to Mr Leary’s ridiculous plans. The first lot of children were sailing for Australia in a week. It was thought best to send them quickly, not give them too much time to brood. Padraig was due back from Spain after they’d gone but it was arranged that he would join up with a group from Dublin who were travelling later.

  She stood up, and on a sudden whim she unlocked a cupboard, looked along a row of files and lifted one down.

  Most of the orphans arrived at St Joseph’s with a slim file and a small box of mementoes that were kept for them and given back on the day they left and not before. She’d only ever had a cursory look through the boxes. Usually, they contained a pile of cheap gaudy knick-knacks and a photograph or two of gormless-looking family groups.

  Padraig George O’Mally. Mother’s name: Maria Bridget O’Mally. There was an address on the South Circular Road in Dublin. Sister Veronica knew that that was the Jewish area of Dublin and yet the records showed that Padraig O’Mally had been christened a Catholic. There was no name on the birth certificate where his father’s name should have been. She reached up again and lifted down a battered old shoebox. Brushing the thick layer of dust off the top of the box, she carried it over to her desk.

  There wasn’t much inside Padraig’s box at all, hardly a grand inheritance. There was a photograph of a young woman in an ornate silver frame, a battered and dog-eared leather-bound book and a pile of mildewed letters. The photograph was of a dark-haired woman, good looking in a brazen kind of way. She was sitting in what looked suspiciously like a bar. Her hand was supporting her chin; she held a glass in her other hand, while smoke from a cigarette drifted round her face. She was smiling and unafraid of the camera. Sister Veronica put the photograph down on the table, picked up the bundle of letters and undid the faded blue ribbon that held them together.

  She opened the letter on the top of the pile. It was written on a piece of headed paper. The Granada Hotel, Santander.

  My darling girl, I was so sorry not to see you that last night before I left, but I had to move quickly, and besides your father had made his feelings quite clear…Here in Spain, despite all that’s going on, the weather is splendid. I would give my right arm to have you here with me now if the circumstances were better. We could run into the waves together, fall beneath them and kiss until the tide turned. How I miss you. If I close my eyes I can imagine the taste of salt on your lips, the colour of your hair in the sun’s light.

  Sister Veronica coughed and tutted with disdain.

  The letter went on in the same soppy lovesick vein as did the next three that she picked up, but the one she held in her hand now was written in a different tone and she read intently.

  My darling, sweet girl, please, for God’s sake, don’t do anything rash. I know how awful this is for you and how terrible to be alone at a time like this, but you must trust me. I will stand by you. For now, though, while we are apart, you must take note of what I’m saying. You must leave Kilgerry as soon as you can. I have an address in Dublin where you will be safe. Listen to me: there’s an old lady called Gerty Wiseman, one of three old sisters who lives in the place they call Jewtown. I have written to her and she awaits your arrival; she will keep you safe and take care of you until the child is born and arrange any papers that you need to get away. If necessary she will get you safely to a house in London, she’ll know
exactly what to do. She’s spent most of her life running away and is a dab hand at it. I am leaving for Vigo tomorrow and eventually across the north of Spain and then into France, but I will contact you at Getty’s as soon as I can. Do as I say, my darling, you will be in safe hands. I am beginning to doubt my reasons for fighting in this war; I did it really for Grandpapa because he loved this country so very much. Soon, when this damned war is over, we will be together, the three of us. How lovely it is to say those words, the three of us. I beg you not to be tempted to confide in your mother, she isn’t strong or well enough to stand up for you. As for your father, there are still things that you don’t know. You must leave as soon as you can. There is a funny little fellow, a foreign peddler called Muli, who calls at the village occasionally, he sells notepads and pencils; he will make contact with you soon. He’s an odd-looking little man but don’t be alarmed by his appearance. Put your trust in him, he will not let you down. He will get you to Gerty’s. She’ll sort out how to register you and the child in a new name…it will be easier as they won’t be able to trace you. When we are together again we shall be married as soon as we are able and then we will move away, anywhere…now my brave girl…

  The nun read on avidly. It all sounded very odd and farfetched to Sister Veronica. The writer of the letter must be Padraig’s father, of course. It seemed O’Mally wasn’t his mother’s maiden name as Sister Veronica had supposed. So she wasn’t originally Maria Bridget O’Mally by birth. Who the hell was she then? And why all this nonsensical subterfuge? The two of them must have been a pair of crooks or worse. She opened another letter and read on.

  My sweet one, thank God that you are safe. I’m so glad that you are well and the sickness has now passed. Soon, soon I shall be back with you and holding you in my arms. I am heading up towards Santa Eulalia; remember, where Grandpapa lived for a while. I’ll gather my strength there and then make for France as soon as I can. One good thing is that I think I may have some news about your brother for you. Don’t get too excited just yet, but a chap I met used to be at school with George and he’s sure that he saw George in Paris in a bar in the Rue Montagne…Do you know I still have the army greatcoat of his that you gave to me and it’s still going strong. It has his name-tag sewn into the lining even after all this time.