2004 - Dandelion Soup (18 page)

Sod it. He wasn’t going to think about anything like that and let it spoil his happiness. For at that moment Padraig felt so light, so carefree and happy that, if he wished hard enough, he thought that he might grow wings and fly. It was as if, standing there on the creaking balcony amidst the pots of flowers, he weighed nothing at all. Maybe, if he flapped his skinny arms up and down as fast as he could, his feet would leave the balcony and he would rise up past the dusty attic windows.

He closed his eyes and imagined gliding away over the rooftops and into the glistening sky, flying with the screaming gulls above the town. He could look down on the queer baby-carrying bird in its lofty nest. He would soar with the mountain birds and swoop and climb and drift on currents of sweet, clean air and would never have to go back to St Joseph’s.

Opening his eyes, he looked across at the other houses on the opposite side of the lane. On some of the balconies there were tiny coloured birds’ chirruping madly in wicker cages, cages hung high out of the reach of marauding cats. Spanish cats were very peculiar things: thin, arch backed, long legged with tails like quivering antennae.

There were lines of washing tied across some of the balconies, jumbles of dripping drawers, darned stockings, woollen socks and brassieres big enough to bring home the shopping in.

Through the opened window shutters of the houses, he could see shady rooms where black crucifixes hung upon the walls and the statues of brooding saints lurked in every nook and creepy cranny. It was going to be hard work trying to find the lost Irish virgin for Mr Leary. There were even more virgins in Spain than in Ireland.

Tomorrow he was going to get up early and do some detective work. He’d have a good hunt round the town. Try and sniff out some clues. It would be great if he could find the lost statue. He’d love to give something back to Mr Leary.

Just then the sound of the dinner gong echoed through the house. Padraig took the stairs two at a time and arrived in the dining room breathless.

Miss Drew and Miss Carmichael were already sitting either side of Father Daley like two pug ugly gargoyles. Miss Carmichael glared at Padraig and bared her strong teeth.

Frosty-faced old bag.

Miss Drew sniffed.

Skinny-nosed freak.

Father Daley smiled.

“Take a seat Padraig, you must be hungry.”

“Starved, Father,” said Padraig. “I could eat a scabby donkey.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if there was one on the menu,” said Miss Drew.

“Now, now, Miss Drew, I’m sure Señora Hipola will have something special prepared for us.”

Miss Drew coughed and looked down into her lap.

Just then a man came into the room. He was a dapper little chap who bowed stiffly to the women, nodded at Padraig and Father Daley and took a seat next to Padraig. Padraig sniffed surreptitiously. The fellow didn’t smell much like a proper man at all; he stank of strong perfume, scented hair oil and onions.

“
Buenos tardes
,” Father Daley said.

The man looked up and nodded.

“
Buenas tardes
.”

Then the man and Father Daley rattled away in Spanish at nineteen to the dozen while the Ballygurry pilgrims looked on in astonishment.

“This,” said Father Daley eventually, “is Señor Carlos Emanuel, and he is going to the monastery of Santa Eulalia tomorrow.”

“Where did you learn to speak such good Spanish, Father?” said Miss Drew.

“Ah, when I was a little boy I had a Spanish nanny and I wasn’t allowed any pudding until I’d practised my Spanish. And then, later, thanks to the enthusiasm she gave me, I studied Spanish and French at university.”

“Would you ask him, does he know where I could find an Irish virgin, Father?” Padraig asked eagerly.

Father Daley blushed. Miss Carmichael kicked out at Padraig under the table and caught him a crack on the shin.

“Ow! You’ve a kick like a mule. What did you do that for?”

“To stop your filthy mouth, that’s why,” she hissed.

“What’s filthy about that? It’s true, somewhere here in Spain there’s a statue of the Holy Virgin that’s been lost for hundreds of years. It was made in Ireland and brought here by some monks, Mr Leary told me.”

“It seems to me that Mr Leary would say anything except the truth.”

Conversation stopped then as a woman came quietly into the room. She nodded briefly at everyone and sat down quietly on the other side of Padraig.

Padraig turned to her and smiled. She smiled back shyly. She had the whitest teeth that Padraig had ever seen. She also had a whopper of a black eye. He peered closer. A real shiner. Purple and viridian. Lilac and mauve. Someone had given her a right clout by the looks of it. He hoped she’d given them a good bugger back.

A few moments later a young girl came out of the kitchen carrying a pitcher of water and a large earthenware jug of wine that she set down on the table.

Padraig had never seen such a pretty face before but he noticed that she’d recently been crying, because her eyes were red and swollen.

“This is Marta, my niece,” said Señora Hipola peeping out through the kitchen doorway and handing the girl a basket of bread. “The lucky girl is to be married in two days’ time.”

Father Daley translated for the Ballygurry pilgrims.

There were oohs and ahs from Miss Drew and Miss Carmichael. Señora Hipola beamed around at them all and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Marta lowered her eyes and glowered. She took her place sullenly at the end of the table and avoided looking at anyone. Instead, she busied herself breaking off small pieces of bread, rolling them brutally into tiny pellets and then lining them up round her plate as if they were bullets ready for firing.

A few moments later, a great clattering and shouting emanated from the kitchen and Señora Hipola came into the room carrying a large earthenware bowl that she placed with a flourish in the middle of the table.

“
Sopa de Abados
,” Señora Hipola announced proudly.

“Abbot’s soup,” said Fattier Daley. “In Spain they don’t say food fit for a king because they haven’t a royal family, so instead they say food fit for an abbot.”

Señora Hipola ladled out the soup generously and handed around the bowls.

Padraig had a good poke about in the bowl that was placed in front of him.

It looked like slices of bread with bits of sausage, some sort of peas and meat. It smelled good.

He lifted a spoonful to his mouth and tasted it.

“Delicious,” he said and set to with a gusto.

Father Daley whispered to Padraig, “Say ‘
Muy Men, Señora Hipola!
’“

“
Muy bien
,” said Padraig with a grin.

“Said like a native.”

Señora Hipola clapped her hands and smiled from ear to ear.

Miss Drew and Miss Carmichael sipped the soup dutifully but without enthusiasm.

While her guests ate, Señora Hipola chattered away and when she eventually paused for breath Father Daley said, “Señora Hipola was just telling me that we are honoured guests in her house. She says that there have been very few pilgrims staying here for many years but that in the past Pig Lane was a busy thoroughfare, full of inns and boarding houses, and even a convent. This house dates back over five hundred years in some parts. It has played host to princes and potentates, abbots and monks, nuns and pilgrims from far away. The great and the good, the meek, the dispossessed and the hounded have all passed this way on their way to Santiago de Compostela. There is even a far-fetched story that long ago a Jewish family were hidden for many months in Pig Lane during the years when they were expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella. Legend has it that they were locked in a secret room and died of starvation.”

“Food poisoning more likely,” Miss Drew muttered.

When the soup dishes were cleared away Señora Hipola returned with another enormous serving dish.

“
Pulpo à la Gallega
,” she announced proudly.

Father Daley raised his eyebrows and swallowed hard. He wondered for a moment if he should lie. He thought better of it.

“Octopus,” he said. “Fresh from the sea this very afternoon.”

Miss Drew let out a low groan.

“Holy Saint Patrick,” said Miss Carmichael, making the sign of the cross.

Padraig peered inquisitively into the dish, looked up and said, “Mr Leary told us that the octopus has eight testicles and two enormous eyes.”

Father Daley snorted.

Miss Drew moaned as if in mortal pain, threw down her spoon and hurried from the table with her hand over her mouth. Miss Carmichael followed hot on her heels.

“What did I say this time?” Padraig asked quizzically.

Father Daley was restless and unable to sleep. He’d drunk a few glasses of red wine to wash down the octopus but instead of making him sleepy it had woken him up. He lay in bed looking out through the windows at the night sky.

Tomorrow he thought they might spend the day in Camiga, the day after that they were off to Santa Eulalia.

After dinner, when everyone else had gone, Señora Hipola had lingered to talk to Padraig and himself. She’d told him that the monastery of Santa Eulalia had once been a very important place in these parts. Her father had worked on the land for the monks and his father before him.

In the old days it had been one of the largest employers in the district For hundreds of years it had been a gathering place for pilgrims from all over Europe. After the numbers of pilgrims had dwindled, it had become a gathering place for artists, musicians and writers. They, she’d said with a sniff, were a very queer bunch of oddballs, all long hair and glazed about the eyes. Why, she still had a painting that had been handed down from one generation of her family to the next, an ugly old thing that she kept hidden in the attic for the sake of decency.

Father Daley had asked her at Padraig’s behest whether she had ever heard of the lost Irish virgin, and strangely enough, much to Padraig’s excitement, she had.

There were, she said, many tales about a group of foreign monks who had come to Spain to deliver a golden and bejewelled statue to the cathedral at Santiago. Some said that they had travelled on foot through the mountains but that a nubeiro had brought down a storm upon their heads, a storm that had raged for so long that they had taken shelter in a cave and then the mists came down and they had lost their way on the mountains.

“What’s a nubeiro?” Padraig asked.

Father Daley translated.

“He’s never heard of a nubeiro; where’s the boy been hiding?”

“Nowhere,” said Father Daley. “We don’t have nubeiros in Ireland.”

Seftora Hipola shook her head in disbelief.

“Why, I chased one away from here this very evening. A most peculiar thing they call Muli. He was hanging round trying to peep in through the front door.”

“Well, what exactly is a nubeiro?” Father Daley asked, trying to cover his amusement.

“A nubeiro,” she said, “is a sorcerer, a magician who has the powers to conjure up storms and cloudbursts.”

“Why do they make storms?”

“It’s like this,” she replied, “if a nubeiro has an argument with someone, he can order up a storm to fall on that person’s house, or even on a whole town.”

“Wow!” said Padraig when Father Daley had explained.

“But,” Señora Hipola went on, “there are things that can be done to stop their tricks.”

“Why would anyone want to stop their tricks? I love storms,” Padraig said.

“You do?” said Señora Hipola. “Well, you are a strange one.”

“How do people stop the nubeiro’s tricks?” Padraig asked curiously.

“Well, if you know that you’ve upset a nubeiro and they are going to pay you back with a storm, you can light special candles to ward off their magic. Or else,” she went on, “if the storm has already started you can pray to Saint Barbara to stop the storm.

“And also you can make balls out of wax, ask the priest to bless them and then you throw them up into the air as high as you can. That will stop the nubeiro’s wily magic! Anyway, there aren’t many nubeiros left now, thank the Lord.”

“Where have they all gone?” Padraig asked.

“Some of them have been turned into skeletons,” said Señora Hipola with relish, “and others have been turned into dwarves.”

“Who has done that to the poor things?” Padraig asked indignantly.

“Why, the priests of course!”

“Have you ever turned a nubeiro into a dwarf, Father?”

“No, Padraig, between you and me I wouldn’t know a nubeiro if one dropped in my lap!”

“But it’s the priest’s job to get rid of them! If a priest catches a nubeiro, then the nubeiro is honour-bound to unload their rain clouds. The priest tells them where he wishes the cloud to be emptied and the nubeiro must obey,” Señora Hipola explained.

“Ah, if only I possessed such power!” sighed Father Daley, smiling.

“If the priest exorcizes them, then the nubeiro will fall to the earth and, like I said, will be changed into a skeleton or a dwarf.”

Padraig had seen some dwarves once; there were two of them riding piebald ponies in a circus procession through the town. He hadn’t realized then that the sad-faced little people were really nubeiros who had had their powers taken away.

“Ask her where the nubeiros come from?”

“Ah, they are all lunatics who have been turned mad by studying abroad in the schools of Saint Patrick,” Señora Hipola replied.

“Where are the schools of Saint Patrick?”asked Padraig.

“In England and Ireland,” Father Daley translated with a broad grin, “where Señora Hipola says there are more lunatics than anywhere else in the world.”

“Ask her what happened to the Irish monks?” Padraig asked.

“Well, eventually the monks sought refuge in an isolated monastery of French or maybe Spanish monks; anyway, an untrustworthy lot On the whole. Some say that the monks in the monastery overpowered them and stole the statue, drugged them and blindfolded them and then let them loose on the mountain. The monks escaped to France where they lived the rest of their days like kings.

“Others say that the monks were robbed by Jews fleeing from Spain and that the monks were too afraid to return to Ireland because of the shame of losing the statue. And there was even a story that one of the monks fell in love and ran away with a nun from a convent.”