2004 - Dandelion Soup (2 page)

Padraig sat up in bed.

“Donny, what’s up?” he called out quietly so as not to wake the rest of the kids.

No answer from Donny Keegan’s bed, just the sound of stifled sobs.

“Donny, for Christ’s sake what’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Have you had a bad dream?”

Bad dreams came free at St Joseph’s.

Silence.

“Have you shit the bed?”

“I have not, so.” The voice was small, tearfully indignant.

Padraig grinned.

“Have you pissed it then? Have you, Donny? Tell the truth and shame the devil.”

A stifled yes and a huge sob.

Padraig slipped out of his bed and hopped and skittered across the cold cracked linoleum.

“Jesus, it’s feckin’ freezing.”

He pulled back the rough grey blanket from Denny’s bed. The boy tried to hold on to it but gave up without much of a fight He was curled up in a ball, his hands covering his head, his small body quivering inside the regulation striped St Joseph’s pyjamas.

“Ah, don’t cry, Donny. It’s not the end of the world.”

He put his hand gently on the little boy’s head. His fair hair had been cut short; the regulation crew cut of Saint Joseph’s, rough and scratchy as a badger’s arse.

“The worst thing about pissing the bed isn’t the first bit Donny. It feels nice and warm, comfy like.”

Donny took his hands off his head, lay still, listening but trembling violently like a man waiting to be shot.

“It’s half an hour in when you start to feckin’ freeze.”

Padraig felt sorry for the boy, he knew how he was feeling. He’d pissed the bloody bed himself when he’d first arrived in this shite hole.

That first night he was only six and he’d dreamed that his mammy had come to his bed in the night and lifted him out to use the piss pot. She’d done that every night when he was small just in case of an accident. In the dream it was just as if everything had been a mistake and she’d come back to life again. He’d felt her arms scooping him up out of the warm bed, smelled the lovely smell of her scent, the touch of her tickly hair against his face, his sleepy head tucked up against her soft breasts. He’d even felt the cold of the china piss pot against his small arse, his mother’s finger gently poking his mickey down between his thighs so he didn’t squirt a fountain of pee all over the bedroom floor.

It was the last dream he’d ever had of his mammy. He rarely dreamed while he slept, just daydreams now that went on for hours but these were getting fewer since he’d been in Mr Learns class.

“That’s a good boy,” his mammy had said in the dream and he’d peed for Ireland.

Then he’d woken up, the sweet soft smell of her still lingering in the air. Jesus, he even had a smile on his face and then he’d realized with a shock where he was. He remembered the tearful train journey to Ballygurry, the long lonely walk up the gravel drive of St Joseph’s holding hands with the old priest. Father Behenna had stopped three times on the way from the station to piss and four times to drink from a silver bottle that he kept in a little brown suitcase. Padraig remembered with a shudder the first sight of the unsmiling holy nuns; the stink of disinfectant and boiled greens.

He’d lain awake, petrified and freezing in the stinking wet bed, biting his fist until he’d drawn blood. Then as the first grey light had illuminated the dormitory he’d heard the far-off sound of the bell. Sister Arseface had come crashing into the dormitory and pulled him from the bed, yanked off his pyjamas and made him stand on the freezing linoleum, naked and quaking in front of the other boys. Then the belting he’d had from Sister Veronica. For pissing the bed! Ah, Jesus! That was ages ago.

“Donny,- get out the bed quick in case Sister Arseface comes round on patrol.”

“I can’t.”

“Come on, if she catches you shell warm you up with the feel of the strap round your bare arse. Get out the feckin’ bed, Donny!”

The small boy, afraid of the tone in Padraig’s voice, scrambled quickly out of the bed.

“Get your jamas off.”

The boy wavered.

“Now!”

Donny loosened the cord on his green and grey striped pyjama trousers; the green was the colour of over-boiled cabbage. He struggled to pull the sopping trousers down over his skinny legs, stepped out of them and then shuffled them into a heap on the floor at his feet. The smell of cooling piss was strong in the icy air, with the reek of ammonia the way small kids pissed. It didn’t bother Padraig, he’d smelled it too many times. It was as much a part of the St Joseph’s night as the moon and the stars.

Padraig hurried back across the dormitory and quietly, cautiously moved his bed, kneeled down, prised a floorboard loose and carefully lifted it up.

Donny Keegan, naked now and shivering violently, had his hands cupped over his mickey as he watched Padraig with wide watery green eyes, as if he was watching a magic show. Padraig pulled a white sheet from beneath the floorboards the way a magician pulled silk scarves from a top hat. He bundled the sheet up in his arms and hurried back to where Donny stood.

“Help me get that wet sheet off of the bed.”

Donny didn’t argue and between them they wrenched the wet sheet from the bed and Padraig rolled it swiftly into a ball.

“Quick, now the mattress, help me turn it over!”

Padraig took most of the weight. Together they hauled the mattress over and lowered it down on to the bed springs.

“Sunny side up!” whispered Padraig and grinned.

Donny smiled weakly, his chin wobbled like Sunday blancmange.

Padraig flicked out the clean sheet across the bed.

Padraig was a dab hand at making beds. He could have won prizes. He folded and tucked and smoothed and patted.

“Get in the washroom and wash yourself off, get rid of the smell. The old cow has a nose like a demented bloodhound. Use the middle tap; the others make too much noise. And be quick!”

Donny scarpered, his bare feet squeaking on the cold brown linoleum.

Away down in the village the church clock chimed the witching hour.

When Donny came back a few minutes later, he smelled faintly of carbolic soap and diluted tears. Padraig chucked him a pair of clean pyjamas and then hurriedly stuffed the wet sheet and pyjamas back beneath the floorboards, pulling the floorboard and bed back into place.

“You just goin’ to leave them there?” stammered Donny.

Padraig tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

“Secret,” he said. “Abracadabra and all that! I’ll get you a piece of oilcloth for tonight. In case you do it again.”

“I won’t!” the little voice was full of shame and outrage.

“Nearly everyone here pisses the bed the first few weeks including meself. Now get back into bed and try and sleep a bit. It’s a good few hours before the old cow comes round ringing the wake-up bell.”

Donny Keegan smiled an embarrassed wobbly lipped smile. “You won’t tell anyone, will ye, Padraig?” he said.

“Nah.”

Donny climbed back into his bed. Padraig winked at him, pulled the blankets up and tucked him in tight.

“Thanks, Padraig.”

“Not at all. All part of the service.”

Poor little bugger.

Padraig climbed back into his own cold bed and lay staring up at the flaky ceiling, listening to the winds. No one in St Joseph’s would get the strap for pissing the bed if he could help it. So stuff them! Feck the hard-faced old bags with their talk of charity and the boundless love of God. They wouldn’t know what love was if it slapped them between their tits. Anyway, one day he’d escape and he wouldn’t come back. They could shove their lumpy porridge and semolina pudding where the squirrel stuffed his nuts. No way was he staying in St Joseph’s until he was fourteen and then being packed off to some farm at the arse end of nowhere. He wasnt going to spend his life digging up turnips and swedes until his head turned the same shape and his skin darkened to the colour of a boiled beetroot. Oh no! He was lucky, he might not have stuff all else but he had brains, like his mammy, and that was the one thing they couldn’t take away from him however hard they tried.

Mr Leary had told him that he could try for a scholarship to a school near Cork. If he passed the scholarship he’d have a proper school uniform, new shoes and a leather satchel. The best bit of all was that he’d sleep at the school and only have to be in St Joseph’s for the holidays.

He couldn’t wait. He wasn’t going to be thankful for what the good nuns did for him was he hell as like. They could eat monkey sick and die. One day soon he’d be off and away from Ballygurry and he’d be glad to see the back of the sisters. Except for old Sister Immaculata, she poor old thing wanted to escape as badly as he did.

Midnight. The sky above Ballygurry is peppered with stars. The rusty echoes of the presbytery clock hang in the air and an owl calls out from the Dark Wood that borders the orphanage of St Joseph. A pigeon hiccups nervously beneath the eaves of Dr Hanlon’s house. The wind is steadily rising, whipping across the ocean, wobbling the great white moon and scattering the stars across the firmament. Ballygurry shivers and creaks and the bells above the shopkeepers’ doors tinkle and tin bathtubs and buckets play percussion in the backyards. False teeth clack in jam jars and the penny candles are snuffed out one by one in the Lady Chapel.

The waves, white tipped and frothy with spume, pound on to the beach and rattle the empty shells of crabs and mussels, winkle and cockle, shunting the barnacled boats up the beach towards the dunes.

The long, rough grass by the tadpole pond rustles and sighs. A newborn lamb bleats with fright and is answered by a dog fox loping round the famine wall where generations of orphans and villagers have scratched their names. Wild cats grind out their mating wail and field mice and voles, moles and shrews are on the move, stirring the moonlit grass.

Along the coast away past the schoolhouse where a light still burns, the wind screams now like a banshee through the cave they call the Giant’s Cakehole. In the horse trough the moonlit water ripples and clouds.

The whistle of the mail train cuts through the night. Clouds of steam balloon into the sky and drift above the roof of St Joseph’s. The train pulls into the deserted station and draws to a slow squealing halt. The black and white station clock clanks and whirs but the hands have long since seized at ten to two. A carriage door opens and closes. Small footsteps cross the platform, pause and then echo along the lonely lane that leads to Ballygurry.

In the attic room of St Joseph’s, by candlelight, Sister Immaculata trod the boards. Five paces across the room and then turn. Five paces back. Turn. Most nights she walked for miles and miles and sometimes she was still walking when the cockerel crowed and the first bell called the nuns to prayer.

Tonight she was more restless than usual. There was something afoot in Ballygurry, she could feel the brittle tension in the night air, as though a spring was poised, the bait set ready for the unsuspecting mouse.

She could feel the constriction in bone and sinew, a tight squeezing of skin around her skull, a dull, steady ache in her eyeteeth. She could see the tension in the curve of the candle flame and in the shape of the nervous shadows hiding in the wings, the slant of filtered moonlight across the crucifix.

She could hear it in the cool lick of the new wind, the feverish whispering of the trees and the distant pounding of the waves.

Sister Immaculata shuddered and caught her breath. Time was peeling back its calloused old skin and revealing hidden wounds.

Suddenly a gust of wind caught at the window and rattled the glass. She stopped her pacing and listened. She could hear the train coming towards Ballygurry station. Usually it gathered speed but tonight it was slowing down. She crossed to the attic window and looked out. Above the trees in the Dark Wood the stars were bright, stars making a grand highway across the night sky. She listened. Ears pricked for any sound. The dog over on Kenny’s farm barked a warning and his chains rattled and clanked. Sister Immaculata stood with her nose pressed against the cold window.

Footsteps! She could hear the sound of someone walking along the lonely lane. The click of hobnailed boots echoing faintly, growing closer.

The footsteps paused.

Sister Immaculata held her breath.

Moonlight dusted the lane and a silver leaf drifted down from a tree.

The old nun stared incredulously at the sight before her. She made the sign of the cross. Dear God, it couldn’t be true, could it? After all these years they’d sent someone to rescue her and bring her back home.

A cloud crossed the moon.

The vision was eaten up by the blackness. The sound of the footsteps grew fainter. Sister Immaculata wiped a tear from her face and continued her pacing. Five steps across the room. Turn. Five steps back.

In Nirvana House the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed the hour and in his four-poster bed the Black Jew tossed and turned in his sleep but did not wake. He was dreaming a dream where smiling dwarves riding piebald ponies were chasing him up a steep hill towards a crumbling monastery. Behind the dwarves a grinning nun turned cartwheels on the dusty road and a clown banged fiercely on a drum.

Moments later he was woken with a start and he sat up in bed, disoriented and sweating profusely. He shook his head to clear the noise of the drum and then realized that someone was banging loudly on his front door.

He turned on the bedside lamp and checked the clock. Ten minutes past midnight. He wondered who would possibly come calling on him at this time of the night. No one ever called on him except the postman and the occasional tramp on the cadge for a few Woodbines or the loan of a bob or two. And why for heaven’s sake were they banging on the door like a lunatic when there was a perfectly good bell to ring? He climbed unwillingly out of bed, crossed the room, pulled back the heavy curtains and looked out of the window into the darkness of the windswept night.

Away through the trees in the orphanage he could see the silhouette of a bent-backed nun pacing across the arched attic window and he shivered.