2004 - Dandelion Soup (3 page)

The banging continued but he could not see anyone down in the garden. He switched off the lamp and looked again.

Moonlight flickered softly through the branches of the restless trees and lit up the path.

Suddenly he gasped. He stared in astonishment then growing alarm at the vision below. He tried to recall how many whiskies he’d drunk after his evening meal. He was sure it was just the two as was his habit but perhaps he’d poured larger measures than usual? He put on his spectacles and looked again. It had to be a trick of the moonlight. He closed his eyes, opened them and blinked rapidly. Whatever it was, it was still down there banging away madly on his front door.

He breathed deeply. He was a logical man most of the time and he pondered now on the likelihood of a dwarf turning up on his doorstep at this unearthly hour. For standing down there in his garden was what looked like one of the dwarves from his dream.

The banging stopped. The dwarf stepped back from the door and stood quite still, patiently staring solemnly up at him with enormous eyes that sparkled in the moonlight.

His heart was beating wildly. He struggled to steady his erratic breathing. Be rational, he told himself; if he went down and opened the door he was hardly likely to be overpowered by a dwarf and bludgeoned to death in his own porch, was he?

The night air was cold and he shivered. The wind whined mournfully around the old house. He snatched up his dressing gown, hurried down the wide staircase and unbolted the front door. As he opened the door a strong gust of icy wind blew into the hallway bringing with it a swirling whirlwind of leaves.

Solly Benjamin blinked rapidly and shook his head like a man emerging from cold water. He wasn’t dreaming at all. He stared in amazement at the small person standing before him. It wasn’t a dwarf, but a small white-faced child who was shivering uncontrollably. A little girl with a cloud of dark hair that framed her ghostly face, a face etched deeply with hunger and tiredness. She was dressed in a dark cloak with a hood and from beneath the cloak two thin legs dropped down into enormous scarecrow boots. Beside her on the path was a small battered suitcase. She looked like a dirty-faced wide-eyed fairy escaped from the mists of time. They stared at each other but neither of them spoke. Solly leaned forward and peered more closely at the child.

She looked like a wartime evacuee, for round her neck was hung a length of cord bearing a name-tag.

It must be some mistake. She must be one of the orphans on her way to St Joseph’s and had somehow got lost.

At last he opened his mouth to speak but as he did so the girl stumbled forward; her eyes closed, her legs buckled and she slumped to the floor. Solly rushed forward, gathered her up in his arms and picked up the battered suitcase. He marvelled at the lightness of her as he carried her into the house. He shut the door with his foot and wondered what on earth he was to do with her.

He looked down at the child. Her eyelids fluttered, she opened her eyes for a moment and smiled weakly up at him. She had the most beautiful blue eyes he’d ever seen, and long dark eyelashes that cast sweeping shadows across her pale cheeks.

Outside the wind was howling now. There was nothing for it, it was too late to do anything. He’d have to keep her for the night. None of the beds in the spare rooms was aired so he’d have to put her in his own bed. When she woke in the morning, perhaps he’d get Dr Hanlon to take a look at her and then deliver her to the nuns at St Joseph’s.

He carried her slowly up the stairs and laid her down on his own bed. He undid the ties of the cloak round her neck, slipped the name-tag over her head and put it on the bedside table. He removed the worn-down boots from her feet. She did not stir but he was relieved to hear that her breathing was regular. He pulled the bedclothes up around her, left on the light in case she woke and was afraid of the dark. Then he tiptoed down the stairs and into the sitting room where he poured himself a very stiff whiskey.

Sister Agatha burst through the door of the Guardian Angels dormitory like a medieval soldier breaking down a drawbridge. She stood beside Padraig O’Mally’s bed, raised her arm and rang the handbell with a vengeance. The noise of the bell reverberated around the sparsely furnished room. Ten pairs of hands were flattened over ears and a terrified mouse skittered across the icy linoleum and fled behind the broken skirting board. “In the name of the Father and of the Son…” Blankets were thrown back hastily and twenty bony knees hit the linoleum with a communal thud. The boys, their fingers numbed by the cold, made the sign of the cross and a mumbling of prayers hissed through chattering teeth.

Aremen.

“O’Mally!”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Sister Veronica wishes to speak with you now.”

The other boys in the dormitory looked across at O’Mally and wondered what he’d done now. He was always in trouble. Sister Veronica couldn’t stand the sight of him. O’Mally was the oldest boy in the room, ten going on eleven but small for his age like most of them were. He was a dark-haired boy and if nature had been left alone he would have had a mop of shiny dark curls, but Sister Veronica took the scissors to him regularly and savagely as though his hair were an affront to decency. Padraig had deep-blue lively eyes that glistened in the half-light of the bleak dormitory.

“Shift yourself, O’Mally!”

Sister Agatha turned her back on O’Mally and began her morning inspection round of the dormitory, sniffing and pulling back sheets. O’Mally flicked her a two-fingered salute, winked at Donny Keegan who smiled shyly back. Then he pulled on his grey shorts and woollen jersey, pulled on his darned socks, thrust his feet into his boots and left the room.

Sister Veronica was waiting for him down in the hallway. She was a cold grey figure of a woman, her enormous feet splayed on the green linoleum at ten to two like the hands of the station clock.

Mr Leary had told them a story about King Midas and said that everything he touched turned to gold. With Sister Veronica and her band of nuns it was the opposite, everything they touched turned grey or brown or bogey-coloured green. The uniforms, the paint, the lino, and they even managed to wash the colour out of the food. The porridge was grey and lumpy as sick, cabbage the colour of old men’s phlegm, the mutton brown and gristly.

Padraig looked up at Sister Veronica. It was a long way to look for a small boy. She was almost as tall as the top of the door. Sister Veronica had eyes like pools of stagnant bog water and her eyebrows were birds frozen in flight above her arctic face.

“I have some messages to be run and seeing as you are supposedly the quickest runner in St Joseph’s I have chosen you, O’Mally. Hopefully the exercise will tire you out and keep you out of trouble for a few welcome hours.”

Padraig sighed. He’d miss his breakfast not that it was ever worth eating, but at least it kept the hunger pains away.

“There are two letters to be delivered. The first one is for Miss Carmichael at number nine Clancy Street and the second for Miss Drew at the sweet shop. And keep your hands to yourself if you have reason to step inside there.”

Padraig didn’t like Miss Drew one little bit She was horrible and he wondered why a crabby old thing like her would want to keep a sweet shop. She hated kids. You could tell just by the way her lips thinned up and her nose twitched at the sight of them.

Padraig took the letters from Sister Veronica. He winced at the touch of her skin, like the feel of a well-chilled corpse.

“And lastly, you’ve to run down to the schoolhouse and tell Mr Leary that I wish to see him at the end of school today.”

Padraig’s spirits lifted at the sound of Mr Leary’s name but he bit the inside of his cheeks to keep the smile off his face. Sister Veronica didn’t like Mr Leary; her nostrils widened like a spooked horse when she said his name.

Mr Leary was brilliant Better than Mr Gobshite Flynn the last schoolmaster, who had only ever told them what they couldn’t do. Mr Leary was dead clever and he never used the stick on them, not even the once.

Once he’d shown them pictures of a chameleon. Chameleons could change the colour of their skin to match their surroundings, so their enemies couldn’t see them to catch them. It was called camouflage. He’d like to be a chameleon. In St Joseph’s he’d have to change his colour to dull colours, grey, green and brown.

At school though he’d have to work hard to be a chameleon. He’d have to be all kinds of colours there. Mr Leary’s classroom was full of colours. Chameleons were dead good but not as good as the invisible man. Now, he was something else. He wrapped himself round and round in white bandages and when he took them off no one could see him. God, if only he could be the invisible boy just for a day he’d have some fun all right. He’d fill Sister Veronica’s shoes with steaming donkey shite. He’d put live crabs in Sister Arseface’s bed, no, dead ones; it wouldn’t be fair on the crabs. He’d stick out his foot and trip her up. Arse over tit. He’d ram a piece of the sloppy grey fish that they were served up on Fridays right up her snotty nose.

Sister Veronica opened the front door with an enormous key that she kept on a chain hidden beneath the folds of her stiff grey habit. He’d read somewhere that you could make a wax impression of a key and make a copy, only he didn’t know quite how to do it. He’d have to puzzle his brains over that one.

Padraig stepped outside the door and breathed deeply. He loved the smells of the early morning, the dew and the nettles, cuckoo spit and steaming cow shit, the breath of foxes on the run.

He ran away down the gravel drive, kicking up his heels like a colt pumping his arms, and listening to the lively beat of his heart.

High above him in the lightening sky a bird soared upwards and a squirrel chattered at him from a hole in a twisted old tree. Over in Kenny’s broken-down farm a scabby dog barked excitedly.

Clancy Street was quiet The curtains were still drawn on the windows, of the cottages but fires had been lit and smoke coiled up lazily from the chimneys.

As he passed Dr Hanlon’s house, the only big house on Clancy Street he heard someone tapping at an upstairs window. He looked up to see Siobhan Hartlon standing at the window in her nightclothes, waving at him. God, Siobhan gave him the irrits, she was always smiling at him in class and making mad cow eyes at him. No harm in her though. He gave her a lazy half smile. She blew him a kiss and he blushed, then suddenly a hand pulled Siobhan roughly away from the window. Dr Hanlon’s maid Nora filled the window frame, waggled her finger at Padraig and pulled the curtains fiercely shut.

Miss Nancy Carmichael was on the orphanage committee and came to meetings at St Joseph’s. She was always in St Bridget’s church polishing the pews and tidying up the flowers. He posted the letter carefully through the letterbox and headed on down towards Miss Drew’s shop, which was on the other side of Clancy Street.

The brown paper blinds were pulled down over the window hiding the display of sweets from his view. He bent down and pushed the letterbox open and peeped into the shop. It was dark inside but he could make out the outline of the huge jars of sweets on the shelves, the bran tub in the corner…

He pushed the note quickly through the letterbox and ran off down the street.

Ballygurry School was a hop skip and a jump from the beach. It was a grey stone building divided into two. On one side was the school with its one big classroom and cloakroom. On the roof there was a rusty bell that was rung for the start and end of school. In the other half of the building was the schoolmaster’s house.

Padraig stood in front of Mr Leary’s door. He was nervous about knocking. What if Mr Leary came out in his nightshirt? What if he disturbed him when he was out the back on the lav?

He rapped the door knocker timidly, shuffled his feet and waited. There was no answer. He knocked again, louder this time. He felt shy about seeing Mr Leary out of school hours.

“Will you mind out of the way you blithering eejit!”

Padraig jumped back in alarm as the door was flung open and Mr Leary stood before him, his eyes screwed up against the light. He was only half dressed in a cream vest and corduroy trousers and his braces dangling down to his knees.

“S-sorry, sir, but Sister Veronica told me to…”

Mr Leary smiled.

“Oh, it’s you, Padraig, my eyes are not the best in the morning. And the eejit I was referring to was the dog and not yourself. Come in, do, and tell me what message the warm-hearted Sister Veronica has for me today?”

Padraig hadn’t expected to be asked inside the schoolmaster’s house.

“She wants to see you after school, sir.”

“Well now, Padraig, the anticipation of such a meeting fills the heart of a poor man with hope.”

Padraig gawped at Mr Leary.

Mr Leary smiled again.

“Come in, Padraig, I’m only teasing. It’s cold out there. Get inside and warm yourself up for a while. Mind the dog, the lazy beast wouldn’t move if his ar – his behind was on fire.”

Padraig stepped inside the house and carefully skirted the Mack and white collie that lay sprawled across the hallway.

“Nice dog, sir.”

“It’s not mine, Padraig, he knows I’m a soft touch and comes down from one of the farms to warm his behind and cadge a bit of food.”

Padraig looked around him in wonder. He’d only ever had a peep inside the house when the last schoolmaster was here. Then it was drab and dingy with withered palm crosses stuck to the yellowing walls and flypapers curling in the breeze. Now it was like no house he had been in before. The walls were whitewashed as most of the little houses were in Ballygurry, but hung upon Mr Leary’s walls were enormous paintings. They weren’t the usual sort of paintings of suffering saints and pale-faced sinners writhing in agony, but big colourful pictures in wonderful bright colours that made his eyes ache. Paintings that made your mouth water, paintings as tantalizing as sweets.

Sometimes, as a treat, if they did well in class, Mr Leary let the kids use his own private paint box. Jeez, it was wonderful.

Crimson, Cobalt, Carmine, Cadmium. Magenta, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna. Lovely names to wrap around your tongue. All the colours of nature in the one box.