2004 - Dandelion Soup (36 page)

“I’m not sure, every time I think I can see it it goes all blurred.”

“It feels as though you have shaken up the dome but all the snow is refusing to settle?”

“Yep.”

“It will settle, Padraig, it will, and then all will be revealed.”

Padraig felt suddenly faint, the smoke from the fire was making his eyes water, the smell of the fish made him nauseous. Muli’s face swam in front of him, a blur of lively eyes and a wobbling grin. He stumbled and Muli took hold of him.

“Here, take a drink of this,” Muli said, and his voice sounded to Padraig as if it came from a faraway place.

Padraig took the leather bag that Muli held out to him and drank deeply.

“Muli,” he said, “when I saw you last night I thought you were the man from the fresco.”

Muli grinned widely.

“And so I am, Padraig, so I am.”

“That’s not possible, though. It was painted hundreds of years ago. You look old, but not that old.”

“Maybe it’s not me exactly but an ancestor of mine.”

Padraig’s head swam as he tried to keep all his thoughts on the go.

Muli went on.

“That’s enough thinking for now. Come with me, Padraig O’Mally, for I have some secrets to show you.”

Muli led him back up the slanting tunnel that led away from the rear of the cave and eventually brought them out in the middle of a large clump of long grass on the mountainside.

“Sit down over there,” said Muli.

Padraig sat cross-legged on the grass.

“Now,” said Muli, “to take your mind off solving mysteries I will show you a few tricks of the nubeiro. Not to be attempted by the faint hearted. Though you could try these out and come to no harm, only those who have the wind in their soul can practise this kind of magic.

“Right. The first thing that I show you is the
fumeira
. It is one way to conjure up a storm but not one to carry out in front of any ladies.”

“Why?”

“No more questions. Watch and see. First I find a molehill. Like this one here.”

Padraig stared at the molehill, a mound of fine earth a few feet away from where Muli stood.

“Then I take off my fine clothes.”

Padraig laughed.

“Now, being a shy fellow I won’t actually strip naked, but I take off the clothes, wrap them in a bundle, place them on the molehill and set light to them. Then, I stand upon them and then…”

Muli’s eyes were glinting with such humour and wickedness that Padraig shivered in anticipation.

“What then?”

“Like magic, I disappear into the sky with the smoke and then da da da, like magic, within moments you have the storm!”

“You mean you can make a storm just like that wherever you want?”

Muli nodded, his face grown very serious now.

“What is the second way?”

“Ah, the second way, and no less successful is the
polyvorina
.”

Padraig rolled the word round on his tongue and enjoyed the feel of it.

“Now I will show you the
polyvorina
.”

“And will we have a storm?”

“But certainly.”

Muli made a low bow to Padraig.

“Senors, senoras, sefioritas, the great and marvellous Muli will perform today for you the
polyvorina
!”

Padraig bit his nails in excitement, never taking his eyes off Muli. The old man beckoned to Padraig and he followed him across the grass to a bare patch of ground that looked as though someone had been busy preparing it for planting. Padraig sat down and watched as Muli scooped up handfuls of dusty earth and began to pile them into a mound.

“The
polyvorina
is perhaps the best one to show you. It wouldn’t do after all to take off my clothes in front of such a grand gentleman as yourself.”

Padraig grinned up at him, laughed aloud.

Muli worked furiously for ten minutes or so and was soon sweating from his efforts.

“Remember these things I show you today, for I am a very old man and my powers grow weaker.”

“I will remember them,” said Padraig honestly, for he had a fine memory.

When the pile of dust was almost as high as Padraig’s head, Muli stepped back and closed his eyes as though he were praying. Padraig wondered what he was going to do next.

After a few moments Muli opened his eyes and smiled, a ragged, comical smile. Then quick as a wink he turned his back and pissed on to the pile of earth.

Padraig leaped to his feet and stared in admiration. Muli pissed as fast and furious as a frightened donkey. He pissed an ocean. As the hot stream hit the pile of earth, dust rose into the air and Muli was soon hidden from his sight.

The dust found its way into Padraig’s throat and made him cough. His eyes watered and he batted at the air with his hands to clear it away.

Slowly, the cloud settled. A thin layer of reddish-brown dust now covered Padraig’s arms and legs. Muli was gone. It was as if he had been spirited away by magic. Padraig turned round and looked across the mountainside. A soft wind stirred the grass, but there was no sign of Muli, not even the mark of his bare feet on the dusty ground.

Padraig called out his name. He turned round and round but there was no sign of the queer little fellow, just the sound of the breeze in the long grass and the shriek of an agitated bird passing overhead.

The sky grew dark, angry purple clouds blanked out the sun and a cool breeze riffled through the grass. Below in the valley cow-bells clanked.

Away in the distance the monastery of Santa Eulalia glowed with an incandescent light. Far away the clouds banked above Camiga, thunder growled and the first fat drops of rain began to fall.

Padraig stretched out his arms wide and ran towards Santa Eulalia, nose-diving, curling and weaving through the clouds of poppies and dandelions that dipped their heads at his passing.

D
onahue had driven on the left-hand side of the road since leaving the ferry, while his passengers huddled down in their seats, eyes covered by trembling hands. In his wake lay a lorry loaded with hay that had swerved too late into a ditch, a cyclist with a limp, and the echo of a stream of French obscenities from pedestrians and motorists from Calais to Paris.

The passengers’ backsides were bruised from the miles of bouncing up and down on the hard leather seats while the French countryside flashed by outside the car windows.

As they had entered a small village, an old man crossing the road waved his stick cheerily at the car. Donahue waved back and put his foot down to the floor.

The side wind took off the old man’s beret.

Chickens scattered, geese flapped their wings and an ancient woman bending down at the side of the road had her skirt blown over her head by the back wind.

Donahue in his mirror looked in amazement at the huge bare French behind.

“
Vive la France!
” screeched Donahue.

Leary, a man to avoid religion whenever he could, muttered a string of Hail Marys and crossed himself at regular intervals.

The car bumped and bounced over a level crossing.

Through the back windscreen they could see a train hurtle past. Startled French railway passengers gawped and raised their Gallic eyebrows. A gendarme at a crossroads blew his whistle and put out a hand to stop the car.

Donahue stopped for no one.

The gendarme crossed himself and then launched himself into a flurry of geranium pots…

As the car pulled up outside the Hotel du Pont stars were bursting into a huge Parisian sky and a full orange moon glowed above the city’s rooftops. Donahue’s passengers uncovered their eyes and staggered exhausted and traumatized on to the pavement.

After a nighfs rest Donahue and Leary sat opposite each other at a table outside the hotel. Donahue picked up a peculiarly shaped bread roll and stared at it curiously.

“What the hell is this?” he asked.

“It’s a croissant, Marty, and it won’t bite. For God’s sake eat the bloody thing and stop examining it,” Michael Leary said, grinning, his eyes twinkling behind his thick spectacles.

Donahue took a bite of the croissant and chewed on it thoughtfully.

“Quite nice for foreign muck. Very tasty actually. Flaky and buttery and very satisfying to the taste buds.”

He took a hearty swig from his bowl of coffee and sighed with pleasure. Sitting there contentedly with Leary at an outside table in Paris not a stone’s throw from the famous River Seine, Donahue decided that he was having the time of his life and wondered why he’d never taken to the road and travelled before.

“I never imagined I’d enjoy being on foreign soil this much. Mind you, the way they drive over here is enough to send you on the bloody drink. Behind the wheel they’re all lunatics!”

Michael Leary rolled his eyes skywards. Being in the passenger seat next to Donahue had been the only time in his life that he had ever rejoiced in his appalling eyesight. Donahue just aimed the car in the direction he wanted to go and God help anyone who got in his way.

The two men were taking breakfast while they waited for Solly Benjamin and Dancey to return from their quest to discover if Madame Mireille still kept the dress shop on the Rue Bernard.

“Do you think they’ll discover anything about this red cardigan that Dancey has in her suitcase?” Donahue asked.

“God only knows. It looked like a bloody dishrag to me, but it had the label in it saying Madame Mireille, so I suppose every avenue, or
rue
, as they say over here, has to be explored. Still, are you glad you came, Donahue?”

“Indeed I am. Spur of the moment decision and all that. I’d love to have seen their faces in Ballygurry the day after we’d gone.”

“Ah, their tongues will be hanging out waiting for a drink in Donahue’s, eh?”

“Ah, not that long. I posted the keys to Dermot Flynn, asking him to look after it in my absence; he always had designs on running the place anyway.”

“You can’t beat a bit of travel, Marty. There was no future for me in Ballygurry; I’d already received notice to quit with all the kids going off.”

“Ah, I should have shifted my lazy arse out of Ballygurry years ago. Michael, will you order me a couple more of these crotchet thingies, I’m bloody ravenous.”

Leary signalled for the waiter, lit a cigarette and smiled across at Donahue. He’d never seen him looking so happy, he was positively glowing, like an overgrown and overexcited kid.

Solly and Dancey took a taxi to the Rue Bernard and stood looking up and down the street Solly didn’t hold out much hope of finding the shop after all this time. Madame Mireille had seemed ancient when he was a boy; it was a shot in the dark all right.

He held Dancey’s hand as they walked together along the street looking at all the shop fronts. There was no sign of the dress shop, and Solly thought that it had probably closed years ago.

They crossed the road and looked on the other side, but with no success. Solly was about to call it a day and return to the hotel when an old man came shuffling along the street towards them. Solly called out to him and marvelled at how, despite all the years away, his own command of French had come back to him since his arrival in the country.

The old man looked up with rheumy eyes, squinted at Solly and cocked his head on one side. He was very hard of hearing and Solly had to repeat his question several times. The old man pondered for some time and then walked away. Solly looked down at Dancey and shrugged, and then the old man glanced over his shoulder and beckoned Solly and Dancey impatiently to follow him.

They followed him back along the Rue Bernard and turned left down a dark alleyway where the old man stopped in front of a small shop. Looking up, Solly was delighted to see the familiar name, faded now, above the window. Madame Mireille.

Of course! He’d thought that the shop was on the Rue Bernard; he remembered now that it was the patisserie that was on the Rue Bernard, where they used to stop after his mother had finished her interminable clothes shopping.

He thanked the old man profusely, then opened the door, and he and Dancey stepped inside the shop. Solly felt about ten years old again as the familiar smells of face powder and strong lavender perfume assailed his nostrils, and though he couldn’t see anyone out in the shop, he could sense that Madame Mireille was somewhere close at hand.

He coughed loudly and shuffled his feet. A faded green chenille curtain which hung down over a door at the back of the shop suddenly stirred and a withered, bent-backed old woman appeared. Madame Mireille felt her way towards them painfully, slowly, and Solly realized with a shock that she was blind.

He spoke first and watched with delight as her face broke into a fond smile and she held out her cheek for him to kiss.

“Ah, Solomon,” she said, “it’s many years since you’ve been here. Such a bored little boy always when you came here with Maman. And she was a very beautiful woman, was she not?”

“She was, Madame Mireille.”

“But you haven’t come all this way to talk about your mother, eh?”

“No. I’ve come to see if I could find out something, to try and solve a mystery.”

Madame Mireille listened intently, and when he’d finished speaking she nodded slowly. Solly put the red cashmere cardigan into her wrinkled old hands. She felt the material carefully between her twisted fingers, searching out the small buttons on the front of the cardigan. Finding one, she traced a finger carefully round its shape.

“Ballet slippers,” she said, and smiled knowingly.

Solly looked closely at the buttons. He hadn’t taken much notice of them before, buttons were merely buttons, after all.

“Mademoiselle Martinez,” she said brightly.

Then she began to jabber away at incredible speed and Solly had to ask her to speak more slowly.

It transpired that Señora Isabella Martinez used to buy many clothes from Madame Mireille when she came to stay in Paris.

“She brought a man with her sometimes, her brother, she said he was. Brother, my arse! I am not as green as I’m cabbage looking. He was supposed to be some sort of an artist The way they looked at each other there was no way he was her brother. Her lover more like!”