2004 - Dandelion Soup (5 page)

The monk in the other photograph was definitely Brother Anselm, he could tell by the large hooked nose and the determined set of the chin. Michael Leary had never really liked Brother Anselm, there was something not quite right about him, he was a veritable chameleon of a man, a different face for every occasion.

Then his eyes settled on the face of the girl, a beautiful dark-haired girl who reminded him of the girl he’d left behind in Spain. He smiled to himself and his heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t wait to see her again, though God only knew when he’d next be able to get out there.

The chiming of the grandfather clock at seven o’clock woke Solly Benjamin from a restless sleep. He realized that he must have slept the night in the high-backed chair in his sitting room. He stood up stiffly and tiptoed out into the hallway to listen for any sound from upstairs. He wondered now had he dreamed the whole thing, but then he saw the small brown suitcase beside the front door.

He picked it up, carried it into the kitchen and put it on the table. He wondered if the contents of the case would give any clues as to where on earth this child had come from or where she was meant to be going. There were small triangular stickers stuck to both sides of the case, the sort of stickers that tourists bought to show off where they’d been. He fetched his spectacles, put them on and read the names of the places on the stickers. Some of them looked quite recent and others were faded and peeling. Vigo. Leon. Camiga. Burgos. Pamplona. Logrono. Bordeaux. Paris.

Carefully, quietly, he undid the clasps and lifted the lid. The inside of the case smelled faintly of rosemary and tityme, of wild flowers and something else besides. What was it? He sniffed. The unsettling whiff of incense and candle wax.

There was an assortment of grubby clothes in the case: a threadbare dress, a pair of unsightly drawers with string where there should have been elastic. He lifted the clothes out gingerly and put them on the table. The nuns of St Joseph’s would soon sort the child out with a good bath and some ugly but respectable orphanage clothes.

There was a red rag at the bottom of the case and he picked it up. Something was wrapped up inside it and he carefully unwrapped it. He looked at the scallop shell inside and turned it over in his hands. He thought at first it was a cheap tourist souvenir but as he studied it closely he could see that painted upon the smooth inside of the shell was a picture of the Virgin Mary. A tiny figure hardly as big as a child’s finger and yet he could see the soft tired smile on the Virgin’s face, the lift of her eyebrow as though she wanted to ask a question but didn’t know quite how to. Beneath her soft dark eyes there was the shadow of a teardrop. A tremble forming on her parted lips. Whoever had painted this was a very fine artist indeed. Along with the scallop shell was a clumsily made silver rosary with strange heavy milky coloured beads. Whoever this child was, she was obviously a Catholic and no doubt her destination was the orphanage. On closer inspection the red rag was in fact a shrunken, moth-eaten old cardigan. He was about to wrap the small treasures back up when he noticed the label sewn into the back of the cardigan. It was a French label and as he read it his heart missed a beat.
Madame Mireille!
It was, or used to be, a small exclusive shop in the Rue Bernard in Paris. His mother used to shop there when he was a child and he’d spent many a dreary morning staring in boredom at his feet while Madame Mireille had served his mother. She’d probably been dead for years, although perhaps she hadn’t been that old really; children had a strange perspective on the age of adults. The cardigan was made of cashmere and it must have cost a pretty packet in its day. Slowly, thoughtfully, he replaced the things in the case and closed the clasps.

He crept quietly up the stairs and nervously approached the bedroom. The child still slept soundly, her dark hair spread out across the white pillow. One small hand cupped beneath her cheek, a thumb firmly wedged between her lips. He guessed that it would be a long time before the exhausted girl awoke, so he thought he might take a walk down into the village, speak to Dr Hanlon, ask him to visit and check the child over and then arrange for the nuns of St Joseph’s to collect her later.

Siobhan Hanlon rubbed her right ear, which was still smarting from when Nora had yanked her away from the window. She sat on the stool and stared into the dressing-table mirror. She stuffed her tongue behind her bottom lip so that her face ballooned out and she squeezed her eyes to a constipated squint She giggled. Dear God, she looked ugly when she did that.

“Just watch out, Madam Muck, that the wind doesn’t change and you’ll be stuck like that.”

Nora said over her shoulder as she left the room. “Sometimes, Siobhan Hanlon, you can be as bold as the bath! Making eyes at a rough-necked boy like that and you from a good family!”

Siobhan didn’t care. She hoped the wind did change. Anything would be better than being Siobhan Hanlon. Ten going on forty her mammy said. But she wasn’t, she was ten going on eleven and soon she would be sent off to school in England. Following in her mammy’s footsteps. Going to her mammy’s old school so that she could learn to be more English than Irish. She didn’t want to go, she wanted to stay in Ballygurry and go to school local, and then maybe the university in Dublin to learn to be a doctor. When she grew up she’d pull out poor people’s appendix whether they wanted her to or not but she’d do it for free. Or else maybe she’d be a fisherman. Anything rather than go to the soppy school in London where she’d learn shorthand and typing and how to walk properly with a book on her head and cook feckin’ fairy cakes.

She let go of the awful face, stood up and pulled back the curtains. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she’d get another look at Padraig. She liked Padraig O’Mally. Not a little bit but a lot. He was mad, bad and funny; he could make a bloody cat laugh if he put his mind to it.

Siobhan stared out of the window and down into Clancy Street. There was no sign of Padraig. She wondered where he’d been off to at this time of the morning. Up to some mischief no doubt. Then her heart jumped against her ribs. A man was walking down Clancy Street. It was the Black Jew. He lived all alone in the spooky old house at the end of Mankey’s Alley. She’d hardly ever seen him in the flesh. They said he only came out in the dark when decent Christian folk were in bed.

Dear God, now he’d stopped beneath her window. He looked up and down the street as though he was afraid of being followed and then he disappeared from sight. Siobhan moved across to the other side of the bay window to watch where he went, but then she realized that he’d walked through the door that led to Daddy’s surgery.

Fancy that! She knew from listening at keyholes that the Black Jew had hardly ever visited the doctor, or any of the shops in the village. He was like a hermit. Sometimes he went off on the train and didn’t come back for weeks. Perhaps he was seriously ill; maybe he’d been struck down with a terrible disease. The Black Death. You could catch that from rats. She wondered if her mammy got the Black Death would they still make her go to school in London? Maybe she’d get kept at home to lance the boils and stick leeches over Mammy’s belly. Someone would draw a cross on the front door. Atishoo atishoo we all fall down. Anything would be better than being sent away.

Siobhan crept down the back stairs that led to the corridor at the side of the house where the waiting room was situated. Mammy was always telling her to keep out of the waiting room because of all the germs that the poor people from the farms brought in. Daddy didn’t mind her going in there; he said it was an education in itself meeting the world and its wife. There were arguments between Mammy and Daddy over that and Mammy usually won.

She pushed the door open a crack and peeped inside. She liked spying on people. It sent a delicious shiver up her backbone. In London there were loads of spies. There were even shops where they could buy disguises: black moustaches and beards, false noses, spectacles and big hats. Today she was the Mata Hari of Ballygurry.

The Black Jew sat quite still on the old high-backed settle, his head tilted to one side like a bird with an ear out for cats on the prowl. He didn’t look at all scary close up but everyone in Ballygurry said he wasn’t safe to be around. He had wandering hands and filthy habits. They said he made his tea from the water in the toilet.

Siobhan jumped as the Black Jew looked up suddenly. She held her breath.

“The Black Jew spoke to the door. – ’Good morning.”

Siobhan realized with a jolt that he was speaking to her and blushed. She was about to scamper back up the stairs but she could hear Mammy and Nora deep in conversation away over in the kitchen. Curiosity overcame her and she slipped quietly into the waiting room.

“Good morning, Miss Hanlon, I hope that you’re well.”

“Oh, I’ve not come to see Daddy, I mean yes, I am well. And yourself?”

“Tip-top.”

Siobhan tried to keep the disappointment off her face. If the Black Jew was well then why had he come to see her daddy?

The Black Jew smiled. He had a nice smile that made his dark eyes crinkle. You had to be wary though, people practised their smiles to fool children, they bought sweets and chocolate and said would you like to come and see a secret. And then, God help you, you could be murdered and found on a lonely road with your legs round your neck and your gizzards cut out.

“I’ve merely come to consult your father about the health of an orphan.”

Siobhan swallowed hard and wondered if he could read her thoughts.

“An orphan?” she stammered. “It’s not Padraig O’Mally is it? I mean he’s not ill or anything? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was ill mind you, the nuns are real cruel to them at St Joseph’s.”

“They are?” Solly asked.

Siobhan sat down on the other end of the settle, keeping a careful eye on the door. It would be one thing to be caught in the waiting room hobnobbing with the poor, but talking to the Black Jew, that would have Mammy donning a black cap and pronouncing the death sentence. “Siobhan Hanlon, you have been found guilty of smiling at orphans, shaking hands with the poor without wearing gloves and worst of all…”

“How cruel are they, Miss Hanlon?”

“You can call me Siobhan,” she said. “Terrible cruel. They beat them with a stick for the smallest thing and sometimes they lock them in a dark cupboard with spiders. Padraig says that one day he’s going to run away and join the circus.”

Solly Benjamin smiled as he remembered his strange dream of the night before.

“What would he do in the circus then, this Padraig?”

Siobhan smiled.

“Ride elephants, put his head in the lion’s mouth. He says he’d rather look at a lion’s tonsils than stay in St Joseph’s.”

“Does he now?”

“They have grubs in the cabbage and they’re not allowed to leave them on the plate. They have to swallow them without making a fuss for the greater glory of God. And there’s a mad foreign nun that they keep locked in the attic and away from sharp knives.”

Solly smiled kindly. He’d been such a long time away from the company of children that he’d forgotten how funny they were.

Siobhan smiled back. She thought he was a nice man; he was easy to talk to and he didn’t make her feel afraid the way people had warned her.

In the distance the Ballygurry school bell began to toll, and from the kitchen Nora the maid called out impatiently for Siobhan.

“Hell’s teeth, I have to go. Goodbye. If Mammy comes in you’ll not say I’ve been speaking with you?”

“My word, Miss Hanlon, is my bond.”

He sat for a few moments listening to the sound of Siobhan Hanlon galloping up the stairs and then he got up and quietly left the waiting room. He’d call on Dr Hanlon another time. He wasn’t quite ready yet to deliver his blue-eyed sprite into the hands of the nuns of St Joseph’s.

In number nine Clancy Street Miss Nancy Carmichael was getting ready for a busy day. First she was having breakfast with Miss Drew, who ran the village sweet shop, and later that afternoon they were both going to the monthly meeting of the St Joseph’s Orphanage Committee. Nancy always liked to look smart for these occasions, so she took a little more trouble about herself than usual.

She stood in her bedroom in the cool grey light of early morning in front of the oval mirror that had supposedly been a wedding present to her mother. Thinking of her mother she automatically crossed herself and felt tears of anger spring too readily to her eyes. She blinked furiously and made an effort to pull herself together.

It had been such a shock finding the box of letters after her mother’s death, letters that made a mockery of everything she’d ever believed to be true. No wonder her mother had had so many airs and graces, acting like she was better than she was. God, she’d had a dog’s life when her mother was alive. She could never do anything right nothing was ever good enough! Thankfully, though, no one in Ballygurry would ever know the truth about the Carmichael family. If they did, the shame would kill her.

She contemplated her reflection carefully in the mirror. She wasn’t, she supposed, a bad-looking woman considering she was almost forty-five. Although she had noticed of late that the powder she had used since she was a young girl no longer floated across her skin, but filled the wrinkles that were deepening round her mouth. Laughter lines some people called them but Nancy Carmichael had never indulged in a great deal of laughter. She looked more closely; yes, she was definitely getting that dried-up matronly look. She winced; another few years and she would be an old maid. She took a step back from the mirror, stretched out her thin pale lips over her good strong teeth. Then she bared her teeth and scrutinized them. She was very proud of her teeth. Most of the women of her age in the town had lost their teeth and wore false ones, great clacking things that sometimes slipped out when they spoke too fast. Some of them had no teeth at all, real or false, and their faces had sunk into an awful shrunken ugliness. She’d taken good care of her teeth even in the days when money was tight. She had cleaned them night and morning using a little salt and soot from the chimney, rubbing them furiously with a rag twisted round her finger.