2004 - Dandelion Soup Read online

  She stared earnestly at the doorway. There! The unforgettable nose and the hypnotic green eyes reappeared. Dear God, she’d know that face anywhere, even after all these years. It couldn’t be! But it was. How could it be so? The owner of those fascinating eyes had been dead and buried for years.

  She closed her eyes momentarily and wondered what on earth this could mean. When she opened her eyes again the fly curtains on Seftora Hipola’s house were jingling noisily. There was no sign of the face but she could hear the sound of someone scurrying away down the lane, and though she leaned over her balcony she saw only a pair of hairy, skinny legs and well-worn heels disappearing round the corner.

  While she was puzzling over this, Sefiora Hipola’s niece Marta came slowly along Pig Lane, lugging a battered old trunk across the cobbles. She paused for a moment outside the Bar Pedro and looked up towards the balcony where Violante stood in the shadows.

  Marta was a beautiful-looking girl but today she looked pale and tearful, her young face smudged with misery. Her heart went out to the girl; it really was quite shameful that she was to be married off to Ramon. Poor Ramon didn’t need a wife, he needed a nursemaid. Violante smiled down at Marta and waved and Marta smiled wanly back, then dragged the trunk angrily through into the house.

  Piadora sat on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands. Her skull was still throbbing and she could barely see through her swollen eye. She supposed by now that Aunt Augusta would have realized that she’d run away and they would be scouring the fields for her at this very moment, but she wasn’t going back, not even if they sent the army for her.

  This morning had been the last straw.

  As usual she had got up at dawn, turned out the hens from the barn, fed them and collected the eggs. She had fetched the goats from the stable and led them down to the lower pasture, swept the veranda, watered the many pots of flowers and drawn three pails of cool water from the well in the yard.

  By the time she had finished her outside chores, Aunt Augusta was already calling out to be washed and dressed. Piadora had boiled more pails of water and filled the bath, lain out clothes on the bed ready for her aunt to wear. She had made café solo into which she had to stir four level spoons of sugar, toasted bread to just the right shade of brown, then drizzled it with two and a half teaspoons of olive oil.

  She had been sent to search the house and find a book on the lives of the great saints, to retrieve a shawl from the veranda and do a host of other jobs that Aunt Augusta was more than capable of doing for herself.

  By noon she had a severe headache and thought that if she remained inside the house a moment longer her head would explode and her mangled brains would spread out across the recently whitewashed walls. Five minutes more of her querulous aunt whining and complaining and ordering her around and she would have committed murder or suicide.

  She had slipped outside to the quiet coolness of the wash-house and defused her pent-up anger doing the washing until gradually the throbbing in her head subsided.

  She hadn’t heard Aunt Augusta creep up behind her, and when the old woman jabbed her in the back with her stick Piadora had jumped and cried out in alarm.

  “My hot chocolate, girl! I’ve been waiting for almost half an hour. I’ve been calling and calling you until I was almost hoarse.”

  “I told you earlier, Aunt, Juanita is late bringing the milk. As soon as she arrives, I will make your chocolate.”

  “And soon, when she leaves the Villa Romano to marry, you will have to go down to the farm to fetch it yourself.”

  “Well, I’ve thought of that and spoken to Benito; he’s willing to bring the milk up each morning.”

  “Benito! You imagine that 111 have him hanging round my house. That dirty, flea-ridden lout of a boy! You think you can moon about making eyes at Benito and neglect your work?”

  “Aunt Augusta, for heaven’s sake, Benito is a boy of barely eighteen. I am nearly forty.”

  “Don’t remind me! Nearly forty years of age and still unmarried; it’s a disgrace to the family. If you’d had a vocation and become a nun, well that might have saved, the family’s face.”

  Piadora had felt her face reddening with anger. If she’d had her way she’d have been married years ago. If her bloody family had allowed her to marry the man she’d loved. But no! Instead she had been sent here with her mother until the baby was born and then afterwards left here to care for Aunt Augusta. She wasn’t supposed to have stayed long, just until everything had been sorted out about the baby. But years had passed and she had never been called home.

  “And if I had gone to the nuns, who would have slaved for you, eh? Who would have skivvied and worn their fingers to the bone for a…for a wicked and manipulative old woman who has covered up an enormous lie for the past twenty-odd years!”

  Aunt Augusta had stood transfixed, her petulant mouth wide with surprise, the cold, hooded eyes flashing with fury. Then she had struck out viciously with her walking stick and caught Piadora a sharp blow around the side of the head.

  When Aunt Augusta spoke, her voice was thick with venom.

  “Remember, my girl, that this house and the allowance that goes with it is mine, a gift from your mother, and I can turn you out at any time. Any time at all! And then where would you go, eh? You are not welcome even in your own home after what you did!”

  Piadora had raised her hand to her head and felt a trickle of sticky blood run slowly down her cheek.

  She had pushed past Aunt Augusta and run out of the wash-house. She did not stop until she reached the crossroads at the end of the lane. She was shaking, her heart thumping painfully.

  Then she’d heard the far-off rumble of wheels and the parp of a horn. The battered old bus had come into sight, drawn to a screeching halt. In a split second she’d made her decision and clambered unsteadily on to the bus.

  She sighed. Tomorrow she supposed she’d have to swallow her pride and go back to Aunt Augusta.

  Padraig stood out on the balcony for a long time, unaware that he was being watched. From a shadowy doorway in Pig Lane a wizened, ragged old man gazed at Padraig in wonder. There was no doubting who the boy was, that was certain. The old man stood there for some time and then slipped in through the doorway of Sefiora Hipola’s house.

  Looking out to the right of the balcony, Padraig had a grand view over the rooftops of the huddled old town. On a distant hill a church tower reached towards the vast blue sky. On top of the tower an enormous bird was perched on a scruffy nest. He stared in fascination. It was the stork, the big bird that delivered babies in the dark of night. He’d seen pictures of the stork in story-books. It brought babies for rich people and left them in wooden cribs with lacy pillows and satin bows and it hid the poor people’s babies in cabbage patches and under gooseberry bushes.

  He smiled to himself then as he remembered the story his mother had told him. He hadn’t been left under a cabbage bush by the stork. He was a love-child, his mammy had said, and he’d to remember that always. Whatever people said about him, he’d to remember that he was a special child and a wanted child. Although some people might call him other things, illegitimate and worse, he had once had a very brave daddy. For a long time after his mammy died he’d hoped there’d been some mistake and that the wind would change and his daddy would come looking for him, come sailing up the river. He hadn’t thought about his daddy in a long time. He didn’t know that much about him even.

  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, fly
ing 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.”