2004 - Dandelion Soup Read online

  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.

  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.