2004 - Dandelion Soup (32 page)

The breeze dropped as she neared the Blue Madonna and the sun felt hot on her face. She kneeled down at the feet of the statue and made the sign of the cross. It was a very old statue by the look of it; the body was quite crudely carved and yet the face was a masterpiece of emotions. She put out her hand and felt the madonna’s cheek; it was smooth and cool to the touch. As she touched the shadowy tear on the face, she felt a tremor of emotion run through her.

Taking the piece of paper that she had already written on, she placed it on a nail at the feet of the madonna, where it fluttered in the breeze. Then she got to her feet slowly and carried on down the track. The few crumbling houses of the hamlet were run down and looked deserted except for the thin wreaths of smoke that drifted up from the chimneys of two of them. She supposed that years ago it must have been a pleasant little place in which to live, very isolated but exceptionally beautiful. The views down the valley were absolutely magnificent. She walked quickly and quietly past the houses, not wanting to disturb anyone inside. From an opened window a boy of about eighteen watched her curiously, a half-witted boy by the look of him. His mouth hung open and dribble ran down his chin. He waved his hand slowly, laboriously. Nancy waved nervously back and hurried on her way.

Just past the last house she turned down a narrow track that led towards the river. Taking off her shoes, Nancy felt the grass soft and cool beneath her feet. She walked for a long way down the track that was bordered on the right by a dense pine forest.

Occasionally she stopped and listened. All she could hear was the sound of birdsong and the occasional clank of what she guessed must be a cow-bell. There was something else, though; she was sure that she could hear the sound of footsteps on the grass some distance behind her.

What if it was a brown bear? She’d heard that there were bears up here in the mountains. Dear God, she could be eaten alive. For God’s sake, Nancy! Chiding herself for her stupidity, she carried on her way. After a while she arrived at the riverbank and followed the fast-flowing river further down the valley.

The day was glorious, the sound of the water soothing to her ears. The sun rose higher into the wide blue sky and the last wisps of cloud evaporated above the mountain peaks.

Further downstream she sat down thankfully for a rest near a sheltered pool. A bee buzzed nearby and a hawk screamed overhead and plummeted to the earth. A dragonfly skimmed the water and a butterfly rested on a quivering blade of grass at her side. She felt as though she was completely alone in the world.

Nancy lay back on the grass, her head pillowed by a mound of soft moss. She closed her eyes, felt the sun’s rays dappling her eyelids and she began to doze, completely unaware that two pairs of eyes watched her intently from the cover of the wood.

When she awoke some time later she felt drunk with the heat. It was unbelievably hot. Already her pale shins were turning pink in the sun. Slowly, she slipped off her tweed skirt and jumper and sat in her cotton petticoat and drawers. She wondered if she dared step into the cool water and paddle to cool herself down.

She kneeled down at the water’s edge and peered into the sparkling water. It didn’t look too deep close to the bank but it was hard to gauge how deep it was further out towards the middle. She was wary of water because she had never learned to swim so she wanted to be sure that it would be safe. She leaned forward, backside in the air, quite unaware of the sudden movement behind her. She had already hit the water face first by the time she realized that she had been pushed.

She opened her mouth to scream but she disappeared beneath the cold water, the scream never making it past her lips. Water rushed into her nose and throat as she sank deeper into the sparkling, whirling, weedy depths.

Padraig stayed in the Great Hall for a long time, looking intently at the fresco and trying to work out the story that was being told. Then he left Brother Bernardo to continue with his chores and took a walk down the track to see the statue of the Blue Madonna, hoping that he’d catch up with Nancy, but there was no sign of her anywhere.

He shrugged, whistling softly to himself; she must have got bored and gone back up to the monastery for a lie down. Grown-ups did a lot of lying down.

Padraig kneeled down and examined the Blue Madonna and as he did he felt a tingle of excitement run up his backbone. It was a very old statue, that was for sure. He couldn’t tell what it was made from but it was very cool to the touch. He rapped it with his knuckles. Ouch! It was made of something bloody hard. Picking up a small sharp stone, he scratched the paint near the base of the statue. A flake of dark-blue paint fell away, revealing another. Layer upon layer of slightly different shades of blue paint. He scratched the paint again and sighed. There must be twenty layers at least. Underneath the very last layer of blue paint he came to white stone and, sadly, definitely not gold. This one wasn’t the lost Irish virgin either! He’d got quite excited about this statue, wondered if it had been Santa Eulalia where the Irish monks had stayed. He examined the statue inch by inch but there were no clues to be found. He was about to try and squeeze in behind the grotto and get a proper look when he heard a noise nearby. He looked down towards the houses. A man had come out of one of them, crossed into a barn and come back out carrying a large stick. The look on his face startled Padraig; the man looked absolutely furious. Padraig ducked down and watched curiously as the man stalked off down the track and then turned to his left down a smaller track. Padraig didn’t like the look of him one bit! Abandoning his examination of the statue, he decided he’d come back another time and get a better look.

As he climbed the track he looked up towards Santa Eulalia. The steep walls seemed to have been built into the rock face itself. He could see the arched window of the room where he and Father Daley had slept, the very window that the artist Luciano had drawn in his painting. A few windows along to the left he saw a light shining. For a moment he thought it was the reflection of the sun on a mirror. Screwing up his eyes, he peered up at the window and he knew instantly that he was being watched. Someone was standing at the window with binoculars watching him as he made his way back up the track to Santa Eulalia. He knew instinctively that it was old Brother Anselm, the monk who gave him the willies.

Despite the ferocity of the midday sun, Brother Francisco walked all the way from the station in Los Olivares to Santa Eulalia. The track was steep and the going hard but he needed time alone to think before he got back to the monastery. His mind was in absolute turmoil, racing feverishly to try to make sense of all that he had learned at the Villa Castelo.

He cursed himself now for his own crass stupidity; his shallow acceptance of what he had been told and foolishly believed without questioning for all those years. What an imbecile he’d been! For God’s sake! He’d just believed everything he’d been told and never thought logically about anything at all.

He had grown up on the estate of the Villa Castelo; Piadora had been his second cousin. She had been more than that, though! She had been a friend, a soul-mate, indeed for a while as a teenager he’d been quite besotted with her.

He’d been away studying at the seminary in Barcelona when she’d written to say that she was at a finishing school in Paris and was having the time of her life.

Then she’d stopped writing and he’d heard that she had been whisked away from Paris to her aunfs house in the country, and he like everyone else had assumed the worst.

The gossip was that she’d had an unsuitable relationship while she was staying in France, got herself pregnant and been sent off until the baby was born. That she had never returned to the Villa Castelo was natural, the shame would have been too great amongst the aristocratic circles in which she’d moved.

Her mother Isabella had taken on the illegitimate child as her own. He remembered the child vaguely; he’d seen her on his few trips back while his parents were still alive. She was a very pretty girl but spoiled and petted like a lap dog. Everyone had pitied Isabella when the child turned out badly and had run off at sixteen with one of the labourers. Like mother like daughter they’d said and shaken their heads. Bad blood would out in the end they’d said. The saintly Isabella had done her Christian duty and look how she had been repaid!

Isabella Martinez! She was no saint, that was for sure. She’d always had a way, though, of fooling people into thinking she was good. He had never liked her when he was a child; he’d been afraid of her withering looks, her caustic tongue. The instincts of children were pretty sure indicators he’d always thought. She was a shrewd, cunning woman who wouldn’t let anyone stand in her way. He remembered his mother telling him that when they were children she’d drowned her own twin sister’s pet rabbit and then put the blame on her. She was a powerful woman and not to be trusted.

Now he knew the truth, but it was too late to make amends. He trembled with the enormity of the knowledge imparted to him.

Piadora hadn’t had a baby at all! She’d never been pregnant. It was all a pack of lies! The fact that she’d had a liaison with some chap was just used as an excuse. It was Isabella who had given birth to the child! She had hurried Piadora away to her younger sister Augusta, who must have been in on the deception. At the time Isabella’s husband had been out in South America so it had been easy to cover up.

Months later she had returned to the Villa Castelo with the baby but Piadora had not returned with her. Piadora had been left, banished, blamed and ignored. Bad blood would out! Isabella’s blood!

May she rot in hell! He grew red in the face as he climbed the track to Santa Eulalia. Isabella hadn’t told him who the father of the child was. She had told him, however, that she had not left the monastery to the brothers as she had promised Brother Anselm. Brother Francisco sighed; Santa Eulalia was breathing its last. Now he had to impart the news to the monks. They would have a few months at the most before they were asked to leave.

Brother Anselm watched Padraig avidly as the boy bent down to inspect the statue thoroughly. His hands shook and he had to grasp the binoculars tightly to keep the boy in his sights. He was a clever little devil this one, that was for sure; poking his nose into things that didn’t concern him.

Brother Bernardo had told him earlier how lovely it was that the boy had been so interested in those damned frescoes. But he wouldn’t get his hands on Anselm’s treasures, not if he had anything to do with it. He’d made damned sure that that other meddlesome Irishman Leary had stopped snooping about. A couple of pot-shots had laid him low and dampened his curiosity.

The boy looked up at where Brother Anselm stood at the window and as he did the monk drew back inside the room. As the boy climbed the path and got closer he trained the binoculars on his face, watching him until he turned the bend and was lost to sight.

He remained at the window for some time until eventually he saw Brother Francisco toiling doggedly up the track. As he got closer, Brother Anselm saw the expression on his face and he knew without being told that as Isabella Martinez had approached death she had needed to confess. He wondered with a shudder just how much she had told Brother Francisco.

He swivelled now and looked to his left out across the meadows. As he steadied the binoculars he noticed the small man standing motionless in the long grass. Brother Anselm knew that the man was looking back at him and a tight knot of fear twisted in his guts.

When Nancy Carmichael failed to appear for lunch and by late afternoon still hadn’t arrived back at the monastery, Father Daley began to get worried. He sent Padraig off into the grounds to look for her while he looked round inside the monastery. Although Padraig searched among the barns and in the kitchen garden there was no sign of Nancy anywhere.

Padraig and Father Daley walked down the track towards the hamlet calling out her name as they went.

“Where on earth do you think she’s gone to? I mean there’s no shops or anything around,” Father Daley said.

“The thing is, Father, she’s been acting a bit odd lately.”

“How do you mean, Padraig?”

“Well, she drinks wine for a start, and Miss Drew and her were always preaching about the evils of the demon drink back in Ballygurry.”

“I suppose.”

“And,” said Padraig, “she has taken to going without her stockings; now, that is very odd, don’t you think?”

“Is it?”

“Of course! Have you ever seen Miss Carmichael’s bare legs before?”

“Er, no, not that I’ve noticed.”

“And she laughs more.”

“That’s true.”

On the side of the riverbank they found her lace-up shoes and a folded handkerchief but there was no sign of Nancy Carmichael.

It was cool and dark in the monastery chapel. Brother Francisco entered quietly and found Brother Anselm and Brother Thomas near the front of the chapel on their knees, heads bent in prayer.

Brother Francisco kneeled beside them breathing heavily, his heart beating rapidly. Brother Thomas smiled across at Francisco, got to his feet and left the chapel.

When Francisco was sure that they were alone he said, “Don’t beat about the bush, Anselm. You knew Isabella Martinez well for many years. Tell me the truth. Did you know about the baby?”

Brother Anselm turned round slowly to face Brother Francisco.

“I did, God forgive me,” he said and lowered his eyes.

“And you did nothing?”

“What exactly did Isabella tell you?”

“That she was pregnant by a man who wasn’t her husband and the only way she could save face was by pretending the baby was Piadora’s, to save her marriage. It was a despicable, disgraceful thing to do to her own child.”

“That’s true, Francisco, but her husband by all accounts was a very jealous man. He would have gone berserk if he’d known the truth, probably killed her. She was a desperate woman, you understand.”