2004 - Dandelion Soup (45 page)

She sniffed the air. Nancy Angeles was already busy in her kitchen and soon the bar in the café would be laden with dishes of mouth-watering tapas.

Nancy and Rosendo’s sons, Gregorio and Martino, would soon arrive along with other hungry men, all of them exhausted from a morning’s work on the monastery land that stretched far down the valley.

Marta picked up the battered binoculars from the window-sill and lifted them to her eyes.

Further down the valley she could see a small figure toiling up the track towards Santa Eulalia. A traveller or a pilgrim who had lost their way, maybe.

Training the binoculars in the other direction she could see two old men walking slowly across the meadows, talking animatedly together. They could talk for Spain thosetwo!

Soon, when all the talking had tired them out, they would stroll down the track, pause before the statue of the Blue Madonna for a few moments and then make their way to Rosendo’s bar. There they would douse their hot tongues with beer and fill their bellies with Nancy’s delicious food.

She smiled to herself as she watched them. Solly had his arm under Michael’s to give him support and was leading him carefully, making sure that he didn’t stumble. She choked back a tear. She found it hard sometimes to see him so helpless. Still, it wouldn’t do to be maudlin, and Michael, God love him, coped with his blindness so well.

Putting down the binoculars, she picked up a feather duster and waved it briskly across furniture and walls, and thought that one day they really must fill in those bullet holes in the plaster.

Down in the monks’ graveyard, Piadora Benjamin walked slowly among the wooden crosses, stopping here and there to read a name.

BROTHER TOMAS 1840-1927

BROTHER ALOYSIUS 1889-1943

BROTHER FRANCISCO 1903-1947

She smoothed the top of the cross and thought fondly of Brother Francisco. He’d died far too young but at least he’d known that Santa Eulalia had been saved.

She walked on through the maze of wooden crosses that marked the lives of generations of monks who had lived and died at Santa Eulalia.

She kneeled now before a stone headstone and closed her eyes.

She offered up a prayer for her aunt, Therese Martinez, whom she had met for the first time that incredible night long ago in Santa Anna. She smiled as she remembered poor Sister Perpetua’s face when she and Marta had been discovered masquerading as postulants. Dear God, they’d been a sorry pair of would-be nuns in the making.

She turned her thoughts again to Therese, sweet, eccentric Therese who had, thank God, been able to spend the last happy years of her life here at Santa Eulalia reunited with her childhood sweetheart Muli.

Piadora opened her eyes and stood up. She looked out across the meadow and saw him standing there in the long grass, a small wizened figure dressed in rags, smiling wistfully in her direction.

A thickset, handsome American stepped off the boat in Camiga and made his way across the cobbled stones towards the cannery. He checked his map, found Pig Lane marked on it and set off with a spring in his step.

He glanced occasionally at his map, turning it round to get his bearings. He went down a few blind alleys before finally finding himself in a beautiful square. He wandered across to a fountain in the centre of the square and sat down on the side of it, marvelling at the beautiful statue of a small boy taking an eternal leak into the fountain.

He looked up to see a tall thin bespectacled man approaching him from the direction of the church. The man smiled and pointed excitedly at the statue as he got closer.

“That’s damned odd,” he said, squinting through his spectacles.

“How do you mean? It looks good to me.”

“Well, I was here many years ago and I swear to God that boy was pissing in the other direction.”

He looked down at a book he was carrying.

“Another funny thing, it’s lost weight See, here in this guide book it says that the statue of the boy weighs so many kilos, but I remember it used to be heavier than that.”

He shrugged, scratched his head and walked away.

The American watched him go, got up and strolled on. He turned into a narrow alleyway and walked on past a bar above which a sign creaked ominously, and then he saw the door to the gallery.

He had come to Spain with the intention of buying a Luciano and he wasn’t planning on returning to the States until he had one.

A few years ago he had managed to buy one in New York at considerable expense from the widow of Melville Smith. And now it held pride of place in his home in Manhattan.

As he stepped inside the gallery a bell tinkled lackadaisically above his head. The assistant, who was engrossed in a book at her desk, looked up and got to her feet but he gesticulated that she should remain seated.

She smiled up at him; he was a handsome man and everything about him from his sleek haircut to his beautifully pressed clothes indicated wealth.

He walked across the room and stood before an enormous canvas. It was a painting of what looked like a gigantic teardrop that magnified a section of an ancient wrinkled cheek.

As he looked closer he realized that the tear drop reflected a group of people.

A blue-eyed boy with a look of absolute wonder and joy on his face.

Two nuns clinging together in terror.

A man whose eyes were hidden by thick-lensed spectacles, and a tall sad-faced man with a wide-eyed little girl cradled in his arms…

The gallery assistant watched the man furtively as he put his hand to his head and stepped back from the painting as if alarmed by it.

Then he seemed to pull himself together and walked further down the gallery, his soft-soled shoes whispering across the boards.

He stood solemnly before another picture and the girl could see the rise and fall of his chest, the rapid pulse movement in his neck.

The painting before him looked like part of a horse trough. There were two small hands holding on to the sides, knuckles white and sinewy with shock. The vague reflection of a boy’s face in the water. A big-eared boy with huge astonished eyes…

He moved on slowly down the gallery. At the next painting he threw back his head and laughed so loudly that the assistant dropped her book.

The picture showed a bewildered nun climbing out of a trunk, one hairy leg hooked over the side. The nun had a look of absolute triumph on her face and in her hand she was clutching a tin of corned beef! By God, he’d give anything to meet this Luciano fellow!

He turned away from the painting and saw the assistant looking at him with undisguised interest.

“I’ll take that one,” he said, indicating the teardrop painting and pulling out his wallet.

“Not for sale, I’m sorry.”

“That one then.”

“Not for sale.”

He smiled at her, ran his fingers through his beautifully cut hair and hurried out of the door, leaving behind the scent of his aftershave and the echo of the bell…

The woman climbed steadily up the rough track, the sun hot on her pale face, burning the backs of her calves. It was early evening by the time she reached the small hamlet and she was completely exhausted. She slumped down gratefully into a chair beneath the shade of an umbrella, lit a cigarette and closed her eyes.

When she opened them she was embarrassed to find that an old man was standing next to her, looking down at her expectantly.

She ordered a lemonade and a tortilla and was delighted that he understood her Spanish, because for the last two years she had struggled at a night class to learn the basics.

When she felt revived she stood up, struggled to wriggle back into her rucksack, paid her bill and went on her way.

Further along the track she paused before a statue that was set into a grotto which had at some time been carved out from the rock. She kneeled down and looked curiously at the small pieces of paper that were stuck on to rusty nails at the feet of the madonna. She smiled. The pieces of paper were prayer requests, no doubt. Perhaps she’d write her own.

Dear Madonna, I have had a bloody gutsful of men, so please, please send me an affectionate eunuch with plenty of money!

Ha! As far as she was concerned she was done with men. She stood up stiffly and continued to climb the track, every muscle in her body complaining now, and an irritating trickle of sweat making its way down her spine.

Then, as she turned a bend in the road she looked up and saw the monastery of Santa Eulalia in all its craggy splendour.

The sound of children’s voices travelled down to her on the wind and far above her head a hawk screamed and plummeted towards the earth.

Okay, she thought, so it was beautiful, but what was she doing here? Why the frig had she listened to that funny little man she’d seen in the alleyway in Soho? A queer little tramp done up in multi-coloured rags! Why had she taken some arsehole’s advice and set out on a pilgrimage through Spain; she wasn’t even religious, for God’s sake! She was a middle-aged woman getting over a nasty divorce and still coming to terms with the death of her beloved father. What she needed was a fortnight by a hotel swimming pool, not a solitary trek through the arse-end of nowhere in search of a saint’s bones. More than anything at the moment she needed a bloody stiff whiskey or seven. Right, she decided, tomorrow she’d put an end to this crap, throw in the towel and head for the beach. She’d sleep the night up in this bleeding eyrie of a place and then tomorrow she was out of there.

The taxi driver was on his way home to his wife Carmen when he saw the man hurrying across the cobbled quayside down near the cannery. He pulled over and called out through the window.

“You looking for a ride?”

“Sure.”

“Where to?”

“The monastery of Santa Eulalia.”

The driver raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t often asked to drive up there.

“Sure, jump in.”

For the next hour the American cowered in the back of the taxi. Jeez, this fellow was mad as hell. He didn’t drive the car, more like aimed it in the direction he wanted to go.

On the few occasions when he dared open his eyes he got a glimpse of chickens scattering and bent-backed old women in black waving their fists. For the first time in many years he prayed and crossed himself.

By the time they arrived at the monastery it was dark and me man staggered from the car. He paid the grinning driver and looked at him more closely; for a moment he thought that he looked kind of familiar.

Then he looked up at the sky above him and was mesmerized by its beauty. A honey-coloured moon glowed above the brightly lit monastery and stars blistered the skies. It was breathtaking.

He was interrupted then by a torrent of foul language, and looked round to see a middle-aged woman staggering across the courtyard under the weight of a heavy rucksack.

The woman struggled the last few steps across to where he stood, threw down her rucksack and moaned, “God, if someone doesn’t pour a whiskey down my throat in the next few minutes I swear the blood will rush to my arse and 111 die of heat exhaustion!”

The taxi driver spluttered, came hurrying over and helped yank the woman roughly to her feet.

He turned then to the American and said, “Donny Keegan, will you stop standing there like a gormless eejit and ring the bell, this woman is in need of resuscitation.”

Donny Keegan, his head spinning, did as he was bid and rang the bell-pull. Then he leaped back in alarm as the grille in the door was pulled back and a pair of amazingly blue eyes stared out at him from beneath a head of grey curls.

Then the door was pulled back and a man stood framed against the light.

The woman stared dumbfounded at him, her eyes wide, mouth hanging open unattractively.

“Siobhan Hanlon, would you stop pulling that face, because the wind might change and God forbid, you’ll be stuck like it for ever!” Padraig said throwing his arms round her.

“Dear God,” she said, “couldn’t I just eat you up.”

And she sniffed the glorious smell of his skin: tree bark and pencil shavings, oil paint and freshly picked dandelions.

EOF