A Parachute in the Lime Tree (17 page)

War over there, and here the wait for it, and just this stretch of water in between. It didn’t seem much of a barricade. They would invade England once they’d softened it up and they would be here, too, soon enough. The world would
keep on shrinking until there was nowhere left without a swastika on it.

There was a long shrill whistle, and he realised that the building he’d taken for a school must be a railway station. Inside, there was a scattering of people but nothing blue. The names of the destinations had been blacked out, but in the distance were Effie’s two hills, one larger than the other, each a pyramid. When the train moved off in that direction, Oskar was on it.

On the second day that Oskar failed to return, Kitty pulled the heavy curtains of the Receiving Room right back and let the light stream in. It robbed the room of its mystique, and for the first time she noticed how shabby the place was. How come, after all the excitement, she found herself stuck with Effie and that Ranjit person? She couldn’t imagine how Oskar would fare out there in the world, unless some other girl took a shine to him and fed him ham sandwiches and hot, sweet tea. Then again, perhaps he’d been picked up already and was locked away somewhere and she’d never clap eyes on him again. She must have stood at the window for an hour or so, watching the odd assortment of vehicles trundle down Pembroke Road, before Ranjit bustled in. He stopped dead in the daylight, then hurried to the window and pulled the drapes across.

Aunt Effie was receiving that evening. There were candles to light and charts to prepare, and every spare chair in the house was brought into the Receiving Room and arranged there in some preconceived but unfathomable order dictated by Ranjit. Effie wore her velvet turban and a long embroidered shift, and her eyes were ringed in kohl. At around seven, a trail of elderly men and women began to gather on the front steps. Kitty wasn’t invited to the meeting, and when the Truthseekers were finally admitted, she made her way upstairs. Instead of going to her room, she climbed an extra storey up to the attic. She stood outside Oskar’s door and listened, just in case by some chance she’d missed him coming in. She knocked, and when there was no reply, she opened the door a crack. It was clear he hadn’t been back, so she stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. The bed was neatly made; the sheet turned
down sharply over the blankets, the eiderdown folded at the foot of the bed.

Like those people who leave Bibles in hotel rooms, Effie had left the same book by Oskar’s bed as she had by Kitty’s:
The Key to Theosophy
by Madam Blavatsky. She couldn’t imagine he’d get very far with that. There was also a copy of
Robinson Crusoe
, which must have come from the Receiving Room bookcase. She wondered if that’s what he felt like: Robinson Crusoe. The only other thing was a little leather journal. She recognised it as the book he was forever scribbling in when he was in the shed in Dunkerin. She thought it odd that he’d left it behind him; it gave her hope that he’d be back. The pages were edged in gold and the cover was like soft, buttery caramel. You’d want to have fabulous thoughts to be using a book like that. She flicked through it. The front and back were densely packed with his angular script. The middle pages were blank. The first few entries were written in an elegant hand but some of the later pages were stained, the ink blotted. One or two were completely illegible, as though he’d spilled something over them. Although she couldn’t read the German, she could just about make out dates and placenames.
Vannes, Irland
. She flicked to when
Irland
first appeared and examined each line of the first few pages for her own name.

Something that looked like Kiti appeared a number of times, and she wondered whether this could be her. The first entry was headed ‘
zum Frankreich
’ and was dated 27 February 1941. It trailed down the page like a caterpillar. The lines were short but too long to be a list. A poem, perhaps? She ran her fingers down the reverse of the page. The indentations were deeper there than on other days and she wondered what it was he’d felt so strong about. She supposed he must have had some time to himself at Easter. She flicked to find the date. The entry was long and the handwriting curled down the page in tangles of blue. Had he flown that night? And if so, which
English city had they bombed? And then she remembered Belfast, and realised that even on Easter Sunday he’d probably been off bombing something. She liked Oskar but she hoped he had the nightmares he deserved.

Her own Easter had been a lovely one. Well, it had been a better day than most, anyway. Even though there were no children around to make it worthwhile, Mother had hardboiled some eggs after Mass and left them sitting in gorse water to turn yellow for the Monday. Later, they had afternoon tea in the Dunkerin Arms.

‘We’ll treat ourselves, Kitty,’ Mother had said, ‘for the day that’s in it. We’ll have a currant square for poor old Frank.’

The afternoon tea went well. Mother left off the opera cloak for once. Her dress was moderation itself: an
eau-de-nil
two-piece and a small hat. She behaved herself with the waitresses and confined herself to nodding at Doctor Russell and not once mentioning bunions. It was hard to believe that just a week later, there’d be a parachute in the lime tree.

The next morning there was still no sign of Oskar. Aunt Effie was exhausted from the Truthseekers the night before. She was on the chaise, with Ranjit feeding her tablespoons of thin soup. Down in the garden, a peacock screamed.

Kitty couldn’t settle to anything. She tried to read but there didn’t seem much point in reading someone else’s story when she was in the middle of such a great big story of her own. There was no point in baking, either, since neither Aunt Effie nor Ranjit ever really seemed to eat. It would only make her fat and bad-tempered, and what was the sense in that? Whatever she tried, she couldn’t get Oskar out of her head. Aunt Effie didn’t seem the least surprised that Oskar had gone. ‘Leave the boy to his quest, Kitty,’ was all she said. ‘He’ll be back when he’s ready.’

All the same, she fretted. What if he was off with those fellows Bobby mentioned, the ones in the hotel down in Wicklow?
Sure, wasn’t it Wicklow he was always on about? Well, what if he was out there on the Sugarloaf right now, guiding in the planes that would blow them all to kingdom come?

She wished she could read the diary and put her mind at rest. That’s when she remembered Rita. Right through school, Rita had a string of penpals. There was the Spanish girl who kept sending miraculous medals and scraps of dry skin that were supposed to be saints’ relics. There was the girl from Paris who sounded very flighty altogether. She was sure there’d been a German too. She thought she remembered a photograph of a great strapping girl on a mountaintop. She didn’t suppose Rita would have picked up much German from a penpal, but you never know. Anyway, she’d be glad to see Rita one way or the other. She felt so jumpy and cooped up she just had to get herself out of the house. She was beginning to feel a bit guilty about leaving Mother on her own down in Dunkerin, too. That’s what happens, she thought, when you do too much sitting around. You start brooding on things. She’d go and find Rita at the Commercial College; it would be good to have somebody to talk to for a change.

Kitty walked out the gate towards Baggot Street. She was almost at the bridge when she spotted Bobby Coyle. She had a split second to make her escape but she hesitated and by then it was too late. He raised his hand to salute her. ‘Well isn’t this a surprise to brighten Monday morning.’

She showed him her teeth.

‘I didn’t think you made it up to Dublin these days. Des told me you didn’t leave Dunkerin; spent your time home on the range.’

‘Just a bit of a break,’ she said, still moving.

‘Wait till I get Des. He never breathed a word. You’ve an aunt this way, haven’t you? Sure, you’re almost a neighbour.’

‘Desmond doesn’t know. It was all a bit last minute. Look, Bobby, I need to get going. I’ll be seeing you.’

She hoped he wouldn’t follow her, and he didn’t. Running into Bobby just like that made her realise it might be nearly as difficult to have a secret in Dublin as in Dunkerin. As she crossed into Merrion Square, she passed a tall, streely-looking Guard with a shock of red hair who was directing the traffic at the junction. Not for the first time, she wondered whether it was against the law to put up a German who’d jumped out of the war. The Guard looked out of place in the city, like he’d be happier behind a plough. She felt out of place herself, just looking at the country Guard. But then again, why shouldn’t she be in Dublin? She was only young, wasn’t she? Hadn’t she a right to dances and friends like anybody else? Some days she could hardly breathe in Dunkerin, what with the dust in the hallway and the tobacco on the fire and Mother asleep in her chair. Why shouldn’t she have a life of her own? At school, Kitty was the bright one. Everyone said it. So sharp she’ll cut herself. Yet, somehow it was Desmond who was halfway to becoming Doctor Hennessy. At school, when they sat around whispering after lights out, it was Kitty, they all agreed, would have the adventures for everybody else.

When she reached McWilliams’ Commercial College, the girls were already clattering down the front steps. Out in front was a redhead who looked like she was having a whale of a time. She was a great advertisement for Pitman’s shorthand.

It was an age since Kitty had seen Rita. There were the letters, of course, but it felt like all the news came from Rita’s direction. It’d been great to have the parachute in the lime tree to write about. She’d dashed off a letter to Rita that same day. Now that she’d done a flit to Dublin with the parachute man, maybe she should have kept her trap shut. The trouble with living in Dunkerin was that there was never anything much to put in a letter. She hated sounding like her entire life was a wet weekend. Kitty waited outside the college until all the girls
had streamed down the steps, but there was still no Rita. In the office, they said Rita Connolly was all finished now. She’d got her cert already, they said.

It was a long time since Kitty had been on a tram. She thought of all those girls at the Commercial College, racing off into a world she knew nothing about, and for a moment she envied them, even though she’d always thought typing the dullest thing imaginable. When she reached Rita’s house in Sandymount, it was reassuring that not everything was changing and rushing on without her. Everything looked exactly as it had done on her last visit. Rita’s mother was wearing her blue pinny, her arms white with flour. Her father was even sitting in the same chair to the right of the fire. As soon as she spotted Kitty, Rita did a little skip and a jump. Kitty remarked to herself how nice it was to be wanted for a change.

Rita busied herself in the kitchen while Kitty stood watching her. ‘We’re out of tea,’ she explained, ‘so I’ve become a dab hand at the milkshakes. Strawberry?’

Rita selected one of the tiny glass bottles grouped next to the salt and pepper on the shelf above her head. ‘Did you get my last letter? How did Michael Rosney strike you?’

She must have looked blank, because Rita gave her a funny look. ‘Oh come on, Kitty. The fellow I’ve arranged for the Zoo Dance?’ Rita poured out a long stream of milk then sprinkled it with dark red drops from the little bottle. She called it a milkshake, but it was all milk and no shake. ‘How did he sound?’

Kitty took a sip of the flat pink liquid. No sugar either. ‘He sounded fine.’ Her voice came out flat, too.

‘What is it, Kitty?’ Rita put a hand on her shoulder. It was so long since she’d been touched that Kitty thought she might cry. ‘There’s something not right. What is it?’

The parachute, the diary that said God knows what; she didn’t even know where to begin.

Rita was studying her. ‘Did they ever find the German that came down? You wrote the morning they found the parachute but I never heard a dickybird after that. I suppose a thing like that would take it out of you: the worry of him being on the loose and that.’

Kitty shook her head, even though she’d never lied to Rita before.

‘Do you think he might have been a spy? They say there’s a German fellow lives up the Orwell Road who’s a spy. He has three pots of geraniums on his windowsill, two red and one pink. He’s forever moving them about and changing the order. Word is, if you ever see the pink one in the middle then we’re all in the most shocking trouble. The invasion code, they say. A pink geranium. Did you ever hear the like? And what do you make of that Hess fellow? Imagine, second from the top, and he goes and takes himself over to Scotland. Is he astray in the head, do you think?’

‘Could be, alright,’ said Kitty, though she hadn’t heard anything about the Hess man, and had no idea who he was.

‘Did you read what the ploughman said who picked him up? He said Mr Hess’s boots were as fine as a pair of gloves, imagine.’

Kitty tried another sip of the milkshake, then put it to one side.

‘I do worry now, between the two of us, what kind of blackguards might be landing in the Dublin Mountains, and none of us any the wiser till they come marching past the GPO.’

‘The last time I looked, it was the English we were all worried about,’ said Kitty, sick of it all being one-sided. ‘Aren’t they the most likely ones to come traipsing across the border? Always threatening to give us a good hiding for holding on to their blasted ports.’

Rita wiped away a thin pink moustache with her hankie. ‘If someone’s going to invade, wouldn’t you rather it was a
decent person like Con Redmond than some thug of a German? Better the devil you know, that’s what I say. There’s enough eejits round the place thinking what’s bad for the English must be good for us.’

Kitty walked home from Sandymount none the wiser about the diary. She felt dejected not to have made some progress and sad that she hadn’t felt able to confide in Rita. She had barely reached her room when she heard Ranjit yelling up from the bottom of the stairs that there was someone wanting her at the front door.