Ondine

by Ebony McKenna

  ‘Stop thinking how good it looks on ye,’ Shambles warned.

  With reluctance she put the fine piece back in the box.

  Ma took a deep breath and stepped back. ‘Chef, Thomas, Josef, get that box out the back somewhere safe. We’ll keep going with the cleaning up in here.’

  A heavy creak of timber provided an immediate stop to the discussion, as the front door pushed open to reveal a suit-clad woman (and not the man they’d been expecting) holding a clipboard. A pair of soda-bottle thick, tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of her thin nose, making her deep grey eyes appear much larger than they should.

  In a flurry of movement, everyone tossed their jewels into the box. The men made themselves look busy. Ma and her daughters stood in front of the box to hide it.

  Something about the woman looked odd to Ondine. It wasn’t her short, salt-and-pepper hair or her enormously wide bottom and thighs, barely reined in by her too-tight skirt, although that did look weird. For a moment longer Ondine found herself staring, before she worked it out. The woman had no eyelashes at all.

  ‘Quick, make a distraction,’ Shambles ordered.

  Extending her hand in greeting, Ondine walked towards their visitor. ‘Hello, you must be the health inspector. My name’s Ondine and I’ve just come back from Psychic Summercamp. May I please read your palm? Oh, thank you,’ she said, taking the woman’s hand before she had time to refuse. All the while, Ondine’s heart hammered behind her ribs, shocked at her own audaciousness.

  ‘You have a rodent on your shoulder,’ the woman said, her eyelash-less eyes widening even more.

  ‘Grrrrr,’ Shambles said.

  Lurch went Ondine’s stomach. Perhaps the ferret on the shoulder wasn’t such a good idea, hygiene-wise? ‘Oh please, pay him no mind – he’s my familiar, and he’s also my assignment from Summercamp. And he’s a ferret, not a rodent. Member of the stoat and otter family; completely different species to rodents. They’re very clean animals, ferrets. Can’t speak for rats or mice though. Well, look here at your life line.’ Ondine channelled her mother’s skill of jumping from one subject to the next without pausing for breath.

  It wasn’t a case of seeing anything in the palm, because Ondine didn’t have a clue what to look for. It didn’t matter – all she had to do was distract the woman, not divine her future. Which meant saying the the first thing that popped into her head.

  ‘You have three grown sons. The youngest is a teenager who is still at school, but the other two are older and have careers now.’

  ‘How did you know that?’ the woman said, her steely grey eyes softening at the information. She still hadn’t introduced herself, but that opportunity seemed to have passed.

  Keep going, that’s the best diversion.

  ‘You don’t like what the eldest is doing. It’s not that you disapprove, it’s just that you worry about him. He is really happy because he’s following his dream. The middle son is a bit of a plodder. He’s good, but he’s coasting along, isn’t he? You know he can do better but he won’t apply himself. The youngest is your baby, and always will be, but you need to let him grow up and make his own mistakes.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be!’ the woman said. ‘If you tell me what my name is then I’ll really believe you’re psychic.’

  Something tingled inside Ondine, a mixture of full-blown pride at her success so far and adrenalin at how daring she had become. ‘It’s Wilma Klegg, but that doesn’t make me psychic, merely observant. It’s written on the top of your clipboard.’ A smile of satisfaction spread over her face. A buzz of confidence filled her soul.

  Hey, I can do this.

  ‘Ondine, please leave the health inspector alone, she has a job to do,’ Ma said as she approached them. Her mother’s voice sounded annoyed and imperious. To an outsider, it would seem like the mother was rescuing a visitor from a precocious child. However, the de Groot women knew Ondine had just saved them a whole heap of trouble.

  As Ma led Mrs Klegg towards the kitchen, she turned back to Ondine and mouthed the words, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Ye did well, lass. That was inspired, like.’ Shambles gave her a wet, whiskery kiss on the cheek. ‘I’m really proud of ye.’

  A little thrill of excitement raced through Ondine. ‘I just said whatever popped into my head. I guessed she had kids, because you don’t get thighs like that on a spinster. I took her right hand, and I saw the ring on it, with three sapphires, so I figured that she’d had three boys.’

  ‘Eh? Jewellery marks children?’

  Ondine beamed. Who’d have thought she’d enjoy pretending to be psychic? ‘Why yes, Shambles. When a woman gives birth, the very least her devoted husband can do is to shower her in jewellery to mark the occasion. It’s a very strong tradition in my family. Haven’t you seen my ma’s rings, with the rubies set in them? One ruby for each of us.’

  ‘Top marks for being observant. But what about all that guff about her boys and how she treats them?’

  A chuckle escaped Ondine’s lips as she bent down to the floor to scoop up mouldy newspapers for the fire, checking them first in case they contained anything juicy about the former Duke. ‘I just thought about the way Da thinks of us. I think I’m starting to work out why he’s so strict with me. I’m his baby; he doesn’t want me growing up too soon. When the first child leaves the nest, the parents fall over themselves with worry. I just figured that if Mrs Klegg had three boys, and we’re three girls, how different can it be? I just told her what she wanted to hear.’

  ‘Well then, yer truly psychic. The old lady Howser would be proud of ye.’

  ‘Mrs Howser?’ Ondine thought of her Psychic Summercamp instructor. ‘I bet she hasn’t even noticed I’m gone.’

  With a pang she thought of her friend Melody, and how much she missed her.

  ‘Did I ever tell ye how I came to be at Mrs Howser’s?’ Shambles asked.

  ‘I don’t believe you have,’ Ondine said, not really paying him much attention because she felt too nervous about what the health inspector might find.

  ‘It’s a funny story, really. After Old Col cast her spell I was all adrift, ye might say. She was friends with Mrs Howser at the time, ye see. But they weren’t really friends because they weren’t very nice to each other. More what you call frenemies. Are ye even listening to me, Ondi?’

  What? ‘Yes, of course.’ Ondine watched Mrs Klegg and Ma disappear into the kitchens and heard lots of ‘tisking’ noises of disapproval.

  ‘I never did meet Mr Howser. I don’t think he lasted the distance. But Mrs Howser took a shine to me and stole me right from under Colette Romano’s nose. I thought Colette would come for me, once she got over her fit of pique, but she never did.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Ondine said, barely hearing a word of it.

  An hour later, Wilma Klegg’s scowl deepened into a dark furrow. The more her lips thinned and pressed together like closed book pages, the more Ma’s painted-on smile looked ready to crack. Wilma pulled on her white gloves and ran her finger over the kitchen benches. She sighed with disappointment. Something heavy fell in Ondine’s stomach. A sense of foreboding clamped around her heart.

  ‘We are closed for renovations, so it’s natural the building is not up to correct specifications,’ Ma explained, her hands clasped in front of her stomach so that just her thumbs had room to wriggle – which they did, putting the world’s best fidget to shame. ‘Furnish us with a list and we’ll comply with everything on it.’

  ‘Yes, you will,’ Mrs Klegg said.

  ‘It’s all mince,’32 Shambles said from Ondine’s shoulder. They were both watching from a safe distance. ‘The Duke would run ye out of town, so he would. More than likely that box of bangles under the floor is at the centre of it all.’

  An idea percolated in Ondine’s mind, so she re-read the newspaper obituary about the Duke’s father and made a note of the newspaper’s date.

  ‘I reckon those jewels are the old Duke’s secret stash,’ Shambles said.


  Ondine wondered if her parents were thinking along the same lines. ‘Maybe you’re right about the Duke, Shambles,’ Ondine said, although she found it very hard to believe Vincent had anything to do with this. ‘Let’s go to the city library and see if we can find out more.’ She grabbed her tattered school bag and headed for the door.

  The warm sun and fresh air cleared the dust from Ondine’s brain as she walked to the train station. Shambles clung to her shoulder. She might not be able to help the family any further with the health inspector, but if she could find some more information about the former Duke, it might give them a way to get the present Duke off their case.

  ‘Yer a good lass, and I like the view from here,’ Shambles said with a saucy chuckle. Blushing furiously, Ondine looked down to see his point of view – the open ‘V’ in the neck of her shirt. The day felt hot already, but she quickly did all her buttons up. Would there be no end to this blushing?

  To think I actually missed you!

  The ancient bluestone building frightened Ondine at first. It was so tall and dark and it blocked out the sun. Her legs felt a little wobbly as she scaled the steps. With the ferret moving about on her shoulder, she felt sure someone would stop her at the door.

  ‘Keep still,’ she whispered to him, but it was no use.

  A librarian approached, looked a bit startled, then settled his features and gave Ondine a smile that made his eyes crinkle all the way to his temples. ‘You’ll find pet care and animals in 636. It’s the second row on the right.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’m not here for that. I’d like to look at some newspapers from thirty years ago, please. Where would they be?’

  ‘They’re in the archive room, but you won’t be able to take animals in there, I’m afraid. It’s a controlled environment.’

  ‘Um, what about if I sat outside the archive room, and you brought the papers to me? Would that be OK?’

  ‘Good thinking, lass,’ Shambles whispered.

  The librarian shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, we can’t do that either. Have you got a box you could put your pet in for the time being? Otherwise you could put her in a locker.’

  ‘I’ll naw go in a box!’ Shambles protested, but it fell on deaf ears as Ondine accepted the compromise and took a locker key. He didn’t bother protesting at being mistaken for a girl. Ondine felt no compulsion to correct the librarian, because she didn’t want him paying any closer attention to her ‘pet’ passenger.

  ‘Hush up. It’s for your own good.’ A tingle of delight raced up Ondine’s spine. She was enjoying this.

  ‘Dinnae put me in the locker!’ he pleaded, as she opened the ventilated door.

  ‘Stop whining. Just pretend you’re going in, then at the last second get in my bag and stay absolutely still.’

  Shambles had the choice – shut in a metal box or crammed into the bag. He chose the latter and kept quiet.

  The archive room smelt of naphthalene,33 making Ondine’s eyes water and the inside of her nose freeze. Shafts of light poured through from the small windows up on high, giving the room an ethereal feel. She found the pile of newspapers and worked backwards from the date of the old Duke’s obituary, scanning for anything mentioning his name. In the months prior to his death, she found a page of court reports, and one short item that outlined a failed criminal case against the old Duke. There were lots of quotes from the old Duke’s lawyer saying they were ‘always confident the unconstitutional charges would be dropped’. Hope and a little bit of confusion surged in Ondine’s chest. They were on to something.

  Turning the pages back in time, they found an earlier court report.

  ‘It says here the lawyers for the Duke are challenging the “constitutional validity” of the charges. Can you make sense of this?’

  Shambles peered at the newsprint, his head turning left and right as he scanned the column of text. ‘Aye, he’s saying he can’t be brought to trial because he’s the Duke. They’re quoting the ancient law of nascut regulum.’34

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it worked.’

  Turning the pages yet further back in time, they found few mentions of the Duke, apart from the regular fortnightly list of visiting dignitaries. Almost as if the newspaper was pointedly ignoring him.

  But of course, they were looking at this with hindsight – nobody at the time knew he was about to pop his clogs. For a while Ondine became distracted with other news events, and all the photographs highlighting the bizarre fashions of the day made her snort.

  Then something caught her eye – a photograph of the old Duke and Duchess at an opening night at the theatre. The Duchess was wearing a diamond necklace that at first looked like a triangle of lace. Ondine got out her notepad and drew a picture of the necklace and the rest of the jewellery the Duchess wore. It was an old photograph, and although Ondine was no jewellery designer, she felt sure she’d seen that same piece in the box they’d uncovered under her family’s floorboards.

  ‘Eh, lass, didya read the rest of it?’ Shambles said. ‘Says here the Duchess’s jewellery is on loan from the Hera Collection. Have you heard of them?’

  ‘Nope, can’t say I have. Stay quiet and I’ll get the librarian to help me look it up.’ Before Shambles could protest, she shoved him back into her bag.

  That old familiar, tingling feeling of excitement started to course through her veins. Ondine knew she was on to something, and it felt great. Now to find the librarian and gather more information.

  To Ondine’s surprise, her questions weren’t something the man had to look up. He’d heard of the Hera Collection before, and knew where the best book on the subject could be found.

  ‘It’s famous, but a bit before your time,’ he said, reaching for an enormous book filled with colour-plate images of some of the finest jewellery Ondine had ever seen.

  ‘Have a look at these and try to keep your eyes in your head,’ the librarian added.

  Drooling in a public library was not the done thing, so Ondine kept her mouth closed and swallowed several times in an effort to stop salivating. Page after page of incredible designs made her want to weep. There were clusters of choker necklaces, strings of pearls, glistening tiaras and stunning multi-jewelled earrings with matching necklaces. There were delicate rings for young debutantes, along with gaudy big monsters for fat old ladies with chubby fingers.

  When she turned the page her breath hitched in her throat. It was a picture of the same necklace the Duchess had worn in the old newspaper photo. Ondine put the picture she’d sketched beside the photograph and her heart started beating way too fast at the discovery. Then she took out her pencil and altered her drawing, rubbing a bit out here and there, sketching it again, and so on, until her drawing was perfect.

  Look, she had a good brain, but she just didn’t have the artistic bent Marguerite possessed, so the drawing and re-drawing took a while.35

  Eventually, she was done. ‘Thank you so much for your help,’ Ondine said to the librarian as she packed her things and shoved them into her bag. A muffled ‘ooof’ sounded from inside it, but she coughed to smother Shambles’s grunts.

  She couldn’t get home fast enough with the exciting news.

  ‘Ondi, thank goodness for your perception,’ Ma said when Ondine returned home, Shambles riding high on her shoulder. ‘Mrs Klegg would have seen that entire box of jewels if you hadn’t acted as fast as you did. And your psychic gift kicked in at just the right time. She was really very impressed with your vision, which made up for what she saw around here. Look at this: she’s given us a list of repairs and changes to make, and then we can re-open next week.’

  But I was guessing, Ondine wanted to say, but she held her thoughts for a moment so she could explain what she’d learned in the library. ‘I need to see the jewellery. Ma, have you heard of the Hera Collection?’

  ‘The Hera Collection? Of course I have, every woman’s heard of it.’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t. Un
til today, that is,’ Ondine protested.

  ‘It was before your time, dear,’ Ma said.

  A disappointed sigh escaped Ondine. Why did older people have to be so patronising about things and events taking place ‘before their time’? That complaint would have to wait until another day though – right now she had more pressing matters.

  ‘The Duke. The one before the one we’ve got. Shambles and I have been to the library, and we’ve got the goods on him. The old Duchess borrowed pieces from the Hera Collection. One of them looks like this,’ Ondine said, showing her mother the drawing she’d made of the necklace.

  They didn’t waste any time heading to Ma and Da’s bedroom, where they found Cybelle and Marguerite sitting on the bed, trying on jewels and giggling like toddlers.

  ‘Margi, stand up now,’ Ma commanded.

  The eldest obeyed, her eyes downcast in shame at their discovery. The glittering jewels on her neck practically danced in the sunlight.

  Excitement bubbled in Ondine and she beamed with pride as she took in the delicate necklace around her sister’s neck.

  ‘It’s the same one all right,’ Shambles said. ‘Looks good on her, too.’

  30 Prior to decimal currency, Brugel had a brief period of cinquimal currency. Five Drops to the Schlip, five Schlips to the Pennig, five Pennigs to the Lipp. The closest equivalent of the Lipp is about two Euros. Or as people remember it fondly, many a drop is schlip between the pennig and the lipp.

  31 A completely unnecessary yet strangely compelling device to attach sparkly plastic jewels to your clothes.

  32 a) Something that looks good at first but turns out to be horrible, or just plain rubbish.

  b)Used to make sausages.

  33 Magnificent compound for preventing moths and silverfish from eating your clothes. However, the smell is almost impossible to eradicate, which explains why your nana smells like that.