Can't Anyone Help Me?

by Maguire, Toni

  ‘That’s the whole point, Dora. Jackie’s coming with us. This holiday is for her.’

  I guessed that arrangement had not pleased my mother. From other conversations I surmised that my father thought taking me to a completely different environment for the whole of the summer might help me. That was the reason he had taken more than two months off work. Being away from home so often might be a factor in my bad behaviour and he wanted to try to help. ‘I know everything has been your responsibility, so I thought it was time for me to see what I could do for her, Dora,’ I heard my father say.

  Peeping round the door, I heard my mother, with a glass of wine in her hand, say she didn’t know what she would do if this didn’t work out.

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ she said. ‘You’re away so much, but I’m here with her all the time. The other parents pity me. Me! There’s never been anything like this in our family.’

  I heard the glug of more liquid being tipped into a glass as another drink was poured. Then her voice started to rise: ‘I just don’t know what’s wrong with her. And, what’s more, I don’t think those damn psychologists that the school keeps telling me to take her to do either. She just sits there and looks blank when they ask her questions and I can’t read her mind.’

  My father made some sounds that were meant to comfort her but my mother had burst into floods of tears. ‘I just don’t know what to do any longer,’ she said.

  ‘She’s too young to diagnose, Dora,’ my father said quietly. ‘They’ve told us that. We can’t just give up on her.’

  I knew from his tone that whatever was wrong with me was making him sad, and that worried me. I had heard the mutters at school and seen children raise a finger to the side of their heads – I knew they meant I was crazy. At six I had just known that school scared me, but as I became a little older the fear that there was something wrong in my head began to torment me.

  I heard my mother protesting. That was not what she’d meant, she said, but she was at the end of her tether – more wine sloshed out of the bottle. Wine, I had learnt, was something to be drunk when an adult was at the end of her tether, or after a bad day at his office. But then again it seemed to be equally popular on evenings when everyone had a good time. It was a discrepancy that puzzled me.

  ‘Come on, let’s try this, Dora. Maybe if we’re all together away from here, it might help.’

  ‘You’re right, of course you are. I just thought a holiday without her would give me a rest.’

  So she doesn’t want me to go, I thought angrily and, fearful of being caught listening, I tiptoed away.

  My father waited until the next morning to tell me his news. We had finished breakfast and the plates had been cleared away. He leant forward and said, ‘Jackie, your mother and I have got something exciting to tell you.’ Pretending I knew nothing about it, I looked enquiringly at him.

  ‘We’re going to Spain,’ he said. ‘For the whole of your summer holidays.’

  Spain was a word. That was all it meant to me at that age. But it did not take my father long to paint a picture of what it was like, and he told me how much I was going to enjoy myself.

  He told me about the village where we were going – it had not changed for a hundred years – and how friendly the people who lived there were. He described the old cottage he had bought and how, from the windows, we could see the lemon groves. He talked about the mountains and the sparkling streams that ran down them and the rivers that flowed to the sea. ‘There’s even a stream running right through the land our cottage is built on and just a short distance away there’s a forest full of pine trees. The air is perfumed with their scent. We can smell it from the bedroom windows.’ He told me enthusiastically about how we were going to go on the ferry, then drive through France into Spain as soon as school broke up for the summer holidays. I could feel him trying to get a spark of interest out of me as I sat expressionless at the table.

  ‘We’re not going in a plane, then?’ I finally asked, because I knew some of the other children in my class had travelled to other countries in one. That was something I did think might be exciting.

  He laughed. ‘No, Jackie, we’re going to drive. You’ll see a lot more that way. You only get to see clouds when you fly and a tarmac strip when you land. Remember, I do it all the time on business and it isn’t very exciting at all. Anyhow, we couldn’t take your bike on a plane, could we? And I thought you and I could do some exploring.’

  ‘But you haven’t got a bike,’ I said, with a child’s logic.

  ‘Well, Jackie, I’ll get one.’

  I knew by my mother’s silence that exploring was not something she was going to join in with but, hearing my father’s words, I felt something like a warm glow. The holiday plans had captured my mother’s and my imagination and from then on my father was bombarded with questions.

  ‘But do they speak any English where we’re going?’ my mother asked, and was told he didn’t know because he had only spoken to them in Spanish.

  My father was fluent in French and Spanish. He did business in South America, and had learnt the language from a box of self-study cassettes.

  ‘It’s not difficult to learn, Dora – I still have the tapes,’ he tentatively told her. Curtly she replied that she had no intention of going back to studying at her age, so she would just have to rely on him; that idea seemed to please him.

  For once I looked forward to school breaking up, and the day after term ended, our large family car was loaded with cases and we were ready to set off. Shorts, sandals and cotton T-shirts, plus a couple of warm jumpers, were all we would need, my father said. But this was something that my mother appeared to have forgotten when she put her things ready to go into the car. I saw a large suitcase, a makeup bag almost as big as the case she had packed for me and a box of glossy magazines and books.

  I was allowed to bring Paddington. I had been given some swimming trunks for him one birthday, and with a pair of children’s sunglasses, he was ready for a summer holiday too. I also packed his little flowered pyjamas – a duffel coat and wellington boots would be too warm in that climate.

  ‘Bring some books as well,’ my father had said. I brought colouring ones only – I still found reading difficult.

  I have only a fuzzy image of that long drive and finally entering the village. We had stayed overnight in France, but by the time we reached the end of our journey I had fallen asleep on the back seat, surrounded by luggage.

  I drowsily opened my eyes to see dark shadows move across the sky as the clouds shifted through the silvery light of the moon. It splashed on to the long, single-storey building that was going to be our home for the next few weeks. It was very silent and still. I could smell the sharp perfume of the lemon trees and the pines, as my father had promised.

  He carried me inside. ‘Let’s put her straight to bed,’ he said. I heard him say softly to my mother that I’d looked so peaceful when I was asleep that he hadn’t wanted to wake me, and for once I smiled up at him and allowed myself to be carried into a bedroom.

  My mother helped me pull on my nightclothes, covered me with a blanket and left me.

  I woke the following morning to piercing sunlight shining through the windows and a feeling almost of well-being. Impatient to see what was outside, I leant out of the window to inspect my new surroundings.

  During the night a light wind had chased away any lingering clouds, leaving a vast expanse of clear blue sky. The brightness of the morning lured me into wanting to leave the house.

  I could see small trees with their bright yellow fruit, and in the distance, there were fields of lush green grass. Scattered with the red and yellow of wild flowers, they covered the ground all the way to the lower slopes of the green and grey backdrop of the mountain range.

  The morning warmth and the view from my window began to uncoil the knots of fear that constantly tightened in my stomach. The remnants of the nightmares disappeared as I pushed the window wider and breathed in the smel
ls of jasmine, pine and fresh air. Suddenly the sunlit morning whispered to me of being a free child again – of playing in those fields and of not being afraid.

  My father came into my room, smiling to see me enjoying the view. He told me to get dressed, and that as soon as I had had breakfast, he was taking me to buy groceries while my mother had a lie-in.

  We walked down a path that took us through the orchard of lemon trees to the village, which was just a few cobbled streets lined with whitewashed houses. It was so different from our village, with its stone houses where net curtains hid the interiors from view. Here, window-boxes, blazing with bright pink and red geraniums, adorned every freshly painted sill. The combined scent of garlic, herbs, freshly baked bread and coffee floated out of every kitchen.

  All around us I could hear speech I couldn’t understand. Round-hipped matrons chatted in the streets as their children played with homemade toys. Old women sat in open doorways, their legs hidden by long black skirts, knitting needles clicking as busy fingers turned balls of soft wool into garments. Their faces broke into smiles as they saw us. ‘Hola,’ they said, and my father smiled back as he greeted them in the same language.

  We stopped at the bakery and bought rolls, then walked on to another shop where my father piled his basket high with spicy chorizo sausage, thick slices of ham and a dozen freshly laid eggs. Then he took me to a small café. ‘We can have our morning coffee together, Jackie,’ he said, and I rewarded him with a sudden smile.

  ‘Dos café con leche, por favor,’ he said to the man who came out to greet us.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing complicated,’ he said. ‘I just ordered two white coffees. I think you’re old enough to try coffee, don’t you?’ And sitting outside at the small pavement café, with the already hot sun high overhead, my father beside me in an open-neck shirt and denim jeans, I drank my first ever cup of the strong milky brew. With each sip, I thought I had never tasted anything so delicious.

  It was later that day that I met some of the village children. Maybe it was because I did not speak their language or they mine that it was easy to play with them. I saw nothing but friendly interest on their faces as, using sign language, they showed me their games. Throwing and catching a ball, tossing stones in the air and seeing how many we could catch on the back of our hands, and flicking dried peach stones into small holes were the most popular.

  These village children had no need of expensive toys, I learnt. The only thing they envied was my bicycle – they all wanted one. When I left the house friendly children’s voices called out to me, ‘Hola, Jackie!’ and by the end of the first week I was yelling, ‘Hola,’ back to Pedro, Maria or Antonio.

  It was during those first few days that, true to his word, my father took me exploring in the forest. To get there we walked through the village and crossed the bridge, which I leant over to see the plump, silvery, speckled brown fish that swam in the clear water. When we entered the forest I saw squirrels hiding behind trees and found myself laughing as they played hide and seek.

  Above our heads thick green foliage nearly obliterated the rays of the sun. My father led the way to a glade where the stream flowed and the trees grew more thinly. Dancing spangles of light shone through the leaves and the only sounds that disturbed the peace were the buzzing of a cloud of midges and the burping of frogs. My father had brought sandwiches and, sitting by the stream where pale green fronds of thickly growing ferns trailed in the water, we ate them contentedly, washing them down with cool drinks.

  It was in the glade that I saw the golden eagle.

  It was my father who spotted the huge bird and he gently touched my shoulder. ‘Jackie, just look at him,’ he said, pointing towards the sky. Following the direction of his finger, I watched the majestic bird, its wing span appearing longer than our arms, soaring high, a freshly caught small rodent hanging from its talons. With our heads tilted back we followed its flight until, entering a crevice in the mountain, it was lost from view.

  That for me was the highlight of the day and it is a memory I carry with me. That bird had the freedom to fly above the world. How many times would I try to do that too, to escape my demons?

  There were days when I rode my bicycle but I never got very far as the olive faces of the children smiled at me. They ran after my bike, their hands took mine, and they brought me to a halt and into their play. We went to the outskirts of the village where we would climb over gates. Feet sank into the droppings of cows and sheep, wild roses’ thorns tore clothes and scratched arms and legs as we ran across the fields into the dense woods. Exhilarated by the thought of the adventures that lay ahead, we ignored what would later get us into trouble with our mothers. The sun tanned my face and whitened my hair, while the wind put a rosy glow in my cheeks. We swam in the streams, climbed trees, daring each other to go higher, and with our legs dangling from a protruding branch, we sat watching for wood pigeons and buzzards. But I never saw the eagle again.

  Our finca was a four-bedroomed cottage where the kitchen, with its low wooden beams and huge black wood-fired stove, took up nearly all of the downstairs. It was where we gathered to eat, read and talk, and it was there that my mother, glass of red wine in hand, would cook our evening meals.

  Even she seemed more relaxed, and at night we sat in the large room or in the shady garden simply watching a sunset before I would crawl into my bedroom to sleep. Exhausted by the outdoor life and by being able to behave like a normal child, my sleep was dreamless and undisturbed.

  When my mother protested that she was tired of cooking, my father drove us to an old restaurant where we were served small dishes of tapas – olives, little squares of cheese, fish that was brought in daily from the coast less than thirty miles away, and a thick omelette made with potatoes and vegetables. On Sundays we liked going there and watching the noisy groups of large extended Spanish families consume vast dishes of paella.

  It was on one of those days that we were invited to what the Spanish called a fiesta.

  ‘You have to see it,’ my father told us, despite my mother’s reticence. We watched women and girls dressed in long skirts and tight-fitting blouses, with silver hoops shining in their ears, walk beside men wearing stone-coloured trousers and waistcoats. Dark blue berets were perched jauntily on the men’s and boys’ heads while white scarves covered the long hair of the women. Small children, pushing and jostling, ran beside them and, feeling the atmosphere, we followed them to the grounds outside the restaurant where the festivities were taking place. Not only was everyone from the village attending but all the outlying areas seemed to be represented too.

  Bright rugs had been thrown on to the grass, turning the area into a tapestry of colour. Baskets of food were unpacked, wine opened and the afternoon’s fun began.

  Ignoring the fact that I had just eaten a large plate of rice and seafood, I took the proffered fresh crusty bread and a slice of the dark red spicy chorizo. I munched on it contentedly, as everyone else did, and waited for the music to begin.

  That Sunday afternoon when the sun beat down from a cloudless sky, the young couples and the youth of that mountain area drank wine and ate dishes of cheese and meat. They smiled, laughed and flirted as they chatted, while wiry old couples, their skins burnished to mahogany from their years of toil in the fields, sat on thick cushions, their backs propped against tree-trunks. Blue-veined hands lay loosely on bony knees as they drowsily watched the festivities through half-closed eyes.

  One by one the musicians picked up their instruments. The first placed the txistu, a small black flute, to his lips, which sent a delicate pure sound floating into the air. Then the fingers of two of the men with him strummed against the taut skin of the tambourines. Batons were beaten against drums before the accordion added its rousing sound. A girl, no more than eighteen, joined them. Her fingers clicked, her body moved and then she started to sing. Hers was a high, sweet voice that at first sent just a few notes shimmering across the f
ield. The tempo increased, until the full sound of the jota rang out bringing the audience to their feet. Almost as one, men and boys held out their hands to their partners.

  The long skirts of the girls, some of whom had barely become women, swished as hips swayed to the music’s hypnotic pulse.

  Their mothers, waistlines thickened by middle age, moved their bodies in time to the beat. Hands clapped to the rhythm, backs became erect, heads straightened, fingers clicked, and the eyes of the girls they had once been shone out of creased faces as their feet involuntarily took up the familiar dance steps. Dressed in miniature Basque costumes, children who had only just learnt to walk swung non-existent hips and stamped tiny feet in imitation of their elders.

  My new friend Maria’s older sister, with strands of her black curly hair escaping from her white headscarf, entered the dance. Her full skirt swirled showing flashes of white stocking-clad legs. Her feet flew in their soft slippers and she was spinning in time to the music. With her arms raised and her fingers snapping, she performed the jumps and kicks of the dance with one of her many young admirers.

  ‘Come on, Jackie, you can do it,’ she called, in heavily accented English when she saw me standing on the sidelines. Needing no more encouragement, I joined in.

  I saw my mother as I had never seen her before, her head thrown back looking up at my father, her smile bunching up her face and her eyes shining. He pulled her to her feet, placed his arms around her waist and spun her in time to the music but, try as he might to copy the graceful steps of the Spanish men, he looked exactly what he was: a tall, lanky English visitor, with little sense of rhythm but intent on enjoying himself. The Spanish clapped and applauded them, and with one more wild spin, my parents collapsed on the ground, laughing. Seeing them like that, I felt a wave of love and trust. If only we could stay in Spain, I thought, everything would be fine – but of course we couldn’t. And it wouldn’t.

  Later my father played pelota, with a long wicker racquet, in a makeshift court with all of us children. Near the end of the day I watched as the cone-shaped brightly coloured papier-mâché piñatas were filled with sweets before being strung up on wires suspended from posts. We younger ones were each given a long stick.