Chapter Sixteen
A Well Mannered Boy
Mercifully Saiorse's fall backwards over the trolley was broken, not that she ever knew it, by several sacks stuffed full of shoddy lying on the platform and still awaiting loading onto the train, while in turn Max's tumble was stalled by none other than Saiorse herself. For a moment the two of them just lay there, Max on top of Saiorse, both too winded even to speak, and regarding each other with hostile eyes.
And, it was now that on seeing his young master that the indirect cause of all that had just happened dutifully trotted back across the platform to the luggage trolley, trailing in his wake his scarlet lead. There Fritz sat, with his head on one side, gazing thoughtfully at both Max and the girl, the antics of the latter merely serving to confirm the little dachshund's low opinion of children in general.
"Get off me you idiot" yelled Saiorse, struggling to rise and now at last recovering her power of speech. The sandy-haired boy said something to her which again she did not understand, by which time he was already being helped to his feet by none other than her very own Aunt Edith who had come hurriedly out of the waiting room, onto the platform, and into the full glare of the sun.
"Aunt Edith!" cried a delighted Saiorse sitting up and then struggling to her feet.
However, for once, her favourite aunt seemed neither to have seen nor even heard her, focussing her attention instead entirely upon the handsome, sandy-haired, blue-eyed boy now standing, slightly shaken, and evidently very contrite, and to whom her aunt was now speaking very rapidly in the same language used to Saiorse, which she did not understand and which, until today, she had never heard before.
But even though she could not understand a single word of what her aunt was saying, it was evident that Aunt Edith was very much displeased with the boy, whoever he was, whatever it was he had done, for, under her aunt's tirade, Saiorse saw him flush to the roots of his hair. Her own Da did that too sometimes, back home in Dublin, when Ma got just as annoyed with him as Aunt Edith evidently was with the young boy.
Standing behind her aunt, Saiorse now saw her mother and her Aunt Mary, although like Aunt Edith, neither of them seemed even to have noticed her. Instead, both seemed somewhat distracted, and were standing quietly in the open doorway of the waiting room, apparently observing the ongoing one-sided altercation between Aunt Edith and the blushing, sandy-haired boy.
Saiorse reached again for the scarlet lead, but her action did not go unnoticed by the sandy-haired boy who once again yelled at her in the language which she did not understand.
"Ich sage es dir nicht noch einmal! Lass den Hund in Ruhe!" shouted Max angrily, his blue eyes smouldering once again.
No boy, not even her elder brother Danny, had ever dared to speak to Saiorse so peremptorily, so when Max now grabbed at the leash, so startled was she that Saiorse found herself meekly submitting, relaxing her grip, and simply letting it go. Snatching the lead from her, Max curtly nodded his head, and then lowered himself gingerly down onto the luggage trolley, Saiorse noticing that he seemed unable to bend one of his knees properly, wondered if he had injured it when he fell.
"Ah! Da sind Sie ja! Fritz! Komm!"
Whereupon, on hearing the voice of his much-loved young master, with all thoughts of Wiener Schnitzel and Surschnitzel forgotten, at least for the time being, wagging his tail, Fritz stretched up and placed both his paws on the boy's bare knees while Max sat and fondled his head. A moment or two later and Fritz sat back down on the platform from where he gazed up, first at Max, and then at Saiorse, with a look upon his canine features that at one and the same time managed to betoken both a heartfelt and sincere affection and a heartfelt and contemptuous disdain.
Suddenly acutely conscious once again of what had just happened to her, Saiorse now sought to claim her mother's undivided attention and duly held out her right hand for inspection and Sybil's medical opinion. After all, as Saiorse was so fond of telling her school friends, Ma was a qualified nurse
"Ma? That boy's dog bit me! It's all his fault" exclaimed Saiorse, angrily pointing her finger accusingly at Max.
As if her thoughts were decidedly somewhere else, Sybil reacted unaccountably slowly to the sound of her daughter's raised voice, but she did, however absent-mindedly, now take hold of her daughter's outstretched hand, gave it the briefest, most cursory of looks, and then simply nodded her head. To be scrupulously fair, the only visible signs now of the brief encounter between Fritz's sharp little teeth and Saiorse's right hand were several rapidly fading small red marks. Fritz's bark was evidently much worse than his bite,
"Now, what have I told you before about playing with other people's dogs? You'll live darling. No harm done!" Ma smiled. Saiorse nodded mutely; knew that if her Ma said something would be all right then it would be and that there was nothing further to be said upon the matter.
"Who is he Ma?" whispered Saiorse, but before her mother could begin to explain, suddenly, Aunt Edith seemed to realise she too had an audience, for, with her hands now resting lightly on the young boy's shoulders, she broke off whatever it was she was saying, and turned to face Saiorse.
"Saiorse, darling! Did little Fritz bite your hand?" But when Saiorse made to answer, rather than looking at her hand, which Saiorse once again dutifully held up for inspection, Aunt Edith reached forward and instead fondled the head of the little brown dog now nestling contentedly in the arms of the sandy-haired boy. Fritz gave a contented, satisfied little bark and promptly closed his eyes.
"Frit…" Never having heard the name before, Saiorse made a short stab at trying to repeat what she thought her aunt had just said and then just as promptly gave up the attempt, simply nodded her head.
"I'm sorry darling, but Fritz isn't very good with strangers" said Aunt Edith.
Her tone was almost as dismissive as Ma's had been when Saiorse had held out her hand for her mother's inspection, so much so, that Saiorse found herself wondering what on earth could be the matter. It was now, but for no other reason than to try to draw the focus of everyone's attention back to herself, that Saiorse asked the predictable question.
"Aunt Edith? Who is he?" Saiorse nodded her head towards the sandy-haired boy.
"Who? He's your cousin Max. That's who he is" said Edith levelly, eyeing her niece cautiously, trying at the same time to gauge Saiorse's reaction to the clearly astonishing news so casually imparted to her by her aunt.
"My cousin?"
Her aunt nodded.
"Yes, that's right. Your cousin. Of course, you haven't met him before. He's my son. He's nine years old, and his name is Max".
"Max?" Her aunt nodded.
"That's right. Max".
"That's a funny name".
"He might think your name's funny".
"I don't see why. Anyway, it's not funny, it's Irish!" retorted Saiorse indignantly.
"Well, Max's name isn't funny either. In fact, it's Austrian. He comes from Austria. That's where we live".
While Saiorse mulled all this startling, new information over in her mind, her aunt chose to say something else to the boy - as Saiorse still thought of him - and once again in the language she did not understand.
"Aunt Edith?"
"Yes, darling?"
"What's that language you're speaking?"
"It's German, darling. People speak German in Austria".
There was, remembered Saiorse, a huge map of the world on the back wall of the big classroom at her school, while at home in Blackrock, in his study, Da had a large book he called an atlas and, with Saiorse sitting on his knee, he had shown her the maps of some of the countries which it contained. But although Saiorse had heard of Australia, of America where grand mama's mother lived, even of Albania where there was king who also had a funny name too, Austria was unknown to her. That being so, it was at this point that Saiorse chose to ask the inevitable question.
"Aunt Edith?"
"Yes darling?"
"If… Max is… your son… and he's my cousin, does that… does that mean you've got married?"
Rather surprisingly, it was now Mary herself who chose to intervene, seeking to spare Edith any further embarrassment.
"Goodness! Is that the time? I think we should all start to…" she began.
"It's quite all right Mary. As Sybil said, perhaps honesty is the best policy".
Edith turned back to her niece.
"No, Saiorse. I haven't got married. Not yet anyway".
"Bridget Mahoney had a baby and she wasn't married. The nuns took her baby away. They said she was a sinner" said Saiorse dismissively.
At that, Sybil and Mary held their collective breathes.
"Really? Well, I suppose that makes me a sinner too then" offered Edith nervously.
"No it doesn't. That's silly. When I asked Da about Bridget Mahoney and Tommy Ryan, Da said it didn't really matter all that much. He said that if two people make a baby, what matters most is that they truly love each other, just like he loves Ma. And if Da says that, then it must be true!" ended Saiorse and with a ringing endorsement of her beloved father.
Sybil and Mary exchanged amused glances. That sounded just like the sort of thing darling Tom would say. For her part, on hearing her niece's frank assessment of the situation, at least as she saw it, Edith breathed a silent, heartfelt prayer of relief to whatever deity might happen be listening, earnestly thanking Him for giving her Tom Branson as her brother-in-law.
"Do you love Max's Da?" asked Saiorse suddenly.
"Saiorse!" exclaimed Sybil. Catching her younger sister's eye, Edith smiled broadly, shook her head. In dealing with this frankly spoken young girl, so much her parents' daughter, honesty clearly was the best policy.
"Yes, I do. I really do" said Edith,
"What's his name?"
"He's called Friedrich".
"That's a…"
"… funny name too" said Edith and laughed. "It's German for Frederick".
"What does he do, Frederick?"
"He's an archaeologist. Just like me. You remember I explained to you what that was, when you were at Downton?"
Saiorse nodded her head thoughtfully.
"Someone who digs up dead people and broken pots? At least that's what Aunt Mary said last Christmas. She thinks it's silly. She called them your old…"
"… relics?" suggested Edith helpfully, at the same time shooting a withering look at Mary who shook her head in sheer exasperation, and then raised her eyes heavenwards.
"That's right. Relics" said Saiorse promptly.
"Relics" repeated Edith woodenly, and shaking her head in utter disbelief at Mary.
"And you really love him?"
"Love who? Friedrich? Yes I do".
"Truly?"
"Just as much as your Da loves your Ma!" Edith smiled fondly at Saiorse; knew that the comparison of Friedrich and herself with Tom and Sybil would strike an immediate chord with her niece, and in that she was not to be disappointed.
"My Da and Ma love each other very much!"
"Yes, I know they do" said Edith. She grinned broadly at Sybil.
"I'm glad you love… Frederick like that" said Saiorse and then smiled warmly at her aunt. "That's nice".
"Yes, it is, rather". Edith smiled again. Thank God, she thought, for this frankly spoken child who was making this whole situation so much more bearable than even Edith herself would ever have thought possible.
"I hope someday that I find someone who loves me as much as my Da loves my Ma" said Saiorse earnestly.
"You will darling, of course you will!" said Edith, her eyes now shining. Impulsively, she hugged her young niece to her in a tight and tearful embrace.
"What's he called again?" asked Saiorse looking at Max, or so Edith naturally assumed.
"Max".
"No, not him. The little dog!"
"His name is Fritz. He's a dachshund. That's a German breed of dog" explained Edith patiently.
It was now, on hearing his mistress say his name that Fritz chose once again to open an enquiring brown eye. He yawned contentedly, revealing in the process a fine array of sharp, little teeth. Then, while Max tickled his tummy, Fritz closed his eyes, rolled on his side in his young master's arms, and gave out a series of short contented barks, clearly indicative of his complete satisfaction with all the undivided attention he was receiving, and causing both Max and Saiorse to laugh out loud.
"He looks..." began Saiorse, eyeing the little dog thoughtfully.
"Funny?" asked Edith with a laugh.
"No, not funny. Just ... different!"
"Some people call Fritz's breed sausage dogs... because they're long and shaped like one".
Saiorse eyed the little dog again and smiled.
"Yes, I do begin to see what you mean. He does look a bit like a sausage!" She laughed.
"Shhh!" Edith put her forefinger to her lips and grinned broadly at her niece. "Don't say that, at least not in his hearing. You'll hurt his feelings!" At that, she giggled, just like a schoolgirl, rather than an unmarried mother of a nine-year old boy, and then she spoke again to Max in German.
"Would you like to hold him?" asked Edith.
"May I?" Really?" asked Saiorse, her eyes shining eagerly.
"Of course you may".
Edith nodded to her son, who grinning, promptly offered Fritz to Saiorse. Taking the little dog from her cousin's outstretched arms, Saiorse hugged Fritz to her and then smiled shyly back at Max who, now having stood up, clicked his heels together, bowed gravely to her from the waist. He straightened up almost immediately, then winked, and smiled broadly at her.
Saiorse grinned and winked back. No-one had ever bowed to her before and Saiorse found herself rather hoping that Max would do so again.
And, as she cradled Fritz in her arms, while Max once again tickled the little dog's tummy, Saiorse looked thoughtfully at her cousin. It was odd, and singularly so. After all, she had only just met him, but already Saiorse found herself rather liking this handsome, well-mannered, new cousin of hers. She had never felt that way about either Robert or Simon. In fact, if the truth be told, apart from her adored elder brother Danny, she had never really had much time for boys either, thought them all rather silly and stupid. But now, Saiorse hoped the feelings she presently had for Max would last: hoped very much that they might even be returned.
Author's Note:
The king with the funny name, and to whom Saiorse is referring, was the delightfully named King Zog of Albania (1895-1961).
Probably the strangest monarch of the twentieth century, having proclaimed himself king, Zog ruled his impoverished country from 1928 until 1939 when Albania was invaded by Italy, and he then fled into exile, settling finally in France, where he died in 1961.
In 2012 his body was exhumed and, following a state funeral, reburied in the royal mausoleum in Tirana in Albania, this event coinciding with celebrations marking that country's centenary as an independent nation.