An Irish Country Wedding (11 page)

11

What Cat’s Averse to Fish?

Barry, smiling at the thought of his end-of-week pint with O’Reilly, hammered on the Browns’ door with its stern lion’s head knocker. Helen Hewitt, who this afternoon had vacuumed the rooms and landings on the first floor, was now well into
Oliver Twist
and said she didn’t mind staying at Number One Main to answer phones,
even if it was a Friday. O’Reilly, accompanied by the faithful
hound,
and Barry on his own, had agreed to make separate follow-up
home visits and meet later at the Mucky Duck.

“Come on on on in, Doctor Laverty,” Connie said “You’ve come for to see wee Colin? He’s in the backyard.”

“He’s well?”

“Fit as a flea.”

Barry followed her through the hall and into the kitchen, where two pots bubbled on top of a range and gave off mouthwatering scents. A loaded clotheshorse stood gently steaming in front of the range. He couldn’t help noticing how many of the pairs of socks had been darned.

“Sorry about the clutter. It’s right and sunny the day, but there’s no drying in it. And with them wee squalls every now and then, I’d be going like a fiddler’s elbow taking the washing in and putting it out again,” Connie said.

“Please don’t apologise. You’ll have been busy enough since Colin came home from hospital.”

She sighed and pushed her hair from her forehead with the back of one hand. “To tell you God’s honest truth, I hope you do say he can go back to school on Monday. Anyroads, them Royal bone doctors was spot on, so they were. Had him fixed in no time,
you know, and home here on Wednesday. He’s been running
round like a liltie, so he has. He has me driven daft sometimes. Och, but
—
” and she smiled fondly.

Barry laughed. Colin Brown would be a going concern all right, a regular Irish berserker.

“This way, sir.” Connie unsnibbed a back door that led into a small yard enclosed between the house and three red-brick walls. Patches of moss sprouted from coping stones and the mortar between the bricks. An empty clothesline drooped overhead.

Colin was sitting on a wooden box on the tarmac. Beneath his short pants both knee socks were crumpled round his ankles. One knee was grazed. Barry saw how the lad cradled his pet ferret. The little animal twitched its whiskers and wrinkled its pointed nose, clearly scenting the newcomers. Colin turned and grinned. “How’s about ye, Doctor Laverty? Come to see my Butch?”

“And you, Colin. How’s the wing?”

Colin lifted the wounded extremity in its sling. “Dead on, so it is.”

“May I see?”

“Aye, certainly.” He slipped off the sling.

Barry looked at the white plaster of Paris tube that ran from Colin’s wrist, past a flexed elbow, and halfway up his upper arm. The hand was neither swollen nor reddened. “Wiggle your fingers.”

“See that there?” said Colin, waggling his fingers at Butch. “It don’t hurt nor nothin’. And that ambulance ride was wheeker. Like you said he would, Doctor, your man, the driver, put on his ‘nee-naw, nee-naw’ just like one of them cops and robbers chases at the fillums.”

Barry tousled Colin’s hair. “Good man-ma-da.” He turned to Connie. “You’ll not even know there was anything wrong by the time the cast comes off.”

“That’s great. His daddy’ll be pleased too.”

Barry squatted. “And this is Butch?”

“Aye, and he’s a wee cracker, so he is.”

There was pride and affection in the boy’s voice. Barry bent and stroked the coarse white fur of the animal’s head and noticed the bright gleam in its beady eyes. In spite of himself he shivered. Those were killer’s eyes. Ferrets were related to stoats, weasels, and polecats, and pound for pound they were some of nature’s fiercest predators. “You take good care of Butch, Colin.” Barry stood. “I’ll be off, and you can go back to school on Monday.” He turned and pretended not to see Colin sticking out his tongue.

“I’ll show you out, Doctor,” Connie said. “On Monday, Colin.” She grinned as she turned to lead the way, and when they were in the kitchen said, “Excuse me, sir. You know I was dead sorry to hear about Mrs. Kincaid, so I was. I sent her a get-well card.”

“That was thoughtful.”

Connie blushed. “And if you don’t mind me saying, sir, my Lenny’s a great carpenter, but he can’t cook for toffee apples. I’ve a notion not many men can, you know.”

“You’d be right.”

“If you’d not be offended, sir,” she turned to a counter and picked up something wrapped in a tea towel, “this here’s a Guinness beef pudding. I was going to bring it round.”

“That’s very kind.” Barry accepted the parcel, feeling its weight. He knew Kinky’s suet-crusted puddings were cooked in ceramic pudding bowls just like this one.

“Pop it as it is into boiling water for forty minutes, to heat it up, like.”

“Thanks very much, Connie,” Barry said. “I’ll get the bowl back to you.”

“No hurry.”

“I’d better be running on,” he said. “I’ll let myself out.”

It took him two minutes hurrying through the raindrops of a sun-shower to reach the Duck. He pushed through the swinging doors and walked into tobacco fug and the smell of beer in the low-ceilinged, oak-beamed single room where men in cloth caps and collarless shirts leant against a bar, pints of Guinness in their
hands. Others, a few in suits and ties, occupied tables. The
wooden tabletops were marked with cigarette burns and rings left by the bottoms of glasses.

No one noticed him come in because Helen Hewitt’s da was singing. Although it was technically against the law in Ulster to sing in public houses, Willie Dunleavy, the proprietor and barman, let men
with good voices perform, provided that they sang no sectarian
songs. Constable Mulligan always turned a blind eye to a bit of music; indeed after he’d had a few, he could often be persuaded to recite “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God” or “Cassabianca,” stolidly declaiming, “The boy stood on the burning deck
…
”

The singer, middle-aged, stocky, blessed with a head of black hair and piercing mahogany eyes, stood with his thumbs hooked into the arm holes of his waistcoat. He was a fine baritone.

One morning fair as I chanced the air down by Black Water side

In gazing all around me that Irish lad I spied
 
…

Barry knew the folk song, a classic girl’s lament for a lover’s broken promise of marriage. The tune was haunting and its rendition deserved respect from its audience. As Barry listened, he glanced round the room and recognised most of the people. Councillor Bishop sat at the far end, loudly haranguing a man who was a stranger to Barry. Bertie Bishop was pointedly ignoring the singer. The councillor had never been known for his polished manners.

O’Reilly beckoned from a table near the front of the room then turned to the bar and signalled to Willie, who leant across the counter polishing a glass. O’Reilly pointed to his empty pint glass and held up two fingers.

Willie gave a thumbs-up, and started to pour.

Barry nodded a greeting to O’Reilly, sat, and the nod was returned accompanied by a smile. Arthur was under the table, happily lapping from a bowl that Barry knew contained Smithwick’s Irish ale. Barry had come to love this place—the rough plaster walls and oak beams, the easy smiles from folks he knew, and Willie’s relaxed nature. And Helen’s da wasn’t the only one who could make soft music and enchant an evening. Barry set the beef pudding on the table and waited until the singing had finished.

And when fishes do fly and the seas run dry

It’s then that you’ll marry I.

He and O’Reilly joined in the applause.

“Jasus,” said O’Reilly, “aren’t us men terrible beasts? Leaving a
poor girl like that? Who’d do such a thing?”

Not you, Fingal, Barry thought, as he reflected on his boss’s imminent wedding. It may have taken him a while, but Fingal Flaherty O’Reilly was going to marry the girl he’d walked out with more than thirty years before. Now, in Barry’s own case, it was usually the girls who left him, but after four months, the ache of
the departure of a certain Patricia Spence was dimming, only sur
facing when something like being in the dunes last evening brought back a particular memory. He shrugged.

“You’ll recognise Helen Hewitt’s da, Alan,” O’Reilly said. He inhaled. “She got the hair and her eyes from her late mother.
Lovely
woman, Morna Hewitt. Shame about her. God Almighty, but I
hate cancer.” He curled his lip.

“Your pints, Doctors.” Willie set the straight glasses on the table and collected O’Reilly’s empty one. “Settle up when you’re leaving, sir.”

“Thanks, Willie.
Sláinte
.”

“
Sláinte
.” Barry savoured the Guinness. To change the subject he said, “Connie gave me a beef pudding.”

“Sainted Jasus and half the apostles,” said O’Reilly, his great eyebrows meeting above the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to be ungracious, Barry, but where in the hell are we going to put it? The fridge is full, the larder’s overflowing, and we can’t give things away. The donors would be mortified.”

“True enough.” The hurt taken would be irreparable. Barry had a notion. “Kitty’s coming down tomorrow. I don’t suppose she could take some things up to the Royal
 
… dishes that aren’t in anything that needs to be returned like this bowl.” He indicated the tea-towel-wrapped bundle. “I’m sure the hospital could distribute the food to people who need it? That’s one of the almoner’s jobs, isn’t it?”

O’Reilly brightened. “Bloody brilliant,” he said. “Right you are, Barry. Kitty can take them to the almoner.” His smile faded. “And, God knows there are plenty of folks in need in Belfast.”

“And in Ballybucklebo. Helen’s not the only one laid off by the mill.”

“Another bloody shame,” said O’Reilly, “but we can’t help them all. Helen’s different, though. Did you know she has all the marks in Senior that she needs to go to university?”

Barry whistled. “I did not. I’ve got the impression she’s one smart girl, but I didn’t know that. She could get entrance to Queen’s?”

“Any university she chooses. I wonder,” said O’Reilly, “if we could do anything about it. Maybe find a bursary or something.”

There was such longing in Fingal’s voice that for a moment Barry wondered if O’Reilly himself might establish one, but se
cretly generous as Barry knew his senior to be, he wasn’t as
wealthy as that.

O’Reilly had finished half his pint. “We can’t do it here and now, but we can think about it.” He pointed to Barry’s, which was down by a third, but he shook his head. O’Reilly waved one finger and nodded at Willie and said to Barry, “How’s your patient?”

“Colin?” Barry sipped. “His fracture’s set and his arm’s in a cast. Simple enough procedure for the orthopods in the Royal. Be easy enough to do here if we could give an anaesthetic, but I know these days that’s considered too risky outside of a hospital.”

“I set broken bones in my navy days, and sometimes, because we’d run out, not always with the benefit of any anaesthetic more powerful than rum.” O’Reilly chuckled. “Knowing Colin, he’d probably have been happy to give a few tots a try, but I don’t think Connie would have been impressed.”

Willie set a new pint in front of O’Reilly.

“Cheers,” he said, and took a long pull. “There’ve been a hell of a lot of changes since I started as a dispensary doctor in the Liberties of Dublin in the ’30s. Before I came north here to work for Doctor Flanagan.”

Barry knew O’Reilly’s history since he’d come to Ballybucklebo in 1939, but this was new and interesting. “Dispensary doctor?”

He took another drink. “Aye. Before the war, the Irish government employed GPs to work in the slums of Dublin and in the poorer country districts to provide a kind of basic medical care for the indigent. The system paid me a salary and the patients didn’t have to cough up unless they had a job and could afford to.” He took another drink. “I tell you, Barry, I was getting pretty expert at treating fleas, bedbugs, lice, scabies, and not always for the patients.” Barry watched as O’Reilly suddenly began scratching his left side under his arm. “You’ve no idea how much DDT improved the lives of our troops in the war. Killed lice, fleas, mosquitoes. Cut down the numbers of cases of typhus, plague, malaria
—
”

“But have you read
Silent Spring
?”

“Rachel Carson? I have. I don’t think we’ll be using much DDT in the future. It’s
—
”

Barry was aware of a figure standing at the table. He looked up to see Bertie Bishop, beer-barrel squat, legs braced apart. One thumb was hooked under the jacket lapels of his blue chalk-stripe suit, the other hand clutched a paper bag.

“A word, O’Reilly,” Bertie said.

O’Reilly said, “Won’t you have a seat, Councillor?”

“I’ll stand, so I will. I told my friend I’d not be long.”

Judging by the look on Bertie’s face, Barry thought, the man was not a harbinger of comfort and joy.

“First Flo telt me if I seen youse to say she’s very upset about Mrs. Kincaid and she’s sent her a get-well card on behalf of the whole Women’s Union, and a wheen of flowers. I’m sorry myself. We all hope she gets better soon.”

“Generous, Bertie. Thank you. I’ll be sure to tell Kinky. And please do thank your wife.”

“Flo? That one? Do you know she wanted me to ask if youse two needed any laundry doing? No wife of mine’s going to be like a common washerwoman, so she’s not. I told her youse was big
enough and ugly enough to look after yourselves and if youse
wasn’t yiz could use Lilliput Laundry.”

“Indeed we could,” O’Reilly said mildly. “Now if that’s all?” He started to turn away.

“It’s not. I’ve more, so I have. A whole lot more.”

“Oh?” O’Reilly turned back. “Do go on.”

Barry kept his counsel, but leant forward, drink forgotten.

Bertie’s voice was harsh, belligerent. “Youse’ve a white cat?” he demanded.

“Lady Macbeth,” O’Reilly said.