Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party (9 page)

“None at all,” interjected Niamh.

“And yet here we see the two of you,” continued Rupert O'Brien, “making short work of a
mountain
of sandwiches.”

As he spoke, Rupert was glaring at Fatty. Now he moved forward swiftly and snatched one of the sandwiches.

“That's ours,” shouted Fatty.

“Just as I thought,” said Rupert. “Smoked salmon. The very thing we ordered.” He stuffed the sandwich into his mouth and then, signalling to Niamh to follow him, left the room.

“How dare he!” muttered Fatty, once they had gone. “How dare he come in here and eat one of our sandwiches.”

“Well, they were his,” said Betty mildly.

Fatty snorted dismissively. “Let's finish them, Betty, before any other passer-by comes and eats them.”

Within a rather short time there were only crumbs left. Fatty looked out of the window. The surface of the lough was a pale blue, reflecting the clear morning sky above.
In the distance, at the edge of the lawn, was the jetty and beyond it the boathouse. His hunger assuaged, Fatty had an idea.

“We shall go fishing,” he announced. “That is what we'll do this morning, Betty.”

Mrs. O'Connor had invited them to use the rowing boat that they had spotted tied up at the jetty, and had pointed out a small room where the fishing tackle was stored.

“You could have a grand day on the lough,” she had said. “And if you catch a nice big pike I can get chef to serve it to everybody tonight! Mind you catch a fish now!”

It took them half a hour or so to prepare the fishing rods and the lures, but at last they were standing on the jetty, with the sky above them a promising blue and the surface of the lough stretching out glass-smooth into the distance.

Fatty stood with his hands clasped behind him and drew in a deep breath.

“This is perfect, Betty,” he said. “You must admit that everything is beginning to turn out well after all. I knew that things would get better.”

Betty smiled. It gave her pleasure to see Fatty so happy, and she was looking forward to a few relaxing hours on the lough. She was not particularly keen on fishing, but
she viewed it as the only predominantly masculine pursuit which kept men occupied and
under control
for hours on end. When he was fishing, a man could hardly be getting up to any mischief, as men tended to do if left to their own devices – standing about in the water, casting metal hooks into the depths, was, in every respect, an innocent pursuit.

They loaded the fishing gear into the boat and then, after Betty had lowered herself onto a seat in the stern, Fatty untied the painter and stepped onto the middle seat, alongside the oars and rowlocks. With a deft push at the side of the jetty, he sent the boat out into the lough and began to row, dipping the oars expertly into the water.

It was not a large boat and the combined weight of Fatty and Betty made it ride dangerously low in the water. In fact, when Betty put her hand on the side, her fingers dipped into the lough.

“This is rather low,” she ventured. “If I put my hands …”

“What?” said Fatty, who was exerting himself with the rowing.

“Rather low in the water,” warned Betty. “I don't know if it's going to be terribly easy to fish. All that movement.”

“We'll be fine,” said Fatty. “Don't you worry.”

Betty was not sure, but Fatty, who was experienced with
boats, had reassured her and she decided to concentrate on enjoying the outing rather than worrying. Fatty, having rowed them some twenty yards beyond the jetty, now decided to rest for a while, and he shipped the oars, shifting slightly in his seat as he did so. It was not a large or sudden movement, but so meagre was the clearance from the surface that it proved sufficient to tilt one side of the boat under the water. With a sudden glistening rush, like molten silver being poured into a vat, the clear water of the lough flooded into the boat.

Betty shrieked, and Fatty instinctively moved in the opposite direction. But of course the correction was too great, and this only resulted in further flooding. With the boat now half-filled with water and the sides only mere inches above the surface, Fatty gingerly rowed back toward the jetty. They almost made it, but not quite. When still a few yards off, a ripple in the surface of the water was enough to tip the scales against them, and the rowing boat began to founder, dipping below the surface of the lough like a tiny stricken liner sinking beneath the waves.

Fortunately, the water at the site of their sinking was not deep, and when they involuntarily abandoned ship both Fatty and Betty found that the water came up only as far as their necks. So even had they not been able to swim,
they would have been able to walk ashore – slow progress, though, with their feet in the mud and weeds of the lough bottom.

Fatty was first to clamber onto the jetty, and, from his position of safety he bent down and gave a hand to Betty, who needed assistance in getting out of the water. Betty grasped his hand and tried to pull herself up, but Fatty, vulnerable in his waterlogged footwear, slipped and toppled over into the lough; so might a hippopotamus fall into the Limpopo, with just such a splash.

“Oh, Betty!” moaned Fatty, when he broke the surface. “Oh, Betty, I've gone and lost my shoes now.”

Betty tried to help him find his shoes, ducking under the water to do so. But they had churned up so much mud that it was impossible to see through the turbid murk, and so they reluctantly gave up and waded toward the shore. As they staggered out of the water, brushing off the weed and slime that they had acquired on their ignominious journey, they looked up and saw two figures on the lawn of the house. These two had watched the unfolding tragedy from afar, but had been unable to help, given the rapid course of events. Now, however, they strode across the lawns to enquire of the unfortunate couple as to whether they could offer any assistance.

“My dear Mr. O'Leary,” said Rupert O'Brien, as he tried ineffectively to brush the aquatic detritus from Fatty's shoulders. “What fearful bad luck! Did you overload that little boat, do you think? Is that what happened?”

Fatty did not reply to Rupert O'Brien. He was chilled to the bone by his exposure to the cold waters of the lough. He had no shoes. His clothes were covered with waterweed.

He turned to Betty, who stood shivering beside him, the green linen trouser suit clinging to her every bulge.

“Come, Betty,” he said, with such dignity as he could muster. “We'll go and have a hot bath.”

“But we don't have a bath,” said Betty. “Not any more.”

M
RS
. O'C
ONNOR APPEARED LARGELY UNCONCERNED
about the loss of the boat, just as she had accepted, with remarkable equanimity, the removal of the bath and its apparent abandonment in the courtyard.

“That boat's gone down before now,” she said, as Fatty hesitantly explained their dripping and shivering arrival in the entrance hall. “I'll send Delaney's boy down to bring it up. He's a great swimmer, that lad.”

She surveyed her guests with concern. “But you poor things must be most uncomfortable, and you'll be needing a good hot bath.”

Fatty wrung his hands together in an attempt to restore warmth to his frozen fingers. “Our own bath, of course, is still …”

“Of course,” said Mrs. O'Connor. “How silly of me. You must use my own bathroom. I'll show you where it is. There's lashings of hot water and I'll get you some fresh towels.”

She led them down a corridor to the bathroom. There, although Fatty took great care to ensure that he did not again become wedged in the tub, they were soon restored to warmth. Then, wearing the bathrobes that Mrs.
O'Connor had thoughtfully provided for them, they made their way back to their own room and were soon warmly clad again.

“It could have been worse,” said Fatty, as he sat in front of their window and gazed out over the lough. “If the boat had capsized when we were way out in the middle then heaven knows what could have happened. We might have drowned.”

“Oh, don't speak like that,” said Betty. “I wouldn't like to drown, Fatty. Would you?”

Fatty thought for a moment. “No,” he said. “I would not like to drown, Betty,” adding, “on balance.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Betty spoke.

“Sometimes I dream that I lose you, Fatty,” she said. “I wake up feeling so sad, as if my whole world had come to an end. Which it would, if I really did lose you.”

Fatty looked at his wife. He did not deserve her, he thought. Although he had done his best as a husband, he could not believe that he merited the good fortune of having such a devoted wife. And sometimes it occurred to him that all that he seemed to bring her was awkwardness and problems. The Irish trip was an example; the chapter of accidents that had unfolded since their arrival was not Betty's doing, it was his. She had not lost her luggage; she
had not become stuck in the bath; she had not suggested setting forth in that inadequate boat; everything, it seemed, had been his fault.

“Do you think I'm just accident-prone?” he asked. “There are some people like that, you know. Things just go wrong for them. They don't ask for it; it just happens that way.”

Betty, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair, laid down her brush and came over to Fatty's side.

“Of course not, my dear,” she said. “None of this is your fault. You've just had bad luck.”

Fatty looked down at his bare feet. Although he had had a spare set of clothes made up by Mr. Delaney, he had only one pair of shoes and now he would have to try to borrow some from Mrs. O'Connor.

“I'm just not much good at things,” he said. “No wonder that O'Brien person laughs at me.”

Betty put her arm about his shoulder. “He doesn't laugh at you, Fatty. You haven't heard him laugh at you, have you?”

“Not to my face,” said Fatty. “But behind my back. He'll be laughing at me. He'll be laughing at all the … undignified things that have happened to me.”

Betty shook her head. “That's not true, my dear. And, anyway, you're a better man than he is by a long chalk. Anybody can tell that.”

Fatty was silent. Something was happening at the edge of the lough and he could not quite see what it was. Rupert O'Brien was bending down at the water's edge and seemed to be poking at the surface of the lough with a stick.

“What do you think he's doing?” asked Fatty, pointing at the distant figure.

“Heaven knows,” said Betty. “But let's not worry about him. Let's go for a little drive in our car. We'll buy some shoes from Mr. Delaney. Then we'll have lunch somewhere. How about that?”

The mention of lunch cheered Fatty up, and he readily agreed to Betty's suggestion. Together they made their way downstairs, Betty going ahead to consult Mrs. O'Connor about shoes and Fatty treading gingerly on the bare wooden floorboards, lest he pick up a splinter.

The borrowing of shoes, it transpired, was easily accomplished.

“Guests leave the most extraordinary things behind,” said Mrs. O'Connor, opening a large walk-in cupboard. “Look in here.”

Betty saw a cornucopia of effects: walking sticks, umbrellas, coats, books, and various items of clothing, all stacked on shelves. At the bottom, neatly arrayed, were lines of shoes. Her eye alighted on a handsome pair of brogues that looked as if it was the right size for Fatty: size ten, extra broad fitting.

“That's a fine pair of shoes,” said Mrs. O'Connor. “I have no idea who left them. But if they fit your husband, Mrs. O'Leary, then he should wear them. It's an awful pity to waste shoes like that.”

Fatty, who had now negotiated his way downstairs, took the shoes from Betty, along with a pair of checked men's socks that Mrs. O'Connor had retrieved from one of the shelves. The fit was perfect, and the shoes were extremely comfortable. He thanked Mrs. O'Connor, and together he and Betty went out to their car and drove off down the drive.

The shoes made his spirits soar, as fine apparel and the knowledge that one is wearing it tend to do.

“I feel well-shod,” he remarked to Betty, as the lush countryside rolled past them. “It's extraordinary how
empowering
a good pair of shoes can be.”

Betty nodded. She had read about empowerment, which was something people seemed to talk a great
deal about these days. A few months previously, at the Fayetteville Charity Fair, she had paid five dollars to enter a tent intriguingly labelled:
Feminist Fortunes – the future as it really
is. The fortune-teller, a young woman with unnerving green eyes, had said to her: “Are you empowered?” Betty had been uncertain how to answer, as she was not sure whether or not she was empowered. She had never felt
unempowered
or
disempowered
, but this did not mean that she was actually empowered.

The young woman had smiled at her. “The sisters are with you,” she had said. “They will help you to forget the man who's been holding you back.”

Betty looked astonished. Was Fatty holding her back? She thought it unlikely: Fatty always encouraged her to do things and took great pleasure in her achievements.

“I don't think a man's holding me back,” she had said. “Not as far as I know.”

The young woman had looked at her pityingly. “They all hold us back,” she said. “It's just that sometimes they're subtle about it and you don't know that it's happening.”

“But my husband's a nice man,” she had said. “We love to do things together. We're very happy.”

The young woman had shaken her head. “There's a number on this leaflet,” she said, handing her a folded
piece of paper. “Next time he becomes violent, call us.”

But talk of empowerment seemed inappropriate in this landscape; it belonged to a world of conflict, to a society that seemed to be at war with itself, where people were pitted against one another in prickly distrust. Ireland was not like that, she thought, particularly not this part of Ireland, where strangers waved to one another and everybody seemed content with their lot.