Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor (23 page)

“She give me a taste of gum arabic for til stick on the beard and moustache like, and what she calls a grey rinse that actors use for til put in my hair.” He lowered his voice. “And she done me a special brown one for Blue—Sorry, Buttercup. Aggie says it won’t hurt the wee dog and I’ll be able to wash it out as soon as I get her home. A bit of a brown touchup on her face, flanks, and backside and you’d think she was a brindle, not a blue, so you would.” He held a finger to his lips. “I already fooled a couple of my doggy friends when I done her up last week, said she was a new dog I was thinking of buying. And Aggie was right. The rinse washed out a treat. And Aggie?” He grinned. “That one has a mouth like a steel trap when it comes to secrets. Just like you, sir. Mum’s the word, so it is.”

“You, Donal Donnelly, are definitely one of a kind.” With a follower in your footsteps in young Colin, O’Reilly thought.

“Och, well,” said Donal, “it’s only for a bit of
craic,
like. Maybe we’ll make a bob or two, but sure them bookies can afford it.” He turned and said, “I see Mrs. O’Reilly and your brother coming, sir, so I’ll just take a wee dander, lose myself a bit in the crowd, you know. I’ll see you back here for the second, but don’t let on youse know me, all right?”

“Off you go,” O’Reilly said, still chuckling.

“Who was that?” Kitty asked as she and Lars arrived to stand beside Fingal.

“Just one of the dog fanciers.” He bent and whispered in her ear, “Donal Donnelly, but pretend you don’t know.”

“Know what?” She laughed.

Someone started bellowing into a handheld megaphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, the first will begin in five minutes. Five minutes.”

The distorted voice took Fingal back to an August day in 1936 and a man talking over a Tannoy in Merrion Square Park about the Spanish Civil War. He banished the thoughts and paid attention instead to the goings-on on the far side of the track where handlers were putting their dogs into the starting traps.

The
bang
of the starter’s pistol grabbed his attention. He looked across to the far side where eight lean dogs, each wearing a coloured numbered jacket, began tearing round the track following a stuffed hare towed by an old Morris Minor. Racing greyhounds could reach top speeds of more than forty miles an hour.

The noise was deafening as the punters cheered on their dogs. He watched a black one take the lead, each stride as powerful as the sudden unleashing of a fully wound crossbow. On the top of the curve, a white dog put its narrow muzzle in front. O’Reilly decided to cheer for the black, which was challenging strongly. “Run, black dog,” he yelled. “Run.” Even though he’d decided only to bet on Donal’s Buttercup today and had no money on this race, he still wanted the black to win, and as they came into the final straight, it nosed ahead. “Go on,” O’Reilly yelled, “go on,” only to subside as a fawn dog slipped past on the outside and crossed the finish line first. “Phew,” said O’Reilly, well aware that his pulse was racing, “you can pack a lot of excitement into thirty seconds.”

“I noticed,” Kitty said. “The last time I saw you as worked up at a sporting event was at last season’s Ireland, Wales rugby game.”

“Didn’t win that time either. Bloody Wales did, fourteen to eight.”

The cheering faded. A squat man wearing an open-necked shirt and a V-neck sleeveless pullover stood beside O’Reilly. The stranger tore off his duncher and yelled as the last dog, by a wide margin, crossed the line, “Was your dam mounted by a bloody snail? You couldn’t catch a flaming cold, never mind a hare. Keep going round the track. You might come in first in the second race.” He turned away, ripped up his bookie’s ticket, and said to O’Reilly, “That’s the trouble with these here unofficial tracks. Nobody knows the dogs’ form. Half of them aren’t good enough to run at places like Dunmore or Celtic Park.” Then he smiled. “Och, but sure I’d only five bob on. Losing it won’t break the bank. Me and the missus come down from Belfast, so we did. Great way for til spend a Saturday afternoon, so it is.” He turned to an equally squat woman wearing a floral dress and floppy hat. “Stay you there, Maisie. Keep our places, like. I’ll go and put a few bob on a dog in the second race. Will I bring youse a shandy?”

“Aye,” she said, “and don’t put as much lemonade in the beer this time.” She looked up and O’Reilly followed her gaze as she said, “And bring my Pac-a-Mac. I don’t like the look of thon cloud.”

Certainly the cloud O’Reilly had noticed earlier had grown, but it was still over the Lough, and the Ards Peninsula was bathed in sunshine.

A cheer rang out. O’Reilly looked to a roped-off area just past the finish on his side of the track. Four men wearing long brown cotton coats with red armbands stood in a tight group, one holding aloft a blackboard upon which were chalked the names and numbers of the winning three dogs. He twisted it from side to side so everyone could see. O’Reilly presumed they were the stewards, though certainly not members of the Irish Coursing Club that regulated official greyhound racing in Ulster like its counterpart Bord na gCon, the Board of the Hound, did in the Republic of Ireland.

Six of the eight finishers had already been collected by their handlers. The eighth dog, number six, which according to the blackboard was called Broggle Billy and was the winner at two to one, was being led away after having been examined by one of the stewards to make sure, as Colin Brown had been at pains to point out, there’d been “no hanky-panky.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a streak of gold and turned to see the owner of the last-place dog chasing his animal, which was now running like a liltie across the field. The dog’s burst of speed was too little, too late. Good luck to you, he thought. I hope you catch the beast—and I hope young Colin will have no difficulty collaring Buttercup after the next race.

He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down. School cap askew, dog leash in one hand, Colin Brown smiled up at O’Reilly.

“Think of the divil and he’s sure to turn up,” O’Reilly said, and smiled.

“Aye. Not be long now,” Colin said. “My daddy’s got Blu—Buttercup over for the start, so he has.” He lowered his voice. “And thonder,” he pointed to an open gate in the hedge surrounding this part of the old airfield, “my daddy’ll bring the van over til there so we can all get home. I’m til take the dog for a once-over by a steward after the race.” He put a finger against his nose. “And my daddy’ll come up and get the prize.”

“Good for you, Colin,” O’Reilly said, thinking, You little scamp. “Now stay with Mrs. O’Reilly and my brother. You can wait for the race with us.” He winked at Colin. “I just want to have a word with a bookie.” He spoke to Kitty and Lars. “Keep an eye on young Colin here. I’m going to have a flutter for us and Kinky.” Her ten-shilling note was in his pocket. “Do you want anything put on, Lars?”

Lars shook his head. “I think I’ll hang on to my cash today, thanks, Finn. E-Types do cost a penny or two.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the megaphone intoned, “the second will begin in five minutes. Five minutes.”

“Good luck,” Kitty said. “Make sure you’re back in time to see the race.”

O’Reilly made his way through the crowd of strangers to where queues had formed in front of five men, each with a slung satchel. Every one had a small blackboard on an easel, and on it in chalk the names of the dogs in the second race were displayed, and their odds. O’Reilly joined a line and waited his turn. There was no sign of the likes of Honest Sammy Dolan or Willie McCardle, the bookies from Ballybucklebo. In fact, he’d seen virtually no one from home.

A grey-haired, bearded punter wearing a Homburg was in the next line. O’Reilly heard him say, “Aye, Buttercup to win at ten to one. Here’s a fiver,” which would be nearly two weeks’ wages for Donal. The dog had better win—and Donal had better not get found out.

O’Reilly stood in front of a tall, rangy man with an eyepatch over his left eye. His bowler hat was tipped at a rakish angle and he had a cigarette stuck to his upper lip. “Wot’ll it be, guv’nor? Fancy one of the bow-wows?”

Good Lord. The man was English, Cockney at that by the sound of him. “Five pound ten on Buttercup to win, please.”

The smile was lopsided. “Right, chum.” The intonation in those two words said, “There’s one born every minute.” He licked the end of a stubby pencil, scribbled in a book, tore off half of the page along a perforated line, took O’Reilly’s money, stuffed it into the satchel, and handed O’Reilly his half of the ticket. “The best of Donald, me old garden. Oo’s next then?”

O’Reilly stuck the ticket in his pocket and headed back to where Kitty and Lars would be waiting. Donald? Garden? Cockney rhyming slang. He chuckled. Got it. Donald Duck—luck. Garden gate—mate. And folks thought the Ulster dialect hard to understand? Good thing two of Surgeon-Commander O’Reilly’s sick berth attendants on HMS
Warspite
had been Cockneys and had taught him the intricacies of rhyming on occasional quiet days during the war. “All set?” Kitty asked.

“Mmm.”

“See way over there, now?” Colin said. “That’s my daddy and Buttercup, so it is. She’s number three.”

“I can see her,” O’Reilly said. “It’s almost time.”

“Aye. I’ll away on down to the judges’ enclosure, so I will,” Colin said. “Be ready til get her after the race.”

“Just a minute,” Kitty said, bending down to straighten his cap and pull up the sock that was round his ankle. “Let’s have you looking your best for your big moment.”

O’Reilly noticed that Donal had found a place at the finish line too. He winked at O’Reilly, who winked back.

A shadow fell over the course and O’Reilly looked up. The cloud was drifting over the Ards Peninsula on its way to Scotland.

One of the stewards in their enclosure picked up the megaphone. “Ladies and gentlemen. If I can have youse’s attention? The dogs is at the start, and—”

There was the sharp crack of the pistol.

“They’re off.”

The Morris Minor rushed past the starting gates dragging the lure and eight dogs burst out, every muscle and sinew stretched to breaking point as they tore after. Even before the pack reached the top of the curve, O’Reilly could see the brindled Buttercup leading by a head, but a black was edging past her. “Move it, Buttercup,” he roared in his best quarterdeck voice, making damn sure she’d be able to hear him over the yells of everyone else.

He glanced to see Donal ripping his hat off his head.

The dogs came closer, closer. “That’s her, Kitty, the brindle in third place,” O’Reilly said. “Come on Blu—Buttercup.”

Maybe his yell had helped, but it was as if one of those boosters Americans used to fire their rockets into space had been ignited. Buttercup tore down the straight and crossed the finish a length ahead of the other leading dog.

O’Reilly, delighted to have won for himself and Kinky, saw Donal hurl his Homburg into the air, catch it, and start heading for the bookies. A line from the song “Kelly the Boy from Killane” flashed into O’Reilly’s mind: “Fling your beavers aloft and give three ringing cheers.”

“Hooray!” he roared. “Hooray! Hooray!”

“Look, Fingal,” Kitty said, “there’s Colin.”

Colin was having no difficulty catching the animal. The lad proudly clipped on the dog’s leash and led her to the place, not ten yards away, for one of the stewards to examine her. By the way the man was smiling, all was well. Donal’s psychology—knowing that adults instinctively trust children—was going to pay off.

A lightning bolt tore to the earth silhouetting the round tower of nearby Kirkistown Castle against a sky of black, and in a second the thunder crashed and echoed. Huge raindrops came pelting down. O’Reilly ripped off his jacket and threw it over Kitty’s head. “Run for the car,” he said. That bloody cloud had arrived with a vengeance.

Kitty needed no further bidding and took off.

O’Reilly looked back to the makeshift paddock. “Oh Jasus,” he said. As the crowd scattered, he had a clear line of vision to the field. The steward attending Buttercup was holding up a brown-stained hand and frowning. Brown drops fell from the animal’s muzzle and the brown patch on her flank was leaching into the surrounding grey-blue fur. Donal had said he would easily be able to wash the rinse off the dog at the end of the day. The rain was saving him the trouble. The steward grabbed for the scruff of Colin’s jacket. “C’m’ere you, you wee—”

Colin ducked, narrowly missing the man’s grasp, and with Buttercup/Bluebird cantering by his side charged for where his father had parked the van and was opening the back doors.

“Go on,” O’Reilly yelled. “Run.”

The steward was in pursuit and gaining. He was shaking his fist and yelling, “Come back here, you little bugger. Come back.”

He’d have collared Colin if a small, grey-bearded man in a Homburg hadn’t managed to stick out a leg and send the steward on a slithering belly flop into the mud. Donal jumped over the man and raced after Colin and the dog.

“Go on, you-boy-yuh,” O’Reilly said in encouragement, noticing that three more stewards had joined in the pursuit, a rotund one lagging behind his fellows. One of the spectators who had turned to watch yelled, “Two to one on the wee lad.”

O’Reilly watched as Colin, the greyhound, and Donal charged through the open gate and piled into the van one after the other. Lenny Brown slammed the doors and rushed to the driver’s seat. The van’s engine started with a roar and a blast of blue exhaust smoke, and the vehicle sped fishtailing away toward the main road. O’Reilly noticed that the rear number plate had been covered in mud.

The stewards’ posse reined in, clearly admitting defeat, the fat one wheezing like a set of clogged bellows, and O’Reilly heard one say, “Crafty buggers. I wonder who the hell it was?” and another reply, “No idea, and we’ve about as much chance of finding out as hearing a fart in a tornado.”

Twenty minutes later, O’Reilly, Kitty, and Lars were in the Mermaid pub in Kircubbin. Mrs. MacDowell had lit the fire and each was holding a hot whiskey in still chilled hands, having a good belly laugh at the notion that for once the biter—arch-schemer Donal Donnelly—had been well and truly bitten.