An Irish Country Family--An Irish Country Novel Page 3

  Interesting, O’Reilly thought. Things must be progressing with those two. And both had been such lonely people. O’Reilly was delighted for them.

  Alice reached for and took Ronald’s hand. “Will you be going to Lansdowne Road, Doctor O’Reilly?”

  “I hope so,” he said, suddenly transported to his parents’ dignified, three-storey Victorian redbrick house, where he and Lars had grown up in the ’30s. The house was not two hundred yards from the rugby pitch, and a world away, it seemed, from Ballybucklebo. “Might even see you there. Kitty and I usually have a jug in Davy Byrne’s pub before kickoff.”

  “Remember when we were Trinity students, Fingal?” Fitzpatrick said. “You and Cromie, Charlie Greer, and Bob Beresford used to do that too.”

  “Aye, we did, while you, Doctor Fitzpatrick, were, as usual, cramming for exams.” O’Reilly smiled. “A long time ago now.” He glanced over at his table and saw Kitty smiling across at him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?” he said. “I mustn’t keep Kitty and his lordship waiting too long.”

  “Of course, Fingal,” Fitzpatrick said. “Please give our regards to them both.”

  O’Reilly inclined his head and headed off. Before he reached his seat, he greeted Father Hugh O’Toole, as usual wearing his black cassock and biretta, and sharing a table with Mister Robinson, the Presbyterian minister, in a tweed sports jacket and white dog collar. “Hello, gentlemen. And Mrs. Robinson. Grand evening.”

  “Indeed,” said Father O’Toole, “for the time of year it’s in, so.” The man had not lost his Cork accent. Nor had the two men of the cloth let the present upsets in Ulster interfere with their long-standing friendship.

  O’Reilly sat down beside Kitty. “Had you given me up for lost?”

  Kitty shook her head. “Not at all. How could you get lost here, when you know so many people and they all know you? It’s a miracle you’re back with John and me so soon.”

  “I agree.” Lord John MacNeill, Marquis of Ballybucklebo, sat opposite. “I probably should be mingling a bit, but I’m much happier sitting here with your lovely wife.” The iron-grey-haired peer was casually but immaculately dressed, from the mirror shine of his black shoes to the neat half-Windsor knot in his Irish Guards tie. “Good game today,” he said. “Myrna’ll be sorry to have missed it, but she had some Queen’s University chemistry department retreat.”

  “Poor thing,” Kitty said. “Sometimes that happens to us nurses too. There was a time I didn’t mind, but Fingal and I are getting used to having a bit more leisure.”

  O’Reilly nodded. “And I’m all in favour of it.” He smiled at Kitty and lifted his pint. “Cheers.” He savoured the bittersweet Guinness.

  The marquis and Kitty returned the toast. O’Reilly took another pull on his pint and, as was customary in company, asked, “Anyone mind if I smoke?”

  “Carry on, Fingal. I thought your brother might be here this evening, but Myrna informed me that Lars didn’t care for rugby.” The marquis chuckled. “Race cars were more his sport, as I recall.”

  The two men exchanged a glance as O’Reilly fished out his loaded briar and lit up. “I tried to tempt him, John, but Myrna’s right. He’s no rugby fan.” As he exhaled a small cloud, he became aware of someone standing nearby. He turned to see Bertie Bishop and his wife, Flo.

  “We don’t mean to intrude, like, but I wonder if, my lord, I could have a wee word?”

  “It would be my pleasure, Councillor,” said the marquis, standing in the presence of Flo and offering the Bishops chairs. “Lovely to see you both. You’re looking very well, Mrs. Bishop. I’ve always admired that particular shade of green of your blouse.”

  Flo blushed, curtsied, and took a seat beside Kitty. “Thank you, my lord.” Leaving an empty chair between himself and the marquis, Bertie parked himself beside Fingal.

  O’Reilly let go a puff.

  “Now, Mister Bishop, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve a request I’d like til put til the club, my lord. Seeing you’re the president, I’d welcome your advice.” Bertie inhaled. “We all know that since October last, things have been getting worser here in Ulster. We had them shenanigans at Burntollet Bridge in January, then riots. Thon bomb in Castlereagh at the electricity station in Belfast on March 30 done five hundred thousand pounds’ damage.” He shook his head. “People wonder what ordinary folks like us can do about it.” He looked down, and back up. “I think the Ballybucklebo Sporting Club could help bring folks together, and set an example by doing it.” He waved his arm to encompass the room. “Look around youse. Catholics and Protestants getting on like a house on fire. Just like the two teams. No animosity off the pitch.”

  “I see what you mean.” The marquis looked round the table. “We’re all old enough to have lived through the upheavals since 1916. I for one had hoped that when the IRA’s Operation Harvest petered out in ’62 that would be the end to it, but—” He leant forward. “I’d be in favour of anything that can be done.”

  “I think our wee village and townland, my lord, could show folks a thing or two right here, so I do.”

  “But how, Bertie? We’re just one small village,” Kitty said.

  “Now look. We may be small but there’s something special ’bout the place. Youse all know the two faiths here in Ballybucklebo”—he cleared his throat—“all get along rightly, so we do. We started coming together as friends after Belfast and Bangor was bombed in 1941 and folks from both sides helped each other.”

  The marquis said, “And we’ve had our combined Christmas pageant ever since, twenty-eight years ago. Started that year to celebrate our looking after each other as Ulsterfolks, not Catholics nor Protestants. Father Moynihan and a Mister Holmes, the priest and Presbyterian minister at the time, cooked up the notion.”

  O’Reilly released a fragrant cloud of smoke. “And apart from when Colin Brown caused chaos on the stage in ’64”—he paused and saw the grins on every face—“the event has gone off as smoothly as a well-poured pint ever since ’41.”

  “Aye, it has,” Bertie said. “But apart from things like the annual sporting club Halloween and Christmas parties and after home matches, when we can all get together for a bit of craic and a jar or two, I’d like til suggest this building is underused on many weekend evenings.”

  “That is true,” the marquis said.

  “We’ve a licence to sell beer, wine, and spirits. There’s nowhere near here where a fellah can take his missus for a pint and a bit of craic, except maybe the Crawfordsburn or the Culloden, and how many workingmen can afford them prices?”

  Good point, O’Reilly thought. He saw John MacNeill nodding before he said, “So what are you suggesting, Bertie?”

  “I think we should run events in here on Saturday nights.”

  “Now there’s a thought,” the marquis said. “What kind of events had you in mind?”

  O’Reilly heard the high-pitched notes of a pennywhistle embellished with occasional slide notes, the staccato rattling of spoons, and the rhythmic sound of a beaten drumskin.

  “By Jove. Speak of the devil,” said the marquis. “Looks like we might have an event going on right now.”

  Although no music was allowed in Ulster pubs, people here were no less fond of spontaneous performances than their cousins in the Republic of Ireland. The sporting club, a private venue, had no such restrictions.

  Off in a corner, three men sat close to one another. One held a pair of kitchen spoons. Fergus Finnegan, the marquis’s former jockey, now retired from that position and from his captaincy of the Bonnaughts, held a pennywhistle. The third man held a bodhran, the circular Irish hand-held drum.

  O’Reilly recognised the opening bars of “The Nightingale” and a voice called out, “Give us the words, Alan Hewitt.”

  “Come on, Alan. Let her rip.”

  Whistles. Applause.

  Alan held up his hands, bowed his head, set his tea towel on the bar top, and vanished. He soon reappeared through a door, and as he
moved to join the trio, all but one conversation hushed.

  Alan faced the crowd, his blue eyes sweeping the room. He dashed a fair cow’s lick from his forehead. “Youse all know the chorus, so join in when it comes.”

  The last chatty group stopped talking.

  Alan looked at the whistle player, gave a three count, threw back his head, and began,

  As I went a walking one morning in May

  I met a young couple so far did we stray

  And one was a young maid so sweet and so fair

  And the other was a soldier and a brave grenadier

  Fingal O’Reilly wasn’t the only one to join in the chorus. He glanced round and saw just about everyone’s mouth opening. Those who couldn’t sing or didn’t know the words nodded along in time. Tapped their feet.

  And they kissed so sweet and comforting

  As they clung to each other

  Someone had two fingers in his mouth and let go a piercing whistle. Someone else whooped.

  They went arm in arm along the road

  Like sister and brother …

  A pure contralto voice soared above the others.

  They went arm in arm down the road

  Til they came to a stream …

  O’Reilly realised that the perfect sound was coming from Flo Bishop.

  The applause was deafening when the song finished.

  “You’ve a marvellous voice, Flo,” Kitty said. “Quite lovely.”

  Bertie adopted his pouter pigeon pose, but out of pride for his wife. “My Flo’s ‘Blow the Wind Southerly’ would give your woman Kathleen Ferrier’s version a run for its money, so it would.”

  Flo bobbed her head, blushed, and said, “Bertie Bishop, behave yourself.”

  O’Reilly smiled and shook his head. “By God, Flo Bishop, I’ve been your doctor for twenty-three years. I never knew you could sing like that.”

  “My lord, ladies, and gentlemen.” Fergus stood holding his whistle. “Now wasn’t that grand altogether?”

  More applause.

  “But, I know there’s some out there with their tongues hanging out and no one at the bar to pour for them, so thank you, Alan—”

  A voice yelled, “Tongue hanging out? I have a thirst you could photograph.”

  The laughter was deafening.

  Alan Hewitt bowed to Fergus and the crowd and headed back to his duty.

  Already some of the groups that had quietened out of courtesy to Alan had restarted their conversations.

  Fergus continued, “And the lads and I will give youse a few numbers. If anyone wants to sing a solo, join in.” Fergus swept an arm around the room. “You want til give us a recitation, like ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade,’ or ‘The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,’ just come on up.”

  A voice O’Reilly recognised yelled, “Will you give us a sea shanty, Doctor? You was in the navy.”

  “Not tonight, if you don’t mind,” O’Reilly said. He was proud of his baritone, but this was not the time or the place.

  Fergus looked at O’Reilly. “But mebbe some other night, Doctor, sir? You just bide tonight.” He turned back to the crowd. “We’ll start with a jig, ‘The Irish Washerwoman,’ and instead of the usual three-jig set we’ll just slip into a couple of hornpipes, ‘The Plains of Boyle’ and ‘The Last Pint.’”

  A slurred voice said, “Be jizziz, it bloody well better not be. I’m dying of feckin’ thirst.”

  A woman yelled, “Shut up, Paddy. You’re flying already.”

  There was general laughter and another woman called, “Take him home, missus. He’ll thank you in the morning.”

  “Shush, you lot,” a man called. “Give Fergus the floor, for God’s sake.”

  Fergus let it all pass, raised his voice a bit, and concluded, “Later we’ll get Alan to give us another number.”

  Mister Coffin, the undertaker, called, “Will you do ‘Rocky Road to Dublin,’ Mister Hewitt?”

  “I’m your man,” Alan Hewitt said, from his hatch.

  More applause. Conversations started up again, as did the little band, in six-eight time. While many people went silent to listen, other groups were less inhibited. After all, O’Reilly thought, it wasn’t as if they’d paid to hear a concert. If the musicians wanted to play? More power to their wheel, but some folks had come for the craic, not the music.

  Bertie Bishop was one of them. “I was talking there now about having events. I had one thing in mind, but this here’s just give me another notion as well. After you went home last night, Doc—Doctor O’Reilly was having a pint with me and Dapper Frew in the Duck—anyroad, Dapper’s in the Ballybucklebo Highlanders. Them fellahs don’t just play pipes and drums. Dapper says they’ve a uilleann piper, a fiddler, two pennywhistle guys, a banjo player who also has a mandolin, a squeezebox guy who doubles up on the spoons. That’s him over there tonight.” He glanced at Flo. “You just heard my Flo sing. I think we’ve enough talent for to hold talent contests.”

  “I think that would be great fun, Bertie,” Kitty said. “Don’t you agree, Fingal?”

  “I do, just as long as no one asks me to be a judge.”

  “I’m sure we can spare you that, Doctor O’Reilly,” Flo said.

  “You started off, Bertie, talking about bringing folks together,” said Kitty. “I’m sure that sort of thing would help.”

  “Aye,” said Bertie, “and the other thing I had in mind—”

  He was interrupted by a round of applause coming from the dance floor. The band, as promised, had gone from a jig to the even rhythms of a hornpipe, and two young women were facing each other on the floor, backs braced stiffly, arms and hands rigidly by their sides, step-dancing. O’Reilly recognised one, Jeannie Kennedy, who had had appendicitis in ’64. Neither had on hard shoes, so the usual tap-dancing sound was absent, but O’Reilly enjoyed their light-footed grace.

  Bertie Bishop laughed. “Funny that. Dancing. I was going til say, back in the ’50s and early ’60s, the Sea Scouts in Bangor ran a Saturday dance called the Fo’c’s’le in their clubhouse. I don’t know if it’s still going on, but up in Belfast the Queen’s University Hop is, and so’s the one at Inst. Very popular with young people.”

  “So, you’re suggesting we do dances here too?” the marquis said.

  Bertie nodded. “For starters. See how it goes.”

  The marquis steepled his fingers. “I think this is a splendid idea. Bring the community together—”

  A short burst of applause marked the end of the second hornpipe, and the girls returned to their table with Dermot Kennedy and his wife.

  “For the love of God, sit down, Paddy.”

  The fellow, a heavyset redhead who had shouted out earlier, was on his feet, swaying. Must be from Portaferry, O’Reilly thought, because he had never seen the man before.

  The stranger threw back his head and roared to the tune of “Galway Bay,”

  Maybe someday I’ll go home again to Ireland

  If my dear old wife would only pass away

  She nearly has me heart broke with her naggin’ …

  Cries of “Shush,” and “Houl your wheest, y’eejit.”

  Another member of his party dragged the man into a chair, and in moments two big fellahs were oxtercogging him, followed by his tearful wife, to the exit. Paddy’s parting shot was “Shut up and get ready to drive, Mick. You’re too feckin’ drunk to sing. I know you’re stocious, because your face is getting blurred.” The door closed behind them.

  The air was filled with tutting noises before the hums of conversation filled the room.

  O’Reilly shook his head, but he was smiling. “Ah, the drink,” he said, “it gets you drunk, makes you shoot at your landlord—and it makes you miss.”

  “Steady on, there, Fingal. If there’s a landlord to be shot at, it’s probably me.” But the marquis was laughing and so was everyone else at the table, although Bertie was the first to stop.

  “All that carrying on would make a cat laugh, I’m sure. Dead f
unny, it is. But here’s me trying til talk a bit of sense.”

  “Sorry, Bertie,” O’Reilly and the marquis said together.

  “We all know what you’re saying is important,” said O’Reilly. “Please go on.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. There’s one other thing I was wanting to say. When the dances are going well, we’d need to have some special guests. We can do what we like among ourselves, but if nobody takes any notice, so what? I think we could put on a function, have our church leaders here showing that they are friends, a few primed spokesmen like your lordship, and you, Doctor. Maybe Alan Hewitt and Gerry Shanks? Everyone knows Alan’s a Catholic and would like peaceful reunion of Ireland, and no one minds. He doesn’t fight with Gerry Shanks, who wants Ulster to stay part of the United Kingdom.” Bertie took a deep breath. “And that’s the way it should be and that’s what we want til show off. We’d invite BBC Ulster, Ulster ITV and Radio Telefis Eireann along to see, and show other people how us folks in Ballybucklebo can get along.”

  O’Reilly nodded. “You never can tell what that might lead to. Good for you, Bertie.”

  “It is an impressive idea,” the marquis said. “You’ve thought this through, haven’t you, Bertie?”

  “I have, my lord, and—” Bertie paused for effect. “I also think we could charge a small admission to every event and use that money, after expenses, til set up a fund.”

  “A fund? Oh, I like the sound of that,” said Kitty. “And what would it be used for?”

  Bertie sighed. “I don’t want til sound like a pessimist, but I don’t think things are going til get better in Ulster for a brave while. I think we could put away a bit of do-re-mi for seed money, and if we see a real need, like kiddies affected by what’s going on, use our dosh til get a proper nondenominational charity, like, started. Maybe a summer camp where Catholic and Protestant kids could get til know each other. Something like that.”