An Irish Country Family--An Irish Country Novel Read online

A spontaneous round of applause burst out from the crowd, as if all had heard and were in agreement. O’Reilly started clapping himself.

  “Good gracious,” John MacNeill said, “what a splendid idea. My sister Myrna and I would certainly contribute.” He frowned. His voice was very serious when he said, “We’ll need a majority vote of all members present in favour at an extraordinary general meeting to charge for admission. I think we should set up a steering committee so our proposal is watertight.”

  “I’ll help,” Bertie Bishop said, “and, Flo?”

  “I’m on the Ladies’ Committee. I’ll ask if they’d like me to represent them.”

  “Excellent,” the marquis said. “I wonder if the Reverend Robinson and Father O’Toole might serve? I’ll ask them. I think you should chair the group, Mister Bishop.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Bertie said. “And I’d ask that the chairman has no vote so there’ll never be a tie.”

  “Fair enough,” O’Reilly said. “And I’d suggest that’s a big enough number.”

  Bertie Bishop grimaced. “There may be a wee snag. It only just came til me there now.”

  The marquis took a sip of his pint and leaned forward. “Oh? Please go on.”

  “These here grounds is out in the country, of course, ’cause land was cheaper to buy here,” Bertie said. “But there is that one house fornenst the pitch and there’s a thran bugger, I’m sorry, your lordship, ladies”—O’Reilly was sure John MacNeill had heard much worse—“lives in it. Just moved in a couple of months ago. Lieutenant-Colonel Mullan, late of the Royal Ulster Rifles, has been complaining after every home game because of the noise. He was here half an hour ago, giving off. Chuntering on about sound bylaws. He’ll likely object til dances too.”

  The marquis nodded. “Indeed, he might.” John MacNeill frowned. “Rifles, eh? Fine old unit. Two regiments of foot, the Eighty-third (County of Dublin) and Eighty-sixth (Royal County Down), were amalgamated in 1881 as the Royal Irish Rifles. Did yeoman service at the Somme. Changed their name to the Royal Ulster Rifles in 1921.”

  “After the partition of Ireland,” O’Reilly said. “The new Irish Free State didn’t want them.”

  “They have a proud tradition,” the marquis said. “I wonder if my sister Myrna and I had him round for dinner. Appealed to his regimental spirit? I wonder if he might withdraw his complaint.”

  Before anyone else could comment, there was a rattling of spoons and their player said, “My lord, ladies, and gentlemen. Earlier we had a request for ‘Rocky Road to Dublin.’ Alan Hewitt, if you please.”

  As Alan made his way to join the musicians, there were whistles, cheers, applause. A cry of, “Go on, Alan, you-boy-yuh.”

  O’Reilly looked over to where the trio had re-formed.

  The instruments played the intro and Alan began,

  While in the merry month of May, now from me home I started

  Left the girls of Tuam were nearly broken-hearted

  Saluted father dear, kissed me darling mother

  Drank a pint of beer, me grief and tears to smother …

  Gerry Shanks’s wife, Mairead, came and stood beside Alan, taking the alto part when the verse moved on:

  Then off to reap the corn and leave where I was born

  Cut a stout blackthorn to banish ghosts and goblins

  A brand-new pair of brogues to rattle over the bogs …

  O’Reilly sat back. He glanced round. Just look how every face was smiling tonight. O’Reilly took a pull on his pint. Bertie Bishop’s idea of using the clubhouse to bring the community together was going to take some planning, but who better to do it than the Bishops and the two men of God. And that was a stroke of genius Bertie had about getting the media in. None of this might solve Ulster’s problems, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

  The alto and tenor notes filled the hall, soaring in harmony above every other voice in the place belting out the chorus in unison:

  One two three four five hunt the hare

  And turn her down the rocky road

  And all the way to Dublin

  Whack fal-al-dee-rah

  3

  Roaring He Shall Rise

  April 12, 1969

  Doctor Barry Laverty looked up at the white sails, both filled, taut, and drawing to perfection. He and his longtime friend Jack Mills had borrowed Shearwater, a GP 14 dinghy, from a friend, Andy Jackson. Jack was on the tiller and Barry was perched on the starboard side amidships as the little boat heeled to the wind. He loved the peace of being out on the waters of Belfast Lough.

  They’d passed Luke’s Point with its concrete outdoor roller-skating rink, and Barry could see the afternoon sun flashing from windows in the little town of Whitehead directly across the lough on the County Antrim shore. “Good to be back on the water, Jack,” he said.

  “Aye,” said Jack. “I reckon both of us can use a break from Ulster politics, if only for the afternoon.”

  “You said it.” Barry nodded. “And it’s good to get away from patients’ problems too.” He frowned. “Sue’s visiting her parents in Broughshane today. She wants to have a chat with her mum, but she’ll be home at six thirty.”

  Jack was the only other one privy to the Lavertys’ apparent difficulty conceiving. “Still no luck?”

  Barry shook his head. “’Fraid not.”

  “I’m sorry, mate.”

  “Thanks.” Barry managed a small smile. “She’s being very brave about it.” He stared out over the gentle chop for fifty yards to where a fisherman in a thirty-foot open motor launch was hauling in a net lobster pot empty of catch. Barry looked back at his friend. “Anyway. Let’s try not to worry now. Enjoy the sailing.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The big farmer’s son from Cullybackey sat to starboard on the stern cross bench, the dinghy’s tiller in his left hand. He had a satisfied grin on his ruddy-cheeked face as he exerted just enough pressure so the angle of the rudder held the boat on course.

  Barry sat controlling the jib, his feet under a central toe strap in case he might need to lie back outside the boat and use his weight to counteract the heeling effect of the easterly breeze blowing from the mouth of Belfast Lough. Puffy clouds were gliding away from the distant Persian blue hills of Antrim and toward the smoky city of Belfast.

  Now, in early April, although cellular long johns worn under jeans, thick oiled-wool Aran sweaters, yellow oilskins, and woolly hats were still in order, spring had come to Ulster and chased away Boreas, the bitter north wind.

  The only sounds were the swish of the bows cutting through the water, the slap of wavelets on the boat’s side, and the harsh overhead mewing of a couple of brown-speckled, immature herring gulls. A stronger gust made the dinghy heel, and Barry lay back out over the side, his leverage bringing the little vessel back on a more even keel. A burst of spray blew in his face and he felt its icy fingers, tasted the salt.

  Barry could see his friend was having to put more pressure on the tiller to stop the boat being pushed off course. The gust passed, the boat righted, and Barry came inboard. “I’m sorry Helen couldn’t join us today, Jack. She always enjoys a day out.”

  “It’s her finals in June. Nothing, and I mean nothing’s going to keep her from her studies. You remember what it was like when we were medical students? Pure bloody purgatory.” He made a small helm adjustment and Barry trimmed his sail by tightening his sheet.

  “I remember.” Barry cast back to June 1963 at Queen’s University Belfast and even now, six years later, shuddered at the thought. It had been a three-week test of endurance and knuckle-gnawing stress the like of which he’d never want to go through again. “At least I was finished with exams after that. You still had a fair share to face.”

  Jack grinned. “Behind me now. One early basic sciences exam called the Primary, four years training under supervision after our houseman’s year, then the big one in London, written papers, practical cases at Saint Bart’s, then orals at the Royal College itself.”
/>   “And you passed. You can put FRCS, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, after your name, drop ‘Doctor’ and adopt the honorific ‘Mister.’”

  Jack laughed. “All because of some mediaeval academic dispute between physicians who demanded to be called ‘Doctor’ and barber surgeons who had to make do with ‘Mister.’”

  “I didn’t think you cared much about titles, Jack.”

  “I don’t, but I do care about getting a senior position. I have to wait until a senior man retires before I can get a consultant job.” Jack sighed. “Some of my lot have already emigrated. Much easier to get a senior post in Canada.”

  “You and Helen still thinking of going?” Barry hoped not, but the last time he and Jack had talked about this his best friend had seemed pretty set.

  Jack answered quietly, “Helen has to get her finals first.”

  “She’s not missed any of her exams up to now. I’m sure she’ll be fine, mate.”

  “Huh,” said Jack, “I agree, but try telling her that. She says she absolutely must pass, and not just for herself. She feels an obligation to a couple of people. Her dad, for one. And the marquis of Ballybucklebo for giving her that scholarship.”

  “You’ve got Fingal to thank for that,” Barry said.

  “From what I’ve seen of your senior,” Jack said, “he keeps a lot of people on the straight and narrow, and you, my friend, you’ve been keeping this boat upright for more than an hour. My turn.” Jack laughed. “Here, you helm for a while. I’ll look after the jib.” Jack prepared to move. He made sure the main sheet was cleated in.

  “Right.” Barry let his sheet fly and the jib flap. He’d move aft to take the tiller before Jack relinquished control. Snug in its jam cleat, the main sheet could be left unattended during the changeover. Barry crouched, covered the short distance, sat aft, took the tiller, feeling the degree of tension required to keep the boat on course, and picked up the end of the cleated-in main sheet.

  Jack moved forward and took Barry’s old spot on the starboard side. Hand over hand he hauled in the jib sheet until the noisy flapping of the smaller sail had been stilled and the Teflon triangle was properly trimmed. He put his feet under the toe strap. He grinned. “All set.”

  Barry looked up. The sun had passed the top of the mast and shone directly down on him. He scrunched up his eyes, then opened them to watch the wavelets dance toward the boat. The wind ruffled his hair.

  Both sails were set well. He smiled. “‘And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’ ‘Sea Fever.’”

  Jack stood, knees bent to keep his balance, and struck a poetic pose. “‘I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life/To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife.’”

  Barry laughed. “That goes back a long way. To Mister Wilcockson’s fifth-form English literature class at Campbell College. Sixteen years since we met there in ’53. I think the next line is, ‘And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover.’ You and I have been fellow rovers, and by God, I can’t count the number of times you’ve made me laugh.”

  “Many moons cross sky, Kemo Sabe. Much water flow under bridge.”

  “Eejit.” Barry laughed. “See? You’ve done it again.”

  “Good old Campbell. I enjoyed our time there. Made some great friends. Played on a winning rugby team.”

  Barry knew his best friend had for years harboured a wish to play rugby football for Ireland, but it had not come to pass. Yet it seemed Jack had accepted that and got on with his life. That ability was something Barry envied in Jack Mills. Barry himself was more of a worrier and—Damn it, he wasn’t going to think about his concerns today.

  Jack bent and looked under the jib. “We’re getting a bit close to the buoyed shipping lane, Barry, and there’s a tanker heading up to the Sydenham tank farm.”

  “I’ll alter course,” Barry said. “You handle the jib.”

  “Aaar. Aye-aye, skipper.” Jack exactly caught Robert Newton’s Long John Silver from the ’50s movie Treasure Island. He grimaced, widened his eyes, and said with a leer, “Was you ever at sea, Jim, lad?”

  Barry chuckled. They’d seen the film together at one of the winter Saturday-night film screenings at their boarding school. Those memories, the happy ones like an old film, the serious ones like the exams they’d faced together—as Helen must shortly—and the remembrances of their houseman’s year as freshly minted doctors, unsure of themselves, anxious, facing the stresses and the ridiculous moments, were all part of the foundation of their deep friendship.

  Barry smiled over at Jack and altered course so the wind was coming in from almost directly astern. The boat, now running down the waves, began to pitch to the swells, bow and stern taking it in turn to rise and fall. Barry’s memories were interrupted when Jack said, “Dear God, what’s that?” He pointed to where a dark triangle in the water approached to starboard from ahead.

  Barry leaned over the little boat’s side and stared. “Damned if I know.” The wind ruffling Belfast Lough made it impossible to see beneath the surface, but judging by the way the water was disturbed round the object, it was attached to something big. Very big. And it was coming their way.

  The triangle, moving at about two knots, now was level with Shearwater’s bow. Barry peered beneath him as the creature passed close alongside. He could make out a blunt rounded snout, which meant the triangle, by now opposite Jack, was at least seven feet from the tip of the brute’s nose. Holy Moses. If the triangle were a dorsal fin, the fish must be at least as long as the dinghy.

  “What do you think it is, Barry, bye?” Jack’s voice was strained.

  “I think—” Barry jerked back, nearly losing his balance. He held on to the tiller but, flailing his free arm, dropped the cleated-in sheet.

  Jack yelled, “Dear God,” and flinched away. His movement hauled in on the jib. Deprived of its drawing power, it collapsed, flapping.

  The ocean boiled as a vast dark fish with a pale underbelly breached. As it rose in the air, Barry saw its long snout, tiny eye, huge mouth, and gill slits that nearly encircled its body in front of a short fin like a half-moon on its back. The leviathan had to be at least twenty feet long. He recognised it for what it was.

  It reached the limit of its leap and fell back with a thunderous splashing, turning the sea into a maelstrom. To Barry it seemed to be an eternity before the last of the displaced water had returned to the sea, and some of it had fallen inboard, soaking them both. Water beaded Barry’s oilskin jacket and coursed down the fabric in torrents, almost as if the skies had opened and it was raining. Barry’s head was soaked. He ripped off his sodden wool hat. Short waves slapped against the dinghy’s side, making her roll. For a moment he forgot about holding his course.

  “Look out, Barry.”

  Barry swiftly corrected his helm. “Thanks, Jack. That could have been nasty.”

  “Bloody right,” Jack said. “If we’d crossed the wind and the mainsail and boom had flown across the boat—”

  “I know.” Barry watched the dingy settle back on her course and Jack reset the jib. “We could have been dismasted. Silly of me to get distracted.”

  “You weren’t the only one. Boys-a-boys,” Jack said, eyes wide, “what in the name of the wee man was that?”

  Barry watched the fin and its pursuing wake moving sedately away in the opposite direction.

  “There’s no creatures like that near Cullybackey, hey. The biggest would be my dad’s bull. Thon bye’s as big as two of him.”

  Barry, his shock gone now he knew what they were dealing with, said, “I’m sure it’s a basking shark.”

  “A shark?” Jack’s voice rose in pitch. “Shark? Bloody hell. Sharks eat people. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Stop getting up to high doh, my friend. For one thing, the fish and us are going in opposite directions, and for another,” Barry said, “that kind of shark’s harmless, Jack. Basking sharks feed on plankton.�
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  Jack frowned. “That twenty-foot monster feeds on plankton? You sure? Certain sure? Even if he doesn’t bite, the bejeezusly thing had a mouth that could have swallowed Jonah.”

  “I know, I know, but trust me, Jack. The thing’s harmless. I read all about them when we were at school. Dad had a book, Harpoon at a Venture, by the Scottish naturalist Gavin Maxwell. After the war, some ex-service chaps tried to start a commercial basking shark fishery on some island in the Hebrides.”

  Jack frowned. “What would be valuable in a big ugly bugger like that?”

  “Its liver. It takes up twenty-five percent of the animal’s body and it’s rich in something called squalene. And the shark’s skin, properly tanned, makes a kind of tough leather.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Jack said. He shook his head.

  “All the poor old basking shark does is swim around the oceans and eat plankton. Quite harmless to humans.”

  “Not entirely,” Jack said. “When thon bye jumped I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I’m all right now you’ve explained.” He grinned. “It’ll be something to tell Helen about.”

  Barry said, “If I’m going to have time to let you buy me a pint in the club, we’d better be heading back.”

  “Fine with me,” Jack said.

  “Ready about,” Barry said, starting to trim the mainsail while Jack readied himself to control the jib. “Lee ho.” Barry called the executive order to put the boat’s head through the wind, so it would be blowing on the dinghy’s port side as she made her way to Ballyholme Yacht Club. “I’ll sail her full and by,” Barry said, an old square-rigger term meaning as close to the direction of the wind as possible with sails sheeted hard home.

  Joe Togneri had taught a young Barry to sail. The son of Italian immigrants who ran the Coronation Café ice-cream and sweetie shop on Bangor’s Quay Street, Joe had been full of old square-rigger terms. Barry grinned, remembering with deepest affection the little man with hunched back and twinkling eyes.

  They settled down on course. “We should be in in about an hour.”