An Irish Country Village Read online

  Barry had been so busy trying to attract Kinky’s attention that he bumped into Archie Auchinleck, who was talking to Constable Mulligan. “See you that Bertie Bishop? Him and he’s going to close the Duck? He’s a miserable wee gobshite, so he is. A born-again fuck . . .” Archie must have caught sight of Patricia. “Scuse me, Miss. Youse weren’t meant to hear that.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing, Mr.—?”

  “Auchinleck.”

  Patricia stopped, Kitty beside her, to chat with Archie. He was blushing to the roots of his hair.

  Barry finally managed to reach the edge of the crowd, where he waited for the women. He felt someone tugging his jacket, turned, and saw Helen Hewitt. She was wearing a short-sleeved blouse and a very short skirt.

  Barry had to put his ear close to her mouth to hear over the din.

  “I hear that ould targe Miss Moloney’s not too happy,” she said, with a wicked grin. “Serves her right. She’s a personality like a bagful of hammers, so she has.” He saw the fire in her green eyes. “But maybe I was a bit hard on her. I nearly fainted, so I did, when Doctor O’Reilly came to see me yesterday with my wages and a week’s severance. I never thought I’d see a brass farthing. He told me she’d gone away for a few days.”

  “What else did he tell you, Helen?”

  “Not to say nothing to no one about what I done.”

  “Have you?”

  “Not at all.” She shook her head defiantly. “What was between her and me stays between her and me. Anyhow, I’ll not be staying here long. I’ve got a job in a Belfast linen mill, and I start on Monday.”

  “I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

  “Aye. Well, it’s for the best, and . . .” She beckoned and Barry bent lower. “My rash is nearly all gone, so it is, since I quit that bloody shop.”

  He nodded and mouthed, “Good.”

  “I hope to God I never need a doctor again, but if I do, I’ll be coming back here to see yourself, so I will. I’m right glad you come to work here with the ould fellah. He works himself far too hard.”

  Before he could reply, the crowd all cheered at once. When the noise died to a more subdued level, he heard Helen say, “See you, and stay on in the practice here.” She squeezed his arm. “Now, run away on with your lady friend. She’s lovely, so she is.”

  Helen left as Patricia drew level. “And who was that?” There was just a tiny edge in her voice.

  “One of my patients.”

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s all right then.”

  Gosh. Was she becoming possessive? If she was, Barry didn’t mind one bit.

  O’Reilly was moving away from where, close to the house, Willy and Mary Dunleavy stood behind a drink-laden table. Queues meandered away from the makeshift bar. It seemed a bit quieter at the edges of the crowd, and Barry heard faint bells merrily pealing somewhere in the distance. There weren’t any in the Presbyterian church, so it must be coming from the steeple of the Catholic chapel. A generous gesture, he thought. Maybe this ecumenical business he’d read about could get a head start in Ballybucklebo.

  Ethel and Kieran O’Hagan moved to his side. “Doctor Laverty,” she said, “it’s great you’ve got Kieran fixed up for Monday. He’ll be admitted tomorrow night.” Her wrinkled old face reddened, and she whispered, “I’d not have fancied trying that plumber’s trick again.”

  “My pleasure. I’m sure you’ll be fine, Kieran.”

  He thought how two weeks ago he’d made a mental note not to ask patients how they were when he was having his day off. Now he understood why O’Reilly had enquired about a man’s eye troubles at the races, had been happy to answer medical questions even in the Mucky Duck. The truth was, a country GP in a place like Ballybucklebo was never off-duty—and it wasn’t such a bad thing.

  He saw Patricia point, and it was his turn to follow as she and Kitty headed to where O’Reilly was now parked at the head table. Further along, the Presbyterian minister and his wife were sitting.

  O’Reilly rose as the women arrived, pulled out Kitty’s chair, and waited until she was seated.

  “Come and sit down, Barry,” O’Reilly roared. He held a large glass of whiskey in one hand. “The bride and groom should be here in a few minutes, so if anyone wants a drink before the formalities start—and that includes you, Reverend—it’s speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  “Glass of white wine for Patricia,” Barry said, seeing her nod of approval. “And . . .” He almost ordered a sherry, but he remembered O’Reilly’s remark about “growing out” of sherry drinking. “A small Bushmills, please.”

  O’Reilly held up one thumb and took the other orders.

  “And two glasses of orange juice,” the minister said, smiling at his wife.

  “Mother of God,” said O’Reilly, “surely you could have something stronger today?”

  The minister shook his head and tutted.

  “Makes you wonder,” said O’Reilly, “why the Good Lord bothered with his first miracle.”

  “And what would that have been, Doctor O’Reilly?”

  “In Cana of Galilee. As I recall, His Sainted Self didn’t turn the water at the wedding feast into orange juice. It was wine.”

  The minister seemed to take the ribbing in good part. Fair play to him, Barry thought. Then the minister said, “Very well, Doctor. If you insist. Two small glasses of red wine, please.”

  “Good man ma da,” said O’Reilly, clapping the minister on the shoulder. “Come on, Barry. I’ll need a hand to carry it all.”

  Barry shrugged at Patricia and mouthed, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Lord,” said O’Reilly, “she’s not going to run away. And Patricia?”

  “Yes, Fingal.”

  “Keep that seat on the corner beside us for Kinky. I see her heading this way.”

  Barry had to run to keep up with O’Reilly, who, as was his wont, went straight up to the head of the queue, raising not a single protest from those waiting. He gave his order to Willy Dunleavy. “And make sure my Black Bush is a double. Do you hear?”

  Barry squeezed past Maureen, Seamus, and baby Barry Fingal Galvin.

  “How’s about ye, Doc?” Seamus said. “This is our last hooley in Ballybucklebo. The three of us is off to America on Monday.”

  “I’m grand, thanks, and good luck to you there, Seamus. Maureen. I hope you make your fortune, and maybe you’ll come back and visit one day.”

  “We’ll be back, Doc, right enough,” Seamus said. “It’s tough enough having to go.”

  “I know how you feel,” Barry said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to give Doctor O’Reilly a hand.”

  He moved to O’Reilly’s side, took a tray of full glasses, and headed back to the table.

  Kinky was seated in the corner, beaming mightily as she adjusted her new hat.

  Barry handed out the drinks, then took his seat beside Patricia. He raised his glass to her and whispered, “To the new scholarship winner.”

  She smiled and toasted him, but said quietly, “No, Barry, just ‘to us.’ ”

  He felt her hand take his under the table.

  “Excuse me, Doctor Laverty,” Kinky said. “Himself is blethering away to that nice Dublin lady, but when you’ve a wee minute will you tell him what a great success my new hat is?”

  “Of course, Kinky.”

  She held one finger to her lips then said, “I know very well why none of the rest of the ladies have new ones . . .” Of course she did. O’Reilly had told her the whole story at lunchtime yesterday and asked her to keep it to herself. “Flo Bishop bought one in Bangor, but the rest are in their old ones, so mine’s the envy of all.”

  “I’m pleased.”

  “And there’s one more wee thingeen I’ve to tell you.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That friend of yours, Doctor Mills, phoned just before I left for the church . . .”

  Barry’s fist tightened around his glass.

  “And he sa
id for to tell you . . .”

  But Barry couldn’t hear her words. The air was rent by the music of the pipes, the battering of the drums, and the howling of Arthur Guinness who had crept under the table at O’Reilly’s feet.

  “That tune’s called ‘Marie’s Wedding,’ ” O’Reilly roared over the din.

  Barry didn’t care if it was the tune the old cow died to. He wanted to hear what Kinky had to say.

  Some chance.

  Donal Donnelly led the procession. Behind him came the Highlanders, kilts swinging, bags inflated, cheeks red and bulging, foreheads sweating, fingers fluttering over the chanters. Two tenor drummers whirled their woolly-headed drumsticks. Side drummers played paradiddles and rolls. A man Barry didn’t recognize had taken Seamus Galvin’s place as big drummer and was whacking away.

  Behind them came the donkey, resolutely pulling the little cart where the marquis perched. Looking solemn in his morning coat and top hat, he was every inch a peer of the realm. Sonny seemed bewildered by all the fuss, but Maggie, her white wedding dress shining in the sunlight, had a smile from ear to ear.

  Behind ran the children, skipping over the grass. One little boy—Barry thought he recognized Colin Brown—was happily turning cartwheels.

  Sonny’s five dogs appeared from wherever O’Reilly had left them and ran jumping and barking beside the cart.

  Barry wanted to talk to Kinky, but until the pandemonium died down, he was going to have to wait.

  Let’s Have a Wedding

  Boom-boom. Boom-boom. The big drummer gave the double beat to signal the end of the tune. The wailing of the pipes died, and for the first time in that noisy gathering silence fell. The sun warmed Barry, and the aroma of roasting pig tickled his nostrils.

  The marquis dismounted and stood to hand Maggie down from the cart. Barry smiled when he noticed that her now thrown-back veil was held in place by a demure circlet of artificial lilies of the valley, but in the circle, front and centre, was a wilted orange nasturtium. The day Maggie MacCorkle doesn’t have a dead flower in her hatband, he thought, will be the day the sun fails to rise.

  She must have owned a set of dentures because, although Barry had never seen her wearing them before, today her smile was flawless. Her cheeks, which he had once thought looked like dried prunes, were full and shining. And someone had done a remarkable job of hiding the fine brown moustache that lurked under her makeup.

  The marquis led Maggie and Sonny to the head table. Maggie fussed with her gown, and Sonny stood behind her chair waiting until she seemed to be comfortable before taking his own seat. Then he sat, with the erect posture of a regimental sergeant major.

  The moment the marquis took his place and the bridal party was settled, a roar of cheering filled the air and sent a flock of jackdaws whirling and cawing from the tops of the elm trees.

  Barry sat beside Patricia as the rest of the crowd found seats. The hum of conversation was more muted, and he’d no difficulty hearing Patricia whisper, “She looks lovely.”

  It was true, he thought, even if Maggie was in her sixties.

  Sonny seemed uncomfortable in a morning coat, presumably lent by the marquis. It was at least one size too large, but he wore it with his usual understated dignity. He was bent, smiling at his five dogs who were clustered round him, vying for their master’s attention. Barry watched him pat each one in turn. He couldn’t hear whatever endearments the old man was murmuring to the friends he hadn’t seen since he’d been admitted to hospital, but Sonny’s eyes glistened. He even had a pat for Arthur Guinness, who had joined the canine celebration.

  O’Reilly said, “You’ll be pleased to see them.” Sonny looked up and smiled. “Can you get them in under the table, Sonny? It’s time to get the business started. And you, Arthur Guinness, you great lummox, sit.”

  It took a while to get the dogs settled.

  Barry leant over and tried to attract Kinky’s attention, but she was deep in conversation with the middle-aged woman sitting opposite her. The woman was unknown to Barry. He overheard snippets of their conversation.

  “Have you heard the latest about Miss Moloney?” the stranger asked.

  Kinky, who had been told the full story by O’Reilly, looked suitably innocent. “I have not.”

  “It’s wonderful what modern medicine can do.” The stranger oozed confidence in her information, but lowered her voice so Barry had difficulty making out her next words. “They took her up to the Royal, and she had that marvellous operation . . . the one where they remove the entire brain and then put it back.” Her eyes widened.

  “Aye, so? The whole shebang, is it? Tut-tut,” said Kinky, wonderingly. Then she caught Barry’s eye. As he laughed out loud, she did a masterful job of keeping a straight face. “Well, well, there’s a thing. We’ll just have to be very nice to the poor sean-bean—the old woman—when she comes back to Ballybucklebo. I think I’ll bake her a cherry cake. Maybe some of the other ladies will be able to make something too.”

  Barry couldn’t hear the reply because O’Reilly was on his feet, pounding a fork on an empty water glass. “I want your attention. Your attention,” he roared, in his quarterdeck voice. “And that includes you, Donal Donnelly.”

  “Sorry, Doctor.”

  “Now, my lord, ladies, and gentlemen . . . and that doesn’t include you, Donal Donnelly—”

  He was interrupted by laughter and had to wait for it to subside.

  “I’ve been asked to compere this afternoon’s festivities, where we’re here to celebrate the wedding of two of Ballybuckebo’s finest residents.”

  “Hear, hear!” someone yelled, as applause started.

  O’Reilly battered the glass. “But be that as it may, if you don’t stop interrupting, I’ll never get finished . . . and none of us’ll get fed. So everyone hold your wheest, and pay attention . . . and that does include you, Donal Donnelly.”

  More laughter.

  “Saving the reverend’s presence, because it’s usually his job”—O’Reilly bowed to the minister—“I’m going to tell you the order of service. We’ll start with grace, then we’ll eat. There’s a buffet set up beside the bar, and I want this done all shipshape and Bristol fashion. None of your Ballybucklebo scrums. None of this charging about like the Gaderene swine. Head table first, then each table in turn, starting with the one on my right. Is that clear?”

  He paused until a murmur of approval had died down.

  Barry smiled, but he glanced at Kinky and wished O’Reilly would get a move on. He really wanted to put his concerns aside and enjoy the occasion, and he’d be able to do that with much more enthusiasm once he knew what Jack had had to say. It was the uncertainty that was so hard to take. He concentrated on what O’Reilly was saying.

  “Once you’ve all been fed and watered, there’ll be a bit of a pause, and then some speechifying. Not much, I promise, because I know some of you will have serious business to attend to.” He lifted his glass.

  “Now you’re talking, Doctor,” someone yelled.

  “I’ll call on each speaker, and I have advice for them. I want every one of you to stand up, speak up . . . then shut up. Be like Fergus Finnegan, the jockey. Short. Very short.”

  “Good things come in small bundles, so they do, Doctor,” Fergus yelled back, “and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

  The allusion to O’Reilly’s size was not lost on the crowd, and there were more roars of laughter and a few loud whistles. Fergus rose and bowed to his supporters.

  “One to you, Fergus,” O’Reilly conceded, and waited for silence. “I’m done now,” he said, “so I’ll ask you all to rise and bow your heads while the reverend says the words.” He turned to the minister. “If you please, sir?”

  Barry stood with everyone else and waited until grace was finished, then immediately leant over the table. “Kinky? Kinky?”

  “What?”

  “What did Doctor Mills say?”

  “He said, Doctor Laverty, for to tell you he was
very sorry, so—”

  “Sorry?” Did that mean Harry hadn’t found anything? Barry felt a trickle from under his armpits, and although the sun was drowsily warm it hadn’t made him sweat until that moment.

  “He’d been up all night. He’d slept late, but he was on his way to see your other friend, and he’d come straight on down here after. Is that all right, sir?”

  Barry sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Doctor Laverty?”

  “Yes?”

  “You look like a man who’s got his fingers stuck in a milking machine and the suction pressure on full. I told you you’d hear what you want to, so just you bide, and be patient.”

  He stared at her. He had never seen her look so serious. “I’ll try to,” he said. And by God, he would. He’d be an idiot to be the only misery-guts in the whole of Ballybucklebo today, and there was something about Kinky that he didn’t understand. It beggared all logic, but he was willing to take her word that all would turn out for the best.

  “Good, so,” she said. “Now run along and get you that nice Miss Spence a bite to eat.”

  “I will.”

  Kinky sniffed. “Mind you. In my opinion that pig could have done with another half hour’s roasting.”

  There hadn’t been much conversation at the head table as the meal was eaten. O’Reilly, napkin tucked under his collar, had headed back to the buffet for a second helping, and he, Barry thought, was a man who’d not long ago taken Kitty O’Hallorhan to the Old Inn at Crawfordsburn for lunch.

  O’Reilly burped. “Excuse me,” he said. Then he turned to Barry. “I’m going to give them ten more minutes for the ones who were served last to finish eating.” He glanced at his glass. “I seem to be dry. Can I get you anything?”

  Barry shook his head.

  O’Reilly rose. “Stay, sir,” he said to Arthur as he headed for the bar.

  Barry pushed his plate away and said to Patricia, “Would you like to meet the happy couple?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “I should warn you: Maggie’s a bit different. The first time I met her she was complaining of headaches.”