An Irish Country Christmas (25 page)

“Barry . . .” Her voice was level. “I do love you . . . but . . .”

“But? But? But what?”

“But it seems like an awful lot of money for an underpaid medical assistant . . .”

He sensed she was trying to let him down gently. “It’s my money.”

“And you work very hard for it.”

He recognized he was fighting a losing battle. “I don’t think it’s that at all. It’s your damn pride. Somehow you think it would threaten your independence to accept money from me.”

He heard her clear her throat, then say levelly, “I do believe women shouldn’t be financially dependent on men.”

“Oh, come on, Patricia. I’m not asking you to. I’m not asking you to compromise your principles. All I want to do is see you. I’m missing you like crazy.”

“And I’m missing you, Barry. But I won’t accept your money.”

“That’s not principles. That’s being stubborn. You told me not to be silly. Don’t
you
be stupid.” His hand was squeezing the receiver.

“Barry, I love you, but this conversation’s going nowhere.”

The words slipped out. “Neither are we, not with you over there refusing to come home.”

Her words were clipped. “I am not refusing to come, but I am refusing to take your money.”

“And that’s final?” He waited. Could he hear a catch in her voice when she said yes?

He held the receiver in front of his face and stared at it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? The hell it does. He put it back to his ear and mouth.

“Are you still there, Barry? . . . Barry?”

“Yes.”

The silence hung and stretched. He’d be damned if he’d be the first to speak.

“Barry? I love you.”

“Then let me buy your ticket.”

“No.”

He screwed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m going to ring off now, Patricia. You know where to find me if you change your mind.” There was a prickling behind his eyelids.

“Good-bye, Barry.” He heard the click and the line went dead. Bugger it. Why couldn’t the bloody woman see reason? He replaced the receiver. “Enjoy your stupid ducks,” he said to no one in particular. Barry cleared his throat, rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, smoothed down the tuft that he knew would be sticking up from the crown of his head, and went back into the dining room.

O’Reilly was chewing, and the plate of two kippers that should have been waiting in Barry’s place had miraculously moved in front of O’Reilly, who was finishing the last scrap. He smiled guiltily, Barry thought. “They were getting cold,” O’Reilly said. “It would have been a shame to waste them. Kinky’s gone to boil you a couple of eggs.”

“Jesus, Fingal . . .” But Barry found he couldn’t be bothered to
start another fight. Not immediately after the last one. “Never mind. Eggs will be fine.” He picked up his half-full coffee cup and went to the sideboard to fill it with fresh brew from the coffeepot.

O’Reilly burped. “Excuse me,” he said, and went to look out the bow window. “It’s a lovely day out there, Barry. What are you going to get up to now you’re free?”

Barry shrugged. “I’m not sure. Put my feet up for a while.”

O’Reilly laughed. “You yust vant to be ahloan?”

Barry couldn’t help smiling. “Fingal, that’s the worst imitation of Marlene Dietrich I’ve ever heard.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it? I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help hearing the tone of your voice.”

Barry shrugged. “She’s being stubborn, that’s all.”

O’Reilly moved closer to Barry, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said gently, “She’ll come round, son. You’ll see.”

Barry would have laughed at anyone else who said that, but O’Reilly was an astute judge of people. Barry found his advice comforting, if not altogether believable. “Thanks, Fingal.”

“And in the meantime,” O’Reilly continued, “you can relax this morning and do your cryptic crosswords, but this afternoon you’re coming with me and Kitty.”

“And Kitty? Where to?”

“I phoned her last night. She’s coming down, and we—Kitty, me, and Arthur . . . and that includes you now—are going to watch a battle of the Titans. A rugby match between the Ballybucklebo Bonnaughts and the Glengormley Gallowglasses.”

Barry laughed. The Bonnaughts were named for fourteenth-century Irish mercenary soldiers, and the Gallowglasses for professional Scottish fighting men who had first come over to Ireland in 1258. And the way the two teams carried on every time they met, it was very apt that each was named for a group of warriors. Some of their encounters were legend in Ulster rugby football circles. “Should be quite the tussle,” Barry said. “You’re on, Fingal, but—”

“But what?”

“Would you not prefer to be by yourself with Kitty?”

O’Reilly guffawed mightily. “At a rugby match? Alone? Don’t be daft. I’m taking her to the Crawfordsburn for dinner, and I could use your help there.”

“You need my help eating?”

“No. Eejit. I have to go to some mysterious committee meeting after the game. I’d like you to amuse her until it’s over.”

“Fair enough.”

“But, Barry, I’d not take it amiss if you disappeared when the meeting’s over.”

Given O’Reilly’s naturally high colour, it was impossible to tell if the big man was blushing. “I can do that, Fingal,” Barry said. He remembered he was meant to contact Jack Mills and either have him down for a bite of Kinky’s cooking or—now that was a thought—join Jack at the dance at the Nurses Home. “I’ll just need to go and make a phone call.”

The Muddied Oafs at the Goals

O’Reilly parked the Rover in a graveled parking lot beside a row of ancient beeches that grew in front of a grassy berm. He reckoned they were all at least a hundred feet tall. He leant over, pecked Kitty’s cheek, and said, “We’re here.”

He got out and opened the back door for Arthur. The dog immediately ran to the nearest tree and cocked a leg. O’Reilly glanced back to the road. No sign of Barry’s car. He was bringing Brunhilde so he could drive Kitty back to Number 1 Main Street after the match, when O’Reilly would be at his committee meeting.

O’Reilly looked up through the skeletal fingers of the trees’ bare branches to where cirrus clouds seemed to be white crayon smudges on a toweringly high, pale blue, cartridge-paper sky. The clouds barely moved, there was little wind, and it wasn’t bitterly cold. Kitty wouldn’t freeze standing on the touchline to watch the game. Good.

He walked toward her side of the car. The beech mast crunched underfoot. He looked at her where she stood. None of this “waiting for the gentleman to open the door for a lady” about Kitty. She was a very self-possessed woman. He’d suspected that all along. But since she’d taken the initiative Tuesday night, kissed him, and hinted that she was still in love with him, he had been in no doubt that Kitty O’Hallorhan was her own woman. And he admired that in her.

She was wearing a three-quarter-length bottle-green coat over black stirrup pants, and small flat-heeled shoes. The coat’s fur collar was turned up against her lower face, and her remarkable grey-flecked-with-amber
eyes sparkled from under a silk headscarf with a racehorse motif. Begod, he thought with a smile,
she’s
a thoroughbred is Kitty. Face it, Fingal, he told himself as he saw the soft look for him in those eyes—a look he well remembered from many years ago—she does care for you very much.

And he recognized that since Tuesday she’d given him a great deal to think over, but here on the way to a rugby match wasn’t the right time to talk to her about it. Perhaps tonight at dinner. If he could just sort out
exactly
how he was feeling.

He stood beside her. “Here comes Barry,” he said, as he watched the Volkswagen come along the drive and pull up beside the Rover. Barry got out and came over.

“What kept you?”

“Jesus, Fingal,” Barry said, “I’d need afterburners on my car to keep up with you. Do you know you put another cyclist in the ditch?”

“Did I hit him?” O’Reilly grinned. “It doesn’t count if I don’t give them a nudge.”

“You very nearly did, Fingal,” Kitty said. “You had me terrified.”

O’Reilly’s grin vanished. “I’m sorry,” he said contritely.

“Honestly,” she said, shaking her head. She linked her arm with his. “I’ll forgive you this time, but I will expect you to drive more carefully in future.” She started striding to the pitch. “Come on. Let’s go and see the game.”

“Hang on a minute.” O’Reilly reached into the back of the Rover and brought out a canvas gamebag. “Sustenance,” he said, slinging the strap over his shoulder. “Kinky’s given us a couple of thermoses of her tomato soup and”—he produced a silver flask from an inside pocket—“I’ve brought the snake antivenin . . . just in case.”

Kitty’s laugh was deep and melodious. “I thought Saint Patrick chased all the snakes out of Ireland.”

“Och,” said O’Reilly, popping the flask back into his overcoat pocket, “you never can be too careful. One or two might have slipped back.” He was about to head off when a black Sunbeam-Talbot arrived, and none other than Doctor Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick emerged. O’Reilly
waited until the man had approached, greeted him civilly, and then introduced Kitty.

The man obviously recognized her. “Charmed to meet you again, Miss O’Hallorhan. It’s been a very long time since Dublin and our student days,” he said, rubbing his gloved hands with the kind of delight an undertaker might show over a recently dead corpse. “So, Fingal,” he continued, “do you think your lot have a chance?”

O’Reilly grunted. Silly question.

“I’m here to offer my support to the opposition. I’ve supported the Glengormley Gallowglasses for years.” Fitzpatrick sniffed.

“Have you now?” said O’Reilly. “Well, I’d not give much for their chances today. The Bonnaughts have two Ulster players on their side.”

“My good man . . .”

He’s bloody quick off the mark with the “my goods,” the condescending bugger, O’Reilly thought.

“
We
have a chap—he plays fullback—who shall be nameless, on loan from North. He’s played for Ireland three times, you know. We’re simply going to eat you alive. Devour you.”

“Are you now?” O’Reilly folded his arms across his chest. Having a player from the North of Ireland Football Club, one of the clubs in the Senior League, a player who was not a regular member of the Gallowglasses, was almost like cheating, but O’Reilly wasn’t going to object. Instead he said, “Ronald, I know you take your church seriously, but would you like to back up that remark with a few quid?”

Fitzpatrick frowned, then put a crooked index finger against his lower lip. “I really shouldn’t.”

He just needs a little nudge, O’Reilly thought. “In my opinion, Hercules, your lot couldn’t beat the skin off a rice pudding . . . with the wind at their backs.”

Fitzgerald gobbled, his wattles swung, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Very well, Doctor O’Reilly, I will accept a small wager. Say . . . say, a pound.”

O’Reilly smiled broadly. “Och, come on. You might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.” His eyes narrowed and his voice hardened. “Make it ten pounds and I’m your man.”

There was one massive excursion of Fitzgerald’s larynx as he swallowed; then he extended his hand. “It’s a bet.”

O’Reilly shook the offered hand, noticing that the man lacked the courtesy to remove his glove. “You,” he said, “are on. I’ll see you at the clubhouse after the match. Now if you’ll excuse us, we don’t want to miss the kickoff.”

He took the lead over the top of the berm toward the edge of the pitch, exchanging greetings with other supporters of the local team who had taken their stance on the near touchline. The visitors’ cheering section had occupied the far side of the pitch. Already good-natured abuse was being exchanged across the field.

“See your Ballybucklebo scrum half?”

“What about our Fergus Finnegan?”

“His legs is so bandy you could drive a pony-and-trap between them.” Cheering and catcalls from the far touchline.

Not to be outdone, Archie Auchinleck yelled back. “See
your
scrum half? Last time he was here, never mind passing to your out-half, he tried to throw the ball to the ground . . . and he missed.” Roars of support and laughter went up from this side.

“See you? Your mother wears army boots.”

“Now
that’s
what I’d call really quick on the repartee.” Gales of laughter followed. “You’re so bloody sharp, you’ll cut yourself, so you will.”

O’Reilly joined in the laughter as he stopped at the centreline. “Lie down, sir,” he said to Arthur, then waited for the locals to make room for him and his party. He stood foursquare, surveying the scene.

The pitch’s springy, close-cropped turf and lime-marked touchlines, centreline, twenty-five-yard lines, and goal lines were pretty much standard right up to the H-shaped goalposts at each end. The pitch had been carved out of raw farmland.

He knew because he’d helped with the carving back in 1947.

Originally it had been a piece of farmer’s wasteland: rough; covered in whins, brambles, and bracken; stony; and not well drained. It was of no use as arable land. O’Reilly and a group of similar-minded villagers had raised the money to buy the plot for a song, and by dint of their own efforts they had cleared and drained it. Admittedly, it lay
halfway up one of the famous County Down drumlins, small rounded hills left over from the last Ice Age, and hence was canted at a ten-degree angle from one goal line to the other, but this was regarded merely as a local eccentricity.