Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party (4 page)

Now they were making their way up the driveway of the real Mountpenny House, through a thick wood that pressed in on either side. After half a mile of this, the wood gave way to a clearing and there, surrounded by lawns that rolled down to the lough-side, was the house itself. It was exactly what they had been promised in that effusive brochure, and more.

“This is the place,” said Fatty proudly. “There's no doubt about it.”

They parked the car and Fatty carried the single
suitcase in through the front door. Inside, a comfortable hall, furnished with boot-scrapers and pictures of horses, gave the visitor the impression that this was indeed what it appeared to be – a country house that happened to take visitors. On the table, on which there stood open a large, leather-covered visitors' book, there was an old brass bell button, which Fatty pushed tentatively. Somewhere in the kitchen, they heard a ringing sound.

Mrs. Maeve O'Connor, the proprietrix, welcomed them warmly.

“We're a small place, as you know,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “There are only six other guests at the moment. Next week's a bit busier. We have horse sales coming up and people are travelling down from Dublin, you know.”

Mrs. O'Connor showed them to their room and listened sympathetically while they told her about the loss of Fatty's suitcase. Betty asked whether it would be possible to wash his clothes so that he would not have to spend his first day in Ireland in the outfit in which he had travelled. This, said Mrs. O'Connor, would be perfectly in order. There was a washing machine and a dryer in the small room off the scullery, and Betty was welcome to use them.

Fatty, who had not slept on the plane, now confessed to feeling very tired. Betty offered to wash his clothes for him while he tried to get a few hours' sleep; if he slept until early afternoon they would have time to go for a walk or even drive into the nearby village of Balinderry before dinner. He took a quick glance out of the window before disrobing. They were at the front of the house, and had an unimpeded view of the lawns running down to the lough. He noticed a small jetty, at which a rowing boat bobbed; beyond that, the great expanse of water and a distant shore of hills. He opened the window and drew a deep breath of air. It was slightly scented, the smell of gorse in flower, and it reminded him of an exhilarating spring morning in the hills back home.

Betty took his clothes and Fatty slipped into bed. Within a few minutes, his head full of satisfying thoughts about Ireland, he drifted off to sleep, lulled by the soporific sound of cattle lowing somewhere in the distance.

Betty found the laundry with little difficulty and loaded Fatty's clothes into the machine. Then, noticing that the wash would take forty minutes, she went outside, and took a walk along a path that meandered through the woods. She, too, was tired, but wanted to stay awake until evening, if possible, in order to get a good night's sleep.
And besides, she had never been abroad before and this first experience of a foreign country – or a foreign
home
, really – was too novel and exciting to sleep through. She found it hard to believe that the earth beneath her feet was Irish earth; that the trees were Irish trees; and that the rabbit which suddenly bounded off, giving her such a fright when she disturbed it in its foraging, was an Irish rabbit. At least she had no need to worry about snakes; Saint Patrick had seen to them all those years ago and the snakes, quite conscientiously, had strictly observed his edict since then. Of course snakes were part of Creation, and one might assume that somebody like Saint Francis would have been able to communicate with them; but one had to remind oneself about the all-embracing nature of Creation and remember that everything had its purpose in this life.

She sometimes wondered what was her own purpose in life. A husband or a wife can fill vast tracts of time in a life; Fatty was the focus of much of her thoughts; Fatty, that good, kind man who had saved her from what would have been a limited life in Mobile, Alabama, had opened her eyes to broader possibilities; Fatty, who always listened so courteously to her opinion even when she had to struggle to find the right word to express her thoughts; Fatty, who took so well the humiliations which the world
seemed to heap, so unfairly, on his generous shoulders. He was a great man and the finest husband a woman could hope to find. He was her purpose, and she liked to think that she was his. That surely was enough.

She reached the edge of the lough, coming across an old boathouse. It was dark inside, and the two boats within were clearly little used. One, a small rowing boat covered in flaking grey paint, had been nested in by birds; the other had a fishing rod and fishing net sticking out of it and gave off a musty odour.

She looked at her watch. Fatty's clothes would be ready in a few minutes and she would need to put them in the dryer. So she retraced her steps along the path and made her way back to the laundry. The room was now in silence. The machine had stopped and the front was open.

She looked inside, thinking that somebody had come in and, discovering the cycle at an end, had opened the door. The machine was quite empty.

“Oh,” said Betty. And then
Oh
again.

There was no sign of Fatty's clothes in the laundry, and then, when she found Mrs. O'Connor in the kitchen, where she was chopping carrots, she professed to have no idea what might have happened.

“Are you sure you put them in?” Mrs. O'Connor asked.
“Sometimes I think I've put things into the oven and then discover the thing in question sitting outside an hour later. Are you sure?”

“I'm sure,” said Betty. “I put everything in and started the machine. Then I went for a walk.”

“Very strange,” said Mrs. O'Connor. “One of the other guests must have taken them out by mistake. I'll go and knock on some doors and see if anybody can help us solve this little mystery.”

She went off, leaving Betty to wait in the kitchen. A few minutes later she returned, shaking her head.

“Nobody's in,” she said. “We'll have to wait until this evening and then ask around. I'm sure they'll turn up.”

After a final, fruitless look around the laundry, Betty trudged upstairs to their room and opened the door gently. Fatty was still in bed, but as she came in he opened his eyes and smiled at her.

“Are they done?” he said. “I can't wait to get going.”

Betty sat down on the edge of the bed and gently told him of what had happened.

“Then I have nothing at all to wear,” he said despairingly. “I've now got no clothes at all.”

Betty could think of nothing to say. It was difficult to know what to advise somebody who had no clothes.
What could such a person do?

“Well,” said Fatty at last. “I suppose that we'll have to find a shop and buy some clothes.”

Betty agreed, but asked how Fatty could get to the shop if he had nothing to wear. They had taken the car in Fatty's name and she could not drive it, so she could not go shopping by herself.

“I shall have to improvise,” said Fatty, looking about him. He hoped to see a bathrobe hanging on the back of the door, but there was nothing. And the towels, although crisp and freshly laundered, were decidedly too small to wrap round him.

“What about the quilt cover?” Betty asked after a few moments. “We could cut a hole for your head and arms up at the top and your legs could go through the slit at the other end.”

Fatty was doubtful, but realised that there was no other possibility. He would willingly have donned Betty's clothes for the purpose of the expedition, but although she was generously built, he was even more so, and he knew that they would not fit.

Using her travel scissors, Betty cut a neat circular hole at the top of the cover, with two further holes at each side, one for each arm. Then, lifting the billowing white
garment over Fatty's head, she slipped it down over his body, to envelop him like a voluminous toga, or wheat sack, or collapsed parachute perhaps. Fatty did not look at himself in the mirror, but slicked back his hair and slipped on his shoes. Then, preceded by Betty, he made his way down the stairs with as much dignity as his unusual garb would allow.

Nobody saw them get into the car, and they were soon on the road to Balinderry, with Fatty at the wheel, berobed in white like a spectre. After they had driven down the one and only street, finding no shops that appeared to sell clothes, they consulted the map and continued to Nenagh, some distance away. There they pulled up outside the premises of Joseph Delaney and Sons, Outfitters (since 1938). The window display, at least, was promising. Alongside green waxed shooting jackets, clearly proof against the Irish elements, there were shirts and trousers and a large selection of tweed caps.

They waited until there were no passers-by in the immediate vicinity before they alighted from the car and made their way into the shop. There, if Mr. Delaney was surprised to see Fatty dressed in a large white cover, he certainly did not show it, but greeted him as if he were wearing nothing unusual.

“I've lost my clothes,” explained Fatty. “I need a whole new set.”

Mr. Delaney smiled. “Then you are certainly in the right place,” he said. “I sell every sort of garment. Now, what size would you be in the waist and the collar departments? Then we can go from there.”

As Fatty gave his measurements, Mr. Delaney's face fell.

“Now isn't that a terrible thing?” he said, shaking his head. “Those sizes are all outsize. I don't think I go up that far.”

There was silence. Fatty fingered the edge of his quilt cover despondently.

“But,” continued Mr. Delaney, “I cannot let a man who has lost his clothes go out of my shop with nothing to put on his back. I cannot do that, indeed no. We shall see what we can do about letting some items out. I can do that right here on the premises.”

The outfitter set to with the taking of further measurements. There was an anxious moment when his tape measure proved inadequate, but this was soon remedied when he tied two measures together. “We'll just add the inches together,” he said to Fatty.

Fatty sighed, and Mr. Delaney paused, looking sympathetically at his customer. “Yes,” he said gently.
“The world is not an easy place, is it now?”

Fatty looked up at the ceiling. It was not; it never had been.

“You could go and wait in the pub next door,” Mr. Delaney went on. “It's Delaney's too – another Delaney altogether, of course. Why don't you go and have a drink and a bite to eat while I do the necessary? You'll be more comfortable there if you ask my opinion on the matter.”

Fatty was a little reluctant to venture into a bar while dressed in a quilt cover, but Mr. Delaney assured him that nobody would think anything of it.

“They wear all sorts of things round here,” he said. “You should see how some of the fellows dress! You won't stand out at all.”

Encouraged by this advice, Fatty and Betty pushed open the door of Terence Delaney's Saloon and walked up to the bar. Apart from the bartender, there was only one other person in the room, a thin-faced man with a large ginger moustache. He was seated at a stool at the bar, and he flashed them a broad smile as they entered.

“Good afternoon to you,” he said. “It's a grand afternoon to be out. And a grand afternoon for a drink, so it is.” He looked down at his empty glass. Fatty immediately took the cue and ordered drinks not only for himself and
Betty, but also for their fellow customer.

“Now that's very civil of you,” said the man. “My name is Delaney, but not the Delaney who owns this bar. The Good Lord has been kind to me, but not that kind. Perhaps in the next life I shall own a bar, but alas that is not given to me in this present existence.”

They sat down together at the bar while the drinks were being poured. Delaney had asked for both a pint of stout and a large Irish whiskey – “They go terribly well together,” he had explained. “It's an awful pity to keep them apart, I always think.”

They raised their glasses in a toast.

“Now you two good people are clearly Americans,” said Delaney. “Judging from your outfits.”

Fatty looked down at his quilt cover. “There's a reason for this–” he began. But Delaney had more to say.

“We have many of our people in America,” he said. “This part of Ireland played a big role in building up your country, so it did. Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Washington. Mr. Eisenhower. All of them Tipperary men, I understand.”

He raised his stout and took a deep draught, virtually draining the glass.

“Now you good people,” he continued, “you are clearly from this part of the world too. Way back. I can tell.”

Fatty beamed. “Do you think so? Well, I suppose that everywhere has its own look …”

“Of course it does,” agreed Delaney. “Now would you look at that poor glass! Empty already!”

Fatty ordered another pint of stout and a further whiskey for their new friend.

“That's very good of you,” said Delaney. “It helps me to talk about the old days in these parts. A spot of lubrication always helps.” He paused, gulping at the stout. “Now then, where was I? You people are obviously from America. But let me guess which part. Boston?”

Fatty shook his head. “Fayetteville.”

“Fattyville?” asked Delaney, wiping the foam from his moustache.

“No,” said Fatty. “Fayetteville, Arkansas.”

“Well now,” said Delaney. “A lot of people went over from here to Arkansas. Back in the old days. A lot of people. What would your name be?”

“O'Leary,” said Fatty.

Mr. Delaney put his empty glass down with a thump. “O'Leary? Would you believe that? What a co-incidence, and the Good Lord himself is my witness.” He looked ruefully at his empty glass before continuing. “I could have some very interesting information for you.”

Fatty signalled to the barman. “A double here for Mr. Delaney, please.”