Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party (5 page)

“Now that's very kind of you,” said Delaney. “You see, my old grandfather knew an O'Leary who went over to America. Over to Fattyville, I think.”

“Fayetteville.”

“Yes, that's where he went.”

Fatty looked at Betty. This was a marvellous development – very much better than they had dared hope. To get some actual information about the family roots – and so soon after arriving!

“My grandfather left Ireland in 1910,” said Fatty. “He sailed from Cork, but came from these parts.”

“Well,” said Delaney. “That's exactly where my old grandfather said his friend O'Leary left from. Cork. And 1910 would be about right. Well, isn't that an amazing thing?”

The empty glass was moved slightly on the counter, and Fatty signalled to the barman again.

“What did he tell you?” asked Fatty. “What did he say?”

Delaney raised the drink to his lips. “He said that his friend O'Leary was a very fine fellow. A darling man. Just the best. That's what he said.”

Fatty beamed at Betty. “You hear that, Betty?”

“I did, Fatty.”

Delaney looked down into his drink, as if to find further information in the glass.

“He had a farm, I think, somewhere in Tipperary, if I remember correctly. Quite near here, I think.”

Fatty waited for further information, but none came.

“Well, isn't that wonderful,” he said at last. “To find somebody with links with my family.”

“Maybe closer than you think,” said Delaney warmly. “You see, my mother was an O'Leary, would you believe it? And unless I'm mistaken, that makes me some sort of cousin to yourself.”

For a moment Fatty did not know what to say. To find a cousin on the first day of his Irish trip seemed a quite exceptional stroke of luck. At this point, however, the barman intervened.

“That's enough of that, Paddy,” he said to Delaney. “I think you should be heading off home now.”

Delaney looked hurt. “Now, Micky, why would you be saying that? I'm enjoying a conversation with my friend Mr. O'Leary.”

“Yes, I've heard it all,” said the barman. “And it's time for you to get home to your wife. Do you want me to be giving her a call?”

The offer was a threat, and Delaney picked up his hat.

“It's been a very great pleasure, Mr. and Mrs. O'Leary,” he said. “And I do hope that we shall meet again some time soon. In more congenial surroundings, perhaps.”

The barman watched him leave and then turned to Fatty. “Not a bad fellow, all in all,” he said. “But he does tell the most terrible lies.”

“So this business about being a cousin?” asked Betty.

“Probably not true, Mrs. O'Leary,” said the barman gently. “But here's a co-incidence. My mother's uncle, he was an O'Leary from Balinderry …”

They bought the barman a drink while they discussed the possibilities of being related. Then Fatty looked at his watch and realised that his clothes would be ready. They bade farewell and made their way out of the bar.

Mr. Delaney had the clothes laid out on a table.

“Now, here we have a pair of trousers,” he said. “I've let these ones out in one or two places and unpicked a few seams. And these shirts should be fine as long as you don't do up the top three buttons. And here's a jacket, which won't do up but the weather's nice and warm at the moment and that won't be a drawback. And socks and all the usual underwear and what have you. You'll be quite
the lad in all these clothes, Mr. O'Leary.”

Fatty retired into the fitting room and came out in his new outfit, the duvet cover neatly folded over his arm. Mr. Delaney fussed around him for a few moments, checking the garments, and then pronounced himself satisfied.

They paid and returned to the car to begin their drive back to Mountpenny House.

“Good can come from bad,” said Betty. “If we hadn't lost your suitcase, then we wouldn't have met all those delightful people.”

“Cousins too,” said Fatty.

“Possibly,” said Betty.

Then a thought occurred to Fatty.

“What about the quilt cover?” he asked. “You're going to have to tell Mrs. O'Connor that we've cut holes in her quilt cover.”

Betty reflected for a moment. “Why me?” she asked.

D
INNER AT
M
OUNTPENNY
H
OUSE WAS
preceded by the serving of drinks in the east drawing room. There, around a log fire set in the wide stone fireplace, the guests would assemble before dinner, exactly as had been promised in the brochure. Fatty and Betty were first down, Betty wearing the diaphanous silk dress she had brought with her for just such an occasion, Fatty wearing his new pants, which were a brown, houndstooth check, one of the green shirts prepared for him by Mr. Joseph Delaney, and the jacket which did not do up. The overall effect, he thought, was not inappropriate. It was sufficiently casual for one who was on vacation and yet smart enough for a summer dinner party.

“You look so good, Fatty,” Betty said, her voice lowered in deference to the refined atmosphere of the drawing room.

Fatty smiled. “Thanks to Mr. Delaney. I wonder what happened to my clothes, though. I was fond of that shirt.”

Betty shook her head. “You feel so helpless when abroad. Back home I would make no end of a fuss, but here you never know.” She spoke with the air of one accustomed to overseas travel, and Fatty thought her
observation quite pertinent. He himself had been to France before his marriage and he knew all about the perils of other cultures. He had also been to London on more than one occasion for antique shows and had come across the English and their curious ways; such strange people, and so utterly disconcerting.

They seated themselves on either side of the fire. Although it was early summer, the evenings were still cool, and there was a slight chill in the east-facing room. Fatty cast an eye round the room, appraising the contents. At one end of the room stood a double-fronted Victorian bookcase, stocked, he suspected, with books of a hunting and fishing nature; at the other was a grand piano (badly damaged casing, he thought) and a bureau on which a large occasional lamp (Chinese base, later Ching) had been placed. There were also several low tables, an Edwardian revolving bookcase, and an interesting Canterbury. The Canterbury, which was oak, with bronze fittings, was filled with magazines, and he and Betty each picked one out to read while they waited.

Fatty's choice was a recent copy of the glossy social magazine,
The Irish Tatler
. He paged through the advertisements for soft furnishings and Scotch whiskey, past an article on the plans of the Irish Georgian Society,
and alighted on one of the several social pages. This was interesting material. There had been a ball in County Wicklow, to which the social correspondent had gone. There was an account of the host's house – Strawberry Gothic in style “with a charming, quite charming” ballroom and minstrels' gallery. There were pictures of the guests, and a photograph of a long table groaning with salmon and game. Fatty thought that it looked as if it had been splendid fun, and for a moment he felt a pang of jealousy. That was a life that he could so easily be living, but would probably never experience. He knew nobody in County Wicklow; indeed the only people he knew in Ireland were the various Mr. Delaneys, and he suspected that they moved in rather different circles from those portrayed in the social columns of
The Irish Tatler
.

He turned the page. There had been a reception in Dublin to mark the opening of a new art gallery. According to the magazine,
everybody
had been there. And there they were, photographed talking to one another over glasses of wine.
Professor Roderick Finucane
of Trinity College was seen talking to
Miss Georgina Farrell
and her aunt, the well-known watercolourist,
Mrs. Annabel Farrell
, recently returned from
Bermuda
. Then there was conversation between
Mr. Pears van Eck
and
Mr. Maurice Shaw
, both of them directors of
the
Irish Foundation for the Fine Arts
, neither of them the sort that one finds in Arkansas, thought Fatty. Beneath that photograph was a slightly larger picture of
Mr. Rupert O'Brien
, the well-known critic, his wife,
Mrs. Niamh O'Brien
, the successful actress, currently appearing (as Juno) in
Juno and the Paycock
at the Abbey Theatre, and His Excellency, the Italian Ambassador to Ireland,
Mr. Cosimo Pricolo
, all sharing what appeared to be a most amusing joke. Fatty studied the photographs carefully. What was it about these people that made their lives seem so much more exotic and exciting than his own? He glanced at Betty, sunk in a copy of
Horse and Hound
. He wondered what he and Betty would look like on the social pages of
The Irish Tatler
. He allowed his mind to wander:
Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius O'Leary at Mountpenny House in County Tipperary. Mr. O'Leary, a noted antique dealer, is in Ireland to purchase fine Irish furniture for the American market. His wife, the daughter of a well-known Mobile real-estate broker …

Fatty's thoughts were interrupted by the entry into the room of a group of fellow guests, two women and a diminutive man in a tweed suit. The women, who looked sufficiently similar to be sisters, smiled at Betty and the small man gave a nod in Fatty's direction. They moved over to the piano and one of the women self-consciously
sat at the keyboard and ran her fingers over the keys.

“Play us a tune, Ella,” said the other woman.

“Go on,” said the man. “Satie. You do Satie so well, and everybody likes Satie.”

The woman at the piano blushed. “I would not inflict myself …” she began.

Fatty rose to his feet. “It would be no infliction, Ma'am,” he said. “My wife and I like Satie very much.”

The woman looked down at the keyboard and began to play.

“Ah,” said Fatty, contentedly. “
The Gymnasium
.”

They listened raptly – so raptly indeed that they did not notice others coming into the room. Only after the limpid notes had died away did Fatty look up and see that another couple had entered and taken a seat on the sofa by the fire. He looked at them for a moment, before turning to congratulate the pianist. But a vague sense of familiarity made him turn back and look again.

The man, who was wearing an elegant, double-breasted suit and a subdued red tie, had a look of distinction about him. The woman, who was dressed in a dark trouser suit, had high cheekbones and almond eyes. Fatty had seen them before; he was sure of it.

“Thank you so much,” the man called out to the
pianist. “A
Gymnopédie
before dinner. A perfect start to the evening. I feel quite limbered-up!”

The woman laughed. “You play so well, my dear. Why don't you continue?”

“Because I need a drink,” said the woman at the piano.

At this point Mrs. O'Connor came in, wheeling a drinks trolley on which an array of bottles was placed. She looked round, as if counting her guests, and then announced that drinks would be served.

“Mr. O'Brien, I've taken the trouble to get you your usual,” she said to the man on the sofa. “You made me feel so ashamed last time – not having it in the house.”

“You spoil me, Mrs. O'Connor,” said the elegant man. “If you're not careful, I'll never stop coming here. You'll not be able to get rid of us. We'll move in permanently. We'll
live
with you!”

“I don't think that the
Irish Times
would like that,” said the hostess, pouring a large measure of gin into a glass. “Nor the Abbey Theatre, for that matter.”

Fatty listened, fascinated. They spoke so easily, exchanging this subtle repartee as if they were uttering the lines of a play. But it was the mention of the Abbey Theatre that triggered the memory, and it came to him so suddenly that he almost gasped. Of course he had seen this couple
before; they were Rupert and Niamh O'Brien, and he had seen their picture in
The Irish Tatler
. Rupert O'Brien, the critic, and his wife, Niamh, the famous actress (recently Juno in
Juno and the Paycock
).

Mrs. O'Connor served the drinks and then withdrew, announcing that dinner would be in twenty minutes.

Rupert O'Brien sat back on the sofa.

“Bliss,” he announced to the room at large. “A whole weekend ahead of us with no telephone.”

Fatty plucked up the courage to say something.

“No telephone,” he remarked.

Rupert O'Brien glanced in his direction briefly and then looked at the others.

“Such a peaceful place,” he said. “Such intriguing shades of the past.”

What did that mean? Fatty wondered. Did it merely suggest that the house was old, in which case why was that intriguing?

Taking a sip of his gin and tonic, he plucked up his courage again. After all, why should he not contribute to the discussion? If Rupert O'Brien could say something about the house, then he could too.

“How old is this house?” he ventured.

There was a silence. The pianist and her party looked
at one another, but said nothing.

“Quite old, I suspect,” said Betty. “We have nothing this old in Arkansas.”

“Oh it's not old at all,” said Rupert O'Brien airily. “Late Victorian. Lamb dressed up as mutton, so to speak.”

“That's quite old,” said Betty. “In the United States everything is much newer. Victorian is pretty old.”

“Age is relative, of course,” said Rupert O'Brien. “Our children regard us as terribly old. But I'm not old at all.”

“How old are you?” asked Betty pleasantly.

The silence that resulted seemed cold.

“I wonder if there are fish in the lake,” Fatty said hurriedly.