The Tay Is Wet (5 page)

But as he was getting down, the barrel, which contained a couple of gallons of tar, slipped from underneath him and he rolled to the ground to find himself covered in slimy thick tar. His face escaped but his clothes and hair did not. With much cursing and swearing he picked himself up and surveyed the damage. His old clothes were ruined but that did not worry him. His hair was the only part of his body to be affected. His treasured tresses were stuck solid with this horrible black tacky substance. He quickly tidied up the haggard and headed for home.

Andy met him at the gate and stared in amazement at the apparition before him.

‘What on earth happened, were you tarred and feathered?’ Andy said.

‘No, I was only tarred, have you the tay wet?’

As they ate, Oilly related what happened. He told Andy to put on the kettle and boil some water for a bath.

‘You’re not due a bath until next week,’ Andy grumbled, ‘however, we’ll try it.’

Despite much vigorous scrubbing with soap and hot water the tar remained. They used all the butter and grease they could find and rubbed it into the hair but there was little improvement.

‘There’s only one thing for it,’ said Andy, ‘the hair will have to be cut off. I’ll get the scissors.’

Oilly sat meekly on a kitchen chair while Andy attempted to cut off his tar-filled locks. It was proving much more difficult than the two brothers imagined. Having got as much of the tar out as was possible with the scissors Andy stood back and stroked his chin as he gazed at the miserable vision that sat like
Humpty Dumpty on the chair in front of him.

‘You look like a cross between a billiard ball and a dead blackbird,’ Andy observed, ‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll have to shave the rest of it off with the old cut-throat, the hair should grow back again in time!’

Andy went to work with gusto. He was beginning to actually enjoy the episode. He scraped away with the old razor, sharpening the blade every now and then by rubbing it along the strop. After a half hour of scratching and scraping and listening to Oilly moaning, groaning and swearing, Andy held up an old mirror into which Oilly gazed disbelievingly.

‘I’m ruined,’ he whined, ‘all me beautiful hair that I lavished such care and attention on for the past forty years, it’s gone, gone, gone!’

‘Hey, if you put music to that, you’d have a song!’ said Andy brightly. ‘I think that in six months time you will have a fine head of hair. In the meantime you’ll just have more face to wash, like I have, going right back to the nape of me neck.’

Over the following couple of days Oilly felt like some kind of freak show. Word had spread that he had gone bald and in a
rural backwater this news was on a par with Martians invading Earth. People went out of their way to see the phenomenon and Oilly, who had never worn a cap or a hat because he had been so proud of his fine head of hair, decided that he would have to invest in some class of headgear.

‘I was just wondering,’ he said to Andy, with a worried look on his face, ‘How much do you think would a fairly dacent hat cost?’

Andy was always very wary when talking about money. He stroked his chin and looked extremely serious.

‘Well I would hazard a guess, give or take, all things considered, the time of the year and whether you want a top of the range or an auld caibin, you could be looking at the guts of anything from five bob to twelve and sixpence,’ he mused.

‘On the other hand. .’

‘Yes, Yes,’ Oilly impatiently cut him short, ‘you don’t have to go on and on like a wet week, I’ll go into Grady’s in Roggart
first thing tomorrow morning.’

Grady’s was the only man’s drapery shop in Roggart. It was a large ground floor premises with heavy wooden counters and from the ceiling there hung a system of ropes and pulleys by which the cash takings and customer receipts and change were sent backwards and forwards between the counters and a central raised square shaped office. The store had three departments, Men’s Wear, Boy’s Wear and Household Textiles. There were large rolls of cloth, mainly navy blue or grey in colour, stacked on shelves on all sides of the shop. The three Grady brothers ran the business. They all looked about seventy years of age and all wore navy blue suits and had a tape measure hanging loosely around their neck.

Oilly walked past the store several times before he ventured in. He noticed a tall well-dressed man standing just inside the door who was wearing a green tweed hat. He waited until a few customers left and then entered. The tall man stared blankly at him.

‘Nice day, sir, I was wondering where is the hat department?’

The man did not reply. However, one of the Grady brothers rushed over and greeted him warmly.

‘Now, sir, what can we do for you?’

‘I was thinking of buying a hat, now not a real dear one, mind.’

The three Grady brothers fussed around Oilly. First they tried a hat for size.

‘Size eight and a half,’ one of them announced. After trying on a few hats Oilly decided that a cap might suit him better.

‘What a gentleman needs nowadays is a hat for Sundays and formal occasions and a cap for workdays,’ said one Grady.

‘Oh yes,’ said another, ‘that’s exactly what a gentleman requires.’

‘How much would that set me back?’ said Oilly.

The third Grady piped up. ‘It would not set you back, it would propel you forward.’

‘For you, we’ll do a special deal,’ said the first Grady, ‘fifteen shillings for the two, you’ll never get a better offer.’

As Oilly hummed and hawed about how dear things were the second Grady intervened. ‘Shall we wrap the two for you, sir, or perhaps you want to wear that hat?’

‘It certainly suits you,’ said the third Grady.

Oilly looked down at the man who was still standing at the door. ‘Bedad, I think I’ll wear it. It certainly suits yer man.’

As he left the shop Oilly stopped in front of the tall man and pointed at his new hat.

‘You and me, two of a kind, we have good taste in hats. Good luck to ye sir.’

‘He seems very interested in that old display mannequin,’ said one Grady as Oilly went out of the shop.

He looked at himself in every shop window as he passed along the street wearing the dark green hat with a small red feather on one side. His mind was still in a whirl of excitement an hour later when he reached home.

‘Bedad, you got some bargain there,’ said Andy, ‘fifteen bob you say, I think I’ll invest meself.’

‘Well, I thought they charged me over the odds and that they were right tricksters. If it wasn’t for that other customer I was telling you about, ah a terrible quiet poor divil, the hat looked so well on him, that’s what made up my mind for me.’

Oilly wore the hat all that day and did not take it off even
when he ate or when he shaved or washed. The first Sunday he visited the Deery household, as he often did, and Mrs Deery went into ecstasies of admiration when she saw Oilly’s new hat. Timmy asked him about where he bought it and whether they sold ten gallon cowboy hats. Oilly laughed and said, ‘Well, they were definitely right cowboys so I’m sure they must sell cowboy hats.’

‘Is that right?’ said Timmy, ‘I must get one.’

The next day Timmy met Oilly and this time he was wearing his new cap. Timmy stared at it and commented, ‘I prefer the hat, why are you wearing a cap?’

‘Oh, I keep the hat for my Sunday head and this is for my weekday head.’

Timmy looked startled. ‘You mean you have two heads.’

‘Aye, Timmy, that’s what gives me a head start over you ordinary chaps.’

Timmy innocently spread this story around and in time Oilly
became known as the man with two heads.

Every weekday from that time onward Oilly wore the cap and every Sunday the hat. And, eventually, after about six months when his hair did grow back to its former glory he had become so fond of the headgear that he continued to wear it and he never again belittled bald men. His own months of “baldness” had taught him a valuable lesson.

The maid was the belle of the ball

With a frock that was not her’s at all

In a weakness she took it

When Tim kicked the bucket

And she boogied all night in the Hall

Every summer a carnival week was held in Roggart to raise funds for the parish. A large marquee was erected in the football field and every night a dance was held in it. The highlight was the final Sunday night when the Carnival Queen was selected. Judges were brought in from the neighbouring parishes and there was great rivalry among the girls.

Una McKay was a very good-looking nineteen year old who worked in one of the big houses in the area. She was a kitchen maid for the Babington family and was the fourth eldest of five sisters. She was poorly paid in money terms but got all her meals in the house. The only other concession to the staff was that any old shoes or boots which the family had no further use for would be given to them. One day Una was asked by the head of kitchen staff if she was interested in a pair of red sling-back shoes which Lady Babington had thrown out. The young girl was thrilled and said, ‘Oh yes, please, yes, please.’

She brought home the prized shoes wrapped in newspaper
and, even though they were a size too big for her and the buckle of one was bent and twisted where something heavy had fallen on it, to Una this was a minor flaw and could easily be hammered out and repaired. Now if only she had a red dress to go with the shoes!

She looked forward eagerly to the carnival and entering the Carnival Queen competition. Her biggest problem was that the only suitable dress she had was a green one which had been handed down from her older sister. To make matters worse her sister, Jane, had been selected Carnival Queen the previous year while wearing this dress. One day while having her dinner in Babington’s she was leafing through a magazine belonging to Lady Babington when she came across an article on how to change the look of a frock by “tie-dyeing” it. It all sounded very easy. You simply tied the garment in knots, soaked it in a bucket of colour dye and when it was removed and untied a beautiful new coloured pattern appeared on it. Well, in the magazine, it
seemed beautiful and so easy, and Una remembered that there
was some red dye at home which her mother had bought but never used.

Una wasted no time. When she got home that evening she got to work. In the kitchen she prepared the bucket of red dye, tied several knots on the green frock, and pushed it into the bucket with a wooden ladle. Her mother and sisters had gone into town so she had no interruptions or objections to what she was doing.

‘I must hide it until it is finished,’ she thought to herself. ‘Now where would be a good place? I know; the summer house.’

The summer house was a bockety wooden structure well hidden by branches of plum and apple trees and located in the McKay’s overgrown garden.

‘It will be safe there until tomorrow. It should be soaked enough by then,’ Una mused as she carried out the bucket of bright red liquid. The next morning Una went off to work at seven o’clock as usual. She took a quick look in the summer house to make sure that the dye colouring operation had not been disturbed. Having satisfied herself that all was well she
proceeded to Babington’s.

Later on that morning Timmy Deery was driving five bullocks along the road past McKay’s garden and one of the animals broke through the flimsy hedge which bordered the summer house. Timmy jumped off his green bicycle and shouted at the animal.

‘Come back, you awkward contrary brute!’ he roared, as he followed the beast.

The animal gave a buck lep and came out again on to the road without mishap but Timmy was not so lucky. He stepped right into the bucket of red dye which Una had hidden.

‘What in the name of all the bad luck miserable wretches, who left that? Be the holy saints it’s a bucket of blood!’

Timmy stared down at his wellington boot which was once black but now mostly red in colour. Then he remembered the cattle he was supposed to be driving. He kicked the bucket
out of his way in temper and jumping on his bike, raced after
them. By the time he rounded up the five bullocks and put them safely into the “top field” he had forgotten about the bucket of “blood.” On reaching home, he was quickly reminded of it by Henrietta when he marched straight onto the kitchen floor which she had just washed and polished.

‘Timmy Deery,’ she yelled, ‘What is that red stuff on my good floor? Is that blood on your foot? What on earth happened to you?’

‘Oh yeah, the blood, I accidentally stepped into a bucket of blood this morning when I was driving the cattle to the top field. It was in McKay’s garden.’

Timmy explained to Henrietta about one of the cattle breaking into the garden and what happened with the bucket.

‘That’s terrible, where could all that blood have come from?’ said Henrietta.

‘I dunno, maybe they killed a pig or something.’

‘They don’t have any livestock. I’ll have to get Sonny to check on things over there. In the meantime get all that blood cleaned off your boots and then you can clean up the mess you made on my kitchen floor.’