An Irish Country Christmas Part 20

"There," said O'Reilly with resignation. "There goes my ten quid." It should have been an easy score. It should have been.

Arthur gave a ferocious yodel and started to charge up the field.

"Call him in, Fingal!" Barry yelled.

Kitty burst into peals of helpless laughter.

The Ballybucklebo crowd started to chant as with one voice, "Go, Arthur!"

Two Gallowgla.s.ses hurled themselves at the dog as he raced past, but he easily avoided them.

"Go, Arthur! Go, Arthur!" The roaring of the crowd rose to a crescendo, and encouraged by the cheers, Arthur grabbed the ball, slithered to a racing turn, and headed back to his master as if he were proudly retrieving a fallen bird.

The marquis didn't so much whistle as play a long solo on his instrument. O'Reilly thought it sounded like a train announcing that it was going into a siding.

A chorus of boos rose from the opposite touchline only to be drowned by the deafening cheers from O'Reilly's side.

O'Reilly, desperately trying to hide an enormous grin, took the slaver-damp ball from Arthur's mouth. "We'll get you a Bonnaught jersey next week," he said. "Here, Barry. Hang onto his collar."

Holding Arthur by the collar, Barry said, "Sit, sir."

Arthur grinned and panted, pink tongue lolling, tail wagging. He paid not a blind bit of attention to Barry's command.

O'Reilly stepped onto the pitch and carried the ball to the marquis. "Here you are, John." He gave him the ball. "Sorry about that."

"Can't be helped, Fingal. I'll have to give them a penalty kick."

"I'm sure you're right, sir," O'Reilly said; then he walked off the pitch to the cheers of his side's supporters. Only a minute left now.

The teams arranged themselves, with the Bonnaughts lined up behind their goal line.

"Do you think he can kick it, Kitty?" O'Reilly asked, as soon as he was by her side again.

"They'll win if they do." She stared at the Gallowgla.s.ses' kicker, who was setting the oval ball on one narrow end in a shallow pit he'd hacked in the turf with the heel of his boot. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked across to the H-shaped goalposts. "He's almost on the touchline, so it's a very narrow angle and it's a fair distance."

"And," said Barry, "the breeze is against him."

"He'll miss. Bound to," O'Reilly said, with a confidence he didn't quite feel. If the ball was booted through the uprights, it was worth three points. He could afford the ten pounds but did not relish the satisfaction its loss would give to Doctor Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick.

The kicker walked seven paces back from the upright ball, turned, and stood rigidly, arms by his sides, feet together.

The supporters of both sides fell silent. It was considered extremely unsporting to make a noise and possibly spoil the kicker's concentration.

The man ran at the ball, head down, swung his right leg, and kicked the ball with an almighty wallop. The thump of leather on leather echoed over the field.

O'Reilly watched the ball soar into the sky. It was at a good height and would have the range. It was heading to one side of the s.p.a.ce between the uprights but should get through. b.u.g.g.e.r, he thought, there goes my ten quid, but he felt the breeze against his cheek. A sudden stronger gust. He saw it catch the ball and give it a nudge that was just enough to alter its trajectory and push it wide of the left-hand goalpost.

He clenched his fists and thrust both arms into the air, yelling, "b.l.o.o.d.y marvelous!" Then, oblivious to the frenzied cheering and the referee's whistle signalling the end of the game, he grabbed Kitty in an enormous bear hug, lifted her off the ground, swung her around in a great circle, and kissed her firmly.

"Put me down, Fingal," she said through her laughter. "Put me down."

He did, but he took her hand and held onto it as he said, "Well done, our side."

"Well done, indeed," Kitty said, bending and patting Arthur's head. "And well done, Arthur."

"Daft dog," he said fondly.

"Aarf," said Arthur.

"And," said O'Reilly, "it's time you were back in your kennel, sir. I've got a committee meeting to go to now."

Barry, who still had hold of Arthur's collar, said, "If you're ready, Kitty, I'll run you back to Number One."

"Please."

O'Reilly, still holding Kitty's hand, discovered he was loath to let go. He gave it a squeeze, released it, and said, "I'll not be long. Just a bit of business with Fitzpatrick, and it should be a short meeting; then I'll be home in no time."

"And you drive carefully, Fingal," Kitty said. "Do you hear me?"

He almost said, "Yes, dear," but managed to strangle the words. "Go on," he said, "run along." And as Barry, Arthur, and Kitty walked away toward the car park, O'Reilly lingered for a moment longer, noticed Kitty's head scarf, and remembered what he had thought earlier. She was a thoroughbred, Kitty O'Hallorhan. A real thoroughbred.

You Can Never Plan the Future by the Past.

O'Reilly stood outside the clubhouse and watched the last of the victorious Bonnaughts go inside for their well-deserved showers. The light was fading and the temperature falling as evening crept on. His attention was caught by the sounds of a flock of bickering jackdaws on their way to their roosts in the big beech trees. He looked up as the birds tumbled across the pale grey-blue sky's gloaming. Their feathers were as glossy as the freshly currycombed coat of a black mare.

He stamped his booted feet and briskly flapped his arms across his chest. There was no sign of Fitzpatrick. He owed O'Reilly ten pounds and was meant to be here to settle his debt of honour. If he had any.

O'Reilly had known since long-ago medical-school days that Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick was a miserable worm. But a man who had shaken hands on a bet-a contract in Ireland more binding than one drawn up on vellum by the chief justice, witnessed by two high court judges, and sealed in blood-well, such a man was beneath contempt.

At a minimum Fitzpatrick owed O'Reilly a face-to-face explanation. O'Reilly might even concede that the bet was off, courtesy of Arthur Guinness. But to simply not show up was more than discourteous. It was cowardly.

He decided he'd wait five more minutes. After all, it was possible that Fitzpatrick had been legitimately delayed. But after five minutes O'Reilly would go inside and get warm.

O'Reilly's thoughts were interrupted by the marquis, who appeared in the doorway. "Are you coming in, Fingal?" His hair was sleek and damp from his postgame shower, and his cheeks glowed. "We'd rather like to get the business settled and get home."

"Right. Coming."

O'Reilly climbed the three shallow steps and pa.s.sed through the door the marquis held open. Then he headed down a hallway, where framed photographs of every rugby fifteen since the club had been founded hung on one wall and similarly framed photos of Gaelic football and hurling teams adorned the other.

He was so deep in thought that he was hardly aware of the marquis walking next to him.

b.l.o.o.d.y Fitzpatrick. Some of his self-described medical practices left a certain amount to be desired, but O'Reilly was enough of a realist to recognize that a great deal of the received wisdom of his own brand of medicine was probably suspect. Much of what he and Barry practised was merely based on the authoritative statements of their professors, who had in turn learnt it from their predecessors. Mind you, last year when surgeons in Leeds had successfully transplanted a kidney from a cadaver to a living patient, you had to be impressed.

Was Fitzpatrick's quackery a real threat? It might be to his patients, in which case something would have to be done. But was he likely to attract enough customers to make things tricky in Ballybucklebo? O'Reilly doubted it, but he'd seen how worried Barry was, even if the boy tried to hide his concerns.

Those might be reasons enough to hasten Fitzpatrick's departure to parts unknown. His welshing on their bet, while being an irritant, was not a reason for O'Reilly to mount a vendetta, but it did not endear Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick one bit.

O'Reilly wasn't certain how to help Eileen Lindsay, but he knew he must try. While he was scheming about her future, he might as well see if he could come up with a plan to discomfort Fitzpatrick too. If the man proved to be as medically dangerous as O'Reilly suspected he was, then as sure as the tides ebbed and flowed O'Reilly would see to him. A bit of thinking about how to achieve that end wouldn't hurt.

But now he had to deal with the business at hand.

He opened the boardroom door and held it open for the marquis, who went straight through. O'Reilly followed him into a comfortable, oak-panelled room. Conversation was stilled when the peer entered.

A paraffin stove served to take the chill off the air, and O'Reilly could smell its fumes. Through the fug of tobacco smoke, he could make out the photographs of past presidents, various officials, the chairwomen of the ladies committee, and head-and-shoulder snaps of players who had represented Ulster over the years. He smiled to see pictures of himself and the marquis, the two club members who had been capped for their country.

He looked away from the old pictures to the group, the executive committee, surrounding a long mahogany table in the centre of the room. The lone female, Flo Bishop, had remained seated. A large woman, she wore an expensive hat and a fashionable dress meant for a woman half her age. O'Reilly hid his smile. Kinky would say she was "mutton dressed up as lamb."

The five men, all well known to O'Reilly, had stood for the marquis. Fergus Finnegan as team captain; Reverend Robinson, the Presbyterian minister in his white dog collar; the parish priest, Father O'Toole, in his ca.s.sock; the captain of the hurling team, Dermot Kennedy, whose daughter Jeannie had had an appendix abscess in August; and Councillor Bertie Bishop, the member at large-very large, O'Reilly thought. Bishop's dark three-piece suit was crumpled. O'Reilly could see, looped across the waistcoat, a gold watch chain with the Masonic Order's set square emblem dangling from one end.

"Please do sit down," the marquis said, taking his place as club patron and honorary president at the head of the table. In front of him were a gavel and the leather-bound minutes book.

The men sat and O'Reilly, after hanging his overcoat, cap, and scarf on a clothes stand, joined them, sitting at the marquis's right hand. He was after all the secretary-treasurer and had been for more years than he liked to remember. "Evening, all," O'Reilly said. "Evening, Mrs. Bishop." He nodded to Flo Bishop, this year's ladies committee secretary.

"Evening, Doctor." The chorus in unison could have come from his waiting room, but here for once the deference was from respect for his past skill as a rugby football player.

The men looked expectantly at the marquis.

O'Reilly smiled and leant over to Flo Bishop, who was sitting on his right. He asked quietly, "How are you, Flo?"

"I'm grand, so I am, Doctor. Thank you. Them wee pills Doctor Laverty give me is dead on, so they are. I'm not tired all the time anymore. I'm running round like a liltie."

"Good." In August, Barry had made an astute diagnosis of her myasthenia gravis, a rare disease that interfered with the transmission of nerve impulses to the skeletal muscles. Sufferers were perpetually lethargic, but the neostigmine bromide Barry had prescribed was obviously doing the trick, and she was full of energy.

"I'm delighted," O'Reilly said.

She leant closer and whispered, "And I've lost a whole stone."

"Impressive, Flo," he said, looking at her again. He reckoned that even at fourteen pounds less than her old fighting weight, she could probably afford to lose a fair bit more.

He heard the marquis cough, rap once with his gavel, and say, "I'd like to call the meeting to order. As you all know, this is an extraordinary meeting of the executive, so we can dispense with approving the minutes of the last plenary meeting." He pushed the minute book aside, unopened.

Councillor Bertie Bishop lifted his hand as if to strike the tabletop. He heaved himself forward in his chair at the opposite side of the table. He had to sit some distance back to accommodate his ample belly. "I'm still not happy with that rise of one pound in the dues, so I'm not."

"Houl' . . . your . . . wheest . . . Bertie." His wife, Flo, enunciated each word clearly and fixed him with a glare that O'Reilly reckoned would have given the fabled basilisk a run for the beast's money; its look could turn a man to stone. "That's old business, so it is," she growled.

"Yes, dear." He lowered his hand and subsided muttering.

The marquis, a wry smile on his lips, said, "You are a tad out of order, Bertie."

"It's daylight robbery, so it is."

"Bertie." Flo leant across the table. "That'll do."

The marquis nodded. "We've two items on our agenda for this afternoon, and I'd like to move along as quickly as possible in dealing with them. First is the Christmas party. Will you bring us up to date on that, Flo?"

"I can, sir." She produced a handbag that O'Reilly thought could have done duty as a steamer trunk, put it on the tabletop, rummaged inside, and hauled out a notebook with a spiral wire running along the spine. "We'll be having it as usual on the twenty-third, that's a Wednesday, eleven days away. It'll start at five so the youngest kiddies can come for a wee while before their bedtimes, and . . ."-she smiled at O'Reilly-"at six Santa will arrive, if that's all right with you, Doctor O'Reilly."

"Ho, ho, ho," said O'Reilly, who had enjoyed his annual role for many years.

Flo bobbed her head, reached into her handbag, and produced a tape measure. "If you'd not mind standing up, sir?"

O'Reilly stood and waited while Flo also rose and ran the tape measure round his waist. She pinched to mark the measurement, removed it, rolled it up, and made a note in her notebook. She shook her head at O'Reilly. "I'll have to get one of the ladies to let the pants out an inch at the waist, sir. If you don't mind me saying, you're getting a bit tall around."

O'Reilly laughed, not one bit offended. "Doctor Laverty told me that Miss Moloney's back from her sister's. She's a grand seamstress. You might want to have a word with her." If nothing else, he thought it might be a way to start Miss M on the road back to acceptance in the village.

"Is she? I'll pop in the dress shop and have a wee word. Now"-she consulted her notes-"my ladies will take care of the catering." She smiled at O'Reilly. "Do you think your Mrs. Kincaid would like to help out?"

"I'll certainly ask her, but I'm sure she will."

"Good, and when we've finished decorating the Parish Hall for the pageant"-she nodded at Father O'Toole, who smiled back-"we'll do the clubhouse here."

"Thank you, Mrs. Bishop," O'Toole said.

"And," she continued, "Fergus, can you get the tree?"

"You can cut one on the estate," the marquis offered.

"Thank you, sir. I'll see to it."

"Mister Chairman," Bertie Bishop interrupted. He stood as he always did, with his thumbs hooked behind the lapels of his suit jacket. "Will it be the same arrangement for the kiddies' presents this year?"

The marquis frowned. "I think the ladies' secretary still has the floor."

Flo stared at her husband. Perhaps, O'Reilly thought, he had been hasty in likening her to the basilisk. If she had a few serpents for hair, she'd have made a first-cla.s.s Medusa. "You go ahead, Bertie, dear . . ." Her expression gave the lie to her honeyed tones.

"Like I said, will it be the same for the kiddies' presents?"

"Aye, Councillor." The priest spoke softly, his Cork brogue musical like Kinky's to O'Reilly's ear. "We'll tell the parents to bring a wrapped present for each of their own children. They'll mark the child's name clearly on a label and give the parcels to me to put in Santa's sack." He smiled at O'Reilly. "Just before Santa arrives, I'll pop the sack under the tree; then when Father Christmas pulls out a present, he can read the tag, call the child's name, and the wee one can come forward for its gift, so."

O'Reilly nodded. It was a good plan and had worked for many years. It should b.l.o.o.d.y well work; it had been his idea. Bertie Bishop was rabbitting on about something else, but O'Reilly was not paying attention. The image of himself pulling presents out of a sack had given him the germ of an idea, a brilliant idea if he did think so himself. With a bit of luck, he might well be able to solve Eileen Lindsay's Christmas fund difficulties. "By G.o.d," he said aloud, "it'll be just the ticket . . . literally."

"I beg your pardon, Fingal?" O'Reilly saw the marquis looking puzzled and realized that he himself had just voiced his thoughts.

He coughed. "I'm sorry. Just thinking aloud. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's perfectly all right. You had finished, hadn't you, Bertie?"

"Aye." The councillor sat down.

"Thank you. Now does anyone have anything more to say about the party arrangements?" He waited. No one spoke. "Very well. That brings me to the last item. It was on the agenda on Tuesday, but unfortunately Doctor O'Reilly was a bit under the weather and couldn't be with us. Fingal, will you please stand up?"

O'Reilly frowned. This must be the surprise the marquis had warned him about when he had visited on Tuesday. O'Reilly stood.