The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland (17 page)

McKechnick declared more than once that Jack had brought them good luck. At five-thirty they repaired to the Grandstand bar where they proceeded to drink gins and
tonics. After an hour the party was a merry one.

At six-thirty the titled lady got on the phone to a Dublin theatre and booked seats for the night's performance of a play which, she told Jack, had been favourably reviewed in all the dailies of the previous Tuesday. Jack slept soundly throughout the performance. He was loud in his praise after the final curtain had come down.

He remembered little after that. The night passed in a haze. During a meal in one of the city's more celebrated hotels he fell fast asleep. When he woke up he found himself in strange surroundings. He was in a comfortable bed in a bright, fully carpeted room. There was a chambermaid, dressed all in white, shaking his shoulder.

‘They said I was to call you not later than half-past eleven sir,' the chambermaid informed him.

‘Who said?' Jack asked.

‘Your friends sir. It's Sunday and last Mass is at twelve. I've brought you some tea. I'll leave it here.'

She carefully placed the tray of tea things on a chair near the bed. Then she left the room quietly. Painfully Jack raised his head from the pillows. More painfully still he eased himself from the bed. He dressed slowly as though his body was covered with sores and needed to be treated with the utmost gentleness. He found his way downstairs and thence to the church.

Mass went by like a dream. It gave him all he could do to rouse himself at its conclusion. He struggled back to the hotel, went directly upstairs and straight to bed. The next time he woke he felt refreshed. He located his clothes and went through the pockets. His money was intact. He lay back on the bed glad that it had not been stolen.

Then for the first time in days he remembered his wife and as soon as he thought of her he thought of Margaretta. He could sense her gloating in the background. Thinking about his wife filled him with remorse. He could see the hurt in her eyes as the sister lorded it over her. There came a knock upon the bedroom door, gentle yet firm.

‘Come in,' Jack called. It was the chambermaid who had awakened him the morning before. Again she carried a tray.

‘What day have we?' Jack asked.

‘It's Monday sir.'

‘Great God almighty!' Jack exclaimed, ‘and will you tell me what time is it?'

‘It's eight o'clock in the morning sir.‘

Upon hearing this he groaned and buried his face in his hands. He ran his fingers through his hair and groaned again and again.

‘Is something up sir?' the chambermaid's voice was filled with alarm.

‘I wish I was dead,' said Jack Murphy.

For the first time he noticed the girl. She was young, no more than eighteen but she had a sympathetic face and sympathy was exactly what Jack needed just then. The source did not worry him. While she poured his tea he launched into a full account of his adventures. She listened carefully and when he had finished she nodded her head sagely.

‘I wouldn't worry too much,' she told him. ‘You still have the money and that's a good start.'

‘Oh sure,' he said with an edge of sarcasm, ‘but' tis me and not you that has to face the music.‘

‘All you have to do,' she told him bluntly, ‘is buy a fur coat for your wife. I promise you there won't be a word out of her
if you land back with a good quality fur coat.'

‘A fur coat,' he said and pondered her suggestion.

‘But where would I get one?'

‘Look,' she said kindly, ‘I have an hour off at twelve. If you like I could meet you outside and show you where to go.'

‘Good God,' said Jack gratefully, ‘that would be great, great entirely.'

At twelve o‘clock she was as good as her word. At ten past they were walking up Grafton Street. At half past they had narrowed the selection down to two.

One was a musquash at one hundred and fifty pounds and the other a Canadian squirrel at hundred and forty. They decided upon the musquash.

‘Listen,' said the salesman confidently. He spoke as if he were doing them a very considerable personal favour.

‘Why not take both. You pay for them now. When you arrive home let her decide for herself. You can return the one she doesn't want and we will only be happy to refund your money.'

This seemed to be an excellent idea.

‘There is one other thing,' said Jack Murphy to the salesman, ‘my wife is a very thrifty sort of woman so like a good man will you knock down the prices a bit.'

‘We shall have no problem at all in that respect,' the salesman assured them. He produced two price tags, one marked thirty and the other twenty-five pounds. He attached the thirty pound tag to the musquash and the twenty-five to the Canadian squirrel. Jack returned with his parcels to the hotel where he bade goodbye to his young friend. He thrust a ten pound note into her hand as they parted.

It was late that night when he arrived home. It goes without
saying that he was coolly received. His wife had no word of welcome for him, no word that is, until he produced the parcels. Proudly he ripped them open. He presented her with the musquash explaining that the other was on appro.

His wife was enchanted. She pressed the coat against her body and caressed it with her free hand.

That night Jack Murphy slept the sleep of the just. In the morning he received his breakfast in bed. His wife sat on the edge fondly watching him as he ate.

‘I have good news for you,' she said.

‘What would that be?' Jacked asked absently.

‘You needn't bother to return the other coat. Margaretta thinks it a steal at twenty-five pounds and she's decided to keep it.'

There is no sight so grotesque or pathetic as the dangling frame of a hanged man. It is also an affront to human symmetry. There is no parody so wretched and when Billy Fitz and John Murphy first saw Denny Bruder's body hanging from the crossbeam in Looney's shed they were bemused for some moments by the almost comic presentation of slack hands and slanted head. From the church nearby, as if by arrangement, came the muted tolling of the Angelus bell.

Billy moved first. He touched the hanging foot nearest him and when nothing happened he pushed it gingerly with his palm. The body unexpectedly started to gyrate slowly. The screams of the boys were simultaneous. They ran terrified from the shed.

Denny Bruder had first come to the village about five years before. He was a motor mechanic by trade. He took a lease of Looney's shed and in a short while built a reputation as an efficient man who knew all there was to be known about motor cars. You could not call him morose. Glum would be a more fitting word. He was gentle with children and he never resented their curiosity. He was not the best of mixers and mostly he was to be seen alone going for walks or visiting the cinema where pictures were shown every other night.

In the beginning he was never known to enter a public house and he showed little interest in the local girls but this could have been because they showed little interest in him. He was not the handsomest of men. He was medium-sized with a
rather bulbous nose and thick lips. However, he was far from being repulsive. His was a dour sort of face. Older women in the village described it as homely. In time people came to accept him as part of the local scene.

Shortly after Denny Bruder's arrival Imogen Furey invested in a second-hand car. Imogen was the wife of Jack Furey the cattle-jobber. Jack already had a car but, as Imogen told anybody who might be prepared to listen, he was away from home so often at cattle fairs all over the country that they might as well not have a car at all. While Jack was away Imogen would visit his fields outside the village to count the cattle and to see if any wandering animals had broken down fences or forced entry. She would do this in all kinds of weather and since the fields were the best part of a mile from the village she was often in receipt of a discomfiting drenching and this, in addition to the time wasted, was one of the chief reasons why she felt the need of the car. There were two children, both girls, but these were away at boarding school for most of the year.

The car was an old model and if it burned more than its quota of oil it suited Imogen's needs nicely. When it broke down one evening as she was returning from counting the cattle she sent for Denny Bruder who towed it to his shed. It transpired that the fan belt was broken. There was nothing else the matter. While Denny was installing a new belt Imogen suggested that he give the car a complete overhaul. She left it in his care and late the following afternoon he delivered it to her door. She was surprised at the reasonableness of his fee.

Thereafter they became good friends and he took a personal interest in the behaviour of the car.

Midway through his second year Denny Bruder invested
in some up-to-date garage equipment. This improved his business considerably and in his third year he found himself with more money than he actually needed. He looked about for a safe spot to invest it.

It was Imogen Furey who solved his problem. Envious neighbours were fond of saying that she knew everything about everybody. By this they inferred that she knew more than was good for her. Uncharitably they would hint that if she paid more time to her own business and less to the business of others she would be better off. This, of course, was not the case at all. Imogen Furey was an eminently successful woman by any standards. Her husband was reputed to be the wealthiest man in the village. Her home had every conceivable amenity. She dressed well and was a leading figure on local committees. Her children were boarded at one of the most exclusive schools in the country. On the surface, at any rate, hers was the sort of thoroughly satisfying existence which was bound to provoke resentment and jealousy.

When Denny Bruder confided to her that he had money to spare she asked for time to consider his situation. It was her experience that house property or land were the safest means of ensuring a profitable return from investment. On the outskirts of the village was a two-storeyed house in relatively good condition. It had been on the market for some years but because its owner was asking too exorbitant a price it went unsold. She informed Denny that she was convinced the house could be bought for the sum originally asked. After an interval of three years she explained that the price was not in the least exorbitant by prevailing values.

Denny bought the house, handed notice to his landlady and moved in. For months he was rarely seen in public. After
work he would spend most of his time indoors redecorating the rooms and generally restoring the woodwork, ceilings and anything else he found in disrepair. When he had finished indoors he started on the outside. It was early spring when he started on the neglected garden which faced the roadway. He planted shrubs and trees and showed an excellent sense of taste in his selections.

He painted the house front and windows with delicately contrasting shades. By late spring the job was completed. He was more than satisfied with his handi-work. He decided to sit back and await developments. All through the summer he confidently expected a proposal or suggestion of marriage through some medium from whatever candidates were available. The house was his chief bait. It was much admired by the villagers as was the garden. He worked hard and which was more important he was seen to work hard. He bought new clothes and invested in a small comfortable car. The months of summer wore on and when the trees began to shed the first autumn leaves he found himself still with an empty house. He was puzzled. He knew he was no lady-killer but he was also aware that there were many happily married men in the village far uglier and less well-off.

He started to visit the public houses. He never drank more than a glass or two of beer. He became friendly with some of the barmaids but that was as far as it went. He went to dances in the village hall and sometimes to neighbouring towns when the bigger, betterknown bands included these in their itineraries. He never danced. He often tried but the girls he fancied were snapped up before he could get off his mark. Consequently he spent most of his time standing with other male onlookers at the rear of the hall.

That winter was one of the most miserable he ever spent. He missed the company of the other lodgers in his old digs. The house was unbearably lonely. To crown his misfortune he was smitten by a heavy dose of influenza. He was three days in his bed before anybody showed sufficient interest in his whereabouts to pay a visit to the house. His friend Imogen Furey eventually called. He thrust a muffled head from one of the uppermost windows and told her hoarsely that he was ill. At her bidding he dropped the key to the door at her feet. She was back in less than half an hour with a jug of chicken broth. She called again and again until he was fit to resume work.

At Christmas, to repay her kindness, he bought her a present of the most expensive perfume available. The Fureys, to give them their due, knew a decent man when they met one. At Jack's bidding, Imogen invited Denny to a meal one of the nights during Christmas. Afterwards they sat in front of the sitting-room fire drinking a special punch compounded by Imogen. The heat of the fire and the whiskey to which he was unused had the effect of totally loosening Denny's tongue. In a short while he had unfolded his tale of woe, confessing his loneliness and explaining his most pressing need.

The Fureys were moved first to concern and then to pity. At a late hour that night Jack Furey drove Denny home. In bed later on he asked his wife if there was anything she could do.

‘He's a likely fellow,' Jack said, ‘and by the cut of him I don't think he'd blackguard a girl.'

‘He's no Romeo,' Imogen pointed out.