Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Fatty clenched his teeth in desperation. He was as captive an audience as those unfortunate Romans who were obliged to hear Nero play his fiddle and who could only escape the auditorium by pretending to die.

  “Funny that,” mused Rupert O’Brien. “We couldn’t tug him out, but gravity, exercising its force in the opposite direction …” He paused, and Fatty opened his eyes to see a thoughtful expression on the face of his unwelcome companion.

  “My goodness, we could do the same for you,” said Rupert O’Brien. “If I just roll this tub over, you’ll be upside down and then you’ll probably come out through the operation of gravity. Why didn’t I think of it before?”

  Fatty shook his head. “No,” he protested. “They’ll be back soon. Just leave me.”

  “Wouldn’t hear of leaving you,” said Rupert O’Brien. “Now, don’t you worry. I’ll just give this a bit of a push and you’ll be over. Let me see, just here.”

  Fatty felt the bathtub rocking and then, with a sudden lurch, it toppled over onto its side. There was a ringing clang, like a deadened bell, and then the movement started again and he felt the bathtub roll once more.

  “There!” shouted Rupert O’Brien. “That’s it.”

  Fatty was now upside down, his view of the sky being replaced with a dark view of the cobbled surface of the courtyard.

  Rupert O’Brien tapped loudly on the bathtub. “Are you all right in there, Mr. O’Leary,” he shouted. “Are you beginning to slip out?”

  “I am still caught,” said Fatty miserably. “Turn it over again. I don’t like being upside down. Just mind your own business.”

  “Now, now, Mr. O’Leary,” said Rupert O’Brien. “I can understand that you’re upset, but this really is the only way. I’ll stay and talk to you while gravity gets to work. What would you like to chat about? I’d like to be able to talk about that place you come from – what was it called? – but I don’t know a thing about it. I’ve never been there. I’ve been to New York, of course. I’ve been there a lot, in fact. Do you know that I used to write the occasional piece for The New Yorker? Do you read The New Yorker, Mr. O’Leary? Can you buy it down in Mississippi? There are some who say that it’s gone off and that the standards of grammar are not what they used to be. There may be some truth in that. What do you think? Do you think that The New Yorker has gone off at all?”

  “Go away–” Fatty started to shout, but was cut short by a sudden pain in his right hip, and then, to the accompaniment of a great sucking sound, like that made by a mud pool venting, he felt himself tumbling from the bath and onto the hard cobbles. He uttered a yell of pain and this brought an anxious enquiry from Rupert O’Brien.

  “Has it worked? Are you out?”

  Fatty, crouching beneath the bath, doubled up most uncomfortably, struggled to retrieve the towel, which had fallen from his waist when the bath had been turned over.

  “I’m out now,” he shouted. “Please turn the bath over again.”

  Fatty heard Rupert O’Brien breathing heavily as he exerted himself to roll the bathtub over onto its side, but eventually he succeeded, exposing Fatty, like an insect discovered under a rock, blinking and confused.

  “You see,” said Rupert O’Brien. “The late Mr. Newton has been vindicated once again.”

  Fatty arose painfully to his feet, muttered his thanks, and holding the inadequate towel round his waist, picked his way, barefoot over the rough cobbles, back into the building.

  “What a scream!” said Rupert O’Brien to Niamh, when she reappeared in the courtyard. “Have you ever seen anything so perfectly comic? French farce, my dear. Utter French farce, and all laid on for us absolutely free! It’s Les Fourberies de Scapin and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme all rolled into one! Priceless!”

  8

  AFTER WATCHING HER HUSBAND BEING carried out of the room in the bath, uncertain as to whether she should accompany him (as a widow might accompany a cortège) but deciding not to do so, Betty returned to her bed. She felt profoundly discouraged by the morning’s events and wondered whether the idea of coming to Ireland had been a mistake. Her visions of quiet days spent enjoying the delights of the Irish countryside and the Irish table seemed to have been a hopelessly romantic misconception. The reality of Ireland was proving quite different; gravity, so cruel and unforgiving at home in Arkansas, seemed every bit as unremitting here, where it had subjected her husband to tribulations as onerous as any that had beset him on the other, correct side of the Atlantic. What was the point, she wondered, of travelling such distances only to find that the world revealed an identically unkind face? Perhaps it would have been better to remain in America, where at least the odds seemed less stacked against generously built people.

  She decided that when Fatty returned she would ask him whether he wanted to persist with the holiday. It would involve no loss of face, she would tell him, to change their reservations and fly home that very evening. Nobody at home need know that they had returned prematurely, as they could quietly slip off for a few days somewhere and nobody would be any the wiser.

  By the time that the freshly released Fatty returned to the bedroom, Betty had dozed off, her head full of reassuring thoughts of home. She opened her eyes with a start to find Fatty, clad in his towel, searching the room for his clothes.

  “I’m back,” he declared simply.

  She rose from her bed and embraced him.

  “It must have been so uncomfortable,” said Betty, pushing a stray lock of hair off Fatty’s brow. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps we should go home … Ireland seems to be so …” She searched for the expression. What precisely was wrong with Ireland? The food? Well, she was in no position to pass judgement on that, as they had not had the opportunity to sample any Irish dishes yet. Since they had arrived at Shannon, they had, in fact, had no more than a little soup and a few pieces of bread at dinner. She had certainly seen some food that morning, when she had observed Rupert O’Brien eating kedgeree with such obvious enjoyment, but that alone gave her no grounds to pronounce on the national cuisine.

  Was it general discomfort then? Again, this was a charge for which she had no evidence: Mountpenny House seemed comfortable enough, even if the bathroom now lacked a bath. (They could hardly complain about that.) No. The main objection to Ireland was its Irishness, or rather its wrong sort of Irishness. Everybody at home knew what it was to be Irish, and behaved accordingly, with St. Patrick’s Day parades and sentimental dinners. But did the Irish themselves know how to be Irish? She was less confident of that.

  “Do you want to go home?” she blurted out. “Home to Fayetteville, I mean.”

  Fatty looked at her uncomprehendingly.

  “But of course we’ll go home,” he said. “We’re booked to go home at the end of next week.”

  “But are you enjoying yourself?” she persisted.

  “Am I enjoying myself in Ireland?” he asked. “Of course I am! Who couldn’t enjoy himself in Ireland?”

  Betty struggled to conceal her surprise. “But all these things that have been happening,” she said. “Don’t you feel …” She did not finish.

  “They’ve been nothing,” said Fatty. “A few minor irritations. You know that I’m not that easily discouraged, Betty. You should know that by now.”

  Betty swallowed. She would have to put a brave face on it and carry on, since that was so clearly what Fatty wished to do. And it would be possible – just – to be positive: they would have a good breakfast, and that would surely raise the spirits. Then perhaps they would take a walk, or perhaps drive in the car to one of the nearby villages. The run of bad luck – for that is what it seemed to be – would have to come to an end sometime, as it could hardly go on forever and it was difficult to see what further humiliations Ireland could be planning for Fatty.

  They dressed, Fatty donning the trousers which had been let out for him by Mr. Delaney and one of the adapted shirts, while Betty wore the green linen trouser suit she had bought for the trip. Then they made
their way down to the dining room, the door of which had been wedged closed and had to be pushed open by Fatty.

  “I’m absolutely starving,” said Fatty as they entered the room. “I haven’t really eaten properly for over twenty-four hours!”

  The thought of the impending meal made it possible to contemplate with equanimity the chance of finding Rupert O’Brien in the dining room. But Fatty need not have worried. Not only was Rupert O’Brien not there, but there was nobody else either. In fact, the dining room was completely deserted and the tables cleared.

  Fatty stood at the doorway and looked at his watch.

  “It’s only ten,” he said, his voice weak and dispirited. “Do you think that they’ve stopped serving already?”

  Betty, who had spotted a bell, strode over to ring it. Shortly thereafter the young girl from the village, who had served the diners the previous evening, appeared from the kitchen, a dishcloth draped over her arm. She looked surprised.

  “Well,” she said. “Who rang the bell then? What’s the emergency?”

  “We were hoping for breakfast,” said Fatty. “Some kedgeree perhaps?”

  The waitress shook her head. “Mr. O’Brien finished the kedgeree,” she said. “And anyway, it’s far too late for breakfast. The kitchen’s closed.”

  Fatty exchanged an anguished glance with Betty. “But we had no dinner,” he complained. “And now you’re telling us that we’re to get no breakfast.”

  The girl looked sympathetic. “That’s an awful shame,” she said. “But I can’t re-open the kitchen once chef has closed it. He gets into an awful temper if he sees me cooking when I’m meant to be cleaning everything up. I really can’t help you there.”

  Fatty looked miserably at the waitress.

  “What time will lunch be served?” he asked.

  “We don’t serve lunch today,” she said. “But I do have some sandwiches made up. They were going to be for Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien, but they haven’t come to collect them yet although I told them they should fetch them by nine. I can give them to you and tell the O’Briens they were too late. I don’t much take to that Jacko, if the truth be told.”

  Fatty was delighted, and readily accepted the offer in spite of Betty’s evident reluctance to deprive the O’Briens of their lunch.

  “Is it quite right, Fatty?” she asked hesitantly. “If the sandwiches were originally meant for Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien, then would the Lord want us to eat them?”

  Fatty brushed aside her objection. “Is it right?” he exploded. “Is it right that we should get a tiny bit of the food that that fellow is trying to reserve all for himself? Of course it’s right. Look at how much he’s eaten since he arrived. All that dinner – when we had none, none at all – and then all the kedgeree this morning. And did he leave us so much as a scrap? He did not!”

  The waitress, who had slipped off into the kitchen, now returned with a large packet of sandwiches, which she thrust into Fatty’s hands.

  “Don’t let them be seeing it now,” she whispered. “Three chicken sandwiches and three smoked salmon.”

  “Just the ticket!” said Fatty.

  They thanked their benefactress and retired to the drawing room to eat the sandwiches.

  “She’s a good girl, that girl in the kitchen,” Fatty said as he bit into the first of the smoked-salmon sandwiches. “She’s got that O’Brien fellow’s number all right.”

  There was a noise behind them, and Fatty swung round to see Rupert and Niamh O’Brien standing in the doorway.

  “Did I hear my name being mentioned?” said the critic.

  Fatty glanced away. His mouth was full of smoked-salmon sandwich anyway and he would have found it difficult to speak. Betty came to the rescue. “My husband was wondering where you were,” she said.

  “Well, here we are,” said Rupert O’Brien, coming into the room. He stopped, his gaze moving to the packet of sandwiches.

  “Sandwiches,” said Niamh. “You see them, Rupert?”

  Rupert nodded and turned to face Fatty. “Where did you get those sandwiches, Mr. O’Leary?”

  Fatty tried to look indignant. “They’re mine,” he said. “We asked–”

  Rupert O’Brien did not let him finish. “You see, I asked for a pack of sandwiches to be made up for us. I asked yesterday evening. And when we went to the kitchen, they said there were no sandwiches.”

  “None at all,” interjected Niamh.

  “And yet here we see the two of you,” continued Rupert O’Brien, “making short work of a mountain of sandwiches.”

  As he spoke, Rupert was glaring at Fatty. Now he moved forward swiftly and snatched one of the sandwiches.

  “That’s ours,” shouted Fatty.

  “Just as I thought,” said Rupert. “Smoked salmon. The very thing we ordered.” He stuffed the sandwich into his mouth and then, signalling to Niamh to follow him, left the room.

  “How dare he!” muttered Fatty, once they had gone. “How dare he come in here and eat one of our sandwiches.”

  “Well, they were his,” said Betty mildly.

  Fatty snorted dismissively. “Let’s finish them, Betty, before any other passer-by comes and eats them.”

  Within a rather short time there were only crumbs left. Fatty looked out of the window. The surface of the lough was a pale blue, reflecting the clear morning sky above. In the distance, at the edge of the lawn, was the jetty and beyond it the boathouse. His hunger assuaged, Fatty had an idea.

  “We shall go fishing,” he announced. “That is what we’ll do this morning, Betty.”

  Mrs. O’Connor had invited them to use the rowing boat that they had spotted tied up at the jetty, and had pointed out a small room where the fishing tackle was stored.

  “You could have a grand day on the lough,” she had said. “And if you catch a nice big pike I can get chef to serve it to everybody tonight! Mind you catch a fish now!”

  It took them half a hour or so to prepare the fishing rods and the lures, but at last they were standing on the jetty, with the sky above them a promising blue and the surface of the lough stretching out glass-smooth into the distance.

  Fatty stood with his hands clasped behind him and drew in a deep breath.

  “This is perfect, Betty,” he said. “You must admit that everything is beginning to turn out well after all. I knew that things would get better.”

  Betty smiled. It gave her pleasure to see Fatty so happy, and she was looking forward to a few relaxing hours on the lough. She was not particularly keen on fishing, but she viewed it as the only predominantly masculine pursuit which kept men occupied and under control for hours on end. When he was fishing, a man could hardly be getting up to any mischief, as men tended to do if left to their own devices – standing about in the water, casting metal hooks into the depths, was, in every respect, an innocent pursuit.

  They loaded the fishing gear into the boat and then, after Betty had lowered herself onto a seat in the stern, Fatty untied the painter and stepped onto the middle seat, alongside the oars and rowlocks. With a deft push at the side of the jetty, he sent the boat out into the lough and began to row, dipping the oars expertly into the water.

  It was not a large boat and the combined weight of Fatty and Betty made it ride dangerously low in the water. In fact, when Betty put her hand on the side, her fingers dipped into the lough.

  “This is rather low,” she ventured. “If I put my hands …”

  “What?” said Fatty, who was exerting himself with the rowing.

  “Rather low in the water,” warned Betty. “I don’t know if it’s going to be terribly easy to fish. All that movement.”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Fatty. “Don’t you worry.”

  Betty was not sure, but Fatty, who was experienced with boats, had reassured her and she decided to concentrate on enjoying the outing rather than worrying. Fatty, having rowed them some twenty yards beyond the jetty, now decided to rest for a while, and he shipped the oars, shifting slightly in his s
eat as he did so. It was not a large or sudden movement, but so meagre was the clearance from the surface that it proved sufficient to tilt one side of the boat under the water. With a sudden glistening rush, like molten silver being poured into a vat, the clear water of the lough flooded into the boat.

  Betty shrieked, and Fatty instinctively moved in the opposite direction. But of course the correction was too great, and this only resulted in further flooding. With the boat now half-filled with water and the sides only mere inches above the surface, Fatty gingerly rowed back toward the jetty. They almost made it, but not quite. When still a few yards off, a ripple in the surface of the water was enough to tip the scales against them, and the rowing boat began to founder, dipping below the surface of the lough like a tiny stricken liner sinking beneath the waves.

  Fortunately, the water at the site of their sinking was not deep, and when they involuntarily abandoned ship both Fatty and Betty found that the water came up only as far as their necks. So even had they not been able to swim, they would have been able to walk ashore – slow progress, though, with their feet in the mud and weeds of the lough bottom.