An Irish Country Wedding

by Patrick Taylor

  Maggie tugged at Sonny’s sleeve and said, “Sonny Houston. I’m sure Doctor Laverty is on important business. He’s not got all day to stand here, both legs the same length, colloguing about politics. And we’ve a clatter of beef heart to buy at Campbell’s butcher’s and then we’ve to take a run-race down to Bangor to the pet shop.”

  Sonny smiled at his wife. “We do indeed.” He turned to Barry. “You’ll remember our Missy, who was expecting a litter of puppies when you and Miss Nolan visited at the end of May?”

  Barry did recall the rotund little dog. “I do.”

  “She dropped her litter the same day you and Miss Nolan came round,” said Maggie. “Four lovely wee puppies. They’re wee dotes, so they are. We started weaning them a couple of weeks back.”

  “Five adult dogs and four pups eat a lot,” Sonny said. “Tom Campbell gets us beef hearts for next to nothing and we get puppy feed in Bangor.”

  Barry glanced back through the door of the newsagent’s. He could see Connie and Phyllis still in deep conversation. “Have you found homes for the pups yet?” he asked.

  Sonny frowned. “Not yet, but they won’t be ready to leave their mother for another week and a half.”

  “Can you wait for just one minute?”

  “Aye, certainly,” Maggie said. “If you can, sir.”

  “Back in a tick.” Barry headed for the newsagent’s and had just reached for the door when it opened. “Connie,” he said. “I’m glad you’re still here. It might be a daft notion, but would you like a puppy for Colin?”

  She frowned. “I never thought of that. Boys-a-dear, I know he’d love one, so he would.”

  “You know Sonny and Maggie Houston.”

  “Och, sure, Doctor, everybody does.” She waved at them.

  “Their bitch has just whelped. Come and say hello.” Together they walked the few paces.

  Sonny tipped his hat. “Good morning, Mrs. Brown.”

  Maggie grinned.

  “I’ve been telling Connie about your pups.”

  “My wee boy, Colin,” Connie said, “he just lost his—” Connie glanced at Barry long enough for him to give a small warning shake of his head. The fewer people who knew about Colin’s ferret the better, he thought. “Och, it’s a long story,” she said, “but I know he’d love a puppy.”

  “And we’d be quare nor happy for to give him one … or two. Their ma’s just a wee dog, so she is,” Maggie said.

  “I’d surely like one,” Connie said, “but I’d have to ask his daddy, you know. Lenny’d have to make a kennel, and a pup would have to be looked after proper. Colin’s going on ten, but he’d need our help, and Lenny’s dead busy just now, you know.”

  Barry glanced at his watch. German measles wasn’t a life-threatening emergency, but it was time he was getting on. “Can I leave the three of you to sort out the details?” he said.

  “Of course,” Sonny said, “and Doctor Laverty, when you and Miss Nolan are free, please bring her round. I got my cross bearings yesterday and I’m close to being certain I know where to find a Neolithic structure not far from here.”

  38

  The Wreck of the Hesperus

  “Staaaarboaaaard!” The helmsman of the little red-hulled racing dinghy shouted across the choppy waters of Ballyholme Bay.

  Barry turned and yelled from where he’d been sitting on Glendun’s deck, peering past the bows. “In case you didn’t hear, skipper, he’s letting us know he has the right of way.” Glendun’s skipper, John Neill, was going to have to give the smaller boat sea room and Barry, Barbara Orr, and her husband, Ted, and the rest of the crew would have to be ready to change course. The “rule of the road” was absolute if collisions were to be avoided.

  As John changed Glendun’s direction, Barry felt the heeling lessen, heard the sails flap as they spilled wind and the boat slowed. Now the sail no longer shaded him from the sun and he had to squint to see in the glare.

  A gorse-scented breeze was coming across from Ballymacormick Point and according to the wind gauge was blowing at ten knots, gusting to fifteen. The short choppy waves were limned with white. Barry felt the sting of spray on his cheek and could taste the salt.

  The whole of Ballyholme Bay was alive with yachts of various shapes and sizes, multicoloured sails jockeying for position, trying to be first across the start line when a miniature cannon signaled the start of each class’s race. Thursday, June 24, was a racing night.

  Spray flying from her bows, waves slapping against her, the little red-hulled dinghy’s course never varied, tearing toward Glendun. Barry could see the class symbol, a bell, and her number on the mainsail. The little boat’s helmsman and crew both lay backward, their feet in inboard straps, bodies out over the side of the boat as they used their weight to counter the force of the wind. The small craft heeled alarmingly. Barry remembered with fondness his own dinghy, Tarka, which he’d sold shortly before he qualified in order to raise the money to buy his secondhand Volkswagen. He grinned. He’d tipped Tarka over more than once, but capsizing was part of the dinghy sailor’s lot. And serious racing sailors had no time for the encumbrance of bulky, kapok-stuffed life jackets. You had to be a good swimmer or trust in nearby boats.

  “Fair winds, Dennis,” John bellowed. It was then that Barry recognised Dennis Harper’s Wave Dancer. With spray flying in iridescent sheets from her stern, Wave Dancer sped past the bigger yacht’s bows and Barry caught a glimpse of Sue Nolan. Locks of her hair had escaped from under a toque and were streaming aft, telltale indicators of the wind’s direction. He swallowed. All through this past winter and spring she’d been taking a learn-to-sail course with Dennis, a lawyer and a friend of her older brother. Now she was crewing on Wave Dancer. Barry wondered, a little bitterly, if Dennis had taught Sue about banjo bolts recently. Then he remembered O’Reilly trying not to laugh when he’d been told about Sue’s remark. Barry had laughed—then, but somehow couldn’t bring himself to smile now.

  “Wake up, crew,” John roared.

  Barry was dragged back to the present by the sharp command and the flogging of the sail. Now that Dennis’s dinghy had passed, John had put Glendun on course again so she could pick up speed, but for her to do that her foresail must be properly trimmed. By Barry. “Sorry, John.” Barry hauled on a rope and as he did the sail flattened and stopped flapping. Glendun heeled and moved forward.

  “Five minutes to start,” John called. “On your toes, everybody.”

  Barry looked ahead, but from where he sat, Wave Dancer—and Sue Nolan—were hidden behind the sails. It might be hackneyed, he thought, but the old expression “ships that pass” seemed singularly appropriate. Just nine days ago, he’d been wondering aloud to O’Reilly about whether he meant as much to Sue as she was starting to mean to him. He’d planned to get an answer that night over dinner, but her refusal to forgo a bloody CSJ committee meeting— He shook his head. He’d said he’d call, but he’d been hoping she would take the lead and call him. She hadn’t and now he was beginning to realize that he probably wasn’t ever going to be more in her life than a friend. A friend whose company could be enjoyed—unless something more important came up.

  The wind whipped John’s next order away, but there was still lots of time to the start. Barry let his thoughts return to Sue Nolan. He’d not, as he’d hoped, seen her in the clubhouse earlier today and might not get a chance later. He sighed. Ships that pass—and perhaps it was better this way? He could cut his losses before he became any more involved. He ground his teeth. As with a patient in limbo before getting a definite diagnosis, it was the uncertainty that was the killer.

  “Barry,” John roared.

  Bugger. Barry had missed the order to change course and hadn’t let his sail cross the boat. Now the helm was telling the boat to go one way and the sail was demanding she go the other. The opposing forces had stalled the yacht, which was beginning to drift backward.

  Bang. That was their start gun. Shite.

  By the time the manoue
vrings were finished to get Glendun on course and across the start line, the other six Glen class yachts all had a five-minute lead.

  Barry was furious that his preoccupation with the young woman had cost his crew a good start and blunted his enjoyment of what would be his last day’s sailing for some time. He did not know if what he felt for Sue was love, let alone true love, but he did know that whatever it was that he was feeling, its course, like Glendun’s, was not running smoothly.

  * * *

  An hour later Glendun’s crew had worked the boat to her limits, but because of Barry’s early inattention had not managed to catch up. They were trailing behind their competitors and were the last keelboat heading for the finish and home.

  On the final leg, the wind freshened. The big boat carved through the waters, making an audible hiss as water streamed along the hull. Barry, legs spread wide, had to jam his feet against the side of a deck hatch. Glendun was heeling so much the mast was at thirty degrees to the sea and he was nearly vertical. The wind combed through his hair, standing it on end, and he had to duck as a wave broke into the cockpit. He came close to whooping his exhilaration out loud.

  He looked ahead to the dinghy fleet speeding past their slower big sisters. That had been fun, he thought, when I used to do that. The small boats had started later than the keel boats, and unlike yachts with fixed keels could, if the wind and seas were favourable, plane on their flat bottoms like surfboards with sails and reach amazing speeds.

  A voice followed by a deep laugh came over the water. Dennis Harper’s red-hulled Wave Dancer was tearing past. Her skipper proffered the end of a rope. “Need a tow, John?”

  “Bugger off, Dennis,” John roared back with a grin. “See you in the clubhouse. You can buy my crew a round.”

  Sue Nolan waved and Barry hoped it was at him. He waved back. He knew the course well. At their present rate of sailing, an hour should see Glendun across the finish line, at her moorings, and her crew taken off by the club launch to go ashore. The dinghies would be home even sooner, but at least as John had now arranged to meet Dennis, there was a chance Barry would see Sue. Would he get a chance to talk to her alone, and if he did, what was he going to say? He’d an hour in which to make up his mind, but, damn it all, he wanted to know for sure whether he was wasting his time with this vivacious, very lovely schoolmistress. Would it be worth trying to put their differences about politics behind them and see how deeply their feelings went for each other? Give things another chance? He smiled. Maybe he’d have to become more of a political activist if that was what it would take to win her back. Maybe—

  Barry had to clutch a winch as a sudden gust made Glendun heel away from him until her masthead seemed as if it might scrape the water. He tingled. With the weight of the keel, there was no real chance of capsizing. But the yacht should be brought up to a more vertical position. Another wave broke green over the bows. Barry ducked, but felt the chill water trickling under his oilskin collar and down his back. He needed no bidding to slacken sail. “‘A life on the ocean wave / a home on the rolling deep,’” Barry sang off-key. This excitement, the sudden rush of fear that was mastered, wind in the rigging, water tearing past the hull, this was why he loved to sail. He filled the yacht’s canvas as the gust passed. “‘Give me the flashing brine / the spray and the tempest’s roar—’ Oh, shite.”

  Ahead, that same strong gust of wind had caused the smaller Wave Dancer to shudder, and rear. Helmsman and crew hurled themselves backward, straining to lever the dinghy upright, sails thrashed in a desperate attempt to spill the wind and reduce the pressure. But Barry knew, because he’d done it before, that the little boat was capsizing. “Man overboard,” he yelled, and waited to obey John’s orders as any thoughts of racing were banished. The skipper immediately began to set Glendun to bring her alongside the capsized vessel in case they needed help.

  “Everybody,” John yelled, “man overboard drill. You all know what to do. We’ve practised often enough.”

  Glendun began to come abreast of Wave Dancer.

  The dinghy’s sails were flat on the water. Dennis had clambered onto the side of the hull and was clinging on, already trying to right the boat. But where was Sue? Barry scanned the water carefully. Where was she? The dinghy was slipping downwind, away from where she had capsized. Where the hell was Sue Nolan?

  Ten yards away from where the boat had originally been overturned, Barry spotted a commotion in the water. Arms thrashed. Spray whipped away downwind. A head appeared and borne on the wind was a reedy “Heeelllppp.”

  She couldn’t swim.

  “Ted,” Barry called, as he pulled off his sea boots and threw aside his oilskin jacket and his sweater, “take this line.” He handed over the end of the rope controlling the jib, grabbed his life jacket from where it lay beside him, stood up, and ignoring John’s yell of “Don’t do it,” cleared the guard rail, going headfirst overboard in as shallow a dive as he could manage. Before he hit the water he glimpsed Sue resurfacing ten yards away. He knew well enough that the golden rule was Never leave the ship for someone in the water. But that was a rule for sailors, not physicians. He’d forgotten how cold the waters of Belfast Lough were. Already he could feel the icy fingers clawing at him. They’d probably not have to be in the water for more than half an hour, but early hypothermia would already be starting by then. Didn’t matter. Even if it was a stranger out there drowning, Barry must try to help, and besides, who else but him knew about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? And it looked like it was going to be needed long before the crew of Glendun could pluck Sue Nolan from the water.

  Barry surfaced, hauling air into starved lungs. He coughed when a wave slapped in his face and he inhaled spray. He kicked both legs hard and forced his head and trunk upward so he could see over the intervening waves. The spray of Sue’s next resurfacing was a beacon. The seas were too much for Barry’s preferred freestyle, so he set off with a dogged breast stroke hampered by the life jacket, but he refused to let it go. He sensed the bulk of Glendun as she went past. Come for us soon, John.

  Barry ploughed ahead, breath burning in his lungs, fingers and toes growing numb, muscles aching. He crested a wave and there in the trough, beneath the surface, he glimpsed something copper.

  Two more strokes and he was over the spot. Barry exhaled so over-full lungs would not impede his descent and used the strokes of one arm to make himself sink, holding the waist-tie of the life jacket in his other hand. He was at the fullest extent to which he could submerge without letting go when he clutched something fibrous. With what felt like the last of his strength, Barry kicked toward the silver above, following the last of his own racing bubbles upward.

  His head broke the surface and he inhaled a great breath to the depths of him before dragging on Sue’s tresses until her head broke water. He wrestled one of her arms through a loop of the life jacket and, ignoring the second loop, simply tied the waist strap tightly to her other arm across her chest so she’d float face up.

  As they bobbed together on the waves, Barry could see Glendun’s mast and sails starting to come back. It took time to turn a big keel boat.

  “Sue. Sue.” Not a sound. Her eyes were closed. Water trickled from a corner of her mouth. Barry forced her mouth open and let more water out, took a deep breath, pinched her nose, put his mouth over hers, and blew out his breath. Then he squeezed her chest as best he could and inwardly blessed the American doctors who had publicised their findings in 1960 about the value of direct artificial respiration. The Holger-Neilsen method he’d learnt in the Scouts and that had been taught to all other sailors in the club would have been useless here in the water. He repeated the process, his own lips as cold as hers. Again and again, the waves tossed them up and down, spray breaking over them.

  He knew he was getting weaker, but then he saw a flickering of her eyelids. Her eyes opened and when she tried to inhale she collapsed in a paroxysm of coughing, but then managed a real breath. He tapped a new reservoir of strength. Than
k goodness she was breathing on her own. After his resuscitative efforts he was winded.

  The sun was blotted out by Glendun’s hull. Ted was leaning over the side bawling, “Grab this.” A rope splashed into the water and Barry clutched the loose end. He struggled, had to let Sue go, dived and surfaced, having succeeded in running the rope under her armpits. He paused, caught his breath, then somehow, fingers trembling, managed to tie a bowline.

  A second rope splashed beside him. “Grab on to that,” Ted bellowed.

  Barry let Sue go now that she was securely attached to the boat, and wrapped the rope round his waist. “Get her on board,” he yelled. “I’m fine.” He tied a knot and watched as Sue was hauled aboard like a drowned calf, water streaming in a cascade from her copper hair.

  Barry waited for his turn. Dear God, let her be all right. He felt the rope tighten around his chest and bite into his armpits. He put both hands on it as he was dragged up the yacht’s side and lowered into the cockpit beside where Sue lay, eyes wide, hair spread round her in a fan, chest heaving as she pulled in lungful after lungful of air.

  He instinctively took her pulse. A hundred and ten, too fast, but regular and beating strongly.

  He looked up. Glendun’s mainsail had been dropped. John was helming, Barbara handling the lines as the foresail filled and John pointed the yacht for home. “Where’s Ted?” Barry asked.

  “Below getting towels and blankets and putting the kettle on,” John said. “We’ll hoist the mainsail again when he’s back on deck. I want to get you two ashore.”

  Barry looked ahead to where the red dinghy was scudding for home under mainsail alone. Dennis, as an experienced dinghy sailor, had been able single-handedly to right the small craft, but with less crew had reduced sail.