My Nutty Neighbours

by Creina Mansfield

  ‘The rockery?’

  ‘For three gloves, some golfing trousers, shoes and some practice balls.’

  ‘For two gloves, no trousers, shoes and I’ve bought some balls already.’

  ‘For three gloves, trousers and shoes.’

  ‘A deal, but don’t go for those flashy two-tone shoes. They cost a fortune.’

  As if!

  Saturday came and I got my Ping golf clubs. And guess what? The shop gave Dad a discount of €200. What a bargain! Then we picked up Joe and Abbas.

  ‘Will Helen be at home?’ asked Joe.

  ‘What’s it to you? When we go to Abbas’ for tea, you don’t ask if his sister is going to be there,’ I said.

  ‘She’s six.’

  ‘So, lads …’ Dad interrupted, with what he imagined was his jovial, fatherly voice, ‘how’s the craic? All well at school?’

  There was an uncomfortably long silence before Abbas answered, ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Stirling. All is going very well indeed.’ Then he artfully got Dad off that hot topic by telling him about his summer holiday back in Sri Lanka. Loads of his family were still there and some of them had been caught up in the tsunami at Christmas, but fortunately none of them had been killed. I’d like to go there one day, to see what it’s really like.

  As we drove through Ballykreig, I could see Joe and Abbas were wondering what the hell there was to do out here. It was the first time they’d seen the place. We sat in the kitchen, sampling Mum’s cakes and watching M and the kitten. Mozart was racing round, pursued by M. When he got within striking distance, M pounced and they started rolling round together, one moving ball of fur.

  ‘Wow! A cat and dog fight,’ said Joe.

  ‘No.’ I’d seen it all before. As Mozart settled in, he and M spent more and more of their time play-fighting. I was starting to suspect that Mozart believed he was a dog. ‘The kitten hasn’t got her claws out and look …’ M was shaking Mozart ‘… M isn’t biting.’

  It was quite a display. We all watched as Mozart made a break for it, jumped up onto the table and then, with the advantage of height, launched himself onto M. The double ball of fur rolled around the kitchen.

  ‘I thought cats and dogs were enemies,’ said Abbas.

  ‘Nobody told the kitten,’ I said.

  I led them up to my attic room. I suddenly realised how big it was, remembering how small the bedrooms were in Highfield Road. Even with two vast mahogany wardrobes in one corner and my double bed under one of the windows, there’s still masses of space. I could practice putting up there if the floor was more even. And it looks even bigger because there’s no ceiling – you can look right up into the roof. Joe jumped up, grabbed hold of one of the beams and started swinging. ‘Magic!’ he yelled.

  Abbas went over to my computer station and started sorting through the games littered about. At his house, he had to keep everything hidden away from his little brothers and sisters. Sometimes he came to school with wax crayon all over his homework. At least, in my family, any crayoning vandalism had been done by me!

  When Joe had had enough of gymnastics, he swung down and went to the window, scanning the view. ‘You can see for miles,’ he marvelled. Abbas joined us.

  I pointed. ‘Fields, trees, fields, trees.’ I’d stared out of that window often enough, searching for something interesting. No chance. I’d once watched a black bin-liner swirl in the wind, around and around until it got caught in a tree. Even the sky took up more space in the country.

  I was impatient, ready to get to the range, to hold my new clubs.

  ‘And no traffic,’ said Abbas.

  ‘That’s because there’s hardly any people,’ I explained. ‘Just a few very disturbed individuals.’

  ‘Still, you’ve got all this space,’ said Abbas.

  ‘And peace and quiet,’ added Joe.

  ‘Davy! Quickly!’ Mum was calling.

  I leapt down the stairs followed by my friends. I knew it was an M-induced panic by Mum’s shout. No one was in the kitchen, but the back door was open. Outside, Sullivan was backed up against his car with M hanging off his arm. Sullivan looked mighty scared. He was waving his free hand about while M moved up and down on his other arm as if he was doing benchpresses. I could see Joe and Abbas delighting in seeing Sullivan like this, they were struggling not to laugh.

  One thing I know: a single dog can’t be biting two people at once. I grabbed M round his middle and threw him down, backing off before he could go for my feet. He yapped in the long grass for a while, then skulked away to sit under a tree, head down, eyes open, brooding.

  Mum rushed over to see if Sullivan was injured. He wasn’t because he had on the wax jacket he wears when he’s watching rugby from the sidelines. M’s teeth hadn’t even penetrated the material.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Brendan,’ Mum was saying. ‘He’s very highly strung.’

  I reckoned I was owed a thank you, but I knew I wouldn’t get it, particularly with Abbas and Joe there. ‘You just have to know how to handle him,’ I said resentfully. Sullivan just shook his head. He didn’t like the audience, so we were spared a lecture about how dogs should be disciplined.

  ‘He was fighting a kitten, terrorising it. I tried to part them,’ he explained, dusting himself down.

  ‘You mean, the kitten that shares his basket?’ I asked. At school we’re given all sorts of guff about judging by the evidence. You get % in History if you don’t verify what you say, but here was Sullivan jumping to conclusions. To prove my point, Mozart had raced after M and they were chasing round the garden.

  ‘Davy, take M for a walk with your friends,’ Mum said, giving me a look.

  ‘But–’ I objected

  ‘But nothing. I’m sure they’d like a walk in the countryside, wouldn’t you boys?’ She didn’t get an answer, but I had to go and get the lead while Mum fussed over Sullivan as if he’d lost an arm.

  ‘Which way do you want to go?’ I asked Joe and Abbas as we made our way through the gates of The Haven and down the hill. ‘That way, towards the one and only village shop, or that way, towards the old git who stole M?’ They shrugged. I didn’t blame them. It’s all desolate wilderness whichever way we go.

  ‘I wanted to take you up the range,’ I complained. ‘We could’ve tried out my new clubs.’ They decided to resist the excitement of the village shop and wanted to see the shantytown bungalow and where the old fella who’d taken M lived.

  ‘I call it Nutters Lane,’ I told them.

  ‘Why?’ asked Joe. ‘You said earlier there were “disturbed individuals”. Anyone we should know about?’

  I let M off the lead so he could wander.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘the country is naturally full of culchies, and brain cells are hard to come by in these here parts.’ Joe started laughing. ‘I met this one old guy, really strange, and he gave me a two-fingered hello – and I hadn’t even said anything. And there’s another old guy who has an unhealthy interest in M–I think he’s a dog thief and I have to keep a close eye on him.’ I was really warming to my theme now. ‘And of course we have the village idiot, who runs the shop and thinks 24/7 means twenty-four random hours in any given week.’

  Joe was laughing hard now. ‘Are there visiting hours at the asylum? I want to see some weirdos. Take us to Nutters Lane.’

  Abbas was not laughing. He looked from me to Joe and then said, ‘My father says, be sure before you judge. You know, he had an important job in Sri Lanka, but here some people see only a man with a different colour skin.’

  I was quiet.

  ‘Some people, they see me and they say…’ he put on a patronising tone, ‘… do you speak English? And then they ask, “When are you going home?” And they don’t mean Highfield Road.’

  I looked at Joe. I didn’t know what to say. I looked down and kicked a stone along the road. ‘I was just kidding, Abbas.’

  He didn’t look convinced. ‘I’m just saying, give them a chance.’

  I smiled at him, ‘My
great-uncle Albert, you know, the one I told you about, he won a medal in the War. He had a saying: Everyone’s mad but thee and me, and thou art a bit strange.’

  Abbas laughed. ‘We’re all different.’

  We walked on. When we reached Nutters Lane, we saw the girl with the red hair sitting on the wall in front of the bungalows. With my friends there, I felt bolder. ‘Hi!’ I called, as if she and I were friends. She jumped off the wall and came towards us. She was smiling down at M. I was ready for a girly, Does he bite? but she bent down and started stroking M, and not the way Sullivan did it, but gently, as if she knew about dogs.

  ‘Isn’t he cute?’ That’s undeniable. ‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

  ‘His pedigree name’s Man of Honour.’ M was enjoying the attention. ‘He’s not usually friendly to strangers.’

  She bent down further so her face was level with M’s, took his giant ears in her hands and said in a pally voice to him, not to me, ‘Why should you be?’ M was wagging his tail furiously. Joe and Abbas were staring at her. ‘Sheltie puppy, is he?’

  ‘No. He’s a Papillion.’ I pointed to M’s big butterfly ears.’ Papillion is the French word for butterfly,’ I explained. ‘And that black spot on his head’s meant to be like a butterfly, too.’

  ‘Not often you see the breed around here,’ she said. That was a bigger understatement than me saying M wasn’t friendly to strangers. I’d never seen another Papillion in the region, let alone the neighbourhood.

  ‘We got him in Cork. That’s the nearest breeder.’ This conversation was going well. I was telling her stuff she didn’t know. ‘I had to search the Internet to find the sort of dog I wanted. Mum had said I could have one only if it was small. He’s a mighty midget.’ I didn’t want her to think he was like a pink poodle with ribbons in his hair.

  ‘You all new around here?’ she asked.

  ‘I am. These are my friends from school, in Dublin. That’s Joe and that’s Abbas.’

  ‘Hi, enjoying the countryside?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure are,’ answered Joe, and Abbas nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘The people seem very pleasant,’ added Abbas, as if he’d talked to every resident.

  ‘You live in one of these?’ I asked, pointing at the bungalows, just as someone called ‘Andrea!’ from one of them. So now I knew her name. Andrea.

  ‘Got to go now.’ She ran off. We all watched her go. Finally Joe gave an appreciative whistle and said, ‘Nice wilderness you’ve got here, Davy.’

  ‘How did you meet her?’ asked Abbas.

  ‘We just met, in the lane.’

  ‘You can’t do that in Dublin – talk to a girl just because you pass her in the street.’

  It was only after we’d got back home, after we’d tried out my new golf clubs in the grounds of The Haven and Joe and Abbas were on the bus back to Dublin that I realised what had happened, what we had seen. I knew her name: Andrea. She’d been friendly to M. More amazing, he had liked her back. But when we’d watched her race away, she’d gone into The Belfry. She knew the old dog thief! Perhaps she lived there. Perhaps she’d seen M before, too. And perhaps I had one more nutter to worry about!

  The day things changed

  The next week, even homework time in the car on the way to school was spent wondering about Andrea and the bungalow called The Belfry. Had the old man who lived there just seen M running loose and taken him in to be helpful? Had he been looking out for M’s owner? Or was he a dog snatcher who knew only too well that M was a pedigree dog? And if he was, what did that make Andrea? A dog snatcher, too? I’d been pleased the way she had been so friendly to M and he to her, but now I wasn’t so sure. Just my luck! One nice-looking girl in the whole of this wilderness and she was involved in some sort of canine smuggling ring. And they were already one step ahead of me – I’d told her M’s pedigree name, so now they’d be able to look him up in Kennel Club records and work out how valuable he was.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Has that school stopped giving homework?’ Dad broke into my thoughts.

  ‘I’m thinking.’

  ‘Wonders will never cease. I’ll have to put a note in my diary,’ Dad joked. Then he got suspicious. ‘Are you in some sort of trouble? Am I going to have some horrible shock when I see your report card?’

  ‘No!’ I was indignant. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t get away with that, could I? Helen’s boyfriend would grass me up.’

  ‘Grass me up? You’re starting to sound like Ian.’ But before I got out of the car Dad said, ‘How about I pick you up from school and we go straight to the range?’

  ‘Okay, you’re on!’

  I looked forward to that all day. Every time some loser made a comment about me being in the B team, I’d keep my cool and say to myself, ‘New golf clubs. I’m gonna cream it.’

  When Dad and I drove back to The Haven later that day, we just picked up our golf clubs and went straight off, not even stopping for a snack. My clubs glinted in the sunlight as I took them out of the boot of the car. They looked great. I was going to test out each one of them. ‘Turn off your phone, Dad,’ I told him, switching off mine. ‘Golfing etiquette.’ I didn’t want any shots interrupted.

  There were a couple of old duffers hacking away in the bays, but no sign of Andrea. I wasn’t disappointed. I preferred to practice with my new clubs first without being watched. We planned to hit two hundred balls. We each took a bucket of one hundred, but after he had been hacking away for ten minutes or so, Dad came into my bay and dumped his bucket down at my side. ‘You use these. I’ve got backache from all that gardening at the weekend.’

  I hit away. My longest drive nearly reached the two hundred-and-fifty-yard marker. Then I started chipping. When I’d finished Dad said, ‘You’re getting the hang of this.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m ready to have a go on the course. How’s my membership application going?’

  ‘I’ve filled in all the paperwork and handed it in. It’s important to be proactive.’

  That word again. ‘What does proactive mean?’ I asked. ‘Something to do with drinking a lot?’

  ‘I’m oiling the wheels,’ he explained.

  That’s not all that was getting oiled.

  ‘I’ve been going to the bar at Dimbrook, to get my face known.’

  ‘Sure that’s a good idea?’ I asked, but I fancied a trip to the clubhouse. ‘How about we go together when we’ve hit these balls?’ I suggested.

  Dad hesitated. ‘It’s getting late …’

  ‘Come on, Dad, practice makes perfect you always told me!’ He could have some of his ‘wise sayings’ back.

  I wanted to see inside the clubhouse and get a closer look at the course. I could see some holes from the road, but what I really wanted was to walk around it so I could start envisioning playing it. ‘Envisioning’ is the technique Sullivan teaches the rugby squad. We make mental pictures of successfully tackling opponents, scoring tries, etc. He calls it the power of positive thinking.

  Dad took me to the clubhouse. I liked the look of the place. There was a public bar, which we went into, but the members’ bar looked better. It had a huge TV with all the channels. I could see it would be a useful bolthole. The barman greeted Dad like he’d seen him before and Dad ordered drinks.

  I asked the barman how I could get to walk around the course. ‘See one of the committee,’ he answered.

  Dad asked, ‘Mike, who’s in charge of the juveniles?’

  ‘That would be old Frank Lynch.’

  ‘Does he decide who gets in?’ I asked.

  Mike nodded. ‘That’s how it works. He’ll look at your application, might interview you.’

  I grimaced. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  ‘They’re in need of juvenile members. We’ve got a waiting list as long as your arm for main membership, but it’s a different story with the juveniles. We’ve only got Andy Donaldson who’s any good.’ I looked around for him. I was the only teenager in the place. He wasn’t up the range. He
wasn’t in the club. How keen could he be? The answer came to me – keen enough to be out on the course.

  ‘Could I have a word with Mr Lynch?’ Dad asked. ‘Buy him a drink?’

  ‘Doesn’t come in as much as he used to. Doesn’t live far from here, though. One of the bungalows on the road into the village.’

  Nutters Lane!

  ‘He doesn’t wear a red baseball cap, does he?’ I asked nervously. I didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance if that crazy coot was the boss.

  ‘What? Old Frank Lynch!’

  ‘Then he doesn’t live in that bungalow with loads of sheds all round it?’ I asked.

  The barman continued to dry a glass. ‘Nah! That’s old Declan. He’s gone from bad to worse these last few years.’

  I was reeling from the news that the person who had my golfing future in his hands lived in Nutters Lane. I heard Mike add, ‘We all remember what he did to his wife,’ before I asked, ‘So where does he live?’

  ‘Frank Lynch lives in the last bungalow before you get into the village.’

  ‘The Belfry?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

  I suddenly realised the significance of the name the old git – correction – esteemed committee member had given his home. The Belfry was a famous golf course. I should have realised. Why else would a one-storey building be called that? So this Frank Lynch was the person who decided whether I was in or out. We had already met, and not in the best of circumstances. And if I recalled rightly, I may have been a tad sharp with him. I wondered if he’d connect my name with what happened at his front door, when I’d appeared and taken M away. There was no reason he should, except that newcomers to the area stood out. Any new faces were noticeable around here. We didn’t even walk the same as the locals: they rolled along as if the road was moving, not them. I bet I’d been spotted. I bet he’d made the connection. I needed some food to cheer me up, so I reached for the bar menu, but Dad was checking his phone. ‘Ten missed calls,’ he said. He looked. ‘All from home.’

  I checked my phone. ‘Yeah, me too.’