All four men laughed. “Are you musical, Patrick?” Tom asked.
“Actually, yes. At one time I was going to be a musician. Piano.”
“Terrific,” Tom said. “We’ll have to invite you aboard, let you loose on the one in the wardroom anteroom.” He smiled at Richard. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt the guided tour.”
The three men continued walking and Richard took up his commentary. “The Corniche runs up the right side of the Ras el Tin peninsula and continues west past where we’re going. The peninsula divides the eastern harbour from the western one where the dockyard and the fleet are.”
A train’s whistle screeched as a small locomotive hauled several freight wagons along a single rail line running along the dockyard side.
A sea breeze was blowing in from the main harbour, for which Fingal was grateful. He inhaled a heady mixture of smells: cinnamon, the salt of the nearby sea, drying fish, horse apples from the beasts hauling innumerable gharries. “Where’s the spicy scent coming from?”
“The Ramsis Bazaar’s a couple of streets over and to our left. They sell lots of spices there,” said Tom.
It really all was very exotic. He thought of Dorothy’s line in last year’s wildly successful film The Wizard of Oz: Something like, We’re not in Kansas, Toto. And he chuckled. War, it seemed, had some compensations. He’d certainly never have had the chance to visit Egypt if it weren’t for the navy.
Fingal fell into step with Patrick, letting Richard and Tom lead the way through strolling knots of people.
In the harbour, a felucca had hoisted a dazzlingly white lateen sail on a yard lying at thirty-five degrees to the short single mast and was scudding across the water.
“I saw great big two-masted versions of those called boums in the Indian Ocean on my way out from England,” Patrick said.
“You said it took you a while to get here, Patrick?”
“Mmm.” That smile again. “Troopship in convoy from Liverpool, stopped in Santa Cruz de Tenerife—”
And for a moment Fingal’s thoughts strayed to a certain Kitty O’Hallorhan who had gone to Tenerife to work with orphans of the Spanish Civil War. He wondered if she was still there and hoped she, like him, had found a new love.
“Then on to Durban.”
“How long did that take?”
“Liverpool to Durban? Six weeks. Convoys, as you know, have to zigzag. Adds hundreds of miles to the trip. About ten thousand miles to Durban, I estimated. And then we had to get to the Suez Canal from there.”
“God, it must have seemed like a lifetime.”
Patrick shrugged. “For a fellow who’d never been out of England…” His voice trailed off. “To be honest, I’ve been feeling pretty homesick. But there were some compensations. Have you ever seen a whale?”
“No.”
“Lots of them off Tenerife, especially. Mammoth blue whales and smaller black-and-white ones called orcas. Beautiful creatures.”
“I’d have liked to see that,” Fingal said.
“Golly,” Patrick said, “they sing. It’s a most eerie noise and they can keep it up for twenty-four hours at a stretch. Then there’s the tropical nights and the sunrises and sunsets.” His eyes widened and Fingal heard the awe in the man’s voice. “You have to see them to believe them.” He smiled. “We did get a couple of days to go ashore in Durban. Spectacular beaches.”
Fingal thought about his promised trip back to Blighty. It was going to take a while, but perhaps, like Patrick, he’d have some memories to share with Deirdre.
“They finally landed me in Port Tawfiq in Suez City. Then I managed to hitch a lift in an Avro Anson with an RAF squadron leader who was heading this way.”
“How long did the whole journey take?”
“Two months, twenty days, eight hours,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “but I’m not quite sure how many minutes. It really did rather seem to go on and on, but it appears that there are German U-boats in the Med and their Lordships of the Admiralty felt the long way round was preferable for all the soldiers on the ship and one junior MO—me.”
“And you did make it. Good for you. I’m happy to know you, Surgeon Lieutenant Patrick Steptoe.” Fingal lengthened his stride. “Let’s catch up with the others and take a look at this Ras el Tin Palace. I can see its dome quite clearly. Then get back for dinner. I’m starting to feel a bit peckish.”
* * *
After onboard meals, the bounty of Egypt had produced a wondrous feast at the Cecil. Another gharry ride through the red-light district had offered new sights and sounds. Flashing neon lights were everywhere; clearly no blackout was in force here. Pimps beckoned from shady doorways, and two soldiers were having a punch-up and being wrestled apart by two of the ever-present red-capped MPs. Provocatively dressed, heavily made-up women leered invitingly, and a man in a jellaba and fez ran alongside the gharry yelling, “You want my sister, effendi. Very clean, very pretty.” Fingal smiled. At least no one was offering a piece of the true cross. His ears were assailed by blaring jazz, and from somewhere came the rhythm of small drums and the tinkling of finger cymbals. Presumably someone was belly dancing.
Fingal had been glad of the quiet as the pinnace headed back to the ship, the only sound the puttering of the boat’s engine and the slap of small waves against the hull. Overhead, inset in a sky carved from ebony, the constellations looked uncaringly down on Fingal and his friends. The same stars would have shone on the Egyptians, the Macedonians, the Persians, the Byzantines, the Mamelukes, the Ottoman Turks and their Bashi-Bazouk mercenaries, and the British, each race in its turn, ruling Egypt and this city.
Now he sat at his table. His cabin’s porthole was open and the ship was rowdy with the whirring of innumerable fans trying to circulate the hot air. A tiny breeze wriggled into the room, panted, and expired. My darling Deirdre, he wrote, please do me a favour and get Ma a present. That would let her know roughly where he was. The weather today is sunny and some friends and I—the censor would not permit the use of names—had a wonderful run ashore. I met a very friendly young MO newly out from England. I’d love to have had you with me to see the sights. I’m told that there are some marvellously private beaches here and all I could think of was swimming there with you—and, he thought, making love on the beach in the warm sun. He closed his eyes and pictured her reading it, God knew when, because getting and sending mail was no easy business in the middle of a war. She was far too clever not to be able to read between the lines. He wrote two more pages of uncensorable trivia and, damn the censor’s prying eyes, finished with and this comes to you with all my longing and all my love. It won’t be long until autumn when I’ll hold you and kiss you and tell you I love you, my pet. Fingal.
25
He Haunts Wakes, Fairs
“Come on, Fiona, you can do it,” O’Reilly said with a grin as a chubby girl of twelve astride a small, equally rotund, piebald pony approached a low jump. Fingal wondered how the pony could even see the red-and-white-striped cross bars. Its silky mane hung in front of its eyes much like the fringe of an old English sheepdog. Girl and pony could have been subjects for the cartoonist Thelwell, whose sketches of such sights had given the English language the expression “Thelwell Pony.” She’d already taken two of the obstacles. “Think she’ll clear this one, Kitty?”
As was traditional, the Marquis of Ballybucklebo had loaned his ten-acre field for the annual Ballybucklebo Garden Fête and Horse Show. By long-hallowed custom, it was held during the famous Twelfth Holiday Fortnight on the first Saturday in July. The garden fête was organised jointly by the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches with the proceeds being split.
Kitty said, “I hope so. She seems to have a good seat.”
O’Reilly surreptitiously patted Kitty’s behind and whispered in her ear, “So do you, Mrs. O’Reilly. Great legs too.”
“Stop it, Fingal, you eejit,” she said, but laughed, shook her head at him, and then applauded as the pony and rider cleared the
hurdle. “Well done, Fiona,” Kitty called.
Although a detachment of the Saint John’s Ambulance Brigade had a tent here if first aid was needed, the local doctor, one Fingal Flaherty O’Reilly, had always made a point of being available too. He enjoyed wandering round all the exhibits and the horse show, accompanied this time by Kitty, and by Barry, who was temporarily Sueless.
“Having fun, love?” O’Reilly asked.
“I certainly am. This is much better than the Dublin Horse Show. Much more personal.”
“The local branch of the North Down Pony Club arrange the equestrian competitions. This jumping is being judged by the marquis, his sister Myrna, and Sue Nolan,” he said. “She’s been very active with the pony club since she came here to teach.”
“She’s going to join us later in the refreshments tent when the judging’s over,” said Barry.
O’Reilly had wondered why Sue, despite O’Reilly’s advice to Barry not to leave things too late, still wasn’t wearing an engagement ring, but thought it politic to mind his own business.
The little girl, to the accompaniment of applause from O’Reilly and Barry, and a little pleased whoop from Kitty, cleared the final jump. The child wore the club’s livery of a white shirt and dark tie, cream jodhpurs, gloves, and under her black-velvet-covered hard hat, a hair net.
“Seen enough, you two?” said O’Reilly. “We ought to visit the fête. It’s always a lot of fun and Kinky has one of her rhubarb-and-gooseberry tarts entered in the fruit-pie-making section of the pie competition.”
“Think she’ll win?” Barry asked.
O’Reilly guffawed. “She has for as long as I can remember. Then it’s always a toss-up between Cissie Sloan, Aggie Arbuthnot, and Flo Bishop for runner-up.”
“Good thing they’re all such friends,” Kitty said. “There was a pie contest at a local fair in Tallaght when I was a teenager. The Hatfields and McCoys were bosom buddies compared to the enmity between Bridie Murphy and Rosie O’Grady over a pumpkin pie beating a lemon curd tart for best in competition.”
“Wars have been fought for less,” O’Reilly said, and chuckled. “Come on, let’s take a dander over.”
They walked away from the flat, grassy arena that was roped off for equestrian events. July was at its kindest with barely a cloud in the sky. O’Reilly had slung his tweed jacket over his shoulder. Wood pigeons cooed and burbled from the top of an enormous oak that had probably been a sapling when the eighteenth marquis, who had fought on King William’s side at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, had been living in the big house. The old peer might even have planted the tree himself. It was reputed that he was a very keen arborist, his enthusiasm for that pursuit coming second only to his unswerving attention to fathering children out of wedlock on his dairy maids.
Cattle lowed on the side of a hill, and from deep in the covert that marched from the wall, a cock pheasant kek-kekked harshly. A horse in a paddock on the far side of a low blackthorn hedge gave a ferocious whinny, kicked up its heels, and charged across the field. Bitten by a horse-bot fly or simply in high spirits? O’Reilly recognised Myrna’s gelding, Bramble. Not long ago the animal had thrown Myrna and she had bust her femur which, thanks to Sir Donald Cromie, had healed nicely.
Shrill cries of children; dogs barking; the loud, whistling, off-key music of a steam-driven roundabout organ; and a defiantly bellowed “heeeee-haaaaw” came from the end of the field where the fête was in full swing. The last would be from one of the little jackasses giving rides for sixpence to the smaller children.
O’Reilly inhaled deeply and frowned. Was he smelling knapweed mixed with clover and gorse? Not that a precise identification mattered. He smiled. The air was perfumed and a tonic to the senses. He had an immediate desire to skip like a spring lamb, but as Father O’Toole and Mister Robinson, the Presbyterian minister, were approaching, O’Reilly considered the dignity of his position and stifled the urge.
Father O’Toole, clearly comfortable in his loosely fitting cassock, said, “The afternoon is grand altogether now that I for one have no further official duties, so.”
O’Reilly smiled to see that the priest was eating a huge swirl of pink candy floss mounted on a wooden stick.
“And are you enjoying yourselves, Doctor and Mrs. O’Reilly and Doctor Laverty?” As ever the man’s Cork lilt was music to O’Reilly.
“You two,” Kitty said to the two men of the cloth before her, “both deserve medals and a gold clock each for the work you do bringing the communities together here in Ulster.” Despite her earlier levity, her voice was serious.
“Kitty’s right,” O’Reilly said.
“Och, now,” Father O’Toole said, “I think there’s some mention in the Book about loving your neighbour, and besides,” he looked sideways at Mister Robinson, “who else could I beat at the golf every Monday, so?” He laughed.
O’Reilly was not surprised to see that so did Mister Robinson. “If I’m still alive next Monday we’ll see about that, Father.” The man’s black jacket and tight dog collar were making his forehead perspire and glisten in the sun. “I’m afraid my official duties are not over. Those of us on the committee drew lots and I lost. I’ve to judge the fruit pie–making contest.”
O’Reilly whistled. So that’s why Father O’Toole was looking so smug and Mister Robinson assessing his chances for survival.
“Oops,” said Barry. “I don’t envy you, Your Reverence.”
“Perhaps,” said O’Reilly, “you’ll be able to invoke some divine inspiration.” It was, after all, his job to try to comfort those in distress, but inside he was hearing William Congreve’s, “Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” And there could only be one winner. “Good luck,” he said.
“Good luck indeed,” said Kitty, and turning to O’Reilly, she said, “We mustn’t miss that. It could be the highlight of the show.”
“How’s about youse, Doctor and Missus and Doctor,” Colin Brown called as he charged past with his friend Art O’Callaghan and the faithful Murphy at his heels. “We’re going til the Punch and Judy, so we are,” and they were gone, Colin’s young legs twinkling as he ran with, as usual, both knee socks down round his ankles.
“Sue told me there’s still no word from his parents about his being allowed to sit the Eleven Plus,” Barry said.
O’Reilly shook his head as some of the day’s bright pleasure became a little tarnished. He knew he should have been trying harder to find a way to persuade Lenny. O’Reilly was still musing on the subject when they entered the fête proper, a veritable town of canvas. The tall, narrow, red-and-white-striped Punch and Judy tent was faced by ranks of children, including Colin and Art, sitting on the soft grass laughing or yelling, “Behind ye,” and pointing as Mister Punch said in his raspy voice, “There’s no crocodile,” while the puppet beast in question, its jaws snapping, was making its entrance behind his back.
“I loved Punch and Judy shows when I was a little girl,” Kitty said.
And I love you, Kitty, O’Reilly thought, but kept the thought to himself.
Farther on, a coconut shy rubbed shoulders with secondhand book stalls, crafts, confectionaries selling dulse and yellow man, candy floss and toffee apples.
O’Reilly sang to himself.
… with gingerbread and spices to accommodate the ladies
and a big cruibín for thruppence to be pickin’ while you’re able.
He walked past a stall labelled “Bring and Buy,” cluttered with all kinds of bric-a-brac. It was being run by Miss Alice Moloney, the dressmaker. She waved at O’Reilly and he waved back. A woman he didn’t know, who was probably down for the day from Belfast, was saying, “I brung three pairs of my oul fellah’s red suspenders and a right wheen of carved clothes pegs I got off one of the travellers. I don’t need pegs no more since the ould lad bought me a tumble dryer.”
O’Reilly could remember ever since he’d been a boy how the Lucht siuil, literally the walking people, made money carving such pegs and sel
ling them from door to door. The tinkers among them mended pots and pans and sharpened knives on treadle-powered grindstones. They did still to this day, though their caravans were more likely to be modern commercially sold ones pulled by Land Rovers than gaily painted wood-and-canvas affairs drawn by horses.
He waited to hear the rest of the transaction.
“That’s very generous,” Miss Moloney said. “Thank you. I’m sure we’ll get a few bob for them.” It was customary for people to give things for the stall to sell—the “bring” in its name.
“And I can’t make up my mind between that there cuckoo clock or thon wee carved Celtic man.” Here comes the “buy.”
O’Reilly said to Kitty, “It’s one of Donal Donnelly’s hand-carved souvenirs like the ones he’s selling at Dun Bwee.”
“Is there anything our Donal can’t turn a profit at?” she said. “He really is one of a kind.”
“Mebbe,” O’Reilly said, “but I think Colin Brown will be giving Donal a run for his money in a few years.”
O’Reilly noticed money changing hands and saw the Belfast woman leave with the clock and the figurine. “Come on,” he said. “There’s more to see.”
They had stopped where Donal Donnelly stood in front of a huge wheel of fortune calling, “Come and spin, come and spin, try your luck and see if you win. If you do you’ll wear a grin. Buy some beer to wet your chin.” He was sweating from the effort of working the numbered contraption. At the top of the wheel, a leather flap hung down. It was presently in the number 10 slot.
“Roll up, roll up,” Donal yelled. “Have a go. Every time she bumps, she bounces.”
He must, O’Reilly thought, have picked up his patter from a barker at the travelling fun-fair that visited the village each August.
Donal spotted O’Reilly and winked. “Step right up, Doc. Step right up.” He was shouting to be heard over the steam organ’s rendition of “Marching Through Georgia.”