Anne Doughty - The Belfast Girl on Galway Bay

‘He came in here,’ she repeated, ‘and the bar full and he swore he had met a witch.’

Her tragic expression crumpled and she giggled. Patrick Delargy shook his head. ‘Now, come on, Kathleen, this won’t do. Tell Miss Stewart the story the way you told me.’

With an effort, Kathleen gathered herself.

‘Yes, indeed. A witch. That’s what he had met. And it took two large whiskeys before he could go on.’

I opened my mouth to protest, but Patrick Delargy held up a warning finger. Kathleen was not to be interrupted.

‘He said that he had taken a student out to Lisara, a nice enough young lady and very well-spoken. And he says that she told him she had never been in the place before and didn’t know anybody and didn’t even know if the place was still there. And he said he believed her, for she was a very nice young lady and good-looking forby.’

She nodded towards me as much as to say, ‘Now there’s a compliment for you.’

‘And then he says, he takes her out to look for this place she’s never been to and the next thing is that she starts to tell him where every house and tree is and where he can park his taxi. And she knows every stone and bush of the place as if she’d been born and reared there.’

‘But I’d only been reading the map . . .’

‘Ach, sure, what would Michael Feely know about maps, miss? The man has no wit.’

Patrick Delargy was watching us both, a broad grin on his face. ‘What about bewitching Paddy O’Dara?’

‘I was coming to that, Mr Delargy, I hadn’t forgotten atall,’ she reprimanded him.

‘Apparently, miss, you went into O’Dara’s cottage with Paddy, and you’d never set eyes on the man before. No relative, not even a far-out friend, and the next thing, back you come with Paddy as meek as a lamb to carry your case and you to stay for three weeks.’

Kathleen could certainly get value out of a story. When she imitated the look on Feely’s face, I had to laugh myself.

‘I do hope I didn’t really upset him. I did try to explain. But he does jump to confusions, doesn’t he?’

‘He does that, miss. Whatever way you would put it plain, he always gets the wrong way of things.’

‘But it was a serious case,’ added Patrick Delargy, the light in his eye at odds with the soberness of his expression. ‘I’m not sure how many whiskeys he was bought to help him over the shock and to elicit the full extent of his distress.’

‘I think at one stage he thought I was going to write a book about his hotel,’ I offered.

‘Oh, he did, he did indeed,’ Kathleen nodded vigorously, as the shop door opened and two girls in blue overalls appeared, followed by a group of visitors and a cluster of children. She left us to go back behind the counter. Patrick Delargy looked at me quizzically.

‘And how are you proposing to get back to Lisara, Elizabeth? By broomstick?’

There were grey hairs on his temples and above his ears. His tie was one of those tweedy, handwoven ones with little irregular blobs of colour where the thread is thick. Like the one I’d nearly bought George for his birthday. Lucky I hadn’t. When I showed him one in a shop window, a lovely yellowy mix, he said it looked just like scrambled egg.

‘No, actually,’ I replied, glancing at my watch, ‘I must get a move on. The meat for supper’s here in my bag, and I still have bacon to get from Kathleen.’

‘Right. You get the bacon and I’ll bring the car round. It’s going to rain long before you get to Lisara. You do know about witches and water, don’t you?’

Without another word, he disappeared down the passage and into the stable yard.

The car was the largest I had ever seen. It was American and very new. The front seat was long and squashy and the shelf above the dashboard wide enough to lay out a whole picnic. When Patrick Delargy settled himself behind the wheel, his solid frame seemed somehow smaller and a remarkably long way away. He drove slowly out of the Square, manoeuvred round a pony and trap abandoned in the middle of the road, paused for a group of visitors who appeared quite unaware they were strolling on a main road and stopped twice for pedestrians who simply crossed the road without looking.

I remembered an article I’d once read in a women’s magazine about assessing a man’s character by the way he drove. Patrick Delargy certainly scored well on patience. I saw him relax as he turned right at the crossroads beyond the wells.

‘This is not exactly the best car for driving through Lisdoonvarna in September, I fear,’ he said with a slight, apologetic smile.

I was puzzled by the car. The best word to describe it was opulent. And that was right out of key with its owner who was in no way opulent, either in dress or in manner.

‘Well, it is rather large,’ I agreed cautiously.

‘Large, oversprang, difficult to handle and expensive to run. It was also a gift. What would you do?’

‘I see the problem,’ I began sympathetically. ‘I used to have an aunt who gave me the most ghastly blouses for Christmas. I always had to wear them when she came to visit so as not to hurt her feelings. I do wish people would just sometimes ask what you really want and not just assume they know.’

He looked at me briefly but very directly, something he had done several times already. I was beginning to find it most disconcerting. Until I came to Lisara, I had found few people ever bothered to look at me and even fewer who paid the slightest attention to my reactions. As I met his gaze I knew I’d spoken far more sharply than I intended.

‘Don’t people ask you what you want either, Elizabeth?’

‘No, not usually. My family all seem to know exactly what I want without any help from me. They then get upset if I point out that it’s not what I want at all.’

‘And what happens then?’

‘Oh, a row of some sort.’

I couldn’t for the life of me see how we’d managed to get ourselves into a conversation about my family. I was anxious to change the subject.

‘Was it your family’s idea that you came to Lisara?’

‘You must be joking.’

‘Well, I did rather wonder. Most of the Ulstermen I know think the west is a wild, barbarous place.

‘Do you know many Ulstermen then?’ I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

‘Not so many now. Years ago, I had cousins at Trinity when I was at U.C.D. I used to visit the north in the long vacations. My mother had relatives in Fermanagh.’

‘What did you read?’

‘English literature. Only for two years though. I had to give it up.’

His eyes were on the road ahead, but the soft tone in his voice and the set of his face spoke with more feeling than the words themselves. I wanted to ask why but something held me back. After all, I hardly knew him. I nodded and said nothing.

‘My father died and then my brother was killed. Someone had to take over at home. So I packed up my books and became the squire.’ He turned towards me, touched his forelock and mumbled, ‘Yes, sur, no, sur.’ He sounded just like an ancient retainer in a sentimental, Irish comedy.

I laughed aloud, delighted by the accent and gestures which were so exactly right.

‘And what about the books?’

He had made me laugh, but beyond his mimicry I felt the shadow of painful memories.

‘I still read. Oh, not as much as I’d like. But some. Have you read Tolstoy, Elizabeth?’

‘Oh yes, but only Anna Karenina so far. I thought that was splendid, though I didn’t like Vronsky and I just couldn’t understand Anna. Kitty and Levin were much more interesting. I really felt for Levin.’

‘So you like Tolstoy?’

‘Yes, I suppose I do, but I shouldn’t really say that.’