Anne Doughty - The Belfast Girl on Galway Bay

‘Good day, miss. It’s a fine day after all for your visit.’

He was standing before me, touching his hand to the shapeless item of headgear he’d pushed back on his shiny, pink forehead. The sleeves and legs of his crumpled brown suit were too short for his build and his hands and feet projected as if they were trying to get out. In contrast, the fullness of his trousers had been gathered up with a leather belt and his jacket hung in folds like a short cloak.

‘Ye’ll be waitin’ for the car from the hotel, miss. Shure, bad luck till them, they’ve kept you waitin’,’ he said indignantly.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m not staying at a hotel.’

‘Ah no . . . no . . . yer not.’

He nodded wisely to himself as if the fact that I was not staying at a hotel was plain to be seen. He had merely managed to overlook it. He sat himself down at the far end of my summer seat and for some minutes we studied the stonework of the war memorial in front of us as if the manner of its construction were a matter of some importance to us both.

He turned and smiled again. His eyes were a light, watery blue, his teeth irregular and stained with tobacco.

‘Have yer friends been delayed d’ye think? Maybe they’ve had a pumpture,’ he suggested.

He seemed quite delighted with himself for having seen the solution to my problem and he waited hopefully for my reply. It had already dawned on me that I wasn’t going to go on sitting here in peace if I didn’t give him some account of myself.

I knew from experience that country people have a habit of curiosity based on self-preservation. Strangers create unease until they have been labelled and placed. And he couldn’t place me. In his world people who travel on buses and have suitcases are to be met. I had a suitcase, I had travelled on a bus, but I had not been met. I glanced at him as he pushed his hat back further and scratched his head.

‘I’m just having a rest before my lunch,’ I said, hoping to put him out of his misery. ‘I’m going on to Lisnasharragh this afternoon,’ I explained easily.

‘Ah yes, Lisnasharragh.’

Again, he nodded wisely, but the way he pronounced the name produced instant panic. He’d said it as if he had never heard of it before.

‘Ye’ll be having a holiday there, I suppose?’ he said brightly.

I was slow to reply for I was already wondering what on earth I was going to do if Lisnasharragh had disappeared. It had been there in 1929 all right. On the most recent map I’d been able to get hold of, the houses referred to in the 1929 study I’d found were clearly shown, but that didn’t mean they were inhabited now in 1960. Lisnasharragh might be one more village where everyone had died, moved away, or emigrated to America. There had been no way of finding out before I left Belfast.

‘No, I’m not on holiday,’ I began at last ‘I’m going to Lisnasharragh to do a study of the area,’ I explained patiently.

All I wanted was for him to go away and leave me in peace to think what I was going to do about this new problem.

‘Are ye, bedad?’

His small eyes blinked rapidly and he leaned forward to peer at me more closely.

‘And yer going to write about it all, I suppose, eh?’

He laughed good-humouredly as if he had made a little joke at my expense.

‘Well. . . yes . . . I suppose I am,’ I admitted reluctantly.

He leapt to his feet so quickly he made me jump. Then he grabbed my suitcase, stuck out his free hand towards me and pumped my arm vigorously.

‘Michael Feely at your service, miss. There’s no one knows more about this place than I do, the hotels, the waters, the scenery, everything. I’ll be happy to assist you in your writings.’

He tossed my heavy suitcase into his taxi as if it were an overnight bag and opened the rear door for me with a flourish.

‘You’ll be wantin’ yer lunch now, miss,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ll take you direct to the Mount. The Mount is the finest hotel in Lisdoon, even if it isn’t the largest. All the guests are personally supervised by the owner and guided tours of both scenery and antiquities are arranged on the premises for both large and small parties, with no extra charge for booking.’

‘Thank you, Mr Feely,’ I said weakly, as he closed the door behind me.

As he’d taken my suitcase, I couldn’t see I had much option. I settled back on the worn leather seat, glanced up at the rear-view mirror and saw his pink face wreathed in smiles. He looked exactly like someone who has struck oil in their own back garden.

The Mount was a large, dilapidated house set in an enormous, unkempt garden where clumps of palm trees and a pair of recumbent lions with weather-worn faces suggested a former glory. He parked the taxi at the back of the house between a row of overflowing dustbins and a newish cement mixer, picked up my case, marched me round to the front entrance, across a gloomy hall and into a dining room full of the smell of cabbage and the debris of lunch.

He summoned a pale girl in a skimpy black dress to remove the greasy plates and uneaten vegetables from a table by the window, pulled out my chair for me and left me blinking in the strong sunlight that poured through the tall, uncurtained windows.

Across the uneven terrace the lions stared unseeing at groups of priests who strolled on the lawns or lounged in deckchairs. Against a background of daisies and dandelions or of striped canvas, their formal black suits looked just as out of place as the bamboo thicket and the Japanese pagoda I could see on the far side of the garden.

My soup arrived. I stared at the brightly coloured bits of dehydrated vegetable floating in the tepid liquid and recognised it immediately. Knorr Swiss Spring Vegetable. One of the many packets my mother uses ‘for handiness’. But she does mix it with cold water and leaves it to simmer on a low heat while she’s downstairs in the shop. My helping had not been so fortunate. It was full of undissolved lumps. I stirred it with my spoon and wondered what the chances were that Feely would return to supervise me personally while I ate it.

Fortunately he didn’t. My untouched bowl was removed without comment. I wasn’t expecting much of the main course, so I wasn’t too disappointed. Underneath a lake of thick gravy, overlooked by alternate rounded domes of mashed potatoes and mashed carrots, I found a layer of metamorphosed beef. It was tough and tasteless just like it is at home, but I did my best with it. The vegetables weren’t too bad and my plate with its pile of gristle was safely back in the kitchen without Feely having reappeared.

I looked around the shabby dining room as I tackled the large helping of prunes and custard that followed. There were now two very young girls, dressed identically in skimpy black skirts, crumpled white blouses and ankle socks, beginning to lay the tables from which lunch had just been cleared. Out of the corner of my eye I watched them brush away crumbs and place paper centrepieces over the stiffly starched cloths. The table next to mine was beyond such treatment. Well-anointed with gravy, the heavy fabric was dragged off unceremoniously to reveal underneath a worn and battered surface ringed with the pale marks of innumerable overflowing drinks.

I smiled to myself and thought of Ben, my oldest friend. How many rings had we wiped up from the oak-finish Formica of the Rosetta Lounge Bar in these last two months? He would miss me tomorrow when there was only Keith in the kitchen and no one to help him with the cleaning and the serving. The thought of doing the Rosetta job on my own appalled me. If it hadn’t been for Ben the whole episode would have been grim indeed.

‘Hi, Lizzie, what are you doing up so early?’