Loopy Read online

  The talk was desultory before focusing on Loopy’s swing. O’Hara thought the “loop” should be eliminated from the lad’s swing as soon as possible. He insisted that it was like a child stammering at school—the sooner it was corrected the better. Joe Delany did not agree, thinking it too early yet to tinker with Loopy’s natural swing as a hurler. He might have had more to say had not O’Hara, who had up to now been in no way aggressive, suddenly exploded in anger. In a voice loud enough to carry into the farthest corners of the bar, he cursed the game of hurling to the bottomless pit of hell, adding for good measure, “If you don’t believe me about hurling being only a game fit for savages, you need look no further than our barman!”

  Furiously he pointed a trembling finger at Loopy, who was standing openmouthed behind the counter. He had never seen O’Hara behave quite like this before, and it wasn’t over yet. Angrily brushing aside Joe’s restraining hand on his shoulder, O’Hara struggled unsteadily to his feet, bellowing across the bar, “Take a good look at that young fella! He nearly had his bloody leg cut off by some thug from Lisbeg. Now he can’t play hurling anymore.”

  After a brief lull as O’Hara swallowed a hiccup, he continued, “Best bloody thing that ever happened to him, if you ask me! Means he can give more time to his golf and I’ll tell you another thing—”

  What he might have added to the sum of human knowledge the world would never know because of the sudden commotion in the far corner of the bar. A large man, purple with rage, was clambering to his feet and shaking a fist at O’Hara as he warned all and sundry, “If someone doesn’t get that drunk out of here in double quick time, I won’t be responsible for my actions!”

  In the blink of an eye Joe was behind the counter, whispering urgently in Loopy’s ear, “Here’s the keys of his car. Now get him out before that big guy in the corner kills him. He’s the father of the center forward that did for your leg. He’s not taking kindly to his son being called a savage and a thug!”

  By the time Loopy had come out from behind the bar, Linhurst had persuaded O’Hara that the air in the parking lot would do him no end of good. From there it was easier than expected to bundle the teacher into his own car and head for home with Loopy at the wheel. Linhurst went back inside to await the results of the tournament.

  The journey was less than five minutes to the neat, ivy-covered house where O’Hara had lived since being appointed to Trabane National School some thirty-six years previously. However, it was more than an hour before Loopy could escape from Pat O’Hara. He had manhandled the teacher into his house without anyone seeing them and was about to leave when O’Hara, in a surprisingly clear voice, instructed him to sit down. When Loopy protested that he had to get back to relieve Joe, the instruction was repeated in a manner that brooked no argument. With no reference whatsoever to the upset in the bar just minutes earlier, the schoolteacher embarked on a lecture. It had but one theme—the benefits of a good education. It took a long time, and the mantra knowledge is power was repeated over and over.

  At every pause, Loopy made as if to leave, but was told to sit down again in no uncertain terms. When it did end, O’Hara’s last words were “I know you are not taking in a fraction of what I say. I really don’t know why I bother trying to get it through your thick skull that leaving school early is madness. It’s something you’ll regret for the rest of your life. I know you think you have to earn money for your mother, but it won’t always be like that. If you don’t go back to school now, you never will. And if that happens, believe you me, you’ll live to regret it. I’m telling you for the last time, knowledge is power. Remember that. Now you’d better get back to the bar.”

  Loopy did not need to be told twice. As he walked into the crowded bar, it was announced that Edward Linhurst had won the tournament. Moments later the winner made himself heard above the general hubbub in a brief speech that thanked one and all. It was done effortlessly with the grace of someone to whom public speaking came easily. Yet, to Loopy, it sounded as if it came straight from the heart, especially the part where Linhurst thanked everyone for making him feel so at home in Trabane. Loopy decided there and then that it would be much easier for him to win the tournament than to make the winner’s speech. Maybe O’Hara had been right about finishing school after all.

  Moving from table to table, serving drinks and emptying ashtrays, Loopy could not help but overhear snatches of conversation. While some were about that day’s competition, most of them dwelled on the recent job losses at the Makings and the scarcity of tourists in Trabane. He couldn’t be sure but he thought he heard someone mutter, “Leo’s bloody bank could be the next to go, from what I hear.”

  Suddenly Linhurst was murmuring across the counter that the drinks for the rest of the evening were on him. By closing time, Loopy estimated that Linhurst had drunk eight or nine gin and tonics. As he was writing a check for the tab, he seemed to have some difficulty in signing his name. Tearing off the check along its perforation was proving so troublesome that Linhurst chuckled happily, “Do you know something, young man? I think I’m pissed as a coot!”

  Loopy could not think of a suitable reply, but when he saw Linhurst, last to leave, weaving unsteadily toward his car, he summoned up the courage to run after him. Up to this he would never have had the nerve, but with the parking lot deserted, he somehow found the self-confidence to say, “Mr. Linhurst, is there any chance you’d let me drive you home?”

  There! It was said and done. If the man took it the wrong way, then so be it. Loopy had been pouring gin and tonics into Linhurst all evening. Should anything happen to him, Loopy would feel responsible.

  To his relief, Linhurst paused in midstride, straightened himself, and appeared to give the suggestion serious consideration before turning back toward Loopy. “What a damn good idea! You seem to be as much in demand as a chauffeur as you are a caddy and barman. Multi-talented, I’d say.”

  With that, Linhurst climbed into the passenger seat, and the journey to The Old Rectory passed without incident. Loopy hadn’t seen the house since Linhurst had moved in. The avenue was now a smooth ribbon of tarmac, flanked on either side by carefully tended rhododendron bushes. The sweep up to the big hall door was even more impressive. An acre of green lawn, smoother than any pool table, surrounded the elegant stone building. But Loopy had barely enough time to be impressed. The door flew open to reveal a beautiful girl—and she was furious.

  “Dinner’s ruined—absolutely ruined! You are hours late, Dad. No wonder Mummy couldn’t stand it any longer.”

  She broke off to address an awestruck Loopy, who was discreetly trying to steady her father, who was now swaying dangerously.

  “As for you, whoever you are, you can hand over the keys of the car here and now. I’m not going to stand for every Tom, Dick, and Harry joyriding around this dump of a town in Daddy’s car when he’s obviously pissed out of his mind!”

  Wordlessly Loopy handed her the keys and, wordlessly, turned on his heel down the avenue. He walked the three miles to the farmhouse, his mind seething with the events of the day. His last thoughts as he drew the covers over his head were that if Pat O’Hara’s dictum knowledge is power were true, then maybe he should not have had to walk those long miles home in the dark.

  Just after ten o’clock the next morning the phone in the bar rang.

  “Trabane Golf Club.”

  “Is that Larry Lynch?” The voice was unmistakably Linhurst’s, even if it was hoarser than usual.

  “Yes, it is, Mr. Linhurst.”

  “Good, you’re the man I want. First of all, thanks for last night. Very good of you to drive me home, then take all that abuse that Amy dished out like a man.”

  “No problem, Mr. Linhurst.” Loopy nearly added a fatuous Anytime, but thought better of it.

  “Silly of me to get that pissed. I can tell you I got hell from Amy. I’ll tell her it wasn’t your fault, nothing like it, just as soon as she cools down. She really does owe you a serious apology. The idea
of blaming you for my condition is crazy, but there you are. I’m driving her to the airport later on this evening, so I’ll probably stay overnight in Dublin. The trip there and back is a bit too long”—a dry chuckle—“especially when one is not feeling the best.”

  Loopy said nothing but wondered where all of this was leading. He did not have long to wait.

  “Reason I called was that despite the excesses of last night, I did remember what you said about not being able to get rid of your hay so late in the year. I have a friend, more of a business acquaintance really, and he ships cattle all over the world. Just now he happens to be shipping beef on the hoof from Cork port to Egypt, of all places.”

  Another lengthy pause left Loopy still none the wiser.

  Linhurst pressed on briskly, “Anyway, the point of all this is that I spoke to him this morning and he is very much in the market for hay. Apparently he loads it onto the cattle boats and feeds the animals with it for the week or so they are at sea. As he is paid by their weights at the other end, naturally he only feeds them the best. I told him you had the best hay for miles around, and he wondered if six pounds a bale collected from your farmyard would be okay. I told him I would have to check it out with you first. Better still, I’ll give you his telephone number. If you’re interested, I think you should call him back right away and be sure to mention my name. By the way, I can guarantee that his credit is good, so if he offers to pay by check, no need to worry.”

  He called out the number, asked Loopy to repeat it, then ended with “That’s alright then.”

  He had hung up before Loopy could even begin to stammer out his thanks.

  An hour later, Linda took over for him behind the counter.

  “Where are you off to now? More golf, I suppose. Joe tells me you are making progress, and that’s high praise coming from him, I promise you.”

  Loopy wisely ignored the hint of bitterness in her voice as he made his way out the door of the bar. “Not this morning. I think I’ll take a walk along the beach.”

  “Big wind out there by the sound of it. Don’t get blown away or anything.”

  “I’ll do my best not to” was Loopy’s parting shot as he disappeared from view.

  The walk from the clubhouse to the beach brought him past the old stone school building, which looked even more bedraggled than usual. Empty soda cans and candy wrappers had been blown by the wind into untidy heaps against the low wall that kept O’Hara pupils off the road that ran through Trabane. From there it meandered along the coast to Lisbeg, a deadly rival both in commerce and sport for longer than anyone could remember. Loopy would follow it for a few hundred yards until it ceased to be Trabane’s main street and resumed its role as the only road to Lisbeg and points west. As he looked over the schoolyard wall at the unaccustomed litter, never quite still in the sharp gusts blowing in off the sea, he wondered about Pat O’Hara. As recently as six months ago a scrap of litter anywhere near his school was a cause for one of his indignant outbursts. With the veins in his forehead standing out like power cables, he would inquire of his charges in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “Do you want to be known for the rest of your lives as ignorant litter louts who don’t know any better than to scatter rubbish wherever you feel like it? Do you want where you live to be known as the dirtiest town in all of Ireland just because you can’t be bothered to pick up rubbish whenever you see it? No wonder the tourists are staying away from here in droves. Who wants to visit a bloody pigsty?”

  Then he would dismiss the class for as long as it took to clean up the school and its surroundings. But he didn’t seem to be doing so anymore. Loopy wondered if the old schoolteacher had given up on it as a waste of time or was simply too old and tired to bother. Then as he recalled the angry sermon O’Hara had given him the night before about leaving school too early, he decided that there was still some life in the old dog yet. He quickened his pace as he passed Norbert’s Super Store. A familiar smell was borne on the wind. Seamus Norbert was making his daily contribution to global warming by firing up his rusty incinerator with waste of every description.

  Passing the graveyard, Loopy was joined by Norbert’s watchdog, a German shepherd of uncertain age and temper. Loopy had earned its friendship by smuggling it a pork chop every now and then when Norbert wasn’t looking. That was a year ago, but the animal seemed to remember and was staying with him now until he got another one.

  Boy and dog turned off the main road just after the graveyard and walked down a short, rutted path to the beach. They were protected by stands of tall dune grass, now blown almost flat by the wind coming in off the Atlantic, so it wasn’t until they reached the beach that they felt the full force of the gale. It had whipped the sea, gray under a leaden sky, into foam-flecked fury. The tide was almost fully out, leaving a vast expanse of wet sand soft underfoot. The only sign of life, apart from themselves, was a flock of gulls wheeling and diving just beyond the pounding surf. They filled the air with frustrated shrieks that suggested lunch was not easily come by in weather like this.

  Suddenly they were no longer alone. In the distance a tiny figure appeared. Minutes later it was still half a mile away, but now it became apparent that it was accompanied by a dog. Remembering the uncertain temper of Norbert’s watchdog, who was currently sniffing a large jellyfish stranded by the outgoing tide, Loopy noted uneasily that neither animal was on a leash. Tiring of the jellyfish, the bigger dog raised its head and saw the distant animal. In a flash it was sprinting toward the intruder, deaf to Loopy’s despairing shouts.

  There were no preliminaries. None of the sniffing and snarling that usually precede a dogfight. Without preamble they hurled themselves at each other in a snarling, whirling explosion of rage. By the time Loopy got near them, the contest was almost over. Though the smaller dog had given a good account of himself, the size of Norbert’s animal proved telling. They were still struggling as Loopy grasped the bigger dog by the collar and, evading its best efforts to bite him, gave it a sharp kick on the backside. With a pained yelp, the hopes of another pork chop now well and truly dashed, Norbert’s dog took to its heels and fled back from whence it came.

  Loopy picked up the other combatant, a young spaniel. It was shivering with fright and bleeding from bite marks on its neck. It also seemed to have something wrong with its rear leg as it had toppled over in trying to get up and run back to its frantic owner. She was now quite close but too out of breath to say or do anything for the moment.

  Loopy scarcely noticed her arrival, being fully occupied in trying to calm the distressed spaniel. Cradling it in his arms like a baby, he whispered soothing words in its ear.

  “How is he?… Will he be alright?… Why don’t you keep your fucking dog under some sort of control?”

  The questions exploded around his head like grenades and spurred the spaniel on to further manic struggling in Loopy’s arms. Something about the accent was familiar, even though the face was mostly hidden behind a long scarf. A bobble hat pulled well down over her ears left just her dark, furious eyes visible. They were the same eyes that had glared at him the night before as he’d deposited a drunken Edward Linhurst on his doorstep. This time Amy appeared, if anything, even angrier.

  “Here, give me back my dog … There, there, po-o-o-or Jake. Did the bad man’s dog hurt you, my poor baby?”

  At the first lull in this rather one-sided conversation between Amy and her dog, Loopy sought to correct her on the ownership of the offending animal.

  “Listen, that other dog has nothing to do with me. He just followed me along the beach. He wouldn’t go home no matter how often I told him to. What’s more—”

  She cut in briskly, her voice now lower by several octaves, “Don’t I know you from somewhere? Weren’t you the guy that brought Daddy…? Oh, Christ, it’s your fault I’m out here in the first place!”

  This left Loopy none the wiser, but before he could think of anything to say, she was off again.

  “I’d better try to make myself
a bit more clear. First thing this morning Daddy explained to me after you had dropped him off at the door and I had been so rude to you that it was all his fault. He said you had absolutely nothing to do with his getting pissed as a coot, that you were only acting as a Good Samaritan and driving him home as he was too pissed to do so himself. He also suggested that I had better get in touch with you and apologize before I fly back to London tonight. So here I am out here exercising Jake and trying to think how I’m going to pluck up enough courage to phone you at the Golf Club and say how sorry I am for being such a bitch—”

  Loopy tried to interrupt but she held her hand up. This caused the scarf to slip away from the lower part of her face, revealing a pert nose and lips fuller and more perfectly shaped than any he had ever laid eyes on before.

  “—then your dog comes along and you know the rest.”

  They looked at each other in silence for a long moment. She was out of breath and he was unable to think of anything sensible to say. Eventually, still holding her gaze, he could manage nothing better than to repeat, “Like I say, it wasn’t my dog. The idiot just latched onto me and wouldn’t go home for himself. Listen, we had better get Jake back to town to the vet. That’s a nasty gash he has on his ear, probably needs stitching. There’s something wrong with his hind leg, too. Here, let me carry him for you—it’s a long walk back.”

  By the time they reached the vet’s clinic, two doors down the street from Foley’s pub, Jake seemed to have calmed down somewhat and the bleeding had almost stopped when they rang the bell. When there was no response after several rings, Amy yelped, “Says here he’s closed Mondays. Oh, shit, I might have guessed. Today would have to be a bloody Monday, wouldn’t it?”