by Ben Ryan
‘I saw this lout spilling flour over these poor men and all over the church, he’s ruined the whole place,’ she shrieked.
The two brothers looked like two white ghosts with flour covering them from head to toe. Fr Muldoon said nothing for a few seconds, as he quickly sized up the situation. Then he started roaring with laughter. On seeing the priest laugh Oilly began to laugh and Andy then began to laugh. Then Timmy himself joined in the laughter. Mrs O’Gorman still looked like thunder. ‘Is everyone here gone stark raving mad?’ she yelped.
The priest put his arms around the two brothers. ‘Come with me, lads, and you too, Timmy, this calls for a celebratory drink, now only a little one mind. We’ll leave Mrs O’Gorman in peace. No use crying over spilt flour, Haw, haw, haw.’
Ivor Nale got another job that day, knocking down the blocked up doorway and refitting the original wooden door for the, now reconciled, Andy and Oilly.
Ivor’s belle, lovely Rosie, was worried
His forty year courtship unhurried
She feared that herself
Would be left on the shelf
And as an old maid she’d be buried
6
IN THE BACK ROW
Buddy Bryson was known as the “J. Arthur Rank” of Roggart. He had started his cinema in the 1940’s in an old galvanized tin shed which his father owned just off Main Street. The shed, which was used during the day to store a hay slide, a corn winnowing machine, and some horse harness, was christened “The Grand.” For each performance the hay slide had to be removed from the shed and replaced by seating and Buddy always had willing helpers to do this as there would be free admission for his “assistants.” One of his assistants was Timmy Deery, who delightedly did any heavy work, such as moving equipment in and out and arranging the seating. The seating mostly consisted of wooden planks placed on old cement blocks with about a dozen old tubular chairs. Jem Bryce took the money at the door and Buddy himself worked the projector from the top of the winnowing machine which provided a solid foundation. Frequently the film would break down, if the reels had not been rewound properly by the previous user. The early films were always made in black and white and when the first colour film arrived the excitement was unbelievable. This was “The Great Caruso” with Mario Lanza and Ann Blyth. The film ran for three weeks and many went to see it several times. Everyone in town was singing operatic arias for months afterwards.
Timmy Deery was fifteen years old when he first visited Roggart on his own. He had heard about the new “Grand” picture house from Ivor Nale and the first film he saw was a horror piece called “Invasion of the Worms.” His favourite western was “Canadian Pacific” starring Randolph Scott. It was the story of the building of the railway across Canada and Timmy was so smitten that he was hooked on western films from that time onwards. He was given a special seat in the middle back row with his back leaning against the winnowing machine and nobody dared take that seat, or there would be the mother and father of a row. Many young couples who were going out together frequented the “Grand” and, much to Timmy’s annoy ance, they always crowded into the back row and he seemed to be squashed in the middle of them. Also, they did not always pay much attention to the action on the screen, but kissed and cuddled, ate sweets and talked in whispers.
One evening Timmy was standing outside waiting for the programme to start, and Ivor Nale, who was in his late fifties, and many years older than Timmy, came along with a lady called Rosie, whom Timmy knew as Ivor’s girl friend. They had been going out together for the best part of forty years and the ladies of the village sewing circle had long since given up on seeing them walk down the aisle.
‘Poor Rosie,’ they would say, ‘imagine being strung along by that lug of a Nale fellow, sure he’ll never propose to her, wasted the best years of her life waiting on that miserable wretch.’
Sonny, one day, commented that Rosie herself had recently said to Ivor, ‘I think we should get married,’ and Ivor replied, ‘Sure who in their right mind would have either of us.’ Sonny thought this was a great joke and roared laughing. Timmy did not understand what he was laughing at.
Anyway, on this occasion, there was a third person accompa nying the older couple. It was Rosie’s niece, a pleasant looking girl of about seventeen and she smiled at Timmy, who blushed and looked upwards at the night sky, pretending he was interested in the stars.
‘That’s Jupiter up there,’ he said to Ivor.
‘Really,’ said the girl, in a posh English sounding accent, ‘I thought Jupiter was only visible from the southern hemisphere.’
Timmy glared at Ivor who seemed intent on prolonging the conversation. Putting one arm around the girl’s shoulders and the other around Timmy’s he pushed the two of them so close together that Timmy’s nose touched the girl’s forehead.
‘Timmy, this is Wendy, here on holiday from England, Wendy this is Timmy,’ he said cheerily, ‘Now you two go in there together and discuss the stars. This is my treat. Here, Timmy, here’s a bag of sweets.’
There was no use arguing with Ivor. Rosie murmured for him to leave them alone and that maybe they did not want to discuss the planets. But Wendy was glad to have someone nearer to her own age to talk to. She had been staying with her Aunt Rosie for a week now and was a bit bored.
She followed Timmy in and sat down beside him. The first film was a Roy Rogers cowboy, which did not really interest her. However, as soon as it began, Timmy became totally immersed in it. He forgot completely about the young English girl sitting beside him. He opened the bag of sweets which Ivor had given him and began eating them and at the same time being transfixed by the action on screen. Wendy waited patiently to be offered one, but in a few minutes Timmy had emptied the whole bag of marshmallows. He burped as the last one went down. One of Timmy’s jobs at the cinema was to switch on the lights for the interval but on this night he forgot to switch them on. As the first film ended Buddy waited for a few seconds and when nothing happened he leaned down from the top of the winnowing machine to see where Timmy was and the reel of film which he was holding in his hand caught on a protruding part of the machine and flew forward in an arc and landed on the tray of ice-cream which the usherette held in readiness to sell to the patrons.
Needless to say, the reel fell out of its box, as Buddy had opened the catch. There was much cursing and swearing by Buddy and his friends as they attempted to rewind the reel of film. The crowd was good-humoured and was used to diversionary interruptions although this one was a more exciting sideshow than usual. Eventually the show got going again but several times the screen filled with strange flashing shapes and the story was out of sequence.
Timmy got a tongue-lashing from Buddy and was in a huff at the end of the show. Sonny had arranged to give Ivor a lift home and so himself, Rosie, Wendy and Timmy all piled into Sonny’s old Hillman Minx for the lift. Rosie lived at the end of a mile-long narrow lane, which was in bad repair. It was a fine summer’s night and, as he pulled up at the entrance to Rosie’s lane Sonny said, ‘It’s a lovely night for a walk in the moonlight, the old car would get lost in those potholes, so it would.’
‘Yeah,’ said Rosie, ‘The road-men are always going to fix them.’
Sonny switched off the engine and as nobody moved he began whistling to himself.
‘Well, lads,’ he said, looking ‘round at Ivor and Timmy.
‘Well, what?’ said Ivor.
‘Are yez going to escort these girls down the lane?’
‘Well, now, a fellow would have to think about that.’
At this remark Rosie brusquely opened the door and got out.
‘Come on Wendy, good night, Sonny, and thanks for the lift.’
As the two girls set off, Ivor wound down the side window and called after them, ‘goodnight to yez,’ while Timmy muttered ‘g’night.’
Sonny turned to Ivor and Timmy.
‘Yez are a grand pair, letting those poor girls find their own way down that dark lane at night.’
‘Well, Rosie is long enough walking that lane to know her own way by now,’ said Ivor as he settled into his seat. ‘Anyway, they have a flash lamp.’
Oilly’s hair they cut off at the root,
But he got a new hat which looked cute
This made the girls dizzy
And all in a tizzy.
The scoffers it caused to be mute.
7
HEAD OR HARP?
Andy and Oilly Malooney had become friends again. Oilly, however, still held bald men in low esteem.
‘There’s just something lacking in them,’ he confided to Timmy one day as they wound hay ropes to tie down the four large pikes of hay which stood in the corner of the Deery’s haggard. The hay ropes were manoeuvred across the tops of the hay pikes by Timmy climbing up the ladder and lifting the ropes with his pitchfork. He was on the last rope when his fork caught in a piece of wire which was attached to a high branch of a large tree.
‘Drat,’ said Timmy, as the wire fell to the ground. ‘That’s the radio banjaxed.’
The aerial for the Deery’s radio consisted of about fifty yards of woven copper wire attached to a socket on the back of the radio. This was fed out through the back parlour window and attached to a high branch on an old elm tree.
‘We’ll have to leave it for now or I’ll be late for the pictures, I’ll fix it tomorrow.’
Timmy jumped up on his green bicycle and pedalled off furiously, leaving Oilly to tidy up the haggard.
‘Ah, the young people nowadays, always rushing for everything. Bedad in my day things were different.’ Oilly’s mutterings were suddenly interrupted by a woman’s voice and an angry woman’s voice at that.
‘Did you dimwits knock down the radio aerial?’ demanded Mrs Deery. ‘Well you better get it up again and quickly because Din-Joe is on in ten minutes time and that’s one program that I’m not going to miss.’
‘Oh, bedad, mam, you could never afford to miss Din-Joe. He plays only lovely music so he does. He had a fella playin’ the fiddle last—’
‘You’ll be playing the harp if that aerial is not fixed now, at once, immediately,’ Mrs Deery interrupted.
‘Don’t worry, Mam, I won’t be a minute putting it up again,’ said Oilly.
Oilly picked up the end of the wire and looked up at the tree. There was a lowish branch which he decided would do to hook the wire on to and as luck would have it a tar barrel stood underneath the branch. Oilly clambered onto the barrel and managed to attach the aerial to the tree.
‘Now, Mrs Deery, you can listen to all the Din-Joes you like,’ he muttered to himself. ‘There was none of these modern “Din-Joes” squawking out of radios in my day.’
But as he was getting down, the barrel, which contained a couple of gallons of tar, slipped from underneath him and he rolled to the ground to find himself covered in slimy thick tar. His face escaped but his clothes and hair did not. With much cursing and swearing he picked himself up and surveyed the damage. His old clothes were ruined but that did not worry him. His hair was the only part of his body to be affected. His treasured tresses were stuck solid with this horrible black tacky substance. He quickly tidied up the haggard and headed for home.
Andy met him at the gate and stared in amazement at the apparition before him.
‘What on earth happened, were you tarred and feathered?’ Andy said.
‘No, I was only tarred, have you the tay wet?’
As they ate, Oilly related what happened. He told Andy to put on the kettle and boil some water for a bath.
‘You’re not due a bath until next week,’ Andy grumbled, ‘however, we’ll try it.’
Despite much vigorous scrubbing with soap and hot water the tar remained. They used all the butter and grease they could find and rubbed it into the hair but there was little improvement.
‘There’s only one thing for it,’ said Andy, ‘the hair will have to be cut off. I’ll get the scissors.’
Oilly sat meekly on a kitchen chair while Andy attempted to cut off his tar-filled locks. It was proving much more difficult than the two brothers imagined. Having got as much of the tar out as was possible with the scissors Andy stood back and stroked his chin as he gazed at the miserable vision that sat like Humpty Dumpty on the chair in front of him.
‘You look like a cross between a billiard ball and a dead blackbird,’ Andy observed, ‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll have to shave the rest of it off with the old cut-throat, the hair should grow back again in time!’
Andy went to work with gusto. He was beginning to actually enjoy the episode. He scraped away with the old razor, sharpening the blade every now and then by rubbing it along the strop. After a half hour of scratching and scraping and listening to Oilly moaning, groaning and swearing, Andy held up an old mirror into which Oilly gazed disbelievingly.
‘I’m ruined,’ he whined, ‘all me beautiful hair that I lavished such care and attention on for the past forty years, it’s gone, gone, gone!’
‘Hey, if you put music to that, you’d have a song!’ said Andy brightly. ‘I think that in six months time you will have a fine head of hair. In the meantime you’ll just have more face to wash, like I have, going right back to the nape of me neck.’
Over the following couple of days Oilly felt like some kind of freak show. Word had spread that he had gone bald and in a rural backwater this news was on a par with Martians invading Earth. People went out of their way to see the phenomenon and Oilly, who had never worn a cap or a hat because he had been so proud of his fine head of hair, decided that he would have to invest in some class of headgear.
‘I was just wondering,’ he said to Andy, with a worried look on his face, ‘How much do you think would a fairly dacent hat cost?’
Andy was always very wary when talking about money. He stroked his chin and looked extremely serious.
‘Well I would hazard a guess, give or take, all things considered, the time of the year and whether you want a top of the range or an auld caibin, you could be looking at the guts of anything from five bob to twelve and sixpence,’ he mused.
‘On the other hand. .’
‘Yes, Yes,’ Oilly impatiently cut him short, ‘you don’t have to go on and on like a wet week, I’ll go into Grady’s in Roggart first thing tomorrow morning.’
Grady’s was the only man’s drapery shop in Roggart. It was a large ground floor premises with heavy wooden counters and from the ceiling there hung a system of ropes and pulleys by which the cash takings and customer receipts and change were sent backwards and forwards between the counters and a central raised square shaped office. The store had three departments, Men’s Wear, Boy’s Wear and Household Textiles. There were large rolls of cloth, mainly navy blue or grey in colour, stacked on shelves on all sides of the shop. The three Grady brothers ran the business. They all looked about seventy years of age and all wore navy blue suits and had a tape measure hanging loosely around their neck.
Oilly walked past the store several times before he ventured in. He noticed a tall well-dressed man standing just inside the door who was wearing a green tweed hat. He waited until a few customers left and then entered. The tall man stared blankly at him.
‘Nice day, sir, I was wondering where is the hat department?’
The man did not reply. However, one of the Grady brothers rushed over and greeted him warmly.
‘Now, sir, what can we do for you?’
‘I was thinking of buying a hat, now not a real dear one, mind.’
The three Grady brothers fussed around Oilly. First they tried a hat for size.
‘Size eight and a half,’ one of them announced. After trying on a few hats Oilly decided that a cap might suit him better.
‘What a gentleman needs nowadays is a hat for Sundays and formal occasions and a cap for workdays,’ said one Grady.
‘Oh yes,’ said another, ‘that’s exactly what a gentleman requires.’
‘How much would that set me back?’ said Oilly.
/> The third Grady piped up. ‘It would not set you back, it would propel you forward.’
‘For you, we’ll do a special deal,’ said the first Grady, ‘fifteen shillings for the two, you’ll never get a better offer.’
As Oilly hummed and hawed about how dear things were the second Grady intervened. ‘Shall we wrap the two for you, sir, or perhaps you want to wear that hat?’
‘It certainly suits you,’ said the third Grady.
Oilly looked down at the man who was still standing at the door. ‘Bedad, I think I’ll wear it. It certainly suits yer man.’
As he left the shop Oilly stopped in front of the tall man and pointed at his new hat.
‘You and me, two of a kind, we have good taste in hats. Good luck to ye sir.’
‘He seems very interested in that old display mannequin,’ said one Grady as Oilly went out of the shop.
He looked at himself in every shop window as he passed along the street wearing the dark green hat with a small red feather on one side. His mind was still in a whirl of excitement an hour later when he reached home.