Fatty glanced at Nurse Maggio, who was smirking with relief at the arrival of reinforcements. She was a mere foot soldier; Dr. Meyer was the heavy artillery in the ranks of the thin.
“Hah,” said Fatty. “You want me to admit to eating too much. Very well, I do, and I say to you: So what? Now, what about you? Why don’t you admit to being hungry? Go on. You certainly look it. Why don’t you admit to loving the idea of a slice of cake? Wouldn’t you feel satisfied if you ate something like that? Wouldn’t it give you pleasure, just as Nurse Maggio here said that she found pleasure in chocolate?”
Nurse Maggio gasped. “I would never say that, Dr. Meyer! He’s twisting my words. I never said anything like that.”
“You said it,” said Fatty. “And I heard it. And if Dr. Meyer were honest, he would say the same thing himself. But he won’t. Oh no, we won’t get the truth from a person like him.”
Dr. Meyer suddenly clapped his hands together sharply.
“Mr. O’Leary, you have gone far enough. I would be prepared to take a tolerant view and allow you to remain, but I must bear in mind the morale of the other patients. I cannot allow a man like you to undermine our efforts here. You will please leave.”
“With pleasure,” said Fatty. “Once you have refunded my nine thousand dollars.”
Dr. Meyer ignored him for a moment, walking briskly round the room to his desk, where he took up his position in his chair.
“Impossible,” he said. “The terms of the clinic are very clearly stated in the agreement which you signed on your admission. In the event of misconduct requiring a patient to be discharged, nothing is refundable. I’m very sorry.”
Fatty now spoke very quietly, but his words were clearly articulated. “In that case,” he said, “I shall stay and I shall inform the other patients of our little exchange. I shall inform them, over lunch, or over lettuce, that Nurse Maggio here admitted to me that she likes chocolate. I shall inform them of your real opinion of stout people. I shall urge them to stand up and fight back. I shall urge them not to accept the reign of terror of the thin. I shall urge them to be themselves and not to worry about it. In short, sir, I shall undermine you! And then …”
When this unfinished threat was made, Nurse Maggio gave a start, and took a few steps to place herself more firmly in the shelter of her employer. For his part, barely flinching, Dr. Meyer stared at Fatty through narrowed eyes.
“You are a very dangerous man, Mr. O’Leary,” he said. “You are highly calorific.”
“Yes,” said Fatty. “I am. Now please will you give me my refund?”
Dr. Meyer stared for a moment at his hands. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a cheque book. He scribbled a few words and figures and then handed the cheque over the table to Fatty. Fatty glanced at it, nodded, and put it away in his shirt pocket.
“Goodbye,” said Fatty, rising to leave. “I wish you a pleasant day. I myself shall go out for lunch when I get back to Fayetteville. Then, this evening, I shall go out for dinner with my wife, Betty. We shall have a very good time.”
“You’ll regret this,” said Dr. Meyer. “You’ll have an ischaemic event one of these days. You will probably die, you know.”
“We will all die, you spiteful man,” said Fatty. “Sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but we are all going to die. You. Me. Nurse Maggio over here. All of us.”
He turned round and left the office, nodding to Nurse Maggio as he passed her.
“Not too much chocolate!” he said, wagging his finger at her.
Outside, while he waited for his cab to arrive, he felt the warm sun on his face and he breathed in deeply. Several other patients were sitting on a bench outside the front door, taking the air.
“You just arrived?” asked one.
“Just arrived, and just leaving,” said Fatty. “Going back to Fayetteville to have a big lunch.”
“Oh!” said one of the patients, a large woman in a loud, floral dress. “You lucky man!”
Fatty chuckled. “Why don’t you folks come too?” he said. “There’ll be plenty of room in the cab.”
The three on the bench looked at one another. Then one of them nodded, and the others rose to their feet.
“Well done,” said Fatty. “Italian? Mexican? French? Where shall we go?”
“Italian,” said the woman in the floral dress. “I’ve been dreaming about pasta ever since I came.”
“Then Italian it will be,” said Fatty.
13
TWO WEEKS AFTER HIS SUCCESSFUL escape from the Meyer Clinic, Fatty received a letter from Lord Balnerry, enclosing a dollar draft for the equivalent of fifteen thousand Irish pounds. In the letter, Lord Balnerry explained that he had sold their horse on, at a considerable profit, to a trainer in Kerry. This was Fatty’s share of the profit, added to the seven thousand pounds that he owed him from the original purchase.
“I so enjoyed meeting you and Betty,” wrote Lord Balnerry. “We all had such a good time together. So don’t wait too long before you come back over to Ireland. My door is always open. Remember that.”
Fatty and Betty reflected on their good fortune. It was not just the money, of course; it was the warmth of the invitation. Ireland seemed rosy now, and perhaps they would go back, not just now, of course, but in a year or two. Even Rupert O’Brien held no terrors for Fatty now; he would be able to deal with him, even without any help from Lord Balnerry.
Fatty thought about his good fortune. He had a loyal and supportive wife, a woman who loved him, in spite of everything. To Betty he was simply the most important person in the world; he knew that, as he had known it from the very beginning of their courtship and their marriage. And to him, she was his world; his inspiration, his companion, his reason for living. And he had good friends too: Tubby and Porky, for all their little differences of opinion, would give him the shirt off their back, their last cent, if he ever needed either. And he would do the same for them.
“I have had a fortunate life,” he said to Betty. “Don’t you think so, Betty?”
“Oh I do,” said Betty. “I do indeed.”
Fatty and Betty sat on their porch, the morning sun on their faces, looking down the leafy street, with its comfortable well-kept homes. Somebody had been cutting a lawn, and there was the sweet smell of mown grass on the air. Fatty sniffed it appreciatively. A dog barked. Porky Flanagan drove past in his old Chrysler, slowed down, and waved. Fatty waved back. Then he closed his eyes, and smiled.
Alexander McCall Smith, Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party
(Series: # )
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