Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party

  Betty shook her head. “You feel so helpless when abroad. Back home I would make no end of a fuss, but here you never know.” She spoke with the air of one accustomed to overseas travel, and Fatty thought her observation quite pertinent. He himself had been to France before his marriage and he knew all about the perils of other cultures. He had also been to London on more than one occasion for antique shows and had come across the English and their curious ways; such strange people, and so utterly disconcerting.

  They seated themselves on either side of the fire. Although it was early summer, the evenings were still cool, and there was a slight chill in the east-facing room. Fatty cast an eye round the room, appraising the contents. At one end of the room stood a double-fronted Victorian bookcase, stocked, he suspected, with books of a hunting and fishing nature; at the other was a grand piano (badly damaged casing, he thought) and a bureau on which a large occasional lamp (Chinese base, later Ching) had been placed. There were also several low tables, an Edwardian revolving bookcase, and an interesting Canterbury. The Canterbury, which was oak, with bronze fittings, was filled with magazines, and he and Betty each picked one out to read while they waited.

  Fatty’s choice was a recent copy of the glossy social magazine, The Irish Tatler. He paged through the advertisements for soft furnishings and Scotch whiskey, past an article on the plans of the Irish Georgian Society, and alighted on one of the several social pages. This was interesting material. There had been a ball in County Wicklow, to which the social correspondent had gone. There was an account of the host’s house – Strawberry Gothic in style “with a charming, quite charming” ballroom and minstrels’ gallery. There were pictures of the guests, and a photograph of a long table groaning with salmon and game. Fatty thought that it looked as if it had been splendid fun, and for a moment he felt a pang of jealousy. That was a life that he could so easily be living, but would probably never experience. He knew nobody in County Wicklow; indeed the only people he knew in Ireland were the various Mr. Delaneys, and he suspected that they moved in rather different circles from those portrayed in the social columns of The Irish Tatler.

  He turned the page. There had been a reception in Dublin to mark the opening of a new art gallery. According to the magazine, everybody had been there. And there they were, photographed talking to one another over glasses of wine. Professor Roderick Finucane of Trinity College was seen talking to Miss Georgina Farrell and her aunt, the well-known watercolourist, Mrs. Annabel Farrell, recently returned from Bermuda. Then there was conversation between Mr. Pears van Eck and Mr. Maurice Shaw, both of them directors of the Irish Foundation for the Fine Arts, neither of them the sort that one finds in Arkansas, thought Fatty. Beneath that photograph was a slightly larger picture of Mr. Rupert O’Brien, the well-known critic, his wife, Mrs. Niamh O’Brien, the successful actress, currently appearing (as Juno) in Juno and the Paycock at the Abbey Theatre, and His Excellency, the Italian Ambassador to Ireland, Mr. Cosimo Pricolo, all sharing what appeared to be a most amusing joke. Fatty studied the photographs carefully. What was it about these people that made their lives seem so much more exotic and exciting than his own? He glanced at Betty, sunk in a copy of Horse and Hound. He wondered what he and Betty would look like on the social pages of The Irish Tatler. He allowed his mind to wander: Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius O’Leary at Mountpenny House in County Tipperary. Mr. O’Leary, a noted antique dealer, is in Ireland to purchase fine Irish furniture for the American market. His wife, the daughter of a well-known Mobile real-estate broker …

  Fatty’s thoughts were interrupted by the entry into the room of a group of fellow guests, two women and a diminutive man in a tweed suit. The women, who looked sufficiently similar to be sisters, smiled at Betty and the small man gave a nod in Fatty’s direction. They moved over to the piano and one of the women self-consciously sat at the keyboard and ran her fingers over the keys.

  “Play us a tune, Ella,” said the other woman.

  “Go on,” said the man. “Satie. You do Satie so well, and everybody likes Satie.”

  The woman at the piano blushed. “I would not inflict myself …” she began.

  Fatty rose to his feet. “It would be no infliction, Ma’am,” he said. “My wife and I like Satie very much.”

  The woman looked down at the keyboard and began to play.

  “Ah,” said Fatty, contentedly. “The Gymnasium.”

  They listened raptly – so raptly indeed that they did not notice others coming into the room. Only after the limpid notes had died away did Fatty look up and see that another couple had entered and taken a seat on the sofa by the fire. He looked at them for a moment, before turning to congratulate the pianist. But a vague sense of familiarity made him turn back and look again.

  The man, who was wearing an elegant, double-breasted suit and a subdued red tie, had a look of distinction about him. The woman, who was dressed in a dark trouser suit, had high cheekbones and almond eyes. Fatty had seen them before; he was sure of it.

  “Thank you so much,” the man called out to the pianist. “A Gymnopédie before dinner. A perfect start to the evening. I feel quite limbered-up!”

  The woman laughed. “You play so well, my dear. Why don’t you continue?”

  “Because I need a drink,” said the woman at the piano.

  At this point Mrs. O’Connor came in, wheeling a drinks trolley on which an array of bottles was placed. She looked round, as if counting her guests, and then announced that drinks would be served.

  “Mr. O’Brien, I’ve taken the trouble to get you your usual,” she said to the man on the sofa. “You made me feel so ashamed last time – not having it in the house.”

  “You spoil me, Mrs. O’Connor,” said the elegant man. “If you’re not careful, I’ll never stop coming here. You’ll not be able to get rid of us. We’ll move in permanently. We’ll live with you!”

  “I don’t think that the Irish Times would like that,” said the hostess, pouring a large measure of gin into a glass. “Nor the Abbey Theatre, for that matter.”

  Fatty listened, fascinated. They spoke so easily, exchanging this subtle repartee as if they were uttering the lines of a play. But it was the mention of the Abbey Theatre that triggered the memory, and it came to him so suddenly that he almost gasped. Of course he had seen this couple before; they were Rupert and Niamh O’Brien, and he had seen their picture in The Irish Tatler. Rupert O’Brien, the critic, and his wife, Niamh, the famous actress (recently Juno in Juno and the Paycock).

  Mrs. O’Connor served the drinks and then withdrew, announcing that dinner would be in twenty minutes.

  Rupert O’Brien sat back on the sofa.

  “Bliss,” he announced to the room at large. “A whole weekend ahead of us with no telephone.”

  Fatty plucked up the courage to say something.

  “No telephone,” he remarked.

  Rupert O’Brien glanced in his direction briefly and then looked at the others.

  “Such a peaceful place,” he said. “Such intriguing shades of the past.”

  What did that mean? Fatty wondered. Did it merely suggest that the house was old, in which case why was that intriguing?

  Taking a sip of his gin and tonic, he plucked up his courage again. After all, why should he not contribute to the discussion? If Rupert O’Brien could say something about the house, then he could too.

  “How old is this house?” he ventured.

  There was a silence. The pianist and her party looked at one another, but said nothing.

  “Quite old, I suspect,” said Betty. “We have nothing this old in Arkansas.”

  “Oh it’s not old at all,” said Rupert O’Brien airily. “Late Victorian. Lamb dressed up as mutton, so to speak.”

  “That’s quite old,” said Betty. “In the United States everything is much newer. Victorian is pretty old.”

  “Age is relative, of course,” said Rupert O’Brien. “Our children regard us as terribly old. But I’m not old at all.”
br />   “How old are you?” asked Betty pleasantly.

  The silence that resulted seemed cold.

  “I wonder if there are fish in the lake,” Fatty said hurriedly.

  Everybody looked at him.

  “Vast numbers, I suspect,” said Rupert O’Brien, still glaring at Betty. “Young fish, old fish …”

  “Well,” said the pianist cheerfully. “They’re under no threat from me. I have never succeeded in catching a fish in my life. Not one.”

  “I caught a big fish last month,” Fatty chipped in. “My friend Tubby O’Rourke and I went up to one of the lakes in the north of our state and I caught a very large fish. Tubby caught quite a few, but none of them very large. I think he was using the wrong sort of fly.”

  “Oh,” said Rupert O’Brien.

  “It was delicious,” said Betty. “I barbecued it. Fresh fish is delicious when barbecued with some lemon and butter.”

  Niamh now made her first contribution.

  “Poor fish. I do feel so sorry for them. One moment in those gorgeous watery depths and the next moment in the cruel air, gasping for breath.”

  “Oh I don’t know, my dear,” said Rupert O’Brien. “I expect that fish would catch us, if they could. One mustn’t romanticise nature. I’m for Darwin rather than Ruskin. Survival of the fishes, you know.”

  He burst out laughing, and Fatty, although he did not take the reference, immediately joined in.

  “Ha!” said Fatty. “Ruskin!”

  At this point the pianist sat down and began to play determinedly. This ended the conversation until Mrs. O’Connor returned to call them in for dinner.

  6

  IT WAS THE CUSTOM AT Mountpenny House for all the guests to dine together at one large table, as they would do if they were weekend guests in a country house. Individual tables were allowed at breakfast, when the desire to make conversation might be expected to be less pressing; and again weekend guests would have been expected to come down at different times.

  Fatty and Betty were the first to go through, and established themselves in chairs near the window. They were followed by the pianist and her companions, who opted to sit at the other end of the table, leaving two vacant chairs next to Fatty and Betty. Thus when Rupert and Niamh O’Brien entered the room, they had no alternative but to sit next to Fatty and Betty.

  Although there was no choice for dinner – the guests being required to eat what had been prepared – Mrs. O’Connor still copied for each place an elegantly written menu, which informed the guests of what lay ahead. Rupert O’Brien picked this up and read out to the table at large:

  “Fish Soup, Mountpenny-style, my goodness, followed by Scaloppine alla Perugina, and then apricot tart or chestnuts with Marsala. Wonderful!”

  “I wonder what fish they put in the soup,” said Betty.

  “From the lough, I expect,” said Rupert O’Brien. “Or perhaps from the sea. One never knows.”

  “No,” said Fatty. “But either would be very satisfactory I’m sure.”

  “Mind you,” Rupert O’Brien went on, “there are precious few fish left in the sea. Yeats was able to write a line about the ‘mackerel-teeming seas of Ireland.’ He wouldn’t be able to do that today.”

  “What’s happened?” asked Fatty.

  “The Spanish have eaten them all,” said Rupert O’Brien. He turned to Niamh. “How do you think they do their scaloppine? Do you think it’ll be the same way as they did them in that charming little hotel in Perugia? With croutons?”

  “I expect so,” said Niamh. “Such mignon croutons; small and mignon.”

  “Do you know Italy well?” asked Fatty.

  “Tolerably,” replied Rupert O’Brien. “Venice, Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Ravenna, Siena, and Perugia. Oh, and Palermo too. But ignorant about the rest, I’m afraid. And you?”

  “I plan to go there some time,” said Fatty. “It’s difficult for us to get away from home. We’ve been waiting for this trip for some time.”

  “And tell me,” said Rupert O’Brien, breaking his bread roll over his plate, “where would home be?”

  “Fayetteville,” replied Fatty.

  “Fartyville?”

  “Fayetteville,” said Fatty. “Fayetteville, Arkansas.”

  “Oh,” said Rupert O’Brien.

  “Croutons,” Niamh interjected. “They did use croutons. I remember now. And they served them with crostini di fegatini. We had them just before we were due to go off to Urbino.”

  “Of course,” said Rupert O’Brien. “I remember that well. And we went to that marvellous little museum where they had the most surprising pictures. The Vincenzo Campi picture of the breadmaker, with all those marvellous loaves on the table and those perfectly angelic little children looking on while the baker dusted his hands with flour.” He turned to Fatty. “You know it? That picture?”

  Fatty appeared to think for a moment. “I don’t think so. No, I don’t think I do.”

  “Lovely textures,” said Rupert O’Brien. “Lovely rich colours. Vibrant. Positively edible. You know, my test for art is this: Do I want to eat it? If I want to eat something, then I know it’s good.”

  “That’s a good test,” said Fatty. He thought of washstands. Would it work for them as well?

  “Mind you,” said Rupert O’Brien, “mediocre paintings of food can confuse the test. You may want to eat them, but for the wrong reasons. Take Giovanna Garzoni, for instance. You’ll know his picture of the old man of Artimino, of course. You know it?”

  Fatty shook his head.

  “Well it’s a remarkable painting. It hangs in the Pitti Palace in Florence. You know the Pitti Palace?”

  “No,” said Fatty.

  “But you know Florence, of course?” went on Rupert O’Brien.

  Again Fatty shook his head.

  “No matter,” said Rupert O’Brien. “That’s a mediocre painting of food. A lovely ripe melon, split open, a delicious-looking ham, a bird, some cherries, everything just asking to be eaten. But the composition is most peculiar, and the perspective is all over the place. In fact, it has an almost-Daliesque quality to it. Do you know Dali?”

  “Yes,” said Fatty, with relief. “I know Dali.”

  “Where did you meet him?” asked Rupert O’Brien.

  “Oh,” said Fatty. “I thought you meant …”

  “I met him at his villa,” went on Rupert O’Brien. “Pre-Niamh days, of course. She was just a snip of a thing at drama school then. I was in Barcelona for a couple of months and I was invited out to Dali’s villa with some gallery friends. Peculiar place. Rather like–”

  He was interrupted by the arrival of a young waitress, one of the girls from the village, who brought in the large bowls of fish soup.

  “Gorgeous,” said Rupert O’Brien, sniffing at his soup. “Just the right amount of garlic, I can tell. Never put too much garlic in your fish soup. Robin Maugham told me that. You know him? Famous writer. He learned all about garlic in the soup from his uncle, Willie Maugham – Somerset Maugham, you know. Great enthusiast pour la table. Maugham neveu used to visit his uncle at the Villa Mauresque, where he had a famous cook. People used to do anything for an invitation to luncheon with the old boy because of Madame dans la cuisine. Apparently she used to cook for the Pope, but became fed up with the all those goings-on in the Vatican and returned to France. Mind you, it’s a bit of a waste of time placing fine food before a pope. They really are most unappreciative of the finer things in life. Most of them are pretty unsophisticated priests from remote villages with tastes to match. John XXIII was like that, I’m sorry to say. No understanding of art, I gather. None at all. Pius XII, may his blessed soul rest in peace, was the last pontiff of any breeding, you know. Terribly good family he came from; old Roman aristocrats. Mind you, he had a delicate stomach and could only eat polenta, poor fellow. Pity about his friendship with il Duce, but there you are.”

  Fatty dipped his spoon into his soup. He looked at Betty, who was watching anxiously
to see which spoon was being used.

  “Such a beast, Mussolini,” said Rupert, between mouthfuls of soup. “Psychopathic braggart. And irredeemably petit bourgeois. I don’t know which is worse, probably neither. Do you know that he tried to impress his people by performing so-called feats of bravery? He went into the lions’ cage at Rome Zoo, just to show that he was unafraid. But the Italian press didn’t say that they had drugged the lions and they couldn’t have harmed a fly. It’s all in that recent biography somebody brought out the other day. Frightful rubbish. Have you seen it?”

  Fatty was silent. He had finished his soup, and would have liked to have more, but there was no tureen handy and he would have to wait until the next course was served before he could appease his appetite.

  “Tell me,” said Rupert suddenly. “What is your line of business Mr.… Mr.…”

  “O’Leary,” said Fatty.

  “Mr. O’Leary. What sort of business are you in?”

  “Antiques,” said Fatty.

  “How interesting,” said Rupert. “I pride myself on my own eye in that direction. I helped old Lord Balnerry sort his stuff out. You know his place? Down near Cork?”

  “No,” said Fatty, adding, quietly, “I don’t seem to know anyone. Except Delaney, that is.”

  Rupert looked surprised. “Judge Delaney?” he said. “The Supreme Court man? You know him?”

  “No,” said Fatty. “Joseph Delaney, the tailor. He fixed me up when my clothes were lost.”

  “Well, there you are,” said Rupert O’Brien. “Friends are useful. I remember I was in Miami once and I lost my jacket. But I bumped into Versace at a party and I told him, and he said: Funny – I’m a tailor! I’ll fix you up. And he did, would you believe it?”

  Fatty looked down at his plate, and then gazed at the houndstooth trousers that Mr. Delaney had adjusted for him. They were made of cheap material and looked shabby beside the thick cloth of Rupert O’Brien’s elegant suit.

  “We’re simple people in Arkansas, Mr. O’Brien,” Betty suddenly burst out. “But we do our best. And my husband is a good man. He always has been.”