An Irish Country Love Story by Patrick Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

to the car. I’ll nip upstairs, tell Kitty where we’re going, then come back and we’ll put snow chains on the tyres. I’ll tell you what I’ve found out about Sonny while we work and on the drive out.”
    â€œRight,” said Barry, and left.
    â€œSit tight, Maggie,” O’Reilly said, then rose and left to climb the stairs.
    â€œHow is she?” Kitty sat in an armchair before a fire where Arthur Guinness lay stretched out. Lady Macbeth was on Kitty’s lap, along with an open magazine.
    â€œMaggie’s worried about Sonny, and I’m not sure exactly what’s wrong with him. He’s refusing to see a doctor. Both Barry and I are going out to see him. Sorry about that, but…” He stared out at the blizzard. “I’m not sure we’d have made it out for lunch anyway.” He thought of the dining room curtains. Nor would they get to Bangor. Inwardly he smiled.
    â€œThat’s all right,” she said. “Now drive carefully. I’ll let Kinky know there’ll be two more for lunch.”
    O’Reilly bent and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m off,” he said, heading for the door.
    As he went downstairs he felt regret about missing lunch with Kitty but an even greater curiosity to find out what the devil was wrong with Sonny Houston.

 
    5
    And They Ran Awa’
    â€œHellfire and damnation,” O’Reilly yelled as the final clip on the tyre chain snapped shut—and skinned his knuckles. He reflexively sucked them.
    â€œYou all right, Fingal?” Barry asked.
    â€œI’ll live,” he said. “Time we were off, and I want you to drive.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œThat hill up to the Houstons’ can be a bugger when it’s slippy,” O’Reilly said. “You drive and if needed I’ll get out and push.”
    The two men got in and Barry reversed out of the garage.
    As they drove up to the front of Number One the snow was falling fast, whirled into spirals by a vicious northeaster. Although it was only midmorning, the steeple of the Presbyterian church opposite Number One was difficult to make out, and the old yews were bowing under the weight of the damp flakes.
    â€œI’ll go and get them,” O’Reilly said when Barry had parked. It really was as cold as a witch’s tit, he thought as he hurried along the short path and on into the house. “Come on, Maggie, and bring Jasper.”
    On the way back to the car the gormless animal kept bounding and clicking his jaws, trying to catch snowflakes in his mouth.
    â€œIn you get,” he said, holding the back door open and closing it behind them. He climbed in the front. “Off we go.”
    Barry pulled away from the kerb and drove along roads where the few vehicles caught out in the storm crept along. Nobody in their right mind would be driving in this unless they had to.
    â€œCan yiz no’ go any faster, Doctor Laverty?” said Maggie from the backseat. “I’m main worried, so I am. We’re only hirpling along like an ould snail with rheumatism.”
    â€œI’m going as fast as I can, Maggie. There’s a lorry up ahead and I can’t pass him in this lot.”
    The swirling snow was barely kept at bay by the windscreen wipers.
    â€œPoor Sonny’s all alone, bless him,” Maggie said, “but for his dogs. I hope til God he’s had enough wit til get a fire lit. It would skin you alive out there.”
    â€œI’m sure—” O’Reilly began, but Maggie continued. “Och, but I don’t know. The last wee while I’ve had til remind him til brush his teeth. Comb his hair. I telt him yesterday he’d forget his head if it wasn’t screwed on his shoulders.”
    Memory loss, O’Reilly thought, emotional lability, and the loss of temper she’d already described? He knew they occurred with toxic confusional states or—and