Loopy (10 page)

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?”

Loopy got straight to the point. “Your dog needs to be fixed up right away. It won't wait till tomorrow.”

“So what do we do? There must be another vet somewhere.”

Out of respect for Loopy, who was still cradling her dog in his arms, she didn't add
in this godforsaken dump.

“There is, but he's miles away in Lisbeg. We could phone him from Foley's, the bar over there, but he could take forever—always supposing that we could contact him in the first place. This time of day, he's probably out on a call.”

Loopy bit his lip as he considered their situation. “Unless you have a better idea, I think we'd better bring him back to your place right away. It's only a mile or so from here.”

They were now halfway to The Old Rectory and Jake was struggling ever harder.

“Do you want to let him walk for a bit? You must be wrecked from carrying him all this way.” She had noticed him limping for the last few hundred yards. “Is there something wrong with your leg, too? Jake and you are quite a pair, both without a leg to stand on.”

“Better not let him loose on the road. Might get knocked down by a car or something. They drive like lunatics round here.”

“So I've noticed. Speaking of driving”—she patted his shoulder affectionately—“that was jolly decent of you to drive Dad home.”

She stopped in her tracks and put her hand to her mouth in horror. “Oh my God, did you have to
walk
home all that way after I nearly ate the head off you last night?”

“Yeah, I did.”

This time she stopped in front of him, her face only inches from his. Only Jake still cradled in Loopy's arms prevented her from hugging him.

“I'm
so
sorry. I completely misjudged you. I must have been an idiot to think you could ever be responsible for keeping my father out drinking. He told me this morning that you don't drink at
all!
Is that true? An Irishman who doesn't drink?”

She gave him a cheerful and wry grin. He thought how beautiful she looked when she smiled.

“'Fraid so. I haven't started yet anyway.” He didn't add that he couldn't afford to, even if he had wanted to. “As for the limp, I got a belt of a hurley a while back and it comes against me every now and again. Nothing to worry about.”

“So you play hurling. I've never seen a game, but is it really as rough and tough as I hear?”

“Sometimes. The better the teams the less likely you are to get hurt. In the All-Ireland for instance—that's much the same as the Super Bowl or Soccer Final in England, practically no one gets hurt.”

“Why's that?”

They were halfway up the avenue leading to The Old Rectory. In the daylight, Loopy could see that the rhododendrons lining the avenue were a riot of color. Every few yards, at regular intervals, a large stone urn, dripping with a flower of piercing purple, was set in a half-moon of perfectly trimmed lawn. The effect was stunningly beautiful even before the house itself came into view.

“Skill levels. The guys who make it to the All-Ireland know what they're doing. They're tough as nails but fair. In those games there's very little fouling or hitting someone with a hurley when the ref isn't looking their way.”

“So how did you get hurt then, if it's all so clean and sporting?”

Something in her voice told him that she wasn't just trying to be polite or anything like that, but that she was genuinely interested. How could he know that she was already quite taken by him and wanted to know everything she possibly could about him?

“I play—or I used to—on a much lower level. Every year Trabane plays Lisbeg, the town nearest to us. The two teams have been at each other's throat for as long as anyone can remember. It's in games like that, that you can get hurt, with the hurleys flying in every direction and the supporters on both sides yelling for blood.”

“So that's what happened to you?”

“Yeah, I won't be hurling again for a while. Doesn't affect the golf though, so it's not so bad.”

“Dad tells me that you're going to be a terrific golfer.”

She was turning the handle in the massive front door, studded with nails like a medieval fortress. The sight and smell of familiar surroundings was causing Jake to struggle even more.

“I don't know about that. It's more fun than I thought it would be, though.”

She closed the door behind them. “Why not let him down now. We'll see if he can walk now without falling over.”

When Jake sprinted for what proved to be the kitchen, they followed him at a more sedate pace as Amy continued, “That's interesting. That you find golf fun, I mean. Dad's been playing it for as long as I can remember, and it sounds boring as hell to be honest with you. As for his golfing friends, they all wear these silly clothes, talk about nothing but golf, and drink like fishes.”

During this, they had been trying to catch Jake, who was now looking much chirpier but still bleeding. In fact, a trail of blood led from the front door, along the polished parquet floor, and across the white kitchen tiles. Loopy found some old newspapers and put them on the kitchen table.

“We'd better have a look at his cut and see if his leg is alright. He seems to running round on it okay, but just in case, I think we should take a look at it.”

“
We
…?” Amy shuddered and turned pale as a ghost. “You, maybe, but not me. I can't stand the sight of blood.”

“That's okay. Why don't you boil some water and see if you can find a bottle of disinfectant. Whiskey or gin will do at a pinch.”

Amy returned with a bottle of gin and a glass. She poured a generous measure into the glass, saying, “This is for me, the bottle is for you and Jake. Also the boiling water. I won't even offer you a drink since you said you never touched the stuff.”

They caught the dog, who somehow knew what lay in store for him and put up an impressive struggle before they could manhandle him onto the table. Loopy rummaged around in the fur on his neck to find the wound. There were two, one quite severe, the other much less serious. He washed the cuts first, then rubbed in the gin as Jake yelped in pain and tried hard to bite him on the hand.

“There, there, poor boy, you're going to be just fine,” Loopy murmured to the struggling spaniel as the spirit worked its way into the cuts. Now Loopy needed Vaseline or something like it to rub over the wound. He had already waggled Jake's hind legs while keeping a firm grip on his throat. Though the dog yelped again, Loopy was fairly certain nothing was broken.

Amy was nowhere to be seen so he shouted, “Amy, do you have any Vaseline?”

She came back into the kitchen. The glass she had poured her gin into was now brimming with ice and tonic water. “Sure you won't have one of these? No? Right. Well, you probably think I am a complete idiot, but I really, really cannot stand the sight of blood. Makes me want to throw up on the spot. Now, what were you saying about Vaseline? Because I don't think we have any. Or if we do, I haven't a clue where to find it. Would face cream be any good? I've loads of that.”

“Yeah, might be.” Loopy was concentrating on working the hind legs up and down, much to Jake's annoyance. “Nothing broken anyway. His legs are fine, but they'll be a bit sore for a while yet.”

Still working the dog's legs up and down with one hand and holding the mouth closed with the other, thereby stifling any further plans Jake might have had to sink his teeth into his benefactor, Loopy didn't notice Amy approaching from behind. She cupped his head in her hands and drew him toward her.

“You are a truly wonderful person! I was
so
wrong about you. How can I ever thank you for what you did.”

With that, still holding his face in her hands, she kissed him long and hard on the lips. Then, breaking away after what seemed to Loopy to be quite the most delightful feeling he had ever experienced in his life, Amy grinned.

“I'd better get that face cream now while I can still remember it.”

While she was gone, Loopy tickled Jake behind the ears and was rewarded with a wag of his tail. He confided to the still-struggling spaniel, “You're going to be fine, and do you know something, Jake? So am I.”

CHAPTER FIVE

It was a perfect evening. The sun was dipping below the horizon, tracing a golden path along the shimmering, restless ocean. With just a few minutes left of twilight, the two golfers approaching the green quickened their steps. Silhouetted against the ocean, they were now in full view of Loopy. He had been gazing idly out the window as he polished the glasses. He would hold each one up to the light from the window for a final inspection before putting it back on the shelf.

The bar had a low ceiling into which lengths of timber had been embedded, then painted to look like rafters. From them hung a collection of glass, silver, and pewter beer mugs. The rustic effect was further enhanced by an assortment of earthenware jars, varying in size from one to five gallons. They all bore the modest legend, “Trabane 5 Star Special—The Finest, Purest, and Best Whiskey Obtainable.”

The claim could not be proven since the brand had disappeared off the market sixty years earlier. The glazed jars, however, had proven more durable, and the first task Loopy had been given when he'd started work in the bar had been to polish them until they gleamed. He marveled at the thought of farmers, maybe his ancestors, carrying home their weekly supplies from town on a horse-drawn buggy weighed down with sacks of flour, salt, sugar, chewing tobacco, and a jar of Trabane 5 Star Special.