1
A Rose by Any Other Name
Someone was ringing the front doorbell of Number One, Main Street, and insistently at that. Doctor Fingal Flaherty OReilly was eating a solitary lunch of cold roast ham, hard-boiled eggs, and salad while his partner, Doctor Barry Laverty, was out on an emergency home visit. “Coming,” OReilly roared, put down his knife and fork and, grabbing his sports jacket from the back of a chair, headed for the front hall. His housekeeper, Kinky Kincaid, usually answered the door but today she was preparing for her wedding the following day.
The noon sun brightened the afternoon, but even its late-April radiance could add little lustre to the full vestments of Mister Robinson, the Presbyterian minister, who stood at the doorway wringing his hands. His rusty black robes, OReilly thought, made the man look like a dishevelled crow. “Yes, Your Reverence? Whats up?”
“Doctor, can you come across to the church at once? Please?”
“Somebody sick?” OReilly asked, shrugging into his jacket. “Ill get my bag.” He turned, but was forestalled by the minister grabbing an arm.
“Nobodys sick, but the war of the roses is breaking out in my church. Theres a row and a ructions, and I dont know what to do. Please come. If anybody in Ballybucklebo can stop it, its you.” He turned, trotted down the short gravelled drive, and was forced by a lorry heading from Bangor to Belfast to wait for OReilly to catch up. As soon as there was a gap in the traffic, the minister hurried across the road to the church with OReilly trailing behind.
“What row?” OReilly asked, catching his breath as they passed under the lych-gate.
“Maggie Houston and Flo Bishop.”
“Who? Maggie and Flo?” OReilly frowned as they passed into the shadow of the old yews in the graveyard. “But theyre old friends, for G—” Better not say “Gods sake.” His frown deepened. “I think,” he said, stopping in his tracks, “youd better explain before we go in.”
Mister Robinson sighed. “The ladies of the Womens Guild take it in turns on a weekly rota to look after decorating the church for services and ceremonies. Maggie Houstons on the duty this week. Because we all know Kinkys fondness for wildflowers, Maggies got them by the great gross—”
“For the wedding tomorrow.”
“Correct, but Flo Bishop, being matron of honour, even though its not her turn to do the flowers, has assumed responsibility for decorating the church with hothouse roses because she says Kinky deserves the very best. Shes formed a subcommittee with Aggie Arbuthnot and Cissie Sloan. Maggie whipped up support from Jeannie Jingles and Alice Moloney and…”
“And you have two regiments going at it hammer and tongs? The wildflower fusiliers and the red-rose rifles, right?”
“Right. Mrs. Bishop and her gang have commandeered the communion table and choir area and Maggie and their friends have placed themselves strategically—”
“Say no more.” OReilly, while being sympathetic to the ministers dilemma, was having great difficulty controlling an enormous grin. “Lead on, Macduff,” he said. “This is something Ive got to see.”
“Thank you, Doctor. They wont listen to me. But youll make them see sense.”
OReilly followed the minister until they reached the nave, where the perfume of flowers was overpowering even the dust of two hundred years that usually haunted the old building.
On Maggies side, heaps of freshly plucked wildflowers were piled on the front pew. Roses on the opposite side of the aisle formed Flo Bishops ammunition dump.
The two groups, led by their respective champions, stood facing each other at the top of the nave.
“Youll do no such thing, Maggie MacCorkle—”
“Its Mrs. Houston to you, Mrs. Bishop.”
Both women stood facing each other, arms akimbo, eyes afire, leaning forward, chins jutting. Flos teeth were clenched and there she had Maggie Houston née MacCorkle at a disadvantage. The older woman wasnt wearing her false ones, and clenched gums were less than threatening.
Lord, OReilly thought, harking back to his boxing days, And in the blue corner at one hundred and eighty pounds … “Ladies,” he said. “Ladies, whatever seems to be the trouble?”
He could make no sense of all the womens voices speaking at once, but made a shrewd guess about what was being said.
“All right, all right,” he said, “now settle down. Settle down.” He waited as Flo smoothed her dress as a just-pecked mallard duck would waggle her tail feathers.
Maggie adjusted her hat. It had a single wilted bluebell in its brim.
“Can we not sort this out like the civilised people we are?” he said.
Flo glowered at Maggie. Maggie folded her arms across her chest. Their supporters closed ranks behind their principals.
“All right,” said OReilly, “let me see if I can get this straight. Maggie. Maggie?”
“Yes, Doctor OReilly.”
“You and your friends love Kinky and you want her day to be perfect, dont you?”
“We do, so we do, but,” Maggie turned her frowning face sideways to Flo Bishop, “thon Flo—”
OReilly cut her off. “Flo, you and Aggie and Cissie feel the same way but think you know a better way to make Kinkys wedding day shine?”
Flo glowered and said, “Me and the ladies do love Kinky and she told me that on the night Archie proposed he give her red roses and thats why—”
OReilly cut her off too. He wanted no more petrol poured on the flames. “Whoa,” he said, “whoa, calm down and pay attention, the lot of you.” It wouldnt hurt to throw his weight around just a little bit at the beginning. Take control. “Now listen. I think I know Kinky Kincaid better than anyone in the village and townland. Wouldnt you all agree?”
Subdued murmuring of assent.
“Good. And just so were all clear, can we agree again that we love Kinky?”
Flo scowled at Maggie, who scowled right back.
“Ladies?” OReilly put an edge of steel in his voice. “Are we all agreed?”
“I am,” Cissie Sloan said. “I mind the day she first come til the village, so I do. No harm til you, Doctor dear, but it was way before your time, sir. It was a Wednesday—no, I tell a lie it was a Friday, and she—”
First defection on Flos side, OReilly thought, but lets not have Cissie ramble on too much.
“Houl your wheest, Cissie Sloan,” Jeannie Jingles said, but with a smile. “We all remember her coming and it doesnt matter a jot or tittle exactly when. What Doctor OReilly says is true. Theres not a woman in the whole townland more widely respected.”
A breakaway from solidarity with Maggie. “And what,” said OReilly, “if the respected Kinky was a fly on the wall here today. What do you reckon shed be thinking about all these silly selfish schoolgirl shenanigans?”
He waited, quite prepared to re-ask the question, but Cissie had started the rent in the fabric of Flos group.
“I think,” said Aggie Arbuthnot, tearing it further, “shed be sad to see her friends falling out over nothing, and,” her voice cracked, “Id not want for Kinky to be unhappy about nothing on her wedding day.” She sighed. “It would be a right shame if she was, so it would.”
“Youre dead on, Aggie.” Jeannie Jingles spoke for the opposition. “You just said a mouthful.” She smiled.
“Ill give you my twopennys worth,” said Alice Moloney. “I dont agree, and please lets not anybody get upset about that, but Kinkys a very sensible woman. I dont think shed be sad at all. I think shed be laughing like a drain at the lot of us going at it like a bull in a china shop—and all because we want the very best for her. Were all daft.” She turned to OReilly. “Were like a bunch of kiddies. Thank you, Doctor, for helping us to see that.”
OReilly inclined his head.
“Buck eejits,” said Maggie very quietly, “the whole lot of us, and Im sorry to have been so thran, so I am.”
A lovely Ulster word for “bloody-minded,” OReilly thought.
Mister Robinson, who for the duration of the recent discussion had wisely, OReilly thought, until now distanced himself from taking part, said, “‘Blessèd are the peacemakers, Matthew five and nine.”
“May I make a suggestion?” OReilly said.
Maggie and Flos “Please do, sir” was as one.
“Kinkys a country girl from County Cork. Shes loved wildflowers all her life. Im sure shed be delighted to have them at her wedding.” From the tail of his eye he saw Maggies grin start, so quickly added, “But Flo has a point too. I remember well the night Archie asked me for Kinkys hand and the beautiful red roses he brought with the ring that evening. I think theyd add a really romantic touch.” Flos smile kept Maggies company. He waited.
“So why,” said Maggie, “dont we do both? If thats all right with you, Flo?”
“Aye,” said Flo, “it is, Maggie, dear. We should have thought of that before, so we should.” She turned to Mister Robinson. “Im sorry about all the fuss over nothing, sir.”
“Its perfectly all right, now youve kissed and made up,” he said.
“And,” said Maggie, “once were done, I think the six of us and,” she hesitated then said, “Mister Robinson and Doctor OReilly if theyd like, should all go home to my house for a wee cup of tea in our hands and,” her toothless grin was enormous, “none of yousell go hungry. I just baked two plum cakes today, so I did.”
“That would be lovely,” Flo said, “wouldnt it, ladies?”
The other four women nodded in agreement.
OReilly caught the ministers eye. Hed seen the same glazed look on the face of a rabbit cornered by a fox. Clearly Mister Robinson had experienced Maggies stewed tea and cement-like fruitcake before and was searching desperately for an excuse so he could decline. OReilly himself had no such hesitation. “Id love to come, Maggie. I havent seen your cat, General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, nor Sonnys dogs for ages, but youll understand a doctors day is not his own?” She and the others would at least think they did, and any doctor could claim being needed by the calls of his profession. “But nothing, not a team of wild horses, will keep me from the wedding tomorrow.”
Copyright © 2014 by Ballybucklebo Stories Corp