casually passing by, had encountered Pat sitting on a rock in his garden puffing on a Major cigarette and smiling, what they most likely would have thought to themselves would have been, “Now there’s a fellow looking happy and contented with himself. I suppose that’s what making a good job of hosing down the yard does for you!” Which would have been diverting and amusing but would have absolutely no connection with the actual reasons behind Pat’s undeniably broad and sunnily engaging smile. Or indeed any of his thoughts at that particular smoke-puffing moment, which were more along the lines of, “What a time we had last night!” and “I hope you’re happy down there, Mrs. Tubridy—or should I say, Mrs. Whale!”
What had happened was Pat had arrived in to find Mrs. Tubridy dressed up to the nines, with a lovely litde chiffon scarf knotted gaily around her neck and a definite whiff of quite expensive perfume emanating from her person. Not to mention a litde glasheen of whiskey cradled mischievously in her hand! So it wasn’t long before herself and her landlord—for what else was Pat, if not that!—were getting along like a house on fire as if to say to the bad times they had put behind them: “Bad times? What might you be doing loitering about this vicinity? I think you had best be off about your business, don’t you?”
“Oh, Pat!” was all you could hear Mrs. Tubridy squeal after they’d had two or three drinks, “Pat but you’re an awful man!”
Quite what Mrs. Tubridy must have thought when she woke up some hours later with her face wreathed in shadow and her wrists securely fastened to the head of what had once been Pat and Mrs. McNab’s bed, it is impossible to say for certain. One thing is for sure, it was shot through with a considerable measure of anxiety, for if it wasn’t, why would she bother to shriek, “Pat! Pat, what are you doing to me, for the love of God?” Which was of very litde value, for Pat did not even appear to hear this—he certainly made no effort to acknowledge it—as he busied himself attending to her ankles with some cord and repeating, with what must have been, to Mrs. Tubridy, a devastating irreverence, “Paudgeen! Sure, call me Paudgeen, Mrs. Tubridy! Paudgeen will do just fine!”
It could not have been pleasant for Mrs. Tubridy to perceive Pat approaching her—a matter of moments later—bearing a tundish and insisting that she open her mouth, all the better for him to insert the rusted zinc implement correctly. “Open up now!” were his exact words. “Open up now for Paudgeen like a good girl!”
Her resistance—what there was of it—was quite useless. In any case, her trepidation, when she witnessed the length of blue hose being uncoiled through the window from the yard, had effectively rendered her entire body weak and bereft of any form of physical strength or mental resolve. Her psychological reaction to Pat’s “After all—we can’t have you taking whiskey without water!” can only be imagined.
Initially, haste as regards the replenishment of the tundish’s contents was not a major concern of Pat’s, but this was not to last, and within a matter of mere minutes, the dazzling array of bottles—such a stupendous catalog of disparate brands: Johnnie Walker, Glenfiddich, Grouse, Bell’s, and Paddy of course!—were being utilized to form what was a veritable amber whirlpool which was subsumed with speed-of-light rapidity into the system of the prone and inert—however wide-eyed—Mrs. Tubridy, to be followed by a liberal dispensation of the natural mineral H20—a very liberal dispensation indeed, it has to be admitted, what might be termed “The Irrigation of Dolly Tubridy” having already begun, not to mention continuing apace. As Pat—feeling it appropriate at this advanced stage—lightened the proceedings by quipping, “Perhaps you’d like a drop of water, Mrs. Tubridy? You would? Why certainly, Mrs. Tubs! We have some right here!” The hose leaping into his hand as some well-trained, dutiful house snake.
There were all sorts of rumors to be heard doing the rounds in Gullytown for the few weeks following—but then, there are always rumors. One even led to Smiler McAlpine, a part-time laborer who was working on the roads near the McNab house (pruning bushes, mostly), leaning over the hedge and observing through the curling horns of smoke that unwound from his pipe to Pat who was yet again enjoying a Major cigarette upon what might be considered his litde rock throne,