Fools of Fortune by William Trevor Page B

had knocked on the door while Big Lily was washing herself was one of the most repeated of all Sunday-afternoon stories. No one tired of retelling it, with variations from week to week.
    ‘ “Is that you, Blood?” she says. “Come in, Blood, I can’t see you in the dark.”’ De Courcy paused, allowing expectation to rise: de Courcy’s versions were always good. ‘“Evening, Mrs O’Toole,” Blood says, “I was passing and I saw the light. Is this penknife Mr O’Toole’s?” He holds out his own penknife and Big Lily shakes her head. She had covered herself up with a sheet she’d pulled off the line above the range. “Someone said it was Mr O’Toole’s,” Blood says. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Mrs O’Toole.” The next thing is he’s sitting down having a cup of tea and Big Lily is putting safety-pins in the sheet to keep it around her. “You’re a fine big boy, Blood,” she says. “You have lovely strong arms. Will I sit on your knee, Blood?” The next thing is she’s up on his knee and he has two of the safety-pins taken out of the sheet. “God, you’re a terrible boy, Blood,” she says, and in steps O’Toole, back for his tobacco. “Poor Blood got a fly in his eye,” she says, “I’m trying to lift it out with a corner of this sheet.” O’Toole gives a jerk of his head and says you have to be careful with anything in the eye. “Ah, there’s me tobacco,” he says, and as soon as he’s gone Big Lily has Blood down on the table.’
    ‘She’s a most respectable woman,’ Dove-White protested, as he always did, when de Courcy had finished. ‘It’s sheer nonsense, de Courcy.’
    ‘She spends four hours in Confession every Tuesday, sir. The priests go mad with excitement.’
    ‘I doubt that very much.’
    There were other accounts drawn from the private life of the nightwatchman’s wife, and many adventures concerning the legendary Blood Major. One in particular told how he had cycled down to Dublin one night and had been approached by a heavily made-up woman in Bachelor’s Walk. ‘Are you game for a drink?’ she suggested to him. ‘Will we go to Mooney’s?’ With alacrity Blood Major agreed and in the brighter light of the public house he noticed that the woman was a good deal older than his mother. Her coat was of worn fur, her hair a shade of brass. Each time she laughed the sound ended in a bout of coughing which caused her several chins to wobble. ‘They have good-class mahogany in here,’ she said after Blood Major had bought her a glass of Smithwick’s. ‘Spanish mahogany, the best you can get.’ She was particularly fond of mahogany, she revealed, and a desultory conversation about the timber then commenced, during which Blood Major edged a knee closer to one of his companion’s. On her recommendation, he examined the mahogany counter and the drinking cubicles, and the frames of the mirrors which advertised different brands of spirits. You’d never find better mahogany than that, the woman assured him. ‘Will we try another glass, dear? Isn’t it lovely and warming?’ As she spoke, she returned the pressure on her knee and placed a hand on Blood Major’s thigh, saying he was a fine big boy. ‘Take care with that one,’ a man in a bowler hat warned him at the bar. ‘She’s up to her neck in the pox.’
    It was stories such as these, and the use of improper language and obscene references, that inspired the crusade of Mad Mack, whose avowed intention was to cleanse the school of verbal grime. He had a band of minions, stern-faced youths whom he’d imbued with his puritan zeal and invested with the authority of prefects.
    ‘Abominable man,’ was Dove-White’s unvarying opinion of the mathematics master. They had not addressed one another for fourteen years, Mad Mack in turn considering Dove-White ludicrous and ineffectual.
    ‘Take yourself to the back,’ Mad Mack had ordered during my first mathematics lesson, and I joined the row of farmers’