The Tay Is Wet by Ben Ryan

I
T IMMY AND THE D UKE
    Ivor Nale, whistled “Over the Rainbow” as he worked to repair the door of the old cow-byre which had been damaged by an agitated cow the previous day. Ivor was a local handyman and was often called upon to carry out odd jobs for the Deery family. Inside the cow-byre Timmy Deery sang “I’ll Be Seeing You” as he milked the remaining ten cows. Sonny Deery, Timmy’s brother, quietly finished strigging the nervous cow in a nearby shed.
    As Timmy’s singing got louder, Ivor also increased the volume of his whistling. Soon the two were building up a cacophony of noise as one tried to drown out the other. Sonny’s patience was wearing thin, as he was finding the cow, which had a sore elder, difficult to milk.
    ‘Stop that infernal racket,’ he roared.
    At this the nervous cow lashed out with her back legs and overturned Sonny’s bucket of milk. The only one to show approval at this calamity was the Deery cat, which always lurked around at milking time ready to lap up any milk that was spilt. When the cow calmed down Sonny read the riot act to the two jokers and then stomped back to resume his delicate task.
    ‘He has no ear for music,’ Timmy muttered, ‘You know, Ivor, the great fire of Chicago started when a cow kicked over an oil lamp and set fire to the straw bedding.’
    ‘Is that right?’
    ‘Yes, it is, I saw it at the pictures.’
    Timmy was an ardent cinema-goer. He would cycle the ten miles from the old stone farmhouse, where he lived with his brother, Sonny, and sister-in-law, Henrietta, and their three teenage children, to the town of Roggart, which boasted the only cinema in the county that showed the latest Hollywood films. My father knew him well as they were class-mates in primary school. An unusual incident with a pony took place one day at the school and both Timmy and my father were involved.
    Timmy was now regarded as the local eccentric. This was not because he was still a care-free bachelor at forty years of age, but rather because of small mannerisms and idiosyncrasies which he exhibited. For instance he rubbed his hands together when he was excited. He did not drive a car, even though Sonny’s old Hillman Minx would be available to him as the brothers got on well together. He did drive the old Fordson tractor, but only on the farm. He rode a green bicycle while everyone else’s was black. His speech was slurred yet he could sing clearly and, in fact, was quite a good singer. He was not learned yet was an excellent hand-writer. Recently he had received a strange letter in the post and also had begun a new unconventional behaviour. Every Saturday morning he would get up an hour earlier than he usually did and ride off towards town on the green bicycle. He always returned home in time to start work on the farm as usual. If anybody questioned where he had been his family and friends simply said “He’s in training for the Olympics.” But Henrietta was walking past a hotel in Roggart one morning and noticed a green bicycle leaning against the hotel wall.
    ‘That’s odd,’ she thought, but as she had an urgent doctor’s appointment, she continued on her way and by evening had for gotten all about it.
    The biggest night in Roggart was Saturday night. On this night a fleet of bicycles would sweep downhill towards the “Grand” cinema. Every active person, from sixteen to sixty, headed for town. They rode in groups of five or six together laughing and singing the latest songs from the radio. The girls would sing She wears red feathers and a hula-hula skirt or Meet me in St Louis, Louis, meet me at the Fair. Timmy was a strong cyclist and liked to imagine that he was riding to the Californian gold rush or that he was the Sheriff of Tombstone in pursuit of Jesse James and his gang. He would streak past the other cyclists while singing at the top of his voice I’ll be there, Mary Dear, I’ll be there, when the fragrance of the rose fills the Air.
    One evening in