The Tay Is Wet

Great romantic odes poets have set

Praising Beatrice and pert Juliet

Even Mozart ne’r made

Such a sweet serenade

As “come in, wipe your feet, the tay’s wet.”

At the weekend their hair they let down

All the country folk painted the town

And the Duke in his kilt

Sang a highlander’s lilt

Mondays some had a hung-over frown

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 early summer when the flight into Roggart was in full swing the cyclists were scattered off the road by a motor car which was being driven at speed and in an erratic
manner.

‘It’s the Duke,’ someone shouted, ‘he’s got himself a car.’

The Duke’s real name was Donald Dunlase. He had come from Scotland when he was twelve years old to be reared by his aunt Matilda, a widow, who lived in a small well kept cottage at the end of Deery’s lane. He was called “the Duke” locally because he always boasted that he was descended from “The Duke of Lammermoor,” whom nobody in Roggart had ever heard of. He was a colourful character who sometimes wore a kilt and was considered by some to be acting above his station in life.

He could converse on any subject although he had left school at fourteen. He worked in the local hardware shop selling farming items but he had ambitions to achieve higher things. The car had been won by the Duke at a “Pitch and Toss” gambling session and there was much gossip and amusement when the Parish Priest used this as the subject of his anti-gambling Sunday sermon. This did not bother the Duke at all as he rarely attended church, a characteristic which did not exactly endear him to mothers who had daughters of marriageable age.

Getting a car had been a long held ambition of the Duke. He could not drive but was always prepared to take a chance and, with luck, attain some measure of success. On that first drive into Roggart the last cyclist he passed was Timmy Deery and as he passed he hooted the horn loudly and Timmy got such a fright that he fell off the bike and onto the grassy bank along the roadside. Timmy was not hurt but he had recognized the driver and promised himself he would get even. The Duke had parked the car right outside the cinema entrance and Timmy rubbed his hands with glee when he saw it. He gazed nonchalantly at the car and then, breaking an old used matchstick between his teeth, he walked around to the side which was next the road and quickly inserted this into one of the uncapped tyre valves. He then casually went in to see the film.

The Duke noticed the flat tyre as soon as he came out of the cinema.

‘Blooming Lough Lomond, do ye ken that,’ he said in his
loud Scottish accent. Then turning to a small group of tittering
local youths he said, ‘Here, laddies, did ye see anyone interferin’ wih ma car tyres?’

The youths all shook their heads but one of the older and cheekier of them spoke up.

‘I saw someone at your wheels, mister.’

‘Did ye now laddie and what were they doing?’

‘They were washing them.’

‘Wha’ ye mean, what did they look like?’

‘They were two dogs, mister.’

The outbreak of laughter caused by this remark did not last very long. The Duke, who had a tall intimidating presence, was not likely to be deterred by a bunch of young smart aleks.

‘So, twa dogs was it? Do any of you laddies want to earn some hard cash?’

The Duke took out a handful of silver which made the young lads gasp.

‘Yeah,’ ‘please,’ ‘me,’ ‘I do.’

They all swarmed forward and under the directions of the resolute, but genial, Scotsman the wheel was soon changed. He
then jumped into the driving seat, wound down the window and, throwing a handful of coins out, drove away in a cloud of exhaust smoke. He smiled as he observed the scrimmage over the coins in his back view mirror. The youths rushed into the small general store which was still open to spend their new-found wealth but they were not smiling when they handed over the coins to pay and the shopkeeper shook his head.