Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party by Alexander McCall Smith

person. He made me feel so
small
.”
    â€œYou’re not small,” said Betty.
    â€œNo,” said Fatty. “I know.”
    He paused. “Come and lie beside me, Betty. Come and lie on my bed and hold my hand until I go to sleep, like you used to do when we were younger.”
    â€œOf course, my dear,” said Betty, slipping out of her bed and lowering herself onto the space prepared byFatty, who had rolled over to one side of the bed.
    â€œDear Fatty–”
    She did not complete her sentence. The bed collapsed.

7
    M RS . O’C ONNOR WAS PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDING about the broken legs of the bed.
    â€œThese things happen,” she said early the following morning, when Fatty sought her out in the kitchen to confess to the damage. “I remember, a few years ago, we had a couple of guests who …”
    She paused, and Fatty waited expectantly.
    â€œWho …” he prompted.
    Mrs. O’Connor said nothing. She had been wiping a surface when he entered the kitchen and now she resumed her task. He was watching her idly when, in a moment of shock, he realised that he recognised the pattern of the cloth. He was sure it was his shirt – or part of his shirt.
    â€œMy clothes,” he muttered. “What happened to them?”
    Mrs. O’Connor shook her head and deliberately changed the subject. “Does Mrs. O’Leary enjoy a cooked breakfast?” she asked.
    â€œShe does,” replied Fatty emphatically.
    â€œKippers?” asked Mrs. O’Connor.
    â€œOh yes,” said Fatty. “I read about your kippers and kedgeree.”
    â€œThere will be plenty of both,” said Mrs. O’Connor.“Whenever you’re ready, come down and have breakfast.”
    Fatty returned to the room to convey to Betty the news about breakfast. They were both ravenously hungry after their failed dinner the previous evening, and were looking forward to a substantial meal, at their own table. With any luck Rupert and Niamh O’Brien would not surface until much later; they did not seem the types to be up and about early. He imagined Rupert O’Brien in a silk dressing-gown, reading out his own column in the
Irish Times
to Niamh, who would also be clad in a silk dressing-gown and reclining in bed. The legs of their bed would be intact, too.
    He frowned as he remembered the piece of cloth with which Mrs. O’Connor had been wiping the kitchen table. Was it just a co-incidence that it should have the same pattern as his shirt, or had she … He stopped himself. It was an absurd idea: Why would Mrs. O’Connor steal his shirt and then cut it up to make cleaning cloths? No, however odd Ireland was, it was not
that
odd.
    Since it would take Betty half an hour or so to get ready for breakfast, Fatty decided to run himself a bath. The bathroom, which seemed to have been untouched since Victorian days, was dominated by an immense iron bathtub, standing on clawed feet, and crowned atthe deep end with glistening steel taps. At the top of each tap, set generously in ceramic, an ornate HOT and COLD enlightened one as to which tap was which. It was a museum piece of a bathtub, and Fatty was looking forward to sinking into a pool of steaming hot water, drawn, he imagined, from the sweet waters of the lough.
    With a sigh of pleasure, Fatty sank into the tub, allowing the resultant waves to slop over the edge and onto the stone-flagged floor. The water was just as he had expected it: an embrace as soft as the Irish air from which it had originally fallen as rain. He closed his eyes and tried a few lines of song. Fatty, who had a passable singing voice, enjoyed Neapolitan
bel canto
, which he had taught himself from a collection of old records discovered in a cupboard he had bought. Now he sang his favourite,
Comme facette mammeta? When your mother made you, how did she do it? To make your flesh, she took a hundred roses and milk, Concetta. For your mouth she