The Man with the Orange Eye Patch

I found an umbrella stuck in one of the trees in the garden. I think one of our neighbours used to be attached to it. She thinks she's Mary Poppins. Whenever the wind is strong she'll stand outside with her umbrella and let the wind take her away. The real Mary Poppins doesn't use the F word so often.

My uncle Cyril once got a tip on a horse from a man with an orange eye patch. Cyril didn't trust people who wore orange eye patches. He was also suspicious of people who wore T-shirts with words on them. If he saw a T-shirt that said 'Just Do It', he'd decide that not doing it was the better course of action. He also distrusted people who wore sandals and people who used the word 'yummy'. He had a certain amount of distrust for everyone, but if you wore sandals, a T-shirt that said 'Up The Cats' and you said, "This apple is yummy," he'd look around for something he could use as a weapon (he also distrusted people who ate apples).

If, on top of all that, you wore an orange eye patch, he'd use that weapon. But he only ever met one person who wore an orange eye patch, and this man seemed trustworthy in every other respect. He wore black leather shoes, grey trousers and a brown shirt. He seemed to have the strength of character that meant he'd rather poke himself in the eye than use a word like 'yummy'. His eye injury could have resulted from an accidental use of such a word. Perhaps he was reading a book out loud without paying attention to what he was reading, and when he realised he'd uttered the word he poked himself in the eye as recompense. The eye patch would be a badge of honour, a sign of true character, but choosing an orange one was undoubtedly a lapse.

Cyril took this into account, but he rarely failed to act on a tip, no matter who gave it to him. If the sandal-wearing person in a T-shirt offered a tip right after saying 'yummy', Cyril would probably put the weapon down. The man with the orange eye patch told Cyril to back a horse called 'Hoodoo Hetty'. This horse was thirty to one. He had never won a race before, and the fact that he was called 'Hetty' was another reason not to back him. On the other hand, being called 'Hoodoo' was something in the horse's favour. Cyril knew a man called Hoodoo, and he was able to bite a branch off a tree, which was certainly something in his favour.

Cyril put twenty euros on Hoodoo Hetty and the horse won by a nose. The fact that Hoodoo Hetty had a very big nose was another point in his favour, Cyril later realised. Just after he collected his winnings at the track he met the man with the orange eye patch. He was eating an ice cream cone. When he saw Cyril he said, "Use that money wisely and you'll get an even bigger return."

He winked and then he walked away. At least Cyril thought he winked. It looked like a wink, but one eye was concealed, so it could have been a blink. Cyril put a lot of thought into how he'd spend the money. Putting it in the bank seemed like the wise thing to do, but that wouldn't be spending it at all. And no bank offered as good a return as thirty to one. Putting it on another horse didn't seem very wise. Spending it in the pub was tempting, but it didn't seem wise either, especially when he remembered some of the things that had been on sale in the pub over the years. If he'd had the money a year earlier he might well have used it to buy a glass eye that had been found in an alligator's stomach.

He went to the pub to put some more thought into this. When he was in the middle of his third pint a woman came into the pub with a bag full of pencils. She was selling them for two euros each. She claimed that each one had been touched by the luckiest man in Ireland (you could see his fingerprints on them). This man was so lucky he could search for a needle in a haystack and find gold. He believed that all of his luck derived from never washing his hands, which is why you could still see his fingerprints on the pencils. Cyril bought one of them, and some of the other drinkers made a purchase as well.

As the woman was leaving the pub the bar man said, "Goodbye Hetty."

Cyril was convinced that this must be a sign. He went out after Hetty, and he asked her how many pencils she had left. She said she had 191 of them because she started out with 200 and she'd sold nine.

Cyril bought all of the remaining pencils, much to the delight of Hetty. "This is my lucky day," she said.

Cyril took his pencils back into the pub. As he was finishing his pint he started to wonder if buying 191 pencils was really wise. He'd only make a return on them if he sold them for more than two euros, and selling all of them would take a lot of time and effort. But then he realised that he hadn't just gained 191 pencils. He'd also acquired more luck than you could fit into 191 pencil cases. "This is my lucky day," he said to himself.

The bar man gave him a newspaper and he looked at the racing section. On the following day a horse called Lucky Buttercroot was running in a steeplechase. Cyril was at the track for the race. He put a hundred euros on the horse at odds of fifty to one.

Lucky Buttercroot fully justified his odds. He seemed to get bored in the middle of the race, and he slowed down to admire the scenery. He finished a distant last. As Cyril watched the horse pass the finishing post he was joined by the man with the orange eye patch, who said, "I hope you didn't bet on Lucky Buttercroot."

Cyril explained why he had bet so much on that horse and he showed him the pencils. He had brought them with him for luck. The man said, "Was it really wise to buy 191 pencils from a woman just because she shared a name with a horse?"

"When you put it like that," Cyril said, "no, it doesn't sound very wise. Hoodoo shares a name with a horse as well, and I wouldn't buy anything off him without having it disinfected first."

"I warned you," the man with the orange eye patch said. He licked his ice cream and he walked away. There was no wink this time, unless he did it with the eye under the patch.

Cyril still had some of the money left, and he hadn't given up hope of investing it wisely and making a return. He needed to get rid of the pencils first. He suspected that they were past their 'sell by' date as good luck charms. Yesterday was when he should have used them.

When he got home his wife, Joyce, was drinking coffee in the kitchen with a friend of hers called Louise. Cyril normally did his best to avoid Louise, but he thought she might be willing to buy the pencils, so he went into the kitchen. He showed her the pencils, and she was speechless for a while. She had been talking about writing a novel for years, but she was waiting for the right time to begin. She had been reliably informed that if you began too soon you could end up roaming through bogs in the middle of the night in your sleep. When she saw the pencils she imagined the thousands of pages she could write with them, and she found this thought exhilarating.

"This is the message I've been waiting for," she finally managed to say. "Today is the day I begin my novel. I'll take them." When she noticed the finger prints on the pencils she said, "But have them disinfected first."

Over the next six months Louise spent most of her free time writing her novel, which meant that her visits to Cyril and Joyce's house were less frequent. This brought Cyril considerably more peace in the evenings. He'd have paid thousands of euros for this. He didn't have to hide under the stairs, filled with terror at the prospect of being asked for his opinions on love. He felt as if he'd received an excellent return on his investment, and this freed him from a need to invest the remainder of the money wisely, so he spent it in the pub.

The moose's head over the fireplace had a scarf in his antlers when I came downstairs on Sunday morning. I think the scarf is exploring the house during the night. As long as it doesn't bite or lay eggs, I don't mind what it does. My grandfather once told me that one of his cousins spent years exploring the house by night. He came to visit one evening. He had a few glasses of whiskey, and then he got lost on the way to the bathroom. He spent the rest of the night trying to find his way back to the hall, and after a few hours he started to enjoy it because it provided an escape from his troubles (he was struggling to raise the money to fix the holes in the roof of his house). They found him two years later. He had grown a beard by then, and he'd also found inner peace. My grandfather just asked him if he'd found the bathroom.

Past Lives

We've had all sorts of weather over the past week: strong winds and heavy rain, even some sunshine. There are few things more enjoyable than walking around a snow-covered garden early in the morning. The wife's aunt says she can hear the voices of the snowflakes as they fall. One of them asked her for directions to the nearest Methodist church. She was sorry she wasn't able to help it.

My cousin Hector met his friend Steve one day, and they set out for Sean's house. They expected to find him in his garden, admiring his turnip. He was proud of the fact that he had made it grow. The turnip had done some of the work as well. Sean saw himself as a teacher. He imparted his knowledge, sometimes encouraging his students, sometimes threatening them. There was only one student in this class. The combination of encouragement and threats worked well on the turnip.

But when they arrived at Sean's house they found him trying to read his knees. He'd written something there after leaving the pub on the previous evening, but he couldn't remember what it was, and he couldn't remember why he wrote it on his knees when he could have written it on his arm or on his foot.

He asked Hector and Steve to try reading it, but they thought that reading another man's knees would be overly intimate. Hector suggested going to see Clare in the library. She spent a lot of time reading through old documents and letters. A local man had donated his grandfather's correspondence to the library. The grandfather had been a writer and an ornithologist who was best remembered for writing a song about being haunted by a ghost who kept sneezing on him.

Clare used a magnifying glass to examine Sean's knees, and the conclusion she came to was that the writing was Japanese. She suggested going to see Dermot, who lived just outside the town.

Dermot believed in past lives. He saw himself as a Russian doll, with all of his past selves inside him. He thought he'd become part of something bigger when he dies. He couldn't predict what this would be, but he wanted to find out more about the past lives inside him.

One evening he was in a Japanese garden in West Cork. The garden had been created by a man who claimed that God told him to speak to oranges, and the oranges told him to build a Japanese garden. Dermot felt at home there, and he believed that this was because he had been Japanese in a past life. Ever since then he'd been obsessed by Japan. He made his own Japanese garden. You'd often see him standing in it in the evenings. He'd be wearing a kimono or swinging a Samurai sword.

When Sean told him about the Japanese writing on his knees, Dermot said, "You wrote that because you were my servant in a past life. You'll only be fulfilled if you're my servant again. This is the message your knees are sending out to you. Something inside you is crying out to be my servant."

Sean's knees had never let him down before, so he agreed have a go at being Dermot's servant.

After his first day of work he thought he did feel slightly more fulfilled. He enjoyed working in Dermot's vegetable garden because he was able to teach a class full of students.

Just as he was about to go home in the evening he saw Vera, Dermot's fiancee. He got the feeling that he'd seen her somewhere before. She saw him too, and she seemed slightly embarrassed. He wondered if they remembered seeing each other from their past lives. But he had a feeling that there was more to it than this. He considered the possibility that they had an affair in a past life. He enjoyed dwelling on these thoughts.

While he was working in the vegetable garden on the following day he remembered where they'd seen each other before. They'd met in the pub, and he had convinced her to give him her phone number. He had written it on his knees because he didn't have any paper. Due to the alcohol he'd consumed and the difficulty of writing on his knees, the number looked vaguely like Japanese writing.

He still held onto the belief that they had met in a past life. He believed that they were drawn together in this life because of their relationship in the past. But there was a barrier between them in this life: he was a servant to the man she was engaged to. This made him sad, and it felt right to be sad.

Hector and Steve didn't believe in past lives. They thought that he only felt fulfilled as a servant because he got to work with vegetables. They were determined to free him from this role, and Steve came up with a plan. He said to Hector, "We need to leave a message for Dermot from his past self, the Japanese one. Ideally it should be in Japanese."

"I don't think he really knows Japanese. He thought the phone number on Sean's knee was Japanese."

"Okay. We'll do it in English."

"What will the message be?"

"One of us will go into his room while he's sleeping and write these words on the wall: 'You must marry Vera as soon as possible and experience all of the delights she has to offer before you become a eunuch.'"

"Did they have eunuchs in Japan?"

"I think so. But it doesn't really matter. I'd be very surprised if Dermot knew. All that matters is that he'll think he wrote it himself in his sleep, under the guidance of his past self. It'll scare him out of his belief in past lives."

Sean had a key to Dermot's house. Hector and Steve took it out of his coat pocket after he finished work one evening, while he was busy drowning his sorrows.

They went to Dermot's house at two o' clock in the morning. They both went into his bedroom while he slept. Hector looked to see any signs of him waking while Steve wrote the message on the wall.

When Sean turned up for work on the following morning Dermot told him he was released from his duties. Sean was delighted because it meant he could get back to his turnip.

Later that day, Dermot told Vera that they couldn't get married because they just weren't suited to each other. She smiled, and then she realised that a different reaction was called for, so she tried to look serious. She nodded and said, "Perhaps you're right."

After leaving him she went straight to Sean's house to look at his turnip. Dermot abandoned the idea that he used to be Japanese in a past life. Instead he claimed that he used to be Napoleon.

The moose's head over the fireplace likes looking out at the snow. It probably reminds him of his own past life. The wife's uncle says he was once engaged to a woman who believed she used to be Karl Marx in a past life. He couldn't marry her because he thought of Karl Marx every time he looked at her. Her beard probably didn't help.

The Regulars

There's nothing more relaxing than standing in the glasshouse and looking out at the birds in the garden. There are few things more stressful than being a member of the local bird watching association at the moment. They've split into two rival groups because of a dispute over who put a ham sandwich into their president's mouth while he was asleep. I spent an hour watching them in the fields on Saturday afternoon. One group were crouched behind a ditch and their rivals were crouched behind the ditch at the opposite side of the field. They were watching each other. I found it very relaxing.

My uncle Harry often went to a pub owned by a man called Dan. The pub was rarely full, but Dan had a loyal band of regulars who kept the business going. For years he saw the same faces every night, and he heard them talking about the same things. They'd tell rambling stories they'd told before and they'd have the same pointless arguments about politics. He'd often been tempted to take up drinking just so he could enjoy these things as much as they did, but a drinking habit was a dangerous thing to have when you had such easy access to alcohol, so he'd always managed to resist the temptation.

He looked for other ways to liven up his life. He started experimenting with new drinks. This didn't go unnoticed by the regulars. Harry went into the pub one evening and ordered a pint of Guinness, and when he got it he couldn't help noticing the fish in the glass. The fish's tail was sticking out of the pint's head. Most of the head ended up on the counter because the tail was still flapping about. Dan put a bowl full of water on the counter and he said, "You can put the fish in here, if you want."

Harry wanted to put the fish into the bowl, and he did. He didn't really want to drink the pint even after the fish had been removed, but he didn't want to offend Dan either, so he drank it.

To his surprise, it was the best pint he'd had in years. All of the other regulars agreed that the presence of the fish brought a pleasant variety to their drinking habits. Only Paddy chose to leave the fish in the glass. He'd swallow the pint and the fish in one go. He saw it as a free dinner, and he loved the feeling of the fish moving around in his stomach. One evening he picked up the pint and he said to the fish, "I've just been eating Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Don't you be eating any of them while you're down there." After swallowing the fish he remained completely still for a few minutes. It looked as if he was trying to determine if the fish was eating any of the chocolates.

Paddy enjoyed the combination of the Guinness, fish and chocolate. Dan and the other drinkers were fascinated by this. They wondered what other combinations of foods they could get him to try. They came up with some strange recipes, like fried robin in jelly, or eel and marshmallows on toast.

Paddy said he'd love to try the eel and marshmallows on toast, so Dan prepared it for him on the following evening. Paddy enjoyed eating it as much as the others enjoyed watching him. This became part of a new routine in the pub. They'd watch Paddy eating something that was cooked according to a recipe they'd discussed on the previous evening, and then they'd discuss other recipes. Dan was delighted with this new routine. It was much more interesting than listening to Owen's story about the time he saw a flying dog.

Things took a surprising new turn one evening when a man came into the pub and said, "I've heard you serve turkey and ham with moths in a Pepsi sauce."

Dan paused before saying, "Yes. I do."

"Can I have that please? With fries."

"I don't think I can manage the fries."

"I'll just have the turkey and ham with moths in a Pepsi sauce so."

Dan prepared the meal for his new customer. The man enjoyed it, and the regulars enjoyed watching someone else eat one of Dan's dinners.

On the following evening more new customers arrived and ordered food. Some of them were so impressed they came back again on the following evening, and they brought other people with them. Within a week, Dan had printed menus and he'd hired a waitress, his niece.

The regulars hated what had happened to the pub. It had become a restaurant, and it wasn't the sort of restaurant they liked. Not that they liked any sort of restaurant, but if they had to go to one they wouldn't choose a place where people talk about what wine would go well with that coriander sauce, and how the matter was complicated by the fact that the coriander sauce went surprisingly well with the beetle.

The regulars tried drinking in another pub, but it just wasn't the same. They knew they wouldn't be happy until Dan's pub was restored to its former glory. They had to put an end to the restaurant. It was for Dan's own good, they said. The fad for pig's tails in white chocolate would pass and he'd be left with nothing.

They had to find a way of repelling his new customers, but how do you repel people who are attracted to a place where they can eat grilled mice with cheese and indigestion tablets? They suspected that most of the customers were only there because it was the fashionable thing to do.

Harry and the other regulars convinced Dan to let a man called Ford perform in the pub. He was known as Ford because he used to live in an old Ford car, until he started living in the woods. He sang songs about his life, and he played a homemade guitar. Dan was reluctant to let Ford play in the pub because he thought his new customers wouldn't like it.

"Did you think they'd like eating donkey liver and paper?" Harry said. "We came up with that recipe, and all of the others. We know what they like, and they'll love Ford."

"Okay then," Dan said. "He can play here tomorrow night."

Ford started his set with a song about trying to coax a squirrel into his mouth. He set a trap by lying on the ground with his mouth open and a nut on his tongue, but the squirrel was too quick for him.

At first the diners seemed to enjoy the performance, but then they started to suspect that Ford really meant what he was singing about. They noticed the scars and the dirt on his hands. The smell made them breathe through their mouths as much as possible, which was awkward when they were trying to chew a mouse's tail.

You'd need a strong stomach to endure Ford's song about his homemade lavatory. That stomach could be severely weakened by the presence of rabbit's ears stuffed with candyfloss. All of the diners had left before the end of this song.

Ford kept on playing for another two hours, a performance that was greatly appreciated by the regulars, who were in a celebratory mood after reclaiming their pub.

They were on their own again on the following evening. Dan was disappointed because he had a freezer full of mice and he didn't know what to do with them. Paddy said he wouldn't mind licking a frozen mouse that had been dipped in whiskey. Within minutes all of the regulars were doing just that.

The moose's head over the fireplace has spent a lot of time reading the newspapers recently. I'm happy to hold them up for him because I want him to read the racing section and offer a few tips, but so far this year he's only made predictions about the weather. This suits the wife's uncle because he bets on the weather with his friends. He had twenty euros on the rain on Sunday and it won by three lengths.

Fifty-Seven Wise Men

The decorations are back in the shed for another year. One of the reindeer has made a bid for freedom. He'll probably turn up somewhere. One year they all escaped. I found them in a field a few miles away. They were looking at a dog, but he was staring at a tree, as if he was trying to pretend that the reindeer were just a figment of his imagination.

My cousin Ronan wanted to be a knight after reading Don Quixote. He intended to fight in the cause of justice, to right wrongs and defend the weak, but he didn't know how to make a start in this career. He needed the advice of a wise man. In trying to decide which wise man to consult he realised that there were fifty-seven of them in the parish. The youngest was only six. He needed to determine which wise men were genuine, so he decided to interview them.

He met some interesting people during the interviews. One of the wise men invented his own alphabet. Each letter was a square. He'd colour in the squares to add another layer of meaning or to indicate how deeply felt his words were. The word 'ant' in yellow and red letters meant an ant on fire. The word 'ground' in blue and grey letters meant concrete. The word 'grandmother' with a white 'e' and a black 'r' meant that the black and white cat was on his grandmother's head again.

Many of the wise men pointed at the sky when Ronan asked them questions. He decided to eliminate them from the selection process because they wouldn't be of much practical use to him. A few of them pointed at the sky and said 'The balls of fire' every time he asked a question.

When he came to Barry his first question was 'What do you think of the balls?'

"I don't think much of them," Barry said. "I don't think much about anything any more. It leaves me a lot of time to think about nothing, which I find fascinating."

"What did you do with the thing you found in the box?"

"I put it in another box."

"What did you do with the box?"

"I gave it to Martha. She wanted me to hold her, so I gave her a box."

"I knew a woman who wanted me to hold her cat."

"Cats can be tricky. So can medicine. And sisters who wake ghosts. They can't just leave sleeping ghosts lie. I once lied to a ghost when I was sleep-walking. That woman over there told me about it."

"How long has that woman over there been over there?"

"I don't know, but she hasn't always been over there. She was on a horse once. Some cats wear Eiffel Tower hats."

"What did Mrs. Bishop think of your lunacy?"

"It was only a day of lunacy. One day of lunacy a year."

"I saw what you did to your brother's van."

"Mrs. Bishop is always a bridesmaid, never a van. That's what she used to say. Of course, it isn't entirely true."

After the interview Ronan decided that Barry was potentially a wise man. He was one of only two men who displayed genuine wisdom. The other was Eric, who was very tall and thin, but he had a big head. He always looked off-balance. He said he'd rather have fat legs and a small head, but he might not have been so wise then.

He was given this advice by a very wise man: stay in one place to get to where you want to go. Don't speak to communicate. Stay, and things will come to you. A kingdom will come your way.

This suited Eric because when he moved he was liable to fall over. He spent most of his time sitting in the shade of a tree near his house.

Ronan couldn't decide which of these two candidates was wiser. He thought that the best way to settle it would be to see how they reacted to a practical problem. The problem was provided by a man called Danny. Reason and instinct were always at war in his head, and he trusted neither. He chose to sit quietly while the war raged inside him. He'd drink tea, and sometimes he'd spend hours trying to write with his left hand and his right hand at the same time. He didn't trust his hands either.

One evening his left hand drew a rock with eyes while his right hand drew a dog straining hard to grow feathers, and succeeding. Over the following days he kept drawing strange things, and strange things started happening. He saw a brass band emerge from the lake. He started picking up strange channels on his TV. Some of the shows on these channels seemed to be endless. He spent twenty-four hours watching a juggler trying to juggle two camels, and failing. On another channel he saw a man being read by a book. By the end, the book knew who the man's author was, but it wouldn't say.

One day Ronan saw Danny trying to shove a dragon into his coal shed. He was having trouble getting the dragon in through the door. This was just the sort of situation where a wise man should be consulted to find a practical solution.

Ronan went to see Eric first. He explained the problem Danny was having with the dragon, and Eric said, "Stay well away from it. That's my advice. Stay where you are. That's what I'm planning on doing."

There was undoubtedly some wisdom in what he said, but it didn't provide a practical solution to the problem.

Barry was willing to look at Danny shoving the dragon into the coal shed, but he didn't seem to know what to do about it. He looked for twenty minutes without saying anything.

Ronan finally broke the silence when he said, "Why don't we ask that woman over there?"

Barry turned around and looked at the woman. He said, "Wasn't 'over there' somewhere else the last time we looked at her?"

"It was."

"That means she's been following me around."

"Ask her about the dragon."

"No. I'd have to talk to her. And if she's been following me around she might start talking to me then."

"Didn't she talk to you before, when she told you about lying to the ghost?"

"She did, but she hasn't said anything in a long time."

"She's bound to start talking to you again sooner or later."

"That's not necessarily the case. My aunt hasn't spoken to me in over ten years. Although she's been following my uncle around for most of that time. And I've been avoiding both of them."

"You can't avoid talking to a woman who's been following you around. This would be a good time to break the ice."

"I suppose so."

Barry went over to her and he asked her what she thought about the dragon. She said, "Is it really wise to put a dragon into a coal shed? I mean, what if he set the place on fire?"

Danny stopped trying to push the dragon in through the door as he thought about this. He realised that she was right, so he let the dragon go. He chased it away with a shovel.

Barry had provided a practical solution, in a roundabout way, so he was the wise man who Ronan would consult about his career as a knight. Barry said he'd need to read Don Quixote before giving any advice. He's still reading it eight years later.

The moose's head over the fireplace is revered by the reindeer. I often came downstairs in the morning and saw them looking in the window at him. A lot of people look up to him as well. He has a reputation for being wise, and many people have sought his advice over the years. They've always said that his silent stare was the best advice they got.