“Sure you’ve never had much luck with your potatoes” Michael Duffy called over to O’Halloran in The Rocket one evening. As usual, the pub was graveyard quiet so earwigging wasn’t optional. It was unavoidable. He’d been standing at the bar and overheard Mangan and O’Halloran talking about the latter’s tuber issues.

O’Halloran grunted. He’d been complaining to Mangan how, for yet another year, his potato plants had black marks on the leaves and had produced very few spuds from the ground underneath.

“Sure the Smoladh is brutal like. Lookit, I replace mine every three seasons to stop the Blight.” Michael Duffy explained, “to make sure no imperfections get passed on through the generations – that’s what you should do, like.”

“That’s what your mammy should have done” O’Halloran wasn’t certain if he’d just thought that or muttered it out loud.

Everyone knew it was best to regularly use Scoiltean or seed potatoes from a different stock rather than keep re-planting some of the previous year’s but to do that, you needed money.

“Tell you what – I’ve a rake of Scoiltean in my cellar you’re welcome to…” O’Halloran looked up at the offer “..if you weed the front garden for Mrs Duffy, like”.

O’Halloran sighed.

“When?” Mangan asked and O’Halloran cut him a look that nearly let on how astonished he was.

“Would be grand if you could do it sometime in the next two weeks – while we’re away on holiday, you know”

Mangan and O’Halloran knew all right. The whole pub, probably the whole of Slieve Rue knew that at this time of year, the Duffy’s went on holiday to Mrs Duffy’s sister in Burnt Oak in London. He mentioned it to everyone he saw and spoke to about a month before and a month after it happened. It was unusual for a farmer to go on holiday but Michael Duffy reckoned that if he had to work on Sundays, Christmas Day and Easter then it was important to his productivity as a businessman to take some time off every year. He ran a successful farm that supplied potatoes to wholesalers. You’d see Duffy’s spuds, he never tired of telling anyone, at Dunnes Stores up and down the country.

He made sure everything on the farm was done before he left but had his brother come down from Wexford just to keep an eye on things. It was hard to sympathise with Michael Duffy’s mock complaints about the fortnight overseas where Mrs Duffy would splash out on the latest fashions leaving Mr Duffy very little money with which to go to Kempton Park or see the dogs race at Walthamstow. Rich people’s problems.

Right now, the only spuds belonging to Duffy O’Halloran wanted to see were of the seed variety in his cellar.

“How about the end of this week?” Mangan asked. He felt they’d both need a few days run-up to what would undoubtedly be hot, back-stiffening work. Duffy had a large front garden. Easily a good day’s work, maybe two.

“That’d be grand – we’re leaving tomorrow. In fact,” and Michael Duffy glanced at his watch, “I’d better be heading back home to help the Missus with the packing or she’ll be giving out”. He finished his pint and with a cheery “Thanks a million lads – I’ll sort ye out with the Scoiltean when I’m back in a fortnight” he breezed out of the pub and into his tractor that was parked in the car park.

The ticking of the clock on the floor got louder as the reassuring air of quietude returned to The Rocket. There’s something special about a quiet pub where usually just men sat and drank and thought.

O’Halloran stared at his pint glass – just an eighth full now - and after a while asked, “You in tomorrow lunchtime?”

“No – I’ve to see your man over in Rathinure about a bit of building work” said Mangan.

O’Halloran nodded.

“Should be in tomorrow night though”

O’Halloran nodded, drained his glass and shuffled out of the pub.

In fact it was three days before Mangan and O’Halloran saw each other in the pub. Mangan had been helping the man– name of O’Doherty – complete the building of his house in Rathinure.

“Saw a quare thing,” Mangan said when they met, “O’Doherty gave me a lift back on the last night – to say thanks, like – we’d knocked on till late to get it all done and were jaded – and what d’you think we saw on the road?”

O’Halloran shook his head. The enormity of choice of an answer rendered him speechless.

“Michael Duffy’s tractor”

“Probably the brother from Wexford” O’Halloran guessed.

“Could be..could be ” Mangan said, nodding. “Pretty late to be out in the tractor though. Ready to do His Nib’s garden tomorrow?” he asked.

“I am” said O’Halloran, “and I took a gander at it the other day – ‘tis in a desperate state -  fierce lot of weeds there are. Fierce”

“Considering he grows things for a living, he’s not very careful about his own backyard” said Mangan.

“It’s his front yard we’re doing” O’Halloran clarified.

“It’s just a figure of speech” sighed Mangan.

“Oh, right, so” O’Halloran nodded thoughtfully.

Twenty minutes went by before O’Halloran broke the silence,

“You know I was talking to Tommy Hogan yesterday and he was telling me he plants his fields according to the moon”.

Mangan let this sink in before eventually responding:

“How’d you mean?”

“He reckons potatoes grow better if you plant them the day of or the day after a full moon,” said O’Halloran, “something about moisture and root crops”.

“Tomorrow’s a full moon” Mangan observed.

“I know. Interesting, don’t you think?” O’Halloran mused.

There was no time for musing the next day when the men met up at the gate to Duffy’s garden – Mangan with a rake and hoe on his shoulder.

“You brought nothing ?” said Mangan.

“Sure, I leant my hoe to Jimmy Foley and he still has it” O’Halloran answered testily “but I brought these!” and he held up a squarish parcel wrapped in newspaper that Mangan hoped was some sandwiches but, knowing O’Halloran, might have been a couple of car brake pads or some kitchen scourers that in his world, would be vital for this gardening task.

“All right, all right - you can use mine” Mangan said and opened the gate.

The garden was awash with multi coloured roses, lupins, dahlias and chrysanthemums in beds on either side of the central pathway.

“You take that side, I’ll take this” Mangan gestured to one side of the garden. “We’ll put the weeds on that wheelbarrow over there and empty it on the compost pile in the corner.”

O’Halloran waved his hand in front of his nose “Jaysus, the whiff off that compost pile is powerful.”

“I know,” Mangan agreed, “must be some good stuff in there.”

There was little more to be said as the two men got stuck into it. Amongst the wheezing and grunting as they went on all fours and sometimes stomach first into the flower beds, there was an occasional curse as a rose thorn found its mark.

After two hours, the men stopped and left the garden by the gate. They ambled down the road fifty yards to the right to an old – but functioning – communal water pump. Mangan pumped whilst O’Halloran cupped his hands and gulped down gobs of soft, cool water. When he’d had enough, he motioned to Mangan whilst he pumped for him.

Then they returned to the garden wall and sat down leaning against it to see any passing traffic and for O’Halloran to open up what Mangan was relieved to see was some sandwiches. He knew they were fresh too because he could see some of the print from last Tuesday’s News and Star had come off on them.

As they ate slowly, Mangan said,

“You know, my side’s coming along just grand  – I reckon I’ll be done by the end of today”

O’Halloran nodded and grunted agreement.

“You never explained why you offered to help do this” O’Halloran said, spraying bits of bread and cheese from his full mouth.

Mangan didn’t need long to answer:

“Well, we’re friends and I want to help you get some decent seed potatoes”.

O’Halloran’s grunt was both his acknowledgment and his gratitude.

Just then, Tommy Hogan hurtled past in his small red Fiat – driving at a speed that country people do but which some nit-picking garda would describe as over the speed limit or “without due care and attention”. He gave the men a big smile and cheery wave as he went past in a blur.

“There goes Tommy – maybe he’s rushing to plant his cabbages in time for the full moon tonight.” Mangan ventured drily.

“Cabbages aren’t a root vegetable you eejit ”corrected O’Halloran, oblivious to Mangan’s sarcasm.

The fact that Tommy Hogan had been deaf since birth gave no-one locally any reason to think that taking blind corners full tilt might be an increased hazard to other road users as well as himself.

The sun was going down when the pain in their backs and a growing mound of compost in the corner were ample proof that a sack of seed potatoes was well and truly earned.

“Rocket?” said Mangan

“Jaysus Boy, yes” said O’Halloran ‘I’ve a throat on me.” The two men carefully closed the garden gate behind them and made their way down the road. Both had the same thought: the five minutes wait at the bar for their first pints to be poured would be almost as heavenly as actually drinking the stuff.

Now, to some people five pints of Guinness might seem excessive but considering the amount of work they’d done and the thirst they’d worked up and bearing in mind Mangan had a bit of cash from his building job in Rathinure, it was, in context justifiable by both men. And so was what followed.

“You know it’s a full moon tonight” said O’Halloran.

“I was after telling you that yesterday” Mangan countered.

“And we’ve completed our part of the contract with Michael Duffy…”

“Don’t think it was a legally binding contract as such, like” observed Mangan

O’Halloran continued, “And what with it being the full moon….”

“Which we already agreed.” Mangan said, not cottoning on to the plan that had occurred to O’Halloran back after pint number four.

O’Halloran sighed: “So why don’t we go and get those seed potatoes from Michael Duffy’s cellar so I can plant them tonight – in the full moon?”

“Break in you mean? Gway wit ya” Mangan’s legal sense hadn’t been blunted by five pints of the black stuff.

“Not break in – there’s some stairs down at the side of the house to the cellar door that’d you’d only need to lean up against and it’d give……” O’Halloran left the sentence hanging in the air. To him, breaking in was a violent act usually involving the interface between window pane and crowbar not a heavy lean on a rotting wooden door.

Mangan surveyed the pub and made the mistake of catching Mrs Power’s eye.

“C’mon, Boy” O’Halloran’s voice jerked Mangan’s attention back from the lady publican’s flinty gaze. “Michael Duffy won’t mind. We’d only be taking what was promised to us - in fact, he probably knows about planting using the full moon. He’d encourage us to do it”.

Mangan was about to say that Michael Duffy probably would have been happier if O’Halloran waited till the next full moon when the Duffy’s would be back from England but before he knew it, they were both walking slightly unsteadily along the road shoulder to shoulder back towards Michael Duffy’s house - Mangan’s rake and hoe still in his possession but now askew forming a letter X over his shoulder. Normally they’d have needed a torch to navigate their way but tonight not only was the moon helping root vegetables grow, it had bathed all of Slieve Rue in a silvery light.

“Sshh!” hissed O’Halloran needlessly as he slipped the gate latch and headed to the side of the house where he knew steps lead down to the cellar door.

Mangan followed crossly. “What’s that?”  he whispered, “I thought I heard something”.

“Wheesht a minute would ya ?” hissed O’Halloran again.

Somewhere below ground level where the moonlight didn’t shine, there was a squeak of screws slowly leaving their holes as O’Halloran gently pushed against the old wooden cellar door and it yielded.

“We’re in!” O’Halloran croaked over his shoulder from the gloom.

He disappeared inside and Mangan felt in his pocket for an old child’s torch he knew he had. You could tell the battery was on its last legs because it threw out a weak, watery yellow beam but it was enough to sweep past O’Halloran and onto shelves of roofing tiles, tools and boxes of nails.

“Feck!” O’Halloran shouted out as he barked his shin on something. Mangan shone the torch down to reveal an old galvanized metal watering can.

Then he flicked it back up and the shock of the watering can was as nothing compared to what was in the beam of Mangan’s torch: it was the face of Michael Duffy and he didn’t look pleased.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Mangan muttered, almost dropping the torch.

“What are ye doing in my cellar?” said Michael Duffy angrily.

“What are YE doing in your cellar” came O’Halloran’s voice from somewhere in the darkness.

Before anyone could speak, Mangan shone his torch at a noise over in the corner of the cellar and in the gloom, Marie Duffy and the two Duffy children – Tara and Roisin – sat on an old brass bed huddled together.

Michael Duffy lit a storm lantern and went and found two old milk churns and a feed container in the opposite corner to where his family were and invited the two men to “take the weight off your legs”

“Put the weeyans to sleep” he called over to his wife and, quietly so the children couldn’t hear, addressed the two men.

“Now, look, here’s the thing lads – things have been pretty tight recently and we couldn’t afford to go to London on holiday so we stayed down here so everybody would think we had”.

“And you’d come out after two weeks?” O’Halloran wondered.

“Of course. No-one’s none the wiser. I know it’s hard for ye to understand but I have some standing round here – I’m known as a successful businessman. How’d it be if I was seen as not being able to take my family on holiday ? And not just me – the wife’d die of shame if her friends from the Irish Countrywomen’s Association thought her man couldn’t afford to give her the finest things in life”. said Michael Duffy.

“What about…” O’Halloran started but Michael Duffy interrupted him, “We use the bucket” he gestured with his chin towards a metal bucket that was covered by an old towel in the corner, “that I empty every night onto the compost heap in the corner of the front garden and we’ve enough tinned food down here to last for ages”.

“What about your brother from Wexford?” O’Halloran asked.

“My brother runs a garage in Enniscorthy – the only thing he knows about potatoes is when they’re on his plate. I check the fields most nights when no-one’s around”. The way Michael Duffy explained it made it seem like a routine.

“So it WAS you I saw the other night in the tractor. This isn’t the first time, is it?” Mangan guessed.

Michael Duffy looked down and didn’t answer.

“Over the last dozen years you’ve been telling us you were going on holiday to London, how many times have you actually been?” asked O’Halloran.

“Just the once,” Michael Duffy mumbled, “that first time twelve years ago. Nearly bankrupted meself”

“But you’ve been telling everyone you go every year.” O’Halloran said. He seemed hurt that he’d been lied to.

“I know”. Michael Duffy explained, “But it’s just too expensive. The children weren’t born when we went to London that time. When they were old enough, we told them it was special camping – they don’t know any different.”

The three men sat silently and Mangan’s gaze fell upon a nice-looking chisel. Mangan made a mental note to ask Michael Duffy if he could borrow it later.

“And what about ye two – breaking in to my house?” said Michael Duffy, “That’s against the law – I could call the Gards on ye for that!” Michael Duffy – Mick to his friends – was punching back now from being on the ropes with all the questions directed at him.

“Ah, now Michael,” O’Halloran said, “I was only after the seed potatoes you said you’d pay for us doing the weeding. I wanted to plant them in a full moon. You know we wouldn’t have taken anything else and I’ll fix the door”.

“But why didn’t ye wait till we were back from our holiday?”

“In the cellar, you mean?” asked O’Halloran.

“You know what I mean” said Michael Duffy.

“Well, I just…I just” O’Halloran struggled to explain the answer to what was actually a very reasonable question. He looked at Mangan then diagonally off into the darkness as though trying to remember how all this had started. He heard himself say, matter of factly “it just seemed like a good idea at the time, like.”

“Well, it’s done now.” Mangan said firmly to prevent any further debate, “so how do you want to play it? You call the Gards and we’ll explain how we found you down here?”

Michael Duffy looked hard at both their faces. He was clearly considering his options. After a while he went off into the darkness and came back with a full hessian sack which he dropped with a thump and cloud of dust into the space between them all. “Now, we’ve got a more complicated deal than we had in the beginning: I’ll overlook your breaking in to my property AND give you these Scoiltean as promised providing you don’t tell anyone we didn’t go on holiday to London”

“Or have never been except that once” O’Halloran clarified.

“Yes, yes” Michael Duffy agreed, “Do we have a deal?”

O’Halloran and Mangan looked at each other then back to Michael Duffy and nodded.

Michael Duffy walked them to the broken cellar door and closed it as best as he could as they made their way up the stairs and out through the garden gate.

They said nothing for the first few hundred yards of the moonlit road, deep in thought.

“Sure that was quare ” O’Halloran mused and Mangan nodded.

“Not as quare as them poor creathurs having to spend another week and a half down in that cellar”.

The two men walked in silent contemplation of not seeing daylight or, more importantly a pint of Guinness for ten days.

“Fancy putting them tools to use?” O’Halloran enquired, “I’ve a naggen of whiskey in the house” he added by way of enticement.

Silence as Mangan weighed up his unmade bed at home against a drop of whiskey round at O’Halloran’s.“Ah, go on then” he said and the two men went to plant the potatoes in O’Halloran’s garden.

Two weeks later and Michael Duffy was telling all and sundry in The Rocket how grand his holiday in London was, how much he’d lost on the horses, how much his wife had spent on dresses and how bad the weather was which explained why none of them had got even the slightest tan.

The first time O’Halloran saw him after returning from his ‘holiday’ Michael Duffy was driving his tractor towards O’Halloran who was on the roadside next to Duffy’s fields. O’Halloran could make out his features as he got nearer. They were staring fixedly at O’Halloran with narrowed eyes in a threat that seemed to be saying “We share a secret for ever. Don’t you tell it to anyone or there’ll be hell to pay, Boy”. Oblivious, O’Halloran stared back then Michael Duffy turned the tractor sharply, hit a bump that unseated his glasses and the threatening moment was lost.

ENDS.