An Irish Country Christmas

by Patrick Taylor

  O’Reilly grunted and reached for the toast rack. “We were in the dining room because Kitty’d rustled up a bloody great fry. She’s a grand hand with the pan.” There was a dreamy look in O’Reilly’s eyes.

  If the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, Barry thought, Kitty O’Hallorhan must be well along the road. But it still didn’t answer the question. Had O’Reilly still been hungry after a meal at the Craw-fordsburn? “I thought you were taking her out for dinner,” Barry said.

  “Bloody Fitzpatrick. He damn nearly made me starve to death.”

  Barry hesitated, his fork halfway to his mouth. There were venial sins and mortal sins. Along with murder, adultery, and idolatry, keeping O’Reilly from his grub was definitely one of the latter. “How did he do that, Fingal?”

  “Kitty and I were just getting going with our starters when Kinky sent for me to go and see one of Fitzpatrick’s unfortunate customers. She was in labour, and your man might as well have been on the far side of the moon.” He buttered a slice of toast.

  “Was Miss Hagerty not able to cope on her own?” Barry had learnt that if the GP was not available, midwives were quite able to conduct normal deliveries. He popped the forkful into his mouth and chewed.

  “Not this one,” O’Reilly said, liberally spreading Kinky’s homemade marmalade. “The Klutz from the Kinnegar had taken over all the antenatal care himself, told Miss Hagerty not to bother seeing the patient—”

  Barry nearly choked as he swallowed. He coughed, then said, “Idiot.”

  “Amadán’s right. He missed a breech presentation. Miss Hagerty was pretty sure that’s what it was—the husband sent for her because he couldn’t find Fitzpatrick—but she didn’t want to call for the ambulance until a doctor had examined the patient, a woman called Gertie Gorman. Miss Hagerty told me Gertie’s always been the kind who doesn’t like to trouble people, so she waited until her labour was well along before she sent for help. She’d waited too bloody long this time.”

  “He missed a breech?” Breeches were always tricky, but any half-decent doctor should have made the diagnosis.

  “By the time Miss Hagerty tried to find him and then sent for me, the patient was fully dilated and it was too late to get her to the hospital. I’d to deliver her there and then.”

  “And it went all right?”

  “Och, aye,” O’Reilly said. He devoured most of the triangular slice of toast in one bite, and his next words were difficult to make out as he spoke through a half-full mouth. “Nice wee baby girl. Her mum’s going to call her Noelle.” He swallowed and glanced at his watch. “It’s nine forty-five. I’d half thought Fitzpatrick might have phoned here by now . . .”

  “To thank you for looking after things?”

  “Thank me?” O’Reilly shook his shaggy head. “I doubt if he knows the word. No. To get the medical details about how things went. He’ll need them to take proper care of his patient.” The remains of his toast disappeared.

  “Perhaps she should transfer to our care now, Fingal,” Barry said, feeling a glimmer of optimism that the flow in the tide of patients to Fitzpatrick might be starting to turn.

  O’Reilly reached for the toast rack again and rapidly spread another slice with butter and marmalade. He shook his head. “I’ve already told Gertie to stay with her own doctor.” He looked Barry directly in the eye. “Fitzpatrick might be an unethical, parasitic, patient poacher. We don’t do things like that in our practice. If she wants to come to us once all the necessary postnatal care and follow-up of the baby are finished, that’s a different matter. It’s not good for the patient to change doctors in mid-treatment.”

  Barry nodded. He was not surprised by what O’Reilly said. By now he’d have expected no less of his senior colleague. He was also gratified by the way O’Reilly had referred to the practice as “our.” Barry finished his omelet and cast a hopeful eye at the toast rack’s remaining slice. “Will we do anything about Doctor Fitzpatrick, Fingal?” he asked.

  O’Reilly nodded ponderously and gobbled his toast before saying, “I gave the bugger the benefit of the doubt, but he is pinching our patients, he was bloody rude to Kinky, he’s been handing out medical advice that borders on quackery, he welshed on a bet with me, and this, putting a patient and her baby in jeopardy, this is the final destructive piece of vegetable matter on the dorsum of the Bactrian.”

  “The straw that broke the camel’s back?” Barry said with a smile.

  “Right,” said O’Reilly. “As far as I’m concerned, the man should collect one or two of the plagues of Egypt and then depart into the wilderness.”

  Barry had a mental image of O’Reilly as Moses, inflicting Pharaoh with lice, or a murrain on his cattle, or perish the thought, a rain of blood in the Kinnegar. “Fingal, you weren’t thinking of doing away with his firstborn, were you?”

  O’Reilly laughed and it was a demonical noise, Barry thought, a laugh to match the fires deep in O’Reilly’s brown eyes.

  “No,” he said, “but I do intend to meet with him and gently remind him of the error of his ways. Give him due warning.”

  “A kind of shot across his bows?”

  “Yes,” said O’Reilly, “and if a wink is not as good as a nod to that blind horse’s arse . . .”—O’Reilly’s nose tip paled—“I’ll gut him, fillet him, and chuck the remains to the seagulls. I’ll go round to the Kinnegar, and see him in the next day or two if I don’t run into him sooner.” O’Reilly munched his second piece of toast.

  Barry rose, moved quickly around the table, and without a by-your-leave grabbed the last slice, nipped back to his place, and ignored the hurt look in O’Reilly’s eyes. “Pass the butter and marmalade, will you, Fingal?”

  “What’s this?” O’Reilly said. “Mutiny in the ranks?”

  “No, but after what you did to my kippers the other night, I began to understand, Fingal, that in the grub stakes with you, he who hesitates is lost.”

  O’Reilly laughed. “Well done, Barry, but it’s actually ‘The woman that deliberates is lost.’ Thomas Addison said it.”

  “I stand, or rather sit, corrected, and I’d still like the butter . . .”

  “And marmalade.” O’Reilly passed them along. He was looking wistfully at the toast rack when Kinky appeared in the doorway.

  “Good morning, Doctor Laverty,” she said. “And how was your breakfast?”

  “Wonderful. Thanks, Kinky,” Barry said. “The omelet was magnificent.”

  “Ah sure, and wasn’t it only a shmall little thing?”

  “No,” said O’Reilly, “it was not. It was grand.”

  Barry saw her many chins wobble as she chuckled. He wondered if this would be a good time to ask her if Patricia would come home for Christmas, but he was forestalled when O’Reilly added, “The omelet really was grand but, Kinky . . . I think you were a bit, a bit . . .” He stared at the empty toast rack.

  “Mean? I was not, so.” Kinky put one hand on a substantial hip. “While you were sick there, sir, I wanted to get the nourishment into you, but now you’re better”—she eyed O’Reilly’s waistline—“I’ve already heard your Santa Claus suit needs letting out. I’ll say no more.”

  O’Reilly took a deep breath, then sighed and absentmindedly patted his tummy.

  Barry chewed the last slice of toast with gusto. It wasn’t often he managed to put one over on Fingal. He intended to enjoy it, but his enjoyment was cut short by the ringing of the hall telephone.

  “Excuse me,” Kinky said and left.

  Barry swallowed his last mouthful, turned to the door, waited, and then listened as Kinky returned and said, “It’s Cissie Sloan, Doctor O’Reilly. Her wee lad Callum has swallowed sixpence. I told her to bring him to the surgery. To come to the front door. She’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Fine, Kinky,” said O’Reilly. “You’ll be busy in the kitchen, so I’ll just wait here and let them in when they come.”

  Barry had been happy to pour them both second c
ups of coffee and to sit and chat with O’Reilly. He had planned to go upstairs to try to solve the Sunday Times cryptic crossword puzzle, but it could wait until after he’d examined Cissie. Barry wanted to see if her throat was better. If it was, it would save a follow-up visit later in the week. He also wondered how O’Reilly would deal with the missing sixpence.

  The front doorbell jangled. O’Reilly stood and ambled out of the dining room. Barry followed. He felt the draught as the front door was opened. It was chilly, he thought, so the draught was a natural phenomenon and not the result of Cissie’s nonstop blethering.

  “Thank you so much for seeing us, Doctors . . . on a Sunday too . . . and me on my way to mass.”

  That, Barry thought, explained the gloves and flowerpot hat she wore to set off what must be her best coat and low-heeled brogues.

  “And this rapscallion . . .” She thrust a boy of about eight or nine ahead of her. “This raparee goes and swallows a sixpence and—”

  “Bring him into the surgery, Cissie.” O’Reilly closed the front door.

  “—And God knows if it’ll get stuck in his wee tummy, and his daddy off to Belfast on the early train to see about buying a ferret. Nasty, smelly things, but he wants one for hunting rabbits . . .”

  In the time it had taken Cissie to say this, O’Reilly had manoeuvered her and Callum into the surgery, got Callum to undo the waistband of his pants, pull out his shirttails and undervest, and hop up onto the examining couch.

  Barry stood just inside the doorway watching and, Lord help him, listening. He had no doubt that Cissie’s sore throat was better.

  “I make a lovely rabbit pie, so I do, even if I say so myself. I got the recipe from your Mrs. Kincaid . . . she’s a lovely woman . . . for one from the Republic . . .”

  Barry heard the bred-from-the-cradle mistrust of many Ulster folk, even Catholics like Cissie, for their countrymen south of the border, even though here in Ballybucklebo there was no sectarian strife. He watched O’Reilly get Callum to lie flat. Then O’Reilly gently palpated the boy’s stomach.

  “You’d wonder if there’ll ever be a united Ireland again,” Cissie continued. That spoken thought must have set up deeper ones because Cissie frowned, rubbed her upper lip with the web of her right hand, unconsciously picked her nose, and said nothing for at least two seconds.

  O’Reilly, like a rugby back running with the ball and seeing a hole in the defences, plunged into the gap. “He’ll be fine, Cissie. No cause for concern. He’ll pass it naturally in a day or two.”

  She stopped picking her nose. “Honest to God, Doctor?”

  “Cross my heart. I’m so sure I’ll not even ask you to get him to use a potty so you could go through his motions until you find it and prove it’s out.”

  Cissie’s nose wrinkled. “I’d not fancy that much, so I wouldn’t. Still it’s better than my cousin Aggie suggested . . . you know Aggie, the one with—”

  “The six toes,” Barry mouthed soundlessly, in time with Cissie’s declaration. She rarely missed the opportunity to mention them. He saw O’Reilly nod and smile.

  “Anyroads, Aggie said Callum would need a big operation with one of them sturgeons up at the Royal, but then she wanted me to stick primrose roots up my nose.” She turned to Barry. “Them pills you give me done the trick something smashing, so they did. That’s two times now you’ve fixed me, Doctor Laverty . . .”

  “You’ll not need to come in to see me then, Cissie.”

  “Right enough,” she said, allowing O’Reilly to steer her to the door. Callum was finishing tucking in his shirttails with one hand; the other was being held firmly by Cissie as she dragged him along in her wake.

  “Off you trot, Cissie,” O’Reilly said, starting to close the front door behind her. “And if you’ll take my advice, Callum”—the little boy, still clinging to his mother’s hand, turned to look at O’Reilly—“you’ll not let your ma stop the sixpence out of your next week’s pocket money. It’ll be Christmas in another twelve days.”

  He was still laughing as he closed the door behind him. “Twelve more days. It’ll be here in no time,” he said. “It’s no time at all since last Christmas. It seems to come round more quickly every bloody year.” Barry thought he detected a wistful tone in the big man’s voice.

  “I haven’t really noticed,” Barry said, “but with only a few days left, the pair of us should each get a day off next week for a bit of Christmas shopping.”

  “Good idea.”

  “And I don’t know what you’re going to be up to this morning, Fingal, but seeing that wee lad and his mother reminded me of something I’ve been putting off for too long.”

  “Procrastination is, as Edward Young said in about sixteen ninety-five, the thief of time.”

  “You’re right.” Barry started to climb the stairs. “So this morning, crossword puzzles be damned, I’m going to write to my mum and dad.”

  “Give them my regards, Barry, but don’t take too long writing. I want you to do me a favour later.”

  “Oh?”

  “His Lordship’s gardener always cuts a tree for me. It’s to be ready today. Could you take a race out and pick it up?”

  “Certainly, Fingal.”

  “Good lad. I’d like to get it done today because I have a funny feeling we might just be busy next week.”

  Plotting in the Dark, Toils Much to Earn

  a Monumental Pile

  O’Reilly savored the ripe taste of the tobacco, a taste he had acquired as a second-year medical student. He’d no time for cigarettes. They were much too mild. He blew out a cloud of pungent smoke that swirled up to the ceiling of the lounge, and then he inhaled again. In his throat and chest it no longer felt like a sheet of rough sandpaper was being pulled over abraded tissue. He was completely recovered.

  Last night he’d draped his coat over the back of an armchair. It now lay in a crumpled heap on the seat. Her Ladyship had dragged it down and was now curled up in the middle, her tail over her nose. She made gentle little whiffling noises as her limbs twitched spasmodically and her eyeballs rolled behind closed lids. “Sorry to disturb your dreams,” he said, as he dislodged the cat and lifted his jacket.

  Lady Macbeth gave him a look of scornful disdain, sprang to the floor, and crossed the carpet to the corner of the room. There a newly cut eight-foot-tall Norway spruce stood in an old butter box supported by wooden cross members nailed to either side of it. Lady Macbeth stretched her forelegs, put her front paws on the top of the box, arched her spine so that her back became concave, and yawned mightily. She eyed the tree, and for a moment O’Reilly wondered what would become of any dangling decorations that caught the little cat’s attention.

  He would let the tree remain undecorated for a while longer; then he’d marshall Kinky and Barry to help him trim it and to put presents underneath it as they arrived in the mail. He knew Barry had already received a parcel from Australia.

  O’Reilly glanced at the mantel. It was filled with Christmas cards that had been sent to him and to Barry. They’d soon have to start putting new arrivals on the sideboard and downstairs in the dining room. He already left the morning post’s quota of cards unopened on the sideboard: six addressed to him and three for Barry.

  Barry was out visiting a child with asthma, a boy O’Reilly had seen the previous night. The boy, Billy Cadogan, was one of five children, the son of Phyllis and Eamon who ran the newsagent’s. They lived in a thatched cottage beside the shop further along Main Street. Barry’d not known that Phyllis had psoriasis and Eamon a hernia, but the family had been members of the practice for years.

  O’Reilly remembered delivering all but one of the children. Brid, who’d be six next September, had come very fast, and by the time he’d arrived Miss Hagerty was tidying up and the wee one was bathed and asleep in the drawer of a chest of drawers.

  Last night O’Reilly had given Billy a subcutaneous injection of 0.3 millilitre of adrenaline 1/1000 solution, something he had done several times
in the last three years.

  The wheezing had improved, but his mother had phoned half an hour ago to say the child’s condition had deteriorated. Barry would probably have to give him more adrenaline, as well as 10 milligrams of ephedrine by mouth.

  Asthma was a most unpleasant condition. When O’Reilly’d arrived at the Cadogans’, Billy was gasping, clutching his throat with one hand, and rolling his eyes at his doctor in a silent plea for help. Within minutes of the injection the wee lad had been able to gasp, “Thank you, Doctor.” O’Reilly had silently blessed whoever had discovered that adrenaline, a hormone secreted by a gland that sat on top of the kidneys, could ease constriction of the bronchial tubes.

  It was then that O’Reilly noticed his own breathing had improved, and praise be, since he’d got home and had a decent sleep, he was completely better. He inhaled the fresh piney scent of the spruce.

  The aroma was, he thought, the most evocative of all the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of Christmas. If he closed his eyes, he could let it take him back to 1940, to the one Christmas he’d spent with Deidre before the war had taken them both, him to sea and Deidre forever.

  They’d been living in a little boardinghouse in Portsmouth. He had three weeks’ shore leave. Their tree had been tiny but its piney perfume had filled their living room. Deidre had been as anxious as a kitten because she’d never cooked a turkey before, and he knew she wanted to make their first Christmas perfect.

  He’d bought her a pearl necklace, and he could remember her cries of pleasure when she’d opened the box, and how she’d kissed him.

  That the turkey had been undercooked hadn’t mattered in the least.

  He admired his gold cuff links, the ones she’d given him that Christmas. He wore them to this day. He sighed, put on his jacket, and headed back downstairs to the surgery.

  He’d decided he must try to let that flame burn a little less fiercely, and now, now that Kitty had come back into his life, he was going to keep that promise he’d made to himself. Funny, he thought, how any wound to the flesh, unless it was lethal, would heal—not without scarring, true, and sometimes it might need help from stitches or an unguent—but heal it certainly would. Even wounds to the heart heal, he thought wryly.