An Irish Country Christmas

by Patrick Taylor

  But if he were going to let Kitty be the balm for his bruised heart, he’d have to let her in. He’d have to allow himself to be vulnerable if he were ever again going to feel the pleasure and contentment, the affection a good woman could bring.

  It would not be the wild youthful joy he’d known with Deidre—that could never be—but there was something stirring within him for Kitty O’Hallorhan, the Kitty he remembered as a girl, the Kitty he now saw as a mature, self-possessed professional, and he admitted, as a beautiful and desirable woman.

  Was it worth risking being hurt if she rejected him or if, after time had passed, they decided it was “just one of those things”? He smiled. He and Kitty used to dance to that 1935 Cole Porter tune.

  By God, he decided, it was. It was worth taking the risk. And, he grinned, not only was Kitty a handsome woman, but she was also a superb cook. He recalled with relish the fry she’d made him last night. He wondered if she or her mother would be doing the cooking while she was in Tallaght.

  Poor Deidre hadn’t quite mastered the culinary arts, but with her he’d been pleased to dine on a bowl of Heinz tomato soup and bread from the bakery. He smiled—and he was pleased he could remember her with a smile.

  O’Reilly’s step lightened as he came down the last two stairs and along the corridor to open the surgery door. He noted that there was standing room only. “Right, who’s first?” he bellowed.

  “Us, sir.”

  O’Reilly immediately recognized Donal Donnelly’s carroty thatch and buckteeth and Julie Donnelly neé MacAteer’s cornsilk blonde hair. “Come on then. You both know the way.” He headed for the surgery knowing they would be following. This was a slice of luck. He needed Donal’s help with the plan to raise money for Eileen Lindsay.

  O’Reilly stood aside at the door, while Donal, holding tightly to Julie’s hand, let her precede him into the surgery. Donal held one of the straight-back wooden chairs for her, waited until she was seated, and only then sat himself.

  O’Reilly took his place on the swivel chair and put on his half-moon spectacles. “Well,” he said, “nice to see the pair of you back. How was the honeymoon?”

  Donal blushed as deeply red as his hair.

  “London was marvelous,” Julie said. Her green eyes sparkled. “And we’d a whole week there. We saw Buckingham Palace, and the Changing of the Guard, and the Tower of London . . .”

  “Sounds like fun,” O’Reilly said, “but I don’t think the pair of you came in this morning to talk about London.”

  “Oh, no, Doctor,” Julie said. “You remember I told you at the wedding I was in the family way again?”

  O’Reilly nodded.

  “You told me to come and see you or Doctor Laverty when we got home.” She took Donal’s hand again, looked at him for a long moment, and then continued. “You remember what happened the last time, Doctor O’Reilly?”

  “I do.” Indeed he did. She had miscarried in August. “It was a shame.”

  He saw a glistening in her eyes as she said firmly, “Donal says we’re taking no chances with this one, so he made me come in the minute we were back.”

  “Very sensible of him.” O’Reilly said, looking at Donal over his spectacles. “I’ll need to ask you a few questions, examine you, and arrange some blood work, Julie. Do you mind if Donal stays?”

  “Not at all.” She shook her head, and her beautiful hair tossed and rippled. “Sure what he doesn’t know about me now—after we’ve been courting for nine months, married for a week, and he’s had me pregnant twice—you could write on the back of a postage stamp with a thick-nibbed pen.”

  “Fair enough.” O’Reilly turned, bent forward, opened a drawer in the desk, and pulled out a chart for tracking a pregnancy. He scrawled Julie’s name at the top and put in the name of the father. He asked her address (“Twelve Comber Gardens”), her age (“Twenty”), and her occupation (“Housewife”).

  He quickly filled in the details of Julie’s previous medical and surgical history, her family history, and the dates and outcome of any previous pregnancies. “And your periods, Julie. Are they regular?”

  “As clockwork.”

  “And what was the first day of your last one?”

  “October the seventeenth, sir.”

  O’Reilly calculated rapidly. He used Naegele’s rule. Add seven days and subtract three months. “That means you’re due on the twenty-fourth of July next year.”

  “July, Doctor?” Donal asked. “So if it’s a wee boy and he’s born a bit early, there’s a name just waiting for him. William,” he said proudly.

  “Victor of the Boyne, July Twelfth, sixteen ninety. King William of Orange of glorious and immortal memory,” O’Reilly added.

  “It’ll be no such thing, Donal Donnelly,” Julie said firmly. “We’ll call a wee boy Brendan . . . for my da, and a wee girl Minnie for your ma.”

  “Yes, dear,” Donal said meekly.

  Despite the fact that Donal was sporting his usual moleskin trousers and Julie was wearing a light blue skirt, O’Reilly had no doubt about who would wear the pants in the marriage. None at all. And a good thing too. Donal might have a heart of corn, but from time to time he needed someone to keep his feet from straying too far from the straight and narrow.

  O’Reilly rose to go and wash his hands in the sink. “Go in behind the screens, please, Julie. You know what to take off, get up on the couch, and put the sheet over you.”

  In a short time, O’Reilly had completed his examination. He was pleased that her blood pressure was a normal 120/80 and that, after he’d donned a pair of latex rubber gloves and examined her internally, he could feel a firm uterus corresponding in size to the nine weeks that had elapsed since her last menstruation. “Get dressed now,” he said, helping Julie down from the couch, “and when you’re decent, come back and join us.”

  He stripped off his gloves, dropped them in a foot pedal–operated Sani Bin, washed his hands, and sat at his desk. In a matter of moments, he had completed the laboratory requisition form.

  O’Reilly was sitting facing Donal when Julie came out from behind the screens and took her chair. “Take that to Bangor Hospital in the next day or two,” he said, handing her the form. “It’s routine stuff. Nothing to worry about.”

  “I know that, sir.” She hesitated. “Sure didn’t I have to do that . . . the last time?” Her lip trembled.

  O’Reilly understood her natural concern. No amount of reassurance from him would stop a woman who has miscarried once from worrying the next time she conceived. But he’d try. “Don’t worry too much, Julie. Miscarriages do happen, I grant you that, but it’s not very often they happen twice in a row.” He used his index finger to draw an imaginary cross over his left breast. “Cross my heart.”

  “Thank you, Doctor O’Reilly,” Julie said. “You and Doctor Laverty always make me feel very comfortable. You really do.”

  “Och,” said O’Reilly, “my pleasure. Everything does seem to be fine. Honestly.”

  Julie smiled and, clutching her pink requisition form, rose. “You’re very busy, so we’ll be running along. I’ll go to Bangor today.”

  “Sit you down please, Julie,” O’Reilly said. “Before you go I’ve a wee favor to ask of Donal.”

  Donal sat upright. “Me, sir?”

  “Yes, you.” O’Reilly laid one finger alongside his bent nose. “And I need you two to promise you’ll keep this to yourselves. It’s to be a surprise.”

  “We will, sir, so we will. Won’t we, Julie?”

  “Of course.”

  “The pair of you know Eileen Lindsay?”

  “The wee lassie with three chisellers and no man?” Donal asked. “Shifter at the Belfast Mill?”

  “That’s her. She’s a bit hard up this year.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Julie said.

  Donal’s grin ran from ear to ear. “And you want me to arrange a whip round with the lads at the pub, like? See if we can raise a bit of the old do-re-mi? Sure tha
t would be easy as pie.”

  O’Reilly shook his head. “No, Donal. If we do that, Eileen’ll know it’s charity, and she’s a proud woman. She’d not take the money.”

  Donal’s brows came together. Vertical wrinkles appeared on his forehead. “Right enough,” he said, “that’s a bit tricky, like. I’m not sure what we can do then. I’d need to think on it a wee while.”

  O’Reilly smiled at Donal’s obvious mental battle. He was a decent young man, a good-natured lad, but it was unlikely that he’d be off to Stockholm anytime soon to pick up a Nobel Prize.

  “I’m sure Doctor O’Reilly has a plan,” Julie said quietly.

  Donal’s frown vanished.

  “I have,” O’Reilly said. “I want to run a raffle.”

  “A raffle?” Donal’s eyes narrowed. The vertical frown lines reappeared. “A raffle? I don’t see why you need us for that, sir. Sure anybody can run a raffle. All you need is a prize, a wheen of folks to buy tickets, a draw, and a winner.”

  “And can anybody predict the winner in advance, Donal?”

  “Not at all. You sell tickets with numbers on the ticket and the stub. The punter keeps the ticket; you keep the stub. You put all the stubs into a hat, mix them up, and get somebody honest to pull one out. Whoever has the ticket with the same numbers as the stub, that one’s the winner. You can’t fix . . .” As if a curtain had been lifted from behind Donal’s eyes, they suddenly widened and brightened. His grin was so wide it exposed the gums above his buckteeth. “You can’t fix the winner unless—”

  “Donal,” O’Reilly interrupted, “I honestly don’t want to know.”

  “Oh.” Donal’s face fell.

  O’Reilly lowered his voice. “I don’t want to know how you could do it.” He winked at Donal. “I want to know if you can do it.”

  “Is the pope Catholic?” Donal stood. “You just tell me the prize and how much for a ticket. Me and Julie’ll get a roll of tickets and arrange the sales.”

  “Great,” said O’Reilly.

  “What’s the prize?” Donal asked.

  O’Reilly slipped a hand into a pocket of his tweeds and pulled out a ten-pound note. He handed it to Julie. “I want you to go to the poultry shop, pay for the biggest turkey you can, and get Johnny Jordan to agree to deliver it fresh to the Rugby Club on the twenty-third. We’ll have the draw at the party.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “How much for a ticket, sir?” Donal asked.

  “Pound a piece.”

  “Right. We’ll collect the money and give it to you . . .” Donal must have seen O’Reilly’s eyebrows shoot up. “It’s alright, Doc. I mean all the money.”

  “You’d better,” Julie said quietly. “It’ll be going to Eileen, won’t it, Doctor O’Reilly?”

  “It will,” O’Reilly said. “It’ll be a seventy-five/twenty-five split, with the lion’s share for Eileen and the rest for the club. I’ve already got the committee to agree to that.”

  “But will she accept it?”

  O’Reilly nodded. “She will if she wins it.”

  “Wins it?” Donal frowned. “I thought the prize was a turkey.”

  “It is,” said O’Reilly, “but we’ll announce a bonus prize for anyone who . . .” O’Reilly clenched his fist. He hadn’t thought this through as clearly as he might. “For anyone who . . . come on, Donal, this is your department.”

  “Has the winning ticket for the turkey. They’ll get that for sure, but . . .”—his grin was vast—“but if that ticket also has all the same numbers in a row, like 111 . . .”

  And if it was going to be yours, Donal, the numbers would be 666, O’Reilly thought with a smile.

  “They collect the do-re-mi too.”

  “Brilliant,” O’Reilly said and clapped Donal on the shoulder. Then a thought struck him. “But Donal, if you sell two hundred and fifty tickets, the winner could be 111 or 222 and that—”

  Donal shook his head as a parent might at a rather dim child. “Doctor, sir, you stick to the doctoring of people. Leave the doctoring of raffles to me.”

  “I think,” said O’Reilly, “that makes a great deal of sense. I’ve only one more question.”

  “Fire away, Doc.”

  “Are you absolutely certain you can arrange for Eileen to be the winner?”

  Donal shook his head. “Not me. You, sir.”

  “Me?”

  “Aye. If Eileen’s as broke as you say, Doc, she’ll not be able to afford a pound for a ticket . . . but you could give her one.”

  “On what pretext?” It was O’Reilly’s turn to frown.

  Donal scratched his chin, pursed his lips, and then said, “Tell her His Lordship bought a clatter for the club to give out for free. She’ll accept that story. You know and I know the one you give her will have all the same numbers in a row.”

  And it will win. O’Reilly knew that. How Donal would arrange it was his business, but arrange it he would. “You, Donal,” said O’Reilly, “are a genius.” And perhaps Stockholm will be in your stars yet, he thought. “Right. Off the pair of you go.” He escorted them to the door, then headed back to the waiting room. He’d spent quite some time with the Donnellys, so he would have to cut some corners with the rest of the patiently waiting mob, but Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O., was no stranger to cutting corners, not if the time saved was going to a good cause. And anyway, it was about three hours to lunchtime and already he was feeling a mite peckish. There was no reason why the customers should come between him and his lunch. None at all.

  Till the Gunpowder Ran Out at the

  Heels of Their Boots

  O’Reilly thought he knew everyone in Ballybucklebo, but this man, the last patient in the waiting room, was a stranger. “Come on then. Let’s be having you,” he said. “I’m Doctor O’Reilly.” At first glance there were no obvious clues as to why the man was there.

  He was lean-faced and looked to be in his early thirties. He wore a Dexter raincoat, a woolen muffler in the colors of the Glentoran Soccer Club, and a shapeless tweed duncher. He smiled weakly, rose from the bench, and followed O’Reilly to the surgery.

  As he walked along the hall, O’Reilly noticed a most flavorful aroma wafting from the kitchen.

  “Have a pew, Mr. . ..?”

  “Shanks, sir. Gerry Shanks.” He sat and snatched off his flat cap.

  “New here, are you?” O’Reilly asked.

  “I just moved from the Kinnegar, so I did.”

  “Hang on,” said O’Reilly. “I’ll need to get a few details.” He pulled out a patient record card and soon was filling in Shanks’s address and phone number.

  “That’s a quare smart-looking pen, sir, so it is,” Shanks remarked. “Parker, is it?”

  “It is.” O’Reilly regarded the new pen fondly. “It was a present. It certainly writes very smoothly.” He held the pen poised over the card. “Would you like to tell me what brings you here, Gerry?”

  “I will, sir. I come to see you special, like. My mate, Charlie, he lives here. He’s lived here all his life. Him and me’re platers on the Island. Charlie said he reckoned maybe youse could help me.”

  “So you and Charlie build ships on Queen’s Island?” O’Reilly wanted to get this consultation over so he could find out what dish had sent its scent into the hall. It irritated him that he hadn’t a clue who Charlie might be, and he should if the man lived here. O’Reilly wanted to find out without asking directly. He certainly couldn’t think of any Charlie in the village or in the practice who was a shipwright.

  The new patient wore a Glentoran scarf. Knowing Charlie’s soccer loyalties might be a useful clue, O’Reilly asked, “Does Charlie support Glentoran too?”

  “Not at all, sir.” Gerry grinned. “He’s a bit thick. He’s a Blues man. That lot couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Charlie thinks they’re the bee’s knees. But we’re best mates anyway, like. Have been since we were wee lads together at Sullivan Upper School in Holy-wood.
”

  To O’Reilly’s knowledge there were no supporters of the Blues—more formally known as Linfield, serious rivals of Glentoran—in his practice either. His stomach rumbled. Hunger was about to trump pride when Gerry Shanks said, “You know Charlie, sir . . . Charlie Gorman . . . Gertie’s husband.”

  O’Reilly grinned. No wonder he hadn’t immediately known the Charlie in question. Presumably he was a patient of Fitzpatrick, like his wife whose breech delivery O’Reilly had supervised on Saturday night. “That Charlie. Right,” said O’Reilly.

  “Anyhow, sir, Charlie said you made a right good fist of his wife’s delivery, and so he thought maybe you could help me a bit.” He sat stiffly and glanced around as if making sure he couldn’t be overheard. “Him and me was patients of good old Doc Bowman until he retired. Our parents used to go to him before you came here, sir. Now we go to Fitzpatrick because he took over the practice.” Gerry lowered his voice. “To tell you the truth, sir, and maybe I shouldn’t say it like, ’cos youse doctors stick together, but Charlie and me’s not so sure your man’s altogether at the match.”

  O’Reilly pulled his half-moons down to the very tip of his nose and stared at Gerry. He’d not comment to a patient on his opinion of Fitzpatrick’s competence. That would be unethical. Instead, he said, “We’re supposed to support each other, true enough, but”—he removed his glasses—“patients are fully entitled to ask for a second opinion.” He sat back comfortably in his chair and let the hand holding the spectacles dangle over the side of the chair. “So what can I do for you, Gerry?”

  Gerry visibly relaxed. “You’d not mind, sir?”

  “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “It’s a bit awkward, like.”

  O’Reilly’s tummy rumbled, but he said, “Take your time.”

  Shanks took a deep breath. “It’s me and the missus, so it is.”

  “Go on.” Not all marriages were made in heaven, O’Reilly knew, but he hoped he wasn’t in for a long rambling tale of woe.