An Irish Country Christmas

by Patrick Taylor

  “We’d like another baby, so we would.”

  “Mmm,” said O’Reilly, wondering if Barry might be able to help. He was bound to be better acquainted with the use of the new fertility drugs like the recently introduced clomiphene and the powerful gonadotrophic hormone Pergonal. “And what advice have you had?”

  Shanks shrugged. “It’s weird, so it is. We have two kiddies. Angus is five and Siobhan’s four, and the missus breast-fed her for eighteen months so we didn’t start trying for another one until a couple of years ago.” He frowned. “It used to be I’d just to hang my trousers on the end of the bed and Mairead was poulticed, but nothing happened this time.” He blushed. “And it wasn’t for want of trying, at first anyway.”

  “And did you go to see anybody about it?”

  “Aye. Doctor Bowman, just before he retired. He was a right decent man, a sound man, so he was. He said straight off he didn’t know nothing about fertility, so he had us go up to the clinic at the Royal with them specialist doctors.”

  “And?”

  “They done every test and at the heels of the hunt said they could find nothing wrong.”

  O’Reilly frowned. “If you’ve seen the specialist doctors, Gerry, I doubt if there’ll be much I can do. I’m a country GP.” Confessing his lack of expertise in that particular field bothered Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly not one jot or tittle.

  “Och, Doc, sure don’t I know that?”

  O’Reilly glanced surreptitiously at his watch.

  “I’m taking up a lot of your time, so I am. I’d one wee question, that’s all.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Seeing as how Fitzpatrick’s new, the missus reckoned we’d nothing to lose if we asked his advice.”

  But you still might have lost something, O’Reilly thought. Infertile couples were some of the most vulnerable patients. They would often grasp at any straw, even if it were of no value, and indeed in some cases it might be harmful. God alone could guess what peculiar idea Fitzpatrick might have for the treatment of infertility. “And did he suggest crushed primrose roots in goat’s milk?” O’Reilly asked.

  Gerry shook his head.

  “Or putting vegetable marrow jam in your left ear once a month by moonlight?” O’Reilly knew most patients, even the infertile ones, would laugh at such an idiotic suggestion. He had used the line many times in the past as a metaphor for a useless therapy asked for by a patient.

  He was surprised when Gerry didn’t laugh but said seriously, “I wish he had, so I do. He told Mairead something far worse.”

  “Oh?”

  “Aye. I’m not kidding you, sir. He told her to stop putting sugar in my morning cup of tea.”

  “That’s hardly a killing matter, Gerry.”

  “And to put in a teaspoonful, a teaspoonful, of black gunpowder instead.”

  O’Reilly’s mouth opened wide. “Gunpowder? Gunpowder?” He struggled to keep a straight face as he resettled his spectacles on his nose.

  “Aye. He told Mairead it would put lead in my pencil.” Gerry started to squeeze his left knuckles with his right hand. He looked straight at O’Reilly. “It tastes bloody awful, sir, but I don’t mind that. I’ll take it if it helps. I have for the last four months”—there was a catch in his voice—“but I hate to see Mairead’s face when her monthlies keep coming on.”

  O’Reilly leant forward. He put his big hand over Gerry’s hands and stilled their wringing. “Gerry, I’ve never heard of such a treatment. I can’t for the life of me think why it should work. Gunpowder’s made of charcoal, and sulphur, and saltpetre. Sulphur can give you the skitters, but charcoal will bind you. You had any change in your motions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Saltpetre’s a nitrate, like the stuff farmers use for fertilizer. If you get exposed to enough of it, it can cause skin rashes. Have you noticed any?”

  “No, Doctor.”

  “There used to be a rumour in the navy that we doctors put saltpetre in the men’s tea to stop them feeling randy. We didn’t, but a lot of sailors believed we did.”

  Gerry smiled wryly. He lowered his voice. “Mebbe it’s doing that to me. It’s difficult to get interested, so it is. Fitzpatrick says I’ve to save myself except for the fourteenth day of the month.” His face started to crumple. “Mairead’s a pretty wee lass. It’s not fair to her.”

  O’Reilly nodded and put as much sympathy into his next words as he could muster. “I don’t think it’s the gunpowder that’s making you disinterested, Gerry, but only making love on the right night to make babies, whenever the hell that is, for I don’t know. Sure, the fourteenth day of a woman’s month might be a bit better, but some women don’t ovulate on the fourteenth day. We know that for a fact. Having to perform to order could dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.”

  “Too bloody true. It certainly sickened my happiness.”

  O’Reilly knew that the tip of his nose was becoming pallid. “You know I’m not infallible, but I think performing to order’s a total bloody waste of time, and the gunpowder’s worse than useless.”

  “Honest, sir?” Gerry managed a weak smile.

  O’Reilly nodded. “Would you like me to have a wee word with Mairead? Let her hear it from the horse’s mouth?” Instead of from the other end of the animal, he thought.

  “Would you, sir? I’d like that a whole lot.”

  “Bring her in on Wednesday, but—I hate to advise you this—go on taking the gunpowder until I have the chance to tell her it’s useless. If you stop now, it’ll upset her. Once we’ve had our chat, you can chuck it out—or go and blow something up.” Preferably that bloody menace of a charlatan Fitzpatrick, he thought. He scribbled a quick note in the chart.

  “Fair enough, Doctor O’Reilly.” Gerry rose. “We’ll see you on Wednesday. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I’m most grateful, so I am, sir.” He put on his duncher and headed for the door. O’Reilly followed. “Wednesday it is,” he said, as Gerry left through the front door and O’Reilly headed for the dining room—and lunch.

  A New and Original Plan

  “Finished in the surgery, Fingal?” Barry asked from where he sat at the dining-room table.

  “Finished and I’m famished, a word incidentally derived from the same root as famine.” O’Reilly sat, rubbed his hands, then picked up his knife and fork. He glanced from the table to the sideboard.

  “And the Great Famine started in Ireland in eighteen forty-five when the potato crop failed . . . But there’s no risk of being short of vittles here, not with Kinky in the kitchen.”

  O’Reilly wasn’t so sure. The sideboard must have taken a lesson from Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. It was completely bare. He frowned.

  There was a plate in front of him. On it sat a solitary hard-boiled egg, three lettuce leaves, a tomato, six slices of cucumber, and a stick of celery. “Rabbit food,” he growled. Then he softened. He knew, he absolutely knew, there was a second course to come. He’d known it since he’d smelled it cooking earlier that morning. He might as well eat up his salad with good grace. “Pass the mayonnaise,” he said, and held out his hand.

  He spread the rich creamy homemade dressing. “How was your morning, Barry?”

  “Can’t complain. The lad with the asthma, Billy Cadogan, wasn’t doing so well, and he didn’t respond to more adrenaline. It’s frustrating. The poor mites always think they’re going to suffocate to death.” Barry ate some egg. “I could never have done pediatrics, Fingal. I hate to see the wee ones sick. I can remember being sick with the measles when I was a child. Wasn’t much fun.”

  He had a very soft side, had Barry Laverty. O’Reilly approved. “We all have some part of medicine we don’t like. Me? I hate cancer.” Just before Barry had come to Ballybucklebo, O’Reilly had watched an old fisherman waste away to scraps from cancer of the pancreas. At the end not even morphine could control the pain.

  “I’d love to be able to treat it effectively,” he said, and he meant it, “but I could never have been
a cancer specialist.” O’Reilly felt himself shudder and saw Barry staring at him curiously.

  “I’m surprised, Fingal. I really didn’t think anything fazed you.”

  “Cancer does. All the treatments—radical surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy—are brutal, and I’m not convinced any of them work very well. It’s a horrid disease. We do our best, but no matter how well intentioned, I could never have been the physician inflicting the treatments on some poor bastard.”

  It was Barry’s turn to shudder. “Nor me.”

  “Maybe the treatments’ll improve in the future,” O’Reilly said. “I’m sure a lot of the causes are genetic, and now the laboratory boys have begun to understand DNA we should start to make progress.” He certainly hoped so. “Maybe we’ll even be able to prevent cancer one day. But now? We’re pretty impotent.” Just like Gerry Shanks, he thought.

  “Come on, Fingal, it’s not as bleak as that. The gynaecologists have the Papanicolaou smear for early detection of cervical cancer. The link between smoking and lung cancer is proven—”

  “Aye, and everybody’s suddenly stopped smoking, I suppose? And lung cancer’s going to vanish overnight?” He grinned. “I’m not giving up my pipe.”

  “I’d not believe you if you said you would, but I quit, and other people eventually will.” Barry pointed his fork at O’Reilly. “We will see the number of cases fall. And the work implicating asbestos as the cause of cancer of the pleural membrane was done right here in Belfast by Doctor Elwood. There’ll be less of that too now we know what causes it.”

  Good for you, Barry, O’Reilly thought. Five months ago you’d not have pointed your fork at me, much less tease me and argue with me. “You’re right,” he said. “I remember Elwood studying shipyard workers exposed to the stuff in the building of ships.” He sighed. “We are making headway but slowly,” O’Reilly said. Then he added, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had an anticancer vaccine?” He chewed and swallowed. “It’s a horrid disease. You feel so bloody useless.”

  “I suppose if you put it that way, sorting out a kiddie with asthma isn’t so terrible. At least if we can’t prevent it, we can treat it pretty well.”

  “I hear you, but I also know it’s upsetting when a child’s scared or in pain.” He sighed. “You just have to try to get used to it if you’re going to be able to help.”

  “I know. I am trying to.”

  “So what did you do for Billy?”

  Barry shrugged. “The usual. Sent for the ambulance.”

  O’Reilly frowned. “I think that’s eleven times this year’s Billy’s had to go to Sick Kids.” He smiled. “His mum’s sat with him so many times while he’s been given intravenous bronchial dilators that she could probably tell the doctors what dose of aminophylline to give.”

  Barry laughed. “She certainly seemed pretty calm about the whole thing.”

  “Phyllis Cadogan’s one of the most sensible women in Ballybucklebo,” O’Reilly said. “Her husband thinks he runs the newsagent’s shop, but it’s Phyllis who’s really in charge of the business. She has to be because her husband’s on a waiting list to get his hernia fixed, and until it is, she has to do all the lifting.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “Good.” O’Reilly ate most of the egg in one bite. “And was that it for the morning?”

  “No. I popped in to see Sammy and Maggie. He’s really recovering fast. Maggie reckons he’ll be well enough to come to the Rugby Club party next Wednesday, the twenty-third. I think she’s right. He might even make the Christmas pageant on the twenty-first. Eileen doesn’t want her kids to miss it, but they will if she has to stay at home with Sammy.”

  O’Reilly finished the egg and demolished the celery stick in a couple of crunches. “The kiddies really enjoy the pageant and the party; it would be a shame for them to miss them.” He sliced the tomato in half. “And I want Eileen at both too.”

  “Why?”

  O’Reilly bolted one tomato half. “I’d Donal and Julie in today, and before you ask, because I know you were worried that she’d got pregnant too soon after her miscarriage, she’s nine weeks and doing fine.”

  “That’s good, Fingal, but what have the Donnellys to do with Eileen being at a couple of functions?”

  The rest of the tomato went. “What do you know about raffles?”

  “Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles, 1781 to 1826. Founded Singapore.”

  “True.” Barry was certainly well grounded in the history of the British Empire. It was a pity, O’Reilly thought, there wasn’t more Irish history taught. “But I mean the other sort of raffle,” O’Reilly said.

  “The lottery kind? And Donal’s involved?” Barry’s eyes widened. He grinned. “Go on.”

  The cucumber was pierced and went straight into O’Reilly’s mouth. “I had an idea for repairing Eileen’s finances . . .”

  “And Donal’s helping?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he going to do? Raffle off a bunch of Irish thruppenny bits as Beatrix Potter medals because they have the image of a hare on them?”

  O’Reilly laughed. “He’d not get away with that with the locals.”

  “He did in August when he persuaded that bloody awful Englishman Captain O’Brien-Kelly that half-crowns were medallions commemorating Arkle.”

  “There are,” said O’Reilly, “no flies on the boul’ Donal, but this time he has a better scheme. We’re going to raffle a turkey at the Rugby Club party.”

  “I don’t see how that will help Eileen, even if she does win it.”

  “Because a big turkey as a prize will persuade lots of folks to buy tickets. That brings the money in.”

  “And the club benefits.”

  “Not much,” said O’Reilly, glad he’d been able to get the committee to agree. “They’ve agreed to split the take seventy-five/twenty-five with the winner, as long as the winner also holds a special ticket.” He watched Barry’s face go from a frown to a smile. Barry had come up with the answer as quickly as he solved clues in those cryptic crosswords, which O’Reilly hated to admit were completely beyond him.

  “Eileen’s going to win the turkey and the money. I’d bet on that if you and Donal are involved.”

  “Right, but we’ll keep it hush-hush. If Eileen suspected for one minute it had been a put-up job, she’d not accept a penny.”

  “I agree. She struck me as a very proud woman.” Barry scratched his chin. “How is Donal going to make sure she gets the winning ticket?”

  O’Reilly laughed. “Don’t ask me how Donal will fix things. I haven’t the faintest idea, but he will. That’s one tricky problem solved.” O’Reilly allowed himself a tiny bit of smugness.

  “I wish he could help us with our other one. Dear Doctor Fitzpatick.”

  So Barry was still worried about losing patients, was he? O’Reilly started on the first lettuce leaf. “I’d another of his customers in today. Secondary infertility. They’ve two kiddies, but number three is slow coming. The highheejins up at the Royal are flummoxed.” The second lettuce leaf was next. As soon as it was finished, O’Reilly paused with knife and fork at “Present arms.” “And I’ll bet you’ll not even begin to guess what the Kinnegar’s answer to Hippocrates has suggested.”

  Barry shook his head. “Fingal, I’m not even going to try. Tell me.”

  “Gunpowder.”

  “What?” Barry sat bolt upright.

  “You heard right. Gunpowder, one teaspoon every morning in the husband’s tea.”

  “Good God. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry, it’s so ridiculous. Gunpowder.”

  “I think,” said O’Reilly slowly, “we need to pay Fitzpatrick a courtesy call of our own.” He looked straight at Barry. “I really don’t think he’s a threat to us, son. He’ll get away with handing out his weird nostrums for a while . . . you can fool all of the people some of the time—”

  “So said Abraham Lincoln.”

  “But country folks are a damn sight clev
erer than many people give them credit for. I reckon they’ll start to see through him soon enough.”

  “Do you know, Fingal, ever since you told me about the breech he missed, I’ve thought about him?”

  “And?”

  “I still worry a bit about him pinching our patients, but I’m really getting concerned that he’s going to kill somebody,” Barry said.

  “Aye. I know. Or make someone worse instead of better. You’d think nobody had told him that the most important rule in medicine is ‘First, do no harm.’ ”

  “So what are we going to do? Report him to the authorities? Try to talk to him?”

  O’Reilly frowned. “I’m no great respecter of authority, and . . . get that grin off your face, Laverty. I know what you are thinking. I do pay respect where respect is due.”

  “Sorry, Fingal.”

  “I’d be in no rush to report a colleague, not even Fitzpatrick. You don’t go round making reports just because you don’t like somebody.”

  “He’s not an easy man to like.”

  “Nobody much liked him when he was a student. Kitty will tell you that. He picked on student nurses like her. I had to tell him to leave her alone. I like him even less now. But I’m with you, Barry; I’m a damn sight more concerned that he’s going to hurt somebody badly, and you know how slowly the powers that be react. If we wrote a report tomorrow, it could be months before anything happened.” O’Reilly leant forward. “It’s up to us to act. And soon.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to phone him today and set up that meeting.” O’Reilly scratched his chin. “When we meet, the first item on the agenda will be to try to get him to see reason about his practices.”

  “And the other items?”

  O’Reilly lifted his shoulders. “I’m not much for lost causes, but he wasn’t a bad student. I didn’t like him, but then you don’t have to like everybody. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll see the light and be a better doctor for it.”

  “And if he doesn’t agree, is there anything else we can try?”