An Irish Country Christmas

by Patrick Taylor

  She shrugged. “They were never heavy, if that’s what you mean. They stopped about three years ago . . . good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me.” She leant forward and put a hand on Barry’s knee. “Now I have the hot flushes.”

  Barry did not want to complicate matters at this visit, so he made a mental note to have a chat with her about using small doses of ethinyl oestradiol to control her flushes. At the moment, however, her anaemia took priority. He looked straight at her and said, “If you’ve had no trouble with your periods, and they’re not coming anymore, we can’t blame them for you losing blood. That leaves only two possible causes for your iron deficiency.”

  “And what are they?”

  “My best guess is that you’re not eating the right things.”

  “I suppose.”

  He didn’t want to worry her, yet he didn’t like to be dishonest. “You could have something in your bowel.”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “Like cancer?”

  It was something in her voice that made him ask, “You really do worry about cancer, don’t you, Alice?”

  “I should. I have good reason to.”

  Barry waited. She’d tell him if she wanted to.

  “The word is that you’re in love, Doctor.”

  He wanted to deny it, but he could already feel the heat in his face. And this interview seemed to be all about telling the truth. “I am.” Bloody rumour mill. He loved Ballybucklebo, but there were some disadvantages to living here.

  “I was once.” The same dreamy look she’d had when she spoke of India flitted across her face. “He was a captain with Skinner’s Horse. It was a famous cavalry regiment.” The look faded, and her eyes glinted as she said, “His doctors lied to him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “They did. They told us he’d get better.” She took a very deep breath. “He died.”

  “I am truly sorry, Alice.” What a trite thing to say.

  “Do you know what he died of?”

  Barry shook his head.

  “Leukaemia.”

  “My God.” No wonder she’d reacted the way she had done. And no wonder she was concerned about cancer. Thank the Lord he’d been honest, and he would be honest again right now.

  “Alice, I can’t tell you that you don’t have cancer. Not until all the tests are done, and for starters I’ll need to examine you, feel your tummy for lumps, and do a rectal examination.”

  She curled her lip. “I hate those, but I suppose it’s necessary.”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  She rose, left her shawl and coat on the chair, and headed for the screened examining table. “We’d better get it over with.”

  Barry examined her abdominally and rectally without finding anything. By the time he had stripped off his rubber glove, washed his hands, and written a prescription for ferrous sulphate, Alice Moloney was already dressed and standing by the chair. Barry also stood.

  “Well, Doctor Laverty?”

  Barry shook his head. “I can’t find anything, Alice.”

  “You mentioned an X-ray?”

  “A barium enema.”

  “Should I have one?”

  “Yes. I’ll arrange it. I’ll try to get it done before Christmas.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Have you a phone at the shop?”

  “No. I have one upstairs. I live over the place.”

  “Are you usually in at night?”

  She made a wry face. “Where else would I be?”

  Barry felt her loneliness, and now, having heard her story, he could understand its depth. He wondered what she had been like as a young woman in India. Probably just as vivacious and mischievous as Helen Hewitt was today. Perhaps everything that had happened in Calcutta accounted for Alice Moloney’s antipathy to young girls. He could hardly blame her if she had a bitter streak. He sighed and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m beginning to understand. Thank you for telling me your story, Alice.”

  “Thank you for listening, Doctor.”

  “All right. I’ll have to phone the Royal, make an appointment for you.”

  “Would you?” She put on her coat.

  “Of course.”

  “That’s very kind.” She flung her shawl around her shoulders.

  “And here,” Barry said, handing her a prescription, “take one of these every day. They’re iron pills. They should have you right as rain in about two to three months.”

  “If there’s nothing more serious,” she said, then shrugged. “But I suppose we’ll know that soon.”

  “We will.” Barry opened the door for her. “I’ll be on the phone in a minute. It might take a while to make the arrangements, so you go home now and I will phone tonight.” He accompanied her into the hall.

  He barely heard her thank-you because he was already dialing the number of the radiology department at the Royal Victoria Hospital. She was in luck. There’d been a cancellation for Thursday morning. If Barry could give his patient the pretest instructions and tell her to go to the department by ten a.m., Alice would have her test at eleven. He’d get a report by Friday. He’d phone her tonight and tell her he’d pop in on Saturday to give her the results. The less time she had to worry, the better.

  He was humming tunelessly to himself when he replaced the receiver. Strange, he thought, before Alice had sat down, he’d already decided he did not like the woman. Now, having heard her story, he thought he understood her a lot better, and he could feel a great deal of sympathy for her spinsterhood. Life hadn’t been easy on Alice Moloney. Not one bit.

  Barry went into the dining room, where O’Reilly was in his usual place hiding behind the Irish Times. He put the newspaper down and greeted Barry. “I see there’s to be a free vote in the British House of Commons on the twenty-first.”

  Barry took his customary seat. “What about?”

  “To abolish the death penalty.”

  “I’d be in favour of that,” Barry said.

  “So would I,” said O’Reilly, “with one possible exception. And the law will still be in effect this afternoon.” He smiled at Barry to show he was only joking—at least Barry hoped Fingal was joking.

  “I take it,” said Barry, helping himself to a freshly baked roll and spreading it with butter. “I take it you are referring to Doctor Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick.”

  “None other,” said O’Reilly. “Pass the rolls.” He took three. “We’re seeing him at his surgery in the Kinnegar at two.”

  I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside

  Barry got out of the Rover close to a low granite-block seawall. He heard water lapping at its base. The tide was in. Drying clumps of bladder wrack, their serrated fronds studded with air sacs that gave the seaweed its name, kept company with the flat broad leaves of kelp drying on the wall’s coping stones and on the gravel of the Kinnegar car park.

  Boots crunched on the loose stones as O’Reilly walked around the car to join Barry. “Would you look at that?” O’Reilly was pointing to a leathery pouch with tendrils that spiraled from its corners and twined around a piece of kelp. “It’s the egg sac of a dogfish.”

  “The locals call it a mermaid’s purse,” Barry said. “Yesterday’s gale chucked it in here with all the other debris.” He inhaled the salty scent, which he knew came not from the tide itself but from the beached seaweed already starting to decay.

  He stared out to sea. The Lough was somnolent today, peacefully reflecting the blue of the arch of the sky. It was definitely the calm after the storm, but because they were on their way to beard Fitzpatrick, Barry wondered if it was also the calm before the storm.

  He glanced back to where O’Reilly stood gazing out over the water. “Look at that ferry,” he said, “ ‘butting through the Channel in the mad March days.”

  The boat was ploughing purposefully to Belfast along the dredged and buoyed fairway in mid-lough. It reminded him of a coal boat he’d seen one day making its way to Bangor Harbour. He’d ta
ken Patricia for a walk on the coastal path near Strickland’s Glen on one of their first dates, and the wind had torn the smoke from the collier’s stack to tatters and made Patricia’s ponytail merrily dance and swing.

  “It’s John Masefield, by the way, and I do know it’s December, not March,” O’Reilly said. “I thought you’d be quicker off the mark to tell me.”

  “The poem is ‘Cargoes,’ ” Barry said. He hadn’t been interested in playing Name that Quotation. Not today. “Sorry, Fingal. Seeing the boat made me think about something else.”

  “Or someone else?” O’Reilly’s voice was soft.

  Barry nodded. “Patricia’s going to try to get onto a ferry from England. At least I hope she is.”

  “Never worry. She will. Kinky’s never wrong.” O’Reilly had a very confident look on his face. “She could teach your man in Rome a thing or two about infallibility.”

  Barry had to smile. He felt somehow comforted. “Thanks, Fingal,” he said, and he promised himself he would try to stop worrying. Not wanting to talk further, he turned resolutely back to the sea, looked past the vessel and over to the far side where the Antrim Hills rose dark and purple. A line of white edged their crests like a thin layer of Kinky’s royal icing.

  Close to the near shore a cormorant was perched on a black creosoted post that rose from its own mirrored reflection. The bird stretched its long snakelike neck and spread its wings wide to dry in the rays of the winter sun.

  A screeching flock of terns, black skull-capped and swallow-tailed, milled around in the sky and, diving like members of a Stuka squadron, plummeted to the calm surface. So clean was each bird’s entry that Barry couldn’t hear any splashes.

  “Stewing over it won’t bring her here any quicker.” O’Reilly’s voice was gentle. He had clearly understood Barry’s mood.

  “I know, Fingal, and I wasn’t worrying . . . well, not much. Honestly. I was enjoying the Lough. It’s always been a special place to me. I grew up beside it. My folks’ house in Bangor was on a little peninsula. I’d often go and sit on the shore when I wanted a bit of peace and quiet.”

  O’Reilly stooped at Barry’s shoulder. He straightened up, holding a smooth pebble. He looked at Barry, then nodded. “I know what you mean. I think everybody has a special place, what Ernest Hemingway called a quereñcia.”

  “A what?”

  “Every bull in a bullfight will find a place in the bullring where he feels safe, secure. He’ll retreat to it when he can to escape from his tormentors. I don’t think there’s an English word that’s quite as effective as quereñcia.”

  “Sanctuary?”

  “Maybe, but I prefer the Spanish.” He lowered his voice and said levelly, “Mine’s across the Ards Peninsula. Strangford Lough. I go there if I feel a bit tormented. And now you’re here, my boy, I can go there more often because I know the practice is in good hands.”

  Barry swallowed. “Thank you, Fingal.” He was thanking O’Reilly more for the confidence than the compliment. Kitty had said O’Reilly was a hard man to get to know, and he had surprised Barry by opening himself up a little.

  “I’ll be taking Arthur there on Saturday. I could use a break. I’m really looking forward to it.” O’Reilly said. Then, as if embarrassed at having confessed to needing some respite like any other mortal, he continued, “But that’s Saturday. We’ve other work for today. Fitzpatrick’s expecting us at two.” He hurled the pebble out into the Lough. “Come on.” He strode out of the car park and turned right along the Esplanade.

  Barry kept pace. “What are you going to say to him?”

  O’Reilly stopped. “I suppose I’ll try to appeal to his better nature. If he has one. Which I doubt. I’m not quite sure how to start, but on the old Warspite the gunnery officer was under standing orders to keep an eye out for targets of opportunity.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was the navy’s answer to Mr. Micawber. If you kept your eyes open, something to shoot at often turned up, even when you didn’t expect it.”

  “You mean you’ll play it by ear until Fitzpatrick gives you a lead?”

  “I think so. I want to put him on the defensive. I remember when we were students one of the things I disliked about the man was that he was a bully. He was forever picking on junior medical students and student nurses. He even tried to bully Kinky.”

  “Not an endearing trait.”

  “There is one thing about bullies . . .”

  “They don’t like it when someone challenges them, like Kinky did.”

  O’Reilly laughed. “It’s a braver man than I who’ll take on Kinky when she gets her dander up. She’ll stand up to anyone.”

  And if anybody else can stand up, it’s Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, Barry thought.

  “And Barry, you know I don’t like the man, I grant you that, but this is not personal. I was on a very sticky wicket with that breech, and it needn’t have happened at all but for his arrogance. He’d bullied Miss Hagerty.” O’Reilly’s brow furrowed. His eyebrows met. His eyes narrowed and flashed. His nose tip paled. “He needs to practice better medicine. That man needs to be taken down a peg or two.”

  “I agree.” He looked at Fingal’s face and tried to measure the depth of his anger. Good heavens, he realized, I think I’m starting to feel sorry for Fitzpatrick.

  “And another thing, Barry.”

  “Yes?”

  “When I talk about me and the breech, I don’t really matter. It’s our job. I managed, but both the mother and child were in unnecessary danger. I can’t forgive that.”

  “I understand, Fingal.” Barry shuddered. “It’s a bloody good thing you were on call that night. I’ve read the theory, but I’ve never delivered a breech. They only occur in three percent of term pregnancies. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been there.”

  O’Reilly clapped Barry on the shoulder. “You’d have coped, son. You’ve a good pair of hands. I saw you deliver that face presentation in August.”

  Barry glowed at his senior’s confidence.

  He walked at O’Reilly’s side as they turned a corner. “It’s along here somewhere,” O’Reilly said, peering as they passed at the numbers on a row of detached three-storey houses. “Ah, Number Nine,” he said, stopping outside a stunted, ill-trimmed privet hedge. Beyond it stood a plaster-stuccoed house with paint peeling from the window frames. “The very spot. Chez Fitzpatrick.” He strode through a gateless gap in the hedge. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Chastise with the Valour of My Tongue

  Barry read from a tarnished brass plate that was screwed to the wall.

  Doctor R. H. Fitzpatrick, M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O.

  Physician and Surgeon.

  Surgery hours: 9 a.m. to noon, Monday to Friday.

  There was a bell push in the door frame.

  “Now,” said O’Reilly, “I’ll do the talking, but if I ask for your advice—”

  “I’ll back you to the hilt.”

  “Good.” O’Reilly shoved his finger against the button with sufficient force, Barry thought, to drive the whole fixture deeply into the wall. He could hear an electrical bell buzzing inside the house. O’Reilly did not remove his finger until the door was opened.

  Fitzpatrick stood in the doorway. His pince-nez caught a ray of sunshine and flashed. His Adam’s apple bobbed above his wing-tip collar as he said, “Fingal. Laverty. Do come in.” He smiled with his narrow mouth, but his eyes were lifeless.

  Barry followed O’Reilly into an ill-lit hall. A huge, ornately framed print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen hung slightly askew on one wall. The brown linoleum flooring was badly worn in places, and there was a distinct smell of floor polish.

  “In here,” Fitzpatrick said, opening the door to his surgery. Barry saw at once that the room was considerably smaller than O’Reilly’s, and here too the floor was covered with brown linoleum. A leather-upholstered examining couch stood against a wall sheathed in paisley-patterned wallp
aper. The couch was frayed at one corner, and its kapok stuffing leaked out. There was a hospital smell of stale disinfectant.

  “My consulting room,” said Fitzpatrick, with the pride of a duchess showing off her salon. “I rent it. I don’t live here.” He parked himself on a wing-backed chair behind a table that served as a desk. Both were on a platform that was six inches above the rest of the floor. He did not invite O’Reilly and Barry to take one of the three kitchen chairs arranged in a semicircle and facing the raised podium.

  The floorboards creaked under Barry’s feet as he moved off to the side so he could watch both men’s faces.

  “This is where my healing mission is accomplished,” Fitzpatrick said smugly.

  “There’s a thing of beauty,” said O’Reilly, “with every chance of being a joy forever. Healing mission, is it? And all I ever do is treat the customers.”

  Fitzpatrick sniffed. “We all have our own approaches to the art and science of medicine. I believe you said that was what you wanted to discuss, Fingal.”

  “Among other matters, Ronald. Among other matters.” O’Reilly moved past the row of kitchen chairs, stepped on the dais, and hitched one buttock onto the corner of the table so he faced Fitzpatrick. Had O’Reilly chosen to do so, he could have thrust his face up against the pince-nez.

  Fitzpatrick leaned back, increasing the space between himself and O’Reilly.

  Barry moved forward so he could see O’Reilly in profile. He at once recognized that his senior partner had reversed the psychological advantage Fitzpatrick would have had by being seated at a higher level than anyone else—usually his patients. Did Fitzpatrick bully his patients too? Barry wondered. Almost certainly.

  O’Reilly was able to look down on his adversary. “Now,” he said, pulling out his briar.

  Barry waited to see how Fitzpatrick would respond. The first time they had met, he’d described smoking as a filthy habit.

  “Don’t you dare light that smelly thing in here,” Fitzpatrick shouted. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  “Sorry,” O’Reilly said, putting the pipe back in his pocket. “Force of habit.”