Now that he was no longer distracted, O’Reilly took a good look at Mairead Shanks. Gerry had said his wife was a pretty wee thing. She was indeed. She could not stand more than five feet tall, and her short coppery hair was cut in a pageboy. That made him swallow. He’d managed not to think of Deidre for a few days, but she’d worn bangs like that, even though at Christmas 1940 the back and sides of her hair had been done in a reverse roll in the fashion of the times. He inhaled deeply and told himself to get on with his work.
“They can be a handful. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Never worry,” O’Reilly said, “Kinky’ll keep them occupied until we’re done.”
She smiled. It was a gentle smile of full lips and pale green eyes set in an oval face. “Thank you, sir.”
O’Reilly popped on his half-moons. “You’d like to have another wean?”
She nodded and managed a wry smile. “After you’ve seen my two you probably wonder why, Doctor, but yes, me and Gerry . . .”—she glanced at her husband, who reached across and took her hand—“me and Gerry’d like one more. Just the one.”
O’Reilly nodded. “Gerry said it’s been two years, and you’ve seen all the specialists and they can’t find anything wrong.”
Her eyes glistened. “That’s right, sir.”
“I imagine you’ve been asked a lot of personal questions, had a lot of examinations, and are getting pretty sick of tests.”
She sighed. “You can say that again, sir.”
“I’m not going to examine you, Mairead, and I’ve no more tests.”
He saw her frown. Many patients believed that if they were not given a thorough physical examination, the doctor was not doing his job. “There’s no need, honestly. You’ve seen some of the best specialists. If they found nothing, you don’t expect a country GP to, do you?” Pretty much the same tack he’d taken with Gerry, who was nodding in agreement.
“If you say so, sir.” She smiled again.
Sometimes, O’Reilly thought, the absolute trust country patients had in their medical advisors was unnerving, even to the extent of their being willing to follow weird advice from a man like Fitzpatrick. “I do,” he said. “I’d rather chat with you.”
“See, didn’t I tell you that, dear, when I come home after I’d seen him, that Doctor O’Reilly just wanted to have a wee word, like?”
“Aye. You did so.”
O’Reilly leant forward. “There’s just a couple of things to discuss.” And despite the Ulster countrywoman’s reticence about matters sexual, he decided to jump in at the deep end. “Gerry told me you’d been advised that you should only make love once a month.”
She coloured and glared at her husband.
“Come on, Mairead,” Gerry said. “How’s the doctor going to help us if he doesn’t know what ails us?”
“It takes all the fun out of it.” Her voice was very soft. Her eyes brimmed over. “Gerry’s been very patient, so he has.” And she smiled weakly at Gerry through her tears.
O’Reilly pulled the half-moons down to the tip of his nose. “Mairead, I do understand. And I know it’s a tricky subject, but I don’t think the Lord invented sex just for making babies. I think he made it so two people in love could have fun too.” He waited to let that message sink in.
She frowned, looked down, then looked back at O’Reilly. “You mean that, don’t you, Doctor?”
“Of course.” There was no need for her to know that there had been no courses in sexuality when he was a student and that his advice was based on his own experience, and it had been fun with Deidre and, damn it all, might very well be with Kitty. Pity she’d not be back until Christmas Day. He shoved the spectacles back up his nose. “Tell me, Mairead, what the doctors at the Royal told you.”
She sniffed again and accepted the handkerchief her husband gave her. “They said they could find nothing wrong. That the two chisellers we already have was pretty good proof that things were working all right, just a bit slow this time, like. If there was something serious, I’d likely never have got pregnant.”
“Do you think maybe the specialists could be right?”
She blew her nose. “Well, I suppose . . .” She sighed mightily. “But why is it taking so long? They told me the right days of the month to . . . do it”—she blushed and looked down—“and we have, so we have. And now you say on one hand you’re just a country GP, but on the other you don’t agree with the big doctors at the hospital.” She looked from O’Reilly to her husband and back to O’Reilly. “I’m getting muddled, so I am.”
“I don’t think the doctor would tell you wrong, dear,” Gerry said. “He shot straight with me, so he did, and you remember what Gertie told you about how he delivered her wee Noelle? I’d listen to the man, so I would.”
O’Reilly nodded, grateful for Gerry’s support. He steepled his fingers. “I don’t agree, Mairead, because I do know that if you took one hundred couples like you and Gerry and they all started on the same day trying to have a baby, some would get in the family way in a couple of months, but it would be three years before most of them were pregnant. Three whole years. Some folks just take longer than others.”
She looked up at O’Reilly, at her husband, and back to O’Reilly. “Honest to God?”
He nodded. “And the other thing I know is that if all the tests are done and are normal, no amount of making love on the ‘right day’ will produce any more babies than making love when the mood’s on you.”
He saw Gerry smile.
“Right enough?” she asked. “That’ll be a relief to Gerry. He’s been very good, so he has. He’s even taking what that Doctor Fitzpatrick told him to. It must taste terrible.”
“The gunpowder? I must confess I’d never heard of that treatment before.” And he sincerely hoped he never would again.
“Nor me,” she said, “but Fitzpatrick swore by it.”
“Funnily enough, I was just having a wee word with Doctor Fitzpatrick yesterday.” Quite a few wee words in fact.
“Aye?” Gerry said. “What about?”
“Gunpowder, among other things, and he did tell me that maybe he was mistaken about it. We had a good laugh about it.” And that is true, O’Reilly thought. Well, it is if it’s taken a bit out of context, and if it helps Mairead, what’s the harm in a white lie? “I don’t think he’ll be prescribing it again.” He’d bloody well better not.
“It’s certainly not done nothing for me, so it hasn’t,” Gerry said.
Mairead shook her head. “Maybe Gerry won’t need to take no more?”
“What do you think, Mairead?” O’Reilly asked.
“You can stop, dear,” she said. “You can start putting the sugar in your tea again.”
“Thank God for that.” He smiled.
“So what you’re saying, Doctor O’Reilly, is for us to get on with our lives, don’t do nothing special, and hope for the best?”
“That’s right, and I know it’ll not be easy, but it’s the best I can suggest.” He heard a screech and a yell. “What the hell was that?” O’Reilly leapt from his chair, crossed the room, and flung open the door. He could see into the dining room.
Siobhan sat at the table, a half-drunk glass of Kinky’s lemonade in front of her, a mostly eaten sweet mince pie clutched in a sticky hand. Her eyes were wide. Kinky was holding a tearful Angus, who had four red scratches on his left forearm. Lady Macbeth crouched under the table, spitting and hissing.
“It’s all right, sir,” Kinky said, looking straight at O’Reilly. “The young man thought Her Ladyship’s tail was a handle to grab her by, so. She disagreed. I’ll take him out to my kitchen, give the scratches a wash, and he’ll be right as rain.”
“Thank you, Kinky.” O’Reilly waited until she had brought the tearful lad into the hall. “Let’s have a look.” He took the arm and satisfied himself that Kinky was right. All it needed was a wash. “Carry on, Mrs. Kincaid,” he said and winked at her.
O’Reilly felt a presence at his shoulder
and turned. Mairead was there looking worried. “It’s all right, Mairead. Angus got scratched by my cat. Mrs. Kincaid’ll see to him.”
She pushed past and followed Kinky and the little boy.
Typical mother, O’Reilly thought. Bless her.
He went back into the surgery.
Gerry was on his feet. He was frowning.
“Don’t worry, Gerry. Angus has a wee scratch, that’s all. Kinky and his mother are looking after him.”
“How did he get scratched? Was it Siobhan?”
Typical father of two, O’Reilly thought. Whenever one child gets hurt, Da makes the other the prime suspect. “Not at all. It was my cat. Angus had a go at her, and as a famous French fellah once said, the animal is very evil. If you attack it, it will defend itself.”
“If you attack it, it . . .” Gerry started to laugh. “I don’t think that was any Frenchman, Doctor. I think you just made that up there now.”
“I didn’t, Gerry, but it’s good to see you with a smile on your face.”
Gerry glanced down at his feet before looking straight at O’Reilly. “Doc, I’ve a reason to smile. I want to thank you for telling the missus what you done. Maybe now she’ll get a bit of peace of mind for a while.”
“I hope so, Gerry.”
“That Fitzpatrick, he’d her worried stiff, so he had.” He grimaced. “And I’ll not be sorry to see the back of that bloody gunpowder.”
“I believe you.” O’Reilly clapped the man on the shoulder. “You nip into the dining room and collect your wee Siobhan. Then go along to the kitchen and see to your wife and son and get away on home.”
“I will, Doctor, and thanks again. All this no-babies business and the move here have been hard on Mairead. She’s not made too many new friends yet.”
“So why don’t you and the missus bring the youngsters to the Rugby Club Christmas party next Wednesday? You’ll meet a lot of folks; the wee ones’ll meet other kids. It’s usually a great ta-ta-ta-ra. It starts at five in the pavilion.”
Gerry smiled. “That would be great, so it would. We’ll be there.”
O’Reilly followed Gerry into the hall and headed for the waiting room.
A Good Plot, Good Friends, and Full of Expectation
O’Reilly opened the waiting-room door. “Who’s next?” He couldn’t stifle a grin when Ballybucklebo’s arch-schemer rose and said, “Me, sir.”
“Come along then, Donal,” O’Reilly said and headed back up the hall. He shut the door behind him. “Well?”
“It’s all set, sir. Johnny Jordan’ll have a great big turkey ready and . . .” He handed O’Reilly two five-pound notes. “. . . And when Johnny heard what it was for—he knows how to keep his trap shut so I explained just a wee bit to him—he wouldn’t take no money.”
“Jesus, Donal, I thought we were keeping this between you and me.”
“Sure I only told him Eileen would win the turkey. Not how much she’d get.”
“But even if that gets out and Eileen hears, she’ll refuse—”
“Divil the bit will it get out, Doc.” Donal winked and held a finger alongside his nose. “See, your man Johnny? He’s a mouth on him like a steel trap when you tell him a secret, and anyway Johnny’d do nothing to hurt Eileen. He’s a bachelor man but he used to walk out with Eileen before, and he never married once she was taken.”
“Is that a fact?” Lord, O’Reilly thought, with the number of folks carrying torches—me, Kitty, young Barry, and now the local butcher—it might be time to organize a torchlight procession.
“Och, aye, mind you Johnny’s no oil painting, but he’s a heart of corn, so he has, and that shop of his makes a mint. Wee Eileen could do much worser for herself.”
And that is one hare I’m definitely going to let sit, O’Reilly told himself. I don’t mind helping Eileen out financially, but I am not taking on the job of matchmaker. “I’m sure you’re right, Donal.”
“I’m dead on, so I am, but it’s not for me to tell her that he gave the bird for free. He can do as he sees fit. But it was decent of him.” He chuckled. “It’s a bit of a gag raffling off a dead bird, but it’s not as funny as the story your man Niall Toibin told about the raffle of a dead greyhound.”
“Toibin? The comic actor?”
“The very fellah.”
Toibin was a marvelous raconteur, and Donal was no mean hand at telling a story himself, as O’Reilly had learnt at the wedding. He had certainly piqued O’Reilly’s curiosity, but the doctor was content to wait to hear more. Knowing Donal as he did, O’Reilly understood that on occasions the man had a little difficulty thinking in reasonably straight lines.
“I need to tell you about what I’ve been up to first,” he said. “And I hope you’ll be pleased with this, sir.” Donal handed O’Reilly a green ticket. It had a perforated line at its equator. Both halves were identical. Each bore the numbers 4444. “That’s the winner there, and before you ask, sir, I’ve not sold four thousand tickets. They came in a roll that started at forty-three hundred, and that one there’s the one you need.” He grinned. “You know, Doc, I thought I was pretty smart coming up with the notion of how to rig this so the one we want will win the money. I never thought there’d be another way to be sure of winning a raffle.”
“Donal, I’ve already told you I don’t want to know how you’re going to make it work.”
“And I’m not for telling you, sir, but I will tell you about the dead dog.”
“I’m all ears.”
Donal grinned, showing his buckteeth. “There was a man away out in County Kerry . . .”
“Och, Jesus, Donal. Not another Kerryman joke?” O’Reilly curled his lip. He’d heard enough the-Irish-are-stupid jokes told by other nationalities and more than enough Kerrymen-are-stupid jokes told by other Irishmen.
“Not at all, sir. This story’ll show you the exact opposite, so it will.”
“That Kerrymen are clever?”
“Aye.”
O’Reilly waited.
“There was a dog man out in County Kerry. He’d bought a mailorder greyhound for sixty pounds from a fellah in Dublin. When the dog arrived in Kerry it was dead, and your fellah needed to recover his sixty quid. He got it back by raffling the corpse.”
“Donal, why would anybody buy a ticket when the prize was a dead greyhound?”
“Doctor O’Reilly, why would anybody buy a ticket for a dead turkey when you and I both already know who has the winning ticket? Number forty-four forty-four—that there’s it—and it’s going to be a big win, so it is.”
The answer to Donal’s question about why anybody would buy a ticket was obvious, O’Reilly thought. They didn’t know the raffle was rigged. But they did know that there was a chance for a turkey and that seventy-five percent of the take would go to the holder of the winning ticket if all the numbers were the same. One thing was still unclear. “How do you know that it’ll be a big win?” he asked.
Donal grinned, his buckteeth large in his mouth. “I got the tickets from the printer on Saturday, and I rounded up a clatter of the lads from the Highlanders for my salesmen.”
O’Reilly could picture Donal recruiting fellow members of his pipe band.
“They’ve been working away like beavers and there’s hardly a ticket left, so there’s not. They’re selling like the ones the fellah sold on the dead dog out in Kerry.”
“Good man ma da,” O’Reilly said. “Have you any at all left?”
Donal dropped a hand to his pocket and pulled out a few green tickets. He frowned as he offered them to O’Reilly. “There’s a few, but why would you buy any when you know they can’t possibly win?”
“Och,” said O’Reilly, “put it down to the Christmas spirit. Folks would think it strange if I’d not bought mine like everyone else.”
“Boys-a-boys,” Donal said, respect in his voice, “but you’re quare and sharp, Doctor. You’re near as sharp as the fellah with the dead dog.”
“Give me five.” He gave Dona
l a five-pound note. Donal pocketed the money.
“Thanks, Doc. Now like I was saying, when the Dubliner that sold the dog took it to the station to put it on the train to Kerry, what do you think he saw when he opened up the basket the dog was in?”
“You’ve already told me the story’s about a dog that’s dead.”
“As mutton, sir. But the Dublin man reckoned he could get away with it. Sure wasn’t it only one of those thick Kerrymen he was dealing with? For one thing he’d be too stupid to ship the animal back and demand a refund.” Donal held out his hand. “While I’m on about giving things back, give me the stubs, sir, and when you give Eileen her ticket, keep the stub for me. It can’t win if it doesn’t go into the hat.”
“Fair enough.” O’Reilly pulled out his wallet and put 4444 safely away. The other five he tore in two, gave Donal the stubs, and slipped the tickets into his jacket pocket. “Go on about the dead dog.”
“The Dubliner reckons he can swear blind that it was alive when he put it on board. The Kerryman will have to believe the story, and if he wants his money back will have to chase after the railway company for damages and that could take forever. On goes the dog. Away goes the train.”
O’Reilly smiled. “Go on.”
“Meanwhile, the Kerryman has been telling all his pals at the pub about the wonderful dog. ‘Begob,’ says he, looking at the pub clock, ‘it’s tree tirty-tree.’ ”
O’Reilly marveled at how easily Donal slipped from his native North Down accent to the singsong cadences of the southwest of Ireland where, because there is no “aitch” sound in the Irish language, none is pronounced when English is spoken.
“ ‘Time I was off to the station to meet the four o’clock from Dublin,’ he says. He gets there, takes off the basket, opens it, and . . .” Donal started back. His eyes widened. His voice dropped to a whisper. “ ‘Holy tundering mother of the sainted Jasus Christ himself, and all the saints above! The poor wee doggy’s dead . . . ’ ”
If Donal ever lost his job as a labourer, O’Reilly thought, he’d have no trouble finding work in the theatre. The man was a consummate actor.
“ ‘And me out of pocket sixty pounds.’ But then”—Donal winked—“he has a wonderful notion. He closes up the basket. ‘Seamus,’ says he to the stationmaster, ‘will you mind this basket for a wee while for me ’til I send a man round to collect it?’ ‘Aye, certainly.’ ‘And, Seamus, don’t you let on it came in on this train. Tell the fellah it’s off the six.’ Then the Kerryman hoofs it back to the pub. The lads there are all agog to see the dog.”
An Irish Country Christmas Page 34