An Irish Country Christmas

by Patrick Taylor

  O’Reilly started to chuckle. “Pay me no heed, Donal. Go on.”

  “ ‘Och,’ says our hero, ‘it’ll not be here until the next train.’ He takes a long pause, then says he, ‘And I’ve been thinking on it. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth to be running such a grand dog so I’ve decided to raffle it. The winner can pick it up at the station off the six o’clock from Dublin.’ ”

  O’Reilly nodded.

  “ ‘Two pound a ticket,’ he says, and collects up the money from about forty men. They have the draw there and then. A lad from Knock-agashel wins, and about five thirty off he trots to collect the dog.”

  “The recently late dog.”

  “Aye. The dear departed. Stiff as a plank. By now it’s six thirty, and our lad’s been home for half an hour when there’s a powerful dundering on his door. It’s the winner. ‘You gobshite,’ roars he. ‘The feckin’ dog’s dead.’ ‘Jasus,’ says our man. ‘Dead is it? Dead?’

  “ ‘As a feckin’ dodo. You sold me a pig in a feckin’ poke, you buck eejit.’ ”

  “ ‘Tut,’ says he, ‘tut, tut, tut. Your man in Dublin swore he’d dispatched it alive.’ ”

  “ ‘Well, the feckin’ thing’s dead. I have it outside in the basket. Do you want to see it?’ ”

  “ ‘No, I believe you. Lord, but that’s very sad.’ And he looks all soulful. ‘I’ll not see you wrong,’ says he. ‘Not for one minute.’ ”

  “ ‘All right then,’ says the man from Knock-agashel, and that’s a brave ways away. The whole story may never get back, our hero reckons.”

  Donal stopped, fixed O’Reilly with a stare, and waited. Then, keeping his face expressionless, he said, “He pulls out three pounds from his pocket. ‘The least I can do is refund you your stake, and an extra pound for your disappointment.’ ‘Grand, so,’ says the Knock-agashel fellah. ‘I’ll be off now and no offence taken.’ ”

  Donal stopped and raised one eyebrow. “Now what do you think, Doctor? Was that Kerryman not a clever one?”

  Before he had stopped laughing O’Reilly had to wipe his eyes with a large handkerchief. “He was indeed, Donal, and you were right about another thing too. There is more than one way to make money from a fixed raffle . . . but the principle’s the same.”

  “How come?”

  “The fellahs in the pub didn’t know the dog was dead. Nobody except us and Johnny knows ours is rigged. So no more telling folks like you told Johnny. All right?”

  “Mum’s the word, sir.”

  “Good. Jasus, but that was a grand story.” O’Reilly still had to chuckle. Donal had painted the scene so vividly. “If it was the films you were in, you’d have won an Oscar.”

  Donal smiled his mooncalf smile, a sure token he was pleased by O’Reilly’s praise.

  O’Reilly clapped Donal on the shoulder. “Now run away with you, Donal Donnelly, and give my love to Julie.”

  “I will, Doc, and don’t you worry. Eileen will be one turkey and maybe a hundred quid better off come next Wednesday.”

  O’Reilly still had a smile on his face as he saw Donal out.

  The next two patients shouldn’t take long, he thought. And then lunch. Bread and bloody cheese. It might as well be bread and water. Still, he brightened at the thought, the Cotter’s Kitchen would be open when he got to the city, and they did very tasty snacks.

  He knew he shouldn’t complain about Kinky’s dietary restrictions on his behalf when he thought of how Eileen Lindsay must be struggling to feed her family on her shifter’s wages. He sighed. He couldn’t help her earn more, but at least her kiddies would get their presents from Santa courtesy of Donal Donnelly and a dead bird. He chuckled and shook his head. That Donal was funny, amoral, and another thing about the lad, the way he kept knocking Julie up, he didn’t need any of Fitzpatrick’s gunpowder to put lead in his pencil.

  O’Reilly walked along the hall.

  The only thing gunpowder should be used for, and smokeless powder at that, was to make shotgun cartridges. While he was in Belfast, he’d pick up a couple of boxes of Eley-Kynoch 5 shot from Braddel’s the gunsmith in the Cornmarket. It would be silly to run out of shot two days from now when he and Arthur Guinness would go to Strangford Lough for a day’s wildfowling. That was something he was really looking forward to.

  He hardly recognized that he’d had to stop whistling “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” to yell, “Next.” into the almost deserted waiting room.

  The Pelting of This Pitiless Storm

  O’Reilly huddled behind the wall of a semi-collapsed sheep cot halfway along Gransha Point, a dogleg-shaped peninsula sticking out into the waters of Strangford Lough. He could hear both the swishing in the grass outside as it thrashed, and bent, and swayed, and the regular grinding sounds of waves breaking on the shingle of the nearby shore.

  He wore a waterproof insulated jacket over a thick oiled-wool Baínín sweater, a woollen shirt, and string underwear. He had draped a folded towel around his neck under his shirt for extra waterproofing. His thigh waders covered tweed trousers that were tucked into sea-boot stockings worn over silk socks. The added layer made the rubber boots a tight fit. His soft-crowned tweed Paddy hat was pulled down to cover the tops of his ears.

  He felt as inflated as the Michelin Man, but despite his layers he still shivered. The barrels of his twelve-bore shotgun chilled his left hand.

  The gale from the south had blown up last night. In the predawn, the Lough was living up to its old Viking name, Strangfjorthr, the turbulent fjord. It was ill-tempered, dark, and blustering, and a far cry from its well-mannered summer self of calm blue waters dotted with silent islands. That was the face it usually showed, the one that had caused the native Irish to name the inlet Lough Cuan, the peaceful lough.

  Sometimes O’Reilly thought of the place as a high-spirited woman who changed her moods as the winds blew. Changeable. He hummed a few bars of “La donna è mobile”—woman is fickle—and remembered sitting with Deidre listening to Rigoletto, from which the piece came, on his old 78s.

  She’d been like that. Calm, serene, loving. But if he annoyed her, usually by being thoughtless, she had a temper that could send chills through him as the wind today was sending icy fingers through the cracks between the wall’s wet stones. He shuddered and gripped his gun more tightly when a gust charged through the entrance to swirl and batter, then die within. Deidre’s temper would build until he apologized, and then he’d hold her and she’d say she was sorry too.

  Her smile then would be as friendly as the lights of a farmhouse across the bay. The folks over there would be up, he thought, the range lit, the kettle on for the tea, bacon sizzling in the pan. He’d not mind a bacon sandwich now.

  The glow of the lights was masked. He knew their disappearance would mark the arrival of a rain squall sweeping in from the open sea. When it had passed, the lights would shine again. If only she would. If only. How often, he wondered, had he told other people there was no profit in ploughing the same furrow twice? He must stop dwelling on the past.

  O’Reilly looked at the dark outline of Arthur. It didn’t seem like twelve years had passed since O’Reilly had brought home a wriggling, chubby black ball, who’d chewed his master’s slippers and buried his favorite pipe in the vegetable garden.

  Buying the pup had been Kinky’s suggestion. She was a very astute woman, was Kinky Kincaid. She’d known that in his role as the village doctor, O’Reilly could not allow himself to develop deep friendships but must maintain a certain professional distance. Nor were there many opportunities for female companionship. She’d sensed O’Reilly’s need, and she’d been right in her prescription. Arthur—clumsy, good-natured, as fond of his Smithwicks as O’Reilly was of his Jameson—had been a staunch companion and loyal friend.

  He bent and patted the dog. “For a while there, you big lump, you were my only friend.” At least until the marquis and O’Reilly had grown closer, initially because of their work for the Rugby Club. Arthur looked up but rapidly looked away, as i
f to say, “Don’t interrupt me. I’m busy.”

  O’Reilly noticed that the dog was sitting alertly, nose twitching, collecting the scents brought in on the wind. Arthur would smell all manner of things, but all O’Reilly could detect was the salty tang from the seashore.

  Arthur whimpered, stiffened, and stared straight out through the opening and into the teeth of the gale.

  O’Reilly strained to hear over the wind’s keening. Yes. His grip on the gun tightened. Yes. He could hear a whicker of pinions. Closer. Closer. He slipped the safety catch off. He stared and against the grayness of the false dawn sky saw three darker shapes like flying beer bottles hurtling head-on down the wind. As the ducks raced overhead, he hunched low, hiding behind the stones, holding his breath until he selected a target, straightened, and in one fluid movement brought the butt of the shotgun against his right shoulder, swung to lead the bird, and squeezed the trigger for the right barrel.

  It seemed as if no time passed between the crash of the shot, the frantic flaring of two birds as in panic they clawed for altitude, and the fall of the third, its wings folded, its neck bent back. So rapidly did the wind carry the survivors to safety, there was no time for him to fire the second barrel.

  O’Reilly sensed rather than heard the thump as his quarry hit the turf forty yards out from his hide.

  Arthur was trembling, tensed like a panther ready to spring.

  “Hi lost, boy.”

  The dog raced out of the cot.

  O’Reilly broke the gun, extracted the spent cartridge, fished a new one out of his jacket pocket, reloaded, closed the breech, and put on the safety catch. He stared out over the rear wall, now able to see Arthur more clearly as the light grew brighter. He knew that the sun, even if it was hidden behind clouds, would be over the horizon and climbing behind the low hills inland.

  He watched Arthur stop, lower his head, and then straighten with the duck in his mouth. Head and bird held high, tail thrashing, Arthur trotted proudly back. O’Reilly turned to face the entrance as Arthur came into the cot, sat without bidding at his master’s feet, and presented him with a plump drake mallard.

  O’Reilly took the bird. “Good boy.” He patted Arthur’s head. “That’s better than a Wellington boot, isn’t it? Go on now, lie down.”

  Arthur wandered over to a sheltered corner, flopped, and laid his square head on his outstretched paws. The look on his face could only be described as one of pure contentment. The American author Robert Ruark had been right, O’Reilly thought. There is no happier animal than a gun dog in bird season.

  O’Reilly picked up a gamebag from the corner where he’d left it and put the duck into the outer string-mesh pouch. Inside the inner canvas pouch were half a dozen cold fried Cookstown sausages in buttered bridge rolls that Kinky had put up for him and wrapped in greaseproof paper before she went to bed the night before. Kinky would have no truck with any other brand of sausages. A large thermos held the coffee he’d brewed for himself this morning.

  He felt the sting of rain on his face as a sudden squall hit. You’re daft, Fingal O’Reilly, he told himself. Mad as a flaming hatter. Why would any man in his right mind be out in this bloody awful weather with no company but a black Labrador who’s as crazy as you are?

  And it wasn’t a difficult question for him to answer. It was what he’d tried to tell Barry. The place gave him time away from his everyday world.

  No matter how inured a doctor thought he had become to the suffering of his patients, any physician worth his salt still worried about them, particularly the really ill ones. There was often recompense from them in their gratitude, but not always. Some became hostile and angry when their physician failed to meet their sometimes hopelessly exaggerated expectations.

  He smiled to himself. He’d told Barry the day he arrived in Ballybucklebo that the first law of medicine was never to let the patients get the upper hand. But there’d been one or two occasions lately when the redoubtable Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly had failed to obey his own laws.

  Thank God they were only a small percentage of the practice, but there were a few patients who would try the patience of Job. The ones who made thoughtless demands for attention, often at night, for trivial complaints.

  He’d not got back to bed until two o’clock this morning because Seamus Corrigan, a farm labourer who lived in a two-room cottage about three miles from the Gillespies’ farm, had staved a finger on Tuesday mending a drystone wall. For four days he’d had every opportunity to come to the surgery, but no, the boul’ Seamus had got a skinfull last night at the Duck, decided his finger was broken, phoned at twelve-thirty, and demanded a home visit.

  O’Reilly had examined the man, strapped the finger—strained or broken, the treatment was the same—and driven home in a foul temper, convinced his own blood pressure had gone up about twenty points. Seamus was damn lucky he hadn’t acquired a broken neck. It had been a bloody good thing O’Reilly had planned to be on the Lough this morning, although he was keenly aware that Seamus had deprived him of what little sleep the early rising would allow; he’d had to get up at four to get to Strangford in time for the dawn flight.

  Would Seamus have been as disturbed about his finger if the telephone hadn’t been invented and he had to walk or cycle through the gale to the surgery? Sometimes the telephone was a bloody menace. It ruled doctors’ lives.

  He certainly took great pains to conceal it from Kinky and Barry, but every time the bloody thing rang O’Reilly flinched until he could determine whether it was a social call or yet another medical emergency to sort out.

  It was all part and parcel of his chosen career, O’Reilly knew, but all the petty irritations, all the strains, built and accumulated until like an overloaded steam engine, O’Reilly knew he needed to open his safety valve.

  Some men could find that solace in the arms of their wives. He found his in this wild place where no telephones ever rang, no babies died of pneumonia, and no arrangements had to be made to ship distraught, pregnant, out-of-wedlock teenagers to England. Nothing of the mundane could intrude, and he could enjoy the solitude and the raw undistilled beauty of the place.

  The truth was he didn’t really care if he never fired a shot. The ducks were simply his excuse to come here despite the cold and the gale. He flinched as water trickled under his towel and down his back.

  The last shower had passed by and the dawn was breaking. O’Reilly turned to look inland along the peninsula’s length. A gap appeared in the clouds as the sun’s upper rim, chrome yellow, climbed over the hills. The light of the day brightened as the narrow sliver grew into a great disk, its colour changing to an incandescent orange that painted the clouds with screaming scarlet. The earlier invisible grasses, now green with punctuation marks of russet benweeds, bowed and swayed and danced their saraband.

  When he looked out over the water, the black sea slowly changed to battleship grey dappled with ranks of cream whitecaps.

  The sun’s heat began to warm him, and O’Reilly sensed his inner maroon-hued serenity, that peace he only ever felt here on Strangford, his quereñcia. It restored the soul as surely as running on the surface recharged the batteries of a submarine.

  “And that, Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly”—he told himself—“that is why you’re out here in this winter weather with no one but a bloody great Labrador for company.” He bent and patted Arthur’s head. Then he said to the dog, “Today I’d rather be here than back at Number One, even if”—he blew on his hands—“it’ll be a damn sight cosier there.”

  He propped his gun against the stone wall, pulled the thermos from the gamebag, poured a steaming cup of coffee, and settled down to see what the rest of the Saturday might bring.

  To Travel Hopefully Is a Better Thing

  Barry, grinning like a Barbary ape, took the stairs two at a time, then brushed aside Kinky, who was saying, “I’m sorry I yelled up to you, sir, but I have a cake in the oven, so and—”

  He grabbed the receiver. “Patr
icia? Patricia? Where are you?” Was she home in Newry already?

  “Bourn.”

  Barry’s grin collapsed. “Is everything alright?”

  “Of course, silly. I just wanted to hear your voice.” She sounded happy.

  “It’s been a while.” He waited.

  “I know that, and I know what you’re going to ask, and don’t get cross, but no I haven’t had a chance yet . . .”

  Damn. Damn. Barry kept his voice level. “Why not?”

  “I’ve been staying with Jenny at her aunt’s cottage. It’s a beautiful old thatched place that was built in sixteen fifty-three, in a tiny place called Draycot near Slimbridge in Gloucestershire.”

  Here we go again, he thought, more chitchat. More avoiding talking about important things. “Where the ducks are. I know.” Bloody ducks. Pity O’Reilly wasn’t over there with his gun. Barry was having difficulty keeping his temper. This prevarication had gone on long enough.

  “Slimbridge is an amazing place. They’re real conservationists here. They’ve bred one species, the Hawaiian goose, back from near extinction.”

  “Good.” But was she going to do something to save him from extinction, or was she going to let them fall apart?

  “Barry, I’m trying to explain.”

  “I wish you would.”

  “I asked you not to be cross.”

  “Damn it, Patricia, I want to see you. It’s hard not to get cross. You promised to come.” He hesitated. “Are you sure you really want to come back to Ireland?” He waited. “Telling me you’d rather see a bunch of birds is a pretty lame excuse.”