A Dublin Student Doctor

by Patrick Taylor

  He lowered the patient to his pillows and took his hand again. A feeble grip was returned.

  “Was that digitalis or quinidine?” Doctor Pilkington asked.

  Fingal had not noticed his arrival on the opposite side of the bed.

  Pilkington, without waiting for an answer, took Doherty’s pulse. “Atrial fib. All right.” He released the man’s wrist. “Taking the pulse is all you need to make the diagnosis. Sorry, I asked you—”

  “Quinidine.”

  “I’ll confirm that order,” he said to Sister. “Well done.”

  So it would not need to be reported that Fingal had acted without authority. “I can’t take credit for the prescription. I asked Sister what she would suggest and she thought quinidine would be best,” he said.

  “And she’s rarely wrong.” Fingal heard the respect in the young doctor’s voice. “It’s a braver man than me who’ll ignore the advice of a nursing sister and a fool who doesn’t recognise that early.”

  “I believe,” Sister Daly said quietly, “Mister O’Reilly is no amadán, so.” She smiled at Fingal, who was relieved to learn that the ward sister believed he wasn’t an idiot.

  “Although his language could use some attention,” she said.

  Fingal remembered his intemperate “bugger” and “be damned.” “Sorry, Sister.”

  “Och,” she said, “it is not unusual for a body to forget his manners when he’s under the gun. It’s more important he not lose his wits, and panic, so.” She glanced at Nurse O’Hallorhan. “Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing Mister O’Reilly was delayed going to his lunch.”

  Fingal swallowed. It sounded to him that Sister Daly was offering her forgiveness. “Thank you, Sister,” he said. He noticed Geoff Pilkington inclining his head to one side and moving off, a signal he wanted to talk away from the patient. Fingal tried to remove his hand, but the grip tightened. He bent. “It’s all right, Kevin. I’ll be back in a minute.” He looked at Sister. “He’s scared skinny. Could maybe you or the nurse stay with him until I get back?”

  “Nurse,” was all Sister needed to say for Nurse O’Hallorhan to take the patient’s other hand.

  Sister turned to leave. “I have to deal with other matters. Please don’t keep my nurse too long.” She smiled and said quietly, “You did well.”

  Fingal inclined his head. He took a last glance at the patient, who was still struggling for every breath, then joined Geoff. “Yes, Geoff?”

  Geoff’s face was solemn, and he spoke quietly. “I’ll not beat about the bush, O’Reilly. Have you had a patient of yours die yet?”

  “No.” Fingal shook his head then looked the houseman right in the eye. “But I did see two men who’d gone swimming taken by sharks when we were at anchor in the Red Sea while I was officer of the deck.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Not pretty.” Fingal could remember the screams, the blood in the water, his attempts to lower a boat. His self-recrimination that if only he’d got the boat away more quickly. He’d had nightmares for weeks.

  “It never is. Look here, I heard you call the man ‘Kevin.’”

  Fingal narrowed his eyes and kept his counsel.

  “I’m not recommending callousness, but patients do die.”

  “Will Kevin Doherty?”

  “We all will.”

  “Jesus, Geoff, don’t patronise me. I’m older than you, for Christ’s sake.” Fingal felt his nose tip start to blanch.

  “All right. Calm down. It’s going to take three hours for the quinidine to work fully. It might kick in earlier, but his ticker could pack up at any time before the medicine takes effect—or after for that matter.”

  “I see.” Fingal looked back to where Nurse O’Hallorhan stood by the bedside. She was needed elsewhere. “Are family allowed in?”

  “Sorry, no family allowed, and before you ask, I don’t think things are bad enough to send for a priest—yet.”

  “But he shouldn’t be left alone,” Fingal said. “May I sit with him?”

  “You should be getting your lunch then going to outpatients. I’ll ask one of your group who’ll be on the ward this afternoon to sit with him.”

  That would be Hilda Manwell or Ronald Fitzpatrick. Hilda would be sympathetic, but leaving Kevin Doherty in Fitzpatrick’s care didn’t bear thinking about. “I’ll do without lunch,” he said.

  “All right, but Fingal?” There was sadness in the houseman’s eyes. “Don’t take it personally if he goes. We’ve done our best. We can’t save them all.”

  “I understand, but we can offer a bit of comfort.”

  “Go ahead.” Geoff cocked his head. “I think, O’Reilly,” he said, “you’re big enough and ugly enough to take care of yourself.”

  “Balls,” said Fingal gruffly, and blushed. “Go on, Geoff, and finish your lunch. I’m not hungry.” Liar, Fingal thought, I’m always hungry. He felt the houseman’s hand lightly on his shoulder, before Geoff repeated, “Do not, I mean it, do not take it personally if we lose him.”

  “I won’t,” said Fingal. He nipped out past the screens and brought in the cane-backed chair. “Off you go, Nurse O’Hallorhan. Sister needs you.”

  Her smile before she left was beatific. For the moment he was distracted from his concern for Kevin. He had to get to know this nurse better. He zipped up the tent then sat alone holding the hand of a very sick man.

  Fingal lost track of time, only knew that he’d had to change hands twice because he’d got pins and needles, and his backside was growing numb. For most of the time Kevin Doherty was asleep or passed out, but every time Fingal took his pulse it was careering out of control. And there was less than the half of sweet bugger all Fingal could do about it. He felt futile. He wondered if Kevin Doherty even knew he was not alone.

  The screens were pulled back and the tent unzipped. He looked up to see Caitlin O’Hallorhan. She carried a small tray bearing a cup of tea and a plate of buttered toast.

  “I hardly think your man’s ready for that,” Fingal said, and smiled.

  “Silly,” she said. “Sister Daly reckoned a big fellah like you, your belly’d think your throat was cut. She sent me to make this in the ward kitchen.”

  “God bless you both,” said Fingal. His stomach rumbled. “Pardon me,” he said, but reached for a slice of toast.

  “Sister says I can stay until you’ve finished.” She sat on the bed and took Kevin’s hand.

  Teacup in one hand, toast in the other, he wolfed his snack listening to the rasping breathing, his gaze flitting from the face of the patient to the grey, amber-flecked eyes of Caitlin, Kitty to her friends, O’Hallorhan. He finished the tea, swallowed the last morsel of buttered toast, and said, “That was just what the sister ordered. Thanks, and thank her for me too, please.”

  The nurse rose and picked up the tray. “I know it’s not the time or place,” she said softly, “but I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to talk to you. I’m going to see my parents in Tallaght this weekend—”

  Fingal turned to see her wide smile. The amber highlights sparkled.

  “But I’ll be off again in two weeks’ time, on a Saturday, if you like.”

  “Jasus,” said Fingal, wondering if he himself had suddenly experienced a bout of atrial fibrillation. “I’ll be playing rugby at two thirty at the Wanderers’ club on Parnell Road that day.”

  “I’ll be off at noon. I’ll come and watch. See you after the game.” She slipped out and closed the tent.

  Fingal’s grin was from ear to ear when he turned back to Kevin and discovered that the man was staring at him. His breathing was less laboured. He had a glimmering of a smile on his face.

  Fingal grabbed for his pulse. It was regular. He clipped in the earpieces. “Just going to listen.”

  Lup-dup. Lup-dup. The assorted clicks and whooshes were still there, but the beat was regular. Fingal concentrated and was convinced he could identify the classic snaps and murmurs that Fitzpatrick had described. More important than Fi
ngal’s having learnt something, the quinidine had worked in jig time. Kevin Doherty’s wounded heart was beating more strongly. He looked at the man in the bed. “I think, Kevin,” he said, “you’re on the mend.”

  “T’ank you, Doctor, sir—”

  “I’m only a student.”

  “Well you should be a doctor, or maybe get yourself made a feckin’ saint. Sitting dere for ages.”

  Fingal frowned. “It’s my job, that’s all—”

  “Bollix, Doc, wit’ all due respect. I’ll never forget w’at youse did for me. Your bum must be as numb as a feckin’ plum.”

  Fingal blushed.

  “And I’ve been awake for the last ten minutes. Dat wee mott in the uniform? She’s a corker. Youse two have a good time, all right?”

  He felt his face flush again; it must surely be the colour of beetroot. “I’m sure we will, Kevin. I’m sure we will.”

  As Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly rose to leave, he made himself a promise. He resolved that when he was in his own practice, he’d never think of patients or refer to them by their initials or as cases of whatever ailed them. And from now on, here at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital, by God, he’d get to know his patients’ names.

  * * *

  The iron bedsprings squeaked as O’Reilly rolled on his side. He sat up. He was glad he wasn’t a houseman who had to make this cubicle in the Huts his home for twelve months. He rubbed the back he’d ricked on his way to a recent delivery of twins. Of course, housemen would have the advantage of youth. Perhaps it might be more comfortable in the chair?

  He limped over to the armchair. A French epigram ran through his mind, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. He’d never forget the day he’d stopped calling Mister KD by his initials. It was the day he’d started thinking of all his patients by their names. Imagine thinking of Donal Donnelly, arch schemer, dog racer, carpenter, husband, and soon-to-be father as DD? O’Reilly felt a familar tug of worry at the thought of Donal. How long would it be until he regained consciousness? Would he recover? O’Reilly’s mind gnawed at the thought. Time would tell, but perhaps Geoff Pilkington had been right all those years ago. Better to stay detached.

  And if he had been earlier tonight, he’d be in his own bed in Ballybucklebo. Donal, who had appeared perfectly lucid once he regained consciousness near Downpatrick, would have tried to ride the motorcycle home—and could well be lying in a ditch, far from expert help, under the bike that he’d crashed for a second time because he had continued to bleed into his head.

  That decision, one he had never regretted, to treat patients as people not as ciphers, had been another crossroads for O’Reilly, no less important than the one back in ’27 when he’d defied Father and refused to study nuclear physics.

  Perhaps once he’d come back to live in Dublin, Fingal should have made a greater effort to heal the rift with Father. But only a saint—and he smiled at the thought because Ireland was said to be the Land of Saints and Scholars—only a saint could have withstood the scorn his father had regularly heaped upon his son’s chosen profession. Father was a scholar all right, and his son was no saint. He had deeply resented how his entry to Trinity had been held up for four years by Father’s pigheadedness. In 1801, when Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, he who adorned a column in the middle of Dublin’s O’Connell Street, had fought the Battle of Copenhagen, the Danes had been described as being in “a state of armed neutrality.” That pretty much summed up how things had been with Fingal and his father since 1931 and still were in October 1934.

  11

  Nazi Germany Had Become a Menace

  “So, what do you think?” Lars pulled into the gravelled drive of their parents’ house and sat back in the seat of his Morris Cowley. “It’s secondhand, but the body’s in excellent condition. Great engine too: 1548cc, side valve, straight four—”

  “You know I’m not altogether wild, brother, about internal combustion. I still think fondly of Doctor O’Malley’s pony and trap.”

  “Luddite,” said Lars with a laugh. “One day you’ll get your own car. Then you’ll see.”

  “I think, Lars O’Reilly, you prefer cars to women.”

  “I do not,” Lars said.

  The two men ambled companionably toward the worn stone steps. The Virginia creeper had turned to its autumnal reds.

  Whenever Fingal went to see Ma, he would skate tactfully round Father. Having Lars here would make things less strained.

  They’d been close as nippers and had stuck together at boarding school, O’Reilly Major and O’Reilly Minor, as they had been known in an establishment where the use of Christian names was forbidden. One set of four brothers were collectively the Sintons: Maximus, Major, Minor, and Minimus. At a school where small boys were bullied, Lars had been a protective older brother until Fingal had grown and discovered his vicious left hook. He felt he could never repay Lars for his support then, nor for his help back in ’27 when he’d suggested Fingal go to sea. They hadn’t seen as much of each other since, but they certainly kept in touch.

  “So, if it wasn’t you wanting to show me your new car that brought you down here, you must be in Dublin because you’re taking Jean out tonight,” Fingal said.

  “I am.” Lars smiled. “I’d never have thought two years ago when she was hosting the Irish Law Society dinner party for her father Judge Neely she’d even speak to me, never mind agree to go out with me.”

  “Your Law Society’s like my Rugby Union, isn’t it?” Fingal said. “Formed before the two Irelands split and happy enough to stay together since partition because the game is still the game and law is still the law.”

  “It is,” Lars agreed with a grin. “Like Jean and me, still together, even though I have to roar up and down from Portaferry to go on seeing her.”

  “And I thought you did all that travelling just to give you an excuse to keep buying new motorcars like this one.” Fingal laughed. “How many ccs?”

  “Goat,” Lars said, and threw a mock punch at his brother’s head.

  Fingal dodged it easily and said, “How is Jean, anyway?”

  Lars blushed, but grinned. “Wonderful. I’m taking her to the Clarence tonight.”

  “The Clarence? On Wellington Quay? That place has been there since 1852.” Fingal whistled. “It’s not cheap.” He looked right at Lars. “Getting serious about her?”

  “Yes. Yes I am.”

  “Going to propose?”

  Lars stopped. His blush deepened. “Why do you ask?”

  “I believe it’s what’s usually done if a young man is sufficiently—” He hesitated over the words “in love with” and said, “fond of a young woman.”

  “I—that is—”

  “Come on, Lars,” Fingal said, “it’s me, remember?”

  Lars laughed. “Oh, damn it all, Finn—you know how embarrassed I get. You’re right, of course, but it’s been tricky carrying out a romance at long distance. I’d like to get married, but—I get so bloody tongue-tied around women. Most women. Jean’s different.”

  Fingal clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine if it’s meant to be and when the time’s right. I’m glad you’ve found someone who suits you so well, Lars. You deserve happiness.”

  “Thanks, Finn.” Lars started up the steps and Fingal followed, wondering when the time and place might be right for him.

  Lars stopped. “How’s your love life?”

  Fingal laughed. “Oh, well, I love ’em and leave ’em. You know us sailors. And getting qualified’s a damn sight more important.”

  “Footloose and fancy free?”

  “Something like that. I’m seeing a student nurse, after the game today. She’s got amazing eyes.”

  Lars smiled and started to climb. “Careful you don’t get hooked.”

  “Me? Not likely. I’ve exams to pass, profs to impress, poor and unsuspecting patients upon whom to inflict my stumbling efforts as a student
doctor, and a big brother to tease about his swanky motorcars—” Fingal rang the bell as Lars took another playful swing.

  Fingal grappled with Lars, his laughter drowning out his brother’s protests.

  Bridgit opened the door. “Dear God,” she said. “Have youse two taken leave of your senses? Mister O’Reilly, Master Fingal. I—”

  “It’s all right, Bridgit,” Lars said, disentangling himself and stepping into the foyer. “The folks in the drawing room?”

  She nodded. “You two,” she said, wagging a finger. “Youse was always acting the lig when youse was weans. It takes me back a wheen of years seeing grown men acting the eejit, so it does.”

  “I promise we’ll behave,” Lars said with a grin. “Now, please tell Cook there’s one more for lunch. I’m expected, but this one isn’t,” he said, pointing to Fingal.

  Bridgit giggled, nodded, bobbed, and withdrew.

  Together they went into the big familiar room. “Father. Mother,” Lars said. “See who I’ve brought.”

  They were sitting in armchairs that flanked a fireplace where a coal fire glowed. Ma was working on her embroidery. “Fingal, what a lovely surprise,” she said, turning and smiling at them both, “and wicked of you, Lars, not warning us that you were bringing your brother. Now,” she said, “pull over a couple of chairs.”

  “Boys,” Father said, glancing up from papers that Fingal assumed he was correcting. A grey woollen cardigan, open-necked shirt, and flannel trousers replaced his usual three-piece suit. “Do as your mother asks.”

  Fingal brought over an easy chair and set it close to Ma. Lars pulled his closer to Father.

  “No tutorial today, Father?” Lars asked.

  “My assistant’s taking it.”

  Unlike Father to delegate. Fingal was going to ask why but decided against.

  “Fingal, you will be staying for lunch,” Ma said.

  “Indeed I will, Ma.” Father fixed him with a steely gaze. “I mean Mother. Lars has asked Bridgit to tell Cook, but I’ll have to go at one thirty. I’ve to walk to Parnell Road. Kickoff for the game is at two thirty.”