Bob nodded. “I’ve you to thank for that.”
A group of three students left the hall, deep in discussion, no doubt having a postmortem of the paper, each anxiously seeking reassurance from his friends.
Bob said, “I think I might squeak by.” He blew smoke down his nostrils. “I saw you go pretty early. You must have got the answers down in jig time.”
“I hit a snag. Sarcoidosis.”
“You weren’t at that lecture. I remember.” Bob sucked in his breath. “What about the other two questions?”
Fingal managed a weak smile. “Should be all right, but I made a hames of the microbiology paper too.”
“Oh, come on, Fingal. I’ll bet—”
“That’s your trouble, Beresford. You’d bet on anything.”
Bob laughed. “I still reckon as long as you keep your head for the rest of the week in the practical and oral exams, you’ll be all right.”
Perhaps he could pull himself up by his bootstraps in those next parts of the exams that would go on all week until Saturday. They’d be sitting practical tests and answering oral questions in every discipline. “I hope you’re right, Bob,” he said. “I hope you’re right.”
30
Children Casual as Birds
“Come in, Fingal.” Kitty stood on the step of the Leeson Street house where she and Virginia shared a flat. “Last exams yesterday. How did it all go?” She closed the door and muffled the church bells summoning the Sunday worshippers.
He kissed her, held her at arms’ length, and said, “It’s very good to see you, girl.” There was a clean scent in her hair. “It’s been a while.”
“Two weeks,” she opened the door to the flat and led him in, “but you kept your promise about phoning.” She frowned. “I didn’t like the way you sounded on Wednesday. Do you really think you’ve—?”
“Ploughed path and micro?” He blew air past his upper lip. “Pretty sure.”
“Here,” she said, sitting on a sofa, “come and sit down. Perhaps it’s not as bad as you think.”
He sat beside her, feeling her warmth. “I’m happy with four subjects but—” He rocked his hand from side to side. “—there was one pathology question I couldn’t answer at all and one in micro I made a very poor fist of.”
“Oh dear.” Fingal knew she was trying to sound cheerful. “Could you have done well enough on the other questions? The same thing happened to me once in a first-year exam, but I squeaked through.”
“Maybe I have too.” In his heart he didn’t believe it. “I’m pretty sure I got everything right on the pathology practical. I checked my answers with Cromie and Charlie and I don’t think I made too big a mess of the oral. Professor Wigham was smiling when we finished.”
“When will you get your results?”
“Five o’clock tomorrow.”
“It’ll seem like an age.”
“I can’t change a thing by worrying.” He forced a smile. And I’ve more than one cause for concern, he thought, wondering what news Doctor Micks might have tomorrow morning. “I don’t want to be the spectre at the feast today.” Fingal looked into her grey eyes. “It’s a lovely day after last week’s thunderstorms. I’ve not seen you for ages, and you’ve been very patient, so what would you like to do?”
“Take your mind off your cares,” she said. She cocked her head on one side and looked at him, a smile at the corners of her mouth. “Fingal O’Reilly, from the day I met you you’ve been the scruffiest student ever. When was the last time you had a haircut? You look like—what’s that song about Dublin Zoo?”
“Thunder and lightning is no lark. When Dublin City is in the dark,” Fingal said. He didn’t feel much like singing.
She chuckled. “It’s the lines from the fourth verse I’m thinking of.” She sang,
—says she to me, if you don’t come soon
I’ll have to get in with the hairy baboon,
Up in the Zoological Gardens.
“That’s you, O’Reilly. A great hairy ape.”
He ran a hand through his mop and smiled in spite of himself. “I can’t get a haircut on a Sunday.”
She stood and took his hand. “Oh yes you can. Into the kitchen, boy. I’m going to trim it for you and by the time I’ve done I’ll be sweeping up enough hair to stuff a mattress.”
She sat him on a chair, wrapped a towel round his neck, took scissors from a drawer, and started. “When I’ve finished with this, O’Reilly”—snip—“you’ll be ready to accompany a young lady for a stroll along the banks of the Grand Canal.” Snip. “You’ll be, in the immortal words of ‘God Bless England’ by Peadar Kearney”—snip—“‘neat and clean and well advised.’”
Fingal chuckled. “I think that song was not one of praise for the island next door. Kearney fought with Michael Collins in the Easter Rebellion, you know.”
“He did. And my uncle was in the General Post Office in April ’16 too. Did two years in Kilmainham Gaol. He’s still a Sinn Féiner.” She laughed. “Black sheep of the family.”
“Pretty socialist lot, Sinn Féin,” Fingal said. “I seem to remember you felt that way too.”
“I still do. Got some of it from my uncle Ruairí. He’d never use the English, Rory.”
“Kitty, do you remember Paddy Keogh?”
“The wee sergeant with the pleural effusion? You told me in April you’d got him a job.”
“I saw him on a tram last week. He was in great form. He’d had a pay rise to four shillings and sixpence and he’s moved his family out of the tenements.”
She stooped in front of the chair and kissed him, hard and long. “Jesus, O’Reilly, and I don’t take His name in vain very often, that’s marvellous.” Her next kiss was harder.
They had the place to themselves and it was all Fingal could do to control himself.
She straightened, looked down into his eyes. “Damn you, O’Reilly, you’re not just a good clinician, you give a damn about your patients, and you act on it.” He heard a catch in her voice when she said, “I think that’s why, even though you don’t see me very often and put your work first, I haven’t dated another man for nearly a year.”
Tell her, Fingal. Tell her. “Kitty, I—” Wait for tomorrow until you get your results. He stood, hugged her, and kissed her hard. “Kitty, I—I could fall in love.” He’d come as close as he dared and to his surprise he felt as if a load had been taken from his shoulders.
“So,” she said, very quietly, “could I.” She stepped back a pace. “Some things,” she said, “take time to mature, like good wine.”
“Do you want time, Kitty,” he asked quietly.
“I don’t think so—but Fingal, you do.”
He looked down.
“You’ve a lot on your plate, waiting until five o’clock tomorrow.”
And the results of Father’s tests tomorrow morning.
“So let’s you and me simply enjoy today.”
“I’d like that.”
“Let me get tidied up in here.” She took a dustpan and brush and started sweeping.
Fingal sat and let his breathing and his pulse slow down.
She emptied the dustpan into a bucket, moved to his chair, stooped and kissed him. “And we’re not going to have you preoccupied today.”
A few more kisses like that, Fingal thought—
“You asked me what I’d like to do today. I want to walk along the Grand Canal. I’m going to take you as far as Dolphin Road.”
“And what’s there?”
“A restaurant. They do wonderful Sunday roasts.” She tousled his hair. “Now comb it, leave your coat, it’s a lovely day out and we’ll head over there—and I sold a painting last week, so no arguments, O’Reilly. We’re going Dutch.”
“I’ll not argue,” he said, and if a meal out was what she wanted, fine. He didn’t feel very hungry. Hadn’t all week. Exams and sick fathers could steal a man’s appetite quite away.
* * *
They walked hand in hand along
the canal’s south bank. Neither, it seemed, wanted to chatter. She’d given Fingal a lot to think about. He was in love. Yet why in the hell couldn’t he spit it out? Too much his father’s son? Fear of what happened to Lars with Jean Neely? That was unlikely. Kitty had as much as said she loved him too. Was it all the worry about what tomorrow might bring? Fingal O’Reilly knew the answer wasn’t simple. He should stop gnawing at it like a dog at a bone.
Despite a light breeze, the day was warm and he started to sweat. Maybe he should let life bend him the way the wind tossed the weeping willows lining the bank. Their midsummer branches touched the canal like tresses falling over the heads of silver-haired women washing their hair.
Two swans glided by, white, graceful, their reflections in the calm waters blurred by a film of scum. Three drake mallard, emerald heads iridescent, squabbled and churned the waters while a dowdy duck bird stood on her head to dabble in the vegetation of the shallows. It seemed an age since he and Lars had gone wildfowling. He’d have to be told Father’s diagnosis tomorrow. Try not to think about it, Fingal, he told himself. Not now.
A high-pitched warbling distracted him. From the top of a tree, a cock linnet, red flash on his forehead, redbreasted, sang his hymn of praise, the free cousin of Paddy Keogh’s caged bird. A shire horse on the towpath puffed air past its lips, making a rubbery sound. The animal leaned into its collar and strode purposefully, hauling a narrow river barge away from Dublin to a destination in the Midlands of Ireland. Smoke from the vessel’s chimney curled up into the willows’ filigree. Someone was making tea.
On the bank, a man in a striped shirt and corduroy trousers tied at the knees with leather thongs was using a trowel to point a retaining wall of granite blocks. He straightened and put a hand in the small of his back, grimaced at Fingal, and said, “Lord Jasus, but I’ve a fierce crick.”
“Give your back a rest then,” Fingal said with a grin, “doctor’s orders.”
“Are yiz a doctor, sir?” he said, kneading his back.
“Almost. You should take a break. It’s a hot day for your job.”
“It’s as hot as the hobs of he— Sorry, miss.”
Kitty smiled. “It’s all right, but tell me how come you’re working on Sunday?”
“It’s a job dat goes all week and I’ve dispensation from Father Grogan to work on Sunday once I’ve been to Mass. Jasus, sir,” the man said, giving Fingal an appraising look, “almost a doctor. I thought when I was a gossoon, young like, I’d like to be an apothecary. Instead I’ve been mending dis feckin’ canal for twenty-five years. But I’d rather work in the sun dan the wet.” He hitched one hip on the wall and pulled out a dudeen. “Doctor’s orders,” he said, raising the pipe with a chuckle.
“Twenty-five years,” Kitty said. “That’s a long time.”
The man pulled off his duncher, produced a red hanky, and mopped his completely bald pate. “My family,” he said, “the Lannigans, has worked on An Chanáil Mhór, the Grand Canal, since they started building it in 1757.” He set his trowel on the wall and scratched his backside. “I could tell you tales all right.”
The permanence and the history of this country, Fingal thought. It might be interesting to hear the man’s story. He pulled out his tobacco pouch. “Like a fill?”
“You’re a gentleman and a scholar, sir.” He used a finger to stuff the bowl of his short white clay pipe and accepted a light. “Dis here waterway wasn’t opened for forty-seven years, not until 1804, the same year the first steam engine pulled a load in England.”
Kitty laughed. “I know a builder like that. It took him months to put up a garage for us in Tallaght when Dad got our first car.”
The man puffed a cloud to hang in the air. “Saving your presence, miss, I don’t t’ink your builder had to put up with w’at the folks who made dis did. The walls kept collapsing.” He crossed himself. “I’d two relations crushed and they weren’t the only ones, but the builders kept at it. They had to drain hundreds of acres of the Bog of Allen, but they did, and connected Dublin wit’ the river Shannon and opened up the southwest and west of Ireland.”
“You know your history,” Fingal said.
“Ah sure, sir, isn’t the whole feckin’ country full of history? And wouldn’t I be the right buck eejit if I didn’t know about my own trade?”
“Thank you for telling us about it,” Fingal said.
“My pleasure, sir, t’anks for the smoke, and the doctor’s orders wat gave me a chance for a break.” He picked up his trowel. “I’d better get on,” he said.
Fingal and Kitty walked away. They had to move to make room for a sweating, beefy-faced man in red braces carrying his coat over one arm. In place of a hat, a handkerchief knotted at each corner made a sun-protector for his head. “You and your feckin’, ‘Wouldn’t it be gas to take a stroll down by the canal?’” he said to the woman who walked beside him pushing a pram. “Fun? Jasus. I’m boiled like a feckin’ lobster and the chiseller must be baked.”
Fingal, who couldn’t catch the wife’s reply, was chuckling as he moved to be beside Kitty. “I’m warm myself,” he said, and wondered was this what happened after a few years of marriage? Squabbling over trivia?
“Ah, but,” said Kitty solemnly and with a deadpan expression, “at least you don’t look like a feckin’ lobster.”
Fingal stopped and guffawed, then, other pedestrians be damned, he kissed her. “Kitty O’Hallorhan,” he said, still laughing, “I love your sense of humour.” If he did ask this girl to marry him, he couldn’t see them bickering. She had too fine a sense of fun.
“I’m glad, Fingal,” she said. “I’m glad you love my humour.”
He detected a touch of wistfulness in her voice but was interrupted by a tugging at his arm. He looked down to see a naked child, beads of water clinging to his pearly skin. Fingal could count every rib. The boy shook his head and shed water like Lars’s springer Barney after a retrieve. “Hey, mister … mister…”
“Gerroff,” Fingal said, trying to avoid the spray.
The boy grinned. “Have yiz kicked any more arses up to the Dodder, mister?”
“Do you do that often, Fingal?” Kitty asked sotto voce and chuckled.
Fingal bent and looked at the lad’s pinched face. “Enda,” he said as he recognised the ex-patient. He said to Kitty, “Enda here was having a pea removed from his ear. He wouldn’t hold still and he kicked my shin.”
“And you offered to—? Shame.” She tousled the lad’s damp hair. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” she said.
“How’s that ear?” Fingal asked.
“Me lug’s grand now. Me mam sent me wit’ a bunch of other lads from Weaver’s Street to come down here for a wash. It beats sitting in a tin bat’ on a Friday after me da and big brudders have used it and the water’s black and cold.” Enda smiled at Kitty then said to Fingal, “Last time I seen you, you’d brandy balls.”
“Och,” said Fingal, “I don’t today.” He had trouble keeping a smile from starting.
Enda turned to where half a dozen naked boys splashed in the shallows and yelled, “The big fecker doesn’t have any brandy balls. He’s about as much use as matches on a motorbike.”
“But I have bulls’ eyes. Here.” He handed over a bag of black-and-white sweeties.
Enda grabbed and screeched, “I’ve a whole feckin’ bag of bulls’ eyes.”
He headed for the bank where the other urchins were racing each other from the water, cheering at the tops of their voices. Enda stopped and squinted up at Fingal. “Me mam would kill me if she knew I’d not said, t’anks, mister, so t’anks very much.” He frowned then said, “If you’re ever on Weaver’s Street, me mam’ll make yiz a cup of tea.” He was surrounded by his friends, leaping, grabbing, and demanding, “Me, me, me. Gimme a sweetie. I want a feckin’ sweetie.”
“Come on, Kitty,” Fingal said, “it’ll be like watching the keepers feed the lions at the zoo.” He strode off forcing her to keep pace. He still wasn’t very hun
gry himself.
“Do you always have sweeties in your pocket?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Do you know, you’re a big soft lump, O’Reilly,” she said, and as the sounds of yelling children faded behind them kissed his cheek.
He stopped and faced her. “I’ve a soft spot for youngsters, and the poor wee gurriers from places like the Liberties have nothing.”
She looked into his eyes. “Fingal,” she said, “I think you’d be a great father.”
Fingal glanced down at his boots, then faced Kitty. “I want kids one day, but—”
“But kids and medical school don’t mix. I think I told you already I understand.” She took his hand and they turned onto Dolphin Road. It hadn’t seemed like a two-mile walk from her flat. The restaurant was three doors up. Fingal opened the door and waited for her to go in. He’d think about the future, and love and kiddies, once he knew about Father and the results of his own exams. But this morning Kitty had succeeded in making sure he wasn’t preoccupied. He was going to make damn sure he’d not let his worries spoil this afternoon.
As the kitchen smells filled his nostrils, Fingal O’Reilly’s mouth began to water and he realised he could do a roast beef lunch justice after all.
31
It Is Never Good to Bring Bad News
Not a vestige of a smile showed as Doctor Micks entered Saint Patrick’s Ward on Monday morning. He didn’t need to speak. Fingal remembered being kicked in the stomach by an opposing rugby player. He felt that way now.
“I’m truly sorry, O’Reilly,” Doctor Micks said. “Please come into the office.”
Fingal followed. Damn. Damn. Damn.
“Sit down please, Fingal.” Doctor Micks remained standing. “I’ll come to the point. Your father does have aleukaemic leukaemia—and it is acute lymphocytic.”
Fingal envisioned the man wearing the red robes of a British judge removing a square of black silk from the top of his horsehair wig after pronouncing a death sentence. “I see.” Fingal swallowed. His fists clenched. He wanted to scream, “No,” but instead said, “I suppose there’s no possibility of a mistake?” He’d been working in the hospital long enough to know that laboratory tests could be wrong.
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