A Dublin Student Doctor

by Patrick Taylor

  When he went into the room Fingal didn’t feel the same shock he had when he’d first visited Paddy Keogh. Tattered wallpaper, no running water, open fireplace, bare floorboards, picture of the Bleeding Heart, a chipped plaster Madonna on a scarred mantel. He’d seen it all countless times. A table and four chairs looked to be in much better condition than the furniture in other places. “Me da, him wat’s workin.” That’s what Declan had said. It looked as if Brendan Kilmartin was having a go at brightening up the room.

  The floor planks had been scrubbed and the window had been washed so it let in light. Fingal remembered noting the first time he’d met Roisín that she’d kept her hair well brushed. It looked as if she tried to keep her home tidy too.

  The tableau he saw was like an illustration by Fred Walker in Dickens’s Hard Times. The patient lay on newspapers on a straw mattress near the window. She was surrounded by her mother, the uniformed district midwife, and Doctor Roger Milliken.

  “Ah, Jasus, ah Jasus, ah Jasus, Mary, and Jooooseph.”

  Delivery must be imminent.

  Over the usual tenement smells to which he had become inured hung the now familiar metallic odour of amniotic fluid. He could see a large damp stain on the newspapers. Her waters had broken.

  “She’s nearly fully dilated, Fingal,” Roger said. “Get your hands washed, there’s soap and a basin of water on the table, and get over here.”

  Fingal chucked his coat onto a wooden chair, rolled up his sleeves, and prepared himself to deliver another baby. This time he wasn’t sweating the way he had with the first five.

  * * *

  “Now,” said Granny, “now dat’s all over, who’d like a cup of tea?” She set a battered kettle on top of a small fire in the brick grate.

  “Me, Ma,” Roisín said weakly. “I’m gummin’ for one. I’m as dry as a crop of bog-cotton.”

  Fingal glanced at Roger and saw the tiniest shake of his head as he said, “Very kind of you, Mrs. Butler, but Mister O’Reilly and I should be running along.”

  Fingal, noting a row of not-too-clean chipped metal mugs on a shelf, could understand Roger’s reluctance. You could catch typhoid from drinking out of dirty cups. Fingal had lost track of the number of times he’d had to get rid of the fleas he’d collected while working in the district.

  Miss Tobín, the district midwife, looked up from where she was tucking a baby under a blanket in an orange box that served as a cot. “Run on, gentlemen. I’ll tidy up here.” She smiled at Fingal. “I think,” she said, “Mister O’Reilly, that went very well.”

  Fingal bowed his head, acknowledging the compliment. “Thank you.”

  “No,” Roisín said, “t’ank you, Big Fellah.”

  Fingal smiled. His new nickname had stuck.

  “Dat’s two times youse’ve saved my bacon. Once wit dem neemicks, and now delivering the chiseller. And do you know?” She accepted a mug of tea from Granny Butler, “it was grand seein’ a friendly face, someone you’d got to know a bit, like.”

  “My pleasure, Roisín,” he said, and thought, my sentiments exactly. And not just one friendly face. He’d been recognised by Jockser and Declan too.

  “Ma,” Roisín said, “could you make me a jam piece? I’m so hungry I could eat a farmer’s arse t’rough a tennis racquet.”

  Fingal laughed. He’d not heard that expression before.

  “You’ve a powerful laugh on you, Big Fellah,” Roisín said, “and maybe this’ll bring a smile to your face too. I asked one of the nurses at the hospital and she told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “Brendan and me agreed if it was a wee boy, and Lord bless us it is, we’d name him for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly Kilmartin would be a powerful name,” Roisín said.

  Fingal glanced over to where, rosebud lips pouting and eyes closed, young Fingal Kilmartin slept. “I’m touched,” he said, and his heart swelled.

  Someone knocked on the door. A man’s voice said, “It’s Roisín’s oul’ wan and Paddy Keogh. Can we come in?”

  “Come right ahead, you pair of bowsies.” Despite having apparently insulted the two men, Granny’s smile was beatific.

  Fingal heard the voice outside roar, “Declan, get your arse over to your auntie’s. The wean’s here.”

  A stranger to Fingal who must be Roisín’s husband Brendan came in, followed by Paddy Keogh. Paddy wore a new-looking Ulster overcoat and a bowler hat. Brendan was a heavyset man, balding, florid cheeks, broken veins in the tip of a flattened nose, piercing blue eyes that flitted from Roisín to the makeshift cot and back.

  “See what the stork’s brought you this time, Brendan Kilmartin,” Granny said.

  “Is it a boy or a child?” he asked.

  “Anudder brudder for the rest.”

  “Jasus,” Brendan said, crossing the room, kneeling, ignoring the strangers, and giving Roisín a kiss. “I love you.”

  Fingal glanced away. He caught Paddy Keogh’s eye.

  The little ex-sergeant snapped to attention, grinned, and gave Fingal a left-handed salute. “Mister O’Reilly.”

  “Paddy,” Fingal said. “Good to see you.” He noticed that Paddy swayed slightly.

  “And you, sir. How’s your pal wit’ the motorcar?”

  “Bob? Bob Beresford? He’s grand.” Fingal heard a cough and turned.

  “Fingal, I’ll need to be getting back. Can you make your own way?”

  “Of course.” Fingal knew Roger had understood that he would like to stay longer.

  Roger lifted his bag and said to Roisín, “We’ll expect you at the postpartum clinic in six weeks and bring Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly Kilmartin to the infant department.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “See you later, Fingal.” Roger left.

  At the other side of the room, Brendan held his new son. Roisín smiled up at them. Miss Tobín was repacking instruments.

  Fingal said to Paddy, “How’s the job been going? Last time I saw you on the tram you’d had a pay raise.”

  Paddy smiled. “Your man Willy Duggan, the builder, is a real gent. He’s upped me to foreman. Me? The feckin’ hat—” He tapped the bowler, which was the badge of his status and the origin of his title. “Two pounds a week, and I get to look after takin’ on workers.” He dropped a slow wink. “Brendan here looked after me when I was a chiseller. Helped me get into the army when I was a lad. I had to persuade the idle git to come to work, but he’s got used to the idea and now he’s feedin’ his family better.” Paddy nodded at the table and chairs. “He’s buyin’ bits and pieces for Roisín and she’s a stranger to Uncle at the people’s bank.” He must have seen Fingal frown. “Dat’s what we call the pawnbroker’s shop and we all call him ‘Uncle.’” He raised his voice, “And you can pay your own shout at the boozer too, can’t you, Brendan, you great bollix?”

  “True on you, Paddy,” Brendan said, “true on you.”

  Paddy lowered his voice. “I only wish I could persuade him to move in near me on Mount Street. He can afford to get out of dis feckin’ rookery, but—och,” he shook his head, “I was happy to do it, but shiftin’ some folks out of here? It’s be easier to pull teet’ wit’out an anaest’etic.” He reached into his coat pocket and produced a glass bottle containing a pale liquid. “Mister O’Reilly, sir,” Paddy said, “mebbe I’m talking out of turn to one of the gentry like—”

  “I’m not gentry, Paddy.”

  “By Jasus, you are in my book, sir. A gentleman and a scholar.”

  Fingal blushed.

  “Look what you’ve done.”

  “Me? What have I done?”

  “You cured my pneumonia. Fair play. Dat’s your job, but you found me, and me a feckin’ cripple, you found me work. Dat wasn’t charity.” He made to spit, but clearly thought better of it. “I didn’t mind the beggin’—much, but I hated havin’ to take charity, but I’d me family. I appreciate what the folks from Saint Vincent de Paul done fo
r us wit’ dere cast-off clothes, thrown-out furniture, oul pots and pans, but Jasus I still had some pride. I used to be a sergeant for feck’s sake.”

  Fingal thought Paddy, a little the worse for the drink, sounded close to tears.

  “Findin’ a man a job’s not part of what doctors are meant to do. Dey’re supposed to be too feckin’ important. You weren’t. You went looking for Willy, and you come into a place like dis lookin’ for me. Because I’ve got dat job now the family have a good life out of the tenements. We even had a holiday to Greystones last summer. I have a job dat let me help Brendan and he’s seein’ to his own family now too.”

  “Paddy, look,” Fingal said, “I spoke to a man about you, but who said to himself, ‘Only one arm? Doesn’t matter.’ Who worked so bloody hard he got to be the foreman? Who took care of his old friends?”

  Paddy looked at Fingal. “Me,” he said, “but I’d not’ve wit’out your help, sir.” He put the bottle to his mouth.

  Fingal saw a large air bubble run through the liquid as Paddy took a swallow, took the bottle from his lips, and said, “Mister O’Reilly, I don’t feckin’ care what you say, in my book and the Kilmartins’ book, in the words of the old toast, you are a feckin’ gentleman, a scholar, and, if the truth be told, probably a fine judge of Irish whiskey.” He wiped the neck of the bottle on his sleeve and offered it to Fingal. “Will you, sir, take a drop of the pure with me to celebrate?”

  Fingal accepted the bottle, unsure if he was celebrating Paddy and the Kilmartins’ change of circumstances or the birth. “I will drink with you, Sergeant Paddy, and to you,” he said. “Sláinte.” He took a mouthful and gulped it down. “Jasus Murphy.” The poitín burned his throat, made his eyes water. He coughed and handed the bottle back to Paddy. “Grand drop that,” he managed.

  “If you ever want a bottle, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Fingal said. “Thank you very much.” It was an offer he was unlikely to take up. The poitín was firewater.

  Paddy winked. “I know a fellah who can get as much mountain dew as you’d like, but I’d not want you to t’ink, sir, dat I spend my time half scuttered. I only take a drop on big days like today.”

  “No need to tell me, Paddy,” Fingal said. He was distracted by a strident yelling. Baby Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly Kilmartin was demanding attention. He glanced over and saw Miss Tobín shooing Brendan out of the way and handing the baby to Roisín.

  The door opened and Declan stuck his head round the door frame. “Can we come in?” he asked.

  “Come ahead,” Brendan said.

  This was definitely family time, Fingal thought, as folks trooped into the cramped room. “I think,” he said to Paddy, “it’s time for me to be getting back to the Rotunda.”

  “Fair play to you, sir.” He offered the bottle, which Fingal declined. “I’ve a bicycle to ride,” he said.

  Paddy laughed, then said very seriously, possibly emboldened to familiarity by Fingal’s having accepted a drink, “You’ll be a proper doctor soon, sir?”

  “June,” Fingal said, “I hope.”

  “You’d not t’ink—don’t get cross now—you’d not t’ink of being a dispensary doctor here, in the Liberties? It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”

  The suggestion caught Fingal off guard. He frowned. What had Roisín said about seeing a friendly face? How flattered had he been to have a baby called for him? Hadn’t he been delighted to be recognised and accepted by the kids on the street? Admit it, Fingal, didn’t you get a wonderful feeling seeing how successful Paddy was and knowing you’d helped?

  Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly didn’t surprise himself one bit when he said, “I will think about it, Paddy. I’ll think hard.”

  44

  Home and Rest on the Couch

  “There,” said Bridgit. “That’s all done.” She put one hand on a hip and peered at the pane.

  “You could see your face in that,” Fingal said. “It would take the light from your eyes. Well done, Bridgit.” Fingal finished moving the swivel chair. From where he stood in Father’s study, there was a rainbow on the recently washed and polished glass. Sunbeams danced into the room even though it was muggy outside the big house on Lansdowne Road and there was thunder in the air of the May morning.

  “Thank you, Master Fingal.” She flourished a yellow duster and stepped back to admire her handiwork.

  “Watch out,” Fingal roared as Bridgit almost stepped in a pail of sudsy water.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, dodging sideways. “I’d’ve taken a quare purler if I’d tripped over it, so I would, and I’d’ve made a flood on the floor too. And after my dusting the skirting boards.” She tutted and rubbed the back of her wrist against her forehead where wisps of grey hair straggled down from her centre parting. “Now, sir, if you’d just go over there.” She pointed to a corner.

  As soon as Fingal moved, she grabbed a Ewbank carpet sweeper and began to shove it back and forth. “I know the mistress bought me one of they Hoovers with a headlight, but, hey bye, it gulders like a bullock with the bloats. The old ways are the best.”

  Bridgit was still a country girl at heart, Fingal thought, with the County Antrim penchant for sprinkling her sentences with “hey bye,” and her rural allusions. Dubliners would never have seen a castrated male calf with an intestine distended by wind from eating too much clover. The poor creatures certainly bellowed.

  “Master Fingal.”

  He turned. Cook had come in. Her infrequent appearances upstairs from her kitchen were always as startling as the appearence of the Daemon King through a stage trapdoor, but whereas he’d be accompanied by smoke and fake flames, Cook always managed to trail clouds of flour.

  “Mildred,” Bridgit yelled, “don’t you dare get dust on my nice clean desk. I’ve only just polished it.”

  “Sorry, Bridgit,” Cook shoved her hands into a large central pocket in the front of a voluminous white apron that struggled to cover her convexity, “but, I wanted to be sure that you did say they’d be here at noon, sir? Your people and your brother?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that the specialist Doctor Micks will be here at two thirty?”

  “He will. I saw him this morning.”

  “But he’ll not need to be fed?”

  “Right.”

  “So I’ll need to have luncheon for four people ready for one o’clock and cleared away by two?”

  “Right again, Cook.” Fingal smiled. He’d arrived here an hour ago, at ten, to announce the imminent return of Father and Ma. It had set Bridgit racing round like a bee on a hot brick, dusting and cleaning. Cook quietly worked away in her domain. He was convinced if he’d said to her, “I’m bringing the first batallion of the Royal Iniskilling Fusiliers in an hour,” she’d have said, “And would they like Denny’s sausages and champ or rashers and eggs?”

  Cook said, “I’ve phoned the butcher and he’ll send round the boy on his bike to deliver pork fillets. I’ll stuff and roast them.” She stiffened and sniffed. “It’s not like Mrs. O’Reilly, sir, to give us so little warning. Not one bit.”

  “I’m sorry, Cook, but I only got the telegram late last night.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket. Ma had sent it from Holyhead in Wales. He read, “‘Coming home—Stop—Father unwell—Stop—Tell Lars staff—Stop—Arrive noon 13—stop—Mother.’ I know it’s short notice for you both, but I think it was my mother’s way of not wanting us to worry. It must be days since they left Cap D’Antibes. With trains, cross-channel steamers, it’s quite a journey, but she waited until the last minute to tell me.”

  Bridgit sniffled. “The poor professor. Cook and me, we knew he wasn’t well before they went away, but my own oul’ ma always says, ‘No news is good news, hey.’ Mrs. O’Reilly sent us such lovely postcards—”

  “Me too,” Fingal said. Her cards and telegrams were always so cheerful it had been easy to pretend nothing was wrong over in France, but it had been.

  Cook lifted her apron to dab an
eye. “I hate telegrams. I remember my own ma getting one after the Somme. I was only fifteen. My big brother, Connor, God rest him. Telegrams never have good news. Your poor father. And your mother never once said he was getting worse, not until you got—”

  “Don’t worry, Cook.” Fingal shook his head. “I swear that if my mother was up to her shoulders in quicksand she’d say nothing until it was level with her mouth because she’d not want to inconvenience anybody. Not until it was absolutely necessary.”

  The front doorbell rang. “That’ll be my brother,” Fingal said. “You two carry on. I’ll let him in.” He was glad of an excuse to leave Bridgit and Cook to commiserate with each other. “Thanks for coming down, Lars,” Fingal said as he let his brother in. Lars was hatless and coatless. “It’s good to see you.” He shook Lars’s hand.

  “I came as quickly as I could,” Lars said. “I should have been here at ten, but there was a dirty great cattle market in Drogheda and it took forever to get through.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll be good for us both to be here to welcome them home,” Fingal said, “and with your help we can have things set up before Father and Ma arrive.” He opened the study door. “Bridgit and Cook have been tearing about getting the house ready, but I want a hand moving a bed. We’ve got plenty of time. Come on into the study and I’ll tell you what needs doing.”

  Lars followed Fingal. “Bridgit. Cook.”

  “Mister O’Reilly,” they said, and curtsied in unison.

  “Now,” said Fingal, “I’ve seen cases like Father’s. The worst symptoms are weakness and shortness of breath.” He hesitated. There were things not mentioned in front of servants, but, damn it all, Bridgit and Cook were family. “There’s a toilet off the hall here on the ground floor. The folks’ bedroom’s up two flights of stairs. If we move a spare bed down to the study, Father wouldn’t have to cope with all that climbing. And it’ll be easier for Cook and Bridgit to serve his meals if he has to stay in bed.” He saw Bridgit’s look of gratitude. Fingal knew that lately her left knee had been troubling her with rheumatism. “We’ve got the desk, chair, and table over against the wall, but you and I’ll need to hump the bed down, Lars, and help Bridgit make it up.”