Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor

by Patrick Taylor

  “I’d not call it welcoming me with open arms,” Barry said, “but, crikey, Bertie wouldn’t stand in my way?” He smiled.

  O’Reilly sighed. “I wish I could tell you it’s because Bertie’s mellowed and thinks you’re a wonderful doctor, but I’m afraid he’s still a great gobshite and his remark has got more to do with his total antipathy to female physicians—one in particular.” He proceeded to tell Barry briefly about Bertie’s angina and his refusal to see Jenny.

  “I see,” said Barry. “Can the leopard change his spots?”

  “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots, to be exact,” O’Reilly said.

  “Jeremiah twelve twenty-three,” Barry said. And laughed. “I miss you, Fingal. I’ve no one to play our quotes game with.” He sounded wistful.

  O’Reilly thought it tactful not to mention that Jennifer had turned out to be as good a verbal sparring partner as Barry, but O’Reilly did say, “Apart from Bertie Bishop, Jenny’s been pretty well accepted here by just about everyone now.”

  “Good for her,” Barry said, clearly meaning it. “I remember how tricky it was for me for a while after Major Fotheringham died. But they’re pretty welcoming folks here once you get to know them.”

  O’Reilly hesitated, hoping Barry was going to say more. Instead the lad simply took a long pull on his Guinness and let his gaze roam round the room.

  “Barry,” O’Reilly finally said, “I don’t want to put you under any pressure. I thought when I was newly qualified that I wanted nothing else but to work in a dispensary practice. A few months later I was having serious second thoughts. It’s not easy deciding for a lot of us. I do understand.”

  Barry looked O’Reilly in the eye. “But Jenny’s fitting in already. I heard how satisfied you sounded when you told me how well she was being accepted. She wants to stay on, doesn’t she? And you’d like my decision soon.”

  O’Reilly nodded.

  Barry inhaled. “I wish I felt certain, but I do miss this place—a lot, and yet I really enjoy obstetrics.”

  “I understand.”

  “But you need an answer.”

  O’Reilly nodded once.

  “I’ll give you one by December first. Is that all right?”

  O’Reilly smiled. “Not only is it all right—” He lifted his almost finished glass. “—I’ll drink to it and then I’ll have one more while you finish your second. Then it’s home for one of Kinky’s dinners.” Having so enjoyed Barry’s company in the Duck this evening, he could only hope her cooking might just add another grain or two to the “I’d like to come back” side of Doctor Barry Laverty’s decision-making scales.

  O’Reilly took a final swallow of his Guinness and thought that it wasn’t an entirely satisfactory way to end the conversation. A clear-cut yes or no would have been helpful, but …

  One of Arthur’s enormous “Wooooofs” rang round the room.

  Conversation in the bar died.

  O’Reilly looked under the table and soon Barry’s head appeared upside down as he too, looked down at the big Labrador. “Did you say the wee dog’s name’s Brian Boru?” Barry said, grabbing Arthur’s collar.

  Arthur was scowling at the chihuahua, who, hackles raised, one lip curled, a high-pitched growling coming from his throat, was helping himself to Arthur’s Smithwicks.

  “It suits him.”

  29

  Risk It on One Turn of Pitch and Toss

  “I reckon it was pretty brave of Chaplin, making a silent film,” said Kitty. “Everybody wants ‘talkies’ these days.” She had her arm linked with Fingal’s as they left the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield for the mile and a half walk back to the flat she shared with Virginia Treanor on Leeson Street, and the dinner Kitty had prepared. “His Little Tramp character really makes me laugh even if he doesn’t say a word.”

  “I thought Paulette Goddard was pretty good too,” Fingal said, and absently rubbed a sticking plaster on his forehead. Somebody’s boot studs had gouged a furrow when he and Charlie both tackled a Bective Ranger who would have scored, but for their efforts. It had been a grand game and Wanderers had won. Bob said that Mister Collopy, one of the selectors, seemed to have been impressed. Fingal could only hope so. It would be a couple of months until players were picked to play in a trial match, after which the final Irish team would be selected.

  “She was,” Kitty said, “but that scene where he got caught in the cogs of the machine? Absolutely priceless. I nearly wet myself I laughed so much.”

  Fingal chuckled. Only a girl who was completely comfortable with him would make a risqué remark like that. He liked that. Being with Kitty felt … felt right. He removed his arm from hers and took her gloved hand.

  They passed the Four Courts on Inns Quay. The new domed rotunda had been patterned on the original. “Started in 1776, opened in 1802, blown to blazes in June of 1922 in the Irish Civil War, one thousand years’ worth of archives destroyed. The place was rebuilt and reopened in 1932,” Fingal said.

  “I only remember the reopening,” Kitty said, and looked at him. “You never cease to amaze me, Fingal, with all the tidbits of information you remember.” She tapped his head. “Must be getting cluttered in there.” She laughed and he laughed with her.

  “Having a memory like glue came in handy at medical school.”

  “I imagine it did. All those facts to learn so you could be a doctor.”

  They crossed the Liffey. Fingal wondered what it must have looked like before the now oily, scummy waters had been confined to a channel between masonry embankments. A couple of mallard dispiritedly dabbled in the river. “I reckon I’m lucky at my work,” he said, trying to dismiss the doubts he’d been feeling. “I know the film was a satire, but it’s not too far from the truth about how thousands of people make their livings doing the same tasks over and over, day after day, week after week. Henry Ford’s production line may have been a great advancement for his Model Ts, but I don’t think it’s very good for people. I’d go spare, totally Harpic, working on one.”

  “Like the toilet cleaner, ‘Clean round the bend’?” She chuckled then became serious. “At least,” said Kitty, “they do have jobs. I’ll bet those poor divils don’t.” She nodded to the corner of Usher’s Quay and Bridge Street where a group of men, all cloth capped, none clean-shaven, some wearing boots, some barefoot, all smoking cigarettes, were gathered round a wall. “That’s how a lot of them while away the hours. Pitch and toss.”

  “Maybe it’s because it’s Saturday evening and no one’s working much anyway by this time,” Fingal said, hoping he was right, but doubting it. “At least they’re not in the boozers.” He stopped and Kitty stopped with him. “Let’s watch.”

  Copper pennies lay on the ground at varying distances from the base of the wall.

  One man stood, eyes slitted, and swung his arm underhand, releasing a penny. It landed a long distance from the wall. “Crap shot,” he yelled, and walked forward to retrieve his penny.

  “You can call that once in a round if you don’t like your pitch and want to take it over again,” Fingal said.

  “Jasus Murphy, would you get a feckin’ move on, Payo Quigley,” said a freckled-faced youth, “and remember it’s the wall over here you’re trying to get close to, not the feckin’ Liffey.” The river was at least two hundred yards behind them. His teasing was greeted by good-natured laughter.

  “Quigley,” Fingal said, “a surname derived from the Irish, coigleach. It means ‘unkempt.’”

  Kitty said, and not unkindly, “If the boot fits. He certainly could use a haircut.”

  Payo crouched and pitched again. The penny hit one already on the ground.

  Several voices yelled, “Jingle,” and men walked forward to retrieve their coins.

  “If one coin hits another, it’s called a jingle and everybody has to take their pitch over again,” Fingal said. “Come on. They could be at this for hours and I’m ready for my grub.” He started walking.

&nbs
p; “How do they know who wins?” Kitty asked.

  “Once all the pennies have been pitched, whoever’s coin is nearest the wall picks them up, tosses them in the air, and yells his choice of heads or tails. He keeps all the ones facing up the way he predicted, then whoever was second closest does the same and so on until all the coins have been won. Apparently, a similiar sport was in the original Greek Olympic Games.”

  “Fingal,” said Kitty, “you’re at it again, Mister Erudition.”

  “Just thought it was interesting,” he said, and frowned. Ordinarily he didn’t mind Kitty’s teasing, but had he detected an edge to that comment? He realised they were on High Street and were passing number ten. “I know a man who lives in there. Broke his ankle. Lost his job. Sad.”

  “Very,” said Kitty.

  “Ma’s going to ask a friend who has a shoe factory if he has any jobs, but she’s not very hopeful. It makes you feel so helpless. He’s a good man with a wife and two kiddies. He really wants to work but there’s nothing for him.” Stop it, he told himself. There’s no need for self-flagellation. It’s not your job to find work for John-Joe even if you are trying. You’re on a day off, you’re out with a beautiful, vivacious woman, and, his stomach rumbled, you’re going for your dinner with her. He looked into Kitty’s grey eyes, at her lips, her well-filled cardigan, and hoped her flatmate Virginia Treanor would be out for a long time.

  A familiar figure appeared from one of the alleys running between High Street and Cook Street. “Good evening to you, Doctor O’Reilly, sir.” Lorcan O’Lunney stopped and set his two-wheeled cart down on its front legs. “I could use a feckin’ breather. How are you, sir?”

  “I’m grand, Lorcan,” Fingal said, “and this is Nurse O’Hallorhan.” He saw that the cart was piled high with clothes. Not everybody got Saturday evening off. Clearly Lorcan was at his work.

  He politely lifted his duncher. “How are you, miss?”

  Kitty smiled. “Very well, thank you.” She looked at his cart. “That looks heavy.”

  He shrugged. “Ah sure, even a hen’s heavy if you carry her far enough. But I’m not goin’ far. Lamb Alley to deliver these to an oul’ one who has a stall in the Iveagh Markets on Francis Street. She’ll get them fixed up ready for sale on Monday.”

  “How’s your back, Lorcan?” Fingal said.

  “Och, Jasus, sir, it’s like a lift at the Gresham Hotel.”

  Kitty frowned. “It’s like a lift?”

  “Aye, miss. It has its feckin’ ups and downs.” He cackled.

  They both laughed, and then Fingal said, “Seriously, how is it?”

  “Your lotion and pills help a bit, sir.”

  “I’m glad.” And he was, but he wished they helped more.

  Lorcan rummaged in his pocket, produced a packet of cigarettes, opened it, frowned, and said, “Bollicks. I’m out and I’m feckin’ well gasping for a drag or two.”

  Fingal’s hand went to his pocket. There was the packet of Woodbine he’d bought as a gift on Monday for the now non-smoking John-Joe Finnegan. “Here,” he said, offering the packet, “I don’t use these. You have them, Lorcan.”

  Lorcan stetched out a hand encased in woollen gloves from which the fingers had been cut, smiled at O’Reilly, and said, “Feckin’ manna from heaven. Bless you, sir. May you live the life of Reilly and have a large funeral.”

  Fingal chuckled. In medieval Ireland, the Reilly family, Raghallach, was renowned for their business acumen, and “Reilly” became a colloquialism for money. And only people with lots of friends and admirers had large funerals.

  Lorcan opened the pack, removed a cigarette, lit up by cracking the head of a match between his thumb and index fingernails, inhaled deeply, coughed damply, and said, “Grand for the lungs, sir. Keeps them well lubricated.” He stooped, lifting the cart’s handles off the ground. “I’d better be off, sir, and t’anks a million for the gaspers, Doctor Big Fellah. Nice to meet you, miss.” He dipped a slight bow to Kitty and set off on the short journey to Cornmarket and the junction with Francis Street, where, as Fingal remembered, Paddy Keogh, the one-armed sergeant, had lived before getting a job on a building site and moving to a better-class district. He wondered how Paddy was. He’d not seen the man since last year when Paddy had come to the home of his friend Brendan Kilmartin, whose wife Roisín Fingal had delivered of a little boy who was to be named after Fingal. They lived on…? He frowned. Swift’s Alley. That was it. “Come on,” he said. “Your place,” and started walking.

  “I take it that was a patient of yours,” she said.

  “One of my first,” Fingal said, remembering meeting the man in Phelim Corrigan’s waiting room.

  “You never stop worrying about them, do you?”

  “Well, I—”

  “I remember what you said when you’d had that case of diptheria and Doctor Corrigan sucked the membrane out. You said he always put the patients first—and that was the kind of doctor you wanted to be.”

  “Within reason,” he said.

  She stopped, tilted her head to one side, and regarded him. “Occasionally I wonder, Fingal, if some physicians shouldn’t be like priests and take a vow of celibacy. Your on-call seems to be making it awfully tricky for us to get together sometimes, and I do miss you.”

  Fingal frowned. Where the hell had this come from? He revelled in her company, knew she was happy being with him, but he did take his professional responsibilities and his family commitment to Ma seriously. “Are you not happy?” he said. “I know I did turn my back on you last year when I had to work so hard to qualify, but I thought that was behind us. I—” Was Kitty angling for a proposal? He’d certainly never discussed such a thing with her and, anyway, with what he presently earned he could hardly support a wife and children. He shook his head and repeated his question. “Kitty? Are you not happy.”

  She took a deep breath and sighed. “Truth?”

  “Truth.”

  “I’m happy with you, Fingal, but not with our situation. You’re concerned about your friend who lost his job because he has a wife and children. But do you ever think about having those things for yourself? A lot of my friends are married, settled down, having babies. I’m not twenty-one anymore.”

  So that was it. Fingal looked about in short, jerky glances like a cornered boar looking for a way to escape. “I’m only beginning a career, Kitty. I do love you.” And that was as far as he was prepared to go. Please, he thought, let it be enough for now. Until I’m ready—ready to take the plunge. “Look. Ma will be going to live in Portaferry soon, and Charlie’s pretty decent about swapping call. I really do want to see much more of you. I’ll do my very best to make more time.”

  She studied his face and sighed. He knew her well enough to know that she was struggling over what to say next. “I love you, Fingal.” She frowned. Took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s see how it goes.” She started to walk briskly and he had to lengthen his stride to keep up. “Come on,” she said. “I’ve a pot roast cooking and I don’t want it to dry up.”

  She had always been able to change the subject quickly if she felt she was on emotionally thin ice. “Kitty,” he said as they turned onto Nicholas Street, “Kitty, I love you and—”

  “Extra. Extra. Read all about it! International Brigade lands in Alicante to fight for the Spanish Government against Franco!” Kitty had come to a halt, transfixed. “Read all about it.” The barefoot newsboy in short, ragged pants turned his attention to her. “Ma’am?”

  “Yes, give me a paper, please,” Kitty said.

  Fingal gave the ragged urchin a copper and accepted a copy of the Irish Independent. “Here.” He gave it to her.

  “I’ll read it when I get home,” she said, tucking the paper under her arm and striding off again, this time even faster than before. “You know, volunteers from all over have been arriving in Spain since August the first. The ones fighting against Franco’s forces are called the International Brigades.”

  “I know,” he s
aid quietly, thinking, Jasus, not bloody Spain again.

  “Women have been going with them as part of their medical services.”

  Fingal’s heart jumped. “What? You’re not thinking of—”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking. I just know that ever since I heard about the massacre at Badajoz, I can’t stop thinking about all those children who have lost their parents. It haunts me, Fingal.”

  “Kitty. Please. I understand how you feel, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  “People always say that. But a nursing friend of mine, Agnes Brady, she’s doing something. She joined the Irish contingent, the Connolly Column. I don’t know if she’ll be with the lot that have just arrived.” She stopped and looked into his eyes. “I don’t know, but I want to find out. You mentioned the Four Courts—how they were blown up in our Civil War? We know here in Ireland about the horrors of civil war. The one in Spain is just as senseless, but just as important. You worry yourself sick over your unemployed patients here. Permit me to show a bit of humanity, concern for the children of Spain.”

  And after that Fingal didn’t think there was much more to say.

  30

  This Is the Happiest Conversation

  O’Reilly sat at the head of the dining room table, his jacket hanging on the back of his chair. He watched the play of late October sunlight on the cut-glass chandelier above the table—blue, indigo, and violet—as a beam was refracted through a facet. Illuminated dust motes danced a saraband on convection currents above the sideboard where a warming plate sat under a chafing dish. On it, two shrivelled devilled kidneys remained, the sole survivors of the massacre, largely at his hands, of the original servings. He burped contentedly.

  Kitty had left for work, Jenny was in the surgery, and he, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, was temporarily a gentleman of leisure. Not a single solitary sufferer had sought the solace of a home visit.