“We’re all grand, thank you, sir. Julie’s near halfway til her due date and Tori’s walking by herself. She can use a spoon too. She’s growing fast, so she is.” He frowned. “I’m not sure she understands she’s going til have a wee brother.”
O’Reilly didn’t want to spoil Donal’s unshakeable belief by telling him that the birth ratio of boys to girls was about 101 to 100. An even-odds bet.
Arthur trotted up to see what was going on, accepted being patted by Donal, and sat at O’Reilly’s feet, otter tail making lazy half circles through the grass.
“No Bluebird with you today, Donal?” Kitty asked. “Is she all right?”
“She’s grand, but I left her at home.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want her messing things up, and I come over til ask you a wee favour, and all, sir. About Arthur.”
“Arthur?” O’Reilly frowned, shrugged, and said, “Ask away.”
“Could you, like, keep him out of the wee spruce wood, sir?”
O’Reilly was starting to put two and two together. Donal did not want dogs in the wood. Why? It marched with the Marquis of Ballybucklebo’s estate. Technically, Donal wasn’t on the marquis’s land, although the birds had undoubtedly been bred by the marquis’s gamekeeper. But game birds paid no heed to boundaries, and Donal Donnelly had been known to pay attention to game birds.
“Please, sir.” Donal was beginning to look sheepish.
“Would this have anything to do with pheasants, Donal?”
“Och, Doctor O’Reilly.” Donal hung his head.
“Tell,” O’Reilly said. To be honest, if Donal were trying to “borrow” a few of John MacNeill’s pheasants, they’d hardly be missed, and they would be added food on the table for Donal and his growing family. “Donal?” O’Reilly was more interested in how exactly Donal was going to do it.
Donal took a deep breath. His expression performed the usual localised Saint Vitus’ dance that always accompanied his coming to a decision. “You’ll not tell nobody nothing, sir? Please?”
O’Reilly guffawed. “Sure amn’t I your doctor, Donal? I’m not allowed to tell anybody what a patient tells me.”
Kitty said, “That goes for nurses too.”
“Stickin’ out a mile,” Donal said with a vast buck-toothed grin. He produced the sack. “This here’s barley, so it is.” He opened the neck.
O’Reilly nearly banged his head into Kitty’s as they both leant forward to peer in at the beige-coloured grains.
“I’ve been baiting the wood for a week, so I have, and when I come out last night for til see—the moon’s been a waning crescent all week, so its dead dark and tomorrow night it’s a new moon—anyroad, six birds was roosting in the trees and—”
“You’re setting the real bait for tonight?” O’Reilly had caught a whiff of what might have been whiskey coming from the sack.
“Yes, sir.”
“Not soaked in good Jameson or Bushmills, I hope?”
A look of horror crossed Donal’s face. “Indeed no, sir. Not at all. That would be hearsay, so it would.”
“I think you mean heresy,” Kitty corrected gently.
“Right enough, heresy. No. I used Scotch whisky, it’s only fit for cooking with anyway, til soak the grain. I’d not waste good Irish.”
“That is a relief,” said O’Reilly. “So please explain to Mrs. O’Reilly how this all works.”
Donal took a deep breath. “Do you see,” he said, “you get the birds used til coming for the grain, then when they are, you set out the whisky-soaked stuff. Along comes your birds, gobble gobble, up a tree til roost, off til sleepy-byes, but the birds is getting hammered.”
Kitty chuckled. “I’ve heard of ‘drunk as a lord’ and ‘drunk as a skunk,’ but—”
“It’s as properly and potently pissed as a paralytic pheasant, Missus,” Donal said.
O’Reilly and Kitty laughed.
“And them birds can’t lock their feet, so they need to keep a grip to stay on the roost while they are asleep. When the drink gets to the pheasant, the talons open up and the birds drop off their perches like ripe apples from the trees in September.”
Kitty clapped her hands and laughed out loud. “Donal,” she said, “if it wasn’t, I am sure, illegal, it would be brilliant.”
“Aye,” said Donal, “and the best bit is when you wring the bird’s neck…”
Kitty shuddered.
“They’re still stocious and they don’t feel nothing.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Kitty said.
“Just one more thing,” O’Reilly said. “Do you take cocks and hens?”
Donal blew out his cheeks. His eyes blazed. He snorted and came close to stamping his foot. Clearly his honour had been impugned. “Dear God, I’d never take a hen. Not never. Them’s for breeding for next season.” He grinned. “Once they get over tomorrow morning’s hangovers.”
Or being breakfast for the fox, O’Reilly thought. Mind you, being a meal for one was an occupational hazard of being a bird.
Donal, still indignant, said, “A man who’d take a hen would steal his oul granny’s last farthing, so he would.”
O’Reilly laughed. “I apologise, Donal. I always knew you were one of nature’s gentlemen, but I had to ask.”
Donal, obviously mollified, said, “That’s all right then. No offence taken.” He closed the sack. “It was grand seeing youse both,” he said, “and old Arthur.” He patted the dog’s head and was rewarded with a Lab grin. “Now, if youse’ll excuse me?” He nodded in the direction of the spruce. “I’ll be off.” He began to stride away.
O’Reilly called after him. “Donal. One small thing. It’s not illegal to take the marquis’s birds if they’re not on his property, but they are out of season. Don’t get caught.”
“Me?” His laugh rang across the field. “Catch me? Not a snowball’s chance.” Donal’s parting wave was cheery as he disappeared among the trees.
“I hope not,” O’Reilly said, turning to Kitty. “Taking game birds out of season is not taken lightly in these parts. A hundred years ago, you’d get a one-way trip to Terra Australis Incognita, the great unknown southland, to sample the delights of Botany Bay.” He sang,
… Sure she’ll wait and hope and pray
for her love in Botany Bay
it’s so lonely ’round the fields of Athenry
“Now it’s just a dirty great fine.” He patted his pockets, looking for his new Erinmore tobacco. A rustling of paper came from over his inside breast pocket. Pipe forgotten, he fished out an envelope. “I forgot all about this letter. It was in the post today. With all the excitement I never got round to reading it.” Stamped on the outside was the coat of arms of Queen’s University with its red hand for Ulster, seahorse for Belfast, book for learning, and harp for Ireland, surrounding the royal crown. Beneath it were the words “Department of General Practice.” What on earth could they want with him? He was no academic. He was a country GP and proud of it.
He used a finger to tear the flap open.
“Is it important?” Kitty asked.
“Hang on.” He read,
Dear Doctor O’Reilly,
As professor of the newly formed department of general practice of the medical faculty of the Queen’s University of Belfast …
O’Reilly read on silently and said, “There’s lot of going on in here about ‘the exciting dawn of a new speciality’ and their plans for future GPs. Sounds to me like the death of the old GPs like me and Barry.” He read on. “Ah,” he said. “There’s the rub.”
I have been advised by two senior colleagues, Sir Donald Cromie and Mister Charles Greer, that you are an exemplary practitioner and someone to whose practice we would wish to consider attaching GP trainees …
He shook his head. “Me? A teacher? I dunno, Kitty. The new professor, George Irwin, wants me to go up to the Royal for a meeting with him next week.” He shoved the letter back inside his jacket, dragged out his well-used half-smoked briar, and lit up.
He’d used that tactic for years when he wanted to collect his thoughts.
“Think about it, Fingal,” said Kitty. “Go to the meeting, hear what they’ve to say, and then decide. You might just enjoy it, you know. My mother always says mixing with young people keeps her young.”
He laughed. “And sure isn’t that why I keep you around, Kitty O’Reilly née O’Hallorhan? Come on. Give me a kiss and we’ll get on our way.”
Hand in hand they tramped uphill.
“You’re probably right. I might enjoy it. There’d be no harm in finding out.” He had to help Arthur over a stile in a dry stone wall before mounting the step and offering his hand to Kitty.
“Thanks,” Kitty said, taking the hand and clambering up as O’Reilly leapt down on the other side.
She jumped down beside him. “There is one thing though, if you do decide to accept a trainee.”
“Oh?”
“Well, Barry will be moving out once he’s married.”
“True.”
“And Kinky has her own home now and Nonie only sleeps in on her night on call. We’re going to have a lot more privacy.”
O’Reilly patted the pocket that contained the letter and took a puff from his briar. “That’s true,” he said absently. He was thinking ahead to his meeting with George Irwin. “I’m sure having a youngster working with us, being taught, may slow things down at first, but once they can work independently, take call, I’m going to have more time off. You know, Mrs. O’Reilly, you and I could be spending more time together out in the country like we are now. Particularly if you slowed down a bit too.”
She smiled. “You mean take on fewer hours at the hospital? We’ve talked about it before, and trust me, Fingal, I will think about it.”
Not quite the answer he had been hoping for, but not a flat refusal either. He’d keep working at it. “And I heard what you said about taking a holiday on my then hoped-for but now nonexistent winnings. I don’t see why we shouldn’t, you know.” A new gramophone could wait.
“You are a pet, old bear,” she said. “Paris perhaps? I’d love to go to the Louvre.”
“I’ll think about it. I went to Paris in ’59 to watch Ireland play France at the rugby,” he said, echoing her words. “But what is the ‘one thing,’ if I accept a trainee?”
She stopped walking and turned to him. “I’d rather they didn’t lodge with us. We’ll have a lot more privacy once Barry finds a house and moves…” She grinned and raised one eyebrow.
Was she hinting that…? He felt a frisson. She laughed out loud and pointed to the crest of the ridge forty yards away.
“But later. I’ll race you to the top now. Ready? Steady. Go.”
Legs pounding, wind burning in his unfit lungs, Fingal O’Reilly ran after her. By God, that had been no hint. That was the second time this afternoon she’d said “Later.” And he loved her very dearly for it. Would he take her to Paris soon? Too bloody true he would.
4
Giving Your Heart to a Dog
Lars stood in bright sunlight on the sandstone steps of his ivy-covered house on Portaferry’s Shore Road. “Welcome, you two. Pleasant drive down?”
“Very. Strangford Lough was at its best, and it’s lovely to see you, my dear,” Kitty said.
They followed Lars along the hall and into a spacious living room with some of the late Mrs. O’Reilly’s oil paintings on the walls. A large picture window, which now replaced the original three tall narrow Georgian ones, gave views over the Strangford Narrows to the left, the lough to the right, and the eight hundred mostly landscaped acres of the Castleward Estate, until recently home of the Viscounts Bangor since the 1760s.
O’Reilly stood at the window. He never tired of watching the crabbing progress of the little car ferry from Portaferry, Port á Fheire, the landing place of the ferry, to Strangford Town. He knew the current in the Narrows was strong and could run at ten knots at peak flow.
Lars showed Kitty to an armchair and O’Reilly turned reluctantly from the view and took one beside hers. “Sun’s over the yardarm,” Lars said. “Drinks?”
“Sherry, please, and I’m sure Fingal will have a Jameson.”
“So am I. Sure, that is,” Lars said. “I’ve known him for a long time.” He started pouring.
O’Reilly noticed an almost finished packet of Cadbury’s chocolate digestive biscuits on a plate beside the core of an apple. A teapot and mug kept them company on a tray on a coffee table. He frowned. Lars was not a fussy man but it wasn’t like him not to clear off when he’d finished.
Lars gave Kitty her sherry, O’Reilly his whiskey, and stood with his back to the window. He raised his glass. “Your health.”
“Sláinte.”
“Cheers.”
O’Reilly thought his brother would, like courtiers of old, indulge himself in the usual social pleasantries before coming to the crux of the matter. It would be typical of Lars to keep the conversation light, beat about the bush for a while before taking the leap. Fair enough. He took a sip of his Jameson and settled into the chair. He could wait.
Lars took a deep breath. “Thank you both for coming. I hinted that what I need advice about is urgent, and I’d like to get right down to brass tacks.”
“Would you lads like to be on your own?” Kitty said, starting to rise from her chair.
“Not at all, Kitty,” Lars said. “I very much want you to be a part of this.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry to have been so mysterious,” he said, “not wanting to talk about it over the phone.”
“Some things need to be discussed together,” O’Reilly said. “What’s bothering you, Lars?”
“It involves Myrna,” he said, and sighed. “I’m going to have to hurt her and I’d hate to.”
“Now how would you do that, Lars?” she asked gently.
O’Reilly heard the concern in her voice.
Lars walked over to the window, stared out, then turned. “May I ask you a medical question, Finn?”
Medical question? What could something medical do to hurt Myrna? He wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. “Fire away.”
“As a doctor, Finn, what would you say if I told you every time I go near something my skin itches, my eyes water, and my nose runs?”
“I’d say you were allergic to it.”
“I thought you might,” Lars said. “All very embarrassing.” He shook his head.
For a second O’Reilly seriously wondered if his brother was becoming allergic to Lady Myrna O’Neill, the woman he so recently had fallen in love with. The adage from the immunologists was, “You can be allergic to anything under the sun—including the sun,” but he’d never heard of a person allergy. Was his brother about to make medical history?
“And could one have been exposed to—I believe you physicians call the noxious matter an allergen…”
“That’s right.”
“Could one have been exposed to the allergen for years without any difficulties and then, for no apparent reason, be struck down out of the blue, as it were?”
“Happens all the time,” O’Reilly said.
“Thank God. I thought perhaps I was imagining it.” Lars inhaled deeply. Shrugged. “Myrna and I came back here last Saturday after we got home from France. We went for a walk over the fields, just like you and I did once when we saw old Willie Caulwell using his ferrets to catch rabbits. Myrna and I passed by Barney’s grave.”
“Barney was Lars’s springer spaniel,” O’Reilly explained to Kitty.
“I told her what a great dog he’d been. That I still missed him. She was sympathetic, very sympathetic, and last Wednesday she showed up unexpectedly.” He started for the door. “Will you please come with me?”
A puzzled O’Reilly and a frowning Kitty followed.
Lars stopped in front of the kitchen door and listened. Silence.
“What is it, Lars?” said O’Reilly.
From behind the door came a series of high-pitched yips and the sound of claws scrabbling on woo
d.
“I’d like you to go in,” Lars said, ushering them into the kitchen, but hanging back, holding the door almost closed.
Immediately a ball of canine brown fur, all feet and ears, wagging its whole body, hurled itself at O’Reilly’s legs, then reared up and put its forepaws on O’Reilly’s thigh.
Lars, speaking through the crack in the doorframe, said, “Meet Kenny. He’s a chocolate Labrador, pedigree as long as your arm. His full name’s Carlow Charger of Kilkenny. Myrna went to great lengths to find him, and I shudder to think what she must have paid. She’s daft about the little chap. He’s three months old. I confess he soon found a place in my heart too—”
Hearing his name, Kenny redoubled the rate of his tail-wagging and gave a series of excited yips.
“Until yesterday afternoon.” Lars sneezed mightily. His eyes reddened. “Oh Lord,” he said, “it’s starting again. I’m an exile from my own kitchen. I gave him the run of the room yesterday, last night, and this morning. Thank the Lord for the Portaferry Arms or I’d have starved.
“I managed to put up with it long enough to leave him plenty of puppy chow, water, toys, a chewy rawhide ‘bone.’ They need to chew at that age to bring on their teeth. Puppy papers.” He cleared his throat. “I did my best for the little chap, then I bolted and phoned you.” He sighed. “Without company, the poor wee thing must have been lonely, but at least at that age they sleep a lot.”
O’Reilly saw the bowls and doggy toys scattered hither and yon and not just puddles on the papers.
“You see my dilemma?”
“I do,” said Kitty.
“I fear I must let the dog go, but Myrna will be so disappointed, she’ll miss the beast, and I’d not want to do anything to hurt her. She said she’d picked a Lab rather than a springer because Labs are more docile, easier to train.”
“It’s hardly your fault you’re allergic,” O’Reilly said, getting down on his haunches to pet the wiggling brown ball. “Antihistamines might work short term. A really bad attack will respond to adrenaline injections, but the best treatment is to avoid the allergen completely.”
Lars sneezed again and scratched at his left forearm. “Please excuse me.” He fled, closing the door behind him.
An Irish Country Practice Page 4