An Irish Country Practice

by Patrick Taylor

  There were two meanings to that last word, but Sue’s inflection had left him in no doubt which was uppermost in her mind.

  “Good idea,” he said, opening Brunhilde’s driver’s door. “Can you drive? I’m too sticky.” So’s my position, he thought. What the hell am I going to do? It’s out in the open and I can’t force myself to want children.

  “Yes.” She climbed in.

  Barry knew Kitty would probably be home at Number One, and O’Reilly could still be out seeing Anne Galvin. It might be a good idea not to be alone with Sue for a little while. Give her a chance to settle down. He had decided, at least for now, to adopt the “least said, soonest mended” approach. He needed time to collect his thoughts. He got in beside her and she drove off too fast, jouncing over the field that served as a car park.

  Little was said on the short drive to Number One.

  No dogs greeted them as they walked through the back garden. “Fingal must have taken them out,” Barry said. He hoped Kitty would still be at home. He let them into the kitchen and breathed a silent sigh of relief at the sight of Kitty at the sink.

  She turned. “Hello, you two. You’re back early. Circus not so hot?”

  “You might say that,” Sue said. Ice was in her voice.

  Barry pointed at his trousers. “A little boy threw up on me.”

  “Oh dear,” said Kitty. “Fingal has told me he thought your pants were jinxed. You got them covered in glaur on your very first home visit. Arthur peed on them after your first delivery…”

  “Barry Fingal Galvin, now in the States,” Barry said, wondering how Anne was doing.

  “… and didn’t Lady Macbeth throw up on them once?”

  “That’s all true,” Barry said, “and now I must go to my quarters and get them off, clean myself up, and change into something decent. If you’ll excuse me?”

  As he went into his room he heard Kitty say, “Kettle’s on. We’ll make some tea and see you upstairs when you’re done.”

  * * *

  Sue and Kitty were sitting in two of the armchairs in the upstairs lounge. Each had a cup of tea. A silver three-tiered cake stand on the coffee table carried an assortment of fig rolls, McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes, and their famous digestive biscuits. O’Reilly had a soft spot for all three, but they only came out at weekends, when Kinky was not at Number One. She took great pride in her home-baked confections and no one wanted to hurt her feelings.

  Kitty and Sue both looked up when Barry, wearing clean flannels, a white poplin open-necked shirt, and a blue V-necked sweater, came in. He had heard a low murmur of conversation as he approached the lounge. He wondered what they’d talked about in the five minutes it had taken him to wash and change. He hoped Sue had not repeated his words at the circus to Kitty.

  “Ah, Barry,” said Kitty. Her smile was open and sincere. “That must feel better. And smell better too. I prefer the scent of Old Spice to your recent attar of…” She left the sentence unfinished.

  Sue was polite. “Would you like a cup of tea and a biscuit?”

  “Please.” Barry took the third armchair, dislodging Lady Macbeth before he could do so.

  He accepted his cup and helped himself to a Jaffa Cake.

  Sue avoided his gaze and a silence hung until they all spoke at once, Kitty saying, “So the circus was…” Barry stammering, “I’m-I’m sorry…” and Sue murmuring, “I think I’d like to go…”

  Silence.

  Barry sipped his tea.

  Kitty looked from Barry to Sue and back, frowned, then said, “The cat’s got your tongue, Barry Laverty. And Sue’s not been very talkative either. It’s not like either of you. Is there something wrong?”

  Barry shook his head. “No,” he said. “We’re just a bit tired.” This was between him and Sue. He finished his tea and Jaffa Cake without tasting either and started to rise. “Come on, Sue. I’ll take you—”

  “Begob,” said O’Reilly as he came through the door, “I thought you two were at the circus.”

  “We were,” said Barry, retaking his seat, “but Sammy Lindsay threw up in my lap. Sonny brought the Lindsay kids to the circus and gave them too many sweets. I came here to get cleaned up. I was just going to take Sue home.” He glanced at her but still she would not meet his gaze.

  “Good heavens. Too much candy floss, I reckon. Terrible stuff. I just came from seeing their mum. Popped in to see how Maggie was getting on with Eileen. And she’d just had another visit from Hester Nolan. Another little fall, apparently.”

  “God, I hope she didn’t reinjure that wrist,” Barry said.

  O’Reilly shook his head. “Nothing to send for a doctor for. Bruises mostly. She was gone by the time I arrived. The cast on her wrist probably put her a bit off balance. But Eileen was doing well.”

  “And Anne?”

  O’Reilly helped himself to tea and a couple of fig rolls. He sat on the pouffe, sipped, devoured half of his roll in one bite, and said, “Sue, you’re practically a doctor’s wife…”

  Barry hoped to God that was still true.

  “You understand confidentiality?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m worried about Anne,” he said. And the concern was in his voice.

  Barry flinched. “I thought she only had—”

  “Acute bronchitis. I know. And before you start playing your usual game of trying to hold yourself responsible for missing something, Hippocrates himself would have made the same diagnosis you did two weeks ago. She wasn’t coughing up blood then. Now she is.”

  “Oh,” Barry said.

  “‘Oh’ is right,” O’Reilly said, finishing the other half of his fig roll. “And we’ll have to bide until Monday. She’ll get a chest X-ray then, and a friend of mine’s to phone me with the results.”

  Barry nodded. He glanced at Kitty, who was nodding her head, frowning, and pursing her lips. She must know what Fingal and Barry were worrying about. Sue was looking baffled.

  O’Reilly said, “Barry and Kitty and I are worried that the patient may have cancer.”

  “That’s awful,” Sue said. “The poor woman.”

  O’Reilly shook his head. “I hope I’m wrong, but there’s not much we can do until we have the results.” He grabbed another fig roll. Half of it vanished. “Now, you said you were going to take Sue home, I believe. Barry, put it out of your mind until Monday. Take your fiancée home. The day’s a pup, and speaking of which, Kenny’s coming on a treat. The little fellow has all kinds of talents I never suspected, but I’ll tell you about that later.”

  The other half of the roll went. O’Reilly cast a hopeful eye on the Jaffa Cakes and began to stretch out a hand.

  Barry saw Kitty’s look of disapproval and the hand retreat. That was the kind of husband-and-wife mutual understanding he’d been looking forward to with Sue.

  “I’m sorry your day at the circus went bust…”

  And how, Barry thought.

  “… but there’s a good Western with Paul Newman and Diane Cilento, Hombre, playing at the Ritz in Belfast.”

  Barry rose. “Thanks, Fingal. We’ll think about it.” He looked at Sue.

  She stood, brushed crumbs off her jeans, and said, “Thanks for the tea, Kitty. I hope the rest of your weekend’s not too busy, Fingal,” and headed for the door.

  Barry followed. “Cheerio,” he said to Fingal and Kitty, who raised her eyebrows but said nothing. By the time he’d reached the landing, Sue was waiting in the hall. It looked very much as if his hopes that she’d calmed down had not been realised. Barry took a very deep breath and slowly went downstairs.

  He could only hope he’d be able to come up with the right words on the short drive from here to her flat so that when they got there they could put all of this behind them. But that hope vanished when Sue opened the passenger-side door and fixed him with a look over the roof of Brunhilde. “Barry, we are not mentioning this on the drive to my apartment. I’ll tell you that right now. I don’t want us discussing something this i
mportant while you’re driving. It’s not safe.” She disappeared into the car, and not for the first time did Barry wonder why medical students had to spend the better part of eighteen months dissecting a cadaver and not one hour on clinical psychology. If ever he could have used some practical expertise, it was now.

  * * *

  By the time Barry had closed the door to Sue’s flat, he thought he might explode from the tension of not speaking throughout the drive to Holywood. “Look, Sue, I’m sorry—” But that was as far as he got.

  Sue’s gormless springer spaniel, Max, barked loudly and hurled himself at Barry. The dog reared up on his hind legs and slammed his front paws into Barry’s crotch.

  “Christ.” The entire question of having children might very well have become academic, Barry thought, as he tried to push the animal away and haul in a great lungful of air. “Get down.”

  Sue grabbed the dog by his collar. “Down, Max. Down. Bad dog. Sorry about that, Barry.”

  Barry was beyond speech. He massaged where the dog had tackled him and waited for the pain to subside.

  She dragged the beast off and shut him in the kitchen. She came back. “I truly am sorry. Are you all right?”

  The most severe pain had passed. “I will be in a few minutes.” At least physically. “No need to apologise.” She was making no move toward her sitting room. Barry struggled to find the right words. “Look, Sue, about what I said at the circus.”

  Sue folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, about what you said at the circus. Go on.”

  “I was furious. It just slipped out.”

  There was no change in her expression. She said nothing.

  Barry ploughed on. “We’ve talked about this before. I was truthful. I said I had reservations.”

  “But you agreed that after a reasonable wait we would start a family. Didn’t you?”

  He couldn’t meet her gaze, but said quietly, “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “Yet what you yelled didn’t exactly sound like the words of a man who had a few reservations. They sounded like a man who can think of nothing worse than being a father.” She let her arms fall to hang by her sides. “You are still having second thoughts, aren’t you?”

  Barry pursed his lips and nodded. “I did not enjoy the company of Sammy Lindsay today.”

  Sue took a deep breath. “Sammy Lindsay was just being a little boy. Being a parent isn’t all about having a day of fun at the circus.” She paused. “Better it’s out in the open, now.”

  The implication “than after we’ve taken our vows” was not lost on Barry. “We’ll work it out,” he said, and stepped closer to her, but she took a pace back. “I love you, Sue.”

  “And I love you, Barry, but I couldn’t face a childless future.” She shook her head. “I simply couldn’t.”

  He didn’t know what to say. The silence hung and lengthened until finally she said, “I think … I think…” Now her words came in a rush. “I think perhaps we both need a break.”

  “You mean break off our engagement?” Barry’s heart shrank in him. No.

  “No,” she said. “You lost your temper, and I can understand why, but it brought out something that has made me very upset.”

  Again he tried to move to her to comfort her and again she moved away.

  “I’m not thinking very straight just now. I’d like to be left alone. And I think you need to do some soul-searching too. I love you, Barry. I’ll say nothing to anyone else. Let all the arrangements stand. But…” her voice took on a sharp edge, “I need time to myself.”

  Barry wasn’t sure what to do. Every instinct called to him. “Take her in your arms. Tell her you love her. Tell her what she wants to hear,” but another small voice said, “Do what she wants. Let her have her time.” He said, “Very well,” and moved to the door. “When will I hear from you again?”

  She shook her head. “Soon,” she said, “but right now please go.”

  He left and closed the door, but before he could take his first step toward the car, his soul was torn by the sounds of sobbing.

  18

  ’Til I Took Up to Poaching

  “Blether,” mumbled O’Reilly, groping back to consciousness. Somebody was pushing the night bell outside the front door and the sound had pierced the silence of the old house, jangling up from the first-floor landing. He slipped out from under the covers, trying not to disturb Kitty.

  She muttered in her sleep and rolled onto her other side as he slid his feet into carpet slippers and padded across the floor to where his dressing gown hung on a peg at the back of the door.

  The bell’s insistent clamour grated on his nerves. “Whoever it is, if you push any harder you’ll break the bloody thing.”

  The villagers rarely disturbed his sleep unless something was badly wrong. He yawned mightily, recalling his time in the Augier Street dispensary practice in 1936 when the telephoneless residents of the Liberties in Dublin would come to the practice at any time of day or night. That was thirty-one years ago now and village life here in the north had softened him.

  He switched on the hall light and opened the door.

  In the light spilling from the hall and the brilliance of a full moon overhead, he saw a despondent-looking Donal Donnelly, his carroty hair hidden under a rolled-up woollen balaclava. Beside him was Constable Malcolm Mulligan, clutching a brown canvas game bag. O’Reilly shook the last of the sleep from his shaggy head and sighed. Donal Donnelly had been caught—he looked down at Donal’s left hand, wrapped in a bloodstained rag—literally red-handed.

  “I’m desperate sorry for til disturb you, sir, at two o’clock of a Sunday morning,” the officer said, “but your man here has cut his hand, so he has.”

  “Bring him through to the surgery.” O’Reilly opened its door and turned on the lights. The officer closed the surgery door. “I know it’s unusual, sir, but I’m afraid Mister Donnelly has til be identified, arrested, and cautioned. You and me know who he is. I’ve arrested him, but I can’t caution him until I’m satisfied he’s healthy and understands. I’d rather not let him out of my sight until I can do that. After he’s all fixed up.”

  “I understand, Constable Mulligan,” O’Reilly said, “but I give you my word”— He fixed Donal Donnelly with a stare not unlike that of the mythical Balor, the one-eyed Fomorian giant whose glare could destroy armies— “until I’ve finished with him, he’ll not be leaving this surgery, at least not standing up, will you, you great glipe?”

  Donal shrank away. “No, sir. I will not, sir. Honest til God.”

  O’Reilly realized his anger was not because he’d been hauled out of a warm bed. He was angry that Donal Donnelly had been careless enough to break the eleventh commandment: “Thou shalt not get caught.”

  “Make yourself comfortable in the dining room, Constable Mulligan,” O’Reilly said. “It won’t take long to patch Donnelly up.”

  “It’s very irregular, sir.”

  “Come on, Malcolm,” O’Reilly said. “I know you’ve your procedures, but we both know Donal’s not going to do a runner. On a bike at two A.M.?”

  The policeman looked serious. “Right enough.” He turned to his prisoner. “Now you do as you’re bid by the doctor, and then I’ll caution you and let you go home.”

  “Yes, sir.” Donal was meekness personified.

  Constable Mulligan left, closing the door behind him.

  “I’m awful sorry, sir.”

  O’Reilly shook his sleep-tousled head again. “Can’t be helped. But by god, Donal, you are an eejit. Getting nabbed by Mulligan. We’ve only got one peeler in the area. Did you take a fit of the head staggers?”

  “I must of. I was a bit stupid.”

  “All right. Come on then. Let’s get that cut of yours seen to. You can tell me your tale of woe and stupidity while I’m working. Come on over to the sink.”

  Donal obeyed.

  “Stick your bad paw over the basin. Right. Let’s get that rag off.” He unwound it and dropped it
into a pedal bin. A cut stretched diagonally for three inches across the palm from the ball of the thumb in the direction of the base of the little finger. “It’s going to need stitches,” O’Reilly said. “Wriggle your fingers and thumb.”

  Donal did.

  “Good. No tendon damage. You’ll live to poach another day, and go on working as a carpenter, but it’s going to be sutured.”

  Donal sniffed. “Aye.” He shrugged. “Won’t be the first stitches I’ve had. There’s few chippies don’t cut themselves. It’s an occupational gizzard, so it is. Goes with the job.”

  “Hazard, Donal,” O’Reilly said.

  “Aye,” said Donal. “Right enough. I’ve got birds on the brain.”

  O’Reilly was tempted to remark that on occasion, Donal Donnelly was a bird brain, but said, “Now go and sit back in that chair. I need to get ready, and while I am, tell me what happened.” He slipped on a surgical mask, then took a sterile pack from a nearby shelf and set it on a small stainless steel table on wheels.

  “Some bugger grassed,” Donal said. “You know thon wee coppice?”

  “Where Mrs. O’Reilly and I met you a couple of weeks back? Um, bird-watching, I believe.” O’Reilly opened the pack. Its green sterile towel covered the tabletop. Inside were a sterile towel with a centre opening, a stainless-steel kidney dish, forceps, a needle driver, a pack of sutures, scissors, swabs and swab holder, and a preloaded hypodermic containing local anaesthetic.

  “Aye,” Donal said. “Tomorrow, the two weeks of paid holiday is up and Mister Bishop’s heard there’ll be a month delay before the road job will start. Fair play. He’s not made of money. It’s me and the lads for the burroo next week. Julie and me’s got a bit put aside, but I’m afraid the ould do-re-mi’s going to get a bit tight.”

  “I can imagine. And there’s not much other work around, is there?” O’Reilly opened a pack containing a sterile towel and rubber gloves.

  Donal shook his head.

  O’Reilly poured disinfectant into the kidney dish on the trolley and pushed the trolley over to Donal. “And don’t tell me. You were helping out with the provisions.”