An Irish Country Practice

by Patrick Taylor

  “Having fun, skipper?” Jack asked, turning to face Barry. His cheeks were rosy from the wind.

  Barry was and he wasn’t, and he wanted to talk to his friend about it, but not now. Sailing close-hauled took concentration. “We’re nearly out of Ballyholme Bay and into Belfast Lough. As soon as we pass Luke’s Point, I’m going to let her fall off the wind and head for Bangor,” Barry said. “That’ll put the wind on the beam.”

  “A soldier’s wind,” Jack said. “Easiest point of sailing, and it’ll be the same coming back.” He loosed his sheet. “Ready when you are.”

  Barry pulled the tiller to him and the little boat’s bows went in the opposite direction. The sheets of both sails were paid out until Barry was satisfied with their set and the dinghy, with considerably less heel, was racing the waves now, coming in at an angle to her starboard side.

  “Want to helm?” Barry asked.

  “Love to.”

  Barry waited until Jack had taken the tiller and wriggled for’ard past his friend.

  Jack sat looking up. Good sailors spent a lot of time doing that, to make sure the sails were set to best advantage. “Little more jib, Barry.”

  He slackened off the sheet until the foresail began to flap, then hauled in, stopping the second the flapping disappeared.

  “Perfect,” Jack said.

  They were now both able to move into the cockpit and sit on the starboard-side bench.

  Barry looked ahead. He could see the long finger of Bangor’s North Pier with its platoons of ever-hopeful sea-anglers, and behind the pier and on a hill, Bangor—Beannchar, which meant “the place of the pointed hills.” The narrow spire of First Bangor Presbyterian Church pointed for the sky.

  On the far rocky shore, he spied the white-and-green walls of Pickie Pool, the outdoor seawater swimming baths with their ten-metre diving tower. Barry had learnt to swim there. He could describe this part of County Down with his eyes closed. And just as clearly, he could see Sue’s look of yesterday when she’d said, “I think perhaps we both need a break.”

  “Jack, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Jack stopped staring up and looked straight at Barry. “I wondered when you’d say that. Go on, mate. That’s what friends are for. I knew there was something bothering you from the minute I met you today.”

  “It’s Sue.” He swallowed. “To get right to the point, she’s keen to start a family after we get married.” He paused.

  Jack, who must have thought his friend had finished, laughed and said, “I don’t see too much wrong with that. I’ve been trying for years not to, you understand.” He leered and said, “The fun’s in the trying, hey, and if a wee one comes along, sure isn’t that the natural course of things once you’re married?”

  Barry sighed. “I suppose coming from a farm, seeing new baby animals every year, you would think of that as natural. My difficulty is that I’m not so sure. Not sure at all. We’d discussed it a month ago. I’d said it would be fine. Then I started to have second thoughts.” He stopped talking. He didn’t feel up to telling Jack about the remark that had brought it all to a head.

  “I think that’s pretty normal, Barry. I’ve heard lots about maternal instinct, not a whole hell of a lot about paternal—”

  “Hang on.” Barry hadn’t been paying attention to his job and he was distracted by the flapping of the headsail. He adjusted the sheet until the sail was set properly. “Sorry, go on.”

  “Well, I reckon that rearing the chisslers when they’re little is mostly what mothers do. Our job’s to bring home the bacon.” He glanced up and made a small course correction. “I’ve not talked this over with Helen, but I can see difficulties for us too. Can you see Helen Hewitt qualifying and then not practicing so she can be a brood mare and babysitter? It’s not as if my folks live close enough to Belfast to babysit, and Helen’s mum died a few years back. No handy grannies to help out.” Jack laughed. “And can you see me staying at home doing the child minding? Helen thinks I’m just a big kid myself, and I think she may be right.”

  “You, minding the children? Perish the thought.” Barry grinned. “My mum might help, but Sue’s dad’s been sick and her parents live in Broughshane.”

  “Sure, but your Sue, she’s a teacher. She loves kiddies. She’d be fantastic with them, Barry.”

  Barry checked his sail’s set. “She would, won’t she?” Barry felt his heart swell at the thought, but as quickly felt a pang of real fear about his own abilities as a father. “She’d have to give up teaching for a while, but I don’t think she’d mind.”

  Jack nodded his agreement. “But these days it’s not all black and white either. Men are expected to help out some, change nappies, give bottles in the middle of the night, that sort of thing.”

  “I’d not mind that. Babies I think can handle, it’s once they’re older that has me worried.” He glanced ahead. “Oh-oh. Look ahead,” he said, pointing. “There’s a bloody great cabin cruiser coming out of Bangor Bay.”

  The white vessel was rounding the pier.

  “But we’re sail and we’re on the starboard tack, so we have the right of way on two counts.”

  “Keep an eye on her.”

  The throbbing of diesels was becoming louder. Barry looked ahead. The rule of the road was: Distance closing, bearing changing—safety. Distance closing, bearing constant—look out. There was still enough distance, but Barry was starting to become concerned. “Come a few degrees to port,” he said. “I’ll look after the sails.”

  Jack made the necessary course correction.

  When Barry was satisfied they would be safe, he said, “Bring her back on to the original heading. Good. That’s better. The stink-pot’ll pass us close to starboard now.”

  “Good. And to get back to your question,” Jack said, “I think there’d be a great deal of satisfaction seeing your offspring take their first steps, speak their first words. When they get older, watching them play sports. Teach them to sail, fish, swim. Watch them do well at school, learning how to play the bagpipes in the school band—”

  Jack saw Barry’s grimace and laughed. “Well, maybe not that last bit, but before you know it, you’ll be a grampa.”

  Barry smiled. “I suppose so, but it’s still pretty scary.”

  Two immature brown-flecked herring gulls flew overhead, screeching and calling in the way of their kind. Barry could hear the waves crashing on yellow barnacle-encrusted rocks inshore.

  “Sure it’s scary, mate. This whole bollixed-up thing that’s called life is scary. We see it every day in our jobs, people getting sick, having accidents, dying, for God’s sake. I don’t blame you for being scared. Just shows you think about things, care about things.”

  “Maybe,” Barry said. “Maybe.” He looked at his friend and shook his head in wonder. He’d always seen Jack as supremely confident, but perhaps he wasn’t. If it was possible, he realized he liked his friend even more. “The last thing she said was she wanted time to be alone to think. You’re the expert on the female of the species—”

  Jack let out a roar of laughter. “Thanks, mate, if you want to think that.”

  “I can’t just ring her up and say ‘I love you’ and hope that will make it all better.” He looked ahead. The cruiser was still some distance away, moving sedately, but noisily in their general direction.

  Jack thought, then said, “You’re still sure you want to marry Sue?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Remember what you advised when Helen wanted to be left in peace to study before the Second MB exam last month?”

  “Yes. I said to leave her be. She’d not thank you if you didn’t and she failed.”

  “Right. And Sue’s not going to thank you if you don’t give her the time she wants. Look. You’re head over heels, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re missing her like blue buggery?”

  “Right.”

  “And how do you think she’s feeling?”

>   Barry shook his head. “Sad. Angry. Disappointed.”

  “And missing you—a lot.”

  “I suppose so. I sure as hell hope so.” Barry knew what was coming, but he didn’t want to be patient. He wanted to go ashore, jump into Brunhilde, and roar up to Holywood. “So you think I should give her the time she’s asked for?”

  “Yes, and give yourself some time too, Barry, time to let the idea of being a daddy sink in. Now, I’m foundered. Where’s that flask of coffee…”

  Barry cleated home his sheet and ducked under the foredeck overhang. He grabbed a khaki canvas knapsack, fished out a thermos, and filled the cap that served as a cup. He sighed. Jack Mills had certainly expressed himself clearly, but was Barry ready to commit? Because if he was, there was no going back this time or it would all be over.

  He backed out from the cramped little space carrying flask and cup and glanced ahead. Holy Mother of God. The engine noises that had steadily been getting louder as the cabin cruiser approached went up to a thundering roar as her skipper, who must have been unaware of Shearwater’s presence, slammed into full speed ahead.

  Barry watched the big boat rise up on her step. The white foam of her rooster tail could be seen astern higher than the deckhouse, and already the tsunamis of her bow waves and wake were spreading on both sides fore and aft. She passed Shearwater’s starboard side too close for Jack to put the dinghy’s bows onto the wake and lessen its effect. “Bastard,” he yelled at a man in a navy blue reefer jacket steering from aft, captain’s cap on his head, drink clutched in one hand. The stink of diesel was overpowering.

  “Hang on,” Barry yelled, dropping flask and cup into the cockpit.

  The bow wave hit like a sledgehammer. The dinghy heeled so far to port Barry thought she was going over. Loose gear crashed about. The sails slatted. Water came in green over the port gunwale. Barry felt his arm muscles groaning as he held on to the boat. Like a fallen horse, Shearwater shuddered, tried to come upright, but only half succeeded when the tidal waves of the wake hit. Over she went again. Barry let go and hurled his upper body over the starboard side, hoping to God he was heavy enough to hold the dinghy. He was sure he felt a rib go.

  And slowly, slowly, like the rolling of a whale, the dinghy righted herself.

  “You all right, Jack?” Breathing hurt Barry’s chest.

  “Just,” he said. He shook his fist at the departing cruiser and echoed Barry’s earlier sentiments: “Bastard.”

  Barry grimaced. “I’m pretty sure I’ve cracked a rib. We’ll have to put about and head back, I’m afraid.” Barry started to loosen the jib sheet.

  Under Jack’s guidance, Shearwater came about and headed for home. He said, “I’ll get a proper look at that rib once we get ashore. Meantime, can you thole it?”

  Barry took shallow breaths. He was in pain, but it was not intolerable. “I think it’s just a crack. I’ll live.”

  “It stings. I bust two a couple of years ago playing rugby, but it won’t take long to heal—and Barry?”

  “Yes.”

  “All is fair in love and war, you know. I want to see you two back together and happy.”

  Barry held the side of his chest and said, “So do I.”

  “It’s a bit Machiavellian, but when Sue gets back in touch—and she will—”

  “I hope to God you’re right.”

  “The old wounded soldier ploy can really work wonders.”

  Despite the ache in his heart and the pain in his chest, Barry managed a smile. “Jack Mills, have you ever thought of going into partnership with Donal Donnelly?”

  “No,” said Jack, “I know nothing about greyhounds and race horses, but when it comes to women, trust your uncle, Barry. Trust your uncle. Now let’s get this thing home, and you looked at properly.”

  20

  To Comfort and Relieve

  O’Reilly regarded Kinky over his half-moon spectacles. She would not interrupt a consultation in the surgery unless it were very important. “Yes, Kinky?”

  “Excuse me, Doctor. Shooey. There does be a Doctor MacIlrath on the telephone. From the Royal Victoria. He says he has to speak to you now, so.”

  “Sorry, Shooey,” he said to the octogenarian who had come in for his six-monthly evaluation of his arthritic knees. Barry had started the older man on enteric-coated aspirin last year. “Let me give you a hand down.” O’Reilly helped him off the couch. “I’m finished with your examination, so have a pew. I’ll be back in no time.”

  “Take your time, sir,” Shooey said. “I’m in no rush. It’s one of the advantages of being in your eighties.”

  O’Reilly headed for the hall. “Thanks, Kinky.” He picked up the receiver. “Hello, Teddy?”

  “Fingal, I got your message. I have the plates on the viewing box in front of me.”

  O’Reilly realised he had crossed his fingers.

  “There’s some emphysema, not unexpected in a smoker, and a scar of old healed TB in the apex of the left lower lobe. Hang on. Someone’s just come in. Occupational hazard in a teaching hospital.”

  And in another week we’ll be a teaching practice, O’Reilly thought. He overheard a short conversation between Teddy and a trainee who needed advice about an urgent orthopaedic intra-operative X-ray. So Anne Galvin had a healed TB scar? O’Reilly had one in his own left lung. People of his generation, and of Barry’s generation too, pretty much all had had TB. Some had succumbed. The natural defences of the majority had fought the invaders off, and the victim developed immunity, but residual scars were often left behind. That had all changed after World War II with the introduction of BCG vaccination of babies shortly after birth. Well, at least he could exclude active TB for Anne Galvin, but that wasn’t his greatest concern. Not by a long chalk. He wished his friend would get a move on.

  “Sorry about that,” Teddy said, “young lassie wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. Back to your patient. That’s about it for findings. I don’t see any signs of malignancy and, frankly, given the history you put on the requisition form Mrs. Galvin gave us, bronchial carcinoma was top of my diagnostic pops.”

  O’Reilly uncrossed his fingers and smiled—in part out of a deep sense of relief for Anne Galvin, and in part at the senior radiologist’s irreverent way of expressing himself to a colleague. Such seeming insensitivity was a trait common to practitioners of specialities like radiology, pathology, and anaesthesia, which had little or no personal contact with patients. “That,” said O’Reilly, “is the best news I’ve had all week—and it’s only Monday. Many thanks, Teddy.”

  “My pleasure, Fingal. There is one thing though. X-rays are spot on for bones. Once in a blue moon, we miss soft tissue disease. Just to be on the safe side, belt and braces, shoot her back for a follow-up in six months.”

  “Will do.” O’Reilly rang off. That thoroughness was why his friend was so highly regarded. And O’Reilly was pretty sure the follow-up would be exactly what Teddy had said. A precaution. Nothing more. O’Reilly danced a jig step. He was delighted for the Galvins and for Barry, who had been out of sorts at breakfast.

  The lad had hurt himself yesterday sailing. Last evening, Jack had examined Barry at the Yacht Club and determined that it looked as if his left seventh rib was cracked, but with no evidence of lung damage. Jack, who was after all well on his way to being a qualified surgeon, had decided an X-ray was unnecessary and had strapped Barry up with elastic adherent bandages here in the surgery. Barry had explained that he was sore but quite able to carry out his duties.

  Maybe the news about Anne Galvin would cheer him up at lunchtime. He’d be relieved that, contrary to what he thought, he had not missed making the diagnosis of a lethal illness.

  O’Reilly headed back to the surgery.

  Hugh Gamble, “Shooey” to all who knew him, was standing up, examining one of the patients’ plain wooden chairs and scratching his head. “Boys-a-boys, Doctor,” he said, “you’ve bought a pig in a poke with this here chair, so you have. D’yiz know the fro
nt legs is shorter nor the back ones?”

  “My goodness,” said O’Reilly, “there’s a thing, now. Whatever next?” He shook his head in feigned amazement. Of course they bloody well were. Within two weeks of starting his single-handed practice here after the war, he himself had sawn off an inch so the patients kept sliding forward and hence were not tempted to stay too long. Of course, with all the extra help now from Barry and Nonie Stevenson, time was no longer of such importance. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll see about getting a new one. Now,” he said, “about your knees. I don’t see any physical change, and you say you’ve not noticed any difference.”

  “Not a bit. Them coated aspirins don’t upset my tummy and the joints don’t pain me much anymore. If they’re still as good by August,” he winked, “I’ll take myself off to Lisdoonvarna in September.” There was a twinkle in his eyes despite the presence of arci senili, the lightening of each blue iris round the circumference.

  O’Reilly chuckled. “Lios Dúin Bhearna, that hill fort with the gap in the wall, in County Clare? And what’s there in September?” As if O’Reilly didn’t know, but he wanted to hear what Shooey had to say.

  “Sure, isn’t it the biggest matchmaking event in all of Europe. D’you know this one, sir?” He sang,

  I dunno, maybe so, for a bachelor is easy and he’s free,

  But I’ve a lot to look after and I’m livin’ by meself, and there’s no-one lookin’ after me.

  “‘Little Bridget Flynn,’” said O’Reilly. “I know it well. Eighty-two and there’s life in you yet, Shooey Gamble, even if you’re not running after beagles chasing a hare or a fox anymore.”

  “I do miss that and och, it’s only a gag about me going to Clare, but,” Shooey became serious, “Doctor, in all my years, I’ve learnt if you have your health, it’s up to you to keep your mind and your body active, and then you’ll not feel old. I don’t. Mind you, all my years as a shepherd and the rowing I used til do kept me fit.”

  “I hear you,” O’Reilly said. “And I’ll bear that in mind.” And by God he would. He’d been spending too much time worrying about his own aging. “You’re a shining example, Shooey Gamble.” O’Reilly began to head for the door. “One of us’ll see you in October.” He stood aside to let Shooey out and stood in the doorway for a moment watching the old man toddle down the street, then stop and, with a sweeping gesture, doff his hat to Cissie Sloan. O’Reilly laughed and headed for the waiting room. Perhaps Shooey Gamble would be going to Lisdoonvarna after all.