An Irish Country Practice

by Patrick Taylor

  She wore no perfume. No makeup. But her burnished hair was freshly washed and loose around her shoulders. In the sitting room, a table was piled high with exercise books and papers headed “Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.” That was definitely not a topic for discussion tonight.

  She indicated an armchair, not the sofa they usually sat on side by side. “Would you like a drink?”

  Dutch courage? He shook his head. “No, thank you.” He waited until she had laid the roses on her desk. Clearly this wasn’t going to take long, because Sue was usually concerned about getting cut flowers into water. She took an armchair opposite and Barry heard a rustling of nylon as she crossed her shapely legs. She wore flat heels.

  “You—you went home last weekend. How’s your father coming along?”

  “He’s doing well. Able to get about a bit more every day. He’s doing light chores on the farm now.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it.”

  “Sometimes I can’t quite believe he had a heart attack in February. So much has happened since then.” Sue’s voice trailed off and she looked down at her shoes. Barry glanced down at his own highly polished brogues. Inside he was screaming, “Tell her you love her, you fool,” but he couldn’t bring himself to move the conversation toward more serious topics.

  “Did you ride Róisín?” He could hear the sound of Sue’s little Irish Sports horse cropping the grass as he and Sue had made love in a bluebell wood.

  “We had a nice canter along the banks of the Braid, thank you.” She sat back. “And how are you getting on, Barry?”

  Breaking my heart for you, he thought, but said, “Pretty well. Jack and I went sailing a couple of weeks ago.” He grimaced and pointed to his chest. “I cracked a rib.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m so very sorry. Does it hurt much?”

  He shook his head. So much for Jack’s suggestion of using the “old wounded soldier” ploy.

  “I’m glad.” And she did sound as if she was.

  Barry had once read that in many cultures before serious business was discussed there was always a long ritual of exchanging general and usually meaningless pleasantries. At the time he’d thought how foolish it was, but here they were doing the same thing.

  The silence was starting to lengthen.

  “I…” he said.

  “I…” she said.

  They both smiled.

  Her smile, he thought, had broken the ice. “Sue, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A lot. You called it soul-searching. And I’ve been missing you—a lot.”

  “Me too,” she said quietly. She leant forward. “Please tell me, Barry, what have you decided?”

  He swallowed and held her gaze with his. His voice was steady. “Sue, I love you from the deepest part of my soul. I don’t want to get divorced.”

  She frowned, inclined her head, then a slow smile spread. “I remember. You said, when we were alone in the farmhouse the day after Dad had his heart attack. You said that after our night together in Marseille you felt completely married anyway and it will be ‘’til death do us part,’ ceremony or no ceremony.” She inhaled. “Barry, Barry I love you. I feel married too. I know what you mean, but…” Her eyes glistened. “But, I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s enough.” The tears trickled, sparkled in the sun’s rays. “I do want children. I know you’re uncertain…”

  Like a court of law, it had to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but … “I still am, Sue…”

  She hung her head. Her in-drawing of breath was as sharp as a razor cut, her voice hushed as she whispered, “No. No.”

  Barry ploughed on, discarding all his thoughtfully prepared arguments. “But, I remembered what you said about a little boy by the Braid being taught to fish by his daddy…”

  Sue began to raise her head.

  “I broke my promise to keep quiet. I cried on Jack’s shoulder. I’m sorry. Old Don Juan really surprised me. He said he thought there’d be a great deal of satisfaction seeing your offspring take their first steps, speak their first words.”

  She dashed her hand across her eyes. “Yes, there would be.”

  “He knows I enjoyed teaching junior students. He thinks I’d get a kick out of watching kiddies playing sports. Teaching them to sail, fish, swim. Watch them do well at school, learning how to play the bagpipes in the school band…”

  Sue managed a weak giggle. “I’m not so sure of that last one, but he’s right, Barry. Jack’s right.”

  Barry stood. “You know Fingal’s been my father confessor since I came here in 1964?”

  She nodded.

  “I asked his advice too.”

  “That’s all right,” she said.

  “He told me that he’d had a conversation with his first wife just after they were married about starting a family. It was in 1940 when it looked like Britain might lose the war. He hadn’t been keen on the idea. She’d had to talk him round.”

  Sue shook her head. “Barry, I wouldn’t want to do that. I couldn’t. It’s got to be your decision. Nobody else’s.”

  He loved her for that. He moved to stand in front of her, put his hand under her chin so she had to look up. “Fingal said he regretted to this day he never had children.” Barry swallowed recalling why that was. Poor Fingal. It was not something Barry was going to tell Sue. He squatted in front of her. “Neither one of my friends told me what to do. It is my decision.” He took one of her hands in both of his. “Sue Nolan, you told me you were a country girl and that you’d be proud to be a country doctor’s wife and mother of his children. Mother of his children. Our children. Will you, darling? Please? I want you to. Very much. I promise.”

  Together they stood, arms round one another. He inhaled the scent of her copper hair, kissed the last tears from her eyes, tasted her lips, and when their kiss broke she said, “I will, darling. I will.”

  And despite the gnawing ache in his rib brought on by her loving hug, Barry Laverty’s smile was as broad as that of his bride-to-be.

  Their lovemaking was tender and gentle and all Barry wanted to do after was hold her and never let her go. And he would have too, if that bloody Max hadn’t started howling.

  * * *

  “That was a great meal, Sue,” Barry said, pushing aside his empty plate. “Really great.” After Sue had thrown on a dressing gown and gone to quieten her imbecilic dog, Barry had lain on his back thanking his lucky stars, drowsily sated, deeply in love. Then he’d arisen, dressed, and combed his hair. The face looking back at him from the mirror could only be described by one word. Elated. He’d not bothered putting on his tie.

  He’d gone through to the kitchen and, useless cook that he was, his sole help with preparation of dinner—prawn cocktails followed by beef stew with suet dumplings—had been to uncork a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

  He sipped from his glass, savoured its fruity richness, inhaled the fragrance of the roses which Sue had put in a vase in the middle of the kitchen table, and drank in the loveliness of her sitting across from him, still in her tartan dressing gown and fluffy slippers. Her copper mane hung around her shoulders. “Thank you, darling, for loving me.” He stretched out a hand and took hers on the white tablecloth.

  “I do,” she said. “Very much.” She grinned at him. “And I’ll be happy to say ‘I do’ in the First Broughshane Presbyterian Church on July the seventh. It’s only nine weeks away.” She squeezed his hand. “And then off to Villefranche. Fingal’s brother’s a pet letting us have his place for our honeymoon.”

  Barry laughed. “And you’ll be able to speak with the natives. I can just see us. Breakfast. Coffee and a fresh crusty loaf…”

  “Café au lait et une baguette,” she said, “unless you’d prefer un croissant.”

  “Anything with you, pet, would be heaven.” He let go of her hand. “I think,” he said, “you were very wise, not telling anyone about our—our difficulty.”

  She pursed her lips. “I’m sorry I sent you away. I missed you so muc
h, but I’ve seen you around kids like Colin Brown, Mickey Corry. Barry, you will be a great daddy. I know it now and I knew it then. I think I’ve known it all along. You just had to see sense, that’s all.”

  Barry shook his head. “Sometimes, Miss Sue Nolan, you can be a tad Machiavellian, but, damn it, I love you.” He blew her a kiss.

  “And you, Doctor Barry Laverty, can sometimes be a bit otherworldly, wrapped up in your work. Lucky for us, my mum is a super organizer. All you’ll have to do is sort out things like the groom’s guest list, best man—”

  “Jack Mills.”

  “Ushers, buttonholes, rent morning suits, buy a ring, and show up on time.”

  Barry guffawed. “Like Stanley Holloway in My Fair Lady? I promise I will. And I thought it was the bride’s job to be a bit late.” His heart sang. He raised his glass. “To us, pet. You and me.”

  Together they drank.

  “One thing,” Sue said. “About the Millers’ cottage. I know Mrs. Miller was having some second thoughts about selling when we looked at the place together before. Any chance she might have come to a conclusion?”

  Barry’s smile fled. He frowned and drew in a deep breath. “I’m afraid Lewis Miller passed away in hospital a fortnight ago.”

  “Oh no. Barry, I’m so sorry. How’s Mrs. Miller?”

  “Upset. Very upset. Living in Portrush with her married daughter, Joy, and her family.”

  Sue hesitated. “Barry, I’m sure Gracie must be very unhappy. They’d been married for a very long time.”

  “They had. Since 1907. She’s taken it very hard.”

  “Oh dear. Now, please don’t think I’m soulless, but knowing you, you softhearted old thing, I’ll bet you didn’t even mention if she was ready to sell, did you?”

  Barry shook his head. “She told me she was going to stay with her family for a while, but when she was good and ready, she’d be coming home. That she couldn’t bear to leave all her memories behind. I’m sorry. I know you’d your heart set on that bungalow.”

  Sue smiled. “No,” she said, “I’d my heart set on you, my love. That’s all that really matters.”

  And inside him Barry Laverty’s heart swelled up. He stood, walked round the table, helped Sue stand, and kissed her, gently, possessively. “I do love you very much, Sue.” He held her at arms’ length. “Fingal says we can use my quarters pro tem.”

  “It’s all right. Max can go back to Broughshane for a while.”

  “Thank God for that,” Barry said. “The image of a confrontation between Arthur Guinness, Kenny, and Max hardly bears thinking about, and Lady Macbeth would probably hang, draw, and quarter your poor Max. Fingal christened her Lady Macbeth because he reckoned she’d kill for her kingdom.”

  Sue laughed. “You’re right, and Max won’t mind being on the farm.”

  “But I know you’d rather have him with you, so tomorrow first thing I’ll get on to Dapper Frew. See if he’s got anything else up his sleeve. A fit home for Doctor and Mrs. Laverty and family who, at least for a start, but only a start, will include Max returned from exile.”

  35

  To Sit in Sullen Silence in a Dull Dark Dock

  “Six days, that’s all it took to win a war and call a cease-fire with the Egyptians last Saturday. Took us six bloody years against the Germans,” O’Reilly said as he swung the Rover into Bangor’s bustling High Street and reversed into a parking spot. “I’d like to have had the Israelis running my war so efficiently.”

  “I’m sure my dad would agree with you, Fingal,” Barry said, and smiled.

  “And here we are two days later on a Monday morning, and I’ve to give evidence in magistrate’s court in the matter of Regina versus Donnelly.” He switched off the engine and opened his door. “Come on if you want to see what happens to Mister Donnelly.”

  Barry joined Fingal on the footpath and they walked downhill toward the four-faced sandstone McKee Clock on the far side of Quay Street fronting Bangor Bay.

  A gentle breeze carried the salt tang of the sea and wafted dark smoke inland from the funnel of one of Kelly’s little red and rusty coal boats as she discharged her cargo at the Central Pier. Barry remembered being taken there as a small boy by his father to see an exhibit featuring Hermann Goering’s bulletproof car, then treated to a run from Bangor Bay to Ballyholme Bay and back in an army-surplus amphibious DUKW. Times had been hard for ex-servicemen after the war. Some had seen ways to try to earn a bit of cash. Two had even tried making a go of offering high-speed rides in a Whaleback air-sea rescue launch. But the huge engines had consumed enormous amounts of petrol and the venture had failed.

  Barry pointed across the road. “That’s the Togneris’s Coronation Café on the corner. One of their sons, Joe, taught me to sail when I was thirteen. I wonder how he is?”

  “Haven’t seen him for a while?”

  “I pretty much left home after I qualified in ’63. Hardly get down here to Bangor much.” Barry shrugged. “I’m off this Saturday. I’ll nip down and see him. Take Sue. Joe’d be tickled pink to meet my fiancée.” I’ve been feeling guilty about Joe, Barry thought. You shouldn’t neglect old friends.

  They swung right onto Quay Street and passed the Palladium amusement arcade with its penny-in-the-slot games and the risqué What the Butler Saw. Put a penny in the slot, peer through an eyepiece, and crank the handle. As a series of cards flipped over, a buxom Victorian lady stripped off her voluminous garments until she stood in only her “unmentionables.”

  Barry and Fingal came to number 6, a grey two-storey Italianate building. Fingal stopped to admire it. “They built this place in 1866, the year an Irish horse, Salamander, won the Grand National.”

  Barry grinned. “Enough, Encyclopaedia Britannica. I’ve had my fill of horse racing this year.” He looked at five rectangular bow stucco first-floor windows, each with a low balustraded base. On the ground floor, pairs of rectangular windows flanked a Tuscan doorframe. “It is a handsome building, I’ll give you that,” he said.

  “Opened as a branch of the Belfast Bank,” O’Reilly said. “Then it became Bangor Courthouse. In 1888, when petty sessions were held here to try minor criminal offences, they were overseen by three lay justices of the peace. Then in ’35, the panel was replaced by a properly qualified magistrate.” He headed for the door.

  Barry followed, shaking his head and smiling at his senior partner’s love of trivia.

  Their heels clacked on a marble floor.

  “Courtroom two,” said O’Reilly. “The summons said two thirty, June twelfth, Magistrate Michael Carson.” He pointed to the number hanging above a closed door. It was flanked by two plain benches. Constable Malcolm Mulligan, his bottle-green RUC uniform neat and clean, boots shining, his revolver holstered, cap on his knees, sat rigidly on one. He greeted the new arrivals with a nod.

  “Officer,” Barry said to the constable, and turned to O’Reilly. “If Malcolm’s here, I’m sure it’s the right place.”

  “And,” O’Reilly said, “there’s no show without Punch.” He nodded to where Donal Donnelly sat on the other bench. Julie must have worked hard. His black brogues were polished, flannel pants creased and held up with a snake-clasp belt. A tweed sports jacket covered a white shirt. His tie was neatly knotted and his carroty thatch was clipped short back and sides and combed with a left side parting. “Doctors. How’s about ye?” He patted the bench beside him in an invitation to join him.

  Barry followed O’Reilly, who said, “Ready, Donal?”

  “Indeed I am, Doctor. Indeed I am. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll be charged. I’ll plead guilty. It was a fair cop, guv.”

  Barry smiled. Donal sounded just like the petty criminals in the BBC programme Dixon of Dock Green—good sports who, if they thought they had been fairly arrested, surrendered at once and with a smile.

  “I don’t need the expense of a solicitor if I do that. I’ll get fined, I know, but Julie’s getting her maternity allowances, the wages was good shifting them cott
ages and even better on the road building.” Donal bent forward and lowered his voice. “Mister Bishop’s happy as a pig in you know what and he’s more contracts for when the road’s done, so he has.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said O’Reilly.

  Still sotto voce, Donal continued, “And I’ll be getting the lottery going next Wednesday.” He sat straight, grinned a bucktoothed grin to himself, and said, “I can see the loot at the end of the tunnel now.”

  “You know, Barry? This time one of Donal’s Donalisms has hit the nail on the head. I like that, the loot at the end of the tunnel.”

  The three men were laughing when the door to courtroom two opened. A long-faced-looking defendant was being taken away by a police officer. A few spectators straggled out.

  A man with a slight squint, wearing a dark three-piece suit, appeared. “Constable Mulligan, please.”

  Malcolm rose. “Mister Hoey.” The constable went into courtroom two.

  “Doctor O’Reilly? I’m John Hoey, the clerk of the court.”

  O’Reilly and Barry stood.

  “Mister Donal Donnelly?” Donal got to his feet.

  “Will you all please come this way?”

  Barry followed the little party into a plain, oak-panelled room smelling of dust. It was the first time in his life Barry had been in a courtroom. His only brush with the law, years ago, had been a fine of five pounds for not having had a taillight on his bicycle. It had been delivered by mail—on his birthday.

  Sunlight poured in from two windows. The floor was carpeted. Rows of chairs, some occupied by a handful of folks who had nothing better to do than rubberneck and thought they might find the proceedings amusing, faced the bench. A man sat near the front with an open notebook and a yellow pencil. He’d be a court reporter for the Belfast Newsletter. Barry looked straight at the soberly dressed officiating magistrate. Michael Carson sat behind a plain table set on a slightly raised platform. Large framed photographs flanked the dais. One was of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II wearing a diamond-encrusted tiara, the sash and star of some order of chivalry over a long gown, and His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in his Admiral of the Fleet’s uniform with a star of the Order of the Garter beneath his rows of campaign ribbons. In official buildings, it was de rigueur to remind the citizens they were in Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, not the Republic of Ireland.