An Irish Country Practice

by Patrick Taylor

  “Now all of Ballybucklebo knows what ails her.” He shook his head. “Our Pat and his ones has been up from Dublin three times. Seamus writes every week. He’s trying til raise the dosh to fly home, but och…” Guffer shrugged.

  “How much would it be?” Kitty asked.

  “He wrote it all down in one of his letters,” Anne said. “I’m not very good at exchanging pounds for dollars, but the way he explained it, his yearly carpenter’s wage is about ten thousand dollars a year before the government takes their share, and the fare’s about nine hundred here and back. That’s a brave chunk of his wages.”

  “Living in the USA’s far more dear than living here,” Guffer said. “Even a haircut’s about ten times what it is here.”

  “Seamus reckons nine hundred dollars works out at about six hundred pounds,” Anne said.

  O’Reilly glanced at Kitty and saw her looking back with one eyebrow raised. Kinky and Archie’s four hundred pounds were untouched. Would two and two make four—or rather the sterling equivalent of nine hundred? They’d have to wait and see.

  “I’ll just have to bide,” Anne said, “and hope for a miracle.” There was a crack in her voice. She squatted down unsteadily, Guffer bracing her against him, as she put her arms around Kenny’s neck, leant her face on his fur. “You used to be a wee dote. Now you’re a great big one, so you are.”

  And the great big dote wagged his tail and licked her hand.

  * * *

  “Number 10 Shore Road’s not much til look at from the outside,” said Dapper Frew as he held open the door of his Ford Cortina for Sue. “But it has good points inside, and it’s just a wee doddle from Number One Main and your work, sir, and you could walk til MacNeill Memorial Elementary, Miss.”

  The three of them had been looking at a series of disappointing alternatives to the Millers’ bungalow every weekend that Barry had been off duty since the beginning of May. Ballybucklebo, it seemed, had a spectrum ranging from relics of the 1800s, all badly in need of being dragged into the twentieth century, to a small estate of two-bedroom, prefabricated bungalows with asbestos walls that had been not so much put up as hurled up by the borough council as stop-gap measures immediately after the war. Dapper had apologised for even asking them to have a look but had wondered if one might do in the short term? It wouldn’t. Nor would two monstrosities that could have housed a family of eight and several servants.

  Barry already knew what a great salesman Dapper was and what an optimistic fellow he was generally. He could probably find something positive about a trip to the dentist. Barry stared up at his latest offering: the second in a row of identical two-and-a-half-storey narrow-fronted Victorian terrace houses in an unappealing shade of industrial grey. The front door of one was immediately adjacent to the one next door, separated only by thin brick walls. He wondered how soundproof it might or might not be. A single ground-floor sash window flanked the entrance. Immediately above was another sash window and at its side an angular bay window was supported on timber brackets.

  Dapper laughed. “That there kind of window’s called a canted oriel. Dead popular in the 1880s when these houses was built, so they were”—he pointed up—“and see you the sash window on the second floor? That wee pointy roof over it’s called a gablet—sort of like a mini-gable. There’s a neat wee attic up there.” He put the key in the lock. “Come on on in.”

  Barry stood aside to let Sue go first. He followed. Immediately he smelled boiled cabbage. The hall light was on, otherwise the narrow corridor would be dark. Brown linoleum covered the floor.

  Dapper opened a door to the right of the hall. “Dining room,” he said.

  Sue went in. It was a simple small room with a fireplace at the far end. There was a musty smell and Barry was certain he’d noticed a damp patch behind a strategically placed chair. The sash window gave a view—of pavement, Shore Road, and an identical terrace opposite. His friend Jack Mills had described such streets as “being laid out so you could sit in your front room and stare directly into the red-rimmed, hate-filled eyes of your cross-street neighbour.”

  “There’s a very good coal house in the backyard,” Dapper said. “Be cosy in here in the winter with a nice coal fire.”

  And nice heavy buckets of coal to lug in and ashes to carry out. “Like that one on Croft Street,” Barry said, “with only a fireplace in the lounge—on the second floor and a very steep staircase.”

  “Fair play, Doc,” Dapper said, “but them Victorians weren’t big on central heating, so they weren’t.”

  Barry, who was becoming frustrated and very disappointed for Sue, thought, Even the bloody Romans had hypocausts, under-floor hot-air heating, about two thousand years ago. But he kept the thought to himself. Dapper was doing his best. Barry looked at Sue. She shrugged and said, “Not very big, is it?”

  “No.” Barry nodded and thought of the spacious lounge/dining room in the Millers’ place—and the view from the lounge window. “What else is on this floor, Dapper?”

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Back to the hall. A carpeted staircase ran up along the right-hand wall. The hall led to a kitchen. An old kitchen. The floor was tiled. A chipped enamel sink with exposed plumbing sat beneath a sash window. An elderly washing machine with hoses to be attached to the sink’s taps was stored beneath and off to one side. No sign of a spin dryer.

  “The machine may be ancient,” Sue said, “but at least there is one. The last place had a washboard. I can’t see myself as ‘The Irish Washerwoman.’”

  Dapper started to whistle the opening bars of the familiar Irish jig and they all laughed. “I thought washboards went out with cigar box guitars and musical saws when Skiffle bands packed it up in the fifties,” said Barry.

  “Oh, I liked your man Lonnie Donegan,” Dapper said, “and his ‘Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight’ and ‘Grand Coulee Dam.’”

  Barry crossed the room to look out and saw a small backyard with a central square grill for drainage in its concrete surface. A shed, presumably the coal house, stood at the far end. A meat safe with a wire-mesh door hung from one wall. A single clothesline supported in its middle by a wooden pole drooped from the back of the house to the coal house. Shadows from the surrounding houses and the high, pitted, and moss-encrusted redbrick wall made the place gloomy in midmorning. “I suppose,” he said to Sue, “you could put a pram out there on a sunny day.”

  “I suppose,” she said, and he knew she was pleased by his mention of a family, but not happy with the shady yard. She turned and scrutinised the rest of the place. “No fridge.”

  That accounted for the meat safe.

  “Gas stove. Ancient,” she said, and shook her head when she saw a mangle propped against a wall. She walked round opening and closing doors. “Cupboard space is all right and”—she opened a tall door and switched on a light—“good-sized pantry and … oh dear God.” She took two quick paces back as a brown rat scuttled across the floor.

  Barry grabbed a broom, opened the back door, and went and stood protectively in front of Sue.

  The animal must have recognised its chance to escape and raced to and through the door, which Dapper slammed shut. “Are you all right, Miss Nolan? That was desperate, so it was. I’m awful sorry, so I am.”

  Barry put an arm round Sue’s waist. “You all right, love?”

  She took a deep breath and said, “Please, Dapper, don’t worry. No need to apologise, and yes, Barry, I’m fine. I’m not actually scared of rodents. It startled me. That’s all.”

  “Me too,” Barry said. “I’m glad you’re okay.” But this house was not for them, that was for sure. “Come on, let’s get out of the kitchen.” And he propelled Sue to the door to the hall.

  Dapper, who followed, shaking his head, said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, “I’ve been in this business a brave wean of years. I’m not going til come within a beagle’s gowl of selling youse this house, am I?”

  Barry loo
ked at Sue, who shook her head. “Dapper, I think that would have been the case even without our furry friend. We really would like something a little brighter and a little less, well, Dickensian—with a view if possible.”

  “Aye, I know,” Dapper said. “I’ve nothing like that on the books in Ballybucklebo at the moment, but we could look at places in Holywood or Cultra, even Carnalea if youse like?”

  Barry said, “It may have to come to that. What do you think, Sue?”

  “I’d prefer Ballybucklebo, if possible. I’ve got used to commuting from my flat in Holywood to school, but I work from nine to three. It wouldn’t be so bad for you, Barry, in the daytime, but I know you won’t want longer drives to your patients if there are emergencies at night.”

  He nodded. “Dapper,” he said, “we understand you’re doing your very best. If we have to, we’ll use my quarters with Doctor O’Reilly and Kitty for a while. Or maybe use Sue’s flat in Holywood. I could use Fingal’s attic to take night call. Let’s not go at it like a bull in a china shop yet.”

  “Fair enough,” Dapper said, holding the front door open. “My oul Ma used til say, ‘Buy in haste. Repent at leisure.’ I hear you, sir. And you never know, we may have a bit better luck soon.”

  There was something in the man’s voice that caught Barry’s attention, but he knew Dapper well enough to understand that he’d say nothing until he was good and ready.

  Barry climbed into the passenger seat.

  As Sue got into the back of the car, she said, “At least if we do hold on to my flat in Holywood, Max wouldn’t have to stay on the farm when we get back from France.”

  “That’s true,” Barry said with a forced grin and thought, Oh, goody. He loved Sue dearly, but he wasn’t at all sure about Max, the mad springer. And because Sue couldn’t see him in the front seat, he raised his eyes to the heavens.

  37

  Kindness in Another’s Trouble

  O’Reilly had been expecting Flo Bishop and Alice Moloney at four, so he was surprised when someone knocked on the door of the upstairs lounge at three thirty. Folks usually rang the doorbell. They must have let themselves in. “Come in,” he said, and looked at Kitty, who lifted her head from her book, Jan de Hartog’s The Captain, and raised an eyebrow.

  Kinky poked her head round the door. “May we come in, sir?”

  “Of course, Kinky,” said O’Reilly, rising. “What brings you—”

  Archie followed her.

  “—and Archie here on a Saturday? And please, both of you, have a seat.”

  Kinky, who was wearing her best green hat and a green dress, settled in an armchair, but Archie remained standing at his wife’s side.

  Kitty closed her book and laid it on the coffee table with a smile. “Lovely to see you both.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. O’Reilly,” Archie said.

  “Doctor O’Reilly, will you please sit down?” Kinky said. She sat straight-backed, knees together, hands in her lap holding her handbag. “You are not in the presence of royalty, so.”

  O’Reilly smiled and sat. But she was wrong. As far as he was concerned, Kinky Auchinleck, née O’Hanlon, had been the queen of Number One Main Street for many years until she had graciously abdicated in favour of Kitty.

  “We do be very sorry to intrude, uninvited, on a Saturday.”

  “Kinky Auchinleck,” O’Reilly said, “who said anything about intruding? You and Archie are always welcome here at Number One.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She beamed at him and rummaged in her handbag.

  Kitty said, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  Archie shook his head. “That would be very kind, but no thank you, we are not a direct part of what your guests are coming to discuss.”

  O’Reilly frowned. How did Archie mean, and how did he know—

  “No, sir. I have not used my gift,” Kinky said. “It does be common knowledge that money is being raised for a very good cause.” She smoothed her dress over her knees.

  “I’ll come to the point, so. You will remember a Saturday in this very house, ten weeks ago, when a certain Foinavon, the wee dote, won the Grand National?”

  O’Reilly chuckled. “I do indeed. I’ll remember it for a long time.”

  “Fingal lost twenty pounds,” said Kitty, “and you and Doctor Fitzpatrick did very well.”

  Poor Ronald, O’Reilly thought. Much good had the money done him. Still, judging by his letters from Nepal, he was finding some peace at last.

  “That is true,” Kinky said, and from her bag produced a wad of ten-pound notes held together by a red rubber band. “I told you then that I was raising the money for a need which was going to arise in the village.”

  And I’ve wondered over those ten weeks, O’Reilly thought, what that need was going to be. At first he’d wondered if Eileen Lindsay, with her three kids to raise on her own and a serious illness to contend with, might be the recipient. But Barry, whose patient Eileen was, had reported last week that she’d had no recurrence of porphyric attacks and was fully employed at the linen mill. He’d also remarked that she’d said she’d been sleeping better since her stay in hospital, away from all her stresses. Then O’Reilly’d thought it might be Bertie Bishop’s unemployed workers, but the moving of the marquis’s cottages had provided temporary work until the bypass construction had begun. And Hugh Doran had been true to his word, opening accounts at the bank in Hester’s name and steadfastly keeping his appointments at the psycho-neurotic unit at Newtownards Hospital. Even Donal Donnelly, with his near-ready-to-deliver wife and an impending court case, had not filled the bill. Ballybucklebo’s arch schemer had got off relatively lightly.

  “That need is now.” She handed the notes to O’Reilly. “It would greatly please Archie and me”—she smiled up at him and he put his hand on her shoulder—“if you, Doctor, and Mrs. O’Reilly would add this to whatever amount the whip-round has raised.”

  “Bless you, Kinky,” O’Reilly said, accepting the money. “You are going to make someone—”

  “Forgive me for interrupting, sir, but it does be the Galvin family. We all know that. But we don’t want them to know about Archie and me. We told you when we won the money that when the need came for it to be spent, we did not want it known that it came from our wager, or indeed from us.”

  “And I said then,” Kitty said, “that it was very gracious of you. It is. Thank you, Kinky and Archie. Thank you.”

  “Och, sure it is only a shmall little thing, so.” She glanced at her watch. “Your guests will be arriving soon. Archie and I have no plans for this afternoon. It would please us greatly if we’d be allowed to prepare and serve your afternoon tea.”

  O’Reilly caught Kitty’s eye. He made a tiny movement with the tip of his right index finger toward his breastbone, meaning, let me deal with this.

  Kitty nodded.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, “and hold your horses, Kinky, until I explain. Afternoon tea would be lovely, but you will not serve. How am I going to explain you being here on a Saturday? Doesn’t everyone and his dog know you get the weekends off?”

  “Wellll…” She glanced up at Archie, who squeezed her shoulder.

  “But,” said O’Reilly, “there’s nothing to stop Mrs. O’Reilly and me having our friends round for a cuppa, is there? Even if, as you put it, Archie, you are not a direct part of what is to be discussed?”

  “True, sir.”

  “So,” said O’Reilly, “by all means make the tea—and, if you please, there’s lots left from the baking you did yesterday, so give us some of your Guinness cake with Jameson cream icing, ginger bickies, and ginger bread. They are all exceptional.” Kinky rose and he could see she was glowing. And this would also give her and Archie the opportunity to see the effect of their donation to the amount of money raised by the organisers of the whip-round. “And while you’re down there, why don’t you ask Doctor Laverty to join us. He was out earlier with Sue, looking at houses with Dapper Frew. She’s had to nip home to B
roughshane to help her mother with some arrangements, but I heard him come in ten minutes ago. The whip-round was his idea. I’m sure he’d like to see at firsthand what happens next.”

  * * *

  “Come in, come in.” O’Reilly greeted Bertie and Flo Bishop at the front door. Flo’s hat was a feathery confection that clung to her head. “Where’s Alice?”

  “She’s on her way,” Bertie Bishop said. “It’s such a nice day, Flo and me walked here, and when we were passing her shop she stuck her head out and said she’d be coming as soon as she’d finished with a customer.”

  “Good,” said O’Reilly. “Go on up to the lounge. I’ll wait for her here.”

  He chuckled as he watched the portly pair heading upstairs. Tweedledum and, forgive me Lewis Carroll, Tweedledess.

  A breathless Alice Moloney arrived on his doorstep. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Come in, Alice, and not a bit of it.” He closed the door and followed her upstairs to where Barry and the Auchinlecks were seated taking tea and Kitty was pouring for the Bishops.

  Greetings were exchanged and a chair found for Alice. She said, “Oh, my. Is that Kinky’s Guinness cake?”

  “It is, bye,” Kinky said, and offered Alice a slice.

  She took a bite, closed her eyes, chewed, and swallowed. “Kinky Auchinleck,” she said, “that is the food of the gods.”

  Kinky smiled and nodded.

  O’Reilly picked up his cup and saucer from where he’d left them on the mantel. “Now, I know everybody would like to blether on and enjoy the tea and Kinky’s baking, but we have some business to transact. I believe, Flo, you were chairwoman of the whip-round. We’re all busting to know.”

  There was a murmuring of assent.

  “How did you do?”

  Flo stood and rummaged in her handbag. She produced a notebook and a fat envelope. “People have been very generous.”

  “I’d expect no less in Ballybucklebo,” Bertie said.

  “Wheest, dear,” Flo said. She cleared her throat and consulted the book. “We have raised a great deal, but I fear it will not be nearly enough. How much will a ticket on an aeroplane cost, Doctor O’Reilly?”