An Irish Country Welcome

by Patrick Taylor

  “Poor wee button,” she said. “I didn’t hear you two go or come back, or the phone ring, for that matter.”

  “Nine years of being on call. I hear that first ring and I’m out of bed like a racehorse out of the starting gate. More to be sure I don’t wake you than any hair-trigger emergency.”

  “I appreciate that. You had an exciting day yesterday. Breech delivery in the morning. Mumps in the wee hours today.”

  He shrugged. “It’s my job, but now with the expanded rota, it’s great we all get the day off after twenty-four-hour call. Sebastian had gone home by the time I got up.” He laid his hand on her tummy. “It’s a good thing we’ve got three bedrooms. One for us, one for the nursery, when the bump arrives, and one for Sebastian when he’s paired with me for emergency call.” He felt movement under his hand. “Active little divil.” Barry couldn’t help but wonder where the head was, and immediately told himself to stop worrying. It could be anywhere, and that question did not need to be answered for another twelve weeks.

  She smiled. “It’s a funny feeling when our baby kicks, but this seems to be a pleasant part of pregnancy. My morning sickness is long gone and the backache some new mums have warned me about hasn’t started yet.” She shook her head. “Seven months ago, I never thought this would happen and you know I could get pretty low. Now I couldn’t be happier.”

  “This is the time pregnant women are supposed to glow. You do, and you are beautiful.”

  She kissed him. “Flatterer. Now tell me, what did you get up to today?”

  He paused. Feeling the baby kick had made Barry wonder about Mildred Anderson’s wee one. Barry had hoped for a call from Bill today, but so far nothing.

  He looked out the window. “It’s been a lovely day, blowy but sunny. I made myself combined brekky and lunch at twelve. Did a bit of gardening. Dapper Frew was wrong when I was buying the place. He told me nothing grows this close to the sea but nasturtiums and snapdragons. But your hydrangea bushes have come on a treat.”

  “And you’ve weeded round them. They look wonderful.”

  “And there was still some time for a good read.” He pointed to the table.

  “I’m glad. You work too hard.”

  He shrugged. “Speaking of working hard, looks like you’ve got lots of marking tonight.”

  “Essays. Can you guess the subject?”

  “What I did on my summer holidays?”

  She chuckled. “Spot on. Tick VG.”

  Barry laughed and said in a high-pitched, childlike voice, “Thank you, Mrs. Laverty.”

  “And I’d better get at them.”

  “Aaaw. But you don’t usually do them until after dinner. How’d you like to hop in the Imp, take Max for a run on Bangor beach. I know your food cravings have stopped, but now I’ve got them.” He laughed. “We could pick up some ice cream from Luchi’s for dessert. I got quite a taste for it when you simply had to have it.”

  Sue looked over at the pile of essays and shrugged. “They can wait, can’t they? Dinner’s in the fridge. There’s lots of the seafood casserole I made last night. Give me a minute to put on slacks and walking shoes, grab Max’s leash and I, as they say in Belfast, I’m your woman.”

  He heard her giggle receding. He’d never seen her so happy, and his heart swelled.

  * * *

  Barry had been lucky. He’d found a parking place on Queen’s Parade. The seafront street started at the bottom of Main Street and its junction with Bridge Street and ended at the junction of Grey’s Hill and Marine Gardens. At the far end of the path through the gardens, Barry could see the outdoor seawater swimming pool, Pickie Pool, with its latticed, thirty-metre diving tower. Dad had bought Barry a season’s ticket for the pool when he was sixteen. He’d only managed to go off the fifteen-metre platform, but he’d met a stunningly beautiful, ebony-eyed girl who, as much as he loved Sue, still had a wee corner of his heart.

  Sue got out and Barry clipped the leash on Max’s collar, and, keeping it short, took Sue’s hand in his other. Together the three crossed the street and walked along the pavement to a shallow ramp that led down to the sand. To their left was the tall granite-block seawall that fronted Queen’s Parade. At right angles to it, the Bridge Street seawall was pierced by an arch closed off by an iron railing to keep children out and still allow the stream running from the lakes of Ward Park to flow under the town.

  The beach here was interrupted by one of Bangor’s three piers, South Pier. Barry looked at its bulk. In April 1914, a ship called the Mountjoy had docked there and unloaded arms to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force in case Protestant armed resistance to home rule became necessary. There had been other landings at Larne and Donaghadee. He was glad things seemed to have settled down in Ulster for the time being, and hoped it stayed that way.

  The wind was tossing Sue’s copper plait around and she smoothed away a lock of hair that had escaped. “See something? A seal?”

  He shook his head. “Just history.” He wouldn’t share what he was thinking. It would darken the mood of their walk, and the day was too sunny and his wife too happy and lovely for that. He squeezed her hand. “Come on.” He strode off along the beach in the direction of Pickie Pool, named for the small fish that had inhabited rock pools before the swimming baths had been built. Once the three had passed the seaward end of the South Pier, few other people and no dogs were braving the elements today. Here there was no protection from the stiff northeaster and the nearest shelter was Scotland.

  The sea, at half tide, was running high with whitecapped combers roaring up the shelving sand and bursting with loud crashes. Spume flew inland and drops from time to time wetted Barry’s cheeks. He could taste salt.

  “I don’t believe it,” Sue said, pointing. “He must be nuts. Paddling a kayak in that sea.”

  The paddler had turned the little craft’s bows directly along the track of one enormous wave and, keeping her exactly at ninety degrees to the crest, hurtled toward the beach. The red-hulled, white-decked, canvas-and-lath kayak projected over the wave’s crest. Barry could see she was flat-bottomed.

  “I’ve seen films of surfing in Hawaii and California,” said Sue. “He must be getting the same thrill, and I think he’ll be all right when he grounds. That bottom will slide over the damp sand. I miss kayaking, but I certainly wouldn’t go out in one in seas like this.”

  Sue had learned to kayak from a certain Monsieur Hamou, a colleague she’d met as an exchange student in Marseille three years ago. He squeezed her hand. “I was jealous as hell, you know.”

  Sue turned to look at him, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “Silly. You’d no cause to be, you know. Jean-Claude was a perfect gentleman and it was all strictly business.” She gave him a mischievous grin. “Well, almost.”

  “Now you tell me,” he said, laughing.

  She looked seaward. “Now watch.”

  Coming in now at breakneck speed, the wave broke. The kayaker gave a great roar of triumph. The water became progressively shallower until, as Sue had predicted, the kayak was high and dry on wet sand. The young man waved cheerfully at Barry and Sue, hopped out, spun the kayak on its axis, pushed it out to sea again, and with one hand on each side of the coaming, hopped into the cockpit and paddled furiously out to the waves.

  “That looked like a lot of fun,” she said. “I want to see if he does that again, because when he makes his turn, he’d better not spend too long beam on to the sea. Flat-bottoms are easy to tip.”

  Barry let go of her hand and, actions matching his words, said with his mouth to Sue’s ear, “And pretty round ones are easy to pinch.”

  Her laughter pealed. “What made you think of that?”

  “Remembering drying you off after your heroic rescue of my friend Andy and every towel stroke getting closer to your lace-edged, peach nylon knickers.”

  She laughed again and kissed him long and hard. “Fancy you remembering that.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “I do
love you, Barry Laverty, and I think I must be the happiest mother-to-be in all of Ireland.”

  Barry looked at her and just caught a glimpse of the kayaker running in again. “I’m delighted you’re happy, pet.”

  “I am, very. Let’s finish Max’s walk, get the ice cream, and get home.”

  They set off hand in hand and, out of curiosity, Barry looked back. To his disappointment, the kayak was grounded upside down and the soaked kayaker was wading ashore.

  * * *

  Barry was starting the scene where Michael Corleone had been released from military service and returned home when he heard Sue say, “Good Lord. Listen to this.” With Tigger curled up on her lap, she was sitting at the dining room table, marking the essays. “This eleven-year-old, Francis Wallace is his name, has relatives in England. They live in a place called Chester-le-Street on the banks of the River Wear. He was out for a walk—now listen, ‘I saw a funny-looking shape drifting downstream. Then something floated out in front that looked like a man’s tie. Then’—they shouldn’t start sentences with then—‘I saw a hand. Holy Moses, was it a dead body?’”

  “That’s a bit morbid. Some kid’s been told too many ghost stories.”

  “Crikey. No. He hasn’t. There’s a clipping from the local paper stapled to the back page, and—here, I’ll quote an excerpt, ‘Young Francis Wallace gave evidence of his discovery and report to the police concisely in a steady voice and was complimented by the coroner.’ How on earth am I going to mark—”

  The telephone in the hall rang.

  Barry rose. “I’ll see to it.” He went into the hall, closed the door behind him, and lifted the receiver. “Hello. Laverty.”

  “Barry. Bill Howard. How are you? Sorry I haven’t called sooner, but by the time I’d finished last night it was too late to call, and today’s been hectic. I promised I’d let you know how Baby Anderson, to be called Robert, is doing.”

  “I understand, but thanks for phoning now. How are Mum and baby?” Barry braced himself to hear bad news.

  “Hang on.” Barry could hear muffled voices in the background and thought about young Robert’s survival prospects. They were good, but there were any number of nonlethal complications to which preemies were at risk. Barry had picked up some information during his time in the Waveney, but his knowledge of neonatal medicine was still sketchy.

  “I’m back. Sorry about that, Barry. Mildred’s fine and Ken’s been to visit today. Only fathers are allowed to see preemies—they’re prone to infection, as you know. Robert’s not showing any signs of that yet, and the paediatrician can’t find signs of any nervous disorder, so we can pretty well rule out birth trauma.”

  “Good. That’s great news.”

  “Everything was happening so fast yesterday Joan hadn’t time to tell you the Apgar scores were both six.”

  Barry nodded to himself. “That’s about as good as we could have hoped for.”

  “It is. There’s no sign of respiratory distress syndrome—yet—but we’re keeping the nipper on humidified oxygen at a concentration of thirty percent, and warm, of course.”

  Barry’s sigh was one of relief. If the lungs didn’t function properly, the mortality rate was about 30 percent, and higher oxygen concentrations in babies under five pounds could cause blindness. “This is sounding better and better.”

  “Perhaps one snag, but the paediatricians are on top of it. Kernicterus.”

  “I’m not very up on that condition.”

  “Because their livers are immature, preemies have difficulty processing bilirubin, the end product to the normal breakdown of haemoglobin. If serum bilirubin levels rise, they cause jaundice—”

  “Like some kinds of jaundice in adults?”

  “Exactly, but in preemies, the bilirubin also causes brain damage, unfortunately. That leads to mental deficiency or death.”

  “Oh-oh. I do not like the sound of that.”

  “It’s really not as bad as it seems. Kernicterus because of prematurity doesn’t usually occur until the third or fourth day of life. Looking on the bright side, and given all the good aspects of Robert’s progress, he probably won’t develop it. But they’re measuring the serum bilirubin levels daily and if they do get too high, they can exchange the baby’s blood with donated blood with normal levels.”

  “So, you’re saying Robert’s chances are good?”

  “I’m not saying it. It’s what the paediatricians think, and they’re the experts.”

  “Thanks for letting me know, Bill. I’ve been worried about them,” and by extension about Sue.

  “That’s the big difference between us. Your patients almost become like friends, and when something serious comes along, you can ship them off to folks like me and we only see them briefly.”

  “Too true, so thanks again for keeping me posted.”

  “And I’ll be in touch on the kernicterus front too.” He paused. “Seeing you yesterday reminded me about the good times you and Jack and I had at Campbell. Any chance the three of us could get together for a jar? It’s been ages since I’ve been out that way. Perhaps we could meet in Ballybucklebo?”

  “Sure. Ask Jack, and when you pick a day, I’ll make sure I’m free too. Jack’s girlfriend is living-in in the Royal’s housemen’s quarters but her dad’s here and is happy to put Jack up. And we’ve a bed for you here. Keep you safe from the Peelers. Don’t want you getting snagged for being over the limit.”

  “Good idea. Thanks, Barry. I’m off.” The line went dead.

  Barry replaced the receiver and clenched his teeth. The news about young Robert was good, he told himself, yet there was still that one unknown, and Barry couldn’t change the habit of a lifetime. He was worried about the little lad, but he’d not let his concerns show. He had not seen Sue as happy for months. He went back into the living room.

  Sue, still marking, looked up. “Well?”

  He smiled. “It was Bill Howard, who delivered yesterday’s breech, giving me an update. Everything’s fine.”

  “Huh,” she said, “it took him a brave while to pass on a simple message. Are you sure?”

  The lie rolled off his tongue with almost no effort. “He’s a school classmate of Jack’s and mine. We had a bit of craic about the old days, and he wants the three of us to get together soon for a drink. I’d like us to give him a bed. Jack can stay with Helen’s dad.”

  She smiled. “Of course, we’ll put Bill up.”

  Barry sat, then reached down to stroke one of Max’s long, soft ears. “How’s the marking going?”

  “Nearly done. A lot of ‘It was a lovely summer and I had a lovely time doing lots of lovely things.’ I don’t think most of this class have a trip to Stockholm in their futures.”

  “Stockholm?”

  “To collect a Nobel Prize for Literature. Except possibly the author of ‘How I Found a Corpse.’ He has a very good storytelling style. I gave him an A plus.”

  Barry rose, bent, and dropped a kiss on her head.

  “I wish you’d been my teacher.”

  “I’d like to be tonight,” she said. “I was remembering getting a bit hot and bothered in my lacy, peach-coloured nylon knickers, and you know Harith says it’s all right for us to make love now.” She stood, put her arms around him, and kissed him long and hard. “Come on,” she said in a husky voice, taking his hand and heading for their bedroom. “Let’s see if I can give out another A plus.”

  26

  And There We Saw the Giants

  The sun was high and the sky blue in the village of Bushmills near the north coast of County Antrim. O’Reilly waited for the bill for a late lunch that he, Kitty, and their guest, Consuela Rivera y Navarro, had enjoyed on the stone forecourt of the Bushmills Inn. The two-storey whitewashed building to his right was covered with a dense Virginia creeper, its leaves now deep Merlot red, stretching from roof to ground. This part of the building met at a right angle with a squat, whitewashed replica of an Irish round tower with one latticed window and a co
nical slate roof.

  The waiter appeared and O’Reilly paid.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Right, girls,” he said, standing and starting the walk to the car park. “It’s only about a ten-minute drive to one of the wonders of the world. I promise you, Consuela, it’ll take the light from your eyes.”

  Consuela Rivera y Navarro seemed younger than her thirty-five years, with her long dark hair hanging to the small of her back, ebony eyes that were slightly slanted above high cheekbones, and full lips. She frowned. “Please? What does this mean?” Her English was slightly accented.

  Kitty shook her head. “Come on, Fingal. Consuela’s English is a damn sight better than your Spanish. The old bear means a sight that will impress you very much.”

  “I see. Thank you, Tia Kitty.”

  As a very little girl, Consuela had called Kitty her “tia,” or auntie. She was the only mother Consuela had ever known. She’d been two when her own mother had been killed during the shelling of Madrid in November 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. Kitty, while she was working as a nurse in an orphanage in San Blas, Tenerife, had met Consuela’s father and had fallen in love.

  “Already you have done that. Giving me the front seat so I could drink in those views along the Antrim Coast Road. I have some wonderful pictures to remind me. The sea views, they are majestic. Would that be the right word?”

  “It is,” Kitty said. “Majestuoso.”

  “It’s been a wonderful two days since I arrived from Barcelona. And your Mrs. Kinky, so charming. Yesterday morning she asked for a recipe for paella, but I don’t know if you can get cuttlefish in Ireland.”

  “Hmmm. Neither do I,” said O’Reilly.

  “You don’t?” Kitty said with a mischievous grin. “Fingal does not know something. I’ll put the date in my diary.”

  O’Reilly smiled. Kitty had been in a great mood since last Friday, when they had started a two-week holiday. She should take more time off.