An Irish Country Family--An Irish Country Novel

by Patrick Taylor

  He glowed in her praise.

  She leant closer and whispered so he felt her warm breath on his neck, “And you kiss very well too.”

  Barry would have savoured the moment, but the cycling schoolboy was back. “Excuse me, mister, can I get by, please?”

  “Of course.” Barry stepped aside and the lad mounted and pedalled away. “Come on,” he said. “The path down the south side is much gentler. Won’t take us long to get back to the car.”

  Virginia sighed and then breathed in a deep breath. “One more good look?” She stared all around her, turning slowly. “Beautiful,” she said. “I’ll always remember this.”

  I’ll not forget it either, Barry thought, seeing the beauty of her. “Now,” he said, “let’s head for home.”

  They set off.

  “And it’s time, Virginia Clarke, for me to find out a bit about you, please.”

  “All right.” She frowned and said with a serious tone, “My CV reads: I’m twenty-one, in my third year of training. I told you I’m from Magherafelt. Went to Rainey Endowed School. It’s an old co-ed grammar school. My best subjects were science and mathematics, and I played left wing on the first eleven hockey team.” Then she grinned. “Now. Wasn’t that exciting?”

  Barry shook his head and laughed. “Exhilarating,” he said.

  “On a more personal note, Dad’s a solicitor in Magherafelt and Mum writes children’s stories for BBC Radio. I like ballet and short stories and history.” She stopped and faced him. “And just so you know, I am very serious about wanting to be a nurse.”

  “Why did you pick nursing?”

  Before she could answer, they passed the young cyclist, who, well away from his teachers and his school, nestled at the foot of Cave Hill, was having a smoke.

  “Why? I like people, I suppose. And when I was fourteen, my dad gave me a book by Cecil Woodham-Smith—”

  “She’s a fantastic historian,” Barry said. “I’ve read her The Great Hunger and The Reason Why.”

  “So have I, but Dad bought me Florence Nightingale. That’s when I decided on nursing.” She lost her smile and her voice was serious when she said, “And I love it. And I’m going to finish my training and go on to be a midwife.”

  “I think that’s terrific. I really do.”

  “Thank you, Barry.” They started walking.

  “I’m not in it like a lot of the girls who want to snag a young doctor. Marry up. I don’t blame them for wanting to avoid working in a linen mill or a shop. Not at all. They’re smart, they did well in school, and they want something that leads to a better life, and there aren’t that many options for us girls. But I’m not like the ladies who used to go out to the Raj and try to land an army officer. They called them ‘The Fishing Fleet,’ you know.”

  Barry laughed. So, as well as being beautiful, it was clear that this Virginia Clarke was a self-possessed young lady. He liked that.

  “I don’t need to, and don’t be hurt, in fact I’ve tried quite hard to not get involved in anything long term. I want to succeed in my career.”

  Barry shrugged. “I understand,” he said, “and I’m not hurt, because so do I, even though I’m not quite sure yet what kind of doctor I want to be.” And as Jack had guessed, Barry was still smarting a little from the loss of that brown-eyed radiographer nine months ago. From ahead came a scream and the sound of metal crashing against rock.

  Barry instinctively let go of Virginia’s hand, grabbed his jacket, and took off like a liltie. He rounded a corner to see first a school cap and then a fallen bicycle with its owner lying in a heap beside the path. Barry knelt beside the boy. “You all right?”

  “I am not.” His face was tear-stained. “Stupid bloody hare ran in front of me and I braked too hard. I think I’ve bust my leg.” He lowered his head to indicate his right, dirt-stained shin. “I hit it a right dunt and heard it snap.”

  “Here.” Barry laid his jacket over the boy for a blanket. Shock could accompany broken bones. “Where does it hurt?”

  The lad put his hand down to about six inches above the ankle joint on the outside of his leg.

  “I’m Doctor Laverty. I’m going to help you if you’ll let me.”

  Virginia arrived and knelt beside Barry. She held a finger to her lips. “Don’t let me intrude” seemed to be the unspoken message.

  “This is Nurse Clarke. What’s your name?”

  “Ronnie Houston.” He brushed away a tear.

  “How old are you?

  “Thirteen.”

  Small for his age. “I’ll try not to hurt you.” The skin wasn’t broken over the place that hurt, so if there were a fracture, it was a simple one involving only bone, not a compound or open fracture with its attendant risk of serious infection. Neither was there a great distortion of the limb, so it was unlikely that the tibia, the larger bone in the lower leg, was broken. “Can you move your foot, Ronnie?”

  “Don’t want to. It hurts too much.”

  “All right.” Sign one of a break. Loss of function.

  Barry very gently laid his fingers where Ronnie said it hurt the most. Gentle pressure allowed Barry to feel a grating sensation, crepitus, and Ronnie yelled, “Holy Jesus, that hurts. Stop it.”

  “Sorry,” Barry said.

  “No. I’m sorry, Doctor. I shouldn’t have sworn.”

  “It’s all right.” Two more signs. That was enough to satisfy Barry even in the absence of the other two, abnormal movement and displacement, that the fibula, the smaller of the two lower leg bones, was gone. This would need temporary splinting, transport to the children’s hospital, and an X-ray. “Did you hit your head, Ronnie?”

  “Nah.”

  That could wait for a fuller assessment because Barry could do nothing here anyway. “All right,” he said. “Just be a jiff.” He stood and examined the bike. The walking stick would act as one splint and, he thought as he wrestled the bicycle pump free from its clips on the bike’s frame, this long rigid cylinder would suffice for the other.

  “Nurse, could I borrow your scarf?”

  She took it off, loosing her hair to fall to her shoulders to frame an oval face. It would serve in lieu of a bandage. But he needed three more. He unbuckled his belt. He said, “Please don’t be offended, but I don’t suppose you’d be wearing stockings?” Most young women since the advent of Mary Quant’s miniskirt now favoured tights.

  She laughed. “As a matter of fact, I am. They’re more comfortable under trousers. You two look away.” In moments she had handed Barry a pair of tan nylons.

  With Virginia’s help it took a very short time to apply a makeshift splint, with the walking stick fixed by Barry’s tie and belt immobilising the knee joint above and the ankle below the break, and the pump held in place by Virginia’s stockings stabilising the outside of the leg. “Right, young Houston,” Barry said, “put your arms around my neck and hang on.”

  He did. “My leg’s not so bad now, but please go easy, Doc.”

  “I will.” Barry put his arms under the lad’s good thigh, letting the foot dangle as he supported Ronnie’s back with his other arm and stood. “Can you wheel the bike, Nurse? It’s not too far.”

  Ten minutes later it was beginning to feel like it was, and when a big strapping lad, who introduced himself as Seamus O’Malley, caught up with them and offered to carry Ronnie Houston the rest of the way, Barry agreed with relief. The four of them trooped into the lobby of the castle, where Seamus made his good-byes after setting Ronnie on a sofa.

  It took little time to phone the boy’s parents and then Sick Kids, who agreed to arrange for an ambulance. When it arrived and the ambulance staff had re-splinted the leg, Barry collected his stick and their items of clothing and they said their good-byes.

  Together they walked hand in hand back to the car park. “Barry, I want to thank you for a lovely afternoon. I know it’s not the grand sweep of the summit, but just look at the view from here and how the lough glistens down there.”

  “It
is beautiful, and so are you.”

  She laughed. “Coming from a shy boy like you, that is a real compliment.”

  Inside Barry felt warm.

  Virginia was serious when she said, “And I want to tell you how impressed I am with the way you look after your patients. You’re going to be a fine doctor, whatever path you choose.”

  He glowed.

  “I’m committed to my career,” she squeezed his hand, “and I know you are to yours, but I hope we can find time to see each other again. You are a lovely man.”

  And at that moment, true to form, the brown-eyed radiographer forgotten, Barry Laverty knew he was falling. He looked up to see birds, clearly pigeons now, flying to reach the top of the castle, and inside his heart flew with them.

  11

  Your Locks Were Like the Raven

  April 21, 1969

  Snip-snip-snip. Snip. Snip-snip. Silence.

  “Thundering jasus, Doctor O’Reilly, for the last time would you bloody well sit still, you bollix. One more snip and you’d have lost the top of your flaming ear.” Dougie George, Ballybucklebo’s bellicose barber, was in good form this morning.

  O’Reilly laughed.

  “Mind you, them great cauliflower lugs of yours are like feckin’ Dumbo’s and they could use a pruning.”

  Dougie, who must be at least seventy, had the reputation for being the rudest man in Ballybucklebo. He’d have insulted royalty if given the chance. O’Reilly suspected it was all a carefully constructed façade that, far from driving people away, had the opposite effect of attracting customers. Those who braved Dougie’s decent haircuts and brutal remarks got lots of attention in the Duck after a trim. They’d take a long pull from their pints, heave a great sigh as if they’d just had a close encounter with death, and retell Dougie’s latest insult. “Honest til God, Dougie says til me, ‘I was going til give you a nasty look, Constable Mulligan—but you already have one,’” or “‘You, Willy John, have a nose that would take a thorn out of a greyhound’s arse.’”

  Well inured to the man’s antics, O’Reilly had been getting his hair cut here since 1946. Originally Kinky had had to make a fuss to remind him. Now Kitty kept him right, bless her, with remarks like this morning’s: “Fingal, you look like a perambulating haystack and we’re going to the MacNeills’ tonight. Get your hair cut.”

  “How much longer are you going to be, Dougie?”

  “I’m seventy years old, Doctor. I think I’ve finished growing, you great glipe.”

  Snip-snip-snip.

  A bell tinkled as the door opened. A tall, middle-aged man with an erect bearing walked in and took one of four hard wooden seats.

  The snipping stopped, and Dougie said, “In for the usual, Colonel Mullan?”

  “Please.”

  “I’ll be with you in a wee minute. I have the razor stropped and ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  Interesting, O’Reilly thought. This must be the man Bertie Bishop had referred to as a “thran bugger.” O’Reilly decided to let the newcomer make the running. He listened to the snip-snip-snip as what seemed like enough dark hair to stuff a mattress slipped down the sheet pinned with a clothes-peg round his neck to lie on the linoleum floor. The single swivel-chair faced a mirror with a fading 1940s advertisement for Brylcreem stuck on one side. The red-and-white-striped pole outside the shop halfway along Main Street, once the symbol of the Company of Barbers and Surgeons formed in 1540, was reflected on the other side. A glass shelf in front of the foot of the mirror carried bottles of patent hair restorer and disinfectant-filled glass cylinders, one holding combs, the other scissors. Three ivory-handled cut-throat razors lay side by side and the leather strop for honing them hung from the back of the chair. Although it was not openly advertised, Dougie was also the source of Durex condoms for those too embarrassed to ask at the local chemist’s. They were not on display. Their presence was only mentioned in code. “And will sir be needing anything for the weekend?” The only thing that had changed since 1946 was that Dougie and O’Reilly had both aged twenty-three years.

  Snip-snip-snip.

  O’Reilly peered in the mirror at the newcomer’s reflection. This was the man who was interfering in the sporting club’s efforts to start running functions. His dark brown hair, parted to the left, was clipped in a military style above deep-set blue eyes. He sported a thin, neatly trimmed moustache, but his cheeks were stubbled. The colonel’s navy blazer was decorated with the crest of the Royal Ulster Rifles—a harp supporting a crown with the motto Quis Separabit below—his grey flannels had a razor crease, his black shoes a mirror polish.

  Shuffling through ancient magazines on a low table, Colonel Mullan put aside Practical Mechanics, Playboy, and The Ulster Tatler before selecting an old Shooting Times.

  Snip-snip-snip.

  “Anyroad, Doctor O’Reilly, what do you reckon to this Bernadette Devlin, the civil rights Republican getting herself elected til Westminster last Thursday? I read she’ll be making her maiden speech tomorrow, the twenty-second, in Parliament. Dead historic day. I’ll bet it will be full of digs at thon Prime Minister Macmillan.”

  “Miss Devlin? It’s a democracy, Dougie. I don’t get involved with politics, don’t believe in taking sides, but if the majority of her constituents want her, they can have her. That’s how democracy works. Someone a bit younger in Parliament might be refreshing too.”

  “Aye, she’ll be refreshing all right, in her miniskirts and them go-go boots the young ladies wear these days. I can just see her in question time. ‘Will the right honourable member for Bromley take a long walk off a short pier?’”

  Snip-snip-snip. “Will you stop bloody laughing, you eejit. This here’s a delicate operation. Don’t want to send you out of here with only one ear.”

  The colonel lowered his magazine. “Um, I say, that is, I don’t mean to intrude, but are you by any chance the Doctor Fingal O’Reilly?”

  His accent was clipped. Very British, and yet certain words had retained their Ulster inflections. This was typical of an Ulster youngster who’d been sent to a minor English public school and tried to acquire the tones of his upper-class fellows. The natives, ever sensitive to speech patterns, referred to it with some derision as being like buttermilk coming through the cream.

  Snip-snip.

  “I am.”

  “Oliver Mullan.” He began to rise, but O’Reilly said, “I’m sorry, but under this sheet I can’t shake your hand, Colonel.”

  “Perfectly all right.” He sat, and his tone was self-deprecatory. “And actually, it’s only lieutenant-colonel, but convention gives me the honorary full rank conversationally.”

  “I understand,” O’Reilly said. He had seen his share of action in the war, had tucked it away at the very back of his mind, never mentioned it, and vaguely disapproved of ex-military men who clung to their old rank. But at least this Mullan was honest about his. “I’ve heard you were with the Stickies.”

  Snip-snip.

  “Royal Ulster Rifles. That was our nickname because we stuck to things like glue. We don’t exist anymore. Sad, really. Last year we were combined with other fine regiments like the Inniskilling Fusiliers to form the Royal Irish Rangers. Pity, but I didn’t spend much time with the Rifles. I was on detached duty.” He coughed. “It’s not actually something I talk about much.”

  O’Reilly respected that.

  Snip-snip.

  Dougie said, “The Stickies? That’s what the Irish Republican Army started calling themselves two years ago, because at Easter they wear a lily held on by sticky tape.”

  “An Easter lily,” O’Reilly said. “To commemorate the heroes, martyrs, who died or were executed in or after the Dublin Rising in April 1916.”

  Snip-snip.

  “One doesn’t wish to be contentious, Doctor, particularly on first acquaintance, but that’s one perspective. As a loyal British subject and an ex-serviceman, I’m more inclined to regard them as rebels against duly constituted authority,
and I’m very concerned that we may see that kind of nonsense starting again here in Ulster.”

  The snipping stopped.

  Dougie said, and his tone was level, “Excuse me, Colonel, you’ve not been here in Ballybucklebo very long. We try very hard not til take sides. Get along with each other, like.”

  “Hah-hmm.” Colonel Mullan held up a placatory hand. “If I’ve caused offence I apologise, but are you both not concerned? There was rioting in Londonderry’s Bogside, NICRA against Loyalists on Saturday. Bombs exploded yesterday at the Silent Valley Reservoir. That’s Belfast’s main water supply, and it led to a water shortage for firemen when mobs with firebombs stormed nine post offices and the central bus station in Belfast last night.”

  “It is very worrisome,” O’Reilly said, “but we keep hoping it’ll settle down.”

  “That’s right,” Dougie said. “Nobody here in Ballybucklebo wants trouble.” He held up a mirror behind O’Reilly’s head. “That look all right, Doc?”

  O’Reilly looked at his reflection. “Thing of beauty,” he said. “Thanks, Dougie.”

  Dougie opened the clothes-peg and removed the sheet, showering the floor with clippings. He lifted a broom from the corner and started sweeping up.

  O’Reilly swung round until he was facing the Colonel. He stood and offered his hand, which Colonel Mullan took. His grip was firm. “Welcome to Ballybucklebo, Colonel. Don’t worry about having Loyalist sentiments—as long as you keep them to yourself.”

  “Thank you, old boy. Much appreciated. A wink’s as good as a nod to a blind horse.”

  “Unless it’s a horse Donal Donnelly has money on,” Dougie said. “Anyroad. Hop up, Colonel, while I get the lather ready.”

  “I shall.” He smiled. “Got into the habit of having my batman shave me—he’d been a barber on Civvy Street. My little extravagance. Having dinner with the marquis this evening, you see.”

  O’Reilly, remembering John MacNeill’s remark nine days ago about appealing to the man’s military spirit, said, “I’ll look forward to seeing you there.” He turned to Dougie and paid, adding ten percent for the tip. “Thanks, Dougie.” He started to leave, but just as he opened the door, making the bell ring, Mullan spoke. “It has been a pleasure to meet you, Doctor. And thank you for the advice. I really will take it to heart.”