Whitethorn Woods

by Maeve Binchy

  I nodded and sipped my pint. And I thought to myself, if his grandfather hadn’t got up off his arse and gone out to somewhere where he could find a living, Chester wouldn’t be wearing designer suits and handmade shoes. But better not to say that. Let them live their dream. Oh and he was going to build a hall, and a centre of some sort. Here in Doon, no less! Terrific, I used to say to him, before going back to the subject of Dr White and the gaps in his learning.

  For a while my way of coping with my rival worked and there was enough business for both of us. Well, for me anyway. But then things took a turn for the worse.

  It was all to do with that stupid woman, Maggie Kiernan, who was having a baby, and let me tell you there was no baby ever born in the world except to Maggie. Her pregnancy was endless, no mammoth could have had a longer gestation period. She was in twice a week, she was sick and then she wasn’t sick, the baby was moving – was that natural? or it wasn’t moving – did that mean it was dead? What she needed was a private team, gynaecologists, obstetricians, all in a waiting room in her house.

  Three weeks before she was due, she rang at two in the morning to say that the baby was arriving. So I told her to have a nice cup of tea and we’d talk about it in the morning. She kept on and on that the baby was definitely coming and wouldn’t I come out. Four miles out, halfway up a mountain! Was she mad? I was soothing but she just slammed down the phone.

  It wasn’t until halfway through the next morning I heard the story: she called Dr Jimmy White and of course he went out there. And wouldn’t you know? The child was half born and there were complications and he got an ambulance up that mountainy road and if he hadn’t accompanied her to Accident and Emergency in Rossmore, then the baby would have died, and Maggie would have died, and half the population hereabouts would have died out of sympathy.

  I must have heard it fifteen times that morning, poor Maggie Kiernan and how frightened she must have been, and was not it the mercy of God that young Dr White had been able to attend her. And always the unspoken words that I had let Maggie Kiernan down.

  I was annoyed of course, but I didn’t show it: instead I showered praise on Dr Jimmy White and concern about Maggie, and said several times that babies had minds of their own and wouldn’t life be easy if they’d only let us know. I never explained, never apologised. And I thought that eventually the message was getting over to them. I was still their wise, good Dr Dermot.

  Now, every Saturday at lunchtime, Hannah Harty, a single lady, comes to do the books for me. She is a qualified bookkeeper, the soul of discretion, and does books for a lot of people in town. Just five Saturdays after all Maggie Kiernan’s shenanigans, Hannah cleared her throat and told me straight out that I was losing a great many patients to the new young Dr White. And therefore a fair amount of income.

  At first I didn’t believe her. Hannah has always been a bit of a gloom merchant. Word was that she had set her cap at me, long, long ago. But I don’t think that can be true.

  I certainly never gave her any encouragement. I had looked after her old mother for years. Well, Hannah actually looked after her old mother, but I would call and reassure them a lot, and if they were eating a supper I was made part of it.

  I myself had never married. I had my heart set on a woman once but she told me I was too easy going, and that she could never settle down with a smalltown doctor. Well, I am who I am. I’m not going to change for anyone, so I spent little time thinking back on her and what she had said.

  I listened carefully to Hannah as she spoke and, indeed, less than half an hour after she had told me about our takings being down, I had begun to take action.

  I called on the Foley family for a chat. Their old father was on his last legs; he wouldn’t last much longer. But I was full of cheer about him, said he had the heart and constitution of a lion and that he was in fine fettle. When I left them the Foleys all felt vastly cheered. And I told myself as I so often do that this is what a doctor is meant to do, cheer people, buoy them up, carry them along. Not frighten the wits out of them with statistics and tests and scans.

  On my way home I met the young Dr White.

  ‘All that business about Maggie Kiernan …’ he began awkwardly.

  ‘Yes?’ My voice was cold.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to think I was muscling in on your territory or anything like that …’ he said, shifting from foot to foot.

  ‘Do you feel you were?’ I was still icy.

  ‘Well, technically of course she is your patient, but I had to decide whether it was an emergency or not. And, well, I decided it was.’

  ‘So you feel you did the right thing, Dr White?’

  ‘I do wish you’d call me Jim, I call you Dermot.’

  ‘I know, I’ve noticed,’ I said with one of my smiles.

  ‘There’s plenty of work for both of us, Dermot,’ he said with a familiar kind of leer. ‘Neither of us will go hungry in this place.’

  ‘I’m very sure of that, Dr White,’ I said and went on my way.

  When I got back home I sat and thought further and deeper. Hannah Harty telephoned and suggested that she bring me over a steak and kidney pie she had made. Since her mother died she had not asked me to supper in her house, which I missed, especially at weekends, which can get lonely.

  I do have a housekeeper, a weary-looking woman, but she just keeps the place clean, washes and irons. She shops, of course, and prepares the vegetables but there’s never anything tasty like Hannah makes. I said that I’d be honoured to eat the pie with her and would produce a bottle of claret. When Hannah came in bearing her dishes of food it was clear that she had been to the hairdresser since we had met in the morning. She was wearing a smart white blouse and a cameo brooch. She had even put on make-up, which was most unusual.

  Could it possibly be true that she still had notions about the two of us?

  Best thing possible was to ignore all the finery in case that was what was at the back of it all. No point in complimenting her or anything. That would be just asking for trouble. We talked about the famous Rossmore bypass and would it ever happen. It had been talked about for years. Would it make any difference to our little quiet backwater, or would they just ignore our bumpy little road to Rossmore? Nobody seemed to know.

  We had a pleasant meal and since Hannah had brought a plate of rather good cheeses I opened a second bottle of wine.

  ‘What in God’s earth are you going to do about young Dr White, Dermot?’ she asked me straight out. Her face was anxious. She really cared what was going to happen to me when most of the town had deserted and gone to the opposition. I reached forward and patted her hand.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry at all, Hannah my dear,’ I reassured her. ‘It’s always important to stay calm in a situation like this and wait until it all blows over.’

  ‘But it might not blow over, Dermot. You know, I work in several different establishments around the place, and a lot of them are moving. Mr Brown in the bank is going to consult Dr White because of his father’s pneumonia. Mr Kenny the solicitor is worried about his mother not being able to walk properly and he thinks young Dr White might get her some better drugs, newer, modern things. You can’t just sit here, Dermot, and watch all your hard work setting up this practice trickle away into the ground.’ She looked really upset on my behalf. Or maybe on her own behalf if she really saw a future with me.

  ‘No, indeed, I won’t sit here and watch, Hannah. I was thinking actually that I might take a little holiday.’

  ‘A holiday? Now? In the middle of this crisis? Dermot, you must be going barking mad,’ she gasped.

  But I refused to respond or react. Just smiled at her.

  ‘I know what I’m doing, Hannah,’ I said over and over.

  And over the next week I made several house calls. I decided that old man Foley had about two weeks to live; that Mr Kenny’s mother should be allowed to live out her last months peacefully without any new medication, which would only unsettle her; that Mr Brown�
��s father was entering his last bout of pneumonia, which would take him peacefully away from this world.

  Then I announced that I was taking a little holiday. I encouraged the Browns, the Foleys and the Kennys to attend that nice young Dr White while I was away. No, of course I didn’t mind, what was life about except give and take, and the young man was extremely well qualified. He would look after them perfectly.

  Then I put my golf clubs into the back of the car and drove a hundred and fifty miles away to a nice quiet hotel by the sea. It was easy to find a four-ball so I played eighteen holes a day.

  Every night I played bridge in the hotel lounge and at breakfast each morning, with my second cup of tea, I turned the pages to the Deaths column.

  First I read of the death of old man Foley, then of Mrs Kenny, and finally of Mr Brown. I said a swift goodbye to my new golfing and bridge friends and drove straight back home to Doon.

  I called on the homes of the bereaved, shaking my head in bewilderment over their great losses. I said I couldn’t understand it – old man Foley had been in great form when I left, there had been plenty of life in him still; and in Mrs Kenny and Mr Brown. How sad and ironical that they should all die when I, who had known them for so much of their lives, was far away. Then I would shake my wise old head again and say it was a total mystery.

  It didn’t take long. In fact it all happened much quicker than I had expected. People began to talk.

  They said that it was very odd that three perfectly well people had died during the ten days that Dr Dermot was on holiday. They said it was a pity to be hasty and to run to the new instead of staying with the tried and tested. With the man who had known them young, old, well and sick, all their lives. Little by little they came back to me, even those who had asked for their medical records to take to Dr White. Some of them had been annoyed about the scrappy nature of the records and had not accepted that it was all in my head. I knew which child had had mumps and which had had measles, for heaven’s sake. No need for computers and printouts in my case.

  I was very generous, talking to them. I showed no hurt, not even a trace of sulking in my face. They were all so relieved that I was taking them back, they wanted to denounce Dr White. But here again I was noble. I wouldn’t hear a word against the boy. I called him a boy, as I smiled about him forgivingly, and said he was very young and that he had to make his mistakes somewhere. They marvelled at my great generosity.

  He called on me before he left town, Dr White did. A courtesy call, he said, to tell me that he was moving on. I knew already but I pretended to be surprised. I wished him well and said I would be sorry to lose him as a colleague.

  ‘You’ll find somewhere more suitable,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure I will,’ he said.

  ‘And you have a nice manner, which is what it’s all about,’ I added to praise him.

  ‘Which is what some of it’s about, certainly, Dermot,’ he said.

  I winced as I did every time he was familiar like that. But I don’t think it showed. I offered him a drink but he refused.

  ‘It won’t last, of course, Dermot, it can’t. Would you like a little bit of advice from me before I leave?’

  To humour him I said that I would. After all I had run him out of town. I could afford to be gracious.

  ‘When the next young fellow comes in, Dermot, make him your partner, sell this house and take a room in Chester’s clinic, go into semi-retirement, marry Hannah Harty, go and live in that big house of hers. It’s better that way than a big malpractice suit or one of your old friends thinking you had been negligent.’

  He stood up, impudent young pup, and left without looking back.

  I thought for a little while about what he had said. There was no wisdom in it. None at all. And what was this that he was babbling about – Chester’s clinic? Chester had been organising some kind of a medical centre, a ludicrous place with expensive machinery where people could waste time and money. They were even going to have rooms for aromatherapy or some kind of New Age nonsense. And what a mad time he had chosen to do it! Just when a new road would come to take the patients straight into Rossmore from here. As a project, it was doomed before it even began. That was nothing for me to worry about.

  People round here had their feet on the ground, they wouldn’t go for this kind of nonsense all in the name of Danny O’Neill, some loser whom none of them could remember. But one thing was definitely clear and was much more important: my name was definitely up with poor Hannah Harty’s. That was something that must be nipped in the bud. She was meant to be making me a fancy salmon dish in pastry tomorrow. Better ring her now and tell her I wasn’t free.

  Everything was going so well now, it would be a pity to complicate things.

  Part 2 – Chester’s Plan

  I had always promised my Irish grandpa Danny O’Neill that I would go to Ireland but I didn’t make it while he was alive. He used to tell tales of his home in Doon, which was some miles from Rossmore. And of the huge Whitethorn Woods and how there was a holy well there where miracles had happened. But somehow I never got to Ireland when he was alive. There was too much else to do like get an education, and make a living.

  My own father, Mark Kovac from Poland, had been a carpenter but he had TB and was never strong, and so as the eldest I had to support the family. I used to say to my mom that life would have been a bit easier if they hadn’t felt it necessary to have nine children. But she only laughed and asked which of them would I send back? We worked hard, got good grades at school, and we each got a job from the moment we were high enough to stack shelves in a supermarket or collect cardboard and fold it in neat piles.

  And I had a bit of luck and met a banking guy who offered me money to start my own building contractor’s business, and then I was able to give jobs to all the brothers and sisters, and I put my father on the board. He was so delighted to see ‘Mark Kovac & Family Building Contractors’ on the trucks.

  I didn’t need to put my own name on the company, I knew it was mine, and it looked more established somehow to have the father of the family on it anyway. Gave us credibility, a pedigree.

  My father’s people had all left a village in Poland that didn’t exist any more but my mother’s father went on and on about this lovely place in Ireland. So when I was fifty I decided to reward myself with three months’ vacation.

  I had never married. No time really. It sounds a bit hopeless, I suppose, but I never thought of it like that. I was too busy getting everything up and running in the business and now that was done I found I had left it a bit late. My brothers and sisters were all well married with children and so I had plenty of family life around me if I needed it.

  But then my doctor said that I was suffering from hypertension and therefore should take it easy. After Grandpa died, and there was all the Irish music at his funeral and the chat about Rossmore and the woods and everything, I got thinking about his country and I decided it might be a good time to go to Ireland and have a rest there, away from the business.

  But at the same time, since I wasn’t a person who was used to doing nothing, I could investigate this idea I had of building a tribute to Grandpa O’Neill. Something that would show to the people of his native place that his life and his travelling to America had all been worthwhile.

  Everyone thought this was a good idea, and they assured me that Mark Kovac & Family Building Contractors could manage to stagger along without me.

  ‘And maybe you might even find an Irish colleen over there,’ my mother said. I thought she’d have to be a fairly long-in-the-tooth colleen to fancy me, but I said nothing like that. Over the years I got used to smiling at people and agreeing with them rather than having to have the last word. The last word isn’t all that important really.

  And so I came here to my grandpa Danny O’Neill’s place. A very good place to take it easy. Nobody in Doon remembered my grandpa, which was disappointing.

  They knew the line of little cottages he came from
but these had all been long knocked down because they had fallen into disrepair. And it was all so long ago, and O’Neill was a very common name in Ireland anyway.

  So I decided that he would be remembered. I would see to this. I would make a monument to him, but not something vain, something that would be of great use in his home town. I asked around for suggestions. They were many and varied. People thought of a little theatre. Or an art gallery. Or maybe a small park where the children could play and the old people sit in the evening. Or a church hall or a museum. There were as many ideas as there were people offering them.

  One old lady said I should go to pray at the well in the woods outside Rossmore and then I would see as clear as daylight what I should do. So I drove in and parked my car near the edge of the woods and went in. I met a big friendly dog that accompanied me and seemed to know his way to the well as he made the correct turning at every little wooden signpost. Then he sat outside respectfully while I went into the damp dark cave.

  The well was extraordinary. That was the only word. I’m as religious as the next man, I mean, as the son of an Irish Catholic mother and a Polish Catholic father, I wouldn’t have much chance of escaping it, would I? But this was beyond anything I had ever seen.

  People had put their petitions on the walls of the cave for all to see, they had left children’s tiny shoes and socks with notes attached, praying for a recovery from rheumatic fever, or rosary beads with notes begging for the recovery of a beloved mother.

  It was grotesque in many ways and yet so touching in others. Such a collection of frail hopes all gathered in one little space. It didn’t give me any sense of well-being, holiness. There was no wisdom coming towards me from that statue. Instead I felt uneasy and wanted to be away from there. Yet as I came out I found the big dog again – a kind of sheepdog or a collie, I guess; he had been waiting for me as if I were his long-lost friend. I scratched his ears and walked back through the woods deep in thought.