An Irish Country Doctor (14 page)

O'Reilly rose and walked to the window. Without looking at Barry, he said, "You're far too young to be getting involved with a woman. Take my advice. Medicine's a selfish enough mistress for any man."

"I think, Doctor O'Reilly, I can be the best judge of that." 

"You'll see." For the first time in their week's acquaintance bitterness had crept into the older man's voice.

Mrs. Kincaid bustled in, carrying a tray.

"Tea," she said, "and a bit of toasted, buttered barmbrack, so." Barry could smell the raisins and yeast in the hot, black loaf. 

"Thank you, Mrs. Kincaid," he said, "and how was church?" 

"Grand altogether. He's a powerful preacher, that Reverend Robinson. When he gives the sermon, you can feel the shpits of him six pews back from the pulpit." She smiled and set the tray on the sideboard. "And how's my wee princess?" She bent over Lady Macbeth and stroked the cat's head. The cat stretched, rose, arched her back, shuddered, yawned, and began to weave against Mrs. Kincaid's shins. "You're just a wee dote. Y'are, so y'are." 

"With sharp teeth," muttered O'Reilly, showing his Elastoplast. 

"Huh," said Mrs. Kincaid, "if you lie down with dogs, you'll rise with fleas, and if you annoy cats you must take the consequences, so."

"Me?" said O'Reilly. "Have you seen what the beast's been doing to the furniture?"

"You'll just have to train her not to claw it." 

"And how do you suggest we do that?"

"Don't look at me," said Mrs. Kincaid, turning to leave, "but Maggie MacCorkle knows as much about cats as you do about the doctoring."

"Now there's an idea," said O'Reilly, as he poured himself a cup of tea. "We'll ask her next time we see her."

Barry had only half paid attention to the discussion about the cat. He had been disturbed by O'Reilly's attitude towards women. If that was how he felt, Barry's chances of having more time to see Patricia were probably slim, but if he didn't ask . . . "Fingal?"

"What?" O'Reilly carried his tea to his place and sat easily in his chair. "You don't think we should talk to Maggie?" 

"It's not about the cat." Barry swallowed. "I'd like to have more time off."

"So it is a girl." O'Reilly sipped his tea and looked steadily at Barry. "What's her name?"

"Patricia. Patricia Spence."

"And I suppose, to quote Ecclesiastes, if memory serves, she's 'a woman to make men run out of their minds'?"

"All I'm asking for is a bit more free time." O'Reilly stared over his teacup. "How much?"

"An hour or two the odd evening, maybe every other Sunday." O'Reilly put his cup on the saucer. "I thought you wanted to be a GP. It's not Butlins Holiday Camp here."

Barry's shoulders sagged. He should have known better than to expect any sympathy, but he wasn't ready to give up. He looked into O'Reilly's face. At least his nose tip was its normal colour. "Damn it, it's not a lot to ask for."

Barry could not meet O'Reilly's gaze and looked down. He was startled to hear O'Reilly say, "All right. Once I'm happy that you understand the running of the place, and when I can trust you not to kill too many customers, I wouldn't mind a bit of time off myself. I thought we'd take alternate weekends and have a couple of weeknights each off-duty."

Barry looked up. "Do you mean that?"

"No. I'm just talking because I'm in love with the sound of my own voice. I told you, difficult as I know you find it to believe, I wasn't always fifty-six."

Barry stood. He could have hugged the big man and nearly did when O'Reilly continued, "I suppose you'd like to take this afternoon off? Go on then. I'll hold the fort." Barry could hear no sarcasm, none of the earlier frostiness.

"I'd really appreciate that, Fingal."

"Go on. Phone your Patricia . . . that's her name, isn't it?" 

"It is." Barry sped to the door. "Thanks, Fingal. Thanks a lot." Kinnegar 657334. Her number rang in his head, over and over like a Buddhist mantra as he took the stairs two at a time. He was just about to lift the receiver when the double ring of the phone's bell startled him. He lifted the phone.

"Hello. Doctor O'Reilly's surgery."

"Is that Doctor Laverty?" It was a woman's voice.

"Yes. Who's speaking?"

No voice came over the line, just a whimper that swelled to a hoarse groan, then deep breathing.

"Hello? Hello? Are you there?"

"Doctor Laverty. It's Maureen Galvin. My waters bust three hours ago, and the pains is every five minutes. I've sent for the midwife. Can you come now?"

"Of course. Doctor O'Reilly will be round right away." 

"Thank you." The line went dead.

Barry raced back upstairs. "Fingal, that was Maureen Galvin. Her membranes have ruptured, and she's contracting every five minutes." 

"She'll be a while yet. I'll just finish my tea, then I'd better get round there." O'Reilly drank, swallowed, stood, put his cup back on the tray, and faced Barry. "She doesn't live far from here." 

Patricia, Barry thought; then he said, "I'll get my bag." 

"Good lad. I might need a bit of help."

O'Reilly rapidly organized his equipment: two heavy bags that Barry assumed to be instruments, sterile towels, drugs, and rubber gloves. Together they carried the gear to the car, and for once O'Reilly deflected Arthur Guinness's amorous advances by telling the dog to get into the back seat. "We'll give him a run on the beach when the smoke and dust have died down."

The short drive would have been more pleasant if Arthur hadn't insisted on standing up, draping his front paws over Barry's shoulders, and licking the back of his neck. He was so distracted that he couldn't pay attention to where they were going, and when the car stopped he found himself in a strange part of Ballybucklebo. By the look of the narrow-fronted terraces that lined the street he could have been in one of the slums of Belfast. "Where are we, Fingal?"

"Council estate. Cheap housing for the less fortunate." O'Reilly hauled the packs from the car. "Here. Take these bags." 

Barry grabbed the equipment. "Pretty grotty-looking place." 

"Council voted the budget and chose the building contractor. Bishop sold them the land and finagled the contract. I told you he owns half the bloody village."

"Jerry-built?"

"Bishop cut so many corners it's a bloody miracle that these houses aren't circular. They don't even have inside bathrooms." O'Reilly slammed the door. "Come on. Let's get at it," he said, as he crossed the footpath and pounded on a front door. A slim woman wearing the blue uniform of a district midwife answered. "Doctor O'Reilly."

"Miss Hagerty, this is Doctor Laverty."

She nodded.

"How's Maureen?"

"Grand. Three-minute contractions and the last time I examined her, the head was only a knuckle, and she's a good five shillings and fully effaced. The fetal heart rate's fine." Barry mentally translated the antiquated system of assessing the progress of labour. One knuckle--the length of the last joint of the examiner's finger--meant that the baby's head was close to the pelvic floor. It also meant that the widest part of the head had successfully negotiated the narrowest part of the bony pelvic canal. Cervical dilatation of five shillings indicated that the neck of the uterus was halfway to being completely open, and because it was fully effaced, it had thinned out from being like a stubby carrot to the thickness of a piece of cardboard.

"She's tramping on," said O'Reilly. "The pains were every five minutes when she phoned."

"She'll not be long," Miss Hagerty agreed, turning back into the house.

"Right," said O'Reilly, charging down a narrow hall and onto a steep staircase. "Up the apples and pears."

There was barely space for Barry in the small bedroom. Maureen Galvin lay in bed. The midwife had spread a red rubber sheet under the labouring woman. No other bedclothes were in sight. O'Reilly and Miss Hagerty stood on opposite sides of the bed. O'Reilly finished tying the belt of a chest-high rubber apron, then he bent over and put his ear to a fetal stethoscope pressed to Maureen's belly. "Uuunnnhhh," she groaned. Barry watched her face contort, her upper teeth driving the colour from her lower lip. Her eyes were screwed shut, and sweat glistened on her forehead. 

O'Reilly straightened and took her hand. "Squeeze," he said. "You're doing fine."

Barry remembered the force that a woman in labour could exert in her grasp. He'd held enough hands during his obstetric training. He watched as O'Reilly's knuckles blanched. The big man showed not the least discomfort.

"Uuuunnnh . . ." Maureen sat forward and clenched her teeth. The muscles at her throat tightened like the ropes in the sheaves of a lifting gantry. "Uuunnnhhh."

"Pant, Maureen. Pant. Like this." Miss Hagerty began to puff. Short breaths through barely open lips.

Maureen huffed and stared at O'Reilly.

"Good lass," he said. "You're not quite ready to push yet." The contraction passed. Maureen lay back on her pillow.

"Could you open the big pack there, Doctor Laverty?" Barry set to work preparing the sterile towels, scissors, clamps, bowls, and a suturing kit.

"Now, Maureen, Miss Hagerty and I are going down to the kitchen to wash our hands. Doctor Laverty'll keep an eye to you." He jerked his shaggy head at the midwife, and together they left. Barry moved closer and wished that O'Reilly would get a move on. It had been one thing to practise deliveries under the watchful eye of the midwives and medical staff when he'd been a student. He'd never been left alone with a woman in labour before. 

Maureen grabbed his hand. "Oh, Jesus. It's coming, Doctor." 

"Doctor O'Reilly." Barry heard his voice crack. "Doctor O'Reilly." 

"Holy Mary, Mother of God . . . Aaaaa."

Barry tore off his jacket, flung it aside, and rolled up his sleeves. No time to scrub, not even time to put on gloves. Well, he thought, if taxi drivers can do this . . . "Can you bend your knees up, Maureen?"

She parted her legs and bent her knees. Barry stood beside her With his back to her head so he could watch closely as a black circle of damp baby's hair appeared at the opening of the vagina. "Hail, Maaaary . . . ummmh." Maureen was pushing with all her might. The visible circle of the little head grew. His hands went to work unbidden as he remembered what he had been taught. With his left hand he controlled the rate of descent of the baby's head. With the other hand he eased the skin between the anus and the bottom of the vagina down and away from the pressure above them. He gagged as a piece of stool dropped onto the rubber sheet.

The contraction passed.

"Are you all right, Barry?"

He looked up to see O'Reilly standing at the foot of the bed, Miss Hagerty behind.

"I think so."

Miss Hagerty moved to the top of the bed. She made soothing, shushing noises.

"I'll get the gear ready," said O'Reilly. "You carry on." Barry hadn't time to decide whether he was flattered by O'Reilly's show of confidence or terrified because the older man hadn't immediately taken over. 

Maureen sat up now, supported by Miss Hagerty. "Come on, Maureen. Big puuush."

Under Barry's fingers the baby's head advanced. He let it come further, further, a little further. Now that the widest part was clearly in the open, he allowed the head to begin to extend. As it rotated, a wrinkled forehead appeared, damp and smeared with vernix caseosa, the greasy waterproofing that coats the skin of the baby in the uterus. A squashed nose came next, and in a rush a puckered rosebud of a mouth and a tiny pointed chin. Even before the shoulders were born, the baby gave its first, weak wail.

Barry used both hands to guide the slippery infant out of its mother and onto the rubber sheet, careful to avoid the reeking lump of faeces and conscious of the warmth of the body, the beating of the heart under his right palm.

He heard Maureen ask, "Is it a boy or a child?" 

"It's a boy," he said. "He's fine."

The Galvin boy shrieked in protest against being forced from his cozy nest into the harsh, cold world.

"Here," said O'Reilly, reaching out with gloved hands to swathe the little one in a green sterile towel, "we'll just pop him on Mum's tummy."

Barry reached past the bundle and put his hand on Maureen's belly. His fingers found the firm lump that was the top of the now shrunken uterus. Firm. Good. It had contracted. If it did not, the placenta would not be expelled.

"Move over," said O'Reilly, snapping two clamps on the umbilical cord and slicing through the twisted rope of jelly and bloodvessels with a pair of scissors. "Come on, meet your mum." He lifted the baby and moved past Barry, who was busy watching the stump of the umbilical cord lengthen and a small gush of blood flow onto the rubber sheet.

"Can you manage one more push, Maureen?"

He felt her abdominal muscles harden, and onto the bed slid the placenta, all raw beef and glistening membranes. His hands were warm and bloody, his shirt splattered with amniotic fluid and smeared with vernix. He took a deep breath, stood up straight, and turned to see Maureen Galvin, baby content at her right breast. The smile on her face would have done justice to the Madonna to whom moments before she had been pleading for relief. 

"Placenta all in one piece?" O'Reilly asked.

"I think so."

"Right. This'll sting a bit, Maureen." He stabbed a hypodermic needle into her thigh.

Ergometrine, Barry thought, to make sure the uterus stayed tightly contracted and to prevent the risk of postpartum haemorrhage, the killer of so many women not so long ago. He smiled at Maureen.

"Thanks, Doctor Laverty," she said. "You've a quare soft hand under a duck, so you have."

He laughed at the country description of gentleness. "You did very well, Maureen. What are you going to call the wee lad?" 

"Well, I told Doctor O'Reilly that if it was the boy he promised me, I'd name him Fingal, but if it's all right with the pair of you, I'd I like him to go by Barry Fingal Galvin."

"That's a mouthful for such a little lad," Barry said, grinning from ear to ear.

"What'll Seamus think of that?" Miss Hagerty asked. "Seamus? He'll be happy enough. He's down at The Black Swan with his mates wetting the bairn's head."