An Irish Country Doctor (2 page)

You Can’t Get There
from Here

Barry Laverty—
Doctor
Barry Laverty—his houseman’s year just finished, ink barely dry on his degree, pulled his beat-up Volkswagen Beetle to the side of the road and peered at a map lying on the passenger seat. Six Road Ends was clearly marked. He stared through the car’s insect-splattered windscreen. Judging by the maze of narrow country roads that ran one into the other just up ahead, somewhere at the end of one of those blackthorn-hedged byways lay the village of Ballybucklebo. But which road should he take? And, he reminded himself, there was more to that question than simple geography.

Most of his graduating classmates from the medical school of the Queen’s University of Belfast had clear plans for their careers. But he hadn’t a clue. General practice? Specialize? And if so, which speciality? Barry shrugged. He was twenty-four, single, no responsibilities. He knew he had all the time in the world to think about his medical future, but his immediate prospects might not be bright if he were late for his five o’clock appointment, and though finding a direction for his life might be important, his most pressing need was to earn enough to pay off the loan on the car.

He scowled at the map and retraced the road he had travelled from Belfast, but the Six Road Ends lay near the margin of the paper. No Ballybucklebo in sight. What to do?

He looked up, and as he did he glimpsed himself in the rearview mirror. Blue eyes looked back at him from a clean-shaven oval face. His tie was askew. No matter how carefully he tied the thing, the knot always managed to wander off under one collar tip. He understood the importance of first impressions and did not want to look scruffy. He tugged the tie back into place, then tried to smooth down the cowlick on the crown of his fair hair, but up it popped. He shrugged. It would just have to stay that way. He wasn’t going to a beauty contest—it was his medical credentials that would be scrutinized. At least his hair was cut short, not like the style affected by that new musical group, the Beatles.

One last glance at the map confirmed that it would be of no help in finding his destination. Perhaps, he thought, there would be a signpost at the junction. He got out of the vehicle, and the springs creaked. Brunhilde, as he called his car, was protesting about the weight of his worldly goods: two suitcases, one with his meagre wardrobe, the other crammed with medical texts; a doctor’s medical bag tucked under the bonnet; and a fly rod, creel, and hip waders lying in the backseat. Not much to show for someone possessing a medical degree, he thought, but with any luck his finances would soon take a turn for the better—if he could just find Ballybucklebo.

He leant against the car door, conscious that his five-foot-eight, slightly built frame barely gave him enough height to peer over Brunhilde’s domed roof, and even standing on tiptoe he could see no evidence of a signpost. Perhaps it was hidden behind the hedges.

He walked to the junction and looked around to find a grave deficiency of signposts. Maybe Ballybucklebo’s like Brigadoon, he thought, and only appears every hundred years. I’d better start humming “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” and hope to God one of the little people shows up to give me directions.

He walked back to the car in the warmth of the Ulster afternoon,
breathing in the gorse’s perfume from the little fields at either side of the road. He heard the liquid notes of a blackbird hiding in the fuchsia that grew wild in the hedgerow, the flowers drooping purple and scarlet in the summer air. Somewhere a cow lowed in basso counterpoint to the blackbird’s treble.

Barry savoured the moment. He might be unclear about what his future held, but one thing was certain. Nothing could ever persuade him that there was anywhere, anywhere at all, he would choose to live other than here in Northern Ireland.

No map, no signpost, and no little people, he thought as he approached the car. I’ll just have to pick a road and … He was pleasantly surprised to see a figure mounted on a bicycle crest the low hill and pedal sedately along the road.

“Excuse me.” Barry stepped into the path of the oncoming cyclist. “Excuse me.” The cyclist wobbled, braked, and stood, one foot on the ground and the other on a pedal. For a moment Barry wondered if his hopes of meeting a leprechaun had been fulfilled. “Good afternoon,” he said.

He was addressing a gangly youth, innocent face half hidden under a Paddy hat, but not hidden well enough to disguise a set of buckteeth that Barry decided would be the envy of every hare in the Six Counties. He carried a pitchfork over one shoulder and wore a black worsted waistcoat over a collarless shirt. His tweed trousers were tied at the knees with leather thongs that the locals called “nicky tams.”

“Grand day,” he remarked.

“It is.”

“Och, aye. Grand. Hay’s coming along fine, so it is.” The youth picked his nose.

“I wonder if you could help me?”

“Aye?” The cyclist lifted his hat and scratched his ginger hair. “Maybe.”

“I’m looking for Ballybucklebo.”

“Ballybucklebo?” His brow knitted, and the head scratching increased.

“Can you tell me how to get there?”

“Ballybucklebo?” He pursed his lips. “Boys-a-boys, thon’s a grand wee place, so it is.”

Barry tried not to let his growing exasperation show. “I’m sure it is, but I have to get there by five.”

“Five? Today, like?”

“Mmm.” Barry bit back the words “No. In the year 2000.” He waited.

The youth fumbled in the fob pocket of his waistcoat, produced a pocketwatch, and consulted it, frowning and muttering to himself. He looked at Barry. “Five? You’ve no much time left.”

“I know that. If you could just—”

“Ballybucklebo?”

“Please?”

“Och, aye.” He pointed to the road that lay straight ahead. “Take that road.”

“That one?”

“Aye. Follow your nose ‘til you come to Willy John McCoubrey’s red barn.”

“Red barn. Right.”

“Now you
don’t
turn there.”

“Oh.”

“Not at all. Keep right on. You’ll see a black-and-white cow in a field—unless Willy John has her in the red barn for milking. Now go past her, and take the road to your right.” As he spoke, the youth pointed to the left side of the road.

Barry felt a mite confused. “First
right
past the black-and-white cow?”

“That’s her,” he said, continuing to point to the left. “From
there on, it’s only a wee doddle. Mind you, sir …” He started to mount his rusty machine. Then he delivered the rest of the sentence with the solemnity of a priest giving the Benediction: “… if I’d been you, I wouldn’t have tried to get to Ballybucklebo from here in the first place.”

Barry looked sharply at his companion. The youth’s face showed not the least suggestion that he had been anything other than serious.

“Thank you,” said Barry, stifling his desire to laugh. “Thank you very much. Oh, and by the way, you wouldn’t happen to know the doctor there?”

The youth’s eyebrows shot upwards. His eyes widened, and he let go a long low whistle before he said, “Himself? Doctor O’Reilly? By God, I do, sir. In soul, I do.” With that, he mounted and pedalled furiously away.

Barry climbed into Brunhilde and wondered why his advisor had suddenly taken flight at the mere mention of Doctor O’Reilly. Well, he thought, if Willy John’s cow was in the right field, he’d soon find out. His appointment at five was with none other than Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly.

He Flies Through the Air with the Greatest of Ease

Dr. F. F. O’Reilly, M. B., B.Ch., B.A.O.
Physician and Surgeon
Hours: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to noon.

Barry read the lines on a brass plate screwed to the wall beside the green-painted front door of a three-storey house. A glance at his watch told him that by the grace of Willy John McCoubrey’s black-and-white cow, he had arrived with five minutes to spare. He tightened his grip on his brand-new, black leather bag, stepped back, and looked around.

On either side of the doorway, bow windows arced from grey, pebble-dashed walls. To his right, through the glass, the furniture of a dining room was clearly visible. So, Barry thought, like many country general practitioners, Doctor O’Reilly must run his practice from his home. And if the man’s voice, raised and hectoring, that Barry could hear coming from behind the drawn curtains of the left-hand window was anything to go by, the doctor was in and at his work.

“You’re an eejit, Seamus Galvin. A born-again, blethering, bejesusly bollocks of a buck eejit. What are you?”

Barry could not hear the reply. Somewhere inside, a door
banged against a wall. He took a step back and glanced over his shoulder at a gravel walkway leading from the front gate, rosebushes flanking the path. He sensed movement and swung back to face a large man—huge in fact—standing, legs astraddle, in the open doorway. The ogre’s bent nose was alabaster, the rest of his face puce, presumably, Barry thought, because it must be tiring carrying a smaller man by the collar of his jacket and the seat of his moleskin trousers. As the small man wriggled and made high-pitched squeaks, he waved his left foot, which Barry noticed was quite bare.

The large man swung the smaller one to and fro in ever-increasing excursions, then released his grip. Barry gaped as the little victim’s upward flight and keening were both cut short by a rapid descent into the nearest rosebush.

“Buck eejit,” the giant roared and hurled a shoe and a sock after the ejectee.

Barry flinched. He held his black bag in front of himself.

“The next time, Seamus Galvin, you dirty little bugger … The next time you come here after hours on my half day and want me to look at your sore ankle, wash your bloody feet! Do you hear me, Seamus Galvin?”

Barry turned away, ready to beat a retreat, but the path was blocked by the departing Galvin, clutching his footwear, hobbling toward the gate, and muttering, “Yes, Doctor O’Reilly sir. I will, Doctor O’Reilly sir.”

Barry thought of the cyclist who had given the directions to Ballybucklebo and who had fled at the mere mention of Doctor O’Reilly. Good Lord, if what Barry had witnessed was an example of the man’s bedside manner …

“And what the hell do
you
want, standing there, both legs the same length and a face on you like a Lurgan spade?”

Barry swung to face his interrogator.

“Doctor O’Reilly?”

“No. The archangel bloody Gabriel. Can you not read the plate?” He pointed at the wall.

“I’m Laverty.”

“Laverty? Well, bugger off. I’m not buying any.”

Barry was tempted to take the advice but he held his ground. “I’m Doctor Laverty. I answered your advertisement in the
British Medical Journal.
I was to have an interview about the assistant’s position.” I will not let this bully intimidate me, he thought.

“That
Laverty. Jesus, man, why on earth didn’t you say so?” O’Reilly offered a hand the size of a soup plate. His handshake would have done justice to one of those machines that reduce motorcars to the size of suitcases.

Barry felt his knuckles grind together, but he refused to flinch as he met Doctor O’Reilly’s gaze. He was staring into a pair of deep-set brown eyes hidden under bushy eyebrows. He noted the deep laugh lines around the eyes and saw that the pallor had left O’Reilly’s nose, a large bent proboscis with a definite list to port. It now had assumed the plum colour of its surrounding cheeks.

The pressure on Barry’s hand eased.

“Come in, Laverty.” O’Reilly stepped aside and waited for Barry to precede him into a thinly carpeted hall. “Door on your left.”

Barry, still wondering about Galvin’s ejection, went into the room with the drawn curtains. An open rolltop desk stood against one green wall. Piles of prescription pads, papers, and what looked like patients’ records lay in splendid disarray on the desktop. Above, O’Reilly’s framed diploma dangled from a rusty nail. Barry stole a quick peep. “Trinity College, Dublin, 1936.” In front of the desk were a swivel chair and a plain wooden chair.

“Have a pew.” O’Reilly lowered his bulk into the swivel seat.

Barry sat, settled his bag on his lap, and glanced round. An examining table and a set of folding screens jostled with an instrument
cabinet against another wall. A dusty sphygmomanometer was fixed to the wall. Above the blood-pressure machine an eye-testing chart hung askew.