An Irish Country Love Story (15 page)

“Away on, Doctor. You're the quare one for a gag, so you are. And you're too soft a man to be making jokes if you didn't think you could fix my Sonny, and that's a great relief, so it is. I'll leave you and him to collogue away and I'll go and get a cup of tea for til have in our hands and some of them fresh-baked scones.”

Barry's pleasure at being described a “soft” man, which he knew meant gentle, wrestled with his horror at the thought of tackling her tea and baking. And it was too late to refuse. He said to Sonny, “My best guess, and it's not really a guess, is that yours is due to, as I told you before, pernicious anaemia, because a chemical is missing from your stomach's gastric juices. The chemical is called ‘intrinsic factor.' We believe the body needs the intrinsic factor to combine with the vitamin B12 before they can both be absorbed. The only other possible cause is that your lower gut is inherently unable to absorb the vitamin, even if the B12 is combined with intrinsic factor.”

“Most interesting,” Sonny asked. “If it is pernicious anaemia, how would I have got it?”

“We don't know what triggers it, but for some reason your body starts producing antibodies. Do you know what antibodies are?”

“I've read a bit about the immune system,” Sonny said. “They're manufactured to attack foreign proteins like bacteria.”

“Correct, but in this case they attack the cells in your stomach that produce the very necessary intrinsic factor. None of it, no B12 absorption.”

Sonny nodded. “In military terms,” he said, “I'm producing a fifth column, a bunch of traitors attacking their own from within.”

“Very good analogy.”

“So how do we counterattack?”

“We may need a bit more…” Barry decided to stay with the military model, “intelligence.” He hesitated. He knew the textbooks recommended doing a bone marrow biopsy and a gastric juice analysis to see exactly what was happening at the site of production of blood cells. The biopsy was a painful procedure, and while the gastric juice analysis was not painful, it was thoroughly unpleasant. Much as he disliked it, Barry knew he must seek specialist advice. “I'm going to ask Doctor Nelson at the Royal to see you. He specialises in blood disorders. He may need to bring you in for a couple of days for some more tests that I can't do here.”

Sonny stretched out a skinny hand and grabbed Barry's arm. “Please, Doctor Laverty,” he said, and there was pleading in his eyes, “not a hospital. They terrify me. Stubborn I may be, but in this case, it comes from fear, plain and simple.” He firmly clutched Barry's arm. It was the grasp of a terrified man.

“Please, Doctor.” Sonny's voice was level as he tried to retain his dignity.

“All right,” Barry said, “I have to go to Belfast tomorrow. Doctor Nelson was one of my teachers. I'll go and see him, take the results we already have, and see what he says.”

“Would you? I'd be eternally grateful.”

“A few more days before we move ahead is neither here nor there,” Barry said. “I am sure that once treatment is started we'll have your blood better in no time.” Barry nodded as Maggie came in and set a tray on the table.

“You'll take tea, Doctor. Milk and sugar?” she said. “And please excuse my fingers, but I'll butter you a scone too.”

“Please,” Barry said, regarding the coming cup with the enthusiasm he was sure Socrates had had for the flask of lethal hemlock. Maggie was a firm believer in strong tea. As if to mark his discomfort, a mighty gust outside rattled the panes and blew a puff of coal smoke into the room.

“Tut,” said Maggie, “see that oul chimney? We always get blow-downs when the wind's in the northeast.” She gave Barry his cup, with a buttered scone balanced on the saucer. “Get that into you, sir, and there's more of everything, so there is, if you'd like seconds before you go out again into that lot.”

Barry, with memories still fresh of Maggie's petrified plum cakes, said to himself, Go on, it won't kill you, and took a bite from the warm-from-the-oven scone. His eyes widened. No. Couldn't be. The thing dissolved in his mouth, the delicious melted butter heavier by far then the fluffy confection. He swallowed. “That's delicious, Maggie,” he said, working hard to keep the surprise from his voice.

“Aye, well,” she said, “I'd like to take credit, but it's not my recipe. Kinky taught me how to make ones like that. My own have more body.”

Barry could believe that, but said nothing.

Sonny, accepting his tea and scone, said, “Doctor Laverty's going to consult with a colleague in Belfast and he's sure between them they can put me right.”

Maggie bent and kissed the top of his head. “And I'll be dead pleased til have my ould Sonny back. Now if we could just get Jasper too.”

Sonny said, “I agree, but to be fair to our doctors, fixing patients is their job. They've already done their very best for us. Thank you, Doctor.”

Barry smiled. He glowed inwardly from the satisfaction of having nearly made a difficult diagnosis without having to involve a specialist until the very end, and for being as comfortable as was O'Reilly in turning his efforts to trying to solve other problems for the villagers. He took a deep swallow from his teacup. Despite a spoonful of sugar it was bitter as gall. Socrates, Barry thought, if given the choice between Maggie's stewed tea and poison, would probably have chosen the hemlock.

 

12

The Fool of Love

“Les sanglots longs des violons d'automne blessent mon coeur d'une langueur monotone.”
Barry was sitting at his usual table near the door in a little upstairs restaurant on Belfast's Arthur Street, rereading Sue's letter. The airmail had arrived two days ago, and Barry had decided that reading it again, here in the Causerie, was a most pleasurable way of killing time until Jack Mills and Helen Hewitt arrived.

The lines on the thin blue airmail paper, bearing the slightest whiff of her favourite perfume, continued,
“You may remember reading
Chanson d'automne
by Paul Verlaine at school…”
He did indeed. In his last year at school, back in 1957, every pupil in the upper fifth form in Northern Ireland had to read, among other required French material, a slim tome entitled
French Verse: From Villon to Verlaine.
French Literature was one part of the national exams that had to be passed to qualify him to attend medical school.

He read on, knowing what was coming next and wriggling in anticipation.
“I'm being grounded in French poetry as part of my exchange training,”
she'd written,
“except in my case while there are no long sobs of violins, and it's winter not autumn today, my heart is wounded. Truly wounded. I'm missing you so very much, my dear darling. Seeing you during the holidays was wonderful.”

Barry smiled. It was a warm feeling to be missed by someone you loved and to be told so poetically too. She went on with happy chitchat about what she was up to, that she'd bought an antique
plat
à
barbe,
an ornate dish like a soup plate but with a notch taken out of the rim so the thing could be fitted round the customer's neck while the Provençal barber shaved him. Apparently her father collected them. She went on,
“You said in your last letter that Fingal will give you a week off in February. Any idea which one yet? If you can let me know I'll ask for time off, say, Thursday, Friday, and Monday. That would give us five whole wonderful days together and leave you two to travel.”
Barry had asked Fingal last night and he'd agreed to let Barry have Wednesday the 8th until Tuesday the 15th, provided Fitzpatrick was fully back in harness and Nonie was available. Five whole days with Sue.

Barry knew what was coming in the next paragraph, but like a small boy saving a favourite Bassett's Liquorice Allsort to be savoured last, he set the letter down and looked round the familiar room. It was well lit at this hour by two large high windows in the far wall. Of the fourteen tables with crisp white napery, shining cutlery and glasses, eight others were occupied—mostly, he assumed, by the staff of local businesses on nearby Anne Street and the Cornmarket. The hum of conversation was muted, but a man's voice could be heard for a moment. “—and we've been having hell's delight getting ten-bore cartridges from Ely-Kynoch.” He probably worked at Braddell's, the gunsmith's.

Barry returned to the letter.

“I know it's naughty,”
she had written, and his breath caught in his throat,
“but I've found a delightful pension on the Rue Saint-Saëns no distance from Le Vieux Port…”
The first time Barry had read as far as this he'd assumed she'd found the hotel room for him. He'd forgotten what a right-to-the-point young woman Sue Nolan was.
“We are practically man and wife, will be within a few weeks, my GP put me on the pill four months ago, and anyway who do we know in Marseille? Let me know the dates and I'll book us in
.
The French understand these things.”
He swallowed. In just thirteen days he'd be holding her, kissing her—and more. He squeezed his elbows into his sides. Much more.

“Here y'are, Doctor Laverty.” The waitress, a motherly woman who treated her regulars like family, had greeted him like a long-lost friend when he'd arrived. He and Jack had been coming here even before they had qualified. Now she set a pint of Guinness on the tabletop. Barry knew Peggy McCarthy well. He knew she lived up in Turf Lodge with her husband, Aidan, and a Siamese cat named Maeve. Their four kids were grown now and gone south, scattered all over the Republic, but she had eight grandchildren she doted on. “And I brung some wee menus.”

“I'll come back when your friends arrive, and see you, sir? When it comes til your grub, order something strengthening. You've no more meat on you than a wren's shin.” She went away, shaking her head, to attend to another table.

Barry smiled at Peggy's retreating back as he reread the last few lines and the signoff,
“With all my dearest love, and longing, now and forever, Sue.”
He inhaled deeply, and took a soothing pull of his pint.

A haze of cigarette smoke hung beneath the ceiling, and a short bar at one side had a mirror on the back wall with glass shelves holding bottles of spirits. One of them was a half-empty bottle of blue curaçao. Barry could swear the same bottle had been there in 1962 when he had first started coming here. Ulster folks tended to be conservative in what they drank.

He picked up one menu and had just decided to have a steak and Guinness pie and chips when the door was opened and Jack Mills ushered Helen Hewitt in.

“You, Mills, are late,” Barry said, rising and grinning. “Hello, Helen.”

“Sorry about that, lad,” Jack said. “Bit of a B getting parked, hey.” His County Antrim accent was still thick as champ. It suited the man, who looked like a ruddy-cheeked farmer. He was from a dairy farm near Cullybackey. He pulled out a chair, seated Helen, then himself.

“My fault we're late,” she said. “Hilary term's in full swing and I was in the physiology lab and really wanted to finish an experiment. It's the big professional exam in March. Second MB.”

“Second MB,” Jack repeated, and shuddered. “It's one of the big hurdles, right, Barry? You're crossing that great divide between basic sciences and starting clinical work.” He nodded to Barry. “We both know how important this is.”

“I certainly do,” said Barry. “You have my sympathy—and my support, Helen. And I know how proud your dad is.”

A cough.

“I know it's too soon for til take your orders, Doctor Mills, but would yiz and your young lady like a drink?”

“Hello, Peggy. How are you? And Mister McCarthy?”

“We're well, sir. Thank you.”

“Helen? A drink?”

“Have you a nice white by the glass?”

“Aye. There's an Entre Deux Mers open.”

“That would be lovely,” Helen said.

“And mine's a pint.”

“I'll only be a wee minute, dears.” Peggy left.

“Second MB,” Barry said. “I don't know about you, Jack, but I'll never forget it.”

“Me neither,” said Jack. “I was scared skinny of that exam.” He beamed at Helen. “But I'm sure you'll ace it, love.” His smile faded. “At least you should if the amount of time you spend studying is any indication.” He shrugged and looked at Barry. “I think, mate, you and I should arrange to see much more of each other while your Sue's away. Trying to drag this one from her studies?” Jack pursed his lips and shook his head. “Like pulling teeth without an anaesthetic. I'm thinking of taking religious orders and a vow of celibacy.” His laugh was forced.

“I'd better ace it,” she said, and there was an edge in her voice. “Don't forget I'm on a scholarship, thanks to his lordship. I'll lose it if I fail one exam. You know that bloody well, Jack Mills.” She didn't quite stamp her foot, but there was fire in her green eyes. “Until the damn thing's over, it's business before pleasure. You'll wait. I know you will.”

Jack sighed. “I'm surprised you could make time to have lunch today.” He sounded thoroughly dejected, and a little peevish.

Barry sat back. This would bear watching. Had they been having a row? Jack had always been a Lothario. The second a girl seemed to be losing interest, or refused to fall in with his plans, she was replaced. But here was Jack, seemingly willing to put up with being neglected by a green-eyed, red-haired local lass from Ballybucklebo named Helen Hewitt. Not without protest, however. And ineffective protest it appeared. Helen clearly knew what she needed and wanted at this stage in her life. This would be a first for Jack, dating a young woman like her. Barry remembered how she'd dealt with an unpleasant employer by crushing the dressmaker's entire supply of hats and then giving notice.