Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor (32 page)

And just as on that day, when she’d told him about her dead husband appearing and asking her to consider remarrying, the hairs on O’Reilly’s arms stiffened and he knew goose bumps like the ones on the plucked fowl were appearing. It was generally known in Ballybucklebo that Kinky Kincaid was fey.

“It does seem to me, and I know it’s impertinent of me to say so, but if you’ll not mind the observation, you’ve been a different man since Kitty came back into your life.”

O’Reilly grinned. “Mind? Kinky? Kinky, why would I mind you saying what’s true?”

“Thank you.” Her bird was now feather-free. She set it on the counter. “I just need to chop off its wings and feet and clean it, and if you’d like me to finish your bird?”

“I’m fine.” He turned his to do its back and waited. He knew she’d come to the point soon.

“The question I need to ask, sir, is if I were to remarry and leave your employ, would you be able to manage?”

He pushed his chair back. His mouth fell open. “Thundering mother of Jasus,” he roared. “Has Archie proposed? Has he?” O’Reilly would be tickled pink for Kinky if Archie had, and O’Reilly loved being right. He’d already told Barry of a real concern that they were going to lose Kinky to marriage. “Well? Well?” Lady Macbeth, presumably startled by his shout, leapt up onto the counter, sat down, and began to wash vigorously.

“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not an answer to my question.” Kinky’s jaw was set.

“You’re right, it’s not. Manage?” You’re on thin ice, Fingal. Say “of course” at once and she’ll feel she’s wasted all those years here. He frowned. “It would be bloody hard to get used to, but with, I dunno, a part-time receptionist, a lady to come in and clean, I think we might get by, but it wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“But you would cope? I know I was a bit suspicious at first about Mrs O’Reilly’s cooking—”

Suspicious? Closer to feeling persecuted, O’Reilly thought. Thank the Lord she got over that.

“But I know she would not let you starve, sir.”

“She’d not.” He leant forward, put his hand on Kinky’s. “Are you telling me, Kinky, that Archie has said nothing and if I’d told you I couldn’t do without you you’d’ve turned down a proposal if one came?”

She stiffened. “Of course I am, sir. It does be my solemn duty to look after you, so.” A tear glistened in the corner of one eye. “Anyway, not a word on that subject has he spoken. Archie does be a very shy man. I simply wanted to know where I stood, in case.”

O’Reilly swallowed, inhaled. He said softly, “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course. No need to make a fuss.”

He felt humbled and damn near wept himself. He’d been ruminating about loving Ireland, its places, its people. He could add one more person he felt so strongly for. Maureen “Kinky” Kincaid née O’Hanlon. “Damn it, Kinky, I don’t know how to say thank you for that.”

“And it does not be like you, sir, to be at a loss for words.” She sniffed. Took a deep breath.

“And now you know if he proposes you can go ahead and accept.”

“Thank you, sir.” Bright fire shone in her agate eyes when she said firmly, “Mister Archie Auchinleck doesn’t know yet he’s going to ask for my hand, so…” She grinned. “… but he will, bye. He will.” Her smile was beatific.

O’Reilly guffawed. “Kinky, you’re a marvel. I told you when you were in hospital I’d dance at your wedding, and by God—”

“Excuse me, Doctor O’Reilly.” Jenny had come in. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need a second opinion.”

“Be right with you, Jenny.” He turned to Kinky. “Sorry. You will have to finish plucking—”

A miniature version of the eruption of Krakatoa, but in feathers, covered O’Reilly as Lady Macbeth, for reasons only known to her tiny feline brain, leapt from the counter and landed on the ticking sack.

“Holy thundering Mother of G—” O’Reilly cut himself off. There were two ladies here. “Come on, you two,” he said, “help me get these feathers off me.”

As Kinky and Jenny, both chuckling, helped O’Reilly to pluck his feathery self, he wondered. Was Kinky’s certainty that Archie was going to propose because the sight had shown her? Or was the self-possessed Corkwoman going to give the hesitant Ulsterman a nudge in the right direction?

31

And What Dread Feet

“It’s a bloody good thing you learned to cook. Bless you, Charlie Greer,” Fingal said, sitting at the table in the upstairs kitchen wolfing down one of the cold sandwiches Charlie had put up this morning from a ham he’d roasted two days ago. Fingal masticated mightily. He’d been doing home visits since nine forty-five and had another call to make this afternoon to see a youngster with something called a “stone bruise.” He’d popped in to the dispensary for lunch, and because he hadn’t the foggiest notion what a stone bruise might be, he wanted Phelim’s advice.

“Bless me?” Charlie, who sat opposite, pretended to grumble. “More like a bloody curse. And here I’d thought sharing a flat would save me money?” Charlie laughed, and shook his head. “You moved in a week ago—I’ve taken careful note of the date: October 22. The papers were full of Hitler moving something called the Condor Legion to Spain to fight for Franco. I didn’t realise the bloody Vulture Legion was moving in with me at the same time. You’re eating me out of house and home, you big lummox.” He prodded Fingal’s belly. “Where the hell do you put it? There’s not an ounce of fat on you.”

“Riding my bike burns it off,” Fingal said, “and I need the energy for the rugby—and I pay for half of the groceries, so less of your lip, Doctor Greer, you great gurrier. Your perceived imminent poverty, as one of my patients might remark, ‘would bring tears to a feckin’ glass eye.’”

“And what in the name of the wee man’s so funny?” Miss O’Donaghugh the midwife walked into the kitchen as Fingal and Charlie were both laughing.

“Bring tears to a glass eye,” Charlie managed to blurt out before dissolving again.

“It’s little amuses the innocent,” she said, but laughed with them.

“You may be right, Edith. These on-call days tend to make a man feel a bit punchy after a while. But don’t you think having a bit of a chuckle with a friend of five years is a good thing?” Fingal said.

“Och, sure,” she said, her County Kerry lilt musical to Fingal’s ear, “friends are better than gold, so they say. And you’re sharing a flat now, are you?”

“We are,” Fingal said.

“And it’s working well?”

“It would be hard not to get on with this great eejit. When he’s not beating the bejasus out of a sparring partner or on the rugby pitch he’s only a cooing dove,” Fingal said.

“Away off and feel your head, Fingal O’Reilly.” Charlie was still grinning.

Edith shook her head. “Bye, but you northeners are grand ones for the slagging, but we’re no slouches out west either with the friendly jibe.” She smiled and Fingal thought he detected mischief in her eyes. He’d come to admire her midwifery skills and her no-nonsense approach to life and to two young doctors who were twenty years her junior.

“You’re a pair of sound men,” she said. “Now I must be running along.”

“Bye, Edith,” Fingal said.

“She’s a good skin,” Charlie said. “Saved my bacon last week with an undiagnosed breech. She’s a better accoucheur than some of the specialists at the Rotunda.”

“Still thinking of specializing yourself, Charlie?”

Charlie nodded. “It’s hard making up your mind, but I will give you fair warning if that is what I decide.”

“I hear you. I have second thoughts about this job sometimes myself.” Fingal took another bite of his sandwich. “Still, it’s good to be sharing the flat for the time being. Lots of changes at my old home. Our cook has left to work for the Carson family on Mount Steet Upper.”

“How’s the house sale going?”

“Roaring along. Ma and Bridgit our maid will be out by November the thirtieth. My brother, you remember Lars? He’s found a place for Ma to rent in Portaferry while she’s looking for somewhere to buy.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard in a place like Portaferry,” Charlie said. “Will you not miss living on Lansdowne Road?”

“I’ll miss Cook’s meals and I don’t mean to be disloyal to my mother, but I can use the extra free time once they’ve moved.”

“For the rugby?”

“Aye. And for Kitty…”

Charlie sighed. “I understand. You take care of that girl.”

Fingal shrugged. “I’m trying to. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about the orphans in Spain.”

“And there be more of them now since General Franco started a drive towards Catalonia on Monday.”

“I try to be sympathetic, but thank the Lord she’d not said much about Spain on our last two dates.” Nor, for which he was grateful, about wanting something more permanent than walking out.

“You pay attention. She’s a jewel, that one. You’re a lucky man she came back to you.” He stared into the middle distance. “Meuros, my Maynooth lassie, blew me out last week.”

“I’m sorry. You didn’t tell me.”

Charlie shrugged. “Och, sure…”

And Fingal knew that was all he was going to get out of his friend, a typically reticent Ulsterman. “I am sorry.”

“Thanks, Fingal. Now,” Charlie said, rising and brushing bread crumbs off his waistcoat, “it’s back to the salt mines for me. I’ll maybe see you here this evening. I’ll go and give Phelim a break so he can get his lunch.”

“Fingal, how are ye, boy?” said Doctor Corrigan minutes later. His parting was tending to nor-nor-west today. He came in, poured himself a cup of tea, grabbed a chair, and began unwrapping a rasher sandwich in grease-proof paper.

It seemed to Fingal that it was all the man ever ate at lunchtime. He couldn’t help wonder if Phelim had a more varied diet in the evenings. Oh well. The man was too old to get rickets. “Grand, thanks, and yourself?”

Phelim scowled. “More buggering about with the dispensary committee this morning before I could get to the surgery. Talking about redefining the boundaries of some of Dublin’s dispensary districts, but they’re starting on the North Side so we’ll be all right for a while.”

“I’m glad you look after that stuff, Phelim,” Fingal said. “I hate admin work. Much prefer the clinical.”

“And ye’re still enjoying it?” Phelim took a bite from his sandwich. “Tasty, by God,” Phelim mumbled with his mouth full.

“Enjoying the work? Lord, aye,” Fingal said, preferring not to let his serious uncertainty show. “I get a bit discouraged that there’s so little we can do for so many folks. Sometimes the unemployment gets me down a bit.”

“Ye get used to it,” Phelim said, and took another bite. “Ye have to or ye’ll pack it up like my previous partners.”

“No, I’ll not,” Fingal said, wondering whether he meant not getting used to it or not quitting. “And there’s still a fair bit of stuff I’m seeing that we never ran into in the hospital. I’ve had a request to visit a Dermot Finucane on Bull Alley,” he said. “Apparently he’s got a stone bruise. I haven’t the foggiest notion what that is.”

“Not the kind of thing you’d see in hospital,” Doctor Corrigan said. “They usually get treated at home unless complications set in.” He poured himself a second cup of tea and shoved three spoonfuls of sugar into it. “Ye know the tenements. How many kids wear shoes?”

“When they’re in school, the teachers hand out boots from the
Herald
newspaper boot fund, but damn few boys are shod for long after they leave school.”

“True. And the streets are covered in animal dung.”

“I know,” Fingal said. Even with the windows of the kitchen closed, he could detect one of the ever-present smells of Dublin’s tenement streets.

“Lad cuts his bare foot, steps in the muck, and what happens?”

“Infection. Inevitable as night follows day.”

“If he’s lucky it’s with one of the simpler bacteria like
Staphylococcus
or
Streptococcus
and doesn’t spread,” Phelim said, “because the body walls the infection off in an abscess under the thick skin of the sole of the foot. The abscess is known locally as a ‘stone bruise.’ If it does spread, it’s amputation, or septicaemia and a dead kid.”

Fingal shuddered.

“If ye’re really unlucky and the bug’s one of the
Clostridia; tetani,
it’ll cause tetanus.”

“And
perfringens
gives you gas gangrene,” said Fingal. Facts he’d never forget, having been grilled on the very subject of the
Clostridia
family of microorganisms in his final microbiology exam. “The lad’s mother came round this morning. Gave me her ticket and asked me to drop in. I thought I’d ask you before I went out what ailed the boy and how I should treat it.” He finished his sandwich.

“I’ll do better,” Phelim said. “I’ll drive ye round there and I’ll show ye what to do.” He finished his tea.

“I’d appreciate that.” Fingal waited until Phelim rose, rinsed his cup in the sink, and said, “Come on.”

Phelim stuck his head into Charlie’s surgery. “I’m going out with Doctor O’Reilly,” he said, ignoring a man in a torn undervest who was having a coughing fit. “Look after the shop, please, Doctor Greer, until we get back.” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Get your coat, Fingal.”

Fingal waited while Phelim nipped into his surgery, shrugged into a raincoat, and picked up his bag from its place by the door. “Come on.” He opened the front door and strode into an autumn downpour with Fingal in full pursuit. They headed for his presumably once shiny black, now dirt-smeared and rust-pocked, Model T Ford, 1924 vintage.

Phelim opened the driver’s door and slung his doctor’s bag into the backseat. “Pile in out of this bloody deluge.”

Fingal hurried round and heard the springs complain as he clambered into the front. He slammed the door, glad to be out of what Ma would have described as “the kind of rain that wets you through.”

Phelim stamped on the starter and to the accompaniment of a strangled wheezing and a backfire like the crack of doom, the engine struggled into life. “It’s not far,” he said, turning right onto Aungier Street. “Bull Alley’s near Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.”

He braked and waited for a gap in the traffic on Bride Street then drove across onto Bull Alley.