Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor (36 page)

“Excuse me, Doctor.”

O’Reilly felt a tugging on one of his silk sleeves and turned to see Flo Bishop, a perfect Tweedledee, sitting with Cissie Sloan, dressed as an Irish washerwoman, Aggie Arbuthnot as Cinderella pre–fairy godmother, and a stranger. He guessed the glasses in front of each were brandy and Benedictine, which was coming back into its own in Ulster as a drink for ladies. “How’s about ye, sir?” Flo said.

“I’m grand, Flo. Ladies,” he said, inclining his head.

“And this here’s my cousin Sylvia from Ahoghill,” Cissie said.

O’Reilly bowed to an apache dancer from Paris’s Left Bank. Her beret was tilted on top of shining shoulder-length blonde hair and her horizontally striped jersey was rather well filled. A thick patent-leather belt encircled a narrow waist, and her black skirt was split to expose black fishnet stockings that vanished into a pair of high-heeled black pumps.
“Bonsoir, Mamselle. Enchanté,”
O’Reilly said, bent, took her hand, and lowered his lips to within half an inch of its back.

“Och,” she said, “I dinny speak any o’ they foreign languages, hey”—her sibilant Antrim accent was pronounced—“but it sounded lovely, bye. Thank you, sir.”

Cissie said, “I think Sylvia’s quare nor brave wearing that outfit, so I do. And so’s Flo with hers. Mind you, she’s lost a stone and a half since her and Bertie went on that diet and—”

“You’re a buck eejit, Frew.”

Fingal turned to see Bertie Bishop, who clearly considered dressing up beneath his dignity, standing red-faced at a neighbouring table, pounding it with his fist. The unfortunate object of his venom was Dapper Frew, full-time estate agent, occasional Highlanders piper, and part-time Count Dracula. O’Reilly was sure that even in the hall’s dim light he could see spittle flying from Bertie’s lips.

“Doctor, please, could you go til Bertie, get him to settle down, like? I don’t want him having no more of them vaginal attacks—”

O’Reilly swallowed his laughter. “Anginal attacks, Flo. Anginal.” Flo wasn’t the only Ulster denizen to make that mistake.

“Right. Well, maybe you could have a wee word with him? Get him to see sense, like? Calm him down?”

“I’ll try,” he said.

Bertie was still yelling. “Call yourself an estate agent? Three thousand for my spec-built house? Jasus. You’d probably give ice cream away to a bunch of bloody Bedouin in the Sahara rather than ask a decent market price, so you would. See you, Dapper Frew—?” Bertie wagged a forefinger.

“Evening, Bertie. Dapper. Great party.”

“The hell it is, O’Reilly,” Bertie snapped. “Have you seen Flo? She’s astray in the head, so she is.” His voice grew louder. “There she is, wife of the worshipful master of the Orange Lodge, county councillor—” He fiddled with the gold Masonic fob on the watch chain across his belly. “—senior warden in the Masons. But she wouldn’t be told. She says, says she, ‘We’d make a lovely Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’ ‘Away off and chase yourself,’ says I. ‘I’ve my position til think of.’” He pounded the table. “And no wife of mine’s—”

“Bertie,” O’Reilly said, “if you don’t calm down, she’s going to be your widow.”

“What?”

“Have you forgotten what happened the last time you lost your temper?”

Bertie rummaged in his waistcoat pocket. “I have not.” He had lowered his voice and produced a silver snuffbox. “I’ve my TNT pills in here, so I have.”

“Good,” said O’Reilly. “Now take ten deep breaths, sit down, and calm down, Bertie.”

As Bertie huffed and puffed, Dapper said, “Thanks, Doctor.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anybody who can lose the bap like Bertie.” He shrugged. “Most of us are used til it by now, but still—”

“Maybe I did get a bit heated,” Bertie said.

“Aye,” said Dapper. “You did, but I’ll forgive you if you buy me a pint.”

“Buy you a pint?”

“Bertie,” said O’Reilly, a warning in his voice.

“Okay, okay, a pint it is.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me?” He moved on toward where Willie Dunleavy stood behind the bar hatch.

He rubbed his temple and ran a finger under his ruff. It was warm in here and noisy with conversation, laughter, and the Rolling Stones at full blast, which could hardly be described as a chamber sextet. Och, well. Everybody was having a great time.

“Hello, Doctor O’Reilly.”

O’Reilly had bumped into and nearly upset an apparently one-legged Mister Robinson, the Presbyterian minister. “Are you the Reverend Long John Silver?”

“Aaaar, Jim lad,” Mister Robinson said in a fair imitation of Robert Newton, then lifted his eye patch and leant on his crutch. “I’m going to have to let my leg down,” he said. “I’ve got the most ferocious pins and needles.”

He’d have his left leg strapped up under his frock coat, O’Reilly reckoned. “I would do it sooner, rather than later, if I was you. You must have your harness so tight it’s cutting off the blood supply to your muscles. If you leave it much longer, it’ll hurt something fierce when you let it down.”

“Thanks for the advice. I will.” He started to unbutton his coat.

A vaguely familiar figure danced slowly by in a false silver nose and a black cowboy hat. He must be a Tim Strawn, Lee Marvin’s evil twin brother in one of the year’s hit movies,
Cat Ballou
. His partner, her long blonde hair loosely round her, wore a simple, flowing, white floor-length dress and a circlet of flowers on her head. O’Reilly had no trouble recognising Julie Donnelly.

The couple stopped. “How’s about ye, Doc?”

“Donal,” O’Reilly said. “Hello, Julie. You look lovely. Lady Godiva?”

“Aye, before she got up on the ould gee-gee in her birthday suit. There’s a limit, you know,” Donal said.

“You’re getting to be the master of disguise, Donal,” O’Reilly said. “A regular man of a thousand faces.”

“Like your man Lon Chaney?” Donal winked. “Aye, me and my new dog—er, Brandywine—done good last weekend down in Cavan. That wee lad Art O’Callaghan’s nearly as smart as Colin Brown, so he is.”

Which may account, O’Reilly thought, for Colin’s recent attempt to drown Art. O’Reilly had known since last year’s Christmas pageant that Colin did not suffer rivals lightly. O’Reilly lowered his voice. “Still using that water-soluble dye?”

Donal nodded. “Aye,” he said, “and a new paint you can wash off, but that’s for something different, so it is.” He pointed to a window where a painting depicted the banshee holding curled bony fingers over a gaping coffin. “I done all the windows in here for tonight. We’ll clean it up tomorrow.”

“I’m impressed, Donal,” O’Reilly said. “You’re quite the artist.”

“Och,” said Donal, “we’d a great art teacher when I was at school.”

O’Reilly shook his head. He never ceased to marvel at the hidden talents of many of his patients. His thought was interrupted when Julie said, “Lord above, would you look at that there?”

O’Reilly had to look twice. Hard to believe, but Sylvia, the slim, sinuous, sexy siren from Ahoghill, was being steered round the floor by a jacketless, sweating Bertie Bishop. He stopped, and with one hand pushed her away to the length of their outstretched arms. She thrust out one leg as might a tango dancer and started to pirouette back.

Fingal watched the scene unfold as if in slow motion; the girl spun, Bertie’s gaze—lascivious was the only adjective O’Reilly could think of—ran from the tip of her high heel to the white strip of thigh above the fishnet’s welt. He wondered what the sight was doing to Bertie’s blood pressure.

Shirley Bassey belted out “Goldfinger.”

The man with the Midas touch.

A spider’s touch.

Other couples stopped to watch as Bertie, clearly revelling in his moment of fame, cocked his head back like a flamenco dancer and adopted an arrogant sneer. He pushed Sylvia away for a second time, looked puzzled, grimaced, and yelled, “Oh shite.” Then he clutched his chest, rolled his eyes to heaven—and crumpled to the floor.

35

Lilies That Fester Smell

“I know I’m on call today, Fingal,” Doctor Corrigan said, “but I need ye to help me out.”

Fingal lifted his head from his task of bringing the Register of Births, Deaths, and Marriages up to date, a job he loathed, and looked at Phelim. His parting might have been arranged using a micro-calliper, so precisely was it aligned. “If I can.”

“Charlie’s gone for the weekend, Miss O’Donaghugh and I have to go out for a confinement, and Minty Finucane from Bull Alley dropped in. They’re worried about Dermot, the little lad with the stone bruise we saw yesterday. Says the lad has a fever. Wants one of us to go and see him.”

“Fever? That doesn’t sound good. I’ll go straight round,” Fingal said. He shoved the hated paperwork away and went to get his bag, glancing at his watch. Five o’clock. He wasn’t seeing Kitty at her flat until six for dinner. He’d pick up a bottle of wine from an off-licence on his way, couple of pint bottles of Guinness. Might even stretch to a bunch of flowers. Ever since she’d said she wasn’t pleased with how infrequently they could meet, he’d been trying to keep his promise to see more of her. He’d lots of time to see the patient and get to her place.

“Thanks,” Phelim said. He took off his spectacles,
huuuh
ed on them, polished them with a hanky, and stuck them back on his nose. “Probably nothing to worry about, but a bit of reassurance won’t hurt.” He walked for the door and turned. “I’ll see ye on Monday, but I’ll be late. Another bloody commitee meeting about dispensary boundaries.”

“Monday it is,” Fingal said, and followed Phelim into the yard, slung his bag into the bike’s basket, and pedalled off standing on the pedals and bowing his head into the wind of his passage, wanting to get to Bull Alley, see Dermot Finucane, and get away as quickly as possible.

Familiar streets now after four months. He’d learnt the shortcuts and indeed so narrow were some of the alleys that linked streets it was often faster getting about by bike if he had more than one call to make. Left from Aungier Street would take him onto Golden Lane, which shortly after changed its name to Bull Alley, which ended in a T-junction with Patrick Street. Places he’d been to as a student like Francis Street, Swift’s Alley, Weaver’s Street were not much more than ten-minute rides away.

“Hello dere, Doctor Big Fellah,” a woman carrying a wicker basket full of laundry called as he passed her on Golden Lane.

“Hello yourself, Clodagh. Grand October day.” He recognised the pipe smoker, one of the Dempseys’ neighbours from Back Lane. “In a rush,” he called over his shoulder as he sped by.

Fingal swerved to avoid a tugger, wondered for a moment about Lorcan O’Lunney and his back, and paid no attention to several beggars, most of whom now recognised him and didn’t waste time importuning him. On the corner of Bride Street and Bull Alley, a man had placed a battered fedora containing a few coppers on the footpath and was playing a slip jig on a penny whistle. Fingal recognised the tune, “Drops of Brandy,” played in 9/8 time.

He propped his bike against the wall, grabbed his bag, went through the open front door, and knocked on the Finucanes’.

It was opened by Mrs. Finucane. She looked haggard. “T’anks for coming, sir. He’s taken a turn. His foot’s festerin’. Come in. Come in.”

Festering, Fingal thought, wrinkling his nose. During his time in Sir Patrick Dun’s he’d become thoroughly familiar with the stink of infected flesh.

“We bought a mattress from dat poor one who got evicted yesterday,” she said, “so Dermot could have a bed of his own.” She stood wringing her hands. “And I’ve changed his poultice like Doctor Corrigan said. But the little lad’s been shiverin’ and he’s burnin’ up.”

Fingal’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. He saw Dermot lying on a single mattress in front of the unlit fire, crossed the room, and knelt by the boy. “Hello, Dermot.”

The boy turned his head. His eyes were glazed, a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He mumbled.

Fingal felt a hot sweaty forehead, took a pulse racing at 120 per minute, and said, “I’m going to take off your poultice.”

It wasn’t difficult to untie the knots and remove the pus-stained thing. Fingal had to force himself not to turn away from the smell. At once he saw the red streaks beginning to run from the abscess toward the boy’s ankle. The infection had reached the lymphatic channels that carried fluid from the tissues, the lymph, back into the general circulation. Dear Lord, not a clostridial infection. Please not gas gangrene. He looked at the wound, now ulcerated and red, but it didn’t have the hideous red-purple colour of gangrenous, wet, dead tissue. The leg itself wasn’t swollen nor when Fingal gently palpated it could he feel the crackling sensation—crepitation—associated with the presence of gas in the tissues. The boy was drowsy, and gas gangrene patients were usually alert and complaining of severe pain. Fingal put his head close to the ulcer and sniffed. He could not detect the classic mousy odour. He straightened and heaved a sigh.

He’d bet his life, and if he were wrong, the patient’s, that this was not a clostridial infection. It was probably streptococcal
,
in which case, judging by how close to reaching the ankle the red lines were, there was a little time left before amputation of the foot became imperative. But just how much time he couldn’t be sure. And what the hell was the future for a boy with one foot? Incongruously, a line from a song ran in Fingal’s head, “You’ll have to be put with a bowl to beg…” Not if he could help it. Didn’t red prontosil kill that particular bug in mice?

He stood. “Mrs. Finucane, I’m sorry, but the infection’s spreading.” Fingal wondered if this was because of Doctor Corrigan’s unorthodox method of using a hot rather than a boiling poultice, but simply wasn’t sure. It had been meant to be kinder to the patient, was obviously a technique the doctor had used successfully for years, and, anyway, why worry about it now? What mattered was that an infection was progressing, overwhelming Dermot’s own defences. It must be stopped.

“Dear Jasus.” She clapped both hands to her mouth and started to weep. “He’ll take the blood poisoning. It’ll be the deat’ of him…”