Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor (53 page)

John-Joe rose and went to work. A kettle was already boiling on a gallows over the fire. It wouldn’t take long.

Fingal vividly remembered the last time he’d been here and he’d made the tea for a weeping John-Joe. Clearly as he was at home mid-week he still hadn’t got a job. Fingal knew he’d nothing to blame himself for, but he was disappointed that despite his best efforts he’d been unable to help. He decided that he’d simply not raise the subject. It would probably embarrass the man.

“Here we are.” John-Joe set a teapot with a couple of chipped mugs on the hearth tiles. “We’ll let it stew for a minute.”

“Fair enough.”

“Now, Doc, I know you’re a busy man, and it’s a pleasure til see you, but what brings you here?”

O’Reilly hesitated, but a promise was a promise. He produced his wallet. “I believe,” he said, “we have an agreement about Christmas?” He opened the wallet.

“We do, sir,” and to Fingal’s surprise John-Joe seemed not the least bit put out, in fact he was smiling.

Fingal frowned. This wasn’t the fiercely proud man who eight weeks ago had refused charity and had been reduced to tears at the thought of accepting even a loan.

Fingal withdrew a blue-on-white five-pound note on which was inscribed, “The Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland, Belfast, Donegall Place, promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of Five Pounds Sterling.” The currencies circulated easily on both sides of the border. “Here. Get your kids and your wife—”

John-Joe took the note. “I will, sir, and t’ank you.” He smiled widely. “I believe the interest was to be a pint in the pub of my choice?”

“Well—yes, but only after you’ve got a job.” Fingal was confused.

“If you would meet me, sir, in The Blue Lion on Parnell Street.”

“That’s where Sean O’Casey wrote
The Plough and the Stars
.”

“I didn’t know dat, but it’s a bit feckin’ fancier than places round here like Swift’s on Francis Street or Kennedy and Lalor’s on York. The Lion’s more suitable for a gent like yourself. Anyroad, if you’ll meet me there on the first Saturday in February at six o’clock.”

Fingal did a quick calculation. The first Irish rugby international against England at their home ground at Twickenham wasn’t until the 13th of Februrary—if he was good enough to be selected in the trial this Saturday. “I can do that, but I don’t understand. Have you fallen into a fortune?”

“Like Paddy McGinty?” John-Joe laughed, and sang,

Mister Patrick McGinty an Irishman of note

Fell into a fortune and bought himself a goat …

“Do you know, sir, that Irish song was written by a couple of feckin’ Englishmen who’d come to Dublin to work in the music halls? The nerve of the fellahs pretendin’ to be Irish.”

“I did not,” O’Reilly said, laughing, “and you haven’t answered my question. Where are you going to get the money?”

John-Joe stopped grinning. “You’ll not believe this, sir. There’s a fellah called Casey Dempsey—”

“His wife’s Dympna and they have a lad called Jack?” The boy whose rickets Fingal had treated.

“Dat’s right. Casey’s the one who looked after my allotment at Dolphin’s Barn when I was in the hospital. Anyroad, Casey knows a man from Swift’s Alley, Brendan Kilmartin.”

“I delivered his wife last year,” Fingal said, well remembering Roisín and her baby boy, Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly Kilmartin.

“Brendan got Casey work on a building site two weeks ago. The pay’s feckin’ brilliant.”

Fingal felt the hairs on his forearms stand on end. This was eerie.

“His foreman’s a lad wit’ only one arm—”

“Sergeant Paddy Keogh,” Fingal said. “He was a patient of mine once.”

“Well, Brendan fixed it for me to see Mister Keogh last week. He said a cooper should know how to use a feckin’ saw and hammer and adzes and bradawls, but he was a little hesitant. I was honest with him about my ankle, how I’d lost the job with Guinness, and how you’d helped me that day and come to see me in hospital. He said you’d treated him at Patrick Dun’s, he owed you a favour, and dat any old patient of yours was all right in Mister Keogh’s book, and then he offered me work startin’ January the second, praise be.”

Fingal leapt to his feet and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Bloody marvellous, John-Joe. Bloody wonderful.”

“Aye, sir, it is. In a way, I feel like you helped me get this job. So t’ank you.” Fingal could hear the relief in John-Joe’s voice. “I’ll have your money and if you don’t mind I’ll pay interest of not one but two feckin’ pints for you by February. It’s the least I can do.”

“Mind?” said O’Reilly. “Mind? I’ll be happy to drink your health. Indeed,” he said, “there’s a pub on the corner of Back Lane.” He rose. “With all due respect, tea be damned. Come on, John-Joe Finnegan. I’ll buy you a pint right now.”

He may be losing his job here by March, but he’d still be working in Dublin. He wouldn’t abandon his friends here in the Liberties. The fabric of his life here was woven too tightly for that. John-Joe’s story proved it. In some ways, he had helped his friend get this job. And, damn it all, didn’t the Liberties’ women who didn’t go to the Coombe Lying-in Hospital all end up in the Rotunda where he’d be working? ’Course they did.

52

Keep Right on to the End of the Road

“Nice little crowd,” said O’Reilly to Kitty as he started to unload the tray of canapés onto the upstairs lounge sideboard. The drone of conversation and laughter rose and fell above the strains of a softly played recording of Glenn Gould’s
Das Wohltemperierte Klavier
by J. S. Bach.

“And a great spread,” O’Reilly said, piling a plate and handing it to Kitty, who had picked up her previously poured G&T. There were plenty of sandwiches, cheeses on sticks, chicken liver paté on toast, and stuffed olives to choose from as well as the newly arrived hot hors d’oevres.

“Thank you,” she said. “Don’t forget about yourself.”

He didn’t, and soon his own plate was piled high. He lifted his Jameson. “I think it has the makings of a very good hooley. We should circulate.”

The lounge was warm, cheery. Slack banked the fire and crackled as it burnt slowly enough for the room to stay comfortable without becoming intolerably hot. Kinky wore her best blue outfit, the one she’d worn at O’Reilly and Kitty’s wedding. She sat in an armchair, chignon immaculate, a smile perpetually on her lips as she chatted with Cissie Sloan and Aggie Arbuthnot, a small glass of sherry in one hand.

O’Reilly watched Aggie finish a sausage roll and delicately brush the pastry flakes from her fingers. “That was dead nummy, so it was,” he heard her say to her friend, “but not a patch on one of yours, so it’s not, Kinky.”

Kinky’s smile grew even wider.

“Excuse me, sir,” Donal Donnelly said, wriggling past O’Reilly, “but you said, and you were dead pacific—”

Donal suddenly turned to Julie, who was mouthing the word “specific” to her husband.

“Right, that’s what I said. Dead specific, that we was to help ourselves if we wanted another drink. Can I have one of them Babychams for Julie, please?” He pointed to where his wife, her long blond hair shining, continued to watch them.

“Pacific or specific, of course you can. Help yourself.” O’Reilly had no difficulty remembering exactly what he’d said fifteen minutes ago. He’d rattled a spoon on a glass and when enough folks were paying attention had announced, “Now, listen. I’ve got everyone their first jar, but after that I want you all to pour your own. I learnt from my father that if all guests do, no one can ever accuse their host of sending them home stocious. Any lack of sobriety on your part would have been regarded in the navy back in the ’40s and today will still be considered a ‘self-inflicted injury.’”

“And will you court-martial us, Doctor, if we get one?” Archie’s son, the recently promoted Sergeant Rory Auchinleck had enquired, to a general wave of laughter. Today he was in mufti. His batallion was stationed at Palace Barracks near Holywood.

“As the naval equivalent, retired, of a lieutenant-colonel in the army I do outrank you, Sergeant, so what I will do—” O’Reilly let a long pause hang, sufficient for Rory reflexively to come to attention. “—is remark that your dad and Kinky, his fiancée, must be very proud of your extra stripe, and so am I, lad. And even if you’re not in uniform tonight—so stand at ease—I’ll ask everyone to raise their glass in your honour and drink to the health of our new sergeant.”

The room had rung with the toast and a round of applause.

O’Reilly had glanced at Kinky to see both she and Archie beaming. Good. It was their night and O’Reilly knew how Archie doted on his only son.

Now Rory was standing beside his father. O’Reilly overheard Archie say, “I don’t agree. I think England’ll win the soccer World Cup next year.”

“It’ll be Germany,” Rory said. “I watched their team play when I was stationed at Wuppertal. Bet you they win.”

O’Reilly remembered how, long after he’d first tried red prontosil, he’d discovered that Wuppertal-Elberfelt was where a German doctor had done the very first clinical trials on the drug that had been so much bound up with Dermot Finucane and young Fingal’s life in the ’30s. Funny that the place should crop up in conversation tonight.

Donal Donnelly must have overheard Rory. “Who’s betting what?” he asked, and Julie, fresh drink in hand, sang out, “I thought, Donal Donnelly, you were giving up the betting.”

His reply was drowned by a gale of laughter from a group that included Sonny and Maggie Houston née MacCorkle, whose yellow felt hat had a scarlet poinsettia in its band. Kitty had joined them as they surrounded, of all people, Bertie and Flo Bishop. Bertie was repeating the punch line of a joke O’Reilly recognised as one of Dublin comedian Dave Allen’s. “If you don’t get his arse out of the Grand Canal you’ll be at that all day.” More laughter. Bertie? Telling jokes? Good Lord.

O’Reilly’s glass was empty and he moved to the sideboard. As he passed the front of the fireplace he jerked back, hardly believing his eyes. Arthur Guinness, who was allowed indoors in inclement weather, lay on his side in front of the fire, and curled against his tummy Lady Macbeth slept soundly, her body swaying back and forth as Arthur breathed. The dog raised his large brown eyes to O’Reilly as if to say, “Och, sir, she’s only little. I’ll let her off with it—this once.”

“And the lion shall lie down with the lamb,” O’Reilly heard, and turned to see Barry Laverty standing at his shoulder and watching the animals in front of the fire.

“No, Barry, it’s a wolf cosying up to a lamb and ‘the calf and the young lion and the fatling together.’ Isaiah eleven verse six, King James Version.” O’Reilly glanced at the still-rotund Councillor Bishop.

“I stand corrected,” Barry said, raising his empty glass.

O’Reilly clapped Barry on the shoulder. “I’m getting another jar. Coming?”

“I,” he said, “am your man. I’ll not have far to drive. I’m staying at Sue’s tonight.” He leant over and whispered in O’Reilly’s ear, “I think I’ll have enough saved to pop the question soon.”

“Fair play, Barry. I’m delighted,” O’Reilly said, and glanced over to where Sue, who was looking stunning in a lime green mini-dress that complemented her copper plait, was deep in conversation with Kitty. “My offer stands about letting you have Kinky’s quarters after she gets wed and moves in with Archie. Plenty of room for Sue too.”

“That would be grand, Fingal. Thanks.”

“We’ll say no more tonight. It’s Kinky and Archie’s do.” He handed Barry a Jameson, lifted his own, popped two sausage rolls on his plate, and said, “Let’s go and say hello to them.”

O’Reilly stopped in front of Kinky and Archie. “Enjoying yourself, Mrs. Maureen Kincaid, soon-to-be Mrs. Auchinleck?” he said.

Archie dropped a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “The whole thing’s dead on, so it is. Thank you and Mrs. O’Reilly, sir, very, very much.”

Before O’Reilly could reply, Kinky said, “I’m so pleased you and Miss Nolan could make it tonight, Doctor Laverty. And Doctor O’Reilly, dear, you and Mrs. O’Reilly have done this old Cork woman proud and Archie and I are so content in our own way, aren’t we, dear?” She hesitated. “And I want to say, nobody could have asked for a better employer these near on twenty years, so, and only for how much I care for this old goat,” she looked adoringly at Archie, “I’d be glad to stay here full time for another twenty.”

“I know, and I appreciate that very much,” said O’Reilly, “but this is your evening so you two keep on enjoying yourselves. The night’s a pup yet.”

“Arragh,” said Kinky, “but we’ll not overdo it. A shmall-little fire that warms is better than a big fire that burns, so.”

“Jasus,” said O’Reilly with a grin, “you have the wisdom of the ages, Kinky Kincaid. Just enjoy yourself.”

He became aware of something happening near to the door, glanced over, and saw Jenny embracing Terry Baird, who looked to be very cold. O’Reilly made his way across the room. “You made it, Terry. Well done.”

“I let myself in,” he said. Terry’s lips were blue, his teeth were chattering. “I’ll tell you, Doctor O’Reilly,” he said, “I can feel for Captain Scott and his men coming back from the South Pole. My car heater broke down. I’m foundered.” He blew on his fingertips.

“You poor dear,” Jenny said.

O’Reilly glanced round. The little party was in full swing. Nobody would miss him for a few minutes. He put his plate and glass on the sideboard, grabbed a bottle of Jameson, took Terry by the elbow, and said, “Come on, young fellah. Downstairs. Doctors can’t cure the common cold, but they can cure this kind of cold.”

Jenny followed.

Once in Kinky’s kitchen, O’Reilly said, “Jenny, stick a chair for Terry in front of the range.”

As Jenny did, O’Reilly filled a kettle and shoved it on a burner. “Now,” he said, “I’ll soon have your medicine.” He took a tumbler, put in two teaspoonfulls of sugar, a large dose of whiskey, three cloves, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Even down here he could hear voices and footsteps. Things must be heating up upstairs.

He turned. Jenny was helping Terry take off his overcoat and scarf.