Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor (8 page)

“I want to discuss it with Charlie Greer. See if I can persuade him to come and work there too. There are two vacant positions. I’m hoping to see him tomorrow afternoon, and,” he hesitated, torn between a feeling of filial duty and a selfish wish to see Kitty O’Hallorhan, “then I’m taking Kitty out afterwards.”

“The lovely nurse with the grey eyes that you brought here for dinner on the night you got your Finals results?” Ma said. She had finished the preliminary sketch of the horizon and was blocking out cloud shapes and patterns above using a broad brush loaded with purple-grey paint. Already the sketches were giving Fingal a sense of foreboding, but thinking of Kitty banished it.

“That’s her. I’m looking forward to seeing her.” Kitty was indeed lovely, soft and very kissable. She was also good fun to be with, and God knew Fingal would appreciate that right now. But despite a longing to see Kitty, he turned to his Father and added, “If it’s all right with you.”

“You must do both, son,” Father said. “There’s absolutely no need for you to haunt this place like Banquo’s ghost. Mother and I will be perfectly all right.”

“Thank you both,” Fingal said, “and about my decision. I didn’t accept on the spot. Said I’d like a bit of time to think about it. If Charlie says no, the hours will be pretty brutal and I hadn’t realised there was going to be a fair bit of paperwork.”

Father smiled. “There always is. I should know.” He nodded. “I’m glad you’re taking your time, son. There’s a lot of truth in the adage, ‘Accept in haste. Regret at leisure.’”

Father and his words to live by. “The clinical work would be in the Liberties, the Coombe. I know my way around a lot of the district already. I was out there often when I did my midwifery.” He smiled. “There’s even a chissler named Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly Kilmartin, poor child. If he learns to write he’ll have a time of it filling in forms.” He remembered how flattered he’d been when the baby’s parents had told him they were going to name the wee one in Fingal’s honour. “I do like working with the people there. You feel that you’re making a difference. Doctor Corrigan said much the same, and if Charlie would agree to come too, the workload wouldn’t be so very heavy. I’ll not decide until I see what he says.”

“Sensible,” she said. “Very sensible.” She smiled. “I know from the stories you told us about your time at Sir Patrick Dun’s you’ll enjoy working with the less privileged. If you do decide to accept, I’m sure it will be rewarding work. I’m so very proud of you, son.”

Father remained expressionless.

“And, if it’s not out of place to say it, so’s Cook and me.” Bridgit had come in pushing a tea trolley. “Where will I put this, ma’am?”

“Just leave it there, please. Fingal can eat off his lap and we can talk more about the job when you’ve finished.”

Father seemed to be content to sit quietly as Ma worked while Fingal polished off his lunch. “That,” said Fingal, holding on to his second cup of tea, “was just what the doctor ordered.”

Father smiled and started to say something, but his words were strangled by more coughing. Ma transferred the palette knife into her left hand, leant forward and patted Father’s hand. “It’s all right, dear. Don’t try to talk. You’ll tire yourself out.”

Fingal watched his father struggle for breath, knowing exactly what the leukaemia was doing to his body. The proliferation of the blood’s white cells was suppressing the production of red cells that carried oxygen. It wasn’t the same mechanism that had made Manus Foster unconscious, but the result was the same. Oxygen starvation of the tissues. The disease, now having invaded his lungs, accounted for Father’s breathlessness and his cough.

“You know my feelings, son. I’d like to see you specialize, but…” He managed a weak smile. “Once I thought you should be a nuclear physicist.”

“You may have been right, Father,” Fingal said. “I’m not going to become a Rockefeller working in the dispensary system.”

“No,” said Father, “no you’re not, but I believe you could be a contented man, and you have your health.” Fingal detected no hint of bitterness or envy in his father’s words, then he was wracked again. Ma looked at Fingal, who rose and cradled his father’s head, as Professor Connan O’Reilly must have cradled his infant sons’. Fingal held on until the coughing stopped, released his father, and said, “All right now, Dad?” The time for the formal “Father,” which had until very recently been the only way Fingal and his brother Lars had addressed the man, was over, although Fingal would always think of him as Father. “All right?”

Father nodded. “You have the Gailege, the Irish, Fingal.” He swallowed.
“Is fearr an tsláinte ná na táinte.”

“Health is better than riches,” Fingal said, and thought, how true. Father and Ma had never been attracted to extravagance, seemed to have everything they needed. He glanced at Ma’s canvas. Already the cloud outlines had been formed and she was using a thick impasto to give one a foreboding body. He felt a goose walk over his grave and thought, No wonder the ancient Norse believed that the Valkyries, the goddesses who decided who would die in battle, careered on wild horses through the Heavenly maëlstroms.

Father reached for Fingal’s hand. “I may have my opinions.” His voice had a feathery quality, but then he pulled himself upright in his chair and said, as firmly as ever Fingal remembered, “I may think specialisation is right for you—but I’ve always taught you and Lars, ‘To thine own self be true.’”

Fingal smiled and cleared his throat. “Unless it was in conflict with what you thought was best for us. As you said a few moments ago, you initially thought I should go in for nuclear physics. But you’ve softened a lot—” He hesitated. “—Dad.”

“I was wrong. Then.” Father smiled. “Apparently on occasions some old dogs can be taught new tricks. Do it, son. Try general practice, even if Charlie doesn’t. If it’s what you want, stick at it. If it’s not, think about my opinion, after I’m gone.”

If Fingal had any remaining reservations about taking the job, Father had put them to rest. The lump in Fingal’s throat was threatening to strangle him. He stared at the floor, then at his father’s pallid, wasted, but smiling face. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Dad.” And as he poured more tea for himself, Fingal O’Reilly wished he could ignore the social convention that prohibited grown men from embracing. “And I will remember.”

“Good,” said Professor O’Reilly. “And now, if it’s still warm, I think I will have that cup of tea.”

8

With Aching Hands and Bleeding Feet

O’Reilly listened to the rain hammering against the surgery windows at Number One Main Street. Bloody Ulster summer squalls. He headed for the waiting room, but Kinky, holding the hall telephone, stopped him. “Before you see your next patient, sir, his lordship’s on the line.”

“Fine. Thanks, Kinky.” He took the receiver. “John?”

“Fingal. Glad I caught you. I’ve just discovered I’d made a ghastly oversight. I do apologise.”

O’Reilly frowned. “Oversight?”

“Yes. Myrna’s accident and all that. I muddled up the guest list for tomorrow. You and Kitty should have been invited. It’s the opening day of grouse season.”

Indeed it was. O’Reilly, who frequently was invited to shoot on the marquis’s moor in County Antrim, had been disappointed not to have been asked this year, but understood how his lordship had to share his favours throughout that county too. “Don’t worry about it, John.”

“Myrna usually handles these things. I’m glad we got her home yesterday…”

Despite his good intentions O’Reilly had not been able to make time to visit her in hospital, but Cromie had kept O’Reilly up to date on her progress.

“I found your invitation wedged under a pile of tack catalogues this morning, so needless to say it didn’t get posted,” he said with a laugh. “Any chance you two could still come? I’d love to have you both there, and Arthur’s such a help with pushing up birds and the retrieving.”

“I think so. I’ll have to arrange cover, but I’m sure Doctor Bradley will oblige. She’s out now. I’m not sure about Kitty. She’s off today, but I think she’s on duty tomorrow. I’ll phone you after lunch.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing.”

O’Reilly replaced the receiver. It would be a splendid day out on the moors near Loughareena, County Antrim, and, he thought as he marched along the hall, no distance from Ballymena. He wondered if Barry might be free for dinner that evening. It would be good to catch up with how he was getting on.

O’Reilly opened the door to his waiting room and admired the roses on the wallpaper. Their bright hues always managed to make him feel cheerful even on the greyest day, like today. He said to the remaining patients, “Is it Colin or yourself, Lenny?” as he bent and scratched the droopy ear of Murphy, Colin’s new puppy.

Lenny Brown pointed at Colin’s bare and grubby left foot. “Colin again. Sorry, Doc. He cut his foot a few days ago, but it’s getting worser, so it is. It was all right this morning when he went over to Gerry Shanks’s place so Mairead could mind him. The missus had til go til Belfast and I’ve my work. Mairead brung him til the building site half an hour ago because he said it had started to hurt like bedamned. I took one look at his foot and brung him right here, so I did.”

O’Reilly shook his head. “In the wars again, eh?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Colin said, and sniffed.

“Come on then, let’s have a look at you, but leave Murphy here. He’ll be all right if we shut the door.”

“Be a good dog, Murphy,” Colin said.

Lenny bent, then lifted and carried Colin. “He was getting about rightly at brekky time, but he can’t walk on it now.” As O’Reilly led them to his surgery he remembered how the last year had gone for Colin Brown. Cut hand Barry’d sutured last summer, ringworm of his scalp, greenstick fracture of his ulna and radius this year, and now this? The little lad was accident-prone. “Pop him up on the couch, Lenny”—Mister Brown deposited his son—“and have a pew.”

Lenny took one of the hard-backed chairs and adopted the splay-legged posture common to all who sat there and on its twin. Patients had to brace themselves because years ago O’Reilly had sawn off a couple of inches from the front legs so patients would slide forward, be uncomfortable, and not be tempted to stay too long.

“How’d you do your hoof, Colin?” O’Reilly asked.

“You knows Donal Donnelly? Him that has the gru-dog Bluebird, like?”

O’Reilly laughed. “Indeed I do. And I know his greyhound. I’ve made a few bob on her.”

“Well, I was out at his place three days ago with Murphy, my new wee pup. We’d went out on the bus. Donal—” He glanced at his father as if expecting a reprimand. Small boys did not call adults by their Christian names. “He likes me to call him Donal, Daddy, honest to God.”

“I’d call that impertinence. Weans should respect their bloody elders and betters, so they should.”

“Och, come on, Daddy. Donal says it’s all right and he’s helping me train Murphy.”

“I suppose.” Lenny shrugged. “All right, but you try calling me or your mammy that way.” He turned to O’Reilly. “I blame it all on that there American TV.”

“Train Murphy? That’s very decent of him,” O’Reilly said. “Donal’s a good man with dogs.”

“Aye, he is that, and I’m helping him with his dog too, so I am.” O’Reilly heard the pride in the boy’s voice. “He’s got all kinds of plans for her.” Colin dropped a wink and for a moment O’Reilly could have sworn he was looking at Donal Donnelly. He knew Donal was planning on doing a bit of “flapping” at an unregistered track, and as O’Reilly remembered it, Donal had said owners’ kids often presented the dogs to the stewards. Since Donal’s own child was far too young to help him with his schemes
,
it looked as if Donal had found a suitable kid for whatever he was planning. “And he says he’s mentioned it til youse, Doctor, but I’ve to keep my trap shut with everyone else.” The wink again. “There’s never nobody out at Dun Bwee to see me and him together with the dog.”

O’Reilly chuckled and said, “Crafty bugg—” and cut himself off. Not in front of children. He wondered how much Lenny and Connie Brown knew about the dog scheme? “And you and Connie don’t mind, Lenny? Colin’s not a bit young to be working with racing greyhounds?”

“Not at all, Doc,” he said with a laugh. “Kids do it all the time. And Donal’s a sound man. We all know he’s a bit of a schemer, but there’s no real harm in him. Him and me has a wee understanding about this. I’m helping a bit too—and if a bookie loses a few bob, you’ll hear no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth round here. Colin’s not going to get hurt and he has a new interest. He’s certainly doing a great job with Murphy—with Donal’s help. You should see the wee pup sit when he’s told to.”

O’Reilly shrugged. It was true youngsters were often involved with the training of racing dogs and horses, and if it was all right with Lenny and Connie Brown then O’Reilly could wonder all he wanted about the exact nature of the upcoming plot, but for now could afford to turn a blind eye. “So what happened to your foot?” he said.

“It was a dead brill day and there was dew on the grass so I took my shoes and socks off for til run through it.” He grinned. “Feels lovely on your bare feet, so it does.” His grin fled. “But there was something sharp and I cut my foot. Miss MacAteer, I mean Missus Donnelly, was wheeker, so she was. She cleaned it, put on some iodine—it stung like blue buggery—”

O’Reilly glanced at Lenny but Colin’s language didn’t appear to upset the man, probably because Lenny’s own was hardly snow-white.

“Then she put on a great big Elastoplast. It was a bit sore, but I could hirple about on it right enough until this morning when I was at the Shanks’s. Mrs. Shanks took off the plaster about half an hour ago and the whole thing was beelin’ so she brung me to my daddy and he brung me here.”

“Let’s have a look.” Indeed it was “beeling.” Pus was coming from a two-inch-long cut in the middle of the sole. It was a nasty sight now, an eighth of an inch wide and showing no signs of healing. Julie Donnelly’s iodine clearly hadn’t been effective as a disinfectant, or perhaps Colin had got more dirt into it. The cut probably should have been sutured, but it was too late now because it was the same rule today as it had been when he was a student: “If there’s pus, drain it.” The wound would have to heal by what was called secondary intention, after the inflammation settled down, but that would be rapid in a healthy youngster like Colin and antibiotics would make short shrift of the infection.