Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor

  47

  End Is Bitter as Wormwood

  “It’s his finger, sir.” A beshawled woman in a floor-length grey skirt stood in front of Fingal. She had one arm protectively around the shoulders of a boy of ten or eleven in a darned woollen pullover and patched short trousers. With her other hand she supported his right wrist.

  As Fingal climbed down from the high stool and took a couple of paces across the surgery floor he noticed the boy’s boots. They were laceless and the uppers of one had parted in front from the sole, letting his grubby toes peep out. Fingal squatted and looked the lad in the eye. “What’s your name, son?”

  The boy dashed the back of his left hand across his snot-stained upper lip, sniffed, and said, “Damien Pádraic Costello. From Dean Swift Square.”

  “And, Damien Pádraic, what happened to your finger?”

  The boy sniffed again and buried his face in his mother’s skirts.

  Fingal looked up. “Mammy?”

  She tossed her head, making her long auburn hair fly. “Dere was a wedding at Francis Street Chapel, Doctor. Nobody we knew, personal like. I hear they was from somewhere over at Meath Place, but sure the whole street always comes out to watch newlyweds leave the church. When the bride and groom come out after the service and Damien and his pals was going after the grushie, some feckin’ bollix in hobnailed boots trod on his hand. You should have heard the gulders of him, poor wee lad.”

  Fingal frowned. “Grushie?”

  “It’s a custom here in the Liberties. When the happy couple comes out of the church, the groom has a brown paper bag and in it dere’s copper coins, pennies and ha’pennies and farthin’s, like. He chucks them into the street and all the gurriers yell, ‘Grushie, grushie,’ and scramble like buggery to grab as many coins as dey can.”

  “I see.” Fingal had heard of the custom but not its name. “And Damien’s hand got injured in the scrum?”

  “Dat’s right.”

  He transferred his attention to Damien. “I’ll bet it’s sore.”

  The boy turned his tearstained face to Fingal. “You’d win your feckin’ bet, sir. It’s t’umpin’ like a drum.”

  “Can I see?”

  Damien slowly extended his hand.

  Fingal bent forward. He could see bruising and swelling between the second and third knuckles of the middle finger. It was probable that the bone between, the phalanx, was broken. The finger seemed to be twisted to one side. That might need to be straightened in an adult, but in a child of ten, healing would be rapid, complete, and without deformity as long as the finger was immobilised. “We can fix that for you, son, and it won’t hurt.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise. Cross my heart.” Fingal did.

  “Dat’s all right, den. Here.”

  Fingal, who never ceased to be humbled by the trust shown by his patients, rummaged in his jacket pocket and produced a bull’s-eye. “Open big.”

  Damien did, and Fingal popped the hard sweetie in.

  “Dere now, Damien, didn’t I tell you Doctor Big Fellah always has sweeties for chisslers?”

  The lad nodded his head.

  Fingal smiled and stood. “I’m pretty sure the bone’s bust, Mammy,” he said, “but all I need to do is strap it to the index finger. It’ll be mended in about three weeks.”

  “T’ank you, sir,” she said.

  It was the work of moments to use adhesive tape to strap the wounded digit to the one next to it. He’d learnt that trick back in July when Phelim had strapped two of Joe Mary Callaghan’s fingers after a ruggy-up the night before. “There you are, Damien. Good as new.” Fingal put a hand in his trouser pocket. “And this’ll make up for the grushie you weren’t able to get.” He slipped a nickel Irish sixpence with its distinctive wolfhound into Damien’s left hand.

  “Jasus, Mammy. I’m feckin’ rich,” Damien said, his tears now fled. “T’anks very, very much, sir.”

  Fingal tousled the boy’s untidy mop. “Don’t spend it all in the one shop.” He turned to the mother. “Bring him back in three weeks and I’ll take the strapping off, and sooner if you’re worried about him.”

  “I will, sir.” She took Damien by the hand and followed Fingal to the door. “T’ank you, sir. T’ank you very much.”

  “Go on with you,” said Fingal, ushering them out. “It’s my job.” And it was and he loved it. He crossed the hall. The waiting room was empty. His tummy rumbled. Lunchtime.

  Today had started out well and was still shaping up to be a good one, despite the ache for Kitty, which was never far from the surface. The late November sun spilled in through the waiting room windows, making dust motes sparkle. He’d seen interesting cases this morning. His easy acceptance here in the Liberties as Doctor Big Fellah warmed him, and to crown matters he had in his inside jacket pocket a letter that had arrived at the flat first thing this morning. On its envelope it bore the crest of the Irish Rugby Football Union and inside was a letter inviting Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly to play for the probables, the players most likely to be capped for Ireland after the trial match at Lansdowne Road on Saturday, December 12, a little over two weeks away. Charlie had got one too. And there’d be no distractions like last year when he’d had to cry off from the trial. Fingal knew he’d play his heart out. He could almost savour his selection. They were going to Davy Byrnes tonight with Bob to celebrate.

  He started for the stairs, but Phelim Corrigan hailed him. “Fingal, could ye spare me a minute?” He inclined his head to the surgery.

  Fingal hadn’t seen the senior man this morning. He’d been out making home visits. “Of course.” Fingal went in and heard Phelim close the door behind him. “And before you say anything, Phelim, I’ve got it.”

  The little doctor’s brow creased. “What’ve ye got? I’m in no mood for conundrums this morning.” His voice was flat.

  Fingal ploughed on. “I’ve got the letter from the IRFU. I’ve been selected for a trial. So has Charlie.”

  Phelim ran the flat of one hand across his toupee and sighed. He held out his hand, which Fingal shook. Phelim didn’t smile.

  “Are you not pleased? I remember what you said to me in July. ‘An Irish cap or bust, is that a promise?’ I’m as close as I can be to getting that cap. I’m playing in the trial—for the probables.”

  “Jasus,” said Phelim, and managed a smile, “if I was a dog with two tails I’d wag them both for ye. I am pleased and I wish ye well, but—”

  “But? There’s no but about it—”

  “Wheest. Let me speak.” Phelim took a deep breath. “I hate to do this to ye today when ye’ve nearly reached yer dream, but—” He reached into his pocket. “—I got a letter too.” He looked Fingal straight in the eye. “I’ll come to the point. There’s been another budget cut.” He offered Fingal the envelope.

  Fingal shook his head, held up one hand as if to ward off evil, and said quietly, “You’re letting me go.” After five months of vacillating, doubts about his choice of career, encouragement from the success of the Prontosil, getting comfortable in his ready acceptance in the community, Fingal had thought himself perfectly happy to be a dispensary G.P. and was looking forward to a long career. Now? He shrugged. “I see,” he said levelly.

  “I’m truly sorry, Fingal.”

  “No need to apologise, Phelim. You gave Charlie and me fair warning. He’s been offered a trainee position in Belfast, by the way, but he says if there’s the money for it he’ll be happy to stay until after the rugby trials and on into January.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that. I’m glad he’ll stay on.”

  “It’s not your fault if there are more budget cuts.”

  “Damn British,” Phelim said. “All their doing.”

  Fingal wondered if his colleague, who had never discussed politics except months ago when he had damned all political parties, was a Republican at heart. But if he was, what had that to do with the budget of the dispensary system? “I’m sorry? I don’t understand.”
r />   “Two years ago the British government banned the sale of Irish Sweepstakes tickets in the United Kingdom. They didn’t like all that sterling coming here to the Irish Free State. The money from the Sweeps is what keeps our hospitals and G.P.s going. There’s a thriving black market for tickets in Britain now.” He winked. “Ye’ll never stop people indulging a vice if they want to. Look at Prohibition in the States. But even so, the amount of money coming in is down considerably. British contributions, which used to account for sixty percent of ticket sales, have fallen to forty percent. The organisers are putting a lot more effort into selling to Irish expatriates in the United States, but it will take a while before we see any effects. Not enough money in the system for all the demands on it. I’m truly sorry. Ye have the makings of a fine G.P. I shall miss ye, boy.”

  “Thanks, Phelim.” Inside Fingal was hurt, angry, but he understood there was no point making a fuss. “When do you want me to leave?”

  “There’s money left to keep you and Charlie on into the new year if you want to stay. But I’ll understand if you find something sooner.” He scratched his head. “Finding a dispensary job for ye won’t be easy.”

  “I know.” Fingal pursed his lips. “There’s not a hell of a lot to keep me in Dublin now anyway. My mother’s gone north, Charlie’s getting a job there, one of my other close friends, Cromie, has been there since the summer.” He swallowed. “And I’ve told you Kitty’s going to Tenerife.” Fingal bit his lower lip.

  Phelim clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m truly sorry, lad. It doesn’t seem that much is going your way … except the rugby.”

  Fingal looked Phelim Corrigan straight in the eye. “There’s that … and Doctor Davidson.”

  “Davidson?”

  “You remember I assisted him at Jane Carson’s ovarian surgery? I saw him at the Carsons last week. I was hoping Robin Carson could help me find a tradesman’s job for a friend of mine. That was a washout too, but Doctor Davidson said he’d have a job for me any time at the Rotunda.” And Fingal remembered the day he’d first met Phelim Corrigan, the same day Ma had painted that stormy skyscape. His dying father had tried to persuade Fingal to specialise and his parting words that day reverberated in Fingal’s mind. “Think about my opinion, after I’m gone.” Perhaps Dad had been right after all.

  “Ye take it, son,” Phelim said. “Give yerself a year. Ye may find ye like the work even better than G.P.”

  “I might,” Fingal said. “I might.” But he doubted it.

  “Is there a rush for ye to start?”

  “I’ll have to ask Doctor Davidson. I’ll go and see him as soon as I can.”

  “Do that, but see if ye can get him to let ye stay here until the end of February.”

  “Why until then?”

  “Because the first two rugby internationals will be played in that month, and by all that’s holy I’ll make damn sure you, and Charlie if he’s still here, will be free of medical duties so ye can play.”

  “I’ll be seeing him tonight for a jar. I’ll tell him about all of this,” Fingal said. There was a lump in his throat when he continued, “Thank you, Phelim. Thank you very—”

  “Blether. Don’t embarrass me, man. Think of it as yer going-away present. I shall miss ye, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly—the Big Fellah.”

  “And I’ll miss you, Phelim, and Aungier Street, and the midwives, Jimmy Corcoran the apothecary, and the Liberties. I shall miss them all very much.” And the truth of how much hit Fingal like a blow from a sledgehammer. It was all he could do to hold back the tears.

  48

  And Women Guide the Plot

  “We should be next,” Brenda Eakin said, “but I think you’d better see Colin Brown first, sir.”

  O’Reilly eyed Brenda, wondered why she had said “we.” The only other people in the waiting room were Julie and Donal Donnelly—who was carrying Margaret Victoria—Mairead Shanks, Mary Dunleavy, and Colin and Connie Brown. And it was obvious why Brenda had said Colin should go next. His face was sooty, his eyebrows gone, and his usual donkey fringe had been singed away. His left hand was wrapped in a towel. “Come on then,” O’Reilly said, and turned to go. What the blue blazes had Colin been up to now?

  O’Reilly sat in his swivel chair and adjusted his half-moon spectacles. Connie and Colin took the wooden seats, the ones with the front legs shortened. “So,” O’Reilly said, “what happened this time?”

  “You tell Doctor O’Reilly, Colin,” Connie said, making a tutting noise and shaking her head. “Sometimes, Doctor, I despair of the wee eejit, so I do.”

  Colin was nursing his left hand and occasionally wincing. “I’ve already said I’m sorry, Mammy, and I won’t do it again. Not never. Honest to God.”

  Connie shook her head. “You’re lucky you didn’t do yourself serious hurt.”

  In her voice, O’Reilly heard a mother’s concern wrestling with her anger.

  “Go on please, Colin,” O’Reilly said.

  “I’d come home from school for my lunch and when I’d finished I went out for to try out my new cannon with Art O’Callaghan. Him and me went down to the dunes on our way back to school, so we did. Nobody knew we had it, like, and it’s nice and private there.”

  “Your new … cannon?” O’Reilly could remember himself and Lars when not much older than Colin experimenting with sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre to make gunpowder. What was it about explosions that fascinated little boys and, indeed, grown-up Irishmen? From 1956 until ’62, the Irish Republican Army had waged the ineffective “Border Campaign,” blowing up Northern Irish police barracks and customs posts. That nonsense was over now, thank goodness.

  “It’s not really a cannon like them ones on the walls in Londonderry, but the bang the thing makes is dead on, so it is, or was. It’s busted now.” Colin sighed. “Art’s big brother showed us how to make it.”

  “Did he now? Go on.”

  “Do you know about carbide, sir?”

  “I do. I used to have a bike with a carbide headlight.” And that wasn’t yesterday, O’Reilly thought, seeing himself pedalling at night through the Liberties. The image of blowing the flame out at Aungier Place after Kitty had told him she was going to Spain was still vivid.

  Colin started to unwrap the towel. “You buy it in a metal cylinder so you empty it all out and put it in a jam jar for til keep it, like. You drill a wee hole in the cylinder’s side just above its bottom, put a single lump of carbide back into the metal cylinder, pour in water—”

  “That’ll make a gas called acetylene,” O’Reilly said. “Highly flammable.”

  “Aye, you can hear the fizzles and spits and bubbles of it. Then you push the lid of the tube in tight.”

  Good Lord. O’Reilly sat back in his chair. “You didn’t—?”

  “We did.” Colin grimaced. “And it worked dead wheeker the first time. If you hold a match over the wee hole you’ve drilled there’s a bloody great ‘boom,’ and the lid gets blew out. Goes a brave way, so it does.” He finished unwrapping his hand. O’Reilly could see a red burnt area on the back between the knuckles and wrist. Sometimes, because of nerve damage, the pain of a burn wasn’t experienced immediately.

  “The second time we tried it, I held the match. ‘Boom’ goes the cannon, even louder, but because the lid stayed in, the whole bloody lot exploded.”

  Which would account for Colin’s appearance.

  “Art took off like a liltie,” Colin took a breath, “and I went home to my mammy because … well,” he thrust the wounded hand under O’Reilly’s nose, “I’d burnt my hand.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t blind yourself, or blow your hand off,” Connie said.

  “Your mammy’s right,” O’Reilly said, hiding a smile as he remembered the ferocious telling-off he and Lars had been given by Ma when one of their infernal machines had blown a hole in a neighbour’s henhouse, sending the terrified chickens running all over hell’s high acre clucking and squawking, feathers flying. “Now, let’
s have a look at that hand.”

  O’Reilly peered at it and said, “Lucky for you it’s a superficial burn. Only the skin’s red and damaged, it’s dry, and there are no blisters. It’ll be easy enough to treat. You’ll be better in a week.”

  “It’s starting to sting like buggery,” Colin said.

  “Colin. Language.”

  “Sorry, Mammy.”

  “Come over to the sink, Colin.” O’Reilly rose and pushed a small instrument trolley ahead of him, Colin and Connie following.

  “Hold your hand up over the sink,” O’Reilly said, and Colin did as he was asked. “This’ll be cold but it won’t hurt.” He poured a 1 percent solution of Cetavlon over the burn.

  Colin sucked in his breath. “That’s freezing, so it is.”

  O’Reilly lifted a tube of penicillin ointment—he daily blessed the antibiotics—and gently smeared the white unguent over the burn. “Now for a dressing.”

  In a very short time the wound was dressed with Jelonet, a paraffin-impregnated gauze netting that wouldn’t stick to the damaged area. Cotton wool on top of the Jelonet was held in place with a bandage.

  “There,” said O’Reilly, returning to his desk to write. “Now you look like a proper wounded soldier. Mammy, give him two kids’ aspirins every six hours for the pain and bring him back in a couple of days and I’ll change the dressing.” He wagged an admonitory finger at Colin. “And you stay away from explosives. Do you hear me?”

  Colin hung his head. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Then he looked up and grinned. “But it did make a couple of wheeker ‘booms.’”

  “Here,” said O’Reilly, handing a piece of paper to Connie. “It’s a note for Miss Nolan.”

  “Cracker,” Colin said, grinning more widely. “Am I getting time off from school? You said I’d not be better for a week.”

  “Certainly not,” said O’Reilly. “The note’s just to explain why you’re late this afternoon.”