A Dublin Student Doctor

  “O’Reilly F. F.—”

  In cases of lockjaw, every muscle in the patient’s body contracted. Fingal’s were so tense he could barely breathe.

  “Pass. O’Rourke—”

  Pass. Mother of God. Pass. Fingal swayed, clutched his hands together. Pass. He exhaled. Round him were no shapes, only blurred colours, one running into another like the tones of a Paul Klee painting. He felt hands thumping his back, heard the slurred voice of Cromie saying, “Welcome to, to the medical profession, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly—you oul’ bollix,” then sensed a gentle musk and a familiar voice saying, “Congratulations, Fingal.”

  His world righted itself. The dean had vanished, the crowd was breaking up.

  “I believe,” Cromie said, “Doctor Beresford, that you have in a certain nearby emporium of drink and strong liquors a magnum of icèd bubbles awaiting your good self and Doctors Greer, Cromie, and O’Reilly.”

  “You are off your face, Doctor Cromie, but come on, everybody,” Bob said, and led the way.

  Cromie, who, as Bob had noted, was not altogether sober, put his arm round Virginia’s waist. Charlie flanked Cromie, in case petite Virginia wasn’t strong enough to support her boyfriend if he teetered.

  “Would you like to come too, Kitty? We’re going to Davy Byrnes.” She’d let her hair grow and no longer had those ridiculous waves. More like the old Kitty. For the first time he noticed silver streaks in the ebony. They complemented the amber flecks in her grey eyes.

  “Yes, please.” She moved beside him, her perfume stronger and filling his senses. “I’m very proud of you,” she said. “How does it feel?”

  “I’m numb right now. It’s like—like—” Fingal groped for words. “They said in the war that some wounded soldiers didn’t feel the pain for hours. I think it’s going to take a while to sink in,” he said, starting to walk. He wanted to reach for her hand, but he hadn’t earned the right to hold it. Not yet. He wanted to ask what had happened to the proposal of marriage, tell her how happy he was to see her, sound her out, see if she’d give him another chance, but perhaps she was feeling reticent too? He glanced at her face, tried to gauge her mood, but her quiet smile told him nothing.

  “Fingal, this is your evening, yours and the boys’. Let’s enjoy it.”

  And shelve serious discussion until later. That’s what you’re saying, Kitty, isn’t it? But at least she’s not closing any doors. He didn’t want to leave matters completely unspoken. “All right,” he said, and moved closer to her, “but we do have things to talk about.”

  “I know,” she said, and when she smiled up at him his heart, crammed to overflowing with relief, expanded to accept the joy.

  They walked to a packed Davy Byrnes.

  “Jasus,” Diarmud roared from behind the bar, “by the grins on youse’s faces I’d say youse’ve all passed. God help the sick and suffering wit’ youse lot proper doctors now. Will I have to call yiz ‘sir,’ or ‘yer honour’ now, Doctor O’Reilly? Tug me feckin’ forelock? Scrape and bow?”

  “You, Diarmud Clancy,” Fingal said with an enormous grin, “you can, in the words of other gurriers like you, and I ask the ladies to pardon my French, you, Diarmud Clancy, can feck right off. It’s been Fingal for years and, by God, Fingal it stays.” He forced his way through a throng of happy classmates to the table where the lads and Virginia sat. Cromie’s head leaned on her shoulder. His eyes were shut. No chance to congratulate him on his distinction.

  Fingal pulled out a chair for Kitty.

  “Thank you,” she said, and touched his arm.

  God, but he’d missed her touch, the nearness of her.

  “Nice to see you, Kitty,” Bob said, turned, and roared, “Diarmud, crack that magnum.”

  “Right you are, Bob.” He lifted the fat bottle from an ice bucket and started to unwind the wire that held the cork in place.

  “So, Fingal,” Bob said, “it’s all over. I never thought I’d see the day, didn’t want to for quite a while, but thanks. I’d not be here, but for you three. You in particular, Fingal. Making me cram for Part One. I do like the sound of ‘Doctor Beresford.’”

  “You worked for it, Bob. You passed the exams by yourself. You deserve it—”

  “We all deserve it,” Cromie muttered, and fell asleep again.

  “Poor old Cromie,” Bob said with a smile, “but he did well to get that distinction. He told me on the way here he wants to be a surgeon with a special interest in bone surgery.”

  Fingal glanced at Cromie. “I don’t imagine you’ll be going the surgical route, Bob.”

  “With my two left hands?” Bob laughed. “I’m not even sure I’d be safe in general practice. My embroidery of simple cuts leaves a certain amount to be desired.”

  Fingal said, “I know the dean is looking for a medically qualified research assistant.”

  “Are you considering that, Fingal?” Kitty asked. “I’ve always thought you were a people doctor.” She squeezed his arm.

  A pop from behind the bar signalled the opening of the Dom Pérignon. “Be wit’ youse in a minute,” Diarmud said, loading a tray with champagne coupes. “Will I bring one for your man too?” He nodded at Cromie.

  “Certainly,” Fingal said, “and Diarmud?”

  “Yes, Fingal.”

  “You’ve been taking care of us for years. Bob won’t mind. Pour one for yourself.”

  “Paid for with the last of Auntie’s money,” Bob said.

  Fingal turned to him. “I’ve been thinking about the dean’s job for you, Bob. There’d be no manual skill required and I think you could hold on to your inheritance too. We did talk about medical research before last Christmas in Neary’s.”

  “We did. You got me interested then.” Bob leant across the table. “Go on.”

  “It would be a job with no night work. I remember you going on strike after you’d been up all night. There’d be no suturing, no taking blood samples, Count Dracula.”

  Bob laughed. “That’s what they called me on Saint Patrick’s Ward I was so ham-fisted.”

  “But you can use a microscope?”

  “I can.”

  “You’d spend lots of time in the library checking references.”

  “I’d enjoy that,” Bob said.

  Fingal hesitated. If he spoke softly nobody would overhear. He leant and put his mouth near Bob’s ear. “Doctor Micks gave my father a blood transfusion recently. When he was discussing it he mentioned Doctor Landsteiner’s Nobel Prize. My dad, ever the prof said, ‘His research will have benefitted tens of thousands.’ It’s not as if you’d be doing nothing useful if you got that job.”

  Bob looked thoughtful. “I’m assuming your father’s not getting any better?”

  Fingal shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, Fingal.”

  “Thank you, Bob. And thanks for your support. Apart from the professional people you and Kitty are the only other ones who know.”

  “I think,” said Bob, “you would have had enough on your plate with the exams for the last year without having to worry about your dad. I don’t know how you did it.”

  Fingal shrugged. “Having the folks away for so long helped. Out of sight out of mind.” He brightened. “At least he will make it to our graduation.”

  Bob squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “And I’ll say it again. I’d not be going there, but for you and those two.” He lit a Gold Flake. “And Fingal, I do believe you’re right. A research career would suit me. Who knows. If I did get the job with Prof Bigger we might just find that some infection causes leukaemia. Find a cure.”

  “That’s a good thought, Bob. Thanks,” Fingal said. “Too late for my dad, but I don’t think you’ll regret your decision if you do apply.”

  Bob grinned. “You could be right. Mind you, it’ll be a year or two before you lot’ll have to come to Stockholm.”

  “Stockholm?” Kitty asked, and arched an eyebrow.

  Fingal had forgotten how attractive he’d found that ha
bit of hers. He gave her a wide smile. “Bob’s going to win the Nobel,” Fingal said. “They have the ceremonies there. We’ll be going to watch him get his award.”

  She chuckled. “Good for Bob. I hear,” she said, “it comes with a tidy sum of money. That would make up for your lost inheritance.”

  That reminded Fingal. “Bob,” he said, “I think we can keep you in Auntie’s funds until the folks at the Karolinska Institute give you the cheque that goes with the medal and the diploma. I consulted the Oxford Dictionary. A student is defined as, ‘one acquiring knowledge, often from books.’ Seems to me you’d still be fulfilling the conditions of the bequest.”

  “Go ’way out of that.” Bob sat bolt upright. “Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, you are the Wily O’Reilly.”

  Fingal laughed. “It may not be legal, but I’ll be seeing my brother Lars later tonight. He’s a lawyer. I’ll ask him if you like.”

  “Hang about, Fingal. Won’t you be staying with us here?” Bob asked.

  Fingal shook his head.

  “Why the hell not?” Charlie asked. “It’s ‘Finals Results Night.’ We’re all going to get petrified.” He nodded at Cromie. “He’s got a head start. You can’t break up the old firm, Fingal. Not tonight.”

  “Excuse me, folks,” Diarmud said, setting a tray loaded with bubbling glasses on the table. “I’ll bring the bottle in a minute.”

  “I’m afraid,” Fingal said, “I have a promise to keep. Family.” Ma wanted him home for dinner and, he thought, I want to see the look in Father’s eyes when he hears my news.

  “Oh, well,” Charlie said. “Family? That’s different.” He turned away, lifted a glass, swallowed, and roared, “Diarmud. Get that bottle here quick. My glass has sprung a leak. It’s nearly empty.” He turned back. “Here’s one for you, Kitty.”

  Fingal barely heard her. “Thank you.”

  While she was chatting to Charlie, Bob touched Fingal’s sleeve. “You talked about your dad earlier.”

  Fingal nodded.

  “I understand,” Bob said just loudly enough to be heard by Fingal over the racket. “I’m going to phone my parents very soon. Yours’ll be eager to hear your results. You go when you’re ready. The lads won’t mind tonight and one day they’ll find out about your father being so sick, but I think you’re wise to keep it close tonight. Not put a damper on the craic.”

  “Thanks, Bob. Thanks a lot.”

  Bob shrugged and squeezed Fingal’s arm.

  That touch meant a great deal. Fingal looked at Kitty. In January he’d berated himself after that disastrous meeting in her flat for not hugging her and telling her he loved her. He could hear Ma’s long-ago, “And is she the kind of girl you’d like to bring home to meet us?” Since he’d come home from sea that had only been the second time he’d given his mother a chance to ask that question. Only one of his brief flings before Kitty had lasted long enough, and to Fingal’s embarrassment he’d be damned if he could remember that girl’s surname. Angela something, but Angela what? This time was different.

  “I’ll head home,” he said to Bob, “as soon as we’ve had our champagne. Get me a glass, Bob, and wake Cromie up.” He turned and faced Kitty. “Kitty,” he said, and looked her straight in the eye, “I was telling Bob I’ll be having a glass of fizz, but then I’m expected at home for my dinner.” He took a glass from Bob. “Ta.”

  “Oh,” she said. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh dear.” She let him hold her gaze as she straightened her shoulders, coughed, and said, “That’s all right. I’ll keep Virginia company. She’s going to need help.”

  “Kitty.” He reached across the table and touched her hand. “Kitty, I’d like you to come and meet my folks, have dinner.”

  She blushed. “I couldn’t possibly,” she said. “It would be too much trouble for them. And if your dad’s as sick as he was—” She finished her champagne.

  “That’s one reason I want you to meet him. And Cook,” he said firmly, removing his hand to give a fresh glass to Kitty, “revels in putting an extra potato in the pot.” He was going to say, “I insist,” but found himself asking softly, “Please.”

  She moved her chair closer to his, kissed him soundly, and said, “I’d love to.”

  Fingal took a very deep breath. He’d passed Finals. He knew by her acceptance and that kiss Kitty had forgiven him, was going to give him another chance. This time God was very definitely in His Heaven. “I know Ma’s going to love you,” he said, and he blushed.

  Fingal was distracted by a sudden movement and saw Cromie clambering onto his chair, champagne glass clutched in a hand. Drops of champagne flew as his hand shook. Those people in the direct line of fire did not object. He stood erect, spread his arms wide at shoulder height, yelled for silence, yelled again, and when the folks in the bar were paying attention, roared, “Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, after five years of study, we have qualified. Raise your glasses.”

  Fingal did and drank to Kitty.

  Cromie bowed and yelled, “We have quaf—quaf—quafilied.” He hiccupped, then said, “And as far as I’m concerned, we deserve it all. Doctors, we deserve it all.”

  At which point, Donald Cromie, Doctor Donald Cromie, M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O., pass with distinction in orthopaedic surgery, flapped his arms like wings—and fell off his chair.

  49

  The Wheel Is Come Full Circle

  O’Reilly couldn’t place the double ringing that had hauled him from sleep. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. The noise came from a telephone mounted on the chipboard wall beside his bed. He lifted the receiver.

  “Doctor O’Reilly? Sister Hoey. Ward 21.”

  He glanced round the bedroom in the student quarters of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. “Yes, Sister.” He yawned loudly. His eyes felt gritty. What the hell was he doing here?

  “I’m sorry if I woke you, but it’s eight o’clock and I’ll be going off duty. I wanted to tell you about your patient—”

  My patient?

  “Mister Donnelly.”

  Donal. Jesus. Fragments of the day before were starting to filter back. Donal Donnelly had had a craniotomy to drain an extradural haematoma. “How is he?” O’Reilly was wide awake now.

  “I’ve only ever seen this once before so soon after surgery, but he’s been awake for the last hour.”

  “Thank Christ.” O’Reilly’s grip on the receiver lessened. “He’s fully conscious?”

  “Not only conscious. He’s demanding to see, and forgive me if I quote,” he heard her chuckle, “‘that daft old goat O’Reilly.’ He wants you to take him home.”

  “He knows where he is?”

  “Very much so. He is orientated in place and time. Doctor O’Reilly, is he a betting man?”

  It was O’Reilly’s turn to chuckle. “He is that. He’d wager on two flies climbing a window.”

  “I thought so. He tried to get me to take odds of two to one on a bet of a pound that you would arrange his discharge today.”

  “Take his money, Sister,” O’Reilly said. “Charlie Greer won’t discharge him. You know that. Not yet.” And, he thought, with the money Donal won at Downpatrick Races yesterday he could afford a loss. He was incorrigible, that man, but damn it, O’Reilly thought, you couldn’t help loving him. First thing to be done, once he’d seen Donal, was to phone Barry at Number One Main Street and have him give Donal’s wife Julie the good news. Because the Donnellys had no phone Barry would have to scoot round to their neat rented cottage on the Shore Road in Ballybucklebo.

  O’Reilly saw his boots lying where he’d dropped them last night. “I’ll be straight up,” he said, “soon as I get a bite to eat.”

  “I’ll have a cup of tea and some toast for you if you’d like.”

  “Wonderful. Thanks, Sister. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  He dropped the receiver in its cradle, picked up a boot, and noticed a hole in the toe of one sock. Donal was already awake, asking for his GP, and
trying to make a bet? Wonderful. Anyone who regained consciousness so fully and so rapidly after brain surgery would almost certainly make a complete recovery. O’Reilly knotted the laces and looked for the other boot.

  Jane Hoey was making a pot of tea for him. The first time a nursing sister had done that was when Fingal O’Reilly, fourth-year student, had been sitting with an unconscious Kevin Doherty on Saint Patrick’s Ward and Sister Daly had sent a student nurse with a bite to eat.

  Caitlin, known to her friends as Kitty, O’Hallorhan had been, and still was, as Kevin had described her that lunch time in 1934, “A right wee corker.” And she’d be on duty on ward 21 later this morning. She’d be as delighted as O’Reilly to hear about Donal.

  Jane Hoey’s snack would hold him until he got home by train and had Kinky feed him a proper brunch. He fancied a brace of kippers. Maybe two brace. And a grapefruit to start with. Coffee. Lots of coffee.

  O’Reilly found his other boot. It needed polishing, but bugger it. Life was too short to be worrying about having shiny boots.

  He walked to the sink and splashed water over his face. His brown eyes looked back at him from a mirror. Silvering had peeled from its back and the reflection of his bent nose, which Charlie Greer had broken in 1935, vanished into a pool of black. O’Reilly needed a shave and his hair looked like a haystack after a hurricane. He held his fingers under a tap and ran them through his mop. Now, he turned and frowned, he should have a tie somewhere.

  He couldn’t see it. Tie bedamned. Seeing Donal was more important. He grabbed his sports jacket from the back of the door, knowing his shirt and tweed pants looked as if he’d slept in them. And he had, so why worry?

  He started on the familiar walk to ward 21. In the nineteen years he’d been in practice in Ballybucklebo he’d visited this teaching hospital many times. It had been opened on its present site by King Edward VII in 1903. The building of Sir Patrick Dun’s in Dublin where he’d taken much of his training had commenced exactly one hundred years earlier.

  Fingal passed the cafeteria in the basement and climbed the stairs to the main corridor. They had been good times, those recently remembered student days, and his life had been eventful in the years between them and coming to Ballybucklebo.