An Irish Country Love Story

  Barry smiled at Peggy’s retreating back as he reread the last few lines and the signoff, “With all my dearest love, and longing, now and forever, Sue.” He inhaled deeply, and took a soothing pull of his pint.

  A haze of cigarette smoke hung beneath the ceiling, and a short bar at one side had a mirror on the back wall with glass shelves holding bottles of spirits. One of them was a half-empty bottle of blue curaçao. Barry could swear the same bottle had been there in 1962 when he had first started coming here. Ulster folks tended to be conservative in what they drank.

  He picked up one menu and had just decided to have a steak and Guinness pie and chips when the door was opened and Jack Mills ushered Helen Hewitt in.

  “You, Mills, are late,” Barry said, rising and grinning. “Hello, Helen.”

  “Sorry about that, lad,” Jack said. “Bit of a B getting parked, hey.” His County Antrim accent was still thick as champ. It suited the man, who looked like a ruddy-cheeked farmer. He was from a dairy farm near Cullybackey. He pulled out a chair, seated Helen, then himself.

  “My fault we’re late,” she said. “Hilary term’s in full swing and I was in the physiology lab and really wanted to finish an experiment. It’s the big professional exam in March. Second MB.”

  “Second MB,” Jack repeated, and shuddered. “It’s one of the big hurdles, right, Barry? You’re crossing that great divide between basic sciences and starting clinical work.” He nodded to Barry. “We both know how important this is.”

  “I certainly do,” said Barry. “You have my sympathy—and my support, Helen. And I know how proud your dad is.”

  A cough.

  “I know it’s too soon for til take your orders, Doctor Mills, but would yiz and your young lady like a drink?”

  “Hello, Peggy. How are you? And Mister McCarthy?”

  “We’re well, sir. Thank you.”

  “Helen? A drink?”

  “Have you a nice white by the glass?”

  “Aye. There’s an Entre Deux Mers open.”

  “That would be lovely,” Helen said.

  “And mine’s a pint.”

  “I’ll only be a wee minute, dears.” Peggy left.

  “Second MB,” Barry said. “I don’t know about you, Jack, but I’ll never forget it.”

  “Me neither,” said Jack. “I was scared skinny of that exam.” He beamed at Helen. “But I’m sure you’ll ace it, love.” His smile faded. “At least you should if the amount of time you spend studying is any indication.” He shrugged and looked at Barry. “I think, mate, you and I should arrange to see much more of each other while your Sue’s away. Trying to drag this one from her studies?” Jack pursed his lips and shook his head. “Like pulling teeth without an anaesthetic. I’m thinking of taking religious orders and a vow of celibacy.” His laugh was forced.

  “I’d better ace it,” she said, and there was an edge in her voice. “Don’t forget I’m on a scholarship, thanks to his lordship. I’ll lose it if I fail one exam. You know that bloody well, Jack Mills.” She didn’t quite stamp her foot, but there was fire in her green eyes. “Until the damn thing’s over, it’s business before pleasure. You’ll wait. I know you will.”

  Jack sighed. “I’m surprised you could make time to have lunch today.” He sounded thoroughly dejected, and a little peevish.

  Barry sat back. This would bear watching. Had they been having a row? Jack had always been a Lothario. The second a girl seemed to be losing interest, or refused to fall in with his plans, she was replaced. But here was Jack, seemingly willing to put up with being neglected by a green-eyed, red-haired local lass from Ballybucklebo named Helen Hewitt. Not without protest, however. And ineffective protest it appeared. Helen clearly knew what she needed and wanted at this stage in her life. This would be a first for Jack, dating a young woman like her. Barry remembered how she’d dealt with an unpleasant employer by crushing the dressmaker’s entire supply of hats and then giving notice.

  “All right,” Jack said. “All right. I’m sorry.” He picked up her hand and tried to kiss it, but she pulled it away and said, “The dean told us last year, ‘Pass this one, leave the study of the basic sciences behind and move on to the teaching hospital, and it’s practically certain you’ll qualify as a doctor. Fail it and—’” Helen inhaled deeply. “I’ve wanted this for a long time. I-will-not-fail.” Each word was stressed.

  Barry remembered some strange notions that his earlier, now long-gone love Patricia Spence had got from the writings of two leading “feminist” writers, as they were being called, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. At least they had seemed odd to a boy like him, raised in the ’50s to regard the traditional roles of the sexes as the norm. Bob Dylan had sung it in 1964, “Times they are a changin’.” And the more time he spent around Sue Nolan, who very much had her own ideas, the more Barry had come to recognise the sound sense and inherent fairness of those changes.

  He wondered if Jack, with his ingrained country notions, was going to be able to change with the times. Barry glanced at his oldest friend, saw concern in those honest eyes, and felt for him. Real love was not always easy. Perhaps this once Barry would be the one to offer a shoulder to cry on. Jack had done it often enough for Barry in the past. He was about to try to change the subject, get the tenseness out of the air, when Peggy appeared. “Here’s your drinks.” She set the two glasses down. “And are youse ready til order yet?”

  Helen scanned the menu. “Grilled Dover sole, please.”

  “T-bone steak. Rare,” Jack said. “Thank you.”

  Barry placed his order.

  “They all come with chips and veg,” Peggy said, and left.

  Barry raised his glass. “Pick yours up, Jack. A toast. To Helen’s coming success in Second MB.”

  At least he was rewarded by one of Helen’s bigger smiles.

  “By God,” said Jack, “I’ll drink to that,” and this time when he tried to cover her hand with his, she smiled at him and made no demur.

  * * *

  “No need to bother walking me to the bus stop,” Helen said as the three stood outside the restaurant. “Thanks for lunch, Jack. Embryology this afternoon with ‘Daddy’ Morton.” She screwed up her face. “I hate embryology.” She pursed a mock kiss and was already walking away as Jack called, “When will I see…” His shoulders sagged. “Oh, never mind.” He turned to Barry. “Women.”

  Barry let the remark pass. “You going back to the Royal?”

  “Aye.”

  “I need a lift. I came on the train. Brunhilde’s at McGimpseys’s Garage in Bangor for her six-month service. The poor old thing’s getting on.”

  “Come on, then. Car’s not far, hey. You’ve probably told me before, but why the hell do you call your VW Brunhilde?”

  “Mum’s a fan of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. She thought it was the perfect name for a German car.”

  Jack laughed as side by side the two friends threaded their way through the afternoon crowd. Women, shopping bags on their arms, their heads covered in plastic rollers and secured with headscarves, getting their “do” ready for Saturday night. Office-boy messengers, most with cigarettes stuck to their lips. Under the Gaumont cinema’s marquee announcing, “Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch and Stephen Boyd,” a queue was forming. School kids in their uniforms skipping afternoon classes. One boy in a Methodist College blazer held hands with a girl wearing the uniform of Princess Gardens Grammar School. Unemployed men in dunchers had their coat collars turned to the wind. Two Queens students were recognisable by their long black, green, and blue scarves.

  One man in laceless boots, pants patched at the knee, and a ragged pullover under a collarless sports jacket walked slowly along the double line of moviegoers. He held his duncher extended in his right hand and was singing, “Saint Theresa of the roses.” A coin clinked into the cap. “Thank you, sir. ‘I will come til you each night. Near the altar…’” Clink. “Thank you, madam. ‘In the chapel…’”

  Across the Corn
market, a Guinness lorry was unloading barrels for Mooney’s pub to the accompaniment of hoarse cries of “Steady there. Hang on til that rope. You’re making a right hames of it.” Cars jostled through narrow streets, their exhaust fumes mingling with the smoke from the city’s few remaining linen mills and the coal fires from row after row of workers’ houses. A car horn blared and shoe leather clacked on the paving stones. It was a typical Belfast street scene, Barry thought, and a far cry from driving in Ballybucklebo and the townland. There the scents were of the sea or new-mown hay, and on a Thursday, market day, one was more apt to be driving behind cattle than exhaust-belching lorries. He had no doubt which scene he preferred.

  “Hop in,” Jack said, opening the driver-side door of a blue Austin A35.

  Barry climbed into the passenger’s seat.

  “What’s on at the hospital?” Jack started the engine and pulled out into the traffic.

  “I’ve an appointment with Doctor Nelson.”

  “Haematologist?”

  “Yes. So I thought rather than phone I’d come up in person, which also gives me the chance to see our old mate Harry Sloan and have lunch with you and Helen.” Barry hesitated. “You won’t mind me asking, but is everything all right there?”

  “Women. Jasus, Barry, but I’m utterly confounded. Bewitched, buggered, and bewildered. I never thought it would happen to me.” He turned onto High Street.

  “It was bound to one day.” Hadn’t he and Fingal just been saying that perhaps it was time for Jack to settle down? He turned to stare at his friend. “And when you get used to it, love is grand, Jack. Honest.”

  Jack stopped at the traffic light where Donegal Place crossed High Street to become Royal Avenue. “Hmmm. Well, you’d know,” Jack said. “The Mam’selle at school, a certain green-eyed nurse…”

  The light changed and Jack drove across the intersection onto what was now Divis Street, one boundary of the Catholic Falls District.

  Barry waited to see if his friend would mention Patricia and was pleased when he did not. Although Sue filled Patricia’s place to overflowing now, Barry had hurt when she’d dumped him for a fellow Cambridge student. And Jack, knowing that only too well, had comforted Barry at the time and was being tactful now. “I know. I’m a big softie, but I’ll tell you what, my rugby-playing friend. The right woman can make big softies of us all inside. Even you.”

  Jack nodded, braking to allow a lorry to make a right turn across the traffic. “I think she has, Barry,” he drove ahead, “but, Lord, it’s hard to take this having to play second fiddle to Helen’s studying.” He indicated for a left turn where the Royal Victoria’s redbrick three-storey King Edward Building stood on the corner of the Grosvenor and Falls Road. “I’m daft about her, Barry, but I worry. She’s such a corker. I see the way other fellows look at her.”

  “She’s a lovely girl,” Barry said, “and I know what you mean. A lad looks sideways at her and you get tachycardia.”

  Jack grunted. “Spot on, mate.” He turned the Austin onto the Grosvenor Road, past the hospital’s West Wing, the gatehouse, and the East Wing before stopping to turn right into the grounds at the Clinical Sciences Building. They passed through the tall open gates and headed for the car park.

  “It is tough having to stay in the background,” said Barry, “but both of us know what it takes to get through. Give her her head. Let her study. She’ll thank you for it when she passes—and hate you if she spends what she sees as too much time with you—and fails.”

  Jack shook his head. “She’ll not fail, Barry. She’s smart. Really smart. But I’ll try. She’s worth it.” He found a spot and brought the car to an abrupt halt.

  “Hey.” Barry braced himself against the dashboard.

  “Sorry, Barry. Mind’s on other things.”

  They got out to walk through the park and along the narrow lane between the mortuary and the old plywood hutment that still served as bedrooms for housemen and students.

  “One thing, Jack,” Barry said. “If things do progress—”

  “You mean if I propose and she accepts?” Jack stopped in his tracks. “I hadn’t quite got that far in my thinking. And there’s another thing…” Jack bit his lower lip. “I’m a Protestant and…”

  “Good Lord,” said Barry.

  “Right.”

  “How could I forget? She’s Roman Catholic. Digs with the other foot.” Barry pursed his lips. “I know the old sectarian thing’s easing up. There have been cross-border talks between the Ulster and Republic of Ireland governments, but remember September ’64 and those nights of rioting on Divis Street? The undercurrents are still there.” And, he thought, once back from France, Sue would be getting on with her work for the Campaign for Social Justice, aimed at bettering the lot of Ulster’s Catholics. Things might be quiet between them today, but the Orange and the Green hadn’t buried the hatchet yet.

  Jack shook his head. “We’d be fools here in Ulster if she and I didn’t at least talk about it, but I’m sure we could get round it somehow. I know a couple of mixed-marriage folks from Cullybackey who went to Canada. Say it’s a great country. And remember the riots were on the Falls Road, not the Upper Malone where the swells live. Religion doesn’t matter to me, but then I’ve never bothered asking girls before about their religion.” His grin was wry. “Come to think of it, I’ve never bothered feeling like this before neither.”

  “I said ‘if,’ Jack. If that should happen, you’ll have a wife who understands completely what being a doctor is all about. And your religious differences? You will have to talk about them, even though there’s not quite the same degree of constraint as in our parents’ days.”

  “We’ll sort it out,” Jack said. “I hope.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Barry said.

  “We will, and you’re right on both counts. We will have to talk and I will have a wife who understands being a doctor, won’t I, hey?” Jack visibly brightened before taking refuge in a quiet, “If I propose.”

  They went into the passageway leading past the outpatient clinics on their right and the cafeteria on the left and on to the staircase up to the hospital’s main corridor. As they climbed, Jack put his hand on Barry’s arm and said, “Thanks for the advice, chum. I’ll do my best to take it.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta run now. Sir Donald Cromie gets a bit shirty if I’m late for his rounds.”

  Barry stood at the head of the stairs in the bustle of the main corridor and watched his friend hurry to wards 17 and 18, the orthopaedic units, before he, Barry, set off to find Doctor Nelson and get advice about Sonny Houston.

  13

  To Please Thee with My Answer

  “Come in, young Laverty.” Doctor Nelson spoke from behind his cluttered desk where untidy heaps of journal reprints jostled with in and out trays, an unsteady cairn of textbooks, and an antique single-barrelled brass microscope that needed a polishing. “Have a pew.” He indicated a comfortable chair. “Can I get you a cup of tea? Biscuits?”

  “No, thank you, sir.” Barry sat stiffly. Doctor Gerald Nelson, head of the department of haematology, offering him tea and biscuits? He almost laughed out loud. Barry remembered the man giving his lectures, always lightened with a joke or two. A man who could make a dry subject interesting yet still expected high levels of performance from his students. Even though Barry was now a physician in his own right, he was still a little in awe of the senior man, a hangover from student days when senior consulting staff of the teaching hospital had been regarded as godlike figures. “And thank you for seeing me at short notice.”

  The haematologist laughed. It was a full, deep-throated, comfortable laugh coming from a man with an open face under a full head of neatly cut auburn hair. “Why wouldn’t I? We’re colleagues, Doctor. And you have a patient who needs our care.” He sat forward in his chair and stretched out a hand, which Barry reflexively shook. “And the name’s Gerry, not sir.”

  Barry swallowed. If there was any symbol of being accepted as an equa
l it was permission to use someone’s Christian name. “Barry,” he said, and released the hand.

  “Good. That’s settled. Now, what can I do for you, Barry?”

  Barry felt himself relax and leant back into the chair. “I need advice … Gerry,” he said, and fished in his inside pocket to produce Sonny’s results. “My patient is a sixty-one-year-old man.” Barry summarised Sonny’s symptoms and physical findings. “I suspected pernicious anaemia with subacute combined degeneration of the cord, so I had these tests done.” He handed over the forms and waited.

  “I’d agree with your diagnosis,” Doctor Nelson said, “but we should confirm it with a bone-marrow biopsy to exclude any of the blood cancers and a histamine-stimulated gastric aspiration to confirm that lack of intrinsic factor is indeed at the root of the situation. The same gastric cells that produce it also produce hydrochloric acid and will do so in response to histamine stimulation. If HCl’s present in the aspirate, the patient doesn’t have pernicious anaemia. I’ll arrange to have him admitted if you like.”

  It was of course the answer Barry had anticipated, but he said, “Mister Houston is terrified of hospitals. That’s why I came to see you, Gerry.” It felt strange, but very satisfying for Barry to know he was accepted as a peer.

  Doctor Nelson frowned.

  Barry ploughed on. “I wanted to ask if we could perhaps keep him at home and confirm the diagnosis by doing a therapeutic trial instead of tests?”

  Doctor Nelson inclined his head. “A trial?”

  “Yes. If he has got PA then it should respond to injections of B12 pretty quickly, shouldn’t it?”

  The haematologist frowned, then nodded and smiled. “It should,” he said. “Of course, if his condition doesn’t improve…”

  Barry inhaled.

  “If you’re wrong and it’s a blood cancer … You said he’s sixty-one?”

  “Yes.”

  “The leukaemias tend to be slow to progress at that age, but you’d be risking delaying the diagnosis and treatment.” He steepled his fingers. “Willing to accept that on behalf of your patient?”