An Irish Country Love Story

  She tutted and said, “Sorry it’s a bit loose. Lenny’s going til fix it—one day.” She shook her head. “He just keeps forgetting, that’s all. It’s not just the overtime. He’s working two jobs now. He wants to put some aside—for Colin, for his education,” she said. “Mister Bishop’ll be giving money when Colin goes to Queen’s, but there’s bound to be extras.”

  O’Reilly could hear the pride in her voice. Colin Brown was a typical twelve-year-old boy. He loved his dog and his white mouse, Snowball. And he was mad about soccer and aeroplanes and ice cream and playing practical jokes and getting into mischief. And good God, he thought. At his age he might even be getting interested in girls. But, with Sue Nolan’s help, he was also a diligent and highly intelligent pupil.

  His mother opened a door to a small bedroom.

  The plaid curtains were closed and it was dim in the room. Only a single sixty-watt bulb surrounded by an elderly pink tasseled light hung from the ceiling, and flanking it were balsa and doped-paper models of a Spitfire, a Lancaster bomber, and an SE5a World War I biplane, all suspended by threads. A poster for the Disney hit Lady and the Tramp was tacked to the wall beside a small single bed.

  An aquarium, empty save for a layer of sand at the bottom, on which were arranged stones and logs, sat on a small table close to the bed. Lord alone knew what was or had been in there. In a cage beside it, Snowball the white mouse sat up and whiffled his whiskers. Animal mad, that was Colin Brown.

  He lay curled up in the middle of the bed. He sniffled and then sneezed.

  Kitty went to one side of the bed and stood there.

  “Mrs. O’Reilly’s a nurse, Colin. She’s come to help me.” O’Reilly hitched his own backside onto the edge of the bed. “Getting worse, is it, son?”

  “Aye.” Colin rolled onto his back. “I’m dead sick now, so I am. I thought I was okay this morning, but now I feel all hot,” Colin said. “And the light’s hurting my eyes worser and my head’s sore.” He coughed, a dry, sharp hack.

  “We’ll have to see about making you better,” O’Reilly said. He rummaged in his bag. “Here, let’s pop this under your tongue.” Photophobia and headache could be due to meningitis, inflammation of the membranes that surrounded the brain, or a brain tumour, but were more likely to be associated with one of the fevers of childhood. O’Reilly took Colin’s pulse. It was one hundred and his skin was hot to the touch.

  “You said he started feeling off-colour yesterday, Mammy?”

  “Aye. I thought it was just a cold, but I kept him out of school.”

  Colin might be sick, but it didn’t prevent him saying, “That was wheeker ’cause school’s no good if that wee corker Miss Nolan’s not there. She makes the lessons great craic too.”

  O’Reilly secretly had to agree with Colin. Sue was an extremely attractive young woman and he had no doubt that she made learning fun.

  “Once I gave him the aspirin, he seemed to get a wee bit better so I let him come til the shops.”

  Which was a pity. How many people had Colin come into contact with? Many infections were known as “notifiable,” which meant the Department of Health would have to be. More bloody paperwork, an aspect of his work he detested. But it couldn’t be helped. He’d fill out the forms after lunch.

  O’Reilly removed the thermometer. “Hundred and one,” he said. “Bit high.” He moved up the bed. “I’m going to have a look at you, Colin, so can you sit up?”

  “I’ll help you,” Kitty said.

  Once Kitty had Colin settled, O’Reilly put a hand behind the boy’s head and gently pushed forward until the boy’s chin touched his chest. “That hurt?”

  “No, Doctor.”

  Good. That and the fact that the great muscles at the back of the neck had not tightened up was conclusive evidence that there was no meningeal irritation.

  O’Reilly took out an opthalmoscope. “Have to look in your eyes. Can you stare at…” He turned to the poster. “Tramp’s nose and try not to blink?”

  “Aye, certainly.”

  He looked at Kitty. “And Mrs. O’Reilly will help by holding your head still.”

  O’Reilly, knowing that the instrument’s brighter light would be uncomfortable, managed to examine both eyes quickly. “Good,” he said. “Normal.” He’d been looking for papilloedema, distortion and swelling of the optic nerve, a sure sign that intracranial pressure was increased, a finding associated with brain tumours. In its absence he was pretty sure Colin had one of the fevers of childhood. Which one? Most were characterised by rashes, and certainly there wasn’t one on Colin’s face. “Can we take off your pajama jacket, please?”

  Kitty unbuttoned his faded red-and-white-striped pyjamas. In a household like the Browns’, clothes had to be made to last. No rash. Too early probably. It took minutes to listen with the stethoscope. The boy’s lungs were clear. Most fevers could be complicated by secondary infections like pneumonia. Not this one. He fished in his inside jacket pocket and produced a pencil torch. His bag yielded a wooden tongue depressor. “Open wide, please, and stick out your tongue.” As Colin did, O’Reilly used the spatula to push Colin’s cheek away from his back teeth. There, plain to see, were tiny bluish-white dots studding an inflamed and reddened mucous membrane. O’Reilly removed the speculum. Koplik’s spots, named for the American doctor who described them in 1896, meant one thing only. Colin Brown had measles in the early or catarrhal stage, which would last for the rest of today, tomorrow, and the day after, when the typical morbilliform rash would start to appear.

  O’Reilly helped Colin button up his jacket. “You, young man,” O’Reilly said, “have the red measles. Rubeola, if you want to know the scientific name.” And I, he thought, I am going to have new curtains. He deliberately avoided catching Kitty’s eye.

  “Rub-e-ola,” Colin sounded out slowly. “Like ruby, right? Meaning red? So does that mean I’ll live forever?”

  Kitty frowned.

  O’Reilly sang the first lines of an old playground song,

  Wallflower, wallflower growing up so high,

  He’s got the measles. He’ll never, never die.

  He chuckled. “Probably not, but, Mummy, your Colin’s going to get a rash soon. It’ll start on his ears and forehead. Wee red points that get bigger and run into each other making shapes like half-moons and blotches—”

  “I don’t mean til interrupt, sir, but we’ve all seen kiddies with the measles.” Connie rubbed her brow and looked at her son. For the first time, O’Reilly noticed the circles under Connie Brown’s eyes. She looked weary.

  “You’re quite right, Connie,” he said gently. “We’ve all seen measles or had them. The rash will last for about four days, then fade. About that time his temperature will be normal again.”

  “And do I get to stay off school?”

  “Good question,” O’Reilly said. “And the answer is, yes. For ten days after the rash is gone.”

  Despite his illness, Colin Brown grinned and grinned.

  “Can I go outside?”

  “If the weather’s good. We’ll tell you when. Why?”

  “I told you, me and Murphy was going to look for Jasper the day. I want to be the one to find him and solve the mystery.”

  “You’re going nowhere today, young Sherlock. I know you’re worried about Jasper, but the search will have to wait for later, Colin. Get some rest, and you’ll have to take some medicine.”

  “Yeugh.”

  “Connie,” O’Reilly said, “I’ll write you a scrip for penicillin V. I want Colin to take one tablet every six hours for a week starting when the rash appears, but I or one of the other doctors will be in to see him when it does. Let Kinky know.”

  “And will the penicillin cure the measles? Mean he won’t be off school so long.”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s a precaution.” And he saw no reason to worry Connie by telling her that secondary bacterial infection could cause pneumonia, middle ear infection, and ulcers of the cornea that could lead to b
lindness.

  “I’m very glad it’s just one of them children’s diseases. Not serious, like,” she said, smoothing the hair from Colin’s forehead. “Poor little mite.”

  O’Reilly nodded, but in his opinion the sooner every child was immunised in infancy the better. A measles jag had been available since 1963, one for mumps would be introduced later this year, and work was advancing on rubella prevention. They would protect each individual from three diseases, any of which could have serious complications, and it would protect the other kids too.

  “Right,” he said, “we’ll be off.”

  The empty aquarium must have caught Kitty’s eye. “Colin,” she said, “what did you keep in there?”

  Colin smiled sleepily. “Great crested newts. They’re still in there, hibernating under the rocks. My daddy took me to the lead mines at Conlig last summer and we caught them in a wee pond.”

  “Mmmm,” said O’Reilly, “any idea…” But he cut himself off short. There’d be plenty of time to ask Colin what he wanted to be when he grew up. The lad was drowsy, not well. “I’ll see you soon,” O’Reilly said.

  Connie bade them farewell at the doorstep and he held open the door of the Rover and shut it behind Kitty. Together inside they both spoke at once.

  “Kinky says Miss Moloney’s got some lovely teal blue—”

  “Have you had the measles, Kitty?”

  “Yes.”

  “So have I. Which makes us both unsusceptible contacts, so we don’t have to be quarantined. And I, dear Mrs. Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, am going to take the woman I love for lunch at the Culloden—”

  She laughed. “Lunch at the Culloden! You old reprobate, you’re welshing on the bet. You’ll try anything to get out of buying new curtains.”

  He pulled away from the kerb. “Nonsense. I’ve been planning this little treat since this morning. Long before I was hoodwinked into agreeing to your bet. And, as I was going to say before I was interrupted, after lunch we’ll visit Miss Moloney.”

  “Lunch and new curtains all on the same day. You are a pet.” Kitty leant over and pecked his cheek.

  “I know,” said O’Reilly with a smug grin, “but don’t you tell anybody. I have a reputation to uphold. Now, Culloden,” he accelerated, “here we come.”

  15

  That Will Batter the Gateway

  “Did you enjoy your lunch, Kitty?”

  “I think,” she said, “that, after Kinky of course, the Culloden does the best steak and kidney pie in Ulster. Thank you. A girl could get used to being spoiled.”

  That is, of course, the object of the exercise, he thought, but said, “My pleasure.” O’Reilly, replete himself following a plate of beer-battered halibut and chips, listened to the rain bouncing off the Rover’s roof as the old car neared the corner at Number One Main on the Bangor to Belfast Road. “I’ve not forgotten we’re going to Miss Moloney’s, but I want to pop in home first, pick up a pair of boots that need resoling so I can drop them off at the cobblers.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Then home for a leisurely afternoon. There’s a rugby game on the telly. Ireland are playing Australia in Dublin.” As he braked he indicated and turned left onto the lane leading to his garage behind his house and the gate to his back garden.

  Looking back, Kitty said, “Fingal, there’s a lorry’s coming down the road at a ferocious tilt.”

  O’Reilly stopped the car beside the gate. “Sit you here, girl, and keep dry. I’ll just be a tick,” and, ignoring the downpour, he got out to head for the house to get his boots. He heard the sudden explosive hiss of air brakes, turned, and looked back up the road. Begob, Kitty was right. The lorry in question was taking the downhill, nearly ninety-degree, right-hand bend where his house faced the Presbyterian church.

  It was a dangerous corner, and for years the council had been threatening halfheartedly to straighten it, but to do so they’d have to expropriate either the church or Number One Main. The Presbyterians had objected with sanctified fervour. Their churchyard with its two-hundred-year-old occupants would have to be disturbed, and the bureaucrats would take away O’Reilly’s house over his dead body.

  The lorry was going too fast—much too fast—and in this rain the road would be slick. A quick glance reassured him that there were no other vehicles coming this way. The big, articulated vehicle was swaying from side to side. Tyres squealed. Black rubber skid marks appeared on the asphalt. The lorry was halfway into the turn.

  “Go on,” O’Reilly begged. “Get round the bloody corner. Please.”

  But the cab missed the crown of the bend and, shuddering and clattering, mounted the footpath.

  “Bugger it,” O’Reilly yelled as the front wheels destroyed the rosebushes into which he had chucked the hapless Seamus Galvin the day Barry had come to be interviewed in 1964. The cab, to the accompaniment of tearing metal and splintering glass, smashed through the dining room window. The vehicle came to a stop with the bonnet, steam jetting from its radiator, and the front of the cab right through the front wall of Number One Main Street.

  O’Reilly ran round the lorry, climbed up on the step, and wrenched the driver’s door open.

  A man wearing a duncher and dungarees was sitting rigidly, arms braced as his hands clutched the steering wheel. His eyes stared straight ahead, he was trembling all over, and kept repeating, “Oh shite, oh shite, oh shite.”

  At least he was conscious and did not appear to be in pain, so it was unlikely that any bones were broken. And as far as O’Reilly could see, the man was not bleeding.

  Kitty appeared at O’Reilly’s shoulder. “Is he okay?”

  “Seems to be,” he said as he took the man’s pulse. “Nip inside and call nine-nine-nine. Then go into the dining room and make sure nobody was hurt in the house. I’ll see what I can do here, and when you come back bring some hot sweet tea.” It was useful in shock cases, and with a pulse rate of 110 per minute and the pulse itself feeble the man definitely was in shock.

  “Right,” she said, and headed off.

  O’Reilly said, “Can you hear me? I’m a doctor.”

  The driver said, “I can, sir.”

  “Have you hurt yourself?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m just all shook up, so I am.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sid. Sid Coulter. From Lisburn.”

  A few more questions told him that the man knew where he was and what day it was. Probably no head injury either. “I think,” O’Reilly said, “that apart from banjaxing your lorry you’ve got away with it. We’ll know for certain when the ambulance gets here.”

  Barry appeared. “Fingal, what the hell happened? From the kitchen it felt like an earthquake.”

  “Lorry skidded,” O’Reilly said.

  “Is the driver okay?”

  “Seems to be. Is anybody else in there?”

  “No. It’s Saturday. Nonie’s off and Kinky doesn’t usually come in at weekends.”

  “Good. Now go on back into the house. You’re getting soaked. There’s nothing you can do here and you’re on call. Kitty’s phoning nine-nine-nine.”

  “I passed her in the hall.”

  Kitty appeared. “I’ve rung for the emergency services. They’re on their way.”

  “’Bout time. The traffic’s starting to pile up.”

  “And here.” She handed him a steaming mug. “Hot tea, lots of sugar. Barry was making himself a cuppa.”

  “Thanks.” O’Reilly handed the mug to the driver. “Get that into you.” He heard a rapidly approaching nee-naw, nee-naw.

  “Good. Now go on, the pair of you, in out of the rain. There’s not much to do here until the police arrive. Kitty, phone Bertie Bishop, would you? Ask him to come round if he can. We’re going to need his help to plug that ruddy great hole in our dining room once the lorry’s hauled out.”

  * * *

  O’Reilly, together with Kitty and Bertie Bishop, stood in the dining room doorway surveying the damage. Bar
ry had been called out to a case of croup up in the housing estate. The ambulance men had fitted Sid Coulter with a protective neck brace before carrying him to the ambulance, where O’Reilly had made sure the lorry driver had not sustained any serious injuries.

  Constable Mulligan and two officers in a police car from Holywood had between them taken the details of the accident and directed traffic until a tow truck had arrived and dragged the battered lorry away. The fire brigade had stood by until the firemen were satisfied there was no risk of fire.

  “What a mess,” Kitty said. She gave O’Reilly a sympathetic look as if to say, I know I wanted to get rid of them, but … “New curtains are the least of our worries now,” she said. O’Reilly flashed her a grateful smile.

  “Right,” said Bertie. “The first thing is to get onto your insurers. Get permission to protect the house from further spoilage. Have them send an assessor round too.”

  “The policy’s in my desk. Top right-hand drawer,” O’Reilly said. “Kitty, could you get it and phone?”

  “At once.” She went into the surgery.

  “Boys-a-boys,” Bertie said. “You’re lucky nobody was in here sitting with their back to the window.”

  The lorry had shoved one of the dining room chairs underneath the table. Between it and the jagged hole in the outside wall, broken pieces of window frame were jumbled up with pieces of glass, plaster, laths, and bricks.

  “Leave it til me, Doctor.” Bertie strode into the room, followed by O’Reilly. They picked their way past the debris to the broken wall. Bertie examined the place where the window had stood. “Right,” he said. “Once we get permission, a wooden frame and canvas’ll do the trick. Keep the rain out until Monday. Then I’ll get a crew with a skip straight round. Clean out the rubbish.”

  “I’d be grateful, Bertie.” O’Reilly could vaguely hear Kitty on the hall phone.

  “Och, sure, isn’t it what I do, Doctor? Meantime, you’ll need til follow up with your insurance people and have them talk to the lorry driver’s insurers. It’ll cost a penny or two to rebuild, so it will.”