An Irish Country Courtship

  “Good luck to you, bird,” O’Reilly said, as it approached. Then from the corner of his eye, he noticed Bertie Bishop throwing his shotgun to his shoulder and starting to swing on the fleeing pheasant. He’d be aiming at Kitty in a second.

  O’Reilly yelled, “Shite,” and hurled himself at her, carrying her to the ground out of the line of fire and protecting her with his own body.

  Bertie’s shotgun roared, not once, but twice. The loads must have passed within inches of O’Reilly. He hoped to God that Arthur, who was returning with one of Myrna’s birds in his mouth, was all right.

  O’Reilly sat up, the smell of smokeless powder harsh in his nostrils. He was untouched. The cock had vanished. Bertie had missed the bird, and Arthur was sitting at O’Reilly’s side with a pheasant in his mouth. O’Reilly pushed himself off Kitty and stood. He was shaking. He gave her his hand and pulled her to her feet. “Are you all right, Kitty?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m fine, but what was all that about?” Clearly not understanding the gravity of the situation, she joked, “I’ve heard of a fellah sweeping a girl off her feet—but that was some sweep.” She dusted off her skirt with her hands.

  “Bertie was trying to hit a running bird. He could have shot you, by God. I didn’t have time to warn you, so when I saw him swing his gun I jumped and shoved us clear.”

  “Good thing too by the sound of it. Thank you.” She frowned. “But why on earth was he shooting so low?”

  “He’s hardly hit anything all morning. Being Bertie, he wanted a kill—at any price.” Fingal put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank Christ, he missed you.”

  She cocked her head and looked into his eyes. “He missed you too, Fingal, and you were between him and me.” She sucked in a deep breath. “You could have been shot.”

  “Och,” he said, “we’re both untouched.” O’Reilly’s trembling had stopped, but he’d not clenched his fist more tightly since his boxing days. Earlier this morning he’d wrung the neck of a wounded bird. Now O’Reilly struggled to control his urge to run across and strangle Bertie Bishop.

  “Doctor … Doctor.” O’Reilly looked round to see Bertie trotting over. He wasn’t carrying his gun. “Are you all right, Doctor?”

  O’Reilly ignored him and stooped to take the bird from Arthur’s mouth. The big dog had waited patiently at O’Reilly’s feet.

  Bertie arrived panting and wringing his hands as convincingly as Uriah Heep. His chubby cheeks were flushed. “Are you all right, Doctor? I’m dead sorry, so I am. Don’t know what come over me—”

  O’Reilly dropped the bird and spun on his heel. “We’re all ‘all right,’ Bertie—but only just,” O’Reilly said levelly, but he was thinking how in 1914 the British and the Germans had had a short-lived Christmas truce on the Western Front. Now in 1965, the festive suspension of hostilities, obtained at the Christmas pageant, the Rugby Club party, and Bertie’s open house, was definitely over too.

  Bertie, after all, was the man who built appallingly substandard housing, tried to use his position as a councillor to finagle old folks out of their properties, wanted to muck about with village landmarks—and all for profit. His profit. Now he was rooking Donal and his friends out of their hard-earned money. His own employees, for Christ sake. Donal had been worried about a photographer taking some innocent photos of his wife, Julie. Donal would murder Bertie Bishop if he ever found out the councillor had made passes at Julie when she worked as a live-in maid at the Bishops’ house.

  O’Reilly struggled to keep control. He put an arm round Kitty’s shoulder and felt her move closer. “We’re all right … but”—he leant closer to Bertie and spoke icily—“if you’d have put one pellet any nearer Miss O’Hallorhan. One bloody pellet …”—O’Reilly knew his voice was rising—“you’d have become the subject of an experiment to see how effective shotgun barrels are as a sigmoidoscope.”

  “Well, I only made a mistake—”

  “Well, you made a mistake? You made a mistake?” O’Reilly didn’t give a tinker’s damn if his roaring could be heard by the beaters in the wood. “It was your mother made the mistake not drowning you at birth, Bertie Bishop. I’m very fond of Kitty O’Hallorhan. Very fond. If you’d harmed—”

  “Thank you for that, Fingal,” Kitty said, pulling on his arm. “Thank you very much.”

  He looked into her face at her upturned lips, saw the sparkle in her grey, amber-flecked eyes, the smile crinkles at their corners. He felt his anger ebbing like the Strangford Lough tides he’d watch flowing off the mudflats on his days’ wildfowling.

  “Councillor Bishop has apologised,” she said.

  Bishop snatched off his Tyrolean hat. “Honest to God, Miss O’Hallorhan,” he said, “I’m mortified. I’m quare nor sorry, so I am.”

  “I’m sure you are,” she said. “Accidents do happen.”

  “You’re absolutely sure you’re all right, Kitty?” O’Reilly asked.

  “One hundred percent.”

  He turned back to the councillor. “Just make sure they don’t bloody well happen again, Bertie, because if they do, I’ll keep my promise.” Then, glancing at Kitty and back to Bishop, O’Reilly took a deep breath. He said in a voice that had almost returned to his ordinary conversational tones, “And we’ll let that be an end to it.” He’d be damned if Bertie Bishop was going to force any more temper loss in public.

  “We will, Doctor O’Reilly. We will. Thank you.”

  O’Reilly grunted and then said. “All right.” He was aware that the marquis had appeared.

  “You all right, Fingal? Kitty?” His voice was solicitous. “Mehaffy told me what happened.”

  “Fine, thank you, my lord,” Kitty said.

  “It wasn’t very good form shooting at a running bird, Councillor.”

  O’Reilly saw Bishop visibly shrink. “It’ll not happen again, sir.”

  “I’m sure it won’t,” the marquis said icily. “Quite sure. Now if you’re certain everyone is all right I’ll be heading up to the Big House, make sure everyone’s being looked after.” He turned his back on Bishop. “You and Kitty will be sitting at my table, Fingal.”

  “Delighted,” O’Reilly said. He noticed that the day had become much quieter. The only raised voices were those of dog handlers directing their animals to fallen birds. No guns were firing. The drive was over. The shooting party had already started on the fifteen-minute walk back to the stableyard and lunch, a prospect to which O’Reilly was looking forward enormously.

  Someone tugged at his sleeve.

  “Excuse me, Doctor sir.” It was Donal Donnelly, cap in his hands. “Morning, Councillor.”

  O’Reilly watched the play of emotions on Bertie Bishop’s face. Being civil to the councillor’s social inferior won over disdain for a man stupid enough to let himself be conned. “Good day to you, Donnelly.” Bertie turned to O’Reilly. “I’ll need to get my gun.” He walked away.

  O’Reilly congratulated himself for getting his temper under control. Quietly pursuing Bertie’s downfall in private would be a much more satisfying matter, particularly if it led to financial relief for Donal and his friends.

  “Bejizzis, Doctor, your man Bishop near shot you and the lady. I was beating over there fornenst thon birch.” He pointed. “When I seen him swing, I yelled, ‘Look out,’ but you mustn’t have heard.”

  “Thanks, Donal. We were lucky.”

  “Lucky my aunt Fanny Jane, sir. No harm to you, but I seen what you done to protect the lady.” O’Reilly heard the respect. He wanted to change the subject. As far as he was concerned he had done nothing more than circumstances had dictated. “Aye, well,” he said. “Did you get a word with Fergus?”

  “I spoke ’til him first thing, but he’s away at the other end of the beaters’ line now, you know. He asked me to ask you, can he see you in the stableyard after lunch?”

  “Ah,” said O’Reilly. “Lunch.” He picked up the pheasant and stuffed it in his gamebag. “Get your shooting stick, Kitty.” H
e turned to Donal. “Tell Fergus I’ll come looking for the pair of you.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Kitty stood at his side. He took her free hand. “Heel, Arthur. Come on, Kitty … Donal. Let’s see what kind of a spread His Lordship’s put on today.”

  19

  To Hear Him Crow

  So much for his plan to get to the Yacht Club after lunch, Barry thought, as he drove along the main road toward the council housing estate. When Kinky came upstairs, he’d assumed she was calling him for lunch, but it was to say that Elaine Kearney had phoned. Her four-year-old son, Kevin, was hot, having difficulty breathing, and making a rasping noise when he breathed in. Fever and respiratory symptoms in such a young child were not to be taken lightly.

  With the Volkswagen parked on one of the narrow streets of the estate, he grabbed his bag, and in a moment was knocking on a mud-coloured front door and noticing that it was badly in need of painting.

  The door swung open. A woman stood in the doorway. “Doctor Laverty? Thank God you’ve come.”

  “Mrs. Kearney?”

  “Aye. Come on in, please.” With a red, rough hand she beckoned to him. “And shut the door after ye.” She started down a poorly lit hallway and after two paces began to climb a narrow flight of stairs.

  Barry followed, trying not to gag at the smell of cabbage water and dirty nappies. He guessed Elaine was in her early twenties, but already the lank black hair peeping out from under her head scarf was greying. Under the scarf, her hair was wound around plastic curlers called spoolies.

  He heard a crowing noise coming from above and instantly recognized it as the stridor, the harsh breathing of croup. Some cases of measles might have this symptom too. Kiddies’ air passages were small, and any inflammation narrowed them further.

  He remembered the main causes of croup: acute laryngitis affecting only the voice box, acute laryngotracheobronchitis affecting the whole respiratory system, a foreign body stuck in the larynx, and diphtheria. Fortunately there was a vaccine for that now, but just before doing Mr. Coffin’s trachy, O’Reilly had mentioned seeing cases in his early days.

  “In here, please,” she said.

  Barry followed her into a bedroom. There was barely room for the bed, a wooden chair, and two adults. Patches of mildew stained the cheap wallpaper, but the windows had been recently washed. A small boy lay on the bed under a thin blanket. He looked at Barry from glittering, sunken blue eyes and struggled to draw breath. His nostrils flared, and again Barry heard the crowing, as the little air the boy could pull in struggled past his narrowed larynx. He coughed weakly.

  “This here’s Doctor Laverty, so it is, Kevin,” Mrs. Kearney said. “He’s going to make you all better.”

  Barry smiled at Kevin and then looked at his mother. “Can I get past you there, please, Mrs. Kearney?” He managed to wriggle closer to the head of the bed as she stood crushed against the wall.

  Barry sat on the bed, set his bag beside him, and took the boy’s wrist. “How are you, Kevin?” he asked.

  The child’s voice was raspy and hoarse. “I’m all cold and shivery, so I am.” He coughed. “My throat’s sore.” Tears and mucus from his nose trickled down his face.

  His skin was hot and clammy, his pulse racing, but his cheeks were red, not cyanosed; the blue of cyanosis would have indicated a severe oxygen lack.

  “We’ll have to see if we can put that right,” Barry said. He turned to Mrs. Kearney. “How long has Kevin been sick, Mammy?”

  “He’s had the wheezles for about four days. All the kiddies get them sooner or later, and they usually get over it.”

  So she thought the child had had bronchitis. Certainly most of the kiddies of this estate had regular attacks. The houses were damp, drafty, and poorly heated. They’d been put up at minimal expense by—and with maximum profit to—their builder, Councillor Bertie Bishop.

  “I had him in bed and I give him a paper, so I did,” Mrs. Kearney said.

  “A paper?” Barry could not visualise the boy reading the Times.

  “Aye. For his wee chest. It’s what my mammy did for us when we was little. You take mustard powder, wet it, mix it with honey, and spread it on brown paper, you know. Then you bind it to the chest.”

  Barry nodded. He’d seen patients treated with a mustard plaster before, but he’d never heard it called a paper. “I see,” he said.

  Kevin made another crouping noise.

  “I don’t think,” she said, “it done him much good, for the sickness went into his thrapple this morning, so I took off the paper and I sent for you there now, sir.”

  “You did the right thing. Once there’s infection in the voice box, the wee ones croup,” Barry said. He turned back to Kevin. “I’m going to examine you, all right?”

  The little boy nodded.

  “I’ll help you sit up.” Barry put an arm around the shoulders. He was reasonably sure the boy had acute laryngitis following acute bronchitis, but he wanted to be sure the lad had had his immunizations.

  “Has Kevin had his needles?” he asked.

  “Och, aye. The district nurse gives them.”

  Barry had met Colleen Brennan, the nurse who, like the district midwife Miss Hagerty, looked after patients in their own homes. Colleen was a tiger when it came to ensuring children’s inoculations were up to date. It was very unlikely that Kevin had diphtheria.

  Barry rummaged in his bag and fished out a wooden spatula. He took a pencil torch from his inside pocket. “Open wide,” he said to Kevin. Barry shone his torch into the mouth. “Stick out your tongue.” Kevin obeyed, and Barry, taking care not to put the spatula so far back the boy would gag, examined the cheeks opposite the boy’s molars. He was looking for tiny bluish-white dots known as Koplik’s spots. He’d missed a case of measles last July and wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Good. No spots.

  “Say aah.”

  The back of Kevin’s throat was red and inflamed, but as Barry had anticipated, there was no evidence of the filmy membrane of diphtheria.

  “Right,” Barry said. He removed the spatula, and Kevin hauled in air with a loud crowing.

  When he lifted the boy’s pyjama top, there was no rash and no evidence of the muscles between the ribs being drawn inward when Kevin inhaled. The characteristic rasping sounds were obvious when Barry put his stethoscope on the chest. “All done,” he said, helping Kevin to lie down and pulling the blanket up.

  “Kevin has inflammation of his Adam’s apple and bronchial tubes.” It was, as O’Reilly would say, hardly a diagnosis to challenge Sir William Osler.

  “Is that serious, Doctor?” Mrs. Kearney asked.

  “Not at the moment,” Barry said, “and it’s easy to treat. He’ll need antibiotics and nursing in a tent full of steam to loosen up all the mucus.”

  “Can you fix one up here and give him them pills, like?”

  “We could, but I’d rather not. It’s unlikely, but he could take a turn for the worse, need oxygen”—or even a tracheostomy, he thought—“and we’re not equipped for that here. He’d be better in the Children’s Hospital for a few days.”

  She stared at the little boy, then turned to Barry. “I don’t like them hospitals, so I don’t. I remember when I’d my tonsils out when I was four—”

  “I think they’re better now than they were then,” Barry said, deliberately interrupting her. He didn’t want her scaring Kevin any more than he already must be. “They’ll take care of him. They really will.”

  She tutted. “If you say so, sir.” Then she managed a weak smile. “You’re the doctor and all, so you are.”

  Barry cleared his throat and busied himself with his bag, his back turned to Mrs. Kearney so she’d not see his blushes. “Have you a telephone?”

  “No, sir. There’s one in the sweetie shop on the corner, just up the road.”

  “Fine,” Barry said. He turned back to Kevin. “I’m going to make a phone call, and you’re going for a ride to Belfast. You’ll be fit as a fl
ea in no time.”

  Kevin tried to say something, but another bout of crowing cut him off.

  “The ambulance men will let themselves in. If there’s one available in Belfast it’ll come straightaway, so they should be here in about half an hour.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Laverty,” Mrs. Kearney said. “I’m dead grateful, so I am.”

  “I’ll let myself out. You stay with Kevin.” Barry made his way down the narrow stairs, through the cramped, foetid hallway, and out into the fresh air again. Across the street a group of children were hanging onto ropes tied to the top of a lamppost. The kids were running around and around it. The game was as old as streetlamps, and the kids called it a Maypole. The twisting of the ropes around the pole shortened them until all the players were drawn inward. Then they reversed direction and ran around the other way. All this was accompanied by high-pitched squeals, shouts, and giggles.

  No roundabouts, no slides, no swings here.

  None of these children would be going on to university. The boys might find work in the shipyards, the girls in the linen mills as shifters and weavers, but Ulster’s shipbuilding and linen weaving were both dying industries.

  Further up the street Barry walked past two girls playing hopscotch, their pitch a series of squares drawn with chalk on the pavement. No grass, no trees, no flowers here. The sun barely penetrated the narrow streets.

  He wondered if Patricia had played hopscotch as a child in Newry. She’d not be facing an unsure future as a shifter in a linen mill. She was headed for the top, far further than being the wife of a country GP. But I’m not suited for country life. He should have seen that from day one, set his own sights higher, but damn it all, he’d thought he really liked it here.

  What was it like in Cambridge today? he wondered. Even if it was only January, it might be warm enough for Patricia and her new man to be out in a punt on the River Cam. Barry could picture him poling langorously along past the Backs, as the long lawns rolling down from the colleges to the river were called. Barry could imagine Patricia reclining in the boat, expounding her views on the place of women in the twentieth century. Cambridge, its ancient buildings, and nearby London, where perhaps he’d take her for dinner or to a show, were a far cry from Ballybucklebo and this slum.