An Irish Country Courtship

  He stepped onto the road to pass a girl, pigtails flying as she jumped over her skipping rope and chanted:

  One potato, two potato, three potato, four.

  Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.

  July, August, and half of September. That was all the time he’d had with Patricia, and those months had sped by. The empty weeks from the start of her term at Cambridge, with nothing but the occasional phone call and letter, hardly counted.

  Barry sighed. They were weeks that had dragged by, just as the four weeks had dragged by since she first said, “It’s over,” and now she had confirmed it in that last damn letter.

  O’Reilly was right. The work did occupy Barry’s mind, but once it was done and his mind unfettered, Patricia filled his thoughts.

  He reached the sweetshop. Barry pushed through the door. Its upper edge struck a small bell, and the jangling announced his arrival. Once inside he was surrounded by stacks of newspapers, magazines, comics, shelves full of bottles of unwrapped sweeties, racks of cigarettes, cans of tobacco, small tins of snuff. A distinct aroma of liquorice came from an open bottle of aniseed balls sitting on a glass countertop.

  From behind the counter, the proprietor, Bernard Cowan, who had a waxed moustache and a hernia controlled with a truss, smiled at Barry. “How’s about ye, Doctor Laverty?” His words were indistinct, probably, Barry thought, because the lump in Bernie’s cheek was an aniseed ball.

  “Have a sweetie?” He pointed at the bottle.

  “No, thanks, Mr. Cowan. But could I use your phone?”

  “Aye, certainly. Thonder it’s at.” He pointed to the far end of the counter to a stand receiver with a detachable earpiece on a bracket. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” Barry, feeling like a latter-day Alexander Graham Bell, held the earpiece and started to dial with his other hand.

  “Sending wee Kevin Kearney to hospital?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Och, sure, wasn’t his mammy only just in here ringing up to get yourself?”

  Barry smiled.

  The owner tapped his head with one finger. “Just a matter of using the oul’ loaf.”

  Barry spoke to the doctor on call at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, known to all as Sick Kids. The registrar said he’d make the necessary arrangements and send the ambulance. It saved Barry making another call.

  “Thanks,” Barry said to the shopkeeper, as he hung up.

  “Anytime, Doc. You reckon the wee lad’ll be all right?”

  “I shouldn’t discuss patients … but yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Sticking out a mile.” He pushed the bottle to Barry. “Go on. Spoil yourself, sir. Have a sweetie.”

  It would be churlish to refuse. “Thank you.” He nodded at the phone. “Can I leave you a shilling to pay for the call?”

  “Not at all. Sure it’d only be a couple of pennies. As long as the wee lad’s going to be mending.” Cowan shrugged.

  “Thanks,” said Barry, and sucking on a large boiled sweet, he walked back to his car. That was typical of this place—concern for your neighbours. There’d been no question about his using the phone, even though local calls cost money.

  Barry frowned. He was making too many phone calls to get help for patients he knew perfectly well how to treat, because he lacked the facilities. He gagged on saliva and the sweet syrup of the aniseed ball. For a moment he thought it was going to lodge in his gullet, but he managed to get it down.

  Having to refer so many interesting cases to specialists was becoming hard to swallow, too. Siobhan and her meningitis, Alice with her possible hepatic abscess, now little Kevin. Barry chucked his bag back into the car, hopped in, and headed for home. It was pleasant enough to bask in the customers’ thanks, as he had just now, and in Elaine’s childlike trust. “You’re the doctor.” And he enjoyed being a respected part of this tight-knit community. But was it enough? And if it wasn’t now, what would it be like when he got to be O’Reilly’s age?

  20

  I Wish He Would Explain His Explanation

  The mulligatawny soup they’d started lunch with had been delicious, just the thing to warm folks in from the field. O’Reilly stretched out his legs under the trestle table. His right calf felt stiff. Age, he told himself. Can’t be helped. He finished the last remnants of his portion of what had started as a spectacularly poached and glazed whole salmon. The fish had been garnished with dill and served cold. It was probably one the marquis had taken last season from the river Lennon in Donegal and had frozen.

  O’Reilly chewed happily, savouring the delicate flavour and surveying the wreckage of the feast. The table was strewn with bowls containing the scraps of beetroot-in-jelly salads, potato salads, aspic jelly, homemade mayonnaise, and sliced lemons.

  Butter dishes stood among plates of freshly baked wheaten bread, white loaf, and brown bread.

  In keeping with the teetotal nature of the guns’ day, they had been offered only tea or white or brown lemonade. But the spectators had done very well, starting with a Bollinger to accompany the melon and ham that had followed the soup, and a white Bordeaux with the fish.

  Donal was right. The marquis did put on a right tightener, although it was doubtful if the beaters would be dining quite as handsomely as the guests. Kinky would not be pleased by how much Fingal had eaten, but then he thought with guilty pleasure, Kinky’s not here, is she? He grinned, wiped his mouth on a linen napkin, rubbed his tummy, and hauled out his briar.

  As O’Reilly stood, Kitty looked up from where she sat opposite, between Myrna and Sean MacNeill.

  “Keep an eye on Arthur, please, Kitty. I’ve to see a man about a horse,” he said.

  “Of course,” she said and puckered at him.

  No questions asked. She hadn’t needed any explanation other than his mentioning earlier that this business was hush-hush. He felt so … so comfortable with her, and he liked that. He liked that very much.

  “Don’t leave her too long, Fingal,” Myrna said. “You never know who might come and carry Kitty off. She’s a very good-looking woman.”

  Sean and Kitty laughed.

  O’Reilly guffawed, but he realized if another man did become interested in Kitty O’Hallorhan, he, O’Reilly, would take very unkindly to it. Very unkindly indeed. He lit his pipe and strode across the cobbles of the courtyard in search of Fergus and Donal.

  The pair of them waved to him from where they were standing near the stables.

  Donal had a half-finished bottle of stout clutched in one hand. “’Bout ye, Doc,” he said.

  “Donal … Fergus.”

  “Doctor O’Reilly,” Fergus said and lifted his duncher.

  “Fergus, we’ve a bit of a difficulty. Donal here knows about it. Doctor Laverty thought maybe you could help us. And it’s hush-hush.”

  “I’m all ears, Doc.” Fergus grinned.

  O’Reilly noticed Fergus had hair sprouting in tufts from the insides of his bat ears.

  “And,” Fergus continued, “I’ve a mouth like a steel trap.”

  “Thank you,” O’Reilly said. Then he quickly told Fergus the story of how some friends of his had invested in a horse and how the controlling shareholder put up the cash for bets on the animal for everyone and was using the friends’ shares in the filly as collateral.

  Fergus squinted. “And if the horse doesn’t win, the controller takes a bit of the others’ shares and gets to own more of the horse. Isn’t that right, sir?”

  “How did you know, Fergus?” O’Reilly asked.

  “There’s no flies on Fergus when it comes to the ould gee-gees,” Donal remarked.

  Fergus grinned. “Sure, thon trick has whiskers on it. When I was an apprentice jockey, I heard tell of a crooked trainer pulling that one at Newmarket, over in England.”

  “Oh,” said O’Reilly. This was a damn good idea of Barry’s to talk to Fergus. “But the way I work it out, it’s costing the controller—”

  “Away off. No harm
’til ye, sir, but ‘controller’? You mean Councillor Bishop, don’t you? And the notion of him losing money?” Fergus shook his head rapidly. “Me arse.”

  “How in the name of the wee man do you know it’s Bertie, Fergus?” O’Reilly asked.

  “Flo’s Fancy? Sure everybody knows about that wee filly.” His face broke into a grin, and for such a small man his laughter was remarkably deep. Fergus cocked his head, narrowed his eyes, and looked at Donal. “The word’s out she’s owned by a syndicate of Bertie Bishop’s workers. The lads have eighty percent and he’s twenty percent, so he has.”

  O’Reilly said nothing.

  “Jesus,” Donal said, “the word’s out?”

  “Och, come on, Donal,” Fergus said. “You can’t expect the other seven lads to keep a thing like that to themselves.”

  And, thought O’Reilly, this being Ballybucklebo, what more does the jockey really need to say? O’Reilly was grateful he wasn’t going to have to pretend that the individual in trouble was Barry.

  “Sure haven’t you told Doctor O’Reilly?” Fergus continued.

  “Shite,” said Donal. He frowned, pursed his lips, then spat.

  “Take a daisy, Donal,” said Fergus.

  How that Ulsterism had come to mean “relax” was beyond O’Reilly.

  “Us jockeys and stable lads do know a bit, and from what I hear Doctor O’Reilly saying, Bertie Bishop’s trying to rook youse. Whose side do you think we’ll be on?”

  O’Reilly was delighted by the prospect of acquiring a team of insider allies. “Will you all help?” he asked.

  “Teetotally,” Fergus said.

  Donal’s frown fled.

  “Youse was trying to tell me that you think the councillor’s losing money trying to get control of the whole horse. How’s he losing? I don’t understand. Councillor Bishop’s so mean he’d wrestle a bear for a ha’penny. I mind one night in the Duck and it was his shout. Says he, ‘I’ve a heifer to buy tomorrow so I’ve a rubber band around my money tonight,’ and divil the bit would he pay. I don’t see that man deliberately losing a brass farthing.”

  O’Reilly glanced at Donal, who nodded. “He appears to be losing by betting,” said O’Reilly.

  “By betting? How?”

  O’Reilly continued. “Say he puts up money from his own pocket for ten bets and loses. That’s his own stake and the money he bet for the lads gone, but he gets part of their shares of the horse—”

  “But if it cost us say, eighty pounds, it still cost him a whole hundred because he used his own money for us and twenty pounds for himself, his twenty percent,” Donal added. “It’s daft, so it is.”

  O’Reilly could see the way Fergus’s brow wrinkled. “It is daft,” O’Reilly said. “Bertie Bishop might be a right bastard, but he’s no fool. I don’t understand. I’d need to think on it. We can’t let Bertie away with this just because he thinks he’s a highheejin and can fool a bunch of working lads.” He turned to Donal. “All the times she’s been out, the wee filly’s never won, isn’t that right?”

  “Aye.”

  “Never wins,” Fergus repeated. “I think I can guess why that is. None of us here knows her jockey. He’s from County Cork.”

  “I don’t understand,” O’Reilly said.

  “Owners can tell a crooked jockey to hold a horse back. We’d all know if Bertie tried to get at a local, but—”

  “A stranger? I see,” O’Reilly said. It was beginning to make some sense.

  Fergus stopped and the others followed suit. “It’s still crackers, so it is.” Fergus snorted down his nostrils just as His Lordship’s hunter had done this morning.

  “Thanks for trying to help, Fergus, but I think we’re bollixed,” Donal said sadly.

  “Hang about,” Fergus said. “I’m getting a feel for what he’s up to.”

  “God, I hope so,” said Donal. “Go on then. Spill it.”

  “Well, I think your man Bishop’s getting the jockey to slow the horse and fiddling the betting somehow.”

  “How?” O’Reilly asked.

  Fergus shook his head. “Dunno.”

  “Och, blether,” Donal muttered, but Fergus was not to be deterred.

  “I don’t know right now,” he said, “but I’ve a notion how to find out. Me and the rest of the lads’ll find out about the Cork jockey—see if he’s pulling the wee filly.”

  O’Reilly had a mental picture of the great detective mobilizing his Baker Street Irregulars.

  “And Donal, you know the bookie, Willy McArdle?”

  “I do, so I do. I work as a runner for him sometimes.”

  “Is he a sound man—for a bookie?”

  “Sound as a bell.”

  “Great. Ask him how he thinks Bertie’s finagling the betting. If anybody would know, it’d be Willy McArdle, so it would.”

  “You reckon?” Donal asked.

  “Damn right, I do.” Fergus turned to O’Reilly. “And then, Doctor O’Reilly, if all of us get the right answers, you and maybe Doctor Laverty could use them to have a go at Mr. Bishop and get Donal and the lads’ money back from the councillor?”

  O’Reilly laughed. The wheel had come full circle. Barry had suggested Fergus. Now Fergus was suggesting Barry. It would suit O’Reilly’s purpose ideally to have the young lad up to his neck in this kind of plotting. Just the thing to lift his mind off a broken heart. “Do you know, Fergus Finnegan,” he said, “you’re as smart as an egg’s full of meat.”

  “Run away on, Doctor.” But Fergus bobbed his head and smiled at the compliment.

  “And I know you’ll help us, sir,” Donal said.

  “Oh, indeed,” said O’Reilly. “Doctor Laverty’s onside. I promise, if you two get me the ammunition, I’ll let Bertie Bishop have it. And it’ll not be a couple of barrels from a twelve-bore he’ll meet. He’ll think he’s walked into a fifteen-inch broadside from my old Warspite.” He noticed his pipe had gone out, and he started to look for his matches. “Right, lads,” he said. “I’m off now to see to Miss O’Hallorhan and then get on with the afternoon drives.”

  * * *

  Kinky had drawn the curtains in the lounge. Barry had gone out into the darkness half an hour ago on an early evening call. O’Reilly sat by the fire cleaning his gun. He had spread a couple of pages of the County Down Spectator on the carpet. Arthur had been bathed and towelled, fed and watered, and was now in his kennel; Kinky was in her kitchen, where a brace of pheasant hung behind the door; and Kitty was in her room getting changed for dinner. O’Reilly was taking her to the Culloden, a refurbished bishop’s palace near Cultra.

  O’Reilly wrapped a rag around the knurled head of a long ramrod and shoved it through the left barrel. He lifted the gun and put his eye to the chamber. He smelt the burnt powder inside. The barrel needed a few more run-throughs with the rag. He was repeating the first step as Barry came into the lounge. “Evening, Barry. How’d it go? Interesting case I should know about?”

  Barry shook his head as he headed for an armchair, shoving Lady Macbeth out of it before sitting. “An eejit with a toothache he’d had all week, who didn’t want to disturb his dentist on a Saturday, but thought a doctor was fair game seeing, and I quote: ‘Youse is always on call, so youse are.’ I sent him up to the dental emergency room in the Royal.”

  “Where he’ll wait for hours,” O’Reilly said. “Rule number one in action?”

  “It’s what you told me my first day here: Never let the patients get the upper hand.”

  “You’re learning,” O’Reilly said and chuckled.

  “How was your day, Fingal?”

  “Wonderful. And you were right to suggest talking to Fergus. He’s full of ideas.” O’Reilly looked up the barrel again. It was clean now. He started on the right one.

  “Great,” Barry said. “I’d like to be able to help Donal.”

  “Me too,” O’Reilly said. He rapidly outlined the state of play with Fergus and Donal, the possibility that the jockey was pulling the horse, the hint Be
rtie was finagling the betting. “And when we get the facts, I want you to back me up like you did the last time.”

  “Of course.”

  “We need to put one over on Bertie, and not only because the little bugger bloody nearly shot Kitty and me today.”

  “Good Lord. How?”

  O’Reilly continued cleaning as he explained to Barry exactly what had happened.

  “It’s a good thing he didn’t hit anyone, Fingal. With you out of action they’d have sent for me, and I know nothing about treating gunshot wounds.”

  “I do, son. Only too well,” O’Reilly said, thinking of his sick bay during the war. “I’m glad I don’t have to treat those injuries anymore. I’m happy enough looking after coughs and colds, and the weary, walking wounded.”

  “Does it never get boring for you?”

  O’Reilly put his gun back into its case. “Boring? I suppose it does sometimes. I’d be pretty surprised if that’s not the case with every job, but I think there’s enough interest—human interest—to keep me on my toes, and once in a while we do get something out of the ordinary.”

  “I just did.”

  “Oh?” O’Reilly closed the lid.

  “Alice Moloney. I think she may have an amoebic abscess of her liver.”

  O’Reilly whistled. “What gives you that notion?” He listened carefully as Barry explained his reasons. “Begod,” he said, when Barry finished. “You might just be right. I saw one rupture on Warspite. Chief petty officer. He’d been on the China station twenty—no, twenty-one—years previously. We’d better get her looked at.”

  “Who’d you suggest?”

  “Sir Donald Cromie. He’ll soon sort her out.”

  “I’ll see to it on Monday.”

  “Good lad. That was some pretty fine reasoning, Barry. I’m proud of you.”

  Barry smiled.

  “Makes my point too, I think. Once in a while something medically very interesting does come along.”