“Thank you, Kinky,” he said. “That is indeed helpful.” Although how, he wasn’t quite sure. Not yet. “I think,” he said, “that’s a day I’ll ask you to hold the fort here, Kinky. Barry and I will be going to Downpatrick.”
“It would be no bother, sir,” she said, then left with a tray of dirty plates.
“You’ll come too, Kitty?”
“I’m not sure if I’ll be free,” she said.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to arrange it,” he said, and without waiting for an answer O’Reilly got stuck in. The sponge cake melted in his mouth, and the hot caramel sauce was sweetly delicious.
“I’m curious,” Kitty said. “It’s not by any chance to do with the same horse you had to talk to a man about at the marquis’ pheasant shoot, is it?”
“None other than,” O’Reilly said. He knew Donal didn’t want to appear foolish in front of the citizens of Ballybucklebo, but Barry already knew, and Kitty was … Kitty was practically family. “Bertie’s running a swindle with a racehorse,” he said. “He’s bamboozling Donal and a bunch of his friends. You’ll keep what I’m going to tell you to yourself, Kitty?”
“Of course.”
O’Reilly took another huge bite of pudding then quickly outlined how by betting with the syndicate’s shares—and losing, Bertie Bishop was on the verge of owning the animal outright, and quite likely to be in a position soon to make a lot of money from the filly. By O’Reilly’s calculation, knowing how many times the horse had run and lost, Donal and his friends now owned no more than the last ten pounds each of their original investment of a hundred pounds apiece.
“The race at Downpatrick is critical,” he said. “And I’m stuck for an answer. Kinky’s family knows the jockey. He’s a Corkman. He may be pulling the horse to stop it winning, but we’ve no way of proving it.”
“You’re not going to let Bishop beat you, Fingal?” Kitty asked.
“Bloody right we’re not, are we, Barry?”
Barry shrugged. “I’d love to help … I’ll certainly come with you to Downpatrick.”
“Good lad.” Clearly Barry couldn’t resist being involved. O’Reilly smiled. “Donal’s our great white hope. He’s got a local bookie, Willy McArdle, asking around. We think Bertie’s not betting at all. If we can confirm that, Barry, you and I will be having a word in the councillor’s delicate, shell-like ear. We might even head him off before the races—but I’d not mind a day out anyway.”
The phone rang in the hall.
“Fair enough,” Barry said. “Any idea when we might hear from Donal?”
O’Reilly shook his head. “Soon, I hope.” He finished his dessert.
Kinky came in. “I’m sorry, Doctor Laverty,” she said, “but it’s a patient for you.”
“Excuse me.” Barry rose and followed her into the hall.
“Poor old Barry,” Kitty said. “You’ve had him hard at it since you did for your back.”
“I know.” He leant over and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, Kitty, but as soon as I’m better I will have to make up my share of being on call.”
“I understand.”
“I was hoping that now you’re back from the south I’d be able to see more of you. A lot more.” He looked into her eyes. “The day Bertie nearly shot you I told him I was very fond of you. I am. Very.” He took her hand in both of his.
“I know you are, Fingal,” she said levelly, “but it’s been seven months.”
“And you’ve been very patient.”
“I did say I’d wait, but—”
O’Reilly felt a chill. He’d not seen this coming. The toffee pudding’s aftertaste was sour. “But?” he asked. Tell her you do love her, you eejit, he told himself, but the words wouldn’t come.
“I had a good chance to think in Tallaght.”
“And?”
“Fingal, I’m not one for ultimatums. I was daft about you when we were students. I am again now. I don’t think I ever stopped.”
O’Reilly’s heart sang. Tell her. Go on. “Kitty, I—” Still he couldn’t bring himself to spit it out. The silence hung—and hung.
“Can’t quite say it out loud. I know.” She stood and patted his shoulder. “I think what we both need is a break. Time to think hard about where we’re going.” Her voice was matter-of-fact.
O’Reilly took a deep breath, looked up into her eyes, and said, “If that’s what you want.” Tell her you fool. You’re going to lose her. She just said she’s daft about you, but it’s quite possible to be daft about someone and still know that it won’t work. Perhaps she wants out and is trying to break it off gently? Or does she want more? Does she expect me to propose or—? O’Reilly stood. He enveloped her in a huge hug, kissed her hard, and felt her respond. Then he stood back. Her eyes sparkled. He was breathless. “Kitty, I …” Damn it, he wanted her now, and he’d sensed her need. Perhaps if—to hell with convention—if he made love to her, but with Kinky in the house … He stepped back. “Do we really have to take this break?” he asked. He waited for his breathing to slow.
She managed a small smile. “I don’t have much choice,” she said. “I’m being taken to London on Monday for ten days.”
“Taken?” He stiffened. “Who by?”
“Mr. Roulston.”
“Roulston? He’s the new neurosurgeon?” In Ireland, surgeons took as their title “Mister” rather than “Doctor.”
“John Roulston. That’s right,” she said.
O’Reilly had heard of the man’s appointment in November of last year. Roulston had come from a London teaching hospital. “I believe he’s very good.”
“He is. He’s introducing several new procedures and wants me to go with him on a course so I’ll be prepared to supervise the postoperative nursing.”
“I’m sure you will be,” O’Reilly said. He rose and put his napkin on the table. “I hear tell he’s about my age. Divorced.” An edge had crept into his voice that he couldn’t hold back.
“Yes. Yes, he is.” She looked straight at him. “Fingal, I’m going on a professional course, not a dirty long weekend.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that.” But it could turn out that way. Two professionals. Professional respect. Mutual attraction. A couple of after-class drinks. She was already thinking of him as John. A hotel room. It didn’t bear thinking about. He shivered. “I understand,” he said, although in truth he didn’t want to. He only knew that inside he was chilled. He moved closer and hugged her. She didn’t rebuff him. He held her at arm’s length. “You go on your course. I’ll get on with the practice here. Just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
He swallowed. “That I can take you for dinner—today’s the tenth—on Friday the twenty-sixth. That’s a bit more than two weeks from now and a couple of days after you get back.”
“Yes, you can, Fingal,” she said. “I’ll look forward to it.” And she kissed him.
33
Dreamless, Uninvaded Sleep
“Pass the bloody milk,” O’Reilly said.
Barry did as he’d been asked or, he thought, more like ordered. It must be the enforced idleness that’d been making Fingal so grumpy for the last couple of days.
O’Reilly munched a slice of toast and marmalade. “I’ll take the surgery this morning,” he said. “My back’s well enough for me to park my arse in a chair and listen to the customers’ complaints.” He sounded gruff. “And I’ll take call this weekend. I want you to have tomorrow and Sunday off. You’ve worked hard all bloody week.”
“Are you sure, Fingal?” Barry asked. “I thought that as Kitty has just come back from visiting her mother in the south, you’d want—”
“Of course I’m bloody well sure.”
“If you say so.” Perhaps a taste of his own medicine—being kept busy—might cheer Fingal up. “It’ll do you a power of good to get back into harness.” And make him more pleasant to live with.
O’Reilly grunted.
Barry shrugged. As he
buttered a slice of toast, he heard the phone ringing in the hall. He looked expectantly at the door. It opened and Kinky came in.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Laverty,” she said. “The waiting room’s packed, but that was Joseph Devine. He says he can’t get Sheilah to wake up.”
“You’ll have to go round straightaway, Barry,” O’Reilly said, “but she’s probably gone, poor old thing.”
“Right.” Barry rose.
“Don’t worry about the waiting room being full, Kinky. I’m doing the surgery,” O’Reilly said and then stiffly stood.
She tutted. “Doctor O’Reilly dear, you should be resting.”
“That, Mrs. Kincaid, is for me to decide.”
Barry heard the finality in O’Reilly’s voice. The tip of the big man’s nose was pallid, a sure sign he was angry. Barry looked at Kinky and raised his eyes to the heavens. He headed for the door.
He heard Kinky say calmly, “Indeed it is, sir,” and by the clinking of crockery Barry knew she was clearing the table—and setting the plates on the tray with that bit of extra force.
O’Reilly was calling to him. “You’ll likely need a death certificate. They’re in the top left-hand drawer of my desk. And hurry up in there. I want to get started.”
“Thanks.” Barry crossed the hall into the surgery. He rummaged around in the drawer among referral forms, sick lines, prescription pads, and a paperback copy of The Old Man and the Sea until he found what he was looking for. It was his statutory responsibility, if a patient had been under his care, to certify the date, place, and cause of death. The undertaker could not proceed with his duties until the form had been lodged with the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages and the necessary paperwork issued. Signing a death certificate was not one of Barry’s favourite jobs, although when he’d been a houseman they’d all been happy to sign one of the two doctors’ forms required before a cremation could go ahead. That paid a good two guineas, known to the less reverent as ash cash.
As he headed for the front door, he heard roaring coming from the direction of the waiting room. “Will you move it, Ian Kilpatrick? I haven’t got all bleeding day.”
Clearly Fingal was in the kind of mood he usually reserved for obstructive admissions clerks, slovenly nursing-home receptionists, Doctor Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick—and Councillor Bertie Bishop. Barry was glad to be going out.
He parked outside the Devines’ low brick wall. It surrounded a neatly clipped lawn bordered by narrow, empty flower beds. Come summer, those borders would, he knew, be a riot of nasturtiums, pretty much the only flowers that could grow in such salty soil.
Across the wind-ruffled lough he watched cloud shadows swooping over the dappled faces of the Antrim Hills. The Knockagh obelisk on their crest was spotlighted by a single sunbeam. Gulls screamed overhead as Barry walked along a short path to the pebble-dashed bungalow.
Joseph Devine answered the front door. He was wearing an old woollen dressing gown, striped pyjamas, and his slippers. “Come in, Doctor Laverty.”
“Thank you, Mr. Devine.” Barry noticed the man was unshaven, his eyes were bloodshot, and his stoop seemed more pronounced.
“Sheilah was all right, if you could call it that, when we went to bed, but she won’t wake up. She’s in there,” Joseph said, indicating a room to the left. “I’ll wait in the hall.”
Barry went into a small bedroom. There was a distinct odour that he had learnt from the more experienced nurses was always in a room immediately after a death.
Old embossed wallpaper had been painted over with a light-blue wash. A photograph of an antiquated twin-engined biplane bomber and its crew hung opposite where Mrs. Sheilah Devine lay on her back on the nearest side of a double bed with a maroon eiderdown pulled up to her chin.
The wrinkles were gone from the left side of her face. Her eyes were wide, staring at the ceiling. Her mouth hung open. He noticed that there was no movement of the bedclothes over her chest.
“Mrs. Devine?” Barry said, not expecting any answer. “Mrs. Devine?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and felt for her carotid pulse. There was none and her skin was clammy. He bent his head and put his ear close to her mouth. He did not hear nor feel her breathing. Barry straightened, took a pencil torch from an inside pocket, and shone the beam into each eye in turn. Neither dilated pupil reacted. The ebony-coloured discs, each with an encircling narrow white arcus senilis, stared fixedly into eternity. Barry used his right thumb and index finger to pull the upper lids down. He knew he should take out his stethoscope and listen for a heartbeat, but somehow he felt it would be sacrilegious to disturb her last sleep. He stood, head bowed, and unbidden the words from his childhood formed on his lips: “Our Father, which art in Heaven …”
Barry didn’t pull up the sheet to cover Sheilah Devine’s face. Instead he smoothed the place where he had been sitting and went back into the hall. “I’m sorry, Mr. Devine,” he said. “She won’t have suffered.”
“It’s all right, Doctor Laverty,” the old man said, and Barry heard the trembling in his voice. “It’s all right. Sheilah’s at her rest now.” His tears unheeded ran trickling through the grey stubble on his cheeks.
Barry put a hand on the man’s shoulder and felt the bony prominences beneath his palm. “Would you like to go and sit with her for a while, Joseph?” he asked quietly.
“Thank you, Doctor. I would.”
As he shuffled into the bedroom, Barry went through to the lounge. Sheilah’s wheelchair sat empty. The blanket on the seat was neatly folded. The last time he’d been here he’d not noticed the upright piano against the far wall. He read the title of the sheet music on the rack, “In the Sweet Bye and Bye,” and he wondered who had played the instrument and if they’d sung together. The Lord only knew when that song had been all the rage. Probably near the turn of the century when they’d been very young.
Barry walked to the mantelpiece, pulled the book of certificates from his pocket, used the mahogany shelf as a desk, and started filling in one buff form. By rights, Mr. Devine or a member of the family should take it to the registrar over in Newtownards. But Barry didn’t know if the Devines had any relatives living in the village, and Joseph was frail and in no condition to go.
As Barry walked back along the hall, he could hear soft singing. The bedroom door was ajar, and not wishing to intrude, Barry lingered in the hall and peeped in.
Joseph Devine sat on the bed holding his wife’s hand. He sang in a gentle tenor:
… in the sweet bye and bye,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.
Then he bent and kissed his wife’s forehead. “We will, pet,” he whispered. “We will.”
Barry waited until Joseph stood up before slipping into the room, coughing and asking, “Can I do anything for you, Mr. Devine?”
“No, thank you, Doctor Laverty. You’ve been most kind.” He took a hanky from his dressing-gown pocket, dried his eyes, and blew his nose.
“I’ll fill in the certificate so there’ll be no need for a postmortem,” Barry said. It seemed so … so coldly clinical to be talking about it at that moment, but Barry knew how country folks hated the idea of a loved one being cut open. “I just need to know Sheilah’s date of birth and marriage.”
Joseph gave the information, and Barry completed the form. “I’m on my way to Newtownards anyway this morning”—it was not entirely true, but it was only eight miles away—“so I’ll pop in and give the papers to the registrar.”
“I’d be greatly obliged.”
“Joseph, I hesitate to ask, but will Mr. Coffin be looking after the … arrangements?”
He nodded.
“He’s quite recovered from his accident at Councillor Bishop’s on Boxing Day,” Barry said. “His place is on the way back. Would you like me to drop in, give him the paperwork, and have him get in touch?”
“Would you?”
“Of course.” Barry turned to leave, but then asked, “Can I do anything else for you
?”
Mr. Devine shook his head. “We’ve got very good neighbours,” he said softly.
Barry felt humbled by the remark. He was no stranger to how this community pulled together in the face of any disturbance. As soon as the word was out, Mr. Devine would not be able to eat all the food that would be prepared for him. Nor, unless he asked for privacy, would he be left on his own for long.
“It’s time I got myself shaved and dressed,” he said. “Then I’ll have to make phone calls. We have a grown daughter in Vancouver—”
“I don’t think she’ll be up yet,” Barry said. “There’s an eight-hour time difference.”
“I should have remembered. Sometimes these days … sometimes I get forgetful.”
And I can’t cure that either, Barry thought.
“We’ve a son in Enniskillen. I’ll have to phone him. And I suppose I’d better let my friends in the Masons and my old comrades at the British Legion know.”
Many Ulstermen belonged to the Masons, a fraternal order, Barry remembered, which had counted Rudyard Kipling among its adherents. The British Legion, with branches all over the United Kingdom, was a wonderful organisation for ex-servicemen. Joseph Devine must have served in the forces during the First World War. In the Royal Flying Corps, if that photo of the Vickers Vimy bomber was anything to go by.
“Perhaps,” Barry said, “you might like to put an announcement in the County Down Spectator?”
“I will. And in the Belfast Telegraph. When Mr. Coffin’s been and we know the date of the funeral.” He sniffed. “I’ll have to have a word with Mr. Robinson too. Sheilah will want him to give the service. She’ll like that.”
Barry noted how Joseph was referring to his wife in the future tense. Poor man. Barry felt helpless to offer any comfort. “If you’re sure there’s nothing more I can do, I’d best be running along,” he said.
“Please go, Doctor. I’ll be all right. It’s just going to take a bit of getting used to, that’s all.”
When Barry reached his car, he turned back to see Mr. Devine standing, watching from the doorway. His eyes glistened, and a sunbeam was reflected from the fresh tears on his cheeks.