An Irish Country Courtship

  “And there’s something else I’ve not forgotten, Barry.” He chewed a mouthful of toad in the hole. “Delicious. When I get the rest of this into me, we’re going to pay Colin Brown a visit and I’ll tell you what happened in 1956.”

  37

  The Schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

  “We’ll walk,” said O’Reilly, and with a resonant bang he closed the door to Number 1. “You remember where the Browns live?”

  “Down Station Road. Thatched cottage next door to the tobacconist’s.” Barry was looking forward to this. If Fingal wanted to preserve an air of mystery about the ringworm affair, so be it. Barry was happy to play along.

  The gales and downpours of earlier in the month had given Ballybucklebo’s face a good scrubbing. The road was litter-free and the air salty clean, but Barry had no doubt that after a few more weekly cattle markets the place would again be wearing its familiar attar of cow manure.

  “Afternoon, Doctors,” Freddy Patton yelled from across the road. “It’ll be great to get the wee ones home tomorrow. Brave day today, so it is.”

  Barry waved back.

  “Afternoon, Freddy.” O’Reilly’s quarterdeck roar soared over the traffic noise. Barry reckoned it probably let mariners far out in Belfast Lough know they were within two miles of the County Down shore.

  Freddy was right. It was a lovely afternoon for the middle of February. Patches of blue played hide-and-go-seek between masses of cumulonimbus. The onshore breeze barely stirred the rehung sign of the Black Swan. Ahead of Barry, a hen pigeon fled along the gutter. She was trying to avoid the amorous intentions of a cock that strutted jerkily after her, his enamel-blue and green head iridescent in a beam of sunshine.

  As they waited at the traffic light, Barry watched two women go into the Ballybucklebo Boutique. Sally must be justifying Alice Moloney’s faith in her ability to run things. He’d seen Sally in follow-up last week. For the moment she was pimple-free, possibly as a result of the chocolate-free diet he’d suggested last month.

  From across Station Road a voice called, “Yoo-hoo, Doctors.”

  Barry saw Sonny and Maggie Houston hurrying across from the direction of the dress shop. Maggie wore an ankle-length, dark-blue overcoat, Wellington boots, and her old straw boater. A wilted red rose drooped from the hatband. When the couple arrived hand in hand, Barry was pleased to see that Sonny’s cheeks were not blue, nor was he short of breath. His heart failure was still under control. “Good day,” he said and touched the brim of his Paddy hat. Maggie grinned. She was wearing her dentures today.

  “How are you both?” O’Reilly asked.

  “Fit as fleas,” Maggie said, “and never mind us, how’s about Miss Moloney? I reckon she should be well mended by now.”

  “She is, Maggie,” Barry said. “She’ll be coming home next Wednesday.”

  “Do you think,” Maggie asked, “she will need us still for to look after her pets?”

  “Why not pop round on Wednesday afternoon, see to them, and ask her?” O’Reilly said. “My guess is she’ll be a bit peely-wally yet and will be glad of the help—and the company.”

  “We will,” said Sonny. “I shall miss Felix when we finish. He is a very well mannered animal.”

  If Barry was interpreting correctly the look Sonny gave Maggie, the implication was that Maggie’s battle-scarred cat, General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, was not.

  The criticism clearly ran off her like water off a duck’s back. “Felix may be nice,” she said, “but that bird, Billy, the bloody biting bastún of a budgerigar, should get a dose of fowl pest.” She held up a finger and showed Barry an Elastoplast dressing.

  I warned you, Barry thought. Moving to safer ground, he said, “I like your rose, Maggie.”

  She smiled up at Sonny, who smiled back at her. “He’s a sentimental oul’ goat, my Sonny.”

  Barry heard the fiercely protective “my” and once again envied them.

  “He brings me a red rose every Monday.”

  “I hate to tell you, Maggie,” O’Reilly said, “but that rose’s a bit—”

  “Elderly?”

  He nodded.

  “Of course it is. It’s last week’s.” She put a hand to her hat brim. “Waste not, want not, and sure the only thing in flower so far this month is speedwell. Our snowdrops are up, but won’t be blooming until next week. When they are, that’s a dead-sure sign spring’s on the way, so it is.”

  “And if you’ll excuse us, Sonny, Maggie, we’d best be on our way too. We’ve a patient to visit, and the light’s going to change again,” O’Reilly said. “Good to see you both.”

  Sonny lifted his hat. “Good afternoon.” He turned away, and still holding hands, they walked along Main Street.

  “There are, it seems,” O’Reilly said, as if to himself, “advantages to the married state—at least for some folks.”

  And advantages to the closeness of the community in a place like this, Barry thought. Ballybucklebo was much smaller than Ballymena. If he went there as a trainee specialist, he’d not be wrapped up in the day-to-day life of the place the way he was here.

  He had to lengthen his stride to catch up with O’Reilly, who was already knocking on the door of the Browns’ cottage.

  “Now, Barry,” O’Reilly said, “if I’m right and this is a rehash of my previous experience in 1956, I’m going to need your support.”

  “Certainly.”

  Colin answered the door. He was clutching a half-eaten slice of bread that was liberally smeared with strawberry jam. A lump of red stuff clung to the corner of his mouth. “Hello, Doctor O’Reilly,” he said indistinctly, through a mouthful. He tried to hide the slice behind his back. “My mammy’s out at the shops doing her messages, so she is.”

  Barry had never understood why in Ulster errands were called “messages.”

  “She said I could make myself this here piece,” the boy said, using the Ulsterism for bread and whatever it was spread with.

  Barry very much doubted the truth of Colin’s statement but decided to let it be.

  “It’s you we came to see, Colin,” O’Reilly said. “May we come in?”

  “Aye, certainly.” Colin took another huge mouthful.

  Barry followed along a narrow hall, where a bicycle was propped against one wall. They went into a small kitchen. Clothes were spread to dry on two collapsible clotheshorses. There was a faint aroma of detergent. Dishes were drying in a rack on a shelf beside the sink.

  “Will youse sit down, please?” Colin asked, indicating plain wooden chairs at a pine kitchen table.

  Mischievous Colin might be, Barry thought, but he’d been taught manners.

  “My mammy would make youse a cup of tea, so she would, but I don’t know how to, like. I’m not allowed to boil water, you know.”

  “That’s a good thing,” O’Reilly said, parking himself.

  “Finish up your piece,” Barry said, “and wash your face.” Colin grinned, gobbled down the last morsel, and washed his mouth at the kitchen sink.

  “We’d not want Colin’s mammy to see him smeared with jam, would we, Doctor O’Reilly?” Barry hated to see kids getting into trouble, and pinching a slice of bread and jam was hardly a felony.

  O’Reilly said, “Doctor Laverty’s right, son, not when we’ve come here to see about your head. How is it anyway?”

  “A bit itchy yet,” Colin said, “and that ointment stings.”

  “Can’t be helped,” O’Reilly said. “We’ve got to get you better and back to school.”

  Colin sighed.

  “Doctor Laverty, will you have a look, please?”

  Barry bent and peered at Colin’s scalp. “The patch is much smaller. It’s on the mend.”

  “Good,” said O’Reilly.

  “Colin, have you a pet mouse?” Barry asked.

  Colin sighed again. “I had. I had him two years. I called him Morris. He was a great wee thing, so he was. He could climb wee stepladders and all.”

  “Had?”
Barry asked.

  “Aye,” said Colin. “He was very old. About a week ago I went to give him his brekky …” Colin shrugged, swallowed, then smiled. “We give him a super funeral in the flower bed, so we did. My daddy’s a carpenter, you know. He made Morris a wee coffin and everything.”

  “Did you not feel sad?” Barry asked, torn between sympathy for the child and a feeling of relief that the probable source of the outbreak was no more.

  “Och, I did for a day or two, but my daddy and mammy’s for getting me a tortoise.”

  The resilience of childhood in the face of loss, Barry thought. Would that it had persisted for me—and for Joseph Devine.

  “Something to look forward to,” said O’Reilly.

  “Aye,” said Colin. “I’m going to call him Adolf Kilroy, like the one in The Perishers.”

  Barry could picture the tortoise in the Daily Mirror comic strip. He had a Hitler moustache, and dark German script appeared in his speech balloons. “Did you ever see it, Dr. O’Reilly? That tortoise was shaped like a World War Two German helmet.”

  O’Reilly nodded. “It’s very funny,” he said. “An old English sheepdog called Boot; his master, a little boy called Wellington; your tortoise with a carapace like a German helmet …” He chuckled, then said, “Colin, talking of headgear, did your mammy do like Doctor Laverty asked?”

  “And boil my cap? Aye.” Colin, who had been smiling at the conversation about the comic strip, lost his grin.

  “Could I see it?”

  Colin’s eyes narrowed. “What for?” he asked. “My mammy boiled it, so she did.”

  “I’d just like to see it,” O’Reilly said.

  “Doctor Laverty said the mushroom thingys was too wee to see.”

  “They are,” said O’Reilly.

  “Then why do you want to look at my cap?”

  Barry was surprised by the resistance.

  “Colin,” O’Reilly said, and Barry heard the steel in his voice.

  “Och, all right.” Colin left.

  “Now,” said O’Reilly. “Just follow my lead.”

  “Here y’are.” Colin handed O’Reilly the school cap. “But she did boil it. Honest to God.”

  O’Reilly turned it inside out and peered at the lining. His frown was so deep his eyebrows met. “Hmm,” he grunted.

  Barry’s bafflement grew, and it grew further when O’Reilly whipped out a magnifying glass. Lord, Barry thought, he just needs a deerstalker and meerschaum pipe, and—Barry smiled—I suppose that would cast me as Doctor Watson.

  “Aha,” O’Reilly said. “Ah-ha.” Barry stole a glance at Colin. The boy’s eyes were wide, his mouth hung open.

  “Doctor Laverty.” O’Reilly handed the cap and glass to Barry. “Take a look at that.”

  Barry accepted the cap and peered through the lens. All he could see was an enlarged section of cap lining.

  “So,” said O’Reilly sternly to Colin, “your mammy boiled your cap?”

  “She did.”

  “But Colin, it’s crawling with ringworm. Isn’t that right, Doctor Laverty?”

  Barry gave the cap back to Fingal. “Oh, indeed,” Barry lied. You’d need special preparation and a microscope to see the fungus. What the hell was Fingal up to?

  “She boiled it.” Colin’s voice cracked. He was near to tears.

  O’Reilly leant forward so his face was close to Colin’s. “Did you know that doctors have to keep secrets, Colin?”

  “What about?” Barry heard Colin’s note of enquiry.

  “Anything a patient tells them.”

  “That’s right,” Barry said.

  “You mean, like, if I told you something, you’d not have to tell my mammy, nor Mrs. Redmond?”

  “Not a word,” said O’Reilly. “Not … a … dicky bird.”

  Barry watched Colin frown, purse his lips, breathe out through his nose.

  “How much a rub, Colin?” O’Reilly asked softly. “How much?”

  How much a what? Barry wondered.

  “You’ll not tell nobody?” Colin sounded urgent. “Promise?”

  O’Reilly crossed his heart. Barry nodded.

  “Sixpence,” Colin whispered.

  “Sixpence?” O’Reilly said and looked at Barry. “Inflation’s a terrible thing. In 1956 it was tuppence. How many boys?”

  “Ten.”

  “That’s five shillings. About five weeks’ pocket money?”

  Colin nodded.

  Barry was still at a loss.

  “Honest to God, you’ll not tell?” Colin begged.

  “We’ll not,” said O’Reilly, “provided you tell us the names of all the boys you sold to.”

  “And they’ll not get into trouble?”

  Barry had to admire the little lad’s sense of honour.

  “Not at all,” said O’Reilly. “We just want your cap—and theirs.”

  “All right. It was Hubert—”

  “Before you tell us any more,” O’Reilly interrupted, “have I got this right? Your mammy boiled your cap. When it was dry, you wore it again on purpose?”

  And reinfected it, Barry thought. Griseofulvin and the ointment would not have killed the fungus in one day.

  Colin nodded.

  “Then you saw some of the boys and told them you could get them out of school for two weeks—for sixpence each?”

  Barry remembered Hubert Flynn asking if they’d have to stay at home, and giving Art a thumbs-up as if there’d been some plan. Now he understood.

  “And they came over and you rubbed them with this?” He held up the cap.

  Colin nodded. “And I told them that only my cap worked. So there’d be no competition, like. None of the ten of them selling rubs, maybe even cheaper. When their mammies boiled their caps, they’d not know to do what I done with mine.”

  Barry couldn’t completely stifle his grin. This little devil should sign on as an apprentice to Donal Donnelly—or perhaps Colin could give Donal a few pointers.

  “Doctor Laverty, how many patients have you seen?”

  “Ten, plus Colin,” Barry said.

  “In that case,” said O’Reilly, “we’ll not need their names. If Colin only made ten sales and they can’t pass the disease along, the outbreak’s contained. Can you phone Mrs. Redmond and let her know we think it’s all done?”

  “Of course.” Typical Fingal. Solving a problem and letting Barry get the thanks.

  “Least said, soonest mended about the other lads, don’t you think?” O’Reilly asked and cocked his head. “Professional confidentiality?”

  Understanding the wisdom of what O’Reilly was saying, Barry was relieved that he’d not be under any obligation to tell the principal the names of the culprits. Having seen her in action, he was sure retribution would have been fair but swift. He might tell Sue Nolan in confidence if he saw her again. Not the names, but how the mini-epidemic had been spread. She’d certainly get a laugh. He spoke to Colin. “Doctor O’Reilly promised you nobody would get into trouble, so we’ll be saying nothing about you or the other boys. Just telling Mrs. Redmond there’ll be no more trouble with ringworm.”

  A very humble-sounding Colin said, “Thank you, sir.”

  “I thought, Doctor Laverty, that we were going to have to collect up all their caps too—and burn them. But I’m pretty sure you’ve treated everybody, and none of the others, thanks to Colin, will be in the fungus retail trade.”

  “I wish I’d suggested burning yours when I saw you first, Colin,” Barry said.

  Colin looked at his feet and scuffed one toe on the rug.

  O’Reilly said, “You didn’t have the advantage of having been down this road before in 1956 when the perpetrator of an identical scheme did very nicely. He is, by the way, known to you, Doctor Laverty.”

  Barry was not surprised that Fingal had been able to mine his seemingly inexhaustible lode of experience to understand what was going on now. He was curious about the 1956 fungus seller. “Who was it, Doctor O’Reilly?”
br />   O’Reilly nodded at Colin, shook his head, and said, “I’ll tell you later.”

  Barry heard the front door opening. Mrs. Brown, carrying a laden wicker shopping-basket, came into the kitchen. She stopped dead. “Is everything all right?” She moved to Colin.

  “Indeed it is,” said O’Reilly. “Colin’s been a hero. He’s helped us solve the riddle of the ringworm outbreak.”

  Barry saw a look of adoration cross Colin’s face as he stared at O’Reilly.

  “Has he? That’s great. I was talking there now to Hubert Flynn’s mammy. She’ll be dead pleased, so she will.”

  “Good,” said O’Reilly, fixing Colin with his gaze. “And Colin’s promised me that from now on he’ll always do his homework before he goes out to play. Every last bit,” O’Reilly said.

  Colin’s worshipful look turned to a scowl. Barry realised that although it might appear O’Reilly had let the boy off lightly, there’d been a sting in the tail. Colin’s mother would hold him to the promise the doctor had invented, and the boy might just learn the lesson that crime did not pay.

  Even though the patient was a small boy, O’Reilly was in complete compliance with his own first law of general practice: Never let the customers get the upper hand.

  “Now,” said O’Reilly, pulling out a ten-shilling note. “We’ll have to take his cap for more tests.”

  What tests? Barry wondered.

  “Fortunately,” O’Reilly said, handing Mrs. Brown the money, “there’s a public health fund that reimburses parents, so buy him a nice new cap.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said. “That one was getting a bit wee for him, anyway.”

  “Come on, Doctor Laverty,” O’Reilly said. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

  Once on the street, and before Barry could ask who the fungus salesman had been in 1956, O’Reilly, holding the cap by the peak between his finger and thumb, said, “When we get home this is going on the fire. We’ll have our own little bonfire of the vanities.”

  “Our what?”

  “Bonfire of the vanities. It’s an old Italian custom of burning objects like mirrors and cosmetics that might lead one’s feet from the path of righteousness and into sin. The most famous one was in Florence on February seventh, 1497.”