An Irish Country Courtship

  “I was proud of you.”

  He heard the breadth of her Dublin accent where “I” was “Oi” and “proud” was “perowud.” He was glad it was dark inside the car because he could feel warmth in his cheeks and he didn’t want her to notice. “Did you ever see a TV program, Tales of Wells Fargo?” he asked. “I enjoyed it when the hero, Jim Hardie, would shrug and say, ‘Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’”

  “And being complimented would give you heartburn, wouldn’t it, Fingal?” She let the back of her hand touch his thigh. A small familiar gesture.

  Her nearness was pleasant. Very pleasant.

  “Mr. Coffin owes you his life. I know it—and you know it.”

  “Sure if I’d not been there young Barry would have coped.” O’Reilly wriggled in his seat.

  “Do you think so?” Kitty crossed to the Grosvenor Road and drove steadily. The traffic was light.

  “I know so. I’m lucky I’m going to have him as a partner.”

  “And he’s a nice man.” He heard her taking a deeper breath before asking, “Will he stay with you, do you think?”

  “By God, I hope so.”

  Kitty sounded thoughtful. “You overheard what Patricia told me?”

  “I did.” And he could understand how smashed Barry had felt. O’Reilly had only to close his eyes to recall, word for word, how Admiral Cunningham had broken the news to a young Surgeon-Lieutenant O’Reilly of his new wife’s death, and his numb, disbelieving shock. “Poor Barry … but he’s young yet.”

  “You think he’ll get over it?” She indicated to turn left. “We’ll take a short cut through the grounds of the Royal Victoria Hospital.”

  That was typical of Kitty O’Hallorhan. He’d given her a golden opportunity to remark that he, Fingal O’Reilly, had had long enough to get over his wife’s death. Instead she’d changed the subject.

  He watched as she drove past the almost completely empty parking lots and familiar, red brick buildings of the venerable teaching hospital. Could Kitty be right to hint that a brokenhearted Barry might decide to leave Ballybucklebo?

  She parked outside Broadway Towers, the subsidized housing for nurses from the Royal Group of hospitals. “Here we are. Come on in.”

  He held open the front door and felt the rush of heat from the small foyer. O’Reilly immediately helped Kitty out of her coat and took off his own. “Bloody hot,” he said.

  Kitty pushed the lift’s call button. “I’m on the tenth floor.”

  “Here we are,” she said again, when the lift had carried them up. She opened a door and flicked on a light. “Chez O’Hallorhan. Give me your coat, then go on into the living room. I need to powder my nose.” She vanished through a door to the left.

  O’Reilly, fumbling in his pocket for his pipe, wandered down a short hall. The room ahead was partially illuminated by the light from the entrance. He could half make out a couple of oil paintings and assumed Kitty was the artist. He remembered how she’d been painting back in the thirties.

  The curtains were open at the far end of the room, and he walked over to stand by the window. From high over the city he saw the heart of Belfast, a sea of shining brightness from the streetlights, store lights, and their reflections from snow-covered rooftops. Church spires and the bulk of the Albert Clock stood darkly above the other buildings, their outlines limned by the glow.

  In the centre of the glare the dark serpent of the River Lagan wound its way out to the wider blackness of Belfast Lough, whose margins wore a twinkling necklace of the lights of towns and villages along both shores. Somewhere on the lough’s right side was the glow from Ballybucklebo. On the horizon the lighthouses at Black Head and Mew Island sent questing, ghosts’ fingers over the navigation lights of a ship heading to the Port of Belfast.

  “It’s a pretty sight, isn’t it?” Kitty’s voice was low.

  He hadn’t heard her coming up behind him. “It is.”

  “I often sit here at night with the lights off and the curtains open, just staring out. It’s a great cure for those days when the ward’s gone daft, half my staff are off sick, a patient you’ve grown fond of dies—”

  “And ‘The world is too much with us.’”

  “Exactly. Well put, Fingal.”

  “Willie Wordsworth said it first.”

  “Look at that,” she said, pointing to where a plane drew green, white, and red lines of light across the dark night as it made its descent into Aldergrove Airport.

  He watched, but his thoughts were of this Kitty O’Hallorhan, the girl he’d loved when he was a student, the woman who had resurfaced in his life this August and who he’d been seeing regularly since.

  Kitty, who’d been in love with him before he’d married Deidre, had said that she could care for him again. If he’d let her, she’d give him a second chance; she’d wait for him to decide, but she’d not wait forever.

  “Penny for them, Fingal?” Kitty moved closer.

  O’Reilly swallowed. Tell her how you feel, you great eejit, he thought. “Kitty, I …” O’Reilly turned, saw her face in the glow of the city lights. He put a hand on each of her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. It was too dim to make out the amber flecks in their grey. “That is …”

  He dropped his arms from her shoulders and fumbled for his pipe. Filling it always allowed him time to marshal his thoughts when dealing with a patient.

  If you don’t tell her now, you never will. Get on with it.

  O’Reilly let the briar fall back into his pocket.

  “Kitty, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to something you said.”

  She inclined her head to one side; one eyebrow rose, but she did not speak.

  O’Reilly swallowed again, cleared his throat. “You told me you could care for me again if I’d let you.”

  Her eyebrow rose higher, but she offered not one word of encouragement.

  He glanced at her lips, but there was no beginnings of a smile. Was she going to tell him he’d kept her waiting too long? O’Reilly felt as if he were sixteen, trying to pluck up the courage to ask the captain of the girl’s hockey team to go with him to the rugby club dance. No. It was more like being fifteen, standing on the edge of the ten-metre board at the swimming baths. Once you jumped there was no turning back.

  “Kitty, I could fall in love with you all over again.” His palms were sweating.

  She was smiling now with her lips and her eyes.

  “Will you let me try?”

  She reached up and kissed his lips softly.

  O’Reilly tingled.

  “I will, Fingal.”

  “Bless you.”

  “And I understand about Deidre. I always have done.”

  O’Reilly held Kitty in a gentle hug. Poor Deidre, married to him for six months, then snuffed out by a German bomb in 1941 when the Luftwaffe blitzed Belfast. Part of him had died then too. “Thank you.”

  She moved back a pace. “No. Thank you, Fingal. I know how hard it’s been for you to let go of her memory. I’ll try to make it worthwhile, I promise.”

  O’Reilly, although he felt at home here with her, realized he was trembling.

  Kitty touched his hand. “I’m glad you came up here, glad you’ve finally started to open up, Fingal. I know it’s not easy.”

  Her touch, her words, warmed him. “I have to tell you …” He struggled to find the right sentences, but could only manage, “Kitty … thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” To his relief she did not press him about what he had been trying to say.

  He looked down at her upturned face and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned her head to the side to hold it between her cheek and shoulder. “It’s not too many men my age get a second chance,” he said, and he felt the pressure increase as she moved her head against his hand. She put her arms around his waist and held her face up to be kissed.

  O’Reilly lowered his lips to hers, feeling them warm and open, the tip of her tongue on his. He tingled
and the memories flooded back. He broke the kiss and held her tightly to him, her head on his chest.

  O’Reilly saw himself at Belfast’s Ravenhill rugby grounds in 1935, kissing a twenty-three-year-old Kitty when Ireland beat Wales by a score of 9 to 3. The pair of them whirling like dervishes under star-speckled skies, on the soft grass at a summer céili in the Wicklow Mountains outside Dublin.

  The old slumbering feelings stirred, roused themselves, blinked sleep from their bleary eyes. He was holding her hand, walking Kitty to the nurses home after a student dance. He …

  He was kissing Deidre on their honeymoon night in 1940. He could taste her, smell her perfume, feel her soft warmth, hear her laughter.

  O’Reilly moved away. Coughed. Swallowed. Cleared his throat. “Kitty … I …” He was in the admiral’s day cabin of HMS Warspite refusing compassionate leave. Where the hell would he go to? And he realized that then, and now, work had been an anodyne of sorts. It had occupied his mind.

  She looked up at him. “I understand, Fingal. It’s all right. Honestly.”

  O’Reilly felt close to tears. Whether it was because his memory of Deidre had been so vivid or because Kitty’s willingness to understand had touched a nerve deep within him, he could not say. Kitty’d certainly aroused feelings that he’d been able to keep at bay for twenty-odd years. He thought he’d be better on his own for a while. He took a very deep breath and said softly, “Kitty, I do have to go now. I’ll get Donal to see to your car, and I’ll phone you tomorrow. I know Barry and I will be busy once the holidays are—”

  “I’ve time to make up myself, remember? Jane Bingham’s working my shift for me today. And I’m on duty on Sunday, I’ll do her work on Monday, and Tuesday’s my own turn again.”

  Was she hinting that perhaps she didn’t want to see him after all? O’Reilly frowned. Damn it all, he bloody well wasn’t going to let her slip away. Not now. “How about the weekend? I’ll give Barry time off.”

  “I think he’ll appreciate it. Be kind to him, Fingal, when you get home.”

  “I will. If he lets me. Barry’s a very private young man.”

  “He’s going to need a friend.”

  O’Reilly nodded. “I’ll do what I can, but I want him to get away this weekend. Why don’t you come down to Number 1 on Saturday or Sunday?”

  She hesitated. “I’m going to a painting workshop.”

  “Bugger,” he said, and because he knew his usual strategy for getting his own way by simply overriding objections wasn’t going to work, he lapsed into silence.

  Her laugh was musical. He felt her hand take his. “Fingal, you look like a little boy who has lost his mummy in Woolworth’s.”

  O’Reilly harrumphed.

  “I’ll postpone the workshop. I’d love to come down.”

  He grabbed her in a great bear hug. “Bloody marvellous,” he roared, “and I’ll give Kinky a couple of days off too. If you don’t mind cooking?”

  “Not a bit. I enjoy it—but how will Kinky take to another woman in her kitchen?”

  “She’s a heart of corn, that woman. She’ll not mind one bit.”

  “Fine.” She kissed him again. “Now, Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, get your coat, home with you, never mind tomorrow, and phone me tonight to let me know you’re safe. I’ll be down at the weekend and—”

  He kissed her.

  “Drive carefully, do you hear?”

  O’Reilly stared into her laughing, amber eyes flecked with grey and said, “I will because, Kitty, I do want to see you again.”

  “And you will, Fingal.” Her voice was soft. “You will.” One more kiss. “And don’t forget to phone me when you get home.”

  5

  I’m More Than a Little Sick

  Barry heard the phone ringing below. The last thing he wanted was to go to work, but he took a deep breath, got out of his chair, and left the lounge. He yelled down from the landing, “It’s all right, Kinky. I’ll take it,” and started downstairs.

  Barry caught a glimpse of Mrs. Kincaid retreating to her kitchen. What she was doing in there at seven o’clock at night was a mystery. She’d come home half an hour ago. He guessed that other people at the party must have overheard Patricia’s outburst, and if Cissie had found out, it would have been the first thing she would have said to Kinky, followed swiftly by a point-blank question about how things were back at Number 1. Kinky would have said nothing, but still the rumour mill would be at work.

  Kinky, sensitive woman that she was, had not come upstairs since her return, and for that Barry was grateful.

  He picked up the phone. “Doctor Laverty.”

  “Doctor? It’s Gerry Shanks. Sorry to bother you, but can you come quick?” Barry heard the fear, the edge in the man’s voice. “It’s wee Siobhan, so it is.”

  “What’s wrong with her, Gerry?”

  “She’s had a sore head and she’s awful hot now and she started throwing off there about an hour ago. She near boked her ring up, so she did.”

  “Is she awake, Gerry?”

  “Aye, but she says she feels sleepy, you know. We have her teed up on the sofa in front of the fire. Says her wee neck’s awful stiff.”

  Barry flinched. A stiff neck could be a symptom of irritation of the meninges, the membranes that covered the brain. “I’ll be straight out. What’s your address?”

  “We’ve a wee red-roofed bungalow out the Belfast Road. First house on the left past the Catholic chapel. You can’t miss it.”

  “I’m on my way,” Barry said and replaced the receiver.

  He ran to the surgery, grabbed his bag, and pulled his overcoat from the hall coat stand. With coat half on, he ran toward his Volkswagen. As he pulled away, he reckoned he had a good idea of what would be waiting for him at the Shanks house.

  He’d made a tentative diagnosis. Certainly it was the right time of the year. Winter and early spring were infectious meningitis season, and if an examination confirmed his suspicions, the sooner he got the child to hospital and the treatment started, the better were her chances for a complete recovery. Bacterial meningitis, a killer of children before the war, was now readily treated with antibiotics.

  Barry tried to remember what else he knew about Siobhan Shanks and her family as he waited for the town traffic light to change. Why was the thing always against him when he had an emergency to attend to? The Shanks family had moved here recently from Belfast. Siobhan was four and had an older brother, Angus. Gerry, their dad, was a plater at Harland and Wolff shipyards.

  The light turned green. Barry drove on.

  Mairead, Gerry’s wife, had coppery hair. The couple were trying to have another baby and had consulted O’Reilly for a second opinion about Doctor Fitzpatrick’s treatment for infertility.

  Oh, yes, Gerry supported Glentoran Soccer Club, and his best friend, Charlie Gorman, husband of Gertie whose breech baby O’Reilly had delivered, cheered for Linfield.

  All that had little bearing on Siobhan’s case, but it pleased Barry that like O’Reilly, who had had years of practice, Barry was getting to know his patients, to recognize them as people, not simply as their diseases. Hospital specialists rarely had that privilege.

  He parked the car on the verge and picked up his bag from the passenger seat. The spire of the nearby church looked sharp, like a needle scratching the sky. He knew the tower was an example of Early English detailing because Patricia had explained it to him when they’d walked together past it hand in hand shortly before she’d left for Cambridge bloody University.

  Barry’s grip on his bag tightened as he walked up the path.

  Gerry greeted him. “Thanks for coming, Doc. Gimme your coat.”

  In the narrow, carpeted hall, two black-and-white photos of Gerry dwarfed by the steel ribs of a ship under construction hung on one wall.

  “That’s me and the Canberra,” Gerry said. “Launched her in 1960, a day before Saint Paddy’s Day, you know.”

  Barry heard the pride in the man’s voice fade. “P
ay no heed to that. Come you away on through, sir, and take a keek at our wee girl.” Gerry’s voice cracked.

  The parlour was small and warmed by a coal fire burning in a black metal grate. A print of the slopes of Slieve Donard in the Mourne Mountains hung over the mantel, where ranks of Christmas cards were flanked by two brass candlesticks.

  A Christmas tree stood in the far corner. The acrid smell of vomit overpowered its piney scent. Its needles were turning brown, but it wouldn’t be taken down until January sixth, Little Christmas.

  Mairead sat on a straight-backed chair in front of a sofa, where Siobhan lay under a tartan blanket. Mairead didn’t look up when the door opened. She supported the girl’s head as the wee one puked into a baking bowl.

  “See what I mean, Doc?” Gerry stood beside his wife and put a callused hand on her shoulder.

  “Doctor,” Mairead said, giving Barry a weak smile. “’Scuse me.” She stood and headed for the door. “I need for to give this here an empty and a wee wash.”

  Barry nodded, then said, “Hello, Siobhan.” He knelt beside the child and took her wrist so he could feel for the pulse. Her skin was burning. No need for a thermometer to tell him she had a fever.

  Her voice was weak. “I don’t feel good.”

  He looked into her eyes. They were dull. Her pulse was 120 instead of the normal 88. He was convinced he was right about what was wrong with her. “When did it start?” he asked.

  “About two in the morning,” Gerry said. “She said her head was main sore.”

  Barry felt someone behind him.

  “Here,” Mairead said, handing him a clean bowl. “Just in case, like.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Shanks.”

  Gerry sighed. “We thought it would all get better soon”—he looked Barry right in the eye—“and it’s your holidays, like. We didn’t want to annoy youse doctors.”

  Barry understood that annoy didn’t mean “to anger.” It meant “to inconvenience.” Country patients. Salt of the earth. “That was very considerate, Gerry.” Don’t, Barry told himself, say, “I wish you’d called me sooner,” even if it were true. How many times when he’d been in training had he, without thinking, scolded, “I wish you’d come to us sooner”? He’d not realized then that what he was really saying was “Let me help you feel even guiltier than you already do.”