When he let himself in, he could hear Kinky clattering about in her kitchen. Off with his overcoat and down the hall he went. “How are you, Kinky?”
She turned from the counter where she’d been rolling out pastry. “Grand, so. And yourself, sir?”
“I could be better. I’ve bent the Rover.”
She made sympathetic clucking noises.
“Och, sure it could have been worse. There’s not a scratch on me.”
“Praise be.”
“And how was Flo’s?” he asked.
“The craic was ninety.” She chuckled and her three chins wobbled. “Cissie Sloan could make a cat laugh when she gets a head of steam up.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “She was very interested in what I knew about Doctor Laverty and his lady friend too.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Not a word. Sure what I knew was no more than what Flo told me. Poor young man.”
O’Reilly sighed. “Aye.”
“And it’s all over the village by now.”
“At least,” O’Reilly said, “it’s unlikely to be malicious.”
Kinky nodded. “He’s liked well enough, so.”
And that, O’Reilly thought, coming from Kinky, who had a firm grip on the pulse of Ballybucklebo, is praise indeed. “You’re a sound woman, Kinky Kincaid,” he said. He nodded up to where two pairs of Barry’s pants were hanging to dry on the bars-ropes-and-pulley device, then pointed at her cooking. “And you work too hard.” He smiled. “How’d you like a few days off this weekend? See your family?”
She put a hand on her hip. Her eyes narrowed. “Would Miss O’Hallorhan be coming down?”
O’Reilly felt the blush start. “She would.”
Kinky turned back to the counter and with a fine brush began to paint egg yolk onto the pastry. “I’d need to leave on Wednesday, sir, to travel all the way to Cork and get back by Sunday, but I’d like to see Fidelma and Eamon and theirs. I’d have to phone her to see if it’s all right.”
“You know where the phone is. Go on and ask your sister if it’d be all right for you to go on Tuesday. Make a decent holiday of it. I know it’s a fair stretch of the legs from here to Beal na mBláth. Train to Belfast. Change stations. Train to Amiens Street Station in Dublin. A different station for a train to Cork City, another to Clonakilty. Then what?”
“Eamon’d pick me up in his motorcar.”
“Great. Barry and I can manage.” He stepped behind her and gave her a pat.
She spun round. “Don’t you be taking liberties, sir,” she said, but her grin was ear to ear. “And you’ll not need to worry. I’ll leave this turkey pie and plenty of other stuff in the fridge and instructions for heating them. And I’ve tonight’s cold supper ready in the dining room, so.”
“You’re a marvel. Thanks, Kinky.” A thought struck. “Has Barry eaten?”
Her smile fled. “He has not. That boy is sore wounded.”
“Has he told you himself about Patricia?”
“Before I left to go to the Bishops’, I asked him what the matter was. He was very low.” Kinky looked O’Reilly straight in the eye. “But he did not have to tell me. Nor did Cissie. I already knew.”
Fingal felt goose bumps start, as he always did when Kinky exhibited her uncanny ability to know things she had no way of knowing. Mrs. Kinky Kincaid was fey.
“I did see it coming, the poor garsún.”
“Is he upstairs in the lounge?”
“He is not. Nor is Miss Spence. He was there when I came home, but he got called out. When he came back, he gave me another pair of pants to wash, apologized for that, and said he was going to bed.” She sighed deeply. “I think he’s in his room licking his wounds.”
O’Reilly sighed. “I wanted to talk to him after I’d had my supper. I could have taken him up a bite too.”
“I think, sir, if you’ll take a woman’s advice, you’ll leave him be tonight. I think Doctor Laverty is the kind of man to bottle things up. A private sort of a kind of a person, so. I do think he will want to talk to you, but not until he does be good and ready.”
O’Reilly pinched his nose, considered Kinky’s opinion, and then said, “You’re right, Kinky. I’ll let him come to me.” He patted his tummy. “And I’ll go and see what’s in the dining room.”
7
To Comfort All That Mourn
Barry was in no hurry to go to the dining room for breakfast. He’d had no appetite for days—three days to be exact. He finished shaving. The tuft of fair hair was, as usual, sticking up from his crown the way it had once in a railway carriage and she’d said, “Your hair sticks up like a little boy’s.” His hand had flown to it then, and he’d made some weak joke about it. Now he couldn’t be bothered to smooth it down. The blue eyes that looked back from the mirror were bloodshot and had dark circles beneath. He’d not dropped off until two in the morning. Since Saturday’s disastrous conversation with Patricia, sleep had been hard to come by.
By the time O’Reilly’d come home that night, Barry had already retreated to his attic room, where he tossed and turned into the small hours. He’d stayed there on Sunday morning until he’d heard a vehicle draw up and Patricia’s voice saying good-bye. An alto bell tolling the death knell for a lost love. She might as well never have existed, but for the memories and the ache.
Fingal had come home again later that morning from having his car towed to a garage. He’d made no mention of Patricia. His conversation had been confined to explaining about his crash. The mechanic had said it would take a week to repair the Rover.
O’Reilly’d suggested that they split the work for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Whoever was free would see any patients who came to Number 1, and the carless O’Reilly would walk to visit any who lived nearby. Barry was to go by car to the more distant ones. If he was willing to let O’Reilly drive the Volkswagen in the evenings, which he was, they’d split night call.
They had not been overly busy. The Shankses weren’t the only ones conscious of “annoying” their doctors during the holidays when the surgery was officially closed. Only those who considered their complaint to be urgent came to the house or asked for a visit.
At least when Barry was working, his mind was occupied, and he was grateful for it. And he was thankful that although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, the patients seemed to be more concerned for his welfare than usual.
His spare time dragged. An aunt had once told him that no matter who hurt him his books would always be his best friends. He’d tried one, but somehow Catch-22 didn’t seem as hilarious as when he’d first read it three years earlier. The television news on BBC1 was full of gloom. The Americans, led by their president, Lyndon Johnson, were getting more deeply mired in Vietnam. BBC2, the network’s second channel, had been launched in April by Denis Tuohy as a niche channel, but Barry could find nothing on it to interest him.
He’d tried not to, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Sunlight reflected from a cup of black coffee and he saw her eyes. A flicker of a bird’s wings and she was telling him what kind of bird it was. She spoke to him at any time, day or night, but he had spoken to no one.
The memories and the pain in him grew like the pressure in a boil. Perhaps it was time to lance the sore? Maybe it was time to talk about Patricia to Fingal?
Barry left the bathroom and went downstairs to find O’Reilly sitting in the lounge, booted feet up on a stool, briar belching, the Times clutched in one hand.
“Morning, Fingal.”
O’Reilly lowered the paper and looked over his half-moon spectacles. “Morning. Sleep well?”
Barry pursed his lips. His shoulders twitched.
“Aye,” said O’Reilly quietly. “Aye.” He pointed to a headline. “They’re still picking up after the December twenty-third cyclone in Ceylon. Thousands dead. Terrible.”
“It is. Awful.” Barry walked to the window. “What’s it like out?”
“Not a bad day for the time
of year it’s in.”
The snow had gone, but the sky was a sullen grey, flat and dull as an ancient ploughshare. The church steeple opposite presided over a dejected-looking group of yews, silent bowed mourners for those in the graveyard beneath. In the distance, across Belfast Lough, the Antrim Hills merged with the clouds as if the darkness of a charcoal sketch had been finger-smudged to blur the distinction between the sea and shore, hillcrests and heavens.
Barry turned and took a deep breath. “Fingal?”
“Yes, Barry.”
“I’m sorry I’ve not had much to say lately.”
O’Reilly let go a puff of smoke.
“I think you understand why.”
O’Reilly set the pipe in an ashtray. “I do. You’re sorely hurt. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” He felt a lump in his throat. “I miss her, Fingal.”
O’Reilly rose and wandered over to where Barry stood. “I understand about that too. You know about my wife?”
Barry nodded. “I only knew until Saturday. Now I’m beginning to understand.” He looked into O’Reilly’s brown eyes. Damn it, Patricia had brown eyes you could drown in.
“It’s hard,” O’Reilly said. “Very hard.”
Barry nodded. “What can I do?”
O’Reilly folded his arms across his chest. “Would you be disappointed if I said I don’t know?”
Barry held his hands palms up, blew out his breath.
“Well, I don’t,” said O’Reilly. “Did they teach you anything at medical school about how to help someone hurting like you?”
Barry shook his head.
“Nor me,” O’Reilly said. “Come on.” He put a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “Let’s sit down.”
When they were both seated, O’Reilly relit his pipe.
Barry glanced at Lady Macbeth, drowsing by the fire. Seeing the cat brought a picture of Patricia sitting here on Saturday, stroking the animal, and saying, “We need to talk, Barry.”
O’Reilly coughed. “I suppose,” he said, “you could do what I did. Throw yourself into your work. Refuse to have anything to do with women. It wasn’t hard for me on a bloody great battleship.”
At that moment the thought of isolation on a ship at sea appealed to Barry.
“I’ve seen men in the navy and here climb into the bottle.” O’Reilly shook his head. “I don’t recommend it.”
“You needn’t worry about that with me.”
“I know.” O’Reilly laughed. “Sure don’t I take enough of the craythur for both of us?”
Barry had to smile.
“But it’s not to make me forget, Barry.” He held Barry’s gaze and lowered his voice. “I’ll never forget.”
Hearing the older man’s sadness eased Barry’s own. He nearly stretched out a hand to lay on Fingal’s, but Ulster boys from Barry’s boarding school had been trained to shy away from physical signs of affection.
“You won’t forget, either. I promise you that,” Fingal said.
Barry sighed.
“The trick, as I see it,” O’Reilly said, “is to get through the first while.” He stared deeply into the fire, then turned back to Barry. “That took me twenty-three years.”
And it could take me longer, Barry thought. Oh, Patricia.
O’Reilly puffed. “I found the work a great solace. It’s never dull, and if you repeat this to anyone, I’ll kill you, Barry Laverty, but if you need some kind, any kind, of love, you can get it from your patients.”
Or a bloody great Labrador, Barry thought. But it’s not that kind of love I need.
“I hope,” O’Reilly said, “you do get through the next ‘however long.’ I’m here if you want to talk. I’ll try to keep you occupied. I did before, when you and she seemed to have split up shortly after you met, and when she was in England. I worked you hard when you thought you were going to be sued.”
Barry remembered suspecting what Fingal had been up to at those times. He’d not expected the man to confess it. And he had to admit it had worked. Being slack now over the holidays didn’t help.
“And you need a safe home. This house, Ballybucklebo, and surrounds are your home now, Barry Laverty,” O’Reilly said. “Think about it.”
Home? Barry shifted in his chair. This upstairs lounge was as familiar to him as his old bedroom in his folks’ house in Bangor. He’d not lived with his parents since he’d moved into the Queen’s Elms Halls of Residence in Belfast in his third year as a student. He and his old school friend Jack Mills, now training as a surgeon, had managed to stick together as they moved from one service to another. In the succeeding years and when they were housemen in their final year of training, they’d lived in student and junior doctor quarters in the teaching hospitals of Belfast. A gypsy existence, but a time for friendships to grow.
Everywhere he’d lived had been temporary. Number 1, Main Street, Ballybucklebo, could be permanent, at least until he got a place of his own. He smiled. He was in no rush for that. He couldn’t cook like Kinky.
“Thank you, Fingal. You’re right,” he said, but there was an ache around every corner. In a glen he might see himself wearing too-big pants, borrowed from Fingal, helping a girl across a bridge. On the shore he’d remember her dark hair, wind-tossed by the half gale that had churned the waters of the lough to foam and blown to tatters the black smoke from a coal boat’s funnel. Her joy in little things: a perfect fuschia blossom, wind shaking a field of ripe barley, her first-ever Chinese dinner, the “Rose Duet” from Lakmé.
“And,” said O’Reilly, bringing Barry back to the lounge, “when we get you through, one day … one day there’ll be another girl.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ah, but … you never know.” O’Reilly stood, went to the mantel and leaned against it, raised a bushy eyebrow, and said, “Kitty’s coming down for the weekend.”
“I’m happy for you both, Fingal.”
“Do you know, Barry, that’s very gracious of you? Particularly now. Especially now.”
Barry pursed his lips, turned his head to one side, and raised that shoulder.
“So,” said Fingal, “I’m going to give you the weekend off. I told you Kitty’s coming. Kinky’s going down to Cork today—”
“And you’d like me out of the house too?” It didn’t matter one way or the other to Barry.
“I’m not sure I’d put it exactly that way.” O’Reilly’s grin gave the lie to his words. “But I thought you might like a weekend off. Saturday and Sunday.” O’Reilly’s voice was guileless.
“I’ll call Jack Mills. He always has room in his Belfast flat.”
“Thanks, Barry. I’ll do next weekend.”
“Fine.”
“Now,” said O’Reilly, rising. “You’ve had no breakfast, and I could go another slice of toast and a cup of coffee. What do you reckon?”
“I’ll come with you,” Barry said, and to his surprise he did feel a tiny pang of hunger.
8
My Kingdom for a Horse
“You’ll not go hungry with me, Barry Laverty.” O’Reilly waved his fish knife in his assistant’s direction. “I like to ring the changes at breakfast so it’s a brace of kippered herrings this Friday morning, and being the day it is, a Happy New Year to you too.”
“And to you, Fingal.”
O’Reilly inhaled. The aroma filled the dining room. He noted that Barry was finishing the second of his smoked fish. The lad’s appetite wasn’t single-handedly going to drive Ireland back into An Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger, but he was eating again. A good sign.
Last night, New Year’s Eve, had been a bit tense at Number 1. Barry, clearly suffering from the added stress that festive events put upon those who are grieving, had turned down Fingal’s offer of a trip to the Mucky Duck to bring in the New Year. The lad had muttered something about having two tickets to the New Year’s Eve formal dance up at Queen’s that O’Reilly was welcome to if he wanted to take Kitty. Pity she’d been working, so after trying o
nce more to persuade Barry, Fingal had left him on call and gone down to the pub where in good company he’d sunk a few pints and roared out “Auld Lang Syne” with the other eejits when midnight struck. He’d even let them persuade him to sing “The Parting Glass” before he’d headed home at one. Officially, singing was illegal in Ulster pubs, but it was New Year’s Eve.
Now with the jollifications behind them, it was business as usual. The surgery was closed, but emergencies could crop up. And there was another matter outstanding.
“Can you make home visits this morning?” O’Reilly asked. “Donal’s coming to see me at ten, and before you ask, it’s not about a dog. It’s to do with a horse.” He looked at his watch. “He should be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Sure,” Barry said.
“Thanks.” O’Reilly waited to see if Barry would show any curiosity about Donal’s doings. Instead Barry said, “Mrs. Brown phoned earlier. She wants me to have a look at Colin. It’s probably just a heavy cold, but I had one case of meningitis already. On Christmas night.”
Kinky had told O’Reilly that Barry’d had a call, but with the whole Patricia business upsetting the lad he must have forgotten to discuss it with O’Reilly. “Who was it?” he asked.
“Siobhan Shanks. I sent her up to Purdysburn.”
“What about her brother?”
“Angus? I started him on prophylactic sulphas and told Mairead to let me know if he showed any symptoms. I’ve not heard from her.”
“Good lad.” For a second O’Reilly marvelled at modern medicine’s ability to prevent diseases by such a simple measure as giving a few pills. Changed days from when he’d started in practice. O’Reilly set his fork on his plate and said, “Now pass up the toast.”
Barry rose and carried the toast rack to O’Reilly. “Here you are,” he said. “I’m going upstairs to get my jacket; then I’m off.” He turned to leave, got halfway to the door, then asked, “What’s Donal Donnelly doing with—or is it to—a horse?”
O’Reilly paused from buttering a slice of toast. Good lad, he thought. He’s starting to take an interest in things again. “Damned if I know,” he said. “It’s something about shares in the beast—and Councillor Bertie Bishop’s involved.”