An Irish Country Christmas

  She stretched up and kissed his cheek. “I’ll not be long.”

  He whistled under his breath and felt the place she had kissed. It was a good thing she was leaving tonight. He watched her cross the stage and marshal the combined forces of the actors and the choir.

  The curtains reopened. The choir stood stage left; the actors, stage right. Shepherds and wise men knelt before Joseph and Mary, who in her arms held a dolly wrapped in swaddling clothes.

  Sue Nolan took the mike. The footlights outlined her. Damn, but she did have very good legs.

  “My lord, ladies and gentlemen, ‘Our revels now are ended.’ Well, almost. There’s one last carol, and we invite you to join in the singing. Father O’Toole?”

  The harmonium played the introductory chords. Barry listened to the piping of the children onstage and the singing of the entire audience. He silently mouthed the words.

  Once in royal David’s city

  Stood a lowly cattle shed,

  Where a mother laid her baby

  In a manger for his bed.

  Jolly Gentlemen in Coats of Red

  O’Reilly took one peep into the waiting room. Holy Mother of God. It seemed to him as if there were more people in there than you’d see at an international rugby match. He’d never get them all seen in time to go to the Rugby Club party that night. He closed the door and walked quietly back to the dining room where Barry sat finishing his coffee and reading the Belfast Newsletter.

  The paper rustled as Barry looked up. “There’s an interesting article here, Fingal. Canada’s dropped the old Red Duster, and now they have a new red and white flag with a red maple leaf on it.”

  “Wonderful. I’m happy for them, but we have a bigger problem. How many home visits have you to make?”

  “This morning? None. Why?”

  “Because the entire populations of Ballybucklebo, the townland, and for all I know the Outer Hebrides and parts of the Isle of Man are in our waiting room. I need your help.”

  O’Reilly had deliberately said “our,” and he was gratified to see Barry smile. It was good the lad felt that way about the practice.

  “Is there a flu epidemic, Fingal or—?”

  “No. It’s the same every year on the last day the surgery will be open until January. I’ve always shut down, except for emergencies, two days before Christmas. The locals know that, so everyone and their cat comes in. Some will have a recent complaint that’s blown up last night or today, but the rest want to get prescriptions refilled at the last minute, or they have vague aches and pains seen to in case they might flare up and spoil the holidays. I think some just come in to say, ‘Merry Christmas.’ It’s been like this every year I’ve been here. I have a theory about why it happens.”

  “Why?”

  “I think it goes back to pagan times. The country folks, professed Christians as they may be, haven’t left all their pagan roots behind.”

  “You mean like . . . like Kinky and her gift?” Barry asked.

  “Exactly.” The boy’s still worrying about his girl, O’Reilly thought. Then he said, “Yule marks the winter solstice, the time when the days start to lengthen and the year has turned. People used to clear out their rubbish so they could start the New Year with a clean slate. I think there’s a sort of communal health spring-cleaning too. They come in to leave behind whatever has ailed them this year.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  “It took me a year or two to work it out, and I could be wrong . . .”

  “You Fingal? Never.”

  O’Reilly laughed and said, “Less of your lip, young Laverty.” Inwardly he was pleased to see how Barry’s self-confidence, so badly rattled when he was facing a possible malpractice suit in August, had grown enough that he was able to risk teasing his senior colleague. “I did think I was wrong once . . . in 1956 . . . but I turned out to be mistaken about it.”

  Barry laughed. “To err is human,” he said.

  “Alexander Pope. And ‘to forgive divine.’ But there’ll be no forgiveness for us from the customers if we don’t get into the trenches right quickly.”

  Barry didn’t hesitate. “Fair enough.”

  His response pleased O’Reilly. Barry would have been quite within his rights to say it wasn’t his turn to take surgery today.

  “So I’ll work in the surgery,” Fingal said. “You work in here, Barry. Just keep going down to the waiting room and yelling, ‘Next!’ until the place is empty.”

  “All right, but even with two of us working, some folks are going to have to wait forever to be seen.”

  “Not at all.” O’Reilly shook his head. “I’ll show you. Come on.” He headed for the waiting room with Barry at his heels. O’Reilly opened the door a crack and allowed Barry to peep in. “Do you still think Fitzpatrick’s a threat?”

  Barry shook his head and grinned.

  That was one less thing for the boy, who was a congenital worrier, to fret over. O’Reilly flung open the door. “Gooood morning, all.”

  “Good morning, Doctor O’Reilly.” It sounded like the roar of the supporters when a winning try has been scored.

  “Right. Listen to me. There’s one hell of a lot of you here. Doctor Laverty’s going to help out, but it’s still going to take time.” He waited for the muttering to die down. “I have a couple of suggestions. First. Is there anyone here just to wish us a merry Christmas?”

  There was a muted chorus of “Me, sirs” and “I am’s.”

  “It’s very nice of you, very civil indeed, so Doctor Laverty and I thank you and wish you the same in return.” He hoped they’d get the hint. O’Reilly waited and watched Kieran O’Hagan hold the outside door open for his wife Ethel. He noticed Kieran was carrying a brown paper–wrapped parcel. “I don’t mean to be ungracious, and I know some folks have been like the three wise men and are bearing gifts.”

  The room was filled with chuckling.

  “If you are, go round to the front door. Mrs. Kincaid will be happy to accept them and say thank you very much on our behalfs.” As several other people rose and left, O’Reilly continued. “Rather than have you all hanging about for two or three hours—or more, because Doctor Laverty and I will break for lunch . . .”

  “I hear your Santa suit needed letting out, sir,” a voice from the back of the crowd observed. It was greeted by a round of laughter.

  “I’ll let that pass in the spirit of the season, Connor O’Brien.” O’Reilly waited. “And are you in for your usual very deep injection with a big needle?”

  “I am not, sir.” Connor’s voice sounded anxious. “No, sir.”

  The second round of laughter was louder than the first.

  O’Reilly thought to himself, Barry thought I’d been joking when I told him my first law: Never let the patients get the upper hand. “So rather than hanging round, I want a third of you—and you all know who came in early and who came in late—to go home and come back at one o’clock, unless you reckon you’re so sick you need to be seen at once.”

  Even as the procession started to file out the back door, O’Reilly yelled, “Who’s first?” Then he waited until Agnes Arbuthnot had risen. “ ’Morning, Aggie,” he said, then turned and headed for the surgery.

  He heard Barry’s loudly spoken “Next” and felt confident that his assistant, who he hoped would stay on as a full partner next year, would do a first-class job in the dining room.

  O’Reilly parked the Rover and let Arthur out. He’d really enjoyed his late afternoon run on Ballybucklebo beach. The big dog had slept in the car, while O’Reilly made two home visits that had been requested in the middle of the morning. Barry had stayed in Number 1 to deal with the patients who returned after lunch.

  “Into your kennel.”

  Arthur obeyed.

  O’Reilly let himself into the kitchen. Kinky had her back to him. She mustn’t have heard him come in. She was taking small sausage rolls on a baking tray from the oven and putting them on a wire-mesh rack t
o cool. The smell of the freshly baked pastry was tantalizing.

  “Hello, Kinky.” He snaffled a hot roll and juggled it from hand to hand.

  “Doctor O’Reilly, sir.” Kinky turned and stood foursquare with a hand on her hip. “I’d have thought my leek-and-potato soup at lunchtime would have been enough, so.”

  “Och, just the one roll won’t hurt,” he said, popping it whole into his mouth and making little puffing breaths. It was still too hot.

  “And no more,” she said. “Flo Bishop asked me to help cater for the party, and I’ll not have all my hard work eaten before it leaves this house.”

  “All right.” O’Reilly looked round. “Holy Moses,” he said, surveying the laden shelves, “is it the five thousand you’re going to feed? What are all these things?” He waited for Kinky to explain. She took great pride in her culinary skills, and it pleased her when people showed an interest in what she had cooked. And, O’Reilly thought, if he distracted her, he might be able to pinch another sausage roll. They were delicious.

  “Well, sir,” she said, “that there’s a plate of ham sandwiches, and those are egg mayonnaise. Here are two trays of sweet mince pies . . . keep your hands off the sausage rolls, sir.”

  O’Reilly felt suitably chastened. He knew he should have known better than to try to outfox Kinky in her own kitchen. “Sorry.”

  She pointed. “That’s a cold baked ham wrapped in foil. And do you see those terra-cotta pots covered with aluminium foil held down with a red rubber band?”

  “I do.”

  “Six are my smoked salmon paté, and six my smoked mackerel paté.”

  O’Reilly started to salivate at the thought of her smoked mackerel. “Come on now, Kinky. It’s the season to be jolly. One more roll? Please?”

  “ ’Tis a terrible man you are, Doctor O’Reilly.” She smiled. “All right, but just the one.” She looked up at the wall-hung kitchen clock. “Doctor Laverty’s changed and ready. He’s in the lounge. You’ll need to change and get your Santa suit. I’ve put it in a canvas holdall, and I’ve polished the boots.” She smiled. “You can see your face in them . . . but if I was you, sir,” she chuckled, “I’d not bother looking.”

  O’Reilly laughed so loudly he sprayed a fine dust of pastry into the air. “You’re one sharp woman, Kinky Kincaid.”

  “Aye, so, and sure isn’t it the season to be jolly?”

  “It is. By God, it is.” For a moment in his mind he was happy in the long-ago season in Portsmouth, and he decided that in Deidre’s memory he’d make this Christmas, for himself and for those around him, the merriest ever.

  “So when you go upstairs, will you ask Doctor Laverty to come down? I’m sure he’ll not mind helping me load the boot of your car.”

  “I will.” He stretched out his hand to the rolls.

  “I said one more . . . sir.”

  O’Reilly was still smiling when, dressed in his best tweed suit, brown boots, overcoat, and paddy hat and carrying the bag containing his outfit, he climbed into the Rover. “Everything on board, Kinky?”

  “It is, so.”

  “All set, Barry?”

  “Aye.”

  O’Reilly fired up the engine. “Then off we go.”

  As he drove he thanked the Lord it wasn’t snowing or icy, because to get to the rugby clubhouse in time for the party he’d have to get a move on. He did. The Rover might be old, but there were plenty of horses under the bonnet. He paid no attention to Barry’s occasional sharp in-drawings of breath when the car leant into a sharp curve.

  O’Reilly parked outside the front door of the clubhouse. “Go on in, Kinky,” he said. “Get your troops mobilised to empty the boot.”

  The back door slammed.

  “Out, Barry. Open the boot and start giving Kinky a hand. As soon as we’re unloaded, I’ll run this thing to the car park; then I’ll meet you in the changing room.”

  Barry left, the boot door creaked open, and O’Reilly watched Barry, carrying the ham, and Kinky, with a plate of sandwiches, heading for the pavillion. Outside the corridor of light coming from the open front door, the night was pitch-black.

  O’Reilly sat and watched the partygoers arrive. There was Alice Moloney, and . . . sweet Mother of Jesus! . . . she was in deep conversation with Helen Hewitt. They must have called a truce if not an entente cordiale. Good.

  He recognized Willy Lindsay, his sister Mary, and praise be, Sammy, who was holding on to Eileen’s hand. O’Reilly, safe in the knowledge that in a very short time she was going to win the raffle, reckoned he knew how Ebenezer Scrooge felt when he sent the boy to buy the biggest goose and deliver it to the Cratchetts.

  The Shanks family had made it. Terrific. Gerry was holding Mairead, his arm around her waist. He smiled down on her while they both ignored their two children, who were yelling happily and dashing about like a pair of collies rounding up sheep. By that smile O’Reilly inferred that it was indeed sugar Gerry was now having in his tea.

  Kinky reappeared. She was accompanied by Flo Bishop, secretary of the ladies committee, and committee members Aggie Arbuthnot and Cissie Sloan.

  He wound down his window. “Do you need another pair of hands?”

  “Not at all, thank you, sir,” Kinky said.

  “Is it yourself, Doctor O’Reilly? Fit and well you’re looking.” He got no chance to answer as Cissie charged on. “You’ll be Santa again this year. Well . . .” He heard how righteously indignant she sounded. “I hope you’ve only a lump of coal for that wee gurrier Colin Brown, because—”

  “Cissie Sloan,” Flo Bishop said, in a voice that could have come from a regimental sergeant major of the Irish Guards. “Give over your colloguing, and grab those pots.”

  He closed his window.

  When they had finished emptying the boot, O’Reilly drove around the back and parked. Then carrying his bag, he rushed back to the pavilion and in through the back door to transform himself into Santa Claus—or Father Christmas, as he was known in Ulster.

  He opened the carryall, half undressed, and laid his tweed jacket and suit pants on a bench. “ ‘Vesti la giubba,’ ” he sang. “On with the motley.” He took out the red trousers, recently enlarged by Miss Moloney, and pulled them on. “Ho, ho, ho.” He took his wallet from his tweed suit and, along with his pipe and tobacco pouch, shoved it into the pocket of his red trousers. Then he sat and hauled his black knee-boots on. Kinky really had worked on them.

  Barry came in. “I’m starting to get used to these Ballybucklebo hooleys,” he said, “and this one has the makings of what you’d call a fine ta-ta-ta-ra.”

  “Getting going, are they?”

  Barry parked himself on a bench. “When I came in, the noise was deafening. A gramophone was playing Bing Crosby singing ‘White Christmas.’ People had to shout to be heard over the music. Children were running about like dervishes, screaming, laughing, and yelling. You can hear it in here.”

  O’Reilly had no trouble agreeing with Barry. “And how’s Kinky making out?”

  “She was in her element behind a couple of trestle tables. I’ve never seen grub like it.”

  “I,” said O’Reilly, “like the sound of that.”

  Barry had a tinge of wonderment in his voice. “I counted eight cold roast hams, four cold roast turkeys that must weigh at least twenty pounds apiece, three topside roasts of beef, two cold joints of mutton . . . I can’t remember everything.”

  “And how about ‘Three French hens, two turtle doves . . . ’”

  “ ‘And a partridge in a pear tree’?” Barry laughed. “ ‘I didn’t see any of those, but I saw hills of dried dates stuffed with marizpan, dunes of dried figs, and a small mountain of chocolate-covered cherries.” Barry smiled. “Nobody’s going to die of starvation. People are filling their faces. And”—Barry handed O’Reilly his red fur-trimmed coat—“all the kiddies keep charging over to a Christmas tree and staring at a bulging sack, so come on, Santa. Everybody’s waiting.”

  “Right.” O??
?Reilly put on the coat. He lifted his suit pants and jacket, rummaged through all the pockets, and laid his valuables on the bench. He handed Barry his tweed suit. “Shove that in a locker.”

  O’Reilly cinched the black patent-leather belt with its silver buckle round his waist. “How do I look?”

  “You need your beard.”

  O’Reilly bent and pulled a huge white beard from the bag, and with two curved wires he clipped it around his ears.

  “You’re him to a tee,” Barry said. “At least you’re the version made popular by Coca-Cola advertisements since nineteen thirty-one. The jolly old elf.”

  O’Reilly adjusted his beard. “But there was a real Saint Nick. He is the patron saint of children, bankers, pawnbrokers and mariners . . . I always had a soft spot for him when I was at sea.” O’Reilly lifted his valuables from the bench and stuffed them in his red pocket. “I’d not want to leave those unattended in here,” he said. “Saint Nick was the patron saint of murderers and thieves too.”

  “Busy chap,” Barry said. “After today’s two surgeries I can sympathise.”

  “But you enjoyed being busy, didn’t you?”

  “I did, Fingal.” Barry was looking into O’Reilly’s eyes. “Just like you.”

  “I’ll not deny it.” O’Reilly adjusted the hang of his coat and said something he had believed for a long time. “There’s not much point practicing medicine if you don’t enjoy it. You might as well be a . . . I don’t know . . . a civil servant stuck in some dreary office.”

  “I know.”

  “And I’m having no truck with anything dreary tonight.” He headed for the door. “ ‘Kiddies’ gifts first, then the raffle, and then by God, a large Jameson for me. I’ll have earned it by then.” Which he had to admit to himself wasn’t entirely true. He enjoyed playing Santa so much he’d have paid for the privilege.

  Surprised by Joy

  With Barry following, O’Reilly strode along the corridor. He opened one of the doors leading to the main hall. The noise was palpable. Raised voices all but drowned out the lyrics of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” coming from a loudspeaker system. O’Reilly could hear childish squeals and the clatter of running feet. Barry was right. The hooley was getting going nicely, and O’Reilly was pleased—he really enjoyed a good party.