Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor

  Here in Dublin, the light summer northeasterly wafted the whiff of drying mud flats through the open windows of the Aungier Street Dispensary.

  He and Charlie were into their second week as dispensary doctors. Charlie was out making calls, Phelim Corrigan was working next door, and at almost one o’clock the waiting room was practically empty.

  Fingal could see one man sitting there. His arm was in a sling, his index finger was strapped with adhesive tape to his middle finger, and they stuck out past the sling’s end. His head was swathed in bandages. Phelim must have patched him up, and Fingal wondered, only for a moment, why the man hadn’t gone home.

  A woman in a shawl had a grubby boy by the hand. She stood. “I’m next,” she said.

  Fingal took the pair into his surgery. It was the work of moments to determine that both mother and child had scabies; the symptoms of constant burning itching and the dark lines under the skin creases between the fingers where the itch mites had burrowed were diagnostic. The couple were the eighth, or was it the tenth case this week? He’d lost count.

  “The pair of you have scabies, mother,” he said.

  “And me udder four chisslers, too. Can you fix us?”

  “Your best bet is to take the whole family to the Iveagh Public Baths where the sulphur in the water will kill the mites,” he said, “and if you can wash all your bedclothes with boiling water, and not let your family share towels, combs, or brushes.” He sighed. For all the likelihood she’d be able to comply, he reckoned he might as well advise her to walk across the surface of the Liffey for good measure, but she surprised him.

  “I’ll see to it,” she said. “Believe it, sir, I feckin’ well will.”

  Fingal was impressed with her determination.

  “T’anks very much, sir. Come on, Donnacha.”

  As Fingal followed them into the hall, Phelim’s surgery door opened and a patient came out. Beneath his greasy duncher a bandage held a patch over one eye, a bruise extended down over his cheekbone, and a sticking plaster on his cheek probably covered sutures.

  He ignored Fingal, went into the waiting room, and growled at the man there, the only one there, “Come on, Joseph Mary Callaghan, you great bowsie, let’s get the feck out of here. I’ve enough to buy us a couple of jars.”

  They left, arms around each other’s shoulders.

  Fingal smiled. That’s why the man had been waiting. Fingal let himself into Phelim’s surgery.

  “Afternoon,” Doctor Corrigan said from his raised stool. “Take a pew.”

  Fingal noticed, as he took one of the cane-backed chairs, that the parting in the little doctor’s hairpiece was no longer central, but more on a northeast to southwest axis.

  “And if ye’re curious, the lad who left was in a ruggy-up last night on Golden Lane, just round the corner.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Ruggy-up. Fight. National pastime in the Liberties. Soon as one starts you hear the women screeching, ‘Ruggy-up, ruggy-up.’ Gets the whole neighbourhood out for a free show. Better than the cinema. Good clean fun. And they don’t do each other too much damage.” He laughed and said, “That’s ‘Jam Jars’ Keegan who just left, but ye should have seen the other fellah.”

  “I did,” Fingal said, “in the waiting room.”

  “Joe Mary Callaghan,” Doctor Corrigan said. “I’d to put twelve stitches in his head and he’d bust his finger on Jam Jars’s skull. The bones weren’t displaced so all I needed to do was strap the busted finger to the one beside it.”

  Fingal hadn’t heard of that. He made a mental note.

  “The pair of them came in together today like a couple of long-lost friends. It’s always the way of it. Get into a fight. Beat the tar out of each other, declare a winner, and go back into the pub for a pint and a sing-song, sober up, the next day usually, and come here. Desperate what the drink does.”

  The wall-mounted phone rang.

  Phelim answered. He offered the earpiece. “It’s for you.”

  “O’Reilly?” Fingal said.

  “Fingal, dear, can you possibly get home soon?”

  It was Ma and there was no need for her to elaborate. “Of course.”

  In moments, he’d explained to Phelim, who agreed to hold the fort. Fingal called a taxi—to hell with the expense.

  Father had been very low when Fingal had left that morning. He’d debated with himself about staying at home. Doctor Micks had been round yesterday while Fingal was at work and had suggested to Ma that Lars should be summoned from Portaferry. He’d arrived at teatime, and because he was there and Ma would not be alone Fingal had decided to carry on. He wasn’t sure whether his sense of duty had brought him or if his reluctance to sit through a deathwatch had driven him out.

  The taxi ride home had seemed interminable, particularly when a dray blocking the Mount Street Bridge forced the driver to make a detour by way of Grand Canal Street. Fingal sat in the backseat muttering, “Come on. Come on.”

  When they arrived, Fingal paid and took the steps two at a time. The front door was unlocked.

  Ma was sitting in the lounge studying a pattern and saying quietly to herself, “Knit two, purl one.” For as long as Fingal could remember, whenever something upset Ma, she either painted furiously or turned to her knitting. She said she found the need to concentrate and the rhythm of the needles soothing.

  She looked up. “Fingal,” she said. “Thank you for coming.” Her eyes were red-rimmed.

  He crossed the room and dropped a kiss on his mother’s head. “How’s Dad?”

  “Very weak.” She sighed. “Lars is with him. We’ve been taking it in turns to keep him company, but I don’t think he knows. He’s been sleeping since you left.”

  “Good.” As Fingal well knew, there was a great kindness in sleep. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head. “Not really, but I’m managing.” She produced a tiny smile. “I have to. Bridgit and Cook are dreadfully cut up.” She frowned. “Have you had any lunch, son?”

  Fingal shook his head and smiled. Ma. “It’s fine, thanks,” he said, and for once it was. His appetite had fled. “I’ll go and see how Lars is.” As he crossed the room, he heard the steady clicking of her needles.

  Lars sat in a small armchair beside Father’s bed. He turned as Fingal came into what had been Father’s study but was now a bedroom. As the rogue white cells interfered more and more with the bone marrow’s ability to manufacture red cells, the blood’s oxygen-carrying capability declined. The slightest effort now made Father horribly short of breath. He’d no longer been able to walk to the dining room, and for the past five days had taken his meals in bed. “Finn,” Lars said. He did not smile, but stood. “Have a pew. I’d like to stretch my legs.” He moved aside and stood in the window, the one through which Father was able to see his belovèd birds at the bird table.

  Fingal sat and looked at his father, the once powerful paterfamilias, professor of classics and English literature at Trinity College, expert on the works of MacCaulay and Wilde, friend of the Who’s Who of Dublin society. He’d shrunk to a low mound under bedclothes that barely moved with each of his panted breaths. Even Father’s head seemed to be smaller, his once dark hair wispy on the pillow, his lips, except where a cold sore disfigured the lower one, were as white as the linen pillowcase. His forehead, relaxed in sleep, was smooth and care-line free. His nostrils flared with each indrawing of breath and his pale thin hands fluttered and twitched on the counterpane.

  Fingal took his father’s pulse. It was barely palpable, fluttery, with no more strength than the wings of a trapped moth. Father muttered something that sounded like a snatch of ancient Greek. Fingal swallowed. “I’m glad you came last night, Lars, and were able to talk to Father.” He stood, pursed his lips, and lifted his shoulders. “I’ve seen this before. Dad’s not going to last much longer.”

  “I understand.” Fingal had explained to Lars and Ma that there was nothing more even Doctor Micks could do, except, and Fing
al had kept this thought to himself, sign the necessary papers when the time came. “Should we call Ma?”

  Fingal nodded.

  Lars left and Fingal was alone with the father he’d loved, respected, and come to dislike yet never hate. Finally a rapprochement had been made. “I don’t know if you can hear me, Dad, it’s Fingal, but thank you, thank you for everything.” He knelt and kissed the pale forehead. “I love you, Dad.”

  Fingal stood as Lars returned with Ma. “Here,” he said, “sit here, Ma.”

  She did, and took Father’s hand.

  “Would you like us to leave you alone with him for a little while?” Fingal asked. Ma too, was a woman of Queen Victoria’s time who would find it hard to display deep feelings in front of anyone, even her grown children.

  She frowned, cocked her head as if considering the matter, then said, “Please. I should like that. For a minute or two.”

  Fingal inclined his head to Lars and together they left, closed the door behind them, and waited in the hall. No words were spoken. A grandfather clock that Fingal could remember from his boyhood in Holywood ticked and tocked, measuring the minutes, the hours, and the days of people’s spans. “Man,” Fingal thought, “that is born of woman hath but a short time to live,” but this was too bloody unfair. Too damn short. He thought he heard a sob coming from the study and glanced at Lars.

  “You go, Finn,” Lars said, his voice cracking.

  Fingal opened the door slowly. Ma was sitting regally erect. She had dashed away a tear with the back of one hand. She held Father’s with the other. “I think your Father’s gone, Fingal,” she said. “Thank you for letting me be with him, but I’m sorry I kept you and Lars—”

  “Ma,” Fingal said, “it was right and proper you were here, and Lars and I have both had our chances to say our good-byes.” He stood behind his mother and squeezed her shoulders. “Bear up. We’re both here.”

  She managed a smile and patted one of his hands. “Thank you,” she said. “My boys are such a comfort to me.” She stood. “I know it’s a great deal to ask, but…” She inclined her head. “Could you?”

  “Of course.” Fingal understood that she was asking him to confirm Father’s death. He moved past her. The skin was icy, the pulse gone. Fingal bent his head to Father’s mouth but there was not the slightest current of air. He looked at the white face, soft in repose. Father’s eyes were open, and already they had the blurry opacity that had become familiar to Fingal. Death was no stranger to Dublin’s hospitals, where half the patients had consumption and precious few recovered. He closed the eyes and, as was the Irish custom, found two pennies to lay there to keep the lids closed. “I’m sorry, Ma,” he said. And while Doctor Fingal O’Reilly, the dispassionate professional, steeled himself to be strong for Ma and Lars, inside—and he hoped well hidden—an emptiness filled his soul. “I’m sorry. He’s gone, but Dad didn’t suffer. You need to know that.”

  “Thank you, Fingal. I do understand,” she said. And a tear glistened. “Please go and wait in the lounge. I’ll join you in a minute or two, then we must tell Cook and Bridgit.”

  Fingal inclined his head and Lars left. “I’ll phone Doctor Micks,” he said. “There are formalities.”

  “I know. Thank you, son.”

  Fingal closed the door behind him and walked to the telephone. He’d phone Doctor Micks and between them they’d take care of the statutory notifications that Fingal himself had had to learn at Aungier Street in his capacity as registrar of births, deaths, and marriages. It was a good thing Lars was a solicitor. He’d understand all the morbid intricacies of arranging funerals, having wills probated, placing death announcements. Together they’d need to comfort Ma and Bridgit and Cook while the hurt in them all healed over time.

  13

  His Personal Prejudices

  “Styes don’t take too long to heal,” O’Reilly said to seventeen-year-old Peter Dobbin. The wiry, fair-haired labourer worked on farms in the Ballybucklebo Hills, and if O’Reilly had his way with the selection committee, he would be playing lock forward for the Ballybucklebo Bonnaughts Rugby Football Club this coming season. The young man was as strong as a Shire horse. He had a nasty hordeolum, an infection of the follicle of an eyelash, on his left upper eyelid. It was red and swollen and beginning to point. “You’ll need to—” There was a sharp rap on the door and O’Reilly spun and stared.

  Who in the blue blithering blazes was knocking? Kitty had left for work. Kinky should be telling Jenny Bradley if there was an emergency, not him. She was on call today and Fingal had last seen her heading upstairs after breakfast. No patient would ever have the temerity to bypass Kinky and try to be admitted to the sanctum sanctorum when O’Reilly was consulting. The waiting room was packed and he did not wish to be held up.

  Before he could yell “Go away,” the door opened and Jenny Bradley, paying no attention to Peter, said very calmly, “Will you come here please, Doctor O’Reilly,” and went back into the hall.

  Jasus. Sounded like himself commanding Arthur. At least she’d said please. O’Reilly snatched off his half-moon spectacles, lumbered to his feet, and headed for the door. Was the house on fire? Was she unable to deal with some life-threatening emergency? Damn it all, he had thought the woman was absolutely on top of her work. “I’ll just be a minute, Peter.”

  “Pay me no heed, Doc,” Peter said, and managed a smile. “I won’t run away, so I won’t.”

  O’Reilly strode to the door and closed it behind him.

  “What—?”

  Jenny was on the phone. “That’s right. Twenty-six Shore Road. Doctor O’Reilly will meet the ambulance there.”

  She’d called an ambulance for the Bishops’ house. And he was to meet it? Jasus.

  “Thank you.” She replaced the receiver, and none too gently.

  “What in the name of Beëlzebub’s blazing pitchfork is going on, Jenny? An emergency and I’ve to go? Can’t you cope?”

  She inhaled before saying, “Perfectly well, Fingal, medically.” Her face was flushed. “I was on my way out to start my home visits and the phone rang. I answered it to save Kinky the trouble. A Mrs. Bishop was calling and sounded hysterical. I got her calmed down. Apparently her husband—”

  “Bertie Bishop.” After the conversation in the marquis’s shooting brake, O’Reilly had a premonition of what was coming.

  “—has had a sudden chest pain that went into his arm—”

  “Good lord.” O’Reilly tensed, his mind racing. “That’s either angina or a full-blown myocardial infarction.” He frowned. Ordinarily Jenny should have raced to the Bishops, leaving Kinky to send for the ambulance. Anyone with chest pain, especially radiating to an arm, must be admitted to hospital at once. Angina, pain brought on by narrowing of the coronary arteries interfering with the oxygen supply to the heart muscles, wasn’t life-threatening, but a heart attack was. Only the recently introduced electrical defibrillation, the passage of an electrical shock through the heart, could save the patient’s life. And that had to be done in hospital.

  “Apparently Mister Bishop flatly refused to see a woman doctor. Demanded your presence.” He could tell by the tenseness in her jaw she was struggling to control her own temper. “I wasn’t going to waste time arguing. I asked for their address, got you, phoned the ambulance—”

  “And you did right.” Stupid, pigheaded, bloody Bertie Bishop. O’Reilly felt the tip of his nose grow cold, a sure sign it was blanching, partly because he was cross with himself for not warning Jenny about the man. “I’ll go. I’m sorry about Bertie, Jenny. You’ll have to do the surgery. I’m off. We’ll sort out the home visits later.” He headed for the surgery, grabbed his doctor’s bag, and said to Jenny as he passed her in the hall, “Peter Dobbin’s in there. He has a stye so tell him to use a warm saline eyebath three times a day and no—”

  “No penicillin ointment because it might excite allergy—I’ll see to Peter and the rest.”

  O’Reilly knew he should apologise for g
etting irritated with this self-assured and competent young doctor, but patients with chest pain weren’t like ones with whooping cough. Chest pain couldn’t wait. He ran for the back door and sprinted through the garden. Angina required glyceryl trinitrate. O’Reilly knew he had some in his bag. He’d not need it if the pain had passed, but if it hadn’t, the vasodilator and morphine for the pain were all he could offer—and a damn quick trip to hospital.

  He fired up the old Rover, took off the hand brake and, with a clashing of gears, rammed his foot on the accelerator and took off like Juan Fangio behind the wheel of his Formula One Alfa Romeo. Chest pain couldn’t wait. He spared not a thought for any cyclists who might be on the road.

  * * *

  “Thank God you’ve come, Doctor O’Reilly,” said Flo Bishop. “I was making him a wee cup of tea in his hand, like, when you arrived. I have him in his study in his chair, so I have. The pain’s gone now, you know. I’ll take you through til him.” She swallowed. “Do you think he’ll be all right?”

  O’Reilly followed Flo along the hall. “It’s a good sign that the pain’s gone.” It had probably been an anginal attack, he thought. If the cardiac muscle had been infarcted, seriously damaged, the pain would have persisted. Bertie’d probably need neither the nitrate nor the morphine today.

  “Thank God for that,” she said. “Bertie’d me worried silly. I thought he was going for til die.” A tear glistened in the corner of her eye. “He’s all I’ve got.” She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “After we was married in ’29 I had four miscarriages. Doctor Flannigan sent me to a specialist who said another pregnancy would kill me and I needed me tubes tied, and…” She sniffed. “Bertie wouldn’t adopt.”

  That had been before O’Reilly had started working here. Love, he thought, knows no boundaries.

  She took a very deep breath. “Please make him better, Doctor, sir.”

  “I’m sure, even sight unseen, Flo, he’ll get over this attack.” Still, angina in such a relatively young man was worrying for his doctor, but there was no need to alarm Flo.