Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor

  “Here,” said Fingal, giving the boy the whole bag of clove rock. “You were very brave. Keep these.”

  “T’anks. T’anks a lot.” Dermot grinned, looked at Fingal, and asked, “Did you remember a fellah called Enda from Weaver’s Street? Youse doctors had to take a pea out of his lug last year? You once give him a bag of bull’s-eyes.”

  Fingal had to think. “On a Sunday, about noon?” He and Kitty had taken a walk by the Grand Canal last June. “He was swimming with a bunch of other gurriers.”

  “I was one of dem. He called you the Big Fellah, remember? Wait ’til I see Enda and tell him you was here and I got sweeties too, Doctor Big Fellah.”

  Fingal laughed. “Say hello to Enda from me and remind him not to put anything in his ear bigger than his elbow.”

  “Indeed I will, and I’ll keep him a couple of bits. He shared wit’ us last year.”

  And that was how life was in the tenements. The poorest of the poor, sharing, helping each other out, slow to point a finger, quick to help a friend.

  Fingal waited until Doctor Corrigan finished explaining to Mrs. Finucane how and when to repeat the poulticing, and to keep Dermot’s foot clean, and motioned to Fingal that it was time to leave.

  Outside the sun had broken through. Someone had removed the dead cat and the gutter was flowing freely. Fingal sat in the car beside Doctor Corrigan, who stamped on the starter and pulled away.

  Fingal felt the heat of the sun on the roof of the old car. It mirrored the warmth within him.

  “Hot.” Phelim wound down the window. “So,” he said, “now ye know what a stone bruise is and what to do if ye see another one.”

  “I do. Thanks for showing me. This is what’s really involved, isn’t it? Getting a diagnosis right, being able to treat something effectively, gaining a patient’s trust and respect.”

  “I hear ye, and I also saw how ye glowed when Dermot remembered ye.” He stopped at Bride Street. “Do ye remember the day we met and ye asked me why I stayed here?” He drove across the road.

  “I do.”

  “I think I said something like, ‘I fit in and it’s comfortable to be respected.’ And that’s true. I like being part of this place, part of the lives of the people who live here. But it’s more than that. Much more. Are ye beginning to understand now?”

  “I think so.” Fingal nodded. It was more than just gaining the respect of his patients. He thought of Kitty and what she’d said a month ago. “You said he always put the patients first—and that was the kind of doctor you wanted to be.” He’d wondered then if he’d detected a tinge of envy, a worry that she might have to take second place to his work. “I’m beginning to understand that there’s more to this than doing a good job. That’s not why you put the patients first, is it?”

  Phelim stopped at the corner of Aungier Street. “Hang on until I get across the road.” The traffic was heavy and he waited for a gap.

  Fingal noticed a group of people gathered round a man singing. The words drifted in through the open car window.

  … I sat me with my true love.

  My sad heart strove to choose between

  The old love and the new love.

  He recognised the song of the United Irishmen of 1798, “The Wind That Shakes the Barley.” Strolling balladeers were as much a part of the tenements as beggars, buskers, and Italian organ grinders and their monkeys. A spectator threw a coin into the singer’s hat that lay on the pavement. Fingal hoped the man would earn enough for a bite to eat.

  Phelim scooted across and made his right turn. “No, I do not put the patients first so I can feel good about doing a good job. Not at all. That would be all wrong. Selfish.” He hesitated. “I think there’s some things they can’t teach ye at medical school.” He swung into the dispensary courtyard and parked. “Either ye see the patients as simply yer bread and butter, a job to do when ye’re on duty, or God help ye, ye give a damn about them as people. And that’s something ye’re born with. Ye don’t learn it. And that transcends whether or not there’s something else ye’d rather be doing if they need ye.”

  And surely that was something that a nurse like Kitty could understand.

  Phelim turned in his seat and faced Fingal. “I see it in ye, boy. Ye care. Ye’re going to make a fine doctor.”

  Fingal blushed. “Thank you, Phelim.” The words of the balladeer’s song came back to him. “My sad heart strove to choose between the old love and the new love.” Was putting the patients first why Phelim had never married? Had his sad heart made a choice? Fingal ached to know, but realized with a shock that he’d only known the man since July. It was too personal a question. “Can I ask you one more thing before we go in?”

  “Ye can.”

  The sun went behind a cloud. Fingal stared out the window, then said, “It’s great when we do help someone, but so many of our patients die. You feel so bloody helpless. Does it not bother you?”

  “Aye. A bit.” Phelim smiled. “So ye have to get to be like Pharaoh.”

  “Pharaoh?”

  “Aye. When Moses said, ‘Let my people go,’ what did the ruler of Egypt do? I’ll tell ye. He hardened—”

  “His heart.” Fingal nodded. “I see.”

  Phelim put his hand onto Fingal’s shoulder. There was compassion in his voice. “It’s a paradox. I do all I can for them, but I’ll be no use to anyone if I’m in mourning all the time.”

  “And so that’s what you’ve done? Hardened your heart?”

  “Aye. And ye’ll have to too—or ye’ll not stick to dispensary practice long.”

  34

  Dance, Dance, Dance, Till You Drop

  “It’s like Paddy’s market in here. Have you ever seen the like?” O’Reilly stopped in his tracks and had to put his mouth near Kitty’s ear so she could hear over Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs coming through loudspeakers. The music all but drowned out the steady drone of conversation, bursts of laughter, and kiddies’ yells.

  Wooly bully, wooly bully, woolly bully.

  She laughed and said into his ear, “I saw a travelogue about Carnival in Rio de Janeiro once. That’s about as close as I can get. Lots of music, food, and fancy dress.” She chuckled. “A lot of it was fancy undress too.”

  “This, madam,” he said, “is Rio’s Carnival, the Bahamas’s Junkanoo, and New Orleans’s Mardi Gras rolled into one.” “Madam” was an appropriate form of address to a lesser mortal from Henry the Eighth. The Tudor king’s costume—soft shoes, hose, puff breeches with scarlet silk in the slashes, doublet, and neck ruff—had fitted him perfectly when he’d tried it on at Elliott’s Fancy Dress Shop in Belfast. And with no extra padding. Kinky’s campaign to slim him down had been only partially successful. “The Ballybucklebo Bonnaughts Sporting Club’s annual Halloween, or if you prefer Féile na Marbh, the feast of the dead, is a ta-ta-ta-ra of the very first magnitude.” He inhaled the smells of a mixture of beer, tobacco smoke, and perfume—someone was wearing Evening in Paris.

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I do agree,” Kitty said.

  “You’d better agree, or it’s away to the Tower and off with your head.”

  She smiled coyly, but didn’t curtsey. She crossed her left arm across her tummy, leant forward, and made a leg, as would a sixteenth-century male courtier to his monarch.

  And a very well-turned leg at that. O’Reilly wondered how many women in their fifties had the figure to pull off dressing like a pantomime Robin Hood, a part traditionally played by a young woman, with a pheasant’s tail feather in her green hat, white loose-sleeved shirt, green jerkin, and tights. Damn few, that’s how many. But, by God, his Kitty could, bless her. He tingled.

  He scanned the crowd in the function room, saw who he was looking for, and turned to Terry Baird, Jenny’s boyfriend of nine months. “Don’t think you and Jenny have to spend all night with us old fogies, but the marquis of Ballybucklebo and his sister Myrna will be keeping places at their table for us to use as home port between dances. You’ll join us, of cour
se?”

  Terry frowned and made a whistling noise as he inhaled. “A peer of the realm? Oh boy.” He raised an eyebrow and looked at Jenny, who O’Reilly thought made a most fetching Little Bo Peep, although, from what he remembered, the original’s skirts had been much longer.

  “His lordship’s a pussycat, Terry, a charming, unassuming man,” said Jenny. “I’ve met him twice before. You and he will get on, I promise. He’s a keen angler. Play your cards right and you might get invited to fish his beat on the Bucklebo River.”

  “Really? I’m all for that.” Terry laughed, then said, “But I’m not sure a convict,” he nodded down at his prisoner’s uniform of loose-fitting cotton shirt and pants with large black arrows pointing up and a number across his back, “is absolutely the best company for a noble lord, but what the hell?”

  “Robin Hood here will guide you,” O’Reilly said. “But you can’t miss them. Myrna’s the one with the bloodstained surgical gown and a carving knife through her head.” She was no longer using a walking stick, he noticed. Wonderful what modern orthopaedic surgery could do. “The marquis is Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, complete, as you can see, with Yorick’s skull. I’ll get the drinks, and you try not to die of thirst before I get back. A lot of folks will want to say hello to me between here and the bar.”

  As Kitty and the others headed one way, O’Reilly made his way through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor. He was delighted Jenny had been able to come. It didn’t hurt for the villagers to see that someone who might very well be one of their permanent doctors had a human side, and could let her hair down. O’Reilly and she were free tonight because Kinky was holding the fort with Archie at Number One. She could reach O’Reilly here by phone if necessary.

  It’s been a hard day’s night and I’ve been workin’ like a dog

  It’s been a hard day’s night. I should be sleepin’—

  The Beatles’ hit roared through a room festooned with fake cobwebs, cardboard skeletons, and cut-out ghosts. O’Reilly’s gaze roamed over the tables that surrounded the dance floor. Jack-o’-lanterns carved from turnips were the centrepieces. Fortunately they were not lit. When they were, the stink would gag a maggot.

  The window curtains were open and ghoulish scenes had been painted on the panes by someone with considerable skill. O’Reilly wondered who the unsung Michaelangelo might be.

  Grown-ups in fancy dress, witches, wizards, clowns, pirates, and cowboys were all dancing. One couple were encased from neck to knee in cubes of cardboard decorated to look like a pair of giant dice. By the way both were sweating, they must have been extremely uncomfortable.

  “Hello, Your Majesty.” Sue Nolan dropped a curtsey. She was standing by a trestle table set up with a galvanised tub full of water and apples. A line of children waited to take their turns bobbing. “Having fun?” she said.

  “Just getting started.” He admired her dirndl and pointed white cap with upturned bits over the ears. With her single copper plait, she made a natural Rapunzel. “On your own? No Barry tonight?”

  She shook her head. “Duty calls us both.”

  And for a moment O’Reilly remembered how duty had called him thirty years ago and what it had cost. “Don’t you mind?”

  Her smile was vast. “Not a bit. He’s a good man, Fingal. You know that. He’s worth waiting for.”

  “True,” O’Reilly said. “Very true.” He hesitated. “I don’t suppose—” That wasn’t fair. Barry had promised an answer in only thirty more days. Be patient. “Don’t worry about it.”

  She cocked her head and smiled. “If he’s made up his mind, he hasn’t told me about it. But I know we both want what’s best for Barry.”

  “We do. And we want what’s best for this wee lad.” O’Reilly gestured to the tub.

  Sue followed O’Reilly’s gaze, took two lightning-quick paces, and grabbed the arm of a four-foot devil in the form of Colin Brown. His hand was on the back of a partially submerged head. “Colin Brown, you let Art O’Callaghan breathe this very instant. Now.”

  A soggy clown’s head surfaced. His red nose hung askew on its elastic. He hauled in a great lungful.

  “Sure, miss, I was only steadying Art’s nut so he could get a good bite at the apple, so I was. Isn’t that right, Art?” Colin fixed Art with a glare.

  “That’s right, miss, honest to God,” Art said, and shook his head like a retriever shedding water.

  And the Mafia thought they’d invented Omerta, the code of silence? “Enjoy yourselves, you lot,” O’Reilly said. “I’ll have to move on.”

  The high-pitched harmonies of the Beach Boys filled the air as he wove past tables where people were tucking into dishes from a potluck supper, drinking their pints and short drinks, smoking, and chatting.

  “Excuse me, Doctor.”

  O’Reilly felt a tugging on one of his silk sleeves and turned to see Flo Bishop, a perfect Tweedledee, sitting with Cissie Sloan, dressed as an Irish washerwoman, Aggie Arbuthnot as Cinderella pre–fairy godmother, and a stranger. He guessed the glasses in front of each were brandy and Benedictine, which was coming back into its own in Ulster as a drink for ladies. “How’s about ye, sir?” Flo said.

  “I’m grand, Flo. Ladies,” he said, inclining his head.

  “And this here’s my cousin Sylvia from Ahoghill,” Cissie said.

  O’Reilly bowed to an apache dancer from Paris’s Left Bank. Her beret was tilted on top of shining shoulder-length blonde hair and her horizontally striped jersey was rather well filled. A thick patent-leather belt encircled a narrow waist, and her black skirt was split to expose black fishnet stockings that vanished into a pair of high-heeled black pumps. “Bonsoir, Mamselle. Enchanté,” O’Reilly said, bent, took her hand, and lowered his lips to within half an inch of its back.

  “Och,” she said, “I dinny speak any o’ they foreign languages, hey”—her sibilant Antrim accent was pronounced—“but it sounded lovely, bye. Thank you, sir.”

  Cissie said, “I think Sylvia’s quare nor brave wearing that outfit, so I do. And so’s Flo with hers. Mind you, she’s lost a stone and a half since her and Bertie went on that diet and—”

  “You’re a buck eejit, Frew.”

  Fingal turned to see Bertie Bishop, who clearly considered dressing up beneath his dignity, standing red-faced at a neighbouring table, pounding it with his fist. The unfortunate object of his venom was Dapper Frew, full-time estate agent, occasional Highlanders piper, and part-time Count Dracula. O’Reilly was sure that even in the hall’s dim light he could see spittle flying from Bertie’s lips.

  “Doctor, please, could you go til Bertie, get him to settle down, like? I don’t want him having no more of them vaginal attacks—”

  O’Reilly swallowed his laughter. “Anginal attacks, Flo. Anginal.” Flo wasn’t the only Ulster denizen to make that mistake.

  “Right. Well, maybe you could have a wee word with him? Get him to see sense, like? Calm him down?”

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  Bertie was still yelling. “Call yourself an estate agent? Three thousand for my spec-built house? Jasus. You’d probably give ice cream away to a bunch of bloody Bedouin in the Sahara rather than ask a decent market price, so you would. See you, Dapper Frew—?” Bertie wagged a forefinger.

  “Evening, Bertie. Dapper. Great party.”

  “The hell it is, O’Reilly,” Bertie snapped. “Have you seen Flo? She’s astray in the head, so she is.” His voice grew louder. “There she is, wife of the worshipful master of the Orange Lodge, county councillor—” He fiddled with the gold Masonic fob on the watch chain across his belly. “—senior warden in the Masons. But she wouldn’t be told. She says, says she, ‘We’d make a lovely Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’ ‘Away off and chase yourself,’ says I. ‘I’ve my position til think of.’” He pounded the table. “And no wife of mine’s—”

  “Bertie,” O’Reilly said, “if you don’t calm down, she’s going to be your widow.”

  “What??
??

  “Have you forgotten what happened the last time you lost your temper?”

  Bertie rummaged in his waistcoat pocket. “I have not.” He had lowered his voice and produced a silver snuffbox. “I’ve my TNT pills in here, so I have.”

  “Good,” said O’Reilly. “Now take ten deep breaths, sit down, and calm down, Bertie.”

  As Bertie huffed and puffed, Dapper said, “Thanks, Doctor.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anybody who can lose the bap like Bertie.” He shrugged. “Most of us are used til it by now, but still—”

  “Maybe I did get a bit heated,” Bertie said.

  “Aye,” said Dapper. “You did, but I’ll forgive you if you buy me a pint.”

  “Buy you a pint?”

  “Bertie,” said O’Reilly, a warning in his voice.

  “Okay, okay, a pint it is.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me?” He moved on toward where Willie Dunleavy stood behind the bar hatch.

  He rubbed his temple and ran a finger under his ruff. It was warm in here and noisy with conversation, laughter, and the Rolling Stones at full blast, which could hardly be described as a chamber sextet. Och, well. Everybody was having a great time.

  “Hello, Doctor O’Reilly.”

  O’Reilly had bumped into and nearly upset an apparently one-legged Mister Robinson, the Presbyterian minister. “Are you the Reverend Long John Silver?”

  “Aaaar, Jim lad,” Mister Robinson said in a fair imitation of Robert Newton, then lifted his eye patch and leant on his crutch. “I’m going to have to let my leg down,” he said. “I’ve got the most ferocious pins and needles.”

  He’d have his left leg strapped up under his frock coat, O’Reilly reckoned. “I would do it sooner, rather than later, if I was you. You must have your harness so tight it’s cutting off the blood supply to your muscles. If you leave it much longer, it’ll hurt something fierce when you let it down.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I will.” He started to unbutton his coat.