“So would I.” Don’t say “but.” Propose now, man, or you’re going to lose her.
“Last year I didn’t think that you were that man, Fingal. I didn’t think I could compete with your mistress, medicine. When you called here to apologise I sent you away, but everything I’d ever felt for you came flooding back.”
“Kitty, I love you—”
“Damn it all, Fingal, I know you do. I turned the Galway man down, and the night you passed your finals and you took me to meet your parents, my mind said, ‘Watch yourself, girl,’ but my heart?” She shook her head. “I was in love with you. I still am.”
“I love you, Kitty.” Fingal took a huge breath. “If you’d only let me explain how we were able to save a fourteen-year-old’s leg and his life.” He knew his voice must sound excited.
Her tears started. She didn’t sob, but the water ran slowly down her cheeks. “Don’t you see, Fingal, you and Phelim Corrigan are two of a kind? He’s single. He puts his patients first.” She dashed her hands across her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be weeping, but, Fingal, don’t you see? There’ll always be a child with diptheria, a life to save.” She looked right into his soul. “You’re going to be a saint of a doctor—but the saints were single men.”
“Kitty,” he said, stepping forward to embrace her, soothe her, tell her it was going to be all right. That he’d change. But the damn doctor’s bag got in the way. Before he could set it down, she had stepped back.
“No, Fingal,” she said. “I had a visitor this afternoon. Do you remember I mentioned my friend Agnes Brady?”
He shook his head. Why wouldn’t she listen to him? “Vaguely,” he said.
“The Connolly Column of the International Brigade will be leaving in December to train in Perpignan in southern France.”
“But you said you weren’t interested in going to Spain to support the Republican side.” He shook. Fingal felt as if he’d walked into quicksand and no matter which way he turned, his feet were stuck and he was sinking.
“I’m not, and neither’s Agnes anymore.”
“Thank God for that.” The earth became firmer. “Now, please, Kitty, please let me tell you about why I didn’t come until now, and it’s miraculous.” He knew he sounded excited, but he had good reason.
“No, Fingal. No. You don’t understand. I’m trying to tell you I want us to take a break and you’re not hearing me. You’re too excited—and not about us. About something at your work.”
His jaw fell. “A break?”
“Yes. This afternoon Agnes told me she’d been given permission to leave the International Brigade before they sailed because she’s been contacted by a nondenominational group who have established an orphanage for the poor wee mites who have lost their parents in the fighting. You know how much I’ve worried about the children? I thought the orphanage sounded like a good idea. Agnes asked might I volunteer to work there with her.” Kitty shook her head. “By this afternoon I’d heard nothing from you, decided you couldn’t really care if you could forget about me so completely—”
“It’s not like that, it’s just that I—”
“No, Fingal. No explanations. I was so angry with you I said yes, I’d need to give notice at Baggot Street Hospital but, then, when can we leave?”
“But the night we saw Bride of Frankenstein you said, ‘I’d hate to leave Dublin…’”
“I will, but I have to go.”
His shoulders slumped. “So you are going to Spain?” Dear God, he’d been, in a desultory fashion, following the fighting. Franco’s troops had nearly reached Madrid. She could get hurt. Killed.
“No,” she said. “Not Spain proper. To one of the Canary Islands. Tenerife. In a small village called San Blas on the south coast. There’s no fighting there. The orphanage is near Mount Teide.”
Tenerife? He remembered calling at its port, Santa Cruz de Santiago de Tenerife, during his time in the merchant marine. Lord Nelson, whose statue stood on his pillar in O’Connell Street, had lost his right arm there leading a failed assault on the port in 1797. And he, Fingal O’Reilly, was going to lose something more precious to him than his own right arm. “Please, Kitty. Please don’t go.”
“I’m sorry, Fingal,” she said. “I see now that it was my anger at you that tipped my decision, but my mind’s made up. You care for your patients. I’m going to children who need love.”
“But I’m trying to explain.”
She shook her head. “Too late. I’ve promised. I’m going. That’s final. The ship leaves from Southampton next month. I’ll be back next year on leave. If you wish, I’ll let you know when. I might be willing to give us one more chance then, but for now I need to step back. Clear my mind.”
“If that’s what you want.” Fingal was lost and didn’t know where to turn. At least there was a glimmering of hope. “I’ll wait,” he said. He’d no other choice. “I’ll write.”
She went to a small desk, picked up a sheet of paper, and handed it to him. “It’s a forwarding address for the society,” she said. “Fingal O’Reilly, I’ll always love you, but…”
Her few words hung as limply as the piece of paper in his hand, and there was no need for more.
* * *
Fingal, with his coat collar turned up, cycled slowly through a chilling drizzle along the familiar streets, barely noticing that he was passing Saint Stephen’s Green on his way to Aungier Place. He knew he’d let Kitty down, hurt her, knew it was his fault. He struggled to understand her anger. Damn it all, he was a doctor, trained to accept people when they were upset, as all patients inevitably were. He was meant to be able to make allowances for folks who had reason to be angry, but—he swerved to pass a parked car—when it came to Kitty O’Hallorhan? Fingal couldn’t just dissect her feelings as Bob Beresford might dispassionately look at one of his bugs under the microscope. Fingal loved her pure and simple and did not want to lose her. But he also knew her well, and he knew himself.
He stood on the pedals, sprinted the last few hundred yards, and dismounted in the courtyard. Shoving his bike in the rack, he blew out the calcium carbide headlamp, grabbed his bag, and headed for the dispensary. There was a light on in the upstairs kitchen. Phelim must be there. Pity. Fingal would have much preferred to have been on his own for a while.
He let himself in, left his sodden coat in the hall, and climbed the stairs. Aye, he nodded, he knew Kitty was a strong-minded woman, and when she’d made her mind up? Damnation. He hit his fist twice against the wall.
And he knew himself. He could be stiff-necked, and he thought of how he’d defied his own father, God rest him, to train as a doctor. Nor did Fingal believe that pleading with Kitty, if he could bring himself to do so, would have any effect. She said she’d promised. And Kitty O’Hallorhan was not a woman to go back on a promise. She’d be home on leave next year. He could keep in touch, and hope. He could see no other choice.
“Jasus, Fingal, ye look like a rat that’s gone ten rounds with a cat and been dumped in the Liffey,” Phelim said, turning from the gas stove when Fingal entered the kitchen, “so would ye like a cup of tea?” His colleague’s hairpiece too, looked like a rat that had suffered a grave misfortune, but for once it failed to amuse Fingal.
“Aye. Please.” Fingal set his bag on a shelf. He wondered should he tell Phelim about Kitty?
Phelim, with his back to Fingal, poured, added the milk and sugar the way Fingal liked, turned, and gave him the chipped enamel mug. “I’m assuming ye had to send the child to hospital,” Phelim said, “for yer face is as long as a wet Sunday. Sit down and tell me all about it.”
Fingal accepted the tea, sat at the table, and waited for Phelim to do the same, but before he did the little doctor went to a cupboard, rummaged in a tin box, and filled a plate with fig rolls and coconut creme biscuits from Jacob’s biscuit factory. “Here,” said Phelim, sitting and offering the plate, “have ye a biccy.” He helped himself. “I’m very partial to fig rolls.”
Finga
l shook his head.
Phelim leant forward, cocking his head. His remark was softly spoken. “It’s not like ye, Fingal, to refuse grub. I hope to God I’m wrong, but—but did the little lad die?”
“No,” Fingal said, “quite the contrary. I’m just tired, a bit preoccupied.”
“So what did happen?”
Fingal smiled. “A miracle. The stuff worked. Damn it, it worked, Phelim.”
“Get on with ye. Ye’re fooling me. In all my years I’ve never seen anything that cures infections.” But Phelim Corrigan was grinning.
“Red prontosil does work. Honestly, at least it did for Dermot. We were finishing our supper tonight and suddenly he calls for his mammy. Says he’s hungry. His temperature and pulse were nearly normal, he wasn’t sweating, and the lymphangitis had vanished. Completely vanished.”
“Jasus Murphy and all the saints. Honestly?” Phelim shook his head. “I’m not doubting ye, Fingal. I’m just flabbergasted.”
“I was too,” Fingal said, “and delighted for the lad—and for the future.”
“The future?”
“Phelim, we’re soon going to be able to cure infections. Think what that means.”
Phelim pushed his chair back. “And ye still haven’t thought what it means for ye, have ye?”
Fingal shook his head.
“Ye’ll be famous.”
“I’ll what?”
“If ye want to be, ye can be the most famous doctor in Ireland. All ye’ll need to do is write a letter to the Lancet.”
What had Fingal said when he was trying to persuade Bob to get the Prontosil in the first place? “There might be a prize in it for one of the professor’s top students.” It hadn’t dawned on Fingal that there might be a prize in it for him too. “I’m not sure I want that,” he said.
“And why the hell not?”
“I’d have to explain where I got my hands on the Prontosil. It said right on the bottle, ‘Not for use in humans,’ and Bob Beresford told me, ‘Professor Bigger will kill me if he finds out.’” Fingal also remembered how Bob had said he would have helped Fingal even without the carrot of possible fame. He’d have helped because they were friends. “I’d not like to queer his pitch with his prof.” Fingal and Bob were friends, and friendship was a two-way street.
Phelim munched his fig roll. “Do you not think Prof Bigger would forgive Bob?”
“He might.” Fingal shook his head. “But you know, Phelim, that would be a gamble and I’ve already taken one that’s paid off against the odds. What’s important is that Dermot’s better and his foot’s saved. I’m not interested in fame.”
“So it’s just the outcome that matters, is that it?” Phelim reached for another roll. He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll never forget what ye said, boy, ‘If the medicine cures the patient,’ not a thought of, ‘If the great Doctor O’Reilly cures the lad.’ I am proud of ye.”
Fingal blushed and said, “I—I just wanted to see the boy better and, yes, I do want the world to know and I do want us in the profession to be able to do something huge for patients, but Bob’s told me that the real, proper research is just beginning to suggest Prontosil, or its active part, sulphanilamide, does work. Can you imagine what harm I’d do bellowing one case from the rooftops if it was only a lucky chance? A fluke? I said we’d soon be able to treat infections. I’d just like a bit more proof, maybe from the study Doctor Davidson’s doing at the Rotunda. I don’t want to go off half-cocked.”
Phelim’s fig roll never got to his mouth. He stood and offered his hand.
Fingal frowned and took it.
“Doctor O’Reilly. Ye are a remarkable man.”
“No such thing.” Fingal blushed.
Phelim took his seat and bit into his second roll. “There’s one thing I don’t understand.”
“What?”
“Ye’ve come damn close to finding the Holy Grail, yer patient’s going to get better, and still ye came in looking like ye’d lost a guinea and found tuppence. What’s wrong?”
Fingal pursed his lips. There was no reason not at least to tell Phelim. “My girl and I…”
Phelim choked on his roll and Fingal leapt to his feet, used the flat of his hand to smack the man on the back. Phelim coughed, spluttered, said, “Thank you,” and dried his eyes with a hanky. “Fingal,” he said, “I know what ye’re going to say—Ye were meant to see her last night, but ye stayed with your patient.”
“How did you know?”
Phelim’s smile was wistful. “I’m still single, aren’t I?”
And Fingal realised that Kitty’s suspicion about Phelim’s bachelorhood was right, and it might be prophetic for Fingal’s future too.
“I wish,” said Phelim, “I could say I could free up more time for ye to make it up to her.”
“I don’t think that would matter,” Fingal said. “She’s a nurse and she’s leaving next month to help with orphans of the Spanish Civil War.” He took a deep breath. “But it was a generous thought.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Phelim put down the uneaten half of his fig roll. “I was going to tell ye and Charlie on Monday anyway.”
“Tell us what?”
“Ye know I’ve been having these meetings with the dispensary supervisory committee?”
“Yes.”
“So, Fingal, they’re going to redraw the boundaries of the Aungier Street Dispensary. On Monday I was going to have to tell ye and Charlie that I’ll have to let at least one of ye go—”
At least one of them? Charlie was pretty set on leaving anyway, but what if they both had to go? Fingal knew, knew completely, that his future was here in Aungier Place working with a man who must be the best senior colleague any young doctor could ask for. He gritted his teeth, and said levelly, “I’m sure between us Charlie and I can work it out.” Charlie’d understand. Probably be relieved to have an excuse. Fingal smiled, but the smile vanished when Phelim said, “It may not be just one. The new boundaries may not even support two doctors. I’m sorry.”
“Jesus,” Fingal said. Kitty gone, probably the job he had finally decided was the right one for him gone, and—trivial in comparison, but still important to him, by missing playing rugby this afternoon he’d probably jeopardised his chances for selection, and a place on the Irish team. All taken from him in the space of twenty-four hours.
Who’d said bad things come in threes? Damned if he knew or actually gave a tinker’s curse about the source, but everything Fingal cared about had been overthrown like the shattering of the ramparts of a sand castle by the waves of Killiney Bay.
44
Choose Thou Whatever Suits
Barry Laverty didn’t seem to be able to stop laughing, but managed to say, “Donal painted those roses? He’s quite the artist.”
Immediately after letting the young man in through the front door, O’Reilly had taken Barry to view the redecorated waiting room. “What my Dublin patients would have called ‘spec-feckin’-tacular,’” O’Reilly said. “Not quite up to the standard of the old wallpaper, but, ‘Not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door … but…’”
“Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet, ‘but mind you, ’tis enough.’”
“Indeed it is,” O’Reilly said with a smile. “You haven’t changed much, Barry, have you? But you’d be amazed by some of the things round here that have since you left. I’ll tell you about them soon, but, and I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you, I still like my jar. Come on upstairs and we’ll have a quick one.” He led and Barry followed. The young man had phoned yesterday to say he’d like to see O’Reilly at five o’clock today. Hall Campbell, the fisherman from Ardglass who last week had his patent ductus arteriosus repaired successfully, may have wondered if O’Reilly’s first name was Sherlock, but it had taken no great powers of deduction to guess why Barry’d asked to come. What he was going to say was another matter.
While Barry settled in one armchair with his glass of John Jameson, O’Reilly filled his briar and lit up before s
itting himself. “Sláinte,” he said, raised his glass, and drank.
“Cheers,” Barry said. He pointed to the curtained bow windows. “It doesn’t seem like nearly eighteen months since I first sat with you in this room, sipping a sherry, admiring the view. Do you know, Fingal, I got so used to it I can picture it now even with the curtains closed? You can see past the moss-grown lopsided steeple, down over the rooftops of the cottages on Main Street, over the foreshore, across Belfast Lough, and out to the Antrim Hills.” He sipped. “You said, and I’ll never forget, ‘You couldn’t beat it with both sticks of a Lambeg drum.’ You were right.”
“Aye,” said O’Reilly, belching smoke. “And it’s not just the scenery or the slow pace of life. It’s a place and people that will get under your skin if you let them.”
“I have done,” said Barry quietly.
O’Reilly wondered if it was the place, its inhabitants, or a certain schoolmistress. He waited.
“I promised you a decision before the end of November, Fingal.” Barry stood, walked to the window, and came back. “I didn’t want to talk about such an important thing over the phone last evening. It has to be face-to-face.”
“I agree.” That was the sort of approach folks used if they were delivering what they thought their listeners would perceive as bad news. Did that mean in spite of loving the place Barry wasn’t coming back?
“I won’t muck about…” And he grinned. “If you’ll have me, Fingal, I’d like to be your partner starting in January.”
“Bloody marvellous.” O’Reilly rose, extended his hand. “Welcome back, Barry. We’ve missed you.”
Barry too, rose and shook hands.
“When can you start?” O’Reilly said.
“I need to give a month’s notice in Ballymena. Would Monday the third of January be all right?”
“Make it Monday the tenth. I’m sure you could use a break and Jenny won’t mind staying on for as long as that. She may need a bit of time to find another spot.” How was he going to break the news to Jenny? She was going to be very disappointed and O’Reilly hated to disappoint people. He sat and motioned Barry to do the same. “What made you decide?”