A Dublin Student Doctor (51 page)

He couldn’t see it. Tie bedamned. Seeing Donal was more important. He grabbed his sports jacket from the back of the door, knowing his shirt and tweed pants looked as if he’d slept in them. And he had, so why worry?

He started on the familiar walk to ward 21. In the nineteen years he’d been in practice in Ballybucklebo he’d visited this teaching hospital many times. It had been opened on its present site by King Edward VII in 1903. The building of Sir Patrick Dun’s in Dublin where he’d taken much of his training had commenced exactly one hundred years earlier.

Fingal passed the cafeteria in the basement and climbed the stairs to the main corridor. They had been good times, those recently remembered student days, and his life had been eventful in the years between them and coming to Ballybucklebo.

Father, albeit in a wheelchair, had attended his son’s graduation in the Examination Hall of Trinity College wearing his full academic dress of scarlet lined with blue cloth as befitted a man with a D.Phil. from Oxford University. Ma, in a bottle-green two-piece suit tailored specifically for the occasion, sported a ridiculously wide-brimmed green felt hat worn at a tilt. Her chinchilla stole sat upon three-inch shoulder pads.

The ’30s, thought O’Reilly, with a smile, those years between the wars when occasions like a graduation called for ostentatious display. Graduates’ fathers wore academic robes if they were on the faculty of Trinity, or morning coats, grey kid gloves, and grey top hats out of doors. Those awaiting conferral of their degrees sat in rows of chairs, the men in suits, the women in dresses under robes appropriate to their faculties. One by one they were called forward, shaken by the hand, and given their parchment.

Father’s voice had been weak, but his grip firm when after the ceremony he’d shaken Fingal’s hand and said, “I’m so proud, boy. So very proud.”

Ma hadn’t said much, just a quiet, “I knew all along you’d do it.” And she’d seemed to glow. She knew that this was Fingal and Father’s moment.

Professor Connan O’Reilly had died at home in his sleep three weeks later. Doctor Micks had believed his ability to hold on to life so he could keep a promise to watch his son graduate was nothing short of a miracle of willpower.

Ma, bless her, had sold Lansdowne Road, sadly let Bridgit and Cook go once she’d secured positions for them, and moved to Portaferry to be near Lars. Today he was still a bachelor, had given up shooting ducks, and of late had developed interests in wildfowl conservation and growing orchids. Every year he spent several months in Villefranche on the French Riviera. O’Reilly’s big brother had volunteered when World War II broke out in 1939 but had been turned down because he had flat feet.

In the intervening years between 1936 and her death from a stroke in 1948 aged sixty-five, Ma had lived her life fully. She’d learnt to drive and had owned an Armstrong-Siddeley car, reputedly the terror of cyclists on the road of the Ards Peninsula. She’d started an aeroplane fundraising drive two weeks after Nazi Germany invaded Poland. To help she’d enlisted Laura, Marchioness of Ballybucklebo, who was bored by being alone while her husband’s regiment was preparing to fight in Norway. Ma and Lady Laura had been the guests of honour when a Mark I Spitfire, bought from moneys they had raised, had been presented to 602 Squadron in time for the aircraft to fight in and survive the Battle of Britain. In 1946, in recognition of her war work and for her unfailing support of a charity for unwed mothers, she’d been awarded the Order of the British Empire. Fingal, still in Naval uniform, had accompanied her to Buckingham Palace for her investiture by King George VI.

She was buried next to Father in the family plot beneath the sombre yew trees in the cemetery on Priory Corner in Holywood, the little County Down town where Father and Ma had begun their married life and where Lars and Fingal had been born. The town where their parents had started to shape Lars Porsena and his brother Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly into the men they were today. Thank you, both, he thought. Thank you for everything.

O’Reilly strode past wards 17 and 18, the orthopaedic unit where Sir Donald Cromie worked, he who on Finals Results Night, in Davy Byrnes pub, pissed as a newt, had roared,
“We deserve it all.”
And been damn lucky not to have needed a bone surgeon himself after he’d fallen off his chair. Fingal chuckled. Sir Donald must have given himself a shock that night. Since then he’d barely touched a drop, although it was reported he’d been tiddly last year at the marriage of his eldest daughter to a pathologist.

They’d grown close as students, O’Reilly, Cromie, Charlie, the three of them now working in Ulster, not keeping in touch as often as they should. They all still missed poor old Bob Beresford, MC.

The Second World War had taken its toll.

Bob had volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps, not as a bedside physician, but as a microbiologist, and had been a captain working in Singapore on methods of preventing malaria when the Japanese overran the island fortress. He’d been awarded the Military Cross for bringing in three wounded privates under fire, the third after he’d been hit in the leg himself. Fingal believed Bob had deserved the Victoria Cross. He died in Changi prison in 1943. He’d been limping round the sick bay tending to cases of dysentery despite his own advanced malnutrition when he’d collapsed. What might have happened, O’Reilly wondered, if he’d not persuaded Bob to pursue research? His auntie’s bequest had gone to Trinity to fund a scholarship for medical students.

The war had affected O’Reilly too. After graduation he’d spent one year as a locum dispensary doctor in the Liberties. He’d loved the work and he’d been able to take time for his rugby football. In 1937, he had worn the green jersey as partner to Charlie Greer in the second row of the Irish rugby team. They had beaten Scotland eleven to four and lost to England eight to nine. He kept the formal, silver tasselled green caps hidden in a locked drawer at Number One.

Father would never know, but his son had tried to take the advice of his senior colleagues and specialise. He’d spent one year as a trainee in the Rotunda but had changed his mind and moved to Ballybucklebo to general practice in 1938. His obligations to the Royal Naval Reserve had led to his call up in ’39. When he’d been posted as a surgeon lieutenant commander to HMS
Warspite
he’d been delighted that the navigating officer was the same Tom Laverty who’d served with Fingal on HMS
Tiger
in 1930. Tom was to become young Barry Laverty’s father. O’Reilly had seen the war out on “the grand old lady” as
Warspite
was affectionaely known in the service.

“Fingal, slow down.”

That’s what Kitty had asked as they were driving back to Ballybucklebo yesterday. He recognised today’s voice, turned, and stopped. “Charlie.” Fingal’s smile was wide. “What the hell brings you here so early on a Sunday?”

“There’s a menigioma to operate on at nine, remember? It can’t wait until tomorrow. The intracranial pressure started to rise.”

“Of course. You’re going to let Mister Gupta do it.”

“Right. And,” Charlie said, “Jane Hoey phoned me. I want to have a quick look at your fellah.”

“I’m heading there too.” Fingal fell into stride. “It’s a pretty speedy recovery, Charlie.”

“It’s utterly bloody amazing, and we should be grateful for the ones we win.” His voice was quiet. “The astrocytoma I did yesterday?” Charlie sighed. “She was only eighteen, Fingal.”

Coming down the years Fingal O’Reilly heard the voice of Geoff Pilkington, now a specialist in rheumatology in Cork City, “Don’t take it personally. We can’t save them all.” O’Reilly knew that now. After what he’d seen during the war he certainly knew it all right. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.” And he wondered what she’d been called, the eighteen-year-old with the brain tumour.

“Morning, Jane,” Charlie said as they arrived on ward 21. “Morning, Kitty.”

“Morning, Mister Greer, Doctor O’Reilly,” Kitty said, rising. “Sister Hoey is just giving report.”

O’Reilly knew it was nursing routine at the end of each shift for the outgoing nurses to brief the incoming on the states of the patients.

“I’ll be with you both in a second,” she said, and smiled at O’Reilly.

“Morning, Kitty. I didn’t get home last night,” Fingal said, and winked at her. He’d not have got away with that in Sister Daly’s day back at Sir Patrick Dun’s. Kitty gave him another swift but brilliant smile and returned to her seat beside Jane Hoey.

“There’s a meningioma gone to theatre for preanaesthesia with Doctor Browne,” Jane was saying to Kitty, “and the astrocytoma we did yesterday.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry about Molly, sir. But Mister Donnelly’s raring to go.” Sister Hoey handed the surgeon a chart.

He scanned it. “Take a look,” and passed it to O’Reilly.

Every measurement was normal. The drain had fallen out at the last dressing change and there was no evidence of bleeding from the wound. Practically unbelieveable but the chart didn’t lie. O’Reilly gave it back to Kitty. “Can we see him?”

“Just a tick,” she said.

“And that’s it, Kitty, so I’m off,” Sister Hoey said. She rose. “Your toast and tea are ready in the kitchen,” she said to O’Reilly, who thanked her.

Kitty held on to the chart. “This way.” She marched off, smart in her red uniform and starched fall. That once ebony hair was tipped with silver and fell loosely to her shoulders. The modern headdress didn’t cover her hair the way the ones had back in the ’30s and, O’Reilly thought as he and Charlie followed her, calves like Kitty’s deserved to be paid the compliment of a knee-length skirt, not hidden under the floor-length dresses of her student days. Thank you for coming back again, girl, and giving us yet another chance. You are a remarkable woman.

Donal no longer needed one-on-one nursing. He had propped himself up on pillows. His head was swathed in bandages, but they were pristine. His face was nearly as pale.

“Well, Donal,” O’Reilly said. “How are you?”

“Some bugger’s—” He glanced at Kitty. “Sorry, Miss Kitty. There’s an eejit playing the Lambeg drums in my head, so there is.”

“I’m not surprised,” O’Reilly said. “You must have hit your nut a powerful whack when you fell off the motorbike.”

“Is that what happened?” Donal frowned. “I’ve no idea how I got here.” He tentatively put one hand up to his dressing. “Or how I got this.”

“It’s not unusual for people to be unable to remember the events immediately surrounding their accident,” Charlie said.

“This is Mister Greer. He’s a brain surgeon, Donal. He operated on you last night,” O’Reilly said.

“Pleased to meet youse, sir.” Donal frowned. “On my brain?” O’Reilly saw the brows-knotted look of concentration that flitted across Donal’s face. “Did I have that operation Cissie Sloan was going on about at Sonny and Maggie’s wedding?”

“Which one’s that?” O’Reilly asked.

“You know, sir.” Donal lowered his voice. “The one when the surgeon removes the whole brain, cleans it, and puts it back.”

It hurt Fingal’s jaw muscles, but he managed to keep a straight face. “Not quite. You’d bled into your head. Mister Greer stopped the bleeding. I’m not surprised you have a headache.” You could have died, Fingal thought. A headache’s a small price.

“Oh.”

“Donal,” Charlie said, “I need to examine you.”

“Fire away, sir.”

While Charlie made a rapid, but thorough neurological evaluation, O’Reilly said to Kitty, “I hope you’d a good night’s rest.”

She half shrugged. “You look a bit the worse for wear.”

“I’m not cut out for sleeping in student quarters anymore.”

“It’s been a while,” she said, “since you lived in Sir Patrick Dun’s with,” she nodded her head at Charlie, “and Cromie, and poor Bob.”

Thirty-one years since first I met you, girl, he thought. “It has.”

Charlie straightened and slipped a pencil torch back into his inside jacket pocket. “Mister Donnelly,” he said, “you’re close to being a medical phenomonon, but everything’s pretty normal as far as I can tell.”

“I’m well mended, like?”

“You’re on the way to being better, but you’ll need to stay in for a few days.”

Donal’s look at O’Reilly would have melted Pharaoh’s hard heart. “Can you do nothing, Doctor O’Reilly, sir? I want for to get home. Julie’ll be taking the rickets, so she will.”

“Don’t worry about Julie, Donal. Doctor Laverty told you he’d nip round and see her last night. Let her know where you were. Tell her not to worry.”

“Is that a fact? I don’t mind that at all.”

“What is the last thing you do remember?”

Donal’s grin was wide. “Roaring my head off at the races yesterday.” He frowned. “That’s about it, sir.”

“Donal,” Charlie said, “you’re not out of the woods yet. I’ll let you go to Doctor O’Reilly’s care on Thursday, if you continue to improve. Your wife can visit you today. You’ll be letting her know, Fingal, won’t you?”

“My assistant will.” When Barry gave her this morning’s great news, he could tell her to come up here this afternoon and see for herself. “And,” O’Reilly said, “don’t worry, Donal. I’ll explain to Bertie Bishop that you’re sick. You’ll not lose your job.”

“Thanks, sir. You’re a grand man for keeping an eye on things at home in the village, so you are. Keeping the wheels going round. Looking after us even when we’re not sick. Like the time there now you helped me and my mates with the horse.”

And wasn’t that what being a GP was about? Not only treating ailments. Hadn’t he learned that when he’d been able to find a job for Paddy Keogh, who still sent a Christmas card every year? Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly loved his community and his part in it.

“So that’s settled,” Charlie said. He looked at his watch. “I heard Jane mention tea. I’d not mind a quick cuppa before we operate.” He turned back to Donal. “You go on getting better. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Come on, Fingal. Tea.” Charlie strode off toward the ward kitchen.

“Get well, Donal,” O’Reilly said as Kitty bent to straighten the bedclothes. “And Sister O’Hallorhan, I’ll be having Barry run the shop on Wednesday. I’ll pick you up at two at your flat.” What might have happened, he mused, what if I’d had the wit to marry this wonderful girl back in the ’30s? He winked at her again. “We’ve a ring to buy.”