An Irish Country Doctor (13 page)

"Barry. Barry Laverty."

He turned and saw her limping fast toward him. He almost dropped his package. She stood beside him, panting slightly. "Come on," she said, grasping his arm, "get a move on, or we'll miss the train."

"Just made it," she said, sitting down on a bench as Barry slammed the compartment door.

He sat opposite. "I thought you weren't coming."

She laughed, her dark eyes bright in the compartment's dim light. "So your name's Barry Laverty?"

"That's right. I heard your friend call you Patricia." 

"Patricia Spence." He took the hand she offered, feeling the smoothness of her skin, the firmness of her grasp. He knew he was holding on for a moment too long, but he didn't want to let go. He looked into her face. He never wanted to let go.

"I'll have it back, if you don't mind."

He eased his grip, but she let her hand linger just for a moment. She sat forward. Now what? Damn it, why was he always at a loss for words with women?

"You're quiet," she said. "Cat got your tongue?"

The train jolted through the dark night, swaying over the uneven track, rattling where the rails met.

"Not really."

"Don't know what got into you, asking a complete stranger to dinner?"

"That's right."

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't know what got into me, telling you I'd be on this train." She tossed her dark mane, highlights dancing in the ebony. "I think it's the way your hair sticks up . . . like a little boy's, and you looked so lost." His hand flew to that damned tuft. 

He saw her smile at him. "I washed it this morning, and I can't do a damn thing with it." Christ, he thought, what a stupid thing to say. She chuckled at the hackneyed line.

Now or never, he told himself. "I just had to meet you, that's all." He swallowed. He felt his fingers digging into his palms. "I've never seen anyone so lovely." He knew he was blushing. The train rattled to a halt. "Sydenham Station," he said.

"Thank you, sir," she said.

"For telling you the name of the station?"

"For telling me you think I'm lovely."

"You are," he said, grateful that no one had boarded, knowing that Kinnegar was only two more stops down the line, happy that the train was on its way again, anxious that his time with her was running out. "Very lovely." He wanted to touch her, to hold her hand, but he was terrified that she might dart away like a startled bird. He sat rigidly. He must keep her talking. "You live in the Kinnegar?" he asked.

"That's right. Number 9, the Esplanade. On the seafront. I love the sea."

"I grew up in Bangor. I know what you mean about the sea. It's never the same. It's . . ." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out Seamus Heaney's book. "I'm not very good with words but. . ." He opened the book, riffled through the pages, and read:

You might think that the sea is company,

Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs

But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits

The very windows, spits like a tame cat

Turned savage.

He looked into her eyes--cat's eyes--and saw them soften. "That's beautiful," she said gently. "Who's the poet?" 

"Chap called Seamus Heaney."

"Never heard of him."

"I think you will. If you like poetry."

"And you do?" Her question was solemn, her gaze never leaving his eyes.

"Oh, yes." He glanced down. He was jerked forward as the carriage stumbled to a halt. He felt the nearness of her. She was wearing a musk that made his head swim. He stared into her face, reached out, and touched her hand. She twined her fingers with his and smiled. He saw her teeth, white, even, against her full lips. The train jerked. 

"I get off at the next stop," she said. "I'm sorry." 

"I know, but. . . Patricia, I want to see you again." 

"My phone number's Kinnegar 657334."

Kinnegar 657334. He repeated the number in his head, over and over. "Can I phone you tomorrow?"

"I'd like that." She squeezed his hand, leant forward, and kissed him gently, little more than a fluttering of butterfly wings. "I'd like that very much." 

"Jesus," he whispered. "Oh, Jesus."

"Bangor's not far from Kinnegar," she said, as the train began to slow.

"I don't live in Bangor now. I'm staying in Ballybucklebo." 

"You're what?" She sat back and laughed, deep in her throat. He rejoiced in the sound, but what was so amusing about Ballybucklebo?

"Oh, dear," she said. "Oh, dear."

The Kinnegar halt sign appeared in the window. The train stopped. She rose.

He stood and opened the door. "What's so funny?" 

"The ten o'clock doesn't stop at Ballybucklebo. You'll have to get off here and walk home."

"What?"

"That's right, and you'd better get a move on if you don't want to go all the way to Bangor."

The train jolted. He hustled her onto the platform and jumped down beside her.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have laughed," she said. 

"It's all right. At least I can walk you home." 

"Come on then. It's not far," she said, as the train's red rear lights vanished round a curve in the track. Damn it. He'd left his new Wellington boots in the compartment.

She took his hand, and boots forgotten, he walked beside her down the steps of the station, out of the weak pools of light thrown from the station windows, and onto a dark country road. After the day's rain the night air was gentle with hay and honeysuckle scents mingled with the tang of the sea. In the distance he could hear the susurration of waves on a shore.

He had to shorten his stride to keep pace with Patricia's uneven steps.

"How'd you hurt your leg? Hockey?"

"I didn't hurt it." He detected a hint of bitterness. 

"What happened?"

"Nineteen fifty-one."

He stopped. Dead. Turned her to face him. "The polio epidemic?" 

She nodded. "I was lucky. My left leg's a bit short, but I didn't end up in an iron lung like some of the kids."

"Jesus."

She dropped his hand and took one step back. "I suppose I won't be hearing from you now? Men don't like women who aren't perfect." Her words were matter-of-fact.

He sensed that she had been hurt before, perhaps badly. "I don't want pity," she said. He looked up and saw Orion, high, high, each star glimmering, bright and proud. He knew that to him, her short leg made no difference, none in the whole wide world. "I'm not very good at pity," he said. "I don't give a damn about your leg, Patricia. I don't care at all." 

"Do you mean that?" She stepped away from him, stared at him through to his soul. He said nothing, just waited and watched her face, trying to read her expression in the dim starlight, hoping she wouldn't tell him that she didn't believe him.

"I shouldn't, Barry Laverty, I know I shouldn't, but I think I believe you." He saw something silver beneath her left eye, and he wanted to taste the salt of it, but something told him he mustn't rush her. 

"Come on," he said, "let's get you home."

"All right," she said, "and Barry?"

"What?"

"I'd really like you to phone."

Deliver Us from Evil

"You look like the Hesperus ... a total wreck," O'Reilly said, leaning forward in one of the upstairs armchairs and peering over the top of the Sunday Times.

Barry yawned. "Late night."

"I know. I heard Arthur. He sounded happy."

"I wish--" Barry began, intending to tell O'Reilly that something would have to be done about his sex-crazed Labrador, but O'Reilly interrupted.

"Must have been two o'clock. Good thing there's no surgery today. What kept you?"

Barry parked himself in the other armchair. "Fate," he said. "Kismet." He stared out the window, seeing not the church steeple but Patricia's face.

"Whatever it was, it's put a grin on your face." Barry debated whether to tell O'Reilly about her but decided that now was not the time. She was his to relish in private. Just for a while. O'Reilly would probably make some crude joke, and Barry didn't want that.

His musing was interrupted by a rhythmic rending noise. "Stop that," O'Reilly yelled, tossing the Times colour supplement in Barry's direction.

Barry ducked. "Stop what?"

"Not you. Her. Lady Macbeth."

The white cat that had been left on the doorstep had been so named by O'Reilly after she'd bloodied Arthur Guinness's nose and chased him back to his doghouse--twice. O'Reilly'd said she clearly had an ambition to rule the entire place and, like her namesake, might very well kill to do so.

She stood semi-erect on her hind paws, body arched like the downward sway in the back of a spavined horse. Her front claws raked and ripped at the fabric of Barry's chair with the enthusiasm of an out-of-control combine harvester.

"Stop it, madam." O'Reilly stood over the animal, who clawed away and condescended to give him one of those feline looks that asks, "My good man, are you by the remotest chance addressing
me
?

"Stop it." O'Reilly grabbed the cat, picked her up, and tickled her under the chin.

Barry watched as she fixed the big man with her green eyes, smiled, laid back her ears, and made a throaty sound. She held her tail straight out from her body. The tail's tip made circles, the amplitude of which increased in keeping with the deepening timbre of her growl.

"I don't think she's very happy, Fingal." 

"Nonsense. Animals dote on me. Don't you?" He went on tickling her until she struck, fangs sinking into the web of O'Reilly's hand. "You bitch," he roared.

Lady Macbeth sprang from his arms, landed nimbly on the rug, sat, regarded O'Reilly as she might have looked at a piece of limp lettuce in her food dish, and deliberately, nonchalantly, hoisted one hind leg and began to lick her bottom.

"
'Tyger, tyger, burning bright,'
" O'Reilly glowered at the cat. "
'In the forests of the night. . .
.'" 

"Blake," Barry observed, trying to hide his smile. 

"I know it's bloody Blake." O'Reilly swung one booted foot backwards. "I've half a mind to give Lady Macbeth her arsehole to wear as a necklace."

"Here, hang on, Fingal." Barry rose and interposed himself between O'Reilly and the cat.

O'Reilly grunted and lowered his foot. "I'd not do it. She's only young." He glared at his punctured hand. "Just a love bite anyway." 

"Maybe," said Barry, "but we'd better get it cleaned up. There's a thing called cat scratch disease, you know."

"And tetanus," O'Reilly remarked. "And you can disabuse yourself of any notion, Doctor Laverty, that you're going to stick a bloody needle in my backside. I've already been inoculated." 

"Thought never entered my head," Barry lied, thinking of the Dettol that would have to be poured onto the raw punctures. "Not for a minute."

"Phew," said O'Reilly, "that Dettol stings." He waited for Barry to apply a dressing. "Maybe you should try it next time you cut yourself."

"No thanks."

"No, really." O'Reilly held out his hand. "It wouldn't be a bad thing if all of us quacks had to see things from the customers' point of view once in a while. Might make us a bit more empathic." 

"You want to feel like one of your patients?" Barry clapped an Elastoplast on O'Reilly's puncture wounds. "You're a bit on the heavy side, Fingal, but I could try to chuck you into the rosebushes." 

O'Reilly guffawed. "You can try any time you like, son." Yes, Barry thought, and for an encore I'll have a go at tossing the Ballybucklebo maypole like a caber. "No thanks." Barry heard the front door closing.

"That's Kinky home from church," said O'Reilly. "Come on. We'll see if she can hustle up a cup of tea."

O'Reilly was once again ensconced in his living room. He nodded to where Lady Macbeth lay curled up in a patch of sunlight. "Now, before Her Ladyship remembered she was descended from a long line of albino sabre-toothed tigers, I was trying to find out what kept you out so late last night. You were muttering about kismet, which, as an aside, is probably what Lord Nelson really said to Hardy at Trafalgar. I can't see the old sea dog saying, 'Kiss me, Hardy,' can you?" 

Barry had been wondering how to ask O'Reilly for more time off. Every other Saturday night was hardly sufficient time to give a blooming romance much of a chance. Unable to think of a suitable way to introduce the subject, he decided to let the conversation take this other tack. "It's in all the history books." 

"Most books are full of rubbish. Kiss me? Kismet? Damned if I know about Nelson and Hardy . . . but I still want to hear what kept you out so late."

"I got on the wrong train. The ten o'clock doesn't stop at Ballybucklebo. I had to walk from Kinnegar. That's all."

O'Reilly chuckled. "The exercise'll do you good." He looked straight at Barry. "I'd hardly call getting on the wrong train 'destiny.'" 

"Destiny?"

" 'Kismet,' from the Turkish kisma, meaning 'destiny.' And that comes from the Arabic kasama, meaning 'divide.'" 

"You amaze me, Fingal."

"Sometimes, my boy, I amaze myself." O'Reilly leant forward. "What's her name?"

"What?"

'You've had a dreamy look all morning. You were muttering about fate. Two and two usually make four.  I was a young fellow once myself." O'Reilly's voice held a distant wistfulness, as if he were remembering something gone, something precious. Barry hesitated.