An Irish Country Doctor (31 page)

"Funny that," said O'Reilly, "how nettles that sting and dock that soothe the sting always seem to grow together. I wonder what the pharmacological agent is in those leaves?"

"No idea." Barry stared at Sonny's washing machine standing mute at the roadside.

"What we need," said O'Reilly, "is some sort of dock to soothe that old nettle, Councillor Bertie Bishop, worshipful master of the Orange Lodge . . . and all-around gobshite. Make him come to some accommodation with Sonny. He'll be discharged in a few more days." O'Reilly accelerated into a blind corner. "There's an old folks' home in Bangor. We could try to get Sonny in there, but then Bishop would take over the property, and Sonny would go into a decline if he thought he was going to be there for the rest of his life. It would be the end of him."

"Fingal! Look out for that cyclist."

O'Reilly swerved.

Barry lifted the foot that he had shoved against the floor in the unreasonable hope that it would brake the car. "You told me, not in as many words, that we can't fix all the troubles of the universe." The car came back on course.

"You're right. But it's still a bugger about the old boy." O'Reilly lapsed into silence, and Barry decided to say no more until they reached their destination.

Barry recognized the council housing estate as they drove through it. Two-storey terraces scowled at each other across streets so narrow that at three o'clock the sunlight had gone. Children had tied ropes to the top of a lamp-post and swung round it, laughing and chirping in high-pitched voices like a flock of starlings--which along with some dusty sparrows pecking in the gutters, and flocks of feral pigeons, were the only birds that frequented the slum. He remembered that Patricia was a bird-watcher, how she'd known the bird that was singing the evening they'd gone for a walk. She'd not get much joy bird-watching here.

O'Reilly braked. "You'll not have seen what I'm going to show you next."

"Oh?"

"Come on."

A woman wearing a calico apron and fluffy slippers let them in. Barry noticed that her bare shins were mottled with a network of brown lines, tangled like a fishing net on reefs of varicose veins.
Reticularis ab igne
, he thought, a network from the fire, a sure sign of poverty. With no other heating in the winter for their draughty, damp houses, the poor huddled in front of tiny, smoky coal fires that in some mysterious way provoked the mottling on the fronts of the legs. 

"How's Hughey today?" O'Reilly enquired.

"He's out in the backyard, Doctor. There's still a wee taste of sunshine there, and he loves the warmth, so he does." Barry wondered as they passed through a small kitchen why the woman picked up a tin tray and a spoon.

The backyard was typical: a cramped slab of cracked concrete hemmed in by low red-brick walls. Overhead a clothesline, washing hung out to dry, sagged and swayed. Although the shadow of the house darkened most of the concrete--a shadow that lengthened as Barry watched--the far end was still in light. A man in a frayed cardigan and moleskin trousers stood there, bent over a wooden box where impatiens bloomed, red and white and violet. He didn't turn as they approached, which surprised Barry because O'Reilly's boots clattered on the concrete.

The woman went up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder. He spun round and looked at O'Reilly.

"How's about ye, Doctor O'Reilly?" The man's face, leathery brown but for several irregular white puckered scars, broke into a grin.

"How are you, Hughey?"

The man cupped a hand behind one ear. Barry noticed the tufts of hair sticking out from the auditory canal.

"What?" Hughey frowned and shook his head. "Hit the bloody tray, Doreen."

Barry jumped when Doreen belaboured the tray with the spoon. He glanced at O'Reilly and saw him put a hand to his head. The horrid clangour must have been working wonders for O'Reilly's hangover. It had certainly disturbed the equanimity of a pair of pigeons, which had taken flight from their perch on a chimney mounted television aerial.

"I said, How are you, Hughey? Are you managing with your medicine?" O'Reilly was roaring at his patient.

"I'm bravely. But them eardrops aren't worth a tinker's damn." Barry could hardly make out the man's words above the constant clanging. What was going on?

"Sorry to hear that," O'Reilly yelled. "Maybe you'd better stop using them. Pity they didn't work."

"Och, what can't be cure must be endured." Hughey gave Doreen a sideways glance. "At least I don't have to pay any heed to her craking on."

"Away off and feel your head," she said and pecked his cheek. "I'll not bang this wee drum for you anymore." And mercifully she stopped. "So is that it, Doctor O'Reilly?"

"I'm afraid so, Doreen. I asked the ear doctor in Belfast, and he says he's done the best he can. It's a shame that he can do no more." 

"It is. But I still have my man, the out' goat." Once again she started to bang away. "The doctor says he can do no more, Hughey." 

The man nodded. "Just like the old song. 'I'm too old to work, but I'm too young to die.'"

"Away off and chase yourself. I'm puttin' a big fry on for your supper, and there's a couple of bottles of stout in the house. You'd not die before you got those into you, would you?" He shook his head.

"I'll see the doctors out then. Away you, back to your flowers." He nodded and turned back to the little blooms as the sound of clanging and the last of the sunlight died.

"He loves his wee flowers, so he does," she said, and Barry saw the moisture in her eyes.

"I've never seen anything like that," Barry said, as he closed the Rover's door.

"Bloody shipyards," said O'Reilly, driving away. "Hughey was a riveter. Did you see the scars on his face? You can't work with red hot metal all your life and not get a few burns." 

"But what was the business with the tin tray?"

"Have you ever heard riveters at work?"

"No."

"I have. In Valletta Harbour in Malta during the war. They were fixing up the Ark Royal after she'd been bombed. A thousand men with rivet guns pounding away? It's like the proverbial hammers of hell. It's a wonder more men don't lose their hearing." He pulled the car to the side of Main Street, before the maypole and the traffic light. "Hughey's deaf as a post. Riveters' deafness." 

"But he can hear if someone hammers on a tin tray?" 

"Right. Don't ask me why, but it's true." 

"Amazing."

"It is," said O'Reilly, opening the car door. "Now that's all the calls for today, and I need a wee cure."

"A what?"

"A hair of the dog. I wasn't quite abstemious last night." 

"Oh," said Barry tactfully.

"I'll buy you a pint in the Duck."

"Fine."

"Just one, mind. The pair of us'll have to be in top form tomorrow. Half the ones I chased away this morning will show up, and you've to see Cissie Sloan about her thyroid. Her results should be back." 

"That's right."

"And if the bloody mice haven't died again we should know for sure about the wee MacAteer girl's pregnancy." 

"We might even know more than that, Fingal. Kinky's going to the Women's Union tonight."

"What has that to do with the price of corn?"

"I forgot to tell you. Kinky thinks that Julie could be a housemaid at the Bishops', and she'll try to find out from Mrs. Bishop tonight." 

"Interesting," said O'Reilly, "but I'm drier than the bottom of an empty flour sack. You can tell me all about it in the Duck."

All Professions Are Conspiracies Against the Laity

Barry was disappointed that he'd not had a chance to speak to Kinky the previous night after her return from the Women's Union, but he and O'Reilly had been called out to attend another confinement. He grinned as he knotted his tie. If many more mothers expressed their gratitude by calling the baby after him, it would be tricky trying to decide which little Ballybucklebo Barry was which. He wasn't going to complain. It worked wonders for the morale to see a baby safely delivered by a grateful, healthy woman. It might not be as challenging as brain surgery, as intellectually stimulating as being a cardiologist or an endocrinologist, but--Barry was irritated that he could not express his own thoughts more coherently-- it felt right. And that was a good feeling. He headed for the dining room.

"Morning, Fingal."

"You look like the cat that got the cream." O'Reilly glanced up from a plate of devilled lambs' kidneys. "Feeling pleased with yourself?"

"Well, I . . ."

"So you should. You've a knack for midwifery." Barry helped himself to a small portion, inhaling the steam from another of Kinky's mysterious but inevitably delicious sauces. "I know," said O'Reilly. "You came down here to give general practice a try."

Barry turned from the sideboard.

"I'd not want to force you to stay." O'Reilly's gaze was level. "You might do better if you specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology." Barry wasn't sure what to say. He had wondered last night about that very possibility.

"You have to do what's right for yourself, son." 

"That's generous of you, Fingal."

"Balls."

"It is."

O'Reilly took a deep breath. "I wanted to be an obstetrician. Bloody war came along, so like a buck eejit I volunteered. After it was over, I was too old to spend another four years training. I'd to make a living. And it's not been so bad here." 

Barry remembered his dad saying that the casualties of war couldn't be counted only among the dead and wounded. "I didn't know."

"Why would you?" O'Reilly's words were gruff. 

Barry shook his head. "No reason. I'm flattered that you would tell me.

"Bollocks. I'm only telling you so you'll not think I'm being-- what did you say--generous?" 

Silly old bugger, Barry thought, you'd die of mortification if you let anyone suspect you'd a soft side. "Perhaps that was the wrong word. I meant you were being fair."

O'Reilly seemed to be mollified. "It's up to you. Now eat and shut up. I've a lot I want to think about." O'Reilly hunched over his plate, shovelled in another mouthful, and chewed fiercely. Barry sat. He too had a lot to think about. Obstetrics and gynaecology had much to recommend it. He had no doubt that he'd enjoy obstetrics. Plenty of satisfied patients when things went well--and they usually did. The snag was gynaecology. Days in clinics dealing with women with vaginal discharges and heavy periods. Or having to break their hearts because they cannot conceive. The poor things had a pathetic belief that their doctors could help, but he knew that in most cases little or nothing of any proven value could be done. It was a damn good thing so many did conceive--usually despite their doctors. And then there were the cancer cases. He shuddered. Ovary. Cervix. He'd seen women die of both, despite heroic radical surgery, despite massive doses of horribly debilitating radiotherapy. 

"Your kidneys are getting cold," O'Reilly said. "Kinky'll kill you." 

"What?"

"Shove those bloody things back in the chafing dish. Maybe she'll not notice."

"Right." Barry rose and was scraping off the last of the congealed mess when Kinky strode in, took one look at what he was doing, and sniffed--a sniff of such force that, as she would say herself, might suck a small cat up a chimney.

"And was there something the matter with the kidneys, so?" she asked, arms folded, chins wobbling.

Barry scuttled for cover like a mouse scared by a flashlight. "Not at all. My eyes were bigger than my belly. I couldn't finish what I took." 

"Huh."

"It's a fact," said O'Reilly. "Greedy bashtoon. Mind you, I can't say I blame him." He handed her his plate, which was so thoroughly cleaned that Barry thought O'Reilly had probably ingested some of the pattern as well. "They were heavenly." He forced a small belch. "Beg pardon."

"Granted, so," she said, unfolding her arms and accepting the plate. She peered at the chafing dish. "There's the makings of a good-steak-and-kidney pie there if you'd not mind kidneys again for your supper."

"That would be wonderful," said Barry. "Kinky?" 

"What?"

"Did you get a word with Mrs. Bishop last night?" Kinky beamed. 

"Aye, and you were right. The wee Rasharkin lassie is a housemaid at the Bishops'. Only a poor wee skivvy, so." Barry smiled. The class distinctions among those in service were as rigid as the caste system of India. A housekeeper was as far above a housemaid--a skivvy--as a Brahmin was above a sweeper. 

"How long has she worked there?" O'Reilly asked. "Three months."

O'Reilly counted on his fingers. "Interesting. And how does she get on with the Bishops?"

"Mrs. Bishop's heartbroken that Julie's given her notice. The wee girl wouldn't give a reason for a while. Now she says she has a sick sister living in Liverpool."

O'Reilly glanced at Barry.

Kinky sniffed, more gently. "Mrs. Bishop's fit to be tied. She's crosser than a wet hen, so. She thinks that there's no such thing as a sister in England."

"What does she think?"

"That Bertie Bishop's always had an eye for the ladies. Mrs. Bishop can't be sure, but she thinks her husband maybe pinched the wee lass's bottom once too often."