An Irish Country Love Story (23 page)

Barry smiled and said, “Fortunes were made in Victorian times selling patent medicines, and I quote, ‘to control the tyrannous processes of the menstrual cycle.'”

O'Reilly paused and considered before he said, “Women were told to ignore their physiology when they were needed to do men's work during the war, and then told their cycles made them unfit for work when the men came home and needed their jobs back and there was a move to get women out of the workforce.” He shrugged. “I'll take that into consideration, Kitty, but you're right about one thing. She was rude and I don't want any repetitions. Something's got to be done.” He paused before saying, “It was a custom in the navy that the most junior officer at a court-martial gave his verdict first so he could not be intimidated by the opinions of his seniors. I'm not suggesting this is anything like as serious as a trial, but we may have to work with her for a lot of years. What do you make of our Doctor Nonie Stevenson so far, Barry?”

Barry gave his cowlick a pat before saying, “She's a good doctor and she has extra obstetrics and gynaecology training and the skills we need for the well-woman clinic. The patients like her. I had one leave a couple of weeks ago because ‘The lady doctor wasn't going to be there.' I think we're going to see more of that. There aren't that many female physicians to choose from in Ulster. There were only half a dozen in my year.”

Barry Laverty has a well-honed sense of justice, O'Reilly thought, starting by giving her credit for her good points. And a sense of the practical. A female physician was a plus for the practice.

“If anything,” Barry said, “I'd be more worried about her habit of needing so many naps, but she hasn't let it interfere with her work. Not yet, anyhow.”

“So you're saying we should keep her?”

Barry nodded. “But you're the senior partner. One of my surgical teachers used to say when he put a double suture round an important artery before he divided it, ‘A stitch in time can save
more
than nine.' A word in her ear from you on Monday's probably all that it'll take to get her to understand.”

“I think Barry's right, Fingal,” Kitty said.

“Fair enough,” O'Reilly said. “I'll see to it.”

“And, oh wise and learnèd senior partner,” Barry said with a grin, “I'd hate to deprive you of an opportunity tomorrow to commit murder and mayhem among multitudes of misfortunate mallard, so I'll take call.”

Kitty laughed. “You're quite the alliterationist … if there is such a word.”

“More to the point,” O'Reilly said, “you, Doctor Barry Laverty, are a gentleman and a scholar.”

Barry laughed. “You may change your tune when I tell you what it's going to cost.”

“Go ahead.”

“You take my call next Saturday and a pint in the Duck when my afternoon's work is done today—if Kitty doesn't mind.”

“You run along and play, boys,” Kitty said, and chuckled. “And if you've no plans tonight, Barry, have dinner with us.”

“Dead on,” said O'Reilly, and he thought, even if Nonie Stevenson may not be the absolutely ideal colleague, he'd have a long road to travel before he'd get a better one than the son of Tom Laverty, his old shipmate.

.

 

19

Wild Geese Spread the Grey Wing

“One more heave.”

Jack Sinton stood beside the inflatable boat's starboard bow up to the knees of his hip-waders in the tide. O'Reilly and Arthur had met the middle-aged doctor in Greyabbey an hour before dawn. They'd left the Rover there, driving down in Jack's Morris Minor, a Humber inflatable held with straps and bungee cords to the roof rack. Together they'd launched the craft in the still waters of the Dorn, a sheltered inlet of the lough south of the Castle Hill, as Arthur Guinness danced his excitement at being on the water.

“All right,” said O'Reilly from the port side, “but give me a minute to catch my breath.” He hauled in a couple of lungfuls and took a tight hold of a rope running round the pontoon. “Go.” He put his back into hauling. The shingle crunched under the soles of boots and the boat's bottom. His nose was filled with the tang of seaweed and salt, and the distinctive petrol/oil niff of the Johnson Seahorse outboard clamped to the dinghy's stern.

On the run out to the Long Island minutes before, only the puttering of the engine, the
slap, slap
of the boat's flat bottom on small waves, and occasional throaty mumblings from Arthur had broken the deep silence. There had been no need for chatter. Although they were not close friends, O'Reilly had got to know Jack Sinton well enough since they'd met at an Ulster Medical Association dinner years ago to discover a mutual interest in “fowling” and the works of Mozart, especially
The Magic Flute
. Instead of shouting over the engine's noise, O'Reilly had stared up, savouring the high anthracite canopy, where a waxing gibbous moon looked down and myriad icy stars shone and sparkled, waiting for the first fingers of the dawn to dim them one by one. One heavenly body, more impatient than the rest, had flashed its meteor's silver tail as it streaked to a fiery death.

“That'll do,” Jack said now. “Give me a minute to set the anchor well above the tide line, then we'll head for the hide. Bring Arthur and we'll get settled in.” He strode off.

O'Reilly reached into the boat and picked up his twelve bore and game bag. He slung the bag over his shoulder and cradled the unloaded gun in the crook of his left arm. The wind from the south that ruffled the sea and cut through his waterproof coat was chilling, but God, it was good to be back on the lough, and with a prospect of even better sport than he might anticipate in his usual spot on the banks of the Blackstaff Stream. He turned up his coat collar, pulled his paddy hat well down.

“That's done,” Jack said. “Come on.”

“Heel.” Arthur tucked in and the two men strode along the springy turf at the shingle's edge. O'Reilly glanced inshore and saw that the lights of Davy McMaster's farmhouse were lit. It would be cosy there with the great kitchen range burning and hot tea for everyone.

The sky was beginning to lighten and O'Reilly could make out a solid object ahead, bulking more darkly at the grass's edge about the height of a man's shoulders and perhaps twelve feet long.

“You know we call this the ‘house,'” Jack said as they passed a corner of the structure.

“Aye. The old farmer who owned the island before your syndicate bought it dried seaweed for fertiliser in here. It still smells salty.” O'Reilly passed through the gap in the dry stone wall. “It's not as draughty in here and it makes a great hide.”

The wind made lonely sighing noises as it found its way through chinks between the stones. He unslung his game bag and set it against a wall, pulling two cartridges from his pocket. Then he loaded his shotgun, set the safety catch, and propped it beside the game bag. O'Reilly pointed to a sheltered corner and said, “Lie down.”

Arthur, well used to conditions on the lough, tucked in, curled up, sighed, and put his nose on his forepaws.

“Not long to dawn now,” Jack Sinton said. “Sunrise is at eight nineteen.” He hauled a thermos from his game bag. “Fancy a cup of coffee?”

“Please.” O'Reilly accepted the mug. “Hits the spot,” he said as he took his first sip of the hot, sweet liquid. “And thanks for asking me along, Jack. I've had some great days out here with you and your friends.”

“It's always been a pleasure having you, Fingal, and old Arthur. He's a good-natured animal. He really got on well with Jamsey Bowman's Rex and my old spaniel, Tara, God rest her. Gone two years now and I haven't had the heart to replace her.”

O'Reilly looked over at Arthur Guinness. He knew how Jack felt. Old Arthur would be hard to replace too. “I hope Jamsey's flu isn't too bad,” he said.

“He was feeling rotten yesterday. He should be on the mend today, but it'll be harder for him to throw it off. None of us are getting any younger.” He rubbed his hands. “Och,” he said, “it's been a brave wheen of years since four fellahs got together after the war to buy the islands.”

“The war does seem long ago now,” O'Reilly said, not wanting to dwell on that subject and happy to be warmed by the hot coffee.

“D'you know years ago Jimmy Taylor was here by himself? He had no dog, and he shot a goose that fell in the sea. Jimmy used to be a champion swimmer. Didn't he strip off, swim out, and get the bird?”

“Aye,” said O'Reilly, inwardly shuddering at the thought of how cold the winter sea was. “The joys of youth.”

“When we were young, we used to row out from the Blackstaff in a punt,” Jack said.

O'Reilly whistled. “That's some row.”

Jack laughed. “At least a mile, and heavy going in a sea. I really like outboard motors, and,” he said, a serious tone creeping into his voice, “I love Strangford.”

“Me too,” said O'Reilly. “Just look at that.”

The sky was lighter now. Little whitecaps punctuated a sea that earlier had been a monochromatic darkness, at one with the sky and the land. Low seaweed-covered reefs called pladdies between the island and the mainland shore started to turn from grey to brown. Above the spiny ridge of the Ards—Irish for “high”—Peninsula, the undersurfaces of dove-grey clouds were being dyed a delicate cerise that, as he watched, turned deeper red shot through by yellows and scarlets. And over the left shoulder of the Castle Hill the upper limb of the sun's circle crept slowly up, bathing everything in soft greens and grey—the hill, the ruins of Saint Mary's Church, and the remains of the castle built in the thirteenth century by the Norman Baron Le Sauvage.

“It is a very special place for me,” Jack Sinton said.

In the daylight, O'Reilly could see the man who before the dawn had been but an indistinct blur. Five foot nine, slight build, greying hair peeping out from under a duncher. A neatly clipped grey moustache under a sharp nose set between pale eyes with deep laugh lines at the corners.

“I know what you mean,” O'Reilly said, not a bit concerned about letting his feelings about the place show. “I love it here too, and when everyday life intrudes, it's a very safe haven. No phones, no tough clinical decisions, no forms to fill in.” And no bloody great hole in my house that may not be mine much longer. No tetchy juniors to reprimand. He glanced at Arthur and felt the familiar worry about Sonny Houston's lost Jasper creep into his mind.

“Get down,” Jack said.

O'Reilly watched as Jack put two fat cartridges into the twin breeches of his ten bore. It would be the man's goose gun, firing a heavier load than O'Reilly's twelve. Jack's brother, Victor, had for several years used an eight bore, a veritable shoulder cannon that fired black powder, not smokeless powder shells. Jack cocked two hammers and whispered, “Ball of five birds coming down from Gransha Point direction in the north. Low. Out there.” He moved to the far wall and crouched, eyes barely over the coping stones, gun held across his body, muzzles up.

O'Reilly, feeling the adrenaline run, grabbed his gun and crouched to Jack Sinton's left. The man was an experienced wildfowler. He'd track the birds' progress, call when they were in range, then take birds to the right and leave those on the left for O'Reilly. He heard a faint repeated whistling, a
psweeoo, psweewoo,
then the sound of wind on pinions, and Jack's curt “Now.”

O'Reilly stood but did not raise his gun.

Ahead, beating into the wind, was a line of five widgeon, the chestnut heads of two drakes with creamy crowns and white bellies in contrast to the grey heads of the females.

To O'Reilly's surprise, Jack Sinton hadn't fired a shot either.

The five ducks flared, turned, and sped off downwind.

Both men turned, looked at each other, and started to laugh. Each made his gun safe and propped it up.

“I think,” said O'Reilly, “I must be getting old. But if you want to know why I didn't fire, it's because I don't really like the taste of widgeon. Too fishy for me. They feed off eel grass on the mud flats.”

“And I didn't because I simply have a soft spot for the breed.
Anas penelope.
Linnaeus called them that in 1758,” Jack said. “I started fowling, like you, because I really loved the thrill of the hunt and being here on the lough, but several years ago I began reading up on wildfowl and I keep a sighting diary. Birds really are interesting. Sometimes,” he said, “I bring an eight-millimetre ciné camera and shoot them on film instead of with a gun. It's just as tricky. I haven't given up shooting. I still love a day out here and I enjoy roast mallard or goose. I just don't need to shoot everything in sight anymore.”

“Jack, you know my brother, Lars.”

Jack said, “From Portaferry. The solicitor. We both do work for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.”

“I know.”

“Sound man, your brother. I saw him in Belfast on Thursday. He was having lunch in The Buttery near the law courts. It's a favourite pub restaurant among the legal fraternity. I'd popped in for a quick one, passed his table. He introduced me to his guest. Handsome woman, Lady Myrna Ferguson. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.”

“I'm sure they were,” said O'Reilly, and smiled. That would be something to tell Kitty tonight. Good for you, Lars. O'Reilly was delighted.

The morning passed with the sun's ascent bringing a weak warmth to the day. Several mallard and teal skirted the island, raising hopes, but none came within range.

“Not much sport today,” O'Reilly said, “but it's all right. Simply being here is enough—”

“Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja,”
sang Jack softly in a slightly off-key baritone.

“I am the merry bird-catcher,” sang O'Reilly in response. “Papageno, Act 1 of
Die Zauberflöte, The Magic Flute
. One of my favourite arias.” He smiled at Jack. “But we're not catching much today.” O'Reilly glanced down. Arthur was sitting bolt upright, head thrown back, staring into the sky. He made a tiny whimper and then O'Reilly heard, from upwind, a faint series of harsh cackling
ho-oh-onk
s. Geese.