An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea (44 page)

He lit his pipe, stretched out his legs, and let a lovely sense of contentment wash over him.

“But what care I? I'll get by…”

She handed him a steaming mug of Oxo. “Be careful. It's hot.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“As long as I have you.” She kissed his ear and took the chair beside him. “Now,” she said, “it's not very exciting and I know you really like them for breakfast, but how'd you fancy a couple of kippers for your tea?”

“I'd love them,” he said, knowing that even Deirdre would have no trouble grilling a couple of the smoked herrings, “and I love you.” He sipped his Oxo but let his pipe go out. “Come and sit over here.” He set his mug on a nearby table and bent his knees to make a lap.

She came and sat on it, steadying herself with an arm round his neck. His arms encircled her waist and he tasted the beefy tang of the Oxo when she kissed him. He pulled her closer, feeling his pulse quicken. One more kiss then he said, “Oxo is warming, but I think I've a better idea.” He inclined his head in the direction of the bedroom.

“Why, Fingal,” she said, “whatever can you mean?” And broke into helpless laughter before standing, taking his hand, and leading the way.

He started to unbutton his shirt as she crossed her arms, grasped the hem of her sweater, and pulled it over her head. Her slacks lay crumpled round her ankles. “Deirdre, you are so lovely…” was as far as he got when the insistent double ringing of the telephone broke the mood.

“I'll hop in,” she said, turning back the bedclothes. “See who it is and get rid of them, pet.”

“Right,” he said, going back to the hall and lifting the receiver. “Hello? O'Reilly.”

“Fingal? Fingal?”

He recognised Marge's voice. It was cracking. “Yes, Marge, I'm here.”

“Fingal. It's Tony.”

Fingal leant against the wall. “Go on.”

“His destroyer was torpedoed off Iceland two nights ago. The Admiralty telegram came this afternoon.”

“My God.”

“There are no reports of survivors.”

Fingal was aware that Deirdre, who had put on a dressing gown, was standing beside him. “It's Marge. Tony's ship's gone down,” he told her. “Marge, is anybody with you?”

“Pip's here and Renée Lannigan, one of my regular bridge four.”

“Would you like us to come over?”

“Thank you. That is most kind, but no, I shall be all right. I just—I just felt I had to let you know.”

“Thank you.” What else could he say?

“He's missing, but I'm not willing to believe he's not safe somewhere. Not yet. I'll let you know if I hear anything more.”

“Please do.” He felt a tugging at his sleeve. Deirdre was pointing at the phone and to herself. “Deirdre wants to have a word.” He gave her the receiver.

“Marge, I'm so sorry. Is there anything we can do, anything at all?”

Judging by Deirdre's expression the answer had been “no thank you.”

“All right, all right. Look after yourself. We'll come and see you very soon. All right. Good-bye.” Deirdre hung up. She went to Fingal and he saw her tears. “Oh, Fingal,” she said, “it's too awful. Poor Marge—and Pip.”

“We can still hope,” he said, but he knew, in the North Atlantic in midwinter, a man's chances were slim indeed. “And while I'm not a good Christian, we can pray.”

 

35

Events in the Womb

“Come on, Lorna. You're next.” Lorna Kearney sat primly in the waiting room, gazing at the mural of roses created by Donal Donnelly.

“See that there Donal. He's a quare dark horse, so he is. Imagine him painting such a thing. It's lovely, so it is. Lifts the spirits.”

“I'm very glad, Lorna. Now,” he said to the seven others, “we'll not be long and then I'll be back for whoever's next.”

“Take your time, Doc. No one's at death's door and no one's in a hurry,” Shuey Gamble said.

“And if you
are
at death's door,” said a pimply-faced youth of seventeen called “Piggy” Hogg, wearing wire-rimmed granny glasses and sniffling into a hanky, “go to Doctor O'Reilly and he will pull you through.” He sniggered at his own feeble humour. “He will pull you through. Get it?”

“Or in your case, Piggy,” O'Reilly said, “he'll find the biggest, bluntest injection needle and make sure you're cured—of your cold and your cheek, you gurrier.”

The others laughed at Piggy's discomfiture as he said, “I'm sorry, sir. I was only joking.”

O'Reilly chuckled as he led Lorna along the hall to the surgery. The voice of his senior partner in Dublin's Aungier Place Dispensary in 1936 seemed to whisper in O'Reilly's ear,
“Never, never let the patients get the upper hand
.
”
“And don't you worry, Lorna. Piggy won't be having any injections.”

She laughed. “No harm til you sir, but you always come on like an ould targe, but don't all of us know that apart from your shooting, and the half of Ulster countrymen like a shot, you'd not hurt a fly?” She wagged a finger. “And thon Piggy Hogg should mind his manners with his elders and betters, so he should.”

They went into the surgery and he closed the door. “How are you?” he asked, nodding his head toward the examining couch. Now well into her second pregnancy, she'd be used to the routine of antenatal visits.

“I'm great,” she said, handing him a small bottle with her urine sample, and climbing up, “and I had the second set of blood tests done last week at Bangor hospital.”

“I got them yesterday. I'll explain them when I've finished the routine work,” O'Reilly said as he went to the sink, tested the sample for sugar, protein, and acetone. “All clear,” he said, blessing the reagent-impregnated cardboard dipsticks used today for urinalysis. As he went back to the couch, he remembered back to his student days of chemicals, Bunsen burners, and foul smells.

It took only a few minutes to confirm that her blood pressure was 130 over 80, her ankles were not swollen with fluid called oedema, the uterus's size was consistent with the duration of her pregnancy as measured in weeks from her last menstrual period, that a single baby lay with its head toward the mother's pelvis and its back to her right, and that its heart rate was 144 beats per minute. “Everything's spot-on,” he said. “Tuck in your blouse…” he waited while she did, then helped her down, “and hop up on the scales.” He read the result. “You've put on a few pounds since we saw you last, but that's perfectly natural and nothing to worry about. Now have a pew and I'll tell you about the tests, what they mean, and what's going to happen next.” He sat in his swivel chair and popped his half-moon spectacles on his nose. There were lab reports to be read.

She sat on one of the wooden chairs.

He made a few notes then picked up a laboratory report form. “All right, we knew that as of three weeks ago, when you had your first set of blood tests, that you're Rhesus negative and that your husband's positive. We also know that at that time you had just a trace of antibodies, the things in your blood that would attack a positive baby's red blood cells. They'd have been left over from your first pregnancy but weren't at a high enough level to worry about in this one.”

She frowned. “I understand. But what about the new blood tests?”

He smiled and said, “I'm getting to that. You've been a good lass about taking your daily iron and folic acid because your own blood haemoglobin levels are spot-on. You're not one bit anaemic.”

“That's good,” she said.

“But, I'm afraid the latest blood tests from last week show that your antibody levels, we call them titres, have doubled from the tests taken three weeks before.”

She took a deep breath. “And that means that the wean's being attacked by those antibody thingys?”

“There's no easy way to tell you, Lorna, but yes.” He leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder, fishing out his hanky when she burst into tears.

“I'm sorry, Doctor,” she said, and hiccupped. “It's … it's just the shock.” She looked down and laid her hand on her belly. “It's hard to believe. I feel fine and the wean seems til be doing rightly.”

He handed her the hanky to dry her eyes when she was ready. He waited. There was no point mouthing bromides or trying to explain while she was in tears. Nothing would get through.

She hiccupped, swallowed, blew her nose, and again said, “I'm so sorry, Doctor O'Reilly.”

“No need to apologise. You're upset.”

She nodded, inhaled deeply twice, then said, “So what's next?” She gave him back his hanky.

“The next thing is to find out exactly—” He'd been going to say “how badly,” but changed it to “—to what degree the baby's affected. It'll mean a trip to the Royal Maternity.”

“And what'll they do, sir? An X-ray?”

He shook his head. “We try to avoid X-raying babies. No. Doctor Whitfield and his team will collect a sample of the fluid that surrounds the baby in your womb—”

“The waters?”

“That's right, the amniotic fluid, and they'll send it to the laboratory for analysis.” He was trying to avoid going into detail about exactly how the sample was collected. It was all very well to tease Piggy Hogg about needles, but most patients hated them, and the fluid was collected through one with a wide bore. The procedure was called amniocentesis. Nor did he wish to try to explain how the sample was analysed. O'Reilly's understanding of bilirubin spectrophotometry was shaky. He'd leave that discussion up to the specialists, but it irritated him that he was getting out of date in his knowledge of modern procedures. “I'll speak to Doctor Bradley about getting you booked in early next week. It's Friday now, but she has friends in high places.”

Lorna managed a weak smile. “I'd be very grateful,” she said, and rose. “I know there's a lot more patients waiting to see you, sir. Thank you for taking the time to explain.”

He stood. “I'm not daft enough to tell you don't worry, Lorna, but the folks at the Royal are getting very good results for the babies of patients like you. For the last few years they've even been able to give babies a blood transfusion if it looks like their blood cell level is low. While the baby's still in your womb. That way the babby can get more mature before it's delivered.”

“Honest to God? Boys-a-boys, isn't modern science a wonderful thing?” There was awe in her voice. “I'm sorry I cried back there a wee minute ago, but I was so sure I was going to be fine. It just came as a shock, so it did.” She smiled as she started to walk for the door, O'Reilly by her side. “Anyroad, me and Reggie'll be at the service with Mister Robinson on Sunday. We'll just have til pray a bit harder, that's all.”

“Do that,” said O'Reilly, “and as soon as I hear from Doctor Bradley, someone will give you a call and tell you where and when to go to the Royal Maternity.”

She left by the front door and he headed for the waiting room. He surely hoped the specialists could save Lorna's wean. Time would tell. He stuck his head round the door and called, “Next.”

Shuey struggled to his feet. “Just in for a quick oil change, Doctor,” he said, and laughed his dry old man's laugh as he limped toward O'Reilly, who offered an arm. As Shuey took it, O'Reilly noticed that Piggy Hogg was nowhere to be seen. Had the silly boy taken him seriously? He felt a brief pang of remorse, but couldn't keep a wide grin from splitting his face. What the hell? No one ever died of a head cold and it meant one less customer to see before lunch.

 

36

Hope Springs Eternal

“I'll miss you, Fingal,” Angus Mahaddie said. He nursed his small Scotch and leaned closer to the coal fire in the Medical Officers' Mess. The Scot would be going on a week's leave tomorrow and wanted to buy Fingal a drink to celebrate both Christmas and the confirmation in the December promotions list of his move from acting to permanent rank. “You'll be going back to the Med in a couple of weeks.” With Christmas only two days away, the place was practically deserted. A couple of QARNNS nursing sisters sat together several tables away, drinking tea from porcelain cups. “How do you get there?”

Fingal puffed on his pipe and took a sip of his whisky. “I've to join a cargo ship in Southampton carrying six spitfires and a Bristol Blenheim bomber in crates to Takoradi on Africa's Gold Coast. Then I fly from there in a convoy of already reassembled Hurricanes led by a Blenheim back to Cairo, then on to Alexandria, and
Warspite.
Much quicker than by troopship round the Cape of Good Hope.”

“Safe travels, Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander O'Reilly.”

The two men raised their drinks and drank in silence.

Fingal listened to the gentle murmur of conversation from the nurses, the clinking of their teacups, the rattle of rain against the windows, then took a deep breath and spoke. “It's hard to know how to thank you, Angus. I'd not be married but for you. I think I'll be going back to
Warspite
a reasonably competent anaesthetist, and—”

“Wheest, laddie,” the little Highland man said, “it was my pleasure on both counts, and you've been a good pupil. You've done well and you'll do well back on
Warspite
. It's a pity about you and Commander Fraser, but that man…” he lowered his voice, “could sow dissension in a deserted house. Anyway, you'll be rid of us all in a couple of weeks.”

“I will,” said Fingal. He looked out through the window as dusk fell over Saint Luke's and the main hospital. “I will miss Haslar.”

“Just so, and you'll miss your wee wifey too. The navy, especially in wartime, is a stern mistress.”