Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor (52 page)

“Sounds wonderful,” O’Reilly said.

“He’ll start me in January, train me for four months, and his idea is that I and people like me can run well-woman clinics, do Pap tests, give contraceptive advice, baby immunisations.”

“Innovative,” O’Reilly said.

“Isn’t it just? The thought of doing something that prevents disease rather than treating it.”

The same pleasure and excitement that he had heard in Helen’s voice was in Jenny’s. “And I imagine it would be part-time work,” he said, “that might suit a married woman?”

She smiled and looked down. “Yes, that’s what I thought too, although Terry hasn’t said anything yet. Anyway, Doctor Sinton has known about this so he’ll not be upset when I turn his offer down.”

“I’m glad for you, Jenny,” O’Reilly said. “If it’s what you want, I hope it all goes wonderfully. I shall miss you.”

“But don’t you see—”

The doorbell rang.

“Hang on,” he said. “I’ll answer it.”

It took some moments to let Bertie and Flo Bishop in and hang up their coats, hats, and scarves.

“Bloody brass monkey weather out there, so it is,” Bertie said, blowing on his hands.

“It’s nice and cosy up in the lounge,” Fingal said.

Bertie and Flo began to head for the stairs, but Bertie must have seen Jenny in the dining room. “Run you away on, Flo,” he said. “If it’s all right with you, Doctor O’Reilly, I’d like a wee word with Doctor Bradley. I’ve not had a chance since you come til see me a couple of weeks back.”

“In private?”

“No. I’d like for you til be there so you can see I’m a man of my word, so you can.”

O’Reilly was pretty sure he knew what was coming. “Go right on in.” He followed Bertie into the dining room, but then stood back and listened.

“Doctor Bradley,” Bertie said. “I’d like very much for til say something til you.”

“Good evening, councillor,” Jenny said. “Please go right ahead.”

Bertie shifted from foot to foot, looked down, looked up, inhaled, and said in a rush, “Them nice doctors in the Royal says you saved my life, so you did.”

“Not me,” she said. “Doctor and Mrs. O’Reilly kept you alive until the flying squad arrived. Doctor Geddes saved your life with his defibrillator.”

Modest, O’Reilly thought. Good for you, Jenny.

“Aye,” said Bertie. “Aye. That may be so.” He narrowed his eyes and continued in a serious voice, “But who knew til send for that there firing squad? You tell me that now, young lady. You just tell me.”

O’Reilly shook his head. Leopards and spots. Even when it was meant to be an apology Bertie had to score points.

“If you won’t,” said Bertie, “I’ll tell you, Doctor.” He nodded to himself. “If it wasn’t for you I’d be six feet under and Flo a widow woman.” He pursed his lips and his voice trembled and cracked. “I owe you my life, so I do. I can never thank you enough—and I’ll never say nothing bad about lady doctors again, so I won’t. Not never. I’m dead sorry that I did, so I am and—” He inhaled.

O’Reilly could see the effort it was costing the man.

“I apologise, completely and teetotally, so there.” He took another deep breath.

“That is generous of you, Mister Bishop,” Jenny said, “very generous, and I accept your apology.” She smiled. “Teetotally too.”

“Thank you very much,” Bertie said, “and—” He fished in the pocket of his jacket and produced a small parcel. “Here. It’s just a wee thank-you, so it is.”

O’Reilly remembered Bertie saying he’d have something for Jenny. “I’m proud of you, Bertie,” O’Reilly said, and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Aye. Well. Doctor Bradley, are you not going to open it? Flo helped me pick it out at Sharman D. Neill’s.”

The same high-class Belfast jewellers where O’Reilly had bought Kitty’s engagement ring.

“Of course,” she said, and began carefully to unwrap the packet. She pulled back. “It’s beautiful,” she said, showing O’Reilly an exquisitely crafted brooch of shining green and black Connemara marble set in silver with matching pendant and earrings. “Thank you, Mister Bishop. Thank you very much, for your apology and your gift. I’ll think of you every time I wear them.”

“And good health to do so wherever you are, Doctor,” Bertie said. “Doctor O’Reilly says you’ll be leaving us soon. I’ll be sorry til see you go.”

“I’m not so sure about going—”

“Fingal,” Kitty said from where she stood in the doorway, “I’m sorry to interrupt. Hello, Jenny, and councillor, but I do need some help now getting those last trays upstairs. And we are neglecting our other guests.”

“Coming,” O’Reilly said. “You help the councillor upstairs, please, Jenny, and Kitty and I’ll be along in a minute.” And what the hell did Jenny’s “I’m not so sure about going” mean? Couldn’t be. There wasn’t room for three doctors. Anyway, the answer was going to have to wait. Time to join the ta-ta-ta-ra, and as he climbed the stairs he marvelled. In all his years in practice, Fingal O’Reilly had never seen a man as utterly transformed as Bertie Bishop. But how long would this turn for the better last?

51

There’s a Good Time Coming

“Still at the tugging, Lorcan?” Fingal asked as his bicycle drew level with his old patient and his cart as he trudged along Golden Lane. This was the street where Jam Jars Keegan and Joe Mary Callaghan had injured each other in a ruggy-up the day Phelim hired Fingal and Charlie.

“Oh, aye,” said Lorcan, the words coming out with a puff. He looked over to Fingal. “It’s you, Doctor Big Fella. I heard you was leavin’ us soon. I’m sorry to see you go.” Fingal looked along this well-known lane and thought of all the other familiar streets and alleys where he usually ran into folks he knew. News travelled fast in the Liberties. He slowed his pedalling.

“Thanks, Lorcan. I’ve not seen you for a brave while, not since—” Not since the night he and Kitty had walked along High Street after seeing
Modern Times
. The night she had started talking seriously about Spain.

“I remember. You was wit’ a wee mot, a nurse. Pretty t’ing.” Lorcan regarded Fingal. “Is dat why you’re leaving us then. Goin’ off to get married and move to a new part of town. Where the toffs live, like?”

“No, Lorcan, no. Nurse O’Hallorhan has moved to Tenerife—to Spain—to look after children orphaned in the Spanish Civil War.”

“Has she now?” Lorcan stopped to pull off his duncher and wipe a hand over his brow. “Well, that’s a t’ing, isn’t it? Fancy her up and doin’ a feckin’ thing like dat. Women.” He spat. “Dey’re about as predictable as the Irish summer.” Lorcan chuckled. The thought seemed to give him energy and he picked up the cart, this time quickening his pace along the cobbles, with Fingal falling in beside him. Perhaps Lorcan was right and Kitty’s decision was just the unpredictable actions of the female of the species. But more likely it was Kitty who was right, and he had been too scared to make things more serious between them. But her ship had left for Tenerife and it was long past the time to change anything now. “How’s the back?” he asked.

The cartload of scrap metal clattered and jangled as the wheels jounced over a pothole.

“The back? Grand altogether. I’ve not needed more of the linament or ground-up pills you give me mont’s ago. Dey worked a treat.”

Or time passed and the backache got better by itself, Fingal thought. Still, it was good for Lorcan.

“And dat’s a feckin’ good t’ing. I’ve a regular job wit’ Harry Sive—”

“Who has a shop on Meath Street?”

“The very fellah. He came over from Rooshia after they had dat dere Bollixshevik Revolution, you know, and he opened his shop when he was only sixteen. He’s a feckin’ good skin. Dis is one of his forty-six carts and he doesn’t charge us to use dem.”

Fingal saw that Lorcan’s old plank-sided cart had been replaced with one made of wickerwork.
WASTE SALVAGE
and the letter S, for Sive, were painted on the side.

“It’s a feckin’ sight lighter to pull. Harry doesn’t pay wages, but by Jasus he gives a fair price for the stuff we bring in, and he’ll see you right wit’ a few bob if you’ve not been able to collect much from the toffs.”

“Where were you today?” Fingal knew that Sive’s tuggers scrounged used materials from the better-off districts of Dublin.

“I was doin’ Rathgar.”

“That’s a fair stretch.” It was two and a half miles from there to Meath Street.

Lorcan shrugged. “Sure I’m fit for it.”

“And I’m glad to hear it.” Fingal started to speed up. “It’s been good to see you, Lorcan. I’m delighted you’re feeling better. You take care.”

“Fair play to you, Big Fellah. And good luck to you wherever you’re goin’ next.” Lorcan waved as Fingal cycled away.

He rode along narrow streets lined with many-storied terraces of decaying Georgian houses. Alleys and lanes teemed with skinny, ragged, underfed children; more tuggers; street balladeers; cyclists; men smoking on street corners. When Phelim had told Fingal last week that he would have to let him go, he’d resolved to pop in to see John-Joe when he was in the neighbourhood and lend him the promised five pounds so he could buy his family some treats for Christmas. Fingal wished he could have some job prospects to offer as well. With only three weeks until the twenty-fifth, that would have been a real Christmas present.

A barrel organ player cranked his odd instrument that was known locally as a hurdy-gurdy. Its notes had to compete with the yells of children, the rumble of cartwheels on cobbles, the clop of horseshoes, the tinkling of bicycle bells. Several times Fingal was greeted, “How are you, Big Fellah,” and waved his reply. Overhead washing hung to dry. A cat ran by, carrying a dead rat almost as big as the tabby. Fingal’s nose was filled with the odours of the Liberties—dirt, offal from the butchers’ slaughterhouses, the Liffey—he was inured to them now. And most prominent of all, borne on a westerly breeze, came the rich smell of barley being roasted at the Guinness Brewery a mile away at Saint James’s Gate. The people, the sights, the sounds, the smells. Dear God, he still didn’t fully understand why, but he loved this place.

Fingal crossed Bridge Street and stopped on the corner of Bull Alley, where an urchin wearing an oversized, stiff-peaked, floppy cap tilted at an impossible angle stood touting his wares. “Get your
Independent,
get your
Daily Mail,
get your
Irish Examiner
.” He was in a thick pullover, short pants, and, Fingal was delighted to see, a stout pair of boots. “Back at work, Dermot?” Fingal said.

Dermot Finucane turned and grinned. “Ach, Jasus, it’s yourself, sir. And it’s the feckin’ trut’ I’m back at me work, Doctor. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Dermot, and are your da and mammy keeping well?”

“Grand altogether. Hang on.” He lifted an
Irish Independent
from a pile and turned to a well-dressed man in a camel-hair coat and Homburg hat with a neat dent in its gutter crown. “Here y’are, sir, dis mornin’s
Indo.
T’anks very much.” He pocketed a coin and turned back to Fingal. “It’s a good job. I buy the papers at eightpence a dozen and sell dem for a penny each. Dat’s fourpence profit, and five Woodbine only cost tuppence.” He produced a packet. “You like a fag, sir?”

Fingal shook his head. “No thanks.” He knew he’d be wasting his breath telling Dermot he shouldn’t be smoking.

The youngster lit up and puffed out smoke like a hardened smoker—which he was. “Aah, grand,” he said. “And t’anks again for making me foot better. Me ma said it was a miracle cure and dat you’re a feckin’ angel of mercy.”

Fingal laughed and shook his head. “It’s my job,” he said, heart swelling at the thought that now that Prontosil was a proven remedy, doctors would at last be able to cure the people here of the many infections that brought them down. But “my job”? Not for much longer. He was losing the job here he was growing to love. And it couldn’t be helped. He fished in his pocket. “If I remember, you like clove rock?”

Dermot nodded.

Fingal, despite his earlier thoughts about wasting his breath, decided it was worth a try. “Do you know what the big chimney said to the little chimney?”

Dermot shook his head. “Nah.”

“You’re far too wee to be smoking.”

Dermot laughed loudly. “Ah, you’re a gas man, Doctor. ‘Too wee to be smokin.’”

“And so are you, Dermot Finucane. I’ll swap you a bag of rock for your gaspers.”

Dermot frowned, took a deep drag, shook his head. “No t’anks,” he said, and Fingal felt sad for the lost childhoods of the hundreds of tenement kids like Dermot Finucane.

“Here. Take it anyway.”

“T’anks very much.”

“I’ve to be getting on,” Fingal said. “Give my best to your folks.”

“I’ll do dat, Doctor Big Fellah.”

And as Fingal rode away he heard Dermot’s on the verge of adulthood voice cracking, “
Indo,
get your
Indo.
Five t’ousand Germans land in Cadiz. Read all about it. A few more flamin’ feisty forces to fight ferociously for fearless feckin’ Franco.” Fingal chuckled. Twelve, and already the alliterative Dermot was displaying his native flair for the language. Dubliners. Fingal’s feet were lighter on the pedals.

In less than five minutes he was propping his bike up outside number ten High Street. He went into the lobby barely conscious of the all-pervasive tenement smell as he knocked on John-Joe Finnegan’s door. The man himself answered.

“Och, Doctor O’Reilly. Come in. Come in. W’at’s the
craic
? How the feck are you?”

“I’m well, John-Joe, and yourself?” Fingal walked into the dingy room. Nothing had changed since he’d last been here in October. “How’s the hind leg?”

“Sit down. Sit down.” John-Joe pulled a chair in front of the turf fire and waited until O’Reilly was seated before sitting himself. “My ankle? The feckin’ t’ing’s still stiff and swollen, but I’m gettin’ about all right. Can I make you a cup of tea, sir? I was just goin’ to have one meself.”

“Please. I’d like that.”