Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor (54 page)

The kettle started to whistle, a cheerful sound. O’Reilly grabbed it, poured a measure of boiling water into the glass, and stirred the mixture briskly, making the black cloves spin and dance. The aroma of spiced whiskey was heady. “Here,” he said to Terry, handing him the glass. “Get that into you. I’m told it’ll revive a corpse three days dead.”

“Thank you,” Terry said, accepting the glass and sipping, “I think you’re right, sir. Life is returning.” He laughed.

“Thanks, Fingal,” Jenny said.

“Think nothing of it.” He picked up the whiskey bottle and said, “Keep Terry company, Jenny, then bring him on up. I’d better get back.”

“Fingal,” she said, “before you go, I’ve a question.”

“Fire away,” he said. “I’m all ears.”

“Were you not curious when we were in the dining room with Bertie Bishop and I said, ‘I’m not sure about going’?”

“I bloody well was, but it slipped my mind.” He smiled. “Parties do that to you. So what did you mean?”

She stood, shoulders braced, hands in front of her, fingers laced. “You told me there’d been a group of younger women approach you to see if I could stay.”

“That’s right.”

“And they talked about things like Pap smears.”

“They did.”

“What would you say if I told you Graham Harley’s programme would rent your surgery three half days a week and pay me to do well-woman clinics there? We’ll be the centre for all of the north of County Down outside Belfast.”

“Here?” O’Reilly said. “You mean, here, at Number One Main?” He knew his voice had risen. “Mother of God.” He hugged her. “When?” He let her go. “When can you start?”

She laughed. “There are other details to work out because I might be able to take call occasionally, run a surgery on Saturdays for, saving your presence, women who would be more comfortable with a woman doctor.”

“Details,” said O’Reilly, “can wait. I’ve a party to run so I’m off upstairs. But this is great news, Jenny. We’ve a wheen of talking to do tomorrow to get this organised.”

“Thank you, Fingal,” he heard as he strode out of the kitchen.

Oh Lord, he thought, as he climbed the stairs. Kinky’ll come in and work part time. I’ll have Barry and Jenny as partners, I’ll have more time for Kitty. Our women patients who want to see a woman doctor will be happy. We’ll be helping to prevent a cancer. He danced a little jig from tread to tread. “By the name of all that’s holy I couldn’t ask for better.” And, he thought, sometimes difficulties to which he could see no solution happily solved themselves. It had happened way back in 1936 when a job had opened up for an unemployed cooper, and had happened again today when Jenny announced the answer to keeping on a talented young doctor when there didn’t seem to be enough work for three in the practice. See, he told himself, and grinned, sometimes you flatter yourself that you are the solver of all problems medical and otherwise for your patients. Not so. The universe unwinds in its own good time and often without a shove from Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly.

He went back into the lounge. Good. Nobody seemed to have missed him. His plate of grub was waiting on the sideboard where he’d left it. So was his whiskey. He stood watching a grinning Kinky accepting her friends’ good wishes. Fair play to you, Kinky Kinkaid. Fair play.

Kitty was waving from across the room where she was chatting with Sonny Houston. O’Reilly grabbed his plate and glass and began to make his way in their direction. He passed a group that had formed round Cissie Sloan. Aggie Arbuthnot, Flo Bishop, and Maggie Houston were hanging on Cissie’s every word.

Her voice carried. “Did youse see
Coronation Street
last night on the telly? Ena Sharples—no, I tell a lie—it was Minnie Caldwell was in the snug at the Rover’s Return, nicer-looking pub than our oul Duck, so it is, no harm til anybody. When in comes Ken, or was it Frank Barlow? Anyroad, your man says, he says, says he … you’d not believe it what he says…”

And a chuckling Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly laughed and laughed. The foundations of his own cosmos, like the ever-loquacious Cissie Sloan, were firmly in place here in Ballybucklebo, the best village in the six Ulster counties of the wee north. He laughed until the tears ran and he reckoned himself the luckiest man in the whole of those six counties, indeed in all the thirty-two counties of Ireland, on the greatest island on God’s green earth.

A
FTERWORD

by

Mrs. Kincaid

Well, now the excitement of our engagement party is all over and I’ve a couple of weeks’ breather before I start thinking about Christmas meals, it’s time again to sit in my kitchen and pen some more recipes. It’s what himself wants, so, and I’m happy to oblige. And by the way, he says that when that Taylor fellah told the last story, he left out a couple of things and would I please tell you here so you’ll know? The Dublin story about Doctor O’Reilly when he was much younger and his dispensary job fell through, that story finished before he’d been able to meet with Doctor Andrew Davidson or have his trial match to see if he could play rugby football for his country, stupid rough game if you ask me, bye, but to each his own.

He did well on both counts. He started as a clinical clerk, that’s a junior doctor in training, at the Rotunda Hospital in March 1937. And both Doctor O’Reilly and that nice Mister Greer, the brain surgeon—he was simple Doctor Greer back then—got to play for Ireland together in the ’37 season. They lost to England but beat Scotland and Wales. Himself would never tell you, but Mister Greer told me. Doctor O’Reilly scored a try against Wales. I’ve seen himself’s three caps with their silver tassels and green shamrocks.

And he says—and God bless him, I remember how her death tore the heart out of him, but he says it’s all right to talk about it now—if you want to know about how he met Deirdre, his first wife, how he came here to Ballybucklebo, and what he did in the war, please be patient. That fellah Taylor’s long-winded enough, but he’s a slow storyteller and he’ll not have that one ready until a year after this one comes out.

And that’s enough of that. Now for the recipes.

Recipes

P
EA AND
M
INT
S
OUP

½
stick / 1 oz./ 28 g butter

Small bunch spring onions, chopped

675 g / 1 lb. 8 oz. fresh or frozen peas, shelled

A large handful of mint leaves, chopped

¾
L / 1 pint / 6 oz. chicken or vegetable stock

Salt and pepper to taste

237 mL / 8 oz. / 1 cup cream or crème fraiche

Melt the butter in a large cooking pot and add the spring onions. Sauté gently for a few minutes, until soft. Then add the peas, mint leaves, stock, and seasoning. Boil for 3 or 4 minutes, until the peas are cooked. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Blend well and chill. Mix in the cream before serving and decorate with mint leaves.

This soup has a coarse texture but if you would prefer it to be smooth you could blend it for longer or push it through a sieve.

And of course on days when the wind is howling like a stepmother’s breath you can serve it hot.

K
EDGEREE

700 g / 1½ lb. undyed smoked haddock (or use half salmon and half haddock)

2 bay leaves

40 g / 1
½
oz. butter

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 heaped tablespoon of medium curry powder

225 g / 8 oz. long-grain basmati rice

3 tablespoons cream

2 tablespoons spring onion, chopped

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Juice of half a lemon

Freshly ground black pepper

3 hard-boiled eggs, quartered

This quantity will serve about 6 to 8 people and is very good with either my wheaten or Guinness bread. Doctor O’Reilly likes it for breakfast nearly as much as he likes my kippers, but it is also a very appetising lunch dish.

First bring the fish and the bay leaves to the boil in about a pint of water and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Throw away the bay leaves but don’t discard the cooking liquor, as you will use this to cook the rice. Now flake the fish into bite-sized chunks and make sure that no bones remain.

Melt the butter in a largish pan and fry the yellow onion gently, but don’t let it colour, then add the curry powder, the reserved cooking liquor, and the rice, and cook for about 8 to 10 minutes.

When the rice is cooked, add the cream, spring onion, parsley, lemon juice, black pepper, and finally the flaked fish. Stir gently and place the hard-boiled eggs on top. You can keep this warm in a very low oven, covered with a lid, for about 20 minutes. I like to put it in a silver chafing dish and leave it on the sideboard so that they can help themselves at breakfast time.

Himself is very fond of it and he told me that this was one of those dishes that came from India in Victorian times and had originated as a means of using up leftovers for breakfast before there were refrigerators.

S
COTCH
E
GGS

225 g / 8 oz. sausage meat

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped

1 tablespoon parsley, chopped

1 spring onion, chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 hard-boiled eggs with shells removed

Seasoned flour (with salt and pepper added to taste)

1 beaten egg

125 g / 4 oz. bread crumbs

Oil for frying

Mix the sausage meat with the thyme, parsley, spring onions, plenty of black pepper, and a little salt, and make into 4 flattened ovals on a floured surface.

Coat each hard-boiled egg with the seasoned flour and wrap the sausage meat mixture round each egg, making sure to seal each egg completely. Coat with the beaten egg and then with the crumbs. Now heat the oil in a deep frying pan or wok to 180–190° C (350–375° F). If you do not have a thermometer you can test the temperature by dropping a small cube of bread into the oil, and if it sizzles and turns golden brown then the oil is hot enough. Please be very careful with the hot oil and never turn your back on it.

Now carefully lower each egg into the hot oil and cook for 8 to 10 minutes until the sausage meat is a nice brown colour and thoroughly cooked. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Serve cool with a salad. They keep well in the fridge for a couple of days. And sure doesn’t himself like to take these in the game bag when he goes on a shoot?

Q
UEEN OF
P
UDDINGS (
B
READ AND
B
UTTER
P
UDDING)

8 to 10 slices of buttered bread

Grated rind of a lemon

100 g / 4 oz. raisins

3 eggs

275 mL /
½
pint milk

135 mL / ¼ pint cream

100 g / 4 oz. sugar

Heat the oven to 180 C°/350 F°.

Arrange the buttered bread in layers in a greased ovenproof baking dish, sprinkling each layer with grated lemon rind and the raisins. Then you whisk the three egg yolks and one of the egg whites in a bowl with the milk, cream, and half of the sugar, and pour this over the layers of bread.

Bake for 30 minutes or until set, and remove from the oven.

Now beat the 2 remaining egg whites until stiff and whisk in the rest of the sugar. Cover the top of the pudding with this meringue mixture and return to the oven for a further 10–15 minutes or until the top is golden. Serve warm with cream or crème fraiche.

Variations

You could use barmbrack (see recipe in
An Irish Country Doctor
) and omit the raisins.

Or spread the buttered bread with marmalade and omit the lemon rind and raisins.

For a savoury pudding you can omit the meringue topping, raisins, and lemon rind and add about 170 g / 6 oz. of grated cheese between the layers and on top.

Apparently Queen of Puddings dates back to the seventeenth century.

C
HEESE
S
TRAWS

250 g / 9 oz. “ready to bake” puff pastry

Mustard, preferably Dijon

200 g / 7 oz.sharp cheddar or Parmesan cheese

1 egg, beaten

Roll out the pastry to make a rectangle of about 20 cm (8 in.) and spread half with mustard. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the mustard half and bring the other half over the cheese. Now seal with the rolling pin and roll out again to about 15 cm (6 in.).

Cut into strips and twist at each end. Now leave in the refrigerator for about half an hour. Brush with egg and bake for about 10 minutes at 190° C / 375° F / gas mark 5.

A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE

I’ve never done it personally, but I’ve known many women who have given birth, and sitting here knowing that at last book eight in the Irish Country series is written, I suspect I am feeling a lot like a new mother. Tired, proud of my offspring, relieved not to be carrying it all day every day for nine months—and yet a little lost and sad now it’s all over.

And just as each child of any large family is a unique individual, so is
Fingal O’Reilly, Irish Doctor
different in its own way from all its siblings in the Irish Country series.