Whitethorn Woods (18 page)

And that would be absolutely fine with me.

I know everyone in the place, that's a fair enough thing to say. If they're thirty-five or under, then I delivered them into the world, and if they're any other age I listened to their chests and coughs and cured their measles and mumps, sewed up their torn ears, took glass out of their cut knees.

   Doon is only a small place, twenty miles from Rossmore, along a narrow, bumpy road, but we don't need to go into the big town much. We have everything we want here, and it's just a small quiet country place where I know the story of every man, woman and child.

   I've closed the eyes of their mothers and fathers and grandparents, I've told them good news and bad news, I've found the words that others don't find. These people owe me, for God's sake. That's why I was so betrayed and let down over the way they all flocked to this new young doctor.

   
Dr. J
immy White.

   A young whippersnapper who called me Dermot as soon as look at me. Everyone here calls me Dr. Dermot but, oho, that was not good enough for Dr. Jimmy White. Oh, very eager and anxious to please he was, running here and there. Of course he did house calls any time of the day and the night, and of course he had a mobile phone so you could find him anywhere. And he was thorough, sending people halfway across the country for scans, blood tests for everything, X-rays. These are simple people, they think that's a kind of magic in itself.

   Even the hospital in Rossmore wasn't good enough for Dr. Jimmy White. Oh, no, he sent them to specialists, to teaching hospitals in Dublin, no less. Rather than relying on years of experience, and someone who has known them inside and out for generations.

   Like myself.

   Not that I let them see I was upset or anything. No indeed. I always spoke well of Dr. Jimmy White. Very bright young man, I said, plays it by the book and, indeed, consults his medical books, he won't have to do that when he's older and more experienced, but very thorough, of course, always checking things out when he's not sure.

   People thought I liked and admired him while I managed to sow the seeds of doubt, like why he was checking books, getting second opinions, sending blood to be tested and people to have scans.

   There was an overtalkative American man called Chester Kovac—staying in the hotel, must have been made of money. His grandfather was called O'Neill, came from round here once, not that anyone remembers him or anything. Sure, the country's coming down with O'Neills. I told him several times that the young doctor had to learn his trade somewhere, but in a way it was hard to see him make his mistakes on the people of this parish. Chester said, surely he had to be a qualified medical man, and I said yes, but that there was qualified and there was experienced. Chester nodded a lot as if the idea had sunk in.

   Then he told me he was buying land in Doon and going to build. He wanted my advice about what kind of services this little town needed. What were we lacking, where were the gaps . . . He had a real overconcerned look on his face. It would sicken you. All that kind of sensitive stuff that has no place here. I pretended to be interested, you know, the way you have to in a small place like this. Some rambling on about social housing, affordable housing. You know the kind of thing they go on with, moaning over the past, saying that if his poor grandfather had only owned a house, then he wouldn't have had to emigrate.

   I nodded and sipped my pint. And I thought to myself, if his grandfather hadn't got up off his arse and gone out to somewhere where he could find a living, Chester wouldn't be wearing designer suits and handmade shoes. But better not to say that. Let them live their dream. Oh and he was going to build a hall, and a center of some sort. Here in Doon, no less! Terrific, I used to say to him, before going back to the subject of Dr. White and the gaps in his learning.

   For a while my way of coping with my rival worked and there was enough business for both of us. Well, for me anyway. But then things took a turn for the worse.

   It was all to do with that stupid woman Maggie Kiernan, who was having a baby, and let me tell you there was no baby ever born in the world except to Maggie. Her pregnancy was endless, no mammoth could have had a longer gestation period. She was in twice a week, she was sick and then she wasn't sick, the baby was moving—was that natural? or it wasn't moving—did that mean it was dead? What she needed was a private team, gynecologists, obstetricians, all in a waiting room in her house.

   Three weeks before she was due, she rang at two in the morning to say that the baby was arriving. So I told her to have a nice cup of tea and we'd talk about it in the morning. She kept on and on that the baby was definitely coming and wouldn't I come out. Four miles out, halfway up a mountain! Was she mad? I was soothing but she just slammed down the phone.

   It wasn't until halfway through the next morning I heard the story: she called Dr. Jimmy White and of course he went out there. And wouldn't you know? The child was half born and there were complications and he got an ambulance up that mountainy road and if he hadn't accompanied her to Accident and Emergency in Rossmore, then the baby would have died, and Maggie would have died, and half the population hereabouts would have died out of sympathy.

   I must have heard it fifteen times that morning, poor Maggie Kiernan and how frightened she must have been, and was not it the mercy of God that young Dr. White had been able to attend her. And always the unspoken words that I had let Maggie Kiernan down.

   I was annoyed of course, but I didn't show it: instead I showered praise on Dr. Jimmy White and concern about Maggie, and said several times that babies had minds of their own and wouldn't life be easy if they'd only let us know. I never explained, never apologized. And I thought that eventually the message was getting over to them. I was still their wise, good Dr. Dermot.

   Now, every Saturday at lunchtime, Hannah Harty, a single lady, comes to do the books for me. She is a qualified bookkeeper, the soul of discretion, and does books for a lot of people in town. Just five Saturdays after all Maggie Kiernan's shenanigans, Hannah cleared her throat and told me straight out that I was losing a great many patients to the new young Dr. White. And therefore a fair amount of income.

   At first I didn't believe her. Hannah has always been a bit of a gloom merchant. Word was that she had set her cap at me, long, long ago. But I don't think that can be true.

   I certainly never gave her any encouragement. I had looked after her old mother for years. Well, Hannah actually looked after her old mother, but I would call on them and reassure them a lot, and if they were eating a supper I was made part of it.

   I myself had never married. I had my heart set on a woman once but she told me I was too easygoing, and that she could never settle down with a small-town doctor. Well, I am who I am. I'm not going to change for anyone, so I spent little time thinking back on her and what she had said.

   I listened carefully to Hannah as she spoke and, indeed, less than half an hour after she had told me about our takings being down, I had begun to take action.

   I called on the Foley family for a chat. Their old father was on his last legs; he wouldn't last much longer. But I was full of cheer about him, said he had the heart and constitution of a lion and that he was in fine fettle. When I left them the Foleys all felt vastly cheered. And I told myself, as I so often do, that
this
is what a doctor is meant to do, cheer people, buoy them up, carry them along. Not frighten the wits out of them with statistics and tests and scans.

   On my way home I met the young Dr. White.

   "All that business about Maggie Kiernan . . ." he began awkwardly.

   "Yes?" My voice was cold.

   "Well, I wouldn't want you to think I was muscling in on your territory or anything like that . . ." he said, shifting from foot to foot.

   "Do you feel you were?" I was still icy.

   "Well, technically of course she is your patient but I had to decide whether it was an emergency or not. And, well, I decided it was."

   "So you feel you did the right thing, Dr. White?"

   "I do wish you'd call me Jim, I call you Dermot."

   "I know, I've noticed," I said with one of my smiles.

   "There's plenty of work for both of us, Dermot," he said with a familiar kind of leer. "Neither of us will go hungry in this place."

   "I'm very sure of that, Dr. White," I said and went on my way.

   When I got back home I sat and thought further and deeper. Hannah Harty telephoned and suggested that she bring me over a steak-and-kidney pie she had made. Since her mother died she had not asked me to supper in her house, which I missed, especially at weekends, which can get lonely.

   I do have a housekeeper, a weary-looking woman, but she just keeps the place clean, washes and irons. She shops, of course, and prepares the vegetables but there's never anything tasty like Hannah makes. I said that I'd be honored to eat the pie with her and would produce a bottle of claret. When Hannah came in bearing her dishes of food it was clear that she had been to the hairdresser since we had met in the morning. She was wearing a smart white blouse and a cameo brooch. She had even put on makeup, which was most unusual.

   Could it possibly be true that she still had notions about the two of us?

   Best thing possible was to ignore all the finery in case that was what was at the back of it all. No point in complimenting her or anything. That would be just asking for trouble. We talked about the famous Rossmore bypass and would it ever happen. It had been talked about for years. Would it make any difference to our little quiet backwater, or would they just ignore our bumpy little road to Rossmore? Nobody seemed to know.

   We had a pleasant meal, and since Hannah had brought a plate of rather good cheeses, I opened a second bottle of wine.

   "What in God's earth are you going to do about young Dr. White, Dermot?" she asked me straight out. Her face was anxious. She really cared what was going to happen to me when most of the town had deserted and gone to the opposition. I reached forward and patted her hand.

   "I wouldn't worry at all, Hannah my dear," I reassured her. "It's always important to stay calm in a situation like this and wait until it all blows over."

   "But it might not blow over, Dermot. You know, I work in several different establishments around the place, and a lot of them are moving. Mr. Brown in the bank is going to consult Dr. White because of his father's pneumonia. Mr. Kenny the solicitor is worried about his mother not being able to walk properly and he thinks young Dr. White might get her some better drugs, newer, modern things. You can't just sit here, Dermot, and watch all your hard work, setting up this practice, trickle away into the ground." She looked really upset on my behalf. Or maybe on her own behalf if she really saw a future with me.

   "No, indeed, I won't sit here and watch, Hannah. I was thinking actually that I might take a little holiday."

   "A holiday? Now? In the middle of this crisis? Dermot, you must be going barking mad," she gasped.

   But I refused to respond or react. Just smiled at her.

   "I know what I'm doing, Hannah," I said over and over.

   And during the next week I made several house calls. I decided that old man Foley had about two weeks to live; that Mr. Kenny's mother should be allowed to live out her last months peacefully without any new medication, which would only unsettle her; that Mr. Brown's father was entering his last bout of pneumonia, which would take him peacefully away from this world.

   Then I announced that I was taking a little holiday. I encouraged the Browns, the Foleys and the Kennys to attend that nice young Dr. White while I was away. No, of
course
I didn't mind, what was life about except give and take, and the young man was extremely well qualified. He would look after them perfectly.

   Then I put my golf clubs into the back of the car and drove a hundred and fifty miles away to a nice quiet hotel by the sea. It was easy to find a four-ball, so I played eighteen holes a day.

   Every night I played bridge in the hotel lounge and at breakfast each morning, with my second cup of tea, I turned the pages to the Deaths column.

   First I read of the death of old man Foley, then of Mrs. Kenny, and finally of Mr. Brown. I said a swift good-bye to my new golfing and bridge friends and drove straight back home to Doon.

   I called on the homes of the bereaved, shaking my head in bewilderment over their great losses. I said I couldn't understand it—old man Foley had been in great form when I left, there had been plenty of life in him still; and in Mrs. Kenny and Mr. Brown. How sad and ironical that they should all die when I, who had known them for so much of their lives, was far away. Then I would shake my wise old head again and say it was a total mystery.

   It didn't take long. In fact it all happened much quicker than I had expected. People began to talk.

   They said that it was very odd that three perfectly well people had died during the ten days that Dr. Dermot was on holiday. They said it was a pity to be hasty and to run to the new instead of staying with the tried and tested. With the man who had known them young, old, well and sick, all their lives. Little by little they came back to me, even those who had asked for their medical records to take to Dr. White. Some of them had been annoyed about the scrappy nature of the records and had not accepted that it was all in my head. I knew which child had had mumps and which had had measles, for heaven's sake. No need for computers and printouts in my case.

   I was very generous, talking to them. I showed no hurt, not even a trace of sulking in my face. They were all so relieved that I was taking them back, they wanted to denounce Dr. White. But here again I was noble. I wouldn't hear a word against the boy. I called him a boy, as I smiled about him forgivingly, and said he was very young and that he had to make his mistakes somewhere. They marveled at my great generosity.