An Irish Country Love Story Read online

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  To Dorothy

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank a large number of people, some of whom have worked with me from the beginning and without whose unstinting help and encouragement, I could not have written this series. They are:

  In North America

  Simon Hally, Carolyn Bateman, Tom Doherty, Paul Stevens, Kristin Sevick, Irene Gallo, Gregory Manchess, Patty Garcia, Alexis Saarela, and Christina Macdonald, all of whom have contributed enormously to the literary and technical aspects of bringing the work from rough draft to bookshelf.

  Natalia Aponte and Victoria Lea, my literary agents.

  Don Kalancha, Joe Maier, and Michael Tadman, who keep me right in contractual matters.

  In the United Kingdom and Ireland

  Jessica and Rosie Buchman, my foreign rights agents.

  The Librarians of: The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, The Rotunda Hospital Dublin and her staff.

  For this work only

  My friends and colleagues who contributed special expertise in the writing of this work are highlighted in the author’s note.

  To you all, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly MB, DSC, and I tender our most heartfelt gratitude and thanks.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Welcome back to Ballybucklebo, or, if it is your first visit, céad míle fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes. Here it is, number eleven in the Irish Country Doctor series. If it is your first visit don’t worry. You can start and enjoy this series in any one of the books.

  This is a departure from the structure of telling concurrent stories set in different decades, which I have used for the last two books: telling Fingal O’Reilly’s backstory as a naval surgeon in the Second World War while continuing to follow the doings of the citizens of Ballybucklebo in the 1960s.

  This work, apart from a short trip to Marseille, is almost entirely set in Ballybucklebo in the first months of 1967. While it is not a complicated book, one or two matters about it do require some explanation, which is of course the purpose of an author’s note. I need to discuss love, characters, and accuracy, and make a small admission.

  Although its title implies that it is a single love story, it is rather a collection of intertwined love stories. It is not simply a romantic novel. Love according to the ancients could be expressed in three ways: eros, filia, and agape. All are here aplenty.

  Certainly the ongoing stories of Barry Laverty and Sue Nolan, Fingal and Kitty O’Reilly, Jack Mills and Helen Hewitt, and the will-they-won’t-they affair between Lars O’Reilly and Myrna Ferguson, the marquis’s widowed sister, are true manifestations of eros.

  But love is not always sexual. There is great filia, deep affection, between Sonny and Maggie Houston and their dog, between Fingal and Kitty O’Reilly and their home, and Lord John MacNeill and Myrna for the Ballybucklebo Estate, which will face crippling taxes when his lordship dies. The love of a young woman for a father stricken by a heart attack is true filia. Nor is there any lack of agape, compassion, from the doctors for their patients and their two sick colleagues, from a young Colin Brown for a friend’s misfortune, and from the entire village and townland when it comes to rallying support for a respected member who is under threat.

  And ever-present and underpinning all is the unspoken but deeply abiding love, I believe reflecting my own, of the Ulsterfolk for their beautiful little corner of the Emerald Isle. A place soon tragically to be riven by thirty years of internecine strife.

  Most of the characters are fictitious, but there are some real people in these pages. Doctor Harold Millar was a distinguished neurologist in Belfast who had a special interest in multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. He taught me this aspect of the field of internal medicine. Doctor, later Professor, Gerald Nelson was head of haematology at the Royal when I was a student and houseman. His son, Peter, went on to be an A&E (accident and emergency) physician. The four wildfowling doctors who owned the Long and Round Islands on Strangford Lough—Taylor, Bowman, and the Sinton brothers—were known very personally to me. Jimmy Taylor was my father, Jamsey Bowman was my GP, and I knew the Sinton brothers, in the fashion of Ulster then, as honorary uncles Jack and Victor. I spent many happy Saturdays on the Long Island. And the Club Bar, home away from home for preclinical medical students, was owned by Mister Mick Agnew.

  As ever, I have striven for historical and medical accuracy. My knowledge of Marseille in the sixties is firsthand, having spent three months there in the summer of 1962 as an externe des hôpitaux, a junior medical student with limited clinical responsibilities. The city was a fascinating place where I was meant to improve my French. Was meant to. I am deeply indebted to Christianne Pharand, who corrected my execrable use of a beautiful language.

  Doctor John Ward of Vancouver kept me right about the details of pernicious anaemia. Thanks, John.

  A purely chance suggestion accompanied by a link to the County Down Spectator about the loss of a black Labrador in the Holywood Hills, and the immense effort made by the people of North Down to find him, gave me the plotline for the missing Jasper. In the second great coincidence in these books (there is a gastro-pub in Holywood called the Dirty Duck, which was not there when I started writing about the Mucky Duck), the storyline that came to be about Sonny Houston’s missing Jasper was sent by Belfast native Jenny Houston. Thank you, Jenny.

  Finally, I must confess my sins. When O’Reilly is explaining to Kitty about the founding of the village of Helen’s Bay and the building of Helen’s Tower, he attributes these to one of John MacNeill’s ancestors. In fact, the village was created by the real Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, Lord O’Neill, whose son had Helen’s Tower erected in honour of his mother, Helen Selina Blackwood, the Lady Dufferin. I hope the O’Neill family will forgive me.

  I trust these explanations will add to your enjoyment of this novel.

  PATRICK TAYLOR

  Saltspring Island

  British Columbia

  Canada

  July 2015

  1

  In Perils of Water

  “Brisk,” said Doctor Barry Laverty, standing on the shore and watching his breath turn to steam in the chilly, early-January air. The tang of the sea was in his nose, a fair breeze on his cheeks. “Distinctly brisk. Cold as a witch’s ti—” No. Out of deference to one of his companions, he’d not make the allusion much loved by his senior partner to the frigidity of a wisewoman’s breast. Tucking his neck down into the collar of his overcoat, he held more tightly to Sue Nolan’s gloved hand. The young schoolteacher, Barry’s fiancée, was spending the weekend at Number One Main Street, Ballybucklebo, b
efore returning to her exchange-teaching work in Marseille.

  “Brrrr,” she said, despite being snuggled into a sheepskin coat and fur hat. Barry’s old six-foot-long British Medical Students’ Association scarf was wrapped in layers round her neck. She pretended to chatter her teeth and smiled at him, the light sparkling from her green eyes. Her Mediterranean tan looked out of place on this wintry Ulster afternoon. “In some ways I’ll not be one bit sorry to be going back to the sunny Bouches-du-Rhȏne on Monday.” She must have seen Barry’s look. “And don’t worry, silly, I’ll be home for good in March, with the added qualification of having done a six-month teacher exchange. And a much better command of French. I’ll be getting a pay raise aussi.” She pecked his cheek.

  He felt her lips, cold on his chilled skin. “And a wedding to look forward to,” Barry said. He loved this girl with the long copper hair, distinct political views, and very tasty kisses. Two months wasn’t that long to wait. Not really. “Our wedding.” He hugged the idea. And mercenary though his thought seemed, her increase in salary would help out with the housekeeping. Becoming a full partner in O’Reilly’s practice last January had been very good for the ego, but with what Barry was paid it was unlikely that he’d soon be up there with the Rothschilds or the Rockefellers.

  “Our wedding,” she said, squeezing his hand, and her smile was radiant. “Yours and mine, mon petit choux.”

  Barry smiled at the French endearment, although why being called a little cabbage should be thought affectionate was beyond him. He held her gaze, then his visions of their soon-to-be married life became entangled with the real world as two little boys dashed past. One, pursued by a scruffy mongrel, yelled, “Happy New Year til youse all,” but before Barry could reply, Colin Brown and his dog, Murphy, had juked round a small crowd of folks enjoying a stroll in the Saturday sunshine.

  “Hi lost. Go on out. Hey on,” Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly said to his big black Labrador. Typical of the man, he was hatless and wore a tweed sports jacket over a woollen sweater. No overcoat for him. Barry was convinced that O’Reilly, despite his colourful expressions about the cold, was impervious even though his bent nose and boxer’s cauliflower ears were red.

  Barry watched a tennis ball thrown by his senior partner fly over the damp ochre sand and splash into the waters that lapped Ballybucklebo Beach. A kayak was hauled up above the tide line. Its owner must have gone to get something because there was no one near the little craft, and unless the paddler came back, the soon-to-be-rising tide might carry the boat out to sea.

  Arthur Guinness charged past the kayak, his paws leaving blurred prints on the beach. What must be very chilly water didn’t seem to bother the big dog as he swam out, grabbed his ball, turned, and headed snorting for the shore. It would be for him no worse than making retrieves, for which he and his clan had been bred, when he was with his master wildfowling on nearby Strangford Lough.

  Barry didn’t know Strangford well, but he was at home here on Belfast Lough. He’d grown up in Ballyholme and its waters had been his playground for canoeing, sailing, fishing, swimming.

  Arthur came ashore, stopped, stood with splayed legs, and shook, the water droplets spraying away to shimmer in the winter sunlight.

  “Happy dog,” Barry said.

  “And happy Barry, I hope,” said Sue. “I have loved the sunshine in France, but truly, March can’t come soon enough for me, pet.”

  “I know. And I couldn’t be happier. Just look out there.” He pointed to a sailing dinghy whose shining white sails gently pushed the boat along in a fair breeze rippling the blue waters. Here and there was a chalk mark of white foam where a wave had broken. “I love the lough. And you know I love sailing.” The little sailboat was only about a hundred yards from the tide line. The 16 sail number told him that his pal Andy Jackson was out in his Shearwater. “One of my friends. He must be daft. Out in this weather?” Barry said, but well remembered winter sailing before he’d gone to medical school. “It’ll be cosier on that big one out there.” In the shipping channel, an oil tanker made her way to Belfast, a pilot boat keeping the great vessel company. “I’m happy because I have a great job here in County Down. I could never leave the sea or Ulster for long.” He bent and said into her ear, “And I’m happy because most of all I love you, Sue Nolan.” And he didn’t need her to parrot his words. He knew now how she felt, although until she’d come back from France for the Christmas holidays he’d had his reservations.

  “Good boy.” O’Reilly took the ball from the grinning dog’s mouth and threw it again. “Hi lost.”

  Barry watched Arthur run and again noticed the kayak. It triggered a memory. “See that kayak, Sue?”

  She nodded.

  “I tried one once years ago. Couldn’t get it to do anything but go round in circles and then I dropped the paddle and tipped myself right into the sea trying to retrieve it. Don’t trust the things. Never tried again. I much prefer something bigger, like a Glen-class yacht.”

  “And so do I when I’m sailing with you, but once I’m back for good I’m going to get you to try kayaking again. It’s lots of fun.”

  “You know how to paddle one of those things?”

  “I do, and—don’t get huffy now—but my friend Jean-Claude…”

  “Ah, yes, Monsieur Hamou.” Barry recalled the awful feelings of jealousy he’d wrestled with when her letters from Marseille had arrived, filled with mentions of the fellow teacher who was showing her the sights. A lot of worry about nothing. Jean-Claude Hamou had just been a friendly colleague who had taken Sue under his wing and made her feel at home in a strange place. “Water under the bridge.”

  “Good.” She gave him a wide smile. “He persuaded me to take kayak lessons and it’s great fun. I can even do a screw roll.”

  “A what?” He chuckled. “Any relation to a jam roll?”

  “No, silly. A screw roll’s the simplest type of Eskimo roll to right a capsized kayak while you’re still sitting in it.”

  “I’m impressed. I really am.” He shrugged. “All I could ever do was paddle a kind of Indian canoe. It was more beamy than that one. And less cramped.” He pointed across the lough. “Look over there.” She and O’Reilly turned and followed where his hand pointed. On the far shore, the solid, blue, eternal Antrim Hills rose above the grim granite face of Carrickfergus Castle. Its name meant Fergus’s Rock. “When I was fourteen I had a canoe made of wood and canvas. I took it from Bangor to Carrickfergus and back one day.”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s quite a way for a youngster.”

  “And,” said O’Reilly, who had taken the ball from Arthur and told the dog to sit, “what did my old shipmate, your dad, have to say about that?”

  Barry laughed. “My father, as you should know, Fingal, believes in discipline. He was, as I believe Queen Victoria said to a minion who had told an off-colour story, ‘Not amused.’ He thought I’d been very reckless.”

  O’Reilly laughed, a deep rumbling. “And so you had. I’m sure he wasn’t at all amused.” He patted a smiling Arthur before adding, “And it is reported that she also said it after watching Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore.” He frowned. “I must say I like the piece, but I prefer The Mikado. Councillor Bertie Bishop, worshipful master of the Orange Lodge, committee member of the Ballybucklebo Bonnaughts Rugby Club, et cetera, et cetera, holds so many offices he reminds me of one of its characters, Pooh-Bah.”

  Barry shook his head. “Sometimes, Fingal, I worry about your store of minutiae. I really do. You’re a sort of idiot savant, or at least the first half of one.” Inside, despite his words, Barry felt a deep sense of comfort. Three years ago, when he had applied for his first job after qualifying as a doctor and completing his houseman’s year, he’d been terrified of O’Reilly. Now he was completely at his ease with the big man and never hesitated to tease him.

  “Less of your lip, Laverty,” O’Reilly said, but he was smiling.

  “Anyhow,” Barry said, “Dad put his foot
down. No more cross-lough forays. When Dad said ‘no,’ he meant ‘no.’”

  “How’s about youse, Doctors, Miss Nolan?” The speaker, a buck-toothed young man, lifted his duncher by the peak as was proper when a lady was being addressed. The shock of hair beneath was carroty red.

  “We’re grand, Donal,” O’Reilly said. “Giving Bluebird her run?” He nodded at a greyhound, the recent mother of pups. She was exchanging sniffs with a tail-wagging Arthur Guinness. They had been friends for years.

  “Wasn’t it dead sad about your man Sir Donald Campbell and the real Bluebird?” Donal said.

  “It was,” Barry said. “I saw the film on TV. The speedboat did a back somersault and he’d nearly broken his own water speed record.”

  “And no sign of the body,” O’Reilly said.

  “Very sad,” said Sue.

  “Right enough. He was a brave man, so he was. Just like his da, Sir Malcolm.” Donal patted his dog’s head. “Don’t you worry your head, girl. Nothing’s going til happen til you because you share a name. But we’ve got to get yiz back into condition and then,” Donal lowered his voice, “come here til I tell youse…”

  Oh oh, Barry thought, that meant Donal was going to impart some secret.

  His left eyelid drooped. “Me and your man Dapper Frew are—”

  “No,” said Barry. “Oh no, Donal.” Barry and O’Reilly had been involved in too many of Donal Donnelly’s harebrained get-rich-quick plots with dogs and racehorses. “Tell us when it’s over. Doctor O’Reilly and I are going to be busy.” Indeed they were only able to be out together today because the new assistant, Doctor Nonie Stevenson, who had taken over from Jennifer Bradley, was holding the medical fort. It was going to be interesting to see how she worked out in the months ahead. Barry had been in her year at medical school and had some reservations about her suitability, but she’d been fine so far.