Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor Read online

  “I’m awful sorry about him not wanting til have the nice wee lady doctor.”

  Flo, like many terrified relatives whose anxiety had been allayed, was prattling out of a sense of relief. He said gently, “We’ll let that hare sit for now, Flo. Let’s get a look at the patient.” And let’s get you better, Bertie Bishop, before I pop round and read you the Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly Riot Act on courtesy to the medical profession—regardless of the sex of the physician.

  They passed the open lounge door. “In here,” she said, ushering O’Reilly into a room where a jacketless Bertie Bishop sat in a swivel chair, his left elbow on a flat-topped desk strewn with papers and builders’ catalogues. “About bloody time, O’Reilly,” he said. The man’s collar was open and stuck out to the sides, still attached to the back collar stud.

  “I’ll go and see to the tea,” Flo said. “And Doctor O’Reilly says you’re going to get well, Bertie.” She patted his hand and smiled at him as she left.

  “Bertie,” O’Reilly said. “Chest pain, was it?” He grunted, stood over Bertie, and reached for his wrist. As he counted the beats, ninety-six per minute and perfectly regular, just a little fast, he noted that although Bertie was pale, the normal flush was returning to his cheeks.

  “Aye, bloody ferocious so it was for a minute or two. I couldn’t hardly get my breath, but it’s away there now.”

  “What were you doing before it happened?”

  “I was on the phone reaming out a buck eejit of a supplier.”

  “You’d lost your temper?”

  “Wouldn’t you have? Me with a whole crew on a site getting paid by the hour and the headcase that’s supposed to have delivered the bricks has run out of stock? He’s costing me an arm and a bloody leg, so he is.” Bertie’s voice rose and he banged a fist on the desktop.

  “Bertie, unless you want the pain to come back, calm down,” O’Reilly said. “Take some deep breaths and look out the window at this beautiful view.” His desk was beneath a picture window that looked out over a rolling lawn and across Belfast Lough to the coastal Antrim villages of Greenisland and Carrickfergus—the rock of Fergus—with its twelfth-century Norman castle built by John de Courcy. Bertie glanced out the window, sighed, then stared down at his desk.

  “Has it ever happened before?”

  “That your man’s let me down? No, and he’ll not never again neither, so he’ll not. Not when I’m done with him.”

  O’Reilly shook his head. The man would wrestle a bear for a halfpenny. “No, Bertie. I meant, have you ever had a pain like it before?”

  “Not at all. And you’d’ve known, for I’d’ve sent for you, not some bloody woman.”

  The last thing O’Reilly wanted to do was incite another anginal attack, but … “Bertie,” he said as gently and as firmly as he could manage, “Doctor Bradley is not as experienced as me, but she is as well qualified. People with chest pain can die and every second counts. She’s working with me. In future, I may not be available to you. Am I clear?”

  “Look. It was bloody sore, so it was. I was scared. Flo was going out of her mind fluttering about. I wanted the best. I always get the best, even if it’s only you, O’Reilly, and I don’t trust no female doctors.” Judging by the colour of his cheeks, Bertie’s choler was rising, and O’Reilly decided not to press matters—for now. But even if his years in practice had taught O’Reilly that worried patients could be bloody rude, he had to make an effort to hide his desire to go up one side of Bertie and down the other. The man needed a good talking-to—later.

  O’Reilly’s immediate concern was to determine if Bishop had experienced a series of what were known as “warning pains” for a few days before this bout. They could presage the onset of a full-blown heart attack. Their absence was a promising sign.

  O’Reilly fished out a portable sphygmomanometer, set it on the desk, pushed up Bertie’s shirtsleeve, and wrapped the cuff round his upper arm. Blow it up, stethoscope to the front of the elbow, slowly let the cuff down, and listen for the sounds of the pulse to reappear then disappear. “Blood pressure’s up a bit,” O’Reilly said.

  “So would yours be, O’Reilly, if you was losing money hand over fist.”

  O’Reilly shook his head. “Open your shirt.” A quick listen with his stethoscope gave no further clues. O’Reilly removed the earpieces and shoved the instrument into his jacket pocket. “Do up your shirt,” he said, “while I give Flo a roar and then I’ll explain to you both what’s happening and what’s going to happen.” He strode to the door, called, “Can you come here please, Flo,” and returned to Bertie’s side.

  “You can tell me,” Bertie said. “Flo’d not understand anyroad.”

  “Do you do the cooking, Bertie?” For a moment, O’Reilly remembered noticing an advertisement in the paper for a builder’s business for sale up in Portrush—sixty-odd miles away. Perhaps Bertie might decide to buy it, move, and torment some other G.P.

  “Me, cook?” Bertie’s lip curled. “I’ve Flo. You don’t buy a dog and bark yourself. Why’d you want to know that anyway?”

  “Patience, Bertie,” O’Reilly said, and sighed.

  Flo reappeared and stood beside her husband. “How is he, Doctor?”

  “All right,” said O’Reilly. “This time. I’m certain Bertie’s had what’s called angina of effort. Exercise or an emotional upset can bring it on and it goes away fairly quickly. It happens because the blood vessels that supply the heart have become narrow.”

  “How?” Flo asked.

  “Too much fat in the diet, not enough exercise, and we’re beginning to think smoking may contribute. You know how a kettle or a water pipe gets furred if the water’s too hard?”

  “Aye.”

  “If somebody eats too much fat for too long, the arteries get furred with what we call plaque—fat.”

  Flo frowned. “You mean I’ve not been feeding him right, like?” She glanced at Bertie.

  “Hardly your fault, Flo. Everybody in Ireland likes a good fry-up, deep-fried battered fish-and-chips, properly marbled beef, but we’ll have to change that, Bertie.”

  “You mean I’ll have for til give up rashers and Denny’s sausages? No more fried bread?” Bertie looked like a little boy who’d lost his last marble. “You’re a cruel man, O’Reilly, but then all youse doctors are forever going on about giving up this and giving up that.”

  “To tell you the truth I don’t know about what you might have to forgo, and anyway, eventually the choice will be yours, not mine,” O’Reilly said, “but Doctor Bradley’s sent for the ambulance and—”

  “He’s for the hospital?” Flo said, and gasped. “That’s ferocious, so it is. I thought it was just a wee pain, like, and he’s better now, you know.”

  O’Reilly shook his head. “The attack’s over, but you need some tests and long-term treatment. You’ll be going to ward Five in the Royal, Bertie. Doctor Pantridge is the senior cardiologist there. You’ll need an electrocardiogram and some blood work to confirm my diagnosis. You’ll be given glyceryl trinitrate tablets to put under your tongue—”

  “Now, just a minute, O’Reilly. I’m a bleedin’ builder. I know what that is. That’s what makes dynamite explode, so it is. No way I’m putting that stuff under my tongue, so I’m not.”

  “You needn’t worry, Bertie. The tablets are quite stable, and the dose is very small, Half a milligram. You take one if you feel the pain coming on again. They make blood vessels dilate. Let more blood through.”

  “Huh,” said Bertie, sounding unconvinced.

  “The staff at the Royal’ll make an appointment for you, and you should go too, Flo. That’s why I wanted you to hear this. A dietitian will tell you all the stuff I don’t know about special diets. She’ll tell you what Bertie can and can’t have.” And maybe, he thought, if Flo eats the same kinds of meals, she’d lose a bit too. He wondered if her childlessness had led to using food as a way to comfort herself. But he put the thought aside. Bertie was the focus today.
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  “Yes, Doctor,” she said.

  He glanced at Bertie’s waistline. “My guess is that you’ll need to shed about two stone.”

  “By God, I’ll starve,” Bertie said in such tones that O’Reilly could almost feel sorry for the man.

  “No, you’ll not. I’ll not preach, Bertie,” he said, “but in a way you’ve been lucky. You could have had a real heart attack, but this is a warning. If you heed it, do as you’re bid about your diet, take a bit of exercise, and stop getting yourself worked up to high doh, you’ll probably live to a ripe old age.”

  The doorbell chimed. “That’ll be the ambulance,” O’Reilly said.

  “I’ll let them in.” Flo left.

  “You have been lucky, Bertie, but I don’t want to talk about the future in front of Flo. Any one of us could get hit by a lorry tomorrow. There are no guarantees in this life. You have angina, that means narrow heart vessels, so you could have a heart attack at any time. We can’t widen them or replace them. But if you pay attention to what the dietary people tell you at the Royal, keep your temper under control, have pills handy at all times and get one into you if you feel even a twinge, you’ve probably got another good fifteen years ahead of you.” The textbook said ten to fifteen, but why not err on the side of optimism?

  “By God, I hope so,” Bertie said. He hung his head. “In soul, I do indeed, so I do.”

  “And let’s hope,” said O’Reilly, “this’ll be your last trip to hospital for quite a while.”

  14

  I Was Sick, and Ye Visited Me

  Fingal climbed the Grand Staircase toward Saint Patrick’s Ward, opening the door to the familiar sights and sounds of the place he’d lived in for practically two years. The black walls, the painting of Saint Patrick preaching to Oisín, the rows of beds where men moaned, coughed, snored, or chatted with a neighbour. It hadn’t changed. His nostrils were filled with the fumes of strong disinfectant struggling to overpower the stronger smells of sick and dying humanity.

  “Fingal, or should I say Doctor O’Reilly?” said Sister Daly, the senior nurse on the ward. “And to what do we owe the pleasure of your company at Sir Patrick Dun’s?” Her grin was broad. “Nice to see you, young man.”

  “And here I thought we were friends, Mary Daly,” Fingal said with a chuckle. “We don’t need the titles.”

  “True on you. How are you, Fingal?”

  “I’ve been worse,” he said, and smiled. “Professionally I’m happy as a pig in you know what. I’m working with Charlie Greer at a dispensary practice in the Liberties, and today, Saturday, August the first, 1936, is my first weekend off.”

  “And so you’re here, uh, at the hospital? Not out gallivanting?” She smiled, shook her head, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Uh-huh. So the new job’s going well?”

  “Like they heard the fellah say when he jumped off the Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park, ‘So far so good.’ Three weeks in and it’s grand. The work is just as satisfying as I’d hoped.” And the nights on call, staying in the dispensary, gave him some respite from the funereal sadness that, despite Ma’s best efforts, pervaded the big house. For a moment he thought about telling Mary about Father, but why? She didn’t know Fingal’s family and it was only with his very close friends that he was willing to show his grief.

  Mary cocked her head. “Mind wandering, Fingal? I thought I’d lost you for a moment, there. And how’s the fair Kitty O’Hallorhan?”

  “Fine. In fact, she’s splendid. She’s at Baggott Street Hospital. I’m seeing her tonight. I’m on call a lot but the redoubtable Doctor Corrigan is taking call until Monday morning—”

  “Phelim Corrigan, at Aungier Place?”

  “The very one.”

  She laughed. “Don’t let him too near Kitty. He’s a bachelor man, and a terrible one for the ladies.” She winked at him. “He’s only ten years older than me and, eejit that I am, I let him squire me around for a few months about nine years ago.” Did Fingal detect a wistfulness in her voice?

  “I didn’t know that,” Fingal said. The more he found out about Phelim the more human the man became. “I’ll remember it.”

  “How do you find working with him?”

  “I wasn’t sure about him at first, you should have seen the way he lit into one of his patients…”

  “Who’d done something awful to a child?”

  Fingal startled. “How did you know that?”

  “He’s daft about kiddies. Hates to see them hurt.”

  “I could tell, and he likes to play the old gruff ogre. He bade farewell to us on Friday afternoon with the cheery admonition, ‘Enjoy yer weekend, but be sure the pair of ye’s back by nine on the button on Monday morning or I’ll dock ye a day’s pay.’”

  Mary laughed. “That’s Phelim.”

  “He’s a damn good doctor, and it’s a comfort to consult him on the difficult cases. Or the kinds of problems unique to the tenements. Charlie and I didn’t see a lot of that stuff here in Dun’s. It’s mostly handled by the chemists and G.P.s.”

  “I can imagine. And was it wanting to see more of the ‘stuff at Dun’s’ that brought you here on your weekend off instead of being out flying your kite?” She tilted her head to one side.

  “No.” He laughed. “Three weeks back I saw an accident, gave first aid until the ambulance came. They brought him here with a Pott’s fracture…”

  “Mister JJF,” she said.

  Still this nonsense of only referring to patients by their initials. And why should it have changed in only a month?

  “Don’t tell me you’re the Big Fellah?” She looked him up and down. “I should have guessed.”

  “’Fraid so.” He laughed and so did she.

  “He’s doing as well as can be expected,” she said. “Mister Kinnear did a closed reduction and put a plastercast on it. We’ve been doing weekly X-rays and the surgeons are pleased with the alignment of the fragments. The patient’s in the OTC Commemoration Bed.” OTC stood for officers training corps.

  “Oh,” said Fingal, and felt a little shiver. He remembered the first time he’d read the brass plaque beside the bed.… Endowed by the citizens of Dublin in recognition of the gallant defence of Trinity College. Easter 1916.

  “I know,” she said, “it hit you hard when KD died. My heart bled for you.”

  “It did hurt,” he said, thinking of Kevin Doherty, who two years before had lain in the same bed, “and thank you for that, Mary.”

  “Och,” she said, “everybody felt it except that one there.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Heartless gobshite.” She inclined her head to a gangly figure in a white coat who was halfway down the multiple-bedded ward. He had gold pince-nez and a protuberant Adam’s apple. “Your old friend Fitzpatrick’s our new houseman.”

  “Good God,” said Fingal. “Ronald Hercules. How do you put up with him?” He remembered the arrogant man who had been in Fingal’s year.

  “With great difficulty,” she said, “but needs must. Go on now and see your patient. I’ve a report to write, but I’ll make you a cup of tea before you go.”

  “Thank you. I’d like that.” He headed off between the rows of beds.

  “What brings you here, O’Reilly?” Fitzpatrick demanded as Fingal passed the bed where Fitzpatrick was turning back the bedclothes preparatory to examining a young man.

  “I know one of the patients. He got hit by a tram. I saw him then.”

  “Still the same O’Reilly. Don’t think anyone but you knows how to treat people.” He sniffed.

  “Au contraire, Hercules”—Fingal knew the man hated to be called Hercules—“just curious about how he’s getting on.” He kept walking.

  He passed a bed with a metal gantry at its foot where bandages from a man’s injured leg had been twisted into a rope that ran over a pulley-wheel and were attached to a twenty-pound weight. The end of the bed was elevated nine inches and the patient lay head down. That was how fractured femurs were treated. The traction
kept the broken ends aligned and reduced the damage to the surrounding muscles. Fingal’s nostrils were assailed by the stench of Sinclair’s glue, a substance made of glue, water, thymol, and glycerine with powerful adhesive properties and a ferocious stink. The compound was applied to the skin once a fracture had been reduced, and the bandages, which would be used to exert traction to keep the bone ends in place as they healed, stuck firmly to the glue. Its smell, and all too frequently that of decaying flesh in cases of infected compound fractures, were the olfactory hallmarks of orthopaedic patients. The man would be there for three months.

  “Jasus Murphy, Doctor O’Reilly. What brings you here?” said John-Joe Finnegan from the next bed as Fingal passed the gantry. He put down the Irish Times and smiled. Fingal glanced at headlines that screamed, Adolf Hitler Opens Berlin Olympics Today, and a smaller one announcing, Command of Nationalist Forces Split Between Generals Franco, Quipo del Llano, and Mola Vidal. The Spanish Civil War had broken out on July 17.

  “I used to work here,” Fingal said. “Sister Daly’s an old friend. I pop in to see her once in a while and I knew they’d brought you here so I thought—”

  “You’d see how I was doing. Fair play to you, sir. Fair play.” He grinned. “Mister Kinnear, the surgeon, he says I’ll be here for at least another six weeks til the bones have knit.” He sighed. “Even den I’ll have a funny-looking joint, but I’ll be able to hobble around. It was good of you til come to see me, sir. Did you get the job with Doc Corrigan?”

  “I did,” said Fingal, “three weeks ago yesterday.”

  “Dat’s grand altogether.”

  “And are they treating you well, John-Joe?”

  “Couldn’t be better. At least I get my three squares a day in here. Jasus, but the grub’s great.”

  Fingal, when he’d been a resident student here, had been fed from the same kitchen. “Great” was not the adjective he’d have used, but he supposed that when your diet was mostly potatoes, vegetables, and beef parings that could be bought for fourpence, the variety of the hospital meals would seem pretty good.