An Irish Country Doctor Read online

  Maggie cackled. "Sure you can't train cats."

  "Oh," said O'Reilly, looking crestfallen. "So I'll just have to wave good-bye to my living-room suite?"

  "Clawing is she?"

  "Like a tiger with fits."

  Maggie frowned. "You could try doing what I did for the General. Come inside and I'll show you." She led the way, leaving the front door open.

  Barry watched and listened.

  The General lay on a chair beside the unlit fire. Maggie went into another room and came back carrying a T-shaped piece of equipment. The base was a bit of flat plywood. A post, two by two by thirty-six and covered in old carpet, rose vertically from the base. "One of these might do the trick," she said, offering it to O'Reilly. "It's a scratching post, so it is."

  The General opened his eye, stared at the scratching post, and made a moaning sound. He crouched against the chair's seat. Maggie held out her hands and took the post from O'Reilly. "You know this thing, don't you, General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery?" The General whined. He slipped off the chair and scuttled, belly to the floor, under the table, and from there he peered balefully, his good eye never leaving the post.

  The General used to rip my bits and pieces, didn't you, you bugger?" She waved the post at the cat, who put a paw over his eye and retreated out of sight.

  "How do you use it?" O'Reilly asked.

  "When he was little, I set this beside the chair he liked to claw--"

  "I see," O'Reilly interrupted, "and every time he tried to scratch the furniture you showed him the post, and he learned to use it instead. Brilliant."

  "Not at all," said Maggie. She raised her voice. "When he tried it, I took the post. . . and I fetched him a right good belt on the head, didn't I, General?"

  Barry was aware of an orange streak that rushed past him and out through the open door. He couldn't hear if the cat was still yowling. He couldn't hear anything except O'Reilly's rafter-ringing guffaws.

  "Maybe," said O'Reilly, when he finally stopped laughing, "maybe a piece of rolled-up newspaper would work?"

  "Maybe." Maggie looked thoughtful. "It's the best I can think of."

  "Thanks, Maggie." O'Reilly walked to the door, stopped, turned, and said, "I nearly forgot. What was the wee favour you wanted?"

  Maggie fidgeted, cocked her head to one side. "I sometimes take a dander up past Sonny's place."

  Barry saw her cheeks redden.

  "I don't go that way often, you understand?"

  "Of course," said O'Reilly.

  She looked O'Reilly in the eye. "But I was up there this morning, and I don't think the old goat's right."

  "Why not?"

  "He usually hides in his car if he sees me coming." She nodded quickly, as if reassuring herself that she was doing the right thing. "He just sat in his chair. 'Morning, Maggie,' says he, and he coughed. Not just a wee hirstle. A great big long hack. He looked terrible blue in the face, so he did. 'Morning, Sonny,' says I. You have to be polite. 'You all right?' 'Mind your own business,' says he, all hirstles and wheezles." She put a hand on O'Reilly's arm. "He never asks nobody for nothing, but would you maybe drop by and take a gander at him?"

  "Of course. We'll head up there right now."

  "Thanks, Doctor . . . and for the love of God, don't you be telling him 'twas me that sent you. He'd have a carniption."

  "Mum's the word, Maggie."

  Barry backed out through the door as O'Reilly strode towards him. Maggie followed. As he climbed into the Rover, he heard her growl, "He's nothing but an old eejit, but a Christian wouldn't ignore a sick animal." Barry saw her eyes glisten. "Make sure he's all right, won't you now?" Her voice was tremulous.

  There was no sign of Sonny. Nor did he appear when O'Reilly bellowed the man's name. Four of his five dogs ran barking through the scrapyard to the gate in the hedge. The spaniel stood outside a derelict car, front paws on the sill of an open rear door. "He must be in there," O'Reilly said, opening the gate. "Away to hell out of that." He brushed aside the dogs and made his way, Barry in tow, along a well-trodden path through weeds and rusting metal. He bent at the open car door.

  "Are you there, Sonny?"

  Barry heard a hacking cough and a feeble "Go away."

  "It's Doctor O'Reilly."

  "Leave me alone."

  "Be buggered if I will," said O'Reilly, clambering through the open door.

  Barry peered through the dirty windows. O'Reilly's back nearly

  blocked his view, but he could make out a figure curled up on the backseat.

  "Ah, Jesus, Doctor, let me be." More coughing.

  O'Reilly backed out, dragging Sonny. "It would be a hell of a sight easier if you'd cooperate," O'Reilly panted. "You're sick as a dog."

  "All right. All right."

  "Put your arm round my neck."

  "Can I help, Doctor O'Reilly?"

  "Get out of my way." O'Reilly straightened up. He held Sonny in his arms, the man's long legs dangling to one side, his head pillowed on O'Reilly's chest. Barry could see that Sonny's cheeks were slate grey. His nostrils flared like a scared horse's, and his neck muscles stood out like cords every time he tried to inhale. There was no need of a stethoscope to hear the damp rattling of each laboured breath. Had his heart failure suddenly worsened? "Come on," O'Reilly said, "we'll have to get him to the surgery."

  "Right."

  The last thing Barry heard as they drove away was the doleful howling of Sonny's dogs.

  O'Reilly laid Sonny on the examination couch. "Give me a hand with his clothes."

  Barry helped O'Reilly remove Sonny's raincoat, a heavy sweater, and a collarless shirt. It took several minutes to peel away the layers of old newspaper that lay under the shirt. Although his arms were brown to just above the elbow--farmer's arms, Barry thought--and there was a deeply tanned V at his neck, the rest of his chest was pearly white. With each rasping inhalation, the muscles between Sonny's ribs were sucked inwards. With each rasping inhalation, Sonny whimpered.

  "Hurts to breathe, does it?" O'Reilly asked, as he took Sonny's pulse.

  "Yuh-huh." Sonny put a hand to his ribs.

  "When did it start?"

  "Just after . . . hack . . . the storm . . . hack . . . got soaked."

  "Help me sit him up."

  Barry put an arm round Sonny's shoulders. His skin felt as if it were on fire, and God, he was heavy, yet O'Reilly had carried the man as if he had been a small child. One glance told Barry that the jugular veins were distended right up to the angle of Sonny's jaw, a sure sign that blood was backing up behind a heart that lacked the strength to pump it further.

  O'Reilly percussed Sonny's back. Barry could hear the sullen thumps where a resonant sound should have been. Either the lungs or the pleural cavities, the space between the glistening membranes that sheathe the lungs, were filling with fluid. O'Reilly stuffed his stethoscope in his ears and listened. A look of pure anger filled his eyes. "You daft old bugger. Why the hell didn't you send for me sooner?"

  Sonny hacked.

  "Right," said O'Reilly, pulling his stethoscope from his ears. "Hang on." He rummaged under the examining table and swung the upper end to an angle of forty-five degrees. "Let him lie back now." Barry eased Sonny's head back onto the pillow. O'Reilly hauled up the leg of Sonny's pants and thrust his thumb against the shin. When he pulled his thumb away, Barry saw that there was a deep depression. That meant there was oedema, fluid accumulating under the skin.

  "Heart failure?"

  "And pneumonia and pleurisy. Both sides." O'Reilly shook his head. "I suppose you didn't want to bother anybody. Christ on a crutch. It's the hospital for you, Sonny."

  Barry saw the terror in Sonny's eyes. "My dogs . . . hack . . . who'll look after . . . hack . . . my dogs?"

  "Your dogs'll do a damn sight better if you're around to take care of them," O'Reilly said, "and you won't be if we don't get you to the Royal. And quick." He turned to Barry. "Go and call the ambulance. The number's by the phone. We need oxygen down he
re as quick as we can get it."

  "Right."

  "I'll get Kinky to bring blankets." He started to turn away, but Sonny reached out and grabbed O'Reilly's arm,

  "Don't leave me alone."

  "I won't."

  "I'll get the blankets too."

  "Good man."

  Barry saw O'Reilly holding one of Sonny's hands. With his other hand he smoothed the grey hair from Sonny's forehead. All Barry could think of was a Victorian etching that had hung in the students' mess hall. In the background of a cramped room the parents stood wringing their hands over a child sprawled on a rumpled bed. A bearded, frock-coated doctor sat on the side of the bed, chin on hand, tired eyes full of what? Compassion? Despair? Barry had never been sure, but the look in that man's face had come through time, and now it was there on the brown-eyed, bent-nosed countenance of Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly.

  "Sherry?"

  "Please." Barry sat in his by-now usual chair in the upstairs lounge.

  "Here. Get that into you." O'Reilly gave Barry a glass, set his whiskey on the coffee table, shoved Lady Macbeth out of his chair, and sat. The cat leapt into his lap, and he fondled the animal's head. "Jesus," he said, "it never rains but it pours. What a day. Surgery packed to the gills, a pregnant lass from Rasharkin. I'll need to give the folks in Liverpool a call about her tomorrow . . . and that's not the half of it." O'Reilly frowned. "I'm worried as hell about Sonny and his place."

  "Do you not think he'll make it?"

  "Touch and go. Pneumonia, pleurisy, and a dicky ticker? Still, he's a tough old bird. Anyway they'll do the best they can for him in the Royal, and if they can't fix him, that was in his stars. That's not what I'm concerned about."

  Barry had learned, hard and painfully, that no doctor could care too deeply, not about any one patient. You couldn't cure them all, and unless you built a wall, a carapace of forced indifference to hide behind, you'd crack up. He couldn't fault O'Reilly for his apparent lack of concern about the clinical outcome, but why had O'Reilly mentioned Sonny's place? Barry looked at Lady Macbeth. O'Reilly had a soft spot for animals. No. It couldn't be. "You're not going to go and see to his dogs?" Barry asked.

  O'Reilly shook his head. "No. Maggie'll look after them if we ask her."

  "I saw her face when we drove off. She's still carrying a torch." Barry instantly regretted his words.

  "It happens," said O'Reilly, glancing out the window. "But it's more than his dogs that's got Sonny scared shitless."

  "Oh?"

  "Bishop." O'Reilly spat the word. "Bloody Bishop. Sonny told me when you were phoning for the ambulance. There's some council bylaw that if a property's derelict and the owner moves away, the council can get a purchase order and have it repossessed. Then they sell it to the highest bidder. And who do you think that might be?"

  "Ah,"

  "Ah, yes. The bastard's been trying to get his hands on Sonny's place for years."

  "Could we not have a word with Bishop?"

  "Aye. With about as much chance of success as Moses when he had a wee word with Pharaoh about letting the Israelites go off for a long holiday. Unless you can think of a few plagues we could call down on the councillor's head?" O'Reilly ground his teeth. "I'm damned if I can see a way out, but Bishop may not hear for a day or two, and the Council offices will be closed for the Twelfth week. Maybe we can come up with something."

  "I hope so, and I hope Sonny recovers."

  "That," said O'Reilly, "goes without saying." He took a deep breath. "It's no use boiling your cabbage twice. We've done all we can, and we'll have to wait and see how things turn out." He moved as if to rise.

  Lady Macbeth jumped to the floor. She put both front paws on the side of Barry's chair, looked sideways at O'Reilly, dropped to the floor without as much as having unsheathed her claws, and sauntered away.

  "Bloody cat's psychic. Of course she's a female," said O'Reilly, lowering a rolled-up copy of the Belfast Telegraph. "And while we're talking about females, I said you could have Friday off. Do you think you should give that lass of yours a call?"

  "I'd like to."

  "Go on then."

  Barry ran downstairs, dialled, and waited. "Hello. Kinnegar 657334."

  "Patricia? It's Barry. Look, I'm off on Friday. Would you like to go out for a bite?"

  "I'd love to but I've got an evening seminar."

  "Damn. It's my only night off." He felt the plastic of the receiver cold against his palm as he squeezed.

  "I ... I suppose I could ask someone to let me borrow their notes."

  "Do it."

  "It's an important class."

  "All work and no play make Jack a dull--"

  "Make Jill a dull girl." He heard her chuckle. "All right. What time?"

  "Seven. We could go to my yacht club, in Bangor." The grub's cheaper there for members, he thought.

  "Super. I look forward to it. Got to run now." Before the line went dead, he thought he heard a kissing noise but couldn't be sure. It didn't matter. He'd see her on Friday. Only three days to go--well, four if he counted Friday's working hours. He hung up and started to climb the stairs. The phone rang.

  Bugger. Another patient. "It's all right, Mrs. Kincaid." Barry came downstairs again and lifted the phone. "Doctor O'Reilly's surgery."

  "Can I speak to Doctor Laverty?"

  Barry recognized the voice. "Jack? How are you?"

  "Busy as bedamned, but I'm off on Friday. Fancy a jar?" Barry laughed. "Sorry, mate."

  "Working?"

  "No. I'm taking a girl to dinner."

  "Poor girl."

  "Piss off. This one's different."

  "I've heard that before, but good luck to you. Sorry we can't get together. I'm running round like a blue-arsed fly here. I don't know when I'm off again."

  "Still enjoying it?"

  "You remember we used to watch Dr. Kildare on the telly?" Jack assumed an American accent. "'How do you like the work, Kildare?' 'It's hell, Doctor Gillespie, but I love every gruelling minute.' What a load of cobblers, but yes. I'm pretty sure I made the right choice."

  Barry chuckled. "Me too." And he knew his words were true.

  "It's a great comfort to know you're out there stamping out disease," Jack said. "Listen. I found out about that appendix abscess. It was one of O'Reilly's."

  "Jeannie. Jeannie Kennedy."

  "I can't remember her name, but she's well on the mend. Should be out in a day or two."

  "Great."

  "Bugger." Barry could hear a beeping in the background. "My bleeper's going off. Got to go. Give me a bell sometime next week."

  "Okay."

  "And Barry? Friday night? Try to keep it in your pants."

  The Stars in Their Courses

  Tuesday and Wednesday sped by. Barry knew that if he were asked to pick the salient moments from hours of full surgeries and rushed home visits, he'd have been hard-pressed to recall, except for those events that later he would come to realize would shape the futures of Doctor O'Reilly's more prominent patients. O'Reilly's phone calls to the Royal brought the news that Sonny was holding his own. He wasn't out of the woods, but his condition had not deteriorated.

  Maggie had agreed to take care of his dogs. Seamus Galvin showed up to have his sore, but immaculately scrubbed ankle looked at, and the source of the fortune into which he had fallen was revealed.

  O'Reilly and Donal Donnelly had had a most peculiar conversation about a dog.

  Somewhere in the village Julie MacAteer tried not to worry about the results of her pregnancy test, but failed. Councillor Bishop's finger needed attention. And despite the long hours, Barry began to feel truly at home in his choice of career in general and in the village in particular. Ballybucklebo, where the orbits of people's lives swung on their orderly courses, preordained, highly individual, separate until nudged into a great planetary conjunction by the Fates--or by the Fates' local messenger, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly. Seamus Galvin came into the surgery on Tuesday morning. He s
at in the patients' chair and pulled a cloth cap off his pear-shaped head. His eyes, small and close-set, lurked between hairline and jawline like a pair of timid brown animals, never still, never seeming to focus on anything in particular.

  "Good morning, Doctor O'Reilly. Morning, Doctor Laverty."

  "Morning, Seamus. How's young Barry Fingal?" Barry asked.

  "Grand. Mind you, it's a good thing men can't feed wee ones. He has Maureen up half the night, so he has."

  "Huh," said O'Reilly, "I don't suppose you'd think of giving the child a bottle once in a while?"

  "Not at all. You don't buy a dog and bark yourself. That's Maureen's job, so it is."

  O'Reilly looked at Barry over his half-moons and shook his head. "I'd not want you to rupture yourself, Seamus. A wiser man than I said, 'Work is the scourge of the drinking classes.'"

  "Wilde," said Barry. "Oscar."

  "The very lad," said O'Reilly, "but that's not why you're here, is it, Seamus?"

  "Ah, no, sir. It's time for you to take a wee look at my ankle."

  "Huh," said O'Reilly, "and I suppose you want a line?"

  "Oh, indeed, sir, I do that. I'll have to go on the burroo." Barry understood. Seamus wanted a medical certificate so he could draw disability insurance from the Bureau of Unemployment-- "burroo" in the local dialect. "We'll see," said O'Reilly. "Show me your ankle." Galvin bent and unwound a tensor bandage. O'Reilly sat back, knees together. "Put it up on my lap." Seamus obeyed. Barry moved closer. The ankle in question looked perfectly normal. No swelling. No bruising. "Can you bend it down?" O'Reilly asked.

  Galvin made a show of trying to extend his foot. "Ah. Ooh."

  "Up," said O'Reilly.

  "Ooh. Ah."

  O'Reilly grasped the foot between both of his big hands and, bending it to the left, asked, "Does that hurt?"

  "Ah. Ooh. Ouch."

  "You sure?"

  "Indeed, sir."

  "Hmm. Right. Let's see you walk on it."

  Galvin stood and teetered across the room, hauling his allegedly wounded ankle behind him. He would have been giving a fair imitation of the mock-injury display of a mother plover trying to lead a predator away from her nest, except peewits don't usually moan "Ooh, ah" as they flutter across the moors. "You're one for the textbooks, Seamus," said O'Reilly. "It seems you've managed to hurt the side that was fine when you showed that hoof to me first."