An Irish Country Doctor Read online

  "Umh," Barry muttered through a mouthful of lamb chop.

  "Kinky?" O'Reilly asked. "Any luck with finding out about Julie MacAteer?"

  "I'm not getting very far. The wee girl is living somewhere here, but nobody knows where."

  "Keep at it, will you?"

  "I will-"

  Her reply was interrupted by the jangling of the front doorbell. "I'll see who it is, so." She left, and when she returned her colour was high, her black eyes flashing. "It's the wee Hider man. His exalted excellence, Councillor Bishop. The Great Panjandrum says he 'doesn't give a . . ." She hesitated. "Well, he's not concerned that it's your lunchtime, and he wants to be seen now. Will I tell him to wait?"

  "No," said O'Reilly, pushing his plate aside. "Pop these in the oven, Kinky. Come on, Barry."

  "Right."

  Councillor Bishop stood in the hall, legs astraddle, arms folded, eyes narrowed.

  "You took your time."

  "Ach," said O'Reilly mildly, "if the knitter is weary, the baby will have no new bonnet."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  'Doctor Laverty and myself have been just a tiny bit busy for the last couple of days. We were at our lunch," said O'Reilly. "Could you not have come during surgery hours?"

  "And wait forever with the unwashed? Don't be stupid." Barry saw a spark deep in O'Reilly's brown eyes, a spark that reflected the fires of hell. The consultation should be interesting, he thought.

  "Come into the surgery," said O'Reilly, crossing the hall and opening the door. He sat at the desk and waited for Councillor 'Bishop to take the patients' chair. "What can I do for you?" As Barry made himself comfortable on the examining table, (Councillor Bishop thrust his bandaged finger under O'Reilly's pose. "I told you on Sunday. I need this better for tomorrow."

  "Right," said O'Reilly as he went to a tray of instruments and picked up a pair of scissors and a set of fine-nosed forceps. "I'd forgotten that the Duck doubles up as my consulting room. Nothing like giving medical advice when you're having a quiet pint."

  "What?"

  O'Reilly sat. "Show me your finger."

  Bishop gave his hand to O'Reilly, who picked up the bottom end of the bandage with the forceps, slid one blade of the scissors beneath the gauze, and began to snip. When the dressing was divided from finger base to fingertip, O'Reilly grabbed one edge between the forceps blades and used his free hand to immobilize Councillor Bishop's wrist. O'Reilly gave a ferocious yank with the forceps.

  Barry was sure he would have been able to hear the rending of material as it parted from the freshly healed flesh beneath had it not been for a deafening roar.

  "Sorry about that, Councillor," O'Reilly said. "I could have soaked it in Savlon for fifteen minutes and softened the old blood, but I know you're always in a rush."

  Barry was glad that he was seated behind the councillor so that the grin that ran from ear to ear was not obvious.

  "Go and rinse it in the sink," said O'Reilly.

  The councillor obeyed.

  "All set for the big day tomorrow?" O'Reilly enquired.

  "Don't talk to me about big days. The sooner it's over, the better." Councillor Bishop held his finger under the stream of water. "I've bigger fish to fry."

  "Oh?" said O'Reilly. He glanced at Barry.

  "Sonny's in hospital and that parcel of land--"

  "You wouldn't," said O'Reilly. "Och, no."

  "I will," said the councillor.

  Barry needed to hear no more. He slipped off the couch. '"I think that's the meanest thing--"

  "Nobody asked you to think," O'Reilly snapped. He shook his head. Barry bit back his words. He felt heat in his cheeks. His breathing quickened.

  Councillor Bishop turned off the tap and glowered at his fingertip. "Doesn't look too bad," he allowed. "Does it need another bandage?"

  He stumped over to O'Reilly, who peered at the digit. "Looks fine to me."

  "Good. I'll be off then. I've work to do."

  "Fine," said O'Reilly, as he accompanied the councillor to the surgery door. "And how's Mrs. Bishop today?"

  Barry followed, still smarting from the rebuke. He was amazed at O'Reilly's civility and disappointed that he had not argued Sonny's case. He heard the councillor's reply as they crossed the hall. "She's fit to be tied. That new maid of ours. The Antrim girl. She's given her notice, and where in the hell can you find good help these days?"

  "I wouldn't know," said O'Reilly, smiling at Mrs. Kincaid, who was busy in the dining room. He opened the front door and let the councillor pass. As the fat man marched down the path, O'Reilly called, "I beg your pardon?"

  "I said nothing," the councillor yelled back over his shoulder.

  "My mistake," said O'Reilly in a loud voice. "I could have sworn I heard you say thank you." Then he muttered, "Gobshite."

  Barry, now standing at O'Reilly's shoulder, said, "You said not to let the customers get the upper hand. You were too damn civil to that man." The words spilled out. "And I thought we were going to have it out with him about Sonny's place. You were right. Bishop is going to take it. When I saw you weren't going to do anything and tried to help, why did you jump all over me?"

  "Soft words butter no parsnips, son, but they won't harden the heart of a cabbage either," said O'Reilly. "Arguing with men like Bishop's never any use. All it does is stiffen their resolve. If we're going to sort him out, we need a lever. An argument he can't resist."

  "And what the hell could that be?" Barry was not satisfied. "I'm beginning to wonder, but I'm starting to get an idea. I didn't know his maid came from County Antrim." O'Reilly looked up at the sky as if seeking divine inspiration. "Jesus, would you look at that? I told you it was too muggy."

  Barry stared at the sky. Although the lower reaches were azure, above the Antrim Hills, not ten miles away, ranks of cumulonimbus clouds marched like dark-cuirassed dragoons towards the little town of Ballybucklebo. Already the skirmish line was firing rifle shots; the distant thunderclaps were sharp as they followed the scattered lightning flashes.

  "I think," Barry said, "we're in for a storm."

  "Indeed," said O'Reilly, glowering at the distant departing back of Councillor Bishop, "you could be right."

  Don't Rain on My Parade

  O'Reilly opened the upper half of one of the sash windows in the upstairs lounge and said, "We'll watch from here." Barry looked across to the church steeple, dark against a leaden morning sky, and on down Main Street where red, white, and blue bunting strung between lampposts drooped listlessly. The street was flanked by the citizenry. Many carried tiny Union Jacks or Ulster flags. Some women wore dresses made of the Union Jack and embellished with mother-of-pearl buttons. Youngsters were hoisted onto their daddies' shoulders. Older children tried to push between the legs of adults or scurried up and down behind the ranks lining the route. Stray dogs yapped. Rooks, disturbed from the yew trees in the churchyard, flapped and complained as they headed for the Ballybucklebo Hills. Borne on the humid air, the rattling of side drums and the distant wailing of bagpipes drifted into the room.

  "That'll be the Ballybucklebo Highlanders warming up down at the maypole," O'Reilly remarked. "As brave a bunch of musical heroes as ever blew into a bag. Pipe major Donal Donnelly, bass drummer Seamus Galvin, and the rest." O'Reilly chuckled and lit a richly stained meerschaum pipe. "We could be busy when the parade's over and that lot have gone to the Field for the speeches and the hymns and a bit of good old neighbourly pope bashing. Bagpiping's a thirsty business."

  "I know," Barry said. "I worked in the first-aid tent last year at the Bangor Field. It was all right when the marchers arrived. They behaved themselves during the prayers and the sermon and the speeches, but by the time the day was over and they'd all had a few, I'd put in more stitches than a shirt factory."

  "And I'll bet some of the worst offenders were members of temperance lodges," said O'Reilly. "But maybe we'll get lucky today and that thunderstorm will break before they get too much of a head of
steam up."

  The pipe music faded from a vaguely recognizable rendition of "Rock around the Clock" to a series of wails and squeaks. Barry heard a faint dirge, a monotonous owwowwll.

  "Arthur," said O'Reilly. "He likes the pipes about as much as Her Ladyship there likes Stravinsky." He nodded to where Lady Macbeth lay, curled up on the hearth rug. "He doesn't seem to mind flute bands or accordions, but he hates the pipes." Never mind, Barry thought, he likes trouser legs and Smithwick's bitter.

  O'Reilly put another match to the bowl of his meerschaum. "There are Orange Lodges coming from Cullybackey and Broughshane to keep the Ballybucklebo Loyal Sons of King William company." He consulted his watch. "Eleven o'clock. Should be starting soon."

  Tah-rah-rum, tah-rah-rum. The distant side drums broke into the double triple-roll that Barry knew signalled the start of a pipe band's advance. He could imagine the drum major's command-- "By the left, quick march"--and sure enough the first ragged bars of "Boyne Water" meandered down Ballybucklebo's main street. "Here they come," said O'Reilly. "That'll be the worshipful master Bertie Bishop on the horse at the head of them." Barry could see a man riding an off-white horse. Behind him tramped the members of an Orange Lodge following its banner. Next came a drum major marching in front of a kilted pipe band, and twirling his silver-headed mace as if it were a windmill with a broken sail.

  "Ballybucklebo's finest," said O'Reilly. "The Highlanders. No wonder George Washington's troops called the kilted Scottish soldiers 'ladies from hell.'"

  Barry craned to see past O'Reilly. The pipe band was followed by the banners and men of another lodge, who in turn were pursued by a flute and drum band. "I wonder who designed the uniforms for the flautists?"

  "Probably Christian Dior on a bad day. Why would anybody put red seams down the outside legs of sky blue trousers?"

  "Or give them peaked caps like the ones that bus conductors wear?"

  "Huh," said O'Reilly, "if you think they look a bit gaudy, wait 'til you see the accordion players. Which of course is the definition of a true gentleman."

  "What is?"

  "Someone who can play the accordion . . . but doesn't."

  "Come on, Fingal, that one has whiskers."

  "I know, but it's still true." He stabbed the stem of his pipe towards the street below. "Jesus, would you look at the great bollocks on that horse?"

  "It looks more like a mare to me," Barry said uncertainly, as he strained to hear O'Reilly's reply over the rattle of drums, the howling of the pipes, and the cheers of the spectators.

  "I wasn't referring to the elderly equine's genitals. I meant Lord Muck from Clabber Hill sitting on its back." Barry recognized Councillor Bishop at the head of the profession, proudly guiding his steed immediately ahead of the rank and file of the Ballybucklebo Orange Lodge. A cocked hat with a plume of cockerel's tail feathers, which looked to Barry as though the previous owner had had a bad case of fowl pest, was perched on the councillor's head. Barry could see that the man was perspiring heavily. His corpulent body had been forced into a scarlet serge coat that clashed horribly with his orange sash, and he wore white breeches that disappeared into mud-spattered Wellington boots. The right one didn't quite reach the stirrup. By the way the horse's shoulders moved, Barry could tell that even for a Clydesdale plough-horse, which hardly had the sleekness of the original King Billy the Third's warhorse, the animal was making heavy weather of carrying the councillor's weight.

  O'Reilly chuckled as the animal flapped its lips, snorted, lifted its tail--and by the reactions of the nearest ranks of the Orange Lodge--cut an enormous fart.

  At either side of the road, two boys, who Barry guessed to be about six or seven, plodded along. Both wore miniature orange sashes. He recognized the pants-wetting Mr. Brown clutching a braided guy rope. The little lads' ropes were part of the arrangement steadying a great square of embroidered cloth, beneath which two bowler-hatted, white-gloved, orange-sashed men held the banner's poles.

  "Thing of beauty, that," said O'Reilly.

  Barry wasn't quite sure if O'Reilly was referring to the horse's recent statement of protest or the banner. It was fringed with golden tassels and bordered in orange. On a blue background reared the inevitable white charger and its princely rider. Immediately over the picture were the words "Ballybucklebo Loyal Sons of William, Lodge 747." On the left side, angled at forty-five degrees above the horseman's head, a slogan roared, "Remember 1690. No Surrender," and on the right, "Civil and Religious Liberty for All."

  "Bit ironic that 'for all,' don't you think?" O'Reilly asked. Barry nodded.

  "And don't," said O'Reilly, "ever tell an Orangeman the truth."

  "What about?"

  "Their famous Battle of the Boyne was actually fought on July first, sixteen ninety. July twelfth, sixteen ninety-one, was the final fixture of the campaign. At the Battle of Aughrim."

  "I didn't know that."

  "Neither does most of that lot down there. They think they're Celebrating the Battle of the Boyne today when 'the Orangemen with William did join.'"

  " 'And fought for our glorious deliverance.'"

  "Where? 'On the green grassy slopes of the Boyne.' Funny, isn't it, how we all know the words, but nobody really knows the history."

  "I don't suppose it matters to the Loyalists, and King William did beat King James."

  "Actually, neither one was present in sixteen ninety-one at the decisive Battle of Aughrim. Ginkel played substitute for King Billy, Sarsfield captained the home team. Bloodiest battle ever fought in Ireland. Anyway, the Jacobites lost and the Williamites kept the cup, and we get to watch a parade every year. I wonder," O'Reilly said thoughtfully, "how long it'll be before some clever American anthropologist comes over here and writes a learned paper on the Tribal Customs of the Primitive Ulster Races.'"

  "I think Brendan Behan said that too."

  "Sensible chap, Behan. Pity about him and the drink, but honestly, just look at that lot down there. Swap their regalia for grass skirts and bones through their noses, and they could be wandering about on one of the cannibal islands."

  Barry looked down on the members of the lodge as they marched by in four ranks, eight files deep. Every man wore his silver-bordered, orange sash over a dark jacket; white kidskin gloves; and his bowler hat, the latter as much a badge of office as the lord mayor of Belfast's chain. Barry noticed that despite attempts to march in military formation, two men were out of step and one in the nearest file ambled along with that peculiar gait where the right arm swings forward in company with the right leg.

  "Look at those faces." O'Reilly shook his head. "Good, strong, country Ulster faces. Ruddy. Rough skinned. You'd think they shaved with emery paper. And every last one with the corners of his mouth turned down to twenty to four."

  "They do look dour," Barry said, able to lower his voice now that the pipers' "South Down Militia" had been replaced by the flute band's tremulous rendition of "The Sash My Father Wore."

  "You think those are miserable looks? You should have seen Bishop's face the day I told him there's convincing evidence that King Billy of 'glorious and immortal memory' was queer as a coot."

  "Homosexual?"

  "Bent as a two-penny nail. Mind you, I don't see why it should matter what anyone does in their spare time," said O'Reilly levelly. "The ancient Greeks didn't care."

  "The Victorians jailed your namesake for it."

  "Oscar Wilde? Silly bugger. He should have stuck to his writing and his green carnations and kept away from lawyers."

  "Still-"

  "Still be damned. People come in all shapes and sizes. If you're going to be any use as a doctor, you have to learn to accept that. It shouldn't matter to us 'what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.' Mrs. Patrick Campbell said that, and I . . ."

  His words were drowned by a series of shrill whinnies. Barry looked to the head of the procession to see Councillor Bishop's mount rearing on her hind legs, pawing at the sky w
ith her front hooves. Like the Lone Ranger calling out, "Hi ho, Silver, away!" he thought. The animal bucked, twisted, unseated its rider, and galloped off down the road, pausing only to kick her hind hooves in the air in a gesture of unbridled defiance.

  "I wonder," said Barry, "who was doing what in the street?"

  O'Reilly doubled over, hands clasped to his ample belly. "Better," he said, laughing like a madman, "better than a bloody pantomime. If we could just sell tickets."

  Barry watched the Ballybucklebo Lodge members cluster around their fallen worshipful master. "I hope he's not hurt."

  "So do I. He's the last bugger I'd want to have to minister unto today. I think it'll be all right though. He's getting up." Barry was suddenly aware that all was not well below. The pipers who had just launched into "Dolly's Braes" seemed to have lost their musical way--badly.

  "Lord, Fingal. Look."

  The councillor's mishap had brought the marchers of the lodge to an untidy halt, blocking the progress of the pipers. The drum major dropped his mace. He fell to his hands and knees trying to retrieve it. The front rank of pipers shambled to a halt, hauled the pipes' drones from their shoulders, and tried to stand at attention.

  "That's Donal Donnelly there at the left of the front rank," Barry said.

  "Pipe major. How do you like his uniform?" O'Reilly asked between gusts of laughter.

  Donal wore a green caubeen with a red hackle. His bottle-green tunic, on the left breast of which shone a huge Celtic pin, was cinched with a broad belt of patent leather from which dangled a large, hairy sporran. His saffron kilt hung from his skinny hips. It ought to have ended at knee level but instead drooped to half-calf.

  "Look out, Donal," O'Reilly bellowed, as uselessly, Barry thought, as kids at a cinema would try to warn the hero with loud yells of "Behind you!" when the villain appeared. He watched open-mouthed as the red-faced piper in the rank behind, his eyes closed, fingers running up and down the chanter, marched smack into Donal's skinny back.

  Accompanied by the tuneless yodelling from the rapidly deflating pipes of the man behind him, Donal's kilt slipped off. Donal dropped his pipes, bent, and hastily hoisted his nether garment.