An Irish Country Welcome Read online

  Kenny tucked in at his master’s left heel, walked along a well-trodden footpath, past a leaning Celtic cross to one side and the small whitewashed church to the other. Sunrise was still some time off, but there was sufficient light for him to be able to make his way.

  Together they crossed a second stile onto springy turf at the near left edge of where the little stream had carved its path to the lough.

  “Hey on out.” Might as well let Kenny enjoy himself.

  As the big dog, nose to ground, quartered the stream’s bank, O’Reilly looked up to see the gentle hand of what promised to be a fine day soothing the stars to sleep. He was interrupted by a harsh whistled cryc-cryc-cryc, and the whirring of pinions as Kenny pushed up a brace of teal from a brackish pool. The little drake—as always—led, his chestnut head with its green crescent starting at the eye distinguishing him from the dark greyish brown pate of the duck.

  The Lab turned and stared at his master with a look that said, “Have you forgotten? You’re meant to shoot.”

  “Sorry, Kenny.” And O’Reilly felt a lump in his throat as he remembered old Arthur Guinness, who used, on occasion, to look that way too.

  They had come to the beginning of the mudflats through which the stream had made its course. Before the war, he and his brother, Lars, had built a rough stone hide at the edge of the stream near the low-tide mark. The ducks from time immemorial followed the stream when, at dawn, they flew out to sea from the fields inland. That site had always offered the best chance of a shot or two for the three hours after slack ebb and before the rising waters pushed O’Reilly off this part of the shore.

  He pulled up his thigh waders to their full extent and called to Kenny. “Come.” They strode together across the grey flats. O’Reilly’s ribbed soles left inch-deep water-filled footprints to reflect the pink tinge now colouring the eastern horizon.

  When they arrived at the hip-high, almost-complete circle of rocks that he and Lars had piled there with so much effort more than thirty years ago, O’Reilly leaned his gun against the rocks and hauled an ex-army waterproof gas cape from his game bag. It would provide a dry surface for Kenny to lie on and for O’Reilly to kneel. He laid the cape down and pointed to a sheltered corner of the hide.

  Kenny obeyed, lay down, and put his muzzle on his front paws. But this was an alert dog. His nostrils never stopped twitching and his ears moved constantly.

  O’Reilly set his game bag beside his gun and bent to gather armfuls of bladder wrack to use to raise the height of the rock rampart behind which he would crouch to wait for the morning flight. The weed was cold and numbed his fingers. The salty tang of the seaweed filled his nostrils.

  The dawn sent shy pinks to the belly of a narrow bank of low clouds and, as the sun rose, deepened the red to a shade like the rouge on the cheeks of an aged courtesan.

  “That should do,” he said to Kenny and moved into the hide, taking several orange Eley-Kynoch cartridges from his game bag and putting all but two in his jacket pocket. Then he loaded and closed his shotgun, put on the safety catch, and leant the weapon muzzle up close at hand.

  Kenny’s head jerked up. He hunched forward.

  O’Reilly crouched lower and stared along the line of Kenny’s gaze. His right hand drew the shotgun close and he held it to him, right hand grasping the stock, left hand holding the fore-end, the barrels cold where his fingertips met metal.

  He saw a flicker of movement inshore, an irregular mass darker against the low hills. As it came closer, straight at him, the mass separated into its component parts, five ducks in a loose V formation, necks outstretched, wings beating, coming closer, closer. O’Reilly stood, slipped off the safety catch, smacked the butt into his right shoulder, and sighted along the barrels with both eyes wide open.

  The birds flared, clawed for height. Three wheeled to his left, two to his right. He swung the muzzles so they passed over the body of the leading bird to his right. The bead sight moved ahead of the tip of the beak and O’Reilly squeezed the front trigger, felt the jolt of the recoil against his shoulder, heard the blast, and saw the duck’s wings fold in death. He lowered and broke the shotgun, catching a whiff of burnt smokeless powder.

  Labradors are line-of-sight retrievers. Kenny, now sitting bolt upright and trembling with excitement, followed the arc of the bird’s fall until O’Reilly saw it land and heard the thump of it hitting the mud thirty yards away. Kenny never took his eyes off his quarry.

  “Hi lost.”

  As O’Reilly watched the big dog bound forward and gallop across the now-glistening mud to lift the bird, he extracted the spent cartridge and reloaded with one from his coat pocket. Snapping the breech shut, he closed the safety catch and propped the gun against the wall.

  Kenny trotted back to the hide, where he sat in front of O’Reilly and offered his retrieve, which O’Reilly accepted. “Good dog. Good dog.”

  Kenny’s tail thrashed with pride.

  O’Reilly pointed to Kenny’s spot and he went over and lay down.

  O’Reilly examined the yellow bill, glossy bottle-green head, and white ring separating the colours of the head from the purple-tinged brown breast of a mallard drake. “You were a handsome chap,” he said, and instead of the surge of excitement he usually felt after a well-executed shot, O’Reilly was sad. He glanced over at a clearly happy dog and thought, Kenny is just as happy retrieving sticks. Lars has stopped shooting and works in wildfowl preservation. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Maybe it’s time for me to do the same? His grin was wry. Undoubtedly the ducks don’t enjoy this as much as Kenny and me.

  He tucked the bird into the game pocket of the bag, pulled out a thermos, and poured coffee into the broad lid, which doubled as a cup. O’Reilly sat facing inland toward the Ards Peninsula. The Saltwater Brig, or bridge, so called because at flood tide it spanned seawater, was to his left, the church and churchyard and Davy McMaster’s farmhouse to his right. He set his coffee nearby on the cape, fished out his already loaded briar, lit up, retrieved his cup, and held it in both hands. The warmth dissolved the numbness in his fingers, and the first sip was like nectar. He set the cup down again, found matches in his pocket, and lit up. The taste of the Erinmore Flake tobacco was soothing. The light was brighter and what had been vague shapes now stood out. Anchored off to his left, between the hide and the grassy bank, a grey-painted, thirty-foot clinker-built, double-ended open motorboat lay on its side on the mud. She was named Grey Goose. He knew that a syndicate of four doctors used her to get out to the Long Island, which they owned and used for wildfowling.

  Inland, the incandescent sliver of the sun’s upper limb crept above the horizon. Grian, the Irish sun goddess, had begun to leave her boudoir. The undersides of the little cloud bank heralded her triumphant progress with an ever-changing pattern of reds, yellows, and scarlets until she had cleared the land and bathed all around, including O’Reilly and Kenny, with her increasing brightness and warmth.

  Kenny stiffened.

  O’Reilly huddled against the wall and peered up. Six birds, webbed feet outstretched, bodies nearly vertical, wings beating into the air in front of them, slowed in flight and pitched into the stream with a series of splashes.

  O’Reilly crouched lower. He knew by the sibilant whistling of the drakes that they were widgeon.

  His earlier thoughts about putting away his shotgun returned. He remembered, three years ago, being on the Long Island with his friend and colleague, Doctor Jack Sinton. That day neither he nor Jack had fired at a flock of widgeon. O’Reilly had pleaded that he didn’t like their fishy taste because they fed off eel grass.

  Jack had replied that he hadn’t taken a shot because he simply had a soft spot for the breed and went on to say that while he still loved a day at Strangford, “I just don’t need to shoot everything in sight anymore.”

  Later that day, each man had taken a greylag goose. Old Arthur had made a storming retrieve of the bird that had fallen in the water. O’Reilly glanced at the f
aithful Kenny. “You’ve turned out to be a fine retriever, and a good friend, but there’ll never be another Arthur Guinness, who’s sleeping his long sleep in Lars’s field. I miss you yet, you great lummox.” And there was a lump in O’Reilly’s throat.

  He sighed and remembered how, as he’d taken the big bird from Arthur’s mouth, O’Reilly had realized that shooting his first greylag goose that day had been the biggest thrill he’d ever had wildfowling. But he had recognized that although he’d experienced great excitement, the goose in its final moments would have been terrified, and he’d felt sad.

  He peeped over the wall to where the widgeon, two drakes with buff pates and chestnut heads, and their four ducks, were paddling against the current. Let them be. Kenny and I are enjoying a beautiful day away from the sectarian idiocy, the need to run a medical practice, the everyday worries of life. He’d be content to sit here drinking his coffee and smoking his pipe. Later he’d take Kenny for a walk and let him retrieve the mallard a few times until it was time to drive to Portaferry. To O’Reilly, there was nowhere to equal the shores of Strangford Lough as a place to be at peace. Why spoil it for the birds?

  20

  He Turneth It Upside Down

  Barry sat in the observer’s chair, watching and listening. An errant beam of early-September sunlight through the surgery window warmed him, and he relaxed into the chair. There really wasn’t much for him to do. Sebastian was clearly well versed in routine antenatal care and Barry wondered why it was necessary to supervise the man. Barry shrugged. His job was to supervise, and he’d do his job.

  Sebastian seemed to have abandoned his habit of wearing his Old Harrovian tie, presumably understanding he’d not be seeing a schoolmate here in rural Ulster. Instead he wore a plain green one, a Donegal tweed sports jacket, and a plain white shirt. Stethoscope in ears, he was in the middle of taking Mildred Anderson’s blood pressure as part of a routine antenatal check-up. Mildred was twenty-three years old, carrying her second pregnancy. Barry knew her of old. A waitress in The Priory Inn in Holywood until two years ago, she had now elected to stay home with the couple’s toddler son, Angus. Her husband, Ken, worked at Bangor station as a ticket collector for the Belfast and County Down Railway. Barry’d seen her for a fractured fibula four years ago. That had been the last time she’d played ladies’ hockey.

  Sebastian said, “Everything seems to be progressing as it should, Mildred. You haven’t gained too much weight, your blood pressure is normal, your urine’s clear.”

  And Barry, now that Sue had reached eighteen and a half weeks, hoped that Harith would be saying the same thing every time he saw her for the next twenty-one and a half weeks. Barry worried about her, but not as much as she had started to worry about herself. Once the great relief that she wasn’t going to miscarry had subsided, Sue couldn’t help question Barry about every little thing that was different. He shrugged. So be it. It was his job to reassure her.

  Sebastian stuck his stethoscope in his jacket pocket. “There is one thing, but I don’t think you need be unduly worried.”

  “Oh?”

  Barry heard the apprehension.

  “Your womb is where it should be for thirty-two weeks in a second pregnancy, and there’s one baby lying straight up and down. But right now, its bottom is at the bottom of your tummy.”

  She frowned. “Oh. Is that what youse doctors call a breech, like?”

  “It is but try not to worry. Babies wriggle about all over the place.”

  She laughed. “The way this one kicks you’d think I’d half the Linfield soccer team in there.”

  “And that’s good. It’ll almost certainly have got its head down where we’d like it to be by your next visit in two weeks. If not, we’ll get you seen at Royal Maternity, where a specialist will try to turn it.”

  “How’d he do that?”

  “He’ll probably not need to. Only three percent of babies are breech at full term, but if he does try to correct the lie, it’ll be by using the pressure of his hand on the baby through your tummy. It doesn’t hurt and it won’t hurt the wee one.”

  Mildred smiled. “Thank you, Doctor. That’s a comfort.”

  She began doing up her blouse and letting it hang over her long denim skirt.

  “Here’s a lab requisition. I want you to get your blood test done at Bangor Hospital the day before you come to see us next. That’ll be September fifteenth.” Sebastian gave her the paper slip and helped her off the examining couch. “Doctor Laverty?”

  “I agree. We’ll see you in two weeks, Mildred.”

  “Thank you, Doctors.”

  Sebastian showed her out and came back.

  “I’m feeling about as much use here as teats on a boar, Sebastian. You don’t need any supervision for antenatal work,” Barry said. “And once again, you set the patient’s mind at rest very well. Good for you.”

  “Um. Well. Yes. Thanks.” He sat at the desk, filled in Mildred’s antenatal record, looked up, and said, “By the by, Barry, seeing that patient reminded me, if you don’t mind me asking, how’s Sue coming on?”

  “She’s eighteen and a half weeks. Her morning sickness has stopped. She has a distinct bump now. No sign of foetal movement—yet, but that should happen very soon. Harith Lamki saw her last week and says all is progressing as it should.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it.”

  But since the threatened miscarriage, she was more anxious than his usual happy-to-be-pregnant patients. And that, of course, kept a concern for her just under Barry’s surface. Perhaps when she started back at school in two days, her work, which she loved, would take her mind off it. There was no need to tell Sebastian that. Barry smiled. “Thanks for your concern.” He got up from the chair beside the desk. “I’ll go and get the next one.” Barry walked to the waiting room, which was one-third empty. September was often not busy—it wasn’t flu season or a time of infectious diseases for children. He smiled at Cissie Sloan, probably in to have her hypothyroidism checked, and Julie Donnelly with both twins in a double pram, from which came a low gurning. Probably one or both were teething.

  “Who’s next?” He recognized the florid face of a man who stood.

  “Me, Doctor Laverty.”

  It was Desmond Johnson, the farmer Barry and O’Reilly had helped out from under a tractor eight weeks ago. Barry smiled and wondered why the man was here. “Hello, Mister Johnson. Come with me, please.” He wasn’t one of their patients and his farm was pretty much at the limits of the area the practice served.

  “Hello, Doctor Laverty. The last time I saw you, I was in a bit of a pickle, so I was.” He picked up a large brown-paper-wrapped parcel.

  Barry nodded. “It was lucky Doctor O’Reilly and I were passing, and we were happy to help.”

  They went into the surgery and Barry closed the door. “Doctor Carson, this is Mister Johnson. Mister Johnson, Doctor Carson is training to be a GP. I’ll get him to look after you, if that’s all right.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Please have a seat.” Sebastian indicated the patients’ chairs.

  The patient sat on one and set his parcel on the other. It immediately began to slide slowly off the seat. He frowned. “These chairs are a bit out of kilter, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  Barry watched as the man tried to keep the parcel from sliding, and in the end, laid it on the floor. Barry said, “They’re so old I think Doctor O’Reilly salvaged them from Noah’s ark. We’re going to replace them soon.” When Fingal had arrived in 1946, right after being demobbed, the practice had been slow to build. But once word got around about the irascible but compassionate Doctor O’Reilly, his practice had been swamped, and he’d altered the chairs to ensure patients didn’t stay long to chat. Getting patients in and out in a hurry was no longer a priority with three full-time doctors in the practice.

  “Doctor Carson, Mister Johnson is not one of our patients, but back in July, Doctor O’Reilly and I were on our way to Crawfordsburn to—well, to
interview you, Doctor Carson—and we saw Mister Johnson out in his field under his tractor and helped him out.”

  “And yet you were on time and, to my shame, I was late.”

  “Water under the bridge.”

  Johnson laughed. “So, it seems I’ve three doctors to thank for my rescue. I thought I was a goner until I saw these two gents striding up thon field.”

  “I can see your lip has healed. How’s your ankle?”

  “Doctor O’Reilly was right. It was only sprained. It’s rightly now, so it is. But I’m not, and you and him was so decent I’d like for youse til take me and the missus on as your patients. Our doctor in Bangor retired last year and we haven’t needed one until now.” He offered Barry two buff cards. “I brung our cards.”

  “Give them to Doctor Carson, please.”

  Sebastian accepted the cards, went to the filing cabinet, and took out a new file.

  “All the name and address business is on the cards,” said Barry, “but you’ll need to make a note of the National Insurance numbers.”

  Sebastian began writing and reading the numbers out loud. “HM seventy-nine fourteen sixty-five B and HM thirty-nine sixty-six twenty-three C.”

  “We haven’t had a new patient since Doctor Carson came on board, so if you’ll bear with us.”

  “’Course,” said Mister Johnson, matter-of-factly. “I’m sure you’ll want things all done right and proper.”

  Barry turned to Sebastian. “We fill in the forms after surgery and get them off to the Ministry of Health. Then once you’ve registered, Mister Johnson, the practice will receive an annual capitation fee from the ministry and we’re then responsible for providing you and your wife and family with medical services at any time day or night as long as you remain on our list.”

  “Just me and the missus. Our son and daughter both live in London now.” A stillness came over Mister Johnson’s open face. “P’raps just as well what with all that’s going on here. Anyway, I appreciate that, Doctor. Very much, and we’ll try not til be a bother, but at the moment I’m feeling right peely-wally.”