An Irish Country Cottage Read online

  Sue’s interrupted sentence was forgotten as an ambulance tore past before Barry could drive off.

  “Wheest, Max. It’s alright. Sit down now,” she said.

  Barry exchanged a silent look with Sue and accelerated until he reckoned he was giving a fair impression of the driving favoured by his senior partner, Doctor Fingal O’Reilly. It was difficult to judge how far away the fire was, but as the crow flies, Barry was sure the bearing would pass close to if not through where their bungalow was sited.

  “I think you should slow down,” Sue said in a quiet voice. “I know what you’re worried about, but killing us trying to get there won’t change anything.”

  “You’re right, love.” He let the speed bleed off. Please, God, not our place.

  Ten minutes later he approached the hairpin bend and … and, he’d misjudged distances. They were still ten minutes from home, but he could see flames off to their right. “Holy Moses, Sue. I think it’s at Dun Bwee.”

  “My God, the Donnellys’ place.”

  Barry slowed, indicated for a right turn, and crossed the road to jolt along the ruts of the lane leading to the cottage. Even with the windows shut, the stink of smoke filled the car. Max was standing on the seat looking out the window, a low rumble of distress sounding in his throat. The police car and a fire engine were parked in the front yard. The blue light flickered around in circles, and beyond, greedy flames poured from the windows and front door.

  Barry pulled up beside the police car and a yellow Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority ambulance.

  Firemen in wide-brimmed helmets, waterproof overalls, and rubber boots were tending canvas hoses. Two men directed a torrent through the front door, from which a stream of filthy water flowed, reflecting the flames. A second branch was arcing a powerful stream onto a roof that was belching clouds of steam.

  Barry said, “Stay here, and whatever you do don’t let Max out of the car.”

  Sue was reaching for her door handle. “But maybe I can—”

  “Stay here with Max,” he repeated. “At least until we see what’s happening.”

  “Hush, Max. It’s okay. Yes, alright, Barry.”

  Barry nodded and got out into the drizzle.

  Immediately a bottle-green-uniformed Royal Ulster Constabulary constable approached, grabbed Barry’s arm, and said, “Back in your car, sir, like a nice gentleman. We don’t need no rubberneckers, so we don’t—”

  Barry recognised Constable Malcolm Mulligan, Ballybucklebo’s sole policeman.

  “Och, it’s yourself, Doctor Laverty, sir. That’s alright then, so it is.” He’d had to raise his voice to be heard over the roaring and hissing of the flames.

  “What happened?” Barry undid his jacket buttons. The heat was ferocious despite the drizzle. “The Donnellys, are they alright?”

  “Dunno exactly what happened, sir, but you can see what’s happening now. When I got here, Donal and Julie and the three weans, all of them in their jammies and nighties, was outside.”

  Barry exhaled. All of them safe. “Thank God for that.”

  “The place is a goner, though.” Constable Mulligan shoved his peaked cap so it sat perched on the back of his head. His forehead was shiny with sweat. “I was out on patrol near here on my bike and I seen the flames. I pedalled like the hammers of hell to get here.”

  The two watched in fascination as the all-devouring beast raved and roared, its hungry jaws biting at the thatched roof before dragging it down into the bungalow. Sparks and flames fled to the heavens to hide among the clouds.

  “Ould Bluebird, Donal’s racing greyhound, was a bit singed, but she’s alright.” He pointed down to the dog on a leash at his feet, shivering despite the heat of the fire. “Soon as I seen they was rightly, I was going til head for the nearest phone, but Donal said he’d called nine-nine-nine before he got out. Then”—PC Mulligan indicated the emergency vehicles—“the Seventh Cavalry from Bangor come and took over, so they did. The Donnellys is in the ambulance being looked at.”

  “Thanks, Malcolm. I’ll go and see them.” Barry turned and went back to his car.

  Sue was already out, her face highlighted by the blaze. “What’s happening, Barry?”

  “I don’t know what started it, but Malcolm Mulligan says the whole family’s safe. I’m going to see them. They’re in the ambulance.”

  “Can I help?”

  Barry shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not with the Donnellys, but maybe you could move the car a bit farther back. It’s pretty bloody hot here. Just let me get my bag.”

  “Right.”

  Barry, bag in hand, left Sue to it and, ignoring the puddles of warm water he had to slosh through, made his way to the ambulance. Its engine was running. He spoke through the open window to an attendant who was sitting in the driver’s seat, replacing the vehicle’s radio microphone. “I’m Doctor Laverty from Ballybucklebo. I was on my way home when I saw the flames. The Donnellys are my patients. May I see them?”

  “Aye, certainly, sir, but they’re grand. Upset, naturally, but thank the Lord nobody’s burnt. I hate burn cases, especially kiddies.”

  “So do I.” During his houseman’s year while working in casualty at the Royal Victoria Hospital, he’d had to treat a number of burn cases from Mackie’s Foundry on nearby Springfield Road. Sometimes not even morphine could dull the pain.

  The man climbed out, led Barry to the rear of the vehicle, and opened one of the ambulance’s twin back doors. “It’s alright, Billy,” he said to the other attendant, who was inside listening with a stethoscope to Donal’s chest. “This here’s a doctor, so it is. These folks is his patients.”

  Billy pulled the earpieces out, moved to the back, and offered a hand to help Barry up the step. “’Bout ye, Doc.”

  Barry accepted the hand and climbed in. “Thanks, Billy.”

  The back of the ambulance was crowded. It was like a small, hot, oblong room on wheels, smelling of disinfectant and lit by a battery-driven overhead light powered by the engine’s alternator charging the batteries. The light of the blaze flickered through the vehicle’s windows.

  Along each side ran a stretcher, with a narrow aisle between them. Julie Donnelly, wrapped in a damp tartan dressing gown, sat in the middle of one. She was in tears. Her left arm encircled an eighteen-month-old Abigail—or was it Susan? And her right arm cradled the other identical twin. Barry had delivered them in June 1967. He still couldn’t tell them apart. That both wore pink pyjamas didn’t help. Julie tried to smile at Barry.

  Donal Donnelly had a blanket draped over his shoulders. His carroty thatch was disheveled and singed at the front, his forehead an angry red. He stood in the aisle holding their three-year-old daughter Victoria, Tori for short, by the hand. She clutched a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired dolly. Her cheeks were tearstained. Donal looked up. “Doctor Laverty?” he said. “How’d you get here? I never sent for you, sir. There’s no need.”

  Since he had first arrived in Ballybucklebo four years ago, Barry had been humbled by how the locals, despite their own troubles, could find time to be concerned about the welfare of their medical advisors. “Never worry about that, Donal. Julie. Mrs. Laverty and I were passing. We saw the flames.”

  Donal shook his head. “It’s bloody desperate, so it is.” He sighed. “We’ve lost everything. We’re prostitute.”

  Barry didn’t have the heart to correct Donal, but the man must have picked up something in his expression.

  “I mean destitute, Doc. Aye. Right enough. Destitute.” Donal dragged in a deep breath and coughed, then said, “I don’t know where til go for corn.”

  Barry put a hand on Donal’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for your troubles, Donal. There will be a lot of sorting out to do, but first things first. Are you sure none of you are hurt?”

  Donal nodded. “None of us is burnt except me, but it’s only a toty wee one.” He pointed to his forehead. He coughed. “I’m wheezy, like. And I’ve a bit of a hirstle on my thrapple. I breathed in
a wheen of smoke when I was dialling nine-nine-nine.” He tapped his fringe. “Got a bit frazzled, but I’ll live.” Donal managed a small, bucktoothed smile.

  For a moment, Barry was worried. Anywhere between 50 to 80 percent of all deaths in fires were due to smoke inhalation, particularly if hot smoke had burned the lungs, but, he reassured himself, ambulance crews were trained to examine victims and give oxygen to those so affected. Clearly such was not Donal’s case.

  Billy said, “Mister Donnelly’s orientated in space and time. I heard a few sibilant rhonchi…”

  Those dry sounds were due to constriction of the smallest bronchial tubes because of the irritation of the smoke. But they did not suggest serious lung damage.

  “I’ve finished our routine check, Doctor, and apart from a small first-degree burn on his forehead, Mister D’s not badly affected.”

  “Thanks, Billy,” Barry said. “I’ll not have to repeat your work.”

  Donal cocked his head to one side. His voice was tense when he said, “Not badly affected? I’m not done til a crisp, if that’s what you mean, but our whole bloody world’s gone up in smoke.”

  “I’m sorry, Mister Donnelly,” Billy said. “I understand how you feel. I meant you’re not burnt badly and your lungs are fine.”

  “Fair enough.” Donal ran a hand through his thatch. “And I didn’t mean til bite your head off, oul’ hand, but we’ve all had an awful shock. Christmas Day only two days back. All the Christmas presents except Tori’s new dolly up in smoke. I never thought when we decorated the tree it was going til end up as kindling.” Donal wheezed as he inhaled. “If Bluebird hadn’t started carrying on. She was in the house because it’s a miserable night, and she started whining and scratching at the kitchen door. Me and Julie’d might never have got ourselves and the weans out. They was all tucked up and we were ready til go to bed in about half an hour.”

  Julie sniffed and said, “It all happened so fast.” She pointed at a carrier bag beside her on the stretcher. “At least I managed to grab my baby bag with a few nappies, plastic knickers, baby powder. But that’s all we saved.”

  “But we did all get out,” Donal said.

  “Any idea how the thing started?” Barry asked.

  Donal shook his head. “I opened the kitchen door and all I could see was smoke and flames coming from near the stove. Maybe something electrical had shorted. I knew I’d to get everyone out first. So, I done that. Then I made a quick phone call from the hall, but by then the place was full of smoke and I had til get out myself.” He sighed deeply. “I wish I could have done something til put the fire out, but it got going awful quick…”

  “Don’t go blaming yourself, Donal. You did the most important thing.” He inclined his head to Donal’s family.

  Tori pulled her thumb from her mouth and gazed up at Barry. “I was dead scared, so I was, but my daddy was brave and so was my mammy.”

  “And so were you, daughter,” Julie said. “Come and sit with Mammy.”

  Donal lifted Tori and set her on the stretcher beside Julie. The wee girl pointed to her mother’s left. “Abi,” she said.

  So, Barry thought, the other one’s Susan.

  “Thanks for saying that, Doc,” Donal said, “but poor ould Dun Bwee’s gone for a burton. Can’t be saved. I know the firemen is doing their best, but och…” He leaned over and put an arm around Julie’s shoulder. “Try not til worry, love. We’re insured. We’re just going til live through the next wee while ’til we get ourselves sorted out.”

  Where would Donal Donnelly and his family live? Presumably insurance would ultimately see to the rebuilding of their cottage, but that was no help in the short term, and certainly not tonight. Barry rummaged in his bag, fished out a bottle of aspirin, and gave Donal two. Barry said, “Can you swallow those dry, Donal? They’ll take away some of the pain from your burn.” And it was true. Aspirin was an effective analgesic and anti-inflammatory, but it wouldn’t ease the pain of the Donnellys’ great loss.

  2

  To Take Under My Wing

  Fingal O’Reilly glanced up at the Christmas tree that sat by the bay window of the upstairs lounge. The gold star at the top was leaning off to the left. Green and red glass balls hung from the branches, reflecting the glow of fairy lights and the flames of the fire. The tree, and the sprigs of holly set atop each painting in the room, would by tradition not be taken down until January 6—Little Christmas.

  He grunted and put down his book, The Double Helix by James Watson. He was on call tonight at Number One, Main Street, Ballybucklebo, but so far he and Kitty hadn’t been disturbed. O’Reilly rose from his chair in front of the fire. “Time to head down to the TV room for the ten o’clock news, love. It’ll be Robert Dougall reading it tonight.”

  Funny, isn’t it, he thought, how our lives have settled into such a comfortable pattern? Preprandial at sixish when Kitty gets home from the hospital; dinner at seven thirty; television, music, or reading until the news at ten. At sixty he was happy to have less excitement in his life, and with a call rota of four doctors—three including himself here in Ballybucklebo, and Connor Nelson in the Kinnegar running Ronald Fitzpatrick’s old practice—as well as trainee GP Emer McCarthy under his wing, he had lots more free time. O’Reilly looked at his wife and smiled. She was as beautiful as she’d been at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital in 1931 when he had looked up from a patient and into a pair of grey-flecked-with-amber eyes. Now, if only he could get her to slow down too.

  “Right,” Kitty O’Reilly said, and closed The Comedians by Graham Greene to join Fingal on the walk down the half flight of stairs to the TV room.

  “Good Lord,” O’Reilly said. “What in hell’s name is Barry doing here at this hour?” He pointed to the hall, where Barry was holding the front door open for Sue. O’Reilly called out, “Everything alright, Barry?”

  “Like hell it is.” Barry closed the door behind Sue. “Disaster. The Donnellys’ cottage has gone up in flames. All the fire brigade can do is wet down the ruins. The family’s lucky to have escaped with their lives.”

  “Blue blazes,” O’Reilly said, heading down two treads at a time. “Anyone hurt?”

  Barry shook his head. “Not badly. Donal and Bluebird are singed, but that’s the height of it for casualties.” He took a very deep breath. “But the Donnellys have lost everything.”

  “Oh, Barry. Oh, the poor things,” Kitty said. “They’ll all be in shock. The children must be terrified.” She glanced at Fingal, and with that peculiar telepathy between a happily married couple, he sensed what she wanted to ask and nodded.

  “We must help them at once,” Kitty said. “Where are they? What can we do? Sue, sorry to ignore you. Take off your coat, dear, make yourself at home. There’s a fire upstairs if you’re cold.”

  “Thanks, Kitty, but I think I’ve seen enough fire for one night.” Sue took off her overcoat and hung it on the clothes stand. “Poor Julie’s a wreck.”

  “They need friends around them,” Barry said, “and we need somewhere to house the family tonight so we can start sorting things out tomorrow. Our bungalow’s too small, Julie’s family are an hour away in Rasharkin. I couldn’t ask you in advance, Fingal, but I said you and Kitty’d put them—”

  “Naturally,” O’Reilly said. He was delighted by how assured Barry had become since he’d arrived here wet behind the ears in ’64. Barry’s care for his patients didn’t stop with their illnesses.

  “Thanks. I pulled rank, told the ambulance to bring them here. There’s no need to stick to the rules and go all the way to Belfast to the Royal Victoria and Sick Kids to have doctors give everybody the once-over.”

  “Just right, we’ll keep an eye on them,” O’Reilly said. “Keep the family together, and we’ve got plenty of space here at Number One.”

  “Donal was answering questions for the fire brigade, but they should be here soon.”

  “Good,” said O’Reilly. “They can bed down in Kinky’s old quarters.”

&
nbsp; “I’m sure she would approve,” Barry said.

  O’Reilly heard the nostalgia in his partner’s voice. Maureen “Kinky” Kincaid, housekeeper at Number One Main since 1928, had mothered them both before she’d married local milkman Archie Auchinleck and moved into her husband’s house around the corner.

  “Right,” said Kitty, taking charge of the domestic arrangements. “Sue and I’ll get the kettle on, make tea. Nothing like hot sweet tea for shock. Warm milk for the little ones, Ribena for Tori. And arrowroot biscuits.”

  “Bluebird’s in my car with Max,” Barry said. “Can she bunk in with Kenny tonight?”

  “Absolutely. Let’s see to that before the ambulance gets here.” O’Reilly swallowed the lump in his throat. “They’re friends, those two,” he said, and paused before saying, “Kenny has been moping since his best pal Arthur passed.” His old gundog, Arthur Guinness, had dropped off to sleep in the garden on a sunny day. Never woke up. Didn’t suffer. I miss you, old friend, O’Reilly thought. The Lab was sleeping his long last sleep beside O’Reilly’s brother Lars’s old springer, Barney, in the big field near Lars’s house at Portaferry. “Kenny’ll enjoy the company. Come on.”

  Together they headed for the back garden. “How are the Donnellys, Barry?”

  “Donal’s trying to pull himself together. I gave him a couple of aspirin for his singed forehead. He’s trying to stay in charge as best he can. Julie was in tears when I arrived at the ambulance, and she had another cry when Sue gave her a hug, but I think she’s controlling herself pretty well for the sake of the kiddies. Tori’s old enough to know something terrible has happened, but the twins are too young to understand.”

  As he spoke, O’Reilly saw an ambulance stop in front of Number One.

  Kenny, short for Carlow Charger of Kilkenny, came bounding out of his doghouse.

  “Hang on to Bluebird once you get her out of the car, Barry,” O’Reilly said. “Sit, Kenny.”

  Down went the two-year-old chocolate brown Lab, all five stone of him.

  “Good,” O’Reilly said. “See who’s come to see you.” He turned to Barry, who was now standing by with the greyhound. “Slip Bluebird’s leash.”