An Irish Country Cottage Read online

  “That’s right. They give you a general anaesthetic, make a tiny incision at your belly button, and slip a fine telescope through it into your belly. They get a terrific view of your reproductive organs. They can run blue dye through your tubes from below to confirm patency, and they sometimes detect other things that they might be able to fix. Sometimes they can fix them during the laparoscopy.”

  “A tiny telescope. That’s amazing,” Sue said. “When can I have it?”

  Graham said, “You’re going to be disappointed. Not for at least three months.”

  Sue sighed. “I don’t want to sound petulant, but why so long?”

  Graham said, “No question of petulance. I have to balance the likelihood of a spontaneous pregnancy in the next three months, which is high, against the probability that the laparoscopy will show something—which is low. And remember, this is a surgical procedure. I will arrange it if you need it.”

  She frowned. “Graham, you just said some women fall pregnant soon after the test I’ve just had.”

  Barry heard the hope in her voice.

  “I did.”

  “I’d really like a holiday from graphing, performing on demand. How critical would it be if we planned the lap—” She paused.

  “Laparoscopy.”

  “Right. What if we scheduled it for May and I skipped the postcoital test until next month?”

  “The only thing calling for speed is your own sense of urgency, Sue. I’m all for you taking a breather,” Graham said.

  So am I, Barry thought. For both our sakes.

  “May I see that calendar, Graham?” The man slid the calendar over and Barry studied it, smiling. “Why don’t we take a real holiday, Sue? Friday the fourteenth is half-term, isn’t it? The schools are out for a long weekend from Friday to Monday.”

  “I think it would be a splendid idea, but it’s up to Sue,” Graham said. “We don’t know how big a part stress plays in interfering with conception. I’d be all for you taking some of the pressure off yourself.”

  “I’d like that,” Sue said. “I know I’m stressed.” She sighed. “It’s not like me to get tetchy with my pupils.”

  Nor was she sleeping properly. Was it a kind of catch-22? Barry wondered. Sue said she felt stressed about not falling pregnant. Graham didn’t know for sure if that very stress of suffering from infertility could be a factor contributing to it. Damn it, they had nothing to lose if he could come up with a way to try to reduce the pressure Sue was putting herself under. “I think,” Barry said, “I have a notion that might give us both a real break from our work and our worries.” He nodded slowly. “I just need to have a word with Fingal.”

  27

  Touching His Manhood

  Small waves gurgled onto the rocks beneath where Barry stood on a narrow tarmac path. The broad waters of Belfast Lough, never still, responded to the gentle breeze. In the distance, the towering keep of Carrickfergus Castle on the far shore brooded behind its waterfront curtain wall, deep in its sleep of eight hundred years. The Antrim Hills behind rolled, indistinct, the steel blue mounds melding gradually with the lighter blue of the sky. Scattered puffs of cloud drifted toward Belfast at the head of the lough.

  “Not a bad day at all,” he said to Sue as she closed the gate in the low wall of the front garden.

  “Which way, skipper? Helen’s Bay direction or Holywood?”

  “Helen’s Bay,” Barry said, “then we’ll have the breeze at our backs on the way home.”

  They set off with Max straining against his leash and wheezing. The coastal path in front of their bungalow was popular with dog walkers, and Max’s apparently uncontrollable urges to make every canine’s close acquaintance had in the past led to some serious snarling and teeth-snapping. The leash gave Barry some degree of control over the daft dog.

  Sue pushed the hood of her duffle coat down off her copper hair. “Nice afternoon for a walk,” she said, and took his free hand. “I think spring can’t be too far off.”

  Barry was going to speak, but Max was digging his heels in. There was something in a patch of marram grass that needed an urgent and thorough sniffing.

  Barry and Sue stopped, waited until Max had cocked a leg to mark the place as his, and deigned to walk more sedately beside Barry as the trio proceeded.

  “Won’t be long until we’re helping John Neill get Glendun ready for the sailing season,” Barry said. He pointed to where a small clinker-built dinghy, her white sails goose-winged, jib bellied out one side, mainsail well filled out to lee, ran gently down the wind. “That fella out there can’t wait for the warmer weather.”

  Sue sniffed. “Could be a woman, you know.” She winked at him. “So, what class is the dinghy?”

  “Insect class out of Ballyholme Yacht Club,” Barry said. “Fourteen feet long. Gunter-rigged, I reckon.”

  “Gunter?”

  “See the mainsail? It’s rigged to a hoistable extension of the main mast. Makes it easy to stow if you’re towing the boat after a motorcar.” Barry rubbed his gloved hands together. “He’s a better man than I. And I said man. Women are far too smart to be sailing on a day like today. It’ll be bloody cold out on the water. I hope he’s well wrapped up.” He put his arm round Sue’s waist and pulled her to him. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep you warm.” He pointed to the dinghy again. “Look. She’s turning into the wind.”

  Sure enough, the little craft’s bows were swinging, and the sailor was trimming his rig so that, with his course now at an acute angle to the direction of the breeze, the sails were sheeted in and flattened in a fore and aft direction. “Heading close-hauled for home. He’s had enough, I’ll bet.”

  “And we’re just getting started,” Sue said. “I feel like a decent stretch of the legs. It was a long week at school, and yesterday your friend Graham Harley certainly gave me a lot to think about.”

  Barry had hoped the subject might not come up this morning, but if she needed to talk? He pursed his lips. “Go on,” he said.

  “I’m impressed with Graham Harley. No question he knows his medical stuff, but he’s as much concerned for the patient’s worries as for the purely technical. The minute he said your sperm count was normal I started to shoulder the blame. But when he made me believe that it’s nobody’s fault, I felt like a reprieved criminal. Graham is a very persuasive man. I trust him.”

  “I’m glad. And he’s right. You’ve done nothing wrong, love. Far from it. You know,” he smiled, “it’s not just women who have psychological difficulties…”

  A strangled “yip” from Max interrupted. Barry was tugged to one side. The dog had got his leash tangled round the bole of a small fir tree growing on the inland side of the path.

  “Bloody animal,” Barry muttered under his breath as he struggled to untangle things.

  “I heard that, Doctor Barry Laverty. Nice bedside manner.” Sue bent to hang on to the dog’s collar as Barry unclipped the leash. It was a practiced routine they had to do at least once every walk. Between them they freed Max and Barry re-leashed him. He took Sue’s hand and they continued. “I know Max has no more sense than that tree,” she said. She caught Barry’s expression. “Alright, alright. Possibly less. But he is a darling. Look at him. Who’s a good boy?” The dog jumped up and licked Sue’s face and she grinned from ear to ear. They were a daft pair and Barry loved them both.

  “Yes, I do know it’s not just women. I know I’ve been up to high doh with worry. Barry, you’re a man. You’re not really meant to show your feelings. But tell me, how would you have felt if your sperm count had been bad?”

  Barry took his time before he answered. He remembered as a student when Doctor Harley had to tell a patient, a professional boxer, that he had no sperm. The man had attempted suicide. Perhaps if he had been able to talk about how he felt…? Barry shook his head. “I-I’m not sure. I don’t think I’d have seen it as a threat to my manhood. I think I may have felt a certain relief if”—he deliberately avoided the word “fault”—“if the
difficulty was with me and you were fine. It would have taken a load off you.”

  The path was deserted save for them. Sue stopped, kissed him hard, and said, “I do love you, Barry Laverty.”

  “I love you, Sue.” They walked on for several yards before Barry said, “I would also have had to make some difficult decisions. You know I had reservations about the whole idea of being a daddy. They’re gone. I want to be a father. I think we’d miss a great deal without children.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I do too. And, bless you, for getting over them. For me.”

  “If my sperm weren’t up to much, there’s no treatment for that. Graham has a line he uses with the men students because someone always asks about concentrating sperm. And it can be done, but Graham says, ‘It’s quality, not quantity, that counts. You can take a pound of horse manure and concentrate it into a cube one inch in diameter. What have you got? Dense horse manure.’ It gets a laugh and makes his point.”

  Sue frowned. “So, what can a couple do if the man—?”

  “Two choices,” Barry said. “Artificial insemination using another man’s sperm, or adoption.”

  “Oh.” Sue stopped. Barry stopped. Max was pulled up short. “Oh,” Sue said, “I’m not sure I’d fancy artificial insemination as an option.”

  I’m damned sure I’d not, but Barry kept the thought to himself.

  “And adoption? I’d need to consider that one too,” she said. “And it still might be necessary. My tests aren’t finished yet and something fixable might turn up. And if it doesn’t, I suppose we could talk about adoption then. I’m not sure I want to think about it right now.”

  This time he didn’t remain silent. “I know I don’t. At least, though, Graham is happy enough for us to take a break for a month.”

  Sue managed a small laugh. “I’ll stick it out taking my temperature in March.”

  “And then you can quit.” He started to walk and Sue and Max kept up. Overhead a clattering of jackdaws, black and shiny feathered, flapped and squabbled its raucous way to a nearby wood.

  “I hadn’t realised what an imposition that bloody graph is,” he said, “and I wasn’t even keeping the damn thing. When I was a student we saw one couple who must have been desperate. The woman had meticulously plotted her graphs every day, every single day, for three years, and the poor husband had had to perform on schedule, and only on cue, for all that time. I thought the marriage was on the verge of breaking up.”

  “That won’t happen to us, Barry. I promise. I do so want a family. I will do anything reasonable to try to have one, but I’m not going to become obsessed. I’m not.”

  Barry let her words sink in, the relief of them feeling like getting into a warm bath on a cold day. He turned and kissed her just as an older man came around a corner, accompanied by an enormous Old English sheepdog, a huge beast with a long grey-and-white coat, and a donkey fringe that hung down like shaggy curtains in front of its eyes.

  Max strained at his leash and let go several high-pitched barks. The sheepdog shook its great head and gave one basso profundo “woof.”

  Max, whimpering, rolled on his back in instant submission.

  The stranger smiled. “Pay no attention to Winston. He is a very gentle giant.” The big dog wagged his docked stump of a tail.

  “Come on then, Winston. Let’s leave the young lovers to continue what they were doing.” He laughed. “Enjoy your walk, folks.” He touched the peak of his duncher and headed on.

  “And you come on, Max, you idiot.”

  “Barry. You’ll give the poor dog an inferiority complex.”

  They turned a corner. In a field bounded by dry stone walls, a flock of heavily fleeced black-faced ewes grazed while their spring lambs frolicked or nuzzled at their mothers’ teats.

  “Look at that,” said Sue, a touch of irritation in her voice. “Spring’s coming on. Nature’s renewing herself. It all seems so bloody simple.”

  “It does seem that way, but you know, when I think of it, it’s a bloody miracle mammals can reproduce at all. Graham told you about how a sperm, at the right time of the month, has to get through the cervix? Think about poor old Sammy sperm and his friends. They have a staggering journey to overcome, considering their tiny size and the great distance they have to travel after the cervix. Salmon going upstream to spawn have as big a struggle. The little devils must cover the length of the uterine cavity and along the fallopian tubes at a time when the tubes are contracting to propel the egg to the uterus. The sperm have to swim against that. When, with a bit of luck, they meet an egg, only one is going to get in and complete fertilisation.”

  One of the lambs sprang into the air, landed on all four hooves, bleated, and bounced over to its mother.

  Sue said, “Looks like some sheep sperm made the journey.”

  “And I’m damn sure mine will one day soon. Remember what Graham said as we were leaving?”

  She nodded.

  “He said, ‘I do know it’s hard, Sue. I do know it’s hard. But—I’m sure you and Barry are strong. I know you’ll live through it, and I hope, I really hope the statistics are right and you’ll not need the laparoscopy in May.’”

  “Me too, Barry.”

  “And he thought taking a break was a great idea. How about we start doing that right now?”

  She smiled. “I have been rabbitting on a bit, haven’t I?”

  “Not at all,” Barry said. “You needed to get it off your chest.”

  “Thank you for listening.”

  Barry shrugged. “But now it’s your turn to listen. There’s something I need to say.”

  Sue looked concerned and he laughed. “Did you know that Paris is nearly three hundred miles farther south than Ballybucklebo? We’re at fifty-four, north latitude. Paris is forty-eight. It’s not a bad day here today, but it should be warmer in Paris.”

  Sue squeezed his hand. “Paris? My sweet salty-sailor navigating man, what has that got to do with anything?”

  “A very great deal. This morning not only did Fingal give me the time off next weekend, he suggested an excellent little hotel, Regina De Passy. It’s not half a mile from the Eiffel Tower.”

  “The Eiffel Tower? But why would Fingal—”

  “Mrs. Sue Laverty, you spent six months in Marseille improving your French. Graham and you and I are all agreed we need a holiday. Where better than the City of Lights? This afternoon we’re going to Feherty’s, the travel agents in Bangor, to make the bookings.”

  “Oh, Barry,” she said. “How romantic.” Ignoring a young couple coming the other way, she kissed him soundly. “Thank you. It’ll be wonderful. I’ve always wanted to go to the top of the tower.”

  “And so we will.” And, Barry thought, we’ll make lots of love—for fun. Never mind that according to last month’s information, Sue should ovulate at or about Saint Valentine’s Day, which is also when some doctors still would say was the best time to try. Perhaps, just perhaps, what she so much desired might happen.

  28

  Rebuild It in the Old Plan

  “Are you in a hurry to get home?” O’Reilly turned to Emer in the passenger seat of the Rover. It was midafternoon Friday and a farmer who’d ricked his back wrestling a bale of hay from his hay loft had been their last call of the day. All they’d been able to offer was bedrest on a firm mattress, Panadol for pain relief, and sympathy.

  She shook her head. “I don’t need to be in Belfast until seven. What do you have in mind?”

  “Donal suggested I pop in and see how the rebuilding of Dun Bwee was coming along. That was ten days ago and I haven’t had a chance until now, but it’s a fine afternoon. His turn-off is only a mile away.”

  “Why not?”

  “Great.” O’Reilly accelerated, leaving a cyclist wobbling in his slipstream. “We’ll be there in a minute.” He heard Emer humming to herself. She was certainly a much more cheerful young woman since she’d been able to give Bertie Bishop the good news about his biopsy. O’Reilly re
cognised the tune, “Down by the Salley Gardens.” He turned right onto the lane to the Donnellys cottage, or what was left of it. “Did you know Yeats put words to that?”

  “I did. ‘Down by the Salley Gardens, my love and I did meet—’ We had to study Yeats at school, but I’d found him and Lady Gregory before that. I love the old myths. The Irish poets. There’s a new one, Seamus Heaney. I’ve been reading his Death of a Naturalist. I think we’re going to hear more of him.”

  O’Reilly had many colleagues whose narrow outlook on life concentrated only on medicine. He found Emer McCarthy to be a remarkably well-rounded young woman. “Good for you,” he said. “Always remember there’s more to life than medicine.”

  She began to sing again. “‘She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.’” I’ll heed Yeats’s advice. It’s a reel, you know. One of the first dances you learn when you start out Irish dancing. I’ve been helping a new lad with the moves at my dance academy.” She chuckled. “He’s got two left feet, but he is—um,” she smiled and inclined her head, “very sweet.”

  O’Reilly wondered what she was going to be doing at seven tonight, but was tactful enough for once to refrain from asking. “I reckon you’re an excellent teacher.” He braked. “Here we are.” He brought the car to a halt in front of the building site. “Come on. Let’s see what’s happening.”

  Once they were out of the car, he studied his young trainee, in her dark grey tweed jacket with poacher’s pockets over a light grey mini and low-heeled brown brogues. “Things are still pretty sooty around here. Careful of your clothes.”

  The blackened roofless shell of the cottage stood starkly against a hazy sky, the triangular gable ends higher than the rest. Where glass and wooden windows had been, only the granite frames remained. The structure looked to O’Reilly, himself an old pugilist, like a boxer who has taken a terrible beating but refuses to throw in the towel. The stone remains had an air of solid permanence.