An Irish Country Doctor Read online

  O'Reilly finished his tea, rose, and said, "I'll be back in five minutes; then it's into the salt mines for the pair of us."

  "Jesus," whispered O'Reilly, "would you take a look? You'd need five loaves and two small fishes to feed that bloody multitude." Barry, who had no doubt that O'Reilly would be perfectly happy to cast himself in the role of the Deity, craned round the big man and stared through the gap where O'Reilly held ajar the door to the waiting room. It was standing room only. How on earth was O'Reilly going to see so many patients before noon? O'Reilly opened the door wide.

  "Morning."

  A chorus of "Morning, Doctor O'Reilly" echoed from the waiting room.

  "I want you all to meet Doctor Laverty," he said, propelling Barry forward. "My new assistant."

  Barry smiled weakly at the mass of enquiring faces. "Doctor Laverty has come down from the Queen's University to give me a hand."

  A voice muttered, "He looks awful young, so he does."

  "He is, James Guiggan. The youngest doctor ever to take the first prize for learning at the university." Barry tried to protest that he was no such thing, but his mumbled denial was drowned by a chorus of oohs and ahs. He felt O'Reilly's hand grip his forearm and heard him whisper, "Remember lesson number one."

  Never let the customers get the upper hand echoed in Barry's head as O'Reilly said, "Right. How many's here for tonics?" Several people rose.

  O'Reilly counted. ". . . Five, six. I'll take you lot first. Hang on a minute." O'Reilly turned and headed for the surgery. Barry followed. He watched as O'Reilly produced six hypodermics, filled them with a pink fluid from a rubber-topped bottle, and laid them in a row on a towel on top of a small wheeled trolley. "What's that, Doctor O'Reilly?"

  O'Reilly grinned. "Vitamin B12."

  "B12? But that's not.."

  "Jesus, man, / know it's not a tonic . . . there's no such thing. You know it's not a tonic, but. . ."--his grin widened--"they don't know it's not a tonic. Now, go get 'em."

  "All of them?"

  "Every last one."

  Barry headed for the waiting room. Heavens, this was hardly the kind of medicine he'd been taught. He avoided the stares that greeted him and said, "Would all those for tonics please follow me?" The six victims did so meekly, silently.

  His little procession trooped into the surgery where O'Reilly waited by the trolley.

  "Along the couch."

  Three men and three women dutifully faced the examination couch.

  "Bend over."

  Three trousered and three calico-dressed backsides were presented. Barry watched, mouth agape, as O'Reilly moved his trolley to the start of the line. He stopped and grabbed a syringe in one hand, a methylated spirits-reeking cotton-wool ball in the other. He dabbed the calico over the first derriere with a ball. "Listerian antisepsis," he intoned, as he jabbed the needle home.

  "Ouch," yelped a skinny woman. The process was rapidly repeated down the line--dab, jab, "Ouch"--dab, jab, "Ouch"--until O'Reilly stood before his final victim, a woman of massive proportions. He dabbed and stabbed. The hypodermic flew across the room as if propelled by a giant catapult and stuck in the wall, quivering like a well-thrown dart.

  O'Reilly shook his head, filled another syringe, and said, "Jesus, Cissie, how many times have I to tell you, don't wear your stays on tonic day?"

  "Sorry, Doctor, I forgo . . . ouch!"

  "Right," said O'Reilly. "Off you go. You'll all be running around like spring chickens when that stuff starts to work."

  "Thank you, Doctor sir," said six voices in unison. The patients filed out and left by the front door.

  O'Reilly retrieved the syringe-dart, laid it with the others, turned to Barry, and said, "Don't look so bloody disapproving, boy. It'll do them no harm, and half of them will feel better. I know it's only a placebo, but we're here to make folks feel better."

  "Yes, Doctor O'Reilly." There was some truth to what the older man said, and yet. . . Barry shrugged. For the moment he would keep his counsel.

  "Now," said O'Reilly, planting himself in the swivel chair and putting on his half-moon spectacles, "be a good lad, nip along, and yell, 'Next.'"

  Barry spent the morning acting as a runner between the waiting room and the surgery, and sitting on the examining couch watching and listening as O'Reilly dealt with a procession of men with sore backs, women and their runny-nosed children, coughs, sniffles, and earaches--the myriad minor ailments to which the human race is heir. Occasionally, O'Reilly would seek Barry's opinion, always, at least in front of the patients, treating the advice with great solemnity. Barry noticed that O'Reilly knew every patient by name, rarely consulted a medical record, yet had an encyclopaedic knowledge of every supplicant's medical history.

  At last. The waiting room was empty.

  O'Reilly sprawled in his chair, and Barry returned to what now was his familiar place on the couch.

  "So," asked O'Reilly, "what do you think?"

  "Not much about you injecting people through their clothes, and I won no prizes at university." Barry glanced at O'Reilly's nose tip. No paleness.

  O'Reilly produced his briar and lit it. "You've a lot to learn, Laverty." He stood up and stretched. "Country folk are a pretty conservative lot. You're a young lad. Why should they trust you?" Barry stiffened. "Because I'm a doctor." O'Reilly guffawed. "You'll find out. It's not what you call yourself, Doctor Laverty; it's what you do that counts here. All I did was give you a head start."

  "I suppose that's what you were doing every time you asked for my advice?'

  O'Reilly looked over his half-moons at Barry and said nothing. Someone knocked on the door.

  "See who that is, will you?"

  Barry walked stiffly to the door. Head start, he thought. As if he wasn't fully qualified. He opened the door to a woman in her sixties. Her face was as weathered as a piece of dried dulse. Her upper lip sported a fine brown moustache. Her nose curved down, her chin curved up like that of Punch in a Punch-and-Judy show, and when she smiled he could see that she was as toothless as an oyster. Her ebony eyes twinkled.

  She wore a straw hat with two wilted geraniums stuck in the hatband. Her torso was hidden under layers of different coloured woollen cardigans, and under the hem of her rusty ankle-length skirt peeped the toes of a pair of Wellington boots. "Is himself in?"

  Barry felt a presence at his shoulder.

  "Maggie," he heard O'Reilly say. "Maggie MacCorkle. Come in." Barry remembered Mrs. Kincaid mentioning the name at breakfast. The new arrival pushed past him. O'Reilly ushered her to the patients' chair and went and sat on the examining couch. "This is my assistant, Doctor Laverty. I'd like him to see to you today, Maggie. Nothing like a second opinion."

  Barry stared at O'Reilly, nodded, and strode to the swivel chair. "Good morning, Mrs. MacCorkle."

  She sniffed and smoothed her skirt. "It's Miss MacCorkle, so it is."

  Barry glanced to where O'Reilly sat, arms folded. Expressionless. "Sorry. Miss MacCorkle. And what seems to be the trouble?"

  It was her turn to glance at O'Reilly before she said, "The headaches."

  "I see. When did they start?"

  "Lord Jesus, they've always been acute, but last night they got something chronic, so they did. They were desperate." She leant forward and said with great solemnity, "I near took the rickets."

  He stifled a smile. "I see. And where exactly are they?" Barry followed the classical history-taking protocol like a minor bureaucrat hewing to his rulebook.

  She whispered conspiratorially, "There." She held one hand above the crown of her flowery hat.

  Barry jerked back in his chair. No wonder O'Reilly had sighed when Mrs. Kincaid announced that Maggie was coming. He wondered where O'Reilly kept the necessary forms for certifying that someone was insane.

  "Above your head?'

  "Oh, aye. A good two inches."

  "I see." He steepled his fingers. "And have you been hearing voices lately?"

  She stiffened. "What do you mean?"


  "Well, I . . ." He looked helplessly at O'Reilly, who slipped down off the couch.

  "What Doctor Laverty means is, do you have any ringing in your ears, Maggie?"

  "Ding-dong or brrring?" Maggie asked, hitching herself up in the uneven chair and turning to O'Reilly.

  "You tell me," he said.

  "Ding-dong, Doctor dear."

  O'Reilly smiled at her over his half-moon spectacles. Clearly encouraged, she continued. "Ding-dong it is. Dingy dingy-dong."

  An apt description of the woman herself, Barry thought. "Mmm," said O'Reilly, looking wise. "Mmm. Ding-dong and two inches above. Now are the pains in the middle or off to one side?"

  "Over to the left, so they are."

  "That's what we call 'eccentric,' Maggie."

  That's what I'd call the pair of you, thought Barry. "Eccentric? Boys-a-dear. Is that bad, Doctor?"

  "Not at all," said O'Reilly, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Fix you up in no time."

  Her shoulders relaxed. She smiled up at her medical advisor, but when she turned to Barry, her stare was as icy as the wind that sweeps the lough in the winter.

  O'Reilly leant past Barry and grabbed a plastic bottle of vitamin tablets from the desk. "These'll do the trick." Maggie rose and accepted the bottle.

  O'Reilly gently propelled her towards the door. "These are special, Maggie."

  She nodded.

  "You have to take them exactly as I tell you."

  "Yes, Doctor sir. And how would that be?" O'Reilly held the door for her.

  "Half an hour." His next words were delivered with weighted solemnity: "Exactly half an hour before the pain starts."

  "Oh, thank you, Doctor dear." Her smile was radiant. She made a little curtsey, turned, and faced Barry, but she spoke to O'Reilly. Her departing words stung like the jab of a wasp. "Mind you," she said, "this young Laverty fellow . . . he's a lot to learn."

  In a Pig's Ear

  Barry sat back in his dining-room chair and pushed his lunch plate away. Certainly, he thought, O'Reilly's clinical methods might leave something to be desired, but, he burped gently, he was willing to forgive the man's eccentricities as long as Mrs. Kincaid's cooking stayed at its current level.

  "Home visits," said O'Reilly from across the table. He consulted a piece of paper. "Anyone who's too sick to come to the surgery phones Kinky in the morning, and she gives me my list."

  "The one she gave you at breakfast?"

  "Aye, and she tells me to add any who call during the morning." O'Reilly folded the paper and stuck it into the side pocket of his tweed jacket. "We're lucky today--just one. At the Kennedys'." He rose. "Let's get moving. There's a rugby game tonight on the telly. I want to get back in time for the kickoff."

  Barry followed down the hall and into the kitchen where Mrs. Kincaid, up to her elbows in a sink full of soapy water, greeted them with a smile and said, "Would you like them lobsters for supper, Doctor dear?"

  "That would be grand, Kinky."

  Barry savoured the prospect.

  O'Reilly's forward progress stopped. "Kinky, is tonight your Women's Union night?"

  "Aye, so."

  "We'll have the lobsters cold. Leave them with a bit of salad and get you away early."

  He charged on, ignoring Mrs. Kincaid's thanks, opened the back door, and ushered Barry through.

  He found himself in a spacious, fenced garden, the one he'd seen from his bedroom window. Vegetables grew in a plot by the left-hand hedge. Some apple trees, heavy with early apples, were bowed over a well-kept lawn--he recognized a Cox's Orange Pippin and a Golden Delicious. A tall chestnut tree at the far end drooped branches over a fence and shaded a dog kennel. "Arthur!" yelled O'Reilly. "Arthur Guinness!"

  A vast black Labrador hurled himself from the kennel, charged over the grass, and, tail wagging so hard that his backside swung ninety degrees, leapt at O'Reilly.

  "Who's a good boy then?" O'Reilly said, thumping the dog's flank. "I call him Arthur Guinness because he's Irish, black, and has a great head on him . . . just like the stout."

  "Aryouff," said Arthur.

  "Arthur Guinness, meet Doctor Laverty."

  "Arf," said Arthur, immediately transferring his affections to Barry, who fought desperately to push the animal away. "Ararf."

  "Arthur Guinness is the best bloody gundog in Ulster."

  "You shoot, Doctor O'Reilly?"

  "Fingal, my boy, Fingal. Yes. Arthur and I enjoy a day at the ducks, don't we, Arthur?"

  "Yarf," said Arthur, as he wound his front paws round Barry's leg and started to hump like a demented pile driver. Keep that up, dog, Barry thought, as he tried and failed to hold the besotted beast at bay. Keep that up, and your next litter will be Labrador-corduroy crossbreeds. "Down, Arthur." He might as well have kept his mouth shut as the animal redoubled his efforts.

  "Get on with you, sir," said O'Reilly, pointing to the kennel. "Go home."

  Arthur Guinness gave one last thrust, disengaged himself, and wandered off in the general direction of his abode. "Affectionate animal," said Barry, as he unsuccessfully tried to brush the mud from the leg of his best trousers.

  "If he likes you," said O'Reilly, as he walked on, "and he obviously does."

  "I'd never have guessed." Barry made a mental note to avoid the back garden.

  "Garage is out here," said O'Reilly, opening the back gate. He crossed a lane to a dilapidated shed and swung an overhead door upwards. Barry peered inside and saw a black, long-bonnet Rover, one of a line of cars that had not been produced for at least fifteen years. O'Reilly climbed in and started the engine. It grumbled, spluttered, and backfired. Barry hopped into the passenger seat. O'Reilly put the car in gear and nosed out into the lane. Barry gagged. The car stank of damp dog and tobacco smoke. He wound down a window. O'Reilly turned left onto the street and drove past his house, past the church with the lopsided steeple, and on along Ballybucklebo's main thoroughfare. Barry looked around. Terraces of whitewashed, single-storey cottages, some thatched and some with slate roofs, lined the route. They came to a crossroads and halted at a red traffic light. A large maypole, paint peeling, leaning to the left, stood like a huge barber's pole on the far corner. "It's fun here on Beltane--that's the old Celtic May Day," said O'Reilly, pointing to the pole. "Bonfires, dancing, the pursuit of young virgins ... if there's still one or two around. The locals aren't far removed from their pagan ancestors when there's the chance of a good party." He revved the engine and gestured at the road to the right. "Go down there, and you'll end up at the seashore; left takes you up into the Ballybucklebo Hills."

  Barry nodded.

  The light changed to amber. O'Reilly slipped the clutch and roared ahead. "Amber," he remarked, "is only for the tourists." He paid no attention to a tractor that had been coming in the other direction and now stood with its trailer slewed across the intersection. "Got to get home in time for the game." He gestured vaguely around. "The throbbing heart of Ballybucklebo," he said. Two-storey buildings now. Greengrocer, butcher, newsagent, and a larger building, outside of which hung a sign: The Black Swan. Barry noticed a familiar figure, left ankle bandaged, limping towards the front door.

  "Galvin," said O'Reilly. "Jesus, that one'd drain the lough if it was Guinness."

  Barry turned to watch as Galvin pushed his way into The Black Swan.

  "Never mind him," said O'Reilly, shifting up with a grinding of gears. "I'm meant to be showing you the way around. Now. You can take this road we're on to Belfast, or if you take a look to starboard . . . see? You can always take the train."

  Barry glanced to his right to see a diesel train moving slowly along a raised embankment. Interesting, he thought. He might just do that on his day off. It would be cheaper than driving up, and he'd like to visit one of his friends from medical school because--

  He was hurled forward as O'Reilly braked. "Bloody cow!"

  O'Reilly growled.

  Barry saw a single black-and-white bovine, eyes soft, reflec
ting the utter vacuity behind, ambling along the centre of the road, chewing its cud with delicate deliberation. O'Reilly wound down his window. "Hoosh on, cow. Hoosh. Hoosh."

  The animal lowered its head, emitted a single doleful moo, and budged not one inch.

  Barry sat back and watched O'Reilly to see just when the man's already demonstrated short fuse would burn down. O'Reilly dismounted, slammed the door, and walked to face the cow. "Look, cow, I'm in a hurry."

  "Moo," replied the cow.

  "Right," said O'Reilly. He took a horn in one hand and pulled. To Barry's amazement the beast took two paces forward, clearly unable to withstand the force being applied to its head. "Move your bloody self," O'Reilly roared.

  The cow flicked its ears, lowered its head, and skittered to the side of the road. O'Reilly climbed into the car, slammed it into gear, and took off with a screeching of rubber on tarmac. "Jesus Murphy," he said. "Animals. They're one of the delights of country practice. You just have to get used to dealing with them."

  "All right," said Barry. "Fine." He was quite unaware of how soon Doctor O'Reilly's words would be shown to be true.

  O'Reilly grunted and then ground the gears. Barry listened to the grumbling of the engine as the rear tires whined and spun--and spun.

  "Bugger it," said O'Reilly. "We'll have to walk." He leant over, reached into the back seat, and grabbed his black bag and a pair of Wellington boots. "Out."

  Barry stepped out--and sank to his ankles in a sheugh. He hauled each foot loose from the mud and squelched to the lane's grassy verge. Blast! His shoes and best pants, already stained from the attentions of Arthur Guinness, were filthy. Barry wondered how much it would cost to have them dry-cleaned.

  He turned and stared at a farmhouse at the end of the rutted lane. "Is that where we're going, Fingal?"

  "Aye, that's the Kennedys' place."

  "Is there some other way to get there? My shoes ..."