An Irish Country Love Story Read online

  The man turned and smiled at Barry. Ronald Fitzpatrick raised his brown trilby hat, his voice barely above a whisper. “Good evening, Doctor Laverty. How are you?” Fitzpatrick wore his gold pince-nez firmly perched on his nose, but his prominent Adam’s apple was hidden under a sorbo-rubber Stamm collar.

  “I’m fine, Doctor Fitzpatrick. Just buying a book,” Barry replied, sotto voce.

  “Me too; several in fact,” Fitzpatrick said, holding them under his left arm. “I’m sorry I’ve not seen more of you, Doctor Laverty, since you all so kindly invited me to join your on-call rota. I am so enjoying the extra time off. I hear you’ve been spending your extra time making some very exciting plans.” The man readjusted his pince-nez and looked conspiratorial. “Fingal keeps me up to date on news.”

  “Yes, I’m getting married soon. My fiancée and I are arranging the details of, we hope, buying a seaside bungalow near Ballybucklebo and I’ll be enjoying my off-duty even more when Sue gets back from France next month.”

  “I wish you success with your purchase and every happiness in your marriage,” Fitzpatrick said. “I never did marry. Ah, well.” He sounded wistful, but then his expression changed. “Dale Carnegie says feeling sorry for ourselves and our present condition is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit we could possibly have. Now, Doctor Laverty, I’m so glad I bumped into you. I’d be very grateful for your advice.”

  “If I can help,” Barry said, wondering what sort of advice his colleague might want.

  Fitzpatrick ran a finger under the upper rim of his neck brace and turned his head from side to side. “They should call this thing a damn collar, not a Stamm collar.” His dry laugh was subdued and Barry realised that dour Doctor Fitzpatrick had cracked a joke. Fair play to him. “I find it hard to express just how grateful I am to you, and Fingal, and Doctor Bradley when she was there and now Doctor Srevenson, for caring for my patients when I was, ahem, incapacitated. I am even more grateful to be permitted to join your on-call schedule.”

  He had been in the rota since the first of February. “I think it’s working very well,” Barry said, “particularly with Doctor Stevenson only able to work on site … at least until she gets the go-ahead from her specialist to drive again.”

  “It is, and I wish a speedy recovery for her, but may I explain what advice I need? I have been buying books for Fingal, Kitty, and yourself that I hope will reflect your special interests.”

  “That’s very kind, but there’s no need—”

  “I’d shake my head if I could, but I choose to disagree. Now it’s to be a surprise, but I’ve some books on wildfowling for Fingal, a excellent tome about the French Impressionists for Kitty, but I’ll not tell you what yours is. And please keep this to yourself.”

  “Of course,” Barry said.

  “I need to know what pastimes the two young lady doctors might have.”

  Barry thought for a moment. He remembered Nonie being excited about going to see a Sam Thompson play and Jenny he knew used to attend the annual performance of Swan Lake at Belfast’s Grand Opera House and had made several trips to Saddler’s Wells in London. He said, “I’m not altogether familiar with their hobbies, but I’m pretty sure Nonie’d enjoy a book about Irish theatre and Jenny? Ballet.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.” He held his right index finger against his lips. “Now, not a word to our colleagues.”

  Barry nodded.

  “It was so pleasant running into you like this. May I call you Barry?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’m Ronald,” he said. “Now, please don’t let me detain you. I must go and complete my purchases.” And with that he lifted his hat, turned, and went off looking at the signposts and muttering, “Irish Theatre. Irish Theatre.”

  Barry chuckled and headed for the counter. Their new associate certainly was different, even a little strange, but the more Barry saw of the man, the more he recognised depths he hadn’t suspected. He hoped their new cover arrangement would continue to be successful, particularly now that before the year was out he’d be a married man.

  * * *

  Jack had beaten Barry to the squash club. He was sitting in the men’s changing room wearing a white shirt, white shorts, white knee socks, and white guttees. The room was warm and smelled of sweat, and steam from the showers. As Barry approached, carrying a hold-all, Jack said, “How’s about ye, ould hand?” in a perfect Belfast accent. “Fit and well you’re looking, so y’are.”

  Barry was not such a good mimic as Jack, but came close with, “Dead on, mate, and all the better for seeing your lovely self.”

  They both laughed. As Barry was changing, he said, “You’ll have to start easy, Jack. I’m not as fit as I used to be and I haven’t played since we were housemen. I’m rusty.”

  “It’ll come back, and you owe me. You beat me in that last game in three straight sets. I may have a bit of an edge too. Helen’s making me quit smoking along with her,” he said. “She’s more of the scientific student than I ever was. She’s read the 1956 British Doctors’ Study that links smoking with lung cancer and heart attacks, and the 1966 follow-up paper. She’s convinced it’s true.”

  “We had to read the ’56 one too,” Barry said, “remember?”

  “Aye,” said Jack with a grin on his countryman’s face, “but I never understood the terms like prospective cohort study, multivariate analysis, and ‘p’ values to express statistical significance.’ The only vital statistics that ever interested me were 36-24-36.”

  Barry laughed. “Right,” he said, lacing up his shoe, standing, and putting on plastic lensless eye protectors. “Into the court and warm up the balls.” He led the way from the changing room to a walled court, held the door open for his friend, and closed it behind them.

  Other games were in progress and the courts area was noisy with the thumps of balls off walls, thudding of feet on the court surface, and occasional cries of “Good shot.”

  “I’ll warm them,” Jack said, for which Barry was grateful. He wanted to conserve his energy for the match.

  Jack moved to the service box of the back left quarter and began hitting a small black rubber ball off the front wall between the lower service line and the upper out line and returning it with a series of accurate volleys. Cold balls had little or no bounce, and this made them die when they bounced off a wall.

  “How’s Helen?” Barry asked, and it wasn’t a simple politeness. Barry hadn’t seen Jack since they’d lunched in the Causerie a month ago, when all had not been sweetness and light between his best friend and Helen Hewitt. Barry was concerned.

  Jack kept on pasting the ball, but the sounds of it striking the wall did not prevent Barry hearing his answer. “Worried, scared. The exams’re in two weeks. She’s really hitting—” He slammed the ball with his racquet. “—the books.”

  “All exam candidates are scared. We know. We lived through it. I mean how are things—”

  “Between me and Helen?”

  “Between you and Helen.”

  Jack grabbed the ball. “This one’s nearly ready,” he said, then inhaled, scratched his head, and looked Barry in the eye. “You told me to give her her head, let her get on with her studying, not insist on seeing her, and she’d thank me if she passed.”

  “Have you?”

  “I didn’t need to. We went out once more last month.” He blew out his breath against pursed lips. “She’s not the first girl I’ve told ‘I love you,’ not by a long chalk.” He looked Barry right in the eye again. “But it’s the first time I’ve meant it.” He served again. His stroke was vicious and the now nearly warm ball ripped back past Barry’s head with only inches to spare.

  “Go easy, Jack,” said Barry. “You nearly hit me.”

  “Sorry,” Jack said, “I wasn’t concentrating.” He lowered his voice. “I was thinking about the night I told Helen I loved her. And you’re the only other person I’ve told that to, hey.”

  “It’ll go no farther
, but that’s terrific, Jack. What did she say?”

  “I was running her home to the women students’ halls of residence and I parked in the grounds. I kissed her and told her.” His serve was more accurate and his forehand returns were powerful. “And she kissed me back, said I’d dumped her once…” Another smashing volley. “That she was taking a chance this second time around. Thought she might fall in love with me. Thought she was close…”

  “I’d say that’s pretty bloody promising.”

  Jack caught the ball. “This one will do,” he said, pocketing it. “Then she said, ‘But’—and Barry, it’s a big ‘but’—‘until the exams was over, ‘love has to wait.’” With another ferocious forehand, he began to warm up another ball. “Any other girl and it would have been adios, sayonara, toodeloo, there’s more fish in the sea, but damn it all…” The words came in a rush: “I’m daft about Helen. Bugger.” He’d struck the ball at an angle and had driven it into a corner where it slid to the floor. Jack walked over and picked it up.

  “As one of my patients might say, it’s sticking out a mile, old friend,” Barry said. “And there is a bright side, you know. Before Patricia and I broke up, I spent weeks agonizing over whether she had another fellah in England. She had. It hurt. You know that. But you don’t have that worry. If Helen Hewitt says she’s working, she’s working.” He wondered if Helen were also playing a bit “hard to get.” He had always thought Helen was a keen observer of human nature, and that she had the measure of Jack Mills, Barry had no doubt. But he kept that thought to himself.

  “Thanks.” Jack inhaled deeply and backhanded the retrieved ball. “And we did have the conversation about the Protestant-Catholic thing.” He caught the ball and bounced it in front of him. “This one’s warm enough. She’s not been to mass once, at least since I’ve been seeing her. She’s not devout, and it doesn’t bother her one bit. Her dad, who’s a bit of a Republican, might be difficult. My parents, they’re country folk. Old ways die hard, but if she does say she’s in love with me, we’ll work it out somehow. We’ll have to. What are you smiling about, mate? This is serious.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, the refrain from ‘There’s a Place for Us’ from West Side Story started playing in my head.”

  “Daft bugger. You romantics.” He laughed.

  “One step at a time, eh?” said Barry.

  “That’s her.” Jack grinned and caught the ball. “And that’s her too. This one’s ready. Spin for service?”

  “Fine. Go ahead. I call ‘up.’”

  Jack’s racquet stopped spinning and, to Barry’s delight, the Spalding trademark was facing up. “My serve,” he said. “Three sets, first to nine?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Without speaking, Barry moved into the service box of the right back quarter, waiting for Jack to take up his position in the opposite back quarter. “Ready?” The minute Jack assented, Barry slammed in his first serve. It ricochetted back and Jack returned it with a searing volley. Barry retreated and let it bounce once before slamming it so it left the front wall at an acute angle and next hit the left side wall and flew into the back of the court where Jack had no chance to return it.

  “Point to you,” Jack said, “and still your serve.”

  By the time the first set ended, nine to seven in Barry’s favour, he was sweating rivulets, his legs felt like rubber, and each inhalation burned in his chest. He already knew he was the craftier player—he had always been better at calculating angles and estimating the force required to make a return drop so it barely made the back quarter before bouncing twice. But Jack, as befitted a man who played rugby football in the second row, relied on what was known in Ulster as “good old brute force and ignorance,” and Barry had no doubt he’d be worn down. “I need a breather,” he said. “I told you I wasn’t fit.”

  “All right,” Jack said. He was breathing as if he’d had no more exertion than a summer stroll.

  “You’re—” Barry gasped, “in fine fettle, Mills.”

  “I bloody well ought to be,” Jack said. “No more fags. Gym twice a week and a good cross-country run once. I have to do something in my time off, and other girls are out of bounds.” He grunted. “Strictly out of bounds. Jaysus, the things I do for love.” He laughed. “At least I’m not taking cold showers. Yet.”

  Barry laughed. “Remember there was a rumour at boarding school that they put saltpetre in our tea to ‘suppress bodily urges’?”

  “Didn’t suppress mine,” Jack said. “Remember when we had the combined dance with Victoria College? That little blonde, remember, the one who looked like Brigitte Bardot…” He made a strangling noise of great pleasure.

  “Mills, you are incorrigible, and I do not remember the blonde who looked like Brigitte Bardot. But I do hear you,” Barry said, “and believe me, sticking to a woman you love is worth it, and if exercise helps?” He grinned. “Kipling said it very well. ‘Take a large hoe, a shovel also, and dig til you gently perspire.’”

  “I’d rather be doing something else that requires breathing heavily and sweating profusely,” Jack said.

  “All right,” Barry said, “in this purgatory of yours, there must be an end in sight. The first step is the exam itself, that many-headed Hydra of papers, and practical and oral exams. How long did you say until it starts?”

  Jack, now bouncing a ball up and down off his racquet, said, “The first written paper is at nine on Monday, March the sixth, in the Whitla Hall. The tests go on all week and the results will be posted in the cloisters at Queen’s sometime after six on the evening of Friday, March tenth.”

  Less than two weeks before Sue would be home, Barry thought.

  “And you’ll be taking her to the party after.” It was a long-hallowed tradition that the junior anatomy students threw a bash for the senior ones so the successful could celebrate and the unsuccessful could drown their sorrows.

  “I will.” Jack missed, dropped the ball, and had to chase it across the court.

  Barry’s breathing had now settled but he was happy to prolong his rest. “But you’ll not be seeing her before?”

  “Don’t think so. I mean, if she wouldn’t come out on Saint Valentine’s…” He started bouncing again.

  “Then get a florist to send her a big bunch of flowers—”

  “Hey, I just sent her some chocolates this afternoon.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Send her the flowers and a good-luck card on the Friday before the exam. I’ll bet she phones to thank you.”

  “All right. You’ll be bankrupting me, Laverty but, by God, I’ll do it. I should have thought of it myself. Thanks, Barry.”

  Barry shrugged. “When I think of how you’ve held my hand.”

  Jack changed the subject. “But I’m not holding it now, brother. My serve, I believe. Right side.”

  Barry moved to the centre of the back left. Jack’s service was a screamer that Barry couldn’t reach, never mind return. Perhaps the repressed energy of Jack’s enforced celibacy was being directed into that hard little black missile. Barry gave the ball to his friend, vowing to be on his guard.

  The returning bounce of Jack’s second serve hit Barry’s thigh. “Yeeeow. That bloody well stung,” he said. “I’ll have a bruise like a soup plate tomorrow. You don’t know your own strength.”

  “Sorry,” Jack said, and sounded not the least contrite.

  After eleven more rallies in which Jack had Barry scampering round the court like a liltie on amphetamine and twice having to make a dive to avoid being hit again, the score stood at nine to four in Jack’s favour. Barry, bent over, hands on knees, was hauling in fiery lungfuls. “Enough. I’m whacked. Banjaxed. I couldn’t go a third set. You win. Mercy.”

  Jack held his hands aloft like a victorious prize fighter and announced, “The winnah,” and adopted a Muhammad Ali accent. “Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. I am the greatest.”

  “Greatest … bollix if you … ask me,” Barry said, his bre
ath slowly returning.

  Jack laughed. “Och, Barry. Thanks for the game. It took me out of myself for a while. Gave me a chance to let off steam. And thanks for listening. No hard feelings. The pints are on me tonight after we’ve had our showers.”

  “I’m your man,” Barry said.

  “And,” Jack said as he opened the door out of the court, “in a couple of weeks I’ll need some more moral support. How’d you like to come to the post-exam party with us? For old times’ sake. I know you’ll have to go stag, but…”

  Barry laughed. “I don’t mind going alone, just as long as you promise me that this time you’ll not try to let down the tyres of a police car—with the rozzers still inside.”

  It was Jack’s turn to laugh. “They let me off with a caution, remember? I wonder if they would again, now that I’m a respectable doctor and all. But I do promise. I just want you there to celebrate if things go well for Helen, and, I hope, for Helen and me…”

  The words “and try to cheer me up if Helen blows me out,” were left unsaid.

  36

  Desires and Petitions of Your Servants

  The rotund Presbyterian minister wore his white dog collar under a dark pullover beneath a Harris tweed sports jacket. He managed to look both welcoming and apologetic when he held out a hand to O’Reilly at the door to the parish hall. “I can only say I deeply regret that, to date, my search of the church’s records has failed to turn up any trace of the original lease. Perhaps tonight’s proceedings might bring you a little comfort.”

  “We hope so,” Kitty said. “The marquis still has had no luck either.”

  And, O’Reilly thought, Bertie Bishop phoned last night to say that Hubert Doran has been canvassing like billyoh for the council to recommend compulsory acquisition of Number One.

  “It’s a shame,” said Mister Robinson, “but all’s not lost yet. You have a lot of support.” He waved a hand to the packed room. “We’ve admitted as many folks as the hall will hold, but had to turn a lot of people away.”