An Irish Country Village Read online

  No sign of cardiac irregularity, not a symptom, and Miss Moloney didn’t have the pale clammy look of someone experiencing a myocardial infarction. If anything, her face was flushed.

  “Pain? Pain? Only in my poor heart. It’s broken in me. I near took the rickets when I came in to open up this morning.” She held her right wrist against her forehead. “I was so upset my breath rushed in and out of me like I’d been running a marathon; everything went grey, and the next thing I knew was that you were here, Doctor.”

  By the look of her, Barry thought, she wasn’t seriously ill. She’d almost certainly got herself so worked up that she’d hyperventilated, and that could certainly cause syncope. Judging by the smile on O’Reilly’s face, he’d arrived at the same conclusion.

  “Now,” O’Reilly said in a soothing voice, “just you sit there, get ahold of yourself, and tell us what happened.”

  “Tell you? I’ll show you.” She rummaged in a pocket of her skirt and pulled out a folded sheet of paper that she thrust at O’Reilly. “Read that.” Her voice climbed the register. “Read it.”

  O’Reilly read aloud,

  Dear Miss Moloney,

  I write you this by way of giving my notice. I’ll not be in ever again. As a going-away present I’ve rearranged your hats.

  Your humble and obedient servant,

  Helen Hewitt.

  Barry remembered the blaze in those green eyes yesterday. So that’s what she’d meant by a going-away present. He liked her use of the classic valediction of a formal business letter. The sarcasm was certainly not lost on him. Had Miss Moloney seen it too? He smiled not only because he was relieved to see that Miss Moloney was not having a real heart attack, but because Helen’s revenge tickled his funny bone.

  Judging by the wreckage, she must have taken every hat in turn from its box and stamped on it. He could imagine her gleefully satisfied look every time her shoe squashed a hat.

  Miss Moloney sat up more rigidly, then bent forward and grabbed the nearest hat. She cradled it to her and tried to smooth it with one hand. “You poor wee thing,” she said, “you poor wee dote.”

  And in her voice Barry heard the care of a mother for an injured child. O’Reilly had said she was single. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps her hats were her children.

  O’Reilly tucked his unused stethoscope back in his jacket pocket. “Well,” he said, “it looks as though it was a false alarm.” He smiled at her. “I think you’re going to survive.”

  “Survive, is it? Survive? I’ve stocked up on hats for two weddings, and first of all that ungrateful wee hussy Julie MacAteer goes and cancels hers.”

  “I hardly think Julie did that on purpose,” said O’Reilly. Barry heard the chill in O’Reilly’s voice.

  “And then . . . then just before I have a toty chance to make up my losses, Mary Dunleavy up and quits, and now . . .” She thrust the ruined hat she’d been cradling at O’Reilly. Barry surmised it had been a weird creation of cream and red felt, with a yellow veil and with half a cock pheasant’s wing stuck in the band; “Now Helen goes and does this? To me?” She jabbed her finger against her bony chest. “To me?”

  “Indeed,” said O’Reilly, “I can see why you’d be a bit upset.”

  “A bit? A bit? I’m fit to be tied. I’ll have the law on her. The police. I want the police. I want her in the Crumlin Road Jail. Jail. Do you hear me?”

  Where no doubt, Barry thought, you hope there’ll be a rack and red-hot branding irons. But there was no doubt that if Miss Moloney did press charges, Helen could get into a great deal of trouble. He waited to see how O’Reilly would react.

  “Ah,” said O’Reilly, “would you like me to phone them? I’m sure Constable Mulligan would be glad to drop by.”

  “That eejit? He couldn’t catch a cold on a wet day. Not at all. I want the CID, the Special Branch.”

  “Special Branch, is it?” said O’Reilly. “I hardly think busting a few hats would interest the antiterrorist squad.”

  “It ought to,” she screeched. “That’s what she is. A terrorist. A hat terrorist.”

  Barry knew he should be concerned for Helen. But the poetry of the justice she had brought down on Miss Moloney—and his image of Ballybucklebo as the crime centre of County Down, populated as it was with wellie-nappers and now hat terrorists—forced him to hide his smile behind his hand.

  O’Reilly paced to the door, turned, walked back, and stood over Miss Moloney. “No,” he said, “I don’t think Helen is a terrorist.”

  “Then what is she? You tell me that!” Miss Moloney’s eyes blazed. She sat, arms akimbo, staring into O’Reilly’s face. “She’s a hellion. A harpy.”

  “I’ll tell you, all right.” His voice was calm and measured. “She’s a high-spirited girl who tried hard to please you—”

  “Please me? She’d enough trouble pleasing herself. Even before this . . . this outrage.”

  “She’s a girl who was getting sick because of the way you were treating her.”

  “Me? Me?” Miss Moloney’s voice rose in pitch. “I looked after her and Mary as if they were my own flesh and blood.”

  Barry said, “I did try to tell you, Miss—”

  “Tell me what? What?” She turned on him, eyes narrowed.

  “That maybe you could have gone a bit easier on Helen.”

  “ ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’ Did you ever hear that, Doctor Laverty? Discipline, that’s what that girl needed.” Her breath started coming in short gasps.

  Lord, Barry thought, she’s starting to hyperventilate again.

  O’Reilly put both hands on her shoulders. “Miss Moloney,” he said sternly, “take a very deep breath and hold it.”

  She did as she was told.

  “Now breathe as slowly as you can, and when you’re ready and calm we’ll have a wee chat about this state of affairs.” He looked directly at Barry as Miss Moloney followed his instructions.

  “Are you ready to discuss this now?” O’Reilly eventually asked.

  “There’s nothing to discuss. Helen did this. Helen’s going to have to pay for it, and that’s an end to it.”

  “How long have you lived here, Miss Moloney?” O’Reilly asked.

  “All my life, and what’s that got to do with the price of corn?”

  O’Reilly shook his big head. “You should know how Ballybucklebo folks enjoy a good joke.”

  “There’s nothing funny about my poor hats.”

  “But the folks here would think there was.” His left eyelid made the tiniest wink in Barry’s direction. “The minute they found out about this you’d hear the laughs and the roars of them all the way to Donaghadee.”

  Barry saw her frown. Her tone was more controlled when she asked, “And they’d be laughing at me, wouldn’t they?”

  “I fear so, Miss Moloney,” O’Reilly said gently. “I do indeed fear so. Helen’s a popular girl.”

  “And you mean I’m not?”

  “Och,” said O’Reilly, “that’s not for me to say.”

  Barry saw her shoulders shake. He heard the tiniest sniffle and saw her eyes moisten. “Nobody really likes me,” she whispered, “and I don’t know why. And I know they already snigger about me behind their hands. They call me one of nature’s unclaimed treasures. It’s not my fault.” Miss Moloney started to wring her hands, looked into O’Reilly’s face questioningly, and asked quietly, “What am I to do?”

  O’Reilly put his thumb under his jaw and crooked his index finger over his lower lip. He frowned; then removing his hand, he said, “Well, for starters, if nobody knows what actually happened here there’ll be nothing to laugh at.”

  She looked at him.

  “The three of us know. Helen knows, and that’s all.”

  “Did Agnes Arbuthnot not see anything?” Barry enquired.

  O’Reilly shook his head. “She told me all she saw was Miss Moloney lying here on the floor. What did you see, Doctor Laverty, when you looked through the window?”

&nb
sp; “Miss Moloney.”

  “And when did you notice the hats?”

  “Not until I was in the shop.”

  “Ah,” said O’Reilly, “in the words the Great Detective never actually uttered, then it’s elementary, my dear Laverty. Aggie didn’t see a thing.”

  “I don’t understand,” Miss Moloney said, as a tear ran down her cheek.

  “Here,” said O’Reilly, handing her a hanky. “Blow your nose.”

  She obeyed like a little child.

  “You’ll not tell anyone, will you, Miss Moloney?”

  She shook her head.

  “And doctors aren’t allowed to divulge any information, so that just leaves Helen.”

  Barry understood, if he hadn’t before, how much of the life of Ballybucklebo, and the smooth social turning of its wheels, depended on lubrication by charitable half truths and secrecy. He supposed all small communities were the same. He wondered how many other secrets O’Reilly knew, and if some of his influence over the inhabitants lay in that knowledge? “Mum’s the word,” Barry said.

  “But what’ll we do about Helen?” Miss Moloney asked.

  “Be nice to her,” O’Reilly said.

  Barry watched the battle of emotions on Miss Moloney’s face. She clearly didn’t want to be the laughingstock of the village, and yet being nice to Helen must be the last thing on her mind. “How can I be nice to her when she’s cost me all this money?”

  “I know a rag-and-bone man who’d give you a good price for the damaged hats,” O’Reilly said.

  “A good price?” Her eyes narrowed. “It would need to be close to a hundred pounds.”

  O’Reilly whistled. “A hundred? I think that could be arranged. If you like . . . you don’t have a car, do you?”

  “No, Doctor O’Reilly.”

  “I could nip round after surgery and pick up the wreckage. Take it to the fellah.”

  “Would you?”

  “Och, aye,” said O’Reilly, “but there’d be a couple of conditions.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Conditions?”

  He nodded. “One. You close the shop today. Stick a notice in the window: Closed Due to Illness. That won’t be hard to substantiate. Aggie Arbuthnot’ll have the word out you’re dead and buried by the time Doctor Laverty and I get back to the surgery.”

  “She’s got a wicked tongue, that Aggie.” Miss Moloney sniffed. “If I have to close, and I might as well . . . I’ve no stock left . . . I think I’ll go away down to Millisle and spend a few days with my sister.”

  “I think that would be for the best,” O’Reilly said. “Don’t you, Doctor Laverty?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “You might even be surprised when you come back to Ballybucklebo to find the folks here are feeling sorry for you because they know you’ve been sick,” O’Reilly said. “They’re always quick to take a wounded soul under their wings.”

  She managed to smile weakly at him. “They might, mightn’t they?”

  “No question about it, unless Helen lets the cat out of the bag, but I’m sure she won’t . . . if you treat her right.”

  Barry saw Miss Moloney’s jaw tighten.

  O’Reilly’s words were gentle, his enquiry guileless. “How many weeks’ wages do you owe Helen?”

  “How many . . . ? One. Twelve pounds ten shillings.”

  “So, plus a week’s severance comes to . . . twenty-five pounds. From a hundred? That leaves you seventy-five pounds.” He glanced at the door. “Less what it costs to have the lock fixed. I’m sorry about that, but you were looking pretty sick when we arrived.”

  “I don’t care about the stupid lock,” she said. “I know you two doctors were doing what you had to.” She glanced round at the wreckage of her hats. “And you’ve done a whole lot more for me too. I could’ve been ruined. But if you can get the money . . .”

  “Never fear,” said O’Reilly, “and I’ll make sure Helen gets her money too.”

  “But . . . but—”

  “But what?” said O’Reilly as if ordering an ordinary seaman to some menial task on the Warspite. “If you want Helen to keep quiet, you’ll pay her off.” He fixed her with a glare.

  “All right,” she said, “I will.”

  “Good. Now the sooner Doctor Laverty and I get the morning’s work done, the sooner I can come and get the old hats. So, if we’re not going to keep the other patients waiting, it’s time we were back in the surgery.”

  “Right.”

  Barry went out of the door, and as he left he heard O’Reilly say, “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Miss Moloney. I’ll pop round about twelve thirty. Good morning.”

  He caught up with Barry, and together they walked side by side back to Number 1.

  Barry was feeling relieved in a purely professional sense that there had been nothing more seriously wrong with Miss Moloney than a hyperventilation-induced attack of what an earlier generation would have called the vapours.

  He was also once again in awe of the speed of O’Reilly’s mind. He’d understood the real threat to Helen. Because he knew nobody likes to be laughed at, and had grasped the financial implications of the situation, he’d been able to play on his patient’s emotions. He’d manipulated Miss Moloney’s fear of being mocked and her greed. Helen was to be spared, and she might well have been prosecuted if O’Reilly hadn’t intervened.

  Barry was wondering where O’Reilly was going to get the one hundred pounds, but his train of thought was interrupted when O’Reilly said, “She’s a sorry old duck, Miss Moloney. She had a fellah once, but he jilted her about a week before they were to be wed and she started to dry up inside. Apart from the sister, she’s no family; lives above the shop, goes to church on Sundays, and that’s about the height of her life.”

  “That’s sad, Fingal.”

  “Aye,” he said, “it’ll be a good thing for her to get away for a few days.” He smiled. “It might not be a bad thing either for Helen to look for a job in Belfast. Then she’ll not be running into Miss Moloney. I think she’ll be carrying quite the grudge.”

  “You’re right, and Helen’s a bright girl. She shouldn’t have much trouble finding work.”

  “She’s bright all right.” He smiled. “Helen Hewitt. Do you know where that name comes from?”

  “No.”

  “The original Hewitts came to Ireland in the thirteenth century. The name actually means ‘a clearing,’ and by God, Helen certainly cleared Miss Moloney’s stock.”

  And that, Barry thought, raises the question of who was going to pay for the damage. “Do you really know a rag-and-bone man, Fingal?” he asked.

  O’Reilly shook his head.

  “Then where’s the—”

  “Money coming from?”

  “Yes.”

  O’Reilly blew out his cheeks. “I won four hundred pounds on Donal’s Bluebird last month. I lost fifty quid on that great lummox of a horse, Battlecruiser, at the point-to-point . . .”

  Surely O’Reilly, the man who’d forced Barry to pay for Kinky’s new hat, Barry thought, wasn’t going to . . .

  “I’ll still be two hundred and fifty pounds ahead.”

  “But it’s your own money.”

  “Och, sure,” said O’Reilly, opening the door of Number 1. “When it comes to money won on wagers, ‘the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’ Would you have had any better ideas on how to keep the ould witch quiet? Would you like to see Helen go short? God knows the girl hardly has two brass stivers to rub together.”

  Barry shook his head as he followed O’Reilly into the hall.

  O’Reilly closed the door and laughed so hard he started to cough. It wasn’t until he’d stopped coughing that he managed to say, “And wasn’t it worth the price of admission just to see the battered bonnets of Ballybucklebo and the look on Miss Moloney’s face?”

  “A hundred pounds?” It was taking Barry three weeks to earn that much money.

  “Aye.” O’Reilly suddenly became very serious. “A
nd if you as much as breathe a word about it to anyone—anyone—what I’ll do to you would make what Miss Moloney wanted to do to Helen look like a pleasant day in the park.”

  “I understand. I’ll say nothing.” But Barry knew he didn’t understand. He wondered when, if ever, he’d fully comprehend the workings of the mind of Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said O’Reilly, walking into the surgery. “And now be a good lad and nip along and see who’s first.”

  Experience Is the Name Everyone Gives

  to Their Mistakes

  “Our American cousins,” said O’Reilly, “have an expression, TGIF. Thank God it’s Friday.” He stood at the sideboard, pouring predinner drinks. “I, for one, agree. I’ve had enough of Hippocratic endeavours for one week.”

  Barry stared through the windows of the upstairs sitting room, barely listening to O’Reilly, hardly taking in any details of the view past the mizzle-dampened, lopsided steeple of the church where the next day Maggie MacCorkle would become Mrs. Sonny.

  Not another word had been spoken about Miss Moloney’s hats, but true to his promise, O’Reilly’s first stop after lunch had been at the dress shop, where the battered bonnets, concealed in paper shopping bags, had been loaded into the boot of the Rover.

  When they’d returned from making their afternoon rounds, O’Reilly had vanished for half an hour to dispose, Barry presumed, of the hats and to find Helen Hewitt and give her her money. He’d only been back for five minutes.

  It was all very well for O’Reilly to be talking about celebrating the end of another routine working week, Barry thought. There was still no word from Harry Sloan, and Mrs. Fotheringham’s deadline of Sunday evening was rapidly approaching. He fidgeted in the armchair.

  “Sherry?” said O’Reilly, reaching for the decanter.

  Barry shook his head. He felt like having something stronger. “No, thanks. I’ll have an Irish.”

  “Good man ma da,” said O’Reilly pouring. “The ould uisce beatha, or if you prefer Latin, aqua vitae, the water of life. Here.” He handed Barry the glass. “Do you want water with it?”