Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor Read online

  “Do ye not?” Doctor Corrigan tilted his head to one side and regarded Fingal. There it was again, the hint of a smile behind the thick lenses. “There’s a thing now.”

  “I do not.” Fingal frowned but ploughed on. “And I didn’t appreciate your simply vanishing when I was examining the victim. I don’t think that was very professional either.” He ran a finger under a collar that now seemed too tight.

  Doctor Corrigan pursed his lips, nodded, his smile widened. “And just so I’ll know where I stand with ye, young fellah, ye’ve been gathering up yer courage all the way back here from Aungier Street to have it out, haven’t ye? Then ye got your fires more stoked up because I was rude to Mary Foster.” His voice was calm, if anything amused. “I don’t believe ye’re a man that would bottle up something that annoys him, are ye?”

  “Well … no. I’m not.” Fingal’s collar was definitely too tight.

  “More power to yer wheel.” Doctor Corrigan was making a sound like dry autumn leaves being blown along a gutter. It wasn’t until Fingal noticed that the little doctor’s shoulders were shaking that he realised the man was laughing.

  Fingal felt his fists clench, knew that the tip of his nose must be blanching. It would have been all right if Doctor Corrigan had reared up, but he was laughing and clearly at, not with, Fingal.

  Before Fingal could speak, Doctor Corrigan continued, and his voice was quiet, serious. “That took real courage for a fellah wet behind the ears to risk losing a job before he got it by tackling a senior man head on, and, boy, ye went at it like a bull at a gate.”

  Fingal started to blush. He had expected an argument, even anger, but not understanding.

  “I told ye the job was yers if I took a shine to ye,” Doctor Corrigan said.

  Fingal hung his head.

  “So for once I’ll explain. I told ye to carry my bag because ye’re young and strong and I wanted to get to the accident as quick as my old legs would carry me. For all we knew the poor bugger could’ve been bleeding to death. Maybe I should have said ‘please,’ but there seemed to be more pressing matters than manners.”

  Fingal saw the truth of it. “I didn’t—”

  “Then, as soon as I saw you knew what you were about, I legged it back here because the waiting room was stiff with customers.”

  Absolutely rational. “I think—” Fingal swallowed and said, “I think I was a bit hasty about that.”

  “Ye were,” said Doctor Corrigan, “but sure isn’t being impetuous the prerogative of the young? And didn’t ye have the courage of yer convictions to act? If ye do come to work here, I’ll expect ye always to do what ye think is right. Will ye promise me that?” He gazed directly into Fingal’s eyes.

  Fingal did not glance away. “I will.” He took a deep breath. “In that case, will you explain to me why you were so hard on that young woman?”

  “By Jasus, O’Reilly, ye are a terrier. All right.” He leant forward, elbows on the desktop. “Poor stupid girl. It’s not her fault. They leave school at ten, because as any kid in the tenements will tell ye, learning still doesn’t get ye a decent job. Some lasses are lucky, end up as one of the ‘Jacob’s Mice,’ the girls taken on by the Jacob’s biscuit factory when they turn fourteen. A whole lot of kids start courtin’ in the stairwells of the tenements, often get put up the spout or just get married too early. Half of them don’t even know where babies come from, and when they end up as mothers it’s usually their own grannies who teach them motherhood skills, because their mas are out at work.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Fingal said, “but what can we do?”

  Doctor Corrigan shook his head. “Pick up the wreckage, use whatever treatments we have. Some of them are useful. Try to comfort, and try to prevent what we can.” He pursed his lips. “Mary Foster’s not going to be persuaded by the Socratic method of reasoned argument.”

  That brought a smile to Fingal’s lips.

  “That’s twice she’s nearly gassed the wee mite. The only way I could think of to try to stop her doing it again was to throw the fear of God into her. I can’t give her what she needs, a husband with a decent job, family support—her granny died of TB last year, her own ma sells used clothes in the Iveagh Market on Francis Street. She’s the eldest of nine. She lives in a single end on Peter Street with her husband ‘Boxty’ Foster, he’s one of eleven and he’s in and out of builder’s labourers jobs.” He blew out his cheeks. “Do I need to go on?”

  Fingal shook his head. “I hear you. My own ma’s working hard for slum clearance, decent rehousing, but it’s not going to happen overnight.”

  “No, it’s not. Nothing changes fast in this benighted city, and us dispensary doctors keep carrying on pretty much the same as when the first Act of the English Parliament set the dispensaries up in 1851.” He shifted on his stool. “That was after An Gorta Mór, the great hunger, as part of the poorhouse system. But things are changing now.”

  “Before we went to the accident, you’d mentioned a 1933 Act of Parliament,” Fingal said, glad the subject of their conversation was being changed. “It was a Pott’s fracture, by the way. John-Joe Finnegan’s off to Sir Patrick Dun’s to have it set.”

  “They’ll do a good job there.” Doctor Corrigan nodded to himself. “They’ll have him doing toe exercises in ten days, but he’ll not be walking on crutches for at least a couple of months.”

  And after that? No job waiting for him as a cooper, that was for sure, Fingal thought.

  Doctor Corrigan grunted and shook his head. “Aye, the 1933 Act of Parliament. Bah. Ye might as well know that I’ve no time for politics. It’s best ye understand that about me, for my sins, right now. Bunch of bollixes, the whole tribe of them, Sinn Féin, de Valera’s Fianna Fáil, this new Fine Gael lot, the Labour Party James Connolly founded? Well, maybe I’d give Labour houseroom, but only just. I’d not give ye tuppence for the rest. Never know when to leave well enough alone. A plague on all their houses.”

  Fingal wondered if his senior colleague might have a fondness for the works of Shakespeare.

  “They’ve decided to amalgamate all the eighty old independent Approved Medical Insurance Societies that administered the dispensaries and paid our wages under one governing body, the Unified Health Insurance Society, for the whole twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State. The chairman is the Very Reverend John Dignan, Bishop of Clonfert.”

  “Trust the Catholic Church to have its finger in the pie,” Fingal said. The church forbade contraception; the government made it illegal in 1935. Was it any wonder Mary and Boxty Foster had eighteen brothers and sisters between them?

  “Och, sure, the priests are everywhere. Our concern is how the system’s being run now, and I don’t think the new setup’ll make bugger all difference to us. There’ll be no raise in salaries. We might get the occasional paying patient, but the insured pay our salaries. Being situated where we are, the poor, to misquote Saint Mark, will always be with us. They’ll still get their tickets for free care.” He inhaled and blew out his breath past nearly closed lips. “And many of the toffs from places like Ranelagh and Ballsbridge, rather than going to a posh local doctor, will come here because even though the gurriers can afford to pay, they can get tickets from their upper-class cronies on the overseeing committee for free care, diddling us out of our pittances. Despite all the political manoeuvrings, for us poor buggers in the trenches it’ll be plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose. My two partners here had had enough. One’s gone to Canada, the other to Liverpool.” His smile was lopsided. “So if ye do take the job, don’t say ye weren’t warned.”

  “Thank you for being honest, but—but if it’s so terrible, why do you stay? I mean, I keep wondering myself exactly why I’m so attracted to this kind of practice. I think I know, but may I ask you why you like it here?”

  Doctor Corrigan frowned, said, “Huh,” and shook his head. “I sometimes wonder myself, but I will tell ye a couple of things. When I was a youngster, a country boy from County Ros
common, I came to Dublin to train at the College of Surgeons. The bishops won’t let Catholics attend a Protestant university like Trinity. Like a lot of kids back then I was full of ideals. I always thought the poor people weren’t treated fairly. I saw the lot of the tenement folks firsthand. Somebody had to do something. I’ve no time for politics, as I told ye, and I’m not a bloody evangelist either. I just thought I could make a difference.”

  “I see,” Fingal said. “I think you and my mother would hit it off. She and her friends are trying to get the council to move on slum clearance.”

  “Fair play to her, boy. Most of Dublin’s toffs pretend poverty simply doesn’t exist. Or they blame it on inborn character defects of the poor that make them unable to benefit from help. When I was training, I liked looking after poor people. They were grateful for my efforts and needed medical help a damn sight more because of their poverty, their lousy—and I mean that literally—housing, and appalling diets. The crowding in those neighbourhoods is so atrocious, infections go through the tenements like a gorse fire in summer. I thought the system of free care for them, partly provided by workers’ and employers’ contributions and from city taxes levied on the rich, was a good way to help.”

  “It is,” Fingal said, “and from what I saw as a student, we need more of it.”

  Doctor Corrigan shifted from one buttock to the other. “True, and how much have ye seen of the other side of medicine? The one for the rich?”

  “Not a lot. My folks’ friend Mister Oliver St. John Gogarty, the ENT surgeon, has a private plane and a primrose Rolls-Royce. He charges three hundred pounds for one operation done privately. He taught me at Sir Patrick Dun’s,” Fingal said, “and to be fair, he was absolutely meticulous when he operated on the charity cases.”

  “I’d expect that of the man. I know him too, and I know about how private practice works in Blackrock and Ballsbridge.”

  “My folks live in Ballsbridge,” Fingal said.

  “I’ll forgive ye,” Doctor Corrigan said, “and I know about practising among the rich because, apostate that I am, I let my principles slide. I was an assistant in Merrion Square for a year after I qualified. Money was good, but I got fed up being treated like a minor tradesman at the beck and call of the idle rich. Half of them had nothing better to do than sit around all day dreaming up new imaginary illnesses to suffer from. There was a wonderful vogue for colitis—whatever the hell that is—among the ladies. You could make a fortune giving high colonic enemas.”

  Fingal whistled and said, “Really? I never knew.”

  “And you never saw the highheejins at a hospital like Dun’s, did you? They’d not want to be in a bed beside someone like Mary Foster. They get treated in nursing homes or at home.” Doctor Corrigan wheezed his dry laugh. “I came here in ’07 and I’ve been here since, and I think the locals are used to me by now. I fit in and it’s comforting to be respected, have them value my work, and so I stay, hoping I’m doing some good.”

  Fingal thought of John-Joe. “Doctor Corrigan’s a sound man,” he’d said.

  “But,” and Corrigan laughed, “the real truth is that I am a real Irishman, too stupid to come in out of the rain.” The man’s smile faded and his voice was level. “I hope ye’ll take the job.” He shook his head. “I can’t promise ye’ll have it forever, mind. There’s always rumours of the new administration changing the boundaries of the districts of each dispensary or reducing staff. We’ll have to see how things pan out.”

  Fingal hesitated. That didn’t concern him greatly. There’d be other jobs. A doctor would always find work, not like labourers or even skilled tradesman like John-Joe Finnegan. But would the satisfaction of being a respected, recognised local figure, of getting a diagnosis right, be compensation enough for what he’d just heard about the long hours, the poor pay, the possible future insecurity? The paperwork? He already had experience of the squalor in the patients’ homes. That didn’t bother him. And after a certain initial discomfort with Doctor Corrigan, Fingal reckoned he could do much worse in a senior. He had said he’d not mind working alternate nights, but remembering one of his father’s adages about “fools rushing in” said, “Can I have a day or two to think about it?”

  “Ye can.”

  “Doctor Corrigan, I’ll be honest as well. I love medicine, but there are other things in my life,” like Nurse Kitty O’Hallorhan and rugby football, he thought. “You said if you could hire me and another doctor, the call schedule would be much lighter? One of my classmates is still making up his mind. His name’s Charles Greer.”

  “The big red-haired ox that played in the second row for Ireland last season?”

  So Doctor Corrigan followed the rugby? “The very fellah. He’s one of my best friends. I’m seeing him tomorrow for a jar. I’ll phone him tonight, tell him what you told me, follow up tomorrow and see if he’s interested, and if he is—”

  Doctor Corrigan beamed and said, “If he is, we’d each work one weekend in three. Ye see yer friend tomorrow, and if he wants to find out more, bring him round on Friday at noon.” He slipped off the stool, crossed to Fingal, and offered his hand. The grip was solid. No nonsense.

  “Think hard about it, O’Reilly.” The handshake was broken. “And for now I’ll bid ye fair adieu and go back into the trenches with the great unwashed—the poor divils.”

  7

  Ruinous and Old but Painted Cunningly

  Fingal let himself into the high-ceilinged hall to find Bridgit vigorously taking a feather duster to a large Chinese urn. She bobbed at Fingal. “Nice to see you home, Doctor O’Reilly.”

  “Thank you, Bridgit.” He smiled at her use of his title. Her elevation of him from Master O’Reilly to Doctor had been instantaneous the moment he’d qualified.

  The County Antrim woman from Portglenone had been working for the family since they’d lived in Holywood in the north and had accompanied her employers, Professor Connan O’Reilly and his wife, Mary, and their two young sons to Dublin so their father could take the chair of classics and English literature at Trinity College.

  “I’m a bit late. I got held up,” he said. “Where’s Mother?”

  “In her studio, sir. The professor’s sleeping, so he is.” She inclined her head to the closed door that led to Father’s study. It had recently been converted to a ground-floor bedroom to save him the effort of climbing stairs, something he was no longer able to do.

  “I’ll not disturb him,” Fingal said. Father slept a great deal now as his condition worsened. “It’s important he gets his rest.”

  Bridgit’s voice quavered as she said, as if to herself, “Sleeping’s all very well, but me and Cook wish he’d eat more. The poor professor has no’ got the appetite of a stunted wren these days, so he hasn’t.”

  Fingal’s stomach growled. It seemed unkind after what the maid had said, but he was famished. “I’ve missed lunch. I’m sorry, but do you think Cook could make a quick snack? Something that’s not too much trouble?”

  Bridgit cocked her head and said, “There’s tomato soup, and would you like a sandwich, sir? There’s a brave wheen of cold ham left over.”

  “Soup and a ham sandwich would be grand,” he said. “Thank you, and please thank Cook for me. Could you bring it along to the studio? And maybe a pot of tea, Bridgit?”

  “I’ll see to it, sir.” Bridgit bobbed a curtsey and left.

  Fingal let himself into what had been a guest bedroom before Ma converted it into a studio in 1928. He stood just inside the doorway. On bright days like today, the room was filled with light, and now the midafternoon sunshine streaming in accentuated how pale she had become. The tan she’d brought home in May from her and Father’s long visit to Greece and Egypt, their wintering over in Cap d’Antibes, had faded, and her eyes were sunken, bleary. He knew she was sleeping badly, but being Ma she refused to admit to any tiredness.

  The room was heavy with the smell of oil paint, turpentine, and linseed oil, overpowering the perfume of a huge bunch of re
d roses Ma’d brought from the garden yesterday and set behind her on a broad windowsill. “Fingal, you’re back.” She turned from her easel close to the window, upon which was a canvas prepared with a russet wash of diluted oil paint. “Have you had lunch?”

  He knew his mother well enough to know she would have been fretting about his lateness, but rather than asking for an explanation she worried he hadn’t eaten. “Not yet, but Bridgit’s getting Cook to make me some soup and a sandwich. I told her to bring it here. I thought we could chat while you were working.”

  She indicated one of a pair of folding wooden chairs. “Have a seat then.”

  Fingal did, and watched his artist mother. Her paint-stained smock was in scruffy contrast to the immaculately dressed woman she usually was. She held a palette with swirls of coloured oils that recently had been squeezed from their tubes. A metal dipper clipped to the palette’s edge held linseed oil, and she darted the brush into the dipper and began to soften a dark blue paint with drops of the oil. He knew better than to ask her what the subject would be. Ma never liked to discuss her paintings until they were finished, although she didn’t mind Fingal or Father watching as she worked. “I saw Doctor Corrigan, but we were called out to an accident,” he said. “That’s why I’m late. Some poor divil got hit by a tram. Broke his ankle.”

  “Not nice,” she said.

  “He’ll be all right,” Fingal said. “Pity about his job though.”

  “Why?”

  “The chap’s a cooper. He’d just landed a place at Guinness’s. He’ll be hors de combat for quite a while. They’ll find someone else now.” For a moment Fingal hoped Ma might say she knew one of the members of the famous brewery family and might be able to pull strings.

  “So many out of work. It is a very hard world out there,” she said, put the brush aside, and lifted a palette knife, “and none too easy here.” She sighed. “You knew Doctor Micks was coming this morning. He said he was sorry to have missed you.”