An Irish Country Doctor Read online

  "Sonny," said O'Reilly, "this is Doctor Laverty."

  "Pleased to meet you, Sonny." Barry stared at the man. He was almost as tall as O'Reilly, older, yet stood with the bearing of a regimental sergeant major. He wore a yellow sou'wester from under which locks of iron-grey hair flowed to his shoulders. His eyes were as pale as those of a collie dog, yet his ruddy cheeks told of years of Ulster winds. And, Barry wondered, was there the faintest tinge of blue in the skin above the man's cheekbones?

  "Have you any new potatoes?" O'Reilly asked.

  I have." Sonny reached behind the spin dryer and produced a small sack. "Five shillings and sixpence." He gave the sack to O'Reilly, who counted the coins into a hand that Barry could see was bent with the nodules of arthritis.

  'I brought you more of these," said O'Reilly, handing over two small plastic medicine bottles.

  "How much do I owe--?" Already Sonny was reaching into his trouser pocket.

  "Samples," said O'Reilly. "The salesman from the drug company gives them to me for free."

  "You wouldn't be having me on? I can pay, you know."

  "Not at all," said O'Reilly. "How are the dogs?"

  "All grand, except Sandy. The silly bugger got into a fight with Maggie's cat."

  "I heard," said O'Reilly.

  "And how is the old biddy?" Barry heard tenderness as Sonny spoke.

  "Rightly," said O'Reilly.

  "I'm glad to hear that." Sonny's pale eyes softened. "Silly old duck."

  "Aye," said O'Reilly. "Well, we must be getting along."

  "Thank you, Doctor," said Sonny, picking up one of the folding plastic chairs and opening it. "I'll just sit here awhile, now the sun's out." He settled in the chair and looked at the spin dryer. "My clothes are nearly ready." A dog howled from the other side of the hedge. "Wheest now," Sonny called. "I'll be with you in a little minute."

  "What on earth was that all about?" Barry asked, as O'Reilly pointed the Rover homewards.

  "Pride," said O'Reilly. " 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.' Proverbs 16:18."

  "Pride?"

  "Sonny is the most stiff-necked man I've ever met, and yet he's one of the most contented. He has a Ph.D., you know, used to work for some big chemical company in Belfast, but he'd rather stay at home and live in his car."

  "In his car? But I saw a caravan."

  "For the dogs," said O'Reilly. "Sonny dotes on his dogs."

  "But why does he live in his car? Can he not get the roof of his house repaired?"

  "Yes . . . and no. You remember the worthy Councillor Bishop?"

  "Yes."

  "He's a building contractor. Twenty years ago Sonny hired Bishop to replace the roof. He wanted the house all done up before they got married."

  Barry remembered how Sonny had asked about Maggie MacCorkle. "Not to Maggie?"

  "To Maggie, but--and it's a big but--Bishop . . . and he's a man who'd wrestle a bear for a ha'penny . . . tried to cheat Sonny on the price of a load of slates."

  "After the old roof had been stripped?"

  "Precisely. Sonny refused to pay Bishop for the work he'd done already. Bishop said Sonny could whistle for his new roof. Maggie wouldn't marry a man who quite literally couldn't keep a roof over her head. Sonny quit his job, moved into his car, supports himself selling vegetables and scrap iron, and there the matter rests."

  "I'll be damned. For twenty years?"

  "Aye." O'Reilly turned into his back lane. "That's about the length and the breadth of it."

  "Sonny's not too well, is he?"

  "Why do you say that?"

  "His cheeks are a bit blue."

  "Smart of you to notice."

  Barry smiled. "Heart failure?"

  "Only mild." O'Reilly stopped the car.

  'What did you give him?"

  'Digitalis and a diuretic. They keep it pretty well in control." Barry frowned. "Can you get those for free from the drug reps?"

  "Ah," said O'Reilly, "them as ask no questions get told no lies. Now be a good lad and open the garage door."

  Mrs. Kincaid greeted them in the kitchen.

  "Any calls, Kinky?" O'Reilly asked.

  "Not one, but there is a shmall little matter you should see to, so."

  "Oh?"

  She glanced down at Barry's trousers. "Have you been in the bogs again so soon? You're clabber to the knee."

  "Arthur," said Barry resignedly. "He was pleased to see me back."

  O'Reilly laughed. "He's taken quite a shine to you." Bloody dog, Barry thought.

  "'Tis a good thing I washed your other pants." Mrs. Kincaid looked up.

  Barry followed the direction of her glance. Above his head, hanging over a wooden rack that had been hoisted on a system of pulleys, he saw his corduroys.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Kincaid."

  "Far be it from me to intrude," said O'Reilly, "but you said there was something for me to sort out, Kinky."

  Her bright little eyes almost disappeared when she smiled and said, "It's in the surgery." She walked off.

  "Lead on, Macduff." O'Reilly followed Mrs. Kincaid.

  "Actually, it's 'Lay on, Macduff.'"

  " 'And damned be him that first cries "Hold, enough!"' Macbeth," said O'Reilly.

  "I know that." He went into the surgery where Mrs. Kincaid stood beside the examining table. "You'd just gone out when somebody rang the bell. I found this thing, so." She indicated a wicker basket that sat on the couch.

  "Good God," said O'Reilly, "you don't think it's the old waif-in the-basket number, do you?"

  If it is, Barry thought, it's a baby with a most peculiar cry. A low growling, harsh and brittle, with overtones of a small vessel's foghorn, filled his ears.

  "Well," said O'Reilly, "I'd better take a look." He tapped on the side of the basket. Barry watched the basket jerk for several inches along the couch, as if moved by some primal force. The growls increased by about ten decibels.

  "Take you care now, Doctor." Mrs. Kincaid made the sign, index fingers crossed to ward off the evil eye. O'Reilly opened the lid. Barry took a step backwards as a white blur erupted from the container and with one final eldritch shriek, landed on O'Reilly's shoulder.

  "Begod, it's a cat," he said, reaching up and hauling it off its perch. "Push-wush. Pushy-wushy." He held the animal in one big hand and stroked its head with the other. It struggled briefly; then seemingly accepting its lot, it butted its head against O'Reilly's palm. Barry heard a low rumbling. The animal was purring. "Mmm," said O'Reilly. "I doubt if we'll find out who left it, and we can't just put it out."

  "Will I find it some milk, Doctor?"

  "That would be grand, Kinky," said O'Reilly, handing her the little feline. "And could you manage a cup of tea for us while you're at it?"

  "I will, so. Come on, you wee dote," she said fondly, and headed for her kitchen.

  "I don't know about you, Barry," O'Reilly said, "but after last night at the Fotheringhams', I could use a bit of time with my feet up." Barry yawned.

  "Tired?"

  "A bit."

  "Well," said O'Reilly, "it's only a couple of days 'til your day off."

  I'm Standing in a Railway Station

  Saturday, Barry's first day off, was what the locals would call "a grand soft day." He turned up the collar of his raincoat against the damp that was neither heavy enough to be rain nor light enough to be mist. Mrs. Kincaid had said the train to Belfast would leave Ballybucklebo at ten fifteen. Half an hour to Belfast, fifteen minutes to walk into the city centre, where he intended to invest a part of his first week's pay in a pair of Wellington boots, half an hour on the bus up Grosvenor Road, and he'd still be in good time to see Jack Mills in O'Kane's Bar opposite the gates of the Royal Victoria Hospital. He strode along Ballybucklebo's main street, acknowledging the greetings of passersby. Some he recognized. They had been among the many who in the last week had perched on the wooden chair in the surgery. Others were unfamiliar, but all seemed to know who he was. Not,
he thought, turning onto the aptly named Station Road, like Belfast where impersonal people ignored each other, and everyone was a stranger, none with as much as a "Good-day." He found the village's familiarity comforting.

  He bought his ticket and went to the platform. A pair of tracks, metal shiny from regular use, ran between the raised platforms. On the opposite side of the roadbed a waiting room crouched, its slate roof of granite stone darkened by the drizzle. Old tin advertisements were nailed to its walls. The one for Waverley fountain pens--white letters on a blue background, the message interrupted by streaks of rust--had probably been put up before the First World War, and nobody had bothered to take it down. He read the slogan: "They"--rust blot--"a Boon and a Blessing to men, The"-- more rust--"the Owl and the Waverley Pen." He heard the rattle of an approaching train and could smell its exhaust. The brakes screeched. The train stopped. Barry let himself into a compartment where two upholstered benches faced each other, and was pleased to see that it was unoccupied. He sat in the familiar space and wondered how often as a student he had ridden on this train from his home in Bangor farther down the line to the Queen's Quay terminal in Belfast. How many times had he ridden past Ballybucklebo without even paying attention to its existence?

  The train jerked, grumbled, and pulled away from the station. Barry stared through the window and watched the scenery go by. A wide ditch kept company with the track. Families of mallard swam in the ditch, the drakes' heads incandescent green. The ducks dowdy save for the emerald and blue flashes of their wing specula, chivvied their yellow ducklings. A line of Yeats came to mind: "O'Driscoll drove with a song / The wild duck and the drake / From the tall and the tufted reeds / Of the drear Hart Lake."

  The fragment reminded him that as well as Wellingtons he wanted to buy the most recent book of poetry by this new chap Seamus Heaney. He had an interesting way of using words to describe Ulster life, a way that Barry found resonated with his own thoughts about the place. He wondered how Heaney would describe the land between the ditch and the lough. A wide, wild bog, where bulrushes and brambles grew with unchecked abandon, was the only way he could think to describe it. The lough was calm, gunmetal grey under a lowering sky, and on the far shore the clouds were so low, so still, that they might have been nailed to the crests of the Antrim Hills. It was the kind of day that was all too common, that must, he thought, give Ulster folk the dour side to their personalities, although he himself did not feel one bit low. He'd certainly seen a fair bit of how things worked since he joined O'Reilly's practice, and that was why he'd come. He had a great deal to think about, and he was no closer to answering the question, Was he really cut out for rural general practice? What he had seen had been a revelation. Barry had not understood the diversity of work in a place like Ballybucklebo, and O'Reilly was one of the oddest men Barry had ever met. He was unpredictable, at times bad-tempered, untiring, and given to odd medical practices. He cared deeply about his charges yet was dismissive to the point of becoming angry if anyone hinted that he had a kindly streak. Barry wondered why O'Reilly hadn't married. Perhaps the demands of his practice had not given him time for any social life, or perhaps, Barry smiled, no woman could put up with the man's quirks. He must ask Mrs. Kincaid.

  The train shuddered to a halt at Kinnegar Station. Two young women tumbled aboard and sat at the other end of the compartment, one opposite, one on his side. Barry tried to ignore them by turning away and staring out the window. Their chatter intruded. It was impossible to think about anything when one insisted in declaiming her thoughts as if their import was so great that the whole bloody world should be let in on her secrets.

  "Away on. Charlie Simpson does not fancy Eileen." The speaker's voice was harsh, with the flat accents of Belfast. "That Eileen has a face on her like a sheep."

  "He's daft about her. . . ."

  "That's not what I heard."

  Poor Charlie Simpson, whoever he was, daft about some girl, Barry thought. He himself had been daft about a student nurse. He closed his eyes and pictured her green eyes, auburn hair, slim figure; thought about the nights in the backseat of Brunhilde, the Volkswagen's windows opaque with the condensation of their breathing, the surreptitious trips to his room in the junior medical staff quarters, the sweetness and the softness . . . and the gnawing emptiness when she had told him, in a voice that was so matter-of-fact that she might have been ordering a pound of bacon in a grocer's shop, that she was going to marry a surgeon. Six months ago. And still it stung. "Do you know it would serve her right to get stuck with Charlie? He's thick as two short planks, so he is."

  Barry wished the young woman would shut up. She had a voice that would cut tin.

  The other chuckled. Her laugh was contralto, deep and resonant. Barry glanced at her. She had black hair with a sheen like a healthy animal's pelt. Her face was strong, with a firm chin and full lips that bore the merest hint of pale pink lipstick. Slavic cheekbones. Dark eyes with an upward tilt. They had a deep, unfathomable glow, like the warmth in well-polished mahogany. Her skin was smooth and tanned, and a small dimple showed in her left cheek as she laughed. But for that dimple, she could have been Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.

  Her laughter died, and Barry found himself wishing that she would laugh again. He didn't want her to see him staring, so he looked away, but soon he found his gaze drawn back. She was looking out the window. He saw her in profile. She wore an unbuttoned white gabardine raincoat.

  "Anyway, Patricia," her friend rattled on, "I says to Eileen, says I. . ."

  Would she never stop prattling? He glanced down and then stole another look. Patricia, that was her name; Patricia turned, caught him staring, and held his gaze. His hand flew to his head, and he smoothed the damn tuft. "Excuse me," he said, knowing that he was blushing. "I'm awfully sorry. . . ."

  She laughed again, warm and throaty. "A cat can look at a king . . . if it doesn't think the king's a mouse."

  "I'm sorry."

  The train slowed. He saw the sign for Belfast Station glide past the window. The train stopped. They left. Barry closed his eyes and sat back against the cushions. Why in hell had he not had the courage to find out more about Patricia? In the movies she would have left something on the train, something he could use as an excuse to run after her. No such luck. Ships that pass, he thought, and yet, and yet. . .

  He left the compartment not expecting to see any sign of Patricia and her chatty friend, but there they were up ahead, Patricia leaning on the noisy one's arm and limping slowly. Must have hurt herself playing hockey, he thought. She certainly looked the athletic type. He took a deep breath, smoothed his hair, and lengthened his stride until he drew level.

  "Excuse me," he said, "excuse me."

  Patricia stopped and faced him.

  "Come away on out of that, Patricia." The friend tugged at Patricia's sleeve and scowled at Barry.

  Words tumbled out. "Look. My name's Barry Laverty. I want. . . that is . . . I'd like--"

  "Away off and chase yourself." More tugging at the coat sleeve.

  "Will you have dinner with me tonight? Please?"

  Patricia gave him an appraising look, head-to-toe like a roué undressing a woman with his eyes.

  "You've a right brass neck, so you have." The friend glared at Barry. "Anyway, we're busy the night."

  Patricia smiled. "That's right. We are."

  "Oh." Barry felt that his being able to catch up with the pair had been like a last-minute stay of execution, but by her words Patricia had told him that the warden's midnight call had not come and wasn't going to. His shoulders sagged.

  "But I'm taking the ten o'clock train back to the Kinnegar."

  He saw the laugh in her dark eyes, and his breath caught in his throat.

  Barry sat in a plastic-covered chair at a Formica-topped table in the window alcove of the upstairs room of O'Kane's Bar, the nearest watering hole to the Royal Victoria Hospital. At his feet a pair of Wellington boots lay in a brown paper bag. He glanced at his watch. Jack M
ills was late, and that wasn't like Jack. The curtains behind Barry swayed in the draught coming in through the window. He tried to see out through the smut and drizzle streaks. He leant back and peered up Grosvenor Road to the casualty department, outside which, regal and dignified, the bronze statue of Her Royal Majesty Victoria, Regina, Dei Gratia, Rid. Def., Ind., Imp., sat enthroned. Her sceptre, covered in bird shite, made a convenient perch for a pair of pigeons.

  A shadow fell over the table top, and Barry turned to see Jack Mills wearing a long white coat, his usual grin pasted to a country face that would not have been out of place on a farmer from Cullybackey--which was where Jack's folks ran a dairy herd.

  "Sorry I'm late." Jack sat. "I'd a bugger of a night on call and this morning was murder." He pulled out a packet of cigarettes. "Fag?"

  Barry shook his head. "I quit last year. Remember?"

  "Right." Jack lit up. "I'm knackered." He stretched out his legs.

  "Pint?" Barry asked, looking forward to spending the afternoon with his old friend. "Can't. Sorry." Jack inhaled deeply and shook his head.

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. The registrar in Sick Kids is sick himself, and they need a hand on a surgical case in about an hour. I got the short straw, damn it." Jack's smile belied his words. "I wouldn't mind a quick bite to eat though."

  Barry swallowed his disappointment. It was going to be a long day before the ten o'clock train. He imagined dark eyes and hoped the wait would be worth it.

  "Grub," said Jack. He turned and called to the barman, "Brendan, could you manage a steak-and-mushroom pie, chips, and an orange squash?"

  "Right, Doctor Mills." Brendan put down the glass he was polishing. "What about you, Doctor Laverty?"

  "That would be good." Barry never ceased to be amazed by how Brendan, owner and barman, a man of indeterminate age with a face like a bilious heifer, remembered the names of the generations of students and junior doctors who used his establishment. "So," Jack asked, "how's the world abusing you?"