An Irish Country Doctor

by Patrick Taylor

  "It's a new test," said Barry.

  "I'd not heard of it," said O'Reilly, "but modern science is a wonderful thing."

  "I never laid a finger on her."

  "It's not your finger that did the damage." O'Reilly stared at Councillor Bishop's crotch, then at his pudgy hands. "Mind you, I'm sure your fingers are bigger than your willy."

  "You bastard."

  "No," said O'Reilly. "It's your bastard. The one that Julie's carrying. Tell him, Doctor Laverty."

  Barry shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and intoned, "This may be difficult for a layman to understand, Councillor, but if you take a blood sample from a pregnant woman and mix it with pus, even old dried-up pus, from the putative father, there can be an anaphylactoid progression of the polylobed acidophilic granulocytes." Barry knew he was spouting gibberish, but it was what O'Reilly wanted. "Blind the councillor with science," he'd said. "A what?"

  "Pay attention," said O'Reilly.

  It's absolutely . . . pathognomonic." Barry stumbled over the last word. It came hard to lie to a patient or about a patient to a third party.

  " 'Pathognomonic' means that it's money in the bank," O'Reilly said helpfully. "You're the daddy all right, and to tell you the truth, Councillor, I'm proud of you. I wouldn't have thought a wizened up, miserable gobshite like you would have had it in him."

  "There's got to be some mistake." Bishop fiddled with one finger under the knot of his tie. "I never . . ." He took a deep breath. "Your stupid test's wrong. I can prove it. . . ."

  "How?" asked O'Reilly.

  "It's her word against mine."

  "Not exactly," said Barry. "It's your word against hers . . . and two qualified medical men . . . and some highly sophisticated science. Acidophilic granulocytes never lie."

  "But you doctors . . . and I know this for a fact, so I do . . . you doctors can't discuss a patient in public."

  You're right, Barry thought. He looked over to O'Reilly, who bowled serenely along, saying, "Normally you'd be right, Bertie, but in your case we'd be prepared to make an exception. Old Hippocrates would understand."

  I hope so, Barry thought.

  "Oh, Jesus." The councillor buried his face in his hands.

  "Of course, Bertie, there's an outside chance . . . what would you say it was, Doctor Laverty?"

  Barry hesitated.

  "Doctor Laverty?" O'Reilly's eyes were twin agates as he fixed Barry with a glare.

  "About. . . about one in five hundred."

  "That the test could be wrong," O'Reilly said. "Could it?" Councillor Bishop's bluster had gone completely. "Could it?" O'Reilly fiddled about, relighting his pipe. "Could it, for God's sake?"

  "I suppose so, but we wouldn't know for at least two weeks." O'Reilly exhaled smoke. "By then I imagine your loyal brethren down at the Orange Lodge would have had something to say. I hear they can get a bit right-wing about Orangemen who indulge in extramarital hanky-panky. Tend to ask for resignations. The town council could be a tad upset." He pulled the briar out of his mouth and stared into the bowl before saying, "I might just run myself for the vacancy your departure would create."

  Bishop made one last attempt to bluster. "You're bluffing, so you are. Just bluffing."

  "And then," said O'Reilly sweetly, "there's Mrs. Bishop. She told Kinky she'd seen you having a go at Julie MacAteer. I'm sure Mrs. B. wouldn't be hard to convince. . . ."

  "Aaaah."

  "Let's see, Bertie. You are a Protestant. . . of course you are . . . you couldn't be in the Orange Lodge if you weren't. . . and I don't think the Protestant church is as picky about divorce as the Romans."

  "Honest-to-God, I only ever tried to feel Julie's tits. Just the once."

  "Dirty old man," said O'Reilly. His voice hardened. "I might just believe you, Bertie Bishop, but I'll take a lot of convincing."

  Bishop looked up at O'Reilly. "How?"

  "Not much. A wee favour. That's all."

  Barry saw a look cross Bishop's pudgy face as if to say, "Bargaining? I'm good at that." Then the councillor said, "And what would that favour be?"

  With his pipe stem O'Reilly counted off the points on the fingers of his other hand. "You'll fix Sonny's roof, and the rest of his place . . . free of charge."

  "What?" Bishop whimpered.

  "You'll settle five hundred pounds on Julie MacAteer. That's two hundred and fifty per . . . what did you call them? Tits?"

  "Ohjesus."

  "You'll write her a letter of reference that would get her through the pearly gates . . . and if you breathe a word that she's pregnant--"

  "I won't. I swear to God, I won't."

  "Good," said O'Reilly. "Very good . . . and just one other small, little thing."

  "Jesus, there's not more?"

  "Seamus Galvin is looking for someone to buy a clatter of rocking ducks. About four hundred quid would see him right." Barry chuckled inwardly. He'd completely forgotten about the Galvins.

  "Do you know," O'Reilly said, "I think that's about it."

  "I'll be fucked," Bishop muttered. "Ruined."

  "Indeed you will be, Bertie, if you don't do exactly as I've told you, chapter and verse."

  Bishop hung his head.

  "And if you've any notion to try to tell people that Doctor Laverty and myself made all this up, there's the two of us to swear ... regretfully, of course . . . that you came in here tonight hallucinating."

  "A classic case of paranoid schizo-hebephrenia if ever I saw one," Barry added. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  "Can I go?" the councillor asked.

  "If you must," said O'Reilly. "And I'm sure when the laboratory retests the sample, it'll all turn out to have been a horrible mistake." Councillor Bishop looked pleadingly at his persecutor. "Just one more thing, Bertie."

  "What?"

  Hardened steel was in O'Reilly's voice. "If you ever call me a quack again, if you ever forget that Doctor Laverty and I worked hard for our degrees, I'll gut you like a herring. You'll be so unpopular in Ballybucklebo that you'll only find peace hiding behind a false beard, digging peat for a living on the west coast of Inishmore, which I believe is the most westerly of the Aran Islands."

  "I hear you, Doctor O'Reilly," said Councillor Bishop. "I hear you, so I do."

  "Thought you might." O'Reilly knocked the dottle from his pipe into the fireplace. His tone softened. "Cheer up, Bertie. Play your cards right when you fix up Sonny's roof, and your stock will soar in Ballybucklebo. You can pretend to be the greatest philanthropist since Dale Carnegie."

  The look that appeared in Councillor Bishop's eyes reminded Barry of the dim yet cunning gaze he had seen in the orbs of Gertie, the Kennedys' pet sow. "I could, couldn't I?"

  "The citizens would build a statue to you."

  "Go on. They never would."

  "That's 'Go on, Doctor;" O'Reilly said, "but I'll forgive the oversight. . . this time." He put a big hand under Bishop's arm and hoisted the councillor to his feet. "Off you trot, Bertie. Just think how you'd look on a granite horse."

  "I will, Doctor." Bishop sidled to the door. "I think I could maybe get a start made on Sonny's tomorrow. . . ."

  "Close the door behind you," said O'Reilly. "There's a good chap."

  Barry was able to contain his laughter, just, until the door was firmly shut. Finally he said, "That was brilliant, Fingal." O'Reilly went to the sideboard and poured himself a whiskey. "Sherry?"

  "Why not?"

  "Here you are. Sláinte."

  "Sláinte mhaith."

  "No doubt about it, Barry. No doubt about it at all. The pair of us make a grand team."

  If You Can Meet with Triumph and Disaster

  Wednesday morning surgery and lunch were over. O'Reilly consulted his list.

  "Great," he announced, "not one sick one."

  "So we can put our feet up?" Barry rose from the table. "I'm off to have a go at today's crossword."

  "The hell you are," said O'Reilly, shaking his head. "We need to drop in on a
few folks that we've been neglecting." Barry sighed. "Sometimes, Fingal, I wonder about you."

  "And why would that be?" One of O'Reilly's shaggy eyebrows rose.

  "You've been telling me since I came here that we can't carry all the woes of the world on our shoulders. That we've to get away from the customers once in a while."

  "True." O'Reilly blew a perfect smoke ring. "Jesus," he said, poking his index finger through the hole in the middle of the circle. "I never knew I could make rings."

  "Man of many talents," said Barry. "You'll be telling me you can do spherical trigonometry next."

  "As a matter of fact I can. The navigator on the Warspite taught me." The smoke ring rose, twisted, and drifted away. Barry shook his head. "What the hell can't you do?"

  "Walking on water's a bit tricky." O'Reilly grinned. "And by God, I wish I could turn the stuff into wine."

  "Or John Jameson's."

  O'Reilly's grin widened. "Now that's an idea." He watched the blue-grey tendrils slowly vanish. He tried to repeat his feat but merely succeeded in producing a small mushroom cloud. "And you can raise the dead . . . the farmer who keeled over in church when you first came here."

  O'Reilly jabbed at Barry with his pipe stem. "Stick with me, son. I told you you'd learn a thing or two."

  Barry was serious when he said, "I already have."

  "Good," said O'Reilly, "and when we've finished seeing a few folks this afternoon, maybe you'll have learned a bit more."

  "All right. Who do you want to go see?"

  "The Galvins. I want to hear if Bishop's kept his word. The Kennedys. See how Jeannie's doing; then we'll have a word with Maggie. Let her know about Sonny."

  "That shouldn't take long."

  O'Reilly's expression clouded. "They're the easy ones. We'll have to make a stop with Mrs. Fotheringham."

  Barry swallowed. He'd been trying not to think about that particular case. "Do we have to?"

  O'Reilly nodded. "She'll be worried sick, and I'll bet she won't have a clue what's going on. The specialists at the Royal are too busy to talk to relatives. You know what visiting hours are like, and if she did get through on the phone she'd be told by some ward clerk, 'He's comfortable,' or 'He's resting,' or 'I'm sorry we're not allowed to give out information on the phone.'" Barry was only recently removed from the bustle of the great teaching hospital. He could well remember how much time was spent on the technical aspects of the patients' cases--and how little on their and their families' worries. Visiting hours were regimented. Immediate family only. Two 'til four in the afternoon. No visitors on Wednesdays. And he now recognized that most of the relatives had been too overawed by their surroundings to ask questions. It had all seemed perfectly natural to him--back then. "Right," said O'Reilly, "I'll phone the ward. Check up on Fotheringham's progress. It'll only take a minute to see his wife. Set her mind at rest."

  Barry steeled himself before saying, "Could I do that? It should be me who tries to explain things to her."

  O'Reilly cocked his head on one side. "You know, I hoped you'd say that." Barry heard the satisfaction in his senior colleague's voice as O'Reilly continued, "You'll need to get put through to Ward Twenty-one. You make the call. I'll see you at the car. Out front again."

  Barry spoke to one of the junior medical staff on the ward and was gratified to hear that Major Fotheringham's recovery, although slow, was progressing as anticipated. He'd be left with some impairment of his speech and weakness of his left side, but he should be able to live a fairly normal life. He'd have his stitches taken out on Friday and be discharged for outpatient follow-up and physiotherapy the following week.

  "Thank you," Barry said, and was about to hang up, when--why not? "Could you reconnect me with the switchboard?" he asked. He got through at once.

  "Could you page Doctor Mills please?"

  "Hold on."

  Barry waited. He could imagine the look on Jack's face when the bleep-bleep-bleep went off in the pocket of his white coat. More bloody work. That's what his friend would think. "Mills here." Jack's voice was clipped. Businesslike. "Jack? Barry."

  "It's yourself, is it? I thought Sir Donald Cromie was after my hide when my bleeper went off. I'm running a bit late. What's up?"

  "Nothing. I'll not keep you, but I had to phone the Royal so I thought I'd see if you were about the place."

  "I'm on my way to theatre. It's lumps and bumps this afternoon. Minor cases, warts, sebaceous cysts, the odd ingrowing toenail. Good training for young surgeons, according to Sir Donald."

  "And a good excuse for you to do the work while he--"

  "Plays golf. That's one of the advantages of surgery. When you do get a senior position, you can turn over the trivia to your juniors. Get a bit of time off. You still as busy as ever?"

  "Not too bad."

  "Have you heard anything from that wee bird of yours yet?"

  "Patricia?" Barry shook his head. Somehow the crisis with Major Fotheringham, Cissie's thyroid disease, and Julie MacAteer's pregnancy had all served to drive Patricia from his thoughts--most of the time. "No. Not a peep."

  "She blew you out last Friday. That's only four days. Give her time."

  "But if she doesn't call?"

  "Then, my old son, you're just like the Christmas turkey . . . right, regally stuffed."

  "I suppose so." Barry knew that his friend was right. It certainly looked as though she'd just been letting him down gently. Her insistence on the importance of her career had been a convenient way of letting him know that no matter how he felt, she was not as taken with him. And damn it, smitten as he was, it was up to her to make the next move.

  "Time's a great healer," Jack said, "and so is the produce of Mr. Arthur Guinness and Sons. Any chance of getting together again?"

  "I'll call you later in the week if I'm free . . . and if I haven't heard from Patricia."

  "Do that. I've got to run. Can't keep the lumps and bumps waiting . . . and if I don't see you through the week, I'll see you through the window." The line went dead.

  Barry hung up and smiled.

  "Are you coming?" O'Reilly bawled from outside. Barry closed the front door and trotted to the car. "Well?" O'Reilly asked. "How's the major?"

  "On the mend."

  "Good." O'Reilly eased the car away from the kerb.

  "Isn't it grand, Dr. O'Reilly?" Maureen Galvin, eyes bright, showed O'Reilly a pile of twenty-pound notes. "Some fellow came round first thing this morning. Seamus was out. Says your man to me, 'I hear your husband's got a load of rocking ducks for sale.' 'Right,' says I. 'I'll take the lot,' says he. And would you look at that? Four hundred quid."

  "I'm delighted," said O'Reilly.

  "You never saw such things in your life," said Maureen. "Not one of them looked like any duck I'd ever seen."

  "Must have been things of beauty to behold," said O'Reilly. "I'm sure they'll sell like hotcakes."

  Maureen pursed her lips. "I'm not so sure, but that's for the fellow that bought them to worry about."

  "Oh, indeed," said Barry. If the rocking ducks were as odd as Maureen had said, he wondered, exactly what would Councillor Bishop do with his new acquisitions?

  "Anyway," said Maureen, "we got our money back and a bit of a profit. I don't know how you fixed it, Doctor, sir, but. . ."

  O'Reilly brushed her thanks aside. "So when are the three of you off to sunny California?"

  "Just as soon as I can get the tickets bought. And . . ." She hesitated. "Would you do me a wee favour?"

  "Ask away."

  She handed him the money. "Would you take care of that?"

  O'Reilly took the notes.

  "I'd be happier if Seamus--"

  "Don't you worry your head about them," said O'Reilly, stuffing the notes in his trouser pocket. "They'll be safe as houses."

  She smiled at him, cocked her head to one side, and asked, "Would you be free on Saturday, Doctors?" Barry had hoped he might be allowed some time off. He wanted to see Patricia if she ever did p
hone, or perhaps he'd meet Jack if she didn't. He looked questioningly at O'Reilly. "We might," said O'Reilly.

  "We're having a wee going-away party. We'd like for you both to come."

  "What do you think, Doctor Laverty?"

  "We'd have it here. In the afternoon," said Maureen. Barry could tell by the way she looked up into O'Reilly's face that the presence of her medical advisors was important. "I don't see why not," he said. He might still be able to get an hour or two off after the party.

  "Grand," said Maureen.

  O'Reilly glanced round the tiny parlour. "How many folks were you thinking of having?"

  Maureen shrugged.

  "I tell you what," said O'Reilly, "could you or Seamus get your hands on the marquee the Ballybucklebo Highlanders use at the Field on the Twelfth?"

  "I'll ask Seamus."

  "Just in case it rains," said O'Reilly. "There'd be a lot more room in my back garden."

  Maureen beamed. "You wouldn't mind, sir?"

  "Not at all. You never know how many'll show up at a Ballybucklebo ceili."

  "Seamus'll get the big tent. He's not pipe major for nothing. We'll put it up on Saturday morning."

  "Right," said O'Reilly. "Now, we'll need some grub. Mrs. Kincaid'll take care of that. I'll get a couple of barrels of stout over from the Duck."

  "But that'll cost a fortune."

  "No," said O'Reilly, "Willy the barman'll have to charge the guests. I'm not made of money."

  Barry remembered the difficulties he and Jack had had when they wanted to throw a party in the students' mess. The Ulster licensing laws were a little on the confusing side. If anyone wanted to sell alcohol anywhere but in a registered public house they had to apply for a special permit. It usually took a week or two for one to be issued. "We'll not have time to get a permit," he said. "We'll not need one," said O'Reilly. "We'll not sell drink. . . we'll sell glasses of water."

  "What?"

  "Water," said O'Reilly with a huge grin. "Grand stuff. Works wonders for greyhounds, you don't need a permit to sell it, and there's nothing to stop you giving away a free drink with every glass of water sold."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Absolutely."