An Irish Country Wedding

by Patrick Taylor

  “Not a soul.”

  “Mister Archie Auchinleck, the milkman, he’s a widow-man like yourself. He had asked me out twice before I got sick, but I’d said no. Now if he asks again, I’ve half a notion to accept.”

  “By God, Kinky, you must. You dance at my wedding and I’ll dance at yours.”

  “Go ’way, sir,” but the smile dimples were there on her cheeks. “It does be nothing like that, but still—” She let the words hang and he heard the wistfulness.

  O’Reilly knew the details of her past. He did not hesitate to say, “And I’m sure your Paudeen would have approved.”

  “He does, sir. He told me so.”

  O’Reilly felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise, and he had no doubt that Kinky Kincaid meant what she said about her long-drowned husband. “I’m glad for you. I truly am.”

  She sat up straighter and said, “And if I’m going to get home soon I need to build up my strength.” She lifted a sandwich.

  “As you’d say yourself, Kinky, ‘Eat up however little much is in it.’”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, taking a large bite.

  O’Reilly knew she was being thankful for more than the food. “Right,” he said. “I’ve got to go, but Doctor Mills will keep us posted down at Number One, and the minute he says you’re ready for home, Barry or myself’ll be up here to fetch you as fast as one of those Yankee Agena rockets.”

  Before he closed the door behind him, he turned back. “How is it?” he asked.

  She swallowed, frowned, then said, “It was most generous of Mary Dunleavy … but I do believe the joint could have taken five minutes more in the oven, so. And Doctor Laverty could have been more generous with the mustard.” Kinky looked O’Reilly straight in the eye. “It is a fair sandwich all right, but it does be time I was back at Number One.”

  “It does indeed,” O’Reilly said. “Cheerio, Kinky.” He was still chuckling as he walked down the main corridor to visit Aggie Arbuthnot. It certainly seemed to him that the Corkwoman was truly on the mend, and in many more ways than one.

  22

  Politics Is Not an Exact Science … But

  “Did you save a life?” Sue asked when Barry came into the lounge and headed for the fireplace, blowing on his hands. He turned his back to the fire as a gust of wind rattled the glass of the bow windows. He noticed that the coffee table was strewn with papers. Lady Macbeth was curled up asleep on a red folder. Sue sat in an armchair, reading glasses on the end of her nose. Very schoolmistressy, he thought. “One life?” Barry said, and grinned. “Only one? Single-handedly I have cleared up a raging epidemic—”

  “You sound like Peter Sellers trying to impress Sophia Loren in that song … what was it called? It was a big hit a few years ago.” She sang,

  —with one jab of my needle in the Punjab, How I cleared up beriberi—

  “‘Goodness Gracious Me,’” said Barry.

  Sue made a face. “Was my singing that bad?”

  “Silly. That’s the name of the song.” He smiled and moved to the side. The backs of his trouser legs were becoming uncomfortably hot, but overall he was feeling warmed up. The unseasonal May gale must have come screeching down from somewhere north of Spitzbergen. As he’d once heard O’Reilly remark, “Any Ballybucklebo brass monkeys would be singing treble.”

  “I’m teasing you, Barry Laverty.” Then she laughed and to Barry’s ear it was even more musical than her singing. “All right,” he said, “no epidemic. It was one of our regulars. Lives up on the council estate. Chap has chronic bronchitis and it had flared up into an acute attack. That bloody place is so damp it’s a wonder not everybody on it has bronchitis. Anyway, penicillin and Friar’s Balsam inhalations should do the trick for Ronan.”

  “Rónán,” she said, lengthening the vowels to its Irish pronunciation, “Gaelic for little seal.” She patted the chair beside her. “Come and sit down. And, by the way, there were no other calls while you were out.” She took off her glasses and popped them into a handbag.

  “Good.” Barry collapsed into the chair. “Bloody cold out there,” he said.

  “Would you like a cup of something?”

  Barry shook his head. “It’ll be lunchtime soon. I’m warmed up now. I’ll wait.”

  “If you’re allowed a wee tot on call?”

  “I am.”

  “I put a bottle of Entre-Deux-Mers in the fridge to have with lunch. I hope you don’t mind. I hope it’s all right. I’m not much of a wine expert.”

  “Lovely,” he said, “and thank you.” He looked at the light dancing in her copper hair, the smile in those eyes and on her most kissable lips and thought there was nothing he’d rather be doing than sipping a glass of chilled white wine over lunch with Sue Nolan. And after? Things would be “easy and slow,” but up here in the lounge, alone? Perhaps more than just kisses? Barry inhaled deeply and was barely aware that he was making an expectant growling in his throat. He noticed a basket of turf a patient had given O’Reilly, and the earthy scent of a couple of pieces on the usually coal-burning fire would certainly add to the atmosphere when they came back up here.

  Lady Macbeth yawned, stood, arched her back, and looked at Sue.

  “I always thought white cats were standoffish, but this wee thing seems to have taken a shine to me. She’s been up here with me since you left,” Sue said.

  Her Ladyship jumped down and dislodged papers that Barry bent to retrieve. He read, Minutes of the May 1, 1965, meeting of the Campaign for Social Justice and handed the papers to Sue.

  “I’m secretary,” she said. “Mrs. Patricia McCluskey is chairman, and Mrs. Olive Scott and Mister Peter Gormley are some of the committee.”

  “Peter Gormley’s a surgeon. Decent chap. I’ve met him,” Barry said. He remembered Sue saying last Saturday that she’d been at the CSJ meeting, but she hadn’t wanted to discuss politics over dinner, a statement of which he had heartily approved. He’d be perfectly happy to leave such discussion in abeyance today too, but Sue had picked up one of the papers and was clearing her throat. “Our purpose, and I quote, ‘is to bring the light of publicity to bear on the discrimination which exists in our community—’”

  “Very interesting, Sue. I’d … I’d love to hear more, but I think I’ll just go upstairs and wash my hands before lunch—”

  “Just a bit more.” She took a deep breath. “‘The discrimination which exists in our community against the Catholic section of that community, representing more than one-third of the total population.’”

  “Good Lord, that’s a mouthful.”

  “Barry,” she shook her head, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were patronizing me.” Her voice was stern but there was still a playful light in her eyes. “Seriously, though,” she said softly, “do you have any idea how bad it is here? Do you?”

  Barry hung his head. “I’m sorry, but no, not really. I mean, I’ve seen plenty of patients like Ronan in those God-awful council estate places, and I know it’s important, Sue, I know it’s out there. I just treated a fellow who was well on his way to breaking a rib, he was coughing so violently. But my job’s to fix individuals, not whole communities.” He tried to lighten the tone by grinning and saying, “I’m not sure I’m ready for this, not before lunch.”

  She shook her head. “But that’s what’s wrong. No one knows about the problem, and no one wants to know. They prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist, and that’s why somebody has to do something.”

  She wasn’t going to be deflected. Barry admired people who had principles—and stuck to them. “Like your society?” he said, deciding to hear her out.

  “Yes, and the other group, the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster.” She lifted a pamphlet and handed it to him.

  He read the title: “‘Northern Ireland: The Plain Truth. February 1964.’”

  “Or that.”

  “‘Londonderry: One Man No Vote.’”

  “We put those two out.” She sat, arms folded across her che
st. “The Catholics in this country are treated as badly as the blacks in America, but at least over there they’re starting to rear up and get results. We need a Martin Luther King.” Her eyes shone. “I saw his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on television two years ago. Such powerful thoughts.”

  “And that’s what got you interested in civil rights? I saw your library,” Barry said.

  She nodded. “People should be treated fairly.”

  And certainly in modern Ulster when there was discrimination it was the Catholics who suffered, and they of all people would be the ones most motivated to agitate. He hesitated. Certain questions were taboo in Ulster, but if Barry was going to go on seeing Sue Nolan, there was one that must be answered, and answered now before things between them, as he was beginning to hope they might, got serious. It wouldn’t mean an end, only that things would be in the open. The question had plagued the whole country for four hundred years. As a doctor, he knew that, ethically, a patient’s religious persuasion was not permitted to matter, regardless of the doctor’s personal beliefs. Even before he’d become a physician Barry had not cared about what side of the religious divide anybody stood. He had two classmates who’d had mixed marriages, though. One lad and his wife were in Canada now, and Finoula O’Gara and her Protestant husband were in New Zealand. Ulster society on both sides didn’t make it easy for such couples. “Sue,” he said, “I hesitate to ask, but are you—”

  “Am I a Catholic?” One eyebrow rose. He could imagine he might get that look if he were a schoolboy who had failed to do his homework. He found it attractive despite the edge in her voice. “No,” she said, “no, I’m not. Would it have mattered, to us?”

  Barry had already decided what his answer was, but he was also aware of the instant sense of relief that swept through him. Old tribal folk beliefs died hard no matter how liberally one tried to think. It didn’t, however, lessen the anxiety of knowing that if answered incorrectly that would be the end of any further friendship or any deepening of feelings. “No,” he said unhesitatingly, “it wouldn’t. Not one bit.”

  “Put those pamphlets down and stand up,” she said, and rose.

  He obeyed and she came to him, kissed him long and hard, and said, “I took a shine to you, Barry Laverty, before Christmas at the kiddies’ Christmas pageant. I warmed to you last Saturday over dinner, and if you really mean that … really mean it, I think I could get very fond of you. Very fond indeed.” And she kissed him again. “Now, how about lunch and that wine?”

  Barry tried to catch his breath. Too fast. The whole thing was going too fast, but swept up in her mood he trotted after her, nearly tripping over the cat, who was heading downstairs.

  The phone rang. Not now, damn it all, not now.

  Sue was passing the phone. She turned around and pointed. “Shall I?”

  He nodded and she answered, “Doctors O’Reilly and Laverty?”

  He watched her frown, turn pale, and say, “There’s no need to be rude.” Making no attempt to cover the mouthpiece, she handed Barry the receiver while saying, “It’s a Councillor Bishop and he is not a nice man.”

  “Hello?”

  A voice roared over the phone, “What the hell do you mean, not nice?”

  If the boot fits, Barry thought, but said, “Can I help you, Councillor?”

  “Laverty? Where the hell’s O’Reilly?”

  There were days when Barry wished he were not bound by Hippocratic tenets and could tell Bertie Bishop to go to blazes, but he said, “In Belfast. Can I help you?”

  “His bloody cat’s been at my pigeons again. I just seen it running away there now, so I did.”

  Barry waited.

  “Are you still there, Laverty?”

  “I am, Councillor, and so is Doctor O’Reilly’s cat.”

  “Away off and feel your head. I told you I just seen the bloody thing not five minutes ago.”

  “I’m sorry, you can’t have. She’s been here all morning, and you don’t have to take my word for it. I have a witness. You spoke to her a minute ago. And the last time this happened, the cat had been with our receptionist, Helen Hewitt, the entire time.”

  “Huh,” Bertie grunted, and said, “well, something white got two more of my birds, and by Jesus I’m going to get it, so I am.”

  Barry’s ear tingled from the crash of Bertie’s receiver being slammed down. He put his on the cradle, grinned at Sue, and shrugged. “You’re right. Not a nice man, our Bertie Bishop,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to take abuse from him.”

  “I’ve heard worse,” she said, then moved to him and asked, “What’s for lunch, Doctor?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” he said, “but we can go and look in the fridge.”

  As they walked hand in hand along the hall to the kitchen, Barry gave a moment’s thought to Colin Brown’s ferret, Butch. That would have to be looked into before Bishop put two and two together, came to a conclusion, and rightly or wrongly demanded retribution. But not today, not until after lunch and a bottle of chilled white. Not until, telephone willing and O’Reilly not coming home too soon, Barry had spent time alone with Sue Nolan in the comfortable, cosy, private, upstairs lounge.

  23

  In That Case, What Is the Question?

  “Sorry I’m late, lads,” O’Reilly said as he opened the door to one of the ten snugs in the Crown Liquor Saloon on Great Victoria Street, not far from the Royal. “I had to pop in with a couple of patients.” Aggie Arbuthnot had been surprised and pleased to see him and was indeed doing well, physically, but was still worrying about finding a job. She should be discharged soon. “Move over in the bed, Charlie.” Charlie Greer slid along the cubicle’s deep U of smooth black leather benches with button backs. O’Reilly sat beside his friend.

  “Better late than never,” Sir Donald Cromie said. “Did you call with Mrs. Kincaid?”

  “I did,” said O’Reilly, “and thanks to you, Cromie, she’s out of the woods and well on her way.” Ever since they had been students together in the 1930s, “Cromie” had been his friend’s preferred form of address. “And thanks to you too, Charlie, and your Mister Gupta, Donal Donnelly’s running round like a bee on a hot brick.”

  Charlie Greer laughed. “Do the sheep in your neck of the woods still have fleeces? Before we discharged him, Jane Hoey had to make him give back the money he’d won playing pontoon.”

  O’Reilly shook his head. “That’s Donal. But as far as I know he’s behaving himself now he’s back home.”

  “So,” said Charlie, sipping his pint, “God’s in His Heaven and all’s right with the world.”

  “The hell it is,” O’Reilly said. “You two have drinks. I haven’t.” He pushed an electric bell mounted on the wall of the booth. The dark wooden panels were each surmounted by stained-glass windows adorned with shells, fairies, pineapples, fleurs-de-lis, and clowns.

  Conversations from the other booths and the open bar were subdued, and the place was mercifully unpolluted by the piped musical rubbish that was starting to infiltrate Irish bars. Traffic could barely be heard outside. A tobacco-smoke cloud hovered beneath an ornately carved ceiling. By peering over the snug’s half-wall, O’Reilly could read, etched in glass over the bar, Bonders of Old High Class Whiskies and Direct Importers of Sandeman’s Reserve Port.

  “It’s not the same as Davy Byrne’s in Dublin,” Cromie said. “It’ll never have the memories of us there when we were youngsters, but the Crown keeps its pints in very good order.” He drank from his.

  “It’s probably the most stylish pub in Belfast,” O’Reilly said. “Founded by Felix O’Hanlon as the Railway Tavern and refurbished by Patrick Flanagan in 1885.” O’Reilly splayed his hands on the dark wood table in front of him. “That was the same year the prince and princess of Wales were booed in County Cork and General Gordon was killed in Kartoum.”

  “And you know about that because you were here in 1885 for the reopening, weren’t you, you old fart?” Charlie said.

  “Go ’wa
y, you young puppy,” O’Reilly said, grinning. They were all in their fifties now and had been meeting regularly for years. The easy teasing, the comfort of being with real friends was always a delight and O’Reilly smiled at the two men. It was what he had asked them here to discuss—old friends and acquaintances, and the possibility of gathering them all together in one place next year for a class reunion. “Just because I’m a few years older than you two doesn’t mean I’m senile. I’ve already told you I’m marrying Kitty O’Hallorhan in July and I expect you both there as ushers.”

  “Yes, sir. What’ll it be?” An aproned barman opened the door to the snug. “Och, it’s yourself, Doctor O’Reilly. How’s about ye?”

  “Overall, I’m fine, thanks, Knockers.” The man’s name was Knox Ritchie, but everyone called him Knockers. “But did you know that under ancient Irish Brehon laws, your estate can declare a grievance if you die of thirst in a public house? Make you forfeit all your sheep? My tongue’s hanging out.”

  The young man laughed. “Can’t have that. Anyroad, where’d you find a free Gael to administer the law? The usual?”

  “Aye.”

  Knockers left.

  “I must say you rocked me when you first told me you were going to walk down the aisle,” said Cromie, “but Charlie and I are delighted for you both. As this is our first get-together since you broke the news, it calls for me to order another jar as soon as your man gets back.”

  “She’s quite the woman,” Charlie said. “Always was.”

  “True on you, Charlie Greer. True on you,” O’Reilly said. Kitty with the grey eyes. Kitty with her gentle “I wish you’d drive more slowly.” Kitty who knew her diamonds, Kitty with her soft lips. Quite the woman indeed.

  “I hope I’m not going to lose my damn fine ward sister,” Charlie said.

  O’Reilly shook his head. “She intends to go on working.”

  “I’m relieved,” Charlie said.

  “Here’s to the pair of you, Fingal.” Cromie lifted his glass and drank. “Long life and happiness.”