Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor

by Patrick Taylor

  “Could I have a word with you in the hall, please, Doctor O’Reilly?”

  O’Reilly smiled. A professional thing to do, because Jenny was going to have to correct him and didn’t want to do so in front of the patient. “Not at all,” he said, turning to Brenda. “You remember I told you last year you’d the kind of period cramps that a lot of women get? Nothing unusual?”

  “Yes, Doctor.” She looked at him.

  “I may have been wrong…”

  She looked at Jenny.

  “And I’m going to ask Doctor Bradley to explain.” He watched Jenny’s face. He’d certainly taken her by surprise, but hadn’t he promised that he’d do everything he could to help her gain the patients’ respect? Damn it all, he wasn’t infallible and hadn’t he had a father who’d taught, “If you’re wrong, admit it?” “Go ahead, Doctor,” he said.

  Jenny nodded. “Mrs. Eakin. I believe I know exactly why you’ve got painful periods and why you’ve got the fluid in your chest.”

  O’Reilly frowned. Was she thinking there was a correlation between the two? If there was, it was something he’d never heard of.

  “I believe you have a condition called endometriosis.”

  “Is that a cancer?” O’Reilly saw how Brenda’s eyes widened as she expressed the usual, but unspoken fear of every patient. She was paying rapt attention.

  “I promise you it’s not,” Jenny said. “It’s a women’s disease. When we have periods…”

  Nice, thought O’Reilly. A subtle hint of “us women together.”

  “… the lining of the womb bleeds and is shed. Some women develop islands of the special womb lining outside their womb, but inside their tummies. The lining is called endometrium, ‘endo’ for inner, and ‘metrium’ for of the womb. The condition you have is called endometriosis. When it’s period time, the tissue that shouldn’t be in there bleeds too. It causes pain like yours down below and in some extremely rare cases when the woman lies down, the blood runs up from her pelvis and gets into her chest and that hurts too.”

  So that’s why that symptom had been Jenny’s initial clue, and one that had eluded him.

  “When pelvic endometriosis causes pleural involvement it’s always right-sided, just like yours, Mrs. Eakin.” Jenny turned to O’Reilly as she said, “And I only know about it because I saw a case two and a half years ago in the Royal. Mister Gavin Boyd, who has been a specialist for years, said it was the first case of endometriosis causing haematothorax he’d ever had and that most doctors had never even heard of it.”

  Graciously done to ease any wounds to my reputation, O’Reilly thought, and she was right, he had never heard of the condition.

  “We all make mistakes, Doctor O’Reilly. There’ll be no side taken,” Brenda said.

  In other words, she wasn’t going to blame him.

  She looked at Jenny. “I tell you, I was quare and disappointed to be took sick so soon after I thought I was better, but if I did have to see a doctor I think I’m powerful lucky you’re here, Doctor Bradley. I’ll be happy til see you any time, so I will.”

  You don’t know how lucky, O’Reilly thought. He would have sent Brenda to a specialist physician and no internist would even have heard of haematothorax caused by endometriosis, which was a condition that fell within the purview of the gynaecologists. It could have taken forever to sort her out.

  “I don’t need to examine you because it’s usually impossible to feel endometriosis. We have to look at it,” Jenny said.

  “And would that mean an operation?”

  “In a way. If Doctor O’Reilly agrees I’d like us to send you to Dundonald Hospital.”

  Why the hospital on the outskirts of Belfast on the way to Newtownards? O’Reilly wondered.

  “The specialist there, Mister Matt Neely, sent one of his staff to Oldham, a place in England, to learn a new technique from a Mister Patrick Steptoe.”

  This too, was news to O’Reilly.

  “Normally your gynaecologist would have to open you right up to diagnose and remove the out-of-place endometrium and cure you,” Jenny said, “but Mister Steptoe has been working on techniques developed in France by a Doctor Raoul Palmer and in Germany by a doctor Hans Frangenheim. The gynaecologist makes a tiny cut below your belly button and puts a telescope in your tummy—”

  “Honest to God?” Brenda’s eyes were wide. “A telescope? That’s powerful, so it is.” She even managed a weak smile. “Will they see any stars?”

  “No stars,” Jenny said, and chuckled, “but if they see bits of endometriosis, they’ll make another tiny incision and put in an electric probe and cauterise the abnormal bits to get rid of them. So instead of being in hospital for weeks after a big operation, you’ll be out in one day. Once the cause is gone, your chest will heal up in no time.”

  “I never heard the like,” Brenda said. “Wait ’til I tell Ian, and wait ’til I tell my granny. Thanks ever so much, Doctor Bradley, and thank you too, sir. You’re still my doctor, but I know if you ever get stuck you’ve a one here with a right head on her shoulders, so she has.”

  O’Reilly knew Brenda’s granny, Edie Carmichael. She was the best friend of Cissie Sloan’s grandmother. Which meant that three days from now Doctor Jenny Bradley’s stock would be blue chip in Ballybucklebo and the townland—and it would be even more difficult to let her go if Barry wanted to come back.

  25

  Ev’n Do as Other Widows

  “You look very well this morning, Ma,” Fingal said when she came down to join him in the dining room for breakfast. Today, Saturday, was one week short of three months since Father’s death. She had worn nothing but black since then, Bridgit and Cook had put on black armbands, and Fingal a black tie. Convention decreed the uniform of mourning, but its duration was no longer a dismal four years for widows. He rose, pulled out her chair, and saw her comfortably seated.

  She glanced at her lavender blouse and grey skirt. “I miss your father dreadfully, Fingal, but I am not going to parade my grief in public by staying in widow’s weeds forever. These colours have been acceptable as half-mourning since Victoria’s reign and I don’t intend to be in them for more than a month. By Armistice Day, I shall be back to my usual clothes.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it,” he said. “I miss him too,” and Fingal did, “but I agree. Grief should be a family matter.”

  She rang a small bell. “Now,” she said, clearly considering the subject closed, “what are your plans for today?”

  He hesitated. He knew that if she’d any news for him she would have told him at once, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to ask on behalf of John-Joe Finnegan. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck yet?”

  “With finding work for your friend?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have tried. You’re like me, Fingal. You take the plight of those less fortunate to heart too much.”

  Bridgit appeared, carrying a tray. “Here’s breakfast. Sideboard as usual?”

  “Please, Bridgit,” Ma said, and rose.

  “Nice til see you out of black, Mrs. O’Reilly,” Bridgit said, “and what I have here’ll cheer you up even more. Porridge, kippers, and toast and marmalade.” Bridgit started unloading the tray and putting the covered plates of kippers on a warmer.

  “Thank you, and please thank Cook,” Ma said. “And, Bridgit?”

  “Yes, Mrs. O’Reilly?”

  “Both you and Cook can take off the armbands. Thank you for wearing them, I know you both miss the professor.” Ma smiled. “We all have to be moving on, all of us have to start cheering up, don’t we?”

  “Yes, we do, Mrs. O’Reilly, thank you, and we will, so we will.” Bridgit left.

  A brace of kippers was just what Fingal needed to start his day. Ma having found a job prospect for John-Joe would have been an even better way. Damn. Ma was right. He did take his patients’ problems to heart. And he knew he was too old to believe that no matter what the problem was, Mummy could fix it, but he had hoped.


  “These are very difficult times, Fingal,” Ma said, starting to serve. “Why in heaven’s name, with the whole world trying to recover from the Wall Street Crash of ’29, would our dear ‘president of the executive council’…” Fingal heard the tinge of sarcasm at the cumbersome term that really meant prime minister. “Why Mister de Valera in his infinite wisdom would start a trade war with Great Britain, I’ll never know. Talk about a mouse taking on an elephant. That was in ’31, and it has only got worse, as you know. Particularly among the farmers. And it’s thrown even more people out of work. I asked the rest of the folks I know, but I’m afraid no one can help. I’ll be speaking to Mister John Jackson when he gets back from the Continent next month. He has a shoemaking factory out at Chapelizod, but I’d be none too hopeful that he has any work either. I am sorry.” She handed him a plate of porridge. “Please start.”

  “Thanks,” he said, “and thanks for trying. I do understand.”

  Ma brought her own plate and sat. “At least,” she said, “and I’ve been working on this for a few weeks—at least I’ve been able to solve our own employment problems. Trying to find places for Bridgit and Cook after this place is sold hasn’t been easy. Most big houses are reducing their staffs. It’s simply too expensive now. But things have worked out for us, and just in time too. The estate agent sent round a nice couple yesterday when you were at work and I haven’t had a chance to tell you. They were very keen on buying. They’ll be making an offer today. If I accept, I’d like to have the sale completed by December the first. Lars will handle the conveyancing and help me find something suitable near him. You did say that when I leave to go to Portaferry you could move in with your friend Charlie?”

  “I will, Ma. Any time it suits.”

  “Good.” She rose, lifted his now-empty porridge plate, and gave him his kippers. “Eat up,” she said, took her own helping, and sat. She sighed. “I shall miss Dublin. We had quite the social life when your father—” She coughed and looked away, out the window to the redbrick walls covered in Virginia creeper. “But this old mausoleum’s far too big for me alone and there are just too many memories. I’d like a change. We were originally from the north, I’d like to go back there, and I can buy something suitable in Portaferry and have some money left over from this sale.”

  “And you’d rather be in the country? Won’t you be bored? All the work you’ve been doing here for slum clearance…?”

  “Heavens, there are plenty of folks involved in that here now.” She shook her head. “You’ll probably not remember Eunice Greer…”

  “Husband had something to do with Mackie’s Foundry?”

  “That’s right. She runs a charity for unwed mothers. She’s already approached me and I’ve agreed to help. I’ll certainly not be bored, and remember, Fingal, the north is where we’re from, and it’s not as if I don’t still have friends and family up there. I don’t expect Lars to lift and lay me, but his work seems less demanding than yours, son, so I’ll be able to see a bit more of him.” She chuckled. “And I’m not too old a dog to learn new tricks. Lars is going to teach me to drive so I’ll be able to come down here and see you and my friends too. I can stay at the Shelbourne when I come.”

  “You have it all planned,” Fingal said. He’d not doubted for one minute that Ma would take charge and organise her life as she deemed fit, but with her usual concern for the servants.

  She said, the catch of sadness in her voice, “I’ve had time to think about it. Perhaps too much time.”

  Fingal laid his left hand on hers. “And Bridgit and Cook?” he said, squeezing the juice from a slice of lemon over the fish.

  “I told Bridgit she can come to Portaferry with me if she wishes.” Ma smiled and said, “She and I aren’t getting any younger, you know.” She stopped, her fork halfway to her mouth. “She’s been with us,” Ma inhaled a deep breath, as if to help correct herself, “with me, that is, for so long she’s more of a friend than a servant. I should have missed her very much so I’m delighted that she’s agreed. I think between us we can handle the cooking.”

  “I’m glad she’s going with you,” Fingal said. “She’s certainly one of my earliest memories. I think she’d be a bit lost in a new position. And Cook?”

  “I’d have liked her to have come too, but she’d rather stay in Dublin.” Ma shrugged. “I can understand why, she’s Dublin born and bred. But I’ve had a piece of luck,” Ma said. “I didn’t know you knew Robin and Jane Carson. I was at their home two days ago.”

  “Originally it was professional, but I’ve got to know Robin quite well. He’s a decent bloke. Great rugby fan.”

  “Their cook is getting married next month to the butler of some very well-off folks who live between Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire and she’s going there with him. Cook has an interview on Monday with Jane Carson.”

  “I hope it works out,” he said. “I’m sure Mrs. Carson will be easy to work for, and their place is close enough to here for Mrs. Kernaghan to be able to visit her friends without having to travel too far.” The kippers had been grilled to perfection and Fingal regretfully pushed away his plate and helped himself from a silver toast rack. He would miss Mildred’s cooking and chuckled to himself about all the times Ma had corrected him. She was to be addressed either as “Cook” or “Mrs. Kernaghan.” It was convention that cooks were called Mrs. even if they, like Mildred Kernaghan, were single women. “And you asked me what I’m up to today?”

  “I did,” she said.

  “First,” Fingal said, spooning up Frank Cooper’s Vintage Oxford Marmalade from a cut-glass jar. He loved the thick strips of orange peel in it. “First, I’m going to finish Cook’s excellent breakfast.” He spread the marmalade. “Then I’ve letters to write. Then I’m having lunch with Charlie and after we’ll go to Bob Beresford’s place. Bob’s our chauffeur. He’s the only one of us with a car.”

  “I like your friend Bob,” Ma said. “I like all your friends.”

  “Bob always did have an eye for attractive ladies,” said Fingal.

  “What nonsense,” she said, blushing. “So will Bob drive you all to Donnybrook Rugby Grounds?”

  “Sure, he likes to watch the matches. We’re playing Bective Rangers there at two thirty. They share the facilities with Old Wesley. It’s a great place down on the banks of the Dodder River. Father used to take Lars and me there, remember?”

  “How can I forget? I thought you were catching pinkeens in the Dodder, but you were watching that awfully rough game. I think that’s what got you interested in the first place.”

  “Come on, Ma, it’s not as bad as that. And you know I love it. Charlie and I are playing together for the first time today on the senior team. Charlie was selected after our first trial for the club in September but I’m afraid I had to settle for a place on the second fifteen. Last week a decent lad by the name of Willie Gibson, one of the forwards, broke his collar bone…”

  Ma shuddered. “Not rough? I do hope you’ll take care.”

  “I promise,” Fingal said, “and today’s really important. I’ve been called up to take Willie’s place on the senior team.”

  “Fingal, that’s wonderful news.” Mary O’Reilly clapped her hands together lightly and then suddenly dropped them to her lap with a sheepish grin. “Well, of course, it’s not good news for Mister Gibson and I am sorry he’s hurt himself. But really, this is just the chance you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?”

  “It is, Ma, and I intend to make the most of it because I know full well that it’s from the senior clubs’ first fifteens that the Irish International Team members are selected.”

  “You will be careful, son?”

  “I will, Ma. Promise.” She always worried, bless her. “After the game, I’m taking Kitty to the early showing of City Lights at the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield.” He started to rise. “She loves Charlie Chaplin.”

  “So do I. You have fun, my dear,” she said. “The more I hear about this Miss O’Hallorhan
, the more I like her. Why don’t you bring her round for dinner some night?”

  “I will, Ma. Soon, but if you’ll excuse me now?” Fingal walked round the table, dropped a kiss on her head, and strode for the door. “I haven’t time for the news this morning, sorry. I’ll not be too late home,” he said, “but please don’t wait up.”

  26

  I Want Work

  “Helen, come in. Come in.” O’Reilly stood smiling in the hall with the front door half open. Early October leaves, brown, sere, and rustling bowled along the gutters blown by a chill northeaster.

  “I hope you don’t mind me coming til the front,” Helen Hewitt said. Her emerald green eyes sparkled. “I seen—sorry—I saw Mrs. Kincaid on the street and she told me the waiting room door would be locked, it being late afternoon, like, and just to ring the bell.”

  “I’m delighted to see you,” he said, and he was. “But come in out of the wind and let me take your coat.” He hung it, a navy blue duffle complete with hood and wooden toggles, almost certainly bought at the Army and Navy Store in Belfast, on the hall coatstand. The coats were becoming the unofficial winter uniform of Queen’s undergraduates. Her heavy duffle bag, also de rigueur in that group, he set on the floor. “The weight of learning,” he said. “Textbooks?”

  “Aye, and notes, and I remembered what you told me about doing more reading than medical stuff too. I’ve been working my way through those collected works of Shakespeare you gi—gave me the day the marquis told me I’d got the scholarship. We had to do A Midsummer Night’s Dream at school, but I never knew about his tragedies. That there Julius Caesar? It’s amazing. I go up to Belfast and back on the train every day. It’s a great time to read, so it is.”

  “And my upstairs lounge is a better place to sit and chat,” he said, turning. “Come on up. Have you seen the film with Marlon Brando as Marc Anthony?”

  “No, sir. Actually, I just popped in to ask you a question, a favour, like, and—”