“Why, Doctor O’Reilly,” Kitty said, “I do believe you’re blushing.”
O’Reilly harrumphed, pulled out his pipe, and made a business of making sure the tobacco was tamped in before lighting up.
“Here we are,” Barry said, “Kitty, G and T; Sue, vodka orange; and two pints.” He nipped back to the bar to return a tray then took his seat beside Sue.
“Sláinte,” O’Reilly said, took a healthy pull—and almost choked. A young woman was approaching the table. She had black hair with a sheen like a healthy animal’s pelt. Her face was strong, with a firm chin and full lips. Slavic cheekbones. Dark eyes with an upward tilt and a glow like the warmth of well-polished mahogany. And she walked with a limp. O’Reilly glanced at Barry, who had his back to the woman—a woman called Patricia Spence.
She stopped and said in a soft contralto, “Excuse me. I hope I’m not intruding…”
O’Reilly, as befitted a gentleman, rose. As he did, he saw both Kitty and Sue frown and Barry rocket to his feet as if an electric current had been passed through his chair. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, his face pallid. “Pat—” he finally said. “Patricia?”
“Hello, Barry,” she said. “I’m sorry to break in on your party but I was…” She gestured vaguely to the room.
O’Reilly’s mind went back to Kinky’s wedding and he saw himself waiting while Kinky and Archie signed the register. He’d been admiring Sue Nolan and thinking how easily she had filled the void left in Barry’s life by a certain Patricia Spence. His gaze went from the self-assured woman standing beside their table to Barry, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable.
Barry composed his features, managed a small smile, and said, “Patricia. Nice to see you. It’s been a while.” His voice was level. “And you’re not intruding. He half-turned from her and nodded to his table. “You’ve met Doctor and Mrs. O’Reilly, of course.”
She nodded. “Of course. I’d heard that you’d been married. County Down’s a small place. I wish you every happiness.”
“Thank you, Patricia,” they said, almost in unison.
“And please,” Patricia said, “do sit down, Doctor O’Reilly. Barry.”
O’Reilly sat, and wondered what Kitty was feeling behind that polite smile. It had been Patricia’s overheard confession to Kitty at a New Year’s Eve party last year that had inadvertently informed Barry that his romance was finished.
Barry, who had remained standing, said, “And this is my fiancée, Susan Nolan. Susan, Patricia Spence.”
Both said, “How do you do,” but whereas Sue’s smile was open Patricia’s sat only on her lips. Her dark eyes suddenly looked dull, spiritless.
O’Reilly wondered if she was regretting having left Barry and was still carrying a torch. Did that expression apply when she was the one who had broken things off? He knew he’d always had an overactive imagination, but was it possible she was hoping to resurrect something?
“Patricia’s an engineering student at Cambridge,” Barry said. “She and I are old friends.”
Patricia laughed. “Not really, Barry,” she said, not unkindly. “It’s only been two years since we first met. Perhaps it just seems longer.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” O’Reilly thought he heard a certain wistfulness in Barry’s voice, but no ache. No yearning. “Anyway, are you home for the holidays?” he asked.
She nodded. “Michaelmas term doesn’t start until October. I had been planning to work in England over the summer but I found myself homesick by May so I’m back and working in Belfast for the summer.”
Patricia paused and O’Reilly could not help his overactive imagination from going into overdrive. “I have an old friend in Newry. And he truly is an old friend, Barry.” She laughed. “I’ve known him since he was in short pants. He keeps his boat on Carlingford Lough and we sailed her up here yesterday.” She inclined her head to the bar, where a ginger-haired lad wearing a Donegal tweed sports jacket and a Queen’s University tie leant and supped a pint. He glanced over, as if detecting the attention, and waved a hand. “I suppose I’d better be getting back to him.” She looked at the two empty chairs.
“I’d like to invite you to join us,” Barry said, “but we’ve got other guests coming.”
“I understand,” Patricia said. “Nice to see you again, Doctor O’Reilly, Kitty.” She looked hard at Sue. “Susan Nolan,” she said, “you’re a lucky woman. Take good care of him. Good-bye, Barry.” And with that she turned and limped back to the bar and her friend.
O’Reilly waited.
“She is as pretty as you told me, Barry,” Sue said.
“Did I?”
“Did you what? Tell me that she was pretty? Yes, you did,” she said. She was trying to look stern but there was laughter in her eyes. She put one hand on his. “Must have given you quite a shock seeing her.”
Barry nodded. The colour was gradually returning to his face.
“It’s all right,” Sue said, “Barry has told me all about her. We’ve no secrets, have we, love?”
“Not the one,” Barry said. And for the briefest of moments O’Reilly heard Elly Simpkins saying, “I think I’ll call you Finn.” Some sleeping dogs were better let lie.
“I thought she was looking well. I’m surprised to see her here, in Ireland, I mean. I hope her life is unfolding as she’d like,” Barry said. He stared into Sue’s eyes. “Mine certainly is.”
And she puckered and gave him a mock kiss.
Och, to be young, O’Reilly thought. He looked at Kitty, saw her smile back, and realised that while youth had its attractions you didn’t have to be twenty-five to be head over heels. He lifted his pint, looked round the little group, and said, “Here’s to us. Who’s like us? Damn few—and they’re mostly dead.”
Everyone drank and laughed. The irreverent old Scottish toast had done what O’Reilly had intended, broken the tension that had been hanging over the table since Patricia’s appearance.
A man’s familiar voice said, “And I’d’ve thought it being a Thursday you’d be drinking to ‘A bloody war or a sickly season,’ Surgeon Commander O’Reilly. You know all the daily naval toasts.”
“Dad,” Barry said, “Mum.” Barry stood up, taking his mother’s hand. “Come and sit down.”
Tom Laverty, still with a full head of hair, the same blue eyes, and an Australian suntan to match the one he’d acquired in the Med in 1940, pulled out one of the vacant chairs and seated his wife before sitting himself.
“You’ve met Sue, but not Kitty. Mrs. Kitty O’Reilly, my folks, um…”
O’Reilly understood why he was hesitating. Barry had probably never used his parents’ Christian names but knew that Mister and Mrs. was too formal.
His father resolved the dilemma. “Tom and Carol,” he said. “Good to meet you, Kitty, and if a wealthy young doctor I know is buying, mine’s a pink gin.” He looked at Fingal. “Old habits die hard and your mother, Barry, will have a gin fizz as usual.”
“I got into the habit before the war,” Carol Laverty said, “when Tom and I were first married and stationed in Valletta, Malta.”
“A brave wheen of years ago now,” Tom said. He looked appraisingly at Kitty, whom he was meeting for the first time. “Is that old reprobate being good to you, Kitty?”
“Tom,” Carol said, “behave,” but she grinned as she spoke. She was tanned like her husband, and her thick blonde hair was streaked with silver. Barry had explained to O’Reilly that because his dad hadn’t seen his mother for four years during the war they had decided that the gap between Barry and a brother or sister would be too great. He was an only child. His mother, once he had started school, had turned her not inconsiderable muscial talents into a busy schedule teaching piano.
“Is Fingal good to me, Tom? Very,” said Kitty, “and he takes good care of his medical partner too, you’ll be glad to hear.”
Carol smiled and Tom said, “And I hope that son of ours is looking after you, Sue Nolan.”
�
��Oh, he is,” Sue said. “He doesn’t always approve of my politics, but otherwise he’s a pet.”
“I’m very glad to hear it,” Carol said. “I always worried about Barry when he was little when Tom was away at sea. Trying to be both mother and father to him.”
“You did a great job, Carol. I couldn’t ask for a better partner,” O’Reilly said, “although Doctor Bradley, who runs a well-woman clinic and helps us out with call, is pretty damn good too.”
“Sounds like you’re well set up, Fingal,” Tom said.
O’Reilly nodded. “I am, Tom.”
Barry appeared, bringing the drinks. “I’ve asked the waitress to bring menus. We can order here and then go through to the dining room when the meals are ready.”
“Good idea,” said O’Reilly, and his tummy rumbled. “Now,” he said, “tell us all about Australia.”
Barry said, “It must be so pretty with all of the dear little kangaroos flying about.”
“Act one—”
“Just a minute, Fingal,” said Carol, holding up her hand. “Barry and I used to play that game when he was a boy. He was always reading. It was the Duchess of Berwick in Lady Windermere’s Fan, by none other than Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, for whom you were named, I do believe.”
“Right enough,” Fingal said, taking a pull on his pint. He laughed.
“Actually,” Carol said, “kangaroos are quite a good size and I’ve never seen one fly. It’s the heat that made the biggest impression on me. And the seasons all upside down. It seemed really odd wearing our swimmies and having Christmas dinner on the beach.”
“Swimmies?” Kitty said.
“The Aussies add ‘ie’ to everything,” Tom said. “Beer comes in tinnies, not tins, swimsuits are swimmies, and they do this wonderful outdoor cooking on a thing called a barbeque, but they call it a barbie. Grand people. We really enjoyed ourselves.”
“Excuse me, sir,” a waitress said, “menus, and who’ll look at the wine list?”
“Kitty’s amazingly good with wines,” O’Reilly said. “If you don’t mind, Tom, let her pick.”
“Fine by us,” Tom said. “It’s been a while since you and I dined together, Fingal.”
“I’ll be back for your orders,” the waitress said, and left.
“It has, but I still remember those dinners at the Cecil in Alexandria during the war so clearly.” O’Reilly turned to Sue. “You know I just missed serving with your dad on Warspite. He was arriving just as I was leaving the ship in 1940 and he’d moved on by the time I got back to her in ’41.”
“Fingal was heading back to Blighty on a troopship to learn to be an anaesthetist…”
O’Reilly hoped that Tom would be tactful enough not to say, “and to get married.” Kitty was well aware of that part of O’Reilly’s past, but there was no need to plough the same furrow twice.
“I knew your dad, Sue,” Tom said, “but he was only on Warspite for a few months and we weren’t close. What’s he up to now?”
“Back running the farm near Broughshane. We’ll have to have you and Mrs. Laverty over for dinner,” Sue said.
“We’d love to come,” Tom said, “now we’re back from Australia and getting used to being home again.”
Carol said, “We came back from Australia on the Canberra—”
“Built here in Belfast,” Sue said.
“So was the Titanic,” Barry said, and everybody laughed. Ulsterfolk were noted for their black humour.
“—and I’ll bet you much more quickly than you did from Egypt in wartime, Fingal.”
“Canberra makes nearly thirty knots,” Tom said.
“So did our cruisers at Calabria,” Fingal said, for a second seeing the flash and flame as Warspite’s shell hit the Italian battlewagon Giulio Cesare.
“They did,” Tom said, “but they weren’t able to keep that up for long. We got from Australia to the U.K. in twenty-four days nonstop.”
“I think,” said Sue, “that’s pretty impressive, but I reckon these new jet airliners will put the liners out of business soon.”
“Kitty and I are going to be taking flights from Belfast airport to Heathrow and on to Barcelona next month, but we’ll be flying with British European Airways on a turboprop Vickers Viscount,” O’Reilly said.
“And Jenny and I will look after the shop,” Barry said. “You two have a good time.”
“We will,” said O’Reilly, catching Kitty’s eye. “We’re going to stroll down the Ramblas, eat boquerones and gueldes in a seaside restaurant called El Crajeco Loco, The Crazy Crab, and see an old friend of Kitty’s who lives near there.”
“We are,” she said, “and I’m really looking forward to it. I haven’t seen her for thirty years.”
“And it’ll take no time to get there by air,” said O’Reilly, not wishing to go into details about Kitty’s old friend. “I wish there’d been an airline from Egypt to back home in 1940. It took my troopship in convoy more than two months just to go from Port Said through the Canal, and on to Liverpool.”
“And if we don’t order soon,” Barry said, “it’ll take nearly as long to get our dinner. They’re busy tonight.” He looked directly at O’Reilly. “And my principal can get a tad tetchy if we don’t feed him regularly.”
“Less of your lip, Laverty,” O’Reilly said with a grin, and along with the others began to read his menu. He made his choice, took a pull on his pint, and let his thoughts roam. It certainly had been an interesting voyage home, his three months in Portsmouth were well spent learning more of the trade of a seagoing doctor in wartime. And Deirdre. Soft, lovely Deirdre. He sighed. One day that whole story must be told, but, his tummy rumbled again, not tonight. He was in good company, grand surroundings—and although he could eat a horse, the Chateaubriand on the menu looked more appetising, done medium rare with corn on the cob and chips.
Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly looked round at Kitty and his friends, the two new ones, and a reunion of sorts with two old ones. Next month he had a full-scale reunion to look forward to with his old classmates of 1931–36 from the School of Physic at Trinity College Dublin.
He puffed his pipe, took another pull on his pint, and grinned to himself. Tonight he was as content a man as any man could be.
AFTERWORD
by Mrs. Maureen “Kinky” Auchinleck, until lately Kincaid, née O’Hanlon
Welcome back, and now it’s not to my kitchen at Number One, Main Street, but to my cosy parlour in my own home. Archie’s out with his son, Rory, who’s all better now from that tropical disease, so, and I’m doing what I promised I’d do for Doctor O’Reilly. Here are five more of my recipes.
I’m starting with one for marmalade because you’ll need it to make both my marmalade pudding and my very easy boiled fruitcake.
I did miss marmalade so during the war, but we had the rationing here in Ulster just like they did in Britain. You could only have so much sugar, tea, jam, biscuits, and a whole host of other things and you did need a coupon book to get them. And you couldn’t get oranges for love nor money and I did always make my own marmalade. Doctor O’Reilly wants his Frank Cooper’s, but och, shouldn’t he have one or two little weaknesses?
And some of the stuff you’d to make do with in wartime? Powdered eggs that tasted like yellow sawdust and that awful tinned corned beef that came from some country in South America. And I’ll say no more about Spam, so.
It was a very good thing that Ballybucklebo was in the country. Sure couldn’t I always get fresh vegetables and eggs and chickens for Doctor Flanagan? I’ve put a recipe in here for chicken breasts that I hope you’ll try.
And there’s one thing that will surprise you. I never thought a good Cork woman would be making one of those curries, but himself learned about one from some foreign troops in Egypt. He persuaded me to try making it after he came back here when the war was over. It came as a surprise, but I found it tasty and you’ll never believe what’s in it. Corned beef out of a can, so. Still a
s my ma, God rest her, used to say, “You’ll never know if a strange thing’s any good unless you do try it,” and do you know? She was right.
So here you are, five more recipes. I do hope you enjoy them all.
ORANGE MARMALADE
900 g / 2 lbs Seville oranges
1 lemon
2¼ L / 4 pints water
1.8 kg / 4 lbs sugar
A knob of butter
8 x 250 mL preserving jars and a large, heavy-bottomed preserving pan (not aluminum)
A muslin or cheesecloth jelly bag
Cut the oranges and lemon in half and squeeze the juice into the pan with the water.
Put any pips and pith from the orange halves into the jelly bag and set aside for the moment in a small dish. Cut the oranges into thin shreds and add any pith that comes away to the jelly bag. (The pips and pith contain pectin, which helps the jam to set.)
Add the cut oranges to the water, tie up the jelly bag, and add to the water-and-orange mixture.
Simmer gently, uncovered, for about two hours until the orange peel has softened. Remove the jelly bag and squeeze it into the pan, leaving the pips behind in the bag.
Now add the sugar gradually, stirring as you go, until the sugar has dissolved. If you add a knob of butter at this stage it will stop the marmalade foaming. Now bring it to the boil and cook for about fifteen minutes. If you have a sugar thermometer, the temperature should read 220ºF. This is the setting point for jams. Or you can test for setting by dropping a small blob on a cold plate, letting it cool, and seeing if the jam will wrinkle when you push it with your finger. If it does not, then just boil for a little longer and try again.
Heat the washed jars in a hot oven to sterilise them, and leave the marmalade to cool before pouring it into the hot jars. Letting the marmalade cool allows the fruit to be more evenly distributed throughout the jar and not remain at the top. Put covers on as soon as you can handle the jars without burning yourself.
VERY EASY BOILED FRUITCAKE
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War Page 36
