An Irish Country Family--An Irish Country Novel

by Patrick Taylor

  And O’Reilly wondered why Bertie Bishop, usually a fine judge of character, had called Colonel Mullan a thran bugger. He hardly seemed bloody-minded, and despite his understandable Loyalist leanings, he had been a perfect gentleman.

  * * *

  Maggie MacCorkle, wilted primroses in the band of her red straw hat, was standing at the kitchen counter of Number One Main when O’Reilly returned home. She smiled her toothless smile. “Afternoon, Doctor dear.”

  Kinky was mixing something in an enormous yellow mixing bowl. “I’ll be with you in a minute, sir, but Maggie and I do be at a very important part. We’re making a very easy boiled fruitcake, and I did put the fruit, sugar, and tea to soak in this large bowl last night, so, and the oven’s heated to three twenty-five and the baking tins are ready.”

  O’Reilly noticed a tray of Kinky’s freshly made hard fudge cubes and helped himself to a handful, making sure Kinky did not notice. He popped one in his mouth and the rest in his trousers pocket. He’d take a chance they’d not become crumbly until he got to his room and emptied them out to be enjoyed at his leisure.

  “Now Maggie, I want you to stir the egg and marmalade into the fruit mixture. Give it a really good stir, now.”

  “Right, Kinky.” Maggie, whistling the Rolling Stones’s “Honky Tonk Women,” attacked the batter so enthusiastically O’Reilly reckoned she should be on a building site mixing cement. The bowl rocked and shimmied.

  Kinky said, “Carefully now, Maggie, or you’ll be having it on the floor, so. Maggie knows all about the surprise party for the Donnellys next month, sir. She’s going to help with the catering, and when I explained to her at the Women’s Institute meeting last week that my kind of plum cake is best if it’s made a little in advance, she asked if I would show her how it’s done.”

  “Sometimes, Doctor dear,” Maggie said, “I get a half-notion that dear oul’ Sonny would like a change from my cake, so I asked Kinky til show me how til make one of hers.”

  “An excellent idea,” O’Reilly said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. “I’m sure Sonny loves your plum cake, but we could all do with a change from time to time, Maggie.”

  Kinky gave O’Reilly a penetrating stare and made a gesture that suggested his help was no longer needed. “Now Maggie,” Kinky said, “it’s time to stir in the two kinds of flour and the baking powder.” She pointed to the counter. “The baking tins are ready.”

  “I think,” O’Reilly said, “you two are going to find yourselves running a TV cookery show soon, but speaking of running, Kitty doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and you know we are going to Ballybucklebo House tonight for a formal dinner.”

  “I do, sir. Alice Moloney’s let out the waist of your dinner suit—again—and it and your cummerbund are ironed and ready on your bed. Your patent leather shoes are as shiny as a calm sea in the setting summer sun.”

  “Ah, well, thank you, Kinky. I’d better be trotting along.”

  “You do that, sir.” Kinky cocked her head to one side and said, “But next time say please before you pinch my fudge that I know is in your pocket, so.”

  A suitably chastened Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly slunk off, but enjoying the lumps of fudge was going to be worth it.

  12

  Taking Out His False Teeth

  August 29, 1963

  Barry yawned. He had never felt so tired in his life, and his whole head was throbbing.

  “It’s not urgent,” said Bernie to the student nurse who’d appeared at the doorway. “Pop him in a wheelchair and take him to room C.” Being popped into a wheelchair and taken to room C sounded pretty good, Barry thought, if they’d let him sleep. He and Norma were having a rest and a cup of tea in Bernie’s office during a late-afternoon lull in the production line of mostly minor cases. “Get him teed up, and I’ll send a doctor over in a minute or two.” She mouthed the words, “Finish your tea.” Sister O’Byrne was protective of her young doctors.

  Barry nodded at her and took a mouthful. It tasted like tepid dishwater.

  “I don’t think you heard the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. on the telly last night, Barry.”

  Barry sighed. “I was here, Norma. Missed the news.” It wasn’t all he was missing. Decent meals, sleep, fresh air, Virginia Clarke.

  “Pretty powerful stuff. He’s a riveting speaker. He told two hundred and fifty thousand people in Washington D.C. ‘I have a dream,’ and that the struggle for one man, one vote would go on ‘until justice rolls down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”

  “Huh,” said Barry, “we could use him here. Ulster people have been protesting about voting inequality like Doctor King’s lot are doing.” He finished his tea. “But I don’t think two housemen like us are going to solve that problem this afternoon.” He yawned, considered letting Norma see the case, but damn it, he only had a bit of a headache really. “Sit you there. I’ll go.” He nodded in Bernie’s direction. “Bernie’s giving me ‘the look.’” The senior sister had a grin on her face she reserved for out-of-the-ordinary cases. And after four weeks of practically nothing but impersonal medical trivia, Barry thought something different might be interesting. Perhaps it would lift his feeling of malaise.

  Norma chuckled. “Thanks,” she said. “You are a real gent, Barry Laverty.”

  He stood up and felt the small world of Bernie’s office whirl around him. What the hell was wrong with him? He knew being overly tired could cause dizziness, but this was only the fourth week of his houseman training. He had to be tougher than this. He’d be damned if he was going to give in to it. He sat again and took some slow breaths before rising.

  Bernie was frowning. “You all right, Barry?”

  “Bit tired is all.”

  “I see.” She said something to him about the patient, but the words seemed to be coming from the end of a long tunnel. Had she said something about a tooth? “A what, Bernie?”

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you, because I want to see this myself.”

  He shrugged at Norma. It must be interesting if Sister O’Byrne, with all her years of experience, wanted to take a look-see. Barry followed Bernie.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll mind, Barry, that Nurse Clarke will be coming from the suture room to help you?”

  Nurse-doctor fraternisation was discouraged by senior nursing, but it was rumoured that Sister Barra O’Byrne, a spinster herself, was of an understanding nature and willing to turn a blind eye. She also seemed to know what her student nurses were thinking before they did themselves, and was as protective of medical students and junior doctors as a she-wolf of her cubs.

  “No, Sister. I will not mind.” Although Barry wasn’t sure he felt strong enough to hide his feelings right now. He and Virginia had seen Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird last week at the Hippodrome, and in the darkness of the theatre, away from the hospital, it had hit him that he was in love. In love with Virginia Clarke. He had not dared to tell her then, and another opportunity had not presented itself. Today, with the headache and the exhaustion, he felt as weak as a newborn.

  “You take care of my nurse, young man. Treat her well, or I’ll—”

  “Yes, Sister,” he interrupted, blushing, yet there was no feeling of warmth in his cheeks, and he shivered.

  They crossed the waiting hall where, praise the Lord, all the benches were empty. Only a solitary floor cleaner pushed his wet mop along, and the receptionist at her desk near the front door had her head buried in a dog-eared copy of Woman’s Own.

  “Sorry, Bernie,” Barry said. He cleared his throat and coughed. It felt raw. “I missed what you said about the patient. Something to do with a tooth? Isn’t that why we have a dental houseman? I don’t know anything about teeth.” He’d tried not to let his irritation show, but he knew it had.

  Bernie stopped in her tracks. “Are you sure you’re all right, Barry? It’s not like you to be tetchy.”

  “Sorry, Bernie. Don’t worry. I’m just not at myself today.”
And while he knew their complaints were of vital importance to the patients, the steady flow of anonymous medical trivia was starting to bore him. He was already looking forward to his next rotation on paired medical wards, handling more complicated cases and getting to know them as people. But that was still two months away. “Please tell me about this case.”

  “Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”

  Barry shook his head. “Look, Bernie, I’m fine. Sometimes I get tired, that’s all.” From the way she pursed her lips Barry wasn’t sure she believed him, but he wasn’t going to let this tiredness get to him, and while Bernie might think the case unusual, he didn’t think much could surprise him after almost a month on casualty. Most had been unremarkable. One or two had been different. Memorable. Like the unfortunate with tertiary syphilis, also known as general paralysis of the insane, who believed, to quote the patient, that he was “John the feckin’ Baptist,” and who was now “preparing the way of the Lord” in Purdysburn mental hospital. The most bizarre so far had been the man who had got his penis stuck in the nozzle of the hose of a cylindrical vacuum cleaner, and to get to the Royal had travelled by bus, cylinder under arm, hose disappearing inside his raincoat. As the surgical registrar later told Barry, even after a general anaesthetic, it had looked like the unlikely couple were going to be united “’til death did them part.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Barry nodded.

  Bernie shook her head, glanced at him, but preceded him into the room where the student nurse and Virginia, who kept her green eyes above her surgical mask off Barry’s, had got a tousled-haired, muddy-faced young man lying on an examining couch under a blanket.

  The nurse handed Barry the eight-by-four: John Stewart. 20. Student. Date first seen August 29. Queen’s Elms—so he was a student living in the men’s halls of residence—Protestant. “Hello, John,” Barry said, and forced a smile. “I’m Doctor Laverty. You have a toothache, I believe.”

  “Not exactly, Doctor.” John Stewart sat up and threw his blanket back.

  The patient’s face wasn’t the only part of him daubed with mud. His studded boots, white shorts, and royal blue jersey with white collar were well and truly splattered. “Playing rugby for Queen’s?” Barry asked, recognising the uniform.

  “Pre-season warm-up game.”

  Barry had noticed the number nine on the back of the man’s jersey. “Scrum-half?”

  John Stewart nodded.

  Scrum-half was a position not without risk. “Got a smack in the mouth? Hurt a tooth?”

  “No, Doctor. I got tackled. Someone fell on my tackler. He must have had his mouth open.” He pointed to his right calf.

  Barry bent—and pulled back. Good Lord, there in all its muddy, pink, wire-looped glory, was a single false white incisor on a dental plate—embedded in the man’s flesh. “I see what you mean, Sister.” Barry looked at his patient. “I’m sure that hurts.” Bernie, undoubtedly feeling as much sympathy for the man as Barry was, pursed her lips, probably in an attempt to hide a smile.

  “I’ve had worse,” John Stewart said. “Truly I have.” He grinned. “I feel like a fisherman, and if anyone asked, ‘Did you get a bite today?’ I could say yes.”

  Bernie and the nurses chuckled.

  Barry managed a smile. This was hardly brain surgery, but it was an unusual case to add to his list of oddities. “I’m sure we can fix this,” he said.

  “And I’m sure I can thole it. You carry on, Doc.” John lay back.

  “Right,” said Bernie, her curiosity obviously satisfied. “Come on, Nurse. We’ll leave Doctor Laverty and Nurse Clarke to carry on.” There was the merest suggestion of double entendre in her tones.

  If there was, Barry couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge it. His head was pounding, he still felt weak, and he had a job to do. With the initial surprise at the presence of a tooth in a man’s leg over, removing it would be no different from taking out any penetrating foreign body.

  “Let’s get on with it, please, Nurse Clarke,” Barry said.

  “Yes, Doctor.” Her eyes met his.

  He thought he was going to drown in their green, and perhaps because he was under the weather he was resentful that the pressures of their work schedules meant he’d not been able to see more of her. He straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath. As soon as he finished here he was going to the pharmacy to get something for his throat and headache.

  He scrubbed at a wall sink and put on sterile gloves.

  It would have been routine if, like many harried juniors, Barry had simply applied himself in silence to the technicalities of his work, but he made the effort to talk to the patient. “So, John? What are you studying?” Barry asked as he returned and took a syringe of local anaesthetic from Virginia.

  “Chemistry. I’m going into second year.”

  “We had to take that in first year. Prof. Henbest taught us organic. Now hang on. This is going to sting.” Barry rapidly froze the area around the tooth. “It’ll take a minute or two for that to work.”

  “That’s all right, Doc. You asked about Prof. Henbest. He’s still there, and the reader in inorganic is a Lady Myrna, sister of the Marquis of Ballybucklebo. Great teacher, and her research is world class.”

  “We didn’t have her, but all of us from North Down know of his lordship.” Barry used the back of his forearm to wipe sweat from his forehead. He shuddered. Shook his head. He wasn’t just tired. He was sick, and the sooner he finished this the better. He wondered if he should ask Norma to come and take over, but he had always hated leaving a job half finished.

  “You all right, Doc?” John Stewart asked, concern in his voice.

  “Just a bit tired, John.” Barry handed the plate to John Stewart. “Here, the owner might like this back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Just needs a stitch or two.” Barry tried to start suturing, but the wound swam before his eyes. “Oh Lord,” he said, then shook his head and waited for his vision to clear.

  “Is something wrong, Doctor Laverty?” Virginia asked.

  “No,” he said. He took another deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling the cloth of the surgical mask grow warm against his face. “No. I’m fine.” He was not fine, and he was damned lucky he hadn’t passed out. Right. He loaded the needle of the pre-swaged suture into a needle driver, used forceps to pick up one edge of the wound and, blinking sweat away, passed the needle through. It took concentration to get it through the opposite side and the knot tied. “Cut,” he said, and Virginia snipped the stitch so the ends were short.

  Come on, Barry, he told himself. One more. He had to struggle but it was soon in, knotted, and trimmed.

  Barry stepped back as Virginia applied an adhesive dressing.

  “You need a tetanus toxoid jag. Nurse Clarke will do the honours, John. Nurses give injections much better than…” The room was spinning around him. “I,” he managed, “I…” before his knees buckled.

  * * *

  Barry felt rather than heard himself mumbling, but from his depths could not make out what he was saying. He shook his head to clear it and regretted it at once. His head felt as if a malicious gnome were pounding it with a hammer. He tried to sit up to get his bearings, but his arms didn’t seem to want to lift him. The weight of the bedclothes was too much. He gave up, lay back, shivered, and wondered where the hell he was. Judging by the smell of disinfectant, he was in a hospital bed. But where? He remembered being with a patient and Virginia Clarke in room C. Something to do with a tooth, but then what had happened? He took a couple of deep breaths. Told himself not to panic. There had to be a rational explanation. One thing was certain. He was sick, and he resented that deeply. Getting ill wasn’t supposed to happen to doctors. And what was he sick with? He knew he should try to make a diagnosis, but he couldn’t concentrate. It was simply too much work to make the mental effort. “Damn it. Where am I? What’s going on?” Dear God, but that hurt his throat.

  A staf
f nurse, gowned and masked, stood up from where she sat beside his bed. “Nice to have you back, Barry.”

  He knew that gentle voice, but even with his eyes screwed up he could not recognise her features.

  “It’s me, Jan Peters. Remember? Rusky’s daughter?”

  “Oh. Right.” Barry did remember her. Two weeks ago he’d been playing draughts with her dad just before the man had been discharged. It was pure reflex when he asked, “How is he?”

  “Coming on well, but you’re not. You’d just finished treating a patient when you passed out in casualty. You’ve a fever. This is the staff room on ward 22 where we look after resident doctors and nurses who are taken ill.”

  “Oh. What’s, what’s, uh, wrong with me?”

  He heard a trace of concern when she said, “We’re not entirely sure,” and with a towel wiped sweat from his brow. “But don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Honestly.”

  Don’t worry? Barry was wide awake enough now to admit to himself that he should have reported in sick earlier today. He could have passed out in the middle of treating someone, rather than at the end. He may have been passing on whatever bug was giving him a temperature, which was? He screwed up his eyes. Opened them. All right. He made the effort to concentrate. Headache. Fever. Shivering. Weakness. Sore throat. Fainting. All on top of being dog-tired. At a pinch he’d call it flu, but it could be—Damned if he could remember, and he was just too tired to try. He asked, “Has anybody come up with a diagnosis?”

  Jan shook her head. “Not yet.” She raised his head with one arm and fluffed his pillow with her other hand before lowering his head back into its softness. “Doctor Swanson, the houseman, has had a look at you. He’s calling it pyrexia of unknown origin.”