An Irish Country Family--An Irish Country Novel

by Patrick Taylor

  Julie smiled. “What do you think, Donal?”

  “I, well, that is…” Donal’s face did its usual whirling dervish act as he wrestled with the problem. “The extra do-ray-mi wouldn’t hurt, but it’s up til you, dear.”

  “I’d like to, Jimmy.”

  “Very good. Let’s get this portrait taken, and then we can discuss it. Mister Donnelly, if you could sit on this Regency love seat and take one of your twins on your knee, and Julie…”

  * * *

  O’Reilly stopped at the Ballybucklebo traffic light and indicated for a left turn. “Donal, Mister Bishop called me this morning. I forgot to mention there’s been a bit of a change of plans,” he said. “He asked me to bring you to his place to discuss some building project.”

  “On a Saturday? Och, dear,” Donal said from the backseat. “What about Julie and the kiddies?”

  The light changed. O’Reilly waited for a gap in the oncoming traffic and turned onto Shore Road. “Mrs. O’Reilly will run Julie and the girls to our place from here.” He turned onto the Bishops’ drive. “And Mister Bishop will run you and me to Number One when you and he have finished, and we’ll join the rest. Kinky has lunch ready for the seven of us.”

  “One of Kinky’s lunches,” Julie said. “Och, you are spoiling us. Thank you, Doctor and Mrs. O’Reilly.”

  Tori bounced on the seat. “And I can see the big doggy and the wee white pussycat.” Her happy laughter filled the car as O’Reilly parked.

  “Come on, Donal.” O’Reilly and Kitty both got out, he to wait for Donal, she to walk round the car and get behind the steering wheel. “Drive carefully, pet. See you soon.” He closed the door.

  Lars’s E-Type Jaguar was parked in front of the bungalow on the shore of Belfast Lough. He was going to have lunch with Bertie today, then run them both to this afternoon’s housewarming party.

  Bertie Bishop stood on the front steps. “Good of you to bring Donal, Doctor. Flo’s out with her friends getting something organised as usual.”

  O’Reilly knew bloody well what that something was.

  “Come in, the pair of you.”

  O’Reilly followed Bertie, and Donal brought up the rear as they walked along the hall’s Axminster carpet.

  “In here.” Bertie Bishop turned into the spacious lounge/dining room with its view through a picture window out over an extensive lawn to the waters of Belfast Lough. The Knockagh War Memorial, high on Knockagh Hill above the little town of Greenisland, stood dark against a clear blue sky.

  Lars rose from where he was sitting at a dining table in front of the window. “Finn, and Mister Donnelly.” He offered his hand. “I’m Lars O’Reilly. We’ve met when you’ve been looking after the bar at some of my brother’s functions, and I remember you piping at Finn and Kitty’s wedding, but we haven’t been formally introduced. I’m sure you know I’m a solicitor. I’ve been doing some legal work that concerns you, for Mister Bishop.”

  Donal Donnelly, face working overtime in puzzlement, shook the hand and said, “Pleased til meet you, Mister O’Reilly, but am I in some kind of trouble?” His gaze flitted from Lars’s face to Bertie Bishop’s.

  “Not at all, Donal,” Bertie said. “Come and sit at the table and Mister O’Reilly will explain. I asked Doctor O’Reilly to come as a witness of today’s business. Thank you, Doctor.”

  O’Reilly inclined his head.

  When Donal, O’Reilly, and Bertie were seated, Lars opened a file in front of him and beamed at Donal. He spoke in what O’Reilly had always thought of as Lars’s legal voice. “The details are a little complicated, Mister Donnelly, so don’t be afraid to ask questions, but Mister Bishop has asked me to draw up a contract between the Bishop Building Company and one Donal Donnelly Esquire, of Dun Bwee Cottage, 178B Bangor Road, County Down.”

  “Excuse me, sir, a contract? You mean with things like ‘party of the first part,’ and heretofores and thereafters?” He shook his head. “Look. I’m a carpenter by trade. A simple man. I’d never understand a thing like that, so I’d not. I—”

  “Donal,” Bertie Bishop interrupted, “you don’t have to worry about all that stuff. That’s what Mister O’Reilly’s for. I don’t care what you say. You’re not as green as you’re cabbage-looking. There’s nothing difficult to understand. Mrs. Bishop and me has no family. You know I’ve been taken sick twice lately. I want to make sure if anything happens to me, my Flo will be looked after. So”—he counted on the little finger of his left hand with his right index finger—“point one. I want to make you a partner in my business. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  Donal blanched. His eyes widened. His lip trembled. He whispered, “You want to what, sir? You want to—? Dear God.” Donal frowned, turned his head off to the side, stared at Bertie Bishop, and said, “You’re not having me on, are you, Mister Bishop?”

  O’Reilly wasn’t surprised that Donal’s first thought might be to question Bertie Bishop’s sincerity. Donal Donnelly was, after all, not above bending the truth himself. He was well known for occasionally pulling creative stunts on unsuspecting strangers to help provide for his family. Nevertheless, O’Reilly would never question the man’s dealings when it came to folks from Ballybucklebo, and he knew Bertie wouldn’t either.

  “No, Donal Donnelly, I am not having you on. I want to make you my partner because”—his index finger moved from his little to his ring finger—“point two, the way I want to set it up is you’ll be helping Flo when I’m not here anymore, until she’s not here anymore.”

  “I don’t believe this, but Mister Bishop, apart from a wee misunderstanding about shares in a racehorse a while back, you’ve played fair with us, so I have to believe you.” Donal’s bucktoothed grin was vast. He held his hands up. They were shaking. “Would youse look at me. I’m all atremble.” He lowered his hands. “Mind you, I really don’t understand how I’m going til look after Mrs. Bishop.” He turned to Lars. “Can you explain, sir?”

  Lars’s thin moustache rose as he smiled. “I can, and for the record, the Bishop Building Company is the party of the first part and you are the party of the second part.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Here’s how it will work,” Lars said. “You’re going to buy a quarter share of Mister Bishop’s business.”

  “Me, sir? Where would I get the dosh?” The excitement had gone from Donal’s voice.

  “From the bank,” Bertie said. “It’s already arranged with the manager, Mister Canning.”

  “A loan, like. Och, I don’t know, sir. You don’t hardly pay me enough to take on a loan. I’ve got three kiddies now and the new house and all.”

  “Are you asking me for a raise, then, Donal? Well, I’ll tell you what—”

  Bertie gave Donal a menacing look and Donal shrank back in his seat.

  “I’ll up your wages enough so you can repay a bank loan, you eejit. You can repay the capital and ten percent interest in fifteen years, and still be comfortable.”

  “Honest til God, Mister Bishop? You’d pay me to pay off a loan to buy your own company. Me?”

  “Part of my company, Donal. Just part, mind.”

  “But what do I know about running a building company?”

  “Look here, Donal. You’re smarter than you look, and a lot smarter than you think. Who deals with all the men now?”

  “Well, I do, sir.”

  “And who does the ordering and most of the scheduling as well as all the carpentry?”

  Donal scratched his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Well, me, I suppose, sir.”

  O’Reilly glanced at his brother, who was watching the exchange like a ping-pong game, and trying, and failing, to get a word in.

  “When I go, Donal, you’ll still have to pay off the bank for your quarter share if you haven’t already, but I’ll leave you the other three-quarters of the company. No strings attached. You can have half the profits yearly, and the rest goes til my Flo for the rest of her time, then it’s all yours. What do you
se think of that?”

  Donal said nothing, absolutely nothing.

  Finally, Donal said, his voice low, “I’d not know how til thank you enough, sir. Nor can Julie and my weans.”

  “You can thank me by paying attention to Mister O’Reilly, who’ll tell you about things like how you can get a reduction in your income taxes on the repayment of the loan, what happens if you die before Flo, how you can’t sell the company until after Flo’s gone. The learning won’t take long, but we’ll keep our partnership to ourselves until I’ve finished teaching you the business stuff like bookkeeping and quantity surveying that we’ve been working on, because as soon as I know you’re able, I’m taking some of that twenty-five percent money and me and Flo’s going on a world cruise and you can take care of Bishop’s Building Company and tell the world why.”

  “I still don’t believe this. Me, Donal Donnelly, I’m going til own a quarter of Bishop Building Company?”

  “That’s right, and we’ll not be changing the name. People is used til it as it is,” Bertie said. “No need to confuse them.”

  “Fair enough, and it still will be mostly your company anyroad, sir.” Donal looked Bertie Bishop in the eye. “I’ll do the paperwork with Mister and Doctor O’Reilly in a wee minute, but,” he spat on the palm of his hand and offered it to Bertie Bishop, who replied in kind and said, “we have a deal, Mister Bishop. And thank you very much.”

  O’Reilly knew there was no more binding promise to an Ulsterman.

  “We do indeed, Donal, and as from the minute you’ve finished signing with Mister O’Reilly, you can drop the ‘Mister Bishop.’ It’s Bertie to my partner.”

  O’Reilly was sure he could see a moist glint in the eyes of both men.

  20

  Feel the Pangs of Disappointed Love

  October 31, 1963

  Jack Mills was the last to join Barry, Norma Fitch, and Harry Sloan at a table in the busy housemen’s dining room in the East Wing. Ten of the other twelve junior house officers were eating their dinners. The air was filled with the hum of conversation, the clink of cutlery on china, and the smell of boiled cabbage. For all of them, tonight marked the end of the first of the four three-month stints their preregistration year called for, two on medical units and two on surgical ones.

  A phone mounted on the wall rang and was answered by the nearest young doctor. “Robin, they need you on 19. A plaster cast’s too tight.”

  “Right.” A tall redheaded white-coated man rose, pushed his chair back, and made for the door.

  “He’s on his way.”

  “No rest for the wicked, so,” said Sean Barry, a Corkman with his dark hair in a crew cut, sitting at the next table. “Shame you’re missing out on this gourmet repast, Robin.”

  “Away off and chase yourself, Sean,” Robin said just before he closed the door.

  “Indeed,” said Harry Sloan, “but if any of us stick the pace long enough and get to be consultants, we’ll have our lunches in the consultants’ lounge and be home at night for our dinners while our juniors do the work.”

  “You remember that old legend,” Jack Mills asked, as he plonked his plate of Cornish pasties, champ, and boiled cabbage down on Harry’s table, “about how a freed galley slave would miss his chains?”

  “You know I do, Jack Mills,” said Barry, “because we were in the same class for English.”

  Jack laughed. “After these last three months in casualty, you’re not going to hear me begging for a second rotation in the place. Or miss being on call for eighty-four hours a week.”

  Barry smiled. “I’m looking forward to having some freedom at night.”

  “Oh, aye, and I know why, too. Gives you a chance to see Virginia,” said Jack with an exaggerated leer. “We’re hardly ever called and we’re allowed to cover each other after six and at weekends. Tonight, October 31, 1963, we’ve cast off them ol’ casualty chains.”

  “Oh, come on, Jack,” Barry said. “Casualty wasn’t too bad. Bernie O’Byrne’s a great sister. Very protective of her young doctors. Very tactful if she thought you were making a mistake. I reckon I learnt a fair bit in the month before I got sick, and even more when I came back to work after.”

  “All better now, I hope?” Norma said.

  “Absolutely.” And the internal tremors had long gone too. “In the two months since I got back, I also learnt how not to panic with tricky cases. How to get used to catching the occasional flea.” He glanced at Norma Fitch. “I’d already been shown in August how to scare the living bejasus out of belligerent drunks.”

  Norma laughed.

  “Anyway, it’s over for us,” she said, “except for Curly Maguire. He’s got casualty shift until midnight when the next group takes over and we all move on to our next rotations and are on call for our new units.”

  “I start on 5 and 6 tomorrow,” Barry said, relishing the thought of his next assignment.

  “Don’t worry, Barry,” Norma said. “I’ll do that favour for you then. But you’re not worried that it’ll be your first day as a houseman there?”

  “I’ve done two rotations there as a student. I know how the place runs. It’ll only be for a few hours while I’m off-site. Thanks, Norma.”

  Harry said, “If you’re looking for cover tomorrow, Barry, I’m going to sicken your happiness. Five and 6 are on ‘take-in.’”

  Barry’s jaw dropped. “Shite.”

  Housemen were expected to be on or available to their units from eight to six, when the bulk of the work was done, and for the full twenty-four hours on “take-in days,” to admit and help treat acutely ill patients from casualty. All junior staff had to be available. Although nominally always on call, it was often possible to snatch a few hours’ sleep, and it was perfectly permissible to arrange evening cover with a friend on other evenings. Usually not much happened after six—except on those damn take-in days. He picked up his fork, then put it down and pushed the rest of the pasty aside. It was as tough as an old boot.

  “Good luck to you, mate,” Harry said. “I’ll tell you what Franky P”—the juniors’ nickname for the senior cardiologist at the Royal, the eminent Doctor Frank Pantridge, MC, to whom the medal for gallantry had been awarded during the siege of Singapore—“said to me the day I started there: ‘Welcome to 5 and 6, Sloan. Take a half day.’ ‘Thank you, sir.’ ‘And get a haircut. You won’t have another chance for your three months here.’ Typical of the man. Can’t resist pulling people’s legs.”

  Norma asked, “And did you get a haircut?”

  Harry shook his head. “Didn’t get a half day either.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “You can laugh,” Harry said, “but he has a habit of showing up at midnight and demanding, ‘Where’s my houseman?’”

  Barry knew that. “But surely you can still get a houseman from one of the other medical wards to cover their unit and yours for a few hours in the evening if you want to go out? Then you repay the compliment when they want a bit of time?”

  Harry nodded. “You can, but the boss won’t let you away with it too often, and certainly not on take-in.”

  Barry sighed. In the last two months, he had tried to sustain his romance with Virginia, but it hadn’t been easy. They were lucky to be able to meet once a week, and whoever had said, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” may not have got it exactly right.

  Harry toyed with his packet of cigarettes. “Actually, Franky P may come across as a bit of an ogre, but I think he’s a shy man and his gruffness is a façade. He’s a bloody good boss to work for. You’ll learn a lot, and not only cardiology.” Harry grimaced. “We’ve talked about this, Barry. You also have to get a pretty thick skin. Some of your patients aren’t going to make it.”

  “So, cardiology’s not for you, Harry?” Jack asked.

  “Nyeh. Not bloody likely.”

  Jack rose and collected three empty plates and Barry’s half-finished one. “There’s apple pie and custard for dessert. Anyone?”

 
The rest passed. Royal Victoria custard could do double duty as wallpaper paste.

  “Anybody mind?” Harry asked, producing a cigarette.

  Two heads shook.

  Jack returned with his dessert.

  Harry lit up. Blew a smoke ring. “The thing I liked best when we were students was pathology. Now, I know the lot of you think it’s doing postmortems, looking at removed organs, and staring down microscopes at tissue samples, all of which has nothing to do with helping patients—’cause that’s what I think attracted us all to medical school. Looking after people.”

  Three nods of assent.

  “You’d be wrong. Every time I’d do a biopsy and say, ‘That’s a benign mole, not a melanoma,’ or ‘That section from an ovarian tumour is benign,’ I would be helping a living patient. Telling a gynaecologist or a surgeon the exact nature of a biopsy or removed organ is critical to planning that patient’s care. That’s helping too. I’d just not know the patients closely. But the clinician’s greatest support, particularly the surgeons’, is the pathology department. They just don’t get the pleasure of a grateful patient saying thanks.”

  “To each his own,” Barry said, “but I find feeling I’ve done my best for a patient and then having them say thanks is very gratifying.”

  “Me too,” Norma said.

  “I think so too.” Harry blew another smoke ring and watched the round blue cloud hover over the table before continuing. “But if I become a pathologist I won’t have to deal with losing patients either.”

  “I’m with you, Harry,” Jack said. “Now I’ve finished casualty, I’m going to 13 and 14, Mister Sinclair Irwin’s surgical wards. I do want to help people, but I don’t want to get too close. I’m pretty certain I’ll be going for surgery. I really enjoy the diagnostic side of the work, I love working with my hands, but I don’t want to be put off making a bloody great incision by thinking, I’m going to cut into Willy John, who plays centre-forward for the village team, is having a row with his girlfriend, and breeds rabbits. I want to ignore that, get in, whip out half his stomach, and sew him up.”