An Irish Country Love Story

by Patrick Taylor

  “You all right, lass?”

  “I’m fine, Fingal.”

  “Didn’t strain anything? He’s a big man and probably felt like a dead weight.”

  “I’m fine, truly I am. I think I had a bit of help from the wind.”

  “Huh,” said Barry. “Tea. I’d have thought a wee hot half would have been just the ticket.”

  “It doesn’t happen often, Doctor,” O’Reilly said, “but this time you’d’ve been dead wrong. It’s the core body temperature that’s important for keeping vital organs warm. Alcohol is a vasodilator; it diverts blood flow to the skin and that increases heat loss. While you’d feel warmer you’d be making yourself worse.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Barry said, and heard a familiar approaching nee-naw, nee-naw. A Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority ambulance bounced over the sand toward them.

  “Great,” said O’Reilly. “I’m afraid it’s the Royal Victoria Hospital for you, Andy Jackson. You’ll need to be kept under observation until they get your temperature back up to normal.”

  Something caught Barry’s eye out to sea. A fishing boat that he recognised as belonging jointly to Jimmy Scott and Hall Campbell was approaching the dinghy. It had made good time. The fishermen would know to put a painter on the little craft and tow her to harbour. “You probably can’t see it, Andy,” Barry said, “but a couple of locals in their motorboat are getting ready to rescue Shearwater.”

  “Thanks, Barry, for telling me,” Andy said. “I was worried about her.”

  A man in a blue uniform and peaked black leather bus conductor’s cap was tapping on the window. O’Reilly opened the door. “We’re ready for til get your patient intil our ambulance, sir.”

  “Grand,” said O’Reilly. “Tell the admitting doctor that Mister Jackson here has a moderate case of hypothermia, treated with external warming and hot sweet tea. No medications. Initial temperature ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “I’ll do that, sir, and we’ll keep on warming you up, Mister Jackson, in the ambulance. We’ve everything ready and the heater’s on. Now, can yiz walk, sir, or should we get a stretcher?”

  “Give me a hand and I’ll make it there.” Andy was still shivering, but his voice was much firmer. He struggled out of the backseat, still wrapped in the eiderdown, but leaving the blanket behind. He stood and, unaided, opened Sue’s door. “Thanks for fishing me out, Sue. I thought I was a goner.”

  Barry shook his head. “You eejit. If you can’t swim, Andy, why don’t you wear a life jacket?”

  “Barry, you know life jackets get in the way on a dinghy.”

  “Then learn to swim, for God’s sake.”

  “I will, Barry, I promise.”

  “Good man. I’m glad you’re safe,” said Barry.

  “And there’s no need for thanks, Andy,” Sue said. “I just did what had to be done.”

  You did much more, Barry thought, and I am so proud of you, Sue Nolan. You’ll not admit it, but you did risk your own life out there. Please don’t ever do it again.

  3

  I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane

  Barry knocked on the door of the attic bedroom that had been his when he first joined O’Reilly as an assistant in 1964.

  “Come in,” Sue said. She was dressed for travelling: sensible shoes, slim black stirrup pants, a loosely fitting powder blue turtleneck sweater. Her copper hair was done up in a single long plait. Pale lipstick and no other makeup. She didn’t need it. Her engagement ring shone on her left ring finger.

  “You,” he said, “look ravishing.”

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she said. “I’ve just finished my packing.”

  He enveloped her in a hug and kissed her long and hard. “I love you,” he said, “but I don’t do teary good-byes at stations or airports.” Another lingering kiss. “That will have to do for now.”

  She smiled. “It’ll have to do until March—”

  “Unless my revered senior partner will give me a week off in February.”

  “Do you think he might? Oh, Barry. That would be wonderful.”

  “I can ask. Now we’ve got Nonie Stevenson, she and Fingal should be able to cope. I should have thought of it before.”

  Sue kissed him again. “I hope you can come. I’d love to show you around, the Canebière, the Vieux-Port, the Corniche, the Château d’If. It would be great fun. Build memories for rainy days when we’re together again here in Ireland.”

  “I agree,” he said, relishing the idea of them as a married couple having shared memories. “But,” he said, pointing at his watch, “that’s in the future. You’ve a flight to catch in Belfast today. I want to get you to Aldergrove Airport in good time.”

  “We’ll be far too early, but if you want to go…” She shrugged and smiled.

  “Sorry,” he said, “about my being a bit obsessive about punctuality. I think it has to do with my time as a trainee obstetrician. Time, tide, and a baby wanting to get born wait for no man. I believe that applies to planes too.”

  “Eejit,” she said, “I do love you.”

  He held her tightly, kissed her one last time, said, “And it’s not good-bye, it’s only au revoir.” He bent and picked up her two suitcases as she slipped on her coat. “You go first. I’ve got the car at the front.”

  And, following her downstairs, Barry Laverty felt a great warmth in his heart—and a lump in his throat.

  When they reached the ground floor, Mrs. Kinky Auchinleck, lately Kincaid, née O’Hanlon, was backing out of the dining room carrying a tray of dirty breakfast dishes. She came to Number One Main Street five days a week now to answer the telephone, prepare meals, and do the housework.

  As usual her silver hair was done in a neat chignon. She turned and beamed at them. “So is it off you are, Miss Nolan?” Her Cork accent was as strong as it had been the day, as the recently widowed Mrs. Kinky Kincaid, she’d left the fishing village of Ring to come north in 1928. She had been housekeeper to old Doctor Flanagan and had stayed on with O’Reilly when he’d bought the practice from the late doctor’s estate in 1946. “I wish you a safe journey, so, and if you can wait a shmall-little minute I have something for you in my kitchen.” She trotted off along the hall past the waiting room. Barry put the cases down, looked at Sue, and shrugged, turning out the palms of both hands. What had Kinky got for a going-away present?

  Across from where they stood, the door to the surgery opened and Doctor Nonie Stevenson appeared, showing a patient, who Barry recognised as Aggie Arbuthnot, out through the front door. Aggie was holding a hanky to her nose. Nonie, who had been on call last night, had not appeared at breakfast and must have gone straight from her bed to the surgery in what at one time had been the old house’s downstairs lounge.

  “Morning, Doctor Laverty,” Aggie said. “Miss Nolan.” The “Nolan” sounded like “Dolan.” Aggie probably had a cold. It was that time of the year.

  “Morning, Aggie,” Barry and Sue said together.

  Nonie, her thick auburn hair cut in a fashionable bob and wearing a long white lab coat over a knee-length dress and high heels, closed the door, leaned back on it for a moment, and headed back in the direction of the waiting room.

  “Morning,” Barry said, not altogether approving of white coats. He thought they smacked of a certain insecurity among physicians who felt the need to emphasize their status and put up a barrier between doctor and patient. He noticed bags under her bright green eyes. “Bad night?”

  She rolled her eyes, exhaled through her nose, and managed a smile. “But I’ve had worse doing obstetrics.”

  Barry nodded. He knew all about that.

  Nonie went into the waiting room along the hall and reappeared with Melanie Ferguson and her husband, Declan, in tow. His eyes looked teary and his nose was red. Another patient with a head cold, Barry thought. No doubt general practice had its share of routine work. Although O’Reilly’s neurosurgeon friend Mister Charlie Greer had operated on Declan two years ago, the operation to help
his tremors had not been entirely successful. Declan was walking as fast as he could, but his progress was slow. Nonie was shaking her head, pursing her lips. Barry could practically hear her thinking, Get a move on. He knew how she felt. He’d been impatient himself when the waiting room was packed and every delay seemed like an eternity.

  Kinky reappeared clutching a brown paper parcel, which she offered to Sue. “I have never been in an airport,” she said, “but if the food is anything like it is in railway stations…” She hunched her neck into her shoulders and shook her head so hard her double chins wobbled. “I’ve fed better to pigs, so. Here’s a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches with some of my homemade chutney, a pickled egg, and a slice of my almond cake.”

  Sue accepted. “Thank you, Kinky,” she said. “I’m going to miss your cooking.”

  Kinky grinned and said, “And we’re going to miss you, Miss Nolan. Travel safely and come back to us and Doctor Laverty very soon.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I will. I promise.”

  “And here, Kinky,” Barry said, “I thought you were going to say ‘may the road rise up to meet you, the wind be always at your back—’”

  “Doctor Laverty, bye,” Kinky said, one hand on her hip, “I am not some half-baked amádan on the stage at the London Palladium pretending to be Irish. No. Ham sandwiches and a pickled egg are all the blessing I have to give.”

  “No one ever suggested you’re an idiot, Kinky,” Barry said with a laugh, “but I’m starting to behave like one. It’s time to go.” He bent and picked up the cases. “Come on, Miss Nolan,” he said, “your magic carpet ride awaits.”

  Kinky opened the door for them. “You go safely, pet,” she said to Sue. “And you, Doctor Laverty, bye.” Her voice became stern. “Try to be home in time for lunch.”

  * * *

  “Mulligatawny soup, and one of Kinky’s chicken potpies to follow,” O’Reilly said from his place at the head of the dining room table. “Feast fit for a king. I wonder what’s keeping Nonie?”

  “She told me she was running late. Cold and flu season,” Barry said.

  “I suppose. There’s not a lot we can do for a cold or flu, and yet people keep showing up hoping we suddenly have a cure.” O’Reilly laughed and took a gulp of soup. “If anything can cure a cold, it would be this soup.”

  Barry had taken a small helping and had toyed with his potpie. He’d waited with Sue at the airport until she’d waved good-bye from the boarding gate, then walked across the tarmac. He felt the beginnings of something that felt almost like flu settling into his bones. Driving home, he’d sensed an emptiness in the little Volkswagen and, more sharply, within him. Damn it, he’d told himself, stop swooning like a lovelorn swain. The weeks will pass. And here he was picking at Kinky’s excellent food.

  “So, lad,” said O’Reilly, attacking his second piece of chicken potpie, “now Sue’s gone back to France how are you going to fill the shining hour?”

  The older man, Barry realised, was trying to cheer him up.

  “There’s work.”

  “Always that,” said O’Reilly. “Like the poor, with us always.”

  Barry didn’t feel like giving the sources, Saints Matthew and Mark. “I want to finish building that nineteenth-century frigate model, and I’m going to see more of Jack Mills. He’s still walking out with Helen Hewitt, you know. She’s studying medicine now.”

  “Alan Hewitt’s wee girl is making her old da very proud. And he approves of young Mills,” O’Reilly said. “Thinks he’ll go far. It’s been going on for a while now with Mills, hasn’t it?”

  Barry chuckled. “I think it’s a world record for Jack. I might suspect that he’s getting serious. About time, too.”

  “And now you’re going to settle down with your lovely Miss Nolan, you reckon your friend should think about marriage too?”

  “Like the fox who lost his tail and wanted all the other foxes to lose theirs?”

  O’Reilly chuckled. “I’m no fox,” he said, “but when it comes to being married, it gets my full support. And Kitty would agree too.” He fished out his briar and lit up. “And I suppose there’ll be planning for a wedding.”

  “I’ll not have much to do. Sue’s family will take care of that. And her mum, Irene Nolan, seems a capable woman.”

  “And after the honeymoon,” said O’Reilly, “you and Sue can certainly live in your present quarters, but you might want to think of looking for a house or a flat of your own now.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that and—”

  The door opened. Nonie Stevenson, without her white lab coat, came in and sat opposite Barry. “Sorry I’m late for lunch.”

  O’Reilly said, “Busy surgery?”

  “Paddy’s market,” she said. “Every cold and sniffle in County Down.” She looked over at the sideboard. “Is that soup tureen on a hot plate?”

  “It is,” said O’Reilly, rising. “Let me get you some.”

  Ever the gentleman, Barry thought.

  O’Reilly set a filled plate in front of her. “Get that into you,” he said. “You’ll soon feel better.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and ate several spoonfuls. “You told me, Fingal, when I applied for the job, that one of Kinky’s meals would keep me coming back for the rest of my life. You were right. This soup is wonderful. Just what I needed. I missed breakfast. I delivered one of Fitzpatrick’s patients. I only had time to wash my face and go straight to the surgery.”

  Barry nodded. This wasn’t the Nonie Stevenson he recalled from their student days who would have skipped a teaching clinic if she’d had a late night. Good for her.

  “Thank you,” O’Reilly said. “Everything went smoothly with the confinement, I hope?”

  She took a spoonful of soup, swallowed, and said, “Second baby. Normal delivery. As news bulletins are fond of saying, ‘Mother and child are doing well.’” She yawned.

  Barry, feeling guilty about how much time he’d had off while Sue was here, said, “Look, Nonie, it was decent of you doing the weekend, and the surgery this morning so I could run Sue up to Aldergrove. Would you like me to take your well-woman clinic after lunch?”

  A spoonful of soup on the way to her mouth stopped. “Would you?”

  “Of course.”

  “I really would like to lie down,” she said.

  “I’ll do it,” Barry said. At least being busy would keep his mind off missing Sue. His model ship could wait.

  “You’re very sweet, Barry. I’d appreciate it. I really would. In fact—” She finished her soup. “—I’ll pass on the second course and head up now.” She rose.

  “Sleep well,” said O’Reilly.

  “I will,” she said.

  “Barry and I will cope tomorrow,” O’Reilly said. “All right by you, Barry?”

  “Sure.”

  “You have the day off, Nonie.”

  “Thank you, Barry, Fingal,” she said, heading for the door.

  The door closed behind her.

  “Decent of you, that, Barry,” O’Reilly said.

  “Och,” Barry said, “I’ve had lots of time off while Sue was here. Nonie’s only just started with us. Let’s give her a chance to settle in.”

  “Agreed,” said O’Reilly. “Let’s do just that.”

  4

  They That Are Sick

  “You, my dear,” Kitty said as she poured O’Reilly a second cup of tea, “are becoming a regular gentleman of leisure. Here.” She handed him the cup and saucer, passing them across his plate, on which lay the wreckage of a pair of breakfast kippers.

  “Thanks.” He spread his favourite Frank Cooper’s Oxford marmalade on a slice of toast. “And it is pleasant to have more time off. Nonie’s doing the Friday-morning surgery, Barry’s out making a couple of home visits, and all I have to do is sit here in case of a real emergency. I can sup my tea and enjoy the company of the best-looking woman in Ulster until Barry comes back and then, if the lovely off-duty Sister O’Reilly would like
, I’ll take her to lunch at the Culloden.”

  “Great idea, Fingal. I’d like that very much,” Kitty said. “So we have Nonie to thank for this more leisurely pace.”

  “We do.”

  “How is she working out?”

  “Fine, I think. She doesn’t have the even temperament of Jenny, but she’s a first-rate physician. The customers seem to like her and she’s a hard worker. I think she’s fitting in well.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Kitty sipped her own tea. She cleared her throat and said, “Look, after lunch could we nip down to Bangor? We really need to buy some new curtains for this room. They’re getting threadbare.”

  “Excuse me.” Kinky came in carrying an empty tray. “I’ll just tidy up then get back to my kitchen, so, to see to the other doctors’ lunches. I did not mean to eavesdrop, but I did hear you say, sir, that you would be taking Kitty out to lunch?” She began to clear the table.

  “That I will,” said O’Reilly, and bit into his toast.

  “More power to your wheel, sir. It does me good to see yourself having a bit more free time.” She started loading her tray.

  “Thanks, Kinky.” O’Reilly frowned and turned to Kitty. “I don’t see the need for new curtains. The old ones have stuck the pace bravely ever since I bought the practice.”

  “Exactly,” said Kitty. “They’d not have been out of place … what year was this house built? I’ve always thought it looked Georgian.”

  “Back in 1818.”

  “I was right, and I’m sure they’ve been here since King George III ruled all of Ireland. They are positive antiques.”

  “But I like these old curtains. I don’t want to spend more money buying new ones.” History repeating itself, he thought as he took a healthy bite of toast and washed it down with tea. Of course he wanted Kitty to feel at home here and make it her own, but he saw no need for added expenditure. “Kinky, what do you think of them?”

  Kinky abruptly stopped lifting a plate from the table and cast a speculative eye from O’Reilly to Kitty. “Well, sir—”

  “Dear Fingal, don’t put Kinky in an awkward position.”

  “No, I’d like to know her opinion. Kinky is the soul of practicality. She’ll know if the dining room needs new curtains. Kinky?”