An Irish Country Village

by Patrick Taylor

  He carried his tray to a vacant table, wondering how often he’d eaten hurried meals in here. The facility was open twenty-four hours a day and catered to the junior staff: doctors, nurses, lab techs, radiographers, physiotherapists. Many of the tables were occupied, mostly by young women.

  Barry washed down the white bread and processed cheese with a mouthful of lukewarm coffee. Kinky wouldn’t approve of his repast. Nor would Patricia, he thought, and what she might say about the Chinese meal he was going to buy her this evening hardly bore thinking about.

  He chewed slowly, listening to the buzz of conversation and the clink of utensils on crockery. He saw Jack Mills—tall, his broad shoulders stretching the seams of his long white coat—leave the counter and head over, pausing to stop and chat with a physiotherapist and then a student nurse, both blonde, both well endowed. The senior students and housemen called the place the “cattle market,” filled as it was with women, many of them on the lookout for a marriageable young physician.

  Jack came over, dumped his tray, and sat. “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”

  “Good to see you too, Jack.” Barry noticed that Jack’s normally ruddy, farmer’s complexion looked pale under the artificial lighting, and the dark circles under his eyes seemed darker still.

  Jack yawned and shovelled in a forkful of Irish stew. “How’s life abusing you in darkest Ballybucklebo?”

  Jack was the one man from whom Barry kept no secrets, hadn’t needed to since they’d shared a study as schoolboys at Campbell College and then digs as medical students. “Could be better,” he said.

  Jack yawned. “Couldn’t be any bloody worse than being a surgical registrar. Apparently sleep is only for the upper classes.”

  “Bad night?”

  “Three in a row.”

  “My heart bleeds. You picked surgery.”

  “Next time, if there’s any truth to this reincarnation business, I’m coming back as a galley slave. Should be easier. Three appendixes last night, and a perforated duodenal ulcer. I don’t think the ulcer’s going to make it.” Jack did not seem unduly concerned.

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Jack shook his head. “Nah. We don’t let ourselves get too close to the victims. Some of ’em pop their clogs. That’s life.” He gobbled more stew.

  “One of mine did.”

  “Fell off the perch? So?”

  Barry pushed his plate aside. He’d not eaten the crusts. They tasted too much like cardboard. “It’s different in a village. You get to know the people, and they get to know you.”

  “Poor buggers. They’ll survive. I’ve known you for eleven years. Hasn’t done me a bit of harm.” He grinned.

  “Losing my patient hasn’t done my reputation a damn bit of good . . . I may have to leave.”

  “And you like it there, don’t you?” There was a hint of concern.

  “Very much.”

  “So. Tell your Uncle Jack what happened.”

  Barry briefly went over the major’s history. “. . . and we’re still waiting for the postmortem results.”

  “And you’re hoping something else helped your victim ‘shuffle off this mortal coil’?”

  “Yes, but it’s taking forever to find out.”

  “Help,” said Jack, “is at hand. Scuse me.” He rose.

  Barry watched his friend make his way past several tables, stop, say something, and then return accompanied by a short young man, whose pure white hair made him look older than his years.

  “You remember Harry Sloan?” Jack said.

  “Hi, Harry,” Barry said, casting back for a memory of his classmate, a studious man, one who had tended to be private and was not often found at undergraduate parties. “How are you?”

  “Nyeh . . .”

  Barry remembered. Harry had a habit of prefacing many of his remarks with that peculiar “nyeh” sound.

  “. . . rightly, so I am.”

  “Harry’s a budding pathologist, and purely by chance he’s in the morgue this week assisting at the PMs.”

  “Pretty bloody gruesome, but you get used to it.” He smiled. “At least you don’t have to talk to the patients.”

  “I imagine you’d fill your pants if one of them spoke to you,” Jack said.

  “Nyeh. I’d run a bloody mile.”

  “Bet you couldn’t beat Roger Bannister,” Jack said.

  “But you’re enjoying pathology?” Barry asked, half thinking that at the moment not having to talk to the patients might hold some attraction.

  “It’s very interesting and the hours are good. Nobody’s going to call you out at night.”

  “That,” said Jack, “would have merit.” He yawned. “Barry wants to know about one of your customers.”

  Barry stared at Harry Sloan. Could he possibly have the results already? Would there be something unusual, something for which Barry could not possibly have been responsible?

  “Who?”

  “A Major Fotheringham. He’d had a cerebral aneurysm clipped two weeks ago, then died suddenly on Sunday night last,” Barry said.

  Harry frowned. “Coroner’s case?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We did the autopsy yesterday. Only one. I remember it . . .”

  Barry held his breath.

  “Didn’t find nothing except for the brain surgery, and it looked good. No signs of any more bleeding.”

  Barry exhaled. “Nothing?” He felt his hopes rise. If the surgery results had been okay, then his misdiagnosis could not have been the immediate cause of the major’s death. But that was only half the answer to his dilemma. He was hanging on to the belief that something, something for which he could not be held responsible, had been the reason for the man’s regrettable demise. “And there was nothing else to see?”

  “Nah.” Harry shook his head. “Mind you,” he said, “it’s only the macroscopic findings.”

  Barry’d had to attend six postmortems during his training. The macroscopic examination came first, when all the organs were removed and scrutinized by the pathologist for any obvious disease. “Nothing?”

  “Not a sausage,” said Harry, “if you don’t count the large intestine, which can look like one.” He laughed at what Barry decided must be a pathology joke. “We’ll have to wait for the histology.”

  Barry’s shoulders slumped. All the vital organs—heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, pancreas—would be preserved in formalin, and representative samples taken to be sliced more thinly than tissue paper, mounted on glass slides, stained, and examined under the microscope. “How long will that take?”

  Harry knitted his brows, sucked in his breath, and produced a longer than usual “nyeh.” Then he said, “Couple of weeks. The tech’ll be making the slides today.”

  “Oh,” Barry said. “Thanks.” He’d have to steel himself to wait. “Harry, do you think you’ll find anything?”

  “Hard to say. It’s a bit of a fishing expedition.” He ran one hand through his white hair.

  “Barry’s worried,” Jack said.

  “I don’t want to hold out false hopes,” Harry said, “but once in a blue moon someone has a massive coronary—”

  “But,” Barry asked, “would that not show up with blood clots and damaged heart muscle you could see?”

  “Aye, you’d think so, but it’s not true. If the victim dies . . . nyeh . . . more or less at once, we can’t see anything at all.”

  “But it would show up on the slides?”

  “Oh, aye.” Harry seemed to brighten up. “I’ve a notion,” he said. “As soon as the slides are ready, I’ll take a quick look-see myself, and if I think there’s anything, I’ll get one of the senior blokes to take a shufti.”

  “Would you?”

  “Aye, certainly. Have you a phone number?”

  “Here.” Barry fished a small notebook from an inside pocket and scribbled down O’Reilly’s number. “You’ll probably get a Mrs. Kincaid.”

  “Nyeh. Mrs., indeed? Living i
n sin are you?” Harry Sloan grinned.

  “She’s the housekeeper.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll remember. Anyway. Good to see you again, Laverty.” Harry turned to leave. “I’ll be in touch, but it could be next week.”

  “Decent lad,” Jack remarked after Harry’d gone. “He’ll see you right.”

  “I hope so.”

  Jack pushed back his chair. “You know, Laverty, sometimes you worry too much. All this fuss that’s got your knickers in a twist will blow over. If this Ballybucklebo’s what you want . . .”

  “Professionally it is.”

  “O’Reilly’ll see you right.”

  “I hope so, but there’s something else.”

  “Not medical?”

  “No.”

  “Not by any chance a certain black-haired, sloe-eyed damson called Patricia?”

  Barry nodded. “And it’s damsel, not damson. That’s a kind of plum.”

  “I know, and you’re right. Your Patricia’s more of a peach.” As he spoke, Jack’s gaze followed a passing young nurse. His eyes ran over her from head to toe and probably saw through her clothes like an X-ray machine, Barry thought. “That one’s more of a plum.” He waved at her and she waved back, clearly unconcerned by the leer coming in her direction. “You could have your pick, you know.”

  “Maybe.” Barry thought about the clerk on Ward 22. “Do you remember Mandy?”

  “The bird you dated for a while. Dark hair. Great legs?”

  “Yes. I saw her this morning. She wondered if I might take her to dinner.”

  “Christ. After you dumped her? She must be a glutton for punishment. Are you taking her?”

  Barry shook his head. “I’m serious about Patricia . . . and I’m worried about her.”

  “Bad thing this serious, mate. What’s got you worried?”

  “She may be going to England. She’s trying to get a scholarship to Cambridge. She’d be in with a bunch of very bright undergraduates there. Mostly men.”

  Jack whistled. “If she’s that good at what she does, she’s far too bright for the likes of you anyway.”

  “Do you think so?” Barry knew he sounded worried.

  Jack frowned. “The truth? She may be. I’ve only met her once, but she didn’t strike me as the kind of lass who’d be happy to sit at home getting the old man’s tea, and pipe, and slippers ready.”

  “She’s not. She wants to build dams and bridges.”

  “Probably wants to drive a bulldozer too. Not my type. Not one bit, but to each his own.” He frowned. “What’ll you do if she does go to England?”

  Barry shrugged.

  “I hesitate to suggest this, my old son, but if you’re that serious about her, why not propose to her?”

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Why not?” He leant forward, elbows on the table. “This American sexual revolution thing is great for the likes of me, but there are still some rules.”

  “Like what?”

  “If a bird’s wearing an engagement ring, it’s as good as saying, ‘Private property. Hands off.’ ” Harry slipped into a Bombay Welsh singsong accent and wiggled his head from side to side like a Siamese temple dancer. “Oh, crikey. Not blooming cricket. All the sahibs is knowing about sacred cows, isn’t it?”

  He’s doing Peter Sellers’s Mr. Banerjee character again, Barry thought. “I hadn’t really considered that . . . ,” he said, wondering if he was ready to ask Patricia to marry him. “But I don’t think she’d like you to suggest she was anyone’s property—or a sacred cow.”

  “Just a figure of speech,” Jack said, rising. “I have to run. Outpatients this afternoon.”

  Barry glanced at his watch, hoping his friend would stay a little longer. After all he had all afternoon to kill until he met Patricia. “You’ll be too early,” he said.

  “Not if I go up to Ward Twenty-two first,” said Jack, grinning. “You’ve no dibs on the wee brunette, have you?”

  “No.”

  “You remember White Christmas?”

  “Of course.” The BBC showed it on television every Christmas, and the set was always crowded in the housemen’s mess.

  Jack was singing as he left, in a fair imitation of Bing Crosby’s voice, “Oh-oh-oh, Mandy, I’m feeling quite randy. Let me buy you a brandy . . .”

  I’ll Love You till China

  and Africa Meet

  Barry left the Ritz cinema on the corner of the Grosvenor Road and Great Victoria Street. To his left College Square ran past the buildings of the grandly titled Royal Belfast Academical Institution, known to the attendees and the citizenry as “Inst.” Now it was a grammar school, but Barry knew that in the 1830s it had housed Belfast’s first medical college.

  The traffic was heavy and clamorous, and the air noisome with car exhaust fumes. Rush hour had started, and he had to wait to cross the road to the imposing granite-block towers of the General Assembly’s building, the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

  He walked down Howard Street, humming, “I could have danced all night,” off-key as usual. He’d really enjoyed the matinee of My Fair Lady, this year’s Oscar winner for best film, which was still playing. He’d decided not to bother with the one showing next door, the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night.

  He turned left onto Queen Street, where The Peacock, one of Belfast’s first Chinese restaurants, had opened recently. The Peacock wasn’t licensed, but permitted patrons to bring their own wine. He carried a bottle of Entre-Deux-Mers. He wasn’t a connoisseur, but he knew that Patricia enjoyed a glass of wine, and the man in the offlicence had assured him it was a good white.

  Brunhilde was still parked close by, where he’d left her earlier. Barry pushed through the door to the restaurant.

  The single room was decorated with heavy, red-flock wallpaper, Chinese dragons and pagodas embossed on the material. Tasselled paper lanterns hung from the ceiling. A picture of a giant panda done in fine stitch work on a silk background and framed in black bamboo decorated one wall. Oriental music filtered discordantly into the room. Barry could smell exotic spices coming from the kitchen at the back of the place.

  A smiling Chinese hostess approached. She was wearing a green brocade, high-collared, floor-length, split-to-the-thigh cheongsam. The traditional Chinese fashion had been popularized in the fifties by the wives of British servicemen returning from Hong Kong, even though some older Ulsterwomen regarded it as pretty risqué. The hostess greeted Barry, took the wine to chill it, and ushered him to a table for two. “Would youse like a menu?”

  “Please,” Barry said.

  “I’ll only be a wee minute, so I will.”

  Barry smiled. The woman’s features were classically Chinese, her accent pure Sandy Row. Thick as champ.

  Three other tables were occupied. Five-thirty was early for the Belfast dining public. Barry heard the chimes over the door jangle, turned, and saw her. She wore low-heeled shoes, black pants, and a maroon sweater. Her hair was done up in a ponytail.

  “Hi, Barry.”

  “Patricia.” He rose and held her chair, waiting for her to dump an obviously heavy knapsack on the floor and take her seat. He shoved the chair under her. “Glad you could make it.”

  “So,” she said, “am I.”

  Barry took his seat opposite her. “Busy day?”

  “Nonstop. I hate architectural drawing.”

  Before he could say something sympathetic, the hostess reappeared. She poured green tea into two handleless porcelain cups. “Here youse are,” she said, handing them menus. “I’ll give youse a wee minute to think about what you’d like, and I’ll bring the wine. I’ve it in the freezer.”

  Patricia sipped the tea. “Interesting.” She opened her menu. “Good Lord,” she said, “this thing’s about as big as the Domesday Book. How on earth are you meant to pick something?”

  Barry watched her flip over the pages as she muttered, “Wontons? Moo goo gai pan? Glazed duck’s webs?” She looked at him, one eyebrow
raised. “What’re glazed duck’s webs?”

  “I think they’re a bit like our cruibins, except they’re made of duck’s paddles.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Yeugh.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “Barry, do you come here often?”

  The line from The Goon Show slipped out: “Only during air raids.”

  She laughed and he saw the sparkle in her dark eyes. “Be serious,” she said, “because I’ve never been to a Chinese place before.”

  “Really? I thought you knew all about exotic cuisine. That lasagna the other night was lovely.”

  “Mum taught me how to make that, but Chinese restaurants are a bit thin on the ground in Newry and the Kinnegar. You’ll have to help me order.”

  “All right.” Barry squeezed her hand, surprised yet pleased that Patricia, normally so self-possessed, would ask for help. “Jack and I used to come here quite a bit.” He neglected to tell her that so did he and Mandy and the green-eyed nurse. “We’d order two or three dishes and share.”

  “Let’s do that. What would you suggest?”

  “Do you like chicken?”

  She nodded.

  “Pork?”

  “Please.”

  “Right. Leave it to me,” he said, and he realized how much he enjoyed saying it.

  “Wine, sir?” The hostess had come back from the kitchen. She showed Barry the bottle’s label.

  “Please ask the lady,” he said.

  Patricia looked at the bottle, nodded, and waited for the hostess to pull the cork and pour the wine into a glass. She sniffed, then sipped. “An amusing little wine . . . a bit cheeky,” she said seriously. “Good nose. Just a hint of impudence. Probably from a south-facing slope.”

  Barry was impressed until he saw her shoulders shaking and her lips widen into a smile. He couldn’t help himself, and in a moment his own laughter pealed out. Even the hostess was laughing.