An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea (9 page)

“And then wedding bells ringing in March for you two, is that right?”

Barry nodded. “Feels like a long time.”

“Patience, my boy, patience.” O'Reilly understood all about prenuptial patience. “Right. It's four thirty. Time to beard the lion—”

“In his den,” Barry said, opening his door. “If I remember correctly, that's exactly what you said the last time we were here, before Christmas '64. Is Doctor Ronald Hercules Fitzpatrick still a lion?” At the sound of the door opening, Arthur began his antics again, clearly hoping for a walk.

“You stay, lummox.” Sighing like a barrage balloon deflating, Arthur stopped thrashing his tail and subsided on the seat as O'Reilly heaved himself out of the car.

Barry walked round to join him on the driver's side and O'Reilly inhaled the tang of the sea. Someone had scattered bread crumbs on the cement walk outside Number Nine, the Esplanade, and gulls pitched and wheeled, making crash landings, squabbling over the pickings.

“I thought perhaps he'd mellowed over the last few years, but his reaction to Charlie and me on Sunday was anything but mellow. There was Ronald, who ordinarily wouldn't say shite if his mouth was full of it, banging his fist on the table, gobbling like a turkey, and yelling, ‘And there's not a blooming thing wrong with me. Nothing. Leave me alone. Go away.' And I quote.” O'Reilly tightened his lips, blew out his breath.

“I'm no psychiatrist,” Barry said, “but that's called denial.” He looked down, then back up at O'Reilly. “It's going to be an uphill fight to get him to change his mind.”

“I know, but something has to be done about the man's refusal to seek help. He's not my favourite person in the world, but I'm still worried about him.”

They walked side by side along the path as the gulls hopped and flapped out of their way. The nondescript three-storey grey stucco house, according to the signs outside, had solicitors' offices and a dentist on the first floor and a group of chartered accountants on the second.

“Since we worked out between us all the neurological conditions that might be at the root of Ronald's symptoms, I haven't been able to come up with any more causes. Have you thought of other possibilities?”

“Divil the one,” Barry said. “What we think it could be is bad enough.” His shudder was obvious, and O'Reilly understood why. “He must be stark-raving bonkers to refuse help from his friends—especially when one of them is an eminent neurosurgeon like Charlie Greer.”

“Calling us friends might be pushing it. Ronald never really had friends at medical school. I think he's just scared silly and won't or can't face the facts.” O'Reilly rang the bell under Fitzpatrick's brass plate, which was affixed to the wall beside a brown-painted front door.

The door was opened. “Fingal. Young Laverty. Do come in. We'll go through to my surgery.” Fitzpatrick's smile was, like his chin, weak. He stood with his hands behind his back, leaning forward, looking like one of those African secretary birds. Fitzpatrick led the way along a hall still floored with faded brown linoleum. The same Landseer print,
Monarch of the Glen,
hung askew on one wall.

Nor had he changed the paisley-patterned wallpaper in his surgery. Perhaps, O'Reilly thought, Fitzpatrick feels about paisley the way I do about roses.

“Please sit, gentlemen,” Fitzpatrick said, and indicated several kitchen chairs. He himself retired behind his desk, which was on a raised dais. “Now, Fingal,” he said, “you were not at all clear on the phone this morning about why you wanted this meeting, but apart from the unfortunate incident when you and Greer tried to intrude on my private life—”

O'Reilly saw Barry flinch. This wasn't going to be easy.

“Apart from that, I must say your attitude and that of your lovely wife at the reunion was most collegial. Most. I enjoyed our lunch in Davy Byrnes enormously.”

“Thank you,” O'Reilly said.

“So what can I do for you?”

O'Reilly took a deep breath and made a tactical decision before saying, “Ronald, I came to say sorry. It was out of place for Charlie and me to try to interfere.”

Fitzpatrick's sniff and Barry's raised eyebrows came as one. I know, O'Reilly thought, that young Laverty doesn't believe I've ever known how to apologise, but honey catches more flies than vinegar.

“Thank you, Fingal. I am a very private man. I'm sure your concern was well meant, but…” He held up his right hand and O'Reilly saw the bandages round the thumb and index finger. “I have always had a very high tolerance for pain. To this day I refuse local anaesthesia for dental fillings. As regards the blisters, I have everything under control. I always keep specially prepared dressings for burns. It's a County Leitrim cure. One part beeswax to four of mutton fat are melted, camomile flowers are added, and linen bandages soaked while the mixture is still liquid, then allowed to solidify. When applied, the body's heat melts the fats, the plaster adheres tightly, and keeps air and infection out. In ten days I shall be as right as rain. Never fear.” His smile was condescending.

“I've heard of that before,” said Barry, “and of camomile, butter, and goose dung for treating scalds.”

“I'm a firm believer in country remedies, Laverty,” Fitzpatrick said, “but even I might draw the line at goose dung.” Back on his home territory, Fitzpatrick seemed to have reverted to the supercilious air that had neither won him friends nor influenced people when he was a student at Trinity College in Dublin. O'Reilly scanned the small shelf of books behind Fitzpatrick's desk but didn't find a copy of the classic he had been reading at Davy Byrnes.

O'Reilly thought fast. Regardless of what might ail Fitzpatrick, neurological disorders rarely had the urgency of acute conditions such as bleeding or fainting. Unless, of course, there had been bleeding into the skull. But that clearly wasn't the case here. A diagnosis didn't have to be made instantly, and when—not if, but when—Fitzpatrick did agree to see Charlie, the surgeon would not put Fitzpatrick on any waiting list. He'd be seen at once as a professional courtesy. O'Reilly had a little leeway. Today, when Fitzpatrick was so convinced of the rightness of his own treatment, any insistence on him going to see Charlie might close the doors forever to getting him looked after properly until it was too late.

Perhaps a more subtle method would be to feign all sweetness and light today and make another approach after some time had passed? “I'm delighted you're taking care of yourself,” O'Reilly said. “Charlie and I only spoke to you because Kitty was really worried and persuaded us to. You know she's a neurosurgery nurse.” He ignored Barry's wide-eyed stare. He'd have to remind the young pup to think twice before playing poker. He'd never be able to bluff.

“Your wife, Fingal, is a very handsome and caring woman, and you are a very lucky man.”

O'Reilly was convinced Fitzpatrick had harboured an unrequited attraction to Kitty, perhaps even love, since their student days. “She even asked Barry and me to come round today to make sure you were all right and to ask—ask, mind you—” O'Reilly debated for a second and concluded it was worth going ahead. “—if you'd not reconsider seeing Charlie, let him give you the once-over? Just to be on the safe side. She says it would set her mind at rest.”

“Shan't be necessary,” Fitzpatrick said, “not one bit, I can assure you both, but I can understand her concern. Please thank her for me. I am touched.”

All the flags were up in O'Reilly's assessment of Fitzpatrick's frame of mind. At this moment, trying to bully the man into doing what was the right thing for him would have about as much chance of success as a heifer on roller skates dancing
Swan Lake
. There was much to be said for letting time elapse, although eventually getting the right diagnosis was imperative. “Why not thank her yourself?” O'Reilly wondered why he had a mental image of a wet and wrinkled Archimedes leaping out of his bath yelling, “Eureka!” “She and I are going to Barcelona on Friday for a week to see an old friend.” And to lay a ghost to rest from Kitty's past. “But when we get back, why not come for tea?” And she and I can gang up on you.

There was a glint in the man's eyes when he said, “Thank you, Fingal. I'd like that very much.”

O'Reilly rose and nodded to Barry, who joined him.

“Thank you for coming,” Fitzpatrick said. “Bon voyage, Fingal. I'll look forward very much to seeing you and Kitty in a week or so.” He smiled at Barry. “You are a very lucky young man to have Fingal as your principal.”

“I know,” Barry said, “even if sometimes I can't always follow his methods.”

“Ah,” said Fitzpatrick, “you'll learn, young man, that all doctors have their own little ways, but it has been my experience with your senior that when he sets his mind on something he seems always to get it.”

“Och,” said O'Reilly, “if we weren't all of the same stock I'd say it was only the luck of the Irish.” He turned and began to walk away. “We'll see ourselves out, Ronald. Come on, Barry, and we'll give Arthur his run.”

*   *   *

O'Reilly took a stick from Arthur's mouth and stepped aside as the big dog shook himself dry. “Begod,” said O'Reilly, relishing the late-September sun's warmth on his face and the sparkly evening shimmer of the lough between the beach and the softening Antrim Hills on the far shore. In the distance, a V of geese cut diagonally across the sky and the two men stopped to watch them. “I've always had a soft spot for September. Start of rugby season, opening of wildfowling, gentle evenings like this.”

“Soft spot? Soft in the head, more likely,” Barry said, sotto voce.

“Huh,” said O'Reilly, beginning to head for home. “Heel … and that applies to Arthur and impertinent young partners.” But he was smiling. Now that he felt he'd done his best for Ronald Fitzpatrick, even if the outcome wasn't immediately satisfactory, O'Reilly's mood was much lighter. He was happy to be teased by young Barry Laverty, physician and surgeon, M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O. The boy made him as proud as if he'd been his own son.

“Away,” said Barry with a grin, “off and chase yourself, revered senior partner,” and fell into step at O'Reilly's shoulder.

They strode in the companionable silence of two men between whom a solid friendship, based not a little on mutual respect, was growing. Underfoot the sand was damp and firm where half an hour before the ebbing tide had been carrying bladder wrack and kelp fronds, flotsam and jetsam back out to sea.

“How's about ye, Doctors?” A perspiring, barefoot man in an open-necked collarless shirt with his corduroy trousers rolled up above his knees straightened up from bending to use a sand rake.

“Grand altogether, Leo,” O'Reilly said. The man had been a patient for fifteen years, ever since first having to see Cromie for a case of
genu valgum
—knock-knees. Leo held up a burlap sack. “I've done very good, Doc, so I have,” he said. “Would you like a few cockles for your tea, like?”

Boiled, the bivalve molluscs were delicious with salt and vinegar. “Pop some in here,” O'Reilly said, and held out an oversized hanky, which Leo filled with the shellfish, each grooved with a fan-shaped pattern on its shell. “Thank you very much.” O'Reilly knotted the hanky at the corners. “Don't let us hold you up, Leo. Good to see you.”

“Enjoy your tea, sirs,” Leo said, and bent back to his work singing to himself,

 … sweet Molly Malone,

as she wheels her wheelbarrow

through streets broad and narrow

crying cockles and mussels alive, alive oh …

“I miss not having Kinky after five in her kitchen,” O'Reilly said as he and Barry resumed their walk and Arthur bounded ahead, “but I've known how to cook these fellahs,” he held up the bulging hanky, savouring its fresh, fishy smell, “since I was a wee lad in Holywood. You soak them for a few hours in cold salt water and they spit out any sand they may have ingested, then you boil them. If they don't open then, don't eat them. Those ones are dead already and may be toxic. We'll have the good ones tomorrow night.”

“I'll be out,” Barry said. “Having dinner with Dad and Mum in Bangor. But you and Kitty enjoy.”

Tom Laverty, O'Reilly thought, navigating officer on
Warspite
. He glanced out to sea, and as if he needed a further reminder of the Royal Navy, saw the RNR coastal minesweeper HMS
Kilmorey
heading down the lough. As always, seeing the grey
Kilmorey,
tender to HMS
Caroline,
a veteran of Jutland and moored in Belfast as a training facility, brought back ghosts from his past. Kitty wasn't the only member of the family with one of those.

And as always he chased the phantasms back to their lairs by concentrating on the present. Another denizen of these familiar beaches was heading their way. Donal Donnelly, carroty hair sticking out from beneath his duncher, was walking on the sand dunes with his purebred racing greyhound Bluebird by his side. “Hello, Doctors,” said Donal. “Out for a wee dander?” Somehow, O'Reilly thought, the tone of the man's voice did not have its usual cheerful innocence, and Donal was not smiling.

As Arthur and Bluebird, old friends, exchanged mutual bottom sniffs and a lot of tail wagging, Barry said, “Hello, Donal. How are Julie and Tori?”

Donal sighed. “They're grand, fit as fleas, and Tori never shuts up. I think her mammy, when she was carrying the wee dote, was scared by Cissie Sloan.”

O'Reilly had to chuckle. It was an ancient Ulster superstition that exposure to external influences while still in the womb could produce lasting effects after a baby's birth. He could understand why Donal might think that proximity to the biggest chatterbox in the village and townland could lead to his daughter's loquaciousness. And yet there was still no smile and O'Reilly knew Donal was daft about his wife and daughter. “Something the matter, Donal?”