An Irish Country Christmas Part 29

Good for you, Barry, O'Reilly thought. Five months ago you'd not have pointed your fork at me, much less tease me and argue with me. "You're right," he said. "I remember Elwood studying s.h.i.+pyard workers exposed to the stuff in the building of s.h.i.+ps." He sighed. "We are making headway but slowly," O'Reilly said. Then he added, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had an anticancer vaccine?" He chewed and swallowed. "It's a horrid disease. You feel so b.l.o.o.d.y useless."

"I suppose if you put it that way, sorting out a kiddie with asthma isn't so terrible. At least if we can't prevent it, we can treat it pretty well."

"I hear you, but I also know it's upsetting when a child's scared or in pain." He sighed. "You just have to try to get used to it if you're going to be able to help."

"I know. I am trying to."

"So what did you do for Billy?"

Barry shrugged. "The usual. Sent for the ambulance."

O'Reilly frowned. "I think that's eleven times this year's Billy's had to go to Sick Kids." He smiled. "His mum's sat with him so many times while he's been given intravenous bronchial dilators that she could probably tell the doctors what dose of aminophylline to give."

Barry laughed. "She certainly seemed pretty calm about the whole thing."

"Phyllis Cadogan's one of the most sensible women in Ballybucklebo," O'Reilly said. "Her husband thinks he runs the newsagent's shop, but it's Phyllis who's really in charge of the business. She has to be because her husband's on a waiting list to get his hernia fixed, and until it is, she has to do all the lifting."

"I'll remember that."

"Good." O'Reilly ate most of the egg in one bite. "And was that it for the morning?"

"No. I popped in to see Sammy and Maggie. He's really recovering fast. Maggie reckons he'll be well enough to come to the Rugby Club party next Wednesday, the twenty-third. I think she's right. He might even make the Christmas pageant on the twenty-first. Eileen doesn't want her kids to miss it, but they will if she has to stay at home with Sammy."

O'Reilly finished the egg and demolished the celery stick in a couple of crunches. "The kiddies really enjoy the pageant and the party; it would be a shame for them to miss them." He sliced the tomato in half. "And I want Eileen at both too."

"Why?"

O'Reilly bolted one tomato half. "I'd Donal and Julie in today, and before you ask, because I know you were worried that she'd got pregnant too soon after her miscarriage, she's nine weeks and doing fine."

"That's good, Fingal, but what have the Donnellys to do with Eileen being at a couple of functions?"

The rest of the tomato went. "What do you know about raffles?"

"Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles, 1781 to 1826. Founded Singapore."

"True." Barry was certainly well grounded in the history of the British Empire. It was a pity, O'Reilly thought, there wasn't more Irish history taught. "But I mean the other sort of raffle," O'Reilly said.

"The lottery kind? And Donal's involved?" Barry's eyes widened. He grinned. "Go on."

The cuc.u.mber was pierced and went straight into O'Reilly's mouth. "I had an idea for repairing Eileen's finances . . ."

"And Donal's helping?"

"Yes."

"What's he going to do? Raffle off a bunch of Irish thruppenny bits as Beatrix Potter medals because they have the image of a hare on them?"

O'Reilly laughed. "He'd not get away with that with the locals."

"He did in August when he persuaded that b.l.o.o.d.y awful Englishman Captain O'Brien-Kelly that half-crowns were medallions commemorating Arkle."

"There are," said O'Reilly, "no flies on the boul' Donal, but this time he has a better scheme. We're going to raffle a turkey at the Rugby Club party."

"I don't see how that will help Eileen, even if she does win it."

"Because a big turkey as a prize will persuade lots of folks to buy tickets. That brings the money in."

"And the club benefits."

"Not much," said O'Reilly, glad he'd been able to get the committee to agree. "They've agreed to split the take seventy-five/twenty-five with the winner, as long as the winner also holds a special ticket." He watched Barry's face go from a frown to a smile. Barry had come up with the answer as quickly as he solved clues in those cryptic crosswords, which O'Reilly hated to admit were completely beyond him.

"Eileen's going to win the turkey and the money. I'd bet on that if you and Donal are involved."

"Right, but we'll keep it hush-hush. If Eileen suspected for one minute it had been a put-up job, she'd not accept a penny."

"I agree. She struck me as a very proud woman." Barry scratched his chin. "How is Donal going to make sure she gets the winning ticket?"

O'Reilly laughed. "Don't ask me how Donal will fix things. I haven't the faintest idea, but he will. That's one tricky problem solved." O'Reilly allowed himself a tiny bit of smugness.

"I wish he could help us with our other one. Dear Doctor Fitzpatick."

So Barry was still worried about losing patients, was he? O'Reilly started on the first lettuce leaf. "I'd another of his customers in today. Secondary infertility. They've two kiddies, but number three is slow coming. The highheejins up at the Royal are flummoxed." The second lettuce leaf was next. As soon as it was finished, O'Reilly paused with knife and fork at "Present arms." "And I'll bet you'll not even begin to guess what the Kinnegar's answer to Hippocrates has suggested."

Barry shook his head. "Fingal, I'm not even going to try. Tell me."

"Gunpowder."

"What?" Barry sat bolt upright.

"You heard right. Gunpowder, one teaspoon every morning in the husband's tea."

"Good G.o.d. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry, it's so ridiculous. Gunpowder."

"I think," said O'Reilly slowly, "we need to pay Fitzpatrick a courtesy call of our own." He looked straight at Barry. "I really don't think he's a threat to us, son. He'll get away with handing out his weird nostrums for a while . . . you can fool all of the people some of the time-"

"So said Abraham Lincoln."

"But country folks are a d.a.m.n sight cleverer than many people give them credit for. I reckon they'll start to see through him soon enough."

"Do you know, Fingal, ever since you told me about the breech he missed, I've thought about him?"

"And?"

"I still worry a bit about him pinching our patients, but I'm really getting concerned that he's going to kill somebody," Barry said.

"Aye. I know. Or make someone worse instead of better. You'd think n.o.body had told him that the most important rule in medicine is 'First, do no harm.' "

"So what are we going to do? Report him to the authorities? Try to talk to him?"

O'Reilly frowned. "I'm no great respecter of authority, and . . . get that grin off your face, Laverty. I know what you are thinking. I do pay respect where respect is due."

"Sorry, Fingal."

"I'd be in no rush to report a colleague, not even Fitzpatrick. You don't go round making reports just because you don't like somebody."

"He's not an easy man to like."

"n.o.body much liked him when he was a student. Kitty will tell you that. He picked on student nurses like her. I had to tell him to leave her alone. I like him even less now. But I'm with you, Barry; I'm a d.a.m.n sight more concerned that he's going to hurt somebody badly, and you know how slowly the powers that be react. If we wrote a report tomorrow, it could be months before anything happened." O'Reilly leant forward. "It's up to us to act. And soon."

"How?"

"I'm going to phone him today and set up that meeting." O'Reilly scratched his chin. "When we meet, the first item on the agenda will be to try to get him to see reason about his practices."

"And the other items?"

O'Reilly lifted his shoulders. "I'm not much for lost causes, but he wasn't a bad student. I didn't like him, but then you don't have to like everybody. Maybe, just maybe, he'll see the light and be a better doctor for it."

"And if he doesn't agree, is there anything else we can try?"

It would be a forlorn hope, O'Reilly knew, and he didn't want Barry to think that he, O'Reilly, was letting this become a personal matter. He looked at Barry and said, "You know that in Ireland they say you can rape your best friend's sister and he might forgive you, but if you informed to the British, or reneged on a wager, they'd still be talking about you in a hundred years."

"I don't see what that has to do with Fitzpatrick."

"He reneged on a bet with me," O'Reilly said.

"He what? Here in North County Down? He must be mad. If the folks knew that, his reputation would vanish overnight." Barry grinned. "You can blackmail the man, Fingal. Threaten to let the word out."

"You're absolutely spot on. Threaten. I'd never actually tell, but he'd not know that because, as far as I'm concerned, the whole thing's between him and me."

"But if he thought you might do it, he'd know he'd be an outcast," Barry said.

"He would, but then he always has been a bit of a one."

"And do you honestly think we can get him to see the light? Reason with him or threaten him, get him to change?"

O'Reilly shook his head. "Leopards and spots . . . but it won't cost anything to try."

"Good. Can I come too? I might be able to help."

"I'd like that, Barry." O'Reilly scowled at his empty plate. "And I'd like the second course of lunch too."

As if reading from a script, Kinky came bustling in carrying a tray for the empty plates. "There'll be no second course, sir. I'll not have the women of the village laughing because my doctor is starting to look like one of those zeppelins I saw in a doc.u.mentary on television the other night."

"Zeppelin? Zeppelin? Who said that, Kinky?" O'Reilly bristled.

"No one yet, sir. I just said I wasn't going to let it happen. Just calm yourself."

O'Reilly swallowed. d.a.m.n it, he was still hungry. "But there's got to be a second course. I smelled it cooking not half an hour ago."

"Doctor dear," she said, lifting his plate, "that was no second course. That was sweet mincemeat I'm making for to fill Christmas mince pies, so. I've a lot to make, what with the ones for the party and the ones for this house."

"Oh." O'Reilly sighed. "Oh, well." He knew he'd have to content himself. Sweet mince pies wouldn't make much of a second course of lunch anyway, but perhaps he could get Kinky to serve some with an early afternoon tea.

"Now," she said, carrying her laden tray to the door, "you've no calls to make this afternoon, Doctor Laverty dear. No medical calls, that is, but there was one phone call."

"Patricia?" Barry spun in his chair, a great smile beaming.

Kinky shook her head and Barry's face fell. Poor Barry, O'Reilly thought.

"No. Not Miss Spence. Cissie Sloan."

"Cissie?" Barry frowned. "Has she had a relapse? Is something else wrong with her?"

"Perhaps," said O'Reilly with a grin, "she had to stop talking for half an hour and she bust her stays."

Barry laughed.

Kinky tutted. "That's not entirely fair, Doctor sir, but she does have the gift of the gab, I'll agree. Anyway she's not sick," Kinky said. "She was just wondering if you two gentlemen were going to pop into the parish hall to see how the preparations are coming on."

O'Reilly remembered he had promised to drop in last week but had been sidetracked by the drama of Eileen's missing money. "Why don't we do that this afternoon, Barry?"

Barry sighed. "Fair enough. I've nothing better to do."

"That's right," Kinky said, with a twinkle in her eye. O'Reilly knew he was the only one to notice it, along with the great softness in her voice, a softness like that of a mother comforting a disappointed child. "But you will have very soon . . . when your Miss Spence comes home."

Folks Who Live Beneath

the Shadow of the Steeple.

Barry's nape hairs were still standing on end when he went into the back garden with O'Reilly, and it wasn't the bitter wind that had made them so. It was eerie. Kinky had the gift. Barry had no doubt about that. But was a pity that when he'd pressed her to be more precise about Patricia's arrival, Kinky had smiled, shaken her head, and said, "That's all I know, sir."

The tingling in the back of his neck had subsided by the time he pa.s.sed Arthur's kennel. The Labrador lollopped out, tail going like a thres.h.i.+ng machine with slipped gears, tucked his nose an inch behind O'Reilly's leg, and stayed perfectly "at heel" without having to be told.

"He always behaves himself in duck season," O'Reilly said. "I think he can read the calendar." He stopped to pat the big dog's head. "We're going on Sat.u.r.day," he said. "Sat.u.r.day. Five more days."

"Aaarghow," said Arthur. His tail drooped, and he heaved a ma.s.sive sigh.

"But you can come for the ride," O'Reilly said, as he took the last step to the back gate and opened it.

Barry and Arthur piled into the Rover. Barry was glad to be out of the half gale. He loved Ulster, but at this time of the year he could almost be persuaded that practising somewhere with a lot more suns.h.i.+ne-Fiji or Tahiti, say-might have some merit. And, he sniffed, in a dry climate he'd not have to put up with the pong of damp dog.