An Irish Country Christmas (17 page)

“Get in, Lummox.” Barry held the back door of Brunhilde open and waited for Arthur Guinness to jump in. The little car lurched under the weight of the big dog. Barry was bundled up in his navy blue duffle coat and his old, six-foot-long, black, red, white, and yellow, vertically striped Belfast Medical Students Association scarf, a reminder of his recent undergraduate days.

As he went to get into the driver’s seat, the mud of the back lane crunched under his Wellington boots. He noticed the puddles were filmed with an icy rime that shone with a silver sparkle in the light of the half-moon that was setting in a cloudless sky.

His breath hung in a small cloud. The gale had died with the coming of the night. It was cold, but it was crisp—Christmassy, not the bone-chilling rawness of earlier in the day when it had been so damp.

He put the car in gear.

Arthur stood and draped his front paws around Barry’s neck. Barry braked before the lane opened onto the main Bangor-Belfast Road. Let’s see, he thought, if Arthur remembers doing as he was told earlier today. Barry turned in his seat and lifted each paw in turn. “Let’s you and me get one thing straight, dog . . .” He shoved Arthur away. “
You
, dog.
Me
, boss. Now . . .
lie down, sir
.” He was gratified to hear Arthur sigh as only a Labrador can, and as far as Barry could tell in the dim light, the dog subsided into the rear-seat well. “Right,” he said, and turned right on the road to Sonny and Maggie’s place. “And stay there, d’ye hear?”

The traffic was light and the road clear of snow. The drive to where Sonny’s house stood on a hill was uneventful. In the daytime, Barry knew there was a splendid view overlooking the fields, down across the waters of Belfast Lough to the Antrim Hills of the far shore.

He parked on the road outside the fenced front garden and told Arthur to stay. Then he got out and let himself in through the cast-iron gate. Not four months ago he’d walked this path, crushing black horehound underfoot where it was growing through the cracks in the paving stones; he remembered how unpleasant it had smelled. That was the time Councillor Bishop, true to a promise O’Reilly had wrung out of him, had a crew at work replacing Sonny’s roof, the necessary condition for the celebration of the long-delayed marriage of Sonny Houston to Maggie MacCorkle, spinster of this parish.

While he was still a few yards from the front door, Barry heard the clamour of barking dogs. Sonny had five and he doted on them. Before he and Maggie married and moved into this house, Sonny had lived in his car and housed his dogs in an old caravan. Now they must all be living in the house together. Oh, well, Barry thought, being greeted by animals was an integral part of visiting houses and farms in Ulster.

He climbed the two front steps. The barking from inside was deafening. In many houses without telephones, and as far as Barry knew the Houstons didn’t have one, excited yapping was the first indication that someone was coming to call. It was the Ulster equivalent of an early warning system.

Before he could rap on the front door, it was opened by a tall, older man with an erect posture, bright eyes, and cheeks that were slightly dusky, which Barry knew was a sign of controlled congestive heart failure. The man held a pair of horn-rimmed glasses in one hand. Dogs, yipping and barking joyously, tumbled through the open door and out along the path created by the hall light’s rays.

“Doctor Laverty.” Sonny extended his hand. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Good evening, Sonny.” Barry removed his right glove before shaking hands. It would have been impolite not to do so. “May I come in?”

“Please.” He stepped aside and as Barry passed him, Sonny stuck two fingers in his mouth and produced a whistle that Barry thought would have done justice to a steam-driven locomotive.

Barry was surrounded by a tide of dogs as they jostled with each other to obey their master’s summons home. “Kitchen,” Sonny commanded, and the dogs disappeared along the hall. He heard Sonny close the door.

“Let me take your coat, Doctor.”

As Barry took off his coat and scarf, he noticed framed black-and-white photographs hanging on the hall wall. He could see porticos and pillars and house fronts carved into cliff faces. “Where’s that, Sonny?”

“Petra. In Jordan. I took those snaps thirty years ago. I was on an archaelogical dig. It’s quite spectacular in colour.”

Barry remembered that Sonny Houston, Ph.D., was an expert on, among other things, Nabataean civilization. “Petra.” Barry struggled to remember the obscure quotation. “Something to do with roses?” he said.

“Petra, ‘a rose-red city, half as old as time . . . ’ ” Sonny said and smiled. “That’s what Dean Burgon called it after a Swiss chap, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, discovered it. Fascinating place. I must say I’d rather like to go back, but it would be much too hot for Maggie. Much too hot.” He smiled fondly. “She’s in the front room. Do come in, Doctor.” He opened a door and held it for Barry.

His immediate thought was that Sonny was preparing Maggie for a trip to Jordan by getting her acclimatized to the heat to be expected there. A turf fire roared up a wide chimney, and the temperature in the room was probably close to that usually experienced in the boiler room of a coal-fired ship.

“Doctor dear,” said Maggie from her seat in a high-backed rocking chair, “come on, on, in.” She grinned her toothless-as-an-oyster grin at him and turned to an overstuffed armchair where a large one-eyed, one-eared cat lay curled in a ball. “And you get to hell out of that, General Montgomery.” Then she pulled a ball of wool from a knitting bag on her lap and chucked it with unerring accuracy at the cat, who
awoke, yowled, and leapt down from the chair. “Sit down, Doctor dear.”

Barry sat. He knew better than to argue with Maggie.

Sonny moved to a second rocker beside his wife and lifted a book in his gnarled hands. Barry noticed the title,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
. As Sonny, a little creakily, lowered himself into the chair, he slipped his glasses onto his nose and smiled at Barry.

“Now,” Maggie said, putting her knitting aside, “you’ll take a wee cup of tea in your hand and a slice of my plum cake?”

It was less of a question than an order. Barry, who had tried Maggie’s culinary delights before, had his excuse ready. “I’d love to, but I’ve another call to make so I can only stay for a few minutes.” Maggie’s tea was brewed strong enough to trot a mouse on.

“Not even a slice of cake?” She sounded disappointed.

He shook his head. “Sorry.” It was an old country custom at a wedding to throw a slice of the wedding cake onto the ground. If, as was usual, the cake shattered, the couple would be assured of many children. If it remained intact, infertility might ensue. But in the case of Maggie’s cakes, the concern was for whether or not the ground would fracture.

“Oh, well, I’ll cut you a slice to take home.” She leant over and pinched his cheek. “Young men always have a sweet tooth.”

“That would be wonderful, Maggie.” Barry made himself more comfortable. “So how’s married life suiting you?” he asked. He saw how she took Sonny’s hand and gazed at him. No words were needed. Hoping he’d not embarrassed Maggie, Barry cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Maggie, I have a favour to ask.”

“A favour?” Her dark eyes twinkled. “From me? Dead on. What do you want?”

“Do you know Eileen Lindsay?”

“Aye. Lives on the estate? Her with the three kiddies and the useless layabout of a husband that done a bunk a couple of years back?”

“That’s her.”

“What can I do for her?”

He leant forward and spoke seriously. “Her Sammy is a bit sick
and needs looking after so Eileen can still go to her work, and I was wondering . . . that is, Doctor O’Reilly and I were wondering . . .”

“God bless you, Doctor Laverty dear. Of course. Sonny and me’d be delighted, so we would. Wouldn’t we?” She smiled across to Sonny, who nodded and smiled back. “When would you like us to start?”

Barry was now regretting that he had not accepted Maggie’s offer of a cup of tea. He knew that would have pleased her. “How about the day after tomorrow? I’ll need to have a word with her first.”

“That would be grand, so it would. She still lives at 31 Comber Gardens?”

“Yes, she does.”

“You’ll run me there, won’t you, Sonny?”

“Of course, my dear.” Sonny whipped off his glasses, squinted at her, and asked, “Are you sure you’re warm enough, Maggie?” Without letting her answer, he let go of her hand, rose, went to the hearth, lifted a sod of peat from a wicker basket, and tossed it on the fire. Sparks burst forth like a flock of overexcited fireflies to whirl and dance and cavort up the wide chimney mouth. “She feels the cold, you know, Doctor Laverty.”

Barry heard the concern in the man’s voice. Sonny had waited thirty-odd years to marry the woman he loved, and it certainly appeared to Barry that for Sonny the wait had been worth it. At the rate he himself was going with Patricia, he wondered if he’d have to wait thirty bloody years. It certainly was beginning to feel like it. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Barry stood. “I must be running, but I’ll speak to Eileen tomorrow.”

“And you won’t need to come all the way out here, Doctor, to tell us what she says,” Sonny said, opening the lounge door. “We’ve had a phone installed. I’ll give you the number.”

Maggie bustled past him. “Thanks, Sonny,” Barry said, returning his pen and notebook to an inside pocket.

Maggie reappeared and handed him a small parcel. “Here you are, Doctor dear. A wee slice of cake to have with your tea. There’s enough in there for himself too.”

Barry accepted the gift. “Thanks, Maggie.”

Sonny stood beside Maggie, his arm draped around her shoulder. He inclined his head to the parcel and winked at Barry. Clearly, Barry thought, Sonny shared his opinion of Maggie’s cake, but perhaps that was part of the definition of true love—Sonny would eat it without complaint just to please her.

“Good-night,” he said, letting himself out.

The parcel seemed heavier than its size would suggest. He smiled. Arthur was in for a treat.

As Barry walked down the path, he realized he was feeling a little smug, perhaps justifiably so. He was well on the way to solving Eileen’s problem, which although hardly a medical matter was as much a concern to him as it would have been to his senior colleague. And he had dealt with it as O’Reilly would have.

He opened the car door and hopped in. Arthur was snoring in the backseat, and already Brunhilde held aroma of dog. Well, having a smelly car was a small price to pay for the opportunity to work here in Ballybucklebo. So different from impersonal Belfast. Here people knew each other, were ready to help out, and didn’t throw older folks on the scrap heap. He remembered with great pleasure how the whole village had pulled together in August to get Sonny’s house ready for the newlyweds.

He started the engine and turned on the headlights. The beams didn’t penetrate the darkness very far, but it didn’t matter. He’d be driving slowly, and he knew where this road went. Perhaps that’s exactly why he was enjoying living in this rural village. Life was busy but the pace was still slow, and he knew where he wanted to be: right here in Ballybucklebo.

Brunhilde bounced and rattled over a large pothole. Barry hoped his personal road would be less of an obstacle course. Still, there were some potholes to negotiate: the vague threat of Doctor Fitzpatrick and the nagging worry that Patricia’s not coming home for Christmas might be an omen for the future. Civil engineers had nasty habits of heading off to distant parts. Wasn’t his own father in Australia?

He stopped at a crossroads to let a tractor go past, and in the distance he could see the lights of the village sparkling in welcome.

Bugger it! he told himself, driving on. He wasn’t going to worry tonight. He was going to take Arthur for his promised walk and reward him with a lump of Maggie’s cake. Then, to give O’Reilly a bit more time on his own with Kitty, Barry would drop in at the Mucky Duck for a nightcap. Then he’d head back to Number 1 Main Street, the big house that was not only a large part of his working life but was well on the way to becoming his home.

Barry and Arthur Guinness had enjoyed a brisk walk along Station Road, under the railway bridge, through the sand dunes, and out onto the firm shingle. The tide was out and he couldn’t make out the edge of the water, but he could hear the waves as each caressed the shore and made the pebbles rustle and rattle.

The noise of the surf grew louder when one of the big freighters going to or leaving the port of Belfast at the head of the Lough sent its wake to crash ashore. It was then he was sure the salty scent of the sea was at its most pungent.

Now all he could hear was the gentle surf, the scuffling of Arthur’s paws, and his panting as he raced to and fro. The burbling noise of the diesel engine of the Belfast-to-Bangor train, the train on which he’d first met Patricia, had faded, and there’d not be another for at least an hour.

He relished the quiet, the serenity, and the darkness. The beams of the few street lamps in Ballybucklebo did not have the strength to reach out here. Across the Lough, the lights from Greencastle, past Greenisland, and onto Carrickfergus looked as if flickering candle flames were being reflected from a silver mirror. With measured regularity, the beams from the lighthouses at Blackhead on the Antrim side and from the Copeland Island light further down the Lough thrust questing fingers into the night.