An Irish Country Christmas (44 page)

“Sanctuary?”

“Maybe, but I prefer the Spanish.” He lowered his voice and said levelly, “Mine’s across the Ards Peninsula. Strangford Lough. I go there if I feel a bit tormented. And now you’re here, my boy, I can go there more often because I know the practice is in good hands.”

Barry swallowed. “Thank you, Fingal.” He was thanking O’Reilly more for the confidence than the compliment. Kitty had said O’Reilly was a hard man to get to know, and he had surprised Barry by opening himself up a little.

“I’ll be taking Arthur there on Saturday. I could use a break. I’m really looking forward to it.” O’Reilly said. Then, as if embarrassed at having confessed to needing some respite like any other mortal, he continued, “But that’s Saturday. We’ve other work for today. Fitzpatrick’s expecting us at two.” He hurled the pebble out into the Lough. “Come on.” He strode out of the car park and turned right along the Esplanade.

Barry kept pace. “What are you going to say to him?”

O’Reilly stopped. “I suppose I’ll try to appeal to his better nature. If he has one. Which I doubt. I’m not quite sure how to start, but on the old
Warspite
the gunnery officer was under standing orders to keep an eye out for targets of opportunity.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was the navy’s answer to Mr. Micawber. If you kept your eyes open, something to shoot at often turned up, even when you didn’t expect it.”

“You mean you’ll play it by ear until Fitzpatrick gives you a lead?”

“I think so. I want to put him on the defensive. I remember when we were students one of the things I disliked about the man was that he was a bully. He was forever picking on junior medical students and student nurses. He even tried to bully Kinky.”

“Not an endearing trait.”

“There is one thing about bullies . . .”

“They don’t like it when someone challenges them, like Kinky did.”

O’Reilly laughed. “It’s a braver man than I who’ll take on Kinky when she gets her dander up. She’ll stand up to anyone.”

And if anybody else can stand up, it’s Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, Barry thought.

“And Barry, you know I don’t like the man, I grant you that, but this is not personal. I was on a very sticky wicket with that breech, and it needn’t have happened at all but for his arrogance. He’d bullied Miss Hagerty.” O’Reilly’s brow furrowed. His eyebrows met. His eyes narrowed and flashed. His nose tip paled. “He needs to practice better medicine. That man needs to be taken down a peg or two.”

“I agree.” He looked at Fingal’s face and tried to measure the depth of his anger. Good heavens, he realized, I think I’m starting to feel sorry for Fitzpatrick.

“And another thing, Barry.”

“Yes?”

“When I talk about me and the breech,
I
don’t really matter. It’s our job. I managed, but both the mother and child were in unnecessary danger. I can’t forgive
that
.”

“I understand, Fingal.” Barry shuddered. “It’s a bloody good thing you were on call that night. I’ve read the theory, but I’ve never delivered a breech. They only occur in three percent of term pregnancies. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been there.”

O’Reilly clapped Barry on the shoulder. “You’d have coped, son. You’ve a good pair of hands. I saw you deliver that face presentation in August.”

Barry glowed at his senior’s confidence.

He walked at O’Reilly’s side as they turned a corner. “It’s along here somewhere,” O’Reilly said, peering as they passed at the numbers on a row of detached three-storey houses. “Ah, Number Nine,” he said, stopping outside a stunted, ill-trimmed privet hedge. Beyond it stood a plaster-stuccoed house with paint peeling from the window frames. “The very spot.
Chez
Fitzpatrick.” He strode through a gateless gap in the hedge. “Let’s get this over with.”

Chastise with the Valour of My Tongue

Barry read from a tarnished brass plate that was screwed to the wall.

Doctor R. H. Fitzpatrick, M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O.

Physician and Surgeon.

Surgery hours: 9 a.m. to noon, Monday to Friday.

There was a bell push in the door frame.

“Now,” said O’Reilly, “I’ll do the talking, but if I ask for your advice—”

“I’ll back you to the hilt.”

“Good.” O’Reilly shoved his finger against the button with sufficient force, Barry thought, to drive the whole fixture deeply into the wall. He could hear an electrical bell buzzing inside the house. O’Reilly did not remove his finger until the door was opened.

Fitzpatrick stood in the doorway. His pince-nez caught a ray of sunshine and flashed. His Adam’s apple bobbed above his wing-tip collar as he said, “Fingal. Laverty. Do come in.” He smiled with his narrow mouth, but his eyes were lifeless.

Barry followed O’Reilly into an ill-lit hall. A huge, ornately framed print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s
Monarch of the Glen
hung slightly askew on one wall. The brown linoleum flooring was badly worn in places, and there was a distinct smell of floor polish.

“In here,” Fitzpatrick said, opening the door to his surgery. Barry saw at once that the room was considerably smaller than O’Reilly’s, and here
too the floor was covered with brown linoleum. A leather-upholstered examining couch stood against a wall sheathed in paisley-patterned wallpaper. The couch was frayed at one corner, and its kapok stuffing leaked out. There was a hospital smell of stale disinfectant.

“My consulting room,” said Fitzpatrick, with the pride of a duchess showing off her salon. “I rent it. I don’t live here.” He parked himself on a wing-backed chair behind a table that served as a desk. Both were on a platform that was six inches above the rest of the floor. He did not invite O’Reilly and Barry to take one of the three kitchen chairs arranged in a semicircle and facing the raised podium.

The floorboards creaked under Barry’s feet as he moved off to the side so he could watch both men’s faces.

“This is where my healing mission is accomplished,” Fitzpatrick said smugly.

“There’s a thing of beauty,” said O’Reilly, “with every chance of being a joy forever. Healing mission, is it? And all I ever do is treat the customers.”

Fitzpatrick sniffed. “We all have our own approaches to the art and science of medicine. I believe you said that was what you wanted to discuss, Fingal.”

“Among other matters, Ronald. Among other matters.” O’Reilly moved past the row of kitchen chairs, stepped on the dais, and hitched one buttock onto the corner of the table so he faced Fitzpatrick. Had O’Reilly chosen to do so, he could have thrust his face up against the pince-nez.

Fitzpatrick leaned back, increasing the space between himself and O’Reilly.

Barry moved forward so he could see O’Reilly in profile. He at once recognized that his senior partner had reversed the psychological advantage Fitzpatrick would have had by being seated at a higher level than anyone else—usually his patients. Did Fitzpatrick bully his patients too? Barry wondered. Almost certainly.

O’Reilly was able to look down on his adversary. “Now,” he said, pulling out his briar.

Barry waited to see how Fitzpatrick would respond. The first time they had met, he’d described smoking as a filthy habit.

“Don’t you dare light that smelly thing in here,” Fitzpatrick shouted. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Sorry,” O’Reilly said, putting the pipe back in his pocket. “Force of habit.”

“And it’s a foul one.” Fitzpatrick wagged a finger at O’Reilly. “Foul.”

“Och, well,” said O’Reilly calmly. “We
all
have some strange habits. Even you, Ronald, I’d be prepared to bet.”

Fitzpatrick lifted his pince-nez from his nose. “I beg your pardon?”

“Bet, Ronald. Bet. A wager between gentlemen. You’ve a
very
funny way of dealing with yours.”

Barry had to admire how O’Reilly had taken that one word, “bet,” to give himself the opportunity to begin to manoeuver. He waited to see how Fingal would develop the gambit and start putting Fitzpatrick on the defensive.

Fitzpatrick sat rigidly. “Are you perchance referring to our ten-pound interest in the outcome of the rugby match?”

“The very ticket,” said O’Reilly calmly. “I waited for you for quite a while after my side had won the game, but you didn’t show up.”

“That was a matter of little import. I fail to see why a gentleman would be concerned.” Fitzpatrick, sounding as though he was lecturing a dim pupil, slipped his glasses back on and lolled in his chair.

At the world “gentleman,” Barry noticed O’Reilly’s eyes narrow for a split second, but he gave no other indication of irritation.

“I saw no need to bother. Our side would have won, and
I
would have won but for your wretched dog. No rational person would have considered any bet still active after that.”

There was another almost imperceptible eye narrowing, but O’Reilly’s tones were honeyed, reasonable, when he said, “I grant you that. It was a bit naughty of Arthur. I’d have agreed with you and forgiven you the debt if you’d asked me . . . but it would have been polite to talk to me about it. Think about that, Ronald.” O’Reilly leant back and waited.

So, Barry thought, Fingal’s not going to blackmail Fitzpatrick by threatening to reveal that he had welshed on a bet, not yet anyway. But by the look on Fitzpatrick’s face, he was worried about such a prospect.

O’Reilly leant forward and put his face close to Fitzpatrick’s. With ice in his voice, he said, “But then, Ronald, manners never were your strong suit.”

Barry sucked in a small breath through pursed lips and controlled his desire to smile. This was going to be worth the price of admission. Fitzpatrick was going to feel as if he had been put through a mangle by the time O’Reilly had finished with him, and Barry had a ringside seat.

Fitzpatrick jolted back in his chair. “What?” His voice rose by at least an octave. “How dare you, an oaf like you, O’Reilly . . . how
dare
you question my manners?”

“Because, Ronald, your manners, both social and bedside, badly need to be questioned.” O’Reilly drew back an accusatory finger and levelled it at Fitzpatrick’s breastbone. Barry thought Fingal was going to poke Fitzpatrick in the chest. Indeed, when O’Reilly repeated, “
Your . . . manners
,” he jerked the finger forward and seemed only to stop its forward progress by an immense effort of will.

Fitzpatrick must have thought he was going to get prodded, for he rose and scuttled behind his chair.

“Sit down,” said O’Reilly. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He waited until Fitzpatrick had taken his seat and then said very quietly, “But I will, Ronald . . . I will if you ever
ever
again treat Mrs. Kincaid the way you did last week.”

Barry had thought O’Reilly’s voice was icy. Now it was as cold as solid carbon dioxide, and his nose tip was of the same ivory hue.

“Perhaps I was a little terse with the woman.” Fitzpatrick’s hectoring tone remained.

“No,” said O’Reilly, “you were boorish, and bullying, and a right bashtoon. You will not treat Mrs. Kincaid like that again, or by God . . .”

Barry remembered O’Reilly saying he would gut Fitzpatrick like a herring. Now from the look in the big man’s eyes he was sharpening the knife, and—Barry glanced at Fitzpatrick—the fellow knew it. Fitzpatrick turned one shoulder, raised it, and tucked his head down, then
held his hands in front of his face, palms out, as if he feared O’Reilly might strike him. Barry had to strain to hear Fitzpatrick whisper, “I’ll be nice to her in future. I promise. I promise.”

“You’d better be,” said O’Reilly, as he rose and stood towering over the man, “because Kinky is a human being. She deserves to be treated like one, with as much respect for her feelings, her dignity, as a duchess, maybe more. Kinky works for her living.”

“I . . . I said I’m sorry.” Fitzpatrick’s voice quavered.

Barry had expected O’Reilly to cow the man but had not anticipated that his collapse would come so soon. And remembering the other matters O’Reilly intended to raise, he knew his senior colleague was just warming up. Despite Fitzpatrick’s nature and his questionable medical practices, Barry felt a twinge of pity for the man. Being in the way when O’Reilly was on the warpath was a very unpleasant place to be.

“And while you’re in the mood for feeling sorry, I’d suggest you start being nice to Miss Hagerty too.”

“The midwife?”

“No. The wife and consort of Brian Boru, last
Ard Rí
—that’s high king—of Ireland.” O’Reilly shook his head. “Of course she’s the bloody midwife. She’s one of the very best midwives, and if you hadn’t dismissed her from the care of Gertie Gorman—”

Barry watched as Fitzpatrick summoned enough spirit to fight back. He dropped his hands and shoulder and pointed his chin at O’Reilly. Fitzpatrick raised his voice. “She was challenging my care in front of the patient. She contradicted me.
Me
.” He stabbed his narrow chest with his own finger. “I won’t have that. I won’t.” His Adam’s apple sank beneath the rim of his wing-tip collar.

Barry thought the man’s larynx would never reappear.

O’Reilly’s nose went from ivory to alabaster. His fists clenched and unclenched. He took several deep breaths, and started to jab with his finger, but clenched his fist at the last minute and pulled it back. “She was probably trying to save your bacon, to stop you making a bigger ass of yourself than you already are.”