An Irish Country Doctor (16 page)

"Willy. My shout, and don't forget Arthur," O'Reilly roared. Barry shook his head. "Fingal I have to--"

"See a certain young lady tonight. You have, haven't you?" 

"Yes," said Barry, smiling like a mooncalf.

"Well. One more won't hurt you."

Someone started to sing.

"As I went out a-roving and a-rambling one day,

I spied a young couple who so fondly did stray.

And one was a young maid at the turn of her year,

And the other was a soldier and a bold Grenadier."

Barry, off-key, joined in the chorus:

"And they kissed so sweet and comforting as they clung to each other."

And, by God he was going to kiss Patricia tonight. By God, the stout tasted good, and by God, wasn't Ballybucklebo the nearest thing to heaven on earth?

It had been a wonderful afternoon, Barry thought, as he accompanied O'Reilly and Arthur on the short walk back to O'Reilly's house. Wonderful. He giggled as he watched Arthur tacking along the pavement, the dog's forward progress being intermittently interrupted when he crossed his front legs like a show jumper in a dressage competition. You, Arthur Guinness, Barry thought, you are stocious. At least it's dampened your ardour, and my pants are safe. Barry stumbled and grabbed O'Reilly's arm.

" 'Steady the Buffs!'" said O'Reilly.

"The Duke of . . . ?" Barry struggled to remember.

"Wellington," said O'Reilly. "At Waterloo."

It dawned on Barry that he was not entirely sober. He'd better pull himself together. Nothing was going to spoil his evening. "I wonder . . . ," said O'Reilly as he opened the back gate, "I wonder how Galvin's going to 'fall into his fortune'?" 

"Why?" Barry closed the gate.

"I'd not like to think it'll be the cash Maureen's been saving for their emigration."

Barry might have been concerned too if Arthur Guinness had not begun to make a strange ululation as he sat on the grass, head thrown back, trying and failing to scratch his ear with a hind paw that flapped in the air like a flag with a broken halyard. "Daft dog," said O'Reilly. "Come here."

Arthur wobbled to his feet, staggered over, and stood between O'Reilly and Barry. He cocked one leg, and with the unerring accuracy of a marksman at the army's rifle range at Bisley, he pissed all over Barry's trousers.

_________

Barry left the parked Brunhilde, smoothed the tuft of hair on his crown, and looked down. He was a sight. Bloody dog. With one pair of pants still wet from the wash and his only others reeking of dog piss, he'd had to accept O'Reilly's offer of the loan of a pair. Wearing brightly checked trousers cut for a man of six foot two, even with the cuffs rolled up and the waistband cinched with a belt, he knew he looked like an escapee from Duffy's one-tent, touring circus. Nor was he convinced that a short nap, Mrs. Kincaid's liberal doses of black coffee, and the greasy fry she'd made him eat had restored him to complete sobriety. If they had, he probably wouldn't be standing here outside Number 9, the Esplanade, Kinnegar, giving a fair impression of Pantaloon. He looked at the row of bell pushes, each accompanied by a hand lettered card. Patricia Spence. Flat 4. He rang the bell and waited. 

The door opened and Patricia came out.

"Hello, Barry Laverty." She turned to close the door, and her high ponytail danced impertinently as she turned back to him, her dark eyes wide, lips full, her dimple deep as she smiled. She wore a white silk blouse open at the neck, and a mid-calf green skirt above tiny, low-heeled black shoes. His breath caught in his throat.

"What in the world?" She stared at his trousers.

"It's a long story." He felt the heat in his cheeks. "I'll tell you in the car." 

"I can hardly wait."

He walked beside her as she limped along; then he held Brunhilde's door and waited until she was seated. He closed the door, rushed to the driver's side, climbed in, started the engine, and drove off. "Now," she said, "tell me about those pants, Mr. Laverty." 

"Mr. Laverty." He hadn't told her last night he was a doctor, hadn't wanted her to think he was trying too hard to impress her. "I only own two pairs. I got both of them dirty today, so I had to borrow these from a friend."

"A stilt-walker?"

Barry laughed. "No, but he's big."

"So's the Atlantic Ocean, and you're drowning in those." She 'put one hand on his arm. "Don't worry about it. Clothes don't all ways make the man."

He wanted to kiss her, but had to concentrate on his driving. "Where are we going?"

"I thought we'd go to Strickland's Glen. Walk down to the shore." 

"You'd ask a girl with a game leg to go for a walk?"

Was she teasing him? Was she being caustic? He couldn't tell from the tone of her voice.

"Patricia," he said levelly, "if you'd rather not go for a walk, say so."

She leant over and kissed his cheek. "I like you, Barry Laverty."

For the rest of the drive they chatted about the weather, about Maria Bueno's victory over Margaret Smith at Wimbledon (although she couldn't play herself, Patricia was a keen tennis fan), and about pop music. She liked the Beatles but wasn't sure about the new lot, the Rolling Stones.

We're like two strange dogs, Barry thought, stiff-legged, circling, sniffing each other out. Yet even with the confidence given to him by the remaining effects of the afternoon pints, he couldn't bring himself to take the conversation to a more personal level, and he wanted to so much. He wanted to know everything about her.

"Here we are," he said. "Hop out."

She took his hand, and he felt its dry warmth. He led her onto a path strewn with needles from the evergreens above, the air redolent with their piney scent. They walked past dark laurels and patches of late-blooming bluebells. Rays of sun filtering through the trees made pools of gold on the brown earth. Other walkers were taking advantage of the sun-soaked evening. But Barry was barely aware of them.

"Listen," she said.

He heard the notes of a bird, high, rising, a piccolo tune. "Song thrush," she said. "You can tell his song a mile away. I love birds."

"Do you?"

"My dad's an ornithologist. He taught my sister and me about them when I was little, growing up in Newry." 

"Mine taught me astronomy."

"Bit of a stargazer, are you?"

"Yes," he said softly, and careless of passersby, he bent and kissed her lips.

"Mmm," she said, "nice, but we should move along if we're going to get to the shore."

"It's not far." He could still taste her.

A boy of five or six ran past, stopped, pointed, and yelled, "Mammy, look at the man in clown's pants."

He heard Patricia's laughter, warm as butter on fresh toast. "Don't you be at it, Sammy," the child's mother said, smiling as she passed them. "Pay no heed, he's only wee." 

"Come on, then, Pagliacci." Patricia tugged at Barry's hand. "Pally who?"

"A clown. In an opera. The Beatles aren't the only ones I listen to." 

"I'm not much up on opera."

"I'll teach you. I've tons of records back in the flat. I'm going to Queen's. Taking extra courses this summer. I want to graduate as soon as I can. It's too far from Newry to Belfast to travel up to town, and the rent's cheaper in the Kinnegar."

"I see. So you're a student and you like opera. Do you like to read?"

She frowned for a moment. "I've tried Hemingway, but he's too curt. I prefer John Steinbeck."

"Cannery Row?''''

"And I love Sweet Thursday."

The path had begun to descend, and he had to help her over tree roots that sprang from the earth and lay like petrified serpents. He climbed over a fallen branch. "Can you manage?" 

"I think so." She pulled herself up. "Catch me." He did and held her softly to him, the belt buckle of his outsized britches digging into his belly.

"Thank you, sir." She kissed him. "I thought so," she said. "You taste of beer."

"I had to have a pint with my boss this afternoon." 

"So you're a bit of a bowsey, Barry Laverty?"

"Never sober." He hiccupped loudly. "I'm usually pissed as a fiddler's bitch by lunchtime."

She laughed. "Stop acting the goat."

He took her hand. "Come on. Just over this bridge," he said, as he walked onto a small wooden arch over a stream. "Might be trout in there. In that deep pool under the bank." 

"Or a hobbit under the bridge. I've just finished The Lord of the Rings." She knew Steinbeck, Tolkien. "So, you're taking an arts degree?" 

"No." She stopped walking. "Why would you say that?" 

"I dunno. You certainly seem to know the kinds of authors that I'd expect an arts student to know."

"And women should take arts or nursing? Is that it? And there's plenty of work for good secretaries?"

"I'm twenty-one and I'm the youngest student in my class . . . my civil engineering class . . . and there are only six of us." 

"Six what? Engineers?"

"No. There are eighty-two in the class. Only six are women." 

"I still don't understand. We'd ten women in our lot at university." 

"What exactly don't you understand?" Her eyes were narrow, lips tight, arms folded.

"What are you making such a fuss about? Why shouldn't a woman be an engineer or a doctor?"

"A lot of people wouldn't agree. Have you any idea how hard it was to get in?"

"All professional schools are tough."

"A damn sight tougher if you're a woman." She took a step back. 

"Well, they shouldn't be." Barry did not like the way this discussion was going.

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course I do." He saw her shoulders relax. 

"Really?"

"If you want to be an engineer you ought to have the chance." She pursed her lips and spoke, as if to herself. "Bloody right I should."

Barry moved closer to her and said, "But I thought you were going to be a civil engineer."

"I am."

"Good. You can start practising with me." 

"What?"

"You just about bit my head off. Nothing civil about that."

"Look. I'd a hell of a job getting admitted. Women have to fight for their rights."

"Fair enough. But you don't have to fight with me." 

"You're right."

"Right as rain," he said. Then he grinned at her. 

Like a summer squall her anger passed. "I shouldn't have yelled at you, but. . . damn it. . . ." She grabbed him and kissed him hard. "Am I forgiven?"

He would have forgiven her for not one but all of the seven deadly sins and a few mortal ones thrown in for good measure. "To the beach, woman," he said, with mock sternness. 

"Yes, sir." She took his hand.

"Look at that," he said. Across Belfast Lough on the Antrim shore sat Carrickfergus Castle, squatted motte-and-bailley solid, granite grim, built by the Normans, once shelter to Robert the Bruce, landing place in 1690 of William of Orange.

One of Kelly's Company's rust-streaked coal boats chuffed her way toward the quay in Bangor around the point. Smoke from her tall, spindly funnel smudged the clean sky and was torn to tatters by a breeze from the northwest.

"I used to walk round here when I was a wee fellow." 

"It is lovely."

"In the summer, yes, but in the winter it can really blow up." Just like someone I'm getting to know, he thought. She stood, glancing up, her ponytail tossed by the wind. Overhead two brown birds with long, curved bills glided on rigid wings down the wind's invisible road. Their voices were melancholy. "Curlew," she said, turning to him. "Now you know all about me." Like hell I do, he thought, and he saw the sunlight sparkling in her eyes.

"Tell me about Barry Laverty."

"Well, apart from my incurable alcoholism, and my unshakeable belief that women should never be admitted to faculties of engineering--"

"Just cut that out." She was smiling. "I'm sorry I got shirty with you."

"Fair enough." He looked down and then back at her. "I'm twenty-four, no brothers or sisters. I like to read, to fish. I used to sail, but I'm a bit busy now." He paused before looking her right in the eye and saying, "My dad's a consulting engineer." 

"A what?"

"Mining. He and Mum are in Melbourne."

"And what does the son of a consulting engineer do?" 

"Actually . . . actually, I'm a ballerina with the Sadler's Wells Ballet."

"What?"

"Well. . . why shouldn't a man be a ballerina?" She struck him on the chest. "You bastard. All right. Touché." He held her wrist. "I'm a doctor. I'm an assistant to Doctor O'Reilly in Ballybucklebo."

"You're a GP?"

"That's right."

She pointed at his ridiculous, oversized, baggy pants and giggled. "Well, Doctor, I hope to God none of your patients have seen you this evening." She snuggled against his chest as the sun slipped behind the Antrim Hills leaving one last molten streak across the darkening lough.

He kissed her, his tongue finding hers, and little shocks ran through him. "Now that's what I'd call civil," he said, and kissed her again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Barry peeped through the double doors of the upstairs lounge. By the light of a single table lamp he saw O'Reilly, feet propped up on the coffee table, sprawled in his chair. A copy of Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples lay spine-up on the table. O'Reilly's head drooped to the left. Lady Macbeth lay tucked into the angle between his neck and his right shoulder. O'Reilly snored sonorously. Lady Macbeth's purring could be heard only when he exhaled.

Barry was reminded of the proverb "And the lion shall lie down with the lamb." But which was which might be hard to tell, given Lady Macbeth's propensity for biting and O'Reilly's ability to become distinctly leonine when aroused.

O'Reilly opened one eye. "You're home."

"Sorry, Fingal. I didn't mean to disturb you." 

"What time is it?"

"Eleven."

O'Reilly scratched his belly. His movements dislodged the cat, which slid down his waistcoat and curled up in his lap, rolling onto her side and twisting her head to that impossible angle only cats can achieve. Barry thought she looked as if she had turned herself inside out.