“Well, Mister Bishop . . .” O’Reilly had deliberately lowered his voice so that his audience would have to strain to hear. “I thought you didn’t know. After all, you insisted on consulting me in here for something that can wait until the surgery opens tomorrow. I didn’t think you’d mind being examined in here. But if it upsets you, I’ll be happy to see you tomorrow. Tomorrow.”
Bishop spluttered. “By God, O’Reilly, you’ve a quare brass neck, so you have. Telling a fellah til take off his pants in public.”
“I think,” said O’Reilly, “the cervical alloy of copper and zinc is all yours.” He turned back to Archie and Declan as a wave of laughter swept through the room. I’ve not made a bosom buddy, O’Reilly thought, but there is a limit. And for the moment, and God bless Surgeon Commander Wilcoxson for his sage advice, the upper hand was back where it belonged. Nor would he be pestered in here in the future by other patients.
He glanced over to where Bishop and Ward had their heads together. Ward looked over at O’Reilly. The man’s eyes were narrowed, his teeth clenched. He shook his fist and mouthed, “You wait, O’Reilly. Just you wait.”
O’Reilly turned away. He had clearly offended two locals, but surely the laughter at Bishop’s discomfiture signified that there was support for the newly returned doctor too?
“It’s my shout, Doctor,” Declan Finnegan said. “And well done putting Mister Bishop in his box. I’m sorry I asked you a medical question. I never thought—”
“You didn’t ask me a question. You asked if you could bring your wife to see me. That’s entirely different.”
“Thank you, sir. Now, would you like that pint, and maybe one for you, Archie?”
O’Reilly shook his head and buttoned his coat. If Archie said yes, then the “my shout” circle would begin where everyone in the party had to buy a round. He smiled. “Maybe next time, Declan. It’s time I was home.”
Declan nodded. “I understand, sir.” He lowered his voice. “See that there Bertie Bishop? His head’s full of hobbyhorse shite, so it is.” He spat into the sawdust. “Pay him no heed and never you worry, sir, me and Melanie’ll be in first thing tomorrow.”
O’Reilly smiled and said, “I’ll expect you.” And to hell with Bertie Bishop and Wowser Ward. O’Reilly hoped that the Finnegans would be the start of a steadily growing trade. “Good night to this house,” he called, and was gratified by a few, although not everybody’s by any means, “Good night, Doctor.”
5
Have You No Bowel, No Tenderness?
O’Reilly pushed away his plate, empty save for a squeezed lemon slice. Not long before a pair of famous Craster kippers had lain, blissfully brown and seductively, steamingly scented. Utterly delicious. While drinking his second cup of tea, he finished reading a story in Tuesday’s The Northern Whig. It seemed that fifteen alleged Soviet spies had been arrested in Canada. He wondered what they’d be spying on in that far cold country, tutted, put down the paper, rose, and crossed to the surgery.
He opened his doctor’s bag, went to a cupboard, took out an ampoule of aminophylline, and put it into the bag to replace the one he’d used yesterday for a seven-year-old boy who was having a severe asthmatic attack. That home visit and a case of influenza had been the sum of the day’s caseload. What had Lars said? “Don’t be surprised if it’s slow at the beginning.” Slow? Glaciers moved more quickly. Still, O’Reilly thought, Declan Finnegan and his French wife were coming today. He headed for the surgery.
Declan and a petite but obviously swollen-bellied woman with glossy brown hair sat side by side. And across the room, perched like a gargoyle on a cathedral on one of the hard-backed chairs, was Albert Bishop. Before O’Reilly could even say good morning and invite them to come to his surgery, the man announced, “The Finnegans don’t mind if I go first, O’Reilly.” As Bishop strode past the couple, Declan raised his eyes to heaven and shook his head.
O’Reilly was sure Bishop had bullied his way past the Finnegans, but did not want to make a fuss about it—yet. He followed him along to the surgery, where Bishop had already seated himself. O’Reilly closed the door. “Good morning, Mister Bishop. I wasn’t expecting to see you today.” To tell the truth I was not expecting to see you ever after last night, O’Reilly thought, as he took the swivel chair. This was something he’d learned from Doctor Corrigan, his senior in general practice in Dublin. That not every patient and their doctor would get along. Sometimes it was better to come to the parting of the ways and have them seek medical advice elsewhere. He recognised that may have been at the back of his mind when he’d deliberately embarrassed Bishop last night.
“Aye, nor me you, but I’ve still not gone since I tried to have a wee quiet word with you. I’ve been seeing a Doctor Robbins in Bangor, but it’s far too far to drive just because I’m bound. My missus, Flo, says she til me, she says, ‘Go on, give O’Reilly a try.’ I says til her that I tried to tell you on Monday night that I needed a strong laxative, but, no, you were too high and mighty to do me a favour, so you were. Sometimes my Flo does talk sense, but. Says she til me, ‘O’Reilly worked here before. He never killed nobody then.’ ”
Now there was a backhanded compliment.
“‘And it’ll take you an hour til drive til Bangor, see Robbins, and drive back. Go on, try O’Reilly.’ So here I am. And it’s your last chance with me, so it is. I’ve already heard you wouldn’t treat Wowser Ward, so you’d better see me right or else.”
O’Reilly frowned. “Or else what, Mister Bishop?” O’Reilly had been trained to understand that patients were not always as polite as they might be and to be prepared to make allowances, but this pompous little man didn’t seem to recognise how close he was to being thrown out—physically. “Or else what?”
“Wowser and me’ll put out the word you’re no bloody good.” He leant back, smiled, and folded his arms across his chest.
To give himself a moment to consider his reply O’Reilly fished out a pair of half-moon spectacles and perched them on his nose. Decision time. Could he afford to tell Bishop to go to hell, behave like that Anglo-Dubliner the Duke of Wellington and his famous, “Publish and be damned”? That would alienate this man when the practice was in an embryonic state. And how much harm could he and Wowser Ward do? Probably quite a lot. On the other hand, if O’Reilly simply ignored Bishop’s rudeness and threats, he had no doubt that the man would proudly spread the word around that O’Reilly was so weak he couldn’t beat the skin off a rice pudding, and he couldn’t afford that either. Half a doctor’s ability to treat lay in the esteem in which he was held by his patients. O’Reilly recognised that he was on the horns of what one of his naval patients had called a dilly-ma-ma.
But—but—he had to struggle to conceal a grin. There was a way to appear to acquiesce but give Bishop a not-so-subtle message that Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, once called by an old Dublin friend The Wily O’Reilly, was not a man to be threatened—ever. “I see,” he said levelly. “Then I’ll have to make sure you are treated properly, won’t I?”
“That’s more like it,” Bishop said.
O’Reilly steepled his fingers. He’d learnt long ago that the makers of patent laxatives had taught the great public that their bowels must move once a day. It wasn’t true, but such was the power of advertising. “When was the last time you went?”
“Saturday morning, and that’s three whole days.”
“I see, and has this kind of thing happened before?”
“Aye, and Robbins gives me castor oil.” He screwed up his face. “Tastes like shite. I thought you being younger—”
“I’m sure I do have something better for you, but I need to make sure there’s no underlying disease. Have you any belly pains?”
“Nah.”
“No vomiting?”
“No, I’ve not boked. I’m rightly otherwise, so I am. It’s just I’m bound.”
No pain, no vomiting, so no suggestion of anything obstructing the bow
el. “Anything else bothering you?” Constipation if a symptom of something serious was invariably accompanied by other symptoms of distress, and Bishop looked the picture of overweight health.
“Are you deaf? I just told you. Not at all.”
“I see,” said O’Reilly, gritting his teeth and remembering Ward’s anger at not having been examined . . . “I’d still better take a look.”
It was a simple matter to examine Bishop’s tubby belly, which O’Reilly did, finding nothing amiss. “All right,” he said. “Get dressed.” He went to his desk and found a prescription pad. His old teacher Doctor Micks had preached, It may be dangerous to give a purgative but never to withold one. Not in this case. Bishop appeared to have nothing physically wrong with him. There was nothing to worry about, O’Reilly was quite sure. He removed a fountain pen from an inside pocket, scribbled, and handed the prescription to Bishop. “Take that to the chemist. It’ll do the trick.”
Bishop took the scrip, scowled, and said, “Thank you. It had better work.”
“It will,” said O’Reilly. “I promise. Now,” said O’Reilly, rising. “I’m sure you’re a very busy man and in a rush.” Not half the hurry you’re going to be in after you’ve taken your medicine, he thought, hiding a grin.
“Aye. I am.”
He took Bishop by the elbow, helped him stand, and began propelling him to the door.
“Take a teaspoonful of that as soon as you get home—and don’t go out.”
“Right.”
“Good,” said O’Reilly, letting Bishop out of the surgery. Only when the door was shut did he allow himself to chuckle. His prescription of Tinct. Crotonis Oleum, tincture of croton oil, was for the strongest purgative available. During the war, the U.S. Navy had added it to the alcohol fuel used in their torpedoes. The violent laxative effects were meant to discourage sailors from draining and drinking the fuel. It was also believed that a number of U-boat patrols from French ports had been abandoned because the French fishermen who supplied the German fleet had packed sardines in croton rather than olive oil. The effects on a U-boat’s crew in a vessel with only two heads hardly bore imagining.
The self-important Mister Bishop was not going to enjoy himself today. He’d be spending a fair bit of it all alone in a small room. But he’d be hard-pressed to complain. He’d explicitly asked for a “strong” laxative and had demanded effective treatment. And he probably would have sufficient insight to recognise that messing about with Doctor O’Reilly was a less than smart thing to do.
He opened the ledger, noted, B. Bishop. Consultation, then headed for the waiting room where another patient, a young woman, had joined the Finnegans.
“Your turn, Mister and Mrs. Finnegan.” He smiled at the newcomer. “I’ll not be long.”
Once in the surgery and with Declan sitting on one chair, his wife on the other, Declan said, “Good morning, Doctor O’Reilly. This here’s Melanie, so it is.”
O’Reilly made a little bow. “Enchanté, Madame Finnegan.”
She smiled, but her torrent of heavily Norman-accented French overwhelmed O’Reilly. “Je m’excuse,” he said, “mais moi, je parle Français comme une vache Espagnole. If faut que vous parleriez tres lentement, madame, s’il vous plaît.”
She laughed and said, “D’accord, monsieur. Je comprend.”
“No harm til you, Doctor, but you done very good. And you do not speak French ‘like a Spanish cow,’ ” said Declan, chuckling at the way native French speakers referred to those who hadn’t mastered the language. “Not one bit. What you just done was set her at her ease that she can talk to you even if she does have to speak more slowly—and I’ll help too.” He turned to his wife, rapidly translated, and was rewarded with a beaming smile that lit up her ebony eyes.
“I’m sorry you got bumped,” O’Reilly said.
“See that there Bishop?” Declan said. “He thinks he’s no goat’s toe, but he puts his trousers on one leg at a time just like ordinary people.” He lowered his voice. “If you ask me, he’s full of shite.”
But not for much longer, O’Reilly thought, but said, “I am sorry you had to wait, and please explain that to Melanie and help me to ask her some questions.”
With some of his own French and with Declan translating where needed, O’Reilly soon finished his history-taking and, after Melanie had climbed upon the couch, her physical examination. He’d noted that he was going to be looking after a twenty-three-year-old with no history of serious illness, who was today at about the twenty-sixth week of her first pregnancy and thus was due to deliver in late May. When he’d worked at the Rotunda in Dublin in the late 1930s, the master had begun to institute routine antenatal care aimed at trying to prevent stillbirth and foetal abnormality and screen women for high blood pressure. O’Reilly intended—when more started showing up—to follow that protocol with his patients. At least since 1936, with the advent of Red Prontosil, the first antibiotic, and since the war much better blood transfusion services, the risks of the two great killers of pregnant women, infection and haemorrhage, were being brought under better control.
In his very best French, O’Reilly, with Declan helping, explained that everything seemed to be fine, that he’d like to see her in a month, and to get hold of him if she was worried about anything.
“Merci, monsieur le medeçin. Je suis très content.” And those deep eyes smiled at him again.
O’Reilly cleared his throat, then said, “There is one thing.” Full obstetrical care was expensive and O’Reilly felt he had an obligation to warn Declan.
“Aye?”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to charge you eight guineas,” he rushed on, “but that includes antenatal visits, delivery, and postpartum care.” O’Reilly looked at his desktop. “I’m sorry.”
“What the hell for?” Declan said. “For God’s sakes, Doctor dear, the workman’s worth his hire. I don’t work for free. How much on account?”
“Four guineas, but we’ll be sending out the bills at the end of the month.”
“Fair enough.”
“Thank you,” O’Reilly said, and made an entry in the ledger. Not only did it allow him to keep his accounts straight, it would enable him when the time came to apportion to HM Inspector of Taxes his statutory thirty percent. And with the imminent introduction of Pay as You Earn, PAYE, this would, in O’Reilly’s case, have to be paid monthly.
“We’ll be running along, sir,” Declan said, then, “Viens, Melanie, and she’ll see you in a month, sir. And your Mrs. Kincaid told the ladies at the Woman’s Union last night that you took special training in midwifery in Dublin too.” He winked. “Never mind that ould git Bishop. I’ll give you five til one Melanie isn’t the only pregnant woman you’ll be seeing soon, sir. You’ll be sucking diesel before you know it, so you will.”
O’Reilly accompanied the couple to the front door and let them out, turned, and went back toward the the waiting room. “Sucking diesel?” That was a new one, but by the inflexion in Declan’s voice O’Reilly reckoned it was akin to being on the pig’s back or in clover. It was comforting for Declan to say so.
He headed back to the waiting room where another patient awaited. Perhaps things were looking up.
6
There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio
O’Reilly finished his roast pheasant and pushed his plate away. Somehow, despite Kinky’s magic way with game birds, he had not relished his dinner. On Tuesday he’d hoped that things were looking up, but they were not. To be sure Tuesday had yielded two more patients after the Finnegans, but from Wednesday until today, Friday, he’d seen only another three, four if he counted a home visit yesterday to Mary Dunleavy. She and her family lived over the Duck, and after he’d reassured himself and her mother that Mary was well mended, he’d not been hard to persuade to have another pint with mine host. Willie had been more reserved than usual and had obviously had to steel himself before he’d been able to ask in a low voice, “Seeing lots of patients, Doc?”
>
O’Reilly had shaken his head. Willie’s next words were indelibly imprinted.
“Aye, well no harm til you, sir, but thon Mister Ward was in here a couple of nights ago. He was telling everybody that you’d refused til treat him right, and that you’d near killed Mister Bishop. I telt him to shut his yap or I’d bar him.”
O’Reilly had thanked Willie. And finished his pint.
It looked as if the damage had been done, and although O’Reilly’s main reason for wanting the practice to expand was because he really enjoyed his work, there was no escaping the fact that the bank would be expecting his first loan repayment soon.
There was talk that the government was going to introduce a National Health Service by which all citizens would be insured and GPs would be paid monthly by a government agency so there would be no need for money to come between doctors and their patients. It couldn’t be implemented fast enough for O’Reilly. He disliked the need to send bills, particularly to poorer patients, and was sure many of them avoided visiting a doctor because they simply could not afford to. Some found other ways round the difficulty.
He managed a smile. And once the practice did grow—if it did grow—he’d not object to gifts in lieu of cash. The chicken in return for a linament for a sore back, the brace of mallard instead of the surgery visit fee for a patient with acute conjunctivitis, and the lobster for strapping a sprained wrist he’d been given when he’d worked here before had been most acceptable.
On Wednesday, the father of a young, carotty-haired buck-toothed lad, Donal Donnelly, had offered O’Reilly a brace of pheasants to pay for his treatment of the boy’s middle ear infection. The birds had almost certainly been “borrowed” from the marquis’s estate, but taking a leaf from another sailor’s book, O’Reilly had turned a blind eye. Slices of one of them with roast potatoes, seasonal brussels sprouts, and carrots had been his dinner tonight.