An Irish Country Wedding (20 page)

“That nice Doctor Mills says I’ll be out of here soon. They took out my stitches on Thursday and the wound has healed nicely. The nurses have been getting me up to walk about.”

That was to prevent venous stasis that could lead to the same thing Aggie had, a deep venous thrombosis and its potential successor, a pulmonary embolism.

“And I’m getting much stronger.”

“I’m delighted to hear that.”

She lowered her voice. “They do weigh me, you know. I’ve lost nearly a stone since the operation.” She glanced down, then back at O’Reilly. “I think when I’m home, if it’s all right with you, sir, I’ll be cutting some of the fat and starches out of our meals. I’d
 
… I’d like for to be just a bit slimmer, so.”

“Good for you, Kinky. You fire away at what you think will be best.” He patted his own tummy. Kitty wouldn’t mind if there was a bit less of him, he was sure.

“I put my hair up this morning. I’ll very soon be able to take care of myself completely, sir, and get back to Number One.”

“We can’t wait to get you home.” O’Reilly understood the significance in that one word. Home. “It’s where you belong.” He was pleased to see her smile. It was the look that the old Kinky would have given him when he complimented her on one of her dishes. “You’ll have to take it easy at first, but you can start thinking about the things you mentioned and hotels for the reception.”

“I think the Culloden would be lovely, sir, indeed it would. The grounds are
álainn
—”

A musical way of saying “beautiful,” O’Reilly thought.

“The grounds are so well kept with all those acres of emerald-green lawns, and it does have one of the best views of Belfast Lough and the Antrim Hills in all of County Down. Or maybe the Crawfordsburn Inn would be nice. I love the old thatch roofs and the dark wood beams inside. I just want
—
” She took a deep breath and asked, “And are Lady Macbeth, the wee dote, and Arthur well?”

O’Reilly swallowed. Her eagerness and her attempt not to seem overly so touched him. “They both miss you,” he said. “You go on getting better so that we can have you home as soon as this place will let us have you back. But you may have to put up with your neighbours’ cooking for a while. The larder’s still full to the gills.
We’ve enough steak-and-kidney pies, chicken hot pots, roast
hams, and cold boiled tongue to feed the whole of the Royal Ulster Rifles and probably the Royal Iniskilling Fusiliers as well. I don’t think the ladies of the village believe Barry and I could cope. Flo Bishop even offered to do our laundry. The councillor threw a purple fit.”

“I’m sure we’ll survive,” she said, “as long as we don’t get too much from Maggie MacCorkle.” Kinky laughed.

O’Reilly laughed with her. “Maggie has a heart of corn, but I’d class her cooking not so much Cordon Bleu as Cordon Grey.”

“It’ll be good to be back, sir. And you may find I’m going to be a bit changed.”

O’Reilly frowned. “In what way? I want the old Kinky back.”

“You’ll have that, sir, but I may be asking you for a little more time off.”

“That won’t cause any difficulty. Do you mind me asking why?”

She hoisted herself up from her pillows and said, “Being in here has given me time to think. Seeing you and your lady got me to pondering that you, sir, are living proof that there’s many a good tune left in an old fiddle, so.”

O’Reilly grinned and wondered where this was leading.

She frowned and said seriously, “I do think I have been spending too much of my free time in the company of women.”

O’Reilly grinned mightily and said, “And you’re going to start mingling with the men of the parish, is that it?”

“You’ll tell no one, sir?”

“Not a soul.”

“Mister Archie Auchinleck, the milkman, he’s a widow-man like yourself. He had asked me out twice before I got sick, but I’d said no. Now if he asks again, I’ve half a notion to accept.”

“By God, Kinky, you must. You dance at my wedding and I’ll dance at yours.”

“Go ’way, sir,” but the smile dimples were there on her cheeks. “It does be nothing like that, but still
—
” She let the words hang and he heard the wistfulness.

O’Reilly knew the details of her past. He did not hesitate to say, “And I’m sure your Paudeen would have approved.”

“He does, sir. He told me so.”

O’Reilly felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise, and he had no doubt that Kinky Kincaid meant what she said about her long-drowned husband. “I’m glad for you. I truly am.”

She sat up straighter and said, “And if I’m going to get home soon I need to build up my strength.” She lifted a sandwich.

“As you’d say yourself, Kinky, ‘Eat up however little much is in it.’”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, taking a large bite.

O’Reilly knew she was being thankful for more than the food. “Right,” he said. “I’ve got to go, but Doctor Mills will keep us posted down at Number One, and the minute he says you’re ready for home, Barry or myself’ll be up here to fetch you as fast as one of those Yankee Agena rockets.”

Before he closed the door behind him, he turned back. “How is it?” he asked.

She swallowed, frowned, then said, “It was most generous of Mary Dunleavy
 
… but I do believe the joint could have taken five minutes more in the oven, so. And Doctor Laverty could have been more generous with the mustard.” Kinky looked O’Reilly straight in the eye. “It is a fair sandwich all right, but it does be time I was back at Number One.”

“It does indeed,” O’Reilly said. “Cheerio, Kinky.” He was still chuckling as he walked down the main corridor to visit Aggie Arbuthnot. It certainly seemed to him that the Corkwoman was truly on the mend, and in many more ways than one.

22

Politics Is Not an Exact Science
 
… But

“Did you save a life?” Sue asked when Barry came into the lounge and headed for the fireplace, blowing on his hands. He turned his back to the fire as a gust of wind rattled the glass of the bow windows. He noticed that the coffee table was strewn with papers. Lady Macbeth was curled up asleep on a red folder. Sue sat in an armchair, reading glasses on the end of her nose. Very schoolmistressy, he thought. “One life?” Barry said, and grinned. “Only one? Single-handedly I have cleared up a raging epidemic
—
”

“You sound like Peter Sellers trying to impress Sophia Loren in that song
 
… what was it called? It was a big hit a few years ago.” She sang,

—with one jab of my needle in the Punjab, How I cleared up beriberi—

“‘Goodness Gracious Me,’” said Barry.

Sue made a face. “Was my singing that bad?”

“Silly. That’s the name of the song.” He smiled and moved to the side. The backs of his trouser legs were becoming uncomfortably hot, but overall he was feeling warmed up. The unseasonal May gale must have come screeching down from somewhere north of Spitzbergen. As he’d once heard O’Reilly remark, “Any Ballybucklebo brass monkeys would be singing treble.”

“I’m teasing you, Barry Laverty.” Then she laughed and to Barry’s ear it was even more musical than her singing. “All right,” he said, “no epidemic. It was one of our regulars. Lives up on the council estate. Chap has chronic bronchitis and it had flared up into an acute attack. That bloody place is so damp it’s a wonder not everybody on it has bronchitis. Anyway, penicillin and Friar’s Balsam inhalations should do the trick for Ronan.”

“
Rónán
,” she said, lengthening the vowels to its Irish pronunciation, “Gaelic for little seal.” She patted the chair beside her. “Come and sit down. And, by the way, there were no other calls while you were out.” She took off her glasses and popped them into a handbag.

“Good.” Barry collapsed into the chair. “Bloody cold out there,” he said.

“Would you like a cup of something?”

Barry shook his head. “It’ll be lunchtime soon. I’m warmed up now. I’ll wait.”

“If you’re allowed a wee tot on call?”

“I am.”

“I put a bottle of Entre-Deux-Mers in the fridge to have with lunch. I hope you don’t mind. I hope it’s all right. I’m not much of a wine expert.”

“Lovely,” he said, “and thank you.” He looked at the light dancing in her copper hair, the smile in those eyes and on her most kissable lips and thought there was nothing he’d rather be doing than sipping a glass of chilled white wine over lunch with Sue Nolan. And after? Things would be “easy and slow,” but up here in the lounge, alone? Perhaps more than just kisses? Barry inhaled deeply and was barely aware that he was making an expectant growling in his throat. He noticed a basket of turf a patient had given O’Reilly, and the earthy scent of a couple of pieces on the usually coal-burning fire would certainly add to the atmosphere when they came back up here.

Lady Macbeth yawned, stood, arched her back, and looked at Sue.

“I always thought white cats were standoffish, but this wee thing seems to have taken a shine to me. She’s been up here with me since you left,” Sue said.

Her Ladyship jumped down and dislodged papers that Barry bent to retrieve. He read,
Minutes of the May 1, 1965, meeting of the Campaign for Social Justice
and handed the papers to Sue.

“I’m secretary,” she said. “Mrs. Patricia McCluskey is chairman, and Mrs. Olive Scott and Mister Peter Gormley are some of the committee.”

“Peter Gormley’s a surgeon. Decent chap. I’ve met him,” Barry said. He remembered Sue saying last Saturday that she’d been at the CSJ meeting, but she hadn’t wanted to discuss politics over dinner, a statement of which he had heartily approved. He’d be perfectly happy to leave such discussion in abeyance today too, but Sue had picked up one of the papers and was clearing her throat. “Our purpose, and I quote, ‘is to bring the light of publicity to bear on the discrimination which exists in our community
—
’”

“Very interesting, Sue. I’d
 
… I’d love to hear more, but I think I’ll just go upstairs and wash my hands before lunch
—
”

“Just a bit more.” She took a deep breath. “‘The discrimination which exists in our community against the Catholic section of that community, representing more than one-third of the total population.’”

“Good Lord, that’s a mouthful.”

“Barry,” she shook her head, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were patronizing me.” Her voice was stern but there was still a playful light in her eyes. “Seriously, though,” she said softly, “do you have any idea how bad it is here? Do you?”

Barry hung his head. “I’m sorry, but no, not really. I mean, I’ve seen plenty of patients like Ronan in those God-awful council es
tate places, and I know it’s important, Sue, I know it’s out there. I
just treated a fellow who was well on his way to breaking a rib, he was coughing so violently. But my job’s to fix individuals, not whole communities.” He tried to lighten the tone by grinning and saying, “I’m not sure I’m ready for this, not before lunch.”

She shook her head. “But that’s what’s wrong. No one knows about the problem, and no one wants to know. They prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist, and that’s why somebody has to do something.”

She wasn’t going to be deflected. Barry admired people who had principles—and stuck to them. “Like your society?” he said, deciding to hear her out.

“Yes, and the other group, the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster.” She lifted a pamphlet and handed it to him.

He read the title: “‘Northern Ireland: The Plain Truth. February 1964.’”

“Or that.”

“‘Londonderry: One Man No Vote.’”

“We put those two out.” She sat, arms folded across her chest. “The Catholics in this country are treated as badly as the blacks in America, but at least over there they’re starting to rear up and get results. We need a Martin Luther King.” Her eyes shone. “I saw his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on television two years ago. Such powerful thoughts.”

“And that’s what got you interested in civil rights? I saw your library,” Barry said.

She nodded. “People should be treated fairly.”

And certainly in modern Ulster when there was discrimination it was the Catholics who suffered, and they of all people would be the ones most motivated to agitate. He hesitated. Certain questions were taboo in Ulster, but if Barry was going to go on seeing Sue Nolan, there was one that must be answered, and answered now before things between them, as he was beginning to hope they might, got serious. It wouldn’t mean an end, only that things would be in the open. The question had plagued the whole country for four hundred years. As a doctor, he knew that, ethically, a patient’s religious persuasion was not permitted to matter, regardless of the doctor’s personal beliefs. Even before he’d become a physician Barry had not cared about what side of the religious divide anybody stood. He had two classmates who’d had mixed marriages, though. One lad and his wife were in Canada now, and Finoula O’Gara and her Protestant husband were in New Zealand. Ulster society on both sides didn’t make it easy for such couples. “Sue,” he said, “I hesitate to ask, but are you
—
”

“Am I a Catholic?” One eyebrow rose. He could imagine he might get that look if he were a schoolboy who had failed to do his homework. He found it attractive despite the edge in her voice. “No,” she said, “no, I’m not. Would it have mattered, to us?”

Barry had already decided what his answer was, but he was also aware of the instant sense of relief that swept through him. Old tribal folk beliefs died hard no matter how liberally one tried to think. It didn’t, however, lessen the anxiety of knowing that if answered incorrectly that would be the end of any further friendship or any deepening of feelings. “No,” he said unhesitatingly, “it wouldn’t. Not one bit.”

“Put those pamphlets down and stand up,” she said, and rose.

He obeyed and she came to him, kissed him long and hard, and said, “I took a shine to you, Barry Laverty, before Christmas at the kiddies’ Christmas pageant. I warmed to you last Saturday over dinner, and if you really mean that
 
… really mean it, I think I could get very fond of you. Very fond indeed.” And she kissed him again. “Now, how about lunch and that wine?”