An Irish Country Wedding (27 page)

Her voice was firm, steady. “I was doing the ironing. I had the radio on. ‘Housewife’s Choice,’ you know, the program that plays requests? Them Beatles was doing ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ when I took this ferocious cutting stoon down in my right side. I let a roar out of me and the next thing I knew Gerry had me tucked up in bed and was patting my hand and saying, ‘Wake up, love.’ Then he said he was going for to get the doctor, so he was.”

Gerry hadn’t mentioned pain on the phone and one word, “cutting,” now took Barry’s attention. His text,
Operative Obstetrics
, observed that in cases of tubal pregnancy the pain was usually aching, but severe episodes, probably caused by blood dripping onto the peritoneum, were, he could picture the words,
usually described as “cutting.”
“So,” he said, “you were feeling fine and suddenly you got a pain and fainted?”

“Aye.”

“Tell me about the pain.”

“I’d not never had nothing like that in my life. Just like someone stuck a knife in me.”

“Can you show me where?”

She threw back the bedspread—she was fully dressed—and pointed to a spot on the right between the centre of her skirt waistband and her hip bone.

“Thank you. And have you been noticing anything else?”

“Like Gerry told you, Doctor, my monthlies are two weeks late.”

“What date?”

“I should have started on Friday the fourteenth of this here
month, and you could set your watch by mine. Every twenty-eight days and the one before was on April seventeenth.”

Today was the thirtieth of May. That was slightly more than six weeks since her last period. Barry could imagine hearing Doctor
Graham Harley, lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at the
Royal Maternity Hospital, saying, “If you learn nothing else from me, remember this: Every woman is pregnant until proven otherwise. Even if they’ve not even missed a period. Then you’ll not make silly mistakes like ordering lower-back X-rays and irradiating an early embryo until you’re sure it’s safe.” Sound advice, and from the time Gerry had phoned, Barry had assumed that Mairead was pregnant. Now he must consider all the possible causes of her pain in the light of that assumption.

Even though it was early she might have some more symptoms of pregnancy. “Any morning sickness? Sore breasts?”

“No, sir. Just the pain and the fainting, but I was sure I was up the spout. I was so excited. You know me and Gerry’s been trying for number three for a brave while. And here hadn’t it happened just like Doctor O’Reilly said it would if we just took our time. Now this? I hope to God there’s nothing wrong.” She managed a weak smile. “I’ve heard tell lots of pregnant women swoon.”

A few still did, but not in the numbers they used to, Barry thought, when women wore tightly laced corsets with whalebone stays. He didn’t comment. His text had remarked,
Sudden faintness
 
…
is a characteristic symptom of ectopic pregnancy
. If he’d known about the pain when Gerry had phoned, Barry would not have taken the other symptom so lightly, or spent as much time listening to Fingal’s wedding plans.

“Have you noticed any bleeding down below?” A small amount of vaginal bleeding could be a sign of impending miscarriage, but it too was associated with ectopic pregnancy.

She shook her head.

Bleeding wasn’t vital in order for him to make a working diagnosis. Barry was as certain as he could be on the three facts so far available that Mairead was pregnant and something untoward was happening. It could be a threatened miscarriage, but the absence of bleeding made that unlikely. With the pain in her right side, it
might be a bowel condition like appendicitis and unrelated to the pregnancy. Or it could be a disease of the ovaries or Fallopian tubes, once again unrelated. But there, at the forefront of his thoughts, was a growing belief that she was pregnant, that the early embryo had failed to reach her uterus, and now was growing in her Fallopian tube. This condition could not continue. The greatest risk was that the tube would burst and the resulting haemorrhage would be lethal.

He reached over and took her wrist. “Your pulse is nearly normal,” he said. “Tiny bit fast at ninety-two, and I don’t think you’ve got a fever. You feel cool enough. Now, I just need to take your blood pressure and have a look at your belly and down below.”

Her blood pressure was normal, her abdomen not unduly
tender when he palpated it. Barry turned his back, ostensibly to take rubber gloves from his bag, but also to give Mairead a moment of privacy to remove her knickers.

“Ready, Doctor,” she said.

He turned. She lay on her back, knees flexed, thighs parted. Barry squeezed some K-Y Jelly onto the first two fingers of his right hand. “I’ll be as gentle as I can,” he said, knowing that it was going to be impossible not to hurt her. He was looking for one last diagnostic sign. In so early a pregnancy, he probably couldn’t tell if the uterus had, under the influence of pregnancy hormones, become enlarged, nor would he be able to feel a distended tube if one
did contain the fetal sac. The tube would be too soft and too
small, but if there was blood on the sensitive peritoneum, his exploring fingers would produce what was graphically described as “yelling tenderness.”

They did.

Mairead shrieked and Barry rapidly withdrew his examining fingers, pulled down her skirt, and covered her with the bedclothes. “Sorry, Mairead,” he said, thinking what a hollow word it could be. “Sorry.” But that scream had clinched it in his mind. Mairead Shanks, who so desperately wanted a third child, almost certainly had a tubal pregnancy.

She took a series of deep breaths, blowing each out through partially closed lips.

Gerry rushed in. “What’s up?”

Barry said, “I’m sorry, Gerry. I was examining Mairead and touched a sensitive spot.”

“It’s all right, Doctor,” Mairead said. “I understand youse was only doing what youse had to. I’m over it now.” She took a huge breath. “Can youse tell us what’s wrong?”

Barry stripped off his glove. He stared at the floor and thought, Get on with it. It’s your job to break bad news. He sat on the bed and took Mairead’s hand. “I think you
are
pregnant,” he said.

“But it’s gone bad,” Mairead said. “I knew it.”

“I’m afraid so. I believe it’s not in the right place.”

“An ectopic, like?” she asked.

“How do you know about ectopics?”

“When I was still at school, a wee girl in my class, my best friend, got knocked up, so she did. But nobody knew until she collapsed in class and they had to rush her to the Royal for an operation, you know. They took out the tube with the pregnancy in it. She told me all about it when she came back to school.” She looked up at her husband. “It’s all right, Gerry. She got married two years later and has two lovely weans, so she has. This doesn’t mean I’ll not be able to have another, does it, Doctor Laverty?”

Barry marvelled at the stoicism and the optimism of his patient. “Women do get pregnant after tubal pregnancies,” he said, and reckoned that this was not the time to tell the Shankses that such patients did run a risk of having another ectopic in the remaining tube. “We’d better see about getting you to the hospital,” he said. He knew exactly what would have to be done to confirm his diagnosis, and the kind of surgery Mairead would almost certainly need. In another six weeks, he’d be learning to do that surgery. He
was looking forward to that. “I’ll go and phone for the ambulance.”

Gerry bent and kissed his wife’s forehead. “It’s going to be all right, love, isn’t it, Doctor Laverty?”

And despite the uncertainties that surround ectopic pregnancies and any kind of major surgery, what else, Barry thought, could he say? “Of course it is, although I am pretty sure you’ll need an operation, Mairead.” He put a hand on her arm and stood. “I’ll wait until the ambulance comes.” If the bloody thing ruptured while they were waiting, there wasn’t much he could do, but he could ask the despatcher to make sure there were four pints of O-negative blood on board. Just in case. “So I’ll make that call, and if the kettle’s boiled, a cup of tea would really hit the spot, Gerry.”

29

Of Manners Gentle

“I must say,” said O’Reilly, pushing away a plate where only a couple of bones remained of what had been a lunch of cold poached salmon garnished with parsley, slices of lemon, and leaves of crisp iceberg lettuce from his vegetable garden, “since we finished the overflowing benificence of our neighbours yesterday, it is indeed a great relief to have Kinky back in her kitchen.” Even, he thought, if she is keeping her promise about cutting back on starch. Ordinarily there would have been a cold potato salad and her oh-so-creamy homemade mayonnaise. Och, well.

“It is that,” Barry said. “Doesn’t seem like nearly six weeks
since her operation. She’s recovering very well.” He dislodged
something with his little fingernail from between two teeth. “And she hasn’t forgotten how to cook.”

“It was absolutely delicious,” Sue Nolan said. “I wonder if she’d show me how she gets the fish so firm?”

“I would take pleasure in that, Miss Sue,” Kinky said, coming in from the hall. She set a tray on the table and started to clear. “It was my own mother-in-law showed me how when we lived at her house in Ring in County Cork. When you’re married to a fisherman you’d better learn how to cook fish, so.”

Interesting that Kinky would mention her past in front of Sue, O’Reilly thought, and the “Miss Sue” was a sure sign of acceptance too. Of course, Sue Nolan posed no threat, and Kinky was a good thirty years older than the schoolmistress. That age difference gave Kinky the right to be familiar and use the younger woman’s Christian name, but as she was accompanying Barry, there was a social gap, so Sue still must be accorded her title, “Miss.” Och, O’Reilly thought, the rules of etiquette, they’re so bloody archaic, but it pleased him enormously to watch Kinky being her
friendly self and seeing how the colour had returned to her usually
rosy cheeks. He knew she’d lost weight, but, like himself, she could afford to. He gave a small, wry smile. But it was a pity about the mayonnaise.

“Let me help,” Sue said, getting to her feet.

“Stay where you are for now,” Kinky said, “but thanks for the
of
fer.” There was a clattering of plate on plate. “I’d appreciate it if you’d come with me in a minute. The coffee’s ready and it would be a favour to me if you’d take this tray downstairs and the coffee up.” She smiled at Sue. “Climbing them stairs still does be an effort, so.”

“You, Kinky Kincaid,” said O’Reilly, “get your kitchen tidied and then take the rest of the day off. I’m going to Portaferry after coffee to see my brother. You’ll not mind giving Mrs. Kincaid a break, answering the phone, Sue, if Barry gets called out and you’re on your own?” He was curious to see how having yet another stranger doing her job would affect Kinky.

Sue said, “I’d be delighted. I’ve paperwork to do for the CSJ, so I won’t get bored if I am left on my own.”

Barry had told O’Reilly about Sue’s political work for civil rights. Like Barry, O’Reilly distanced himself from sectarian politics, treated everybody the same, but had said he thoroughly approved of Sue’s involvement.

“I’d be very grateful if you would, Miss Sue,” Kinky said. She looked straight at O’Reilly. “I have become used to having Helen do part of my duties during the week, and it is a load off not to have to be interrupted at my new job. Since we decided the reception is going to be in the back garden here I have a great deal of work to do arranging the food and drink, so, and a marquee. We’ll ask the Highlanders pipe band for the loan of theirs like we did for Seamus and Maureen Galvin’s going away last July.”

“We’re happy to leave that to you, but not this afternoon, Kinky,” O’Reilly said. “I want you to rest.”

“Wellll,” she said, “it does be the first Saturday in June, there’s always horse racing at Goodwood, and it’ll be on
Grandstand
on the telly.” She chuckled. “I might have a flutter with the bookie, Mister McArdle.”

“I saw how you did at Downpatrick,” O’Reilly said. “I could feel sorry for Willy.” And he wondered, as he often had, if Kinky’s being fey in any way influenced her remarkable successes at the betting.

“I’ve always loved the horses, so. My brother-in-law, Malachy Aherne, is very good with them. In fact, his name in the Irish is Ó Echtigerna, which means ‘grandson of the lord of the horses.’ I do believe his understanding of the animals rubbed off on me.”

“Kinky?” Barry said. “Could you possibly field calls at suppertime for a couple of hours? I’d like to take Sue to the Culloden. It’ll only take me fifteen minutes to get back if anyone needs me.”

“Doctor Laverty, dear,” she said, “off you young people trot whenever you like. Just let me know when you go and where to find you.”

“Thanks, Kinky.”

“Now if you’d give me a hand with the tray and come with me, Miss Sue? Gentlemen, upstairs with you both, the coffee’ll be on its way, all of you enjoy your afternoons, and if you hear the phone tinkle once it’ll be me on to Willy. There does be a very good filly,
Maureen’s Magic, from the National Stud in the Curragh of
Kildare running in the third. I like her form and I always bet on any horse that carries my name.”

Fingal O’Reilly chuckled to himself. It was grand to have the old Kinky back, and he was certain, absolutely positive, that it wouldn’t be too long before Miss O’Hallorhan, soon to be Mrs. O’Reilly and now on duty on Ward 21, would be, in Kinky’s eyes,
her friend Kitty, at least in private when social convention permit
ted.

*   *   *

O’Reilly turned the Rover right at the T-junction in the middle of Greyabbey and passed the police station, a sombre grey building set back from the street. He knew that the original Cistercian monastery here, for which the village was named, had been founded in
1193 by Affreca, daughter of Godfred, King of Mann and the Isles. You couldn’t turn a corner in Ireland without being reminded of the country’s history. And, praise be, thanks to the government in Ulster, every effort was being made to maintain the old buildings and artefacts. Preservation orders were issued that prevented the ancient relics being bulldozed to make way for progress. A country,
he thought, must cherish its past or, like Ur of the Chaldees, be ut
terly swept away to be remembered, if at all, in name only.