An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea (7 page)

The man had smiled. “I hope I'll not be boring, but in seventeeth-century Japan, men wore
kimonos
which had no pockets. Anything they wanted to carry was put into a container and suspended from their belt or
obi
by a cord. The little toggle at the end of the cord for fixing to the belt was carved from any of a number of materials like ivory or boxwood, boars' tusks.”

O'Reilly was surprised that a dry old stick like Fitzpatrick could be interested in something so arcane.

“Fascinating,” Pixie said. “I'd never heard of such a thing, but I suppose it's more than twenty years since the war and it's all right now to be interested in Japanese things again.”

O'Reilly, who reckoned he had more reason than any at the table to resent the old enemies, said, “Why not. The war's in the past. Life is for living.”

Kitty patted his hand and said, “Well said, Fingal.” She smiled and continued, “Some of the
netsuke
are exquisitely beautiful. I learned about them in a course I took years ago. They're highly collectable and quite valuable—if you know what to look for. And clearly, Ronald, you do.”

“I am very much an amateur,” he said, and lowered his eyes before looking up and saying, “But I appreciate their beauty.”

“What got you interested, Ronald?” Charlie had asked.

Fitzpatrick, who by now had opened up like a blooming rose, said, “My parents were missionaries to Japan, and I was schooled there. I left in May 1931 to come to Dublin so I could go to Trinity in September. My mother's sister Beatrice lived in Rathmines. She's getting on now, but I went to visit her yesterday, before the reception.”

Kitty looked long and hard at Fitzpatrick before asking, “What happened to your parents? Do you mind me asking?”

The man's Adam's apple oscillated furiously, he shook his head, whipped off his pince-nez, put them back, then said, in a studiously steadied voice, “I don't mind. I had a letter from Mummy written in September of that year—1931. Japan had invaded Manchuria. My parents thought war with the West was inevitable, and they were going to try to get out through Hong Kong…”

O'Reilly realised that they must not have made it. He put a hand on Ronald's shoulder and said quietly, “It must have been hard on you. You were very young.”

The man nodded, pursed his lips. “It was. I never got another letter.”

That struck a chord with O'Reilly. He saw the glint behind the pince-nez and squeezed Ronald's shoulder, but said nothing. There were no words, he knew.

“Thank you, Fingal,” Fitzpatrick said.

The conversation was less lively after that, and now here was Charlie with a tray carrying the teapot, silver jug of boiling water, milk, sugar, and cups. He set them on the table more or less at random, with the water jug near Fitzpatrick.

“I'll be mother,” Pixie said. “Who takes what?”

O'Reilly demurred, but everyone else had a cup according to their taste. Fitzpatrick took his without milk or sugar, as the Japanese would.

It wasn't until Charlie asked for a second cup that O'Reilly had his second surprise of the afternoon.

“Pass the hot water jug, please, Fingal,” Pixie said.

“Jasus. That's bloody hot.” O'Reilly flapped his fingers then blew on the tips. The silver jug's heat seemed only a few degrees lower than the inside of a working blast furnace.

Despite that, Ronald lifted it as if it had been filled with ice water and slowly passed it across.

O'Reilly caught Charlie's eye and saw his friend raising an eyebrow before saying, “Did you not find it hot, Ronald?”

Fitzpatrick, who had by now collected himself, shook his head. “Temperature doesn't bother me.”

O'Reilly saw blisters on the man's fingertips. Dear God. He couldn't feel that he was being burned. Loss of temperature appreciation and an inability to feel pain were symptoms of a number of nervous diseases, none of them trivial. He looked again at Charlie, who inclined his head and frowned. He must have noticed it too. And Charlie was a neurosurgeon.

Fitzpatrick was a doctor. He should recognise that he was sick, but perhaps, like many physicians, he refused to believe that illness could strike him and denied its existence. But those symptoms were serious. O'Reilly glanced again at Charlie, who made a rapid shaking of his head.

O'Reilly'd understood. Let matters pass—for now. But he and Charlie would discuss what to do as soon as they could. “Right,” O'Reilly said. “I don't want to rush anybody. It's been a lovely lunch. Thanks for joining us, Ronald, and for the lesson in net…?” He deliberately stumbled over the word.

“
Netsuke,
” Ronald said, and smiled.

“
Netsuke,
” O'Reilly said. “Now if you'll all excuse us…” He rose. “Kitty has an overwhelming desire to visit Clerys department store on O'Connell Street…” And I have a similar desire to get her alone back in our hotel room, he thought. “And then we'll all need to change into our formal gear again. We'll see you in the foyer about six thirty.”

“See you then,” Charlie said.

“Thank you,” Fitzpatrick said.

Both men rose when Kitty stood.

“Come on, then,” O'Reilly said to Kitty, and offered her his hand. “Next stop Clerys, so you can buy whatever you need to look beautiful tonight.” He mock growled and said, “And, I'll have to look like a flaming naval officer—again.”

 

4

England's Green and Pleasant Land

Fingal lengthened his still-rolling stride and turned onto a privet-hedge-lined lane at the end of which was a cottage right out of the pages of
Country Life
. Behind the cottage, a sward swept down to the pollard willows along the edges of the Wallington River as it ran toward Fareham Lake. With metronomic regularity a man was casting a fly into the river's limpid waters. Farther downstream, a pair of swans looked haughtily at their own reflections.

Fingal stopped and took a deep breath. The warm September air was filled with the sweet smell of hay. A flock of sheep grazed nearby, woolly puffballs on a green carpet. In a distant field, a girl in what looked like the uniform of the Land Army was driving a horse-drawn reaper, making hay. The reaper's blades clattered in the distance and he could hear the song of a thrush rising above it.

A local call to Mrs. Wilcoxson last night had been greeted with pleasure and she'd said she'd be delighted to see him today—for lunch perhaps?

Fingal fiddled with the knot of his tie and smoothed his uniform. From behind a church with a squat Norman spire came the lowing of cattle, the sound drifting in the still air. It was a picture captured in a line from William Blake's “Jerusalem
.
” “England's green and pleasant land.” The contrast struck Fingal with a force he hadn't been prepared for: the pastoral beauty of the countryside and the dismal shades of London's grey and black, the stinking filth of the wanton destruction he'd seen yesterday.

For a brief moment Fingal wondered where his old
Warspite
colleagues were, could feel the sway of the great ship beneath him, but the lowing of the cattle brought his thoughts back to the present. He was in Hampshire, a few short miles from the English Channel. He straightened his cap.

So, he thought, surveying the picture-perfect cottage. This was the home of Surgeon Commander Richard Wilcoxson and his wife, Marjorie. Three first-floor latticed windows jutted from beneath a thatched roof. A varnished wooden door with a massive black metal ring for a handle was offset to the right side of the whitewashed front wall and was flanked by three windows, one to its right, the others to its left. The window frames were all painted bright red. A yellow climbing rose ran up a trellis on one side of the door. Its scent mingled with that of the newly mown hay. On the other side a wooden plaque read
TWIDDY'S COTTAGE 1741
.

England was a place of great antiquity, of deep roots, hallowed traditions. A place worth fighting for. How dare the bloody Nazis from their upstart Third Reich come and bomb Britain's ancient treasures, its stoic people? He surprised himself at the intensity of his emotion, shook his head, and rapped on a brass knocker.

“Coming,” a voice called.

The door was opened by a middle-aged woman of medium height. She wore her silver hair in a chignon, instantly reminding Fingal of the housekeeper, Mrs. Kincaid, at Number One Main Street back in Ballybucklebo. Behind spectacles, blue eyes shone, and laugh lines spun webs at their corners. Mrs. Wilcoxson's voice was soft, cultured. “You must be Surgeon Lieutenant O'Reilly. Richard has told me a great deal about you. All very good.” She chuckled. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Wilcoxson?” Fingal said. “And please, call me Fingal. I'm very much off duty.”

She wore a well-cut grey tweed suit and he noticed a small gold pin in the shape of a sheepdog on the shawl collar. A single string of pearls was round her neck. Peeking out of one of the side patch pockets of her jacket was what appeared to be a small baby bottle.

“Do come in, take off your cap and coat, and unsling that ridiculous gas mask.”

“Thank you,” he said, stooping under the door lintel—men had been shorter in the eighteenth century—and entered a hall floored by flagstones. Black beams supported the ceiling above and dark wood panelling covered the walls.

She hung up his things and ushered him into a long, bright room. The far end was arranged as the dining area, and to his left a large fireplace was filled with logs on black andirons. Above it hung a print of Turner's
The Fighting
Temeraire
tugged to her last berth to be broken up. 1838
.

An English sheepdog lying in front of the fire raised its shaggy head and peered at Fingal through its eye-obscuring fringe. It made a questioning “Arf?”

Marjorie Wilcoxson bent and stroked its head. “This is Lieutenant O'Reilly,” she said. “Say hello, Admiral Benbow.”

The dog sat up, raised one paw, threw back its head, and—Fingal could only describe the noise as yodelling.

“Thank you, Admiral,” she said briskly. “That will do very well.”

The dog flopped back into a woolly heap on the hearthrug.

“Richard has named all the dogs for admirals,” she said. “We've a couple of foxhounds out in their kennels. They're Nelson and Drake. Mind you, we don't usually use their ranks. We don't want them getting ideas above their station.”

Fingal had heard of how ditsy the English upper classes could become about animals, and several sardonic rejoinders came to his mind, but he decided to let the moment pass. “So I'm well and truly outranked,” was all he said instead, and laughed.

“Only by the dogs. We've a Shetland pony mare called Boadicea—I named her. Tony has clearly outgrown her, but I can't bear to part with the little beast. And last week I found three baby hedgehogs whose mother was killed by a fox. I've named them Riddle, Mee, and Ree. They're living quite comfortably in a cardboard box by the kitchen range.” She reached into her pocket, drew out the baby bottle, and looked at it. “Ah, I'd wondered where that had got to. I'm bottle-feeding them.”

That explains the bottle, he thought, and smiled. “Animals are good company. It can be lonely when one's family is so far away.”

“Quite so, Fingal,” she said.

She led him to one of two comfortable rose-patterned chintz armchairs separated by a side table. They were arranged to face French windows looking out over a tiny formal English garden in front of an extensive vegetable plot. “One is supposed to ‘Dig for victory,'” she said. “It was once all flowers out there—I do so love gardening—but needs must when the devil drives. My gardenias and dahlias are all gone…”

Fingal was hesitant to sit before she did.

“… and for goodness' sake, do sit down. We were talking about families. Tell me about yours, please.”

He obeyed. “My father was a professor of Classics and English at Trinity College Dublin. He died of leukaemia four years ago…”

“I
am
sorry. My condolences.”

“Thank you. My elder brother Lars is a solicitor. He and my mother live in a small place called Portaferry about thirty miles outside Belfast. I spoke to Ma on the phone last night. She sounded well and says Lars is too.”

“That will be a relief,” she said.

“It was, and—”

“Forgive me for interrupting, but can I get you something before we eat? Richard taught me to like pink gin years ago, and don't look so worried. I know things are rationed, but the landlord of the Crown is kind to his special customers.”

Fingal would have loved a decent pint of Guinness. He'd not had one for months, but said, preferring not to drink spirits so early in the day, “I'll take a small sherry, if you have it?”

“I'll see to it,” she said, “and please do carry on while I get the drinks.”

“That's my immediate relatives,” he said, “but I'm engaged to a wonderful girl, called Deirdre Mawhinney.”

Glass chinked on glass as she said, “I certainly hope you've spoken to her.”

Fingal shook his head. “She lives in the nurses' quarters of the Ulster Hospital for Women and Children in Belfast. Unless I know when she's off duty, there's no point calling.”

“Mmm. Tricky, that.” She handed him sherry in a small stemmed glass.

“Thank you.”

Holding a cut glass with her pink gin she took the other chair, crossing her legs and, with her drink-free hand, smoothing her grey, pleated skirt. “Cheers, or as Richard might say on a Friday, ‘A willing foe and sea room.'”

Fingal smiled. He'd not taken long to learn the traditional naval daily toasts. “Cheers.”