An Irish Country Christmas (48 page)

O’Reilly took the bird. “Good boy.” He patted Arthur’s head. “That’s better than a Wellington boot, isn’t it? Go on now, lie down.”

Arthur wandered over to a sheltered corner, flopped, and laid his square head on his outstretched paws. The look on his face could only be described as one of pure contentment. The American author Robert Ruark had been right, O’Reilly thought. There is no happier animal than a gun dog in bird season.

O’Reilly picked up a gamebag from the corner where he’d left it and put the duck into the outer string-mesh pouch. Inside the inner canvas pouch were half a dozen cold fried Cookstown sausages in buttered bridge rolls that Kinky had put up for him and wrapped in greaseproof paper before she went to bed the night before. Kinky would have no truck with any other brand of sausages. A large thermos held the coffee he’d brewed for himself this morning.

He felt the sting of rain on his face as a sudden squall hit. You’re daft, Fingal O’Reilly, he told himself. Mad as a flaming hatter. Why would any man in his right mind be out in this bloody awful weather with no company but a black Labrador who’s as crazy as you are?

And it wasn’t a difficult question for him to answer. It was what he’d tried to tell Barry. The place gave him time away from his everyday world.

No matter how inured a doctor thought he had become to the suffering of his patients, any physician worth his salt still worried about them, particularly the really ill ones. There was often recompense from them in their gratitude, but not always. Some became hostile and angry when their physician failed to meet their sometimes hopelessly exaggerated expectations.

He smiled to himself. He’d told Barry the day he arrived in Ballybucklebo that the first law of medicine was never to let the patients get
the upper hand. But there’d been one or two occasions lately when the redoubtable Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly had failed to obey his own laws.

Thank God they were only a small percentage of the practice, but there were a few patients who would try the patience of Job. The ones who made thoughtless demands for attention, often at night, for trivial complaints.

He’d not got back to bed until two o’clock this morning because Seamus Corrigan, a farm labourer who lived in a two-room cottage about three miles from the Gillespies’ farm, had staved a finger on Tuesday mending a drystone wall. For four days he’d had every opportunity to come to the surgery, but no, the boul’ Seamus had got a skinfull last night at the Duck, decided his finger was broken, phoned at twelve-thirty, and demanded a home visit.

O’Reilly had examined the man, strapped the finger—strained or broken, the treatment was the same—and driven home in a foul temper, convinced his own blood pressure had gone up about twenty points. Seamus was damn lucky he hadn’t acquired a broken neck. It had been a bloody good thing O’Reilly had planned to be on the Lough this morning, although he was keenly aware that Seamus had deprived him of what little sleep the early rising would allow; he’d had to get up at four to get to Strangford in time for the dawn flight.

Would Seamus have been as disturbed about his finger if the telephone hadn’t been invented and he had to walk or cycle through the gale to the surgery? Sometimes the telephone was a bloody menace. It ruled doctors’ lives.

He certainly took great pains to conceal it from Kinky and Barry, but every time the bloody thing rang O’Reilly flinched until he could determine whether it was a social call or yet another medical emergency to sort out.

It was all part and parcel of his chosen career, O’Reilly knew, but all the petty irritations, all the strains, built and accumulated until like an overloaded steam engine, O’Reilly knew he needed to open his safety valve.

Some men could find that solace in the arms of their wives. He
found his in this wild place where no telephones ever rang, no babies died of pneumonia, and no arrangements had to be made to ship distraught, pregnant, out-of-wedlock teenagers to England. Nothing of the mundane could intrude, and he could enjoy the solitude and the raw undistilled beauty of the place.

The truth was he didn’t really care if he never fired a shot. The ducks were simply his excuse to come here despite the cold and the gale. He flinched as water trickled under his towel and down his back.

The last shower had passed by and the dawn was breaking. O’Reilly turned to look inland along the peninsula’s length. A gap appeared in the clouds as the sun’s upper rim, chrome yellow, climbed over the hills. The light of the day brightened as the narrow sliver grew into a great disk, its colour changing to an incandescent orange that painted the clouds with screaming scarlet. The earlier invisible grasses, now green with punctuation marks of russet benweeds, bowed and swayed and danced their saraband.

When he looked out over the water, the black sea slowly changed to battleship grey dappled with ranks of cream whitecaps.

The sun’s heat began to warm him, and O’Reilly sensed his inner maroon-hued serenity, that peace he only ever felt here on Strangford, his
quereñcia
. It restored the soul as surely as running on the surface recharged the batteries of a submarine.

“And that, Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly”—he told himself—“
that
is why you’re out here in this winter weather with no one but a bloody great Labrador for company.” He bent and patted Arthur’s head. Then he said to the dog, “Today I’d rather be here than back at Number One, even if”—he blew on his hands—“it’ll be a damn sight cosier there.”

He propped his gun against the stone wall, pulled the thermos from the gamebag, poured a steaming cup of coffee, and settled down to see what the rest of the Saturday might bring.

To Travel Hopefully Is a Better Thing

Barry, grinning like a Barbary ape, took the stairs two at a time, then brushed aside Kinky, who was saying, “I’m sorry I yelled up to you, sir, but I have a cake in the oven, so and—”

He grabbed the receiver. “Patricia? Patricia? Where are you?” Was she home in Newry already?

“Bourn.”

Barry’s grin collapsed. “Is everything alright?”

“Of course, silly. I just wanted to hear your voice.” She sounded happy.

“It’s been a while.” He waited.

“I know that, and I know what you’re going to ask, and don’t get cross, but no I haven’t had a chance yet . . .”

Damn. Damn. Barry kept his voice level. “Why not?”

“I’ve been staying with Jenny at her aunt’s cottage. It’s a beautiful old thatched place that was built in sixteen fifty-three, in a tiny place called Draycot near Slimbridge in Gloucestershire.”

Here we go again, he thought, more chitchat. More avoiding talking about important things. “Where the ducks are. I know.” Bloody ducks. Pity O’Reilly wasn’t over there with his gun. Barry was having difficulty keeping his temper. This prevarication had gone on long enough.

“Slimbridge is an amazing place. They’re real conservationists here. They’ve bred one species, the Hawaiian goose, back from near extinction.”

“Good.” But was she going to do something to save
him
from extinction, or was she going to let them fall apart?

“Barry, I’m trying to explain.”

“I wish you would.”

“I asked you not to be cross.”

“Damn it, Patricia, I want to see you. It’s hard not to get cross. You promised to come.” He hesitated. “Are you sure you really want to come back to Ireland?” He waited. “Telling me you’d rather see a bunch of birds is a pretty lame excuse.”

“I did want to see the waterfowl. I’m glad I did. I may not get another chance. And it’s not as if you’re free much when I do come home. You still have a job to do. I’d be bored half to death hanging around in Newry. There’s nothing to do there.”

“I can understand that, but O’Reilly will give me time off. He knows I need to see you.” Barry was now sure that even though she had admitted to some reluctance to travel, she still wasn’t telling him the real reason. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Her tone changed from placatory to matter-of-fact. “Do you want an honest answer?”

“Of course I do.” Never mind
something
else; there must be
somebody
else. He closed his eyes and waited.

“I’m not sure I want to leave here.”

Damnation. Barry took a deep breath. “Not sure? Not even for a few days? Why not?” This was starting to sound like last July, when she’d told him she was too busy with her career to fall in love.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“Yes,” he said cautiously. “About what?”

“About us.”

Barry blew out his breath through pursed lips. “What about us?” For God’s sake, man, he told himself, ask her. “Patricia, are you trying to tell me you’ve met someone else?”

“Yes and no—”

“Yes and no?” he cut in. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m trying to say, yes, I’ve met a lot of people and, no, nobody in
particular, just a whole lot of really interesting people. Cambridge is full of folks from all over the world. Thinkers. Questioners.” He heard excitement in her voice. “You hear all kinds of new ideas. Nobody lives in the past, not like—”

“Not like your average Ulsterman. And your new friends are all a damn sight more exciting than a country GP from a little town in the back of beyond. Is that it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Barry’s jaws tightened. “You might as well have.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Why not? It’s what I am.”

“Barry, look . . . I’ve never been away from Ulster before. It’s taken a bit of getting used to. I’m in some pretty tough courses and the competition is fierce here. There are only three women in the class, and we have to show everyone how good we are. It’s hard work . . . but I’ve never been happier.”

Jesus, and he’d been stupid enough to believe he’d been competing with a bunch of ducks. If it were only that simple. This was the side of Patricia that frightened him. This was the aggressive I’m-a-woman-making-my-way-in-a-man’s-world Patricia. This was the nothing-is-going-to-get-in-my-way Patricia, not even you, Barry Laverty. It had been hard enough to accept this when she was living in Ulster, but he had tried and succeeded reasonably well.

He wondered how many of the “really interesting people” she’d met at the university shared her opinions, reinforced them, hardened them. Was it one of them who had told her never to accept money from a man?

“I see,” Barry said, as levelly as he could manage, “and it’s so exciting there, although term’s over and you don’t have any classes, that you can’t bear to drag yourself away even for a few days to be with—” He was going to say “the man who loves you” but bit off the words.

“Christ, Barry, that’s not true.”

“Patricia, I haven’t changed. You have. I don’t think you want to see me.” Barry held his breath. If she said he was right, his world would collapse.

“I do, Barry. I still love you.” She spoke quietly.

Barry exhaled. He felt relief, but it was tinged with wondering if it was the truth. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “I love you too.” “Then why haven’t you made an effort to get a booking to come home?”

“Because I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t? Come on, Patricia. How much effort does it take to make a ferry booking? A phone call or two?” He heard an edge creep into his voice.

Her words were more terse too. “I said I couldn’t, and I meant I couldn’t. Draycot’s tiny. Jenny’s aunt hasn’t got a telephone. There’s no travel agent here. Today’s the first chance I’ve had.”

“And?” He knew he should have apologized for his sarcasm.

“
And
as soon as I get off the phone, Jenny’s going to run me to Cambridge to the travel agent there. I
am
going to try to get home.”

Good. At least he’d be able to thrash all this out with her face-to-face. “Then why did you tell me you weren’t sure if you wanted to leave?”

“Because you asked me and because it’s true. I’ve all kinds of reasons to want to stay. Jenny’s dad’s got tickets to King’s College Chapel for the Christmas Eve lessons-and-carols service. I’d love to go. I’m enjoying living in Bourn with my friend. Some of my other classmates and Jenny and I are going down to the Tate Gallery in London today, and after we’ve been to Cambridge they’re planning trips to the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert. Newry’s a dump, and even though I love Mum and Dad, I’ve already told you I’d be bored stiff there.”

He clenched his fist. The temptation was huge to lose his temper and yell, “
Then why don’t you stay?
” Barry forced his fist to uncurl. “When will you know for sure exactly when you are coming?”

“As soon as I’ve got my tickets, you’ll be the first to know, Barry.” She managed a small laugh and said, “After the travel agent and Jenny, that is. But I may not get a chance to ring for a day or two.”

Here we go again. “Why not, for heaven’s sake?”

“I told you; I’m going up to town today.” That was a very English
expression for going to London. “And we’ll be staying with Jenny’s sister in Chelsea until Tuesday morning. I may not get a chance to phone you until I’m back in Bourn.”

“Patricia, London is full of public telephones. They’re in red kiosks. If you’ve no money, reverse the charges. You can leave a message with Mrs. Kincaid if I’m not here. I really want to know when you’ll be arriving.” He pursed his lips. “Look, I’m sorry if I was a bit snappy, but I miss you like mad, and Patricia . . . ?”