An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War (47 page)

The marquis smiled. “Evening, Fingal. Good to see you. I was sorry you and Kitty couldn't come for the grouse last week.”

“We were too, but it couldn't be helped,” O'Reilly said. “Duty called, but there's always next year.”

“True,” the marquis said. “I'd love to chat, but as usual I'm late for a committee meeting. Why don't you and Kitty pop over on Sunday for dinner? Myrna will be home and we're having an up-and-coming young actor from Bangor, Colin Blakely, and his wife, Margaret, and an old school friend of mine who's visiting from England. Six thirty for seven?”

“I'll have to let you know. I'm not sure who's on call, but if Kitty and I are both free we'd love to.”

“Grand. Give me a ring. I've got to trot now,” and with that the marquis headed up a staircase.

He was never still, the marquis. Rugby committees, yacht club committees, Hospitals' Authority, justice of the peace, encouraging up-and-coming talent like the actor, running his estate. Whoever coined the term “the idle rich” had clearly never met John MacNeill.

O'Reilly went into the bar, where Barry had taken a table for six beside a tall, narrow window with mullioned squares in its upper quarter. Kitty was already seated, taking in the splendid view over the club's rolling lawns, across Seacliff Road and out to the mid-August sun-dappled, dancing waters of Belfast Lough. Gulls wheeled over a herring boat heading up the lough for Ballybucklebo pier. She turned to him, her eyes lively with the delight of the scene before her, and patted the chair beside her. He took her hand and sat.

“Isn't that Jimmy Scott and Hall Campbell's boat, the one we went on when we were mackerel fishing in June?” she said.

“I believe it is.” He looked more closely. “Yes, it is. That was a good evening.”

The mackerel always ran in June, just as the garden fête and horse show were always in July and the opening day of grouse shooting was always August the twelfth. The seasons in their sequence rolled through Ulster. Next month would see the start of wildfowling, and he and Arthur would get a day at Strangford. O'Reilly loved the reliability of it all.

“Right,” said Barry, “my shout. Kitty? Sue? I'm sure you'll be having a pint, Fingal.”

“And you'd be right.”

Barry took the women's orders and headed for the bar.

“You're looking lovely tonight, Sue,” Kitty said.

“Thank you, Kitty,” Sue said. Her smile was radiant and her hair in a single long plait shone like burnished copper in the light of the sun that was now moving westward over the Cave Hill behind Belfast. Her engagement ring sparkled on her left ring finger. “This is an important evening and I owe it to Barry to look my best tonight.”

“And you've succeeded very well,” O'Reilly said. “If I was twenty years younger and wasn't married to the best-looking woman in Ulster…” He saw the smile in Kitty's grey eyes and simply let the sentence hang.

“Thank you for the compliment,” Sue said, cocked her head, gave a wry grin, and continued, “and if I wasn't madly in love with Barry…” She too, let the sentence hang.

“Why, Doctor O'Reilly,” Kitty said, “I do believe you're blushing.”

O'Reilly harrumphed, pulled out his pipe, and made a business of making sure the tobacco was tamped in before lighting up.

“Here we are,” Barry said, “Kitty, G and T; Sue, vodka orange; and two pints.” He nipped back to the bar to return a tray then took his seat beside Sue.

“Sláinte,”
O'Reilly said, took a healthy pull—and almost choked. A young woman was approaching the table. She had black hair with a sheen like a healthy animal's pelt. Her face was strong, with a firm chin and full lips. Slavic cheekbones. Dark eyes with an upward tilt and a glow like the warmth of well-polished mahogany. And she walked with a limp. O'Reilly glanced at Barry, who had his back to the woman—a woman called Patricia Spence.

She stopped and said in a soft contralto, “Excuse me. I hope I'm not intruding…”

O'Reilly, as befitted a gentleman, rose. As he did, he saw both Kitty and Sue frown and Barry rocket to his feet as if an electric current had been passed through his chair. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, his face pallid. “Pat—” he finally said. “Patricia?”

“Hello, Barry,” she said. “I'm sorry to break in on your party but I was…” She gestured vaguely to the room.

O'Reilly's mind went back to Kinky's wedding and he saw himself waiting while Kinky and Archie signed the register. He'd been admiring Sue Nolan and thinking how easily she had filled the void left in Barry's life by a certain Patricia Spence. His gaze went from the self-assured woman standing beside their table to Barry, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable.

Barry composed his features, managed a small smile, and said, “Patricia. Nice to see you. It's been a while.” His voice was level. “And you're not intruding. He half-turned from her and nodded to his table. “You've met Doctor and Mrs. O'Reilly, of course.”

She nodded. “Of course. I'd heard that you'd been married. County Down's a small place. I wish you every happiness.”

“Thank you, Patricia,” they said, almost in unison.

“And please,” Patricia said, “do sit down, Doctor O'Reilly. Barry.”

O'Reilly sat, and wondered what Kitty was feeling behind that polite smile. It had been Patricia's overheard confession to Kitty at a New Year's Eve party last year that had inadvertently informed Barry that his romance was finished.

Barry, who had remained standing, said, “And this is my fiancée, Susan Nolan. Susan, Patricia Spence.”

Both said, “How do you do,” but whereas Sue's smile was open Patricia's sat only on her lips. Her dark eyes suddenly looked dull, spiritless.

O'Reilly wondered if she was regretting having left Barry and was still carrying a torch. Did that expression apply when she was the one who had broken things off? He knew he'd always had an overactive imagination, but was it possible she was hoping to resurrect something?

“Patricia's an engineering student at Cambridge,” Barry said. “She and I are old friends.”

Patricia laughed. “Not really, Barry,” she said, not unkindly. “It's only been two years since we first met. Perhaps it just seems longer.”

“Yes, I suppose you're right.” O'Reilly thought he heard a certain wistfulness in Barry's voice, but no ache. No yearning. “Anyway, are you home for the holidays?” he asked.

She nodded. “Michaelmas term doesn't start until October. I had been planning to work in England over the summer but I found myself homesick by May so I'm back and working in Belfast for the summer.”

Patricia paused and O'Reilly could not help his overactive imagination from going into overdrive. “I have an old friend in Newry. And he truly is an old friend, Barry.” She laughed. “I've known him since he was in short pants. He keeps his boat on Carlingford Lough and we sailed her up here yesterday.” She inclined her head to the bar, where a ginger-haired lad wearing a Donegal tweed sports jacket and a Queen's University tie leant and supped a pint. He glanced over, as if detecting the attention, and waved a hand. “I suppose I'd better be getting back to him.” She looked at the two empty chairs.

“I'd like to invite you to join us,” Barry said, “but we've got other guests coming.”

“I understand,” Patricia said. “Nice to see you again, Doctor O'Reilly, Kitty.” She looked hard at Sue. “Susan Nolan,” she said, “you're a lucky woman. Take good care of him. Good-bye, Barry.” And with that she turned and limped back to the bar and her friend.

O'Reilly waited.

“She is as pretty as you told me, Barry,” Sue said.

“Did I?”

“Did you what? Tell me that she was pretty? Yes, you did,” she said. She was trying to look stern but there was laughter in her eyes. She put one hand on his. “Must have given you quite a shock seeing her.”

Barry nodded. The colour was gradually returning to his face.

“It's all right,” Sue said, “Barry has told me all about her. We've no secrets, have we, love?”

“Not the one,” Barry said. And for the briefest of moments O'Reilly heard Elly Simpkins saying, “I think I'll call you Finn.” Some sleeping dogs were better let lie.

“I thought she was looking well. I'm surprised to see her here, in Ireland, I mean. I hope her life is unfolding as she'd like,” Barry said. He stared into Sue's eyes. “Mine certainly is.”

And she puckered and gave him a mock kiss.

Och, to be young, O'Reilly thought. He looked at Kitty, saw her smile back, and realised that while youth had its attractions you didn't have to be twenty-five to be head over heels. He lifted his pint, looked round the little group, and said, “Here's to us. Who's like us? Damn few—and they're mostly dead.”

Everyone drank and laughed. The irreverent old Scottish toast had done what O'Reilly had intended, broken the tension that had been hanging over the table since Patricia's appearance.

A man's familiar voice said, “And I'd've thought it being a Thursday you'd be drinking to ‘A bloody war or a sickly season,' Surgeon Commander O'Reilly. You know all the daily naval toasts.”

“Dad,” Barry said, “Mum.” Barry stood up, taking his mother's hand. “Come and sit down.”

Tom Laverty, still with a full head of hair, the same blue eyes, and an Australian suntan to match the one he'd acquired in the Med in 1940, pulled out one of the vacant chairs and seated his wife before sitting himself.

“You've met Sue, but not Kitty. Mrs. Kitty O'Reilly, my folks, um…”

O'Reilly understood why he was hesitating. Barry had probably never used his parents' Christian names but knew that Mister and Mrs. was too formal.

His father resolved the dilemma. “Tom and Carol,” he said. “Good to meet you, Kitty, and if a wealthy young doctor I know is buying, mine's a pink gin.” He looked at Fingal. “Old habits die hard and your mother, Barry, will have a gin fizz as usual.”

“I got into the habit before the war,” Carol Laverty said, “when Tom and I were first married and stationed in Valletta, Malta.”

“A brave wheen of years ago now,” Tom said. He looked appraisingly at Kitty, whom he was meeting for the first time. “Is that old reprobate being good to you, Kitty?”

“Tom,” Carol said, “behave,” but she grinned as she spoke. She was tanned like her husband, and her thick blonde hair was streaked with silver. Barry had explained to O'Reilly that because his dad hadn't seen his mother for four years during the war they had decided that the gap between Barry and a brother or sister would be too great. He was an only child. His mother, once he had started school, had turned her not inconsiderable muscial talents into a busy schedule teaching piano.

“Is Fingal good to me, Tom? Very,” said Kitty, “and he takes good care of his medical partner too, you'll be glad to hear.”

Carol smiled and Tom said, “And I hope that son of ours is looking after you, Sue Nolan.”

“Oh, he is,” Sue said. “He doesn't always approve of my politics, but otherwise he's a pet.”

“I'm very glad to hear it,” Carol said. “I always worried about Barry when he was little when Tom was away at sea. Trying to be both mother and father to him.”

“You did a great job, Carol. I couldn't ask for a better partner,” O'Reilly said, “although Doctor Bradley, who runs a well-woman clinic and helps us out with call, is pretty damn good too.”

“Sounds like you're well set up, Fingal,” Tom said.

O'Reilly nodded. “I am, Tom.”

Barry appeared, bringing the drinks. “I've asked the waitress to bring menus. We can order here and then go through to the dining room when the meals are ready.”

“Good idea,” said O'Reilly, and his tummy rumbled. “Now,” he said, “tell us all about Australia.”

Barry said, “It must be so pretty with all of the dear little kangaroos flying about.”

“Act one—”

“Just a minute, Fingal,” said Carol, holding up her hand. “Barry and I used to play that game when he was a boy. He was always reading. It was the Duchess of Berwick in
Lady Windermere's Fan,
by none other than Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, for whom you were named, I do believe.”

“Right enough,” Fingal said, taking a pull on his pint. He laughed.

“Actually,” Carol said, “kangaroos are quite a good size and I've never seen one fly. It's the heat that made the biggest impression on me. And the seasons all upside down. It seemed really odd wearing our swimmies and having Christmas dinner on the beach.”

“Swimmies?” Kitty said.

“The Aussies add ‘ie' to everything,” Tom said. “Beer comes in tinnies, not tins, swimsuits are swimmies, and they do this wonderful outdoor cooking on a thing called a barbeque, but they call it a barbie. Grand people. We really enjoyed ourselves.”

“Excuse me, sir,” a waitress said, “menus, and who'll look at the wine list?”

“Kitty's amazingly good with wines,” O'Reilly said. “If you don't mind, Tom, let her pick.”

“Fine by us,” Tom said. “It's been a while since you and I dined together, Fingal.”

“I'll be back for your orders,” the waitress said, and left.

“It has, but I still remember those dinners at the Cecil in Alexandria during the war so clearly.” O'Reilly turned to Sue. “You know I just missed serving with your dad on
Warspite
. He was arriving just as I was leaving the ship in 1940 and he'd moved on by the time I got back to her in '41.”

“Fingal was heading back to Blighty on a troopship to learn to be an anaesthetist…”

O'Reilly hoped that Tom would be tactful enough not to say, “and to get married.” Kitty was well aware of that part of O'Reilly's past, but there was no need to plough the same furrow twice.