"Suits me," said O'Reilly, standing clear of the mantel and adopting his old familiar boxer's attacking stance, with one foot in advance of the other. He hadn't boxed since he'd left the navy, but old habits died hard.

"I hesitate to be the ghost at the feast," Fitzpatrick continued, looking particularly cheerful, "especially at this festive season, but I have wondered if the region is big enough to keep three doctors busy."

O'Reilly saw Barry flinch. The lad would be worried. O'Reilly shared his concern, but if Fitzpatrick was throwing down a professional gauntlet, Fingal O'Reilly was the man to accept the challenge. "Probably not, Ronald," he said blandly. "I'm sure Doctor Laverty and I will miss you when you leave." He moved across the room and opened the door. "Now let me show you out." He glanced at Barry. "Doctor Laverty and I are on our way down to our lunch. Sorry we can't invite you to stay and join us."

A Primrose by a River's Brim.

O'Reilly knocked the dottle out of his briar into a huge ashtray that Kinky had this Thursday morning, under some protest, placed in its habitual spot on the dining room table. It was beyond him why she'd been under the impression he'd given up smoking forever, just because he'd not picked up his pipe for the few days his chest had been afflicted. He'd missed his tobacco as a man might miss an old and dear friend.

He crammed the pipe into his jacket pocket, finished his tea, and rose. Time for him to be in the trenches. He'd promised Barry he'd take care of the surgery this morning, and by G.o.d, he would, and he'd be well enough by Sat.u.r.day to cover the weekend too.

O'Reilly shoved his chair away from the table, rose, glanced up, and hoped Barry was still asleep. The lad had worked hard for the last few days. O'Reilly had not heard Barry leave this morning, but he had heard him return just after dawn had broken. Let him sleep. He'd earned it.

O'Reilly pa.s.sed the big table, went into the hall, and opened the waiting room door. Jesus Murphy, he thought. It was like Paddy's market in there, standing room only. Barry would be pleased to hear the place was packed. O'Reilly ignored the chorus of "Good morning, Doctor," and roared, "Right, who's first?"

Cissie Sloan, blue beret on her untidy mop of hair, woolly scarf wrapped around her neck, the rest of her bundled up in an army surplus great coat that O'Reilly knew would have been purchased at the Army and Navy Store in Belfast, lumbered to her Wellington-booted feet. "Right, Cissie," he said, "you know your way."

As he followed her to the surgery he remembered yesterday's lunch when, try as he might, O'Reilly did not seem to be able to rea.s.sure Barry that Doctor Fitzpatrick probably did not present a real threat. Once his novelty had worn off, the Ballybucklebo patients would be quite happy to return to Number 1 Main Street. Some of them, he thought, watching Cissie process along the hall and into the surgery, didn't even seem to have any notion of leaving at all. He heard the chair creak as Cissie settled herself. Pa.s.sing her, he parked himself in his swivel chair.

"Doctor Laverty not in the day?"

"My turn, Cissie. He was up half the night."

"Right enough? He works very hard, so he does." She made a sympathetic clucking noise and leant forward. "And I hear you've been a bit under the weather yourself, sir."

"Och, sure it was only a slight touch of the bubonic plague and leprosy, and I shook them both off in no time." He looked at her over his half-moon gla.s.ses. "I've the const.i.tution of a Clydesdale horse."

Cissie's laugh was throaty, though whether from her earlier thyroid deficiency or her recent sore throat he couldn't be sure.

"You're the terrible man, Doctor dear, so you are, teasing a poor countrywoman like me. Leprosy, my aunt f.a.n.n.y Jane. You only get that in darkest Africa. Wasn't I just telling my cousin Aggie, you know the one with the six toes, her and me was working in the parish hall getting it ready for the pageant, we'd just hung up another red paper chain, and Aggie says-"

"Cissie," O'Reilly said forcibly, "what ails you today? Doctor Laverty told me you'd a sore throat."

"Would you like to have a wee look? It's not better. I think maybe you should look at it. My cousin-"

"Right." He grabbed a tongue depressor from a jar that stood on his desk and pulled a clip-on pencil torch from the inside pocket of his jacket. "Open big and stick out your tongue." If nothing else, that would stem the verbal torrent. The back of her throat was red, but it looked to him pretty much as he would antic.i.p.ate pharyngitis to appear after a couple of days of treatment. "Doesn't look too bad-" he started to say, as he removed the wooden spatula.

"Aggie says that maybe the Saint Brigid's cotton isn't working, that maybe the penicillin the young doctor, no harm to him . . ." She hesitated and looked at O'Reilly, who knew very well that "no harm to him" inevitably presaged a criticism. "Well, maybe what he prescribed me isn't the right thing, she says-"

"What?" O'Reilly pulled off his half-moons and dangled them by one leg from between his finger and thumb, resisting the temptation to enquire which of the five Irish medical schools was Aggie's alma mater.

"She says what I need is to buck them pills down the sink and get goat's milk whey and stick a wheen of ground-up primrose roots-"

O'Reilly dropped his gla.s.ses, silencing Cissie for a moment, and sat bolt upright. "And does she recommend shoving the mixture up your nose?"

Cissie beamed. "Aren't you the quare smart one, Doctor O'Reilly? That's exactly, exactly, what she said. And do you think I should?" She frowned. "I'm never quite sure about our Aggie . . ."

O'Reilly bent, retrieved his spectacles, took out his pipe, and filled it, quite happy to let Cissie prattle on while he thought rapidly. For starters, either because she had a sore throat herself or on behalf of her cousin Cissie, Aggie had almost certainly consulted Fitzpatrick. Until yesterday, in all his years here, O'Reilly had never heard of that particular nostrum being popular among the local citizens, and he was sure he was familiar with all the local folk remedies.

"I always think she needs an anenema."

O'Reilly ignored the misp.r.o.nunciation. He was more worried that the suggested cure, which he was certain had come from Fitzpatrick and which was blatant quackery, could harm one of Barry's patients. As far as O'Reilly was concerned, Fitzpatrick could prescribe boiled water to those he treated. But when his advice started to affect the customers of Number 1 Main Street, it was time to start paying attention. In O'Reilly's opinion, Cissie needed the penicillin Barry had prescribed.

"Aggie needs an anenema because I think she's usually full of s.h.i.te, but I thought I'd come and get a second opinion just to be sure."

O'Reilly stifled his irritation at being considered a backup to cousin Aggie. The main thing was to make sure Cissie kept on taking her tablets.

He stuck his filled pipe in a side pocket, leant forward, and said, "I made a mistake about you in July, didn't I, Cissie?"

"Aye. You didn't know I'd the thyroid thingy." She smiled. "But sure a bishop can be wrong too sometimes. Only your man in Rome's infallybubble."

"True, Cissie, I'm not infallible, but who found out your thyroid was out of whack?"

"Doctor Laverty."

"And now did he suggest crushed primrose roots or penicillin for your throat?"

"Penicillin." She looked puzzled, then said, "Aye, and he told me to go on using the Saint Brigid's cotton too."

"Powerful stuff, the cotton," O'Reilly said. "Now, Cissie, if you'd to bet money on it, where would you put your cash? Penicillin or primrose roots?"

"Doctor Laverty-and I'd give him odds on, so I would."

"Good for you, Cissie." O'Reilly rose and helped her to her feet. "Doctor Laverty wouldn't see you wrong, you know that. So you keep taking that penicillin as Doctor Laverty prescribed, and you'll be right as rain in another few days."

"Thank you, Doctor," she said. "I'd not fancy sticking that stuff up my nose," she giggled. "Maybe Aggie could use it for her anenema. I think I'll tell her-"

"I'm sure you will, Cissie." He manoeuvered her toward the door, opened it, and guided her out. "And come in anytime you're worried."

"Thank you, Doctor. And I'll-"

She was still talking as he closed the surgery door, and through it he could hear her chuntering on in the hall. He fished out his pipe, lit up, and relished a few good puffs until he heard the front door close. Then satisfied that she had left, he wandered back to the waiting room. He opened the door a crack and listened. He could overhear the tail end of a conversation between two of his regulars, two older folks who regarded their weekly trip to their medical advisor more as a social outing than a therapeutic endeavour.

"I didn't see you here last week, Bertha."

"I wasn't in, Jimmy."

"Oh. Why not?"

"You know b.l.o.o.d.y well there's only one thing would keep me away. I was sick, so I was."

O'Reilly chuckled. He was just a tiny bit humbled when she said, in tones so serious as to underline the absolute truth of her sentiments, "And I didn't want to trouble the doctors. Not when I was poorly."

He opened the door wide. "Who's the next-"

The door to the outside was opened, and the marquis came in. Everyone rose, the men knuckling their foreheads, the women dropping small curtsies. All stood aside so the presence could go first. Rank has its privileges, O'Reilly thought, as he often did when he pulled it to get to the head of a queue. "Morning, my lord," he said.

"Good morning, Doctor, and everyone, please be seated." The man exuded a natural graciousness. "I'll only keep Doctor O'Reilly for a very few minutes."

O'Reilly stood aside, then followed the marquis to the surgery and closed the door. He waited as with familiar ease the man took off his camel hair overcoat with the black velvet lapels and his blazer with the crest of the Irish Guards on the breast pocket, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and climbed up to lie on the examining couch.

"You've not noticed any changes since you were in a couple of months ago?" O'Reilly asked, as he wrapped the blood pressure cuff around the upper arm and inflated it.

"Not a thing, except those ruddy pills make me pee too much." He grinned. "Small price to pay, I suppose."

"Very small. At your age, untreated high blood pressure can cause a stroke." O'Reilly stuck his stethoscope in his ears and put the bell into the front of the elbow beneath the cuff. Then he slowly deflated the cuff and watched as the column of mercury fell, noting the pressure of 150 when the first sounds of the blood coursing in the radial artery could be heard and noting the pressure of 85 when they disappeared. Not much above the normal 120 and 80 for a younger man. "Same as before," he said, removing the cuff. "Sit up, please."

The marquis swung his legs over the edge of the couch and sat up.

O'Reilly lifted an ophthalmoscope from the instrument table and turned on its light. "Just stare at the wall over my shoulder, please." He shone the light into the lens of the left eye. All he could see was a red blur until he had fiddled with the focusing wheel. The optic disc, the bright red retina, swam into view. There was a small light-coloured circular area in the middle of this field. That was the macula, the place where the optic nerve left the back of the eyeball; running from it were the tiny arteries and veins that supplied and drained the retina. There were no blurring of the macular margins, no constrictions in any of the blood vessels, nor any signs of those small areas of bleeding described graphically as "flame haemorrhages." Presence of any or all would be evidence that the hypertension was worsening. "Good, that disc's fine," he said, turning his attention to the right eye. "Now as our record-playing friends would say, let's have a look at the flip side." In a few moments he confirmed that the right retina too was healthy. "You'll do for another couple of months."

O'Reilly went to his desk and sat in his swivel chair, as the marquis put his clothes back on. "Here you are." O'Reilly half turned and handed his patient a prescription for chlorothiazide, five hundred milligrams, to be taken daily. "That'll keep you right, John."

"Thank you, Fingal. Now I'll just keep you for another minute. I'm pleased to see you are better."

"I'm grand."

"Good, because the executive of the Rugby Club would like you to attend an extraordinary meeting on Sat.u.r.day evening after the game."

O'Reilly spun to face the marquis. "Did the daft b.u.g.g.e.rs vote down the one-pound rise in dues on Wednesday night?"

"Not at all. They pa.s.sed it with barely a murmur. I hinted when I came to visit you on Tuesday morning that I thought Councillor Bishop would object. He did, but we all know he'd wrestle a bear for a halfpenny, so we soon shut him up. No, Fingal, they want to make the final arrangements for this year's Christmas party, and if you're up to it they'd quite like you to be in attendance."

"Sat.u.r.day?" O'Reilly frowned, then said, "I should be able to make that. I'll be on call, but I'm sure I'll be able to work round it."

"Good," said the marquis, heading for the door. He held one finger beside his nose. "I think they may be preparing a little surprise for you, but I'd appreciate it if you don't say anything."

"Surprise?" O'Reilly's frown deepened. "What sort?"

"A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse," said the marquis, letting himself out. "We'll say no more."

"Thanks for the tip-off, sir." O'Reilly followed the marquis to the front door. "I'm not a big fan of sudden surprises, even if they are well meant."

"I do know that, Fingal. It's why I told you." And without waiting for an answer, he left.

Kinky removed the ashtray and fixed O'Reilly with a glare. "This'll be for after lunch, Doctor, sir. You'll not be needing your pipe until then. You'd agree, Doctor Laverty?"

"Oh, indeed, Kinky." Barry, now clean-shaven and dressed, sat at his usual spot at the other end of the table.

"You two ganging up on me?" O'Reilly asked, but then he nodded and smiled. He'd had a couple of pipefuls of his favourite Murray's Erinmore Flake during the surgery. He could wait for another half hour or so. "What's for lunch, Kinky?" His stomach gurgled.

"I've a nice potato soup ready," she said, "and when the pair of you has got that into you, there's a bacon-and-egg pie to follow." She walked to the door. "And you'll get none of it if you don't let me get back to my kitchen."

O'Reilly wanted to find out what Barry had been up to in the small hours. "I heard you coming back early this morning. Bad night?"

Barry yawned. "You know Jeremy Dunne?"

"Farmer," O'Reilly said. "Forty acres mixed farm, beef cattle, and grain. His land marches with the Gillespies' place to the west and the marquis' estate to the east. Grown son lives with him. Jeremy's a widower. Excitable type. He has trouble with a duodenal ulcer."

"He had real trouble with it this morning. It perforated. It wasn't a difficult diagnosis once his son was able to tell me about the ulcer. The poor devil was in shock . . . severe abdominal pain and all the signs of peritonitis. All I could do was call an ambulance and get him up to the Royal P.D.Q. I phoned my mate Jack Mills when I got up today. Jack and your mate Cromie operated, closed the hole, and cleaned all the intestinal contents out of his belly. They expect he'll be home for Christmas."

"Aye," said O'Reilly, "he should be better in a week, that would be . . ."

"The seventeenth," Barry said. "Lots of time to spare."

"Right." O'Reilly was pleased. He didn't like to think of anybody being in hospital on the day, and he was pleased that Barry's diagnosis had been correct. The boy was learning to keep a watchful eye on their customers, even if they were under a specialist's care in hospital. "You did well, Barry."

Barry grinned. "Thanks, Fingal, but it was hardly a difficult diagnosis given the man's history."

Barry was possessed of an inherent modesty. Some people might see it as a lack of confidence, but O'Reilly was sure he knew better. "You did well, son," he said, "very well, and maybe with a bit of luck you'll not be too busy this afternoon. Have you many calls to make?"

"I'm going to pop in at Eileen Lindsay's and see how Sammy and Maggie are getting on; then I'll stick my nose in at Kieran's, change his dressing. They only live a few doors away. It'll save him a trip, and I think that's about it for today, unless Kinky has more for me or some other calls come in later." Barry toyed with his soupspoon. "How was the surgery?"

O'Reilly stretched in his chair. "Pretty routine. And busy as h.e.l.l. Not everybody's scarpered up to the Kinnegar."

That news brought a smile to Barry's face.

O'Reilly continued. "Cissie was in. She's not sure your penicillin is working fast enough."

Barry laughed. "Typical Cissie. What did you tell her?"

O'Reilly was pleased to see the laugh. Four months ago Barry would have bridled because he would have felt insecure. The boy was learning. "I told her not to pay any heed to her cousin Aggie's helpful advice." He decided not to bother Barry by telling him where he thought the advice had come from. "She'll be fine."

O'Reilly wrinkled his nose and detected the scent of onions and leeks mingled with potatoes wafting through the door. Old Arthur might be a good gun dog, but by G.o.d when it came to sniffing out grub, O'Reilly reckoned he himself had no match.

Kinky came in carrying a steaming tureen, set it on the table, and handed O'Reilly a ladle. He started filling his own soup plate.

"Any calls this morning, Kinky?" Barry pa.s.sed his soup plate along the table.

She stood beside O'Reilly, hands linked in front of her ap.r.o.n, clearly awaiting his verdict on the soup. "None from patients, Doctor Laverty," she said, "but your young lady called when you were still asleep-"

Barry half rose. "When I was asleep? I missed her? b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." Barry saw Kinky purse her lips. "Sorry, Kinky."

"I've heard worse," she said.

Good old Kinky, O'Reilly thought, our unflappable Rock of Ages.

"Miss Spence said she was rushing off somewhere, not to disturb you, and to tell you she'd call-"

"When?"

"First thing Sat.u.r.day morning."