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Authors: Patrick Taylor
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admitted to himself he’d been not a little in love with her. He might have married her if Deidre hadn’t come along but, och, he told himself, if she hadn’t he’d never have had those few months.
He felt the drowsiness starting to overcome him, but before he let himself drift off into a nap he resolved to get well as soon as he could. Barry’s Patricia would be coming home, and he’d want time off to see her. He could only have that if O’Reilly could carry his load, as Barry was carrying it this morning downstairs.
All the World’s a Stage, and All the Men
and Women Merely Players
After five months in Ballybucklebo, Barry had learned how to keep his amusement hidden and his sense of decorum in place. He resisted the temptation to ask Santa Claus if Donner, Blitzen, Prancer, and the rest of the reindeer were parked outside. Instead he walked the man to the front door and showed him out. He was better known as Billy Brennan, a usually out-of-work labourer, who had been making a few extra Christmas pounds working as Saint Nick for Robinson and Cleaver’s department store in Belfast.
His periorbital haematoma—the classic black eye—was the direct result of having told a rambunctious six-year-old sitting on his lap that Santa might not be able to deliver a real motor car. “By Jesus, Doc,” he’d said, “I never thought a wee lad like that had such a punch in him.”
Barry had examined the eye, satisfied himself that there was no damage to the eyeball itself or the bones of the eye socket, and reassured the man. That had been easy. The tricky bit, for which Barry had no answer, was trying to decide whether the injury might be considered an occupational hazard and so eligible for disability benefit. Barry had given a palpably grateful Billy the necessary certificate. He’d let the bureaucrats at the ministry make the final decision, but as far as Barry was concerned, with a shiner like that, Billy would hardly be an acceptable Santa.
Barry did allow himself a little chuckle as he walked back to the waiting room. Most of the worried well had been seen and dealt with,and he felt satisfied that he was coping. He opened the door. Two patients left to see. He did his mental sums. Two plus the others already seen made fourteen . . . no, sixteen. He was pretty sure that was fewer patients than usual for a Monday morning. In some ways that was just as well because he knew he was getting through the caseload more slowly than O’Reilly would have. It was nearly lunchtime, and he still had to see Mrs. Brown and her six-year-old son Colin.
Colin wore shorts, his school blazer, and school cap—a peaked piece of headgear made of contrasting rings of red and blue cloth. Barry himself had worn something similar as a schoolboy, and as far as he knew the peculiar fashion had started in Victorian times. In its own way it was another symbol of the unchanging nature of rural Ulster.
“Morning,” Barry said. “You know your way, Colin. Take your mum on down to the surgery.” The lad had been in to have a cut hand stitched a few months ago. Barry wondered what would be wrong with the little chap this time. He followed the pair along the corridor. He hoped Colin’s complaint wouldn’t be, like those of many of the earlier patients, another upper respiratory infection.
Barry had clapped his stethoscope on several wheezy chests and written enough prescriptions for the “black bottle”—a mixture of morphine and ipecacuanha,
mist. morph. and ipecac
. in Latin shorthand—to repaper the waiting room walls and cover the god-awful roses. The locals had great faith in the mixture. The morphine certainly was a cough suppressant, but the ipecacuanha had only one purpose. It tasted appallingly bitter, and among the countryfolk it stood to reason that the fouler the taste, the more potent the nostrum.
O’Reilly had been right when he’d said it was sniffle-and-cough season. Those were not conditions seen in a busy teaching
He felt the drowsiness starting to overcome him, but before he let himself drift off into a nap he resolved to get well as soon as he could. Barry’s Patricia would be coming home, and he’d want time off to see her. He could only have that if O’Reilly could carry his load, as Barry was carrying it this morning downstairs.
All the World’s a Stage, and All the Men
and Women Merely Players
After five months in Ballybucklebo, Barry had learned how to keep his amusement hidden and his sense of decorum in place. He resisted the temptation to ask Santa Claus if Donner, Blitzen, Prancer, and the rest of the reindeer were parked outside. Instead he walked the man to the front door and showed him out. He was better known as Billy Brennan, a usually out-of-work labourer, who had been making a few extra Christmas pounds working as Saint Nick for Robinson and Cleaver’s department store in Belfast.
His periorbital haematoma—the classic black eye—was the direct result of having told a rambunctious six-year-old sitting on his lap that Santa might not be able to deliver a real motor car. “By Jesus, Doc,” he’d said, “I never thought a wee lad like that had such a punch in him.”
Barry had examined the eye, satisfied himself that there was no damage to the eyeball itself or the bones of the eye socket, and reassured the man. That had been easy. The tricky bit, for which Barry had no answer, was trying to decide whether the injury might be considered an occupational hazard and so eligible for disability benefit. Barry had given a palpably grateful Billy the necessary certificate. He’d let the bureaucrats at the ministry make the final decision, but as far as Barry was concerned, with a shiner like that, Billy would hardly be an acceptable Santa.
Barry did allow himself a little chuckle as he walked back to the waiting room. Most of the worried well had been seen and dealt with,and he felt satisfied that he was coping. He opened the door. Two patients left to see. He did his mental sums. Two plus the others already seen made fourteen . . . no, sixteen. He was pretty sure that was fewer patients than usual for a Monday morning. In some ways that was just as well because he knew he was getting through the caseload more slowly than O’Reilly would have. It was nearly lunchtime, and he still had to see Mrs. Brown and her six-year-old son Colin.
Colin wore shorts, his school blazer, and school cap—a peaked piece of headgear made of contrasting rings of red and blue cloth. Barry himself had worn something similar as a schoolboy, and as far as he knew the peculiar fashion had started in Victorian times. In its own way it was another symbol of the unchanging nature of rural Ulster.
“Morning,” Barry said. “You know your way, Colin. Take your mum on down to the surgery.” The lad had been in to have a cut hand stitched a few months ago. Barry wondered what would be wrong with the little chap this time. He followed the pair along the corridor. He hoped Colin’s complaint wouldn’t be, like those of many of the earlier patients, another upper respiratory infection.
Barry had clapped his stethoscope on several wheezy chests and written enough prescriptions for the “black bottle”—a mixture of morphine and ipecacuanha,
mist. morph. and ipecac
. in Latin shorthand—to repaper the waiting room walls and cover the god-awful roses. The locals had great faith in the mixture. The morphine certainly was a cough suppressant, but the ipecacuanha had only one purpose. It tasted appallingly bitter, and among the countryfolk it stood to reason that the fouler the taste, the more potent the nostrum.
O’Reilly had been right when he’d said it was sniffle-and-cough season. Those were not conditions seen in a busy teaching
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