get to know anybody. We're too damn busy. Get 'em in, cut 'em, and get 'em out. Mind you, I really enjoy the cutting bit."
"You would. You always were a bloody sadist."
"Away off and feel your head. It's what Jim Hardy used to say in that TV programme."
"Tales of'Wells Fargo?"
"That's it, partner." Jack adopted a heavy Texan drawl. " 'Sometimes a man's got to do what a man's got to do.'" He reverted to his own voice. "Speaking of which . . . ," he looked up at the clock over the bar, stood, reached into his pocket, and tossed a pound note on the table. "My half. Sorry, mate, but I'd better run on. Sir Donald Cromie is like the wrath of God if his assistant's late."
"Sir Donald who?" Was he the man O'Reilly had consulted on Tuesday?
"Sir Donald Cromie, paediatric surgeon with nimble fingers and a temper like Mount Etna on a bad day. He did an appendix the other night. Now the patient's blown up a pelvic abscess. Sick as a dog."
"You wouldn't happen to know the patient's name?"
Jack laughed. "No. I don't even know if it's a wee boy or a wee girl."
"Oh."
Jack moved toward the staircase. "I'm off. Good to see you, mate. I'll give you a bell next time I'm free. Maybe we could sink a decent pint or two."
"I'd like that."
"And about O'Reilly: Noli illegitimi carborundum.''
"I won't," Barry said to his friend's departing back, then took a drink. The Cantrell and Cochrane orange juice was sickly sweet. Barry stood, picked up his parcelled boots, and walked over to the bar. "What's the damage, Brendan?"
"Hang on." Brendan, with great moving of lips and counting on fingers, scribbled with the stub of a yellow pencil on a piece of paper.
As Barry waited, he wondered about the patient with the appendix abscess. Could it be Jeannie Kennedy? No way to tell; still the coincidence was a bit worrying.
"Here you are, Doctor Laverty."
Barry paid the bill. "Take care of yourself, Brendan."
"I will, sir."
Barry made his way down the narrow staircase, treads worn concave by the feet of countless patrons. When he stepped out onto Grosvenor Road, the drizzle had stopped. He decided to walk into Belfast. He'd lots of time to kill until the ten o'clock train. He walked in a world filled with the stink of car exhaust, the constant grumble of traffic, gutters clogged with soggy newspapers. On the pavement, people hurried by, men in Dexter raincoats, one exercising three racing greyhounds, and women in head scarves, their pink and white hair curlers scarcely hidden, their faces pinched and thin-lipped, shopping bags over their arms. He passed pubs and turf accountants, busy with the comings and goings of men in elbow-patched tweed jackets, cigarettes glued to their lower lips, and then fish-and-chips shops reeking of lard and battered cod, greasy wrappers flung on the pavement to lie among squashed smears of dog turd.
The streets he passed all had familiar names: Roden Street, Distillery Street, Cullingtree Road. They were cramped terraces, sunless and smog-ridden. In his student years he'd seen their inhabitants with chronic bronchitis, rheumatic fever, rickets, head lice, and scabies--all the diseases of poverty and damp, cramped living. He'd delivered babies in tiny bedrooms of "two up, two down" terrace houses, where the bedclothes had been newspapers, the mattress urine-stained and dank, and the woman in the bed, twenty-two going on fifty with her reddened hands, shrunken cheeks, and hair like the strands of a greasy floor mop. He'd felt so bloody useless. No matter what advances medicine might make, he'd learned the hard way that doctors occupied the last line of trenches in a battle that should have been won at the front. No amount of oxygen for ravaged lungs, vitamins for scrawny kids, or DDT for head lice could have half the effects of a decent diet and a clean, warm home.
Barry lengthened his stride and hurried across the railway bridge to Sandy Row, bastion of Loyalist supremacy. In preparation for next week's
"You would. You always were a bloody sadist."
"Away off and feel your head. It's what Jim Hardy used to say in that TV programme."
"Tales of'Wells Fargo?"
"That's it, partner." Jack adopted a heavy Texan drawl. " 'Sometimes a man's got to do what a man's got to do.'" He reverted to his own voice. "Speaking of which . . . ," he looked up at the clock over the bar, stood, reached into his pocket, and tossed a pound note on the table. "My half. Sorry, mate, but I'd better run on. Sir Donald Cromie is like the wrath of God if his assistant's late."
"Sir Donald who?" Was he the man O'Reilly had consulted on Tuesday?
"Sir Donald Cromie, paediatric surgeon with nimble fingers and a temper like Mount Etna on a bad day. He did an appendix the other night. Now the patient's blown up a pelvic abscess. Sick as a dog."
"You wouldn't happen to know the patient's name?"
Jack laughed. "No. I don't even know if it's a wee boy or a wee girl."
"Oh."
Jack moved toward the staircase. "I'm off. Good to see you, mate. I'll give you a bell next time I'm free. Maybe we could sink a decent pint or two."
"I'd like that."
"And about O'Reilly: Noli illegitimi carborundum.''
"I won't," Barry said to his friend's departing back, then took a drink. The Cantrell and Cochrane orange juice was sickly sweet. Barry stood, picked up his parcelled boots, and walked over to the bar. "What's the damage, Brendan?"
"Hang on." Brendan, with great moving of lips and counting on fingers, scribbled with the stub of a yellow pencil on a piece of paper.
As Barry waited, he wondered about the patient with the appendix abscess. Could it be Jeannie Kennedy? No way to tell; still the coincidence was a bit worrying.
"Here you are, Doctor Laverty."
Barry paid the bill. "Take care of yourself, Brendan."
"I will, sir."
Barry made his way down the narrow staircase, treads worn concave by the feet of countless patrons. When he stepped out onto Grosvenor Road, the drizzle had stopped. He decided to walk into Belfast. He'd lots of time to kill until the ten o'clock train. He walked in a world filled with the stink of car exhaust, the constant grumble of traffic, gutters clogged with soggy newspapers. On the pavement, people hurried by, men in Dexter raincoats, one exercising three racing greyhounds, and women in head scarves, their pink and white hair curlers scarcely hidden, their faces pinched and thin-lipped, shopping bags over their arms. He passed pubs and turf accountants, busy with the comings and goings of men in elbow-patched tweed jackets, cigarettes glued to their lower lips, and then fish-and-chips shops reeking of lard and battered cod, greasy wrappers flung on the pavement to lie among squashed smears of dog turd.
The streets he passed all had familiar names: Roden Street, Distillery Street, Cullingtree Road. They were cramped terraces, sunless and smog-ridden. In his student years he'd seen their inhabitants with chronic bronchitis, rheumatic fever, rickets, head lice, and scabies--all the diseases of poverty and damp, cramped living. He'd delivered babies in tiny bedrooms of "two up, two down" terrace houses, where the bedclothes had been newspapers, the mattress urine-stained and dank, and the woman in the bed, twenty-two going on fifty with her reddened hands, shrunken cheeks, and hair like the strands of a greasy floor mop. He'd felt so bloody useless. No matter what advances medicine might make, he'd learned the hard way that doctors occupied the last line of trenches in a battle that should have been won at the front. No amount of oxygen for ravaged lungs, vitamins for scrawny kids, or DDT for head lice could have half the effects of a decent diet and a clean, warm home.
Barry lengthened his stride and hurried across the railway bridge to Sandy Row, bastion of Loyalist supremacy. In preparation for next week's
Similar Books
![[Cornick Nicola] The Last Rake in London(Bookos.org)](https://fs.ageofbook.com/489590/thumbs/152x264/cornick-nicola-the-last-rake-in-londonbookosorg.jpg)
