An Irish Country Christmas Part 10

"Not him, Fingal. His mum. Eileen's the only support of the family, and she'll have to stay at home. The other two children, Mary and w.i.l.l.y, can go to school, but Sammy's too young to leave on his own."

O'Reilly scratched his stubbly jaw. "I hadn't thought of that. And at Christmas too. Bad time to be a bit short of the ready."

Barry thought of the tea caddy and its little h.o.a.rd of ten-shilling notes.

O'Reilly frowned. "Have you any ideas?"

Barry set his now empty gla.s.s on the table. "I did have one half-baked notion, but I wanted your opinion."

"And?"

"You remember when Sonny had to go into hospital in August and Maggie looked after his dogs?"

"Yes."

"What do you think Maggie would say if we asked her to be a sort of honorary granny for Eileen's brood?"

O'Reilly guffawed. He leant across the gap between the two chairs and patted Barry's shoulder. "That, my boy, is a stroke of genius. Pure b.l.o.o.d.y genius. Sonny and Maggie have been married for four months now, and he'd probably not be sorry to have an excuse to get her out from under his feet for a while each day. She's very good with chisellers. It's a pity she never had kids of her own. I'm sure she'd love to look after Eileen's. And Eileen could get back to work." He finished his gla.s.s. "Brilliant."

Barry grinned. He'd thought it wasn't a bad idea, but he had not expected such a powerful endors.e.m.e.nt from the senior man. "I'll run out now and see Maggie." Barry started to rise.

"Take, as they say locally, your hurry in your hand." O'Reilly held out a restraining hand. "If you don't mind braving the bleak midwinter, you could go after supper."

"Why not now and get it over with?"

"Because," said O'Reilly, "I seem to remember Kinky saying you were to telephone a Miss Spence at eighteen hundred hours-that's six to you-and it's ten to six now." Barry looked at his watch; O'Reilly managed a small cough. "Now by the time you've done that, and blethered to her, it will almost be suppertime, and you're a better man than me if you're willing to be late for one of Kinky's specials."

"Why special tonight, Fingal?"

"Because we're having a dinner guest. Kitty O'Hallorhan. She'll be here at six."

Barry looked at O'Reilly. The big man was striving quite heroically to keep a bland expression on his face, but the lines at the corners of his eyes were a tiny bit deeper, and the twinkle in his eyes had some cause other than Jameson's Irish whiskey.

"You are getting better, Fingal. A dinner guest indeed." And inwardly Barry was delighted both that his senior colleague was recovering his health and that he was seeing Kitty again. He wondered if that relationship might just develop into something more than simply a regular reunion of old friends. He hoped so.

"Fine, Fingal," Barry said. "I'll phone in a few minutes, then join you and Kitty for supper, but I will go out immediately after and have a word with Maggie."

"Now there," said O'Reilly, as Lady Macbeth leapt up on his blanket-covered lap, "is a young man with a sense of occasion, to say nothing of tact." He stroked the cat's head as she settled herself. Then he said to the paws-tucked-under loaf of cat, "Shall we keep him on in the practice, puss?"

Lady Macbeth yawned so widely, and stuck her pink tongue out so far, that Barry thought she had dislocated her jaw.

La Donna e Mobile, or

Women Change Their Minds.

"Who? Patricia Spence? Never heard of her." The unknown woman's voice had a plummy accent.

Barry growled in his throat, then said. "This is the Girton College common room phone?"

"Mmmm." That vague, guttural noise, beloved by the English upper cla.s.ses and meant to sound affirmative without making a complete commitment.

"My girlfriend was supposed to be there to take a phone call from Ireland."

"Really? Do they have telephones in Ireland? My word."

"No," said Barry, if only to keep the wretched girl talking until Patricia got there, "we usually send messages in cleft sticks carried by teams of trained runners. That's why some of the English call us bog trotters."

"Bog trotters?" He heard an in-drawing of breath and a giggle. "I say. Cleft sticks. That's awfully good." More t.i.ttering then. "Hang on. Would this Patricia of yours be a dark-haired girl with a limp?"

Barry's heart gave a little hiccup. "Yes." Dark eyes and ebony hair, like the words of the song, "My Lagan Love." The twilight's gleam is in her eye, the night is on her hair.

"Barry?" Patricia sounded rather short of breath, but he'd recognize her County Down contralto anywhere.

"Patricia? I thought I'd missed you."

"Sorry about that," she said. "The traffic was really heavy."

"Traffic? In Cambridge? I thought Cambridge was pretty rural."

He heard her laugh. "It is, silly, but everyone here gets around on bicycles, and when all the cla.s.ses get out at once it's bedlam. Trumpington Street looks like something in Shanghai or Dublin."

"Oh."

"I had to pedal like mad to get here."

For a moment Barry had an incongruous mental image of Patricia as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz frantically charging along a Kansas dirt road with Dorothy's dog, Toto, in the basket of her bike. "I'm glad you made it." His voice softened. "I've missed you." It had been a week since he had spoken to her last.

"And I've missed you, Barry."

He glanced around to make sure no one could overhear him, chided himself because the only one who might was Kinky, and she certainly knew what he was going to say next, yet his Ulster reticence was difficult to override. "I love you, Patricia," he said softly, and hoped she could hear the yearning in his voice.

"Me too," she said, "but it's very public in here . . . listen." She held the receiver away from her ear, and Barry heard a babble of female voices. "I wish it wasn't," she said, "so I could tell you properly."

"So do I," but for the time being he knew he must make do with that crumb. "Anyway, you'll be able to tell me soon, won't you?"

"Mmmm."

G.o.d, was she already being infected with English habits? What did "mmmm" mean? "You will, won't you?"

"Well, I . . . I . . ."

"But you promised you'd be home for Christmas." He felt his grip tighten on the plastic. "You will, won't you?"

"Barry, please try to understand. It costs a lot to fly back to Ulster from here, and my folks aren't made of money."

She wasn't coming? But back when she told him she had won the scholarship to Cambridge, she said she'd be home for the holidays. Barry took a deep breath. He wasn't going to plead, but d.a.m.n it, she'd promised. "I see. So where will you spend Christmas? In your rooms?" He knew the earlier warmth in his voice had fled.

It was some time before Patricia said, "I'm not sure yet. I'd like to come back to Ulster, Barry. I really would."

Barry bit back his immediate response, which would have been a sarcastic "Decent of you," and instead said, "It's up to you, but you know how much I want to see you. I just told you I love you."

"I know you do." She lowered her voice, and he had to strain to hear her next few words. "And I love you, Barry. I really do, but this term was more expensive than we'd budgeted. The bursary didn't cover everything, and I had to ask my folks for money."

"But where would you go if you don't come home?"

"I've made some friends since I came here in September."

"That's nice," he said. He hoped to G.o.d they weren't men friends. He had thrown himself into his work and avoided the company of women since she left in October for what Cambridge University referred to as the Michaelmas term.

"Yes, it is nice. You didn't expect me to sit all alone for three months, did you?"

"No," he said, although in truth his answer really was yes.

"Jenny Compton's another engineering student. She's an amateur ornithologist like me. Her parents live in the village of Bourn. It's only eight miles from Cambridge, and she's invited me to spend the holidays there. Actually I'm going home with her tomorrow now that term's over. We can go bird-watching on the Norfolk Broads."

He sighed. "Like the day I took you to Strangford Lough, to Gransha Point?" He could see her when a sudden summer squall had broken, standing, reveling in the gale, the driving rain plastering her wet blouse to her braless b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Yes." He heard the enthusiasm in her voice. "And I really want to see the Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust place on the River Severn. It's not far to drive, and Jenny has a little car."

"Slimbridge? Is that the place Peter Scott opened in . . ."-he had to think, but he'd seen the naturalist, son of Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic, on television-"nineteen forty-six?"

"That's right. He's made it a mecca for people interested in waterfowl, and I certainly am."

So is O'Reilly, Barry thought, but Fingal would want to shoot them, and as Barry was now becoming convinced he would be playing second fiddle to birdlife, he thought it served them right. And, dear Christ, she'd just said term was over. She could be here in Ulster already if she'd kept her promise. He knew now he wasn't going to talk Patricia into coming home unless she really wanted to. Better, he thought, to seem to accept defeat graciously. "I suppose," he said, "if you must, you must."

"Barry, you are wonderful," she said. "I really do love you . . ." He noticed that this time she had not lowered her voice. "And I didn't say I wasn't coming home. I just said I wasn't sure yet."

Barry sighed. He'd have to lie content with a half promise. "When will you know?"

"Not for another week. That still gives me nine days until Christmas Eve. Lots of time to get a flight. It all depends on how big Dad's Christmas bonus is."

"Patricia, you'll only need a lot of money if you fly." He had a sudden thought about an alternative solution. "What about taking the ferry?"

"Ferry?"

"Yes, the one from Holyhead in Wales to Dun Laoghaire in the Irish Republic." The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. "If you could get to Holyhead and catch the boat, I could drive down-It's only about ninety miles from Belfast-pick you up, and we could have a night in Dublin before we drove back up north."

"Welll . . ." She didn't sound very enthusiastic.

"Come on, Patricia, you know it's an option."

"All right, Barry," she said. "I will go to Jenny's now for a few days, but I will look into it . . . promise."

"Great-"

In the background he heard another female voice saying, "Come on, Patricia. You've been on for b.l.o.o.d.y ever. It's my turn." Then Patricia said, "Barry, I'm sorry. I have to go. I love you, and I'll call again as soon as I've found out about the ferry. I promise." The line went dead.

"b.u.g.g.e.r. b.u.g.g.e.r." He replaced the receiver. He'd been banking on her coming home. d.a.m.n it, she'd promised him she'd come home, never mind phoning again as soon as she could. He wanted all of her, not just a b.l.o.o.d.y phone call. He shook his head. Well, at least she was willing to try to find a solution. That had to prove something, didn't it? Didn't it?

The only comfort he could take was that there didn't seem to be another man in the picture. One thing about Patricia, she would never prevaricate, never beat about the bush. She'd have come right out and told him. Mind you, he thought, as he heard the front doorbell ringing, it was small consolation.

If he'd been in her shoes, he'd have been finding out about the next ferry. Forget about going to any friends like this Jenny. He'd be getting himself home as quickly as possible. Patricia may not have recognized what she'd done to the man she was supposed to love. She had, although not in so many words, told him that for a few days anyway he was going to be runner-up to a bunch of flaming ducks.

He crossed the hall and opened the front door.

"h.e.l.lo, Barry." Kitty O'Hallorhan came into the hall, and he closed the front door behind her. "Nippy out," she said, "but at least the wind's dropped, and the skies are clear again. The stars were lovely tonight driving down from Belfast." She shrugged out of a cream raincoat, took off a pair of kidskin gloves and a head scarf, shook her head, and used her hand to rearrange her hair.

He'd thought her a handsome woman when he'd first met her on duty as a ward sister in the Royal, and he saw no reason to change his opinion tonight with the hall lamp highlighting her silver hair. Her t.i.tle might be "Sister," denoting her seniority over staff and student nurses, but it was a throwback to the days when most nurses were nuns. Kitty O'Hallorhan would have been wasted in a convent. "Come on upstairs, Kitty. Fingal's expecting you, and the fire's lit in the lounge."

"Lovely," she said. "How is the old rapscallion anyway?" Her Dublin tones were obvious to Barry's ear. She smiled broadly. "I'll bet he's as cantankerous as all get out. I'd not want to have him for a patient."

Barry chuckled. "Come and see for yourself." With that he stepped aside to let her precede him upstairs. As she climbed, he admired the rounded contours of her b.u.t.tocks under her tightly fitting knee-length black skirt and the flex and relax of her calves beneath its hem, their shapeliness accentuated by a pair of suede stiletto-heeled pumps. She paused on the landing and stood staring at a framed photo of a battleship. "That's HMS Warspite, isn't it?"

"That's right." Barry was surprised that a woman would know the name of the old vessel. "Fingal and my dad served in her."

"I didn't know about your dad, but Fingal was on the Warspite when his wife was killed in 1941." Barry heard a catch in her voice. Had she perhaps harboured some hope back then? "The last time I heard from him was in 1939 when he joined up. He sent me a picture taken on his ship." She turned and grinned at Barry. "He looked quite the salty sailor man in his uniform."

"I'll bet." Barry opened the door to the upstairs lounge. "He's in there. Go on in." He followed her into the big comfortable room, knowing that it was crisply icy outside, yet in here the lighting was softly warm and the heat from the coal fire made the room welcoming.

"Kitty." O'Reilly stood. Barry was surprised to see he was freshly shaven and dressed in a sweater, shirt, and tweed pants, looking just a bit outdoorsy for the large, tartan carpet slippers on his feet. "Kitty." O'Reilly stood and hugged her. "Glad you could come. Have a pew." He waited until she took one armchair, then sat again in his own. Barry took the plain wooden chair the marquis had occupied that morning.

"So," she remarked, peering at O'Reilly, "how are you, Fingal?"

He grinned. "On the mend, and all the better for seeing you, Caitlin O'Hallorhan. You're looking lovely tonight."

"Go on with you, Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, you great eejit! You always were full of the blarney," she said, shaking her head. Yet Barry heard the smile in her voice, saw the tiny heightening of colour in her cheeks.

"And," said O'Reilly, "you'd look even better with a gla.s.s in your hand. What'll it be? The usual?"

"Please."

"Barry, will you do the honours? And help yourself."

Barry rose. "Certainly." He knew exactly what O'Reilly wanted, but he had no idea what the "usual" was. Lots of women drank gin and tonic, vodka and orange, or a pear champagne, Babycham. He looked at Kitty.

"Jameson please, Barry," she said.

"Right." He stood at the sideboard and poured three Irish whiskeys. He handed one to Kitty and one to O'Reilly before returning to the sideboard and picking up his own gla.s.s.

"Slainte," O'Reilly said, but he coughed before he could take a drink.