Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor by Patrick Taylor Read Free Book Online

“Here, Irene, run Mary and Manus over to Baggot Street. Tell the houseman to admit the chissler and pop him in an oxygen tent. Accidental coal gas poisoning.” He stressed the word “accidental.” So, no reports would be made to the Gardai or the nuns.
    Doctor Corrigan turned back to Mary Foster and handed her the child. “Now,” he said, “I’ve given ye an earful, Mary, and I meant every word. I know he’s yer first—but Miss Jackson and Miss O’Donaghugh are here to help. Bring the babby here when he gets out of hospital. They’ll show ye how to change a nappy, won’t ye, Irene?”
    “Of course. And I’ll arrange for a nursing sister to call every day for a while until Mary gets more comfortable with Manus.”
    “If I’d had any wit I’d have done that myself the last time.” He shook his head. “Och well, we all make mistakes.”
    The change in the man from hectoring ogre to a seemingly calm and caring physician, and one willing to admit his failures, had false-footed Fingal, who had been steeling himself for a confrontation.
    “T’ank you, Doctor, sir, and I’m awful sorry. I’ll never do it again, honest til God.”
    “Ye won’t,” said Doctor Corrigan, scowling, “because, by Jasus, if ye do, so help me God, it’ll be Manus for the Sisters of Charity Orphanage taken away from ye for child neglect, and yerself for Mountjoy Gaol for the same crime. Do ye understand, Mary Bernadette Foster? Do ye?”
    The edge was still in Doctor Corrigan’s voice. He must stand up to this man.
    “Yes, Doctor, sir.”
    “Run along now with Miss Jackson.”
    As the two women left, he turned to Fingal. “Just be a tick. I’ll go and explain to the other customers that I’ll be in consultation with a colleague for a while. Have a pew.”
    Fingal was still clutching the offending bag, so he set it back in its place beside the door. That aspect of his potential relationship with Doctor Corrigan needed to be sorted out as much as, if not even more than, Corrigan’s bedside manner.
    Fingal gritted his teeth. He had his own reasons for wanting this job, and most of them were, at least on the surface, altruistic. Ma had taught him her brand of caring since he’d been old enough to understand that not everybody lived as comfortably as the O’Reillys. He did want to help what his classically educated father would call the hoi polloi, the common people. Yet he also recognised that the obverse of altruism was the selfish inner glow that came from the doing of “good deeds.” A reasonable question to ask himself: Was the feeling of satisfaction making correct diagnoses and giving proper treatments, those “good deeds,” any less if performed for patients with money who could pay a damn sight more than a dispensary doctor’s salary?
    Probably a lot less. The truly affluent had no difficulty getting medical help. What physician wouldn’t prefer to take sherry in a drawing room after a consultation as opposed to searching for the fleas that often attacked anyone who went into a tenement? The money was with the upper class and the newly emerging “middle class” of accountants, managers, teachers, doctors, nurses, and civil servants. Like the cream of society, most of them would patronise the more fashionable physicians. The crying need for good medical help was here in the Liberties.
    And to be ruthlessly practical, even if he’d wanted the carriage trade, those jobs were not the easiest to come by for recently qualified doctors, and usually were had by purchasing part or all of the principal’s practice. Fingal was in no position to buy in. He needed a job like this, at least as a start to his career in general practice. But with this Doctor Corrigan? Perhaps.
    Corrigan returned and climbed up on his high stool. “I’m sorry about that scene. Silly wee girl.” He shook his head. “How did ye get on with the tram accident?”
    The whole thing dismissed just like that? Fingal clutched the seat of the