Chapter 1
Dr Holly Graham bit her lip hard and tried not to laugh. It was all very well promising to help out at the Larkford Country Show, but she’d had no idea that everyone would be taking things quite so very seriously.
‘I love you,’ she said, in lieu of being able to formulate any other sentient response as she took in her fiancé’s rakish attire.
Taffy Jones smoothed his hair back from his brow, his unruly curls attempting to escape the firm hold of whatever unguent he’d employed for the occasion. His quick change from Saturday-doctor-on-duty to debonair-gentleman-about-town had been achieved by the addition of not only a bow tie, but also a gaudily striped blazer and cane to boot. ‘Too much?’ he asked with a grin, pivoting to best effect in the doctors’ lounge at The Practice, knowing full well that he looked a right plonker, but unwilling to concede a win to Dan on their annual bet.
Holly walked towards him, laughter now shaking her slender shoulders, as she spotted the beribboned boater hat in his other hand. ‘You’re quite, quite mad,’ she said happily, leaning in to kiss him firmly on the lips. She didn’t dare hope that a similar wager on his wedding day attire might yet be avoided, but she was damned if she was even going to mention it, for fear of planting the seed of an idea. ‘Have you seen Dan yet? Does he realise what he’s up against?’ Holly asked, all thoughts of her stressfully rushed morning surgery forgotten.
‘He’s stuck on the phone with Shylock,’ Taffy grimaced.
‘Who?’ Holly queried, despite their years together still bemused at times by Taffy’s beloved shorthand references.
‘Derek bloody Landers,’ Taffy clarified. ‘You know, because he’s always after his pound of flesh. You’d think we’d have met all of our NHS commitments by now, but he’s always there, clammy paws outstretched, determined to squeeze a little extra.’
It was true: their nomination as a Model NHS Surgery had certainly brought The Practice all sorts of praise, plaudits and pecuniary incentives, but it had also come at a cost. Derek Landers – or Walrus-features, or now apparently Shylock – could be relied upon to renege upon his promises at every opportunity unless handled very firmly. And poor Dan Carter was bearing the brunt of it as The Practice’s nominated NHS liaison, alongside Grace Allen, their thankfully highly motivated Practice Manager.
‘What more can he want though?’ asked Holly. ‘We’ve offered up our records, Grace and Dan have handled all the endless seminars and I’ve filled in enough compliance forms to give me RSI.’
Taffy took her hand in his and gently massaged her aching fingers, her engagement ring rotating easily, as the pressure of the last few months had been enough to put even Holly off her Danish pastry habit. ‘Look, let’s not worry about that today. Let’s really try and switch off a bit and enjoy the show. I have to confess, I’m rather honoured that they’re trusting me with the commentary,’ Taffy said.
‘Actually, I was robbed,’ said Dan, striding into the room in a pair of cream, blousy trousers held aloft by some striking red braces and looking like someone from a Mary Poppins montage. ‘How did I get lumbered with the bloody judging and you get to hide behind the mic all afternoon?’ He shook his head and held out his hands as he gave a slow twirl. ‘But at least I’ll have my prize to look forward to at the end of the day. I think we can all recognise a winning ensemble when we see one? I hope you’ve been practising your Abba solo, mate?’
Alice Walker ambled into the lounge behind him, rubbing her forehead as though to erase the last three hours of thoughtful and considerate counsel. Coco, the small chocolate-coloured spaniel who served as Alice’s diabetes assistance dog, trotted happily at her heels in her little red jacket. Alice stopped dead and frowned. ‘Oh God, did I miss something? Were we supposed to come in fancy dress?’
Taffy scowled. ‘This isn’t “fancy dress”, you heathen. This is the appropriate attire for gentlemen doctors, such as ourselves, when attending a county event.’ He’d abandoned his naturally melodic Welsh tones to make his point, sounding plummily English and rather comical, Holly noticed. Taffy was never one to do anything by halves.
Alice looked from Taffy to Dan and back again in confusion, before turning to Holly, as she often did, for a little clarification.
Holly shrugged cheerfully. ‘Ignore them – it’s just another one of their bonkers bets. The Major is adjudicating and the loser has to sing “I Have a Dream” in the Main Arena later. Attention seekers,’ she accused them fondly, loving the fact that both their personal and professional relationships still had room for some stress-diffusing silliness.
Alice laughed. ‘Can we at least put it on YouTube this time? When Dan did his pirouettes in the Market Place at Christmas, we could have seriously raked in the Likes.’ It was typical of Alice, Holly realised, to think of social media, when the rest of them were still coming to terms with the fact that they had a camera on their phone. What a difference a decade made to their approach to technology.
‘Do you fancy swinging by Elsie’s on the way to the show?’ Holly asked, as Dan and Taffy wandered off to the men’s room to perfect their bow ties, bickering like brothers as they went. ‘I’ve traded childcare with Lizzie today, so I can’t be too late. She’s had the twins all morning and I’ve got hers all afternoon.’ She shook her head in amusement. ‘God knows what I was thinking – five kids, Elsie and Eric at the Country Show. What could possibly go wrong? But I have plenty of money for ice-creams and cake, so I’m thinking I’m on to a winner.’
‘I can help if you like,’ said Alice easily. ‘Jamie’s not coming along until later.’
Holly smiled, still quietly holding out hope that Alice and Coco’s trainer, Jamie, might yet make an adorable couple, no matter how much Alice denied even the possibility.
‘That would be lovely,’ Holly said. ‘I’m rather aware how much I’ve been calling on Lizzie for help with the boys lately, so I figured a child-free afternoon with Will might be just what she needs. The very least I could do.’ Holly shrugged, feeling a little helpless as always when it came to supporting Lizzie and her ongoing anxiety issues, but nevertheless determined to be on hand when her best friend needed her.
‘Well, I for one can’t wait to see what Larkford has in store. Every time there’s one of these bonkers events, I get a little more insight into how this town works,’ Alice said, a gentle rosiness colouring her cheeks. ‘You all really look out for each other, don’t you?’
Holly twisted her hair into an impromptu bun and stuck a pencil through it to hold it firmly in place, before ferreting around in her handbag for some lip gloss. ‘We do,’ she replied simply. ‘And that includes you, Miss Walker. If you’ll ever let us.’ She gave Alice a cheeky grin as she teased her, Alice’s determined self-sufficiency having already become a standing joke at The Practice. ‘So if you decide you want me to march down to the training centre and give that bossy Judith a talking-to, you have only to ask. It’s really not right to put you on the spot like this.’
Holly felt rather strongly about this particular issue, as it happened. Obviously it was wonderful that they’d been able to explore Coco’s inherent talent for sniffing out not only blood sugar fluctuations, but also rogue cancer cells over the last year. God knows, the whole team owed that little dog a vote of thanks, and Alice’s friendship with Jamie had certainly deepened as a result, but Holly didn’t envy them the decisions that were on their horizons. It was one thing for Coco to have acquired this amazing skill naturally and organically, it was something else for Alice to find a way to harness it, without making some enormous concessions with regard to her own health in the process. And Judith Lane, the head trainer at the Canine Oncology Department, wasn’t one to compromise willingly.
‘Actually,’ said Holly, ‘I could take Elsie with me. We’re quite the formidable good-cop-bad-cop team these days. You should have seen us the other day when those builders were flytipping in the parkland. Batman and Robin eat your heart out.’ She grinned and wrapped a soft cotton scarf around her neck and considered herself ready; there was very little point getting all dressed up for the show only to be covered in ice-creamy handprints and face paints within minutes.
Alice smoothed down her immaculate linen jacket and sighed. ‘I think we could all use a little Elsie Townsend on tap, don’t you? I bet Judith wouldn’t try any of her emotional blackmail on Elsie, now would she?’
‘She wouldn’t dare,’ Holly agreed. ‘Just say the word. Seriously.’
There was something very special about her relationship with Alice, Holly had recently decided. It wasn’t so much having another female doctor on staff, as having a like-minded soul who shared her beliefs and priorities, even if only in medicine and patient care. Socially, Alice remained a bit of an enigma, no matter what Holly tried. It didn’t mean she was ready to give up just yet though.
‘Right, let’s get Elsie and then it’s show-time!’ Holly waggled her hands in the air, having overindulged on the espressos that morning at merely the thought of the child-count this afternoon. Adding Elsie into the mix was often just enough to turn a picnic into a party, guaranteeing a seemingly endless supply of scandalous anecdotes about their neighbours and Larkford in years gone by. If Alice was on board as well, then they might even have a hope of staying in control! It certainly promised to be interesting.
Holly picked up her jacket and held open the door, Coco needing no invitation to head out into the summer sunshine and Alice seemingly revitalised by the prospect of Elsie’s legendary presence.
Elsie Townsend was Larkford’s resident celebrity. A star of stage and screen in her youth, she was now in her eighties and no less outspoken for it. Her sage and insightful advice, coupled with her fuck-it attitude and incorrigible sense of fun, meant that she was one of Holly’s favourite people in the whole world. Without Elsie, indeed, there was every chance that Holly would still be saddled with her narcissistic first husband, rather than embarking on a new life with Taffy Jones.
She left The Practice door on the latch; who knew how long Taffy and Dan would spend fannying around getting ready? Sometimes it was just easier to leave them to their own devices. A waft of warm honeysuckle filled the gentle breeze as fronds of acid-green foliage lifted and danced around the window frames. The Practice was a funny little building, built of Cotswold stone with small red-brick ‘eyebrows’ arching above each window. It was only the recently built glass atrium that lent light and space to their workplace, giving their patients a bright and airy waiting room and bringing this ancient building into the twenty-first century.
And indeed, much as Taffy and Dan’s outfits had given Holly a sense of stepping back in time, there was little in Larkford’s Market Place to jar the senses. The pastel-coloured Georgian buildings lined one side of the square, Elsie’s house bossily taking centre stage with its newly painted hot pink front door that had ruffled so many feathers on the local planning committee.
Even the golden stone of the shop-fronts on the other side of the Market Place bore wrought-iron signs hanging above their doorways, in keeping with the vintage-style lamp-posts that had been Larkford’s contribution to the Millennium. On a warm summer’s day like today, nestled in their lush green valley, there was nowhere else on earth that Holly would rather be. Or indeed, anyone she would rather spend her time with than the ramshackle group of friends and colleagues that had become her family.
She knocked smartly on Elsie’s front door, the brass jester doorknocker leering at her as always and giving her a frisson of discomfort. She wasn’t quite sure if she was imagining it, but Elsie seemed to be growing more and more troublesome with each passing month, taking an impish delight in disrupting the status quo. As if to reinforce that opinion, Elsie pulled open the door abruptly and posed in the doorway to her parquet hall.
‘Ta-da!’ she cried joyfully, one hand on her hip, the other resting on a lace parasol. The parasol was in fact the least bizarre thing about her outfit, which Holly vaguely recognised from the Audrey Hepburn movie My Fair Lady. Indeed, for a second, Holly found herself oddly moved to shout out to poor Dover-the-racehorse that he should, indeed, move his bloomin’ arse . . .
‘Well, don’t you look fabulous!’ she said, smiling, after the merest hesitation, leaning forward to kiss Elsie fondly on each powdered cheek.
‘Hi,’ offered Alice, hanging back, unusually reticent in the face of such lavish and oddly incongruous glamour.
‘You are such angels for coming to collect me, but you’re cutting it a little fine if you’re going home to get changed,’ Elsie said, attempting tact, but missing her mark as she eyed them both up and down.
Holly held out one arm for Elsie to take, as she pulled the hot pink door closed behind her. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be fine as we are.’
Elsie squeezed her hand affectionately, clocking immediately the porridge that smeared Holly’s engagement ring, causing her perfect eyebrows to shoot up in alarm. Since the antique, square-cut diamond had previously been one of Elsie’s prized possessions, donated in the spirit of optimism and affection following her matchmaking between Holly and Taffy, they were both a little amazed by Elsie’s restraint in not commenting.
She merely leaned in and gave Holly an affectionate kiss. ‘You do well with your juggling, my darling,’ she said. ‘And I honestly don’t mind waiting if you want to get changed. I know it’s hardly Ladies’ Day at Ascot, but there will be photographs. And lovely young men to talk to. Did I mention my new physio is utterly divine? Sicilian, you know. Felice.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘So appropriately named! He’s popping along later.’
Alice caught Holly’s eye, and by tacit agreement they too said nothing. Elsie’s penchant for a glimpse of firm manly thigh meant that her physiotherapists had to be thoroughly vetted in advance, not to mention persuaded that Elsie was all talk and no trousers, before any more unfortunate misunderstandings could occur.
‘Well,’ said Alice, after a moment’s awkward silence, ‘I think it’s just wonderful that you’re joining in on Dan and Taffy’s bet. They don’t stand a chance against your fabulous outfit. You’ve definitely nailed it.’
Elsie looked at her in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’ She glanced down at her ensemble and then turned to Holly, as Alice flushed. ‘I don’t know anything about a bet, darling, do you? Have I missed something?’