Chapter 47
‘Breakfast in bed?’ Taffy suggested, as he rolled over and stretched.
Holly snuggled down deeper under the duvet, refusing to budge, or frankly even admit that it was morning. ‘Married two days and already so misguided,’ she yawned happily. ‘You know the rules – if you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen.’
He reached under the duvet and tickled her gently. ‘I was offering, Mrs Jones, not asking.’ He leaned forward and kissed the tousled top of her hair, the only part on show under the pile of bedding.
Her head popped up like a drowsy meerkat. ‘Oh well, in that case—’ she said with a grin. She cuddled in beside him, tugging his arm around her. ‘But don’t go anywhere just yet . . . I’m calling a micro-honeymoon this morning.’
‘Oh really,’ said Taffy with delight, ‘and what exactly might that involve?’
Holly smiled contentedly. ‘You can watch me sleep and think about how lucky you are . . .’ she offered, waiting for him to protest, but as his hand came round to rest on her bump, there was no protest forthcoming. Instead, Taffy murmured sweet nothings, not to her, but to his children, who kicked and moved at the sound of his voice.
‘I rather like being married to you,’ Taffy said after a moment. ‘Nothing’s really changed, yet everything has – if that makes sense?’
Holly nodded. ‘We’re on the same song sheet. Shared agenda.’ She kissed him gently. ‘And don’t tell Elsie, but she was absolutely right: there is something rather lovely about being married before these babies arrive. I never knew I was quite so old-fashioned.’
‘Does that mean you’re going to take my name after all?’ Taffy asked, having received quite some considerable pressure on this point from his mother.
Holly shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We can’t all have different surnames, now can we?’
‘Graham-Jones?’ he suggested. ‘Although to be fair it’s a bit posh and nobby.’
‘Is that a technical term, Dr Graham-Jones?’ Holly teased him, more fully awake now and savouring these few quiet moments together. Even as her hand slid along the muscles in his back, tiptoeing along the waistband of his pyjama trousers, she knew it was too good to last.
‘Morning!’ cried the twins, as the bedroom door flew open abruptly. ‘We made breakfast!’ Ben bit his lip in concentration as he carried two mugs of coffee, which slopped alarmingly with every step. As he got closer, Holly could see the coffee granules floating undissolved on what was clearly cold water. Tom bore two bowls of Rice Krispies with no milk and two spoons in his pyjama top pocket.
Offloading their treasures, Holly and Taffy managed yummy noises for long enough to take one or two cold, disgusting mouthfuls, before admitting defeat and pulling the twins into a duvet cuddle. There was nothing they liked more than an impromptu camping game. Elsie knocked tentatively on the doorframe. ‘Sorry to interrupt your feast, but I wondered if I had any takers for pancakes?’
The twins were off the bed and hurtling down the stairs in seconds. Elsie grinned. ‘They’ve been up since five plotting that little surprise.’
‘Oh God, Elsie, you must be exhausted,’ said Taffy guiltily, pulling on a t-shirt and walking over to relieve her of child-watching duties.
Elsie shook her head. ‘It’s been heavenly actually, having a little company first thing. I’m up with the lark every day now—’ She looked oddly wistful and, as she and Taffy made their way downstairs to ration the volume of syrup feasibly allowed, Holly began to wonder if there was something Elsie wasn’t telling her.
That feeling was only compounded by the scene Holly walked into in the kitchen: Elsie at the Aga, her silk dressing gown billowing around her, singing into the spatula as the heart-shaped pancakes cooked on the hotplate and the boys cheered her artistry. Elsie was luminous, her eyes shining and her smile wide. She looked brighter than she had in months.
‘There you are, darling. There’s some camomile tea in the pot,’ said Elsie, waving the spatula towards the beautifully laid breakfast table, where Taffy was already set up with a copy of The Times and a fresh espresso.
‘Your tea smells like wee,’ Tom said in concern, still unused to his caffeine-driven mother turning down a cup of coffee. ‘Elsie said so.’
Elsie shrugged. ‘It’s true though.’
Ben frowned. ‘Was it true when you said me and Ben are more fun than old farts?’ He looked quite bothered about this particular statement. ‘Old farts just disappear, don’t they?’
‘Right again,’ said Elsie with a thoughtful smile. ‘They just fade away.’
‘Well obviously we’re better than that!’ said Tom with feeling, rolling his eyes as though Elsie was stating the blindingly obvious.
Holly walked over and wrapped her arms around Elsie, pulling her into a hug. ‘Second thoughts?’ she asked quietly.
Elsie shook her head, ‘Of course not. This is your home and you have babies to grow . . .’
‘Takes a village, though, if I recall,’ Holly suggested gently, keen for Elsie to have an ‘out’ if the idea of Sarandon Hall was cooling on her.
Elsie pulled away and expertly flipped the little Scotch pancakes. ‘Well, I was thinking that I might just hold out for a garden suite. Celia Price has the prime location and I couldn’t help noticing she was looking rather frail the other day . . . So, if you knew anything on that front . . .?’ She looked at Holly for a reaction.
Holly just shook her head good-naturedly. ‘Elsie Townsend! I am not giving you a heads-up on who is about to die next!’
Elsie shrugged easily and threw her a smile as she slid the pancakes onto the brightly coloured melamine plates that seemed to have appeared overnight. ‘Never hurts to ask . . . A nudge and a wink for palliative care, okay?’
Holly was still smiling at Elsie’s blatant audacity over breakfast as she flicked on her computer at The Practice and scanned her list of patients. A few frequent flyers, a couple of medication reviews – certainly nothing too taxing. She sensed Grace’s hand at work there, as Holly’s patient list had lightened considerably in load and intensity. It wasn’t something Holly had asked for – going part-time was inconvenient enough surely – but nevertheless she was grateful.
Amanda Lightly’s name caught her eye and she ambled through to the waiting room to collect her; rushing about no longer even an option. Amanda looked positively radiant, her skin glowing with a light tan and her shoulders covered with a light smattering of freckles set off by her mint-green sundress.
‘I had a letter about my Well Woman check,’ Amanda said as she settled herself into a seat. ‘Only feels like five minutes since I had the last one!’
Holly blushed slightly, remembering all too well how she’d offered this summons as a way to placate Amanda’s worried husband. Clearly his anxieties about her having depression had been a case of misreading the signs; Amanda’s lack of interest in waiting hand and foot on her chauvinistic husband hardly a cause for concern, in Holly’s opinion.
‘And how are you?’ Holly asked, open to any variety of answers. Sometimes she got the family ‘newsletter’, sometimes a well-rehearsed list of symptoms and, on occasion, a terse ‘fine’ that told her nothing at all, except that there was probably a problem somewhere.
Amanda just smiled. ‘I’m great actually. I’ve been running a lot and I have a new, er, friend – so that gets me out of the house.’ She paused for a moment, obviously debating how much to share. ‘I’m leaving Gordon. I know it sounds mad, after all these years together, but he was always at work and we rumbled along okay. But he’s retired now. If I stay, I’ll be in here begging for Valium in no time, or I’ll be locked up for braining him—’
Holly nodded. ‘Valium’s never the secret to a happy marriage,’ she agreed, discreetly jotting an IOU to Dan.
Amanda laughed. ‘I’d forgotten what it felt like to be happy, appreciated, sexy – you know? If only you could get that on the NHS!’
By the time Amanda had (over)shared her change of circumstances and Holly had been amazed by the improvement in her blood pressure readings, she realised it was enough to make you stop and think. How many of her patients’ health problems were actually symptoms of their life problems?
It was certainly the case with her next patient – would wonders never cease – the Major voluntarily walking into her consulting room with a sheepish expression on his face. ‘Don’t tell Marion I was here,’ was his opening greeting.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Holly easily, offering him a chair.
The Major tugged at his trousers above the knees and sat down with a tiny exhalation. ‘I just wanted to say thank you,’ he said. ‘I spoke to that lady counsellor you suggested. Have to confess, felt a right plonker doing it, but hey-ho – seems to have helped a little. I’m sleeping a bit better at least. But I wondered, well, if you could, I mean—’ He spluttered uncomfortably.
‘Major, would you like me to refer you for a few more sessions?’ asked Holly gently.
His face bloomed with colour but he nodded his head with feeling. ‘Can open, worms everywhere at the moment,’ he said. ‘I think I need that closed-door they’re always talking about on the telly.’
‘Closure?’ suggested Holly, trying to second-guess him.
‘That’s the one,’ the Major replied. ‘But I’ve been doing my best to move forward. Every little helps, after all. I wrote a note to Jessica, you know – all above board, via her frightful parents – and she even wrote back. That’s what I wanted to show you.’ He tugged a postcard with a Thelwell pony on the front from his jacket pocket.
Holly scanned the disjointed handwriting, trying to decode Jessica’s words. She didn’t like to tell the Major that the unnatural breaks between letters and the size distortions were not typical of a child her age, but rather a sign that all was still not completely well after Jessica’s traumatic brain injury.
She looked up in surprise. ‘She wants to help with the auction?’ she queried.
The Major nodded. ‘I thought it might make her feel better to know that we weren’t just sitting on our hands around here, that we were actually doing something. And now she wants to come along, offer her support.’ He sounded a little choked up. ‘She sounds like a real trouper. She really enjoyed that little outing to the Flower Festival, apparently. Her friends all persuaded her to come along and join in. That’s why she wants to help at the auction, I reckon.’
Holly nodded – brave didn’t even come close, to want to be out and about in public so soon after being released from hospital, not to mention when there would undoubtedly be journalists at every turn.
‘Have you spoken to Lavinia about this?’ Holly asked. ‘I can’t imagine for a moment that she’d be keen.’
‘Ah, well,’ the Major dissembled. ‘That’s rather where I was hoping you might come in.’
‘Oh Major,’ said Holly in dismay. ‘I’m not sure I have the diplomacy skills for that one.’
He nodded understandingly, tucking the postcard carefully back into his pocket. ‘I’m not sure anybody does.’
‘Well then,’ said Holly after a moment’s reflection, ‘how about a team effort? And a simple task to give Jess a sense of involvement without too much pressure.’
‘You read my mind,’ said the Major happily.
As he left the room, Holly’s mobile bleeped and she slipped outside to take the call. ‘Harry!’ she said in greeting. ‘You keep dropping off the radar and scaring everyone. This is not the time to leave us high and dry.’ There was a hint of chastisement in her tone – after all, hadn’t Harry volunteered to be their man, only to disappear yet again?
‘Understood,’ he said, ‘but I think you’ll be pleased when you hear what I’ve been up to.’ He reeled off the names of three leading medical journalists, big hitters with a huge sphere of influence, and the professional surety not to worry about taking a risk. ‘Anyone up for a series of interviews, coverage of the auction, online debate?’ he asked casually, knowing that he was basically delivering the Holy Grail of medical media coverage in one fell swoop.
In line with Holly’s plan to be the ones shouting loudest, Harry had basically just handed her a proverbial megaphone.
‘You star!’ Holly exclaimed, swallowing down her guilt at her rather terse greeting.
‘I haven’t finished yet,’ Harry continued. ‘I’ve got Professor Daniel Carlisle and Thomas Ulrahbi on standby to speak out. Both of them are incensed by these cuts and they’re leaders in their field – they’re both happy to bring a buttload of credibility to our cause.’
Holly laughed at his irreverent turns of phrase, but Harry had a point: a lead consultant in Obstetrics and another from Emergency Medicine on their side? It was a true shot in the arm to their campaign.
‘Grace and I have been phoning around other rural trusts,’ Holly told him. ‘When we’re ready to go public, we’ll coordinate our efforts.’
‘I notice that rock star chappy was trending on Twitter,’ Harry said, his tone suddenly more serious. ‘It’s one hell of a hashtag, but at what price? Poor sod.’
Holly nodded, before realising that Harry couldn’t see her. ‘The really sad thing is, you know he’s not the only one in that situation. He’s just the only one that social media know about.’
‘Well, we’re going to change all that, aren’t we, Holly?’ said Harry with feeling. ‘Never misjudge a pissed-off medic, eh?’
‘Or a pregnant woman,’ Holly added.
‘Well then, you’re a double threat right now. I’ll see you at the auction.’ He hung up decisively and Holly stared across the Market Place, distracted by the enormity of what they were trying to achieve. Had they overreached, she wondered. They were doctors, not PR consultants or political activists, after all. No matter how much it felt as though those three roles ran concurrently these days.
She blinked as the sound of hooves echoed around the square, trying to find the source of the noise. It was a moment or two before she could name the emotions that assailed her.
The sight of Charlotte Lansing back on a horse was all the testament Holly needed to their own particular brand of care. Caring that surpassed the professional and fed out into the community at large. Charlotte, her arm still in a sling and with Rupert on foot with a lead-rope beside her, looked ecstatic nevertheless. Small steps, huge challenges, a world of difference to the rest of her life – simply by feeling supported, understood and by refusing to give up.
It was a timely reminder they would all do well to consider over the next few days, Holly decided, with an emotional sniff.