Chapter 8
The next morning, Holly was forced to stow her iPhone in her desk drawer as message after message from Elsie came in, flooding her inbox with boho-chic wedding suggestions that still stretched the definition of ‘small and intimate’ to its very limits but were altogether more ‘Holly’. Even turned to silent though, the constant buzzing was distracting in the extreme.
‘I’m so sorry, Molly, what were you saying?’ Holly flushed in embarrassment, as she realised that not only had she missed whatever Molly Giles had said, but also how difficult it was for Molly to formulate her thoughts in the first place.
Molly tried to smile, to show it was no problem at all – she was a naturally sweet and caring person – but the Parkinson’s made it so difficult to convey emotion. At only forty-two, Molly had been in a steady decline for the last four years and Holly could feel nothing but sympathy for this lovely lady with so much heartache on her horizon.
‘I was hoping you could sign me off work for a week,’ Molly said softly. She didn’t elucidate her reasons and Holly waited for a moment before asking.
‘Are you feeling worse, Molly? We might need to work with your consultant on this if you are.’ Holly didn’t like to say, didn’t need to say, that with early-onset Parkinson’s they could only slow the progression of the disease, but once the horse had bolted there was no getting it back in the stable.
To her surprise Molly shook her head. ‘No, Dr Graham, it’s not that.’ She looked uncomfortable for a moment as she shifted in her seat, her face staying strangely immobile in the mask that had become her reality. ‘It’s my boss. He’s making it so hard for me at work, I just need a little time to consider my options and he’s refusing me annual leave at the moment.’
‘Can he do that?’ Holly asked, unclear of the motivations at play.
Molly made an attempt at a shrug, which seemed to set off a cascade of tremors along her arms and into her fingers. ‘He’s pushing me to resign. He knows he can’t fire me, but he’s been making my life hell for months now.’
Holly nodded, only too familiar with some of the more hateful ways in which Molly’s boss had basically been tormenting her: from moving the staff bathroom privileges to a different floor, to embarrassing her in meetings by commenting on her tics and occasional slurring, to mocking her increasingly small and cramped handwriting by buying her a ‘How To Do Joined-Up Writing’ textbook as her Secret Santa gift. In Holly’s opinion he sounded like an utter shit.
‘Is a week actually long enough?’ Holly asked, feeling rather helpless. There was so little in her medical arsenal that she could actually do to help the Molly Gileses of this world that a little fuck-it attitude often crept into her approach.
Molly laughed, or rather gurgled in a way that Holly had come to recognise as her laugh, as her symptoms had become increasingly obvious over the last year. ‘Well, if you’re offering, a fortnight would be nice. I need to stop pretending this is temporary and work out what to do next. It’s lovely having Matthew home, but we both know that’s no long-term solution. He should be off at university, not home again with me.’
‘How did you get on applying for your disability?’ Holly asked, wondering why Molly was still putting herself through the torture of a working week, even part-time, when it was obviously so challenging.
Molly shook her head. ‘They said it wasn’t so much how ill I was, but how it affected me and my daily activities. Not enough, apparently. Still, give it time.’
There was a bitter edge to her voice, and Holly could understand why. All those forms and assessments to get financial support were wildly skewed towards the obvious cases. Her patients that suffered with invisible disabilities always had a hard time proving their need. The very fact that they were able to walk into the assessment unaided meant that their very real struggles were often ignored and it made Holly’s blood boil. Even Mr Peverill with his colostomy bag, and an obvious need for easy access to the disabled loo, was given constant flak by members of the public, as they assumed he was simply skipping the queue for the gents’.
As Holly filled out and signed the official sick note, she paused. ‘Molly, is there any real support for you around here? A group? A local adviser?’
‘There is, but it tends to focus on the elderly end of the scale. And to be honest, Dr Graham, I’d still rather meet my friends at the pub than go to a coffee morning at the care home.’
Holly nodded; she could understand why. After all, who would want a glimpse of their future so forcibly illustrated? ‘Why don’t you enjoy your thinking time then, and come back in for a chat in maybe ten days? Book a double appointment, Molly, and in the meantime, let me see what I can find by way of support. Something constructive, at least. For you and Matthew. I know Dan’s already on the case, but many hands and all that. How does that sound?’
Molly dashed a small tear away from her eyelashes, unwittingly allowing her eyes to well up still further. ‘Well,’ she managed, ‘at least I can still have a little cry when someone’s kind to me. I suppose I ought to make the most of it.’
As Molly left the consulting room, her sick note clutched firmly in her hand, making slow progress as the dyskinesia threw her off balance, Holly wasn’t entirely sure whether she meant the ability to produce tears, which would surely be one of the next things to go, or being shown patience and kindness, which apparently were in short supply in Molly Giles’s challenging world.
She turned to her desk and made a note to research whatever support she could find for Molly and her family, doodling the words Invisible Disability across the page. Molly wasn’t alone in Larkford and Holly was determined to make sure that she knew that. Tea and sympathy only went so far; empathy and a shared experience might make all the difference to her state of mind.
By the time Holly had updated Molly’s file and seen her next five patients, she was beginning to feel the after-effects of a late night with Elsie, followed swiftly by an unconscionably early start with the twins. She looked longingly at her treatment bed for a moment, craving just a few minutes’ uninterrupted slumber, before rallying herself and heading for the waiting room. ‘Jemima Hallow?’ she said, smothering a yawn and looking around for the local vet’s petite, elfin wife.
As Jemima struggled to her feet, it was easy to see how Holly might not have recognised her. Gone were the neat tailored trousers and the four-inch heels, to be replaced by Birkenstocks and a soft cotton kaftan, which still strained around her bump at the seams. ‘Oh Mims,’ Holly said with a smile, holding out a hand to guide her through to some privacy in her rooms, ‘you might need to give in and buy some maternity clothes, you know.’
Mims just shook her head. ‘Nope. I’ve told this little one that, bearing in mind the exit strategy, he’s not allowed to get any bigger.’ She sat down in the chair beside Holly’s desk with an obvious sigh of relief. Hot weather and pregnancy were not really an ideal combination. ‘Which is what I wanted to talk about, actually—’
‘Well, let’s check your blood pressure before we start talking about exit strategies, shall we?’ interrupted Holly lightly, having made this rookie mistake one too many times before. Once all the readings and measuring and dippings were done, she swivelled her chair to face Jemima. ‘Okay. All on track. All looking good. But I have to tell you, there’s plenty more growing to come in the next couple of months. Do yourself a favour and buy some stretchy clothes.’
Mims frowned. ‘I can’t believe I can actually get any bigger.’ She stroked her bump tenderly. ‘This baby is going to be the biggest chunky-monkey, isn’t he?’
Even behind the affection in her words, Holly could see her concern, although surely this was something that Mims must have foreseen when, at barely five foot four, she had married all six foot three of Rupert-the-vet. ‘Have you given any more thought to your birth plan?’ Holly asked, easing in gently to give Mims the opportunity to share whatever might be uppermost in her mind.
‘That’s what I need to talk to you about,’ Mims said, fidgeting in her chair. Holly said nothing, waiting for the not-uncommon request for an elective C-section, as the realities of birth suddenly began to loom large and unavoidable. Mims however continued to take her by surprise. ‘Rupert and I have been dead-set on a water birth from the very beginning. I don’t want that whole cycle of intervention you get in hospital and my midwife was really supportive about booking us into the centre at Rosemore. It’s all midwife-led and there’s just a lovely atmosphere. It’s where I want to have our baby.’ She stopped and placed a hand on her chest, obviously trying somewhat unsuccessfully to remain calm. After a moment she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled letter and passed it across to Holly without a word. Not necessarily because she had nothing to say – the unspoken emotions in the room had certainly charged their conversation with a new and slightly uncomfortable tension – but probably because the letter spoke for itself.
The paper was already softened from repeated reading and folding, but the NHS logo was clear in the top corner. ‘Thank you for your interest in Rosemore Maternity for your birth, but unfortunately—’ Holly scanned the letter, before Mims began reciting it word for word.
‘—due to a change in financial circumstances, the Maternity Unit at Rosemore will be closing with immediate effect and your designated centre is now Bath!’ Mims made a strangled sound of restrained frustration. ‘That’s a good half an hour away and consultant-led: there’s no guarantee of a water birth, no breast-feeding counsellor, no one-to-one midwife! What happened to my choice? And it looks like it’s a foregone conclusion! Please tell me this is a mistake?’ Mims asked plaintively.
Holly felt utterly blindsided. Of course there had been murmurs, rumours of audits, but nothing concrete. Perhaps they should have viewed the problems with the Air Ambulance funding as merely an opening salvo? She wondered whether Dan had gleaned anything more after his impromptu visit there. Pausing before continuing to read, she pulled open her desk drawer and sacrificed her elevenses mini-muffins to the cause, knowing only too well how hard it was to think on an empty stomach when pregnant.
Holly slowly read Mims’ letter from start to finish, as Mims demolished two mini-muffins in close succession, watching Holly’s expression wordlessly. ‘Well, this is a joke,’ Holly said in the end, tossing the letter onto the desk with the disdain it deserved. The rest of the letter went on to explain that many other birthing options in the county might not be available to them now, since they were ‘late to apply’.
Jemima’s face was etched with concern and helplessness and Holly floundered for a moment as to what she could actually, realistically, do. She had honestly thought that her days of political protesting were behind her. But this? She felt a wave of nausea and impotent fury wash over her.
Decisions being made with zero regard for their rural way of life, for their individual choices? She couldn’t help the prescient shiver that this was not going to end well for some of her patients, but there was no point expressing this position with her patient still in the room. She took a breath to calm her own immediate feelings about the indecent speed of the closure, not to mention the secrecy – steaming rage was a fairly close approximation, but she had no intention of fanning the flames.
‘You know,’ said Holly calmly, ‘even if Rosemore is closing, you don’t need to have all the drugs and whatnot just because you’re in hospital. You can still have the low-intervention birth you want, Mims. We can make sure of it. Let me have a word with your midwife and find out what’s really going on and then we can talk again. But please,’ she said, her words filled with affection and concern, ‘don’t go worrying yourself over this – you’ve still got to grow that chunky-monkey in there for a bit longer, remember.’
Mims gulped down another mouthful of muffin. ‘It’s a cycle of intervention though, isn’t it, once you’re in the hospital? I heard all about it at my NCT class!’
Holly silently cursed the bloody NCT for their birth propaganda – no drugs, no formula, breast-is-best or you’re failing your baby. Sure, the principles were sound, but the emotional fallout amongst the mothers for whom nature didn’t oblige was terrifying to witness. She wasn’t prepared to let Jemima’s birth become another casualty of that idealism.
She took a gulp of her coffee and grimaced. Cold and disgusting. She glared at her mug for a moment, feeling unaccountably let down – after all, without coffee to fuel the rest of her day, that notion of a power nap was becoming less of a fantasy and more like a necessity.
Mims got to her feet. ‘Let me know what you find out, won’t you? Until then, I suppose I should keep looking on the bright side. After all, who knew that one night away for our anniversary would succeed where all that fertility treatment failed?’ She attempted a wobbly smile. ‘You want to be careful having Elsie’s fertility icon on your bookshelf there, Holly. He certainly worked his magic for me and Katie House. Borneo witchdoctor two: IVF zero, isn’t it now?’ Holly laughed and shook her head as she saw Jemima out of the room, before sitting back down in her chair feeling utterly drained and yawning widely.
She reached for her coffee on autopilot and gagged a little at the smell, tiny pieces of her mental jigsaw rearranging themselves in her head as she did so.