Best Practice by Penny Parkes (13)

Chapter 13

The familiar chirrup of an incoming Skype call startled Alice in the dark that evening. She fumbled around for her iPhone, cursing herself for not switching to ‘offline’ as soon as she’d started to feel sleepy. Even Coco groaned in protest.

‘Hello?’ Alice said, all irritation disappearing the moment she saw the tiny circular photograph of a Smurf and tapping once to accept the call.

‘Ooh sorry, did I wake you?’ said Tilly without any obvious remorse, as her beaming face filled the screen. ‘It’s just we’ve been waiting for days to get the internet back up and running and it was a pretty safe bet you’d be online.’

Alice smiled. ‘Good to see your priorities are as spot on as always.’

‘Well, it’s not as though I can pop an order through to Ocado now, is it?’ She panned her device around behind her so that Alice could get a full view of the jungle that surrounded her best friend. Her remote location probably explained her disproportionate excitement at the restoration of her Wi-Fi signal.

‘Are you still living on custard creams?’ Alice asked, trying to take in as much as she could from the wildly swinging images.

‘Well, in grocery news, I have managed to stomach a roast plantain without wanting to hurl, but I’m light years away from creepy-crawlies.’

As Tilly, Alice’s social conscience and all-round Good Egg, travelled the globe, Alice had learned over the years never to complain about her own limited diet. Tilly’s cat would always be blacker, but she was just too nice to actually point it out. Alice was also aware that her constant Tales of Tilly and her questing for social and medical equality seemed to have a habit of making her colleagues feel a little staid and underachieving. Sometimes there really could be too much of a good thing, apparently. Not that she really empathised with that herself; if it was up to her, she’d have Tilly on speed dial every single day for a shot in the arm of her zealous commitment and boundless positivity.

‘So, what’s new in Stepford?’ Tilly asked, sipping the local version of Coca-Cola and grimacing at the sweetness. Still, it was better than the local water.

‘Larkford,’ corrected Alice with a grin. ‘And you have to stop calling it that! It’s actually really very sweet.’

‘Cannot compute,’ Tilly said, pulling her khaki jacket collar up higher as a large indeterminate insect buzzed her repeatedly. ‘Surely you’d be happier with a little nitty-gritty in your life? Are you really ready to be living in a watercolour painting?’

Alice shrugged. ‘I tried Bristol. And look how that turned out?’

Tilly scowled. ‘But that’s like saying, I dated one bloke and he wasn’t The One, so I’ll give up and join a convent!’

‘The thought had occurred to me,’ Alice muttered, pulling the duvet up to her chin and suffering Coco’s indignant groans at her audacity.

‘So how is the love life?’ Tilly asked, biting into a power bar that looked like compost. Although the setting had long since changed, their conversational habits hadn’t really evolved from their student house-share, that and Tilly’s habit of making every coffee ‘Irish’.

Alice yawned and snuggled in further. ‘Well, there’s a nice guy in Norfolk? He lives on a houseboat and has three dogs. He’s quite fit actually, if you ignore the funny quilted waistcoat he wears.’

‘Norfolk-ing chance,’ joked Tilly. ‘And is he just gorgeous? If you ignore the contraceptive waistcoat?’

Alice paused, unwilling to hear Tilly’s inevitable response. ‘Well, we haven’t exactly met yet. It’s just chatting, you know, online. But he has insomnia, so he’s often awake when I am.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s something in his favour. But is this what you’re reduced to? Night owls and insomniacs?’

Alice smiled. ‘Well, there’s always Australians. There’s a lovely guy who lives by the beach in Sydney and we have fabulous chats. He’s funny. And he surfs.’

Tilly’s laugh crackled through their Skype connection and the picture wavered as her iPad jostled. ‘Nice to see you’re still keeping it local.’ She wiped another bug from her cheek and paused. ‘Is there nobody in Stepford you like? A nice hunky distraction? I keep telling you to get a hobby—’

‘A boyfriend is not a hobby!’ Alice protested.

Tilly just tilted her head. ‘Then there’s a chance that you’ve been doing it wrong,’ she said. ‘My current dating pool, by the way, comprises three nuns, two public school boys who seem to prefer each other and Juan Carlos, our “fixer”, who is sixty-three, sprightly, but full of filthy intentions, if you get what I mean.’ She sighed. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a sturdy Cotswold farmer to show me his outbuildings about now—’

‘Til-ly!’ laughed Alice, making Coco jump. ‘It can’t be that bad? Surely?’

Tilly grinned. ‘Nah. I’ll live. I’m moving on next week anyway. Over to Belize where there’ll be lots of young enthusiastic chaps on their gap year. Come to Mummy!’

‘You know it’s Doctors Without Borders, not without boundaries, don’t you?’ Alice countered. ‘You, my friend, are turning into a perv!’

‘Nun!’

‘Dirty old woman—’

‘Less of the old, thank you very much.’ Tilly chomped on the ghastly power bar for a second. ‘How are you anyway?’

‘I’m okay,’ replied Alice automatically, barely batting an eyelid at the abrupt turn of conversation.

Tilly squinted at the screen in her hand. ‘Bollocks. How are you really? Are you still using Amazon as therapy?’

Alice shook her head. ‘Nope.’ The silence crackled across the ether. ‘It’s mainly Net-a-Porter these days,’ she confessed.

Tilly nodded, for a moment taking in the possible ramifications of that admission. ‘Did you suddenly get a huge pay rise that you forgot to mention?’ She might live in the jungle, but she wasn’t dead. Tilly clearly knew exactly how many pound signs whizzing around that website signified.

Alice said nothing.

‘Somebody there needs to know what you’re dealing with, Al—’ Tilly began.

‘I can’t. Don’t ask me to,’ Alice interrupted, even holding up a hand in front of her as though to bat the very idea away.

Her friend was not so easily defeated. ‘This is not some dirty secret, sweets; it’s your way of coping and there are people who can help. Sod that, there must be somebody in Stepford who’d be only too delighted to help?’

Alice thought for a moment. ‘The problem is, the kind of people that want to dive in and “help” aren’t always the ones you actually want helping, are they?’

Tilly nodded, knowing only too well that Alice made a valid point. When her father had died during that fateful storm on Orkney, Alice had been inundated with offers of help and support, not necessarily from her best friends though, but often from those seeking a worthy cause to make their own.

‘Talking to you helps,’ Alice offered.

‘Yeah, but I’m a million miles away, so that’s no bloody good,’ said Tilly tiredly.

‘Your geography’s shit,’ said Alice.

‘Ha! Look who it is, Funny’s cousin – Not Funny!’ Tilly countered. ‘Look, this is mad. You should just get on a plane and join me. Come on, come and harass some gorgeous young men with social consciences . . .’

Alice managed a smile. ‘That’s your dream, Til, not mine. Besides, there’s Coco . . .’ At the very mention of her name, Coco lifted her head and sniffed at the screen, giving Tilly an eyeful of chocolatey nostrils and whiskers. She whistled and watched Coco look around in confusion.

‘Of course there is,’ said Tilly after a moment, the discussion effectively settled.

‘Besides,’ continued Alice, undeterred and keen to make her point, ‘I have to get myself sorted first, don’t I? I need to find a level and I’m not going to get that gallivanting all over the globe.’

Tilly nodded sagely. ‘Besides, there’s no way you could afford the excess baggage charges.’

Alice ignored her. ‘I keep telling myself that a nice steady community, regular patients, friendly faces and I’ll settle a bit, you know? But now I just seem to spend half my days referring people on to consultants, or A&E, and I never get to just fix anyone properly.’

Tilly leaned forward – if she were any closer to the screen, she’d be giving Alice and Coco a virtual hug. ‘Are we talking about your patients here, Al, or are we talking about you?’ She hummed their favourite Coldplay song that had run on a loop in their student digs. ‘It won’t be lights guiding you home though, will it, honey, it’ll be an online sale! We have to talk about this at some point, you know, before I fly back one day and find that you’ve been buried alive beneath cashmere jumpers and stylish accessories . . .’

‘I am not a hoarder!’ Alice protested, ignoring the niggle of doubt in the back of her mind. Her home was indeed more of a storage facility than a cosy retreat, but by God did she have stylish and organised storage.

‘I know you’re not, sweetie,’ Tilly said gently, ‘but I so wish I could be there with you, even if it’s just to remind you that happiness has fuck all to do with the stuff you own and everything to do with the people you spend your days with, not to mention how you feel about your place in the world. Al – I see women out here who don’t have two beans to rub together, they live in what you and I would call abject poverty, but they are surrounded by their family, their friends, their children. And the smiles on their faces . . . Oh, they may not have prospects by any Western measure, but my God are they happy.’

‘Fuck,’ said Alice, swallowing down a ball of tears in her throat and dashing at her eyes with her pyjama sleeve. Even Coco had picked up on the message that all was not well.

‘There must be someone you feel a connection with?’ Tilly said quietly.

Alice nodded. ‘Of course. But everyone has their own stuff going on, you know, their own friendships.’

‘Are you honestly saying that they won’t let you play?’ Tilly said.

‘No, of course not. Grace invited me to her yoga class this evening. But, you know—’

‘You said you were busy and took a rain check?’ Tilly interrupted, knowing her friend’s habit of pushing other people away all too well. ‘But, just for a minute, think about this – what might happen if you let her in?’

‘To the house?’ Alice squeaked.

‘You could start with your life?’ Tilly suggested. ‘A coffee? A panini – oh my God, paninis – I’d forgotten about paninis . . .’ She sighed deeply. ‘Look, I’m not saying that this Grace has to become your new best friend, your ultimate confidante. She doesn’t even have to be someone your own age – in fact a different perspective might be a good thing. I just hate that I can’t be there to hold your hand – even if it is just to stop it getting to your credit card! Maybe just while everything with Coco is so up in the air, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Alice, ‘I miss you too. But your way isn’t always my way.’

‘Obviously,’ said Tilly with a snort. Her own go-to setting any time life got tricky was to chuck it all in and start over. Their friendship was a veritable case study in how opposites attract. ‘You know what my suggestion is anyway, Alice.’

‘Jump on a plane?’ Alice smiled.

‘Or under a man. You, my darling, need to let off steam a little. All work and no play, etcetera etcetera. Start small. Don’t invite anyone home. Just arrange to meet one of these gorgeous men in a hotel somewhere and let your hair down, release a few feel-good pheromones, if you know what I mean.’

‘God, no!’ exclaimed Alice, instantly on the defensive. ‘What if we met in person and there was, like, zero chemistry between us? And they’d travelled all that way?’

‘Firstly, shags are not Air Miles,’ Tilly said scathingly. ‘Be upfront – don’t promise anything. Then it’s up to them whether they think you’re worth the gamble. Besides, I know it’s not quite the same, but surely you can tell if there’s a connection between you, when you’re – well, you know – online?’

Alice said nothing. She didn’t need Tilly’s voice in her head telling her she was being a prude. After all, Tilly’s love life seemed to revolve around sexting and Skype far more than Alice was comfortable with.

‘Oh God, you’re not serious?’ said Tilly, understanding dawning on her face. She shifted uncomfortably for a moment. ‘Listen, if you really don’t know where to start, I could give you a few pointers . . .’

‘You are not giving me sexting lessons,’ said Alice categorically. ‘I mean just because I haven’t, doesn’t mean I couldn’t—’

‘Go on then,’ said Tilly. ‘Stop moaning to me and get on with it. We both know this is a good idea, so don’t overthink it. Do it. Right now. I’m hanging up.’

‘You have to be kidding—’ protested Alice, just as the screen flickered to black and the connection was lost. There was no way she was going to be coerced into this, she decided, pushing her phone away decisively, just as it vibrated to announce an incoming message:

Alice sighed. It was one thing being cross with Tilly when she was way off base, but when there was a chance she was bang on the money? She quietly stood up and shut Coco outside the bedroom door, much to the little dog’s annoyance. ‘I’m doing this for your own good, Coco. There’s no way you need to hear this . . .’

She picked up her laptop and began to type, relieved to see that it was Oliver in Sydney online, rather than Norfolk Neil who, let’s face it, needed very little encouragement before he’d jump on his tractor and head straight for Larkford.

‘I missed you, A,’ Oliver typed. ‘Have you been out saving lives?’

‘Hardly,’ she replied.

‘Isn’t it way past your bedtime, anyway, young lady?’ he typed, giving her the perfect opening.

‘In bed already.’ She paused and bit her lip, wondering if she had the nerve. ‘Can’t sleep – too restless. Need to let off steam.’

He dived into the conversation with such alacrity that Alice couldn’t help but wonder whether this was what he’d been waiting for all along.

‘Only too happy to help you unwind . . .’ The cursor flashed for a moment – ‘I’m game if you are.’

‘Where are you?’ she asked, wondering how he found time in the middle of the working day for a conversation like this.

‘Just got back from surfing. Lounging at home. Talking to you. Imagining you in bed.’

She pushed away thoughts of his apparent unemployment. ‘What are you wearing?’ she typed awkwardly, only remembering this particular gambit from a dodgy made-for-TV movie she’d watched the night before.

There was a pause and then a photo popped up on her screen – washboard abs, board shorts and what looked like an enormous erection tenting the fabric. ‘More than I want to be!’ he typed. ‘What about you?’

Alice hesitated. It didn’t seem to matter that he was easy on the eye, or that his image was pixelated rather than in bed beside her. It mattered to her that the towel he was lounging on was exactly the shade of duck-egg blue she’d been looking for. It mattered to her that the only question she really wanted an answer to was where he had bought it and did they deliver internationally.

She logged off abruptly, just as Coco decided she’d had enough of the whole scenario anyway and pushed open the bedroom door.

‘Well, it’s official,’ said Alice as she buried her scorching face in the little dog’s fur in mortification, before an attack of the giggles overwhelmed her. ‘I seriously need to get out more.’