Chapter 52
‘I bloody love this place!’ cried Tilly with abandon as her jetlag and Pimm’s combined to make her shed what was left of her inhibitions. Adjourning straight to The Kingsley Arms after the auction had been a rookie mistake. Tilly pulled Alice into a full-body hug and planted a smacking great kiss on her cheek, before doing the same to Jamie. ‘You two are ace together,’ she declared.
Alice couldn’t stop smiling, it seemed, as she watched her best friend’s reaction to the place she called home. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Not in the slightest bit Stepford.’
‘Who are you calling Stepford?’ interrupted Taffy, sipping at his pint of local cider, making it seem completely normal that tucked under one arm was Arthur-the-Piglet, or Lot Nineteen, as he would henceforth be known.
Tilly blushed. ‘Middle England always seemed a bit parochial looking in.’
‘Ah yes, but from the inside looking out, it’s not so bad now, is it?’ Taffy teased her, waving at the newly printed calendars which adorned every wall. Shirtless, tousled and utterly gorgeous, the Air Ambulance boys had done them proud, and orders were quickly racking up online. ‘Sexy pilots and celebrities at every turn.’
He watched as Tilly’s eyes followed said local celebrities, including Elsie and Connor, across to the bar of The Kingsley Arms.
Teddy Kingsley, their resident publican and chef extraordinaire, seemed oblivious to their luminary presence, and indeed to the twenty-pound notes they were waving to get his attention and the chance of a round. Teddy Kingsley only had eyes for Tilly, it seemed. It was only when Elsie whistled loudly, as though she were hailing a New York cab, that he managed to bring his focus back to their drink orders.
‘Somebody’s got an admirer,’ commented Taffy, as he allowed Nineteen a sip of his cider.
Tilly glanced over at the bar once more, briefly taking in Teddy’s well-honed physique in his Calvin Klein t-shirt and ancient Levi’s. She shrugged. ‘He’s a bit old for me.’
Alice laughed. ‘He’s the same age as us!’
‘Exactly,’ replied Tilly firmly.
‘And this is exactly why it’s time to say goodbye to the nomadic, Mrs Robinson thing you’ve had going on,’ Alice said.
Tilly tilted her head appraisingly. ‘He is quite dishy, I suppose – don’t you think?’
Alice laughed nervously. ‘Well, I try not to, actually. He is one of my patients. Totally out of bounds.’ Alice frowned for a moment at the sudden flash of interest on Tilly’s face: was that all it took to pique her friend’s attention, a mention that something was off-limits?
‘Maybe I will just go over and say hi,’ Tilly said, slipping away from their group with an ease and confidence that was built purely on years of positive validation. Any insecurities were wrapped pretty tightly within the bundle of physical loveliness and professional ability, as Alice well knew.
Taffy scruffed Nineteen under the chin, producing a volley of piglet squeals and snuffles. ‘This little chap is going to be brilliant. He’ll be a right little porker in no time.’
Holly came over to join them. ‘I can’t believe you bought a piglet,’ she said, aiming for haughty but immediately undone by Nineteen’s big brown eyes and endless lashes. ‘Well, he can’t live in the house,’ she said, after a moment, already softening on her no-pigs-not-ever stance of earlier. ‘And surely we can come up with a better name than Nineteen?’
Taffy shook his head. ‘It’s his name. He knows it already.’ He proceeded to call the piglet, who appeared to respond to just about any name at all, so long as a slurp of scrumpy was on offer.
Alice laid her head on Jamie’s shoulder happily. It had been a bloody long week, but the success of this evening made it all seem worthwhile. Indeed, Grace was still over at the auction house with Dan as they tallied up the final amounts; nobody was going home until they knew whether their target had been reached.
Jamie snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. ‘Do you think that will be us one day?’ he asked, watching Holly and Taffy fooling around with their new ‘baby’ and cooing over his slightest accomplishment. As if having two sets of twins and half a labradoodle wasn’t enough to keep them busy! They might not be the archetypal picture of newly wedded bliss, but with Holly’s burgeoning bump and their obvious adoration for one another, they certainly looked pretty blissful from where Alice was standing.
Alice smiled at the very notion, unable to believe how far she’d come – her customary terse dismissal of any suggestion of relationships, children or livestock in her own future suddenly feeling outdated and ill-informed. ‘Maybe,’ she said easily instead. ‘But perhaps without the multiple births and porcine progeny?’
‘No piglets?’ teased Jamie.
‘Nope,’ said Alice. ‘There’s always the threat of bacon, isn’t there?’ Spot the girl who’d grown up on a farm, she thought. ‘I quite fancy a llama actually,’ she confided.
‘Oh no,’ interrupted Elsie, strolling over with a G&T the size of a fishbowl. ‘Grumpy little bastards, llamas. My Monty was an aloof and unrewarding sod. I’m thinking more pygmy goat for my next acquisition.’
‘Do they allow pets at Sarandon Hall?’ Jamie said, the surprise evident on his face.
Elsie immediately looked shifty. ‘Not yet,’ she hedged and wandered off to have her photo taken with Connor and his bandmates, never too old to be the consummate groupie.
‘I hope I’m not interrupting, Dr Walker?’
Alice turned to see Susan Motherwell, with her five children clustered around her. She looked pale and a little fragile, but one hell of a lot better than she had in Alice’s consulting room only a few weeks ago. She fumbled in her handbag and passed Alice a fancy cream envelope. ‘We all just wanted to give you a little something, by way of a thank-you,’ she said. She pressed her hand to her chest, truly speaking from the heart. ‘The doctors at the hospital said we saved so much of my heart muscle because you were so quick with your diagnosis.’ She gave a dry cough that immediately told Alice that, post-heart attack, Susan’s consultant had her on ACE-inhibitors, no doubt as part of a cocktail of drugs to prevent a recurrence.
Alice smiled. ‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘I know I don’t,’ said Susan feistily. ‘But I want to. These five kids? They owe it you, that I’m still here to boss them around.’ She grinned. ‘Although I imagine they won’t always thank you for that!’
Right now though, fresh from the prospect of a very poorly mummy indeed, they flocked around her tightly like ducklings and Alice had a small flash of insight into how poor Susan Motherwell must have felt as she’d been whisked off to Bath in an ambulance. There was nothing like family to put things into perspective.
She ripped open the envelope at Susan’s behest and slid out the gift certificate for a night away with a boutique travel company. Susan looked pleased as punch with herself. ‘Well, I’d heard on the grapevine about your new beau and I thought to myself, I bet they need a bit of quality time together! Oh, and I checked, Coco is more than welcome. I’ve popped it in your Jamie’s name – call it a neighbour’s gift – just in case your NHS won’t let you even have a pressie these days.’
Alice was incredibly moved that her patient had gone to such considerable care and attention to choose not only the perfect gift, but to ensure she could actually use it without compromising her professional integrity. She pulled Susan into a hug and it was hard to say who was more emotional. ‘Thank you,’ she said with feeling.
‘No, Dr Walker, thank you,’ Susan said as she ushered her brood away with a wobbly smile.
‘You don’t get that in South America,’ said Tilly, who had apparently watched the entire scene unfolding with a growing sense of disbelief. ‘Although I was offered a husband in Paraguay once—’ She left the anecdote hanging.
Jamie grinned. ‘Why do I get the feeling that there’s more to that story than a simple thank-you?’
Tilly shrugged. ‘Plenty of time for all my stories; I want to hear yours. I hope you have honourable intentions towards my Alice?’
Alice snorted attractively at Tilly’s blatant interfering. ‘I’m quite happy with a few dishonourable ones, to be honest.’
‘Although,’ Jamie said, his tongue loosened by several pints of cider and only a packet of wasabi peanuts for absorption, ‘there’s no harm in planning ahead a little.’
‘How far ahead?’ Alice asked warily, slightly distracted by his hand circling her waist and the look of mischief in his eyes.
‘How about tomorrow—?’ he asked.
‘Oh tomorrow, I can cope with,’ Alice interrupted.
Just as he finished his sentence, ‘Move in with me tomorrow—’
‘Ooh,’ said Tilly into the momentary silence, ‘things just got interesting.’
Alice hesitated, waiting for the doubts to assail her, the excuses to flood fully formed into her head.
Nothing.
She looked confused for a moment, eyeing up the Pimm’s in her hand as though it were personally responsible for her lack of spontaneous acumen.
‘The answer’s not in there,’ said Jamie quietly with a smile. ‘Don’t think, just go with your gut.’
Alice blinked again. Still nothing. Her gut, it seemed, was strongly in favour of the notion.
‘Okay,’ she whispered. ‘Tomorrow.’ He pulled her into a kiss that wasn’t entirely PG.
‘Get a room!’ catcalled Taffy, startling his piglet in the process.
‘We are,’ said Alice, blushing. ‘Or maybe a house? Or a flat?’ She looked askance at Jamie as though he must surely have had a plan in mind.
‘Or my house,’ suggested Grace, having quietly made an unassuming entrance during their discussion. ‘After all, I won’t be needing it. And you can use the spare room for your jewellery-making, Alice – it’s a bit cramped, but wonderfully light.’ She gave her friend an affectionate smile, knowing only too well that Alice was finding flow and relaxation in these intricate projects to replace the urge to shop.
‘Excellent,’ said Tilly, fresh from the airport and with nowhere to live. ‘Shotgun Alice’s house!’ she called out, making everyone laugh at her ridiculous eagerness. She blushed. ‘I mean, if it’s going begging. I am going to need to live somewhere nearby.’
‘Quite right too,’ said Holly. ‘No point having a new doctor on the team if they can’t be on call and on site.’
There was a moment’s uncertainty in the pub, as everybody fell silent.
‘Oh,’ said Holly, ‘was I not supposed to announce that just yet?’
Taffy merely shook his head at her daffy indiscretion, Alice noticed, as if his new bride could do no wrong. Instead he simply led the charge to a round of applause to welcome Tilly to the team.
Holly looked over at Alice and smiled. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said pre-emptively. ‘Sometimes you just need to have your best friends around you.’
Alice reached out and squeezed her hand, taking a moment to find the right words. She couldn’t quite believe that Holly would do something so magnanimous as to hire her best friend, not just for the benefit of the team, it seemed, but to help her too. And having Tilly in Larkford would no doubt help her find her way through this new double role she was creating for herself and Coco.
But then, who was she kidding? This was exactly the kind of thing that Holly would do, she realised, her Musketeer-complex well and truly developed; perhaps it should be the new Larkford motto, Alice wondered, one for all and all for one . . .
The pub fell silent again as they all belatedly realised the import of Grace’s presence and indeed the notepad in her hand. Dan and Harry Grant flanked her on both sides, as though she were delivering one of those oversized Lottery cheques.
Alice held her breath and Jamie’s hand just as firmly.
Taffy tinged the side of his glass and Nineteen squealed in reply. ‘Well, don’t leave us hanging—’
Grace swallowed hard; the attention of every Larkford resident crammed into the bar was focused on her.
‘I have good news and excellent news,’ she managed, before a storm of relieved applause drowned out her voice, followed by an even louder volley of shushing.
‘We have enough to repair the second Air Ambulance and cover its running costs,’ she said clearly. ‘We have enough to cover a community midwife.’ More premature applause; more shushing. ‘And,’ she paused to make sure she had their undivided attention, ‘we have enough to do both for three whole years!’ She burst into tears of relief and exhilaration.
‘Three?’ exclaimed Holly, quickly joining her.
‘You guys—’ said Taffy, overcome by the emotion thick in the room.
Alice just breathed out, slowly, easily. Her part had been small, after all, but it took any number of these small parts to make the whole she was seeing develop before her. A whole community. A whole medical service – cradle to grave – the way the NHS should be.
She looked up and saw Connor Danes standing at the periphery of the wild and enthusiastic celebrations breaking out in the bar. Their joy in this moment was surely at odds with how he must be feeling. No amount of fundraising was going to bring his beautiful wife and baby back, but his generous and, sod it all, his brave contribution to their cause would save countless lives, and mean countless families would never have to go through his grief.
She walked over to him and wordlessly pulled him into a hug. ‘Thank you,’ she said, with feeling. ‘You know you made this happen?’
Connor just shook his head. ‘This doesn’t happen overnight, Alice. This—’ He waved his hand expansively around the room at the clusters of friends and neighbours, old and young, embracing each other. ‘It takes years and effort and the right stuff. Larkford has the right stuff, you know.’
‘I do,’ said Alice, her eyes shining. ‘And none of it fits in a storage box.’
Connor looked at her weirdly but never questioned her sentiment. ‘Maybe one day there’ll be a place here for me too,’ he said, as Grace and Dan surged towards him, not taking no for an answer in joining their group for a late supper and a chance to recount their glory lot by lot.