by Penny Parkes
Taffy stepped inside behind him before Holly could even reply. ‘Do you think that you and Ben could collect all those little twigs from around the garden and build a little pyramid with them in the fire pit? I’ll come and light it when you’re done and we can cook up some baked beans on the campfire.’
The door swung shut behind him as Tom departed with alacrity, shouting the news to Ben as they set to on their mission. Taffy grinned. ‘That should keep them good for a while. Hello, you.’ He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘Big day tomorrow.’ He smiled at her and, even as a yawn overtook her, she leaned into his solid warmth for support. ‘Do you think we should find out if it’s a boy or a girl? I feel weird saying “it”, don’t you?’
Taffy’s excitement about the scan was utterly endearing. Even though he knew perfectly well they were unlikely to discover the sex of their baby at this early stage, it hadn’t stopped him talking about it endlessly. ‘I just call it Beany,’ Holly said easily, still in two minds about finding out – this might be one surprise worth waiting for.
She paused and looked deeply into his eyes. ‘And Beany is clearly an overachiever, by the way – I felt the first movements earlier. Kind of a fluttering.’
‘Are you serious?’ Taffy knelt down and put his hand on her tummy. ‘Come in, The Bean. This is your dad calling. Come in, Beany . . .’ He paused in anticipation, looking up at Holly as though this were somehow within her control. ‘Do whatever you were doing last time – orange juice? Laughing?’
‘Ah,’ said Holly, glancing out of the window to make sure the twins were safely gathering kindling and out of earshot, ‘about that.’ She took Taffy’s hand and sat down at the kitchen table, pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts. She still had no idea how she truly felt about Elsie’s life-changing suggestion, swinging ambivalently from delight to discomfort every few minutes.
‘Elsie wants to give me her townhouse,’ she said simply in the end and watched Taffy’s face slacken in disbelief. ‘She wants to be at Sarandon Hall, apparently, and she wants us to move in as soon as possible.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Taffy said slowly. ‘Do you mean as tenants, because the rent on that place would be—’
Holly shook her head, emotion bubbling in her voice. ‘No, as in, she wants to gift me her house – leave it to me, technically, I think. But she made it pretty clear: she wants to see us settled and enjoying it. All the more so with another one on the way.’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘I don’t know how to react – it’s like all my dreams coming true, but I can’t quite get over the feeling that I’m turfing my granny out of her house!’
‘But . . . I mean . . . Well, I—’ managed Taffy, still trying to get his head around the idea.
‘Do that for another hour and you’ll be where I am now.’ Holly laughed. ‘It is honestly the most wonderful, incredibly generous thing that anyone has ever offered to do for me, so why does it feel as though I’m taking advantage . . .? Oh God, I don’t know! And then I feel downright ungrateful for even questioning it!’ Holly sank her head in her hands, knowing full well that Elsie would be furious that her offer had triggered anything other than absolute joy.
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ said Taffy. ‘A proper family home.’
‘I know,’ said Holly, biting her lip, barely daring to let the threatening smile escape. ‘That’s what Elsie said. She reckons it should be filled with laughter and sticky fingers and fairy cakes – her words, not mine.’
‘You know,’ Taffy said equably, ‘we could all move in together. I for one would be only too happy to help out with Elsie if that’s what she’s worrying about. Joining a retirement community is a big leap.’
‘I asked her about that.’ Holly laughed as she recalled Elsie’s emphatic response. ‘She said she thought we might cramp her style, if we all lived there together, and that the move to Sarandon Hall was all about keeping her independence and her social life, rather than losing it. That visit really clarified things for her, apparently.’
‘Oh,’ said Taffy succinctly. ‘She probably has a point there. We have become couch potatoes of late.’
‘So what do you think? I’m so conflicted I can’t see the wood for the trees. Part of me cannot quite believe that we would get to raise our children somewhere so utterly heavenly – I mean, that house is like something from a novel, isn’t it? But the other part still feels like it’s cheating somehow.’
‘You didn’t earn it, so it’s not really yours?’ Taffy said, nodding, understanding immediately what Holly meant. ‘And then I suppose you have to think about who the rightful heirs should be – I mean, Elsie has children in America, right? That Harriet character for one. Which probably means they’d think nothing of taking a litigious approach to any disappointment on that front. I mean, Elsie is in her eighties – they might suggest she’s not of sound mind and a court case like that would be just hideous for all concerned.’
Holly nodded. ‘So you see why I’m not dancing around the kitchen? Which in itself is awful, because that’s what Elsie intended for us – she wants us to dance around the kitchen and to sleep at night knowing we have space and the wherewithal to raise our children in Larkford.’ Holly stopped. ‘You know, she was remarkably up to date on maternity leave legislation as well. Kept mentioning how nice it might be for me to work part-time after this little one arrives. It’s like she’s got my life all planned out for me!’
‘Tricky,’ said Taffy.
‘You’d think,’ replied Holly happily. ‘But actually it was just wonderful. Knowing that she cared enough to take the time, to take the interest. She’s so invested in our family, Taffs, it knocks my mother’s pathetic efforts into a cocked hat.’ Holly’s mother was a spectral presence in their lives at best. Always travelling around the world, often with a new boyfriend in tow, always moaning, always complaining, never showing any interest in her grandchildren beyond the odd bragging postcard from wherever she happened to be that month. It was one way to live, and obviously it was her choice, but it hardly made her grandparent of the year when she saw the boys so rarely that she could never tell them apart.
‘I think we should just do it,’ said Taffy after a moment’s thought. ‘I mean, we’re renting here anyway, and it’s hardly perfect for our needs. So let’s take the adventure, jump in with both feet and enjoy it the way Elsie intended. I mean, when somebody loves you so much, Holly, to make such a phenomenal offer, it might actually be more upsetting to her if you said no.’
Holly nodded. ‘Plus it turns out, with the prospect of leaving, that I really and truly hate this house.’
‘You do?’ Taffy was astounded. ‘But you wanted to stay here after Milo left?’
Holly shrugged. ‘Only for a little while so there weren’t too many changes at once for the boys, but then life got busy and the months flew by and,’ she held up her hands, ‘here we are. Still living in Milo-Land.’
‘Oh for God’s sake!’ laughed Taffy. ‘What a pair we are. You know I hate this house too – I just thought you were committed to it, so I made it work.’
Holly blinked hard. ‘But you said how convenient it was for work—’
‘Well I had to find something positive to say, didn’t I?’
Holly shook her head, starting out laughing and suddenly finding there were tears pouring down her face. ‘This is mad.’
Taffy nodded, swallowing a little hard himself at the sight of such emotion on her face.
‘So we’re actually doing this?’ she queried, her hands pressed to her lips as though to restrain herself.
‘I know it’ll be a wrench to leave all this luxury behind,’ said Taffy with a smile, ‘but I think we’ll manage.’ He paused. ‘Is it weird that I still wish Elsie was staying put, though? I quite like the idea of an eccentric granny on hand for words of advice and killer cocktails.’
‘Me too,’ replied Holly. ‘You know what, though, I think it’s good that we’ve started to share our little foibles.’ She
shook her head. ‘I can’t believe we would just have stayed in this bloody house for ever, if Elsie hadn’t started the conversation for us.’
Taffy frowned. ‘Hang on, though. Elsie knew I hated living in Milo’s shadow.’
Holly leaned forward. ‘And she knew I hated feeling stuck here, waiting to move on.’
Taffy raised one eyebrow. ‘Well, I can think of cheaper ways to get us talking to each other than giving you her townhouse.’
Holly grinned. ‘But none of them quite so very effective.’ She kissed him gently on the lips. ‘You know this means that you’ll have to build a proper treehouse?’
‘For me and Dan?’ Taffy teased her.
‘Why not?’ she said, as Ben and Tom appeared breathlessly at the door, their clothes and hands utterly filthy but their faces beaming.
‘We’re ready for fire!’ Ben announced.
‘And beans,’ Tom chimed in.
Taffy squeezed Holly’s hand. ‘Well then, it’s decided; it looks like we’re ready for anything!’
Chapter 28
Alice pushed her chair back from her desk the next afternoon and watched Susan Motherwell make her way tentatively across the room to the examination couch. With a name like Motherwell, there had to be a certain expectation about how you raised your five children. Five children? The thought didn’t bear countenance, yet on every other occasion that Alice had met Susan she had been calm and funny and seemingly in control of her various offspring, whose ages ranged from nine to nineteen.
Not so much today.
Today, Susan was clammy with a cold sweat and apologising for herself with every step she took, ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Walker. I really feel like I might be wasting your time, but I’ve felt so unwell all night—’ She finally reached her destination and heaved herself up onto the couch as though it was taking every ounce of her strength to do so.
‘Tell me again,’ Alice said, as her mind worked itself through the symptoms that Susan had been casually dropping into their conversation one by one, until Alice felt as though she was trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle in her head to find the clearer picture.
Susan gave an uncomfortable laugh. ‘Well, like I said, it just feels as though there’s this heavy weight on my stomach and the pain at about 3 a.m. was just awful. And this morning my jaw is so sore – maybe I was grinding my teeth together when it hurt?’
‘And when did this cold sweating begin?’ Alice asked gently.
‘About breakfast time. I couldn’t eat anything. I felt too sick. Do you think it’s an ulcer, Dr Walker? We have been having a pretty stressful time lately, what with Nathan and his troubles.’
Downplaying Nathan Motherwell’s issues as ‘troubles’ was so typical of Susan. The poor lad had been caught up in the bombing of a tourist resort on his gap year and had been lucky to escape with surface injuries and an overwhelming case of survivor’s guilt. Even as Susan alluded to it, Alice watched another spasm of pain cross her face as she doubled over.
Alice pressed the intercom button on her phone to request another pair of hands. She didn’t want Susan to overhear the phone call that needed to be made. It was one thing to tell a previously healthy fifty-year-old woman that she was having a heart attack, it was quite another to do it so far from hospital treatment.
It was only when Alice knew for a fact that the emergency transfer was pulling into the Market Place that she gently sat down beside Susan and outlined her concern.
‘A heart attack?’ Susan said, confusion all over her face. ‘Oh Dr Walker, I think you’ve got that wrong.’
‘It’s different for women,’ Alice explained. ‘Women erode; men explode. Their heart attacks are more aggressive – sudden onset, arm pain, chest pain . . . For women, we need to look for different signifiers and I’m sorry, Susan, but we really need to get you checked out. The team in Bath know you’re coming. I think we can all be grateful that you did the right thing and popped in this morning.’
Alice didn’t dare think what the alternative might have been, if Susan had chosen to push on through, as most mothers normally did. It was a mystery to Alice how few women actually knew what a heart attack might feel like for them, rather than their husbands.
Seeing Susan safely into the rig and briefing the paramedics left Alice feeling strangely off balance, as though she had some part of herself invested in Susan’s recovery.
She was almost relieved to see her next patient arrive with an angry boil on his back. A nice, simple, easy fix. Disgusting, no doubt, but predictable. Taking a certain amount of satisfaction in the procedure, Alice lanced the swelling caused by a curled, in-grown hair and swabbed the area clean. If only everything in life was as easy and rewarding to deal with, she thought. Wondering how she might deal with the metaphorical carbuncles in her own life, she was only too pleased to call it a day.
‘Fancy a run later?’ Alice said to Taffy, as she picked up her habitual clobber from the doctors’ lounge. ‘I haven’t forgotten about our Three Peaks idea, you know, so I hope you’ll be match fit when we get around to it.’
He shook his head. ‘Ye of little faith, Walker. I’m ready when you are. But I can’t run tonight anyway. Popping into Bath with the missus-to-be.’ He looked strangely excited at the prospect.
‘No worries,’ said Alice. ‘Have fun.’ She couldn’t help being a teensy bit envious of the ease and affection that Taffy and Holly brought to their relationship. She’d yet to see any cross words between them, except that time when Taffy tucked into the cupcakes Holly had ordered for the twins’ birthday party, but even that had been tempered by her obvious struggle not to laugh. Their relationship might not be perfect, but it was as close to a role model as Alice was ever likely to find.
She pulled her phone from her pocket as she left the building. There was no hesitation, no self-analysis – she just needed to hear a friendly and supportive voice. ‘Jamie? Do you fancy a walk with me and Coco this evening?’
‘That sounds great,’ he said with his usual enthusiasm, ‘but I can’t stay long. I’ve got plans later.’
‘Anything exciting?’ asked Alice, an awkward sixth sense protesting that she’d even asked the question.
Jamie hesitated, the few beats of silence stretching through the ether. ‘Just a date. A blind date, actually. Judith at the training centre thought we might be a good match.’ He paused. ‘I’m not really sure about blind dates, but beggars can’t be choosers.’
Alice got off the phone and began to wonder whether there might be a lurgy doing the rounds; her stomach was lurching in a most disconcerting way. Perhaps it was the very idea that somebody as lovely as her friend Jamie, all six foot four of tousled charm, might consider himself to be a beggar on the dating scene. She daren’t think where that left her.
Alice walked through the Market Place and felt whispers of that insidious sense of detachment that had dogged the last few months. She’d been trying so hard to move forward, but something was holding her back. Certainly when she’d moved to Larkford last year, she had been filled with good intentions, enthusiasm for a fresh start and with the hand of friendship outstretched. It had been somewhat galling to discover that she had brought most of her problems with her and her ‘new life’ was very much a case of same-shit-different-location.
‘Alright, tiger,’ said Jamie, slamming the car door of his knackered Subaru with just enough force to get the door to catch. ‘Lovely to hear from you. Was beginning to think that young Coco was avoiding me and you’d jumped on the political bandwagon. I’d half expected to see you two on the evening news wielding a placard.’
He leaned in and kissed Alice on the cheek and the warmth of his face against hers made her hesitate. She knew that, on so many levels, she would be lost without Jamie – after all, he was the one who had helped her through all these months of indecision about Coco. On the other hand, she held back. The idea of being so reliant on one person for anything frightened her. If she closed her eyes against the late-afternoon sun, h
er friendship with Jamie looked conceivably like all her eggs nestled firmly in one basket.
That’s why a little distance was good, she told herself.
She was doing just fine.
Publically.
No need for him to know that she was drowning.
After all, he obviously had dates and girlfriends requiring his ear and his shoulder; pulling him under with her could only have one possible consequence. And life without Jamie’s friendship didn’t bear contemplating.
She didn’t like to consider that she might be doing him a disservice, not crediting him with the emotional reserves he might need to cope with what her mother called The Full Alice. She daren’t stop to imagine his reaction if she threw open her front door and aired all her dirty laundry. And she certainly didn’t need anyone to point out that a friendship built on half-truths and secrets wasn’t actually much of a friendship at all.
‘Not quite, well, not yet anyway. But there’s an idea for an auction afoot. We’re all a bit shell-shocked about the cutbacks, to be honest.’
Jamie nodded. ‘I can see why. It’s going to put an awful lot of pressure on your team if you’re expected to fill in the gaps.’ He paused, realising that he didn’t seem to have her full attention. ‘Just let me know if I can do anything to help, yes?’
‘Of course I will,’ Alice replied distractedly. ‘So,’ she said with an imperceptible sigh, noting that he was wearing his best blue shirt – the one that made his eyes look like cornflowers – ‘tell me about this blind date then?’
Jamie looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know much. I don’t really know why I’m going.’ He paused and looked at her. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for blind dates.’
Alice nodded, trying to muster some sympathy. ‘It’ll be fine. Judith wouldn’t set you up with anyone too hideous, now would she?’