by Penny Parkes
Chris turned to stare. ‘Well, I was thinking placards outside the Primary Care Trust, but you guys obviously do things a bit differently.’
Grace nodded. ‘We’ve learned the hard way that there’s only so much change we can effect with local interest. If we harness the internet and the press, the message reaches a much wider audience. And that’s what we want, isn’t it? For more people to feel the outrage we do? After all, not everyone lives in a rural area, but a lot of them sure come here for their holidays. And if time is of the essence—’
‘Maybe we can ask Julia to call Quentin?’ offered Lucy, oblivious to how the mention of those two names made all the GPs stiffen. ‘He could do a documentary short?’
‘And if the grieving families don’t want to do an interview, and frankly they shouldn’t have to, couldn’t we talk to the near-misses? People like Mims who might put a human face on the issue,’ suggested Alice quietly.
Holly looked across at Taffy and saw her own emotions reflected in his face. Their sense of responsibility to their patients was so well developed that every loss felt personal to them. She laid her hand on her bump to quieten the fidgeting and kicking match that seemed to be going on in utero. ‘We can get together a war chest. We need a fighting fund, if we’re going to incur media costs – coverage won’t come for nothing.’
‘Unless we use the news cycle,’ Grace said, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘If we can pull together something for release – a short statement to accompany a video or slideshow – we should be able to kick up quite a lot of dust without spending too much money. I for one would much rather that our fundraising actually covered the Air Ambulance repairs, or some extra midwives, rather than a fancy campaign. Simple, from the heart, no frills. We don’t need Quentin for that.’
‘I’ll ask Mims and Rupert when I see them this morning,’ volunteered Dan.
‘Can I borrow your camcorder?’ asked Lucy.
‘And let’s think about this auction and how we can boost donations. Maybe Elsie can hit up some of her cronies at Sarandon Hall for a few big-ticket items. If nothing else, maybe we can shame a few bureaucrats into action? After all, this kind of thing shouldn’t be necessary just to provide the basics of healthcare,’ Taffy said.
‘I think that’s the point, Taffs,’ Holly said gently. ‘For someone living in a big town or city, they take it for granted that they can get to a hospital if they need to. It’s not the same in the countryside, but they don’t necessarily know that.’
‘Ignorance,’ said Dan, bitterly. ‘It always comes down to ignorance.’
‘And he who shouts loudest,’ Grace reminded him. ‘Well, we may not have a fancy London address or a million people in our care, but we can shout loudly with the best of them. Maybe if we stop being an invisible, impersonal line on a balance sheet, the powers-that-be might realise that cutting our coverage actually kills. I wonder how they’d feel about that?’
‘If this was America, there’d be wrongful death suits flying around and everybody would be on their toes,’ said Chris tiredly.
‘Do we really want to go there, though? Surely a litigious approach only ends up with everyone losing but the lawyers?’ Grace said, ever the decent and considerate soul.
‘We don’t have to do it though, so much as threaten to do it,’ suggested Lucy.
‘Hint at it, maybe?’ Taffy offered.
‘I hate this,’ burst out Holly suddenly. She hadn’t even been aware that the words were in her mind, let alone tumbling out of her mouth. She took deep shuddering breaths to try and calm herself.
Chris looked panicked, obviously feeling responsible for raining on their parade. ‘God, Holly, I’m so sorry—’ he began.
‘Nobody should have to fear for the safety of their baby, or whether their child will get to hospital in time if they get rear-ended on the motorway. This is unacceptable and we shouldn’t stand for it,’ said Holly.
‘Hormones?’ queried Chris under his breath to Grace, taken aback by Holly’s vociferous eruption.
Holly wheeled to face him. ‘Humanity, actually,’ she said forcefully.
Taffy put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her face into his chest, attempting to soothe her. ‘This is hardly twenty-first-century healthcare, though, is it?’
Chris shrugged uncomfortably. ‘I can’t tell you how much it means that you all feel this way. I’ve been up half the night having angry conversations with myself. After all, it’s not as though we’ve been doing nothing, is it? I figured maybe I’d got too close to the problem, was taking it too personally.’
Grace shook her head. ‘No such thing, Chris. It is personal though, isn’t it? I mean, it could be anyone we know and love. Anyone we care about, not getting the help they need.’
Holly looked up, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. ‘You know what, I’m not interested in sticking a Band-Aid on this. Something that will peel off in a few months’ time and then we’re back to square one. Grace is right. We need to make sure our voice is heard in every negotiation. Let’s stop thinking local altogether.’
She paused and looked around the room at the expectant faces, some of them tinged with confusion. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. Now she’d had the idea, there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle.
‘Let’s raise some money, and some awareness – the auction can do that obviously – but then let’s go for gold: we need a rural consultation on every budget cut. We need someone on the inside, and any future changes need to take both urban and rural needs into account. What works in Brixham and Bristol may not work in Bibury or Broadway,’ she proclaimed.
‘A Minister for Rural Affairs,’ suggested Grace, as though it were the Holy Grail.
‘I think there already is one,’ ventured Lucy, who clearly had more time to read the newspaper than anyone else in the room. ‘But they cover the environment and farming and food – it’s a really wide brief.’
‘Jack of all trades and master of none?’ suggested Dan.
‘Minister for Rural Health then,’ countered Grace, undeterred. ‘Or even consultant. Obviously we won’t get what we want, but we can raise the level of debate in this country at the very least. It’s not just the South West either. Think about the Lake District or Norfolk or Northumberland. This has to directly affect a huge proportion of the population.’
‘About twenty per cent,’ said Lucy. ‘Give or take.’
‘How do you know all this stuff?’ asked Grace curiously.
‘I don’t know. The news. The internet. Teddy at The Kingsley Arms,’ Lucy replied.
‘What are we going to do then?’ asked Chris, clearly blown away by the strength of reaction his plea for help had elicited.
‘We are going to kick arse,’ said Holly with feeling. She swiped the mascara away from her lashes and looked over at Taffy for his support. ‘For once, we’re going to present a united front for rural England and shout loudest.’
Chapter 45
This wasn’t exactly how Holly had foreseen the first day of married life panning out, she thought later that morning. It was hardly romantic to be hiding out in her consulting rooms, breathing deeply and trying to take her own blood pressure so as not to cause alarm unnecessarily. She looked at the reading again: 149/100.
Not horrific, but hardly ideal.
If she were any of her pregnant patients, she’d be giving them a pretty stern lecture about taking things easy about now.
It was the headache that had tipped her off. Sure she was tired and emotional, her feet a bit swollen and puffy, but it was always going to be a difficult balancing act working whilst pregnant, even without the constant spectre of another bout of pre-eclampsia on her radar. It was obviously good news that there was no protein in her wee. Once that happened, all bets were off.
As she knew only too well.
If she wanted to avoid a repeat performance, she was going to have to be fairly ruthless with herself.
Taffy poked his h
ead around the door with unerring timing. ‘You okay in here, Mrs J?’ The concern was etched on his face and when he saw the blood pressure cuff on her arm, his eyes flashed with alarm. ‘And?’
‘149 over 100,’ Holly said with a shrug. ‘No protein. Just a horrid headache and mungo feet.’
‘Bed,’ he said firmly, with no hint of negotiation or newlywed flirtatiousness. Again, hardly the ideal honeymoon scenario. He picked up her handbag, grimacing with surprise as he realised just how much it weighed. ‘Jesus Christ, woman! What have you got in here? You’ll give yourself a hernia to boot.’
There was no point explaining to Taffy all the ‘just in case’ crap that she lugged around on a daily basis. In a few months’ time, he’d discover that for himself, once these little muppets made their entrance into the world; travelling light would no longer be an option. She sighed, as the thought occurred to her that, unless she was very careful, there was every chance that her autumn babies might be making an early appearance.
‘Can you get my clinic covered?’ she asked.
‘No problem,’ he replied easily. ‘We’ll get things squared away between the three of us. If you don’t mind me coming back here and leaving you to Elsie’s ministrations? Maybe Lizzie could pop by and keep you company.’ He grinned and kissed her tenderly, clearly unwilling to relinquish her care to anyone else. ‘I’ll have to have firm words with those two, though. Doctor’s orders: no more excitement for you today, my love.’
She attempted a smile, but it never reached her eyes. The disappointment felt like a thump in the ribs – putting aside how she had envisaged her first day as Holly Jones (even if she had every intention of keeping her maiden name), there was so much to be done here.
Thank God Grace had chosen this particular day to come back to work, as the wheels had been due to fall off the wagon any day now. Thank God her new husband was so understanding and flexible, taking everything in his stride.
Back at Elsie’s, Holly felt as though she had stumbled into the Twilight Zone. Elsie on one sofa, a neat little cashmere blanket tucked over her legs, and Lizzie on the other, with Eric draped across her lap. They were nibbling on leftover goodies from the wedding and appeared to be glued to Antiques Roadshow.
‘Oh, just look at his smug little face,’ said Elsie in disgust. ‘You just know he’s convinced it’s worth a fortune.’
‘Maybe he’ll drop it,’ suggested Lizzie, cramming an entire mini tartlet into her mouth at once. ‘I love it when they drop things.’
‘So this is what you two get up to on a Monday morning?’ said Holly with a smile. She scooched Eric over a bit and gratefully sank into the sofa with a groan. The relief of being off her swollen feet while the weather was so warm was untold.
‘Of course,’ said Elsie with a grin. ‘It’s no fun watching it on your own, so I record it and we watch it together.’
‘It’s part of our start-the-week-right routine,’ Lizzie seconded. ‘Everybody else is off at work being useful and sociable.’ She frowned for a moment. ‘Speaking of which?’ She looked at Holly pointedly. ‘Why aren’t you off saving the world today?’
Holly blushed. There’d been no point in ushering Taffy away before he could tell on her, apparently. ‘Blood pressure’s a bit high. Might need to put my feet up for a bit.’
‘Well, the more the merrier, I say,’ said Elsie, her voice bright and chirpy, but her gaze sweeping over Holly in concern. ‘Tell me, darling, were your feet always so bloody enormous?’
They all stared at Holly’s feet, resting on Elsie’s velvet pouffe in her favourite flip-flops. To Holly’s eye, they were only marginally swollen.
‘Oh, she’s always had the most humongous feet,’ Lizzie said dismissively. ‘At uni, one of her boyfriends actually broke up with her because of them. Said he couldn’t sleep with them poking up at the end of the bed like little bald meerkats.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Holly. ‘I’d forgotten about Steve. He was such a wanker. Wonder what he’s doing now?’
‘Oh you’ll love this,’ said Lizzie. ‘He’s a chiropodist. Big ugly feet, all day, every day. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap.’
Holly snorted with laughter and was immediately shushed by Elsie, who rudely turned up the volume even louder to drown them out. Lizzie leaned over. ‘Very strict viewing rules for this. No idle chit-chat. You can talk about antiques, take the piss out of the punters, but no gossiping.’
Elsie shushed them again, rolling her eyes. ‘Look, it’s that lovely ceramics guy. I wouldn’t kick him out of bed,’ she said with feeling.
‘You definitely shouldn’t,’ said Holly. ‘He’d probably break a hip. Just look at those joints on his hands. Rheumatoid arthritis is a nasty bugger.’
Elsie glared at her. ‘Do you find me discussing the physical shortcomings of your TV crushes? No, you do not. Now be quiet and watch.’
They all stared at the screen, mindlessly snacking and cheering when an underdog was occasionally surprised with good news about the value of their tea set, or booing when superior limelight-seekers had their fortune confirmed.
‘Six figures for a trinket! A bloody ugly trinket at that!’ Lizzie said in amazement.
‘I rather like it actually,’ countered Elsie. ‘It was very in vogue in the Sixties. I think Jackie O used to collect them for her dressing table.’
‘I’ve got Lego and Transformers on mine,’ said Holly dolefully, long since having given up on finding any valuable items lurking in her own cupboards.
Elsie just frowned. ‘I had no idea these things were still in fashion; there’s probably one or two kicking around upstairs,’ she said airily. ‘Remind me to go and look, won’t you, darlings?’
The door to the sitting room swung open abruptly and a flurry of yapping ensued as Noodle and Doodle barged in ahead of a very flustered Grace. ‘Well, thank God you’re all okay. Didn’t you hear me knocking?’ she demanded, giving the residents of the room a quick visual once-over and her shoulders dropping in relief at finding them all in relative good health.
Elsie guiltily turned the volume down on the TV, bringing it back from deafening to just plain blaring. Grace reached over and plucked the remote from her fingers. ‘Dan sent me over. You’re going to want to see this,’ she said firmly, as Elsie remonstrated.
The morning news was running on a loop and as the newsreader in question wound up a review of the money markets, Holly, Elsie and Lizzie all turned to her questioningly.
‘Just wait,’ cautioned Grace, as she adjusted the volume to human level and slid down into one of the winged armchairs.
Suddenly the screen was filled with the distraught face of Connor Danes, his eyes puffy and sore from crying. ‘If I can prevent this happening to just one other family,’ he croaked, ‘then it’s worth having the conversation, isn’t it?’
‘Is that—?’ began Holly.
‘It’s Connor – plays guitar for The Hive,’ said Lizzie. ‘We know him. What the hell’s happened?’
They all sat motionless as the poor guy poured his heart out to the journalist in front of him. Every now and then, his voice would break and he would stifle a sob, but it was clear that he was grimly determined to have his say. The news ribbon streamed across the bottom of the screen: ‘Hit guitarist for rock phenomenon The Hive loses wife and unborn daughter.’
‘Was it a car crash?’ asked Holly, unable to follow his rambling train of thought.
Grace shook her head. ‘They live in the middle of nowhere and—’
‘They bought that massive country estate on the Dorset border, do you remember?’ interrupted Lizzie. ‘Just stunning. Worth millions.’
‘Well, that just goes to prove that all the money in the world can’t buy you happiness,’ said Grace sadly. ‘It seems she had some complications with a premature labour. They’d been banking on the maternity unit in Shaftesbury nearby, but it closed overnight, no warning. They had no idea. And then, there were no viable alternatives locally and there was no tim
e to get her to the regional hospital.’
‘No Air Ambulance?’ Elsie frowned.
‘Several casualties at a hockey tournament in the next county. So no. It sounds like the perfect storm, everything that could possibly go wrong.’
‘What were the complications?’ asked Holly, her hands cradling her bump with extra-special care.
‘The earlier report cited lots of bleeding. Now they’re saying placental abruption, but I guess they won’t know for sure until the autopsy.’ Grace shook her head in disbelief. ‘Connor Danes, you know. You kind of assume that people like that are immune to tragedy.’
Holly swallowed hard. This was horrific news at the best of times. Hearing it whilst pregnant with twins certainly made you think.
Her head shot up in surprise, as Connor went on to echo her earlier sentiment from their strategy meeting, almost word for word: ‘What’s it going to take,’ he pleaded, ‘for the authorities to realise that rural lives count too? To stop playing fast and loose with our families, with our loved ones? Can’t they see that the decisions they’re making in a London office are causing fatalities? My wife, my baby – they didn’t need to die. Is it really too much to ask for a maternity service that works or more than one Air Ambulance to be on duty?
‘I am not going to let this drop. I’m not letting their deaths be in vain. I am coming for you, Westminster, and things are going to change.’ He stared straight into the camera lens, his eyes hollow with grief and pain. ‘Fame isn’t worth a thing when you lose your family, but my God am I going to use it now.’
The news report flicked back to yet another bombing in the Middle East and Holly felt the tears coursing down her cheeks. She looked up to find that she wasn’t alone. Even Elsie was sobbing quietly into a lace-edged handkerchief. ‘That poor, poor man,’ she managed.
Holly swallowed down a wave of nausea and fear. There but for the grace of God. Logically, she knew that unless a severe placental abruption actually happened in hospital, in easy reach of an operating theatre, the chances of mother and child surviving might be slim. But emotionally? To the world he might be Connor Danes, world-famous musician, but to Holly right then, he was a grieving husband and father before all else. ‘We should send him a letter of support,’ she suggested. ‘Some flowers or something.’