A Wife Worth Waiting For

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘Do we ever,’ Alex exclaimed, taking the sheet of paper the receptionist was holding out to them. Quickly she read the report, then handed it to Hugh. ‘A gastric ulcer. Well, no big surprise there. Chrissie, could you phone—?’

  ‘Already done it,’ the receptionist replied. ‘Lady Soutar wasn’t in so I asked her housekeeper to pass on the message that her results were here, and we’d appreciate it if she could come down to the surgery to discuss them.’

  ‘I think that’s called the triumph of hope over experience,’ Hugh said wryly. ‘She’ll demand a home visit as usual, and when she does could you try to fit it in on a day when one of us will be near Glen Dhu? Criss-crossing the country to pay her a home visit is not time effective.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Chrissie replied. She held out a file to him. ‘Rory Murray.’

  ‘OK,’ Hugh replied, but as he turned to go he cocked an eyebrow at Alex. ‘No more of those looks, and that’s an order.’

  ‘Looks?’ Chrissie repeated after he’d gone. ‘What looks is Hugh talking about?’

  ‘No idea,’ Alex said evasively. ‘Who do I have next?’ she added, but Chrissie ignored the question.

  ‘Hugh certainly seems to be full of bounce these days, doesn’t he?’ she said instead, her voice casual, but her eyes sparkling with clear interest.

  ‘Having three doctors makes a big difference,’ Alex replied. ‘It means everyone’s less stressed and tired.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Chrissie said, and Alex knew the receptionist was not one bit deceived.

  So much for keeping her relationship with Hugh a secret, she thought with a deep sigh. They’d been sleeping together for just three weeks, and already Chrissie had clearly guessed, but she wasn’t about to confirm the receptionist’s suspicions. She might have been willing to go public about her Hodgkin’s, but her relationship with Hugh was not for public consumption. At least not yet.

  ‘So, who do I have next?’ she asked determinedly.

  ‘It’s the MacDonald twins for their booster MMR jabs. Mrs MacDonald—’

  The receptionist bit off the rest of what she’d been about to say as the waiting-room door suddenly opened, then let out a gasp of dismay as a distinctly harassed-looking Mrs Allen appeared with Jamie by her side, blood dripping down his forehead.

  ‘Holy mackerel, Jamie!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘How on earth did you do that?’

  ‘You might well ask, Doctor,’ Mrs Allen said with resignation as Alex swiftly steered Jamie through to her consulting room. ‘You’d think a fractured elbow would keep him out of harm’s way, but he was playing some game with his brother, Martin, caught his forehead on the sitting-room door latch, and this is the result.’

  Quickly Alex reached for a bottle of antiseptic.

  ‘This is going to sting quite a bit, Jamie,’ she warned, ‘but I need to see how deep the wound is.’

  It was deep. In fact, the only thing to be thankful for was though the gash ran from Jamie’s hairline to his eyebrow, he would have lost an eye if it had been any lower.

  ‘It needs stitches, Mrs Allen,’ Alex declared. ‘Steri strips aren’t going to be nearly strong enough to keep the wound together. I’ll phone A and E, tell them you’re on your way—’

  ‘Can’t you just stitch it for him, Doctor?’ Mrs Allen interrupted. ‘When Neil cut his arm a couple of years back, Dr Hugh stitched it for him, and to be honest I’m not really up for yet another visit to the hospital.’

  Alex stared indecisively at the little boy. If the wound had been on his arm, or his leg, she wouldn’t have thought twice, but the gash was smack bang in the middle of his forehead, and if she made the stitches just that little bit too tight he would be left with a horribly disfiguring scar.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Mrs Allen,’ she said. ‘I just want a word with Dr Scott, so could you keep that pad against Jamie’s forehead for me?’

  Jamie’s mother nodded, and Alex sped swiftly down to Hugh’s room, praying he hadn’t called Rory Murray through yet, but he had. She had to wait a good ten minutes while Rory complained that the anti-inflammatory drugs he’d been prescribed weren’t working nearly as well as the paracetamol, and the physiotherapist Hugh had arranged for him to see must be related to Attila the Hun because the exercises he was expecting him to do were downright impossible.

  ‘Not exactly the world’s best patient, is he?’ Alex observed when Rory had finally gone.

  ‘He wants an instant cure, but there is no cure for osteoarthritis,’ Hugh replied. ‘All we can do is manage the condition.’ He leant back in his seat with a smile. ‘And you clearly have a problem judging by the way you shot into my room, or did you feel my irresistible charm calling to you?’

  ‘Your charm is indisputable.’ She smiled. ‘But I’m afraid, on this occasion, I have a problem.’

  Quickly, she told him what had happened, and he winced.

  ‘Sounds nasty,’ he said.

  ‘It is, and I know I shouldn’t ask this,’ Alex said, ‘but could you stitch Jamie’s forehead for me? He’s only six, Hugh,’ she added as Hugh’s eyebrows rose, ‘and the last thing I want is him to be left with a really visible scar for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ he declared, getting to his feet, and Alex followed him back to her consulting room with relief.

  ‘Are you going to use toothed or non-toothed forceps?’ she asked after Hugh had deadened the area he was going to stitch, and Jamie had been bribed by his mother with the promise of unlimited time on his games console if he kept still.

  ‘I prefer the toothed variety when stitching a wound like this,’ Hugh replied, ‘but the most important thing to remember when stitching through skin on the forehead is to keep your wrist as flexible as possible when you insert the needle, and to use interrupted sutures for the best cosmetic effect.’

  Alex didn’t know about keeping her wrist flexed but, as she watched Hugh deftly insert the sutures into Jamie’s forehead, she did know an expert when she saw one.

  ‘You should have been a surgeon,’ she said with admiration when he had finished.

  ‘I did think about it,’ he observed. ‘Still do on days when I get patients like…when I get some patients,’ he amended with a wink, ‘but I prefer the continuity of patient care that being a GP brings.’

  ‘It was Kilbreckan’s lucky day when Dr Scott and Dr MacIntyre decided to set up in practice here,’ Mrs Allen observed. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without them.’

  ‘Flattery will get you nowhere, Grace,’ Hugh said, his grey eyes twinkling, and the woman shook her head.

  ‘I always give credit where credit is due, Dr Hugh,’ she said, then sighed as she gazed at her son. ‘I suppose it could have been worse, but he’s certainly not going to be the bonnie laddie he was.’

  ‘I have every hope he’ll grow up to rival his big brother, Neil, in the good looks stakes,’ Hugh said encouragingly as Alex helped the young boy down from her examination table. ‘I know it looks a bit rough now but that’s just because of the swelling and the sutures. With luck, Jamie will eventually only be left with a very faint line on his forehead.’

  ‘If you say so, Doctor,’ Mrs Allen said dubiously. ‘When will he have to come back to have the stitches removed?’

  ‘Bring him back in a week so we can take a look at them,’ Hugh replied. ‘They might be ready to remove, they might not. It’s very much a look and see affair with stitches, but if the wound should begin to weep, or look very red and inflamed, I want him back here immediately, OK?’

  ‘Will do, Doctor.’ Mrs Allen nodded. ‘And thank you, too, Dr Alex.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Alex protested, and Grace Allen smiled, then shot a sidelong glance at Hugh.

  ‘I think you’d be surprised at what you’ve done, lass.’

  Alex could feel her cheeks prickling under Mrs Allen’s steady gaze, and after Jamie and his mother had left she groaned.

  ‘You know, our relationship has to be the worst-ke
pt secret in Kilbreckan,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve already had Chrissie doing her wink wink, nudge nudge routine, and now Mrs Allen obviously suspects something. Maybe we should just put stickers on our chests saying, Yes, we’ve done it, and put an end to all the speculation.’

  Hugh paused in the middle of binning the instruments he had used to stitch Jamie’s forehead.

  ‘Does the speculation bother you?’ he said.

  ‘Not bother, exactly, it’s just…’ Alex sighed. ‘I’d really like to have some private life.’

  ‘It’s pretty well impossible to have a private life if you live in the country,’ he murmured, ‘but, conversely, it’s also almost impossible to be lonely here. And speaking of country living…’ he continued, his expression becoming carefully neutral. ‘You only have another two weeks with us and then your contract will be over. If you’re not going to Cumbria, you’ll have to tell the agency.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, don’t crowd me, Hugh, OK?’ she said lightly, but it didn’t mean that, and she knew it didn’t.

  It meant I don’t know what to do, she thought as she collected the soiled swabs they’d used on Jamie. The last three weeks with Hugh had been wonderful so it should have been easy for her to say, yes, I want to stay on here, and yet still she was hesitating.

  You’ve not even been hesitating, her mind pointed out. Hesitating suggests you’ve been actively thinking about it, when what you’ve actually been doing is pushing it to the back of your mind, simply enjoying the now.

  ‘Alex, sometimes you just have to jump into the water,’ Hugh declared softly. ‘And you won’t sink. I promise I’ll always be there to catch you.’

  She stared up at him, at the face she now knew almost as well as her own, and all of her instincts urged her to simply say, yes, she would phone the agency, tell them she was no longer available for locum work, but Jonathan’s rejection had cut deep, and the wound was still there no matter how hard she tried to erase it.

  ‘I’d better get on,’ she said. ‘The MacDonald twins have come in for their booster MMR jab, and you know what they’re like. If they’re kept waiting too long they’ll start demolishing the waiting room.’

  Hugh nodded as he followed her out of her consulting room, but he didn’t look happy when he disappeared back into his consulting room, and she didn’t blame him. He was giving everything to their relationship while she…

  ‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ Chrissie said, looking distinctly harassed when Alex joined her, and Hugh disappeared into his own consulting room. ‘The MacDonald twins have already emptied the toy box, knocked over every potted plant, and managed to pull down one of the curtains. Give them another five minutes and I wouldn’t be surprised if they start unscrewing the waiting-room door.’

  ‘Regular bundles of fun,’ Alex said dryly, and Chrissie shook her head.

  ‘In sore need of some severe discipline, if you want my opinion. My kids would never have been allowed to…’

  Chrissie came to a halt as the waiting-room door swung open, and Alex would have been hard pressed to say later whether it was she or Chrissie who was most stunned to see who was standing on the threshold.

  ‘Alex, my dear.’ Lady Soutar beamed, advancing towards her. ‘I was on my way to Kilbreckan to see the vet about one of my dogs when my housekeeper phoned me on my mobile to say you had the results of my tests and wanted to discuss them with me.’

  ‘I—Yes—we do,’ Alex stammered, still stunned by the fact that Lady Soutar had actually come in to see her.

  ‘I know what I’ve got, of course,’ Lady Soutar declared dismissively. ‘Idiot man at the hospital maintained at first that he couldn’t tell me—correct medical procedures, or some such rot—but, as I told him, it’s my body so surely I have as much right—if not more—to know what’s wrong with it as he does.’

  ‘Right,’ Alex replied, desperately avoiding Chrissie’s eyes because she knew if she met them she would be sunk.

  ‘What I want to know now is how we treat this blasted thing,’ Lady Soutar continued, ‘so, do you have a private room where we can discuss this?’

  ‘I do, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a few minutes,’ Alex replied, seeing Chrissie wince as a high-pitched wail came from the waiting room. ‘I have to give the MacDonald twins their MMR injections, but after that I’m free.’

  ‘Splendid,’ Lady Soutar said, then glanced at Chrissie. ‘I’d like a white coffee, with no sugar, and two chocolate biscuits.’

  ‘I don’t…. We don’t normally…’ Chrissie looked in mute appeal at Alex, but Alex was too busy trying not to laugh to help her. ‘A white coffee, with no sugar, you said, Lady Soutar?’

  ‘And two chocolate biscuits.’ Lady Soutar nodded, and strode into the waiting room, leaving Chrissie staring, open-mouthed, after her.

  ‘I suppose we should be grateful she’s come in and saved somebody a trip to Glen Dhu,’ the receptionist said, shaking her head, ‘but she really is the absolute, giddy limit.’

  ‘With bells on,’ Alex said, her eyes dancing. ‘How many patients has Hugh left to see?’

  ‘Rory Murray was his last,’ Chrissie replied. ‘I imagine he’s probably catching up on his paperwork now. Do you want me to tell him Lady Soutar’s here?’

  ‘Do I ever,’ Alex said. ‘And could you tell him he’s more than welcome to sit in with me when I see Lady Soutar to discuss her treatment if he wants.’

  ‘If he wants?’ Chrissie chuckled. ‘Alex, I think he’d knock down your door if you tried to keep him out of this consultation.’

  ‘He probably would.’ Alex laughed. ‘Tell Hugh I’ll need about ten minutes with the MacDonald twins, and then I should be ready for Bunty. Oh, and don’t forget,’ she continued, her eyes sparkling. ‘It’s a white coffee—’

  ‘With no sugar, and two chocolate biscuits,’ Chrissie said, then burst out laughing.

  ‘The gastrointestinal endoscopy was slightly uncomfortable,’ Lady Soutar declared as she sat in Alex’s consulting room, ‘but, as I said to the consultant, once you’ve had a breech birth, you can pretty well stand anything.’

  ‘I gather from Dr Lorimer that Mr Denara gave you the results of the test?’ Hugh observed, his lips twitching slightly.

  ‘Didn’t want to at first—stupid man—but I soon persuaded him,’ Lady Soutar exclaimed. ‘Told him, my body, my results, and that’s when he told me I had a gastric ulcer. Reckoned I must have had it for at least ten years, and couldn’t understand why you lot hadn’t picked it up, but had kept prescribing antacids.’

  Hugh caught Alex’s eye and she smothered a smile.

  ‘Did Mr Denara explain what a gastric ulcer is, Bunty?’ she said, and Lady Soutar rolled her eyes.

  ‘Showed me a lot of incomprehensible diagrams, and said it was a hole in the lining of the stomach caused by acidic digestive juices but, as I said to him, I don’t give two hoots about what caused it. I just want to know how to get rid of it.’

  ‘And what did Mr Denara say?’ Alex asked a little unsteadily.

  ‘Silly chap said I had to discuss what happened next with my own GP.’ Lady Soutar shook her head. ‘Seems to me he was very good at making a diagnosis, but not exactly the brightest light bulb in the shop when it came to suggesting a cure. I suppose I’ll have to have an operation?’

  Alex glanced across at Hugh.

  ‘In the past you most certainly would have done,’ he said, ‘but thanks to the work of two Australian doctors—a Dr Warren and a Dr Marshall—we now know that many ulcers are caused by a bacterium in the stomach called Helicobacter pylori. Actually, Dr Marshall proved that H. pylori caused gastric inflammation by deliberately infecting himself with the bacterium.’

  ‘Sounds like my sort of man,’ Lady Soutar said. ‘Must have been a Brit before he moved down under.’

  ‘I don’t think he—’

  ‘So how do we get rid of this ulcer?’ Lady Soutar interrupted, cutting r
ight across Hugh, and Alex had to bite down hard on her lip to quell the laughter she could feel welling in her throat. ‘I presume I’ll have to take some pretty potent pills to kill off the bacteria?’

  ‘What you’ll need is a course of antibiotics,’ Hugh replied, ‘and some acid-reducing tablets.’

  Lady Soutar looked sceptical. ‘And this will cure the damned indigestion that’s been plaguing me?’

  ‘It will if you complete the course,’ Hugh said. ‘The most important thing is not to stop taking the pills even when you feel better. Not completing the course is one of the biggest causes of antibiotics failing to work.’

  ‘I’ll tell my maid to remind me,’ Lady Soutar declared, and got to her feet. ‘Alex, my dear, you must pop in to Glen Dhu one afternoon soon for a chat and a coffee. Dr Scott…’ Her gaze swept over him. ‘You need a haircut.’

  She’d swept out of the door before either Alex or Hugh could reply, and as their eyes met they both burst out laughing.

  ‘What a woman,’ Hugh said, shaking his head. ‘God, but I wish I could have been there when Mr Denara performed her endoscopy. Do you reckon the poor man’s in therapy now?’

  ‘If he isn’t, he definitely will be if we ever have to send Bunty back to him.’ Alex laughed. ‘But at least she’s finally accepted that she does have a gastric ulcer, so hopefully that will mean no more midnight calls for you and Malcolm.’

  ‘You mean, no more midnight calls for us,’ Hugh declared, his eyes fixed on her, and Alex’s laughter became a little shaky.

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’she said, and he shook his head.

  ‘Nope, and I definitely won’t ever give up on you. I don’t give up on the people I love.’

  ‘Hugh…’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he continued as she stared at him in amazement. ‘That it’s too soon for me to say I love you. That I’ve known you for less than three months, but I think I began falling in love with you when you clambered into Ewan Allen’s van, and elbowed me in the ribs. I know I wanted you desperately after I saw you dance.’