Summer with the Country Village Vet

by Zara Stoneley

  Lucy didn’t know whether to be cross or laugh, but Elsie Harrington didn’t give her chance to do either. In fact, the way she jumped from one train of thought to another it was taking all her time to keep up, let alone contribute.

  The elderly lady waved her over towards the bench, then easing herself down she patted the empty spot next to her.

  ‘So dear, do you have a lot of friends where you are now? Is that your worry? Good friends will wait you know.’

  ‘Friends?’ Lucy paused. ‘I keep in touch with my friends at college, but everybody is so busy.’ And she’d been busiest of all, determined to leave with more than just qualifications. Teaching wasn’t going to be just a job, like some of her friends had seen it, it was going to be her life. ‘They work all over the country now so it’s hard to keep in touch.’

  ‘But you have new friends, where you live? Neighbours?’

  She’d had colleagues rather than friends at Starbaston. Apart from Sarah of course. Sarah had been a good friend. But everybody had their own lives, all dispersed in different directions at the end of the school day. ‘It’s difficult, teaching is so full-on these days with all the lesson planning you need to do.’ How did she explain it to Elsie, who had been brought up in another much slower time, with no Ofsted, or league tables?

  Back in the day when teachers were trusted to teach.

  She was up late every night in the week, and at the weekend by the time she’d tidied the house, all she wanted to do was flop down and watch a film, eat pizza and fall asleep before she’d finished either.

  ‘You lead such busy lives these days, you youngsters.’

  Her rapid promotion hadn’t helped either. ‘I was promoted as well and had to kind of keep a professional distance.’

  ‘Ahh, you mean people were jealous? There are always those who will be passed over and blame the achievers, rather than seeing their own short comings.’

  Some had been jealous, but it hadn’t helped when the head had emphasised the need to keep a professional distance. Naively she’d gone against her natural instincts, taken his advice, and wished she hadn’t. The staff needed to work as a team to overcome the massive problems. Like they seemed to do here, in Langtry Meadows.

  She wriggled on the bench, feeling uncomfortable. Elsie Harrington was inadvertently painting her as a sad, work-obsessed, lonely singleton, which she wasn’t at all. In fact, since she’d been in Langtry Meadows she’d spent more evenings out than she’d spent working. And she had, very briefly, had a date organised for tonight. Although she very much doubted that was going to happen now.

  ‘I do go out sometimes, but we’re all the same. Once I’ve been teaching longer I’ll have things in place, it will be a lot easier.’ Once I’ve stopped needing something to hide behind.

  ‘So it isn’t friends that you’re bothered about missing. Something else.’ She tapped her stick on the floor. ‘Langtry Meadows is a pretty place isn’t it dear? I feel so lucky to be part of it. Do you mind me asking about this village you were brought up in, and why you left?’

  ‘Well, to be honest I can’t remember that much about it. I was only eight when we moved, when my parents split up. I don’t remember Stoneyvale being as pretty as Langtry though, it was bigger.’

  ‘And you moved far away?’

  ‘To the edge of a nearby town, it was all Mum could afford. Things weren’t the same after that, the kids on the estate hated us, they said we were country bumpkins, and my old friends kind of drifted away.’ She paused. ‘Well friend.’ She wondered why she was telling an old lady this, she’d never really told anybody. But there again, had anybody asked? ‘I didn’t seem to fit with anybody anymore.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘I thought maybe Amy wasn’t keen on visiting my new home, it was too rough.’ She shrugged. ‘Nobody wanted to know us, which kind of put me off village life a bit.’ Major understatement. Except now she was starting to see it in a slightly different light.

  ‘Children can be like that, terribly cruel and selfish. Especially girls. Thoughtless.’ They could be. But she’d felt abandoned. ‘And your mother, was she happy?’

  Lucy was ashamed to realise that she’d always just assumed her mother was okay, she certainly always put a bright face on things, a positive spin.

  ‘She was a bit manic, always rushing round.’ Always working, saying she wanted life to be normal – but forgetting what normal had been like. ‘She didn’t have a moment to stop, talk.’

  ‘It can affect you like that, loss.’ Elsie’s tone had softened, and Lucy wondered what she’d lost herself. But didn’t like to ask. ‘Children should be cocooned, and we try our best, but sometimes we can’t come up with the perfect solution can we? We can be too busy aiming for the sky when we should be smelling the roses. A mother can lose sight of the very things she is trying to protect. But I’m sure she was trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘Oh she did, she worked so hard.’ Lucy had seen how her mother had worked to the point of cheery exhaustion to make sure they survived, but had never thought of her mother’s loss. Losing her home, her friends, her husband.

  ‘Maybe there was more to the move than you realised? Sometimes it’s hard to explain to children, easier to leave things unsaid.’ Her lips were pursed as though she was thinking about things that she wasn’t voicing.

  ‘Oh I knew she hadn’t got any choice, it was all she could afford and we hadn’t even got a car so it would have been difficult to stay in the village.’

  ‘Or maybe she didn’t want to, Lucy? If it had been a truly happy place for her, for all of you, I’m sure she would have found a way of staying. Mothers have rights if they have children.’

  How come Elsie Harrington had managed to hit the nail on the head so cleanly? It was only in the last few days that she’d started to realise things hadn’t been as straightforward as she’d assumed. That she’d started to question their family life, exactly who had walked away. And why. ‘She was happier once we’d moved. More tired, but more relaxed. Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘Not really my dear. It rather sounds like it was your new home that was an unhappy place for you, but you blamed your previous friends, your old life, for not being there to support you. Whereas it sounds like for your mother it was the other way round. Not that I know anything, I’m just a silly old woman.’

  ‘Oh you’re not. But, honestly, I’m not complaining. I do love Mum, but you’re right I hated where we lived, hated not fitting in, hated the fact she had to do so many jobs and had to be out all the time.’ Oh hell, she felt so guilty now. She’d never actually stopped to think about it all from her mum’s point of view.

  ‘And you vowed that you’d be independent, it would never happen to you again? You would be in control.’

  Lucy squirmed uncomfortably, and Elsie patted her knee with an arthritis gnarled hand.

  ‘There is nothing wrong with wanting to be independent my dear, working hard, but from what Annie told me before she went off on her travels, you’ve maybe been working a little too hard?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘Well not really, I mean I’m only just starting my career, I need to prove myself.’ She needed a base, security, so that no matter who or what happened in the future she’d never have to be uprooted again. She’d vowed that she’d never have to watch her children lose everything. But maybe it hadn’t been about money, about her father leaving, maybe sometimes life wasn’t that simple.

  ‘The governors at the school were very impressed with your credentials my dear, and for one so young. Remarkable.’ She frowned at Lucy. ‘One might say driven.’ She waved at the ducks. ‘You’ve brought bread?’

  Lucy had forgotten all about the bread, all her thoughts had been hijacked. She started to tear little pieces off and throw them.

  ‘And you really don’t have fond memories of village life?’

  ‘Well I’m not really sure to be honest. I had a dog, friends, fun, but then all of a sudden I didn’t. Everything had gone. I didn’t belong there, or i
n my new home.’

  Village life had always seemed a backwards step, she’d been determined to move on and working in a city gave her better prospects, opportunities that didn’t exist here. Security. Or so she’d thought. She’d never stopped to think about the good bits of her childhood, until Langtry Meadows and its inhabitants had started to nudge the memories back to the front of her mind.

  ‘But your new life is better.’ Elsie patted her hand. ‘Well done, dear. Good for you. The only problem is that we tend to have rather selective memories. Good and bad, don’t we?’ She sat back, and they watched as the ducklings circled at the edge of the pond. ‘I suppose you are right though, village life is rarely “darling buds of May” perfect.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well I’ve been here all my life my dear, and for the most part it has been good. But we haven’t always had sunshine and fresh strawberries. In my childhood there were wars, unhappiness, and a good summer doesn’t always help the heart recover from loss.’ For a moment she looked faraway, sad, and then she snapped back to the present. ‘I try to remember the good bits though my dear. The positive. It would be incredibly sad to let that get spoiled by the things you can’t change, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Well er, yes, I suppose so.’ She screwed up her eyes and tried to remember. There were vague memories of happy times with her father, the whole family picnicking in the fields behind their home. But most of the good bits had been squashed down by the weight of bad memories around the time they’d moved. Elsie was right, it was sad. ‘We were the broken family in the village though,’ more than broken, they’d been on a downwards spiral that she was sure was something to do with her father, ‘In the city, once I’d grown up I found out we were the same as everybody else. Everybody was struggling to sort their own problems, disguise the imperfections. We were happier, in the end.’

  ‘So your mother did the right thing.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘But you need to remember that however hard you look, you’ll never find perfection, Lucy. Now,’ she paused dramatically, waiting for Lucy to look at her, ‘what on earth is happening with Charles? I hear that ex-wife of his was making a nuisance of herself.’

  Lucy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, talk about nosey neighbours, this woman knew everything. She couldn’t help herself, she blurted it out without pausing to think. ‘She brought their daughter to see him.’

  ‘Daughter?’

  It was genuine surprise. The old lady pursed her lips. ‘Ahh, I knew there must be something behind his return here, and his reluctance to talk. He was always an open book when he was younger. So sad. I am relying on you to look after him, my dear. Now, you must give my regards to your mother, and bring her round to see me if she visits. And you should talk to her, clear the cobwebs.’

  ‘I know, she said she’d come for a chat.’

  But it didn’t change the fact that staying here could be such a bad career move. The school was under threat. Her CV would soon look like a minefield of bad decisions – redundancy in one post, followed by school closure at her next. Even she would be wary of employing somebody with that kind of record.

  ‘It’s always worth looking on the bright side. I’m a realist my dear, but where is life without optimism? Oh my, is that the time? Lovely to chat to you Lucy.’ Elsie stood up and peered down. ‘Langtry Meadows is such a delight in the summer, it would be such a shame for you to miss it. Just remember, our lives are never quite as neat and tidy as we plan, but where is the fun in that?’ Her eyes seemed to be twinkling, and Lucy had a sudden desire to see what Elsie was like when she was younger.

  ‘Has your life been tidy?’

  ‘Oh no my dear, not at all. Total lack of control.’ She chuckled. ‘Although there were times I wished it had been. But hiding from things never helped, it didn’t protect my heart. There are things in my life that I should have faced up to, but I’ve left them too long. Far too long.’ She sounded almost wistful. ‘It gets harder my dear to turn back the clock, there are right and wrong times to make choices.’ She smoothed her skirt down briskly. ‘Do pop in when you’re passing, it would be lovely to have another chat. And if you do decide to leave, don’t forget to come and say goodbye.’

  Chapter 11

  Charlie reluctantly flicked the surgery lights on, and opened the blinds, just as the door swung open and admitted a waft of perfume.

  He hadn’t felt he had any choice but to agree to check Twinkle over the day after the accident. In fact, it had seemed the only way to escape Serena’s house. Rushing back over to the Taverner’s Arms to celebrate his freedom with Lucy had been a mistake on his part though. By the time he’d got there she’d been giggling away in a corner, flanked by Sally and the Harwood brothers, which had made him feel grumpier than he had in a long time. And he wasn’t sure why. He wanted to keep himself to himself didn’t he? It had been his choice. Whereas she’d slotted in as comfortably as though she’d always been there. The pretty, ever-smiling school teacher without a care in the world.

  And he was an idiot who’d already done an excellent job of cocking his life up. But he’d wanted to talk to her. And then off she’d trotted with the school headmaster in hot pursuit and he’d been left with a warm beer and an uncontrollable urge to run after them.

  So he had. And then he’d somehow ended up doing the one thing he hadn’t expected at all. He’d asked her out.

  He closed his eyes. He shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t fair on either of them.

  And then, just to prove what a mess his life really was, Josie had appeared.

  He should stick to work. He could cope with that. He was good at it.

  He gave the table an unnecessary wipe down and threw the consulting room door open.

  ‘Miss Stevens.’

  She was leaning on the reception counter. ‘Oh, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Serena?’ From the tote bag Twinkle gave a warning growl.

  ‘Come through. If you’ll just pop her on the table for me.’ No way was he going to infringe on the animal’s territory and put his hands in the bag.

  ‘Come on my lickle Twinky-winky baby.’ The dog carried on its grumbling as she lifted it out, little white teeth bared, its tiny nose wrinkled with annoyance. ‘Aww, is your leggy peg still sore, babe?’

  Charlie tried not to grimace.

  ‘Now, you’re not going to hurt her, are you?’ She frowned at Charlie, switching from baby tones to gravelly seductress.

  Not hurt her? He wasn’t going to touch her if he could avoid it. Now was an ideal opportunity to persuade Serena that life in a tote bag wasn’t an ideal existence. ‘Well she’s bearing weight on it. If you could pop her on the floor and walk her across the room for me.’

  Twinkle positively skipped as she sensed her ordeal was over and made a beeline for the door, she was slightly more reluctant when she was asked to walk back the other way.

  ‘That looks fine.’

  ‘You aren’t going to examine her properly? Eric—’

  ‘I don’t want to stress her more than absolutely necessary. Eric explained to me how sensitive she is.’

  ‘He did? He told you all about my little Twinkle? Oh, how sweet of him. Oh and he’s right, of course.’

  ‘Isn’t he always?’ Charlie nodded gravely, hoping his employee wouldn’t mind the white lies. ‘Now,’ he was going to see how far he could play this one, ‘I think he mentioned to you how important it is that she strengthens those legs, especially,’ he coughed, he was going to have to say it, needs must, ‘if she is going to have pups at some point.’

  ‘Oh.’ Serena looked at him blankly. ‘They’ll be tiny, and she can’t carry them exactly. I thought about getting a bigger bag then the whole family could…’

  ‘While she’s pregnant?’

  ‘Oh my, yes. I hadn’t thought of that, silly me.’ She lifted the little dog up in one hand, and patted her stomach. Twinkle snarled. Charlie wondered if she’d eat any offspring before they had chance to dra
w their first breaths.

  ‘Well, er, it is something for the future, but nothing like preparing in advance.’

  ‘But she does like her bag, don’t you poppet?’ Serena put the dog back in her bag. ‘She looks so sweet in it, that’s why I got such a small one.’

  Charlie stared at the bag, speechless. He’d seen smaller suitcases.

  ‘Small Chihuahua silly, not bag.’ Serena giggled, and patted his arm flirtatiously and Charlie wondered which was more dangerous. Dog or owner.

  ‘A short walk each day to strengthen that leg.’ It was unprofessional, but he felt he had to do it. If she felt guilty she might actually follow advice. ‘We don’t want her losing the use of it, do we?’

  Oh God he was really overstepping the mark now.

  ‘Oh no,’ Serena had her hand over her mouth, ‘oh you don’t think? Oh I’d never forgive myself.’

  ‘A short walk,’ he adopted his brisk, no-nonsense tone, ‘every day. Walk her down to the green and let her socialise with the other dogs.’

  ‘Other dogs?’ Serena looked at him as though he was suggesting she tie a weight round the dog’s midriff and throw it in the lake. ‘Socialise?’

  ‘Yes. Dogs need to socialise. You can have her on an extendable lead if you feel better, but she does need to run around. Every day.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Every day.’

  ‘Then you’ll look at her again?’

  ‘Yes Miss Stevens, ring Sally on Tuesday and make an appointment for the following week.’

  ‘I will do, oh you’re so understanding Charlie,’ she glanced at his hands, ‘I always feel we’re in such strong, capable hands when we come here. Serena though, do call me Serena. Come on Twinkle.’

  Charlie slumped back against the cupboards as the door closed behind them, and wondered if it was too early to head to the Taverner’s Arms. He groaned as the bell rang announcing another client – why, oh why hadn’t he followed Serena and locked the door behind her?