The Country Doctor's Choice

by Maggie Bennett

  ‘Thanks, sis, it really is appreciated,’ he told her, fervently hoping that Catherine would not drive them crazy within a week.

  And there was the choir – and Iris Oates and her adoration. He was, after all, only a man, and how could he look at the light in her eyes and remain unmoved, untouched, untempted? Tempted to do what? He was a married man, a very married man and a father and grandfather; and Iris was a Miss, which could mean single or divorced, aged somewhere between thirty and thirty-five, about a decade younger than himself. A nice girl with a pleasant face, not beautiful, a decent figure, nothing out of the ordinary except for that sweet, clear soprano voice and the effect it had on him – and the effect he clearly had on her. She was a newcomer to Everham, but where she lived and who, if anybody, she lived with, he had no idea. Now, if after the next choir rehearsal he asked her out for a quiet drink and she accepted, he would soon learn the answers …

  ‘There’s a packet for you on the table, Derek,’ said Daphne as the Revd Bolt came in at the end of an afternoon of pastoral counselling, visiting parishioners who needed to talk. ‘All the other post is on your desk. I had to sign for it, recorded delivery.’

  ‘Hi there, my favourite wife,’ he said, hanging up his coat and taking off his clerical collar. ‘How’ve you been today?’

  ‘Oh, well enough,’ she answered with a shrug. ‘Just the usual dead-tiredness and can’t concentrate on all the Christmas preparations, all the things a good clergy wife is supposed to do – preside over the Mothers’ Union, and listen to the deadly dull minutes of the last meeting, decide who’s to give the vote of thanks to a God-awful speaker, while missing the documentary on BBC2. Oh, my God, Derek, is there anything more depressing than a menopausal woman? I’m sorry.’

  ‘Poor old girl,’ he sympathised. ‘The boys’ll soon be home for Christmas, and they’ll do you good. You’ll buck up when they come hurtling through the door, with all their left-wing ideals and stories of university goings-on, all the ribaldry – ah, youth, youth!’

  ‘Bless them,’ she said with affection.

  ‘Why don’t you join Jerry North’s Christmas choir? They’re making amazing progress, and attracting a lot more members. I looked in on them the other evening, and thought what a magician he is. He could get music from a chorus of cats.’

  ‘No thanks, Derek, not for me. I couldn’t stand all the chatter. The woman in the bread shop told me that peculiar woman Beryl Johnson has just joined, you know, the one who lost her mother a while back, and was so hysterical at the funeral. It’d do her more good than it would me.’

  Derek froze. He stared at the packet on the sideboard, a small, square box that had come by recorded delivery. He mustn’t open it in front of Daphne. He scooped it up with the other mail and winked at her.

  ‘Better get the office work done before supper, then we’ll have a nice, quiet evening.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to open that?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, it’ll only be a sample of something we don’t need from the diocesan office,’ he said, and left the room before she could answer. In his stone-cold study – the central heating of the vicarage was kept to a minimum – he picked up the silver paperknife on the desk, and cut the brown paper to find his fears confirmed. It was a red box with a well-known jewellers’ name engraved on it, and it contained a gold tiepin, with a single diamond in the centre, nestling on a black velvet lining.

  There was also a letter, and his initial reaction was to tear it up unread, but caution dictated that he should check the contents in case there were any threats or indications as to what she might do if he ignored her. Taking it out of its envelope and holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a stinging insect, he shook it open.

  ‘Dear Reverend Bolt, dearest Derek,’ he read.

  Forgive me, I have to write because I cannot speak to you as I would prefer. Derek, you are starving me. All I ask is a crumb from your table, a word, a note, a letter, a telephone call, anything, just to acknowledge me and sustain me from one day to the next. Wear the tiepin and let me see it!

  Out of the question, he thought. How could the woman expect him to take such a risk, a clergyman, and a married man with a family? The letter continued as if answering him.

  I understand your obligations to family life, but I swear to you that Mrs Bolt cannot possibly love you as I do, nor with a quarter of my devotion to you. Every hour of every day your beloved face is before me. At night upon my bed I meditate on you, I hold you in my arms, I feel your body’s warmth as I go to sleep, and in the morning when I wake – oh, Derek, you are still there with me!

  For heaven’s sake, she’s obsessed, she’s mad, he thought, and what might she do? He groaned inwardly. I can’t possibly wear the tiepin, which must have cost at least a hundred pounds, possibly two, and I’ll have to keep it in the safe. Suppose Daphne – ought I to confide in Daphne in case she finds out? What a disaster. And there was more.

  If you only knew how much I long – oh, how I long for a sight of you, those glimpses of you in church, praying that you will send one brief glance in my direction, a crumb, a scrap from your bounty, one Good Morning among the many you have to say to those who do not appreciate it. You even deny me a handshake, a touch freely given to all except the one who pleads with you, begs you—

  A few more lines in the same vein ended with ‘your constantly devoted Beryl who beseeches you for an answer.’

  Derek glanced at his watch: Daphne was preparing supper and would soon be calling him to the kitchen table where they ate informally when alone. What on earth was he to do? He screwed up the letter in his hand and shoved it and the jewellers’ box into the wall safe where he kept St Matthew’s petty cash. Damn the woman, he would no longer be able to look in on Jeremy North’s Christmas choir rehearsals, not without awkwardness and embarrassment, with her hungry eyes following his every move.

  He glanced through the rest of the post – two circulars from the council, three charity requests and a few more Christmas cards. No doubt there would be one from her among the many that poured through the letter box, hand-delivered. His stomach gave a lurch as he imagined Daphne picking up the mail.

  In the darkness of the hospital car park, on the back seat of Paul Sykes’ car, Shelagh laid her dark head on his shoulder; he encircled her with his arms, whispering in her ear.

  ‘Darling, you need a good rest, right away from this place. Ever since this worrying time with your mother I’ve been longing to be near you – but you’ve seemed so far away.’

  ‘Oh, Paul, if you only knew how much I’ve longed for you – I need you more than ever,’ she answered. ‘But I can’t see how or when we can be together, now that the caravan’s closed for the winter.’

  ‘I know, Shelagh, I know only too well how you feel,’ he said softly, letting his right hand cup her left breast and kissing her. She clung tightly to him, as if to draw strength from his body into hers. He chuckled quietly.

  ‘Listen, when we next both get a Saturday to Sunday night off, I’ll drive us down to a nice little B & B just outside of Eastbourne, hidden away, “far from the madding crowd” – how does that sound?’

  ‘Wonderful, Paul, as soon as we can. I’ve written to my mother’s sister in Donegal, hoping she’ll be able to come over and stay with her when she’s discharged – and as soon as that’s sorted, we can head for Eastbourne.’

  She gave a long, deep sigh, and Paul’s body reacted sharply to her nearness.

  ‘God, I want to make love to you, Shelagh! I hate these behind-the-scenes capers – but we’ll make up for it, darling, won’t we? Kiss me – and again.’

  ‘I’ll have to go now, Paul. McDowall’s covering for me, and I don’t want to give him something else to joke about.’

  ‘One last kiss, then. Mmmm …’

  When Jane Blake was wheeled into the maternity theatre, Shelagh knew she would need all her concentration. She was to assist Mr Kydd, and they stood together at the washbasins, ‘sc
rubbing up’, after which they put on surgical gloves and thrust their arms into sterile green gowns tied at the back by Elise the auxiliary ‘runner’. Dr Okoje the anaesthetist had already sent her to sleep with an injection of pentothal, and Dr McDowall was adjusting the flow of the intravenous drip containing a measured amount of her anti-epileptic medication; the paediatrician Dr Fisher waited beside a heated cot with oxygen and aspirator ready if needed. Sister Tanya Dickenson was setting out her trolley with bowls of sterile water, gauze swabs and the swivelling Mayo tray on which lay the instruments to be used first: knife blade, dissection forceps and artery clamp. Mr Blake sat just outside the theatre, wearing a green theatre gown, ready to see his baby as soon as it was born. So, reflected Shelagh, there were nine adults, including the parents, anxiously awaiting the arrival of a small premature baby into the world.

  It took only a few minutes for the surgeon to sever the layers of skin, muscle and the shiny uterine wall containing the baby in its warm, watery nest; and as Shelagh held back the abdominal retractors, Mr Kydd deftly removed and held up a tiny baby girl, pink and slippery, and although she was undersized, she gave a mewing cry as if protesting against being thus disturbed. Her little legs jerked and her fists clenched as Shelagh clamped and cut the umbilical cord and handed her to Dr Fisher. Everybody in the theatre exhaled after a tense quarter of an hour.

  ‘She seems to be in pretty good shape,’ remarked Dr Fisher.

  ‘At nine-seventeen precisely,’ noted Shelagh.

  ‘Weight one point seven kilograms,’ added Fisher, and carried her out of the theatre, where her father stepped forward eagerly.

  ‘Hallo, Dad, I’m a girl!’ said Fisher as Blake gazed in awe.

  ‘What a little peach!’ he said shakily, but Fisher did not linger; he carried the baby away to the Special Care Baby Unit, where she would be placed in an incubator and assessed.

  Mr Kydd, having done his vital work, left the suturing to Shelagh, while McDowall stayed at the mother’s side, doing his own observations of her condition. They worked in silence until at a quarter to ten Shelagh placed an adhesive dressing over the line of stitches, wiped her forehead, and pulled off her gloves, mask and theatre cap. This, then, was her life as a doctor, she thought, her personal satisfaction at a time of personal sadness. She and her mother had grown much closer over the past week, and Bridget had said for the first time that she was proud of her daughter, for which Shelagh gave thanks that it had been said before it was too late, and would always be remembered.

  Leigh McDowall touched her shoulder. ‘Your mum’s doing well, Shelagh.’

  ‘What? Oh, er, yes, much as would be expected,’ she said. ‘I’m hoping that a sister of hers will be able to come over from Ireland to look after her when she’s discharged.’

  ‘Ah, that’d be ideal. She’s quite a character, is your mum.’

  A sudden thought struck her. ‘Was it you who went to see her on Monday afternoon? I thought it must have been the anaesthetist, but obviously not Dr Okoje. Whoever he was, he talked a lot of nonsense, she said.’

  ‘Is that what she said? And there was I, thinking she’d taken a fancy to me. Cruel world!’

  It was impossible not to smile through her irritation. ‘I see what my mother meant about the nonsense – but you certainly made her laugh.’

  ‘It’s the way they sing the refrain to “Patapan”,’ Jeremy North told Derek Bolt. ‘The choir sings the verses, representing the children playing, and at the end of each verse old Mr Wetherby quavers up on a rising scale, “Too-ra-loo-ra-LOO!” followed by Cyril with a face like a hanging judge singing, or rather whistling on another rising scale, “Pat-a-pat-a-PAN!” It’s hilarious, and sooner or later we’re all going to collapse with laughter at the poor old chaps.’

  It was time for rehearsal again, and Jeremy greeted his enlarged choir, noticing that poor soul Beryl Johnson, looking anxious as usual; perhaps she’ll be as entertained as the rest of us are by the duo, he thought. He looked at Iris and gave her a broad wink, at which she held a finger to her lips; don’t laugh. It was a silent exchange between them.

  At the end of the rehearsal he glanced at Iris and tentatively offered a lift to any ladies going home. It was answered by a grateful ‘yes, please!’ from Rebecca Coulter who pushed herself forward with Phyllis Maynard and Mary Whittaker.

  ‘Between us we’ll fill his car,’ she said, and it was only too true. The quiet drink with Iris would have to wait until next week.

  ‘I’m not too happy about that poor Pendle kid,’ said Leigh McDowall in the antenatal ward office.

  ‘Trish Pendle with the toxaemia? Yes, she hasn’t got much going for her, has she?’ Shelagh replied. ‘Only seventeen, illegitimate herself, deserted by her boyfriend, the usual story. It’s hardly surprising that she gave in to the first boy who showed her any attention.’

  Sister Dickenson interrupted sharply. ‘That girl would do better to stay in bed instead of always hopping off to the day room for an illicit smoke. She’s such a silly girl, says she can’t eat the food here, and gets a girlfriend to bring her in a bag of soggy chips every evening. It’s no wonder she’s so overweight!’

  ‘I’ll try having a talk with her,’ said Shelagh. ‘And we’ll get the dietician up to see her and discuss her likes and dislikes. Meanwhile I’ll write her up for multivitamins and iron.’

  Tanya sniffed, and continued speaking to McDowall. ‘Her blood pressure’s creeping up, Leigh, one hundred and forty-five over ninety-five, and one plus of protein in her urine. What she needs is a twice daily dose of methyldopa to slow her down, keep her in bed and control her blood pressure.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Mr Kydd tomorrow,’ said Shelagh briefly, irritated by the sister’s self-assumed role of diagnostician and prescriber of medicine.

  ‘And let’s get an intravenous pyelogram done before the old man’s ward round on Thursday,’ added McDowall. ‘Can you book one for tomorrow morning, Tanya?’

  ‘An IVP? – when we try to avoid X-raying pregnant women?’ Shelagh queried.

  ‘Do you want me to try to get one done tomorrow, Leigh?’ asked Tanya, ignoring her. ‘If we say it’s urgent, they’ll probably fit her in.’

  ‘Yeah, speak to them in your most seductive tones, Tanya,’ he grinned.

  ‘Whatever for? There aren’t any signs of renal failure,’ objected Shelagh.

  ‘I think there may be more to Trish’s problems than meets the eye,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Just a hunch. Put her on four-hourly temperature as well as blood pressure, and a fluid balance chart. We’ll see if anything comes up. All right by you, Dr Hammond?’

  She nodded assent, hardly able to contradict a medical registrar, and she knew that Mr Kydd respected his opinions. But the smile exchanged between him and Tanya infuriated her.

  ‘Good. Then I’ll go over to Gynae,’ she said, and as she walked away she could hear them conversing in low, intimate tones. Such damned lovebirds were no asset on the team!

  On Gynaecology her mother had wonderful news. ‘Shelagh – oh, Shelagh me girl, wait till I tell ye! I’ve had a letter sent here from me sister Maura, and what d’ye think she says? She’s comin’ over to stay for a bit – isn’t that grand? Just till I get back on me feet, like. It’ll save ye a lot o’ worry, Shelagh, bein’ as busy as ye are!’

  Shelagh was moved to see how her mother’s pale cheeks flushed with pleasure at the prospect of seeing her sister again and being reunited after so long. At least some good had come out of this sad situation.

  ‘I’ve just got to show you this cutting from the Daily Mail, Phyllis,’ said Mary Whittaker over coffee. She took from her handbag a full-page story headed Our Little Princess, which showed a fortyish couple looking fondly upon a little girl of about four, holding a pet rabbit.

  ‘This couple suffered disappointment year after year, Phyllis, and then they saw a documentary on TV about the number of children in care due to neglect – alcoholic parents, fathers in prison, all kinds of soci
al deprivation – and there was a social worker looking for couples wanting to adopt or foster with a view to adoption. This middle-aged couple agreed to enquire further, and look, they’ve got this little girl, they’ve called her Sally, and they’re so happy – look at the picture, isn’t she a little sweetie? Phyllis, call me an interfering old busybody, but my dear, this is what your Jenny and Tim should do, give a good home to a child who needs one.’

  ‘I’d never call you an interfering busybody, Mary, but – Tim’s parents are dead against adoption. They say you don’t know what you’re getting, and they don’t think they could ever love a child that wasn’t Tim’s actual son or daughter,’ said Phyllis sadly.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry about Tim’s parents, but they have no right whatsoever to inflict their opinions on a young couple like your Jenny and Tim,’ said Mary Whittaker firmly. ‘As for not knowing what you’re getting, do any of us know how our children are going to turn out? Look at poor Jeremy North and their three – the elder girl has presented them with a fatherless child, the boy – or rather man – has been thrown out by his wife for drinking, so he doesn’t see his child at all, and I hear the younger girl has become so out of control that Jeremy’s sent her to stay with his sister and brother-in-law, just to get her out of Everham for a bit. No, Phyllis, you show this to Jenny, make her read it, and talk it over with Tim.’

  Phyllis read the article through twice, and gazed at the photo of the little girl with her pet rabbit. Tears came to her eyes at the thought of unloved, neglected children when Jenny had so much love to give. The continuing disappointments of the Giffords was becoming a threat to their marriage, as Jenny no longer wanted to have sex because she said ‘it didn’t work’.