Table of Contents
The Best Medicine
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Table of Contents
Dilbury Village Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Next Release
Charlotte Fallowfield’s Novels
Charlotte Fallowfield’s Book Club
About C.J. Fallowfield
The Best Medicine
Dilbury Village #3
By
Kindle Edition
Version: 1
ASIN: B079DJGD2Y
Copyright © 2018 - All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Any unauthorised reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations and places or events, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
I am a British author and write in British English, unless writing from an American character’s point of view, where I will use American spellings and slang.
Image Copyright © 2018
Copy Editing by Karen J & Jasmine Z
Proofreading by Tracy G
Cover Art by Kellie Dennis at www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk
Map Illustration by Holly Francesca at www.hollyfrancesca.co.uk
Book content pictures purchased from Adobe Stock, iStock and Shutterstock
Foreword
The Best Medicine is book three in the Dilbury Village series, which will comprise of a number of standalone novels set in the quaint English village.
For anyone who wonders if it’s possible to have all of the bad luck that befalls Charlie, I can categorically say that it is. Whilst this isn’t an autobiographical novel, every single one of the medical incidents are written from personal experience, albeit they spanned many years for me and just a few for poor Charlie. It was a tough job to whittle down my many disasters to the few that made it into this book, but maybe I can keep the others for future novels.
www.charlottefallowfield.co.uk
Until We Collide
Dilbury Village Series
Never The Bride (Dilbury Village #1)
The Great Escape (Dilbury Village #2)
The Best Medicine (Dilbury Village #3)
I also write humorous erotic romance novels, under the pen name C.J. Fallowfield
www.cjfallowfield.co.uk
Acknowledgements
With many thanks to Dr. Rae Taylor for her expertise in reviewing my medical scenes, your help was much appreciated.
Dedication
The Best Medicine is dedicated to my dad.
When I wrote this novel in February 2017, I had no idea that only four months later he would be diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia. One month he was the dad I’ve always known, a few months later he wasn’t, and he’s deteriorating so fast it was a complete shock.
On reviewing the novel when it had been edited, I took the decision not to remove some of the humour based around the very serious nature of this awful disease, as having lived with it, taking time out to care for him myself, I’ve witnessed first-hand all sides of this condition. And, like all the negative things that have happened in my life, for me personally, finding the humour in situations that could otherwise be downright depressing, has made them easier to handle. Dad and I have actually shared more laughter in the last year than we have in our previous years together. And I wish for that to continue, even when he gets to the stage that he no longer remembers me, which I think will sadly happen much sooner than either of us hopes.
Alzheimer’s Society
Table of Contents
The Best Medicine
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Table of Contents
Dilbury Village Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Next Release
Charlotte Fallowfield’s Novels
Charlotte Fallowfield’s Book Club
About C.J. Fallowfield
Dilbury Village Map
Holly Cottage – Abbie – Accountant
Honeysuckle Cottage – Daphne – Retired, then Quinn – Wedding Planner
Ivy Cottage – Georgie – Dog Groomer
Jasmine Cottage – Charlie – Author
Chapter One
Charlie Faulkner
A Sunday in January
‘WHERE THE HELL DID they put my shot glasses?’ I huffed, as I tried to shift boxes to see their contents. This was why you needed to be organised when you moved house, and I was anything but. I’d made sure my favourite tipple of peach schnapps was the first thing I’d located when I’d moved in yesterday. In fact, it was on the kitchen worktop before the toaster. But could I find my glasses, or my kettle come to that?
I gave up and tipped a good glug into the glass measuring jug I’d found. Quite why I had a measuring jug I had no idea. I was as scared of cooking as most people were of spiders. My diet was atrocious, and not helped by the fact that I sat on my arse all day writing, eating when I was hungry instead of at set times. Just one of the hazards of being an author. It was like disappearing into the twilight zone. One minute the sun was shining and I was starting a new chapter, the next it was midnight and I’d not eaten because I’d been so engrossed in my characters’ lives. I was living vicariously through them.
Living in Cheltenham town centre had been perfect at times like those. I could either call one of the many places I had on speed dial to bring dinner to my door at any hour, or slip out to the nearest burger joint while I took a break and people watched. I loved doing that. Strangers I’d watched and snippets of conversations I’d heard had inspired so many characters and situations in my novels. However, as much as I’d loved the hustle and bustle of the town, it was also one of the reasons I’d decided to move to Dilbury. I’d done the clubbing scene in my twenties, and I was finding it hard to concentrate on writing with the constant noise. What’s more, I was worried that my fast metabolism, which had allowed me to get away with eating what I wanted while doing no exercise, was soon going to wave a white flag in surrender, and my hips and arse would suddenly balloon and stop me from fitting into my trusty writing chair.
Hitting thirty the previous January had really made me reassess my life. I couldn’t afford a house in the Cotswolds, but in Shropshire, particularly villages like Dilbury that were close to the Welsh border, houses were far more a
ffordable. I’d moved here with the intention of enjoying some peace and quiet, of getting more exercise in the fresh air, and getting away from the myriad of convenience foods at my fingertips so that I could learn to cook and eat more healthily.
‘Epic fail so far, Charlie,’ I scolded myself as I tried to hide the evidence of last night’s Chinese delivery by squashing more of the annoyingly squeaky white polystyrene pasta shapes, which the movers had packed around my breakables, on top of the rubbish in the kitchen bin.
The Internet was a curse sometimes. The previous day, moving in day, I’d stopped at the local village shop and picked up a supply of healthy-looking produce to do a stir-fry. Of course, I had no idea how to stir-fry, unless it really was as simple as it sounded and just involved stirring food around in a frying pan, but I doubted cooking could be that easy, or there wouldn’t be so many restaurants and takeaways. After I’d stared at the courgette for five minutes, with it only inspiring ideas for the next sex scene in my current work in progress, I’d given up on the idea of a stir-fry. I’d gone online to discover, in under thirty seconds, that there was a Chinese takeaway and a pizza place in the next village, both of which would deliver within twenty minutes. That was a hell of a lot faster than I could work out how to cook a damn stir-fry.
After quickly phoning the local Chinese before the guilt kicked in, I’d placed the courgette on the floor behind Mrs. Tibbles, my four-year-old tabby cat, who was happily eating the freshly-diced chicken I’d just purchased and purring like a pneumatic drill. It had given me a few minutes of amusement when she’d turned, spotted the courgette lurking behind her, and leapt about three feet in the air as her tail expanded and she hissed in surprise.
If anyone ever needed a courgette shredded in record time, Mrs. Tibbles was the cat for the job. In seconds, she’d attacked it with her front claws and teeth, then laid next to it and dragged it into her furry embrace, using her back paws to maul it to death. When she’d finished, she’d stalked off, leaving strips of courgette all over my beautiful oak floor as she’d continued to try and decide where in the new house her favourite sleeping spot was going to be. The giggle I’d had at her surprise was almost worth the extortionate cost of the damn courgette and chicken. No wonder I’d never eaten well. Fast, convenient food was far less expensive and had never ended up in hundreds of tiny strips all over my kitchen floor, or in Mrs. Tibbles’ belly.
I drank some of the schnapps from the jug and wandered over to the bi-fold glass doors that ran across the back of my kitchen-diner, gazing at the view. It didn’t suck to look out and see such an amazing vista down the garden and over the fields towards the river, instead of looking out at the rooftops of the town centre. I sighed in contentment. I had a feeling I was really going to like it here. The cottage was the perfect size for me. I was lucky that the previous owners had spent a lot of money on it before being offered a job overseas, which had necessitated a fast sale at a ridiculously low price. The timing had been perfect and I’d snapped their hands off.
I’d started working as a financial advisor almost immediately after leaving university and had pulled in an absurd salary, some of which I’d been saving up for the day when I would want to get out of my cramped one-bedroomed flat and quit my job to write full-time. My author income fluctuated month to month, but the knowledge that I didn’t have a mortgage to pay and that I had a buffer of a year’s decent salary gave me the confidence and freedom to focus on trying to get my work traditionally published. If I could, it meant that I could earn enough to never have to consider applying for a “normal” job again. Writing was my passion. I lived and breathed it, and I knew there wasn’t a better way to spend the rest of my days. It didn’t feel like a job when I was lost in my own writing world.
I couldn’t have found a more perfect cottage if I’d created it in my own vivid imagination. It had been modernised to my taste while keeping the character I liked, and there was no need for me to do anything but slowly unpack my boxes. A beautiful white shaker kitchen with oak butcher-block worktops, sage green painted walls, and oak floorboards complimented the brilliant white butler’s sink. A glass and oak dining table with cream leather scroll chairs completed the look. From the kitchen, there was a door to a small utility room with a downstairs cloakroom on the side of the house. On the other side of the hall was my lounge, which had a huge open log fire, and also benefitted from glass bi-fold doors to the rear. A glass wall behind the oak staircase in the middle of the house let light flood into the small hall.
Upstairs, in the eaves of the thatched roof, was a small bathroom opposite the stairs, and a decent-sized master bedroom with its own en-suite shower room. The guest room doubled as my office. I’d had a custom-built study bed made, which was a huge desk where my notebooks, pens, and MacBook sat, but could be pulled down, everything in-situ, and turned into a double bed in seconds if I had visitors. The views from upstairs, even through the small windows, were even better than down here.
Something in my left field of vision suddenly drew my attention. My eyes wandered over to the corner of the garden, and I frowned as I spotted movement.
‘Hello there. It looks like your reputation has already reached the villagers of Dilbury, Charlie,’ I chuckled to myself, as I took another sip of the warming schnapps. Two women were lying down in the field, barely concealed by the winter-bare hedge at the bottom of my garden.
I was used to the looks I got from neighbours when they discovered I wrote “illicit material.” But truth be told, it was great that it was becoming far more socially acceptable to say you were an author of steamy novels. I’d often toasted the success of E.L. James for helping me gain the courage to try writing in that genre without worrying that I’d be chased down the street with pitchforks for admitting that I did. That said, I was in quite possibly one of the sleepiest villages in England, complete with its own stately home owned by a Lord. Maybe news of the erotic romance revolution hadn’t reached its aged population. Though, looking at the women who were currently failing to inconspicuously spy on me, they didn’t look like the blue-rinse brigade I’d seen on my few trips to view the house. I’d been warned that the average age of the villagers was pushing seventy, but these women looked my age.
I sniffed the air, my nose wrinkling in disgust at the scent of cow dung that was somehow making it inside, even with the windows shut. Wow, that was definitely one downside to living in the country. I watched as I saw a tractor approaching from the field on the right, manure spraying out from the contraption hooked onto the back and arcing up and over the hedge. My eyes flicked back to the women, who appeared to be arguing as they pulled their jumpers up over their noses. Part of me was ready to fling open the doors and warn them that they were about to be showered with cow manure, but the evil part of me triumphed. Maybe it would teach them not to be so rude. If they’d just knocked on the door, I’d have happily invited them in and answered any questions they wanted to ask.
Their high-pitched screams as they were suddenly pelted with the sludgy mess made me laugh so hard that I had to walk away from the glass doors. I didn’t want them to realise that I’d seen them and feel embarrassed.
I accidentally kicked a box on the floor and heard the chime of glass on glass, and rejoiced that I’d found my shot glasses. I paused for a moment, biting my lower lip. Maybe I should go and introduce myself, invite them over for drinks. Anyone prepared to go to those lengths to see me must be slightly crazy, and that was something I’d been accused of many a time. I’d never really had any girlfriends to speak of, as my previous career in finance had meant I’d worked mainly with men. It might be fun to get to know the neighbours and hopefully develop the sort of friendship that my heroines always had with their best friends.
I hurried to the cloakroom and quickly raked my fingers through my long blonde waves, trying to make myself look halfway presentable. Working from home each day meant that I rarely wore makeup, but I was lucky enough to have thick, dark lashes that framed my bro
wn eyes so well, it looked as if I was wearing mascara. I’d pass muster, I’d never tried to be someone I wasn’t. I grabbed my keys and hurried out of the front door, groaning at the pungent smell that filled the air. Did people in the country ever get used to it? It wasn’t until I was walking up my front path that I realised these women might not even be my neighbours, as I knew there were public footpaths all around Dilbury. They might have come from any direction and disappeared home already.
Shrill screams puncturing the air made me quicken my pace up the lane to follow the sound, which seemed to be coming from behind Ivy Cottage, the one closest to mine. I walked up the drive and spotted a log cabin to the left, against the hedge. In front of it, the two women were standing in their underwear, hosing each other down. I giggled as I leaned on the wide gate and watched them. It seemed I’d found my spies, and one of them actually lived next door.
‘I hate you, Abbie Carter!’ the redhead shouted.
‘Oh, shut up,’ the other one laughed.
‘Hello?’ I called, making them aware of my presence. ‘Is everything ok?’
They both turned to face me, looking aghast to be caught in such an embarrassing situation.
‘Are you kidding me?’ the redhead muttered, shooting a glare at her friend.
‘Sorry to interrupt your … whatever it is you’re doing in your wet underwear,’ I said as I waved a finger at them, ‘but from the screams, I thought you might need some help.’
‘We’re awesome, thanks,’ the brunette called, crossing her arms over her chest.
‘Just hosing off cow manure.’ The redhead put her hands on her hips as she tossed her wet hair back over her shoulder and stood in a pose that would rival any of the girls on America’s Next Top Model. She was stunning.
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