Practice Makes Perfect

by Penny Parkes

  Alice shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really, as long as I take my breaks and eat lunch when I’m supposed to. Not so far anyway.’ She looked around for something wooden to touch and murmured under her breath. ‘But Coco here gives me an early warning if my blood sugar goes loopy.’ She grinned. ‘That’s a technical term obviously. And she will have to go everywhere with me, so if that would be a problem, I’d much rather you said now. I mean, I’d love this job and I know I could do it really well, but having Coco has changed my life completely and I could never give her up.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Holly, indignant at the very thought. ‘And nobody should ever ask you to choose.’

  Alice smiled resignedly. ‘Ah well, as I mentioned before, some people are just funny about dogs, Dr Graham. This is my sixth interview – nobody ever says it’s the diabetes or the dog, but I’ve been passed over for less qualified candidates every single time.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s something you get used to.’

  Holly sighed. She had a really strong feeling about this girl and it wasn’t obligation. They hadn’t really added ‘personal & family experience of hideous health conditions’ to their search criteria but, speaking to Alice now, hearing her talk with such calm authority and empathy about truly challenging experiences, she couldn’t help thinking that this had been a mistake.

  Holly was still mulling over her decision that lunchtime, as she sat on the windowsill in the doctors’ lounge in the calm before afternoon surgery, hiding out from the film crew who had been on particularly unsubtle and intrusive form all morning. She had a couple of hours left before picking up the twins, but finding a quiet spot to think had eclipsed popping to Tesco on her To Do list.

  Feeling over-committed and under-resourced, she reluctantly had to concede that Taffy might have had a valid point that morning, when he’d gently suggested she had a few too many balls in the air. He’d quietly removed the moisturiser tube from her hand and replaced it with toothpaste, before suggesting a take-away supper from The Deli. She clicked distractedly on her phone to check her e-mails without any expectation of a reply from Milo – once again Taffy had been proven correct. No reply, just a week’s worth of agitation on the off-chance.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Taffy, as though her thoughts had conjured him, quietly slipping on to the windowsill beside her. ‘Did you manage to find anyone who’s good enough?’

  ‘I did. And she’s perfect,’ Holly said quietly but with conviction. ‘But I just need to be sure this is a head not heart decision.’

  Taffy frowned. ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘She comes with a medical dog for her diabetes, you see,’ and Holly went on to explain all the issues that young Alice Walker had experienced in trying to find a new position.

  ‘Are you saying that you want to hire her just because you love the dog?’ Taffy teased her.

  ‘No!’ said Holly vehemently.

  Taffy shrugged. ‘Although to be fair, I have heard of worse reasons . . .’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Holly said. ‘It’s just that the other candidates were so awful, Taff. They wouldn’t have fit in and they had all these opinions . . .’ she shuddered slightly. ‘And I know that Alice would just – work.’

  ‘Then I really don’t understand the soul-searching.’ Taffy admitted defeat.

  Holly turned to him and tried to explain, ticking her reasoning off on her fingers. ‘There was no basis for comparison, because the others were truly awful. I want to help, because I feel awful about the prejudice she’s experienced elsewhere. Her aunt is Pru Hartley and she’s lived in Larkford for ever, so there’s another potential conflict right away. Plus, I really love the idea of having another female doctor on staff and one that is brimming with compassion and empathy and is just a breath of feisty, Scottish fresh air . . .’ She shrugged, running out of steam. ‘She’s just perfect really.’

  ‘Well, don’t go too far,’ Taffy said seriously, hamming up his Welsh accent. ‘You did say she was Scottish?’

  Holly laughed. ‘Don’t get all Celtic on me, Jones. I just feel like I’m letting my personal bias towards her – and her dog – cloud my judgement.’

  Taffy sighed, well accustomed to Holly’s ability to overthink every scenario. ‘But if you don’t hire her, then you’d be doing us all a disservice. She’s an excellent clinician and her references are glowing. Just because she’s head and shoulders above the other candidates, doesn’t mean you’ve missed something – maybe she’s just in the right place at the right time.’

  ‘Serendipity?’ Holly said.

  ‘No, Alice What’s-her-face,’ countered Taffy, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘And if you ask me, even though you haven’t, we need to crack on and get this junior position filled – get a bit more structure in place.’

  Holly nodded. ‘I know. I’ve been thinking so much about all the scrutiny this Model Surgery business is going to unleash. I mean, if they sat in on our Partners’ Meetings . . . Well, it wouldn’t take long for them to see the reality isn’t quite so perfect.’

  ‘But we do have fun,’ Taffy said. ‘I never thought Dan would finish Julia’s vile smoothie this morning, did you? He’ll do anything for a dare at the moment. Seriously, I’m having to work very hard not to take advantage of his vulnerable state. I even said no to a wager on our weekend run – hardly fair to just take his money—’

  ‘But if we’re already committed . . .’ Holly continued, almost as though he hadn’t even spoken, ‘then really it comes down to making the best of it. And that means hiring the best candidate, right? For us?’

  Taffy nodded. ‘I’d say so. But then I’m still banking on the new doctor to make up a five for poker, so . . .’

  ‘And I’m banking on the addition of a junior to remind us to set a good example,’ Holly reminded him.

  ‘And Alice will do that?’ he asked.

  Holly nodded, relaxing into her smile. ‘Do you know, I rather think she will. And if not, then I’m sure Coco will corral us into line in no time.’

  She looked across the room to where Lucy and Jade were mucking about trying to ascertain who had the biggest ‘thigh gap’. They were going through all the magazines, tearing out pictures of celebrities they wanted to look like and pinning them up on the noticeboard for ‘thinspiration’.

  Of course, the Most Wanted poster of the Major still took pride of place on The Practice noticeboard and Holly saw that somebody had recently scribbled on a reward of three pounds fifty. She also noticed that the nurses’ scavenger hunt trophies had grown in scope lately, with a rather graphic photo of a boil being lanced, alongside one of Cassie Holland’s gnome collection, caught in compromising positions doing unspeakable, ungnomely things to one another.

  The idea of someone a little more level-headed diluting the gene-pool at The Practice was really rather attractive, no matter how much Holly secretly enjoyed their silliness.

  ‘I knew you were the best person for the interviews,’ Taffy said, leaning easily against her. ‘You don’t realise how freaky it is, how well you can read people. Patients, potential employees . . . I’ve never known you to get it wrong. Yet.’

  She pulled back from him with wide eyes. ‘Errm, are we forgetting about Milo in this scenario? I think we can agree that I got that one wrong . . .’ She snuggled back into his chest, unwilling to relinquish the comfort of his arms. ‘Maybe that’s my Super Power? You know – lousy at picking husbands, great at picking colleagues . . .’

  ‘Hey, so you’re lousy at picking first husbands,’ Taffy corrected with a nudge, ‘but then, you always throw away the first pancake, right?’

  Holly stiffened in his arms but said nothing. Her opinion on this particular topic was never one that Taffy wanted to hear.

  Chapter 7

  Julia shifted in her seat, crossing her legs until they were no longer pressed intimately against Quentin’s; he certainly seemed to have a tenuous relationship with the notion of personal space. She smoothed a hand down the tanned length of her
calf, annoyed with herself even for checking that they were as silky smooth as she might like them to be.

  She looked up and caught the amused expression on his face that made her wonder if he could actually read her mind. They were clearly spending altogether too much time in each other’s company. His eyes flickered appreciatively over her body and she was shocked to feel a brief, answering flash of attraction. This was not good news – this was not welcome news – and she was beginning to think that Dan might have a point about Quentin’s private agenda.

  She didn’t fancy Quentin, of course she didn’t. But there was something so beguiling about having the full beam of his focus on her, that it didn’t hurt to remind herself of that fact occasionally. He was far too good-looking for his own good and he knew it.

  Quentin’s undivided attention, when he chose to bestow it, was almost bewitching. In his company, she felt her own moral compass swing wildly from the true north she had been working so hard to find. Quentin’s priorities were simple. His show was more important than anything else – friends, colleagues, lovers, children. The rest of his crew were dedicated and slavish in their adoration of him, happy to throw in their lot to be swept up in his media ascendency.

  It was almost as though he could sense Julia’s hesitancy to completely commit and it only piqued his interest further.

  ‘Since we’ve a few quiet minutes before the hordes descend,’ he pulled a face that said all too clearly what he thought of Larkford’s great unwashed, ‘I thought we might have a little chat about us.’

  Julia flinched a little. ‘Us’ was a topic with too much scope for conflict and she was already struggling to get a handle on where this conversation was heading. Quentin could be a hard one to read, a real task-master, who could turn on the charm and charisma like a switch when needed. He obviously felt that he needed something now, as his eyes were dancing with flirtation as he leaned against the desk beside her.

  ‘Let me lay my cards on the table: I want you,’ he said slowly. ‘None of this fitting around schedules and taking the time you have left over. I just want first call.’

  ‘Oh,’ she managed eloquently, unable to push aside the images that danced through her mind of the two of them entwined. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ Julia wasn’t stupid. She knew men like Quentin – had dated men like Quentin – and he was definitely bad news.

  ‘Think about it, though,’ he insisted. ‘Your own show on prime-time TV. No painful patients to deal with every day. We can pick the agenda and, God knows, we could lead the debate about health care in the UK. Do you really want to pass up the opportunity?’

  Julia was utterly thrown and she could see from the smug expression on Quentin’s face that it was exactly the outcome he’d been aiming for. He was toying with her for his own amusement, no doubt, but possibly also to see just how far he could push her before she bit back.

  ‘You seem to have this all planned out,’ she hedged, using so much effort to be nonchalant that a small muscle began to twitch in her eyelid.

  ‘It’s not a difficult equation,’ he countered. ‘You leave Larkford, move to London and then we take your career in the direction it deserves. Upwards. I have absolute faith in your abilities, Julia – and I don’t mean in treating the sniffles. You have a credibility, a voice that we can use to shape the agenda. I’m in discussions for a nine o’clock slot – an hour, weekly for a twelve week run. I just need my leading lady . . .’

  He reached out and laid a soft hand on her shoulder, his fingers lightly caressing the skin at the side of her neck. ‘What do you say? Fancy taking things up a notch?’

  Julia felt all her composure wobble under his piercing gaze. ‘Quinn—’ she began, reaching out for clarification. Her mobile phone skittered across the desk in front of her and she glanced down to check the caller ID, tapping the screen to reject the call when her mother’s photograph flashed up.

  Quentin watched her carefully but pointedly made no comment, even as she switched the phone to silent and it vibrated repeatedly across the desk. He rested his warm hand on hers, as it twitched towards the phone in a Pavlovian response, effortlessly holding her gaze. Julia swallowed hard, as his thumb began to circle her palm insistently. He leaned in towards her, almost as though he were about to kiss her, before whispering in her ear, ‘Turn off the phone. I don’t like to share.’

  She hesitated for a moment before doing as he’d asked, gathering her thoughts and her resolve as she did so.

  She pushed back her chair and moved over to the window, hoping the sight of Larkford laid out before her might give her the motivation to make what was undoubtedly the right decision.

  ‘It’s an interesting offer,’ she said, deliberately avoiding his gaze. ‘I’ll need to give it some thought.’

  ‘Don’t think too long,’ he said, walking around the desk to join her. ‘I know you think this place is the answer, but to me, it seems as though you’re settling for comfort over ambition.’ He smoothed a stray lock of hair away from her face, his thumb fleetingly brushing her lips.

  Julia batted his hand away, her physical reaction to his touch making her edgy and short-tempered. ‘Oh Quinn, don’t be tiresome,’ she said, knowing full well that her nonchalance was beginning to annoy him and unwilling to admit how hard she was having to work to keep up the façade. ‘I have a life here. I can’t just up sticks on a whim! Five minutes ago, you were all for milking this Model Practice for all it was worth and now you’re abandoning ship?’

  ‘What can I say? The chance at a primetime slot changes everything.’ He frowned, as though the thought had just occurred to him. ‘On the other hand, we could keep the link with this place going in the new show? A regular segment on our rural cousins?’

  ‘Your rural cousins,’ Julia retorted. ‘I live here.’

  He shrugged. ‘We’ll see. Think about it. And maybe we can head up to London next week – you can sit in on a few of the development meetings. I guarantee this show is going to be a success, so all you have to decide is whether that will be with you, or without you.’

  He leaned in and kissed her briefly on the cheek, his hand brushing her waist and lingering just a fraction too long. The intimacy of the gesture was not lost on Julia, but then Quentin had no scruples when it came to getting what he wanted. If only Julia was completely clear on what that actually was.

  The sound of a different ringtone broke into her reverie, followed by the sound of Dan in the doorway, pointedly clearing his throat. ‘If I’m not interrupting anything, I believe your mother would like a word.’ He held out his mobile phone to Julia, the call already activated.

  Julia reluctantly took the handset and held it to her ear, unsettled by Quentin’s familiarity and angry at being backed into a corner; she was unwilling to have this conversation in front of anyone.

  ‘Hello, Mum, it’s not the best time actually . . .’ she began, before being cut off by a torrent of words from the other end of the line. Her eyes fell to the floor automatically, as her whole body language seemed to slump and she made her way out of the room without saying a word. After all, her input was not always required on these soul-destroying telephone calls that seemed to be happening with increasing regularity.

  Julia sat on the wall outside, as a light summer breeze lifted the hair from the back of her neck and she shivered. She held Dan’s phone loosely in her lap and mentally replayed her mother’s requests – no, demands – for yet more financial support. It occurred to her that she hadn’t even asked Quentin what the remuneration for the London job might be. How ironic, if she were forced into her old habits of ambition and self-destruction to fund her parents’ retirement. Would that make them proud? she wondered. Nothing else she ever achieved had.

  ‘I thought you might like this.’

  Julia turned at the sound of Grace’s gentle voice and took the proffered cup of coffee.

  ‘It’s not as warm out here as it looks, is it?’ Grace continued, sliding up beside Julia onto the w
all.

  Julia soundlessly sipped at the warm drink, unwilling to admit how chilled she was feeling. ‘Thank you,’ she said eventually, once the tiresome lump in her throat had subsided.

  Grace just nodded. ‘It’s been a funny few days, hasn’t it? The nurses in revolt, this Model Surgery nonsense and I’ve never sorted out hiring a new GP so quickly in my life! She seems like a good egg, though. I’m sure having another pair of hands around here won’t hurt anyway.’

  Julia stared across the Market Place, watching the Major and his little dog Grover amble along, stopping every few steps to greet someone and have a brief chat. What had once seemed exhaustingly incestuous and claustrophobic now seemed almost welcoming and familiar – was she really prepared to give all of that up, to return to the anonymity of London?

  ‘You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ Grace said quietly. ‘And I know you’re not one to idly gossip, but I did just want to say – if you fancy coming to my yoga class later, or you ever want to talk . . .’ Her words petered out and Julia realised just how difficult she was making it for Grace to offer the hand of friendship in her direction.

  She tore her gaze away from the tableau before her and turned to Grace. ‘Will it work, do you think? Having a new GP and all the extra admin?’

  Grace just shrugged. ‘I guess we’re going to have to take each day as it comes. Alice is lovely. I can do a lot of the new protocols and admin as part of my coursework apparently. And your producer chappie seems pleased anyway. He told me just now that I can have a bigger screen presence now I scrub up okay.’ The laughter was bubbling through Grace’s words, so it was clear she hadn’t taken offence, but Julia was yet again aghast at Quentin’s tactlessness.

  ‘He didn’t? Oh, Grace, I’m so sorry.’ Not for the first time, Julia found herself shying away from Quentin’s insensitive and forthright behaviour – it gave her a tiny taste of how life might be all the time, if she chose to jump ship. Having somebody represent you, who chose to represent themselves in such an abrupt manner? It was hardly a recipe for success.