Practice Makes Perfect

by Penny Parkes

  It was Elsie who folded herself into Holly’s arms then, apparently no longer worried about messing with the dress. ‘What would I do without your wonderful advice though, Elsie? I mean, who else can get me into as much trouble as you have?’ She was aiming for light teasing, but the fear was present in every word.

  ‘Ah!’ said Elsie, rallying herself. ‘The perfect intro . . .’ She bustled over to her desk and pulled out the most beautiful notebook. It was bound in the softest brown leather, a shoelace wrapping it closed, and the smell was pure Italy. ‘I was going to leave this to you, but I think you should have it now. There’s a few pages left – with a little luck maybe we’ll have time to fill them?’

  She handed Holly the notebook and left the room straight away, muttering about eyeliner and rouge. Holly slowly unwound the leather lace and the pages fell open from use.

  Across each page, Elsie’s beautiful, yet erratic handwriting wove a web of their conversations. All those pep talks, all those pointers, all those life lessons and pearls of wisdom: every one of them had been immortalised on paper. She slowly turned each page and realised that the book was not, as she’d first suspected, a diary or a draft of her book, but it was written just for Holly. Every page, every line, was written with Holly in mind, even her name thrown casually into the mix as though they were still chatting over a glass of Pimm’s.

  She turned to the flyleaf at the front of the book and smiled as she saw what Elsie had written:

  In life, as in love, practice makes perfect

  Ex

  She pulled a tissue from her pocket and was about to reward herself with a bloody good cry, when Elsie came back in the room. ‘Now don’t go getting all soppy on me, you daft angel. Read it later, when you need a little pep talk.’ She stopped for a second and hesitated before holding up a beautiful Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress that could only have been a vintage original. ‘Now dry your eyes and put this and some slap on, would you? Jeremy Twonkington-Whatnot will be here any minute and I need you on form.’

  ‘But, Elsie,’ Holly protested, looking at her watch yet again, ‘I told you I couldn’t stay.’

  Elsie shrugged. ‘And I told you that I needed you today. I’ve already called Taffy and Sarah’s nearly finished mucking out your house by now, I’m sure.’

  ‘You sent Sarah anyway?’ Holly asked, dumbfounded by Elsie’s brazen lack of remorse, yet wondering why this actually surprised her. She hoped that Taffy and the boys were having fun. He’d said that he wanted Quality Time with them, after all – she could only hope that the quality didn’t decrease in inverse proportion to the quantity.

  Elsie sighed and shook her head. ‘Of course I did, Holly. Honestly, darling,’ she said, tossing the dress onto the bed and leaving the room with a laugh, ‘I sometimes wonder whether you know me at all.’

  Holly held the notebook tightly in her hand and thought of the thousands of photos downstairs, all of Elsie’s secrets laid bare in her diaries. ‘Well, if I don’t now, I guess I will do by the time this book gets published,’ she muttered, ambivalently admitting defeat and pulling off her jumper.

  Chapter 29

  Dan stood at the edge of the Market Place the following evening, his eyes watering and his sneezing reaching philharmonic proportions. His hay-fever was out of control, but serving a rather useful purpose – nobody questioned his red eyes, or his ever-present hanky. Perhaps this is what he should advise his patients, Dan wondered: if you’re going to have a nervous breakdown, then do it during the hay-fever season and nobody will bat an eye-lid.

  Of course, he reminded himself, he wasn’t actually having a nervous breakdown, he was having a communications breakdown, off the back of a relationship breakdown. It was all very well Julia hesitating to make a decision about this London job and refusing to tell anyone about their break-up, but it threw Dan into an incredibly awkward position.

  From a personal perspective, he knew the logic: if you love someone, set them free . . . And there was no question in his mind that he had loved Julia, but the past tense was so revealing that he didn’t need to stop and question his decision, only the fall-out.

  From a work perspective, it was possibly harder – the brief from the Primary Care Trust had come through, outlining all the seminars and ‘symbiotic learning opportunities’ the team would be expected to offer as part of their Model Surgery status. So, if Julia did decide to stay, they had better find a common ground at work if nothing else.

  ‘Oi, Wanker,’ said Taffy affectionately as he ambled up alongside him and interrupted his train of thought. ‘Shouldn’t you be heading home rather than lurking about like a perv?’

  Dan punched him on the shoulder in greeting, a little harder than normal, just to make up for the perv comment. Taffy rubbed his shoulder and frowned. ‘What the hell are they trying to do to that goose?’

  He pulled himself up onto the Cotswold-stone wall that Dan had co-opted as his vantage point and surveyed the chaos around them as Rupert, the local vet, and his team attempted to corral Gerald, the errant goose, out of the road and back down to the river bank.

  ‘This is so much better than Netflix,’ Dan said, tearing off some of his sausage roll for Taffy. ‘Poor Gerald hasn’t been the same since the duck race. He’s been all defensive and grumpy.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s just defending his territory?’ Taffy suggested. ‘I feel a bit like that at our house sometimes.’

  ‘Maybe he’s henpecked and driven to distraction?’ Dan countered revealingly. ‘It would certainly account for his anger issues.’

  Poor Gerald had been so named by the local school children, once his presence in the Market Place had become a daily event. He was frankly turning into a bit of a menace, terrorising anyone who walked along the river-side of the road and raising his enormous wing span as he hissed his displeasure.

  They watched as Gerald bore down on Rupert, corralling him away from the river and Mrs Gerald’s nest. Rupert, to his credit, turned tail and ran. He ended up hanging over the wall beside them, red-faced and panting. ‘Bastard goose!’ he spluttered. ‘I’m going to have to shoot the little fucker if he doesn’t relent.’

  ‘Aw, don’t be so hard on him,’ Taffy countered. ‘He’s clearly having domestic issues. Besides, isn’t that treason?’

  ‘What?’ said Dan, utterly confused.

  ‘That’s swans, Taffy,’ said Rupert tiredly. ‘They all belong to the Queen, so if you kill one, it’s basically treason,’ he clarified for Dan.

  ‘Maybe that’s why he’s annoyed,’ Taffy said with a straight face. ‘He’s out for equal billing . . .’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘See what I did there?’

  Rupert and Dan caught each other’s eye and, as one, made to push Taffy backwards off the wall. ‘Enough with the puns already,’ Rupert said, as he let Taffy go, just before he fell.

  ‘Is a goose not basically the same as a swan, though?’ Taffy asked. ‘Not as a species, I mean, but when it comes to catching one?’

  Dan stopped eating his sausage roll and stared at him. ‘Have you been mucking about with the opiates?’

  Taffy laughed. ‘No, but don’t let’s pretend we haven’t both been tempted this week. I mean, isn’t there a swan wrangler or something on the Avon police team?’

  Rupert nodded. ‘There is, yeah. But it seems a bit crap that I can’t get the job done without calling in reinforcements.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Taffy, ‘you’ve persuaded me. Come on, Dan. You can help too – I mean, how hard can it possibly be?’

  Incredibly hard, as it turned out. After an hour of approach and retreat, the three men were sweating in the evening sun and their good humour was in danger of evaporating. Gerald, as it turned out, was a high IQ kind of goose and seemed, according to Dan, to have received some sort of military training in the defensive arts.

  Dan stood with his hands on his hips, chest heaving and his t-shirt soaked with sweat. The audience that had gathered in the garden of The Kingsley Arms to watch their a
ttempts weren’t really helping, insisting on cheering loudly at Taffy when he’d pulled his shirt off and laughing when Dan slipped in the inevitable goose-poo and landed on his backside.

  Rupert caught up with them as they took a much-needed breather and the Major shouted them all a pint of cider. ‘Taff, I don’t mean to be personal, but what the hell is on your back?’

  Taffy shrugged. ‘I don’t know, mud, sweat?’ He craned over his shoulder to take a look, but Rupert simply snapped a photo on his phone and held up the screen: ‘Cheer if you think I’m pretty’ was highlighted in milky white letters against Taffy’s golden tan.

  Well that certainly explained the cheers he’d been getting this evening – and at home, for that matter . . . But how?

  Dan quietly took a step back and prepared to make a run for it, a stupid grin on his face – this evening’s lightness and stupidity being exactly what the doctor ordered. Of course, when he’d written the message in Factor 60 last week, as Taffy lay sunbathing, he’d never imagined it would show up so well. The fact that Taffy tanned so easily and deeply had been an added bonus. He stood poised, waiting for the penny to drop and then legging it out of the pub garden as Taffy gave chase, a pint of cider slopping in his hand.

  Bizarrely the sight of two grown men haring through the Market Place, shouting rude names at each other and doubling over with stitches and laughter, succeeded where everyone else had failed. With one look of disdain over his shoulder, Gerald admitted defeat and took flight for the river. A wall of cheers erupted from the pub garden, and Taffy – ever the showman – turned to take a bow.

  ‘Aw,’ he said to Dan, between heaving gasps of air, ‘isn’t that nice – they think I’m pretty.’

  As the sun set over Larkford and the tower of the church was illuminated in red and gold, Dan felt his shoulders drop down to their normal position for the first time in weeks. He watched Taffy and Rupert bantering about cricket scores and the likelihood that the Larkford Rugby Club might even take down their nemesis Framley. All felt right with the world.

  His conversation with Holly in the graveyard had really got him thinking. About his priorities. About the Model Surgery. About his mindfulness. He’d watched Holly with interest these last few months, as she’d tried to build on the Life Lessons that Elsie had shared with her. It was only when they’d spoken the other day though, that Dan had been able to see the parallels between them – it was all very well going through the motions, ticking the boxes, but with each passing week it got harder. Whether it was mindfulness for his own issues, or positivity for Holly’s – this was not something to address in a day and Dan knew, to his cost, that these things only worked if you actually used them. Lived by them. Every day. Until it became a part of who you were.

  He wondered how Taffy managed to walk his path so effortlessly. He made everything seem easy and his genuine affection and humour drew people to him, just as the smell of baking bread swelled the queue at The Deli every morning. He glanced over to see Taffy’s eyes resting on him in concern.

  ‘You okay?’ Taffy mouthed across the table.

  Dan nodded, distracted for a moment by the sight of poor Percy Lawson, with his wrist in a splint and an angry bruise on his face. A shadow of guilt passed over Dan for their sweepstake at work – it surely wasn’t right to have their fun at their patient’s expense. It was only a fleeting moment though, as Dan spotted the red BMW motorbike parked diagonally in front of the pub and the leathers that Percy was wearing – obviously his ‘little scare’ still hadn’t been enough to put him off.

  ‘Last one for me and then I should probably call it a night,’ said Taffy, as Rupert climbed on to the wall and started to sing. ‘Not sure I’m up to this on a school night anymore.’

  Dan couldn’t help but agree. He didn’t need to stay out until the wee small hours to get his jollies – he’d had more fun this evening than he’d had in months, chasing a goose and letting his proverbial hair down. He might even manage a good night’s sleep on the crappy bed above the pub tonight.

  Jamie and Alice walked across the Market Place towards them, Coco obediently walking to heel and Alice looking delighted. It was incredibly sweet and Dan watched with interest, as Jamie occasionally stopped to interact with the little chocolate dog, even getting down on the verge on his hands and knees at one point.

  ‘That’s love, that is,’ said Taffy. ‘And he’s certainly putting in the extra hours with our Alice.’

  ‘And our Grace and our Lucy . . .’ Dan cut in shrewdly. ‘The man is a walking lady-magnet.’

  Taffy grinned. ‘Well, luckily for us, he seems to have a way with little Coco too. He’s certainly putting in the overtime to get her back on track.’

  Dan watched as Jamie welcomed an ecstatic Coco into his arms, as they celebrated some dog-training milestone that was invisible to anyone watching. He didn’t want to be churlish around Jamie; he was a good bloke. It just didn’t help Dan’s newly fractured self-esteem to have that much testosterone milling around The Practice three times a week and turning heads.

  Marion and the Major stopped by their table on the way out, breaking Dan’s train of thought. Spotting the basket of onion rings that had been almost completely demolished, Marion fussed over Dan’s health and diet as she always had. ‘Ooh and before I forget, Dr Carter,’ she said, rummaging in her handbag, ‘I found this at the market this morning and I thought to myself, I know who’d appreciate that . . .’

  She pulled out a gaudy ceramic fish, carefully wrapped in loo roll, and pressed it into Dan’s hand. ‘You can add that to your whimsy collection now, Dr Carter.’ She looked terribly pleased with herself as she did so and Dan tried hard not to catch Taffy’s eye.

  It had started out so simply, with each of the two doctors competing to buy each other the most hideous presents – Taffy’s gift of a luminous blown-glass fish being the obvious winner. After that, all it had taken was the odd word from Taffy to their patients and suddenly Dan began receiving fish made of wood, wire, glass and pottery – a little thank you here, a birthday gift there.

  As Marion wandered away to say good night to a friend, Dan turned to Taffy. ‘I blame you for this. How do I tell everyone that I don’t collect bloody fish?’

  Taffy shrugged. ‘I hate to say it, mate, but having been in your office lately, I think you need to accept the truth: If you have forty-five fish figurines, then at this point, you probably do.’ He ducked the flying onion ring that bounced off his head and began to laugh at Dan’s consternation.

  ‘You do realise that this can work both ways?’ Dan said, a hint of retribution creeping into his voice.

  ‘Yup,’ said Taffy evenly, ‘but you told everyone I collected Star Wars stuff, and I’ve been flavour of the month with the twins ever since. Up your game, man.’

  Dan looked up, a witty retort freezing on his lips, at the sight of the Major’s puce face approaching him. The old boy was clutching at his chest and his words came out in a wheeze, ‘I do hate to be a bore, lads, but I rather think I might be having a heart attack.’ Even in his obvious distress, he remained courteous in the extreme.

  He slumped down beside them and Dan quickly dialled for an ambulance while Taffy checked his vitals. Taffy looked up, confused by all the normal readings, and checked them again. ‘Er, Major, tell me again where the pain is?’

  Marion had rushed over by this point and her face was ashen. ‘Are you getting those pains again, Peregrine?’ she said in a no-nonsense tone of voice that seemed oddly unsympathetic given the circumstances. She rummaged once more in her enormous handbag and shook out a tablet into his hand. Before Dan or Taffy could intervene, she’d deposited it into the Major’s mouth with instructions to ‘chew that’.

  She sat back on her heels and gave the doctors a judgemental look. ‘I suppose one of you bought him a cider, did you?’

  ‘Oh, don’t go on at the lads, Marion. They’re good boys,’ the Major managed. He sat up a little taller, rotated his shoulder back and let fo
rth the most enormous belch. ‘Scuse me,’ he said formally.

  Marion stood up and glared at Dan and Taffy as the ambulance’s sirens could be heard echoing down from the Bath road. ‘Honestly, you two – have you never seen our Peregrine after a pint of fizzy cider? Bugger of a heartburn, granted, but it’ll take more than a pint of Scrumpy to finish that one off. Still,’ she relented, taking in their stricken expressions, ‘better safe than sorry, eh?’

  As the paramedics parked up and ran over to give the Major a check-over – just to be sure – Dan and Taffy slipped back into the growing shadows.

  ‘Maybe one more pint?’ Taffy suggested, by way of diffusing the awkwardness that had settled over their lovely evening.

  Dan just nodded. Marion’s capable and firm understanding of her husband had left him feeling oddly unsettled. Holly and Taffy had it. Hattie and Lance had it.

  And whilst Dan wasn’t really sure what ‘it’ was; he did know one thing – he and Julia most clearly did not.

  And keeping their break-up a secret wasn’t allowing either of them to move forward.

  Suddenly, it felt like the most pressing thing in his world. Even if it involved the fight that was long overdue and the cross words that were bubbling into his head with alarming regularity, it was time to talk to Julia.

  Chapter 30

  On the other side of town, Julia stood in the doorway to the Gatehouse in haggard disbelief. Heels swinging from one hand, she steadied herself against the doorframe with the other. Her mother was lying on the sofa, cocooned in Julia’s favourite cashmere throw, a dribble of vomit on her chin and the wrought-iron wastepaper basket wedged within arm’s reach.