by Penny Parkes
As Taffy easily deflected Gary’s none-too-subtle enquiries about Mental Health in their community, Holly watched from a distance. Really watched. And as she took in Taffy’s gentle demeanour and his humorous take on Gary’s borderline offensive prurience, she caught her breath. Somehow she was carrying an internal divide between her heart and her head.
And she wasn’t even sure why any more.
Why did she subtly push him away every time he talked of the future?
Why did the notion of commitment scare her so fundamentally?
It was almost an ingrained habit now, like Eric with the vacuum cleaner – even though he now dwarfed its dragon roar, he was still the frightened puppy wedging himself behind the sofa every time it came out of the cupboard.
If only Holly knew a way for them to outgrow their fears – God knows there was a dearth of support in the women’s magazines she occasionally flicked through for advice. According to the popular press, every woman on the planet was clamouring for a wedding ring and only manly men and playboys had issues with commitment!
Her reverie was interrupted by Dan’s arrival – late, fully padded in his lifestyle-fat-suit and huffing and puffing his way towards her. Let nobody say he didn’t take his bets with Taffy seriously – unfortunately he didn’t appear to have received the message that all hilarity must be on hold for the day. And since both Julia and Quentin had been a no-show, it looked as though filming was too.
They should be grateful for small mercies, thought Holly, as Gary’s antenna for a story was so easily distracted. One camera at a time was plenty – after all there was only so much smoke and mirrors they could deploy to protect their patients from the intrusion.
A kerfuffle in Alice’s consulting room caught her attention, and Holly glanced sharply at the journalist only to see that he was caught up in Dan’s story of how his DIY had gone awry. The pointed look Dan was giving her though was all but indecipherable due to the dark and angry bruise above his eyebrow. ‘I’m going to take Gary over to The Deli for a coffee, really give him the low down on how things work around here,’ Dan said, as subtle as a brick.
‘Sure,’ she said slowly, ‘I’ll come over in a bit, but I need to log in at home first.’ She could see Gary waiver, clearly wanting to stick to her like bindweed, but she was banking on the fact that mundane domesticity might not be too much of a draw. ‘Blinking washing machine on the fritz again – you wouldn’t believe how much laundry two small boys can generate.’
Holly smiled to herself as she walked away. If her years with Milo had taught her one thing, it was that tales of laundry, periods and home furnishings were guaranteed to have a soporific effect on the average male, somewhere equivalent to the tipping-beyond-45-degrees that seemed to induce coma-style snoring from every man she’d ever met.
She knocked gently and pushed open the door into Alice’s room, the yapping growing ever louder, to find Coco circling madly around Jenny Lyle’s legs. Alice was on her knees trying to calm the little dog, but Coco was most insistent, refusing to leave Jenny and yapping so pitifully, it was almost as though she were desperate to be understood.
‘Call Jamie, Holly. Would you?’ Alice asked sadly, knowing all too well what this latest episode might mean. ‘Would you tell him it’s happened again?’
Holly nodded. ‘Silly question though, Jenny? You’re not here for diabetes testing, are you?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘No.’
Holly saw Alice’s shoulders slump still further and wondered whether she’d been having similar thoughts. Perhaps, surrounded by all these ailing people, Coco was no longer content with just helping one of them?
Thank God Gary Hyndes hadn’t been here to witness this, though – it was hardly playing in to the polished professional image they were desperate to portray.
And that said it all: desperate. Desperate for funding. Desperate for security. Desperate to please. At no point had anybody seemingly stopped to think whether they were also desperate to do a good job. With the lunatics now running the asylum, were they really a model surgery, or just an experiment that was failing?
The sense of responsibility on this front seemed to weigh heavier on Holly’s shoulders than for the others. They were focused on patient care and rightly so, but Holly knew only too well that it took more than five excellent doctors to run an excellent practice and there was only so much that Grace could do on her own to keep them sailing straight. They needed a senior partner – an experienced practitioner – to chart their course and look at the bigger picture. And truth be told, Holly didn’t think that any of them were up to the job at the moment.
‘Collaborative management, my arse,’ she mumbled as she scrolled through her contacts for the Diabetes Dog Trainer and Jamie promised to be there as quickly as possible.
Taffy was leaning in her doorway as she hung up. ‘I gather we’re going to The Deli for lunch with Nancy Drew,’ he said.
‘I don’t see how we can, to be honest, not with all of this going on.’ She threw her hands up in the air in defeat. ‘And I can’t get hold of Julia at all. I have to confess I’m starting to get worried.’
‘Are you serious?’ Taffy asked, his voice tight. ‘I can’t believe that you’re thinking about Julia at a time like this. The Practice – possibly – I mean, how can we function in our ridiculous top-heavy way, if two of the partners are fighting? But seriously, Holly, our friend has a two-inch gash to his forehead. There’s press circling like vultures and a mental spaniel in the hallway. And you? You’re worrying about bloody Julia!’
The outburst was so blunt, so uncharacteristic of Taffy’s laissez-faire attitude to life that Holly almost wondered for a moment whether she was so tense she was hallucinating.
Neither of them spoke for a moment as the atmosphere in the room began to cloy with the intensity of unspoken emotions.
‘They’re both our friends, Taffy,’ Holly ventured. ‘Dan and Julia. And they’re both having a horrible time. Julia possibly more so, if you sat down to make a list.’
‘And you can bet she bloody well has,’ muttered Taffy.
Holly scowled, disappointed that, at the very first hurdle, Taffy seemed so ready to throw Julia under the bus.
Okay, so the whole stapler-throwing incident hadn’t exactly cast Julia in the best of lights, but Holly could almost understand the frustration and anger that had driven her to it. If only Julia wasn’t such an over-achiever – even her over-arm throw hit target. Nobody would have been half as stressed if the bloody stapler had cracked Dan on the shin or broken a vase.
‘Julia is our partner and our friend. It’s not up to us to take sides,’ Holly insisted. ‘Plus, surely you can see how alone she must be feeling right now? Dan’s here with us. Her mum’s at the clinic. Who else does she have?’
Taffy blew out a long slow breath. ‘This is probably why they tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket, right? Work friends, home friends, boyfriend? If they happen to overlap . . .’
‘They overlap for all of us though,’ she reminded him. ‘Just remember that.’
He sighed wearily. ‘Go on then, send the mad psycho a text.’ He caught sight of the look on Holly’s face and held up his hands. ‘Too soon to joke?’
‘Definitely,’ she replied, already tapping out yet another message to Julia. She looked up to find Taffy staring at her with an odd expression on his face. ‘What?’
He shrugged. ‘You always look out for everyone, don’t you? I mean, I could only see Dan as the injured party in all this – plus, you know, freaking out about work. And then you start seeing both sides of it . . .’ He paused by the doorway, his expression inscrutable. ‘Damn it, Holly – you really do know how to make a man feel incredibly shallow.’
Chapter 37
Dan looked up and the exhaustion was clear for everyone to see. ‘Jesus – your face looks like cheap steak,’ said Taffy with his traditional delicacy, as he came into the doctors’ lounge later that afternoon. ‘Hope you didn�
�t let that sad little journo see you looking like that?’
Dan quickly put his finger to his lips and jerked his head sideways, watching in amusement as Taffy spun around, fully expecting to see Gary Hynde and his omnipresent iPhone recording every word he said.
‘Oh yes, very funny,’ Taffy grumbled as he slumped down into the seat beside Dan. ‘But seriously for a minute, what the hell did you say about your head? It’s not as though you can comb your hair over the cut now, is it? Not to mention that on a ratio basis, that cut must comprise, what, forty per cent of your bonce?’
Dan rolled his eyes and then promptly wished he hadn’t. His headache had been growing gradually worse throughout the day, to the point where he’d given himself a quick concussion once-over after lunch. It probably wasn’t terribly effective shining a torch in one’s own eyes and checking for reactions in a mirror, but had he let on to the others how horrific he was feeling, then two things would have happened: one, they would have sent him home and two, they would almost certainly have resented Julia that little bit more. And he wasn’t sure quite why, but he was pretty confident that Julia had enough demons to battle all on her own, without him adding to the mix.
‘Told him it was a bit of DIY gone awry,’ he said, belatedly replying to Taffy’s question. ‘He didn’t bat an eyelid.’
‘Hmm,’ said Taffy, clearly unconvinced. ‘Well, let’s hope so. Whatever stunt Julia pulled off with the Major’s dog last night has clearly got her in Larkford’s good books. There’s three boxes of chocolates in reception for her.’ He looked sheepish for a moment. ‘Okay, there are now two boxes of chocolates in reception for her . . .’
Dan grinned, Taffy’s voracious appetite being a wonder to them all. How he kept so incredibly fit whilst eating so much crap was an indictment of medical science.
‘I think she’s with Quentin,’ said Dan quietly, apropos of nothing. ‘Or should I say “Quinn”.’
‘Figures,’ said Taffy quietly. ‘It would give her the illusion of control to be the first to move on.’
Dan gave him a sideways look. ‘Have you finished Marketing for Dummies and moved on to Psychology? And yes, I did see the marketing book in your bathroom so don’t deny it. Therapy for Beginners not so much.’
Taffy took a sip of his Coke, his only concession to daytime drinking being that it must include as much sugar and caffeine as humanly possible. ‘She’s not at home. I checked. Holly guilted me into it, so don’t tell her I went.’ He sounded properly riled.
‘Trouble in Paradise?’ Dan asked.
Taffy shrugged. ‘If there is, it’ll be your fault. It’s a thing, you know – I read it in Cosmo. It’s called the Ripple Effect.’
‘Cosmo?’
Taffy looked embarrassed for a moment. ‘Actually, it might have been Heat. Either way – when one couple splits up, their friends often do too – and you have to admit that we’ve been more like a foursome than a couple for ages . . . Well – I worry – that’s all. Not to mention, I seem to be doing my part by acting like an absolute dickhead every opportunity I get.’
Dan nodded. ‘I get it, but unless you’re planning on sleeping with Quentin too, I reckon you’re probably safe.’ He sighed. ‘I went round to Julia’s first thing. Hence . . . you know . . . Quentin.’
‘You’ll be okay, though,’ said Taffy seriously. ‘You’ve done all this once before.’
Dan’s expression was bleak. ‘Is that why I feel like this, then? Like we did all the pain and recrimination the first time around and this time the only thing hurting is my pride? Learn from my mistakes, Taffy, don’t rush what you have with Holly and ruin it. Julia always made it clear that her career was her priority, but I suppose I thought that would change once we had a solid relationship to build on.’
Taffy frowned in thought. ‘Couldn’t rush her even if I wanted to – she knows her own mind, does Holly. But, I don’t think it’s like that with us, to be honest. We both want to be together, build a home together. I think.’ He shrugged. ‘She just prefers having me as her illicit live-in-lover, rather than her husband. It’s hardly a make-your-family-proud type scenario, is it?’
‘You’re arguing about semantics then really, aren’t you?’ Dan replied despondently, unaware that Taffy had been just as much in need of reassurance in sharing that particular confidence. ‘Whereas with me and Jules – it’s as though we just want different things out of life to make us feel fulfilled. So you’re right, I’ve got some thinking to do, because it’s almost as though we learned nothing the second time around.’
There was an awkward pause as both men suddenly realised how intimate their conversation had become.
Taffy stepped into the breach. ‘To be honest, I just meant you’d done this break-up once so you’d probably be a bit pissed off and in need of a revenge shag, but your way works too.’
Dan couldn’t help but smile. ‘You’re a dickhead.’
‘Wanker.’
‘Arse-face,’ Dan responded, almost lovingly. He clapped a hand on Taffy’s shoulder and looked self-conscious. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’
Taffy looked left and right, only partially joking, as he scoped out the doctors’ lounge for journalists.
‘There’s somebody else I like. Have started to like . . . Well, it’s a bit weird actually, because I’ve known her for ages, but it’s like I never really saw her before, you know.’
‘Like totally, Tiffany,’ Taffy replied in an appalling American accent, slurping his can of Coke through a straw like a teenage girl. When he realised Dan wasn’t kidding about, he stopped dead. ‘Oh. Okay. Lindy?’
Dan shook his head. ‘If I’ve been thinking about somebody else while I was still with Julia, was I actually the one cheating?’
‘Do you want to have been the one cheating?’ Taffy asked, trying to work out if this was a self-defence mechanism against Julia’s apparent leap into Quentin’s bed.
‘To be honest, mate, right now, I don’t whether I want a shit or a haircut.’
Taffy laughed. ‘Then let me make this simple for you, mate – you have no hair left to cut.’ He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Come on – it’s a gorgeous evening and we’ve done our bit for the lame and the ailing, I reckon. Let’s go to the pub and have a game of snooker. Take your mind off things.’
Dan rose to his feet, trying to ignore the mild wave of nausea that overcame him. ‘Since when did The Kingsley Arms have a snooker table?’
Taffy shepherded him out of the door and they ambled towards the Market Place and commandeered a table outside. Drinks duly ordered, Dan utterly bemused, Taffy filled him in on the rules. ‘So you need to see a red car, then you get to go for your colours. Remember “You Go Brown Before Potting Black”.’
Dan blinked twice. ‘Am I having auditory hallucinations?’
Taffy laughed. ‘Yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black? You remember the snooker mnemonic. Just pot the balls in order. I’ll break, shall I?’ He looked around the Market Place and within moments, the traffic lights changed and the cars began streaming past, ‘Red car, yellow car, red . . . Argh. No greens. Your go.’
Dan shook his head. ‘Where on earth did you find this game, Taffs? It’s a bit off-piste even for us.’
‘Chief Inspector Grant told me about it the other week. They used to play it when they were doing spot checks for MOTs or speeding – to stop them getting bored. Did you never wonder why you got pulled over so often when you had that little red Audi? Well, now you know. Car snooker.’
‘Mentalist. Besides, I thought you had another wheeze going on with Jason – there was lots of shouting and laughing when I joined you the other night.’
Taffy looked a bit embarrassed. ‘You wouldn’t like that game, though, Dan. Trust me.’ Under Dan’s questioning gaze, Taffy buckled immediately. ‘Drink along with Doctor In The House. Every time Julia grimaces, drink. Every time she says “basically”, drink. Every time she . . .’
‘I get the premise, Taffs. And
you’re right, I’m not sure that one’s for me.’ The traffic lights changed again. ‘Red, yellow car, red, green car, red lorry?’
Taffy shook his head. ‘Car snooker, Dan. Just cars. Otherwise it would get ridiculous.’
Dan laughed for the first time, as the hustle and bustle of the end of the day began to mellow in the pub garden. ‘Yup, because that’s what would make it ridiculous.’
Dan swallowed a couple of paracetamol with a sip of cider and rubbed the back of his neck. Taffy was phoning home to check that Holly was back from seeing Elsie and that he wasn’t needed for Twin Watch. Dan couldn’t help wondering whether he himself would ever be so amenable. As Dan watched Cassie Holland corral Tarquin-the-Terrible away from the newsagent’s, he realised that his own emotions had finally settled on that front.
It wasn’t Julia’s lack of maternal urges that had been their undoing, he realised now, it was the fact that he was ready to settle down and she wasn’t. She still had so much to prove – to herself and to the world at large – and now Dan had a better understanding of her upbringing and her motivations, he could kind of understand why.
He slipped another handful of popcorn down to Gerald the goose, who pecked at it delicately from Dan’s palm. It was oddly satisfying having been adopted by a goose, Dan decided, even if he did get odd looks whenever Gerald spotted him in the Market Place and zeroed in on him with rather terrifying focus. But Gerald was most definitely his own master, taking his treats before making his retreat. ‘You’re only in this for the popcorn, aren’t you, mate?’ said Dan, as Gerald bustled his way through the busy pub garden, belly full, and back towards the river bank.
Dan watched Jamie the dog trainer, walking loops through the town with Alice and Coco. They went in and out of shops as they were all shutting up for the night, criss-crossing the Market Place, as if seeking out maximum distractions. Thankfully Coco seemed to be happily doing her job and the relief on Alice’s face was clear to see. Maybe he should get a dog, Dan wondered. At least then, somebody would always be pleased to see him and it was probably more sociably acceptable than a goose.