by Penny Parkes
‘Oh, but I do,’ she said fervently. ‘I need to apologise. I can’t leave Larkford knowing how badly I’ve behaved when everyone has been nothing but welcoming and supportive to me the whole time I’ve been here.’
Dan nodded. ‘London calling?’
‘Nope,’ said Julia with a certain satisfaction. ‘Geneva. I’m going to work for Unicef, Dan, can you believe it?’ The smile that lit up her face said it all and Dan put aside the momentary quiver of disappointment that it hadn’t been him that could make her shine with such enthusiasm and contentment.
‘I’m so pleased for you, Jules. Genuinely. I mean – obviously it won’t be the same here without you . . .’ he grinned. ‘I mean, it might even be safe now to venture into the stationery cupboard without a helmet.’ It felt good to be able to tease her again, to have found a footing that worked for them – even if one foot was about to be in another country – but then, he realised, maybe that was the key?
‘Tell me about this job, then?’ he said, with genuine interest.
Julia looked perplexed. ‘But I’m making amends.’ She said it as though she had a mental check-list of all the things she needed to get off her chest. Dan wondered for a moment whether, being Julia, she actually did. ‘I need to explain how bad I’ve been feeling about us – the way it ended – how awful it must have been to see me with Quinn like that . . . And so soon.’
Dan reached out and took her hand. ‘But you’ve already apologised.’
‘Not enough,’ said Julia persistently, ‘I don’t think you realise how—’
‘Look,’ interrupted Dan. ‘I’m a bloke. You’ve said sorry. I don’t need a whole self-flagellation routine to convince me of your remorse. Did you mean to hurt me with that stapler?’
‘No!’ she exhaled. ‘I just—’
‘Did you deliberately flaunt your relationship with Quentin to hurt me?’
She hesitated. ‘Maybe a tiny bit?’
Dan laughed out loud. ‘See? We’re good. A little bit of honesty goes a very long way with me, Jules, you know that. Now – do I get to hear what’s so special about Switzerland? Except cuckoo clocks and chocolate, of course.’
As Dan listened to Julia’s impassioned description of her new job, it all made so much sense. He couldn’t quite believe they hadn’t worked it out before. He had always just assumed that Julia didn’t have a charitable bone in her body – he hadn’t foreseen that the expression ‘charity begins at home’ meant something rather different for her – all her empathy, all her altruism, had been funnelled into Candace Channing. There really hadn’t been so much as a drop left to donate elsewhere. But with Candace seeking treatment – finally – and the scales of responsibility dropping from her eyes, Julia was finally able to fulfil her own potential.
In fact, thought Dan, although becoming an Ambassador for Unicef hardly seemed like the logical step for someone whose interest in children only began once they hit senior school, as he listened to her heartfelt explanations, the logic for using her media skills for a greater cause just somehow made sense.
This wasn’t so much a job for Julia, as a calling.
‘Don’t you see?’ Julia carried on. ‘If I can give one child a better childhood than I had, then it’s all been worthwhile, hasn’t it? Maybe they’ll grow up to do something remarkable and I can know I had a hand in that.’ She paused. ‘It’s what I’ve been looking for all along, without even realising it.’
Dan sighed; he had never thought that he would ever be counting on Julia for inspiration on this front. ‘I think it sounds perfect,’ he said.
Her eyes shone. ‘Do you? Do you really?’ She stopped then, as though trying not to laugh. ‘Jesus, I really have a problem with external validation, did you know that?’
Dan grinned and reached out to shake her hand. ‘All the best people do, so join the club.’ He leaned in. ‘I’m always incredibly suspicious of people with inner-confidence and unshakeable self-esteem.’ He gave a mock shudder.
She narrowed her eyes and looked at him, really looked at him and Dan felt as though his soul were laid bare. ‘Do you know,’ she said slowly, ‘I don’t think we’re so very different, you and me. And if you didn’t have this all-consuming love for this barmy one-horse town, I’d be asking you to come with me, make a difference, be the “best of the best”.’
‘You watched Top Gun!’ Dan exclaimed in delight. If only this Julia had been the one he had been living with, he couldn’t help wondering whether they would have stayed the course.
She grinned. ‘Talk to me Goose . . .’
Dan frantically shh-ed her. ‘Just don’t mention the G-word! I’m quite convinced that Gerald knows when we’re talking about him.’ He looked around, checking the coast was clear and he wasn’t about to have a 25-pound bird descending on them for twiglets and attention.
‘What about you though, Dan?’ Julia said, shaking her head at his antics. ‘Have you worked out what you’re going to do next? Do you think you might ramp up the Health in the Community Scheme now you’ve got a bit more funding and one less GP to pay?’
Dan frowned. ‘Well, there is one thing I’ve been thinking about, but I’m not sure it’s even practical, let alone possible.’
‘Sod practical,’ Julia said with feeling. ‘We only get one shot at this, yes? And I think we’ve both been compromising for other people for far too long.’
Dan hesitated. He loved talking to Julia, appreciating her analytical brain and her ability to see things in black and white, but he wasn’t sure it was appropriate now. He looked at her, all the old feelings tumbling through him, but somehow righting themselves in a different configuration that just felt . . .better.
‘I really would like to be Senior Partner,’ he said. ‘And if that won’t work for whatever reason, then I think Holly has a point – part of being a grown-up is accepting our limitations and being mature about how we handle them. We should think about getting somebody else in who has more experience, particularly on the management side of things. We can’t carry on as we are.’
‘Crikey,’ said Julia, clearly taken aback. ‘And what about the Model Surgery whatnot.’
Dan shook his head. ‘Not sure. If we changed our “collaborative structure” we’ll probably lose the funding, which means losing Alice . . . That’s why I’m a bit stumped.’
Julia nodded. ‘And this role you envision. Do you need a sign on your door, or a pay rise?’
‘Nope. Just an identity and the feeling that one person is steering the ship with an end-goal in mind and following through on making it happen. I think it’s for the best: for the patients and the long term.’
‘That’s exactly what Holly’s been saying for weeks,’ Julia said quietly.
‘Well, don’t let on that she got there faster than we did, will you, or we’ll never hear the end of it.’
‘I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved here though, Dan, aren’t you? And it has been a team effort, to keep The Practice open – I suppose that’s why on one level, it makes sense that it stays a team endeavour. But here’s the thing – if you’re going to commit to spending your working life here, your whole life here, then isn’t it also okay to ask for what you need? And whether you like it or not, Dan, country GP isn’t going to tick all your career boxes for long. You need a challenge – a role where you can make stuff happen.’
‘I’m not leaving,’ Dan said, a flare of indignation in his voice.
‘Calm down, I wasn’t suggesting that you should. I just think it’s okay for you to mould the role to suit you, to keep you professionally engaged and satisfied. At least until you can distract yourself with a gaggle of mini-Carters to drag around to rugby and ballet and swimming and . . .’
Dan gave her a look and she quickly shut up. ‘But seriously, where’s the harm in taking a private vote, awarding you seniority internally and then shutting up about it?’
‘Wouldn’t that be fraudulent?’ Dan said.
‘Oh. It might be actually.
But you know who might have the answer?’
‘Holly?’ Dan said with a sigh. ‘You know, I’m never going to hear the end of this.’ He drained his cider glass. ‘Look, do you fancy a drink? You can tell me more about Geneva and we can work out how to persuade Holly to be our new media spokesperson?’
‘Cut her some slack, you know she hates the limelight. And this whole poisonous battery entrée? It’s really knocked her confidence.’ Julia paused, biting on her lip as she frowned in thought. ‘You know, if you could find an issue that she felt really, really strongly about, she might not take as much persuading as you think.’
She stood up and smoothed down her immaculate linen trousers, jumping slightly as Gerald-the-goose materialised beside her with a plaintive ‘honk’.
‘You’re leaving?’ Dan said. ‘I thought we were going to have a drink and hatch a plan?’ He felt oddly bereft, not knowing when he was going to see her again.
Julia leaned in and kissed him on the forehead, just shy of where the stapler had landed. ‘Take care, Dan. And you don’t need me for this.’ She stepped out of reach of Gerald’s inquisitive bill. ‘You’ve already got your wingman.’
Chapter 46
Taffy plonked his bag on the kitchen table and braced for impact from two excitable small boys. ‘Well, I bumped into your Aunty Lizzie in the Market Place,’ he told them, ‘and she just found out that she might be looking after a puppy for a little while. How cool is that? And then,’ he crouched down on the floor so that he could talk to the boys eye-to-eye, ‘this little puppy is going to go off to school, just like you, so he can become a working dog like Coco.’ The boys were suitably impressed for all of two seconds before they scooted back off towards the towering heap of Meccano.
‘Really?’ Holly looked up from scraping Play Doh off the kitchen table.
Taffy nodded as he straightened up. ‘I have to say, Holly, she looked happier than I’ve seen her in ages. Jamie had somebody drop out at the last minute and he thought of Lizzie. She’s going to be a puppy walker, if all goes well. Maybe all she needs is something to focus her energies on? Although, I have to tell you that poor little Coco went bonkers at work again today, so this assistance dog business isn’t exactly fool-proof.’
Holly felt the very first stirrings of professional interest she’d had all week, as though sorting out her childcare arrangements had allowed a different part of her brain to re-engage, as though a fog had lifted. ‘Which patient were you seeing?’
Taffy frowned. ‘Poor Lindy Grey had some bad news about her cervical procedure. Looks like it might be cancer, but they’ve caught it early. She was desperate to see you actually – could hardly send her in to Dan with that one.’
Holly leaned back against the kitchen worktop, her mind slipping back into methodical analysis, glad of a challenge that didn’t involve equal allocation of raspberries or Nerf bullets. ‘And Coco went nuts?’
‘Completely. It was awful timing though actually, because Harry Grant was there, giving Derek Landers a full guided tour and Quentin was having a strop with Julia about his London project. Speaking of which—’ He looked up at the enormous station clock that dominated the wall above the oven, ‘any chance we can persuade the boys into bed a little early? There’s quite a lot we need to talk about. There’s only so many balls I can keep in the air at work without dropping them all.’ He ran his hand around the back of his neck and Holly realised how exhausted and drained Taffy looked.
He basically looked how she had been feeling for the last few days and the guilt washed over her. She wasn’t the only one who’d been worrying and juggling and trying to find a path forward – Taffy had too – the only difference being, that she hadn’t been there to hold his hand.
It was over an hour until the boys were due to hit the hay, but the expression on his face convinced Holly that it was one of those occasions when emergency measures were justified. She glanced over her shoulder to check the twins were still engrossed in their Meccano and leaned forward to fiddle with the small cog behind the clock, whizzing the hands forward an hour. She held her finger to her lips as Taffy was about to speak.
‘Oh my goodness!’ she exclaimed loudly for the twins’ benefit. ‘Look how late it is! Tom, Ben, chip chop. Doesn’t time fly when we’re building Meccano.’
The boys were thankfully nothing if not suggestible and they both ambled over, Ben even squeezing out a yawn. ‘Can we have a really long story, Mummy?’
Holly crouched down and scooped him into her arms. ‘How about, as a very special treat because you’ve both been so good today, you could listen to one of your Roald Dahl CDs. In bed!’
She’d obviously hit upon the magic words, because both boys were up the stairs before she could say any more, squabbling admittedly over whether to listen to George’s Marvellous Medicine or The Witches. ‘Back in a sec,’ said Holly. ‘Get the kettle on and you can tell me everything.’
The sheer relief on Taffy’s face that she was even prepared to engage in a conversation about work said it all.
When Holly came back downstairs a few minutes later, it was to find Taffy almost asleep on the kitchen table, his head on his arms and a pile of paperwork spilling over in front of him.
Just persuading the boys into their pyjamas had given her a moment to think and she was pleasantly surprised to find that she was actually able to focus for the first time in days. Strike that, she thought, she actively wanted to focus on something outside these four walls. She flicked off the boiling kettle and filled two mugs, gently making just enough noise to rouse Taffy.
‘That was quick,’ he said sleepily. ‘I had no idea you could be so devious, Holly Graham.’ He said it with a smile, an almost impressed smile. ‘Which is handy actually. In light of today’s events.’
He sat up and yawned, marshalling the paperwork in front of him. ‘We need to talk about Julia,’ he said.
Holly nodded. ‘God, yes – we do. And this is actually happening, is it, this Unicef thing? I half wondered if I’d imagined the whole conversation after she phoned.’
He nodded. ‘It’s taken us all a bit by surprise. But honestly, she’s so over the moon about it, it’s hard to be churlish. And she wants to keep it quiet for a while, but there are decisions that have to be made and you should be involved in that.’
Holly nodded. Today was turning into the perfect storm of momentous events. She glanced over at the large canvas propped against the wall that Elsie had delivered earlier that day, the large lilac letters looping across the creamy background:
‘Love many, trust few, but always paddle your own canoe.’
She had been mildly relieved at the time that Elsie hadn’t been tempted to send her a real canoe, but the words resonated all the same. It was time that she stepped back in and picked up her proverbial paddle.
‘Tell me what you need,’ she said simply.
It was amazing, thought Holly only an hour later, how much she could achieve when she put her mind to it. Checking over the partnership agreements and the report that Grace had hurriedly compiled about the financial consequences of Julia’s departure was one thing; making long-term decisions about who would pick up her work-load was another. Who knew Julia was quietly instrumental in so many areas?
Taffy paused, chomping on yet another packet of crisps in lieu of breaking for supper. ‘So, what do you think? I know it’s not ideal, but how do you feel about heading up the Model Surgery business? Being our spokesperson? Grace will do the admin, but we need a face – and let’s be honest, yours is far more approachable and credible than mine or Dan’s.’
Holly frowned at the very thought of being a spokesperson for something she didn’t really believe in. Even the very suggestion had the hallmark of Harry Grant all over it. ‘There’s no rush though, is there?’ she prevaricated.
‘Ah, well,’ said Taffy awkwardly. ‘That’s the other thing.’ He didn’t meet her eye as he outlined the interview that Julia had already set up with Edgar Herring, renow
ned for being one of the most astute and analytical journalists in the medical field. ‘All the prep work has been done and Grace and Julia both firmly believe we can stand up to scrutiny, it’s just that, with Julia leaving—’
‘Please don’t say you’re expecting me to do it!’ Holly exclaimed, even as her logical brain ran through the options and alighted on the self-same solution.
Taffy looked up at her. ‘Harry Grant is convinced you’re the man for the job. And I could take the day off, look after the boys?’
‘What?’ said Holly, distracted by the very thought of being quizzed about their unorthodox partnership arrangements and equally disconcerted by the small thrill of excitement she felt at being back in the game. His words finally registered and she looked up and smiled. ‘I knew there was something I wanted to tell you.’
As she filled him in on Hattie’s visit and the prospect of having a child-minder who wasn’t a complete and utter liability, she watched his whole demeanour relax. It was all very well the two of them struggling by, but sometimes raising kids really did take a village and it was just wonderful to have someone else on their team.
‘Not only that,’ she said, unable to disguise the satisfaction in her voice, ‘but I spoke to Milo earlier.’
Taffy blinked. ‘Seriously? He called?’ He narrowed his eyes, waiting for the bombshell.
‘He called,’ confirmed Holly, ‘and I got to say everything I’ve been wanting to say for weeks, years actually. It was—’she struggled to find the word, ‘incredibly cathartic. And a lot cheaper than therapy!’
‘Did he actually listen?’ Taffy asked, knowing only too well how much Holly had been thinking about this mythical conversation of late, even though Taffy himself had been convinced it would probably never happen.
‘I have no idea,’ said Holly calmly. ‘But I’m not sure that’s important, is it? He’s going to do what he’s going to do – but at least I got to have my say. And he’s gone away to think about it. I’m not exactly optimistic that anything will change for the boys, but at least I know I did the right thing and I can stop feeling guilty about it.’