Practice Makes Perfect

by Penny Parkes

  ‘Okay then,’ Taffy said, still clearly braced for more. ‘And he didn’t try to manipulate you?’

  Holly laughed. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, but that is so much easier to ignore when you simply don’t care what he thinks of you. Who knew?’

  Taffy’s gaze softened as she spoke with ease and simplicity, clearly unfazed by this momentous achievement with the added benefit of hindsight.

  ‘I am so incredibly proud of you,’ he said, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead.

  For a moment there was a certain tension in the air and Holly half wondered whether Taffy was about to pick up where he left off in the hospital, but the compassion in his eyes was a dead giveaway that he was still basically in care-and-sympathy-mode. She could only hope that her withdrawal these last few days hadn’t given him time to reconsider his role in their dysfunctional little family.

  Holly considered for a moment how they had managed to change gears quite so completely. She didn’t want to be Taffy’s patient, or his responsibility, she realised. She wanted to be the object of his lust and affection. Pulling the sleeves of her jumper down over her hands, she caught sight of her reflection in the oven door. Perhaps, she thought, getting back on her feet would have to start with baby steps. Like shampoo, or sleep.

  Or simply getting back to work and doing this interview.

  She might not have Julia’s flair for media relations, but Holly knew she had something else to bring to the party – her absolute conviction in her ability to make the best of every opportunity that presented itself.

  Not only that, she thought happily, but this week, at least, she seemed to be on a roll.

  Holly smoothed down the soft grey fabric of her dress over her hips and looked at herself objectively in the mirror. Only two days ago she’d been firmly committed to her pyjamas and the very thought of what she was about to do would have seemed impossible. It was probably better that she hadn’t had much notice, as it had given her less time to stew and tie herself up in knots. It was a baptism of fire and Holly was determined to rise to the challenge. And this was just the challenge she needed – no matter how daunting – the catalyst required to kick-start herself back into action. It was about time.

  ‘You know you’re going to be amazing at this, don’t you?’ said Taffy reassuringly. ’If you can cope with Twenty Questions from Ben before coffee, then this will be a walk in the park.’

  Holly scowled, completely unconvinced. The nerves were definitely getting the better of her. She’d been thrown completely in at the deep end with this interview and they all knew it. Sink or swim. No matter how supportive the other partners had been, how lovely Lizzie, Grace and Elsie had been in rallying around to have her looking her best, there was still a nest of pythons squirming in her stomach. ‘What happens if I throw up on this guy? Do you think he would judge me?’

  ‘Looking like that? Nah, I think in that dress and those heels, Holly, he’d probably just call it adorable.’ Taffy grinned, teasing her with the kind of deliberately sexist humour that always riled her up and distracted her from the issue at hand. ‘Come on, relax. You know your stuff and you have a plan. Just stay away from words like “collaborative” and stick with “contemporary and innovative” – just like you said. You said you wanted to do this your way and this is your moment, Holly.’ He swallowed hard for a minute. ‘And besides, whatever this journalist might say, just because Dan has expressed a desire to be Senior Partner and Julia has expressed a desire to be almost anywhere other than here, it doesn’t change the fact that we are doing a bloody good job.’

  Holly nodded. ‘Patient satisfaction is up, referrals and waiting times are improved – all round happy bunnies – got it.’ She paused and smoothed her newly coiffured hair-do. ‘Do you think they’ll do the photos first, before I get all red-faced and fidgety in the interview?’

  ‘We can but ask,’ Taffy said calmly. ‘He seems like a good guy on the phone. Just because he’s the country’s top medical journalist, doesn’t mean he’s not human. Just make sure your skirt isn’t still tucked in your knickers when you meet him.’

  ‘What?’ yelped Holly in panic, reaching around the back of her perfectly smooth skirt. ‘You little . . .’ She burst out laughing, nerves and excitement getting the better of her.

  Taffy pulled her into a hug. ‘There now, what’s the worst that can happen?’

  Holly pulled back and looked at him. ‘I can give you twenty-seven scenarios right off the bat, actually. I can’t believe I’m doing this on my first day back! It’s madness.’

  She’d tried very hard not to feel hurt this morning as both twins had skipped into Hattie’s beautiful crèche with barely a backwards glance. One look at the basket of intricate wooden puzzles and their mother was all but irrelevant.

  Holly took a deep breath, reminding herself of all the reasons she’d soldiered on being a working mum while they were small – money, yes, but also a sense of her own identity. It was something worth remembering every now and again, and if Julia was brave enough to say ‘fuck it’ and follow her heart, then maybe it was time that Holly did too.

  She was perfectly happy to let Dan take on a senior role in administration, but she was damned if she was going to give up her place at the helm; when it came to steering The Practice into the twenty-first century, she intended to be right there, helping to choose the direction.

  And so what if their collaborative style of management needed a little tweaking? They were still the most forward-thinking and innovate practice she knew and, for all his bluster and interference, Derek Landers knew it too. Why else would he have sicced this journalist on them at short notice? Elsie wasn’t the only one who could use a Google search engine around here and Holly took comfort in knowing that Derek and Edgar Herring were old school chums. To Holly’s mind, it meant the team had to be doing something right, to get Derek-the-Walrus that worried.

  Besides, even if her own personal reservations were all completely sound, they were also best kept private, as a springboard to fine-tuning an otherwise inspirational ‘big picture’.

  She checked her watch and saw that she had a few moments to spare. ‘Taffy? Thank you for being so understanding – I know I haven’t been easy to live with the last few weeks.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that what we’re calling it?’ He smiled. ‘It was quite a revelation to watch your tantrum last night, you know. I’m beginning to see where the twins get their stubborn streak from.’

  ‘It was not a tantrum,’ she protested, trying not to laugh, because they both knew that had been exactly what it was. The idea of an interview with Edgar Herring was one thing, knowing that the future of their standing as a Model Surgery depended on it, was quite something else. Dan had been gently persuasive, Julia had been oddly keen to hand over the media mantle and Taffy had been calm and convincing – they had all agreed, she was the person to get this done. Late last night though, nerves had set in – sometime around the fifth attempt to blow dry her hair into submission.

  Taffy squeezed her hand. ‘It was actually quite fun seeing you with a bit of fire in your eyes. I’ve missed that. We all know what you’ve been dealing with recently – the only person who doesn’t think you’re being amazing is you. Dan and I agreed, we’d have been sobbing into a pint glass days ago.’

  ‘It’s not the end of the world if we lose our funding though, is it, Taffs? I mean with Julia leaving, we can still afford to keep Alice on, can’t we?’

  She’d realised at roughly 3 a.m., that her loyalty to her workmates and their shared vision of medicine trumped almost every other criteria for The Practice. Obviously she wanted to be honest and open and completely above reproach – but that didn’t mean she needed to wash their dirty linen in public, and every new system required a little modification at first, didn’t it?

  That’s when Holly had known what she needed to do – but if she was going to pick up the gauntlet that had been thrown into her lap, she was going to do it her w
ay. No compromises with the truth and, finally, some authenticity in her life that extended beyond the theoretical.

  Chapter 47

  An hour later, Holly stood in reception, twisting her fingers together until they turned white.

  She’d just had Hattie on the phone, with a pitifully sobbing Ben in her arms. Today of all days, his precious Winnie the Pooh had gone missing. She’d offered as many soothing platitudes as she could to Ben and then a flurry of apologies to Hattie. No teddy bear at the crèche would suffice though, and she could hear her little boy working himself up into proper, snot-bubbling histrionics. ‘Oh, Ben.’ She couldn’t help thinking she’d been tempting fate when she’d earlier bemoaned the very idea of feeling irrelevant. ‘Mummy has to do a big chat at work and then I’ll find Winnie, okay?’

  She’d got off the phone feeling properly unsettled and choked up. Hearing one of her boys so upset had a hard line wired to her emotions.

  Taffy had checked his watch. ‘Then it’s decision time, Holls. I can be here to hold your hand or I can look for the errant bear, but I can’t do both.’

  She’d only hesitated for a moment. ‘I’ll be fine here. At least my skirt’s not tucked in my knickers, anyway. Can you ring Hattie too? Maybe just knowing that you’re on the case might calm him down?’

  She’d known it was the right choice straight away, but that didn’t mean that the nerves weren’t getting the better of her as she waited for the arrival of her interrogator interviewer.

  ‘Shouldn’t he be here by now?’ she asked Lucy, who was fresh off the phone, having manfully wrangled one of their regular no-shows into line.

  Lucy shrugged. ‘He’ll be here when he’s here. Listen, I’ve had a few messages for you from Jamie the dog guy, if you want to take a minute. He said it was urgent and that he had that information you requested. He and Grace have been up since six getting it all together and Grace says she’s on the case with everything you discussed. All very cryptic.’

  Holly just nodded and took the message slips. ‘Okay, but let me know the minute Mr Herring arrives?’ At least having lovely Jamie to talk to would take her mind off her impending moment in the spotlight.

  So, Holly realised, as she finally got to shake hands with Edgar Herring, she should remind herself never to make assumptions based on fear or ignorance. The mental picture she’d been building of Mr Herring overnight had him tall, foreboding and out to cause destruction – in other words, the journalistic equivalent of budget-slasher Landers. The genial gentleman in a cardigan now standing before her had a twinkle in his eye, a notepad in his hand and Holly would bet good money there were Werther’s Originals lurking in his pockets.

  ‘It’s an absolute pleasure to meet you, Dr Graham. I’m so glad you were able to join me and I’m thrilled to hear your little lad is on the mend.’

  Holly was so touched by his interest in Ben and his amiable demeanour that she immediately softened. They chatted casually on the way through to her office, talking about ways to improve the safety of children’s toys. Holly gave herself a little nudge that maybe this was his sly journalistic way of getting her to let her guard down, but his interest seemed so sincere. Either way, she thought, keep it together, Graham.

  ‘I don’t suppose we could grab a cup of coffee and chat in your common room, could we?’ asked Mr Herring politely. ‘I’m not great with tiny rooms at the best of times and of late, I’ve developed quite an aversion to the doctor’s lair.’ He managed a little laugh, but Holly was only too familiar with the issue.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said. ‘It happens to a lot of patients actually, when they’ve had some bad news health-wise. That is, I mean to say . . .’ She stalled, her go-to setting for compassion making her overstep the mark. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Herring, that was entirely inappropriate.’

  ‘Call me Edgar,’ he said with a smile. ‘And to be honest, you’re not too far off the mark. Now, let’s get some coffee on the go and we can have a nice little chat about this Model Surgery business.’

  Give him his due, Holly couldn’t help feeling that the vast majority of her interview had taken place while they rootled around for milk and sugar and attempted to unearth an uncompromised packet of biscuits. She was only grateful that the rest of the team were busily occupied elsewhere – she wasn’t to know that Grace was standing sentinel in the hallway, ushering everybody away.

  ‘So then, talk to me about this collaborative management style I’ve been hearing so much about? I take it you’re not all actually communists, or indeed polygamists?’ He chortled to himself at his own little joke.

  ‘There have been a few rather odd interpretations of our work, haven’t there?’ said Holly. ‘But in truth, all you need to know about The Practice is that we like to keep an open mind – our approach is very contemporary, true – we like to focus as much on health education and prevention, as we do on treatment and awareness. Our Health in the Community Scheme embodies that really – we work with our community to improve their health, rather than only being there to pick up the pieces, as it were.’

  ‘And you really don’t have any seniority between you?’

  ‘Well,’ Holly said carefully, ‘obviously Dan Carter has been here the longest and so there is a certain level of local experience that he brings to the table. Taffy Jones is our go-to guy for all sports injuries. I tend to be the one who might get called in for any emotional or reproductive issues . . .’

  ‘And Dr Channing? You didn’t mention her. Is that because she’s too busy with her camera crew?’ Edgar interrupted.

  ‘Julia Channing is a first-rate physician and her commitment to spreading awareness through her TV show has been a huge success. We each have our strengths, you see, Edgar. And because we’re not bound by a strict hierarchy, we have the opportunity to play to those strengths.’ She paused and took a sip of coffee. ‘But to be honest, Edgar, none of these ideals would be possible without the phenomenal support we get from our administrative and nursing staff. We really are all working towards the same goal – a healthier, and by extension, a happier Larkford.’

  She took a deep breath then, hoping against hope that she’d said enough.

  ‘So you never squabble? Disagree about fund allocations? Nothing ever gets missed because you all think somebody else has ticked that box?’ Edgar pressed.

  Holly smiled. ‘Well, we did have a tremendous to-do about chocolate biscuits, but I think we’ve resolved that now. On the bigger picture issues, we’re very good at being adaptable. Obviously, sometimes we need to review how something is working – for example, we’re hoping that Dr Carter will have a much bigger role in liaising with our wonderful Practice Manager in the future. When they put their heads together, things do tend to run more smoothly.’ Holly tried not to blush as she answered. To her own ears, she sounded evasive, but Edgar Herring clearly had a different headline in mind.

  ‘So they have a close personal relationship too, do they?’

  ‘We’re all very good friends,’ Holly dodged, feeling a trickle of cold sweat down the back of her neck – she wasn’t prepared to go into the details of their complicated love lives on the record. ‘You see, in Larkford . . .’ she began, as the door swung open and Alice Walker wandered in, Coco at her heels.

  ‘Oh sorry, Holly. Am I interrupting?’ she said nervously.

  Holly could have kissed her. ‘No, no. Grab a coffee – it’s fine. And then come and say hello to Mr Herring.’

  ‘How lovely to meet you, Mr Herring, I’m Dr Alice Walker – the new recruit.’ She wandered over and shook his hand, while Coco finished her traditional sweep of the kitchen floor looking for a stray Hobnob.

  ‘And who’s this little chap? Unusual to see a dog in a medical setting,’ Edgar said to Holly, just as Coco trotted over, close enough for her little red jacket to be legible. ‘Oh, I see. How wonderful. And he belongs to you, does he, Dr Walker?’

  ‘She does yes,’ said Alice, with just the same ease and generosity as she
had at her first meeting with Holly. They were soon talking nineteen to the dozen about diabetes detection and leaps forward in its management. It was only as Coco started to whimper that Edgar Herring smoothly turned the conversation towards slightly more contentious ground. ‘So, Dr Walker, do be blunt. What’s it like having a whole team of bosses – do you sometimes wonder whether you’re coming or going?’

  ‘No, not really . . .’ Alice began. ‘Oh Coco, do settle down.’

  Mr Herring’s glance flickered towards the fidgety little dog, but he carried on undeterred, ‘I bet it gets tricky with all the personal relationships too though, doesn’t it? Too many cooks and all that? Tell me, is it difficult knowing that there’s no real structure in place if things go wrong?’

  Alice looked completely flustered. ‘I’m sorry, could you say that first question again, I didn’t quite catch it.’

  Mr Herring flicked open his notebook. ‘Well, in simple terms, I’m asking you whether you think this Model Surgery nomination is a bit of a farce?’ He said it so sweetly, so gently, it took a moment for both Holly and Alice to realise that this was no cuddly Grandpa – Edgar Herring was a top-notch journalist and his nose was telling him that there was a story here that needed to be told.

  Coco sat back on her haunches and yapped, before circling around Edgar’s legs.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a farce at all,’ said Alice firmly, in that no-nonsense Scottish voice she saved for patients who wouldn’t listen. ‘We like to look at the big picture here, Mr Herring, and as is often the case, the more pairs of eyes, the better. Our Health in the Community Scheme has received a huge amount of praise.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Edgar, flapping his hand, eyes gleaming as he moved in for the kill, ‘but I want to hear all about this contemporary management style – all very innovative – but does it actually work?’