‘I… I don’t have children myself.’ Alice let this tail away to a shrug, turning back to Mhairi. ‘But if he’s loved, and clothed and growing and happy, and making his feelings felt, that seemsgreatto me.’
Mhairi’s face fell as though she didn’t know whether to thank her for the vote of confidence or throw herself on the floor and have a fit of rage at this brushing-off.
‘Great?’ Mhairi echoed.
‘Really,reallygreat!’ Alice’s double thumbs-up detracted from the reassurance she was desperately trying to offer.
‘Right, well, thank you.’ The woman was shrinking before her eyes.
Oh no!Alice could see it all now. Dr Millen had been the practice GP for decades now, and he could be fusty and set in his ways, if Alice’s first encounters with him this morning were indicative of how he was all the time. He’d shaken Alice’s hand in greeting with the relieved look of a man who ought to have retired years ago and who was now in the presence of his ticket out of here and onto his final-salary pension. He was literally the only doctor for miles, experienced and wise, yes, but overburdened and, Alice sensed, rapidly losing interest in new medical developments, if the conversation they had about a training initiative he was required to attend soon was anything to go by.
He’d grumbled about how the surgery had been chosen to trial ‘some new ambient voice technology thing, supposed to transcribe consultations for us and keep medical notes without us having to do a thing. I don’t know, what is the point of doctoring if I can’t write my own medical notes and draft my own patient letters?’ Then he’d shut himself in his office and left her to her patients. Plus, Alice hadn’t failed to notice, he’d expected Gracie to make his tea and take in his lunch to him, treating her more like his secretary than the surgery’s receptionist.
Yet, now here she was, the ‘young woman doctor’, a fresh new presence in the staid old surgery. Shehadto be up on childhood developmental stuff, right? And if Mhairi Sears had been looking to her as a lifeline at last, other patients would too.
Queasiness spread from her stomach to her throat. She looked at the little boy again.
Just because Jolyon seemed happy enough right this second didn’t mean he didn’t still deserve the very best support and understanding possible, and just because his mum had coped until now didn’t mean she wasn’t worried sick about the future.
‘What was it you wanted to get from today?’ Alice asked softly, because she’d been trained to ask this, feeling herself being pulled out on the tide, way beyond her depth. She’d experienced this feeling on many occasions at the hospital, but still, it was dreadful, because it wasn’t her who was at risk of going under. It was Mhairi and her little boy.
Silence bloomed between the three of them. Mhairi’s face set into a dignified, placid mask. She hauled her bag onto her shoulder and reached for Jolyon’s hand.
‘Thank you for seeing us, Doctor,’ she said, unable to answer the question. ‘Come on, Jolly. Let’s go home.’
Alice watched him get into his stroller without complaint and Mhairi pushed her beautiful son right out of the room.
Alice had jumped up, obligingly holding the door. ‘If it’s any help, I don’t think it’s you or Jolyon who needs to adapt? It’s the rest of the world that needs to be more understanding and accommodating.’
Mhairi’s tears welled and she put a hand to Alice’s wrist. ‘That’s what I think too, but the world is the way it is…’ She heaved a sigh. ‘There’s just never enough time at these things.’ Mhairi gestured back towards the empty chairs where they’d just sat. ‘People often say a lot, promise a lot, but nothing much seems to materialise, unless I’m willing to fight to the point of exhaustion, you know?’
Alice didn’t know exactly, but her heart cracked all the same. ‘Let’s see how we get on with those referrals, eh? Come back in three months for a review and we’ll talk again. Or sooner, if you want.’
Mhairi crossed the now empty waiting room, keeping her head down and only replying with a hasty ‘Cheerio’ to a concerned Gracie behind the reception desk asking if she was all right.
Alice shut her consulting room door and pressed her forehead to the cool frame, trying not to cry.
‘Dr Hargreave?’ a voice called from the other side after a few moments.
She dabbed her eyes dry before pulling the handle, showing her face, hoping she wasn’t as pale as she felt.
‘Ah, there you are. Time for the social prescription project meeting,’ said Dr Millen, his bushy brows slanting, lending him a slightly puzzled-looking expression which, Alice was beginning to suspect, he wore much of the time.
Behind him stood a ramshackle group of strangers, all staring expectantly at her, getting their first eyeful of the new doctor in town.
‘Right away,’ she said, putting on a practised smile.
11
Cary Anderson’s life was all about balance.
He had his one-man carpentry business which brought him a great deal of professional satisfaction. He’d spend his Saturdays sharing his skills at the big fixing shed and now he ran the schoolkids’ carpentry session during the week as well.
Volunteering at the repair shop was his way of giving back to the town that sustained him, even while he maintained a shy, almost silent, mystique amongst its people.
The carpentry meant he had enough money for the things he needed to live as well as a few of the things he simply wanted, which included any number of dapper vintage waistcoats, crisp white or tan work shirts, the brown, sandy or khaki ‘Oxford bags’ trousers that he favoured and wore sometimes with leather belts, sometimes with braces. His style was unostentatious, a little shabby and understated but certainly distinctive, and now that everyone in town was used to seeing him cutting about in his classic, preppy gear, nobody batted an eyelid.
He didn’t buy vast amounts in the way of vintage clothing, but what he did buy, he looked after, extending its useable life by decades, one of the central principles of repair shop life.
