Page 61 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

‘Couldn’t you postpone whatever it is you’re doing?’

Jo paused. The festival could run without her; she had planned it to the nth degree and didn’t actually need to be there. Sal, Mr Morgan – she still couldn’t get used to calling a head teacher by his first name – and Ras were more than capable of managing everything. And she’d be on the other end of a phone, in case of emergencies.

But she’d worked so hard for this. It was the biggest thing she’d ever done in her entire life. There’d be other jobs, if she lost this one, but Hebbleswick wouldn’t have another Scrabble festival.

‘Sorry, Caroline,’ she said. ‘I’m giving an interview on local radio tomorrow and…’

‘You’re giving an interview?’

‘Yes, and after that I’m running a festival. Over the whole weekend. I can’t possibly go to Devon.’

*

That Friday, she wished she had gone filming in Plymouth. Anything would be better than this torture.

She was sitting in the ‘reception area’ at Hebbleswick Radio – an ordinary kitchen in an ordinary stone terraced house in a typical Hebbleswick cobbled side street – her palms sweating, her mouth dry. This was madness. She was the person who found speaking up in meetings difficult. How had she ever imagined she could give an interview on live radio?

‘Jo, would you like to come through?’

She looked up to see a spotty youth staring down at her.

‘Sure,’ she said standing up.

Feeling distinctly wobbly, she followed him outside and into what was basically a garden shed kitted out with techy equipment, where a balding, middle-aged man wearing huge, black headphones was leaning back in his chair as a song began. A song she recognised. Soaring violins playing the familiar opening of ‘At Last’.

In an instant, Jo was transported back to all those evenings when, dressed in her best jeans with her heart full of hope and her stomach full of butterflies, she’d ventured into various bars and pubs to meet yet another stranger off the internet. Etta had given her hope back then – the belief that one day her love really would come along – and confidence too: the confidence to overcome her nerves and her fears and her shyness and to approach her date and say ‘hi’. As Etta’s voice rang through the air now, Jo decided she could do this. Enthuse about her beloved festival for five minutes? Of course she could. Or at least, she could give it her very best shot.

24

‘So how long have you been having the headaches?’ he asked, fighting the urge to look at the clock on the wall.

‘A month maybe,’ said Mrs Green. ‘Or it might be more like two months? Or even three? Do you think they might be serious, Doctor Rasmusson? I’m worried it might be a brain tumour.’

She’d been googling, he thought. The internet seemed to bring up every worst-case scenario possible. The rarest of diseases. The most unlikely of cancers. Any innocuous little symptom could in theory be a sign of something dreadful, but it usually wasn’t.

‘There are many things that it’s much more likely to be. Let’s see if we can figure out what’s causing it and make sure you’re all right.’ He tried put on his most reassuring tone, which normally he knew was a very reassuring tone indeed, but today there was a note of impatience in there. He hoped Mrs Green didn’t notice.

He couldn’t resist it any longer; he glanced at the clock. He reckoned the interview would be starting in about three minutes.

Jo’s interview.

He couldn’t quite believe that she’d agreed to it. She’d been so nervous, so shy, when he’d first met her, but he’d watched her confidence grow recently; this Scrabble festival seemed to have ignited a passion in her. It made her even more alluring. He wished he could ignite a similar passion. He’d liked shy, introverted Jo, but he liked this new Jo too. He’d often wondered what had happened in her past to make her such a nervous person; if practising medicine over the years had taught him anything, it was that people who lacked self-belief usually lacked it for a reason. There’d been a bullying parent in their past, perhaps, or a former partner who took pleasure in belittling them. Something like that had happened to Jo, he felt sure of it. But she was slowly becoming more self-assured, and Rasmus liked to think that he’d perhaps played a part in that in his own small way by enlisting her help in organising a Scrabble event. He’d never for one moment imagined that she’d organise something this big.

He was suddenly aware that Mrs Green was looking at him, waiting for him to say something.

‘Do you have any other symptoms when you have the headache?’ he said.

‘No, just the headache.’

‘Flashing lights? Nausea? Vomiting?’

‘No, none of those. But it’s really painful. What do you think is causing it?’

Rasmus sighed. Headaches were such difficult beasts. What he wouldn’t give right now for a child with chicken pox or even a boil that needed lancing!

They’d said they’d give the two o’clock news bulletin, it would be followed by a song and then it would be Jo. It was three minutes past two and he reckoned an average track was about three minutes long so that meant…

‘My husband thinks it could be cheese,’ said Mrs Green. ‘Do you think it could be cheese, Doctor Rasmusson?’