by Penny Parkes
As they crested the hills, the Land Rover exhaust billowing an unhealthy amount of fumes, the whole of Larkford lay spread out below them, almost like a model town.
‘Do you ever think about how lucky we are to call this home – to have everyone we love together in this incredible, crazy town?’ Dan said, the lid on his bubbling emotions nowhere near re-affixed.
‘Every single day, mate. Every single day,’ Taffy replied, punching Dan’s arm again for good measure as he changed gear.
Chapter 46
‘Do you think it’s being a parent that gives you a better insight into what our patients need? And the staff, for that matter?’ asked Grace, as Lulu rolled happily on the floor with Eric, her fresh clean clothes already decorated with his paw marks. ‘No matter what Patronising Patricia says, I think we all appreciate a bit of nurturing.’
Holly’s heart went out to her friend. They’d been hovering by the door, suited and booted, for barely five minutes waiting for Taffy and Dan to pull up outside, but it was obvious the tension was getting to her. Never knowingly one for idle chit-chat, Grace had been scrabbling around for a topic that might hold her attention.
Holly was happy to oblige – this impromptu visit to Keira had thrown both of them for six. She herself was still a little ambivalent about Lulu’s future – part of her wanted to wrap the small girl in her arms and refuse to let go; the other part – arguably the more rational part – told her that Lulu would remain in her life either way and that Dan and Grace would make glorious parents. That and the fact that she already had four children, a disgruntled hog and half an errant labradoodle in her care, not to mention a cantankerous pensioner and an emotionally needy nanny. When you looked at it that way . . .
‘I don’t think it’s the parent thing, so much as the taking-time-out thing, really. I was only saying to Taffy last night how weird it is coming back – like I’m seeing everything afresh,’ Holly said, slipping some playing cards and chocolate Matchmakers into her ever-expanding handbag of tricks.
‘Or maybe you need to get your eyes checked,’ laughed Grace nervously and then paused. ‘But wait, you mean you’ve got more clarity, not less, don’t you? I thought it was you that was supposed to have baby brain, not me.’
Holly shook her head. ‘Based on what you’ve been telling me about how much of your “honeymoon” has been spent studying family law documents, I’d say you have a reasonable excuse. Do you know, if you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have told you, with absolute conviction, that there were certain pathways to being a doctor – the official ways, you know? But since I came back, I’ve realised that I actually did some of my best ever doctoring while I was on maternity leave.’
‘Really?’ asked Grace, pressing one hand to her chest. ‘That’s lovely.’
Holly smiled. ‘I’m still quietly proud of myself actually. Saving a life at Toddler Tambourine isn’t an everyday occurrence, or on live local radio. But even more so, it’s the conversations I had, the time I had – to actually stop and listen to people. I’m convinced that it made a difference to their medical outcomes as well, seeing them now in clinic. I just question whether I would have seen the fundamental problems if I’d been rushing through morning surgery, juggling one patient after another. It’s been quite the eye-opener in general, actually. I mean, have you ever noticed that it’s always the big life decisions – the ones that require soul searching and proper consideration – that seem to get bumped in favour of the urgent, who’s shouting loudest scenarios?’
‘I think you’re right,’ said Grace, ‘and if that’s the case, then really the longer appointments have to be our priority, don’t they? I know the individual projects are like the cherry on the cake, but surely we have to prioritise patient care over staff morale?’
‘Grace Allen! I mean, Carter! Or do I?’ Holly paused, confused. ‘Look – you are the very last person I thought would ever say that. The two are so intrinsically linked – don’t you think? It’s obvious to me that happy, committed doctors make better, more empathetic decisions – why can’t we have both?’
‘Er – time, money, readiness . . . I’m not disagreeing with the concept, Holly. I’m just wondering whether it’s realistic – and that maybe we should be doing this in baby steps . . .’
Holly couldn’t help the quizzical look that passed over her face. Grace? Grace who had got married, seemingly was about to buy a house and adopt a child? All inside a week? Now talking – with a straight face – about baby steps?
Grace did at least look a little embarrassed at her emotive response. ‘Ignore me, Holly. I’m distracted and nervous and secretly in awe of your boundless energy and positivity.’
Holly laughed and pulled her into a hug. ‘Oh, Gracie,’ she said. ‘You have no idea how very wide of the mark you are . . .’
Lulu leapt to her feet to join the hug, tugging down her t-shirt that bore the sparkly legend Bambina Bella – it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out who’d been curating her new wardrobe.
Speak of the devil, Plum walked through into the hallway – a veritable Leaning Tower of Pisa of immaculately pressed miniature clothing in her arms. ‘Have a lovely evening with your Mamma, Lulu. Now, do you have your beautiful painting for her to put beside her bed?’ Plum effortlessly dropped to her knees, laundry in a single hand, and checked that this vital work of art was indeed tucked inside Lulu’s bag. ‘Remember, mia tesorina – il cuore vuole quello che vuole. Okay?’ Plum kissed the little girl solemnly on both cheeks and then, to both Holly and Grace’s eternal envy, Plum rose easily to standing without so much as a hand, a heave or a wobble.
‘Good luck, miei amici!’ she said, as she stepped nimbly over Eric and headed upstairs.
Holly turned and saw Lulu’s eyes wide, following Plum’s every step.
‘What did she say to you, darling?’ Holly asked.
Lulu smiled shyly, slipping her hand into Grace’s. ‘My heart – he wants what he wants,’ she said, stumbling over the words, repeating them with Plum’s Tuscan inflection in her voice.
Holly watched the tears, so easily on demand these days, fill Grace’s eyes, as she leaned down to kiss Lulu on her cheek, Lulu’s other hand drifting instinctively upwards to cup Grace’s face.
Holly could only pray that Keira would make the right call – for, wherever they chose to live, however many children they chose to cherish, it was obvious to anyone that, in Grace and Dan’s family, Lulu would be adored.
*
Holly sat with Taffy in the atrium of the Palliative Care Wing, trying not to check her watch every five minutes and wishing she hadn’t been quite so considerate and polite in hanging back when Dan and Grace had suggested she accompany them into Keira’s room. It was obvious to her that they needed a little time alone, just to talk and be together – but the waiting was killing her. She couldn’t go home, because she’d promised Keira she’d stay – be on hand, talk things through, whatever she needed basically, at this stage.
‘I can’t believe this is what we’re doing on a Friday night – does it get more real than this?’ said Taffy, discreetly watching the comings and goings. There were no happy-ever-afters on this floor, as they both knew only too well, but Holly was aware that Taffy was taking this hard – his personal investment on so many levels, as Keira’s diagnosing GP, as Dan’s best friend and, perhaps more tellingly, as someone who had been equally prepared to open his home and his heart to one Louise Helen Fowler.
Lulu.
The reason they were all here – hoping, perhaps against hope, that no matter how tragic the circumstances, this young girl might yet buck the trend and leave this wing of the hospital with the possibility of a happy ending.
‘You know, she’s never lived with her mum,’ Holly pondered aloud. ‘I mean, briefly with both Keira and May as a baby, but she’ll have no memories of that time. I even wonder whether she’ll remember all this, looking back, and I can’t actually decide whether that’s a tragedy or for the best.’
>
‘Let’s go and get a coffee?’ Taffy suggested, his voice husky with emotion. ‘I don’t think I can just sit here and wait, not knowing how it’s even going in there. I mean, I’m assuming that Keira’s still thinking clearly?’
Holly shrugged. ‘Cancer or not, how clearly would you be thinking if you knew you had to say goodbye to the kids?’
‘Fuck,’ breathed Taffy and swallowed hard, his emotions never far from the surface since becoming a dad.
‘Coffee,’ said Holly, standing up and holding out a hand. There were some days when she just didn’t feel qualified for anything – parenting, medicine, or frankly just being a grown-up. It was amazing how often, when difficulties arose, Holly still looked around for the adult in the room to step in, before the realisation dawned that, these days, it was her.
‘Silly question, by way of a change of topic,’ said Taffy. ‘I’m assuming we’re okay with Tilly being at ours tonight? I mean, if Plum was dating some hot young male doctor, we wouldn’t be quite so relaxed about her having her date over while she was on duty with the kids, would we?’
‘Fair point,’ Holly said, wondering whether she was guilty of double standards. ‘But I think it has more to do with who it is, doesn’t it? I mean, we know Tilly really well – we trust her. And obviously we trust Plum with the children . . .’
‘But you have to admit that in combination they’re a bit of an unknown quantity,’ Taffy said.
‘True. But I’m confident that they can exercise a little self-control. They’re hardly going to be snogging on the sofa while the kids watch Mary Poppins.’ She paused. ‘I hope.’
‘Yeah, you’re right – I mean, if Plum was dating a bloke we knew really well – say Jason—’ Taffy began.
Holly held up a hand. ‘To be clear, I would categorically not use Jason as an example of self-control!’
Taffy laughed, their triathlete nurse was an incorrigible flirt, seemingly relaxed about his sexual preferences for both men and women and not known for his discretion or restraint. ‘Valid point. Connor—’
Holly nodded. ‘Yeah. I’d be okay with Connor. So, there you go, all above board.’
‘No, I mean, look – there’s Connor,’ Taffy said, smiling at Holly’s obvious confusion.
‘All right, mate?’ Taffy said, striding away to where Connor was sitting on a plastic chair outside the main hospital coffee shop, glancing disorientedly around him at the various Christmas decorations, and cradling a bandaged hand in his lap.
‘It really is a small world round here,’ said Connor with a twisted smile. ‘No chance of keeping anything quiet.’
Taffy sat down beside him, as Holly joined them. ‘What’re you trying to keep quiet?’ he asked tactlessly.
Connor gave him a sideways glance. ‘Look, you can tell who you want, but I’d rather you didn’t. I had a slight, erm, well, goat-related incident.’
Holly crouched down and lifted his injured hand. ‘Is it broken?’
Connor shook his head. ‘Just missing a sizeable chunk.’ He gave a shudder as though the very thought made him nauseous.
‘Can you still play the guitar?’ Holly asked in concern.
‘Oh my God, the guitar!’ Connor said, his eyes widening, pupils already huge from a dose of prescription opiates no doubt. It was almost as though he genuinely hadn’t even considered it. Perhaps his transition to gentleman farmer was almost complete.
‘Kitty?’ he said over their heads. ‘What about my fecking guitar?’
Holly and Taffy swivelled as one to see Kitty walking out of the coffee shop, bearing two enormous hot drinks and a bag of doughnuts.
‘Refined sugar is the cure for all ills in my book,’ she said slightly defensively, catching Holly staring at the huge bag of doughnuts.
‘I’m not judging,’ said Holly, ‘more yearning, actually.’ She smiled as Kitty passed her the bag and wasted no time ripping into it and sharing the loot. ‘So, what’s the story?’
‘– in Balamory . . .’ Taffy hummed on autopilot before catching himself and blushing. ‘Yeah, I mean, what did you do to that poor goat?’
Kitty grinned, clearly trying not to laugh. ‘Well, I was giving Connor a milking lesson actually, and he may have been a little over-enthusiastic . . .’
‘You said “tug”, so I tugged!’ countered Connor, his pride clearly as bruised as his hand. ‘Bloody Maud. I should never have started with her – she’s always so grouchy.’
Kitty nodded. ‘Agatha would have been better.’
‘Agatha Peal?’ said Taffy, aghast. ‘Bloody hell. That’s a bit weird.’
‘Agatha the goat,’ Kitty corrected with a smile. ‘Perry named them all after the matriarchs of Larkford. Don’t worry, we didn’t buy Elsie – thought that might be too close to home.’
‘Yeah,’ said Taffy drily, ‘because milking Agatha sounds so much better.’
‘Er, guys? About my guitar?’ Connor tried again – the anxiety now hitting him despite his painkillers. ‘How am I going to play at my own festival with a chunk missing out of my hand?’
Holly, Taffy and Kitty looked at each other, each hoping that someone else had an answer to his question.
‘Do you ever think maybe this festival is doomed?’ asked Kitty brightly, tactlessly. ‘I mean it’s just one thing after another after another.’ She broke off at the aghast expression on all of their faces and smiled awkwardly. ‘I mean, you have to wonder, right?’
‘Maybe I’m cursed?’ Connor said dismally.
‘Bollocks,’ said Kitty brightly, ‘you’re just a bit slow at taking a hint. Maybe the Universe thinks you should concentrate on one thing at a time – like, say, learning how to run a smallholding in the Cotswolds, before you become a festival magnet?’
‘Magnate?’ Connor suggested.
‘Err, yeah that does make more sense,’ Kitty accepted.
Holly watched the two of them chat back and forth – Kitty so completely underwhelmed by his fame and achievements that it bordered on the dismissive. But then that was Kitty Clarke: animals came first, second and third in her book – the occasional lucky human made her Top Ten but that in itself was a rarity.
Even the way she looked at Connor spoke volumes though, their affection and intimacy clear to see in this bizarre setting, without their habitual guards up, and Holly couldn’t help but cross her fingers for a happy ending.
‘We need more doughnuts!’ Kitty declared, as she wiped her sugary fingers on her jeans, her enviably slim hips evidently more a testament to the miles she walked every day than any healthy diet.
‘And now I’m torn,’ said Taffy, ‘because half of me really wants to know more about your goat injury so I can mock you about it, but the other half seriously wants to know what’s afoot with you and the lovely Kitty?’
Connor’s filters were down. There was only so much control he could exercise on the flipside of his potent medication. ‘Isn’t she great? I like her so much. And she gets me, you know?’ He punched his good hand against his chest. ‘In here? Like, she sees the real me.’
‘Mate!’ said Taffy with feeling and Holly could tell he’d been expecting tawdry tales of tumbles in haystacks, rather than an outpouring of obvious affection.
Connor nodded. ‘I could spend all day with her and not get bored. And I don’t just mean mucking about with the goats and the bees and Nigel.’
‘Nigel?’ Taffy mouthed across to Holly, looking perplexed.
‘The donkey,’ she whispered.
‘That’s right,’ said Connor and sighed. ‘I could write a million songs about her eyes and never do them justice. And she just picks up a hay bale, you know, like it weighs nothing – I never knew I liked that in a girl.’
Holly was actually rather relieved when Kitty came back. She couldn’t help thinking that Connor might regret all these confidences in the cold light of day, not to mention that it was perfectly obvious from their every interaction that Kitty was still holding back. Or more precisely, had taken C
onnor at his word – after all, he hadn’t been shy in stating his case – there would never be another woman for him like Rachel.
And maybe he had a point without realising it, Holly thought – for Kitty was absolutely nothing like Rachel. And therefore, possibly, exactly what Connor actually needed in his life.
Chapter 47
It probably wasn’t quite the way that world-class rock star Connor Danes had hoped to capture the imagination and affection of the residents of Larkford, but nobody could deny it had been effective.
As word got out, as it inevitably did, about the nature of his wounded hand, something rather curious seemed to happen in the pubs and coffee shops and parks around the Larkford valley – Connor became human.
Of course, his celebrity history would never truly leave him, a faint burnished glow to his presence was always going to persist, but by losing his aura of infallibility, he had gained so much more – local affection and respect.
So many of his dissenters, it seemed, had simply assumed that Connor would hire in staff to keep his ‘rural dream’ ticking over, until he’d licked his wounds long enough, only to return to the world stage in his leather trousers, his time in Larkford merely a footnote of emotional rehab on his rock ascendancy.
‘So,’ said Pru Hartley, eyeing Connor’s hand, ‘you’re really making a go of this farming lark, are you?’
‘I am doing my level best, Mrs Hartley. And, of course, Clive and Kitty are teaching me the proper way to do things – no shortcuts,’ said Connor deferentially, earning himself an approving smile from Pru behind the counter of the bakery, and from Holly standing behind him in the queue, as he hand-delivered the sheaf of personalised invitations to the festival.
