Best Practice

by Penny Parkes

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ Holly replied, kissing him again to distract him, as she placed the spatula in his hand and slipped away from the stove. ‘Nice and crispy, please, Taffs. I’ve been craving this for hours.’

  She had thought that wearing Taffy’s engagement ring had shifted the dynamic of their relationship, both of them committing to the long term and to raising the twins together, but somehow, discovering she was carrying his baby had elevated their intimacy to a whole new level – and not even necessarily of the naked variety. The ease and adoration between them in the kitchen that morning made Holly’s heart sing. The very idea of spending the rest of her life bantering with Taffy, raising not two, but three children together? It was as though all her hopes were actually becoming her realities.

  She glanced over at the kitchen table, covered as always with various craft projects that the twins had on the go. She noticed with a smile that they’d already been cutting out pictures of puppies and sticking them onto a ‘mood board’ just as Lizzie had taught them – ‘Never go into a pitch without a clear idea of what you’re asking for.’ It was wisdom the boys now used to frequent effect – their as yet unsuccessful Xbox pitch still a work in progress, and stuck on the fridge door to make Holly smile.

  Taffy flipped the Parma ham expertly onto Holly’s toasted brioche and presented it with a flourish. ‘Will there be anything else, m’lady?’

  ‘Ooh, I’m sure I can think of one or two things . . .’ Holly answered, her libido fighting her ravenous hunger for supremacy, as he leaned in and kissed her thoroughly, leaving her utterly off balance and aroused.

  ‘Maybe we could just—’ she began, before the kitchen door was flung open and the twins and Eric barrelled into the room.

  ‘Ooh, bacon!’ said Ben excitedly, turning a suspicious gaze upon his mother. ‘And you said we’d run out!’

  Orange juice, coffee, toast and yoghurt were soon dotted all over the table, as Eric carried his now-empty bowl plaintively around to each of them in turn, imploring for a refill.

  ‘Can I have some eggs?’ asked Tom, climbing onto a chair to reach across and snag the last brioche bun.

  ‘No problem,’ Taffy said, taking pity on Holly who was finally getting a look-in with her fancy sandwich. ‘Boiled, fried, scrambled?’

  Tom looked at him strangely. ‘For the Egg and Spoon Race. We’re practising for sports day.’

  Taffy looked blank for a moment until Holly managed to swallow. ‘Sounds like hard-boiled might be a less messy option.’

  The twins scattered from the table to search out pillow cases for Sack Race practice and unhooked the curtain swags for impromptu skipping ropes, casting expectant glances at their mother occasionally, as though waiting for her to intervene.

  ‘Is this okay, Mum?’ Tom asked eventually, unable to believe his luck.

  ‘Looks brilliant,’ replied Holly absent-mindedly, chewing her sandwich and clearly away with the pixies.

  Taffy stepped forward and plucked Holly’s favourite necklace from Tom’s hands. ‘Maybe hold fire on the Treasure Hunt until I can help you later?’

  Tom nodded, the memory of losing Elsie’s diamond earrings still fresh in all their minds. Obviously they’d turn up one day, it was just that Tom’s abilities to find the perfect hiding spots were second to none; his skill at remembering them, on the other hand, still needed a little finesse.

  ‘Do you think we could set up a support group at The Practice?’ Holly mused, once the boys had scarpered outside with their sports day practice paraphernalia. ‘I mean, as a regular thing? We could offer the doctors’ lounge as a private and comfy place to meet, couldn’t we?’ She looked up at Taffy for his response.

  ‘Help me out, Holls. What are we supporting now?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry. I’ve just been thinking about Molly Giles. I know she’s not the only one who needs a little camaraderie. These invisible disabilities are so insidious and mostly they’re affecting our younger patients too. Could we look into offering them something informal – probably not even condition-specific – just, well, you know? A friendly gathering to show them they’re not alone? There’s no way I’m sending Molly to the Parkinson’s group at the old people’s home!’

  Taffy nodded. ‘Sounds like a perfect project for the Health in the Community Scheme, don’t you think? And it would hardly cost a bean. Unless you wanted a trained counsellor to oversee it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Holly said. ‘I just started thinking how lovely it is to feel supported, to be surrounded by people who are on the same song sheet—’

  ‘You got all that from a bacon sandwich?’ Taffy teased her.

  Holly bit her lip and looked at him lovingly. ‘I got all that from living with you.’

  ‘Well, I am rather inspirational,’ he said with a grin. ‘Even if you’re the only one who thinks so. But, seriously, Holls, this is a great idea, if you’ve actually got the time and the resources to make it happen.’

  Holly shook her head. ‘Well, obviously, I’ve got neither. But since when have we ever let that stop us?’

  Taffy pinched the last morsel of her ‘bacon’ and grinned. ‘With you, Holly, I wouldn’t have expected anything less.’

  Chapter 13

  The familiar chirrup of an incoming Skype call startled Alice in the dark that evening. She fumbled around for her iPhone, cursing herself for not switching to ‘offline’ as soon as she’d started to feel sleepy. Even Coco groaned in protest.

  ‘Hello?’ Alice said, all irritation disappearing the moment she saw the tiny circular photograph of a Smurf and tapping once to accept the call.

  ‘Ooh sorry, did I wake you?’ said Tilly without any obvious remorse, as her beaming face filled the screen. ‘It’s just we’ve been waiting for days to get the internet back up and running and it was a pretty safe bet you’d be online.’

  Alice smiled. ‘Good to see your priorities are as spot on as always.’

  ‘Well, it’s not as though I can pop an order through to Ocado now, is it?’ She panned her device around behind her so that Alice could get a full view of the jungle that surrounded her best friend. Her remote location probably explained her disproportionate excitement at the restoration of her Wi-Fi signal.

  ‘Are you still living on custard creams?’ Alice asked, trying to take in as much as she could from the wildly swinging images.

  ‘Well, in grocery news, I have managed to stomach a roast plantain without wanting to hurl, but I’m light years away from creepy-crawlies.’

  As Tilly, Alice’s social conscience and all-round Good Egg, travelled the globe, Alice had learned over the years never to complain about her own limited diet. Tilly’s cat would always be blacker, but she was just too nice to actually point it out. Alice was also aware that her constant Tales of Tilly and her questing for social and medical equality seemed to have a habit of making her colleagues feel a little staid and underachieving. Sometimes there really could be too much of a good thing, apparently. Not that she really empathised with that herself; if it was up to her, she’d have Tilly on speed dial every single day for a shot in the arm of her zealous commitment and boundless positivity.

  ‘So, what’s new in Stepford?’ Tilly asked, sipping the local version of Coca-Cola and grimacing at the sweetness. Still, it was better than the local water.

  ‘Larkford,’ corrected Alice with a grin. ‘And you have to stop calling it that! It’s actually really very sweet.’

  ‘Cannot compute,’ Tilly said, pulling her khaki jacket collar up higher as a large indeterminate insect buzzed her repeatedly. ‘Surely you’d be happier with a little nitty-gritty in your life? Are you really ready to be living in a watercolour painting?’

  Alice shrugged. ‘I tried Bristol. And look how that turned out?’

  Tilly scowled. ‘But that’s like saying, I dated one bloke and he wasn’t The One, so I’ll give up and join a convent!’

  ‘The thought had occurred to me,’ Alice muttered, pulling the duvet
up to her chin and suffering Coco’s indignant groans at her audacity.

  ‘So how is the love life?’ Tilly asked, biting into a power bar that looked like compost. Although the setting had long since changed, their conversational habits hadn’t really evolved from their student house-share, that and Tilly’s habit of making every coffee ‘Irish’.

  Alice yawned and snuggled in further. ‘Well, there’s a nice guy in Norfolk? He lives on a houseboat and has three dogs. He’s quite fit actually, if you ignore the funny quilted waistcoat he wears.’

  ‘Norfolk-ing chance,’ joked Tilly. ‘And is he just gorgeous? If you ignore the contraceptive waistcoat?’

  Alice paused, unwilling to hear Tilly’s inevitable response. ‘Well, we haven’t exactly met yet. It’s just chatting, you know, online. But he has insomnia, so he’s often awake when I am.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s something in his favour. But is this what you’re reduced to? Night owls and insomniacs?’

  Alice smiled. ‘Well, there’s always Australians. There’s a lovely guy who lives by the beach in Sydney and we have fabulous chats. He’s funny. And he surfs.’

  Tilly’s laugh crackled through their Skype connection and the picture wavered as her iPad jostled. ‘Nice to see you’re still keeping it local.’ She wiped another bug from her cheek and paused. ‘Is there nobody in Stepford you like? A nice hunky distraction? I keep telling you to get a hobby—’

  ‘A boyfriend is not a hobby!’ Alice protested.

  Tilly just tilted her head. ‘Then there’s a chance that you’ve been doing it wrong,’ she said. ‘My current dating pool, by the way, comprises three nuns, two public school boys who seem to prefer each other and Juan Carlos, our “fixer”, who is sixty-three, sprightly, but full of filthy intentions, if you get what I mean.’ She sighed. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a sturdy Cotswold farmer to show me his outbuildings about now—’

  ‘Til-ly!’ laughed Alice, making Coco jump. ‘It can’t be that bad? Surely?’

  Tilly grinned. ‘Nah. I’ll live. I’m moving on next week anyway. Over to Belize where there’ll be lots of young enthusiastic chaps on their gap year. Come to Mummy!’

  ‘You know it’s Doctors Without Borders, not without boundaries, don’t you?’ Alice countered. ‘You, my friend, are turning into a perv!’

  ‘Nun!’

  ‘Dirty old woman—’

  ‘Less of the old, thank you very much.’ Tilly chomped on the ghastly power bar for a second. ‘How are you anyway?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ replied Alice automatically, barely batting an eyelid at the abrupt turn of conversation.

  Tilly squinted at the screen in her hand. ‘Bollocks. How are you really? Are you still using Amazon as therapy?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘Nope.’ The silence crackled across the ether. ‘It’s mainly Net-a-Porter these days,’ she confessed.

  Tilly nodded, for a moment taking in the possible ramifications of that admission. ‘Did you suddenly get a huge pay rise that you forgot to mention?’ She might live in the jungle, but she wasn’t dead. Tilly clearly knew exactly how many pound signs whizzing around that website signified.

  Alice said nothing.

  ‘Somebody there needs to know what you’re dealing with, Al—’ Tilly began.

  ‘I can’t. Don’t ask me to,’ Alice interrupted, even holding up a hand in front of her as though to bat the very idea away.

  Her friend was not so easily defeated. ‘This is not some dirty secret, sweets; it’s your way of coping and there are people who can help. Sod that, there must be somebody in Stepford who’d be only too delighted to help?’

  Alice thought for a moment. ‘The problem is, the kind of people that want to dive in and “help” aren’t always the ones you actually want helping, are they?’

  Tilly nodded, knowing only too well that Alice made a valid point. When her father had died during that fateful storm on Orkney, Alice had been inundated with offers of help and support, not necessarily from her best friends though, but often from those seeking a worthy cause to make their own.

  ‘Talking to you helps,’ Alice offered.

  ‘Yeah, but I’m a million miles away, so that’s no bloody good,’ said Tilly tiredly.

  ‘Your geography’s shit,’ said Alice.

  ‘Ha! Look who it is, Funny’s cousin – Not Funny!’ Tilly countered. ‘Look, this is mad. You should just get on a plane and join me. Come on, come and harass some gorgeous young men with social consciences . . .’

  Alice managed a smile. ‘That’s your dream, Til, not mine. Besides, there’s Coco . . .’ At the very mention of her name, Coco lifted her head and sniffed at the screen, giving Tilly an eyeful of chocolatey nostrils and whiskers. She whistled and watched Coco look around in confusion.

  ‘Of course there is,’ said Tilly after a moment, the discussion effectively settled.

  ‘Besides,’ continued Alice, undeterred and keen to make her point, ‘I have to get myself sorted first, don’t I? I need to find a level and I’m not going to get that gallivanting all over the globe.’

  Tilly nodded sagely. ‘Besides, there’s no way you could afford the excess baggage charges.’

  Alice ignored her. ‘I keep telling myself that a nice steady community, regular patients, friendly faces and I’ll settle a bit, you know? But now I just seem to spend half my days referring people on to consultants, or A&E, and I never get to just fix anyone properly.’

  Tilly leaned forward – if she were any closer to the screen, she’d be giving Alice and Coco a virtual hug. ‘Are we talking about your patients here, Al, or are we talking about you?’ She hummed their favourite Coldplay song that had run on a loop in their student digs. ‘It won’t be lights guiding you home though, will it, honey, it’ll be an online sale! We have to talk about this at some point, you know, before I fly back one day and find that you’ve been buried alive beneath cashmere jumpers and stylish accessories . . .’

  ‘I am not a hoarder!’ Alice protested, ignoring the niggle of doubt in the back of her mind. Her home was indeed more of a storage facility than a cosy retreat, but by God did she have stylish and organised storage.

  ‘I know you’re not, sweetie,’ Tilly said gently, ‘but I so wish I could be there with you, even if it’s just to remind you that happiness has fuck all to do with the stuff you own and everything to do with the people you spend your days with, not to mention how you feel about your place in the world. Al – I see women out here who don’t have two beans to rub together, they live in what you and I would call abject poverty, but they are surrounded by their family, their friends, their children. And the smiles on their faces . . . Oh, they may not have prospects by any Western measure, but my God are they happy.’

  ‘Fuck,’ said Alice, swallowing down a ball of tears in her throat and dashing at her eyes with her pyjama sleeve. Even Coco had picked up on the message that all was not well.

  ‘There must be someone you feel a connection with?’ Tilly said quietly.

  Alice nodded. ‘Of course. But everyone has their own stuff going on, you know, their own friendships.’

  ‘Are you honestly saying that they won’t let you play?’ Tilly said.

  ‘No, of course not. Grace invited me to her yoga class this evening. But, you know—’

  ‘You said you were busy and took a rain check?’ Tilly interrupted, knowing her friend’s habit of pushing other people away all too well. ‘But, just for a minute, think about this – what might happen if you let her in?’

  ‘To the house?’ Alice squeaked.

  ‘You could start with your life?’ Tilly suggested. ‘A coffee? A panini – oh my God, paninis – I’d forgotten about paninis . . .’ She sighed deeply. ‘Look, I’m not saying that this Grace has to become your new best friend, your ultimate confidante. She doesn’t even have to be someone your own age – in fact a different perspective might be a good thing. I just hate that I can’t be there to hold your hand – even if it is just to stop it
getting to your credit card! Maybe just while everything with Coco is so up in the air, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ said Alice, ‘I miss you too. But your way isn’t always my way.’

  ‘Obviously,’ said Tilly with a snort. Her own go-to setting any time life got tricky was to chuck it all in and start over. Their friendship was a veritable case study in how opposites attract. ‘You know what my suggestion is anyway, Alice.’

  ‘Jump on a plane?’ Alice smiled.

  ‘Or under a man. You, my darling, need to let off steam a little. All work and no play, etcetera etcetera. Start small. Don’t invite anyone home. Just arrange to meet one of these gorgeous men in a hotel somewhere and let your hair down, release a few feel-good pheromones, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘God, no!’ exclaimed Alice, instantly on the defensive. ‘What if we met in person and there was, like, zero chemistry between us? And they’d travelled all that way?’

  ‘Firstly, shags are not Air Miles,’ Tilly said scathingly. ‘Be upfront – don’t promise anything. Then it’s up to them whether they think you’re worth the gamble. Besides, I know it’s not quite the same, but surely you can tell if there’s a connection between you, when you’re – well, you know – online?’

  Alice said nothing. She didn’t need Tilly’s voice in her head telling her she was being a prude. After all, Tilly’s love life seemed to revolve around sexting and Skype far more than Alice was comfortable with.

  ‘Oh God, you’re not serious?’ said Tilly, understanding dawning on her face. She shifted uncomfortably for a moment. ‘Listen, if you really don’t know where to start, I could give you a few pointers . . .’

  ‘You are not giving me sexting lessons,’ said Alice categorically. ‘I mean just because I haven’t, doesn’t mean I couldn’t—’

  ‘Go on then,’ said Tilly. ‘Stop moaning to me and get on with it. We both know this is a good idea, so don’t overthink it. Do it. Right now. I’m hanging up.’

  ‘You have to be kidding—’ protested Alice, just as the screen flickered to black and the connection was lost. There was no way she was going to be coerced into this, she decided, pushing her phone away decisively, just as it vibrated to announce an incoming message: