A Wife Worth Waiting For

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘But it won’t be the same, will it?’ Mrs Gordon observed.

  It wouldn’t, Hugh thought, after Sybil Gordon had gone, but he’d made his feelings plain to Alex, and she’d made her feelings equally clear back. So clear, in fact, that for the past week they’d barely exchanged more than a handful of words, and all of them had been about their patients.

  Hugh sighed as he gazed out of his consulting-room window at the scudding grey clouds, and bare branches swaying in the stiff, cold wind. The first snows of winter would be arriving soon, and he hated the winter. It was when Jenny had died. When he’d begun existing rather than living until a red-haired water sprite had ridden into his life. A red-haired water sprite who was lippy, and opinionated, but who had healed his broken heart, and now she was leaving on Sunday and there seemed to be nothing he could say that would make her change her mind.

  ‘So, it’s back to the way it was before, Hugh,’ he said to the grey clouds. ‘With an empty heart, an empty bed, and only Mrs Gordon’s catalogue of ridiculous ailments to enliven your days.’

  No, his heart protested. He didn’t want to go back to that. Not when he’d tasted what life could be like, should be like. There had to be some way he could change Alex’s mind. Some way he could reach past her defences, get her to see he’d meant every word he’d said, but what?

  Show, not tell, Hugh, a small voice whispered at the back of his mind, and, as he stared unseeing at the clouds, a slow smile began to spread across his lips. A smile that deepened and widened as an idea took shape. An idea that was crazy, and totally insane, but…

  Quickly, he got to his feet, and opened his consulting-room door.

  ‘Chrissie, have Alex and Malcolm got any more patients?’ he asked as the receptionist looked up from her desk.

  ‘Malcolm’s finished for the morning, but Alex still has Lady Soutar with her,’ Chrissie replied.

  ‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘Could you tell them that the post-surgery meeting will be in my room in fifteen minutes, but until then I don’t want to be disturbed. I have phone calls to make.’

  And some very serious phone calls at that, he thought with a smile.

  Why, oh why, Alex wondered, as Lady Soutar fixed her with a penetrating stare, was there never an important message she needed to take, or a phone call she had to make, on occasions like this?

  ‘Bunty,’ she began awkwardly, ‘I know you mean well but—’

  ‘This isn’t any of my business? Of course it isn’t!’ Lady Soutar exclaimed. ‘But I like you—I like you a lot—and Dr Scott’s a decent chap, rock solid financially, and not prone to whims or outlandish fancies. He might need a bit of tidying up in the hair department, but he’s good husband material.’

  ‘Bunty…’

  ‘I’m sure Cumbria is a beautiful place, but there’s nothing there but mountains, water and sheep.’

  ‘Pretty much like here, really.’ Alex couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘Yes, but Kilbreckan has other attractions, wouldn’t you say?’ Lady Soutar said, and, despite all of her best efforts, Alex felt her cheeks heat up.

  ‘I think every town and village has its own particular charm,’ she managed to reply, and Lady Soutar sighed.

  ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing, my dear, but…I hear the police are no further forward in their attempts to recover your bike?’ she continued, and, when Alex shook her head, Lady Soutar’s lips thinned into a tight, white line. ‘Horsewhipping. That’s what these young hooligans need. A good horsewhipping.’

  Alex didn’t know about the horsewhipping but, with the insurance people saying they would only pay out half of what the bike had been worth because she hadn’t locked it, she knew it would be years before she would be able to afford another Ducati.

  ‘I must go, my dear,’ Lady Soutar declared, ‘but could you tell Dr Scott his pills seem to be doing the trick, and don’t forget, if you should ever want to come back here for a holiday, my door will always be open.’

  ‘I’ll remember that,’ said Alex, but she wouldn’t, and Bunty Soutar knew she wouldn’t.

  Once she’d left Kilbreckan she would never return. There were too many memories here, too many things she wanted to forget.

  Not things, her heart whispered, people.

  People like Jamie Allen and his mother. People like Donna Ferguson, Ellie Dickson, Lady Soutar and…. Hugh.

  She was never going to forget Hugh, but it was better that she left now before they both got hurt, and if her heart was already hurting it would get better in time. Everything got better, in time.

  ‘Walk with me to my car, dear.’ Lady Soutar ordered as she got stiffly to her feet. ‘These old bones of mine don’t like this cold weather.’

  ‘Well, I suppose, when you’re sixty, you have to expect the odd ache and pain.’ Alex grinned as she accompanied Lady Soutar out into the corridor and Bunty let out a loud guffaw.

  ‘I shall miss you, dear, but at least I’ll see you one more time at the party in the village hall on Saturday night.’

  ‘The party?’ Alex repeated in confusion, then heard the phone in her room ringing. ‘I’m sorry, Bunty, but I have to…’

  ‘Answer it, dear, answer it,’ Lady Soutar said, seeing Hugh emerging from his room. ‘Dr Scott will help me, won’t you Dr Scott?’

  ‘I’ll certainly try,’ he replied, as Alex hurried back into her room. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘No problem. I just need a strong right arm to help me out to my car,’ she said but, when he took her arm, she shook her head at him. ‘I hope you’ve got some plan up your sleeve to keep dear Alex with us. You’ve only got three days left, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Get your hair cut first, that’s my advice, then make her an offer she can’t refuse,’ Lady Soutar declared, fixing him with a gimlet glare. ‘And I think you know what I mean by making her an offer she can’t refuse.’

  Hugh did, as he helped Lady Soutar into her car, and he wondered what the old lady would say if he told her his plan. Probably have him certified, he thought with an inward chuckle, although he wouldn’t bet on it because Lady Soutar never failed to surprise him.

  Malcolm, on the other hand, very rarely surprised him, he thought wryly as he saw his partner tiptoeing down the corridor, looking for all the world like a bad imitation of a CIA agent.

  ‘The ceilidh band is booked for Saturday night,’ Malcolm whispered when he drew level with him. ‘Jock Wilson is under strict instructions to make sure Rory Murray doesn’t get up and sing, and the hall committee are on top of the catering. Is the you-know-what on its way?’

  ‘It arrived yesterday,’ Hugh murmured, ‘and could you straighten up, Malcolm? If Alex sees you creeping around the corridor like that, she’ll think you’ve got a hernia.’

  ‘I’m trying to keep this hush-hush,’ Malcolm protested. ‘I thought you wanted the you-know-what to be a surprise?’

  ‘It’ll stay more of a surprise if you don’t make it quite so obvious that we’re hiding something,’ Hugh said with exasperation.

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’ Malcolm glanced over his shoulder, then back to Hugh. ‘Hugh, I don’t want to interfere—’

  ‘Which means you’re going to.’ Hugh sighed.

  ‘But Chrissie and I were wondering whether you were going to—you know—make one more attempt to persuade Alex to stay?’

  ‘All I’m prepared to say, Malcolm, is that this isn’t over until the fat lady sings.’

  ‘Until the fat…’ Malcolm looked confused for a second, then enlightenment spread across his face. ‘You have a plan?’

  Hugh nodded. ‘I have a plan.’

  ‘A good one?’

  ‘It had better be,’ Hugh said wryly, ‘because it’s the only one I’ve got.’

  ‘I think that just about wraps up this morning’s debriefing,’ Hugh declared as he sat back in his seat, and Alex and Malcolm closed their notebooks, ‘other than I’m pleased to report that Donna Ferguson’s finger
s are almost back to normal, her stomach pains have gone, and she said to me this morning that she has twice the energy she had ten years ago.’

  ‘I’m so pleased for her,’ Alex said. ‘Are the test results back yet for her daughters?’

  ‘They came this morning,’ Hugh replied. ‘Fiona definitely has haemochromatosis, and Morag doesn’t. I’ve asked Chrissie to send a letter to Fiona asking her to come in so we can start treating her.’

  ‘Speaking of letters,’ Malcolm observed. ‘Will the advertisement for the part-time receptionist’s job be in the newspaper this week?’

  ‘What advertisement?’ Alex said, glancing across at him, but it was Hugh who replied.

  ‘Chrissie’s been working flat out for far too long. She doesn’t want to give up the work completely, so Malcolm and I have decided to employ another receptionist and she and Chrissie will share the workload.’

  Malcolm and he had decided, Alex thought. Without telling her. Well, of course, they hadn’t told her. She was leaving in three days. She was temporary, just passing through, and any changes they made to the practice had nothing to do with her except, stupidly, illogically, she felt hurt, excluded, sidelined.

  ‘Bunty Soutar said something odd this morning,’ she declared, deliberately changing the subject. ‘She said she would see me at the party in the village hall on Saturday. What party?’

  Hugh swore under his breath and Malcolm looked distinctly annoyed.

  ‘It was supposed to be a secret,’ Malcolm protested. ‘The villagers have arranged a farewell party for you. It’s nothing fancy, just a few sandwiches, maybe some sausage rolls—’

  ‘I wish they hadn’t,’ Alex interrupted. ‘I mean, it’s very kind of them,’ she added quickly, seeing Hugh’s face grow tight, ‘but I really don’t want a lot of fuss.’

  ‘Can’t you let go of your “I want to be alone” stance for just one evening when everyone’s put so much effort into the occasion?’ Hugh exclaimed, and Alex reddened.

  ‘I didn’t mean I won’t go,’ she replied. ‘I just meant—things like that—occasions like that—I find them a bit embarrassing.’

  ‘Because people care enough about you—like you enough—to want to throw a party for you?’ Hugh shook his head. ‘Maybe you need to examine your values, Alex.’

  ‘And maybe I just don’t like being pushed into the spotlight,’ Alex snapped. ‘Ever thought about that?’

  Hugh opened his mouth, then closed it again, and Malcolm got to his feet, shaking his head as he did so.

  ‘If there’s nothing else, I’m off out on the home visits, and if this is a sample of your plan, Hugh, we’re dead ducks.’

  ‘What plan?’ Alex said when Malcolm had gone.

  Hugh picked up the pen from his desk and turned it round in his fingers, his expression unreadable.

  ‘Private joke,’ he said.

  ‘Right.’ Alex nodded. ‘I see.’

  She didn’t see. All she knew was that, ever since she’d told him she wasn’t staying on in Kilbreckan, post-surgery meetings had become excruciating. She knew he was hurting—she was hurting, too—but, if they weren’t circling one another awkwardly, he was sniping at her, and this wasn’t how she wanted it to end.

  ‘Hugh…’ She stared at him helplessly. ‘I’ll be gone in three days. Can’t we at least—?’

  ‘Shake hands, part as friends, wish each other a nice life?’ he finished for her. ‘No, we can’t, or at least I sure as hell can’t. You know what I want, Alex.’

  ‘Hugh—’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Doctors,’ Chrissie said as she stuck her head round Hugh’s door, ‘but Grace Allen is here with Jamie. She knows surgery is over for the morning, but she wonders if one of you could take a look at Jamie’s stitches, see if they’re ready to come out yet. She would have been here earlier, but with Ewan being back home now, and still not able to do much for himself…’

  ‘Send her along, Chrissie,’ Hugh replied. ‘Alex and I will both take a look at Jamie’s stitches.’

  It was the last thing Alex wanted, but she could hardly say so.

  ‘Let’s hope Jamie’s stitches are ready to come out today,’ she said instead when Chrissie had disappeared. ‘They weren’t ready last week.’

  ‘No,’ Hugh replied.

  He looked tired, she thought, sneaking a glance at him, as though he hadn’t been sleeping well recently.

  She hadn’t been sleeping well, either, without him.

  Don’t go that way, Alex, her mind warned as his eyes met hers, and she was the one who looked away first. Don’t go that way. Three days. You only have to get through the next three days, and then you’ll never see Hugh Scott again.

  A thought that was so overwhelmingly depressing that she positively beamed when Hugh’s consulting room opened and Jamie and his mother trooped in.

  ‘I hope these stitches are ready to come out,’ Jamie declared irritably as his mother lifted him on to Hugh’s examination table. ‘They’re dead itchy.’

  Which was a good sign, and one look at Jamie’s forehead was enough to tell Alex the stitches were ready to be removed.

  ‘Do you want to do the honours, or shall I?’ she said, glancing across at Hugh.

  ‘You, I think,’ he said, and Alex pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, and reached for her forceps.

  The sutures didn’t take long to remove, and when Alex had taken out the last one, she sat back on her heels with satisfaction.

  ‘Now that,’ she said, ‘is looking really, really good.’

  ‘Should it still be quite so pink?’ Grace said uncertainly as she stared at her son’s forehead.

  ‘Pink is good,’ Alex replied. ‘Pink means it’s healing, and there’s no puckering or tightening of the skin at all which means in a few months’ time you’ll hardly be able to see that Jamie had such a bad wound. You did a superb job, Hugh.’

  ‘I wanted to be left with a big scar,’ Jamie complained. ‘I wanted to look like what’ shisname, the boy wizard in all the books.’

  ‘He has a zigzag scar, Jamie,’ Grace Allen observed.

  ‘Does not,’ Jamie retorted, and his mother wearily pushed her hair back from her face.

  ‘If you say so,’ she said.

  ‘You’re looking a bit stressed today, Grace,’ Hugh declared, and Mrs Allen managed a smile.

  ‘I’m a little bit tired, to be honest, Doctor. Ewan’s not proving to be the most patient of patients, and my back’s been giving me a bit of trouble these last two days.’

  ‘Get Ewan’s brothers to help you,’ Hugh ordered. ‘Most of them are plenty old enough to help carry some of the load.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Doctor,’ Grace Allen replied, wincing slightly as she lifted Jamie back off the examination table, ‘and I’ll also try to keep this wee pest out of your surgery for a while, but I’m afraid I can’t guarantee it.’

  ‘She’s doing too much,’ Alex observed after Mrs Allen and Jamie had left. ‘She needs to ease off a little, or she’s going to be ill herself.’

  ‘I’m afraid Grace’s interpretation of the words, “ease off” would be to take a five-minute break,’ Hugh said wryly, ‘but I’ll have a word with her husband, see if he can lean on their sons to get them to pull their weight more.’

  ‘And I really must get on with my paperwork,’ Alex exclaimed, rising to her feet.

  ‘But you’ll be coming to the party on Saturday night?’ Hugh pressed, and Alex nodded.

  ‘You know I will,’ she said. ‘No matter what you might think of me, I won’t disappoint the villagers.’

  ‘You couldn’t disappoint anyone, leannan,’ Hugh said softly. ‘You might infuriate them, drive them crazy sometimes, but you’d never disappoint.’

  ‘I…’ She swallowed, hard. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘It was meant as one,’ he said, his quicksilver eyes gentle. ‘Alex—’

  He didn’t get a chance to say any more. His consulting room suddenly banged open,
and Chrissie was standing there, white-faced, and trembling.

  ‘It’s…it’s Grace,’ she stammered. ‘She stopped at my desk to have a word with me on her way out, and she was talking, telling me about Ewan, and then…Hugh, she just went down like a stone.’

  ‘Get Jamie out of the waiting room, Chrissie,’ Hugh ordered as he grabbed the defibrillator. ‘Put him anywhere but get him out of sight of his mother, then dial 999. Alex, bring an ambu-bag.’

  He had gone before either woman could reply and, as Chrissie hurried off to get Jamie and phone for an ambulance, Alex grabbed an ambu-bag from Hugh’s store cupboard, then raced down the corridor to the waiting room to find him kneeling beside Grace, and to her horror he was administering CPR.

  ‘I’ve no pulse, and she’s not breathing,’ he said, his voice tight.

  SCA, Alex thought, as she slipped the oxygen mask over Grace’s face and began squeezing the bag as hard as she could. It couldn’t be anything but sudden cardiac arrest, but it didn’t seem possible, credible. Grace had been laughing and joking at the exercise class just yesterday, fooling around to keep everybody motivated, and now she was lying on the floor, her lips blue and her face deathly white.

  ‘Where’s Jamie?’ she asked.

  ‘Chrissie’s got him in her office, playing on her computer,’ Hugh replied. ‘I don’t know how long it will keep him occupied—we’ve no games on it—but I didn’t want him in here, seeing this.’

  Alex didn’t want to be seeing it either, couldn’t believe it was happening when, only a few minutes ago, she and Hugh had been arguing about the party.

  ‘You’d better take off her jewellery so I can shock her.’

  Alex nodded and kept on squeezing the ambu-bag while she slipped off Grace’s rings because, without oxygen, Grace’s brain would die.

  Quickly, Hugh placed one of the pads connected to the portable defibrillator on the upper right side of Grace’s chest, and then affixed the other pad to her lower left side.

  ‘Ready?’ he said, and Alex nodded, and leant back, so she wouldn’t come into contact with either Grace or the leads from the machine.