Medic on Approval

by Laura MacDonald

  In the depths of Welsh Wales, of course—where do you think?’

  ‘Oh, God, is it utterly ghastly?’ demanded Annabelle.

  ‘If you’d asked me that question last night I would probably have said yes and that I was seriously thinking of coming home. However, it has got better. Only a fraction, but today it has got better. How long it lasts remains to be seen.’

  ‘So tell me. I want to know. Why was it ghastly?’

  ‘Well, the village folk treat me like I’ve just landed from another planet, Henry Llewellyn’s wife is ill and he’s no longer able to be my trainer and he’s arranged for his partner—a guy called Aidan Lennox—to take me on.’

  ‘And are you happy with that?’ asked Annabelle.

  ‘I’ll have to see how it goes—let’s just say Aidan Lennox isn’t the sort of person one warms to immediately. I’ve also decided not to impose on the Llewellyns by staying with them so I’ve moved into a flat over the surgery.’

  ‘Oh, Lindsay, it sounds appalling. For God’s sake, why don’t you just chuck it in and come home?’

  ‘I can’t, Annabelle. Henry and Megan are upset enough as it is. If I go home it’ll make them feel worse than ever. I must stick it out—at least, for a while. Obviously if it gets too bad I’ll have to think again.’

  ‘So what’s the village like? Is it absolutely dire?’

  ‘No, actually, that’s the one saving grace. The village is beautiful, Belle. It’s surrounded by mountains—you should see the views I’ve got from this flat.’

  ‘But what about the people?’ Annabelle still sounded doubtful.

  ‘I haven’t met too many yet. Some of the patients seem wary of anyone from London.’ She sighed. ‘And then there’s the staff. A woman called Bronwen who rules the surgery with a rod of iron and a poor little mouse of a receptionist who’s terrified of her…’

  ‘And what about this guy who’s your new trainer—what’s he like?’

  ‘Aidan? Well, he’s not quite what we’re used to, Belle.’

  ‘A nerd, you mean?

  ‘No, not a nerd,’ she said slowly. ‘Different maybe, but not a nerd. He’s too clued up for that.’

  ‘So in what way different?’ Annabelle persisted.

  ‘It’s hard to explain really. When I first saw him with his Land Rover and his dogs, his waxed jacket and green wellies I thought he was a farmer.’

  ‘Sounds a tad interesting. Is he hunky?’

  ‘Lord, no. Nothing like that. Rugged maybe, but not hunky. More irritating really. I dare say he’ll have driven me mad by the end of a week.’

  ‘Not your type, then?’

  ‘No. Definitely not my type.’

  ‘Oh, well, never mind.’ Annabelle sighed. ‘It was just a thought. Speaking of which, and I don’t know whether you’ll want to know this or not…’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Well, I saw Andrew today. I was just coming out of Harvey Nic’s and there he was.’

  Lindsay clutched the phone a little tighter. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘We stopped, passed the time of day and he…he asked after you. I told him you’d gone away and he seemed surprised. Hadn’t you told him, Lindsay—about Wales, I mean?’

  ‘He knew it was on the cards, but I didn’t make up my mind until after we’d split.’

  ‘Would you have gone if you and Andrew had still been together?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Anyway, he said to say hello.’

  And that, Lindsay thought as a little later she replaced the receiver, was all it had come down to between her and Andrew—him saying hello through a friend. There had been a time, and not so long ago either, when she’d thought he’d been the love of her life but that had been then, before she’d found out that fidelity in a relationship hadn’t seemed to feature on his agenda. She’d forgiven him the first time when she’d quite by chance seen him dining out with an attractive woman. As Annabelle had pointed out when she’d confided in her, it hadn’t been as if she and Andrew had been living together then, or engaged, or anything like that. But the second time had been different. By then they’d been living together, a commitment had been made, and she’d found out in the most hurtful way that he’d been seeing someone else.

  She’d hoped she’d been starting to get over it but hearing Annabelle refer to having seen him again, casual though it might have been, had really upset her.

  With her thoughts still churning, Lindsay made her way downstairs with the intention of braving the village shop and its strange inhabitants to buy some food. Bronwen and Gwynneth were clearing up and the last patient was just leaving the surgery.

  Lindsay would have let herself out of the front door without disturbing the two receptionists, but as she reached the door Bronwen suddenly spoke. ‘Dr Henderson,’ she said briskly, ‘Dr Lennox wants to see you.’

  Lindsay looked at her watch. ‘I was about to go to the village shop to buy some food. It’s nearly five o’clock.’

  ‘Dr Lennox said to be sure to tell you at the end of surgery. He’s just seen his last patient. You’d better go in to him now.’

  ‘Right.’ Lindsay took a deep breath and glanced across the hall to Aidan’s room. The door was tightly shut.

  ‘It’s all right, Dr Henderson.’ Gwynneth suddenly spoke as Lindsay still hesitated. ‘The shop doesn’t close until six.’

  ‘Thanks, Gwynneth.’ Lindsay shot her a grateful glance then, squaring her shoulders, she walked briskly to Aidan’s room and rapped smartly on the door.

  He barely had a chance to bid her to enter before she pushed open the door. He was seated behind his desk, writing, but he looked up sharply at the interruption, his pen poised. His gaze met hers and unexpectedly, although she wasn’t sure why, she felt her heart miss a beat.

  She drew a deep breath. ‘You wanted to see me?’ she said abruptly, only too mindful of the interchange of words they’d had at the end of the morning.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied tautly. ‘I did. I wanted an explanation as to why you weren’t in surgery this afternoon.’

  She stared at him. ‘I went shopping,’ she replied.

  ‘You went shopping.’ It was a statement rather than a question. ‘May I ask if you intend doing that sort of thing on a regular basis? Because if you do, I might as well say here and now that I don’t intend continuing as your trainer.’

  Lindsay felt the blood rush to her cheeks, then as she turned to shut the door behind her, very briefly she caught sight of a half-smile on Bronwen’s face. Struggling to control her temper, she strode across Aidan’s consulting room and placed her hands, palms downwards, on his desk. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Now that your smug receptionist can no longer hear us, maybe you’ll tell me what the hell this is all about.’

  ‘You know what it’s about,’ he replied coldly. ‘I expected you here in surgery this afternoon and you chose to go shopping without so much as a by your leave.’

  ‘But you more or less said you didn’t need me any more, that you thought I might have things to do…’

  ‘That was this morning! I didn’t think you would see fit to take the rest of the day off.’

  ‘Bronwen knew where I was,’ she retorted. ‘In fact, it was she who suggested I go into Betws-y-coed for the shopping I needed.’

  ‘Shall we leave Bronwen out of this—’

  ‘But she was to tell you where I’d gone and why.’

  ‘Maybe so, but the point I’m making is that you should have told me.’

  ‘Told you? Don’t you mean, asked you?’ Her tone was now as cold as his. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was to be accountable to you for every minute of every day.’

  ‘I’m not saying you are, but I do need to know when you intend doing surgeries or house calls. Surely you must see that.’

  Struggling for control, Lindsay drew a deep breath. ‘OK,’ she said at last, ‘I accept that because you are my trainer maybe I should have mentioned it to you first.’
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br />   ‘If you had, there would have been no problem. I’m not so insensitive that I can’t understand there would be things you needed to do on your first day here.’ He paused and for a long moment he stared up at her.

  His eyes seemed more bluer than ever. ‘We really don’t seem to have got off to a good start, do we?’ he said tightly at last.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, only too aware that her face was still flushed. ‘We don’t. We seem to have been at odds with each other since the moment we met, and it will go on like that if you carry on treating me like a naughty schoolgirl. I may only be the trainee in this practice but I also happen to be a fully qualified doctor and I expect to be treated as such.’

  Aidan continued to stare at her with that disconcerting blue gaze then quietly he said, ‘May I make a suggestion?’ When she gave a little shrug he went on, ‘Shall we start again?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘What I say. Shall we go back to the beginning? Pretend we’ve just met and this time try and get off on the right foot. What do you say?’

  She hesitated. ‘All right.’ She nodded.

  He stood up and held out his hand. ‘Dr Aidan Lennox,’ he said briefly. ‘I’m to be your trainer for the next year.’

  ‘Dr Lindsay Henderson.’ She took his hand, aware as she did so of its unexpected warmth, so at odds with the ice blue of his eyes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GRADUALLY, over the next couple of weeks, things got better. Lindsay settled into her flat and it soon began to feel like home. In the practice staff and patients alike began to accept her and she in turn got used to them. Aidan continued to irritate her at times but she was sure that she also irritated him. At other times she found him profoundly disconcerting, and yet as time went by they each made a concerted effort to accommodate the other.

  She still found Bronwen infuriating and she knew Bronwen only tolerated her presence in the surgery, but surprisingly Gwynneth proved to be an unexpected ally. It was obvious that Gwynneth had always gone in fear and trepidation of Bronwen, treating the older woman with a deference far beyond her due, and when she saw that Lindsay had no intention of doing likewise, her awe and admiration for the new trainee knew no bounds.

  ‘You mustn’t let her get to you,’ Lindsay told the girl when she found her in tears behind the filing cabinets one morning after a particularly hurtful run-in with Bronwen.

  ‘I…I c-can’t help it…’ Gwynneth hiccuped. ‘She makes me feel so stupid all the time.’

  ‘You’re not stupid, Gwynneth,’ said Lindsay gently. ‘And Bronwen has no right to make you feel as if you are. If you like, I’ll have a word with Dr Llewellyn.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ gasped Gwynneth, ‘you mustn’t do that. After all, Bronwen is senior receptionist here. She would only make things even more difficult for me if she thought I’d been telling tales.’

  ‘But you are also an employee here and I know for a fact that neither Dr Llewellyn nor Dr Lennox, for that matter, would want you to be miserable.’

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t tell Dr Lennox either. You won’t, will you?’ Gywnneth demanded, her eyes wide with panic.

  ‘Of course not. Not if you don’t want me to,’ Lindsay replied, but at the same time she resolved that if she could do anything to make the girl’s working conditions a little happier she would do so.

  She’d continued sitting in on Aidan’s surgeries as she’d got to know the ropes until during her second week they reversed roles and he sat in while she took a few of his surgeries. This brought mixed reactions from the patients. There were those who flatly refused to discuss their problems with her, and although she remained in the room all their comments were addressed to Aidan as if she were invisible and he was the one conducting the surgery. Luckily these cases were few and far between and most people seemed willing to give her a chance once the situation had been satisfactorily explained to them.

  And then, of course, there were those, just as Aidan had predicted, who were only too delighted to have the luxury of a second opinion, and while these cases presented Lindsay with something she could get her teeth into, they also proved controversial if her diagnosis differed from Aidan’s or Henry’s.

  Aidan continued to sit in on her surgeries and Lindsay found herself longing for the day when she could be on her own. It wasn’t that he interfered. In fact, most of the time he was so quiet that one could almost have forgotten that he was there—anyone but herself, that was—for no matter how quiet or unobtrusive he was Lindsay found it impossible to ignore his presence.

  Most of the time she found she was waiting for him to intervene, and even though he didn’t his presence alone made her wonder about every statement or piece of advice she gave and certainly about every diagnosis she made. It was as if she consciously expected him to disagree with her, and when he didn’t her surprise almost threw her.

  ‘How’s it going?’ asked Judith after one particularly tense surgery when Lindsay crashed out in the staffroom with a strong coffee.

  ‘Let’s just say it’s times like this I wish I smoked,’ Lindsay replied tautly.

  ‘Bad as that?’ Judith pulled a sympathetic face.

  ‘Not bad exactly.’ Lindsay stared into her mug. ‘Let’s just say I have to be constantly on my toes.’

  ‘I know the feeling.’ Judith nodded. ‘When I first came here I imagined Aidan was laid-back and easygoing, probably because of his dress and his lifestyle—you know what I mean, taking those dogs around everywhere with him—but I soon learned that when it comes down to his work he’s an absolute perfectionist.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Lindsay sighed and brushed back a strand of hair which had escaped from the slide she wore at the nape of her neck. ‘I find myself waiting for him to comment after every word I utter. Usually he doesn’t—but that still doesn’t stop me being on edge.’

  ‘I bet you wish you were with Henry, don’t you?’

  ‘You could say that. I’m sure that, working with Henry, I would have known where I was. As it is, with Aidan I feel I’m walking on eggshells all the time.’ Draining her mug, she stood up only to find that, unbeknown to either herself or Judith, Aidan had come quietly into the staffroom and had probably heard every word she’d said.

  She worried about that for the rest of the day because really, when all was said and done, Aidan hadn’t been obliged to take over as her trainer. He’d said he’d done it to help Henry out of a predicament, but the fact remained that he could have said no, because in the end the only one who stood to gain from the arrangement was Lindsay herself. Later, however, when she tried to raise the matter with Aidan he looked at her as if she were mad.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, his expression blank.

  ‘This morning…’ She swallowed. ‘When you came into the staffroom…’

  ‘Yes?’ The blank expression was replaced by a frown.

  ‘I was talking to Judith and you may have overheard something…’

  ‘About whom?’ The blue eyes were like ice chips again.

  ‘Well, about you, actually.’

  ‘So you and Judith were discussing me over your coffee?’

  ‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘Not really…It’s just that you may have thought…it may have sounded as if I was being ungrateful…’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The fact that you’ve taken over the job of being my trainer. And I’m not ungrateful…really, I’m not…’

  ‘Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it?’ The bland expression was back on his face.

  ‘So…’ She hesitated, uncertain of her ground now. ‘Had you overheard?’

  ‘No.’ With a shrug he strode off through Reception, leaving Lindsay feeling decidedly foolish at offering explanations, even apologies, where none had been necessary.

  She liked Judith Havers, a plain-speaking, down-to-earth Welsh girl who treated everyone as she found them and took no nonsense from anyone, including Br
onwen. ‘She thinks she’s queen bee around here,’ she told Lindsay when the pair of them were in the treatment room one afternoon, awaiting the first patients in a baby clinic. ‘There’s one of her kind in every practice—but she cuts no ice with me, I can tell you.’

  ‘I just wish Gwynneth could take your attitude,’ Lindsay replied. ‘Bronwen practically terrorises her.’

  ‘Poor little Gwynneth,’ said Judith. ‘She’s not had a very good life so far. Her childhood was unhappy and she suffers from low self-esteem. Bronwen, on the other hand, is a bully and Gwynneth a natural victim.’

  ‘I’m going to see if I can’t change that situation around a little during my time here,’ Lindsay replied thoughtfully.

  ‘It would be good if you could,’ Judith said. ‘But be careful, it could make Bronwen even worse.’

  ‘I know.’ Lindsay nodded. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. But there’s nothing to stop me taking a bit of interest in Gwynneth.’

  It wasn’t difficult to please Gwynneth as the girl was so interested in Lindsay and constantly asked questions about her life in London.

  ‘Were you in London on Millennium Eve?’ she asked one evening when they were in Reception, clearing up after a long, busy day.

  ‘Yes,’ Lindsay replied, glancing up from the repeat prescriptions she was signing. Bronwen was shutting down the computers for the night, and Aidan was standing with his back to them, reading some notes. Henry was still in his consulting room.

  ‘Oh, I bet that was wonderful, wasn’t it?’ Gwynneth sighed.

  ‘It was pretty impressive,’ Lindsay agreed.

  ‘So where were you?’ Gwynneth persisted. ‘Were you at the Dome?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t at the Dome. I had a meal with…with friends in a restaurant, then we went to someone’s apartment overlooking the Thames to watch the fireworks.’ She was suddenly aware that Bronwen was listening and that Aidan, even though he hadn’t moved a muscle and still had his back to her, was also listening to every word of this conversation.

  ‘So did you see that River of Fire and the Ferris wheel and all that?’ breathed Gwynneth, her eyes like saucers.