‘Agreed. And now, if you’ll promise not to have any more negative vibes while I’m gone, I’m going to take a shower, and then maybe we could watch the late night movie.’
She was happy now. Drew had the knack of simplifying all problems. Maybe in time she might be able to learn to do the same.
* * *
That hope was to be short-lived. Andrina was getting Jonathan ready to go out the following morning when, as if her thoughts of the night before had transferred themselves, she heard a key turn in the lock. Then the front door swung back and Tania came striding in.
Andrina’s first thought was, Oh, dear! And the second that the woman must have a key to the farmhouse. Any further observations didn’t get the chance to surface as the unexpected caller was asking coldly, ‘Is Drew here?’
‘No. He’ll be in the middle of morning surgery,’ Andrina told her, thinking that she shouldn’t need to be told that. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
The ring she’d been flaunting on the previous occasion was clearly visible at that moment, and it was the plain gold band of matrimony. Surely she wasn’t married to someone else and involved with Drew.
Tania laughed. It was a scornful, metallic sort of sound that grated on the ear.
‘Yes, there is something you can do. You can tell me what you are doing here. Taking advantage of Drew’s good nature from the looks of it.’
‘I would have thought it was obvious,’ Andrina told her, still keeping cool. She looked down into the pram. ‘We have an orphaned baby here. Drew and I are his only living relatives and my connection is by marriage rather than blood. When Jodie died I had to take care of him. It was difficult. I had my own life sorted, hadn’t a clue about looking after babies and was totally horrified at the prospect.
‘Drew came to my place looking for Jodie and was devastated when he found out what had happened to her. It prompted him to ask me to move in here with Jonathan so that he could share the responsibility of looking after him. Does that satisfy you? Even though it’s none of your business.’
‘Oh! So you’re not as meek and mild as you look,’ Tania said mockingly. ‘And is that the only reason you’re here? It’s not because you think his generosity might extend to taking you off the shelf, as I don’t see any wedding ring on your finger.’
This is awful, Andrina was thinking. She was rowing with a woman she hardly knew. But the comment about her being on the shelf had stung. Did she really appear so frumpish?
The ordeal was coming to an end, or so it seemed.
‘I’ll call in at the surgery, then,’ Tania was saying. And unable to resist a parting shot, she added, ‘It’s the talk of the village, what is going on here.’
‘I don’t see why!’ Andrina told her, stung again by what she was inferring. ‘Those villagers that I’ve met so far have been most supportive. People are stunned to know that Jodie is dead and have offered to do anything they can to help. So maybe you’ve been letting your imagination run away with you. Perhaps you would like to see Drew’s reputation soiled.’
It actually seemed as if Tania had run out of words as she turned on her heel and went stalking off down the drive.
Andrina closed the door behind her and then sat down on the bottom stair and wept for them all. Jodie, Drew’s brother, their son, herself and, taking poetic licence, Drew, who was being pursued by a shrew.
Surely there had to be some joy in it somewhere, and, of course, there was. She’d met a man who was far more willing to have his life turned upside down than she had been. Further than that she wasn’t going to think. Not with Tania hovering, her new job at the practice and the needs of the child in the pram.
* * *
When Drew came home late that afternoon he said, ‘I believe you had Tania round here this morning.’
Andrina nodded, having decided that she would be careful what she said. He could easily accuse her of interfering in his life if she wasn’t careful.
He sighed. ‘The last thing I need is her interrupting morning surgery, but she’s always been a law unto herself and nothing changes. I’d just had to tell Mrs D’Arcy from the old manorhouse that tests have shown she has breast cancer, and had the butcher waiting anxiously to know if his blood pressure had come down from last week’s dangerous level, when Tania appeared, going on about unimportant matters such as if I was going to the hunt ball.’
‘And are you?’
‘I really don’t know,’ he said, as his smile flashed out. ‘Tania thinks she can charm the birds out of the trees, but some birds prefer to stay on their perches. What did she have to say when she was here?’
‘Quite a lot. She wanted to know what I was doing in your house. And said that we are the subject of gossip in the village.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I put her right on both counts. I explained that I was here from necessity and no other reason, and that so far I’d found everyone most pleasant and concerned about Jonathan, rather than tittle-tattling about us.’
‘Good for you,’ he said easily, yet she sensed withdrawal in him and wasn’t sure from where it came.
‘Tania doesn’t know what ails her at the moment,’ he went on to say. ‘As the only child of wealthy parents she’s been thoroughly spoilt, and since she found that I’m not ready to dance to her tune any more she isn’t very happy.’
‘Did you know that she has a key?’
‘No, I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. It’s all part of her not wanting to let go.’
‘What happened between you?’
It was out. The question she’d been longing to ask since that night when Tania had walked in on them in the nursery.
Drew wasn’t smiling now. His face was devoid of all expression, as if a shutter had come down over it.
‘She’s my ex-wife. We were divorced last year. It was about my love of children and her lack of it,’ he said. ‘She was pregnant and never told me. Instead, she went and had an abortion without my knowledge. I only discovered it by accident when I heard her talking to a friend on the phone. I almost lost my faith in human nature.’
‘How awful for you,’ Andrina breathed.
Now she understood why he’d been so anxious to help with Jonathan. If his own child had been lost to him, he could at least cherish his brother’s.
He was waiting for her to say something else but it was as if she’d been struck dumb.
‘You asked, Andrina,’ he said, ‘and I’ve told you. Surely you have something to say.’
‘Yes, I have one thing,’ she said, finding her voice.
‘And what’s that?’
‘She didn’t deserve you.’
That almost brought the smile back.
‘I don’t know about that. Maybe I was too trusting…or stupid perhaps. We still speak to each other, as you will have realised, but as far as I’m concerned that’s it. If Tania wants a reconciliation she is in for a disappointment. But I’m afraid that’s her way. When she has something she doesn’t want it, but when she can’t have it she won’t rest until she’s got it.’
* * *
It was the Monday morning of Andrina’s second week in the village and she was due to present herself at the practice. They’d discussed how they were going to look after Jonathan while they were both employed there and come up with the idea that in the mornings they would take him with them. There were enough staff to keep an eye on him and give him a cuddle if he was fretful.
Then in the early afternoon Andrina would take him home while Drew and James did the calls, and with the late afternoon surgery they would take it in turns.
It was a strange feeling, being introduced to the staff. Andrina was immediately conscious of the difference between general practice and hospital care.
This was a more intimate, friendly set-up. A small group of people performing their different functions in health care in a rural community, with just as much enthusiasm and expertise as those employed in a big hospital.
James was a tall, serious-looking young man, but he gave her a friendly smile when they shook hands. Joanne and Isabel, the two practice nurses, were brisk and efficient mothers of schoolage children, and the other receptionist working alongside Marion was a quiet young woman in her twenties called Rachel.
As Andrina took her seat behind the desk in the consulting room that had belonged to Drew’s brother, she had the strangest feeling, as if there were other presences in the room. It was almost as if she could hear Jodie saying, Well done, ’Drina. You’ve come out of your shell at last.
But was becoming a country GP coming out of her shell? It wasn’t what she’d intended. But she had an incentive. Two, to be exact. A better life for Jonathan, and the chance to live and work with Drew Curtis. Only time would tell if she was cut out for either thing, and on that thought she rang for her first patient.
It was a dubious elderly woman called Ellen Battersby and Andrina was greeted with, ‘I usually see Dr Curtis. Why has he passed me on to you? He understands me.’
‘I’m sure that he does, Mrs Battersby,’ Andrina said with a smile. ‘Maybe when I’ve been here a bit longer you’ll think that about me, too. But if you don’t let me treat you it isn’t going to happen, is it? So why not tell me what’s wrong?’
‘It’s me eyes. I’ve got cataracts, and as well as that I keep having these flashes.’
‘Do you mean black floaters?’
‘No. I mean lights that would put the Blackpool illuminations to shame.’
‘I’m going to examine your eyes, Mrs Battersby,’ Andrina told her, ‘but really you need to see an eye specialist. In the average doctor’s surgery we don’t carry the equipment that they have, but let’s have a look.’
An examination with an ophthalmoscope didn’t reveal anything, but Andrina wasn’t happy with the patient’s description of the flashing lights that she was seeing.
‘I’m going to send you to hospital,’ she told her. ‘I want your retinas checked. What you’ve been experiencing sounds to me like a vitreous detachment.’
‘And what might that be?’ Mrs Battersby wanted to know.
‘It can happen to any of us as we get older. Inside the eyeball is a soft mushy pulp when we are young, but it becomes less moist with age and as it gets drier sometimes a portion of it detaches itself and brings the retina with it.
‘I don’t think it has done in your case, but I want it checked out. If you ever see what is like a dark curtain coming down over your vision, that is a detached retina and you must get it seen to immediately, or you could go blind. I’m going to ring the eye clinic at the hospital now. Do you have someone who can drive you there?’
‘No.’
‘All right. I’ll ask for an ambulance to be sent. If you’d like to take a seat in the waiting room, one of the nurses will take care of you until it arrives.’
As Ellen Battersby got to her feet she smiled for the first time. ‘You’ll do for me,’ she said with grudging approval and stomped out.
She was followed by a mother with a young girl who’d fallen onto her wrist the previous day while playing netball at school and now it was painful and swollen.
‘Do you think it’s broken, Doctor?’ the anxious mother asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Andrina told her. ‘An X-ray will be needed to tell us that. It’s possible that it is just a very bad sprain, but I’m going to have to send you to A and E to make sure.’
The mother groaned. ‘That’s half the day gone, then. We’ve never been dealt with quickly in one of those places yet.’ After that gloomy prediction they went, the girl quite enjoying the attention and the thought of missing school, and the mother not so pleased.
Marion came in between patients in the middle of the morning with a coffee, and before Andrina could ask about Jonathan she chirped, ‘The staff are all waiting for a chance to pick up the baby, but he’s being as good as gold. I think he likes his new surroundings.’
‘He certainly seems more settled since we came to live here,’ Andrina agreed.
They were both feeling more settled, she thought. In fact, she had never felt more settled in her life and had to keep telling herself that he wouldn’t be a baby for long and then what would happen? They couldn’t stay in Drew’s house for ever.
It was leaping ahead somewhat, crossing her bridges before she’d got to them. She hadn’t been living in this place more than a couple of weeks and already she was looking for difficulties. While Drew, with his own brand of magic, was intent on ironing them out.
‘So you’re the new doctor,’ a burly fellow said when she looked up some moments later after filling in the notes of the previous patient.
‘Yes, I’m Andrina Bell,’ she told him, sensing that he was uncomfortable for some reason, ‘and I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone.’
‘My name’s Tom Blair,’ he said. ‘I have the Home Farm at the end of the village. I asked to see Drew, but Marion said he’s booked up for the next few days. I never know when to believe her, though. If that one can make me hot under the collar, she will.’
So this was another of the regulars who didn’t like change, Andrina thought, but his next comment did explain why.
He shuffled about on the chair for a moment and then said, ‘I’ve got an embarrassing problem.’
‘Tell me about it,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve worked on Men’s Surgical in a big hospital quite a few times and there isn’t much that I haven’t seen.’
Still uncomfortable, he cleared his throat and said, ‘I’ve got a rash.’
‘Where?’
‘Around my…you know.’
‘Your genitals.’
‘Yes…I’m sore and itching all the time.’
‘Take your trousers off, then, Mr Blair, and we’ll have a look.’
He hadn’t exaggerated. The whole area was swollen and the skin was bright red and blistered.
‘Is it possible that you might have a sexually transmitted disease? That you’ve had unprotected sex?’
He gave a dry laugh.
‘I haven’t been around a woman for the last ten years. I’m a widower. Wouldn’t be for long if that Marion Meadows had her way, mind you. Naw, I use a lot of pesticides and I’m wondering if it’s from one of them. If I forgot to wash my hands when I’d been to the toilet. Though I always wear gloves and even then I don’t handle it direct.’
‘You might have the answer,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to give you some cream which should bring relief pretty quickly. If it doesn’t, we’ll send you to the hospital, as pesticides and suchlike have some quite deadly chemicals in them.’
When he’d gone, looking less hot and bothered than when he’d walked into her consulting room, Andrina sat back in her chair and allowed herself a moment’s amusement.
So Marion had her eye on the suffering farmer, she thought. She’d bet Marion could be a determined woman and remembering the ex-Mrs Curtis, there were a few of them about.
But on a more serious note, it was a nasty rash that he’d got and he was probably right about its origin. She would watch with interest to see if he came back.
Andrina was in Reception, cuddling Jonathan, when Drew came out of his room after seeing off his last patient. His eyes lit up.
‘So how’s it gone?’ he asked.
‘I enjoyed it. It was interesting. Mind you, I had to win over a couple of patients who would much rather have seen you.’
He nodded. ‘I suppose that is only to be expected at first. Some of the locals are very set in their ways, but they’ll adjust.’
He held out his arms and took the baby from her. As Drew looked down at Jonathan he said, ‘And this little one has behaved himself, I hear.’
‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘We can count day one as a success.’
His glance had moved to her. She wasn’t to know it but he was rejoicing to see her happy. He felt more confident about everything when Andrina sparkled like she was doing now. There hadn’t been much joy in her
when they’d first met, understandably so, but now the clouds were lifting and for the present he was happy for it to be so.
The only thorn in his side at the moment was Tania. He had to admire her cheek. She’d betrayed him without a second thought, considering only her own needs. It was true what he’d told Andrina. When he’d discovered that she’d aborted their child he’d been devastated.
If there’d been something wrong with the foetus, or Tania had had a health problem that would have made pregnancy dangerous, he would have understood. He was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. But to do it behind his back, because she hadn’t wanted to spoil her figure and have the inconvenience of carrying the child for nine months, had torn him apart. And yet in his darkest moments he’d acknowledged that he wouldn’t have wanted a child to come into the world with a mother like that.
When he’d married her she’d been fun. She’d brought excitement to the marriage, but that had been about all, he’d soon found. Tania was vain and selfish, with a sort of built-in arrogance that had shown itself in her behaviour when she’d found she’d been pregnant.
The arrogance was still there in the way she wouldn’t accept that they were finished. In anyone else it would be humiliating, but not with Tania. She probably thought that he would give in eventually, unable to resist her.
When he’d met a woman who was the exact opposite to his ex-wife, in that she’d unselfishly turned her life round to care for someone else’s child, and was physically more of a fresh garden flower than a hothouse bloom like Tania, he’d realised more than ever what a mistake his marriage had been.
‘So you are going to take Jonathan home for lunch, then,’ he said. ‘James and I will get started on the house calls. With luck, it won’t take too long.’
He wanted to be back with them. Not just with Jonathan but Andrina, too. After Tania’s moods and machinations she was good to come home to.
* * *
As Andrina drove back to the farm her heart was light. With each passing day she was becoming more certain that she’d made the right decision. She had brought Jonathan to live with a man who, though he wasn’t his father, was as near to one as he would ever get, and deep down in her heart she knew that she couldn’t have denied either of them the chance to get to know the other.
The Doctors’ Baby Bond Page 5
