Practice Makes Perfect

by Penny Parkes

  ‘Would be a fairly karmic diagnosis though, Dr Graham, wouldn’t it? I had my first abortion when I was fifteen – that has to make a difference, doesn’t it?’

  Holly watched her patient’s expression carefully; Lindy’s usual bravado was replaced today by an unfamiliar tension that Holly recognised only too well. There was something about the word ‘pre-cancerous’ that made even the most confident of souls question everything they thought they knew. And right now, Lindy was clearly beginning to question a few of the more reckless choices she had been making for the last decade or so.

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ cautioned Holly. ‘There’s a long way to go yet and it looks like they’ve already initiated a referral for you. Lindy, I won’t lie – whatever further exams they need to do won’t be comfortable, but they will hopefully put your mind at rest. The odds are that you might need a little procedure called cryotherapy where they essentially freeze away the dodgy cells, but the team there will talk you through every step of the treatment and they are used to people feeling nervous and frightened – it’s a perfectly natural response.’

  Lindy shrugged. ‘Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Dr Graham. When I opened that letter this morning . . . Well, it completely threw me, to be honest.’ Her face furrowed in concentration. ‘Maybe I’ll look back on this and see it as a Wake Up Call? Who knows . . .’ She went to stand up, the letter clutched tightly in her hand, crumpling around her white fingers. ‘Is this like with STDs then, Dr Graham? Do I have to make the Phone Call Of Shame to every man I’ve ever been with?’

  As Holly talked Lindy through the stages of HPV and who might potentially be affected, the colour rose from Lindy’s neck to her face. When she looked up at Holly, there were tears welling in her eyes. She gave a strangled laugh. ‘Well, I don’t think I’m going to be terribly popular for a bit, am I? Plus, you know, I might need to upgrade my call plan.’

  Holly saw Lindy to the door and she couldn’t help but worry about the young woman’s coping skills – it was one thing to be completely gung-ho about sexual freedom, but if there was one thing she had seen time and time again as a doctor, it was so often the women who paid the price.

  As the door swung open, Holly could see there was a small gathering in the reception area and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. It was true that whenever Jamie the dog trainer arrived in Larkford, he seemed to gain an instant entourage. Not showy, just ridiculously handsome and incredibly genuine – the local female population seemed to be highly tuned to his presence.

  Lindy gave Holly a watery smile. ‘Seems the dog whisperer has got his own little fan club going.’

  ‘All the more so, since he only seems to have eyes for one particular brunette,’ agreed Holly. Jamie’s easy-going nonchalance only seemed to add to his appeal and Holly had noticed that despite the attention, his focus was firmly rooted where it should be – with Coco.

  Right now, he was working with Alice to persuade Coco that all the distractions in the communal areas just weren’t that interesting. He talked to the little spaniel constantly – a reassuring hum of words that kept her calm and focused. Alice walked beside them, the hope on her face almost palpable.

  She smiled at Holly and Lindy as they walked in. ‘She’s doing so much better, Holly. Look, Jamie’s been teaching her how to tune out all the distractions.’

  Jamie smiled in greeting but carried on murmuring to Coco, but something had shifted. Coco whined and began scuffling backwards, pulling on the lead in Jamie’s hand. She circled and whimpered and eventually gave a tug for freedom before hustling over to greet Holly and Lindy.

  Jamie’s face was a picture of disappointment, but it was nothing to the flash of despair that filled Alice’s eyes. She wordlessly picked up Coco’s lead and kindly led her back to the office. Jamie laid a hand on Holly’s arm as he followed. ‘Don’t give up on her just yet, will you?’

  Holly wasn’t sure whether he meant Coco or Alice, but her answer would still be the same – The Practice was a team and they all looked out for each other. At least, Holly temporised, that was the theory.

  Grace beckoned Holly through into the office and picked up some papers from the printer. She was looking distinctly more polished of late and Holly could see extra little touches that suggested Elsie was up to her old tricks again. Holly had to swallow a moment of unaccountable envy at this revelation and force herself to focus on the positives of Grace’s decision to carve a bigger role for herself here at The Practice, with her unexpected internet dexterity and calm media savvy.

  ‘I’ve printed out a list of patients from Alice. The ones where Coco has acted strangely – she said you’d asked for it?’ Grace handed over a sheaf of notes. ‘Are you thinking they might have undiagnosed diabetes?’ she asked with interest.

  ‘Something like that,’ replied Holly.

  ‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it? How their little minds and noses work? I was reading up on it last night after talking to Jamie at the pub. I knew they had more smell sensors than us – but 300 million? That’s like smelling in High Definition!’ Grace seemed enthralled by the notion. ‘I wonder what else they’re capable of?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m just following a weird hunch right now, so don’t make a big thing of this list with Alice, will you? I feel like she has enough to keep her focused at the moment. But I tell you what would be helpful – do you have a mobile number for Jamie? I have a few little off-the-record queries.’

  Grace quietly pulled her mobile from her pocket. She tapped at the screen a few times and looked up without meeting Holly’s eye. ‘I’ve sent it over to your phone,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, not you two as well,’ came a grumpy voice from the doorway, as Dan ambled into the office. ‘Anyone would think Jamie Yardley is the first good-looking bloke ever to walk through these doors.’

  ‘Aw, but you know we love you the best though, don’t you?’ teased Holly in reply, as though he were a puppy in need of attention.

  Dan couldn’t help but smile, as Holly held out a Penguin in her palm like a doggy treat. ‘Well, it wouldn’t kill you to say it once in a while, is all I’m saying.’ He unwrapped the Penguin and devoured it in three bites.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Holly. ‘I reckon Eric has better table manners than that.’

  Dan shrugged. ‘I’m just hungry. Turns out sleeping in a crappy bed above the pub works up quite the appetite.’ He stretched as though the mere memory gave him neck ache. ‘I seriously need to sort out some proper accommodation.’

  Holly nodded. ‘Well, if you’re nice to Grace, maybe she’ll loan you her spare room while the boys are away?’

  ‘Oh no,’ flustered Grace uncharacteristically, ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.’

  There was an incredibly awkward lull in the conversation until Dan rallied, ‘You’re absolutely right there, Gracie. I’d be an awful flat mate, forever finishing off the Shreddies and hogging the shower before work.’

  Grace looked up for the first time, her expression earnest and her words rushed. ‘I didn’t mean that at all, Dan. I’m sure you’ll make someone a lovely housemate. I just meant that . . . well, when you’re getting over a loss, sometimes it’s nice to have some space to yourself, isn’t it?’

  Dan pulled her into his side in a gentle half-hug. ‘I’m sorry, Gracie, that was insensitive of me. Of course you still need your space after Roy and everything.’

  Grace looked up at him with wide grey eyes and Holly almost felt as though she were intruding simply by standing there. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean me, Dan. A break-up can be like a mini bereavement after all. Like I said last night, you’ll be wanting a little time and space to work out what you want from life, won’t you?’

  Holly quietly slipped away then, one look at Dan’s face suggesting that he already had a few ideas on that front. Holly didn’t know whether to be delighted or concerned that his primary focus right now seemed to be Grace. She did make a mental note though, to pop i
nto Julia’s office and put away her stapler, along with any other potential missiles – just in case.

  Chapter 39

  Julia pulled down the sleeves of her cashmere jumper as the summer evening chill made her shiver. Quite why she’d foregone supper with Quentin in the new Michelin-starred restaurant in Bath for this was anybody’s guess. If she were a betting woman, she might say it had something to do with trying to ease her conscience: she felt bad about Dan, she felt bad about her mother and, if she were being completely honest, she felt bad about Quentin too. She hadn’t deliberately tried to mislead him; he just seemed to assume that the moment she’d succumbed to his advances in the bedroom, then by extension, it meant she was going to accept his job offer too. Partners in every sense of the word. Only Julia had no intention of doing so.

  She didn’t want to leap straight from one incestuous work/life conflict into another. And Quentin was no Dan Carter – he wouldn’t cut her as much leeway as Dan had always done. Dan had truly loved her – foibles and all. For Quentin, she was merely his amour du jour.

  She swallowed down the rush of sourness in her mouth, as she walked through the Market Place, with her mother talking nineteen to the dozen beside her. It was hardly the mother-daughter outing that every little girl dreamed of, but at this moment in time, it felt like the very least she could do. If only she could concentrate on the job in hand.

  ‘You’re making a huge mistake, you know,’ said Candace, the twilit streets of Larkford giving her face more definition and shade than usual – a sense of seniority and gravitas that was normally missing – and Julia had to concede that, when it came to Dan Carter, her mother may actually have a valid point.

  Candace though, never knowingly ventured far from her usual self-oriented train of thought and clearly hadn’t given her daughter’s break-up a second thought. ‘You’re pushing me away and you say you don’t need me, but I’m it, Joo – I’m your family. Just me, with your dad gone God-knows-where.’

  Julia frowned, wrenching her thoughts away from her own relationship carnage to at least try to consider Candace’s point of view.

  ‘Nobody’s pushing you away, Mum,’ she said tiredly, ignoring the little voice in the back of her mind that told her she was bending the truth in favour of trying to have a proper conversation with her mum. ‘I just needed you to appreciate that I have worked really hard to build my own life here. My own identity. And my friends . . . well, my friends here feel like family too.’ She blushed a little as she said that, realising even as she spoke, that she had managed to articulate what she’d been feeling for a while now. She could only hope that her mother would understand.

  ‘Pht,’ exhaled her mother with feeling, dampening the small flicker of optimism that Julia had been clinging on to. Compassion and understanding had never been high on Candace’s agenda. The classic narcissist, her world – as she conceived it – began and ended with herself. ‘They’ll be like family when it suits them, Joo, you’ll see – for the parties and the triumphs. Mark my words, you won’t see them for dust when you’ve a crisis in the middle of the night.’

  Julia stopped walking and Candace crossly ground to a halt ahead of her. ‘What?’ Candace sulked, turning around grudgingly.

  Julia shook her head, trying to formulate her thoughts. ‘The middle of the night . . .’ she repeated slowly.

  A sly smile spread across Candace’s heavily made-up face. ‘I know it’s hard, darling,’ she said, in a saccharine tone of voice, ‘but you have to recognise that. They won’t be there for you when you need them.’

  Julia took a deep breath and looked her mother squarely in the eye. ‘But then, to be fair, Mum, neither are you.’

  Candace wavered for a moment then. Surrendering her moral high-ground made her sway precariously. She opened her mouth as though she were about to unleash a retort, but then slowly closed it again. ‘We’re going to be late,’ she managed eventually, marching off towards the church alone and disappearing into the back room that housed Larkford’s support groups.

  Julia’s gaze fell upon the much-annotated poster in the foyer and she couldn’t help but smile at the various addendums.

  Monday – Alcoholics Anonymous (including, but not limited to, drugs (recreational), drugs (prescription), sex, food & shopping)

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ said Marion Waverly, appearing silently at Julia’s side, ‘but that sounds like my perfect night out!’ She took a Sharpie out of her handbag and laboriously added the words ‘Netflix & Box-sets’ to the poster before giving Julia a wink and going inside.

  Julia tried not to speculate what Marion Waverly might be sharing with the group and wondered, not for the first time, whether accompanying her mother tonight had been such a good idea. She felt as though her resolve was skittering out of her control, nervousness always making her uncomfortable and putting her humour on a hair trigger. The last thing she needed was to get a fit of inappropriate laughter in there, as she had at Uncle Jim’s funeral. She loitered by the main entrance, reading down the list of support groups that probably told her more about the darker side of living in Larkford than she really wanted or needed to know at this point.

  Tuesday – ‘Knit & Natter’ & Phobia support

  Wednesday – Al Anon & Family counselling

  Thursday – Prayer group & bereavement support

  Friday – Problem Parenting / Wine tasting (alternate weeks)

  By the time she got as far as Friday she was holding herself together by a thread. The way Reverend Taylor had paired up the groups had her in stitches. She’d love to be a fly on the wall on a Friday night when they got the schedule in a muddle – on the other hand, she reflected, perhaps a night away from the kids with a nice Chablis in hand, might prove more effective at handling stressful parenting situations than sitting around sharing toddler horror stories.

  The door beside her was yanked open forcefully. ‘Well?’ demanded her mother. ‘Are you coming to be supportive or not?’

  It was all Julia could do not to stare. The little hall at the back of Larkford church was packed and the ‘anonymous’ appellation was clearly in name only, as it would probably be quicker to count the number of families who weren’t represented by at least one member. Everybody here knew everybody else and Julia was forcibly struck by the secrets they all held and knowingly entrusted to one another. There was none of the judgement that she had anticipated, only quiet nods of greetings and the occasional supportive smile.

  She quietly took her seat beside her mother, who preened slightly at being one of the newbies on the block, the group leader singling her out for welcome. Julia stared determinedly at her feet as the people around her began to speak: sharing, over-sharing sometimes . . . She was stunned to hear the openness and vulnerability in the room. There were none of the awkward confessions and hesitations that she heard in her consulting rooms and here, she was nobody’s GP – she was Julia, daughter of an alcoholic, and therefore every bit as damaged and in need of help as all the supportive relatives around her.

  As Marion got to her feet and spoke with feeling about her obsession with scratch cards, it was easy to see the manifold ways in which addictions of all shapes and sizes had insidiously wormed their way throughout their community. Marion speaking candidly about having to endure temptation right there in front of her in the Spar shop all day every day, painted an entirely different picture of craving to the debauched, drunken exploits of her mother. But when Julia raised her eyes, summoning the courage, she saw the exact expression of anguish on Marion’s face that her mother wore when the urge to drink was tormenting her.

  For the first time, Julia felt a small part of her unfurl and began to tentatively acknowledge that this ‘problem’, this addiction – it really was nothing personal. Candace Channing drank because her inner demons compelled her to – apportioning blame in any direction was a fruitless enterprise.

  After the fifth ‘share’ Julia had stopped pretending not to listen. After the sixth, she
was unashamedly hanging on every word – every story carried a resonance, a familiarity, that she could no longer ignore. As a sweet, funny girl, of barely twenty years old – an alcoholic child of alcoholic parents – spoke eloquently of her constant search for external validation, Julia felt the ever-present tightness in her chest loosen just a notch.

  She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, oblivious to any attention she might be drawing. The urge to stand up and shout, ‘Me too. That happened to me too and I know how you feel’ was almost overwhelming.

  As the girl sat down to quiet murmurs of support, Julia leaned across to her mother. ‘The external validation thing?’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you think it sounds like me? It makes so much sense – don’t you agree?’

  Candace said nothing, the sideways look she gave confirming two things for Julia – one, it was not okay to ‘chat’ during the shares, and two, checking for approval from other people about whether you might have issues with external validation might be considered confirmation in itself.

  As Julia lay in bed that night, the sound of her mother’s ragged snoring echoing through the Gatehouse, the bed around her had never felt so empty. She wanted Dan. She wanted his calming presence and wry, affectionate understanding of what he had originally called her foibles and, towards the end, her ‘quirks’.

  She couldn’t deny that she was proud of her mother for going back to the AA meetings – although she could objectively see how having an understanding and captive audience might ultimately have an addictive quality all of its own. But she had looked around that room – at teachers and farmers and teenagers alike – and seen that they were united in a common goal. They all wanted to regain control of their lives, rather than surrendering to their various urges and addictions.