A Very Single Woman

by Caroline Anderson

Nick’s smile indicated that he didn’t believe a word of it, but he was kind enough not to say so. ‘Are you OK to do the calls after surgery this morning?’

  ‘Sure. I said I would.’

  He shrugged. ‘I just wondered, with the builders—’

  ‘They know I won’t be there till later. They’re going to ring the surgery if there are any problems. Hopefully there won’t be, there haven’t been up to now.’

  ‘Are you hoping to move in this weekend?’

  Helen gave a little laugh. ‘Well, I had rather hoped to, but it all depends on how much mess the plasterer’s made and if I actually have any power or water. Anyway, my stuff’s all in store, so I can’t arrange to get it here until next week. I don’t know. I might just spend the weekend clearing it up, ready for the removal men next week.’

  ‘Well, if you need a hand, give me a shout. I’ll have Sam, but I expect Tommy will come and play with him and they’ll probably be in the tree-house anyway, and it’s easier to keep an eye on him from your end of the garden. I’ll do anything from painting to pruning, but don’t ask me to pull out weeds. It’s the only thing I really hate, but anything else…’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said with feeling. She was beginning to get rather daunted by the whole prospect of decorating the entire house from top to bottom—it might only be tiny, but it still seemed to have an awful lot of walls.

  And besides, having Nick’s help meant having Nick around, and that was suddenly very appealing. The idea of having an affair with him with no strings attached was growing more tempting by the minute. She drained her coffee, put the empty mug into the sink and smiled at him cheerfully.

  ‘Hi-ho, hi-ho,’ she sang, and went out of the room, with the sound of his chuckle following her down the corridor.

  Helen’s surgery that morning was mostly routine, and filled with a plethora of summer ailments. Athlete’s foot, insect bites, a bad case of sunburn and a woman who came in smothered in a fine pinprick rash from head to foot, worried to death that she’d caught German measles, as she was in the early stages of pregnancy.

  ‘I’ve had a rubella injection, so I shouldn’t have it, but it just seems like exactly the same rash.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Helen said, pressing her finger into the rash and lifting it to watch it fade. ‘It’s much too solid and even for that, and as you’ve been vaccinated I think it’s most unlikely. Anyway, you aren’t unwell. Have you been in the sun recently?’

  ‘The sun? Well, yes, I was sunbathing all day yesterday. But it doesn’t really feel like sunburn.’

  ‘That’s because it isn’t,’ Helen told her. ‘It’s solar urticaria. It just means your skin’s reacted to the sun, and in future it would be a very good idea to cover yourself in a high protection factor suncream. I think you’ll find that if I give you an antihistamine it should settle very quickly. If it doesn’t, by any chance, then please come back, but I really don’t think you can possibly have rubella.’

  Helen handed her patient the prescription and sent her on her way, then gathered up her notes and left her room. She had six calls to make, and she had to ask Julia directions to most of them. She was getting to know her way round the village, but some of the calls were to outlying villages and isolated farms, and she had no idea where they were.

  She decided to do the closer calls first, and then head out into the country, as there didn’t seem to be any urgent priority. However, by the time she found her last and very carefully hidden farm, it was almost two o’clock.

  It was up a long drive, the farmhouse tucked away inside a little wood, and as she pulled up a pack of scruffy dogs rushed out and jumped up at the car. She eyed them warily. They were barking ferociously, their lips curled up, and they looked as if they meant business. She tooted her horn, and a lanky youth with a shotgun broken over his arm ambled round the corner and strolled up to the car. She wound the window down a crack.

  ‘I’m Dr Moore. I’ve come to see Mr Palmer,’ she yelled over the barking of the dogs.

  He shouted at them, kicked one for good measure and it ran away with a yelp. The others sloped off, and she opened her car door with caution. One of the dogs barked again, but they left her alone and she followed the silent youth into the house.

  ‘Up there,’ he said tersely, jerking the butt of the gun towards a door in the wall. She opened it to reveal a narrow, twisting staircase that ran up behind the chimney to the floor above. She climbed the stairs, and as she reached the top the stench was unimaginable.

  ‘Mr Palmer?’ she called. ‘Can I come up, Mr Palmer? It’s Dr Moore.’

  ‘In here,’ a querulous voice replied. ‘Taken your bloody time, haven’t you?’

  She held onto her temper with difficulty and followed the smell and the voice to the bedroom. ‘I’m sorry, I got held up and then I couldn’t find you. You don’t have a sign by the end of the track.’

  ‘No. Don’t want to attract all those agricultural reps. They come here bringing disease, selling all sorts of stupid gadgets and putting ideas into everybody’s heads. Damn nuisance, they are.’

  She didn’t bother to comment. There didn’t seem to be anything she could say that he would want to hear. She put her bag on the floor and opened it, getting out her stethoscope. ‘Right, Mr Palmer, what can I do for you?’

  ‘You’re the doctor, you tell me,’ he said awkwardly.

  She looked at the notes. ‘It says here you’ve got a bit of chest pain.’

  ‘Well, I reckon I’ve got a bit of chest pain, then, haven’t I?’

  Her grip on her temper was getting more tenuous by the second, but she took a deep breath and counted to ten. ‘Can you describe the pain to me?’

  ‘It hurts,’ he grunted.

  ‘Can you be more specific? Is it in the centre? High up? Low down? Is it like a band round your chest, or a weight on the middle of it?’

  ‘It’s better now.’

  She arched a single brow, and he looked away from her, unbending enough to add, ‘It was in the centre, like a weight.’

  ‘Did it go down your arm?’

  He nodded. ‘It did, a little bit.’

  She took his pulse, listened to his chest and then folded up her stethoscope and put it away. ‘Well, Mr Palmer, I think you’ve probably had a mild heart attack. I’d like you to go into hospital for a check-up, just to make sure everything is all right. They probably won’t keep you in for long, but I think it would be a good idea.’

  ‘I don’t have time to go to hospital.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got time to die either, but nobody will ask you about that one.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Mr Palmer asked her, and she shook her head.

  ‘Not at all. I’m just giving you the facts. If you have had a heart attack, and you don’t rest, you could die. Your heart needs time to recover, and you may need drugs to prevent it happening again. Now, it’s up to you. I can’t make you go to hospital, I can only advise it.’

  ‘Better go, then, han’t I?’

  Behind the bluff and bluster, she realised he was just a frightened old man, and she dredged up a smile. ‘You’ll be all right, Mr Palmer,’ she reassured him. ‘It’s just a precaution. Do you have a telephone I can use to call the ambulance?’

  ‘Downstairs.’

  She closed her bag, went down into the filthy kitchen and found the youth slouched over the kitchen table, skinning a rabbit. ‘How’s Dad?’ he grunted.

  ‘I think he’s had a slight heart attack, so I’m sending him to hospital just to be on the safe side. Can you show me where the phone is, please?’

  He jabbed a bloody finger towards the wall, and she picked up the filthy receiver with her fingertips and keyed in the number of the ambulance control. She gave them all the details, then took her farewell, unwilling to stay there a moment longer.

  She was relieved when she got back to the surgery and could take a shower. She was sure the smell would be in her car for ever, and she was really glad she’d
made it her last call. She changed into her jeans, T-shirt and trainers, and set off for the cottage with all the car windows open, very conscious of how late she was.

  However, all was well, and the plasterer had almost finished. The plumber was done, all bar the kitchen, so she had a nice shiny new bathroom with hot and cold running water, and all she had to do was tile it. Like the electrician, the plumber would come back when the kitchen was refitted to finish off. In the meantime, he’d made a temporary connection to the old sink, so she had hot and cold water in there as well.

  So all she had to do was decorate it, and refit the kitchen, and the inside would be finished.

  All!

  Never mind. She had all the time in the world, and she’d be able to have it exactly as she wanted. She went out into the garden until the men had finished, and then she locked the cottage and went to the nearest DIY store to look at tiles.

  They had white ones on special offer, very simple ones with a slightly rippled surface that would disguise the fact that she couldn’t put them on straight. She picked up loads of them and a huge pot of adhesive and grout in one, then on impulse she added a few boxes of border tiles at hideous expense because they were so pretty.

  She piled everything in the trolley, added a few cans of not-quite-white paint and brushes and rollers, and headed for the checkout.

  As she was unloading the things from the back of her car, Nick appeared as if by magic and helped her, taking the heavy boxes of tiles two at a time and stacking them in the hall outside the bathroom.

  ‘I gather you had to see old Mr Palmer today?’ he said over his shoulder, and she shook her head.

  ‘He’d had a heart attack. What a place. I thought I’d never find it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have sent you there if I’d known. I would have gone for you—they’re a funny lot. A bit of incest, a bit of inbreeding. They’ve been known to shoot at reps that stray onto the farm by accident. The oldest son’s in prison for that.’

  Helen shuddered. ‘Thanks for telling me. The son greeted me with a gun.’

  ‘Loaded, I have no doubt. Did you go upstairs?’

  ‘I did—and it’s an experience I’m not in a hurry to repeat!’ she said with a laughing grimace.

  ‘Mrs Palmer died in the bedroom.’

  ‘Recently?’ Helen asked with only an element of jest. ‘The place smelt horrendous. I don’t suppose they’ve changed the sheets in years.’

  He chuckled. ‘Oh, well, the health visitor or community nurse can go in there and sort them out. Did you admit him?’

  ‘Eventually. I didn’t bother to be subtle. I told him he’d die.’

  ‘He’d understand that. I should think it worked a treat.’

  ‘Absolutely. He folded like a wet tissue.’

  ‘Attagirl. Right, where do you want the paint?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I thought I might start upstairs, to give the plaster in the sitting room and hall time to dry. What do you think?’

  He nodded. ‘Sounds good. You can get the bedrooms sorted out and work your way down. After all, you won’t have time to use the sitting room much anyway for a while, but you want to sleep here as soon as possible, don’t you?’

  Her grin was wry. ‘Is it so obvious?’

  ‘Well, you have told me,’ he pointed out gently, ‘and having stayed in that room in the surgery myself in the past, I do understand.’ He carried the paint upstairs, piled it in the centre of the smaller bedroom and then dusted off his hands.

  ‘Right. That’s that. How about supper?’

  She tipped her head on one side and smiled at him quizzically. ‘Are you intending to feed me every night?’

  His smile widened fractionally. ‘You guessed.’

  She shook her head slowly in disbelief. ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘So—supper?’ he repeated, and she laughed and gave in.

  ‘Supper would be lovely. Let me treat you. I can take you out.’

  ‘Uh-uh. I’ve got the boys,’ he reminded her, as if she needed any reminder with them charging around in the little bit of woodland at the end of Nick’s garden and hollering like Tarzan out of the tree-house.

  ‘Then let me get a take-away,’ she insisted, but again he shook his head.

  ‘I’ve got a chicken in the oven, and jacket potatoes. I know it’s been hot, but somehow chicken doesn’t seem as hot as other things and I’m sick of salad. And the boys insisted on a frozen chocolate gateau from the supermarket, so that’s taken care of, too, before you suggest it.’

  Helen went through the fence with Nick, leaving her car locked up on the drive of her cottage, and while he put the finishing touches to their meal, she took up her position on her perch at the breakfast bar and sipped a glass of wine.

  She was getting terribly used to it, rather too much so, but until she had a kitchen of her own it was difficult to reciprocate—and anyway, she had to eat somewhere, and Nick was only too willing to oblige. She was sure it was only his natural kindness that led him to keep issuing invitations—either that, or the prospect of another stolen kiss.

  ‘There must be something I can do to earn my keep,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Well, if you really insist, you can peel a few carrots, but that’s the only thing that still needs doing.’

  ‘I’m sure I can manage.’ She slid off the stool, stationed herself at the sink and held out her hands. ‘Carrots? Peeler?’

  ‘Such a nag,’ he grumbled, dropping carrots in the sink and handing her a potato peeler. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘A pan to put them in?’

  He slid a pan across the worktop towards her, picked up his glass of wine and went and sat at the breakfast bar, watching her.

  She didn’t mind. It felt good to be doing something useful in the kitchen again, after such a long time without one. She didn’t count the little kitchen at the practice, because she hadn’t ever prepared a proper meal in it.

  ‘I’m really looking forward to having my own kitchen again,’ she told him as she worked.

  ‘Have you decided what units you’re going to have?’ he asked her.

  She shook her head. ‘Not really. I want something tough, and I want it to look in keeping with the cottage, so I thought I might go for a paint in the Shaker style. I don’t know. There are lots of them about to choose from. Where did you get yours from?’

  ‘This?’ Nick looked around the kitchen. ‘My father and I made it. He’s always done a little cabinetmaking as a hobby, and it gave us both something to do after Sue died. He made it, I just put the screws in.’

  Helen was stunned. ‘It looks really professional.’

  ‘That’s because of the extravagant granite worktop,’ he said with a grin. ‘It was the only surface I could think of that I wouldn’t burn holes in, so I bribed our local monumental mason to make one for me. It made a change from gravestones and, in fact it’s now the major part of his business.

  ‘A lot of his work comes from word of mouth, from people that have seen this and other kitchens he’s done, but I don’t think he thanks me. The slabs of granite are so enormous in a big kitchen that he keeps wrecking his back. I keep telling him he needs another assistant with a bit more muscle, but he says his wife’s more obedient than the average assistant and he can manage. He’s a good craftsman, though.’

  ‘Maybe I should get him to look at my kitchen,’ she suggested. ‘Or maybe I’ll just see how expensive the roof and the repointing is going to be before I get carried away.’

  ‘You could always mix it up, with a bit of granite where you’re going to make pastry and either laminate or solid wood for the rest of the kitchen. That can look quite good and it’s much cheaper.’

  ‘I think I’m getting ahead of myself here,’ she said with a grin. ‘I’ve hardly got running water! Right, your carrots are done. Shall I put them on to cook?’

  ‘In a few minutes. Come for a walk round the garden with me first.’

  It was the first time
she’d really walked around his garden. She’d been to the end, and seen the tree-house, and, of course, walked through to her cottage, and she’d sat on the patio and had a barbecue with him, but she’d never really studied the borders, smelled the roses, enjoyed the clever juxtaposition of colour and form that made up the framework of the garden.

  ‘Who designed it?’ she asked him, foolishly hoping it wasn’t Sue, although his late wife’s garden had nothing to do with her feelings for him, surely, especially if they were just going to have a no-strings affair.

  ‘Designed?’ he said with a chuckle. ‘I don’t know about designed. My mother and I threw a few plants in round the edges, and I laid the turf, but apart from that it’s just happened over the years, really. I have a girl who comes in and wages war on it once a week, and I cut the grass, but it’s very easy to look after. It has to be. I’m not really a gardener, although I do like sitting in it, and there’s a lot of it to look after.’

  He glanced towards the tree-house. ‘Let’s go and get the boys. It’ll take them five minutes to come in, and they have to wash their hands, and by the time they’ve done that the food’ll be on the table.’

  They had supper in the dining-room, with Sam and Tommy still chattering nineteen to the dozen. She met Nick’s eyes over their heads and her heart thumped against her ribs. It was so cosy, so homely and domesticated, and anyone looking in through the window would think that they were the epitome of the nuclear family. How wrong they would be.

  She didn’t allow herself to dwell on the fact that it saddened her. Being a family with Nick was no part of her plans.

  By Sunday evening, Helen had painted her bedroom, and Nick had tiled the bathroom for her. It looked wonderful, and she was delighted that she’d chosen the border tiles. They really made all the difference. She was also delighted that Nick had stuck them on, because he’d done a wonderful job, much better than she could have done, and the result was stunning.

  ‘Now I really owe you a meal,’ she said with a smile, propping up the bathroom doorway.

  He paused in the act of clearing up the little off-cut pieces of tile and threw her a grin.

  ‘I’ll hold you to that one of these days.’ He straightened and groaned. ‘Not tonight, though. Tonight, all I can cope with is a hot bath, a nice brandy and some undemanding television.’