Out of Practice Read online

  ‘Um,’ said Holly, still desperate to make that first positive impression on all her colleagues, but also knowing that Dr Bruce would doubtless notice the two-inch dent on his beloved motor sooner rather than later. ‘But I really need to tell him it was me that . . .’

  ‘That noticed nothing at all in the car park as you walked in?’ said Grace carefully and deliberately.

  Holly shook her head. ‘No, that it was me that . . .’

  Grace was the one shaking her head now, her voice surprisingly forceful as she continued, ‘Holly, you’re a very sweet girl and clearly a very good doctor or you wouldn’t be here. But tell Dr Bruce that you scratched his car and your first day could well be your last. Okay? So, as I was saying, you noticed nothing at all . . .’

  Holly was struggling to remove the stricken expression from her face, when Grace leaned in and whispered kindly, ‘He’s off to do rounds later and the lanes are really muddy. Trust me on this one. Just let it go.’ She squeezed Holly’s arm and bundled her out of the ladies, leaving Holly with the distinct impression that Grace was turning out to be a bit of a dark horse.

  Chapter 2

  Moments later, Holly settled herself quietly in the corner of Dan’s consultation room and tried not to be obvious about the fact that she was staring. She always felt that you could tell a lot about someone by the state of their desk and, if that maxim held true, then Dan appeared to be suffering from some sort of split personality.

  One side of his imposingly solid desk was arranged with almost military precision and, whilst there were serried ranks of various gadgets and gizmos, there was definite order in the chaos. By contrast, the other side was a teetering mass of paperwork, unopened post and empty coffee cups.

  Holly looked up. Caught in the act, there wasn’t much she could do but smile. ‘Sorry. Just being nosey,’ she managed. ‘Trying to get a feel for the place . . .’

  ‘And trying to work out how it’s possible to have so much paperwork in a paperless office?’ said Dan wryly. ‘Just don’t tell Grace. It’s my guilty little secret.’ He sat down and swivelled his chair until he was facing her. ‘It’s great you’re here, Holls. You’re going to love it. Quick question though? Dr Graham? Was it just too much paperwork to change when you got married or should I read something into that?’

  Holly shrugged. To Milo, she’d blamed the paperwork, but in reality? ‘Nothing sinister afoot. Just that I didn’t really want to be known as Dr Payne. It’s nearly as bad as Dr de’Ath at med school.’

  Dan laughed, ‘God, yes, I remember him. But Milo Payne – ooph – that’s a tough one to carry off. When you put it like that, Dr Graham is probably the way to go. But, I will warn you, it’s a little bit old-fashioned round here sometimes – you may find yourself constantly explaining that you haven’t upped and left him.’

  Holly laughed nervously, earning herself a quizzical look from Dan, so she quickly filled the conversational black-hole. ‘It seems like a really friendly town, though. The boys are settling in well and I’m obviously over the moon to be nearer Lizzie. How often, as grown-ups, do you get to see your best friend every day?’

  ‘It’s great,’ Dan agreed, thankfully letting any awkwardness about Milo pass. ‘Although half the people in this town are completely eccentric and there’s rarely a dull moment. In fact, to be honest, even the staff at The Practice can take a little getting used to. There are one or two characters here that you’ll either love or hate, but I’ll let you form your own opinions on that.’

  Dan looked at his watch and made an obvious gear change to professional mode. ‘In fact, the first thing you’ll notice today is that General Practice is a rather different beast to being at the hospital and we all have our own individual style. The important thing for you, Holly, is to hold your own. Don’t be swayed into any decision that makes you feel uncomfortable, but try and stay open to other possibilities. Granted, it’s a bit of a balancing act, but give it a go.’

  ‘Okay,’ nodded Holly, suddenly unable to formulate anything more eloquent. She watched as Dan pushed back his tousled mop of chestnut hair that appeared to be resilient to any cut, style or product.

  ‘Okay then,’ echoed Dan. ‘And I gather you’ve already met Elsie Townsend? Who, by the way, is simply fabulous, but she does rather keep us all on our toes here.’ He grinned. ‘Bit of a handful really, but we do love her. Watch out though, she has a sort of mesmerising voice, and before you know it, you’ve agreed to anything . . . So, up you hop and get her from the waiting room then.

  ‘Dr Carter’s first rule of medicine, never miss an opportunity to get a little insight into what’s really going on. Most of our patients will lie through their teeth at some point, but you can tell so much about someone’s health from the way they stand up and the way they walk. Why would anyone want to miss that, if it might help with a diagnosis? But still, you’ll find some people here just love their intercom.’

  Holly left the room, secretly over the moon that she was getting to see Elsie again and that Dan seemed to be exactly the kind of doctor she’d hoped. Even if all the local tales about the other doctors were true, at least she’d have one friendly soul to chat to.

  Pushing open the door, she cast her gaze around the spacious new waiting room in the atrium. Light and airy, it was certainly relaxing and welcoming: windows that actually opened, along with heating that actually worked and cosy chairs in clusters, all combined to make the inevitable wait a little more restful. Sure, there were the predictable and pervasive wafts of Olbas Oil in here, together with the Deep Heat and antiseptic she’d noticed earlier, but it was easily the most inviting doctors’ surgery Holly had ever visited. She sighed happily, still unable to believe her luck in landing the position here.

  ‘Elsie? Elsie Townsend?’ she said, trying to catch the old lady’s attention from where she seemed to giving an impromptu poetry recital to a huddle of toddlers in the play corner. She certainly had their rapt attention and as Holly got nearer she could understand why. Elsie’s poem seemed to be almost exclusively about poo. Well, technically, farts and poo, but she had her miniature audience in the palm of her hand.

  Having finally prised Elsie away and got her settled in Dan’s consulting room, Holly had to acknowledge that he had a point. In fetching Elsie from the waiting room herself, in guiding her down through to the consulting rooms, waiting for her to catch her breath after only a few short paces, Holly had learned more about her patient than she would have done in a five-minute conversation. She had also learned a very funny limerick about potty training a koala that she knew would delight her twins no end.

  ‘Am I in trouble again, Dr Carter?’ asked Elsie with a winsome smile. ‘I was only having a bit of fun, you know. I haven’t completely lost my marbles.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Dan, ‘but I did get an awful lot of phone calls, Elsie, and we did agree . . .’

  ‘Phooey,’ dismissed Elsie instantly, with an edge to her voice. ‘Just because my neighbours are a bunch of boring busybodies, it doesn’t mean they can boss me around. I’ve been waiting a very long time to be old and eccentric, Dr Carter, and I’m not prepared to start being all straitlaced now because Cassie Holland has got a bee in her bonnet about appropriate behaviour.’

  Holly noticed Dan glance sideways at her to see if she was taking all of this in. Taking it all in was the least of her challenges, though. She was actually hooked, wanting to know more – frankly, if she was honest – wanting to join in with whatever inappropriate behaviour Elsie had been up to, because no matter how much it had obviously shocked her neighbours, Elsie seemed to have mastered a skill that Holly had been struggling with lately – she knew how to have fun.

  Holly watched Dan as he listened intently, rolling his fountain pen between his palms, his soft brown eyes filled with concern. Elsie’s latest misdemeanour was obviously the latest in a long line and Dan had clearly had a number of calls about her, judging by the scattering of Post-its on his desk.

  Holly had to
smother a smile, as Elsie began to justify why she’d been found at midnight in the Market Place. Dressed for the Oscars and gaily planting daffodil bulbs in erratic clumps amongst the grass verges, she’d clearly been having a wonderful time. Although, if her celebrity status was to be believed, it was probably a small mercy that none of the nosey neighbours had thought to alert the press.

  Sensing in Holly a kindred spirit and not missing a trick, Elsie clasped Holly’s hand emphatically. ‘My darling girl, you’ve no idea how stultifying tedious it is being old. There really is only so much Antiques Roadshow I can sit through without being bored senseless and needing a little pick me up.’

  Elsie was on a roll now, playing to her audience of two and clearly loving the attention. Her husky voice made the simplest of statements sound like an invitation and her accent was crisp and redolent of a bygone era. The light danced for a second in her deep grey eyes, every inch the star of stage and screen. ‘Every time I have a bit of fun, everyone says I’m going dotty. By my reckoning, I’ve been going dotty for the last six decades then . . .’ She laid a weightless hand on Holly’s arm, paper-thin skin and fragile fingers still somehow supporting the enormous sapphire Holly had noticed earlier, not to mention several eternity rings, each no doubt presented with love by a succession of eligible husbands. ‘We girls are allowed to let our hair down occasionally, aren’t we?’

  Holly tried to remember Dan’s cautionary words, but felt unable to resist the captivating pull of Elsie’s fabulous personality, wavering further as Elsie fixed her with a determined and persuasive smile.

  ‘Back me up here, Dr Graham. I really don’t want to take any more of those pills that Dr Bruce gave me. They make me feel so muzzy-headed and slow. And I can feel old and stupid and clumsy without the help of pharmaceuticals, thank you very much.’

  Holly breathed in and caught a stern hold of her medical objectivity. Every personal instinct was suggesting that she and Elsie nip to the pub later, for lunch and a couple of G&Ts, but her professional voice was nudging insistently at her conscience. Even putting aside the question of medication, Holly could see that, beneath the veneer of glamour and sophistication, all was not running smoothly for Elsie. Holly’s gaze took in the mis-buttoned silk blouse, the tell-tale food stain on the sleeve of her cashmere cardigan and the eyeliner that had been carefully and immaculately applied to only one eyelid.

  If Elsie was in fact starting to deteriorate, then they were hardly going to get to the bottom of things in a ten-minute appointment. In fact, at that moment, the light on the desk phone flashed repeatedly to remind them that there was indeed a waiting room full of patients demanding attention.

  Holly was about to speak up when Dan leaned forward in his chair. ‘Elsie, no one is begrudging you your right to have a bit of fun, but there are a lot of people in this town who care about you and are worried about how you’re doing. So, I’m going to get Lucy on reception to book you in for a triple appointment with me and we can review all your medication and if,’ he held up a hand to stop her interrupting, ‘if you still feel that we need to tweak things a little bit, we can take our time. In the meantime,’ he continued in an affectionately commanding voice, ‘I am going to send one of the team over every day to check in with you. It’s all very well you putting on a bravura performance every time you come in, but I want you to accept that we’re all here to help. You might even have to come clean and tell us if there are things that you’re struggling with. Now how does that sound?’

  Holly nodded along as he spoke, delighted to find that this was a practice where it clearly wasn’t frowned upon to get involved in their patients’ lives, rather than simply reaching for the green prescription pad.

  Elsie tilted her head to one side to consider his offer, finding comfort in the pretence that she actually had a choice in the matter. ‘Fine,’ she said with some authority. ‘You can send young Jason round. It would be such a treat to have a male nurse to corrupt.’

  Dan and Holly both laughed: Dan, because he knew that ‘young Jason’ was finding his first year with The Practice an eye-opening experience and a visit to Elsie’s beautiful Georgian townhouse would doubtless be an entertaining one; and Holly, because she was a little bit shocked, a little bit in awe and a little bit smitten with the feisty Elsie Townsend.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Dan, gently guiding Elsie towards the door, and holding it open to usher her through, his height and broad shoulders only serving to emphasise her petite fragility. ‘If you’re really good, I might even let Dr Graham here pop round. It is her first week though, Elsie, so you’d have to be gentle with her.’

  Holly had to satisfy herself with a simple goodbye, appreciating how unprofessional it would look to be excited at the prospect of a house call. Elsie gave her wrist a squeeze as she left, flashing another conspiratorial grin, leaving Holly with a mixed-up excitable feeling that she couldn’t begin to place.

  Dan sat down at his desk and began typing his notes into the system. ‘Don’t worry if you feel a bit all over the place, by the way. She seems to have that effect on everyone – a sort of star-struck, post hurricane sort of thing. To the best of my knowledge, she has half the town wrapped around her little finger.’

  Holly took a calming breath. ‘I would actually love to look in on her though, Dan. Yes, I mean, I know she’s fabulous and all that, but it’s fascinating, isn’t it? So together and eloquent in here, but I’d put a fiver on the table that there’s more to these funny episodes than boredom.’

  ‘I’m not sure I should take that bet. We’ll let Jason go tomorrow and you can pop round on Saturday morning and see what you think. I’d be delighted to have another of the GPs on my wavelength. Between you and me, and you’ll find all this for yourself soon enough, Dr Bruce can be a bit quick on the draw when it comes to prescribing. He doesn’t feel it’s our job to look too deeply. But actually, one of the reasons I supported your application is that you clearly look at your patients’ ailments as a part of the big picture too. So, now you’re here, don’t let me down and start handing out the hard stuff as if it were Smarties, okay?’

  ‘You won’t have any worries on that score, I can promise you. It never ceases to amaze me that people are so quick to risk all the horrible side effects of some of these drugs. I mean – well! – some of them are worse than the original problem aren’t they?’ Holly said fervently. It was something she felt passionately about and had been the cause of many heated debates with her last boss at the hospital. He’d been more of a ‘Treat-’em-and-Street-’em’ kind of doctor.

  But not Dan, whose face broke into a grin, ‘Well said.’ He swivelled his chair from side to side, watching her carefully. ‘How crazy is this then, Graham? Who’d have thought we’d end up working together? I might even have to be nice to my mad cousin for pulling this off.’ The lines crinkled at the side of his eyes and Holly was reminded of how extremely attractive Dan Carter always had been.

  She shrugged, her cheeks a little pink. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here. Hospital life was wearing a little thin and, now there’s the twins to consider . . . Well, this is exactly what I needed. So, thank you.’

  ‘Well, to be honest, we should probably be thanking you. The other candidates were awful. You know that mentality some people have where they think they’re absolutely bloody wonderful, with nothing at all to back it up? It was like the X Factor or The Apprentice in here for a week. Lots of bullshit and very little skill. And then you walked in. Sensible, experienced, eloquent . . . we’d have been idiots not to hire you.’

  Holly sat back in her chair, feeling any residual awkwardness evaporate. She hadn’t realised it, but Elsie’s comment about nepotism had hit a nerve. She had wanted the job so badly, that she’d been prepared to overcome her principles and hope that Dan could pull a few strings. If there had been no need for string-pulling, she could finally breathe a little easier. All she had to do now, was live up to their expectations.

  Chapter 3

>   In the doctors’ lounge, Holly cradled a cup of coffee in her hands and tried to remember everyone’s name, as Grace introduced her to the support staff.

  So far, she’d had a lovely conversation about hand-sanitisers and antibiotics with Maggie, the germ-phobic pharmacist, who had surreptitiously wiped her hand only moments after shaking Holly’s. Holly had tried not to react or to take offence, but had watched in amazement as Maggie had wiped down the handle of both her mug and her teaspoon before even attempting to make a drink. Nevertheless, it was easy to warm to Maggie – her curly hair and dancing eyes making it look as though she was always on the verge of laughter. It also seemed that Maggie was self-aware enough to make jokes about the irony of choosing a career in medicine that called for industrial strength wet wipes on an hourly basis.

  Holly had tried to ignore the blatant head-toe-head appraisal and subsequent snub she’d received from Jade, the junior nurse she’d seen earlier. Jade, who appeared to have got her uniform off the internet simply by googling ‘slutty nurse’ and then doing her utmost to live up to the label. Clearly a Lad’s Lass, Jade couldn’t even bring herself to pass the time of day with Holly, before fluttering over to Dan Carter with a flirtatious smile and shoulders well back.

  Holly had also gained a deeper understanding of why Elsie Townsend might think ‘young Jason’ would be fun to have around. To be fair to the male nurse, he seemed like a nice enough lad, but his passion for his fitness regime was bordering on the evangelical. Holly had certainly struggled to muster the requisite enthusiasm when discussing interval training techniques, although the results of said training schedule were clear to see. It remained to be seen whether there was anything of substance lurking beneath his chiselled exterior.