Practice Makes Perfect Read online

  ‘Gladys,’ she said gently, ‘you do know that those are supposed to be taken four hours apart, don’t you?’

  Gladys scrunched up her face to listen hard to each word – clearly the new hearing aid had yet to arrive. ‘Oh, don’t you worry yourself about that, Dr Graham. It takes me a few hours to get the sodding child-proof lid off!’ As was her habit, she was talking incredibly loudly, presumably so she could hear herself think. Holly heard a volley of laughter from inside the pharmacy and Maggie poked her head out.

  ‘Come here, Gladys, we’ll put them in a nice pill sorter for you,’ Maggie enunciated clearly.

  ‘There’s no need to shout, dear,’ shouted Gladys. ‘I’m not deaf, you know.’

  Holly got through to lunchtime by the skin of her teeth. It was Sod’s Law, or possibly mere statistics, but more than half of her patients this morning had come in to talk about strokes, high blood pressure or heart disease in its various stages and guises. And of course it made her think of Elsie and wonder how her morning was going. She kept watching the clock and wondering how soon she could reasonably start pestering the consultant for answers.

  She’d managed to keep a straight face when young Jo O’Leary had appeared on her morning list, having swallowed a small magnet. As the hyperactive and – it had to be said – incredibly rude young child had ricocheted around the room, Holly had used all of her restraint not to make jokes about sticking him to the fridge for some peace and quiet.

  She’d been less successful at hiding her sense of the absurd when Meredith Lowe had come in with a new and fabulous idea for weight loss. She’d been ferreting through some old women’s magazines in the attic and come across an advert for a tapeworm egg. ‘It sounds very straightforward, Dr Graham,’ she’d insisted. ‘You just send off for the egg and then down the hatch – the tapeworm does the rest.’

  ‘I see,’ Holly had replied. ‘And what do we do with the little chap when he’s done his work, I wonder?’ she’d asked as she typed ‘adult tapeworm images’ into Google and showed her patient the result. It was amazing how quickly Meredith had abandoned the notion after that. Still, Holly wouldn’t take a bet on how long it would be before the next ‘quick and easy’ plan was suggested. Apparently Meredith simply refused to believe that something so simple as eating less and moving more might be the answer.

  Holly finished typing up her notes and was beginning to fantasise about a bacon sandwich – all those images of tapeworms having rather put her off the Tupperware pot of noodle soup that was waiting in the fridge.

  Julia tapped on her door. ‘Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Holly, pushing back her chair, and swallowing the momentary flutter of irritation that she wouldn’t have a chance to phone Lizzie now. ‘If you don’t mind coming to The Deli; I have a need for bacon.’

  Julia nodded, clearly unfamiliar with this particular need. ‘I wanted to talk to you about this meeting with the Model Surgery people? It all seems so last minute – almost deliberately so. And I just don’t feel as though we’re prepared. We don’t want to look unprofessional.’

  ‘Well,’ Holly said. ‘They did only give us a few days’ notice, so I’m not sure how much preparation is required. But, if you wear that outfit again, you’ll certainly be looking the part anyway.’

  Julia grunted. ‘Barbie does journalism?’

  Holly just looked blank.

  ‘Dan,’ she explained, ‘said I looked aloof and unapproachable, and could I try and be more accessible to the patients.’ She looked incredibly pissed off.

  Holly stepped back and gave Julia a proper look. To be fair, she did look so impossibly polished as to make mere mortals feel unworthy to gaze upon her. Holly shrugged. ‘Just pop on a cardy and ruffle your fringe a bit?’ she offered.

  Julia shook her head. ‘No. The patients will have to lump it. I’ve already had two media interviews and my mother to contend with today. I need all the protection I can get – hence the Chanel.’

  ‘Chanel?’ croaked Holly. ‘Crikey, that’s brave around here – I hope it’s washable?’

  Julia leaned against the doorframe. ‘Sod the dry cleaning bill – I’m more worried about this meeting. And honestly, I’m not sure why nobody else is.’

  Holly opened her wallet, scavenging for a stray fiver to fund her bacon habit, any excuse to avoid looking Julia in the eye and confessing that, with all the goings-on outside of work, she genuinely hadn’t given it that much thought.

  ‘They should be thrilled with us really – we’re doing a great job and the patients are reporting increased satisfaction across the board.’ Julia was clearly using this fact to reassure herself, and Holly didn’t like to mention that the ‘increased satisfaction’ may have more to do with their patients’ sheer relief at not having to drive into Bath or Framley every time they needed to see a doctor, as had been threatened. It seemed unlikely that their new democratic style of management had made a visible impact on the ‘consumer side’, however many changes they had initiated behind the scenes. In the back of Holly’s mind, it was only a matter of time before they were rumbled as being anything but aspirational.

  ‘You finished for the morning?’ Taffy interrupted, poking his head around the door. ‘Don’t forget to phone the hospital, will you?’ he reminded her.

  As if she would forget that, thought Holly shrugging off her annoyance. She’d been watching the clock all morning, waiting for the right time to call.

  She tried not to automatically run through the numbers that had ingrained themselves on her brain from her research. She knew full well that the likelihood of Elsie having another, more devastating stroke could be predicted from this CT scan. The levels of ischemia – damaged brain tissue from poor blood circulation – and microangiopathy – small blood vessel damage – would certainly give them an idea of what lay in store.

  Julia stepped back, waving away Holly’s apologies. ‘I know you’ve got a lot on, but can you give it some thought? I hate the idea of walking in without a plan.’ She stopped. ‘And give my best to Elsie, won’t you? When you speak to her?’ she said as an after-thought, proving to Holly that not only did Julia listen to her, but on occasion, she also remembered the little things that made all the difference. It was just a shame you had to break through Aloof to get to Attentive every time. Taffy had taken to calling her The Armadillo of late: crunchy on the outside . . . No, wait, wasn’t that a Dime bar advert?

  ‘Thanks, Jules, I will. We’re just waiting on results of her CT scan. But she said she had a headache when we spoke earlier, so . . .’

  ‘Sometimes a headache is just a headache.’ Julia reminded her gently, ‘It might be nothing.’

  The two doctors shared a look that was loaded with meaning. They knew only too well all the hideously horrible things that could go wrong with the human body. Sometimes Holly envied those around her, living in blissful ignorance. The ones who could see a rash and not think meningitis, the people who could break a leg and still be thinking ‘this’ll mend’, rather than worrying about leaking bone marrow and fat embolisms. And headaches after TIAs weren’t exactly promising.

  ‘Shall we?’ Holly said, holding up her phone, as Taffy pushed the door closed and stood beside her. She pressed redial to Dr Field’s office and held her breath as the phone rang out on speakerphone so that they could both listen.

  ‘I have good news,’ said Dr Field straight off the bat, knowing exactly what Holly’s first question would be. ‘There’s a minimal amount of damage visible on the scan – hardly any scarring from the previous attack, some mild indications of blood vessel damage, but it’s localised and to be honest, I’m reasonably optimistic. It’s only really the fact that she’s had two attacks so close together that’s still worrying me.’

  ‘Do you think it might be best if she stays with you for a bit longer?’

  ‘Let me see what I can do. If I can swing her a side room, I’d say yes, but to be honest, Holly, it’s noisy on the ward and she won’t
get her privacy. We’ll speak later, okay, when the blood work’s back? And don’t worry – I’ll look after her. You just concentrate on your day.’

  Holly got off the phone and thought that chance would be a fine thing. She turned and buried her face in Taffy’s chest. Reasonably optimistic. She’d known Dr Field a long time and he never pulled any punches.

  She’d take that as a starting point.

  Holly felt as though she could breathe properly for the first time in days. ‘Right,’ she said, trying to marshal her thoughts. ‘Shall we go and prep for this bloody meeting then.’

  ‘We could,’ agreed Taffy. ‘Or you could stop running on empty, and I could buy you a bacon sandwich?’

  Chapter 20

  Later that evening Julia placed her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone. ‘Quinn! How long until we’re done? I really need to head home.’

  He scowled. ‘Tell Danny Boy you’ve got a job to do and he’ll have to wait his turn.’ He turned his attention back to the editing suite and Julia could have sworn there was a look of satisfaction on his face, almost as though he enjoyed being the spanner in the works of her relationship.

  She flicked through the pages of voice-overs that they still needed to record and went back to her call. ‘Look, Mum, I’ll be back as soon as I can, but we only have the edit suite for a short time each week and—’ She broke off as her mother talked straight over the top of her. ‘But you see I need to—’ She turned her back to the rest of the room. ‘Well then, ask Teddy to call you a taxi!’

  Quentin’s attention noticeably piqued, Julia dropped her voice still lower, ‘Well, if you’d stayed at home like you promised, then you wouldn’t be in the pub at all now, would you?’ Her frustration and resentment were evident to everyone, except seemingly her mother at the other end of the line.

  Julia quietly pressed ‘end’ without another word. It wasn’t necessary to say goodbye because Candace had already angrily hung up on her. Again. She ran her hands tiredly through her hair. She really didn’t have time for this: voice-overs tonight, filming tomorrow and then the Interrogation Squad from the NHS turning up the next day . . . All she wanted was some peace to think. Not just about her job prospects, but about Dan and her mother and Larkford. For the first time, Julia thought longingly of her old flat with its minimalist décor and not a soul in sight.

  She flinched slightly as Quentin slid his arm around her waist. ‘Come on, Jules, let’s get these last few done before Mummy dearest goes on the rampage.’ His tone was teasing and intimate. Julia didn’t even have the energy to shove him away, struggling to see the funny side in any of this.

  She took a moment to compose herself and returned to the studio, slipping on her headphones and her professional persona as the light above the microphone turned green. ‘Every week, we hold a support group at The Practice for our patients with dementia and their carers . . .’

  Quentin pressed a button to cut her off. ‘Darling, do try not to sound so fucking suicidal. After all, you haven’t got dementia.’

  It took two hours longer than scheduled to call it a wrap, simply because Julia had lost all focus and kept losing her train of thought or making silly mistakes. And the more short-tempered Quentin became, the worse it got.

  Julia packed her belongings together as the crew hustled out the door, embarrassed to have ruined their evening’s plans and shown herself up to be such a rookie.

  Quentin leaned back against the desk beside her and in the sudden silence, she became aware very quickly of just how close he was.

  ‘Happens to all of us, sometimes. Don’t stress this, will you?’ he said, his sudden empathy in complete contrast to the sweary frustration he had been exhibiting for the past hour and a half. ‘You’ve obviously got a lot on your mind at the moment.’ He moved just a fraction until his hand was grazing her bare arm. Deniable. Innocent.

  ‘Quinn,’ she cautioned.

  ‘Don’t rush home. Come for a drink. We can talk about this life-changing job you seem so reluctant to accept.’ He picked up her jacket from the back of the chair and held it out for her to slip into, knowing that Julia was never averse to a little chivalry, despite her vocal feminism. ‘Do you realise, Dr Channing, you are the only girl I know, who prefers me to help them into their clothes,’ he sighed. ‘And I’m not really convinced that Carter deserves you.’

  ‘Don’t be tedious,’ Julia said. ‘I’m taking some time to think about whether I actually want your job. It’s got nothing to do with Dan, so you don’t need to be all competitive. And stop calling me Dr Channing. It’s weird.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, I rather like it.’ Plausible deniability had clearly gone right out of the window, as he lifted her hair free from her collar, lingering far too long with his touch. ‘Makes me think we should just give in and play doctors and nurses?’

  She picked up her bag and deliberately held it in front of her, just in case the swirling emotions got the better of her and she were persuaded to give in to temptation. She took a step back. ‘Well, I suppose I could find a hospital trolley and leave you waiting all night . . .’

  ‘I won’t give up, you know. You’re perfect for this job and I intend to use every inducement at my disposal to convince you.’ He somehow managed to make this sound like an utterly filthy proposition and Julia could feel the blush staining her chest in response. ‘Commute to begin with, if you must, but we both know you have to choose. You won’t have time to play house in Larkford if you get this gig – you’ll be too busy being fabulously successful. With me.’

  He was a professional at getting his own way, she realised, as he backed away. He was simultaneously playing to her ambitions and to her weaknesses. And he clearly knew exactly when to stop: just as she began to soften, leaving her wanting more.

  In a world of contrasts, Julia stood in the middle of their minute kitchen the next morning and looked around at the scene of devastation. The life of luxury that Quentin kept alluding to suddenly looked rather appealing. Dan was still asleep, having come in late from rugby training, but having lived together for nearly a year, she knew that this was not of his doing. There were empty bottles and packets strewn across the kitchen table, sticky puddles of Christ-knows-what on the worktop and the remains of a crusty omelette in a pan on the draining board. Julia did a double-take, her stomach swooping with anxiety as she registered the tiny blue flames still flickering on the gas stove. She turned them out and forced herself to breathe away the moment of panic and relief that had swamped her.

  This wasn’t the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last that her mother’s drinking had nearly had appalling consequences. She thought of Dan deeply asleep upstairs, the kitchen being the only exit route and sat down heavily. How far did Candace really have to sink before she found her rock bottom, she wondered?

  Half of her was tempted to leave the scene exactly as she’d found it – let Dan see what she was really dealing with.

  Half of her was utterly mortified.

  Of course, Julia being Julia, old habits died hard and she pulled on her beloved Marigolds and began to clean. Even as the clock ticked round and her appointed time to meet the film crew passed, she had slipped down the rabbit hole and was scrubbing at stains that were barely even visible any more. The problem was, in Julia’s mind, like a modern-day Lady Macbeth, she could still see them all too clearly.

  ‘You have to be kidding me?’ stormed Dan later that day, as he stepped in to her office and slammed the door behind him. One only had to look at the dishevelled and angry look on his face to know that whatever was going on this time had pushed him too far. ‘It’s not okay to cancel an entire pre-natal clinic with an hour’s notice, Julia!’

  It was hard to tell whether it was the fact it was a pre-natal clinic that had tipped him over the edge, or whether he’d been witness to Quentin making her behave like a performing seal in the dispensary earlier, making her do take after take to satisfy some ridiculously demanding standard that he seemed
to have arbitrarily settled on overnight. It was almost as though he were testing her. Or possibly punishing her for refusing that drink last night – there was certainly none of the chemistry burning between them this morning. Unless you counted anger, in which case they had it in spades.

  ‘And,’ Dan carried on, slapping a folder down on the desk in front of her, ‘what the hell have you been doing with the budget for the launch?’

  Julia pulled at her lip with her teeth, as she always did when she was trying to stop herself blurting out something unpalatable. How could she say to Dan that, by the time she’d cleaned up at home and checked on her mother, the whole day was out of sync. So she’d bumped a few blood pressure readings and urine dips until tomorrow – it wasn’t as though the yummy mummies-to-be of Larkford had much else on, she thought. And as for the budget, well that she really did need to address.

  ‘Look,’ she said, standing up so he was no longer towering over her, ‘I put a hold on the budget because it seemed like it was getting a little out of control.’

  ‘Right,’ said Dan tightly, as always trying to refrain from judgement until all the facts were in. ‘How?’

  She picked up the folder and started talking him through the highlighted areas on her spread-sheet. Yes, that’s right, she thought, MY spread-sheet. Because most of Dan and Taffy’s plans were the ones scribbled on napkins or Post-its, or in one case, a particularly lurid poster of Mr Tumble.

  ‘We’re raising money to promote Health in the Community and then spending a proportion of it on a party. That seems like nonsense to me. It’s not as though there’s any real PR value in any of this. We get the van kitted out and we do a few school visits, but that’s where it will end . . .’

  ‘I see,’ said Dan. ‘So what you’re basically saying is that you don’t believe in the scheme, you don’t think it’s worth promoting and it’s probably a flash in the pan that will be forgotten about overnight.’ His face was a mask and Julia quailed suddenly.