Bloody car. Juno jumped out, kicked the Mini a couple of times before shifting herself back into the vehicle once more, sent up a prayer to that great mechanic in the sky and turned the ignition again. Yes! Success. The engine throbbed into life and she pulled out of the drive and onto the road that took her towards the village. She was having real problems with the car; the engine kept cutting out for no reason that she could see. Not having a clue what was under the bonnet of cars, she’d always relied on Fraser to sort pistons and oil, brake lights and hoses etc. (Weren’t hoses the fancy tights Elizabethan men wore? That showed off their stalwart bits and pieces?) Without Fraser, who to be honest she didn’t think was any more mechanically minded than she was herself – he just pretended to be – Juno had had to turn to Brian Goodall for help the last couple of days when the Mini was being particularly moody. Brian had sorted a couple of things – he’d actually found the dipstick which had gone AWOL and done something manly with the electrical wiring – but the sodding thing still kept cutting out when she least expected it.
Towards the middle of February, a Friday morning, she was on her way into work and, as she pulled up at temporary traffic lights in the middle of the village, glanced across at the notice board outside the village hall. This area was Pandora’s domain. Not needing, or wanting, to go back to her career as a defence lawyer once she’d had Hugo – I’m a mummy now and need to be at home for my little boy – Pandora had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the role of Yummy Mummy and hadn’t done a stroke of paid work in the fifteen years since his birth.
To be fair to Pandora, being called out yet again at two in the morning by another petty burglar or drunk driver in the police cells didn’t quite fit in with her aspiration to be both a stay-at-home mum and Westenbury’s Lady of the Manor and, even when Hugo had trod the traditional path of all little Boothroyds and gone off to boarding school, Pandora had never shown any inclination to go back to her career.
Instead, she was a school governor at Little Acorns; she was in charge of the church flower rota; she pressganged, assembled and took charge of the group of volunteers to keep the village library afloat when it was in danger of closing and encouraged tepid, rubbery cottage pie down the aged throats of the recipients of Meals on Wheels when, Juno was convinced, they’d prefer a KFC or McDonald’s and a glass of Merlot. She was also a member of the WI, Brown Owl to the village brownies and President in situ – no one dared knock her off the top spot – of a ghastly village group calling themselves Young Wives. Ariadne dubbed this scary band of women Old Hags and also reckoned that, if Westenbury were on the coast – ‘you know, like Scarborough or Filey’ – Pandora would have a yellow sou’wester and hat behind her front door and, at the first sounding of her pager would be off down to man the lifeboat – singlehanded if necessary – and, with a shout of chocks away, would launch said lifeboat and save those in peril on the sea in the manner of Grace Darling.
Pandora’s main raison d’être, however, was her choir in the village hall.
All four of the girls, Juno included, could hold a note and sing. Well, more than hold a note, if she was honest. If there’d been a couple more of them when they were growing up, and Helen could have been persuaded to cut out and sew them all little lederhosen-type outfits from the sitting room curtains, they’d have been dead ringers for the Von Trapp family. Or, she mused, as she adjusted the rear mirror and deftly applied the lipstick she’d not had time for at home, if they’d been boys, and there’d been one more of them, they could have rivalled the Jackson Five. As it was, Helen, often in some world of her own, floating – and sometimes struggling – through her days, had absolutely no thoughts of putting any one of them on the stage. And Patrick, the flamboyant, adored, but often absent father of their childhood was – here, Juno frowned at the memory – too busy shagging his students and being made to leave his lecturing positions – lechering positions, Ariadne had renamed them – to be remotely interested in his daughters’ musical ambitions.
While Ariadne didn’t, as far as Juno was aware, sing at all these days, Pandora was the driving force behind the Westenbury Warblers, a large group of local singers who met weekly in the village hall to practise and who were – according to their website – available for weddings, christenings and Bar Mitzvahs as well as their annual Carol Concert and Summer Evening Concert in the Park which, to be fair to Pandora, were becoming ever more ambitious and well attended, with tickets changing hand on the black market for ridiculous amounts of money. OK, she’d just made that last bit up because, to listen to Pandora going on about it, one could be forgiven for thinking the Westenbury Warblers were on a par with Take That or One Direction.
And it amused Ariadne and herself to take the piss out of Pandora in an attempt to bring her back down to earth when she went off on one.
Juno was so intent on wondering whether Pandora would be able to persuade Lexia – now that they knew she and Theo and Cillian were definitely coming back to Midhope – to join the Westenbury Warblers, she didn’t notice the lights had changed until somewhat rudely made aware of the fact by a loud blasting on the horn from the car behind her. She re-adjusted the mirror back to driving mode, giving an apologetic little wave to the driver of the silver sports job behind her and was quite startled when the driver appeared to raise his middle finger in her direction. Had she imagined it? Surely no one would be so rude? Juno continued taking little surreptitious glances through her mirror at the driver but no more hand signals appeared to be forthcoming and, accepting she’d imagined his dextrous manoeuvres, she soon forgot about him and let her thoughts slip back once more to Lexia.
Lexia had rung her, quite out of the blue, a few days after the piece had appeared in the local paper. She hadn’t said much, apart from confirming their plans to move to Midhope, albeit more than likely temporarily, but was sounding Juno out about local schools for her four-year-old. Juno was excited that she, Theo Ryan and their little boy were not only moving back to Midhope but were actually going to be renting one of the brand-new upmarket houses at Heath Green on the outskirts of Westenbury itself, a matter of a couple of miles from where Juno and Fraser had bought two years previously.
She’d be able to get to know her little sister all over again and, while she wasn’t overly keen on four-year-olds, she’d have a new nephew. Despite her having three sisters, Pandora had, up until Cillian’s appearance, been the only one to produce a single cousin for Juno’s two, and, being up in Scotland when he was born, Juno couldn’t really say they were close to Hugo or knew him well at all…
Jesus, what the hell was that? The sodding engine of the Mini had, without warning, cut out once more while myriad red lights on the dashboard were intent on making sure she was aware of the fact. They were surplus to requirements; the Mini was reverberating from the impact of the car behind her slamming into it.
‘You shouldn’t be on the fucking road…’ Mr He of the Middle Finger was out and banging on the Mini’s window.
‘Neither should this fucking car,’ Juno retorted crossly as she opened the door. ‘It needs a damned good seeing to but, I would remind you, you’ve banged into me. You were obviously driving far too close.’
‘You’ve been meandering down this road as if you were out for a stroll and a picnic. It’s forty down here and you’ve been creeping along at twenty like some old bloke on a Sunday afternoon spin. No one can get past you. Your mind obviously wasn’t on the road. Just look at my car.’
‘Tough. You knocked into me. Your fault, buster.’ Juno attempted to get out of the car but he stood in the way, towering over her. He must have been around her age, longish dark hair curling onto his – rather lovely – dark blue suit collar and quite vivid green eyes looking down at her in anger. What a cross patch. ‘Let me out and I can see for myself what damage you’ve done to my car.’ Juno scrabbled around for her heels underneath the pedals – she always drove bare foot ever since developing a hallux rigidus (stiff big toe to the man in the street) from too much wearing of said heels – and eventually stepped out onto the road. ‘Where? What? What’s your problem? I can’t see any damage at all.’
‘There, look…’ Mr Pointy Middle Finger pointed – his index finger this time – towards the direction of his front bumper that was resting gently against the Mini’s back one.
Juno actually laughed out loud. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, get a life. There’s a tiny scratch. A drop of T-Cut, some spit and polish and it’ll be right as rain. What a fuss about nothing. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m already late for work: I’m a doctor—’ she put much emphasis on the handle ‘—and I have patients who are waiting for me.’ She gave him a withering look and marched – hobbled on her too-high heels – back to the Mini, turned the ignition and roared off leaving him standing in the road.
What a pillock.
Two minutes later he was back on her tail and Juno was starting to get a bit tense. One heard so many stories of road rage these days and, to be fair, she had been a bit flippant with him. Arrogant even. She turned off down the lane towards the surgery and he indicated and did the same. As she approached the surgery entrance, she made the quick decision not to indicate and then did a quick shifty turn into the car park hoping Middle Finger Man would shoot past and be on his way. He didn’t. Of course, you daft bint, Juno chastised herself, you boasted of being a responsible member of the community – a GP; it was obvious where you were headed.
She pulled up and parked in her slot and the silver car pulled up next to her, its owner glaring in through the Mini window as it did so. She was actually a bit frightened by this stage. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Juno. What can he do?
Apart from thump her? Stab her? Shoot her?
He got out from the silver car. No, he didn’t – he strode from it and towards Juno. A rather gorgeous F-type Jag, she now realised (only because Gabe was as much into cars as he was football and had asked for the self-same model – a model of the model of course – for his tenth birthday and she’d admired the same many a time as she’d lifted and dusted it on Gabe’s windowsill where he kept it). Juno accepted she was a pretty crap driver at the best of times and she hadn’t been concentrating on the road and she had been pretty cheeky telling him to rub out the scratch on his F-type, for heaven’s sake, with a bit of spit and polish.
He stood by her car, arms folded, and Juno considered leaping across to the passenger door and making a dash for it into the surgery. Their eyes met and he raised a sardonic eyebrow. Did road-ragers raise eyebrows? Surely, they just lunged without foreplay? Juno raised one back at him and then almost jumped out of her skin as Izzy knocked on the passenger window.
‘Oh, good, I see you’ve met,’ she mouthed, as she signalled, with a complicated winding gesture that Juno should open the car window. Juno pressed the Mini’s window button – did Izzy think they lived in the last century? – and nothing happened. Damned electrics again.
Feeling braver now that she had Izzy to protect her, Juno pushed open her door and, with a somewhat drawn out ‘Ex…c…use me’ at Middle Finger Man, jumped out and looked across at Izzy. ‘Met? Met whom?’
‘Oh, you seemed to know each other.’ Izzy frowned. She shrugged. ‘Juno, this is Scott Butler, our new locum. He’s come in today to find his feet before he actually starts with us after the weekend.’
*
Bad enough that Scott Butler had pinched her consulting room and was an arrogant tosser, but then Declan suggested Scott accompany Juno – shadow her – on her rounds that afternoon. She spent the morning in a bad mood, breathing in the not-quite-dry paint of her new practice room and warning patients to avoid leaning on the walls and to not touch the door as they went out. While the new paintwork – ghostly white (ghastly white would, in Juno’s piqued mood, have been a more appropriate name) – did lighten the cell-like box where she’d been sentenced to spend her working hours, she hated the new room. Izzy tried to placate her by suggesting she pop down to the Monday Market to find some new jolly curtains with which to brighten the place – on her and Declan, of course – and then got the giggles when Juno reminded her there was no sodding window. One can rapidly go off people, Juno told her, adding that she was already contemplating searching for a new part time job in a surgery where all members of the staff were valued and loved, and not just the full-time and old-best-friend members.
‘But I love you,’ Izzy continued to laugh. ‘We all love you.’
‘Marian doesn’t…’ Juno sulked.
Izzy pulled a face. ‘Yes, OK, you’re right there,’ she conceded.
‘… And the Speedy Gonzales Kiwi doesn’t. That, if you do the maths, is only 50 per cent who do.’ Juno began to feel a bit sorry for herself. Was she so unlovable? Even her husband had gone off for a year without her.
She should have insisted Declan and Izzy shove Rhett – sorry Scott – Butler down here in the storeroom; she should have stood up for herself when the idea of taking on a locum was mooted. By the time she’d got her computer up and running – Declan, apparently, had been in since sparrow fart unplugging and rebooting and doing whatever IT was necessary to have it ready for her for 9 a.m. – Juno was still muttering to herself about jobs for the boys and old uni mates and even Marian, who usually had the upper hand, had looked a bit nervous and disappeared before reappearing with a coffee for her.
Once the patients on her morning list began to appear, Juno was so wound up she wasn’t overly sympathetic to their problems. She assured the ridiculously thin woman who thought she had a lump in her breast that it was actually her breastbone and that if perhaps she put on a bit of weight she wouldn’t be conscious of it. She continued to be in a bad mood, prodding and poking and issuing prescriptions all morning and, it was only when eighty-year-old Mr Gardener broke down in front of her, telling her he was trying so hard to get over the death of his wife six months previously but seemed unable to find any joy in life without her, that Juno remembered why she’d become a doctor, held his hand and, ignoring the six-minutes-per-patient rule, let him simply talk.
*
After a quick walk around the village during her lunch break in the fresh but chilly air, Juno decided to take the initial plunge about the new bathroom she and Fraser (well, probably not Fraser, Juno wasn’t convinced he ever noticed his surroundings) had been promising themselves, and popped into the trendy new bathroom shop for a most entertaining chat with the incredibly camp, but obviously very talented, designer.
Then, after devouring the best ham and cheese sandwich she’d ever tasted from the deli next door, Juno was feeling much better – in fact almost perky – until she remembered Scott Butler was on a promise to accompany her on her rounds that afternoon. Well, she’d show him what a competent, caring professional he’d helped throw out of her practice room.
*
‘OK, are you ready?’ Juno put her head round the staffroom door where Izzy and Declan were in the process of sharing sandwiches – M&S, by the look of it: the posh party ones, instead of the usual homemade variety – with the new recruit.
‘You’ve ten minutes yet.’ Declan frowned. ‘Come and have a sandwich.’
‘Already eaten,’ she snapped.
‘Oh, have you been out?’ Izzy asked. ‘If I’d known, I’d have asked you to bring me back a loaf from the bakery.’
So, the three of them hadn’t even noticed she’d left the surgery over the lunch break? That’s how much they cared. ‘I’ll be in the car,’ Juno said, looking pointedly at her watch. ‘I do have rather a large caseload this afternoon.’
‘Flipping heck, Juno, you sound like that chap off Dr Finlay’s Casebook. Was it Dr Finlay, or the other one, who was always going on about his caseload?’ Izzy took another mouthful, her question obviously rhetorical.
‘Dr Cameron.’ Scott Butler affected a Scottish accent over his New Zealand burr. He smiled and stood up, knocking crumbs onto his paper napkin before screwing it into a tight ball and lobbing it successfully into the waste bin. ‘Shall we go?’
Juno walked off in the direction of her car and Scott hurried after her, pulling on his suit jacket and straightening his tie as he did so. ‘Shall I come with you in your car?’
‘That might be a good idea,’ she said shortly. She unlocked the passenger door for him, fastened her seatbelt and started the car. Except it didn’t. Start, that is.
Scott Butler sat at her side, without saying a word – no manly advice as to how she should have one foot on the clutch and one on the brake and not to flood the carburettor etc etc. Which was good seeing as how the Mini was automatic and didn’t possess a clutch in the first place.
After a good long silence, when Juno felt herself growing hotter and crosser with every passing second, Scott said, ‘So, do you think we should perhaps go in mine?’
‘I would have thought that huge dent on your car’s front bumper would have prevented you going anywhere,’ Juno snapped crossly.
‘Look,’ he smiled. ‘We seem to have got off to a bad start and I apologise.’
‘For what? Giving me the finger?’
‘Oh heavens, did you see?’ He laughed, not in the least embarrassed. ‘Look, I was wanting to create a good impression on my first day in a new job. I was incredibly late, I was already lost, and you were driving like an absolute pillock. You were even putting on your lipstick at one point.’
‘I don’t think there’s any law against that, is there?’ Juno said angrily, stung at being called a pillock. Who did he think he was?
‘I’m sure there is, actually. Anyway, I apologise unreservedly for my boorish behaviour. You were right, I was wrong. Now, shall we transfer over to my car and you can take me round the area and introduce me to some of the patients?’ He held out his hand and she realised it would be perhaps churlish not to respond in kind. His skin was tanned and felt warm and for some reason Juno really couldn’t explain, when she glanced up at him, taking in his green eyes fringed with the longest black lashes no man should ever be allowed to own and at the full mouth smiling lazily down at her, her heart did a little flip. Now, what on earth was all that about?