‘So, what’s the surgery’s criteria for offering a home visit?’ Scott Butler was manfully endeavouring to keep up with Juno as, now in her flatties, she strode resolutely up the path of 15 Tivydale Ave, determined to show this interloper her efficient, caring and totally professional qualities as the village GP of choice. She’d show him how her patients loved and respected her sensitive, concerned and non-judgemental attitude to each and every one on her list.
With the good doctor hot on her heels, Juno quickly scanned the notes she’d hurriedly made on her return from the bathroom shop and checked the door number. Yes, Number 15, for Mr Samuels with – she quickly checked the reason for the call-out – acute back pain. ‘Mr Samuels,’ she said with assumed authority, advising the shadowing medic over her shoulder as to the potential problem with the old man, before whisking, purposefully as a spring tide, up the three steps to the back door and knocking once. ‘Over eighty years old… possible cauda equina syndrome… might need an ambulance…’ There, that would fox him; Juno had actually had to Google Declan’s possible diagnosis herself before she left the surgery. She pushed open the door leading directly into the kitchen. ‘Mr Samuels…’ she sang, in her best Mother Theresa voice, ‘Bloody hell…’ She stopped abruptly and Scott, hot on her heels, bumped into her, carrying them both into the neat, immaculately clean kitchen.
No dirty dishes on the work tops, no lunchtime plates ready for washing up in the sink. Nothing at all out of place on the immaculate pine kitchen table except, somewhat unusually, Beryl Foggerty, the village librarian – obviously taking a break from issuing overdue fines – being shafted, doggy style, by an extremely fit looking young man.
‘Oh yes, that’s it, that’s it, Justin, that’s it.’ Beryl’s substantial bosom quivered momentarily in the black balcony-cupped corset as, with closed eyes and total oblivion to any audience, she gave herself up to the final conclusion of her extra-curricular lunchtime activity.
Scott Butler grabbed Juno’s arm, backing her out of the kitchen door and reversing with her down the steps the way they’d just come. ‘Bloody hell indeed,’ he breathed. ‘Not, I assume, Mr Samuels with the bad back?’
‘Not unless he’s changed his name to Justin, regressed fifty years and discovered a new way to cure back pain.’ Juno made a huge effort to speak calmly, professionally, but all she wanted to do was giggle hysterically. She made a big show of looking at her notes. ‘Right, well, anyone can make a mistake: it’s 15 Tivydale Dve we need, not Ave. Next turning on the right, I believe. Shall we go?’
*
Dr Scott Butler knew his stuff, she’d give him that. Once Juno and he had walked round to where they should actually have been to begin with, he quickly confirmed Declan’s initial diagnosis and suggested to Mr Samuels’ daughter, who was waiting for them with her father, that they ring for an ambulance and get the old man into hospital.
He took his time with each patient on the round, introducing himself but allowing Juno to do what she had to do first while he stood back, taking an onlooker’s position. As the afternoon went on, however, she began to include him in any initial diagnosis and was glad of his thoughts and expertise on more than a couple of occasions.
By late afternoon, Juno was exhausted and wanting only to get home to curl up on the sofa with a glass of wine, the lovely new bathroom catalogues she’d picked up at lunchtime and her latest good read. She’d only recently got into reading novels, having spent the last twenty years stuck into Biology and Chemistry textbooks, and just discovered Thomas Hardy. She’d adored Far From the Madding Crowd so much she’d looked for and found an old DVD of the Julie Christie and Alan Bennett film on Amazon and couldn’t wait to get stuck in to it. She’d been really looking forward to an evening to herself knowing that Tilda was being picked up straight from school for a sleepover. And, while Gabe would usually need very little attention apart from stuffing full of pizza and plugging into some electronic device for the evening before reminding him to clean his teeth and, at some point, to go to bed, she wouldn’t even have to do that as he was off that afternoon, on a three-day Geography field trip to somewhere near Morecambe. God, rather him than her, Juno thought, stretching her stiff shoulders.
So, when her phone sprang into action and she quickly scanned the text message, she closed her eyes and said, ‘bugger.’ Not only was she unsure whether the Mini would get her back home, but she’d totally and utterly forgotten she’d promised – much against her better judgement – to make up numbers at some supper party Pandora had invited her to weeks back, and who was now texting her asking what pudding she was bringing.
‘Pudding?’ Juno snarled at the newly painted walls. ‘Pudding, my backside.’ Back in her dungeon, she almost stamped her foot. In fact, realising she was either going to have to throw some pudding together when she got home or stop off at M&S – which would be mighty difficult without a car – or plead some dreadfully infectious but highly mythical virus she’d picked up on the rounds that afternoon, she did actually stamp it and, when her hallux rigidus responded painfully to this little outburst of temper, threw in another muttered ‘fuck’ for good measure.
Jesus, the last thing she needed was an evening with Pandora’s mates. There’d be the usual crowd: a selection made up from Tricky Dicky’s golfing set and their braying wives; a couple of ‘Old Hags’ and their husbands and, always, Dr Jennifer Danton-Brown, Westenbury’s answer to Lady Baden-Powell, Pandora’s best mate and all-round ally. Singly, the two of them were pretty formidable but, as a pair, with a glass of prosecco and a mushroom vol-au-vent or two inside of them, Jennifer DB and Pandora were untouchable.
‘How are you going to get home?’ Izzy knocked and popped her head round the door of the cell. ‘This paint’s still wet. Did you know?’ She tutted, wiping a sticky patch from her knuckles with the last of the tissues plucked from the box on Juno’s desk, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Right, I’m off now. Done my stint for the day.’
‘You’re not going my way, are you?’ Juno looked down at the clock leaning against the skirting board which still needed fixing to the newly painted wall above the computer. ‘I’m out for supper at my sister’s in, oh gosh, less than ninety minutes.’
‘’Fraid not,’ Izzy said. ‘Got a concert at Sid’s school this evening.’ Sid was Izzy’s eight-year-old. ‘Taxi?’
‘I’ll see if the Mini will start and, if not…’
‘Oh, I bet Scott’s going your way. Scott? Are you going home? Could you give Juno a lift?’
Scott Butler was pulling on his pin-striped jacket and loosening his tie before heading to reception where Declan’s evening patients were already muttering among themselves about the senior partner’s inability to keep to time. ‘Sure. If she’s ready to leave now.’
‘Hang on,’ Juno said, gathering her things and rifling through her bag for car keys. ‘You never know, the Mini might be behaving itself now.’
It wasn’t.
*
‘What will you do for a car over the weekend?’ Scott glanced across at her as he drove. ‘Do you have a mechanic that can sort it for you?’
Juno nodded. ‘Joe Watson in the village is pretty good. I’ll give him a ring in the morning and ask him to pick the Mini up and look at it for me.’
‘Won’t you need transport? You know, to meet this Joe Watson back at the surgery?’
‘I can use my husband’s car. It’s a Volvo – a bit of an old man’s car really, and I hate driving it – but there if I need it.’
Scott drove quickly, hands that had gently assessed Mrs Dixon’s swollen legs an hour earlier now confidently guiding the F-type through the country roads on the outskirts of the village. ‘So,’ he said after five minutes’ silence, ‘your husband won’t need it then? The car that is?’
‘I doubt it. He’s in Boston.’
‘Lincolnshire?’
Juno frowned. How the hell did someone from New Zealand know about Lincolnshire? She knew nothing about his country apart from it consisting of two islands. Or was it three? ‘No, Massachusetts.’
‘On holiday?’
‘No, he’s working there for a year. He’s only been gone a couple of weeks.’ Why did she feel the need to tell him this?
‘Oh?’ At the lights, Scott turned once more, scrutinising her until she felt herself redden slightly. Goodness, he was rather gorgeous when he smiled.
‘Yes.’ She wasn’t quite sure what else to say. ‘Right, if you just turn left here… and pull in over there… This is me. Many thanks.’ Juno quickly gathered her things as Scott drew up outside the gate. ‘So, are you staying far from here then?’ she asked, concerned he might not know how to return home. ‘Do you know where you’re going?’
‘Rushdale Avenue. I’m renting for six months while the owners are off somewhere. It’s at the other end of the village. You know, beyond the woods?’
‘Molly Carr Woods? Gosh, are you living out there?’ Juno looked at him in some surprise. ‘I should know it. My sister Pandora and her husband live on Rushdale Avenue.’
‘Ah, the inimitable Pandora? She’s your sister?’ It was Scott’s turn to look slightly taken aback. ‘You don’t look alike, do you?’
‘Actually, I think we all have a slight look of each other; it’s the nose,’ Juno added, prodding her own in his direction. ‘Rather on the big side.’
He didn’t take the expected gentlemanly stance, contradicting any opinion she might harbour on the size of her nose but, instead, just said, ‘All?’
‘I have three sisters and we all have a certain resemblance in a certain light. So, you’ve met Pandora?’ Blimey, she did hope Pandora had been gentle with him, and then inwardly smiled. She hadn’t been overly gentle with him herself until they’d come together – possible wrong turn of phrase there – on the same side, joint spectators of Beryl Foggerty’s pine table gymnastics.
‘Met her, had a cup of sugar and a welcome cake from her, plus an invitation to supper actually. You know, a “get to know the neighbours” sort of thing…?’ Scott trailed off as Juno stared. Westenbury wasn’t a small village; what were the chances of him meeting two sisters at two totally different times within the first couple of days of his moving here?
‘Right, OK, so this supper? When’s this invitation for?’
Scott lifted his hand from the steering wheel, shifting his jacket sleeve and staring at the watch face with the same narrow-eyed look of intensity he’d applied to Juno’s medical notes on the rounds earlier that afternoon. ‘In exactly an hour,’ he said. He looked at her directly, his quite sensational green eyes never leaving her face. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll be there, will you?’
The coming evening’s anticipated perusal of a catalogue of sinks, showers, bidets and stopcocks interspersed with rampant thoughts on Sergeant Troy in his red jacket had, for some reason, suddenly lost its thrall. Even pudding-less, the alternative seemed far, far superior. Juno smiled up at the good doctor. ‘I will actually,’ she said, opening the car door and stepping out.
Scott smiled back. ‘That’s good,’ he said, his eyes crinkling rather deliciously in his Antipodean-tanned face. ‘That’s really good.’
*
‘So, what have you brought?’ Pandora looked beyond Juno to the plastic carrier bag she’d just landed onto the kitchen granite with a thump. ‘What pudding?’
‘One of Mum’s banana loaves from the freezer,’ Juno said, bravely. Helen Sutherland’s latest, almost frantic, obsession with baking after a lifetime of doing little, if any, cooking at all, was marked only by the notoriously bad cakes she almost daily produced. ‘And a tub of Dixon’s ice cream I’ve just picked up on the way here to go with it,’ she added in order to soften the blow. Dixon’s ice cream, unbeknown to the rest of the foody world, was a Midhope secret.
‘Really, Juno, I do think you could have made more of an effort.’ Pandora sniffed and took the carrier, handling it with some disdain. ‘It’ll either be a solid brick we can’t get through or will have the appearance, consistency and smell of monkey vomit.’
‘Lovely,’ she said cheerfully, trying to see past Richard, her brother-in-law who appeared to have put on even more weight since she’d last seen him only a couple of weeks previously. He came over, his double chin wobbling alarmingly as he bent to kiss her. Potential heart attack case if ever she saw one. ‘Richard, you’re looking… well,’ Juno lied as he put a meaty paw on the small of her back and ushered her into the sitting room.
‘A couple of inches off my waistline—’ Richard patted his huge ursine stomach straining manfully against the sky-blue wool of his Pringle sweater ‘—and I’ll literally be zipping round the golf course.’
Or not. Juno smiled dutifully in the direction of Tricky Dicky’s middle as he led her to a group of three women standing by the mantelpiece. The room was crying out for a real log fire but Pandora would, Juno knew, have no truck with such a thing. She wouldn’t have the patience to light a fire every evening, and most certainly harboured no appreciation for the heady scent of apple tree logs that she herself burned in her own grate at home. Pandora needed the same instant, automatic control over any heat in her sitting room as she had over Tricky Dicky and her fifteen-year-old son, Hugo.
‘Ah, Juno, just the person. How fortuitous is that? Now, we’re just discussing Raymond’s bowel movements – or lack of them, I should say. Your wide expertise as a GP will, I’m sure trump—’ Juno wanted to giggle at that ‘—any knowledge I, as a simple consultant, may hold.’ Jennifer Danton-Brown, who did love everyone to know that she was a consultant obstetrician, proffered a plate of several pieces of Cumberland sausage in Juno’s direction while ushering her into the little group. ‘When he does manage to go, the result isn’t totally satisfactory.’ She popped the glistening brown sausage into her mouth and chewed enthusiastically, eyebrows raised in Juno’s direction, awaiting her professional verdict.
‘Er…’ The three women – two of whom could have been no more than five-foot-tall – leaned towards Juno expectantly for her opinion. ‘Prune juice. A big glass before bed. Best thing for, er, that sort of problem.’
‘Right, I’ll remember that.’ Josie Gledhill, a Young Wife and always desperate to prostrate herself at the feet of Pandora and Jennifer and thus ingratiate herself into a trio, nibbled at her sausage as though it were a lollipop and beamed dutifully. The third woman in the group, a tall willowy blonde in black skin-tight leather trousers gave a hastily covered up bark of laughter, grinned at Juno and held out her hand.
‘Hi, you must be Pandora’s sister? I’m Tara. I’m actually registered as a patient of yours but, so far, touch wood, I’ve not needed you.’
‘Juno Armstrong.’ Juno held out a hand and was going to add: ‘Who do you have to shag round here to get alcohol?’ when she thought better of it. This Tara woman could be in Pandora’s inner circle and sprag her up over the church flower-arranging rota. And, as Dr Scott Butler was heading their way with a bottle of Merlot and a couple of glasses in his hand, it didn’t seem overly appropriate or necessary. He’d changed out of his formal navy work suit and, in faded jeans and a pink shirt, was looking suitably underdressed next to the chinos-and-jacket-attired golfers who appeared to be out in force.
‘Ah, you’ve met Tara?’ Scott topped up her drink and offered Juno an empty glass. It had been a long day and she accepted gratefully, wondering why on earth her heart had done a little dance as he approached and then plummeted with the realisation that Tara must belong to the new doctor. She didn’t appear to have a New Zealand accent – he was obviously a quick worker if he’d only been in the country a couple of weeks and had already found himself a particularly gorgeous girlfriend – but maybe she was the reason he’d left Auckland.
‘Scott’s just arrived from New Zealand,’ Tara informed Juno. ‘He’s living across the road from us.’ Juno’s heart did the same little dance as before, but this time appeared to have wings.
‘We have met.’ Juno beamed. What the hell was the matter with her? ‘We’re working together at Westenbury surgery.’
‘I’m not sure taking me into the village den of iniquity on a Friday afternoon straight after a cheese and pickle sandwich could be classed as working.’ Scott grinned down at Juno and she began to giggle. Beryl Foggerty’s heaving bosom was obviously still imprinted on both their mind’s eye.
Tara gave a little smile but obviously had no idea to what they were alluding. ‘Tara’s husband plays for Midhope Town,’ Scott went on. ‘Footballer.’
‘Oh,’ Juno said delightedly, ‘my sister is married to Theo Ryan…’
‘The Theo Ryan?’ Scott stared and then whistled.
‘She is moving back up north with him any day now.’
It was Tara’s turn to stare. ‘Your sister…? Pandora’s sister as well then…?’ Here Tara glanced over at Pandora who was giggling somewhat coquettishly at something the small, sandy-haired man in front of her was saying. ‘Your sister is Lexia Sutherland? Mikey, d’y’hear this?’ Tara pulled the man towards them by his jeans’ belt loop. ‘Lexia Sutherland is Pandora and Juno’s sister…’
‘No! Haddaway, man…’ Mikey Fairbairn stared in turn. ‘Lexia? Got all her albums. I reckon she was the love of my life. Before you, of course, Tara, pet.’ He spoke in a wonderful Geordie accent and grinned widely while Tara patted his head somewhat condescendingly. Brought to heel like the family dog at Tara’s high-heeled side, Mikey came up just below her shoulder while Pandora, cross that attention was now on Lexia rather than herself, had a face like thunder.
‘OK, everyone, I think we can eat,’ Pandora sang, pasting a rictus of a smile on her face. She snapped her fingers like a Spanish dancer and her cleaner, Sheila, resurrected from cleaning Pandora’s latrines and reinvented as trendy café-culture waiter for the evening, appeared in black leggings, T-shirt and upmarket black cook’s apron to take the guests’ drinks into the kitchen. ‘Just simple kitchen sups tonight, I’m afraid, peeps,’ Pandora trilled and then, glaring at Tricky Dicky, who was eyeing Tara’s rather glorious chest, suggested he led them to their places.
‘We’re not standing on ceremony this evening,’ Pandora continued, ‘so do sit where you want.’ She nevertheless ushered her guests meaningfully to where she really wanted them to sit and, placing her hand firmly on Scott Butler’s arm, leading him away from any younger, more attractive females, allocated him a seat so that she had him to her left and the trusty Jennifer DB to her right.
‘Now,’ Pandora exclaimed, simultaneously ringing a little bell and shaking her head vehemently at poor old Sheila who thought it was the signal to bring in the starter, ‘I bring great news, everyone.’ She gazed benevolently round at her audience and, in the manner of a suburban Angel Gabriel, proclaimed, ‘Joyous news. Wonderful, exciting news.’