Judith, looking better, with colour in her face and her appetite back, sat in the old wicker garden chair podding broad beans. The late-afternoon sun always caught this corner, and as Cat watched her expertly sliding a row of beans from their fleecy bed into the bowl, she thought that two days here at the farmhouse, recuperating, had made a difference to more than just her physical health. She seemed relaxed, less anxious, less touchy. She had spent an hour helping Sam sort out the muddle that was his history homework, read to Felix, who was perfectly able to read himself but still enjoyed the attention, taken Wookie for walks and combed the knots out of Mephisto’s undercoat, to his silent fury.
‘All done. Shall I bring them in?’
‘No, I’m bringing you a drink out.’
Judith rested her head back, smiling.
‘Spoiled,’ she said, when Cat set down the tray.
‘No, you’re convalescing. And you’re staying for the rest of the week – until you’ve fully recovered.’
She opened the Sauvignon and poured two glasses. In better times, they would have had a better wine but this was adequate and well chilled. It had to do.
Wookie was sitting at the far end of garden by a syringa bush, waiting patiently for Mephisto to emerge and submit to being chased, amid wild yelps, back to the house. It was a game the old cat seemed to accept with reasonable grace.
‘I’d love to have a dog again.’
‘Then do.’
‘Your father doesn’t like them.’
‘My father likes them perfectly well. They used to have a cairn terrier – it was when I was at med school. Dad liked it all right, though it’s true they didn’t replace him when he died.’
‘Funny he’s never mentioned it.’
‘Pick your moment, tell him you’ve decided you both need to be fit and having a dog to walk every day is the answer.’
‘Perhaps.’
Cat did not look at her stepmother. ‘You used to stand up for yourself when you and Dad were first married. It was one of the things I loved you for.’
Judith just shrugged. ‘Have you heard from Simon?’
‘No. A text – he’s off on a special op, didn’t say where … some SIFT assignment I expect.’
‘I was reading a new book about our spies during the war – he’d have fitted that bill all right.’
Cat laughed. ‘There’s something I’d like your thoughts on. This idea that I should plan the strategy for the hospice and go and learn more about how the day-care-only ones operate …’ She sipped her wine. Judith had her eyes closed and her face turned to the sun. She was the ideal listener, never chivvying, never jumping in until she had listened carefully and digested the subject fully. ‘Whenever I think about it – and let’s face it, I ought to say yes – I feel a grey pall settle on me. It isn’t what I want to do.’
‘Then you mustn’t. There have to be other options.’
‘Yes. One came up today – I think. You probably don’t remember Ross Dickens?’
‘Just … GP with the Starly practice?’
‘Yes, then left to work in South Africa, came back and joined a practice in London. He was on our old out-of-hours roster – good doctor. He rang me out of the blue today. He’s now married and his wife’s a GP. They want to set up a wholly private GP practice here. They’ve done a lot of market testing and reckon there is more than enough demand. They would do out of hours and link to a practice in Bevham for that too – nobody would be on call more than one night in ten at most. They want to talk to me, with a view to joining them.’
Judith whistled softly.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning there would be a lot to think about before you went ahead but I suppose the first advantage is that you haven’t been a full-time GP for a while, so you wouldn’t look as if you were abandoning an NHS practice.’
‘Chris would never have countenanced it, not in a million years. He was against every sort of private medicine – it became something we could never talk about.’
‘All right, tell me the reasons for.’
Cat sighed. ‘Money. I’d be pretty well paid. I’d be back doing hands-on medicine – but of course I could do that by joining an NHS practice. Great working conditions. They have a lot of backing – Ross’s wife is well off, apparently.’
‘So far it sounds good. And against?’
‘Conscience. I didn’t agree with Chris altogether, but let’s face it, private general practice is medicine for the well off.’
‘You have put in your fair share of time and expertise and care to the NHS, you know. And why shouldn’t people with money have decent doctors just as well as the rest?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Listen – the main reasons seem to me, one, you’d be doing what you like doing best and are good at, and two, you’d be very well paid. Assuming you could manage the on-call hours, which aren’t many – and you know we’d always help there – and that you get on with the other two doctors … I can’t see any serious reason for you not to jump at it.’
‘I know.’
Judith looked at her for a long moment before saying quietly, ‘You can’t go on living your life by Chris’s principles, darling. I know he had strong ones and I admired him for it. You have your own too. You need money at the moment but you’re not a money-grubber, no matter what. Big difference.’
Cat put her hand out and took Judith’s. ‘Thank you. I used to say this a lot after Chris died but perhaps I haven’t been saying it enough recently. I don’t know what I would do without you.’
She jumped up quickly, at a sudden idea.
‘What if I ring Rachel and ask her to supper?’
‘How lovely! Yes, do.’
Meanwhile my father, Cat thought, as she went in to call, is the elephant in the room.