had packed earlier, giving herself a good talking-to before setting course for home.
Her temper slowly cooling, she looked around her. The countryside was beautiful, softly rolling hills, a gentle patchwork of farmland stretching away as far as the eye could see, and here and there a stonebuilt farmhouse nestled in a little cluster of barns and outbuildings.
It was the same stone that was very much in evidence in the little town houses, too, of course, as well as in the grander homes in the area. She glanced across the road. Set well back on the other side behind a low stone wall sat a lovely old house, roses and clematis tangling around the upper windows, a Virginia creeper smothering the honey-coloured stone, and she gazed longingly at it for a moment before restarting the car and pulling away.
What it must be like to have roots, to buy a house and plant climbing roses and know you’d still be there to see them grow in happy profusion all the way up to the roof. Perhaps, if she got the job, she’d be able to afford to buy a little cottage—nothing like that beautiful old house, but even a terraced house would have a wall she could grow a rose up—unless Max Armstrong had his way.
It was after six when she arrived at her mother-in-law’s house, and Stephen rushed to greet her, his eyes alight.
‘Mummy!’ he yelled. ‘Come and see—we made a cake and Granny let me decorate it! See!’ He grabbed her by the hand and towed her into the kitchen.
There, resplendent on a fine bone-china plate, was a ghastly puddle of chocolate smothered in sticky Smarties.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ she exclaimed, and winked at her mother-in-law over Stephen’s head. ‘What a wonderful cake!’
‘Do you want a bit?’
‘Yes, please, that would be lovely, darling.’
Joan Harris eyed her thoughtfully, then put the kettle on. ‘Cup of tea, I think, to go with it. Stephen, why don’t you go and put your pictures in Mummy’s car while we wait for the kettle to boil?’
He picked up an enormous stack of colourful daubs and zoomed out of the kitchen making racing-car noises. Cathy sighed. ‘Has he been all right?’
‘He’s been fine,’ Joan assured her soothingly. ‘How did you get on?’
‘Oh, God knows.’ Cathy shrugged expressively. ‘The boss was OK, but his junior partner was arrogant and high-handed—doesn’t like working mothers. He thinks I should be at home letting my husband support me—’ She caught the flicker of pain on her mother-in-law’s face and sighed. ‘Oh, hell, Joan, I’m sorry!’
She lifted a shoulder slightly. ‘It’s OK, Cathy. So, you didn’t get on?’
Cathy laughed shortly. ‘Get on? Are you kidding? He’s a womaniser, too—a real barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen guy. Macho man unlimited. Yuck.’
Joan suppressed a smile. ‘What did he look like?’
‘Tall, good-looking, sexy smile, come-to-bed eyes—I wanted to hit him.’
‘Why? Because he made you feel like a woman again?’
Cathy flushed and looked away, remembering the feel of his hands when he took the toys from her arms. ‘Rubbish! I never want to feel like that sort of woman!’
‘What sort? Real? Alive? Whole? Cathy, you’re still young. I know you loved Michael, but he died nearly four years ago, and in all that time you’ve never even been out for a drink with anyone.’
‘That’s not true——’
‘Not a man.’
Cathy met the gentle concern in her mother-in-law’s eyes, and looked away. ‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Not that busy. Any time you want to go out, you only have to ask.’ She reached out and took Cathy’s hand, squeezing it gently. ‘Don’t let life pass you by, Catherine.’
Cathy covered Joan’s hand with her other one, cradling it against her cheek. ‘I don’t mean to, but sometimes I think it already has. I’m thirty-five, Joan. It’s too late to start again.’
‘Nonsense! It’s never too late. Look at me!’
Joan, widowed seven years earlier, had recently started going out to the theatre with a man she had met through the Samaritans where they both worked as volunteers. Now, in what she classed as the autumn of her life, she was busy falling in love all over again. The only drawback was, she wanted everyone to be as wonderfully happy as she was—and Cathy knew it wasn’t for her.
She forced a smile. ‘I see you—you’re wonderful. I’m delighted things are going so well for you, but my priorities have to be with Stephen at the moment. He’s all I’ve got, Joan, and I’m afraid my love life comes a long way down the list of what matters right now.’
Just then the focus of her affection streaked back into the room, arms flailing, and dive-bombed her lap.
‘I’m a helicopter gunship—ack-ack-ack-ack—’
‘Hello, darling,’ she said with a smile. ‘Do helicopters like chocolate cake?’
‘Ye-eah! Can I have a big bit?’
The letter came a week later, when Cathy had all but given up hope. She was scanning a professional journal for the vacancies when the postman came, and she stuffed the letter in her bag, sure it was a polite but firm rejection.
She opened it during a snatched coffee-break midway through her morning surgery, and almost shrieked aloud.
So Max Armstrong had been right—John Glover had overruled him, and offered her the job. The thing was, knowing who she would be working with, did she still want it?
Yes, her heart told her. It was a fresh start, away from all the memories of Michael and the heartache of his illness and subsequent death, away from the dirt and oppression of the inner city, away from the muggings and the rapes and the stabbings—but away, too, from Joan, who had been such a tremendous support through the difficult years, and away also from all her friends.
Even so, it was the right thing for them, and she rang John Glover before she could change her mind and told him she would take the post and would be confirming her decision in writing that day.
‘Excellent,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You’re just what this practice needs, my dear, and I’m delighted you’ve decided to join us. If there’s anything we can do to help with the move, give us a yell.’
‘In fact there is,’ she told him. ‘I’ll need somewhere to live—you don’t have any ideas, do you?’
‘Leave it with me,’ he said instantly. ‘I’ll put the word around.’
She thanked him, and then went and told her own senior partner that she would be leaving.
‘Good,’ he said without prevarication. ‘You’re like a plant grown under artificial light—you look as if you need a bit of fresh air and sunshine to brighten up your foliage!’
She smiled. ‘I’ll miss you all.’
