day. With all the snow outside, it had taken a long time for his consulting room to warm up and he’d spent his time in between seeing patients sipping hot tea and leaning against the ancient radiators. What he really wanted, more than anything else, was to go home and take a long, hot shower and maybe not emerge until he could summon up the energy to get dry and fall into bed. Perhaps with a mug of cocoa?
But even a shower wasn’t on the night’s agenda, because it was his turn to be on call. Which meant a night trying to sleep fully dressed on his bed, ready to pull his shoes on if his pager sounded. Oh, and a coat, of course, with a scarf and a woolly hat and gloves. And hoping to hell that his old four-wheel drive started up.
‘Is she here? I didn’t know she was coming today?’
‘Well, she’s not here, exactly. She’s at the village hall, running a class.’
Olly raised his eyebrows, impressed. ‘She’s not been here five minutes. How is she running a class?’ What was she? Wonder Woman?
His father laughed. ‘When she came for her interview she put up flyers. Haven’t you seen them? Belly-dancing classes at the village hall? All ages, both sexes welcome.’
Olly smirked. ‘Belly dancing? She’ll be lucky if anyone turns up to that. The old dears round here consider knitting to be their only exercise, and the men their hanging baskets. Can’t imagine any of them shaking their wobbly bits in the village hall. Besides, it’s freezing.’
‘Well, I said we’d pop in, show our support, and it will give you two the opportunity to meet. You’ll be working together for a while—until I get a permanent replacement.’
There it was again. The harsh reminder that his father was leaving. That things were changing. That he had no say in it.
‘She doesn’t want to do it?’
He didn’t quite understand locums. Why travel from one place to another, never really staying anywhere, never getting to know people? Why didn’t they just put some roots down somewhere? He knew he’d hate it if it were him.
‘She’s not sure. But she wants to give the place a trial run.’
‘Shouldn’t we be the ones to offer her the trial run?’
Olly was quite territorial about their practice. It had been in the James family for some time. His own father, and Patrick’s father, Dermot, had run it before him. The fact that his father had sought a female locum also annoyed him. His father was probably trying to matchmake again. Find Olly a wife, who would then provide them all with the next line of doctors for the village of Atlee Wold.
‘We can but see. She’s a charming girl. I think you’ll like her,’ his father said, with a twinkle in his eyes that was obvious in its implication.
‘Dad, you’d make an awful Cupid.’
His father frowned in wry amusement, his brow furrowing into long lines across his weathered forehead. ‘Why?’
‘Because the wings wouldn’t suit you and I’m not sure I’d want to trust you with a bow and arrow.’
‘Don’t know what you mean. Besides, you’ve got no worries there, son. She won’t match any of the criteria on your “perfect wife” list.’
Olly laughed. Everyone joked about his list. Even if he didn’t. There was a serious point to it, after all. If a woman were to be his wife, then she’d need particular qualities. The wife of a country doctor had to have certain standards. Respectability, loyalty, charm, an inner beauty and a calm head on a solid pair of shoulders. Someone who could hold the fort and rear the children. Okay, it might make him seem a bit Victorian in his thinking, but what was wrong with wanting a dependable woman?
‘Good. I’d hate to think you were Cupid in disguise. Like I said, with your eyesight the arrows could end up anywhere.’
Patrick helped his son pack up, switch off all the lights and then make sure his call bag was stocked with anything he might need for the night. Then, despite the snow, despite the cold, and despite his tiredness, Patrick and Olly got into Olly’s four-wheel drive and set off for the village hall.
It really wasn’t very far. Less than a mile. But the snow was thick and still falling. The towns and busy roads in the cities might have grit and salt, but here in Atlee Wold, a Hampshire backwater, they seemed to be lacking everything except table salt from the village shop, which the locals had put out. Some had even put out kitty litter to grit their pathways. Those that were able to shovelled the pathways of those that weren’t.
Theirs was a strong community, where people helped each other out where they could. But Olly really hadn’t expected that there would be nowhere for him to park in the village hall car park! Or that the pathway would be so well trampled by the many feet that had passed that he could actually see the pavement.
Or that there’d be the beat and throb of loud exotic music clearly heard from some distance away.
‘Well, I’ll be …’
He parked his four-wheel drive by a tall hedge and when he pushed open his car door to get out it sent down a spray of snow on top of him. Some of it went down the back of his neck and top and he shivered as the icy crystals tickled his spine.
‘Ugh!’
Patrick laughed. ‘Looks like a full house.’
‘You don’t have to be so delighted.’
The village hall was lit along its gutters with old Christmas lights that hadn’t yet been taken down, and from the windows bright yellow light flared. There was the sound of Indian music, loud but muffled, emanating from the building itself, with an earthy beat.
Olly shook his head with disbelief. How had a complete stranger managed to rabble-rouse an entire village to do belly dancing? He might have expected the hall to be full if it was a gardening class or crochet, bingo or a knitting circle, but belly dancing?
Part of him just couldn’t wait to meet this Wonder Woman. An image of her was building in his head. She was a GP, so she had to be somewhat sensible. Someone middle-aged and quite strait-laced who did belly dancing because it was just something different? Perhaps she had to fight for attention and this was her way … As his father said, not a woman to threaten his list of the attributes a ‘perfect wife’ ought to have.
Belly-dancing instructor was nowhere on the list at all!
Shaking the snow from his shoulders, he entered the village hall after his father. There was a small foyer that they went into first, with a tuck shop to one side. Then there were two large rooms in the village hall and one was in darkness. From the other the music blared.
‘You ready?’ His father had to raise his voice to be heard.
‘Of course I am!’ he called back, pulling open the door.
But he stopped in his tracks when he saw the woman leading the class. His dad even bumped into him from behind.
Olly gaped open-mouthed at the new locum GP.
This is not what I expected.
She
