Questions Of Trust: A Medical Romance (5 page)

Her own column! Chloe couldn’t help smiling in delight at the thought of it. Granted, it was a small-town weekly, not one of the big national papers. But it would be quite a feather in her cap, considering she’d been in town less than a week. And it would be a stepping stone to greater things. Already she was soaking in the details around her as she and Jake went about their daily lives in their new home, noting with a forensic eye the minutiae of Pemberham’s architecture, its rhythms, even the subtle quirks of its residents’ accents. All were potential raw material for her writing.

The noise grated through her thoughts again. She craned to look out the window but the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere round the front of the cottage.

Chloe swept Jake up from the floor and went to the front door. On the lane outside, a car Chloe recognised as Margaret McFarland’s, a somewhat clapped-out Volkswagen Beetle, was parked half-protruding from her neighbour’s driveway. Mrs McFarland stood beside it, staring down at it and muttering.

Chloe joined her. The Beetle’s front passenger tyre was flat. More than that, the rim had eaten through the rubber and was naked against the tarmac. It explained the noise Chloe had heard.

‘Och,’ growled the older woman. ‘All I need. I was just reversing out to go and do the shopping when it happened. No warning.’

Chloe thought the tyre must have been in a pretty threadbare state to begin with for the wheel to have broken through, but she didn’t say so. She asked, ‘Have you got a spare?’

‘No idea, pet,’ said Mrs McFarland without embarrassment.

Chloe passed Jake to the other woman – he’d got used to her over the last few days, as she’d popped round on a daily basis – and popped the bonnet. She found the spare wheel in its well, and was thankful to note that the tyre was in pristine condition. Chloe located the jack and wrench and hefted everything out on to the road.

‘What are you doing, dear?’ asked Mrs McFarland, bouncing Jake on her arm.

‘Changing your wheel.’

Mrs McFarland looked astonished. ‘Don’t we need to call someone for that?’

‘Why?’ Chloe found a rock to jam behind the rear wheel. ‘I’ve done it before.’

The hardest part, as always, was loosening the wheel nuts, and Chloe had to brace her foot against the wrench and piston her leg to get some movement. It was a warm day for spring, and by the time she was winding the jack she felt her shirt clinging to her back. Beside her Mrs McFarland watched in fascinated silence.

At the end, Chloe stood up, wiping the sweat from her face with the back of her arm, her hands and jeans grimed with grease. ‘All done,’ she said. ‘But you’ll need to get all the tyres replaced soon, I’m afraid. They’re on their last legs by the look of them.’

‘You’re quite the resourceful girl, aren’t you?’ Mrs McFarland was gazing at her in frank admiration.

Chloe hesitated. Mrs McFarland really shouldn’t be driving the car in a condition like that. ‘Come on. I’ll take you shopping.’

‘No, pet. It’s very kind of you to offer. But you’re busy. I don’t want to be a sponger. It’s a nice day, I can easily walk.’

‘Really, it’s no bother –’ But she could see the other woman meant what she said.

‘Come in for a cuppa, though? You look like you could do with one after all your hard work.’

Chloe accepted gratefully. She left Jake in the other woman’s charge while she washed her hands and face in the bathroom of Margaret’s cottage. Afterwards she helped with the tea things and they sat in Mrs McFarland’s kitchen.

‘Settling in?’ asked Mrs McFarland.

‘Yes, I think I am, rather,’ said Chloe. She told her neighbour about the article she’d had accepted by the
Gazette
, though she refrained from mentioning the possibility of a regular column. Mrs McFarland would probably start a campaign to have every single person in town write to say how much they enjoyed her initial article just so that the editor would be impressed enough to commission the column, and it could all get embarrassing. As it was, the older woman was effusive in her praise.

‘To think! A famous writer, living next door to me!’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ smiled Chloe.

‘Oh, don’t put yourself down, dear,’ said Mrs McFarland. ‘The people who lived here before you were so dull, they were practically fossilised.’

She went on to describe several of her circles of friends and told Chloe how excited they were at the prospect of meeting her. Chloe’s heart sank a little. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to cope with a whole bevy of ladies like Margaret McFarland.

As the teapot emptied and the plate of biscuits became increasingly depleted, Chloe began to make moves to leave. She sensed that the other woman wanted to ask her something but was holding back. Figuring that if it was really important Mrs McFarland would come out with it at some point, Chloe thanked her for the tea and gathered up Jake.

Mrs McFarland blurted: ‘He’s nice, that Dr Carlyle, isn’t he?’

Chloe tried not to gape at her. Whatever she’d been expecting the older woman to say, it wasn’t that.

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘Well... you know.’ For the first time there was an awkwardness about Mrs McFarland that was at odds with her usual chatty obstinacy. ‘He’s a nice man. Charming, friendly. Decent. And very good-looking.’

Sighing heavily, Choe sat down again. ‘Margaret. Just what exactly are you implying?’

‘Implying? Nothing, nothing. Oh, my dear, I didn’t want to cause offence. It’s just...’

Chloe didn’t help her, just sat gazing at her, waiting for her to find her voice. Mrs McFarland drew herself up as though about to take a plunge off a diving board.

‘It’s just that Connie Simkins saw the two of you, Dr Carlyle and yourself, chatting in the supermarket the other day. And you looked like you were getting on well, with your two wee bairns, and Connie thought what a nice-looking pair you made.’ She closed her mouth with a snap as though preventing the words from unsaying themselves.

Chloe broke eye contact with the other woman, shook her head slowly in disbelief. ‘People have actually been saying things like that?’

‘Not people, dear,’ Mrs McFarland said hastily. ‘Just... Connie. And a couple of others of us.’ Chloe knew her feelings must be starting to show in her expression because Mrs McFarland’s eyes widened. ‘Look, it was bound to happen. It’s a small town. Dr Carlyle’s an eligible, unattached young man. You arrive, pretty, also young and... well, and on your own. Naturally people are going to start wondering.’

Chloe pressed her palms together and touched her fingertips to her lips. She hardly knew where to start. At last she looked Mrs McFarland directly in the eye.

‘Margaret,’ she said. ‘I’d really rather you and your friends didn’t talk about me, speculate like this, behind my back.’

‘I didn’t mean any –’

‘I know you didn’t. You’ve been very welcoming, and a good friend to me. But I’m not looking for any relationship. Jake is my life now, and there isn’t room for anybody else. I certainly didn’t move to Pemberham looking for romance, or even a quick fling.’ Chloe felt her anger rising and fought it down. ‘Jake left a toy in Dr Carlyle’s consulting room, and the doctor found and returned it. That’s all we were talking about in the supermarket.’ Why was she justifying herself? What did it matter if a group of gossipy ladies invented stories about the new arrival in town? But Chloe realised it did matter. She was a professional person, hoping to develop a reputation as a journalist in Pemberham, and she didn’t need pigeonholing as the latest love interest of the handsome local doctor.

Mrs McFarland looked appalled. She batted her palms against her forehead. ‘Oh, my word. I’ve been so foolish.’ The look of distress in her eyes made Chloe soften. ‘Please, please forgive me. I’m just an interfering old busybody. I should have kept my mouth shut. “Keep your mouth shut, and your mind open.” Isn’t that what they say? You’re absolutely right. It’s none of my business what you do.’

Chloe sighed again, exasperated. ‘Margaret, no harm done. Don’t beat yourself up.’ She tried a smile on for size, found it easier than she’d thought. Mrs McFarland managed to return it.

They changed the subject, and chatted for a few more minutes before Chloe gathered up Jake and took her leave, only a trace of awkwardness lingering in the air. It was only when she got back to her cottage that she fully realised what Margaret had said.
It’s none of my business what you do.
Did that mean the older woman still suspected her of being drawn to Dr Carlyle?

Chloe decided against trying to work and settled instead for a vigorous spring clean of the cottage. As she threw herself into the tasks, she reflected that small-town life was going to be more complicated than she’d bargained for.

***

With hindsight, and in the grip of a guilt so intense it felt suffocating, Chloe knew she should have consulted Dr Carlyle sooner.

Nearly three weeks had passed since she and Jake had arrived, and their new life was shaping up nicely. The cottage was starting to feel like home, Jake had made friends with another little boy who lived a few streets away and whose mother Chloe had got to know in the local playground, and Chloe’s own work with the
Pemberham Gazette
was taking off. Her first article had proved enormously popular with the paper’s readers, and the editor, Mike Sellers, had just that week offered Chloe her own fortnightly column. Thus it was that
Off The Beaten Track
was born. She had the first draft already bashed out and was in the process of editing it.

Jake had been subdued for the last few days. Listless and off his food, he’d been more clingy than usual, wanting to sit on Chloe’s lap when she was at her computer and proving reluctant to let her leave his room at night. She thought he might be missing some of his old friends from London, rudimentary though friendships were at his age.

When he started digging in one ear she had a look down there as best she could, then at his throat. It looked reddened. She gave him children’s paracetamol and it seemed to perk him up for a few hours, but his fractiousness returned.

On a Friday afternoon Chloe sat working while Jake had a nap in his room. She was jolted out of her musings by his wailing cry, and she raced through to find him sitting up in the dimness, clutching his neck. Drool soaked his arm and, she saw, the pillow on which he’d been resting his head.

‘Jake!’ she gasped, trying not to scare him with the terror that crept into her voice. She sat beside him, put her palm against his forehead. He was burning up. Through his tears he was trying to tell Chloe something but his voice was muffled, as though he had something in his mouth. His breath smelled bad, something she’d noticed earlier that day but had reacted to by brushing his teeth more diligently, and his breathing was laboured.

   Hoisting the little boy up onto her arm, and fighting down waves of panic, Chloe dashed through to the living room and snatched up her phone from where it was lying beside her laptop.

The receptionist, whom Chloe recognised as the girl who’d been there the day she’d registered at the surgery, took down a few details, then asked Chloe to hold. Long seconds passed, dragging into a minute, two minutes. Jake slumped against Chloe’s shoulder, his eyes open but dull.

When the receptionist came back on and said, ‘Mrs Edwards?’, Chloe had to swallow back her own tears before replying.

‘Yes.’

‘Dr Carlyle says to bring Jake down to the surgery at once. Is that possible? Do you have a car?’

‘Yes.’ Chloe rang off, already snatching up her handbag and keys.

The trip took her fifteen minutes. She parked on a double-yellow line, not caring about the consequences, and tumbled Jake out of the child seat and through the door of the surgery. The waiting room was packed, as doctors’ rooms tended to be on a Friday afternoon before the weekend, but the receptionist nodded to her immediately and picked up the phone.

‘You can go straight through, Mrs Edwards,’ she said.

Chloe passed another woman coming out of Dr Carlyle’s door but barely acknowledged her. Inside, Tom Carlyle looked as he had that first day, casually professional, his sleeves rolled part of the way up his forearms. But his face this time was knitted in concern.

‘Jake,’ he said. ‘What’s up, buddy?’

He reached out to take the boy. For a moment Chloe clung to him, reluctant to let him go. But she relented, even when her son whimpered and stretched back for her.

Gently but insistently, Dr Carlyle laid Jake on the examination couch, tilting the head at an angle so that the boy was half sitting. The doctor smoothed a hand across Jake’s crimson, wet forehead.

‘Have you given him anything?’ He glanced at Chloe.

She had to try twice before her mouth would come unstuck. ‘Paracetamol, this morning,’ she managed.

Chloe watched, transfixed, as Dr Carlyle’s hands moved across her son’s throat, his face, his soft murmuring voice all the while reassuring the boy. He produced a flat orange stick with a cartoon of some sort on it and coaxed Jake into opening his mouth. Depressing the boy’s tongue and wielding a pencil torch deftly, the doctor peered down the boy’s throat.