The Unorthodox Arrival of Pumpkin Allan (17 page)

“Well if we hear a scream, we’ll come and get you.”

At this point, Mel and Tom decided they didn’t want to miss out on the intrigue of Richard’s garage and followed Lois out into the soggy garden.

“It’s not really a house of horrors, the wife doth exaggerate,” Richard said walking them over the wet lawn to the garage, which, like Dave and Annie’s, was detached with loft space above. The children were still in the pool. Dave called to them that it was time to get out as he opened the side door of the garage and Lois followed him in. The strip light flickered and as it did so, Lois could see the most incredible form of a barn owl, in flight in the centre of the garage. The light settled and it became clear that the bird was hanging from the ceiling. Lois, Mel and Tom, stared at it in awe. It looked so alive.

“Wow Richard, did you do this one?” asked Mel.

“It’s great, isn’t it? Friend of mine hit him late one night. Went back and found him, to see if he was repairable, but he’d had it. Then he thought I might like to preserve him and of course, I jumped at the chance.”

“Gosh, you’ve done an incredible job,” said Tom as he walked around the owl, studying it in detail.

Richard showed them a woodpecker that he had also recently finished and was waiting to re-home. Then, he reached up to a high shelf and brought down the pair of glis glis. Perhaps he really had stuffed them for her and Tom. Lois wasn’t sure what to say.

“What do you think?” asked Richard, “Actually, I think they’re finished.”

“Well,” Lois paused, trying to find the right words, without offending him.

“I love them!” said Mel, picking them up and studying them closely, “they’re real little characters, aren’t they?”

“Well, they were.” said Tom.

Mel was stroking one of the glis glis, behind the ears. “Do you sell them Richard? I’d love to…” Richard laughed.

“Sell them, God no, I have enough trouble giving them away. Are you saying you’d like them?” Richard asked, tentatively.

“Oh yes, I’d love them! To be honest, I prefer dead animals, you never know quite where you are with live ones. Anyway, they’d look fab on my mantelpiece and nobody in London would have a clue what they are. They’d be great for breaking the ice at dinner parties.”

“That tells you a lot about Mel’s friends!” chuckled Tom.

Lois felt a swell of relief that Mel appeared to be getting her off the hook, and wondered whether Mel really wanted them, or realised Richard would never know if she disposed of them.

They returned to the house, Mel grinning as she carried her new acquisition into the lounge and showed Adam. “Lovely!” he responded, cautiously stroking one of their tails. Mel sat with them on her lap, stroking them gently.

Lois began to realise that Mel genuinely, liked them. “Weird!” she thought.

There were drinks and nibbles waiting for them all on their return to the lounge. Richard picked up his gin and tonic and took it with him to the kitchen, to give Debbie a hand. Lois went to find the loo, Annie pointing her in the right direction. She walked past a play room/children’s TV lounge, where six children were huddled together on the sofa, watching the current “find a pop star” competition. There were toys and wet towels littering the floor. Lois smiled. She liked this house, it had a relaxed, bordering on the chaotic, feel about it. She thought how nice it would be to have so many children and have their friends eager to sleep over.

Lois backtracked and went into the room. She casually introduced herself to the children she hadn’t met, Hannah, sixteen, Ben, fourteen and their two school friends.

“Do you ever vote?” Lois asked, pointing to the TV.

“Ten times a week for the same person,” said Hannah, “but don’t tell Mum, she’d go ballistic!”

“Mum’s the word,” said Lois, tapping the side of her nose.

The adverts started and Luke, the youngest, totally out of the blue, said, “Lisa nearly drowned today!” and he and Lisa started laughing uncontrollably.

“Gosh, what happened? Was it really that funny?” Lois sat herself down on a pouf.

Lisa pulled herself together and said, “We were playing fifty ways to kill yourself in a swimming pool, it’s our new game.” Hannah raised her eyes to heaven, “I put on a rubber ring, which was quite, like, tight and went into the pool head first, so my legs were up in the air. It seemed funny to start with, that I couldn’t get myself the right way up. Then I thought I was so gonna die! Anyway, I got myself to the side of the pool and managed to pull myself up.”

Lois had a hand up to her mouth, flabbergasted that the children could find this so funny. “God, that’s awful Lisa. You must have been so scared.”

“Yeah. I’m not gonna do it again, that’s for sure. We’re not gonna play that game anymore, are we Luke?”

“No, too dodgy.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Lois said, getting up to continue her toilet mission, “Luke, did you try and help Lisa?”

“No, I couldn’t. I’d put arm bands round my ankles, I was having trouble staying above the water myself!”

Lois shuddered. “Perhaps you should get rid of some of this, so called safety equipment, it sounds much too dangerous to me!” As Lois walked through the door, Lisa called to her, “Oh Lois, please don’t…” Lois and Lisa tapped their noses simultaneously and smiled at each other.

“But,” said Lois, “only, if you promise never to play that game again!”

“Pinky promise!” said Lisa and Luke together and both held up their little fingers. Lois walked back and shook pinkies, which according to Luke was enforcing an unbreakable promise.

“When’s your baby due Lois?” asked Hannah.

“Middle of September.”

“Wow, that’s so exciting! Can I baby sit for you?”

“Yes I’m sure you’ll be able to, when he, or she is big enough to be left.”

“Woah, luckyyy!” exclaimed Lisa. Then their favourite contestant appeared on the TV and they all, once again, became engrossed.

By the time Lois got back, everyone had left the lounge, made their way to the dining room and were sitting around the large oak dining table. A space had been left for her between Richard and Adam.

During the first course the conversational focus was very much on Tom and Lois. Where they’d been living, which professions they were in, where they worked. Debbie and Richard were intrigued to find out about their plans for Honeysuckle. To which Tom replied that they wanted to live there for a while and get a feel for the house before they decided what major changes should be made. Lois noticed that he kept very quiet about the fact that they’d run out of money, then it occurred to Lois, that of course they could bring forward the extension if Tom’s parents gave them money….. and they didn’t buy the paddock.

“Lois? Penny for them?” said Richard.

“Oh, sorry I just….” Lois daren’t say what she was thinking out loud, Tom would not be happy if she talked about anything to do with money in public. She decided it would be best to change the subject altogether. “…So, Richard, you’re a GP?”

“Yes, that’s me,” he said, then took a large glug of wine.

“And a homeopath and an acupuncturist!” exclaimed Dave, as Debbie got up and started to clear away the plates.

“Yes. It sounds quite impressive doesn’t it? But it’s the homeopathy that I enjoy the most. We’ve just kitted out our study as a consulting room so I can see private patients here, instead of at work. It was becoming a little, shall we say, awkward?”

“Go on Richard, tell them what happened,” said Debbie as she returned from the kitchen with three of the children helping her carry plates and the dishes of the main course. “It is a very funny story!”

“Oh really, I feel a bit too sober for telling that one.”

“I’ll tell it then,” said Debbie, emptying her glass of wine, which Adam refilled for her immediately. She served up the food as she spoke.

“One day, Richard had rushed to fit in a repeat acupuncture treatment in between his GP consultations. He’d used a spare consulting room. I can’t remember what was wrong with him now Richard?”

“I was treating him for migraine.”

“So where did you have to put the needles?”

Richard paused; he wasn’t sure about telling this story to people who were relative strangers. But Debbie seemed to be tricking him into it. He took another slug of wine, “I put two here, under his nose, two to the sides of his nose and the remaining six at various points on his forehead. He did look quite funny it has to be said, he looked a bit like a fat, bald porcupine!” Richard laughed at the thought. “I asked him to stay on the couch and relax and said I would be back in half an hour to remove the needles.”

Richard looked at Debbie, waiting for her to continue with the story. “No, go on Rick, its much funnier coming from you.”

“Well, by this time I was late for my next NHS patient, which flustered me a bit, I don’t like running late and had to play catch-up for the rest of evening surgery. Even then, I finished later than I should have and still had paper work to do. Lindsey, the receptionist, knocked to say she was off home and that as I was last to leave, would I lock up. I glanced at my watch, it was seven thirty, later than I’d thought. I’d promised to get home early that night. So, I grabbed my coat and bundled my paperwork and laptop into my bag and made for the door. As I left my consulting room I heard some muffled sounds coming from the room next door, which seemed odd, after Lindsey saying I would be the last to leave.” Richard paused and took some more glugs of wine. “My first thought was whether there was an intruder in the building and as I approached the door, my second thought was, should I be going into the room unarmed?  The only potential weapon I could think of, which happened to be in my bag, was my tendon hammer. I listened at the door, yes somebody was definitely in there, Lindsey must have forgotten to lock the door behind her.

“A tendon hammer? That sounds like a dangerous weapon to be wielding!” said Mel, astonished.

Richard laughed, “Hang on a minute, I’ll fetch it.” Richard disappeared briefly to his study, returning with his tendon hammer behind his back. Mel looked suspicious, while Debbie started giggling.

“Okay,” said Richard, “a demonstration of me wielding a tendon hammer. I approached the door of the room containing the ‘intruder’, thus,” he lifted a tiny wooden hammer, resembling a child’s toy, above his head. At which point Mel and the rest of the party, joined in with Debbie’s laughter. “Giving the impression of brave defender of property or complete prat? I leave you to decide. I gently opened the door and walked in, heart racing, hands shaking. A man turned towards me, “Oh my God it’s Frankenstein!” I thought. Then I realised it was my poor patient, needles still in place, looking very concerned.

““I thought you’d forgotten all about me Doc.” he said, his forehead wrinkling, making the needles point in different directions, which did look very comical, but I managed to contain my laughter! I lowered the hammer.

““Forgotten you Mr. Smith! No, I would never forget about you!” He was looking at the tendon hammer enquiringly, so I continued, “no, I was just coming in with my tendon hammer to, er,” I had to think fast. I could of course have said “to check your tendon reflexes,” but no, what came out was, “to just give some of those needles a little tap before I take them out. It’s fairly standard practice you know.” God, saying those words made me cringe! I was also beginning to wonder whether I could be struck off for malpractice. I decided if I went ahead with tapping the needles with a hammer, I probably could. So I asked him how he was feeling. The reply was that he was a bit stiff after lying on a couch for two hours, but otherwise ok. So I said in that case, no need to use the tapping method, I’d just remove the needles.”

Laughter filled the room. Mel was laughing so much at the idea of the poor old bloke with a face full of needles, she could barely breathe. “Hence, the reason I want to start seeing my private patients at home, I’m hoping to be more focused! Anyone wishing to book an appointment?”

“I have every confidence in you Richard,” said Tom, “I seemed to make a remarkable recovery after coming to see you.”

“Did you Tom,” said Debbie, sounding very excited, “that’s great news! I have to say we use homeopathy a lot for the children and very often it has a staggering effect. I think Richard ought to start doing some official research into the results he gets. I’m sick of reading in the papers about these bloody doctors, who are too closed minded to accept that there might be a place for homeopathy and acupuncture. It reminds me of all the academics who believed the world was flat and refused to believe otherwise until it was proven to them that it was round. Just because they can’t understand something scientifically, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work.”

“All right Debs, don’t get on your high horse,” Richard said, smiling, looking like he was enjoying every second of Debbie’s rant.

“Go on Debbie, I’m enjoying it, I reckon you could take on all the sceptics singlehandedly!” said Tom.

“Well, it seems downright pompous to me to consider, homeopathy for example, as ‘hocus pocus’, I bet most of them have never even tried it, not properly. As for all this crap about it being a psychological effect of having an hour’s chat to somebody, how come it works on children, babies, animals? Sicily and Maureen have been using it on their horses with great success, on ailments that conventional veterinary medicine struggles with.” Debbie sat back in her chair and downed the remainder of her wine. “There, I’m done!”