All The Care In The World

Several of his patients were dotted around the pub but they paid him no heed, other than to greet him. And that was just the way Callum liked it. As a family doctor working in a semi-rural area privacy was essential, and he appreciated the fact that most of his patients realised that—out of hours—he liked to be left alone!

He’d almost invited Nancy Greenwood to join him for a drink, but something had stopped him from asking her at the last minute. Which was pretty ridiculous, when you thought about it. Women these days—especially career women, in Callum’s experience—demanded that they be treated equally. And rightly so!

If Nancy had been a male colleague he would have suggested a drink, without giving it a second thought. So why hadn’t he? Because she was a woman? Was that the reason for his reluctance? But Callum had been working quite happily with women for years.

Because she was married? Was that closer to the truth, then? Because, against his will, he had found her utterly captivating? Callum rubbed his square jaw and felt the rasping of new beard beneath his fingers. He sincerely hoped that was not going to be the case.

Infatuation was nothing more than an inconvenience, especially if it stood no chance of ever being reciprocated. And Callum was enough of a moralist and a traditionalist to be appalled at the thought of a married woman ever straying.

He drank his pint slowly and refused all offers of a refill. ‘No, thanks, Tom,’ he said, in his deep, resonant voice. ‘You wouldn’t thank me if you came into my surgery tomorrow morning and I was all grouchy and headachy from drinking too much, now would you?’

Tom smiled. He simply couldn’t imagine the scenario of a hungover Dr Hughes! In the seven years since Dr Hughes had come to practice in Purbrook he had looked after Tom’s family brilliantly. It had been Dr Hughes who had noticed that Tom’s and Rowena’s son, Robin, had been failing to thrive—even before his mother did. And it had been Dr Hughes who had rung up a pal at London’s biggest paediatric hospital for an urgent appointment.

Now Robin was doing as well as any other boy his age, and all thanks to the good doctor.

‘Not like you to call in after work, Doctor,’ Tom ventured.

‘Well, you know what they say about a holiday,’ responded Callum, draining the last of his beer. ‘You need another one to recover from it!’

‘Sure I can’t tempt you with some of Rowena’s steak and kidney pud?’

Callum was tempted, but for no more than a moment. Rowena’s meals were legendary but colossal, and he had just spent a fortnight eating food that was far richer than his usual fare. He was also a doctor who firmly adhered to what he taught his patients. Accordingly, he ate and drank moderately most of the time, abhored smoking and took exercise almost daily. But hoped that he wasn’t too sanctimonious about his lifestyle!

‘No, thanks, Tom,’ said Callum, putting his empty tankard on the counter. ‘I’ll grab something at home. I’ve a lot to catch up on—and a new doctor under my wing, who’s learning all about general practice. So, if you make an appointment to see me with a fairly straightforward problem, you might just get the new doctor.’

Tom nodded. ‘Good bloke, is he?’

‘She,’ Callum corrected, thinking of pale skin, clear brown eyes and a tiny frame dressed much too severely in stark designer clothes. ‘The new doctor is a she.’

‘Is she now?’ asked Tom, his eyes lighting up with interest, but Callum elaborated no further and said goodnight.

Tom watched him leave, wondering why—not for the first time—the good doctor had never married.

And most surprisingly, Callum found himself asking the very same question as he let himself into the impractical, draughty and thoroughly beautiful thatched cottage he had bought and renovated when he had first arrived in Purbrook.

Most family doctors of his age had a wife, but Callum often suspected that some of his colleagues’ marriages were precipitated by the desire to have someone answer the phone for them and provide warm meals, rather than because they had found their true soul-mates.

Callum was the product of a successful marriage which had also been a love match and, consequently, he was unwilling to settle for anything less than the best. And a close brush with matrimony in his twenties had made him even more wary of commitment.

Indeed, sometimes he suspected that his expectations were too high to ever be realised, and that he might be consigning himself to a solitary future. But isolation posed less worry to him than failure in a relationship, particularly if that relationship involved children. For Callum had been a doctor for long enough to understand the far-reaching repercussions of divorce on family life.

At home there was a message on his answerphone, asking him to ring Helen. He knitted his dark eyebrows together, and it took a moment for him to remember that she was the rather luscious actress he had met at his younger brother’s Christmas party. Blonde, attractive and sunny in nature, she had been appearing in panto on the south coast and had promised to get in touch once the run had ended.

Callum hesitated as he recalled a pale and fluffy dress which had clung to an outrageously curved body. Yes, he would ring her, he decided—but not tonight!

Tonight he would write down a list of topics which his new GP registrar might wish to discuss with him.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_0906028a-6454-5473-9280-2c2320b0bc1a)

NANCY awoke with a splitting headache and the dull ache of hunger gnawing away at the pit of her stomach. She turned to stare at the space beside her on the bed, and again felt relief and guilt in equal measures on discovering that it was empty.

She showered and dressed, before going downstairs. She felt much too vulnerable to face her husband wearing nothing but a pair of cotton-brushed pyjamas which fell in soft folds against her bare skin.

Steve was sleeping just where she had left him, still snoring—his mouth open and moistly slack—sucking in great shuddering breaths of air. She went into the kitchen, made a pot of strong, black coffee and poured him a vast mugful, before attempting to shake him awake.

‘Go away!’ he mumbled, and turned his head into one of the cushions.

‘Steve, I’m not going anywhere,’ she told him patiently, even though the stale smell of alcohol made her want to gag. ‘It’s eight o’clock in the morning, and I have to leave for surgery in five minutes. You, meanwhile, have a client meeting booked for ten-thirty so I suggest you drink this and dive into the shower.’ She bent and loudly crashed the coffee-mug onto the table next to the sofa. ‘Pronto!’