The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(21)

‘And you’ve never been keen to come down and help out, Elizabeth?’ Lucy asked.

‘Oh, me?’ She reddened slightly. ‘I’m not sure what I could do. I’m not sure I’d be any good at anything down here really.’ She was blushing now as if she’d been caught out in some embarrassing way. ‘I come down and tidy up about the place, in the evenings, when everyone has left, but… well, Eric was never keen on me working.’

‘That’s a shame. I’m sure you’d have been brilliant front of house,’ Lucy said and she meant it. She could imagine Elizabeth O’Shea being highly organised, business-like, but sympathetic. She was refined enough to give confidence to anyone she had dealings with, but unassuming enough to make them feel comfortable.

‘If you find yourselves over-run, I’d be happy to help out in any way I can.’ She smiled, the embarrassment fading a little from her cheeks, perhaps believing the offer would never be accepted.

‘Really?’ Alice asked. ‘You’d come down here and help out?’ She looked a little wide-eyed towards Lucy and they shared a smile that counted for a lot more than the words they’d passed between them. It was obvious to them both after the morning they’d put in, they could halve the work with just a little better organisation. Quite a number of the patients Lucy had seen could as easily have been taken care of by a competent nurse. Indeed, a quarter of them need never have come near the surgery to begin with, if they’d had a nurse who was prepared to travel out and do house calls.

‘Yes, I suppose, if it would help, although, I really can’t see what I could do that might actually take any work out of this place for either of you…’ She smiled thoughtfully then, looked down at the tray. ‘Well, maybe apart from making lunch for you.’

‘And believe me that is very much appreciated,’ Lucy said and she meant it. She looked at her watch then: almost two thirty. ‘Gosh, it’s hard to believe we’re halfway through the day,’ she said as she poured coffee for them.

‘You’re kidding, right?’ Alice laughed. ‘We’re not even a third through the day yet; the afternoon is our busiest time.’ She shook her head at Lucy’s happy naivety.

‘Really?’ Lucy asked and she knew that they were in for an even busier afternoon when she saw the two women share a smile between them. ‘In that case, I think we definitely need to look at reorganising how we do things around here.’

By the time Alice opened the front door of the surgery twenty minutes later, they had cleared away their lunch dishes and set the surgery to rights for the afternoon round of patients. Lucy had carried a heavy carver dining chair from the main house and placed it next to Alice’s behind the poky reception desk.

‘Consider yourself on work experience,’ she said to the slightly surprised Elizabeth who found herself perched there to learn how to run the reception area of the practice when Alice would be taken up with nursing duties once they got organised.

‘It feels a bit odd.’ Elizabeth giggled and there was something faintly giddy about her expression, as if she’d been let off to explore in a toy shop. Alice had run off to the loo before heading out to open the front door. ‘What will people think?’ Elizabeth asked conspiratorially.

‘What does it matter what they think? The main thing is, you’re giving us a hand and in a week’s time, it won’t matter who’s working as the doctor, you will know as much about this practice as anyone.’ Lucy gave Elizabeth a final smile of encouragement before heading back into the depressing box room that served as the main surgery office.

By seven o’clock, Lucy was completely worn out. They let the last patient of the day out into the cooling evening air and it was with a sense of achievement that she pulled the bolt closed on the outer door and switched off the porch light behind her. She had to admit, tired and all as she was, it had been a good day.

‘I’m not sure what I’d expected,’ she said to her mother later as she sat down to a hearty casserole that had been kept warm in the little stove. ‘But it was a good day. The villagers are lovely, every one of them; you couldn’t get nicer.’

‘They’re probably mightily relieved that it’s you in that chair and not Thea Gilchrist. That woman was enough to drive us all to an early grave.’

‘Ah, Mum, I’m sure she wasn’t that bad.’ Lucy shook her head.

‘They were all raving about you in the shop earlier. Mrs Clarke said it’s the first time she’s come out of that surgery without a prescription for antibiotics and she’s delighted with herself. She said, just feeling that someone had listened to her was enough to know that you knew what you were doing.’

‘That’s nice to hear,’ Lucy said as neutrally as she could manage – she’d been a bit shocked when she glanced at Mrs Clarke’s file. The woman had more antibiotics in her at this stage than the nearby chemist. She had a feeling that there wasn’t a lot wrong with Mrs Clarke that a regular walk and moving a few inches further from the table wouldn’t sort, but the woman was lonely. She needed to connect with people and feel that she had more to talk about than just her imagined ill health. ‘Is there a women’s group here in the village?’

‘A women’s group?’ Her mother smiled.

‘Not for me, but you know, I’m just interested in what’s going on in the village. It’s useful, when you meet people, to know what’s happening,’ she said managing to keep a slightly disinterested tone in her voice. The fact was, that there were four women who’d turned up to the surgery today and she had a feeling that if they had something productive to do with their time, they mightn’t notice the pains and aches that took up far too much of their attention.