The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(62)

‘Are you okay?’ Elizabeth asked kindly.

‘Yes, I’m fine, just lost in my thoughts.’

‘I haven’t actually done anything yet, so don’t worry and even if I do sell on the surgery, no-one’s going to be able to take it on immediately.’ She reached out and squeezed Lucy’s hand.

‘You mustn’t worry about me.’ Lucy smiled. ‘Really, I still haven’t settled on a plan and much as I enjoy being here, with everything else that’s come my way over the last year, I’m just reluctant to make any major decisions until I’m sure.’

‘Very wise.’ Elizabeth reached forward and topped up both of their cups from the coffee pot on the table. ‘It’s all pie in the sky anyway. I haven’t even looked at Murphy’s cottage.’ Her expression changed. ‘To be honest, I was never keen on her,’ she confided. ‘Eileen – she never smiled, never thought she liked me very much.’

‘I don’t suppose Eileen Murphy liked anyone very much; I really wouldn’t take it too personally.’

‘Still, to find myself living in her house after all these years?’

‘You need to go and have a look first, then decide.’ Lucy knew if there was much to be done here, there was every bit as much work to be carried out on the little cottage next door to her mother’s. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. ‘Do you think Dan might still be interested if you were to only sell the house and garden and move the surgery to the old stables at the end of the garden and keep it all completely separate?’ Lucy had a feeling she was only putting the words on what was running through Elizabeth’s thoughts now. ‘It’s still a very impressive residence and the garden is huge. He’d have a really secure boundary at the finish if the doors and windows were blocked up from this side.’

‘I think it would be well worth taking a look at it, don’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ Lucy said and although she wasn’t really sure why, she felt a little better with the notion that the surgery would remain separate to any sale. ‘Now…’ She pushed Elizabeth’s phone towards her. ‘You’d better ring up about that cottage.’

The next three weeks flooded into each other. Jo’s cough developed into something approaching a chest infection and it culminated in a trip to hospital and antibiotics so strong, Lucy wondered if they were veterinary prescriptions. The mention of hospice by one of the young doctors was enough to catapult Jo from her bed and when Lucy arrived back that evening, she was sitting in the day chair with bags packed by another patient Jo had collared from the corridor.

She spent the following week at home in bed and although Lucy was glad to have her back at the cottage, it didn’t stop her worrying like crazy that with her compromised immune system, even a chest infection could become a serious health complication for her. Fortunately, with a lot of TLC, hot soups, vitamin C and plenty of gossip from the village by the end of the week, Jo looked much brighter.

‘Actually, I’d say you look ten times better than you did three weeks ago,’ Lucy said. It was the Saturday afternoon and she was sitting on the double bed, facing out towards the sea. She was watching one of the local fishing boats bob across frothy swells that looked like little more than ripples from here. Lucy knew well enough those pretty waves were probably eight or nine foot high, chewing viciously at the boat.

‘Really, I think you’re trying to make me feel better.’

‘No, if I thought you looked worse, I’d have packed you off up to hospital again.’ It was the truth, although from her mother’s expression she wondered if it sounded like a threat to her. ‘You really do. I think the week has done you good – a little holiday in the middle of it all.’

‘I’ve been spoiled here between the lot of you. It’s funny, but even the little things like my own cotton sheets and being able to toddle to the loo without having to let a nurse know where I’m going, it’s been nice to have the time.’ Jo sighed. ‘It’s been a bonus having you here; you know I do appreciate it, but all the same…’

‘What are you saying? I want to be here.’ Lucy laughed; she wouldn’t be anywhere else now.

‘Still, the time is passing and if you want to make the most of your time away from the hospital, this wasn’t in the plan.’

‘We both know you’d have been quite content for me to hang about here until I’m as ancient as dear old Mrs Wills. The reason you’re sending me off now is because you’re afraid I’m only hanging about for you.’

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘Maybe,’ Lucy said. ‘But that doesn’t matter. I’m actually very happy here.’ The words tripped off her tongue easily, but when she’d said them, she stopped, because somehow within them there was certain wisdom. She was very happy here. Actually, she was far happier here than she’d ever been in Dublin. She was much more fulfilled working as a country GP than she could remember being in a big hospital situation. The truth was, now she thought about it that had always been her ambition. The only reason she’d settled into working in a hospital for so long was because it suited them both while Jack worked towards becoming a surgeon. Why had she not seen this before?

‘What is it?’ Jo tried to pull herself up higher on the pillows.