Secrets to Keep (25 page)

Ty was lost in his thoughts again. Without realising, he spoke aloud. ‘This room would indeed make a far better surgery.’

Aidy was delighted that he was considering the idea that she had expressed to him at her interview. ‘Yes, it would, much better,’ she agreed. ‘I’m glad you’re thinking of taking up my suggestion.’

He looked at her sharply. He did indeed have her to thank for instigating the change he was thinking of making, which would not only make his life easier but add value to the practice when it came time to sell it when he moved on. More importantly to him, it wouldn’t involve any monetary outlay as he’d call upon those patients qualified to do the required tasks.
Many still had outstanding bills that they insisted on settling with their labour. He wasn’t, though, about to give his receptionist any credit for her idea, in case she took his show of gratitude for more than it was.

He said curtly to her, ‘I trust there’s a good a reason you’ve disturbed me?’

Letting his brusqueness wash over her was starting to become second nature to Aidy. Breezily she responded, ‘I came to let you know I’d arrived and to ask if it’s all right if I open the surgery door early? Only the patients waiting outside are getting soaked and risking pneumonia.’

He reminded her, ‘You are merely the receptionist, Mrs Nelson. If there are any medical diagnoses to be made, then I will be the one to make them. In the circumstances, I have however no objection to your opening the surgery door early.’

Why was he constantly doing that, reminding her of her place? Why was his manner always so cold and unyielding? And not just to her. According to the patients, he was the same with them too. He was new to these parts. He’d never make any friends if he continued to act towards people like he was now. Then a thought struck Aidy. Maybe he acted like he did on purpose. Maybe he didn’t want to make any friends. Maybe he didn’t care whether people liked him or not. She wondered why.

It was Aidy’s opinion that it was part of her job to make people welcome when they came into the surgery, and if they wanted to chat to her while they waited she’d happily oblige. It amused her that most people who came in, especially the women, insisted on giving her all the details of the symptoms they were suffering. She’d only been employed as a receptionist for a matter of days now, but from what she had observed already it was plain to her that the number of patients demanding to see the doctor was far more than he could really cope with.

After listening to many of the patients’ symptoms herself, she was of the opinion that quite a few didn’t really need to see the doctor at all but could be helped by one of her grandmother’s remedies instead. She decided that once Bertha was up and about again and had restocked her remedies, she would suggest to these patients that they try her gran first before they resorted to the doctor. Not only would she be helping him by lifting from him some of the demands on his time, but also saving those patients a good deal of money in not having to pay a doctor’s fee and possibly the cost of a prescription from the chemist. She knew many of them would only end up as bad debtors to Doc in any case. She could save him the bother and, more importantly, put some money her grandmother’s way …

Bertha felt very guilty when Aidy arrived home just after eight. How she wished she was able to have a hot cup of tea waiting or to put her dinner before her, which was in the oven keeping hot. She was counting the days to when she would be able to help more. ‘Busy surgery, was it?’ she asked as Aidy flopped down into the armchair and took off her shoes.

‘Actually, no, it wasn’t. Only had half a dozen in. I think the awful rain had something to do with it. I expect people thought that whatever they had wrong with them would be made worse by a good soaking. I’m glad to say it’s stopped now, though. I used the remainder of my time doing a bit more sorting of the record cards.

‘It’s a pig of a job, Gran. It seems to me like there’s millions of patients on Doc’s books. It wouldn’t be so bad if the surgery closed for a few days and I could sort all the cards in one go, but at the same time I’m trying to sort the back log out, patients are coming in or calling Doc out, and
their
cards are yanked out then thrown back at me … It feels to me like I’m taking one step forward, two back. The way things are going, I’ll never get it done.’

Bertha eyed her proudly and said, ‘Well, you sound to me like you’re doing a grand job, love. I’ve no doubt the doctor is very pleased with you.’

Aidy sighed. ‘I wouldn’t know. I can only guess
he is as he hasn’t said he isn’t. He’s a hard man to get along with, Gran, and if I didn’t need the job so badly, I’d tell him exactly what I think of him and his surly, superior attitude.’ She had enough to do putting up with him during work-time; she certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of her day talking about him. She changed the topic to people who did matter to her. ‘Were the kids all right tonight? I hate not being here to tuck them into bed.’

‘Well, that can’t be helped, love, and they understand. They’re all fine. Well, apart from the fact our George’s got a black eye. He said he got it playing football but Marion told me he got it fighting over something one of his mates said about you.’

Aidy looked sharply at her grandmother. ‘About me?’

‘Seems there’s a rumour going round that you bribed the doctor into giving you the receptionist’s job before he’d interviewed all the other women who applied.’ Bertha gave a snort. ‘As if you would need to do that!’

Without batting an eyelid, Aidy enquired, ‘Was it Bella Graves’s brother Harry George was fighting with, by any chance?’

Bertha nodded. ‘I believe that was the lad Marion mentioned.’

‘Ah, that explains it. Bella applied for the job, dressed like she was applying for a job as a madame,
and she’s miffed ’cos she didn’t stand a chance of getting it and I did. I got the job ’cos I was the best person Doc interviewed for it.’ And wasn’t that the truth?

‘I’ve no doubt our George got that point across to Bella’s brother and stopped him at least spreading any more of that downright lie. Going back to the kids … Betty was a bit off colour tonight. Came in early, complaining she didn’t feel well, so I got her to make herself some hot milk and sent her to bed early. She must not have been feeling herself because she went up without a murmur. Probably got a cold coming. ’Course, then, not to be outdone, Marion announced she wasn’t feeling well either, and so she had to have some hot milk. But then she said going to bed wouldn’t make her feel better but what would was if she got in beside me for a cuddle and a story.’

Aidy smiled. ‘Which you agreed to?’ Bertha grinned back. ‘I was putty in her hands.’ A knock sounded on the back door and they both looked at each other as though to say, I’m not expecting anyone.

Aidy got up to answer it, hoping it was just a neighbour after something trivial. She had chores that she needed to attend to and if she didn’t make a start there was a danger it wouldn’t be this side of midnight she got into bed.

For a moment she stared at the stranger before her. She was just about to ask politely what they wanted when recognition struck. Her eyes blazed pure hatred then.

‘W
hat do you want?’

‘Fine welcome, I must say.’

‘If you were expecting a welcome, you came to the wrong house.’

‘Then it’s a good job I wasn’t. Go and tell yer mam I’m back. And, on yer way, put the kettle on.’

He made to shove past her but Aidy barred his way by blocking the door with her body. ‘I can’t tell Mam you’re back. She isn’t here.’

‘Then I’ll tell her meself when she comes back.’

‘She won’t be coming back. She’s dead. Shame it wasn’t you instead! Now, if that’s all …’ Aidy stepped back inside the kitchen and made to shut the door, but was prevented by a booted foot placed inside the step.

‘Not really going to shut the door on yer father, are yer?’

She spat back, ‘Father! That’s a joke, isn’t it? You stopped being a father to your kids when you walked out on us for the second time, nine years ago. Not
that you ever were what you could properly call a father when you were living here with us. You never stayed around even to meet Marion.’

She flashed a glance at the man who had sired her. The last time she saw him he’d been a handsome man still, dark haired, tall and broad. These last years had aged him markedly, shrinking his once muscular body to skeletal thinness. He obviously hadn’t done well for himself as his clothes were as threadbare as those worn by the poorest around these parts. His face was haggard, grey hair greasy and straggly, and he looked to be in dire need of a hot bath and a shave.

Aidy snapped at him, ‘Why have you come back?’

Arnold Greenwood grinned sardonically at her. ‘Maybe I’ve missed you all.’

‘Well, we haven’t missed you, that’s for sure.’ She eyed him knowingly. ‘I take it you’ve no job, no woman to look after you, and nowhere to live? So you’ve decided to come back to the people who despise you after what you did to them, sooner than sleep on the streets or beg a place in the poorhouse?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

Aidy glared at him murderously. ‘Over my dead body will you come back here!’

He shot her a warning look. ‘Now you look here, Ad—’

Her temper erupting she flared at him, ‘Don’t you dare call me by that name you insisted on giving me.’

‘In honour of my grandmother. You should feel privileged you were named after her.’

‘What! Damned, more like! She was a nasty, mean, spiteful woman nobody went near unless they absolutely had to. You only called me after her because you hoped she’d leave you a fortune – shame she hadn’t a pot to piss in, wasn’t it?’ Aidy paused long enough to give him a scathing glance. ‘You turned out to be very like her, didn’t you? Now, I’d be obliged if you’d remove yourself from my doorstep and shut the back gate behind you.’

Arnold had been fully expecting his reception to be exactly the one he’d received. After all, in view of his past behaviour towards his family, he in truth deserved nothing more. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and Arnold was a desperate man.

He’d fallen for Jessie Jackson the first moment he’d clapped eyes on her. What man wouldn’t have? She had been good looking, sharp witted, strong minded. She lit up a room the instant she entered it. At that time he’d been good looking himself and earning better money than many of his peers because he’d learned a skill. He seemed to offer her a promising future. He pursued Jessie and won her.

Arnold had enjoyed being a married man until their first child had come along. That, for him, was when the rot set in. He grew resentful of having no money
in his pocket to call his own; loathed their offspring disturbing his peace and disrupting their sex life; grew bored and frustrated with the monotony of life as husband and father; found himself longing for the freedom of the single life again. So he upped and left it all behind, got himself a fresh start all round in another part of town.

For a while he enjoyed his single status again, having money to call his own, going from woman to woman. Then he got one pregnant, and to escape the wrath of her family, who were insisting he marry her, hid from them back in the bosom of his own abandoned family.

Jessie did not exactly welcome him back with open arms but, thankfully for him, his return coincided with what was for her a dire period in her life. She had just lost her job and her lodger; was in danger of losing her home. A bleak existence loomed ahead for her and Aidy. For a while Arnold tolerated life as a married man again, but it wasn’t long before once again he began to resent not having any spare cash. With two more young children to irritate him and disturb his peace, and another on the way, the single life beckoned him irresistibly. So he upped and left and got it back for himself.

He worked when he had to, didn’t when he found a woman besotted enough by him to keep him. Those women were always the good-time sort, usually
married themselves but with husbands who’d absconded or died. But even those sort sooner or later wanted some sort of commitment from him. And Arnold wasn’t committing to anyone ever again. Besides, he was still married so wasn’t a free man anyway, and he certainly didn’t want any more children. As soon as hints about that topic began to be dropped, he was off.

The years seemed to pass like a click of his fingers and then, to his utter shock and surprise he awoke one morning to find himself a man of forty-five, with no home to call his own, hardly any possessions, his chosen lifestyle having ruined his good looks and physique; no job since he’d been laid off from his last one; no baccy for a roll-up nor money for a pint. And, to cap it all, his current woman, having realised he would never make an honest woman of her and fed up with funding him, was screaming blue murder at him to get up and get out or she’d fetch her strapping son around to bodily remove him.

Sitting on a park bench a short while later, his bag with a few belongings at his feet, Arnold had pondered his options. It seemed he had only one. To go back to his wife and family again until he found something better.

Now he hauled up the sailor’s holdall at his feet, containing all his worldly belongings, slung it over his shoulder and announced to his eldest daughter,
‘The only place I’m going, lady, is inside this house. There’s nothing you can do to stop me moving back in and staying for as long as I like. It’s
my
name on the rent book, remember.’ He pushed his face into hers, a nasty twinkle in his eyes. ‘I’d watch yer step, if I was you. You’d better treat me with respect or I’ll have you out and those other brats of mine along with you. Don’t try and test me, I mean what I say. Now, move out me way.’