Their Very Special Marriage (11 page)

Maybe they should make more of an effort. But when would they get the time? Between work, the children, Oliver's course and her PTA commitments, there wasn't much left. And she didn't like to keep asking Ginny to babysit all the time, even though she kept an eye on Ginny's son Jack sometimes in return.

It would be different if they lived in Newcastle—her mother or sister would suggest it before she could even ask them. But Oliver's family wasn't like that. Rachel had the strong impression that Isabel didn't like children very much. She tolerated the children's visits, but only just. Rob usually had his nose in a book so he was too quiet to irritate his
grandmother, but Sophie was loud and would get an A+ for being demanding, attention-wise. Which was why Rachel didn't ask Isabel to babysit.

‘Sophie's definitely on the mend,' Oliver said when they'd sat down and given their order to the waiter.

‘She'll be back at nursery on Monday. Mum's going home on Friday afternoon,' Rachel told him.

‘Right.'

For the first time she could remember, she actually felt awkward with Oliver. As if he were a stranger. Weird. They'd always been able to talk.

Until Caroline Prentiss had come back on the scene.

‘I saw one of your patients today.'

She frowned. ‘I thought my locum was seeing my patients?'

‘She is. But I noticed that Paula Russell was on the list, and I thought you'd want to know how things were going, so I switched her over to me.' He raised an eyebrow. ‘I'm not sure if she was more relieved to get a diagnosis at last or shocked to realise it's JIA. I think I embarrassed the poor kid, though—telling her about the drawbacks of methotrexate, especially when it comes to alcohol and sex.' He smiled ruefully. ‘I think you'd have handled it better.'

‘So I'll be the one doing the birds-and-bees talk with Rob, then?' she asked, smiling back.

‘I think so. Anyway, I've told her to ring us at any time if she has questions, and I gave her the number of the local support group you found for her.'

‘Thanks.' Rachel wished Oliver would show the same care to his family as he did to his patients. She thought about telling him—but something stopped her. If she told him how she felt, it might push him too hard. Worse, it might push him to Caroline. Or ‘Cally', as he called her. The kind of pet name people gave to the people they loved: it was a dead give-away.

Maybe it was time she met Caroline for herself. Not a direct confrontation: she wasn't stupid enough to give Oliver an ultimatum. But maybe if they invited Caroline to dinner, it would give the other woman a chance to see Oliver at home with his wife and children. Then maybe Caroline would realise what she was asking him to give up—and maybe she'd do the right thing and leave him alone.

‘We ought to have her over for dinner, you know.'

‘Who?'

‘Caroline.'
Cally.
The name almost stuck in her throat.

Oliver looked uncomfortable. ‘Why?'

‘You said yourself that you'd known her for years and she's just come back to the area. Sometimes it's difficult to fit back in again.' Though she certainly wasn't going to fit right back into her old relationship with Oliver. Not if
she
had anything to do with it. ‘If she comes to dinner, it might help her feel that she's still got friends around here. Plus, it's a way of saying thank you—for stepping in for me temporarily at short notice.'

Oliver shifted in his seat. ‘Mmm.'

‘So why don't we?'

She could see him trying to think up an excuse. When he clearly couldn't come up with one, he sighed. ‘When?'

‘Saturday night.'

‘She might be busy.'

‘If she's only just moved back here, she probably isn't. Ask her. Or maybe I can pop in to the surgery tomorrow and have a word with her.'

There were definite signs of alarm in his face now. Was he worried that his wife and mistress were going to meet at last? Or was she just being paranoid?

‘No, it's all right. I'll ask her tomorrow,' he said hastily.

‘OK.'

‘You do know I love you, don't you?' he asked suddenly.

‘Yes.' Though she had a nasty feeling that there was a ‘but' attached. What?

I love you,
but
I should have married Caroline?

I love you,
but
our marriage isn't working out?

I love you,
but
goodbye?

‘I love you, too,' she said.

‘Good.' He muttered something she didn't catch, though she suspected it was something like ‘so that's all right, then'. Except it wasn't, was it?

The silence between them stretched out, punctuated only by the sound of cutlery against china. Although the chicken parmigiana was perfectly cooked, and Rachel adored Italian food, she found it more and more difficult to force down each mouthful. This was crazy. They were meant to be closing the gap between them, but the distance just seemed to yawn more and more as the minutes ticked by.

‘So how's your course going?' she asked eventually.

‘Very well.' Oliver gave her an enthusiastic run-down of what they'd done the previous evening. ‘When we've finished the course, the tutor was talking about setting up a pilot scheme, using GPs trained in trauma medicine to help support the rapid response units. We're often nearer to the patients than the hospitals are, so we can get there quicker.'

She could see by his face that he wanted to do it. She wasn't surprised. Oliver had originally planned to work in emergency medicine. When Nigel had dropped out of his course in medicine, and it had become clear that it had been permanent rather than a temporary break, Oliver had felt duty-bound to switch his specialist training to general practice, for his father's sake. Rachel had wholeheartedly supported his decision to take the GP course in trauma medicine—to do something for
himself
for once. And doing support work for the rapid response units would be the nearest he'd ever come to working in the area he'd wanted to
specialise in. ‘Oliver, if you want to be on the pilot, you know I'll back you.'

He blinked in astonishment. ‘Really?'

‘Really.' Now it was her turn for the ‘but'. ‘
But
you already work ridiculous hours. If you want to do rapid response work, you're going to have to delegate some of your other workload to make room for it. And the obvious thing is to start using a night and weekend call-out service.'

He sighed. ‘We've already been through that.'

‘I know. And I understand you want to keep the high levels of service that your father set. That's only natural.' She toyed with her chicken. ‘But the world's not the same place it was when your father joined the practice. Our estate didn't even exist. There were half the amount of people in Hollybridge that there are now, and there wasn't the huge amount of paperwork per patient either.'

‘We're a family practice.'

‘And we still
will
be. We're just moving with the times. How do you think we'd cope if we still had to use a manual system for patient notes—where would we have the space to store everything? Or if you had to drive a pony and trap to house calls, instead of taking the car?'

‘That's different.'

‘No, it isn't.' She reached across the table and took his hand. ‘Computers and cars have made our lives as doctors easier, and helped us give a better service to our patients. You're working such crazy hours that you're wearing yourself out—and you'll get to the point where you're not going to be able to give patients what they need. What's it going to take to make you realise—missing a diagnosis? Giving someone the wrong dosage? A patient dying?'

‘You're being over-dramatic, Rachel.' He shook her hand off.

How to push your husband into his mistress's arms—at
breakneck speed, Rachel thought. She backed off fast. ‘I'm sorry. I don't want to fight, Oliver.'

‘Me neither.'

‘I just want things to be...' How they used to be. Before Caroline. Well, before that even. She didn't regret having the children, not for a moment, but she did regret the pressures that were forcing her apart from Oliver.

‘Me, too. Look, everything will sort itself out.'

Maybe. She just hoped it would work out the way she wanted it to be—so they didn't become a statistic.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘R
ACHEL
wants you to come to dinner on Saturday night,' Oliver said.

‘And you'd rather I said no?' Caroline asked.

‘Well.' He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘It's a bit awkward.'

Caroline put her coffee mug down, walked over to him and whispered in his ear, ‘Stop panicking. I'm not going to try and get Rachel alone to—'

Oliver felt the heat zing through his face. ‘Um, I didn't think you would.'

She grinned. ‘Yes, you did. And I suppose it is understandable.'

‘It isn't that,' Oliver muttered. ‘Women talk.'

‘Well, that's how people communicate. Even men talk. Rubbish, most of the time, mind, but they still talk.' Caroline ruffled his hair. ‘Do you think you might be going through some kind of male menopause, Ol?'

‘The andropause doesn't exist,' Oliver said stiffly.

‘You would say that. You're a man.' She chuckled. ‘Chill out. If you're worrying that I'll tell Rachel everything you've told me, then don't. Look, I know we lost touch for a while, but we were good friends when we were younger, right?'

‘Yes.' Caroline had been his girlfriend. Or so he'd thought. Until they'd been eighteen and she'd cried all over him and confessed the secret that had been eating away at her.

‘And whatever you told me in confidence when we were
younger—you never worried then that I'd tell anyone, did you?'

‘No, of course not.' Just as he'd always kept Caroline's secret. Lied for her, even.

‘Nothing's changed. Now, stop worrying.' She gave him a broad wink. ‘I trust I
am
allowed to bring flowers?'

‘Do what you want.'

She grinned. ‘If your mother invited me to dinner, I'd take her flowers. You wouldn't think anything of that, would you?'

Oliver crossed his arms and tucked his hands into his armpits so he wouldn't shake Caroline. ‘Not with my mother, no.'

‘So what's different about giving flowers to your wife?' She didn't wait for an answer, but sighed. ‘This was why I stayed away from Hollybridge for so long. Small-town mentality. If people know who I really am...' She sighed. ‘I just don't want life made difficult for my parents.'

‘Would it be that bad?'

‘I don't want to take the chance.' She looked bleak. ‘But secrets always come out in the end.'

‘I haven't said anything to anyone.' Not even Rachel. Maybe he should have told her—but, then, the secret wasn't his to tell. And it had all been in the past when he'd met Rachel, anyway.

‘That's why I trusted you all those years ago. I didn't think you'd changed, but maybe you have.'

‘Maybe I just don't understand women. I can't seem to make any of the women in my life happy.' Things still weren't right between him and Rachel; he'd managed to upset Caroline just now; Sophie had had a wobbly lip because he hadn't had time to read her a story that morning; and even his mother seemed to be offhand with him. Clearly he'd said or done something to upset Isabel—that, or he
hadn't said or done something she'd wanted him to do. ‘Why are women so complicated?'

‘Chromosomes, dear,' Caroline said, patting his hand. ‘Right, I've got a surgery to do.'

‘Me, too.'

Flora Carson looked extremely embarrassed when she saw Oliver. ‘Um, I really wanted to see the
other
Dr Bedingfield,' she said.

‘I'm afraid she's off this week,' Oliver said. ‘Our little girl's got chickenpox. If you'd rather see our locum, Dr Prentiss?'

Flora bit her lip. ‘It's taken me ages to get the courage to come and see you. If I have to wait...'

‘Maybe I can help,' Oliver said gently. ‘Tell me what's worrying you.'

‘It's my periods. They seem to go on for ever. And I only seem to get a week or so between them.'

‘How long have they been like this?'

‘Three or four months. I'm sorry to waste your time—I know you should be seeing people who are really ill—but it's just getting me down, and I'm so tired all the time.'

‘You're not wasting my time at all. You're not feeling well, and that's what I'm here for,' he reassured her. ‘Are your periods lighter or heavier than usual?'

‘Heavier. It's a bit embarrassing, actually.' She grimaced. ‘My husband made me come and see you. He's getting fed up with the fact that I'm always on. Our, um...well, you know.'

Their sex life. Yeah, Oliver knew all about non-existent sex lives. He wished he could persuade
his
wife to see someone about their little problem.

‘The tiredness could be caused by anaemia,' he said. ‘If your periods are long
and
heavy, it's depleting your iron stores. I'd like to take a blood sample to check your haemoglobin levels—if you're anaemic, a course of iron tablets
will sort that out.' The blood test would also enable him to check for thyroid problems, which could also cause heavy periods. ‘In the meantime, I'd recommend that you eat lean red meat, plenty of dark green leafy veg and drink orange juice rather than tea with your meals to help iron absorption.'

‘What's causing the heavy periods?' she asked as he took the blood sample.

‘Could be a few things,' he said. ‘Are your periods painful at all?'

She shook her head. ‘Not really.'

‘That probably rules out endometriosis, where part of the lining of your womb grows in the wrong place and causes cramps. It might be fibroids or polyps. Polyps are growths in the lining of your womb, and fibroids are benign growths or swellings in the muscle of your womb,' he explained.