Their Very Special Marriage (8 page)

‘Thanks for listening, Fi.'

‘No probs. That's what family's for.'

Her family, anyway. Oliver's were the least supportive bunch Rachel had ever met. Or maybe it was because they still hadn't forgiven Oliver for making a stand against them and marrying the girl with the wrong accent. He jumped through hoops for them, even ran the practice the same way that his father had, and still it wasn't good enough for them. Whereas Nigel could be as selfish and thoughtless as he wanted to be, and Isabel didn't seem to notice. In fact, she deliberately turned a blind eye and made up the most flimsy excuses for him. Excuses that Oliver would never, ever have been allowed to get away with.

Why couldn't Isabel be
fair
about things?

Rachel swallowed back the threatening tears. ‘I'll ring you later, Fi.'

‘Any time. Even if it's three in the morning. You know I'm here for you.
Nihil te bastardes carborundorum
, OK?'

Dog Latin: don't let the bastards grind you down. Rachel smiled. ‘I won't. Take care, Fi.'

‘You, too, sis.'

When Rachel cut the connection, she picked up Oliver's mobile phone and erased Caroline's text message. Despicable maybe, but she wasn't going to make it easy for Caroline Prentiss to walk in and push
her
out of Oliver's life. Besides, everyone knew that phone networks weren't a hundred per cent reliable and text messages didn't always arrive. So what if Caroline was waiting for an answer? She wasn't going to get it. ‘We're a family unit, and we're not splitting. For
anyone
,' she said softly.

* * *

‘It's my own fault. I tripped, going down the stairs. I'll be all right when I've had a cup of tea,' Alf Varney insisted.

‘You banged your head, and Betty said you were out for nearly ten minutes. That's why she called me,' Oliver said. ‘And she was right. Actually, I want you to go to hospital so they can check you over properly.'

Alf folded his arms. ‘I hate hospitals. At my age, once you go in, you don't come out again.'

Oliver smiled reassuringly. ‘That's an exaggeration, Alf. It's not that bad.'

Alf remained stubborn. ‘You know what it's like in there. Germs everywhere. There's that one that nothing can kill, that MMR.'

‘MRSA,' Oliver said, trying to suppress a grin at the malapropism: the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was a mile away from the so-called hospital ‘superbug', methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus
. ‘It's very rare that it actually kills someone.'

‘All right. There's that one that eats people. Necri... necri...' The old man searched for the right word.

‘Necrotising fasciitis,' Oliver supplied.

Alf nodded. ‘That's the one.'

‘It's even rarer. Alf, you need to go in for a check-up. Apart from the fact that you blacked out—'

‘You've already shone a torch in my eyes and said I was fine,' Alf cut in. ‘That's what they do on telly. I'm all right.'

‘I'd still rather you had a proper check-up, because you were unconscious. And you've been having chest pains.'

‘Have not.'

Oliver spread his hands. ‘Betty told me.'

Alf scowled. ‘It's none of her business.'

‘She's your wife, and she's worried about you,' Oliver said gently.

Alf shrugged, still in denial. ‘They don't bother me that much.'

‘If they're causing you to fall down the stairs then, yes, they do.' Oliver sighed. ‘The thing is, Alf, if you let them go untreated, they'll get worse. You'll feel worse. And you might end up having a full-blown heart attack—these chest pains are usually advance warning. If you have a heart attack, you'll have to stay in hospital for a while. Whereas if you go in now, let them check you over and do some tests which I can't do in the surgery, they can confirm that you have angina. Then I can give you a prescription for some drugs to stop the pain and prevent you having a heart attack.'

‘What sort of tests?' Alf asked suspiciously.

‘They'll hook you up to a monitor so they can see how your heart's beating—something called a twelve-lead ECG or electrocardiogram, and all that means is that there are twelve wires taped to your body which give a reading to a machine. They might ask you to walk on a treadmill for a little while so they can see what your heart does when you're exercising. They'll do some blood tests to look at your cholesterol and other blood fat, and check your blood pressure.'

‘You can do that, can't you?'

‘No. I don't have the right machinery to monitor what your heart's doing,' Oliver explained patiently. ‘You need to go to hospital, Alf.'

‘So if it
is
what you say it is...will they keep me in?'

‘They'll send you home,' Oliver said. ‘They'll give you some medication you can spray under your tongue when you have chest pain, and some medications you have to take every day.' Oliver decided not to tell Alf that one of the drugs was aspirin—the last thing he wanted was for the old man to self-medicate and get it wrong. ‘You'll get a yearly check-up at the hospital, and you can come straight home again afterwards.'

‘I hate hospitals,' Alf said again.

Back to square one. Oliver took a deep breath. He didn't want to scare Alf into going to hospital, but what other choice did he have? Unless he took the old man himself... ‘How about if I go with you?' Oliver asked.

The old man brightened visibly. ‘Would you?'

It could take hours, depending on how busy the emergency department was. It could well eat up the rest of Sunday. Oliver thought of Rachel. She wouldn't be pleased. But she was a doctor, too—she'd understand that sometimes you had to put your patient before yourself. ‘Yes. I'll just ring Rachel and let her know what I'm doing.' He felt in his pocket for his mobile phone. It wasn't there. ‘I must have left my mobile at home,' he muttered.

‘You can use our phone, Dr Bedingfield,' Alf said.

‘Thank you.' Oliver quickly rang home. ‘Rach, it's me. I'm talking Alf Varney into hospital.'

There was a short silence, then Rachel said, ‘Why you, not an ambulance?'

‘I'll tell you more later.'

‘Right. Any idea how long you'll be?'

‘No. Don't hold up dinner for me.'

‘I'll feed the kids,' Rachel said.

There was something odd in her voice. Reproach? Maybe. But what else could he do? He was the village doctor. He couldn't abandon his patients. Maybe he'd bring her some flowers home from the hospital. It wouldn't make everything right, but at least she'd know he cared...wouldn't she? ‘I'll ring you before I leave the hospital.'

* * *

The wait in the emergency department seemed to take for ever, but at last Alf was checked over and everything was fine. Then, after a little intervention from Oliver, he was sent up to the cardiology department for an electrocardiogram and blood tests. Once Oliver's diagnosis was confirmed, Alf was released into Oliver's care. Oliver sorted out prescriptions for aspirin, beta-blockers and a GTN spray, got them filled at the hospital pharmacy, explained what the drugs did and the side-effects to look out for, and persuaded Betty to make sure that Alf took his medication.

So much for Sunday, he thought as he drove home. He really had intended to spend the day with Rachel. Talk to her, as Caroline had suggested last night when he'd given her a lift home and ended up staying for coffee and spilling his woes to her. She'd understood, given him the physical comfort he'd needed so badly. She'd held his hand, given him a hug, made him feel accepted.

Then he'd realised, on his way home, that he'd smelt of Caroline's perfume. And he'd been late. Very late. Rachel had been bound to leap to the wrong conclusion, he'd thought, so he'd lied and said he reeked of smoke. He hated lying to her, but what had the alternative been? She'd be so upset if she thought he'd talked about her to another woman, sharing their private concerns with someone else—and he couldn't blame her. He knew he should be talking to his wife about their problems, not Caroline, but what else could he do? Rachel was so touchy nowadays. And he went way
back with Caroline—she was the only one he could trust with something like this.

‘I thought you were going to phone from the hospital?' Rachel asked.

‘I meant to. I just...' He sighed, and handed her the flowers. ‘Sorry. I got it wrong.' Just like he got
everything
wrong these days. Rachel didn't seem that pleased with the flowers. What would it take to make her happy? ‘Alf had chest pains, fell downstairs and blacked out. I thought it was probably angina, but I didn't want to risk him having a full-blown MI—' a myocardial infarction, or heart attack ‘—and if it was unstable angina, he'd be in trouble. It took me a hell of a long time to persuade him even to go to hospital—the only way I could do it was to drive him in myself.'

‘His brother died in hospital last year,' Rachel reminded him.

‘I'd forgotten about that. No wonder he's leery of the place.' Oliver sighed. ‘This isn't how I meant Sunday to be.' His ‘day off'. Except he was on call. Maybe Rachel was right and they should put weekend and evening calls out to a locum service. But that wasn't how the Bedingfield Surgery worked. They'd always done the calls themselves. A village doctor giving a proper village service. Personal. Changing all that would be—well, like throwing it all back in his father's face, scorning everything that his father had worked for. He couldn't do it.

‘I've given the kids their tea. I'll cook the chicken tomorrow—pasta all right with you for tonight?'

‘I'm not really that hungry,' Oliver said, and immediately wished he hadn't when that edgy look appeared in Rachel's eyes. He backtracked fast. ‘Want me to make it?'

‘No. You've been out all afternoon. I'll do it.'

Oliver was too tired to argue. ‘OK.'

Just tell her
, Caroline had said. He wanted to. How he wanted to. But now wasn't the right time.

‘Mum rang,' Rachel added. ‘She's coming down for a few days to help me look after Sophie. I'm picking her up from Maidstone station tomorrow afternoon—can you pick Rob up from school?'

‘Uh, yes. Sure.' Actually, it wasn't convenient, but he'd call in some favours.

‘That means I'll be able to do a couple of my shifts this week—you won't need your locum all the time.'

Where was this leading? Rachel definitely had a funny look on her face, but he couldn't read it. ‘Rach, it's all set up now. Leave it. You might as well enjoy the break and spend some time with your mum. You don't get to see her that much.'

‘Maybe I'll pop in to the surgery and have a chat with—Caroline, isn't it? About some of my patients.'

Oliver panicked. Oh, hell. The last thing he wanted right now was Caroline meeting Rachel. Because Caroline and Rachel would get on extremely well. A cup of coffee later and they'd be swapping secrets—and the last thing he wanted was for Rachel to know that he'd been talking to Caroline about their marriage problems. She'd be so hurt that he'd discussed it with someone else instead of her, even though the point was that he
couldn't
talk to her at the moment. ‘Don't do that!' he said.

Rachel's eyes narrowed. ‘Is there something I should know about?'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘What are
you
talking about?' she countered.

He didn't know. All he felt was the roaring tide of panic through his veins. He needed to keep Caroline and Rachel apart, at least for a little while. ‘I've organised a locum for you this week. If you go in and start asking questions, she'll feel that you don't trust her. If she walks out, we're stuck.'

‘No, we're not. I can work while Mum keeps an eye on Soph.'

Oliver raked a hand through his hair. ‘Isn't the point of Ann coming here to give you a break? If you're working, you're not getting any rest. Anyway, I'm sure your mother would like to spend some time with you and the kids, not just be an unpaid babysitter.'

Rachel lifted her chin. ‘She offered. I didn't ask.'

‘I didn't say you did.' Why, why,
why
was this turning into a row?

Tell her
, Caroline had said, the night of the party. If he did...he had the feeling that right now Rachel wouldn't take it well.

‘Rach—'

‘Forget it. I need to put these in water.' Rachel stomped into the kitchen, carrying the flowers he'd bought her as if they were poison.

Why was it all going so wrong? And were they ever going to be able to fix it?

CHAPTER SIX

‘Y
OU
didn't answer my text,' Caroline said.

‘What text?' Oliver asked.

She folded her arms. ‘The one asking you if you'd told her yet.'

Oliver shook his head. ‘I didn't see it. Maybe it got lost on the way to my phone—you know texts aren't a hundred per cent reliable.'

‘Maybe.' Caroline didn't look convinced. ‘How did it go?'

Oliver winced. ‘Don't ask.'

She sighed. ‘You didn't talk to her, did you?'

‘I was going to, but...'

‘But you wimped out.'

‘I got called out.' Which wasn't the same thing—was it? He shrugged. ‘Look, she's a GP. She knows how the job works. She should understand the situation, surely?'

‘If she was expecting you to spend time with her at the weekend then, no, she won't understand. I wouldn't, in her shoes. Why on earth don't you use a weekend and night call-out service?' she asked.

Oliver rolled his eyes. ‘Don't you start. That's what Rachel says. But this is a family practice. We've always done things this way,
always
. I can't just dump my patients on a doctor who doesn't know them.'