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‘You had an appointment with Dr Bennett, didn’t you, Mrs Neville?’ Jamie’s attention returned swiftly to his patient. ‘I’m afraid she’s tied up at the hospital for a while. Perhaps it’s something I could help you with?’
Mrs Neville blushed furiously. ‘Oh, no! It was nothing urgent, Dr McFadden. I’ll make another appointment for later in the week.’
Janet pressed her lips together firmly as she emptied the bowl of soiled dressings and swabs into the rubbish container. Mrs Neville had been having increasing trouble with a severe case of haemorrhoids. It had been Janet who’d suggested she see their female GP when she’d heard that the over-the-counter preparations weren’t providing any relief.
‘Come and see me at the same time, then,’ Jamie invited. ‘I’d like to check on that finger.’
Mrs Neville’s gratitude at not being pressed into an explanation was patent. ‘I’ll do that, Dr McFadden. And thank you. Thank you so much! My finger doesn’t hurt at all now.’
‘My pleasure.’ Jamie smiled. ‘You’ll find it gets a wee bit sore when the anaesthetic wears off, though. I’m sure Janet can give you some tablets.’
‘Of course,’ Janet murmured. She smiled at Mrs Neville but the woman’s gaze was still firmly glued to Jamie. Oliver Spencer appeared in the doorway. He didn’t appear to notice Janet either.
‘At work already, Jamie? Fantastic!’ He lowered his voice as Janet selected some painkillers from a nearby cupboard. ‘Could I get you to see another patient? She’s a fifty-four-year-old woman with a case of postherpetic neuralgia. She’s in a lot of pain. She had a dose of shingles three months ago and …’ Oliver’s voice faded as Jamie followed him out.
Janet handed Mrs Neville the packet of tablets. ‘You can take two up to every four hours,’ she instructed. ‘But don’t take any more than that and make sure you keep your finger completely dry. I’ll make an appointment for you to see Sophie on Thursday or Friday.’
‘And Dr McFadden,’ Mrs Neville reminded her firmly. She smiled rather dreamily at Janet. ‘Isn’t he wonderful? You’re so lucky to have found him!’
‘Mmm.’ Janet’s smile was automatic. She could hear an echo of Sharlene’s voice—a bitter memory that hadn’t surfaced for years. ‘Oh, you’re so lucky, Jan,’ her best friend—and room-mate—had sighed. ‘Where did you find him?’
Janet steered Mrs Neville towards the reception counter. ‘Sandy will fix you up,’ she said distractedly. ‘Call me if you have any problems.’
The afternoon settled into a blissful period of calm. Janet found she had time to make her recall appointments as Sandy took phone calls, welcomed new arrivals and sorted out the accounts of those leaving. After the miserable chaos of the morning, Janet couldn’t believe how smoothly the clinic was running. They even had time for a quick afternoon teabreak when Sophie arrived back from the hospital.
‘How is Mr Collins?’ Janet queried, handing Sophie a mug of coffee.
‘Amazingly happy.’ Sophie shook her head wonderingly. ‘I left him sitting up in the coronary care unit, surrounded by monitors and shouting at a poor house surgeon.’
‘What had the house surgeon done?’ Oliver grinned.
‘Nothing. Mr Collins lost his hearing aid somewhere between here and A and E.’
‘At least he can shout,’ Janet observed. ‘I had my doubts there for a while.’
Sophie chuckled. ‘Mr Collins has had an ‘‘out of body’’ experience. I heard all about it at least three times.’
‘What—tunnels and bright lights?’
‘More like kind of musical,’ Sophie said thoughtfully. ‘A full orchestra, he said.’
‘Playing hymns?’
‘No.’ Sophie chuckled again. ‘He said it sounded like the Crusaders’ theme song. What is it? ‘‘Conquest of Paradise’’?’
Janet nodded. ‘Vangelis, 1492. The boys have got it on tape and it gets hammered in our house whenever there’s a big rugby game coming up.’
‘Anyway.’ Sophie sat down with a sigh. ‘Mr Collins is alive to tell the tale, thank goodness. I’m exhausted.’ She looked up as Jamie McFadden entered the staffroom. ‘Hi, Jamie!’ Sophie’s face brightened. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to say hello properly. Come and sit down and have a coffee.’
‘Thanks.’ Jamie sat down beside Sophie. ‘I’ll pass on the coffee, though. I only drink tea.’
‘Just like Janet!’ Sophie exclaimed. ‘Must be a Scottish thing.’
‘That’s not all that Jamie and Janet have in common,’ Oliver informed his wife. ‘They knew each other in Glasgow.’
Sophie’s eyebrows shot up.
‘We just worked together in the same hospital.’ Janet placed a cup of tea in front of Jamie. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘What an amazing coincidence,’ Sophie breathed.
Janet frowned. It was indeed. A little too amazing. Had Jamie McFadden found out she was here somehow? Through her sister, perhaps? Liz had been planning a return to the UK at some stage. What else might he know about? Janet swallowed nervously. ‘You don’t take sugar, do you, Jamie?’ she queried politely.
‘I do, actually.’ Jamie’s smile was equally polite. ‘But I’ll get it. You sit down.’ Jamie got to his feet with an easy grace and headed towards the kitchen bench. ‘How did your patient get on, Sophie?’ he asked over his shoulder.
‘He’s doing well. They were discussing the possibility of some angioplasty when I left. Mr Collins was very enthusiastic.’
‘Was he?’ Jamie’s eyebrows rose expressively. ‘Invasive interventional therapy isn’t usually an attractive option.’
Oliver laughed. ‘Our Mr Collins isn’t a usual patient. He has a keen interest in medicine—especially when he can apply it to himself.’
‘Just wait until Josh and Toni hear about this.’ Sophie grinned. ‘We’ll have to take every complaint seriously from now on.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll never feel the same when I hear ‘‘Conquest of Paradise’’.’
Jamie looked confused.
‘It’s a rather stirring piece of music which our local rugby team has adopted as a theme song,’ Sophie explained. ‘Everybody in Christchurch—the whole of Canterbury, in fact—recognises it. Mr Collins reckons he heard it during his near-death experience.’
‘Is he keen on rugby, then?’ Jamie smiled.
‘Most people are when Crusader fever hits town. Everybody dresses in red and black and everybody gets sick of hearing ‘‘Conquest of Paradise’’. There could be a big game coming up next month if they get through to the finals. You’ll see what I mean then.’
‘Let’s hope Josh and Toni are back in time,’ Oliver put in. ‘Josh would hate to miss a big match.’
Jamie was adding a second spoonful of sugar to his tea. ‘They’re having a long honeymoon.’
‘They both needed a good break.’ Oliver’s glance included both Sophie and Janet, who nodded their agreement. Janet was pleased to notice Jamie’s expression, advertising his understanding of a bond of knowledge between the St Davids staff members that excluded the newcomer. She belonged here, her expression told him. He didn’t.
Sophie was peering into her mug with distaste. ‘I’ve gone right off coffee,’ she announced. ‘I think I’ll switch to tea.’
‘You should go home and put your feet up,’ Oliver advised. ‘You’ve had an awful day and it’s an early flight tomorrow.’ He looked worried. ‘This exam couldn’t be at a worse time for you. Maybe you should ask for a postponement.’
‘No way!’ Sophie decared. ‘All that swotting for nothing? I’ll be fine, Oliver—as long as there’s a toilet nearby. I wouldn’t mind heading home now, though. Do you think you can cope without me?’
‘Jamie’s doing a fantastic job already,’ Oliver informed his wife. Jamie shrugged modestly.
‘You’ve got a great set-up here,’ he complimented Oliver. ‘Your record-keeping is superb and you and Janet have been very helpful with my queries regarding prescriptions and so on.’
Oliver and Sophie exchanged glances. Then Oliver got to his feet. ‘I haven’t given you a proper tour of the place yet. Let’s do it while we’ve got a quiet spell. You’d better see where we keep the life pack and the oxygen and so on.’
Jamie nodded. ‘After your Mr Collins, I think that would be a very good idea.’
‘That sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.’ Oliver smiled. ‘Don’t expect too much excitement at St David’s.’
‘Och, I don’t.’ Jamie’s gaze landed on Janet. ‘But life has a way of throwing a few surprises at you.’
Sophie hadn’t failed to notice the direction of Jamie’s comment. ‘It has, indeed,’ she agreed happily. ‘Good luck for the next couple of days, Jamie. I’ll look forward to seeing you again when I’m back from Wellington.’
Sophie barely contained herself until the men left the room. She nudged Janet meaningfully. ‘Not bad. You must be looking forward to a chance to catch up.’ She wiggled her eyebrows. ‘Or reminisce, maybe?’
Janet rolled her eyes. ‘Give me a break.’ She ignored Sophie’s hopeful expression. ‘Oliver’s right, Sophie. You’d better go home and have a rest.’ She picked up the empty mugs the men had left on the table. ‘And I’d better get on. I’ve got some warts waiting to be done.’ Turning back to collect Sophie’s abandoned mug of coffee, Janet chewed her lip for a moment. ‘Sophie?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Could you ask Oliver …? I mean, could you and Oliver …?’ Janet paused uncomfortably.
‘Could we what, Janet?’ Sophie frowned in concern. ‘Are you worried about something?’
‘It’s just …’ Janet busied herself with the mugs. ‘I’d rather that Jamie McFadden didn’t find out about the twins.’ That was the understatement of the century! Janet glanced over her shoulder to see whether Sophie had read anything more into her attempt at a casual request.
She had. But not what Janet had feared. Sophie’s smile was understanding. The gleam in her eyes was knowing. ‘My lips are sealed,’ she promised. ‘And I’ll make sure Oliver’s are as well.’ She smiled broadly at Janet. ‘They have been known to complicate things in that direction, haven’t they?’
‘Mmm.’ Janet was wondering desperately whether correcting Sophie’s erroneous assumption would complicate matters even more.
‘What was it they called your last boyfriend? A dork?’ Sophie giggled. ‘Dennis the dork. No wonder he took off! Don’t worry.’ Sophie tapped the side of her nose. ‘As far as Dr Jamie McFadden will know, you’re single and unencumbered. It’ll be entirely up to you when you tell him.’
‘Thanks.’ Janet smiled tightly. She had no intention whatsoever of telling James McFadden about her children. It would be a disaster if he found out the truth and it was a disaster that Janet Muir was determined wouldn’t occur.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT’S for tea, Mum?’
‘Bread and water,’ Janet told Adam sternly. She opened the back door of her small car and closed her eyes to the large clod that dropped from Adam’s shoe to be trodden into the carpet by Rory as he bounced into the back seat beside his brother.
Rory’s grin reassured Adam that he didn’t need to believe Janet’s threat of culinary punishment. Adam still looked worried.
‘Put your seat belts on,’ Janet ordered as she slid behind the steering-wheel. ‘Mrs Carpenter told me you were late again today.’
There was a short silence from the back seat. Mrs Carpenter lived only three doors away from their school. As the ideal position for an after-school care-giver, Enid Carpenter’s address had been a large deciding factor when Janet had chosen the older woman to care for the twins between 3 and 5 p.m. on weekdays. Along with the lower than average cost of five dollars an hour and Mrs Carpenter’s availability to care for the boys in the holidays and at home on the odd occasion when they’d been too sick to go to school.
It was an arrangement which had apparently worked well over the last eighteen months but recently Janet had detected less willingness on Enid Carpenter’s part. Janet sighed, slowing down for the roundabout near the shopping centre. The twins were becoming more of a handful for everybody, including herself, and she worried constantly about the level of supervision they actually received after school. Enid provided afternoon tea and was supposed to encourage homework. She was more likely to give the boys free run of her garden or unlimited television when the weather was wet. Janet wasn’t about to rush into criticising the caregiver, however. If Mrs Carpenter threw in the towel the boys would have to go to the same kind of day care facility she had used when they were toddlers and that would cost far more than she could afford. The early years had depleted her life savings to an alarmingly low level.
‘It shouldn’t take you more than five minutes to get to Mrs Carpenter’s house after school,’ Janet reminded the boys sharply. ‘She said it was nearly 4 o’clock when you arrived. She’d been about to go looking for you.’ And that was another worry. Janet would have been out looking for the twins within minutes of their non-arrival. Did Enid Carpenter really care about her sons?
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