Page 39 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Florence was warming to her, Ottilie could tell. During their drive to the hospital a few days after the film club meeting she’d opened up about her past, her family and she (almost) admitted that she felt somewhat abandoned by them. She laughed at a couple of Ottilie’s jokes and didn’t make nearly as much fuss about having to go to the hospital as Ottilie had imagined she would, even when they finally arrived at the outpatient department and were directed to a very long wait in the clinic.

The tests and scans went smoothly enough, and before they made their way back to Thimblebury they decided, on a whim, to drive into Kendal for a cup of tea and a scone and so that Flo could get some ‘proper’ mint cake, not that ‘tourist rubbish’ from a shop she hadn’t been to in years. If Ottilie hadn’t known better, she’d almost say Flo was enjoying their afternoon out, despite being adamant that she didn’t want to go.

Before the light started to fade they took a drive along the shores of Windermere. Ottilie was driving and so couldn’t look properly but still marvelled as she stole the odd glimpse.

‘My God!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s huge!’

It glowed aquamarine in the afternoon sun, tranquil and vibrant and totally unexpected. It could have been one of the glamorous Italian lakes, apart from the darker, lusher greens of the hills that surrounded it and the quintessentially English houses that peppered the view, and the patchwork of hedgerows that criss-crossed the hills.

‘There’s boats and everything on it,’ Florence said. ‘Big boats, you know. You should take a trip.’

‘Do you want to take a trip? We could go now?’

‘I’ve done it all before,’ she said in a practical tone, folding her hands into her lap. ‘I can wait for you if you want to.’

Ottilie paused for a moment and then shook her head. ‘It’s getting late, and it’s not like the lake’s going anywhere. I’ll come another day.’

As they drove on, following the contours of the lake and then eventually leaving it behind, Flo suddenly stiffened in her seat, more animated than Ottilie had ever seen her.

‘Stop the car!’

Ottilie twisted to look sharply at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s a place I want to see.’

‘What place?’

‘I haven’t been there in years. I’d love to see it again, and I’m sure it’s around here.’

Ottilie found a place to pull in off the road and killed the engine. Whatever this place was, to get Flo this excited it had to be good, and she was curious herself.

Flo clambered out of the car and began to march up a steep path that wound its way up a hill, beneath the shadow of which they were parked. Ottilie jogged after her, quite surprised at the gradient – which was tougher than it looked – and at how Flo seemed to be managing it better than she was, despite the huge age difference. Perhaps she was going at it with a bit too much enthusiasm, however, because after a few minutes she had to stop and get her breath, and Ottilie was only too glad to join her. She started again, and stopped again half a dozen more times as the landscape fell away, trees and shrubs and the car getting smaller and smaller, the vista of the lake sparkling in the evening sun.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Ottilie asked.

‘I’m not dead yet, no matter what the hospital says.’

That wasn’t what Florence had told Heath, but Ottilie decided not to mention that. It seemed Flo said whatever suited her at any given moment in time, depending on what she wanted to get out of it.

‘How much further?’ Ottilie panted, the muscles in her legs screaming for mercy. She didn’t consider herself unfit, but this hill seemed to have other ideas.

‘Not much. It’ll be worth the climb, I promise.’

‘It had better be!’ Ottilie said drily, and Flo gave a breathless laugh. ‘How are you managing this? I’m shattered! Are you secretly a mountain goat?’

‘I’ve lived here all my life; I’m used to hills.’

Ottilie stopped short of reminding her that she was also a lot older these days, because it didn’t seem helpful and would probably offend her anyway. She supposed a life of walking the hills and valleys of this beautiful part of the world must do something to keep one sprightlier in their senior years and left it at that.

The breeze was stiffer up here, the hillside more exposed, dotted with hardy shrubs and lichen-stained rocks standing proud of wild grass. The ground was scarred with a past of ice and sun and centuries of farming and soil erosion, and the further up they got, the more precarious their footing was.

Ottilie searched her pocket for a hairband to keep her hair from her face, and marvelled at how Flo didn’t seem to miss a step, where she herself scrabbled to stay on her feet as the looser scree gave way.

Eventually the path levelled out to reveal a sort of grassy plateau that had been hidden from view until they were on top of it. And snuggled in a crevice in the hillside was a roaring waterfall bubbling into a sort of rocky cauldron, perhaps eight to ten feet in diameter.

‘Wow!’ Ottilie stared at it, the rush of the waterfall in her ears, the blues and lilacs of a late-afternoon sky behind her, the sun low in the sky and the water a frothing white, bouncing from the rocks that formed the natural pool below. ‘This is amazing!’

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