Page 72 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

She looked up at Fliss. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m not accepting your resignation.’

‘You have to, because I’m leaving.’

‘Then we have a problem, because I won’t.’

Fliss swept out of the office without letting Ottilie get another word in. Not that there was any point – they’d reached a stalemate anyway and Fliss didn’t seem in the mood to back down. What the hell had just happened? Ottilie had imagined that Fliss might be a bit put out, annoyed perhaps that she’d have to begin another recruitment process when she’d not long got Ottilie in post, but she’d imagined that resigning would be a lot simpler than this.

Almost as soon as Fliss had left, Lavender knocked and, without waiting for a reply, walked in. She dropped a wad of correspondence onto the desk next to where Fliss had left Ottilie’s resignation letter.

‘Thanks for putting her in such an excellent mood,’ she said flatly. ‘You might have warned me you were planning to land that on her.’

‘I didn’t think she’d take it so badly.’

‘Then you haven’t been paying attention.’

‘I don’t know why; it’s nothing personal. People leave their jobs all the time.’

‘She likes you and she was hoping she’d be able to work with you until her retirement. She trusts you as much as she trusted Gwen, and that’s hard to find.’

‘But I was never guaranteed to stay that long.’

‘Buying a house here was a fairly good indicator as far as Fliss is concerned.’

‘But work isn’t like that, is it? People come and go; that’s how it is.’

‘Not in Thimblebury they don’t – at least not as often as that. Fliss doesn’t like change very much. Why do you think a doctor as good as she is still works here in this tiny surgery after all these years? Because she likes to feel settled and she likes what she knows. She likes you and she wants to keep you, and she doesn’t want all the hassle of recruiting again.’ Lavender folded her arms, studying Ottilie. She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t get it. I thought you liked it here.’

Ottilie tried not to sigh. Hadn’t she just had this conversation with Fliss? ‘I do like it.’

‘Then why are you going? If it’s the flood, then you have to understand that’s not normal for round here?—’

‘But it happened. Who’s to say it won’t happen again? It doesn’t matter whether it ever happened before, because it might. I know now that it can.’

‘It won’t!’

The sigh Ottilie had been holding on to came out. She didn’t want to end her time here in a cloud of animosity, but that was what she seemed to be building. Time for the truth? It was the only way to make people understand, even if telling it was going to be awkward.

‘I can’t afford to stay. My house insurance doesn’t cover flood damage and I don’t have enough money to repair it even if I knew where to start – which I don’t. The sensible thing – really my only option, as far as I can see – is to sell up. And as I won’t get what I paid for the house because of the damage, I won’t be able get anything like it close by,. So I have to look further afield.’

‘Further afield? Such as?’

‘I don’t know where exactly. There might be parts of Manchester I can afford. Perhaps bits of Cheshire or Staffordshire. That’s something I need to figure out.’

‘Then why give your notice in so soon?’

‘Because…’ Ottilie swallowed a tidal wave of emotion that had sprung suddenly from nowhere. ‘Because the longer I leave it, the worse it will be. It’s hard enough to go as it is, without prolonging the agony. So I’m going to go and stay with my aunt in Manchester for a while. She’s got a spare room I can have until I’ve sold Wordsworth Cottage and found a new place.’

‘Hmm.’

While Lavender was silent, deep in thought, Ottilie felt the weight of her secret lift. It had been a silly, pointless secret – she realised how silly now that she’d said it. There was no shame in what had happened – even though some might say she had only her lack of attention to blame, because it was true that if she’d read the small print of her insurance policy she wouldn’t be in this predicament – but she was certain she wasn’t the first person to be guilty of not reading something properly. And she supposed if she had read it, she might have thought twice about buying Wordsworth Cottage, and for all the hardship the flood had brought, she wouldn’t swap her time here in Thimblebury for anything.

‘What if we could fix it?’ Lavender asked finally.

‘Fix what? The house?’

Lavender nodded. ‘You’d stay then?’

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