Page 82 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

‘No, I think it must be nice. I wish I could say the same.’

‘You don’t like your job?’

‘It’s all right. Pays the bills, but it certainly doesn’t feel like what I was put on the earth to do. I don’t think I knew what a management consultant was when I was a kid, let alone aspire to be one.’

‘I don’t think I know what one is now.’

‘You don’t want to – it’s boring as hell. You’d drop off the minute I started to explain it. I sort of fell into it, truth be told. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been good to me, but…’ He gave her a sideways look. ‘I don’t think it makes me anywhere near as happy as your job makes you.’

‘I suppose a lot of people could say that. I know I’m lucky.’

‘It’s luck you sound like you deserve.’

‘I don’t know about that, but after the year I’ve had, if I hadn’t got this job I don’t know how I’d have got through. It’s the only thing that’s kept me sane.’

‘You don’t find it stressful ever? It’s a lot of responsibility?’

‘Oh God, yes. But it’s also good to be thinking about how I can care for others – stops me having time to feel sorry for myself.’

‘Even my gran? Don’t worry – I know she must be hard work.’

‘She’s…spirited,’ Ottilie said with a laugh. ‘But I do like her. I think we’ve become sort of friends.’

‘Spirited,’ Heath repeated with a grin. ‘Nicely done. I’ll have to remember that one next time my mum and dad start complaining about her: she’s not a stubborn old goat, she’s just spirited.’

‘Don’t they all get along?’

Heath shrugged. ‘Like all families, it can get complicated. Dad loves her, but they’re very different people and I think they struggle to understand each other. If they weren’t related, they’d have nothing in common at all.’

‘And what about you?’

‘Weirdly, I think I’m more like Gran than my dad is. I suppose that’s why I’m the one who comes over to Thimblebury the most. And someone’s got to look out for her. At the end of the day, she’s an old lady who needs her family now more than ever.’

‘That’s how you see it?’

‘Yeah.’ He gave her another quizzical sideways look. ‘I suppose that’s why I got so offended when you told me she was lonely and nobody was coming to see her that time.’

‘Is that what I actually said?’ Ottilie gave a half-smile. ‘I don’t recall it being quite like that.’

‘Not exactly, but I knew what you meant. It made me feel guilty because you were a little bit right – I’d let other things get in the way, and I hadn’t been to see her as much as I ought to have done, and then I was pissed off because I felt guilty and that’s not a good feeling. Especially when I couldn’t argue that what you’d said wasn’t true.’

‘I never meant to make you feel like that, you know.’

‘That almost makes it worse, because that means it definitely was true and you were only saying it as a professional, calling things how they were.’

‘But you’re there for her now, and that’s what matters.’

‘I try to be,’ he said. ‘I know she’s not getting any younger, and sometimes I forget how little time she has left.’

‘Blimey!’ Ottilie broke into a laugh. ‘Speaking as her nurse, I feel confident that she has decades left yet. She’ll probably outlive us all.’

‘She’ll outlive us all by sheer force of will, she’s that stubborn,’ Heath said, and Ottilie’s laughter grew.

‘Last woman standing?’

‘God, yes. You’ve got her worked out already.’

‘Well, I think she’s brilliant.’

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