Page 47 of Just the Beginning

‘I’m going to give him a lift up to the surgery,’ Rick told her. ‘We’ll have to give lunch a miss, I’m afraid.’

Her look of relief told Rick he wasn’t the only one who’d been worried about Davy, and guilt was a tight knot in his gut. Well, once he’d been in with Davy to speak to Doc Ferguson – and there was no way he was sitting outside and giving Davy the chance to bullshit him afterwards – he would at least know just how bad things were. And then he and his great-uncle were going to have another chat, because Rick had told Anya she could trust him and being caught between that and his loyalty to Davy was tearing him apart.

Doc Ferguson gave a double-take when Rick walked into his office on his uncle’s heels. ‘Rick, good to see you.’ He turned to Davy. ‘And it’s good to see you too. I’m pleased you’ve agreed to be open with your family about your condition, because you’re going to need their support.’

Davy slumped into the plastic chair closest to the doctor’s desk, his mouth set in the same belligerent line it had been in since Rick insisted on coming in with him. Rick swallowed a sigh as he took the second chair and smiled at Doc Ferguson. He’d got through the door, which was a miracle in itself. ‘Thanks so much for giving up your lunch break to see us.’

Doc nodded like it was nothing then turned back to Davy. ‘I hear you’ve been having a couple of dizzy spells. Can you tell me in detail what happened?’

Davy shrugged, looking more like a sulky teen than a man definitely old enough to know better. ‘It’s like I’ve been telling the boy here: I stood up a bit too quick, that’s all.’

‘And you had a wobble on a stepladder last week,’ Rick reminded him, keeping his tone light. ‘And yes, we will behaving a conversation later about you going up one in the first place.’

Doc huffed. ‘Good luck with that. I’ve been doing some shifts with the air ambulance team and I swear half our call-outs are to gentlemen in their,shall we say,twilight years, who have fallen off things. I had one the other week who decided to try and prune a tree in his garden with a ladder and a rented chainsaw.’

Rick shuddered. ‘I don’t think I want to know.’

Doc grinned. ‘Luckily the chainsaw went one way and he went the other, but it could’ve been fatal.’

‘I was only changing a damn lightbulb, not scaling the north face of the bloody Eiger,’ Davy grumbled. ‘Now can we get on with this farce, because I’ve got a hotel to run.’

Rick sat back and let Doc do his thing. He ran through the basics, taking Davy’s blood pressure, checking his eyes and inside his ears in case there was any sign of an infection or inflammation that might be causing balance issues. He kept up a constant stream of chatter with questions interspersed about how he’d been eating and sleeping. With the physical examination done, Doc began tapping away on his computer, noting down every grudgingly given titbit of information he managed to winkle out of Davy.

‘My hip’s been giving me a bit of trouble,’ his great-uncle eventually admitted. ‘But that’s to be expected, isn’t it, at my age?’

Doc stopped typing and sat back in his chair, no sign of his earlier good humour. ‘It could be, but we won’t know until we have a proper look.’

Davy shook his head. ‘What do you mean a proper look? I don’t want someone slicing me open!’

Doc smiled. ‘No slicing, just a scan for now. I know you havestrong feelings about treatment, Davy, and while I don’t necessarily agree with your approach I cannot force you to accept my recommendations. I do think it would be wise to at least get a scan so we know what we are dealing with here.’

‘All right then, but only a scan.’

Rick gave a little sigh of a relief. ‘I can take you to the hospital when your appointment comes through.’

Doc Ferguson nodded. ‘And in the meantime I can write a prescription for some pain relief that should help you sleep a little better, Davy. How does that sound?’

‘Yeah, thanks. That’s probably what’s causing the dizzy spells: me being tired.’ Rick and Doc exchanged a silent glance.

Rick waited until they were back in the car before he turned to his great-uncle. ‘This can’t go on you know, keeping everyone else in the dark.’

Davy scowled at him. ‘Don’t start that again. I don’t need another lecture, just take me back to the hotel.’

Rick shook his head. ‘No, Davy, I’m serious. I know you want to enjoy what time you have left, but given your condition, situations like this are inevitable. You can’t keep acting like nothing’s going to happen.’

‘I know exactly what’s going to happen, boy, you don’t need to remind me!’

‘Then why won’t you tell the rest of the family? They love you as much as I do and they deserve the chance to come to terms with what’s happening too. You can’t keep shutting them out and pretending it’s for their own good. They’ll be upset when they find out, there’s no avoiding that, but if you leave it too long they’ll be devastated you didn’t let them support you when you need it the most.’

‘I don’t need their support, I don’t need anything other than to be left alone. Why can’t you understand that?’

Rick rubbed at the tension headache building between his eyes. ‘And why can’t you understand that you are tearing me apart? I promised Anya I’d always be honest with her. Don’t you think she deserves that after everything Drew put her through? By forcing me to keep your illness a secret, you’re making me lie to her, Davy. She knows there’s something wrong, it was obvious earlier how worried she is about you.’

‘Well, if I tell her I don’t need her at the hotel any more she won’t have to be worried about me, will she?’ Davy snapped.

Horror flooded through Rick. ‘You wouldn’t do that. You know how much she’s relying on that job to make ends meet.’

‘Blackmail’s not so nice when you’re on the other end of it, is it?’

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