Page 72 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
I’m sure she would have continued on past, if Bel hadn’t exclaimed, ‘Oh, it’s Dr Collins, isn’t it? Perhaps you don’t remember me – I’m Bel Giddings and we met when you were called out to Oldstone Farm one night. My baby nephew was running a high fever.’
‘Oh – of course,’ she said, stopping and shaking hands in a professional manner, but without any enthusiasm. Her ice-floe eyes rested on me again and Bel introduced us.
‘This is my friend Alice Rose. She’s opening a tearoom in Haworth.’
‘Rather a crowded field, I would have thought,’ she said in clipped tones, and the little dog, who had been exchanging friendly sniffs with Honey, looked up at her, its head on one side.
‘I’m sure there’s room for one more,’ I replied pleasantly. ‘We’ve actually come face to face once before, Dr Collins.’
‘We have?’
‘The Saturday before last. I was here a little earlier than this and our cars met in the lane as I was leaving.’
I didn’t mention the reversing for miles bit, though it hadn’t endeared her to me. ‘This must be a favourite spot of yours?’
She shrugged. ‘The dog needs to be walked and I like to be solitary at the start of the day – which can usually be counted on here,’ she said rather pointedly. ‘Excuse me, I must be getting back now. Come along, Hugo.’
The dog obediently trotted after her, though he turned his head with one of those lolling-tongued canine grins, his eyes bright, as if to say: ‘Just you wait – I’ll get up to some mischief as soon as we get home!’
‘Well, I think that was meant to be a bit of a slap in the face,’ I commented as we carried on.
‘Yes, but she’s very brusque like that. We all prefer to see one of the others at the practice,’ Bel said. ‘She’s super-efficient, but I think she views people as cases to be dealt with, rather than as individuals, so she’s not very popular. But they were desperate for another GP to share the workload, even if she’s only part time.’
‘Was she OK with the baby?’
‘Fine. Geeta was convinced he had meningitis, though it turned out to be just a slight fever, but Dr Collins told her it was always better to get a professional opinion if a baby showed any symptoms, so she’d done the right thing calling her out.’
‘Well, that seems … kind.’
‘I’m not sure it wasintentionallykind, just a statement of fact. I heard she was working in Scotland before, and then moved back here about ten years ago, because her elderly father was getting very frail. He has a large house this side of Upvale.’
‘I suppose registering with a doctor is one of the things I should do soon,’ I said.
‘You’d better register with the same practice, then,’ suggested Bel.‘It’s the nearest. Just remember to ask for another doctor if you make an appointment!’
It took us most of Saturday to strip the wallpaper off the bedroom opposite mine. I think the Victorians must have invented some kind of Superglue-type paste.
Teddy joined us for the first couple of hours, before he and Geeta went out, and by the time Nile arrived to take his place with the water spray and scraper, we’d almost finished.
Bel accused him of getting there late on purpose and they had a bit of a battle with the water sprays. My hair went extra curly in the damp mist.
It was just the four of us for dinner and afterwards Sheila took her coffee out to her conservatory studio at the back of the house and Bel went to answer some urgent emails about the forthcoming exhibition of her work in York.
‘Well, it’s just you and me, kid,’ Nile said in a fake American drawl. ‘Film? Or shall I beat you at Scrabble?’
And he did win the first game, but only because some evil fairy had bestowed letters on me that naturally formed themselves into a series of such terribly rude words that I couldn’t bring myself to put them down.
Then later, when I’d gone to bed and was in that delicious limbo state between awake and asleep, the characters in my novel suddenly decided to have a conversation in my head and I had to get grumpily out of bed and put it all down before it vanished like a popped bubble.
Annoying.
‘Where did they go?’ said Kev, looking after the dryads in a dazed kind of way.
‘Never mind them – you’re mine, so now stop messing about and kiss me,’ she ordered impatiently.
‘This is the weirdest dream ever,’ Kev muttered.
‘Kev? Where are you hiding?’ yelled a voice like a corncrake from somewhere beyond the circling thicket, and his face cleared. In fact, he looked relieved. ‘I’m in here, princess,’ he called back.
