Page 52 of New Dreams for the Village Nurse
‘Thank you. I have a good GP on hand, which gives me a head start on most.’
‘It must do.’ Ottilie smiled as she handed him her bottle. He looked tired and she could see now why Fliss was refusing to let him start work again. He was probably fretting about it – both he and Fliss were committed to their jobs – but he didn’t look strong enough to Ottilie to be stressed this soon, even if he did look and feel better than he had straight after his heart attack.
‘Ooh, lovely, thank you.’
Lavender did the same.
‘Take a seat in the sitting room,’ he said, making his way to the kitchen with the wine. ‘We’ll call you through in a minute. Just got to go and mop the chef’s brow.’
Simon was browsing a vast, ceiling-high bookcase when they went in. He turned at the sound of Lavender’s greeting.
‘Hello, Dr Stokes. Fancy meeting you here.’
‘Ah, Lavender! Indeed!’ Simon gave a low chuckle. His gaze flicked to Ottilie. ‘Hello. You both look lovely.’
‘Now I know he’s buttering us up for a good reason,’ Lavender said with a wink at Ottilie. Then she turned back to Simon. ‘So you’re being extra nice to us. Is that because you’re going to be asking us for lots of favours at work soon? Is theresomething you want to tell us about staying at Thimblebury surgery more permanently?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Simon smoothed his face into a picture of innocence. ‘Can’t a bloke give his colleagues a compliment these days?’
‘Charles looks well, doesn’t he?’ Ottilie said as she took a seat on the sofa.
‘I thought so,’ Simon agreed. ‘I’m sure Fliss is making sure he doesn’t overdo it.’
‘Well, if you can’t have a speedy recovery when your wife is a doctor then you’ve got no hope,’ Lavender said, taking a seat next to Ottilie. But if she’d meant to make Simon laugh again, he didn’t. In fact, he suddenly looked strangely reflective.
‘Yes,’ he said, though his gaze went to the window, as if he wasn’t acknowledging Lavender’s comment at all, but something else.
All three turned at the sound of Charles poking his head around the door and announcing that dinner was finally ready. Ottilie might have been tempted to ruminate on Simon’s strange response, but dinner was calling and all else would have to wait.
Fliss was ruddy-cheeked as they filed in to take a seat at the table. Ottilie bit back a grin. She suspected that rather than it just being from cooking, there might have been some wine involved.
‘Hello, hello…welcome…Take a seat, everyone – never mind where, no place cards or that nonsense at my house. Wherever you like…Wine, everyone?’
Lavender shot Ottilie a look that told her she’d thought the same, and that Fliss was probably way ahead of the wine game already.
‘Thank you,’ Ottilie said. ‘It smells amazing.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing special,’ Fliss replied, nodding for Charles to take a seat too and then going to the fridge.
‘It’s your dirty macaroni,’ Charles said with a hint of pride in his voice as he sat down. ‘It’s always special.’
‘What’s that?’ Simon asked. ‘Sounds…interesting.’
‘Oh, we had it on holiday in Dubrovnik years back,’ Fliss said. ‘It’s actually called sporki macaroni, but sporki means dirty in Croatian so that’s what we always call it. It’s not exactly the way they cooked it there, but I’ve been experimenting for years, trying to recreate it. I don’t think I’m far off.’
‘I think it’s spot on,’ Charles said.
‘That’s because you’ve forgotten what the original tasted like,’ Fliss replied, going to the stove. ‘You’ve been eating my version for so long you think that’s how it was back then.’
‘What’s in it?’ Simon asked.
‘Slow-cooked beef and red wine and other odds and sods.’ Fliss stirred the contents of a large steel pan. ‘You did say you eat meat, didn’t you?’
‘Oh yes. Sounds amazing.’
‘That’s good, because if not that then you’d have to go to the cupboard and open some crisps – I don’t have anything else to offer you.’
After one last sniff, a quick taste and a final sprinkling of salt, Fliss brought the pot to the table and set it down on a trivet. Next to it she’d already placed a basket of bread, a butter dish with a fresh pat of creamy yellow butter in it and a large bowl of leafy green salad. She’d also put out olives and breadsticks and other bits and pieces. It was all very informal but elegant – effortlessly so, in fact, a bit like the way Ottilie always saw Fliss. Even when she was trying to be casual she had a sort of class that shone out from her.
