Page 54 of New Dreams for the Village Nurse
Ottilie reached for her wine. ‘That’s really good news. Looks as if everything has worked out pretty well.’
Fliss nodded. ‘I’ll say. Certainly better than I ever could have hoped for.’
Ottilie turned back to Simon. ‘So are you still going to commute back and forth? It’s a long way to do that many times a week.’
‘Well, that’s the other big change,’ Fliss jumped in again. ‘Sorry, Simon, don’t mean to steal your thunder but…’
‘No, go ahead. It’s your news really.’
‘This one won’t affect either of you,’ Fliss added, looking at Ottilie and Lavender. ‘But Charles and I have finally decided,after thirty-six years of marriage, that we’re going to move in together. I’m sure there will be many in the village who would say it’s about time.’
‘Wow,’ Ottilie said. ‘I didn’t see that coming. What’s changed your mind?’
Perhaps it was obvious really, but Charles was happy to elucidate.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that she wants me where she can keep an eye on me in case I decide to almost die again.’
‘That’s a good enough reason as far as I can see,’ Lavender said. ‘Which house is going up for sale? That’s going to be news in itself – nothing ever goes up for sale round here. I think the last one was Wordsworth Cottage.’
‘I think so,’ Ottilie agreed. ‘Lucky for me.’
‘Charles is going to move in here.’ Fliss topped up her wine and then began to work her way around the table doing the same for everyone else. ‘We’re going to keep hold of Rosemary Cottage, though. Simon is going to rent it from us for the foreseeable future.’
‘A handy escape route, eh?’ Lavender said with a wry smile. ‘Don’t buy, in case you don’t settle.’
‘Actually,’ Charles said with a laugh, ‘it’s more to do with us wanting to keep hold of it in case our domestic arrangement doesn’t work out. We’ve never lived together before – we might end up hating each other. And you said yourself, nothing comes up for sale around here, so once we’ve let it go then that’s it, gone.’
‘But what if that happens?’ Ottilie asked. ‘What about Simon?’
‘Oh, I expect I’ll find something,’ Simon replied in Charles’s stead. ‘If not here I could look a bit further afield. Even a couple of towns away isn’t going to be as bad as driving back and forth to Liverpool every day like I am now.’
‘Quite.’ Fliss glugged a mouthful of wine from her glass to make room for the last drops in the bottle. Charles raised his eyebrows meaningfully and she waved it away. ‘You’re only jealous because you can’t have any.’
He picked up his glass to show her. ‘I’ve got some here.’
‘You can’t have any more then. That had better be the last one. You’ve barely set foot out of hospital – I don’t want you rushing back in there again.’
Charles turned to Simon. ‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind. Can I have Rosemary Cottage back?’
Everyone started to laugh except Fliss, who shot a sour look Charles’s way, though nobody was convinced she meant it.
Ottilie’s smile lingered even as her laughter faded and she gazed around the table at every face, happy. This promised to be the best possible outcome for the surgery. If she’d had all the powers in the world to make anything happen, she couldn’t have made any of this better. She loved working with Lavender and Fliss and she had a feeling she was going to love working with Simon once the post was official too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A couple of weeks after Faith had called to let Ottilie know about the trial date for Josh’s attacker, exactly as Faith had predicted, Ottilie received a letter saying it had been postponed. She quickly decided it was best not to work to a date and simply wait and see. When it happened, it would happen, and she ought to leave it at that. And so she went about her days as before, trying not to think about it. There was plenty to keep her busy after all, not only at work but also all the extra things she did in her spare time, like the monthly film club, which was fast approaching.
Heath had always found the notion of Magnus and Geoff’s film club a bit ridiculous, and while Ottilie could see it to a point, she sometimes felt his opinion was unfair. She enjoyed it and saw it as a way to connect on a regular basis with Thimblebury’s community. Heath rarely approved of their film choices either, but the way Ottilie saw it, the film wasn’t important, because it was never really about the film but about them all sitting together and talking about it afterwards.
She always looked forward to their monthly meet-up, but whenever she told Heath this, his expression was more than sceptical. Manchester was far more metropolitan than tinyThimblebury and there were way cooler things to do there. His attitude to film club made her think that if Heath were to relocate for her, he would miss them a bit too much, and whenever she allowed herself time to dwell on the possibility it worried her. She couldn’t leave Thimblebury now, but if Heath felt the same about Manchester then where would it leave them if their relationship ever got to that stage?
Simon, on the other hand, was as keen to settle into village life as she herself had been when she’d first arrived in Thimblebury. ‘Or die trying’ were his actual words, which had made Ottilie giggle for the rest of the day after she’d heard them. So when she and Lavender had told him about film club and how much fun it was, he immediately wanted to know when the next meeting was and if he would be able to join.
And so Ottilie decided to mention it as she popped into the post-office-cum-general-store for some milk on the way home that evening.
‘He’s staying on?’ Magnus scanned Ottilie’s goods into the till with a satisfied smile.
‘Looks like it.’
