Page 24 of New Dreams for the Village Nurse
‘Hi, Victor. How are you?’
‘All the better for seeing you. You’ve come up at the right time as well. Just had a new delivery.’
‘Of what?’
‘A new girl, of course!’ He took off his hat and sat at the table expectantly. Corrine didn’t need to ask – she simply put a slice of cake in front of him too.
‘You’ve had a new alpaca? A baby?’
‘No, a rescue. Some daft wench over at Ullswater thought she could rear one in her back garden. Soon realised it wasn’t that simple and was looking to get rid.’
‘So you’ve taken her on? What’s she named?’
He grinned at Corrine, and she gave a mischievous one in return. ‘Ottilie.’
Ottilie laughed. ‘Seriously? Was that her name already, or have I been greatly honoured?’
‘Oh, we’ve named her. Both said it straight away, as soon as we saw the photos.’
‘Hmmm…’ Ottilie took a bite of her cake. ‘So what you’re saying is, I look so much like an alpaca from Ullswater that it was the only name you could give her. I’m not sure how to feel about that.’
‘No,’ Corrine said, ‘she reminds us of you.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
‘She were trying to be kind,’ Victor said, laughing, ‘but if you want to have it that way, yes.’
Aside from Victor and Corrine, their alpaca herd were some of the first creatures Ottilie had met on her arrival in Thimblebury the year before. She had fond memories of that time and still had a soft spot for the animals ‘Can I go and see her?’
‘If you want to go up tonight, we’ll have to be quick; it’ll be dark soon.’
‘Maybe we should wait for a better time then.’
Victor looked vaguely disappointed but nodded agreement. ‘Might be for the best. I’ve only just settled her in.’
‘It’s exciting,’ Ottilie said. ‘I’ve never had an alpaca named after me. Never had anything named after me. Nobody can ever spell my name to name anything after me!’
‘Well, now you have. You’ll have tourists leading an Ottilie up and down the fields come the summer.’
Ottilie smiled at them both.
‘We heard about Dr Cheadle.’ Victor reached for the teapot to fill his mug. ‘A bad business.’
‘Yes,’ Ottilie said. ‘It’s been stressful.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’
‘We don’t really know yet. We’ll know more in the next few days, I expect.’
‘Ottilie wants to know if we can spare half an hour to go and look in on Ann at Hilltop. She’s not well and needs some help.’ Corrine got up and filled the kettle to boil again.
Victor nodded. ‘I expect we can do a bit here and there.’
‘I was hoping you’d be able to,’ Ottilie said.
‘I’ll give her a knock in a bit,’ Victor said, and Ottilie gave a grateful smile.
As she reached for her tea, a notification came through on her phone. She pulled it out of her bag to see a text from Stacey.
