Out of Practice (44 page)

Dan grinned, struck by inspiration. ‘If I win, you’ll stop taking the piss out of Triathlons and, if you win . . . That’s tricky. Hmm, maybe I’ll put in a good word with
Holly for you. Tell her your reputation as a gigolo is only because you haven’t met the right girl yet?’

Taffy coloured. ‘That’s too rich for my blood. I’ve been saving up triathlon jokes all week. Shall we go for the standard car wash and vac? Besides,’ he said, not looking
Dan in the eye, ‘I think I’m holding my own on the Holly front. And I’ve made moves to improve my chances.’ He rolled up his sleeve to show Dan two nicotine patches.

‘I don’t want her to think I’m a smoker, do I? Not with the boys about. And, I mean, it’s
quite
nice not lurking outside by the bins like a social leper and
there’s obviously the whole cancer thing.’

Dan grinned, shocked and impressed in equal measure by his friend’s cavalier attitude to his health. ‘Erm, aren’t those big patches the One-a-day ones, though, Taff?’

Taffy shrugged. ‘Thought I’d try the low dose ones first. I just stick one on whenever I get stressed, or fancy a cigarette, but to be honest, I’m not really sure they’re
working properly. I just feel all dizzy and nauseous.’

‘Well, did you actually read the packet? There’s a maximum daily dosage of 21mg, you prat!’

Taffy looked sheepish for a moment before slowly unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Then the two on my chest were probably a bad idea too, then?’

‘Jesus! What have you done to yourself?’ Dan shook his head in disbelief. ‘Well, I’ll say this for you, Taffs, it’s all or nothing with you.’ Dan leaned
forward and caught hold of the corner of one patch and dispatched it with a quick flick of the wrist.

Taffy’s eyes watered as he took a substantial amount of chest hair away too. ‘Fucking hell, Dan!’

Dan laughed like a drain, methodically stripping Taffy of every patch and handing him a large glass of water. ‘Keep hydrated. One patch at a time. If you feel really unwell, you’ll
have to tell me. I can look it up in The Big Book of Overdoses.’

Taffy looked down at the two bald squares on his chest and the two on his arm. ‘I’m not convinced that giving up smoking won’t be the death of me at this rate.’

Dan was still laughing to himself. ‘Well, it should certainly test your commitment to the Steal-Holly-Away-From-Her-Husband plan, shouldn’t it?’

‘How did she get lumbered with that prat anyway?’

‘Er, because she loves him? Because they have children together?’

‘Well, yeah, at the time . . . But I think I’m in way over my head. Do you know I turned down a shag with Denise O’Sullivan at the weekend! I mean, where will this end? Even
married to that stuffed shirt, she’s probably getting more action than I am and I can’t think about anyone else but her.’

‘Oh,’ said Dan quietly, a little blown away by his friend’s confession. So much for hoping for the crush to pass then. ‘You have to let this one go, mate. Focus on your
frog, focus on your training, focus on the Campaign,’ he suggested.

‘Holly’s campaign, you mean,’ said Taffy darkly, looking up at Dan with tormented eyes. ‘This is what happens when you let your head get involved, Carter. I’ve been
so busy warning you off, that I just didn’t see it coming myself.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘Right then, I’m off to check on a dodgy prostate. Good luck with Kermit –
my car is a cesspit!’

Dan sat back in his chair and yawned. ‘You could try joining one of those addiction support groups? You might meet someone pretty while you’re there.’

Taffy checked his watch again and leaned against the door and shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that’s for me, mate. Hanging around with a bunch of quitters.’

By the time his afternoon clinic started, Dan had spoken to three different newspaper journalists, sticking religiously to the script that Grace and Holly had drafted.
He’d also given a radio interview that had gone reasonably well until the radio presenter had asked for his opinion of how the whole debacle had occurred. Dan wasn’t entirely up to date
on the slander laws in the UK, but he was now quietly hoping that Henry Bruce wasn’t either. Maybe it would be a good idea to look them up, he decided. With emotions running so high, there
was every chance it would happen again.

He walked through to the waiting room to collect his next patient. ‘Mr Payne?’ he called.

Even as the guy stood up out of his chair and walked towards him, Dan struggled to place him. The trendy media specs and scarf reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t work out who.

They both sat down, door closed. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Payne? I believe you’re a new patient?’ He flicked through the file and caught sight of the name and address, Milo
Payne. The surprise must have been evident on his face.

‘So,’ said Milo, ‘you’ve worked out who I am, then.’

There was no question he was an attractive, well put-together guy. He seemed a little up himself, thought Dan, but then, he assumed that most academics worked on a different level to mere
civilians. ‘Great to finally meet you, Milo. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how much we love having Holly here.’

‘I’m sure you don’t and that’s why I’ve come actually.’ He leaned forward in his seat, looking about as threatening as it was possible for a man in Penny
Loafers to look. ‘I know all about you tricking her into this job with empty promises and I know all about how she’s the one rallying round to save this poxy setup. But I know blokes
like you, Dan Carter. You’ll chew up my naïve little wife and spit her out. Be kind to her, at least. She has no idea how the real world works and I quite like her that way. So, man to
man, I’m asking you – let her go now and we can move on.’

‘I . . .’ began Dan, finding himself speechless.

‘And I know that you two have a whole flirty thing going on. Dan this, Dan that . . . It’s all I get at home. So maybe, while you’re letting her go, you could remember that she
has a husband and two children. Not really cricket, is it, Dr Carter?’

Dan blinked hard. ‘Milo, I’m not sure what Holly’s told you, but I can assure you that there’s absolutely nothing going on between us – flirty or otherwise. And
Holly’s involvement in the campaign is wonderful and entirely of her own volition. She’s a valued and respected member of the team. As for who’s keeping their job? Well, I’m
sure you can imagine that this is a difficult time for everyone. Decisions will have to be made when the time comes.’ He steepled his fingers and held Milo’s gaze. ‘I rather think
that this is something for you to discuss with your wife.’

Milo seemed a little deflated. He’d obviously geared himself up for some verbal sparring and Dan’s calm and matter-of-fact response had clearly thrown him.

‘Now, if there’s nothing else?’ Dan said, getting to his feet, furious beyond measure at the snide and disrespectful way that Milo spoke about Holly.

Milo fidgeted in his chair, small without his bluster to inflate him. ‘Well, actually, Doc, since I’m here . . . I’ve got a really bad case of athlete’s foot . .
.’

Dan took a calming breath, trying to remain professional. All he really wanted to do, was to pop next door and tell Taffy it was game on. Whatever he’d previously thought about Taffy
putting the moves on a married colleague? Well, that was water under the bridge now he’d met the smug, patronising git in person.

He pulled some latex gloves from the box on his desk. ‘We’d better take a look. And then, maybe we should give you your Well Man check, since you’re hitting middle age and we
have plenty of time.’

If Milo had winced at the ‘middle age’ comment, it was nothing to how he reacted when Dan snapped the gloves on to his hands with a theatrical flourish.

‘Now, Milo, tell me: have you ever had your prostate checked?’

Dan was feeling a little ashamed of himself by the time he met up with Taffy in the doctors’ lounge at the end of the day. Taffy and Grace were munching their way through
a packet of Jaffa Cakes, trying to see how many they could fit in their mouths at once.

‘Look,’ said Grace gleefully. ‘Full moon,’ she took a bite. ‘Half moon,’ she took another. ‘Total eclipse!’ she said, shoving the last of the
Jaffa cake in and spraying crumbs everywhere. She swallowed hard, making her eyes water, and looked disappointed at Dan’s lack of response. ‘Taffy taught me,’ she explained.

Dan just shook his head. ‘Did you never see the ad, then, Grace?’ She looked blank. ‘Blimey, you’ll be saying that you missed “you’ve been Tango-ed”
next!’

Taffy obligingly stepped forward, arms outstretched to smack Dan’s ears, but Dan batted him away. ‘Geroff, you muppet,’ he said impatiently. ‘Do you want to go over this
campaign stuff here or at the pub?’

‘If you do it here, I could help,’ volunteered Grace. ‘I needed to talk to you about that anyway.’

She settled on the arm of the sofa nervously. ‘I do realise it’s not my department, but I wondered if you wanted me to set up a campaign website. We could include all the profiles
and have a page for people to pledge their support. We could put links to it in all the press interviews too. What do you think?’

Dan wanted to do a double-take. What was it with people catching him on the hop today? Was nobody going to behave true to form? Was this really sweet, twin-set-and-pearls Grace talking?
‘Do you know how to do all that?’ he asked.

‘I’ll just use an html template and hyperlinks and we can update daily progress, take donations and sell concert tickets too. I can use SSL to . . . Dan?’

Dan stopped suddenly, aware that he had been shaking his head in bemusement and seeing Grace’s crestfallen expression, he quickly leapt to put her straight, ‘Grace, it sounds
amazing! It would be perfect actually. I’m sorry I looked so blank just then – you took me by surprise with all the techno talk.’

She blushed to the roots of her immaculate bob. ‘It’s no problem and I’d love to give it a go. I’ve been taking an online learning course,’ she confided.

Dan pulled her into a hug without thinking. ‘Where would we be without you, Gracie?’

She smiled, clearly delighted. ‘I’ll get started then.’

Dan breathed a sigh of relief, the Lizzie-shaped knot of tension in his chest slowly relaxing. ‘Just as well you’re a computer nerd really, Grace. Couldn’t get Lizzie to do
that
Larkford Life
spread we talked about.’

Grace just shrugged. ‘Well, this is probably better anyway. More interactive, easier to update in real time. Print media’s terribly old hat these days, you know!’ She flashed
him a smile and gathered up her kit. ‘I’ll go home and crack on.’

She bustled out of the doorway and Dan decided that he must stop making assumptions about people. Grace was a woman of many resources – but he was ashamed to admit that he tended to judge
her on the fact that her husband had a fondness for the cider, her teenaged sons had a fondness for the sofa, and all three had a strong aversion to a decent day’s work. But that certainly
didn’t mean that Grace wasn’t fully motivated and up to speed. Truth be told, it probably explained why she put in longer hours at The Practice than anyone else and made the team feel
like her surrogate family.

Even with so many balls in the air that evening, Dan Carter felt like a very lucky man. He looked across the lounge to see Taffy crouched beside his own goldfish bowl full of frog spawn. He was
singing to it, mournfully and a little out of tune. ‘It’s not easy being green . . .’

‘Come on, Kermit,’ said Dan, flicking off the lights. ‘Let’s have a pint and put the world to rights.’

‘Cool,’ said Taffy, gathering up his fishbowl. He grinned at Dan. ‘I can tell you about my
anus horribilis.’

Dan gave him a sideways look. ‘What are you, the Queen? And it’s barely May. Besides, I think you’ll find it’s
annus horribilis.
Two n’s.’

‘Ah, but then you didn’t have to look after Mr Proctor’s prostate this afternoon, though, did you?’ laughed Taffy.

Dan groaned, slow to catch the joke. ‘Well no, but since we’re talking about prostates, I should probably tell you about a little visit I got earlier. From the infamous Mr Holly
Graham, no less.’

The idea of the concert seemed to have captured the imagination of everyone at The Practice and soon other residents were offering their support. Some, like Elsie, were
determined to get on stage and do their thing. Others were happier to offer printing of programmes or costumes if required.

Holly absent-mindedly clicked through Grace’s amazing website, which seemed to have sprung up overnight but, thanks to Grace’s well-established presence on Twitter (who knew?), it
had already attracted lots of interest and nearly £300 in pledges.

Every break or lunchtime, there would be small huddles and groups, closed doors and secret rehearsals. They had all decided that a dress rehearsal, whilst prudent, might spoil the fun and
spontaneity of the event. So Grace had merely put out a sign-up sheet and given each group or individual a number in the running order.

The only slight tweak to the original concept had been down to Lucy’s forthright manner. ‘Listen, guys, it’s all very well us doing new things and putting ourselves up for a
laugh, but we do run the risk of it being utterly shite. Can we maybe have a few good acts, you know, people who actually know what they’re doing, just to break up amateur hour?’

She’d picked her moment well, as almost the whole team were getting their daily caffeine fix. ‘It does sound like a good idea,’ said Dan. ‘The only hiccup being –
can any of you lot actually
do
anything?’

After being bombarded by miniature packets of sugar – spirits were running a little high – they’d settled down to discuss options.

‘Well, Taffy should definitely sing something,’ ventured Maggie, blushing a little. ‘I’ve heard him in church and there won’t be a dry eye in the house if he does
that “Raise Me Up” song.’

Grace nodded enthusiastically. ‘I could put up a teaser trailer on the website if you’ll record one, Taffy, looking all dishevelled and whatnot. Bring a few ladies in, won’t
it?’

Holly swallowed hard and fiddled with her hair clip. I really need to get a grip, she thought. I’m far too old to be having adolescent crushes. Yes, he’s adorable, but he can be an
adorable friend, can’t he? She quite liked the idea of having Taffy as a surrogate Uncle for the boys – someone to chuck a ball around with and chat to about rugby and treehouses and
stuff . . . For a moment, the idea seemed so simple, until she looked up. He was watching her, concern etched on his face.