Secrets to Keep (2 page)

‘And don’t you look at me like that! Refusing to send Win for proper treatment at the hospital is as good as sticking a knife in her heart. Win’s sick. Real sick. She ain’t suffering from an ailment that can be eased by a couple of doses of one of the old woman’s potions. And what she’s got might not have turned so nasty in her if her stamina hadn’t been so low … ’cos the housekeeping you give her each week would hardly keep a dog, let alone a growing family.’

Without pausing for breath she went on, ‘Not that you deserve it, but I can’t stand by and watch your kids suffer more than they do already. So me and the other neighbours will mek sure yer all seen right while Win’s away, and we won’t tek no payment for it neither.’ She paused just long enough to eye him contemptuously before adding meaningfully, ‘Now, if you don’t give the doctor the go ahead to call the
ambulance, I’ll personally sling Win over me shoulder and get her there meself. But be warned … I’ll let everyone around here know that you was prepared to let her die, sooner than go without yourself.’

Cedric stared back at her murderously for several long moments before he gave a grunt, spun on his heel and left the room. Seconds later the back door was heard to slam shut. Fanny knew that he’d gone to one of two places. Either to spend what money he’d got in his pocket in the local pub or else under the arches over on Great Western Road for an illegal game of cards.

She realised the doctor was still there and shot him a quizzical look, wondering why he hadn’t rushed off to summon the ambulance. Then the reason struck her and she assured him, ‘I’ll personally see to it you get your fee, Doctor. I’ll have it sent round to yer surgery. Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d get that am’blance here quick.’

Without a word, he picked up his black bag and left also.

Her face thoughtful, Fanny followed him out with her eyes. So that was the new doctor who had taken over James McHinney’s practice after the old doctor had served the community tirelessly for forty or so years. Several months ago, the seventy-six-year-old Doctor Mac, as the locals had affectionately called him, who had originated from Donegal in Ireland
and whose thick Irish brogue at times had been very difficult for them to decipher, unexpectedly died in his sleep from natural causes. Until the end, though, he’d been lively and active, still agile enough to give chase and clip round the ear any cheeky kid and his brain as sharp as it had always been. He’d been a formidable character – woe betide you if you crossed him, whoever you were – but possessed of a kindly streak, would part with his last penny to help out anyone in dire need. He’d been well respected by everyone who knew him. All in all, a hard act to follow.

Until two weeks ago when this new chap arrived on the scene, the locals, including herself, had resigned themselves to the fact that they’d never get a replacement for Doctor Mac, and when in need would now have to go further afield for their medical help, else go without. Though to Fanny’s mind it wasn’t surprising that new doctors hadn’t exactly been clamouring to fill Doctor Mac’s place. A simple living, marginally better than the locals could scratch for themselves, could doubtless be had here, but a fortune was never going to be made ministering to the sick of these parts.

The majority of Doctor Mac’s patients had paid his dues in kind: with goods, such as a bucket of coal or pile of wood, a meat pie, cake or casserole; or by tackling his sewing and mending, ironing, washing,
and maintenance jobs around his house and garden. The arrangement had worked well for them all. The sick who wouldn’t normally have been able to afford his professional services had been treated, and the bachelor doctor received a regular supply of homecooked meals and didn’t have to fork out to have jobs done around his house.

Fanny had a feeling that method of payment wasn’t going to be acceptable to the new doctor. He hadn’t seemed ready to budge until she had assured him he’d receive the fee for his attendance. Since it appeared extremely unlikely that Cedric would willingly hand over the money, it was apparent that it was she herself who was going to have to do so. It would have to come out of her pitifully few Christmas savings, but in the circumstances she didn’t begrudge a penny. Neighbours in these parts came to each other’s aid in dire times, and Win would have done the same for her if the circumstances had been reversed and she’d been in a position to help. Fanny had been friends with her long enough to know that.

To her, though, this new chap didn’t look old enough to be a doctor, barely out of nappies, let alone have studied years for his medical qualification. It was difficult to tell what part of the country he hailed from as he’d no accent, but from his cultured tones and the quality of his clothes he came from a moneyed background. He was certainly
good looking, fine featured and with thick cornblond hair, and those eyes … she’d never seen such a mesmerising shade of pale turquoise-green before. He’d certainly have women’s hearts around these parts fluttering, those single ones who could afford the price of paying regular trips to his surgery anyway. They’d be dead set on making themselves known to him, she was sure, since one thing they all knew about the new doctor was that he was single.

But he certainly hadn’t displayed any of the qualities old Doctor Mac had possessed.
He
most definitely wouldn’t have waited to be given the go ahead by the likes of Cedric. Doctor Mac would not have held back from blasting the miserable bully with a piece of his mind then gone ahead without his permission, taking Win to the hospital himself in his old jalopy and staying there long enough to make sure she was being attended to. And he would have given coppers to her kids, ordering them to the chip shop, since it would not have escaped his all-seeing eye that they hadn’t been fed that day, due to their mother’s incapacitation and their father’s sheer selfishness.

The new doctor certainly seemed to know his stuff, though. Only seconds into examining Win, he’d announced she was suffering from severe pneumonia. Fanny herself had seen enough cases of that terrible illness during her time to agree with his diagnosis, though his manner had left a lot to be desired, to her
mind. He seemed so detached, strangely matter-of-fact … could have been examining a side of beef rather than a human being. And he’d definitely been looking down his nose at them all, giving the strong impression he deeply begrudged having to mix with this sort of family.

Well, if that was the case, why on earth had he chosen to ply his trade in this area, instead of choosing to minister to people of his own class? Fanny’s brow creased in thought. What had brought him to these parts when it was very apparent it was the last place he wanted to be?

Her curiosity, though, was going to have to remain unsatisfied for now. She had far more pressing matters on her mind. Spinning on her heel, she returned upstairs to offer what comfort she could to her gravely ill friend while they waited for the ambulance to arrive, both of them praying that it wouldn’t be too late.

T
y Strathmore emitted a deep sigh as he sank down in an antiquated leather captain’s chair behind the desk of his surgery.

A year ago he’d had everything he could ever have aspired to: an income that afforded him a high standard of living; a lovely home to which he’d have been proud to welcome the most affluent among society; a beautiful wife he adored who, like himself, possessed all the desirable social skills. She’d also been expecting their first and much longed-for child.

And now what did he have?

No lovely home, no loving wife or expected baby, and certainly no prospects … definitely not in this hell-hole of a place he’d unwittingly landed up in.

In his mind’s eye a vision of Anthea, the very last time he had seen her, rose to torment him. She stood framed in the doorway of the house they had lived in so happily together, seeing him off to work as she had done every morning, her red-gold hair cut into
a fashionable bob framing a face that never failed to take his breath away each time he caught sight of it. Her tawny-green eyes were sparkling with good humour, her full lips curved into the smile she displayed only to him. Her ‘Mona Lisa smile’, he had termed it, because like Leonardo Da Vinci, he was the only man who knew what lay behind it: her unstinting love and devotion to him. Her arms were cradling her swollen belly, protecting the precious cargo she carried.

The vision vanished as quickly as it had arisen. Pain at his overwhelming loss, so great it could be likened to a hand being plunged inside him and ripping out his insides, consumed his being while simultaneously a surge of pure hatred flooded through him against the man who had single-handedly taken Anthea from him, along with everything else he had held dear. What that man had done was not out of any sense of vengeance against Ty, but through sheer unadulterated selfishness. Ty didn’t believe that violence resolved anything, but in this case it had been fortunate the man in question had seen to it that he wasn’t around to be punished for his crime, or Ty himself would have faced the gallows for murdering him.

Taking a deep breath and forcing away excruciating memories, he leaned back in his chair and took a slow, despondent look around him. The last surgery he had worked from had been spacious, light
and airy, owning the very latest in medical equipment and employing a highly qualified nurse to help with the care of the patients. It had been housed in its own late-Edwardian villa in a tree-lined street in an affluent suburb. He would drive the short distance to it from his home each morning in a leather-seated black Daimler sedan, and on arrival he’d be greeted with a tray of tea delivered by his smartly attired receptionist. They’d had close associations with the local hospital. A quick telephone call was usually sufficient to secure a bed there and the best medical attention for any of their moneyed patients.

This surgery’s finances couldn’t support either a receptionist or a nurse, and to obtain a hospital bed and treatment for any of his patients, Ty had virtually to get down on bended knee and beg for them.

Another surge of anger erupted within him against the person whose selfish actions had reduced him to this level. At the time of the terrible catastrophe, the pain of his loss was so unbearable that, by way of protecting himself from ever suffering such emotional devastation a second time, he had vowed never to allow himself to become involved with another human being on a personal level again. And if people thought him rude and arrogant because of it, then so be it. He’d ostracised himself from all his former friends and turned his back on the medical profession,
wanting nothing more to do with it. By sheer frugality, for over two years he’d managed to exist on the paltry amount of money he’d been left with, but when that had virtually run dry, and with his landlady not the type to let him lodge with her free, he was left with no alternative but to get himself a job. Unfortunately for Ty, he wasn’t a man who could turn his hand to anything. After being fired from several menial labouring jobs, he was left with no choice but to seek another position back in the profession he had made such an effort to disassociate himself from.

The thought of applying for a hospital position and having his past delved into was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. This practice had seemed like the answer to a prayer to him when he had spotted it advertised in a medical journal. Thriving practices changed hands for large sums of money, depending on their size and location. But this one was being
given
away. Ty had assumed that the deceased doctor had had no partner to take it over and was against his estate going to the Crown. He’d assumed that many other doctors would be after it, young men starting up or others rendered short of funds like himself, and didn’t think his chances of being awarded it were high. He was most shocked to receive a letter back by return from the solicitor handling the estate of the late James McHinney, offering him the practice without even an interview.
He was later to come to the conclusion that no other doctor had even applied. If other interested parties had had the foresight to take the time and trouble to visit the area, unlike himself, they’d no doubt swiftly have decided against it. The astute James McHinney had without doubt known that upon his death, unless he lured a doctor here by giving his practice away, the local community of around five thousand patients would be left without a medical practitioner.

The three-bedroomed corner terrace house that housed the surgery stood in the middle of a rabbit warren of sooty streets. The rundown terrace houses had two or three bedrooms and tiny paved backyards. Water was obtained from stand pumps in back alleys, and several families shared each outside toilet. Ty’s was the only house to have its own water pump and toilet in the backyard. Arriving with all he possessed in one trunk, he’d accused the taxi driver of delivering him to the wrong address when the vehicle had stopped outside the grim-looking house in the middle of this deprived area, and had been mortified to find no mistake had been made.

The inside of the house was as bleak as the outside. Despite the heavy chenille curtains at the windows all being pulled back, hardly any light penetrated the rooms due to the closeness of the surrounding properties. The furniture was all of the plain, heavy dark oak sort, no ornaments or adornments to soften its
harshness. The floorboards were dark stained. The only rug lay in the sitting room in front of the hearth, its original pattern long since faded away and its pile flattened by age. The previous occupant obviously hadn’t felt the need for fripperies of any kind. Ty was, though, gratified to find the place spotlessly clean, the fires in all the rooms laid ready to be lit and his bed freshly made, albeit with aged linen, threadbare in parts. The pan of mutton stew that just needed heating had turned out to be delicious, and a few basic food essentials had been laid in. He’d assumed, in his ignorance, that the housekeeper had been busy … only to discover the next day that the surgery’s finances didn’t run to the extravagance of a housekeeper either. The food had been provided and the cleaning done by several well-meaning local women, by way of a welcome to their new doctor.