Secrets to Keep (23 page)

So please, please, give me the job, she inwardly begged.

She might well satisfy another doctor, but not Ty. He stared at her blankly, his mind racing. She did indeed seem to have all the qualifications he had stated he required in his receptionist, so how was he going to justify turning her down? There was, though, one remaining qualification she hadn’t mentioned.

‘I do also want someone with nursing experience.’ He began to rise to see her out. ‘Thank you for coming …’

‘Just a minute,’ she cut in. ‘I have got nursing experience.’

He sank back down on his seat, hiding his inward dismay. ‘But if you’ve only worked for that one employee, how have you gained that?’

‘Through dealing with my family. My younger brother and sisters are always needing some wound tending to. You know what kids are like, forever getting into scrapes or falling over. They all had mumps and chickenpox when they were younger and I helped my mam look after them then. My husband, too, has suffered the usual cuts, scalds, you name it, and I haven’t had one go septic on me yet. I’m nursing my gran through her accident and she’s coming along nicely, although she did re-break her leg as you know, but that was only because she decided to try it out before it was properly healed.’ Aidy flashed him a grin and jocularly concluded, ‘Any more experience than that and I’d be able to do your job, wouldn’t I?’

Ty stiffened. Was she really comparing his years of hard study at medical school and his term spent as a junior doctor in a hospital with her cleaning and dressing a few cuts and abrasions for her family? This woman really was infuriating. He stared at her fixedly, fighting to find some excuse to deny her the job. All he could come up with was, ‘You’re not really what I’m looking for.’

Aidy stared back at him, stunned. As far as she was concerned she fulfilled all the criteria he’d stipulated, so why wasn’t she what he was looking for? She didn’t like the cold way he was looking at her either. Then it struck her
why
she wasn’t the sort he was looking for. The simple fact was, he didn’t like
her as a person. Well, that didn’t bother her. She didn’t like
him
. She’d be surprised if anyone actually did, with that abrupt, superior manner of his. But she needed the job he was offering and was determined not to leave without having secured it.

‘I might not be what you’re looking for, but it looks like you’ll have to settle for me because no one else has applied for the job but me, have they?’ she challenged him.

That was true. And he just couldn’t understand why. He supposed he could advertise again, but if no one else applied and meantime this woman had got herself another job elsewhere, he’d have no one. He was desperate for someone to help him run his surgery, so as matters stood it appeared he had no choice but to suffer this applicant. She was better than nothing.

Reluctantly he told her, ‘I suppose we could see how it goes.’

Aidy’s face lit up.

‘I can start tomorrow.’ Then a thought struck her and, to show her commitment, she added, ‘Unless you’d like me to do anything for you tonight?’

Perish the thought. He needed the next few hours to get used to the idea that, due to circumstances beyond his control, he would be working closely with this irritating young woman. ‘No, no, tomorrow will be soon enough.’

Tomorrow would be soon enough for her too. Working with such a morose, self-important man was going to be challenging indeed, but she was up for that challenge in return for the wage it would bring her. Then it struck her she didn’t know yet what wage he was offering. ‘What is the pay for the job?’ she bluntly asked. She prayed it was sufficient for her to keep the family on, unlike the amount Marjorie Kilner was offering.

Ty wasn’t a mean man and had been fully prepared to reward the most suitable applicant with what he felt to be the fair amount. In light of the fact he didn’t really want this woman working for him, he was tempted to mention an amount so low it wouldn’t be worth her while, but then he reminded himself that she had been his only applicant and it would be both unethical and remiss of him not to pay her the same as anyone else. And, of course, the hours weren’t the regular office ones and that had to be taken into account. He told her, ‘One pound, three shillings and sixpence a week.’

Aidy wanted to clap her hands with joy. A couple of shillings short of what she’d have earned in the factory when meeting her expected targets, but with careful handling just about enough to scrape by on, helped along by the few coppers her grandmother insisted she contribute from the takings for her potions.

‘If that’s acceptable, I suppose I really ought to have your personal details,’ Ty said to her. ‘Shall we start with your name?’

Aidy was put out that she hadn’t made enough of an impression on him for him to have remembered it from her visits to him recently. But she supposed that, through the course of his work, he met so many people it wasn’t humanly possible for him to remember the names of all of them.

She looked at him a bit uncomfortably then. Everyone knew her as Aidy but that was not the name she had been given at birth. She was in fact called by a name she absolutely detested and had refused to use since she’d been old enough to realise she had been named at her father’s insistence after his own grandmother. She’d been a mean, spiteful woman but one who, it was rumoured by the family, had had a few pounds stashed under her bed, which her father had been hoping to inherit. He’d thought the deal would be sealed by his honouring her by naming his first-born after her. The rumour had turned out to be unfounded as she died owing tradesmen and neighbours far more than the few coppers she’d had in her purse at the time.

Irritated by this delay, Ty persisted, ‘You have got a name?’

‘Of course I have,’ she snapped back. ‘I’m known as Aidy Nelson.’

He frowned at her. ‘Known as? What is that supposed to mean?’

‘Just what I said. I’m known as Aidy Nelson.’ She noticed the suspicious look he was giving her, could see it going through his mind that she was possibly a fugitive from the law or something like that, hence the reason for her alias. She told him, ‘There’s nothing sinister behind it. I just don’t like my name. Hate it, in fact.’

So, against the odds, he and this woman
did
have something in common after all. He couldn’t abide the name his own father had bestowed on him and had been ridiculed mercilessly at school for it by his fellows and several teachers alike. In an attempt to disassociate himself from that detested name he had shortened it to Ty, refusing to answer to anything else but that, the exception being in dealings with his formidable father who would not hear of his son being addressed by anything other than the name on his birth certificate.

Ty was very curious to know what name it was that Aidy so abhorred, just to know whether it was as bad as the one he’d been given, but he knew better than to ask outright.

The last time Aidy had had what to her was the awful embarrassment of divulging her detested name had been to the vicar when she and Arch had gone to see him to book their wedding. Thankfully the kindly man had understood her plight and, when
announcing it during the vows, had given a discreet cough at the appropriate time so that it wasn’t audible to the congregation. She had no such saviour here with her now and, dreading the embarrassment of what she was about to suffer when the doctor insisted, was totally taken aback when insted he said to her, ‘Parents can be utterly irresponsible when it comes to naming their children, not at all considering the life-long purgatory they are condemning them to. How do you spell Aidy?’

Such understanding stunned her. Was it possible that beneath that cold, humourless exterior lay a spark of humanity? Then another reason for his understanding struck her. Was it possible the doctor too had been given a Christian name he couldn’t abide? Her curiosity was roused. How she would dearly have loved to have asked him, but in all honesty didn’t care about him enough to be bothered.

She spelled her name out for him, then gave him the rest of the personal details he requested.

When he had finished, so eager was Aidy to get home and break the good news to her family, she jumped up, saying, ‘Well, if that’s it …’

‘No, actually, it’s not. There is just one other matter we need to settle.’

She sank back down on her chair, her face wreathed in enquiry, wondering what that matter could possibly be.

He soon enlightened her. ‘You have an outstanding account with me. Not really the done thing to commence employment while in debt to your employer.’

And she had been secretly hoping he would waive that now she was working for him! She supposed it was remiss of her to have expected it. He was only trying to earn his living. Thankfully she had the money with her. She delved into her handbag and retrieved it, putting four shillings on the blotting pad before him.

Meanwhile Ty had taken a book out of his desk drawer, opened it and was tracing one finger down the list of names. He stopped on finding hers. He glanced at the amount she had given him, then lifted his eyes to hers and said, ‘It’s actually six shillings and eightpence owed, for my three visits, plus medication and issuing a death certificate.’

Aidy hadn’t known the exact amount but had suspected it was nearer six shillings than the four she had handed him, but she had been hoping he’d just accept what she’d given him as she could sorely have done with having the residue at her disposal.

Having settled the amount, she got up again, and announced, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then at eight-fifteen sharp, Doc.’

She quickly hurried out, desperate to get home and impart her thrilling news to her family.

His hackles rose. As the employer it should have been himself who should have ended the proceedings not her. And she’d again disrespectfully addressed him as Doc. He heavily sighed as he leaned back in his chair and scraped a hand through his thick thatch of corn-coloured hair. Desperate for a help or not, he was already wondering if he’d just made a big mistake in employing Aidy Nelson.

T
he following day, mid-morning, Aidy looked dismayed and was feeling totally out of her depth before the enormous number of patients’ records spread out over the dining table. And these weren’t all of them by any means, only the ones Doc had dealt with to date, not returning them to their boxes as he had meant to sort them into some order himself. Now he’d hired a receptionist to do this type of work for him, only unbeknown to him Aidy had no idea how to go about it, never having done this kind of work before as she’d led him to believe she had.

She had arrived this morning to find that Doc had put a small table and chair in the middle of the waiting room for her. On the table was a ledger-type book and a pencil. In his abrupt manner, he told her that this was where she would sit during surgery hours. As people came in, she was to note their name and time of arrival. That way he hoped to avoid queue jumping and the resulting skirmishes. When
the patient he was seeing left, she was to wait until she heard him call out ‘Next’ before she instructed whoever it was to go through. He was also entrusting her with a key to the waiting-room door. There were going to be times when she arrived to start work to find him out on a call. He made it clear that should he ever arrive back to find her anywhere in the house she should not be, then she would be instantly sacked. And should she lose the key, he would expect her to pay for a replacement.

He left her then to go into his surgery and prepare himself for the arrival of the patients. Aidy had looked thoughtfully at where he’d positioned her desk and chair for a moment, then glanced around the room. He hadn’t given any thought at all to where he had put her. She’d feel as if she was in the middle of a circus arena, being looked at by the crowd. And besides, she’d have a job to hear him call out ‘Next’ from that far away if any of the patients who were acquainted with one another were having a gossip while they waited their turn. She really needed to be positioned by the corridor with her back to the wall. That way she could immediately see who was entering from the outer door opposite, have a complete view of the rest of the waiting area, and more importantly, would hear Doc shout any instructions to her from inside his surgery. She immediately moved the desk and chair.

Quite a few of the patients who had come in that morning she was acquainted with, and had enjoyed chatting to them during their wait. It amused her, although she was very careful not to show it, to hear the grumbling of many of the departing patients. They didn’t like the new doctor’s abrupt manner and seeming lack of compassion for their suffering. Aidy obviously wasn’t the only one to find him a difficult man to deal with.

In fact, she had greatly enjoyed her first surgery and hoped the rest of her duties, as yet unknown to her, were this easy and enjoyable.

If she was expecting her employer to praise her for handling her first morning without any mishap, she was to be disappointed. Only minutes after the last person was out of the door, he had called through instructions for Aidy to lock the outer door and come through to his surgery. Once she was there he had immediately instructed her to make a start on sorting out the record cards. Realising she’d need space to do that, he told her to do it in the dining room. Meantime, he would eat his meals on the kitchen table. He didn’t offer to help her heave the cumbersome filing boxes, still packed with records, into the dining room, or assist her on her numerous trips back and forth, taking through the records of those patients he’d already seen, which she felt he could have done before he’d gone out on his morning round.