Chapter 15 #2
She listened hard, closing her eyes, paying attention to the pulse beneath her fingertips where she held his wrist, using the feel of those beats to locate the sometimes elusive lub dub sound in her earpieces.
Nothing came through at first, maybe because she’d normally do this without a layer of clothing getting in the way. Was there something else interfering with her ability to hear?
At this proximity she couldn’t help detecting the fresh laundry scent, and the glimpse of smooth throat at his open collar.
Where the side of her pinkie was grazing his shirt fabric, she could tell it had been laundered a million times into the slubby cotton softness only vintage textiles have.
This, combined with his woody, lavender cologne and a buttery, nutty lotion scent, meant she had to force herself to listen, distinguishing her own heartbeat loud in her ears from his.
No wedding ring, her intrusive inner voice told her, and she shoved this away.
Then it came to her through the sounds of waves on a shore. Zoning in, it grew louder. Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub, only… She lifted her eyes to Cary’s. His heart was beating awfully fast.
‘Did you arrive here just before I did?’ she asked. ‘Were you running?’
She heard Cary’s throat move in a loud swallow. ‘No. Been here all morning.’
She counted, closing her eyes. ‘It’s a little too fast.’ That was putting it mildly.
It had to be around a hundred and fifty beats per minute, and at resting that was not good.
‘No swishing sounds or murmurs,’ she said.
That was good, but he was definitely tachycardic.
‘But it is faltering a little too. Do you suffer from iatrophobia?’
Cary was unsure what that was.
‘Fear of doctors?’
He shook his head.
‘Any light-headedness? Chest flutters?’
He hesitated this time before shaking his head.
Pulling back, she removed the earpieces.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ she said, for the thousandth time in her career when she had absolutely no reason to be sure it was probably nothing.
‘But I think you should pop in to the surgery so we can take a proper reading. Your heart’s working awfully hard right now for a man standing still.
’ It was hard to tell with the background noise of the repair shop, but she’d want to rule out A-Fib or STV, but he didn’t need to know that.
Cary nodded and took a step away, smoothing his waistcoat, not that she’d rumpled it, returning to the shy, reserved man she’d met out on the street.
‘Nothing to worry about, of course,’ she said.
Cary wasn’t speaking at all now.
‘So, uh, thank you for fixing this.’
‘You’re welcome.’
After the briefest of goodbyes, Cary made his way back to the clock doctor, and Alice made reluctantly for the exit.
Had she overstepped? Upset him? It was hard to know with such a quiet, unassuming person what they were thinking.
‘Dr H?’ Sachin at the triage desk stopped her, handing her a form on a clipboard.
Paperwork. The story of her life.
‘Just your name and contact details for the repair docket,’ he said, and she dutifully filled them in.
She watched Sachin take back her signed sheet and use her spelling to write the word ‘stethoscope’ as he chalked up the repair on the blackboard behind the triage counter. She’d been fix number five today and it was still only early.
There was a donation jar on his desk, she noticed, to which she added a twenty-pound note and Sachin told her to come back any time.
Something about leaving felt like an anticlimax, and the warmth and comfort of the shed told her to stay, but what happened next made her wish she’d hurried straight out into the cold weather.
‘Doctor?’
A woman, her mum’s age, maybe a little older, but a lot more glam, commandeered her out of nowhere.
Usually when people did this it was friends’ partners or non-clinical or facilities staff looking for a quick word of advice without going to the bother of seeing their own doctor, but this woman introduced herself as, ‘Carenza McDowell, property management’, in an accent that spoke of the posher English home counties almost as much as it had a soft Highland ring.
‘I’m sure you’ll recognise me from the “LET” signs all over town? ’
The woman struck an imperious pose, recreating her own posters.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Alice agreed. There’d been one outside her own flat the day she arrived.
‘You’re my landlady.’ The memory of Gracie gossiping about this woman’s hallux valgus condition came back to her and she couldn’t help sneaking a glance to her feet where, if she really did suffer from bunions, they were crushed into a pair of towering designer stilettos.
‘Was there… something you needed?’ she said quickly.
‘I tried your flat but you weren’t home. Enquiries along the high street directed me towards you here.’ Carenza smiled a red lipstick smile.
How on earth did anyone know she was here? Was the whole town keeping an eye on her, tracking her every movement? This place!
The woman was talking all over Alice’s indignant thoughts.
‘You’re new in town, but you’ll soon come to know that, as well as being treasurer of the Women in Business Association and…
’ she was bobbing her blonde head in faux modesty, ‘three times winner of Property Manager of the Year, Cairngorm region, I’m also president of the Burns Club. ’
‘Oh!’ Alice’s interest was piqued. ‘You’re in dermatology?’ It didn’t occur to her to think this might be a bit strange for a rental property mogul.
The woman almost laughed, taken aback. Something unpleasant and a little bit sneering was happening in her features. Alice had evidently made a mistake.
‘Oh, are you a burns patient?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have leapt to…’
‘Robert Burns,’ the woman interrupted, her eyes narrow.
Nope. Alice was none the wiser.
‘Rabbie Burns? The ploughman poet? The Scottish National Bard? No?’
Alice shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
Carenza observed her with a look of absolute disbelief. ‘Goodness! What are they teaching you at medical school?’
Mainly how to save lives, Alice didn’t say, however much she’d have liked to.
‘Well, don’t let on to folks around here that you haven’t a clue who their national poet is, honestly. They simply won’t forgive you.’
Alice absorbed this advice without saying anything; not that this Carenza was giving her the chance to say much.
‘As I was saying, I’m in charge of the Burns Club, now that they’ve had to allow women members.
In fact, as soon as I took up my post, half the committee stepped down and I’ve had the run of things for these last three years.
’ She shrugged primly, clearly seeing this as some kind of triumph and waiting for Alice’s reaction. ‘Breath of fresh air and all that.’
‘Wow?’ Alice tried.
‘Indeed. And each year we celebrate Burns Night with our traditional Burns supper and ceilidh, at which the town doctor traditionally delivers the “Address to the Haggis”.’
‘Riii-ght?’ Alice had a horrible sinking feeling.
‘And since Dr Millen is, let’s say, disinclined this year…’
‘Hah!’ came a loud laugh from the café counter where two women in aprons had been earwigging this whole time. ‘We heard he told you and the rest of your Burns cronies to get knotted, did he no’?’ one of the women called out with wicked glee.
Carenza gritted her teeth, clearly used to tolerating this sort of thing from the townspeople. ‘Since the outgoing doctor declined our invitation to read this year,’ she trilled, rising above the mockery, ‘and since you’re here now, ready to take over his duties…’
Alice wanted to speak up and tell this woman that wasn’t the case at all, and please don’t involve her in local things concerning haggises – she could barely cope with her workload and finding her way in a new country as it was – but Carenza was in full sail and not to be stopped.
‘…On behalf of the Cairn Dhu Burns Club Committee, I have the pleasure of extending a formal invitation to you to attend the supper as our guest of honour and deliver the Address. You’ll take it, yes?
’ Carenza said this as though she was generously gifting Alice a complimentary, no-strings, champagne spa day, not roping her in to whatever nonsense this was.
‘I, uh, I don’t know. I’m not much into poetry…’ Alice began.
‘And you don’t have to wear the traditional ceilidh dress,’ Carenza cajoled, ignoring her protest completely.
‘Only, wear something nice. Evening attire?’ She asked this like Alice might not know what she meant.
‘Your best frock will do.’ She eyed Alice’s sweater, jeans and winter boots: her Saturday comfies. ‘Probably.’
‘I might be busy that night,’ Alice tried. ‘When is it?’
‘What? When’s Burns Night?’ This was accompanied by another look of pained disbelief. ‘The twenty-fifth of January, of course. His birthday.’
Alice searched her brain for anything that could prevent her from taking part, but the truth was she had her evenings completely to herself.
Already, she’d fallen into a routine of finishing up at the surgery by seven, seeing to the last of the patient phone calls and pharmacy sign-offs, and she’d head back to her flat for a bite to eat and a bath, before hitting her textbooks again, brushing up on symptoms and conditions she’d come across during consultations that day and had found herself hazy on their finer points, or which she’d never learned about in the first place.
Old study habits died hard and she’d often worked on until midnight this first week.
‘Super!’ Carenza crowed, seizing her victory.
‘Seven for seven thirty at the Cairn Dhu Hotel ballroom. I’ve already taken the liberty of emailing the surgery with your lines.
See that you practise them. Cheerio for now.
Oh, and…’ She stopped in her tracks. ‘The kilt hire shop also has a range of perfectly serviceable ceilidh frocks, not that we insist on you wearing one, but… well, I’ll leave that with you. ’
In a swirl of blonde hair and expensive perfume, she was gone, off to pin down her next victim, no doubt, leaving Alice aware of the grumbles of, ‘That Carenza’s a blinkin’ menace,’ from one of the women in the café corner, and the look of sympathy from Sachin (who’d practically hidden under his triage desk when Carenza appeared).
Alice staggered the few feet to the exit, surprised to find herself wondering if Cary Anderson had seen her being ensnared. Would he be watching her now? Why did she care if he was?
She fixed her eyes on the world beyond the repair shop doors and hurried away.