Twins On Her Doorstep. Alison Roberts
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in the rear-view mirror showed him that the children were sitting quietly in their car seats. They weren’t looking at the scenery, either, which was understandable, but they were so quiet and that was even more worrying than the fact that they’d barely eaten anything the last time they’d stopped on this road trip.
With every mile that passed, Finn’s doubts about the wisdom of what he was doing were increasing, to the point where his head was starting to ache now. There was the slight ethical problem with this plan as well, although that had been easy enough to push aside when he’d had this crazy idea in the first place. He’d want to know, if it were him at the end of this road, wouldn’t he? Even if it was going to change his life so dramatically?
‘You guys hungry yet?’ He turned his head briefly to smile at his passengers. ‘I’ve got apples. And crisps. And those little packets of raisins. You like raisins, don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Are you thirsty?’
‘No.’
‘It’s getting colder, isn’t it?’ Finn knew he was on a losing streak but he had to keep talking. To try and make this seem a little more normal, perhaps, when it was anything but. He wasn’t hungry, either. It had been an effort to force down even half his sandwich when they’d stopped for lunch some time back. He’d actually felt slightly nauseated.
‘Look at those big, black clouds up there.’ Was he putting too much effort into trying to sound cheerful? ‘You girls warm enough?’
He risked another glance in the mirror to find four large brown eyes staring at him. How could three-year-olds look so suspicious? Maybe it was just wariness, he told himself. And who could blame them?
‘Ellie? Emma?’ He tried one more time. ‘You want me to stop and find your coats? Those pretty pink ones?’
Two small heads shook slowly in a negative response and Finn suppressed a sigh. It was becoming the standard reaction to being asked anything, wasn’t it? They didn’t want their coats. They didn’t want treats to eat. They didn’t want to be here, with him, and he understood that. This was confusing. Frightening, even. He might be their uncle but he’d only met them for the first time a couple of weeks ago so he was still virtually a stranger.
Guilt could get added to the worry and the doubts. It wasn’t a pleasant mix.
There was only one thing that these little girls wanted—the life they’d had until now. Their family. And he couldn’t give it to them.
Nobody could.
Was it the weather outside or the trauma of recent events that made him suddenly shiver?
‘I’ll put the heater on for a bit,’ he said.
‘Sophie…how are you, lovie? It’s a bit cold today, isn’t it? I think we’re in for some rain.’
‘I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking how you are, Mrs Redding.’ Sophie Bradford smiled. ‘I’m the doctor here.’
‘I know, love. But I always see your dad.’ Maureen Redding closed the door behind her. ‘I know you’ve been here for a few years now but I still think of you as that little girl with the wildly curly hair running past my place to get to school.’
Automatically, Sophie reached up to touch her hair. Those unmanageable corkscrew ringlets she’d been born with were currently saturated enough with product to enable them to be scraped back into a ponytail but she could feel the undulations on her scalp and she knew that, at any moment, a curl could rebel and spring free to make her look unkempt. Unprofessional, in fact. Amazingly, they were standing up to the stress of an unusually busy day and behaving perfectly, for now.
‘Dad’s still out on his house calls at the moment but he should be back soon. If you want to wait, he can probably squeeze you in.’ Sophie closed the screen where she’d just entered the notes on her last patient, clicked to bring up Maureen’s history but glanced up with concern a moment later as she heard her new arrival’s rasping breaths. ‘You’re a bit short of puff today, aren’t you?’
‘Aye…’ Maureen Redding sighed heavily as she eased her large frame onto the chair and placed her handbag on top of Sophie’s desk. ‘I’ve got the cold that’s been going around and, you know, it’s the same old story…’
‘I know.’ Sophie was on her feet. She’d seen enough on screen to know that Maureen’s visits were usually due to exacerbation of her chronic respiratory disease. ‘Let’s have a good look at you and see what’s happening with your oxygen levels and blood pressure. Did you walk up the hill to see us today?’
‘Oh, no… It’s hard enough getting to the corner shop for a pint of milk at the moment. Jim, next door, gave me a ride.’
‘That was kind of him.’
‘He needed to come in himself, to get his prescription for his heart pills. He’s going to wait for me, but I don’t want to keep him waiting too long, so I’m happy to see you, love. Everybody says that you’re a wonderful doctor.’
‘That’s good to know.’
‘He’ll be having a yarn with your mum, I expect. He said he hadn’t seen her at the markets for a while.’
‘Mmm… We’ve all been a bit busy.’
Sophie’s mother was the nurse in this family-run general practice but, given how full the waiting room had been the last time she’d set foot outside this consulting room, Judy Greene wouldn’t be stopping to chat with Jim or anyone else today.
She handed Maureen a handful of tissues as the older woman began coughing and warmed the disk of her stethoscope in the palm of her hand as she waited for the spasm to finish.
Then she paused, frowning. ‘Has that happened before?’
‘The blood? Oh, once or twice… Your dad says it’s usually a sign of infection.’
Antibiotics were likely to be needed, Sophie thought. And a short course of steroids for the inflammation in Maureen’s lungs. A trip to the nearest hospital for a chest X-ray might be called for if there was any indication that this could be pneumonia rather than simply bronchitis. And had any mention been made of having home oxygen available for episodes like this?
‘I saw your dad coming out of the pharmacy yesterday,’ Maureen said. ‘He’s looking a bit peaky, I thought.’
‘Oh?’ This might be the only general practice in this out-of-the-way Cornish fishing village, Sophie thought, but she wasn’t about to start discussing her father’s state of health with one of their patients. It was a close community but there had to be some boundaries.
‘It’s time he retired, isn’t it? I went to school with him so he has to be at least seventy-three.’
‘Thereabouts. And he will retire soon. When we’ve found someone suitable to join us. Now, stop talking for a moment, Maureen. I want to have a listen to your chest.’ Sophie had to concentrate on which lung fields were being affected by the fluid and inflammation. Despite the closed door, she could hear the faint wail of an unhappy child in the waiting area, which wasn’t helping.
Fifteen minutes later, she was holding the door open. The wailing had suddenly become a shriek that made Sophie wince.
‘Get Jim to take you straight to the pharmacy. He’ll be going there to fill his own prescription, I expect. Make another appointment in a couple of days, or sooner if you’re not feeling any better, but, if it gets any worse, call us straight away.’
‘I will… Ooh, look. There’s your dad.’ She sailed ahead of Sophie. ‘Yoo-hoo! Dr Greene? I wanted to have a wee word with you.’
Sophie’s father was crouching by a boy who was holding one arm across his chest with the other and glaring at the doctor. ‘Not now, Maureen. Sorry, but we’re a bit busy, as you can see.’ He looked up and Sophie