The Emerald Valley (60 page)

‘Hospital! Certainly not!' Amy said, horrified. ‘Really, I'm fine now, you know. There's no need …' But his stern face convinced her. ‘All right, I'll ask Ruby,' she agreed.

‘And you will call me if you're at all concerned?'

‘Yes.'

He waited until he saw her turn the corner before driving off, but when Amy heard him go she hastened across to her own door without knocking on Ruby's. She didn't want to cause a fuss. She was all right now – a bit shaky, maybe, with a throbbing headache, but otherwise fine. There was no need to bother anyone else.

But it was nice of Dr Scott to be so concerned. He was still the same caring doctor who had found it in himself to buy a teddy bear and a pound of butterscotch for his frustrated young patient all those years ago, even if he was now a married man with two daughters, the elder of whom must now be older than Amy had been at the time of her accident.

The knowledge was strangely comforting. For the first time for years, Amy felt inexplicably as if there was a safety net spread out beneath her, arms ready to catch her if she fell, capable hands willing to pick up the pieces.

It was a good feeling.

On the following Sunday morning, Dr Scott's car drew up once more outside Amy's gate.

‘I just thought I would look in to see how you were,' he said.

Amy, in the middle of cooking a joint of pork for Sunday dinner, was flushed from the heat of the kitchen and a little disconcerted at being caught in the homely floral wraparound apron which Ruby Clarke had given her at Christmas and which, though not at all her ‘style', at least kept her dress clean of grease splashes.

‘I'm fine,' she said.

‘No ill-effects?'

‘Not really. I had a headache for a couple of days, but I suppose that was only to be expected.'

‘And it's gone now?'

‘Well …' She hesitated. ‘I did have a kind of sharp pain in my temple earlier on this morning. It lasted for half an hour or so and I must admit it made me feel quite odd.'

‘In what way?'

‘Oh, shaky.' That was an understatement. The pain had been intense and had made her feel not only shaky but sick too and her skin had gone clammy and cold. But she didn't want to make too much of it.

‘And it's gone now?'

‘Yes, I feel fine.' She brushed her hand across her face with a quick, dismissive gesture. ‘See, the bump didn't come out as badly as I expected. I thought I might have two lovely black eyes – or one, at least. But it was just a lump and a graze, and my hair covered that.'

‘That saved your vanity then,' he teased.

‘Thank heavens! I could hardly do business looking a fright.' Out of the window she caught sight of Barbara and Maureen, setting out their dolls for a pretend tea-party on the small square of lawn, and she called to them. ‘Come in a minute! There's someone I want you to meet.'

They came, chattering and giggling, Barbara holding Maureen by the hand. When they were introduced, Amy was hoping desperately that they would make a good impression. As a child herself she had idolised the doctor so, and now she wanted her own children to do the same. Oliver Scott shook hands solemnly with Barbara and rumpled Maureen's hair. ‘This one's very like you were when I first knew you,' he said, winking at Barbara, who promptly tossed her curls and pranced around precociously.

‘Huw – where's Huw?' Barbara asked.

‘I think he's gone out to look for his friends,' Amy said.

Oliver Scott's glance lifted from Barbara.

‘Huw – the boy you took in?' he said questioningly.

‘That's right.' Amy held his eyes defiantly, daring him to ask more. ‘Dr Scott, you will have to excuse me or else dinner will never be ready.'

He smiled, the friendly yet slightly earnest smile which creased his face so that his eyes almost disappeared.

‘Oh dear! I know how impatient hungry youngsters can be. I won't hold you up any longer. But I might look in again, if that's all right?'

‘Yes, of course!' She felt edgy suddenly. Because of her remembered anxiety to see him when she was a child, perhaps?

After he had gone she regaled the girls with the story of her scalding and how Dr Scott had got her well again. They listened, eyes round with wonder. They had heard it all before, but it was a story that never failed to impress – especially now they had seen the other main participant in the drama.

‘He said he would come again – will he?' Barbara demanded.

‘We shall have to wait and see,' Amy said. She rather thought that, having satisfied himself of her recovery from the fall, he would not come again – unless, of course, it was to present his bill. He had not charged her yet … and she hoped he wasn't going to tot on a home visit!

A day or so later however and she was beginning to hope he would call, charge or no charge. The pain in her temple had returned several times and on each occasion it had stopped her in her tracks so that she had to sit down, sweating and trembling, until the spasm passed. At first she thought no further than the sharp pain, but when it hit her for the third time in less than twenty-four hours, Amy found herself beginning to be frightened.

I didn't know I could feel so ill! she thought as the white-hot knife-thrust dulled to an echoing throb and the sickness in her throat sank to nausea. Suppose I did some damage to myself when I fell – something really serious? Could it be that the blow went inwards and the blood has formed a clot?

Things ‘going in'had always been one of Mam's bogeymen – anything from damp to measles had been warned against – and Amy herself could think of several people who had dropped dead from strokes and haemorrhages.

If something like that happened to me, whatever would become of the children? she wondered, the fear so intense that it almost started the pain again.

If Dr Scott did not come back, she would go to see him, Amy decided. But in between whiles, when the pain lifted completely, it seemed no more than a bad dream, something far too trivial to be bothering the doctor with; then she would think: Perhaps it's going to be all right. Perhaps it won't come again. And what time have I got for waiting in queues in the doctor's surgery?

But the pain did come again – and so did Oliver Scott, calling in one evening on his way home from his rounds.

‘Feeling fit now?' he asked.

‘I'm not sure,' Amy said and went on to describe the ‘turns'she had been experiencing.

‘Hmm.' His serious expression disconcerted her a little. ‘Perhaps I ought to take a good look at you.'

She submitted to his examination, but when he had finished he could be only vaguely reassuring.

‘There doesn't appear to be anything obviously wrong. But I shall keep an eye on you just the same.'

‘You don't think …' She could hardly bring herself to say it. ‘You don't think I'm going to die, do you?'

Not a muscle in his face moved. ‘I don't think so.'

‘I'm just being silly, then.'

‘I wouldn't call it silly,' he assured her.

‘I would. But I can't help worrying about what would become of the children if I – well, if anything happened to me. Mam would look after the girls, I suppose. They would be better off with someone younger, but I can't imagine her letting them go, even though it would be a terrible struggle for her and not much fun for them. I don't know whatever would happen to Huw. Mam wouldn't have him, that much is for certain; she didn't approve of
me
having him! And who else would take him in? It really would be an institution for him this time, and the poor kid's had so much upheaval already …'

She broke off, running a distraught hand through her curls.

‘Oh Amy, Amy!' Oliver Scott touched her elbow. ‘Stop worrying! It isn't going to happen.'

‘How can you be so sure?'

‘Because I'm a doctor and I say so. You've bumped your head, that's all. In a few months from now, you will have forgotten it ever happened. That's my prediction.'

Amy's face cleared. She wanted nothing more than to be reassured and even in the midst of anxiety she was impatient with herself for being a worrier.

‘I'm sorry to have been such a nuisance,' she said briskly.

‘A nuisance – you, Amy? Never!'

‘Yes. I can be where the children are concerned. My excuse is that I'm solely responsible for them. I don't mind that – well, I haven't much choice, have I? But when it comes to imagining that I might die and leave them … to be honest, that's just like a nightmare. It's no use – however good others might be, they wouldn't really do the same as I do. Kids need their mother – girls especially. And Huw, of course, is a special case …'

He noticed how her face softened when she spoke of Huw. What had possessed her to take in the boy on top of all her other responsibilities, he wondered. Well, whatever the motive, she was clearly very fond of him now, treating him as if he was as much her own as the girls and worrying about him too.

He pressed her elbow again. ‘You can take it from me that they will all have their mother around for a good deal longer. Someone like you is not so easily killed off, Amy!'

‘Good.' There was a lift of determination in her voice, as if she was dismissing the fear, and it struck Oliver yet again what a formidable woman she had become. Attractive, yes – with her looks that was obvious – and intelligent and vital. But formidable too, with a strength partly inherited and partly nurtured in those dark days when she had lain on the sofa in her childhood home, her back raw, and later gathered the courage to learn to walk again. Life had not treated her easily, golden girl though she had once seemed to be. Yet she had come through it all with spirit and determination, allowing nothing to get her down for very long. How different from the way in which some people reacted to the problems – often much smaller – in their lives. Mountains produced mountaineers, he supposed, while molehills produced only moles …

The thought made him smile briefly.

‘You mustn't overdo things, though,' he said. ‘I suppose it's a waste of my breath telling you that, but if you have any sense you will listen to what I say. A blow like you had can affect you in all sorts of ways …'

‘I thought you said I was all right!' she interposed sharply.

‘I said you're not going to die. But it does sound to me as if your body is crying out for rest. Take my advice and give it what it needs.'

Amy tossed her head. ‘Oh, I can't rest! I've far too much to do. There are new contracts to quote for, for one thing. Then I have a new young man starting next week and workmen coming in to put up a new store. I can't possibly take a holiday.'

‘I wish you would stop putting words into my mouth, Amy! Did you hear me mention a holiday? It would do you good, of course, but I know better than to even suggest that. No, what I said was
take things easy.
For everyone's sake – not least the children.'

‘All right, I promise to try,' she said. But he knew she would not.

During the next few weeks Amy continued to experience the pains in her head. Sharp and debilitating as ever, they came sometimes two or three times a day, each one lasting for anything up to half an hour, accompanied by the cold sweats and nausea and subsiding to leave her weak and trembling. But she tried not to be so frightened by them and when Oliver Scott called – something he was beginning to make a habit of – she made light of them, though his visits evoked in her a mixed response. It was comforting to feel he was ‘Keeping an eye on her'but also disconcerting, for she couldn't help wondering if he was more concerned about her than he was prepared to admit.

Then gradually she became aware that the pains were coming less often, lasting a shorter time and having less drastic effect on her, and when she told him so he smiled his slow, cheek-creasing smile.

‘There you are, what did I tell you? You're on the mend.'

But still he continued to drop in whenever he was passing, sharing a cup of tea in the comfortable clutter of her kitchen, talking to Barbara in the same serious grown-up way he had once talked to her, and discussing boys'topics with Huw, whose first suspicion of him seemed to have deepened into something close to respect.

Spring became summer. Amy almost forgot she had ever had the pains, so seldom did they now come, and life continued in the same busy pattern as before. But still Oliver Scott's car regularly drew up outside the house in Hope Terrace, and one afternoon during the school summer holidays when she went to collect both the girls from next door, Amy was shocked when Ruby Clarke made mention of it.

‘I see the doctor was at your place again last night; his car was there when we came home from the whist drive. Nellie Newth was quite concerned when she saw it – wondered if there was something wrong – but I told her that we've got quite used to it, and he just pays a social visit now and then.'

‘That's right.' Amy managed to remain aloof. She had always thought there was more gossip exchanged than cards played at the weekly whist drives and was annoyed now to think that she had been the subject of some of it. The memory of the two women in the Co-op discussing her still rankled, too; though she thought Ruby was unlikely to talk about her in that way, she seemed to hear the voice of others who would:

‘Who does she think she is, eh? The doctor calls on her, you know. Oh no, nobody bad in the house, but he calls all the same. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?'

Amy drew herself up now. ‘We are very old friends, Ruby,' she snapped. ‘I have known Dr Scott since I was eight years old and if anybody wishes to make something out of that, you can be sure they will get a flea in their ear if
I
hear about it!'

‘Oh, I'm sure no one would, Amy,' Ruby replied hastily.