Their Very Special Marriage (13 page)

‘So you two were friends for years, then?' Rachel asked.

‘Mmm. We both went to the same school.'

Weren't vicars supposed to be poor? How come Caroline's parents had been able to afford private education?

‘She's cleverer than me. Got a scholarship,' Oliver said.

Rachel flushed, hoping that her thoughts hadn't been completely readable.

‘That's why she went to Oxford, not London,' he added.

‘A medical degree's still a medical degree, wherever it came from. And it's how you treat your patients that counts,' Caroline corrected him.

Rachel's thoughts exactly. Hell. Why did Caroline have to be in tune with her? Why couldn't she be a prissy, cold-hearted snob? Surely that was the sort of woman Isabel Bedingfield would have wanted for her son: a woman out of the same mould as her own?

‘We lost touch a year or so after I went to Oxford. I had a bit of, um, well, a breakdown, really,' Caroline explained. ‘And I didn't want to come back to Hollybridge.'

Why? Because she'd split up with Oliver? And why
had
she split up with Oliver? Had it been anything to do with her ‘breakdown'?

‘What made you change your mind?' Was it because she wanted Oliver back? Rachel had to know.

‘After I qualified, I travelled a bit,' Caroline said. ‘I spent some time in the States, then went to Australia. I worked in Sydney for a few years.'

Well, that would explain why she hadn't come to the wedding.

‘I half thought about settling out there for good.' She grimaced. ‘But being a vicar's daughter means you get this strict sense of duty—sort of through osmosis. Dad's getting near retirement, and Mum's not been so well lately, so I thought I'd better show my face again. I applied for a locum registration, caught the plane back and here I am again.'

‘And are you staying?'

‘Maybe. I'm using the time while Mum and Dad are on holiday to look for a place of my own.'

Just as long as it's not this one, Rachel thought.

‘You're from Newcastle, aren't you?' Caroline asked.

‘Yes.'

‘That's a part of the world I haven't been to. Though I've heard the scenery up there's amazing. Castles and lighthouses—and Holy Island, of course.'

‘There are plenty of castles in Kent,' Rachel said.

‘Mmm, but it's not the same. Kent's pretty flat—and covered in motorways.'

It sounded as if Caroline didn't really want to stay around here. Oliver wouldn't go with her, Rachel knew—if nothing else, his loyalty to the practice would keep him in Hollybridge.

‘I'll, um, get pudding,' Rachel said when the silence had stretched just that little bit too long.

‘I'll help you bring the things out,' Caroline said.

Odd. Shouldn't she be looking for any excuse to be on her own with Oliver? And why did Oliver have that panicky look in his eyes? Maybe I've drunk too much wine, Rachel thought.

‘That looks incredibly full of calories,' Caroline said as Rachel took the pudding from the fridge.

‘Sorry, are you dieting?'

Caroline scoffed. ‘Not on your life. I was thinking of Ol.'

‘What about me?' Oliver demanded as they returned to the dining room.

‘I saw your brother the other day. He's definitely spreading round the middle. You'll be next. So really, if Rachel and I eat your share of this, we'll be doing you a favour.' Caroline let Rachel help her to a large amount. ‘Oh. This is to die for,' she said after the first taste.

‘White chocolate mousse,' Rachel said.

‘And raspberries to take the edge off the sweetness. Perfect.'

‘Do you really think I'm spreading round the middle?' Oliver asked.

Caroline shrugged. ‘You tell me.'

Didn't she
know
? Hadn't she been...well...close enough to Oliver's naked body to notice?

Caroline had second helpings of the pudding. And when Rachel brought in the coffee and cannoli wafers, Caroline snapped her fingers. ‘Rats. I knew there was something I meant to bring.'

Rachel frowned. ‘What?'

‘Tim Tams. Aussie chocolate biscuits,' Caroline explained. ‘You have to drink coffee through them, then eat them quickly before they collapse. Dad would have a fit, saying it's bad manners, but it's really the best way to eat them. The Aussie way.' She grinned. ‘Maybe I can tempt you over to have lunch with me one day next week, and you can try them for yourself.'

‘What about me?' Oliver asked.

‘This is chocolate. Women's stuff,' Caroline admonished him. ‘So, how about it, Rachel? Or shall I call you Rach?'

‘Er—I don't really get a chance for lunch. You know, with picking Soph up from nursery and meeting Rob from school.'

‘Bring Sophie with you. The house is very child-friendly; Mum's got a box of toys.'

‘Well...thanks.' She'd find a polite excuse nearer the time.

By the end of the evening, Rachel thought that in other circumstances she would have liked Caroline. But then Oliver saw Caroline to the door. And he was gone for
ages
. Rachel couldn't help peeking through the kitchen door, and she regretted it instantly. Caroline and Oliver were talking very quietly—and standing so close together that you could barely have got a blade of grass between them.

Oh, Oliver. How can you possibly do this, in
our
house, with our children asleep upstairs? Rachel thought.

But she wasn't giving up on her marriage yet. Not by a long way. Caroline might be nice—but Rachel wasn't going to hand over her husband on a silver platter. Now she knew what the competition was, she could start to do something about it.

CHAPTER NINE

O
N
M
ONDAY
morning, Rachel dropped the children at school and nursery and walked into the practice. Her consulting room was exactly as she'd left it, with a framed photograph of Oliver and the children on her desk and the walls decorated with a lion made out of Sophie's handprints and a robot painted by Robin when he'd first started school.

The one thing Caroline had left—in extremely neat handwriting—was a list of the patients she'd seen. Rachel flicked through the computerised notes on the first couple and knew she wouldn't have to bother reviewing the rest. Caroline's notes were concise yet detailed enough so that Rachel would be able to follow exactly what she'd done.

If only you didn't have your sights set on my husband, Rachel thought. We could have been friends.

Surgery went quickly—the usual Monday morning aches and pains which had got worse over the weekend, a couple of infected splinters, a bad back and a sprained ankle. And then Flora Carson came in.

‘Hello, Flora.' Oliver had already filled Rachel in on the situation. ‘Come and sit down. How are you feeling?' Rachel asked.

Flora tried to smile, but admitted, ‘Pretty grim.'

Rachel checked her file. ‘Right. Oliver's managed to push through your blood tests, and your haemoglobin's lower than it should be. You're anaemic, so I'm going to prescribe some iron tablets—they'll go a long way to making you feel less tired and run down.'

‘Believe me, I ate a ton of spinach over the weekend,' Flora said feelingly.

Rachel grinned. ‘Rather you than me! The urine sample showed you're not pregnant, so that's one complication out of the way. Oliver thinks you might have fibroids, so would you mind if I examined you?'

‘I know I should have let Dr Bedingfield do it last week. I just felt too...well, embarrassed,' Flora explained.

‘It's not a problem. Periods aren't the easiest things to discuss with men. He knows the theory, but...at the end of the day, he's a man. He's never actually
had
a period.'

To her relief, Flora seemed to relax. ‘Would you like to lie down on the couch for me?' She examined Flora's abdomen. ‘Sometimes you can feel fibroids, if they're very big. I can't feel anything, so I need to do an internal exam. Is that all right?'

Flora nodded.

‘Have you noticed if you've needed to wee more often lately?'

‘If anything, it's the other way round.'

Which could mean that the fibroid—if it
was
a fibroid—had pushed the neck of the bladder upwards and elongated the urethra. ‘OK. Tell me if anything feels uncomfortable or tender, and I'll stop straight away,' Rachel said. The internal exam showed exactly what she'd expected: Flora's uterus was firm and enlarged in places. There was no tenderness either. ‘It feels like a fibroid to me, but I'd like to send you to hospital for a scan to confirm it and rule out any other problems.'

‘A scan?' Flora looked worried.

‘Fibroids are benign tumours—they're not cancerous,' Rachel reassured her. ‘The scan's a bit like you'd have if you were pregnant, and it'll show how many fibroids you have and how big they are.'

‘You can have more than one?'

‘Yes—and they can vary from the size of a pea to the size of a melon,' Rachel explained. ‘It's pretty common,
actually: around one in five women over the age of thirty have fibroids.'

‘How did I get it?'

Rachel shook her head. ‘We don't know why fibroids develop—it's basically when the smooth muscle cells grow too much. Some people are more prone than others.'

‘So what do I do now?'

‘If it wasn't causing you problems, I'd say leave it—fibroids usually shrink after menopause. But in your case, you're already having problems and you've got another fifteen years or so before you should be reaching menopause. It really depends on the size of the fibroids,' Rachel said. ‘If they're not too big, you might be able to take some tablets—something called tranexamic acid, which reduces the blood clots in your uterus and makes your period lighter.'

‘So I won't have to have surgery?'

‘As I said, it depends. If the fibroids are big, there are three surgical options,' Rachel said. ‘You're still young, so you might want to have children—in that case the surgeon will suggest a myomectomy, which means they'll just remove the fibroid. If you were over forty and you'd already had a family, the surgeon might suggest a hysterectomy, or there's a new technique called uterine artery embolisation. That's where the surgeon can put a catheter—that's a very thin flexible tube—into an artery in your leg. Then he'll inject a chemical which will block some of the arteries in your uterus—that cuts off the blood supply to the fibroid and makes it shrink. But we don't know what the long-term effects will be, so you'll need to discuss it fully with the surgeon before you make any decisions.'

‘Thanks, Rachel. I wish I'd come earlier. It's been really coming between Colin and me—I always seem to be on, so I'm never in the mood for making love nowadays.'

Yeah. I know someone who's like that, Rachel thought.
Except he didn't have long, heavy periods to drain his energy. Oliver didn't actually have an excuse—apart from the fact he was obviously getting his needs met elsewhere. ‘At least you're doing something about it now.' Which was exactly what she needed to do—something to get her love life with Oliver back on an even keel. Something to make him realise that they still had a lot going for them, and that Caroline should stay where she'd come from. In the past.

‘I'll refer you for a scan and a consultation with the specialist, and you should hear something from the hospital this week,' Rachel said. ‘It's easy for me to say, but try not to worry. And if you've got any questions, just give me a call.'

When Flora left, Rachel considered nipping in to see Oliver and trying to persuade him to have lunch with her—but she knew he didn't really have the time and, besides, she needed to go and pick Sophie up from nursery. Maybe tonight they'd get a few minutes of quality time together.

Maybe.

* * *

Oliver flicked into his texts and grinned as he saw the message:
She's lovely—you're a lucky man.

Yeah. He knew that. His smile faded.
I know. But.

A few seconds later, the reply came zinging back.
You need to talk to her. Don't let her slip through your fingers, you idiot.

Yeah, he knew that, too. But
how
?

Tell her the truth. Tell her how you feel.

He'd tried, but the words just wouldn't come out.
I'm hopeless with words. When it really matters.

Maybe I can help. Let me think about it,
she texted back.

Half an hour later, Oliver's phone buzzed discreetly in his pocket. As soon as his patient had gone, he checked his phone.

I've loved you since the moment I first set eyes on you. I
knew you were the one I wanted to grow old with. That hasn't changed and it never will. I love you.

He smiled.
That's perfect
, he replied. He had the words now. All he had to do was find the right time to tell Rachel.

* * *

Rachel had just made Sophie a sandwich when the phone rang. Her sister, probably, to see how things were—ringing at a time when she knew Oliver wouldn't be there so Rachel could talk freely. ‘Hi,' she said.

‘Hello, Rachel.'

Rachel recognised the voice and the back of her neck started to knot up. Caroline. Not Fiona.

‘I just wanted to ring and say thank you for Saturday. I enjoyed it so much.'

‘Pleasure,' Rachel lied. Oh, hell. She wanted to tell Caroline to leave her husband alone and go to hell—but would a direct confrontation make things worse? With Oliver, it was always best to take a softer, more oblique approach. If she rocked the boat now, there was a very good chance that she'd fall out. She took a deep breath. Stay calm, she reminded herself. Pretend you know nothing. ‘Thanks for looking after my patients so well.'