Louisa Heaton - His Perfect Bride?

She shook her head. ‘That’s not my thing.’

‘What is your thing?’ asked Lula.

Olly glanced at her sideways, surprised by her interruption.

Miss Lomax turned to Lula and shrugged. ‘I’ve always taken care of things myself. Supported myself. I don’t like to lean on others.’

Lula said nothing more as Olly put Miss Lomax in touch with a support group and gave her a few leaflets about counselling and cognitive behaviour therapy before she went on her way.

When Eleanor had left Olly turned in his chair. ‘You okay?’

She nodded. ‘Fine.’ She didn’t want to tell him that she was wondering if Eleanor Lomax was her mother. The mystery ‘EL’ she’d been searching for lately.

They saw an old man suffering with diarrhoea, a young man with a sore knee who’d played football with his work colleagues the day before, a baby with a cold, and a woman who’d come in to talk about her daughter.

‘She’s been very withdrawn lately.’

‘And she’s how old?’

‘Thirteen. It could be puberty starting—I don’t know. They get flooded with hormones at this age, don’t they? But she’s not herself and she hides away in her room all the time and doesn’t eat.’

Olly was reluctant to diagnose anyone without actually seeing her. ‘Perhaps you could get Ruby to come in? Do you think you could get her here? Then we could weigh her and allay any fears you may have about her eating.’

‘I could try, but she’s not very cooperative at the moment. Always arguing with us when we do see her.’

‘Well, I can’t do anything unless I examine her.’

‘Could you come out to us?’ she asked.

‘I only really do home visits if it’s impossible for my patients to get to me.’

Lula was surprised by this. She thought that it might be better if Olly did try to go and see Ruby at home and she suggested it. Especially after what had happened that morning with the baby. They were looking for a teenage girl. But Olly wasn’t too happy about having his methods contradicted, although he tried his best not to show it.

For the rest of the day they saw a standard mix of patients—a lady who wanted a repeat prescription, another lady who had a chest infection and a man who’d come in to discuss his blood test results and was quite anaemic.

A typical day for a GP. Lula even saw some patients of her own.

When the clinic was over, and with only two house visits left to do, they stopped for a cup of tea and a bite to eat.

‘Mary might have brought in one of her delicious cakes for us to eat,’ Olly said, and smiled.

Mary was the receptionist, and she had indeed brought in a coffee liqueur cake that was rich and moist and devilishly moreish.

‘Mary, you must give me the recipe!’ Lula said.

‘I can’t do that—it’s a family secret! ’

‘What if I promise not to tell anyone?’

‘We’ll see, Dr Chance. Perhaps if you stay on then I might give it to you.’

Lula agreed that it was a deal, knowing she would never get the recipe. She had no plans to stay here in Atlee Wold. She was here to do two things. One was to work as a doctor, and the second … Well, Olly was about to find that out.

He sat down in the chair next to hers in the staff lounge. ‘Well, how did you enjoy your first clinic here?’

‘It was good. Interesting. There’s a real community feel to a small village practice that you just don’t get in a large city.’

‘That’s the truth. You can build relationships with people here that go on for years. Not that you can’t do that in the city or in towns, but when you live amongst the people you treat, shop in their store, post your mail in their post office, you develop friendships, too.’

‘Don’t you find it sometimes restricts the amount of privacy you have?’ Lula asked.

‘Not at all. I don’t mind that everyone knows I’m a doctor, and that my father was before me, and that I got the big scar on my leg from falling out of a tree in Mrs Macabee’s orchard.’

‘Ooh, let’s see!’

Lula was always fascinated to see scars and hear the story behind them. She guessed it was part of being a doctor. She had a thing about noticing people’s veins, too. Whether or not they had good juicy veins, ripe for a blood test. You developed an odd sense of humour, being a medical professional.

Olly put his tea down and rolled up his right trouser leg to reveal a slightly jagged scar running down the front of his shin. ‘Broke my tib and fib. Open fracture.’

‘Nasty.’ She could imagine the bones sticking out through the skin. The pain, the blood. The panic. She ignored the fact that he had a beautifully muscular leg, covered in fine dark hair.

‘Mrs Macabee got my dad and they took me to the A&E over at Petersfield. We were treated by people who were very kind and friendly, but I was just another casualty to come through the door. Here in Atlee Wold we really care about one another.’

‘ All doctors care about their patients, Olly.’

‘I know, but you know what I’m trying to say. Don’t you?’

She nodded. She did know. She was just playing devil’s advocate.

‘You say you know a lot about people here in Atlee Wold? Their histories? Does that include everybody in the village? Do you know absolutely everyone ?’

‘Pretty much. Why?’

‘Eleanor Lomax. The lady who had breast cancer. What can you tell me about her past?’

‘Eleanor? She’s a lovely lady. Always lived on her own. Keeps herself to herself. Retired now, but she used to run a boutique, I think. Why?’

Lula shrugged. ‘She just caught my attention. Mainly because … Well, to be perfectly honest with you, Olly, I’m not just here to work.’ She bit her lip and looked at him to gauge his reaction.

‘Or to belly dance?’

She smiled. ‘Or to belly dance. I’m here to find someone. Someone whose initials are EL.’

‘EL … like your mother? You think Eleanor Lomax might be your mother ?’ He looked incredulous.

‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘What makes you think your mother is in Atlee Wold? There must be hundreds, if not thousands of women in the UK with the initials EL.’

‘Well, it’s complicated …’

‘When isn’t it?’

‘When I was abandoned there was obviously some press coverage.’

‘Right.’ He was listening intently, his brow furrowed.

‘The papers asked for my mother to come forward, to let them know she was all right, to see if they could reunite us—that sort of thing. Well, the paper in Portsmouth—the Portsmouth News —was sent a letter by someone signing it “EL”. The letter explained that she couldn’t come forward. That her parents had made her give up the baby, there was no chance of us being together, and that she hoped they would leave her alone.’

‘She sounded desperate?’

Lula nodded. ‘There was a postmark from the Petersfield sorting office, and the handwriting was very distinctive. A journalist took it around the local post offices, to see if any of the staff could remember franking it, and one did. He also remembered the woman who’d posted it, because she’d been upset and had had red eyes from crying.’

‘I can see why he’d remember a crying customer.’

‘Anyway, they questioned this man and he said he’d seen her before. Getting off the bus from Atlee Wold.’

‘That’s what you’re going on?’ he asked incredulously. ‘It’s tenuous, at best.’

‘It’s all I have.’

‘Did the journalist come here? Try and track her down?’

‘He said there were a number of women with the initials EL in Atlee Wold and that none of them would talk to him.’