The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(6)

‘Don’t worry, you’re panicking over nothing. Here’s the thing: regardless of whether you get someone to take up on Monday or in a week’s time, Doctor O’Shea’s old patients will all be delighted to see the back of that awful woman. If there’s something urgent, they’ll take themselves off to the A&E in Ballybrack and if it’s something small, they’ll just drop into a doctor in the next town over from them. Don’t you see, as long as she was here, they couldn’t do that without feeling they were letting down the old man himself. Now at least, you can get someone decent in there and if you get the right person, it will all work out for the best in the end.’

‘But that’s the thing, Jo: who will I get? I mean, I’ve looked through all Eric’s contacts and there’s not one I can think of who’d be able to help me find a doctor to take over. I’m afraid after Thea Gilchrist that they’d foist someone even worse on us.’ Elizabeth shook her head. It was useless.

‘Why would you ask any of that lot? Sure, wasn’t it one of his old “friends” who landed you with that lemon? No, now is the time to find someone you want, not an employee that some other practice just wants to get rid of. Actually…’ Elizabeth set her head at an angle, her thoughts crowding over her words for a moment. ‘Do you know there might be just the perfect person?’

‘I can’t see how…’ Elizabeth wanted to say more. After all, Jo might be all very good at whipping an apple tart out of thin air, or marvellously making dust and debris disappear, but there was no way she could pull a qualified doctor out of her hat in an instant.

‘It’s Lucy, my daughter…She needs a change, but she’s stuck. She’s been stuck for far too long. Maybe, just maybe…’

‘Do you think she’d come down here to take over?’ Elizabeth leant forward, suddenly interested.

‘If we could convince her, it could be perfect for both of you…’





2


Lucy


It had been a moment of complete madness. A night shift on A&E, one drunk too many or maybe just knowing that time was passing and with it any chance of making the most of what time was left with her son before it was too late. She’d fired off an email at four o’clock in the morning. A leave of absence. She would take a year to spend travelling or hanging around the house – being a mother. Maybe just…being. Four hours later, an email from the HR department, replying to the single form she’d filled in, dropped into her inbox. They didn’t even wish her the best of luck or enquire as to why exactly she felt so burned out that she knew the only way to keep going was to walk away.

And that was that. Lucy didn’t know whether to jump for joy or feel a little sad at this unexpected parting from everything apart from Niall and Dora her trusty hound who had been her life for the last couple of years. Really, outside of work and the friends and colleagues she had here, there wasn’t much more to her life to leave behind. She stood for a moment, stunned into stillness. She had walked away from her job. Just like that. Dear God – was she mad? And for a moment, she wondered what on earth had possessed her.

Still, she slept soundly when she arrived home, woke after lunch and then it hit her again. What had she done? Thrown in her job for a year? She would have to tell Niall – he’d probably be delighted. It’d mean he could leave boarding school – he hated it, they both knew that. Boarding school had been Jack’s idea. He wanted a big future for his boy – pity he didn’t want to actually be in the same country as him. Jack was living in Australia now, starting over with wife number two – Melinda Power was nothing like Lucy. She shook the thought of her ex-husband and his new life from her mind quickly; it was time to fully let him go.

She’d have to tell her mother. Oh God. That would be like going ten rounds with Tyson, except her mother would jab with love and care and she’d worry like crazy that everything was all right with her only daughter.

‘But that’s just so perfect,’ Jo said when she rang to tell her the news.

‘Really?’ Lucy asked, because she still couldn’t believe she’d actually done it.

‘Yes, really. I never understood why you stuck at it, after…’ She was too tactful to say after the divorce. ‘I mean, you’ve been killing yourself and for what? You hardly see Niall, you never get to take a weekend off and it’s not as if you’re broke. I mean…’ Again, the divorce and the sale of their old house had left her with a financial cushion – thankfully her mother was too kind to say that outright either.

‘Come home, Lucy. Ballycove could be just what you need now and…’

‘And?’

‘Well, you know I told you about old Dr O’Shea?’

‘Yes, I remember. How’s his wife? She must be very lonely.’

‘Elizabeth?’ Jo brushed off the name, as if his widow was unlikely to notice he was no longer about the village. ‘Oh she’s fine, nothing that a little getting out of herself won’t cure, but it’s the surgery…’

‘No, no, no, I can’t…’ Lucy realised why throwing in her job seemed like such a perfect opportunity to her mother. ‘Anyway, didn’t she have someone else running it for her?’

‘Oh, that dragon? No. Thankfully, she’s gone back to whatever cave she slithered from. No, Elizabeth needs someone new, someone who’s looking for a fresh start. Oh, Lucy, you’d be perfect and it could be just the thing for both of you.’