GREAT CROWMELL SURGERY. More than a hundred miles away from his old life in London. Right on the Norfolk coast, a place of wide sands and big skies. Peace. Quiet. No complications. No lies. Just him and his new job.
A fresh start.
Ben Mitchell took a deep breath, then pushed the door open.
The receptionist looked up. ‘Good morning, Dr Mitchell.’
‘Ben, please,’ he said with a smile.
‘Ben. Welcome to the surgery. The kettle’s hot and I made choc-chip cookies yesterday. They’re in the staff kitchen. Do help yourself.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hartley.’
‘Do call me Moira.’ She smiled at him. ‘You look like a schoolboy on your first day. Just remember, Ranjit gave you the job because he thought you were the right one for it. You’ll be fine.’
Did his nerves really show that much? ‘Thank you.’ It was ridiculous to feel this nervous. For pity’s sake, he’d worked as a GP trainer in London. He was thirty-five. Experienced. He’d done this job for years and years and he knew he was good with patients.
But the first day in a new place would make adrenalin pump through everyone’s veins. Having to fit in with an established team; getting to know new people and learn their quirks, their strengths and their weaknesses. Getting to know your patients and working out what they weren’t telling you during the consultation so you could help them with their real problem.
Of course he’d be fine. He’d do the job he’d trained to do. The job he loved. Only this time he’d be coming home to a house with no memories and no misery, which made everything a lot easier.
He opened the door with his name on it—Dr B Mitchell, in neat capitals—dropped his bag next to his desk and went in search of the staff kitchen to grab a cup of tea and maybe one of Moira’s cookies.
But as he turned round the corner he stumbled over a brown and white dog, who yelped and looked sorrowfully up at him with huge amber eyes calculated to extract as much guilt as possible.
‘Archie?’ The kitchen door opened abruptly. From the dark blue uniform she wore, Ben realised that this must be one of the practice nurses, probably the one the senior partner had mentioned being on leave when Ben had come for his interview and met the rest of the team. What was her name? Terry?
She frowned at him and bent down to stroke the dog, who whined softly. ‘What happened?’
‘I didn’t see the dog and I tripped over it.’
‘Him,’ she corrected, her eyes narrowing. Beautiful grey eyes, like the sky in November. It shocked him that he’d actually noticed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, knowing that he was in the wrong for hurting the dog, albeit completely unintentionally. But at the same time nobody would expect to find a dog in the corridor in a family doctor’s surgery. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt the dog. But it shouldn’t be here. What if it bit a patient?’
‘He,’ she corrected again, ‘barely even nipped when he was a puppy. He’s incredibly gentle.’
‘There’s always a first time,’ he said crisply, ‘and our patients’ health and safety have to come first.’
The look she gave him said very clearly, You’re throwing your weight around this much on your first day here? ‘It does indeed,’ she said, surprising him, as he’d expected her to make some kind of protest.
She wasn’t smiling when she added, ‘Though our patients happen to like having Archie around on Mondays. As do the rest of the staff. And there’s an infection control policy in the surgery.’
On Mondays? Why was the dog specifically here on Mondays? But, before he could ask her, she clicked her fingers and the dog got up and trotted behind her to the door next to his, which she closed a little too loudly behind them.
Nurse Practitioner Toni Butler.
Toni. He’d remembered a masculine-sounding name. Short for Antonia? Not that it mattered.
He’d just got off to a really bad start with one of his new colleagues.
But he stood by his view that a dog had no place in a family doctor’s surgery, regardless of an infection control policy being in place. Some patients were frightened of dogs; others were allergic and the dander from the dog’s fur could trigger an asthma attack in a vulnerable patient.
Nobody said a word about the little spat when he walked into the kitchen, but he was pretty sure from the awkwardness in everyone’s faces that they’d all overheard the conversation. He felt embarrassed enough to do nothing more than mumble a brief hello and go straight into his consulting room without bothering to make himself a mug of tea.
At least his patients all seemed pleased to see him during the morning’s surgery, welcoming him to the village. He settled into the routine of talking to his patients and suggesting self-help measures as well as medication.
At lunchtime, Toni and the dog were nowhere to be seen.
‘How was your first morning?’ Moira asked.
Apart from having a fight with the nurse practitioner over her dog? ‘Fine, thanks,’ he said.
‘Good. If you haven’t brought anything with you for lunch, there are a few cafés plus the deli and the fish and chip shop along the harbour front—and of course Scott’s do the best ice cream in the area. Abby Scott—well, Powell, since she got remarried to Brad—has even developed a special ice cream for dogs. Toni’s one of her most loyal customers.’
‘Ice cream for dogs?’ He’d never heard of such a thing.
‘Archie loves it.’ Moira smiled. ‘Everyone loves Archie.’
Pretty much what Toni had said to him. In his view, the dog still had no place in a doctor’s surgery; though Ben rather thought he’d be on a losing wicket if he protested any further.
* * *
‘Hello, Ginny.’ Toni kissed the elderly woman’s papery cheek and sat down next to her. ‘How are you today?’
Ginny didn’t answer. She hadn’t said a word in three months, now. Given that her dementia was advanced, she’d either forgotten what to say or she couldn’t quite piece together what Toni was saying enough to answer her. But she smiled, and her smile brightened even more when she saw Archie.
This was exactly why Toni had trained her spaniel as a therapy dog. A dog could sometimes get through to someone when a human couldn’t, and could bring a spot of brightness into a sick person’s day. Residents at a nursing home had often had to leave a much-loved pet behind, and the chance to relive happy memories was so good for them. When Toni’s grandmother had been in the nursing home, a visitor with a dog had really helped brighten her mood. Toni desperately wanted to give something back—to help someone the way her grandmother had been helped. And Ginny had been one of her grandmother’s best friends and who’d been like a second