won’t say no,’ she said thankfully. ‘My little one is teething and was really out of sorts this morning, so I didn’t have time to have any breakfast. I mustn’t linger, though. We have a new doctor in charge of the practice and I’ve already made a poor start by being late, so don’t want to transgress any further! He has the look of a man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.’
‘Surely he will make allowances for you being a single mother,’ Betty protested.
‘I suppose he might if he knew, but we only met last night. He doesn’t yet know I have a child, and when he does I won’t be expecting any favours. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the staff.’
When she was ready to go, Betty walked to the bottom of the garden path with her. Wistfully she said, ‘Under any other circumstances, Frank would have been holding forth about trees this morning—they’re his favourite subject—but not any more. I used to weary of it sometimes, but now I’d give anything to hear about the oaks and the elms and the sycamores.’
‘I’m sure that you will be hearing about them again soon, Betty,’ Phoebe told her consolingly. As she left, she said reassuringly, ‘I’ll call again tomorrow and for as long as it takes for Frank to be completely confident when injecting the insulin.’
There was another new patient on her list of calls, and as she pulled up in front of a shop across from the harbour that sold fishing tackle, it was clear that its owner had been on the lookout for her. The moment she stepped out of the car, a young blonde guy with a beard came striding out and without wasting a second said, ‘I’m Jake Stephenson and the patient is my young nephew Rory. He’s staying with me for a while as both his parents are in hospital after a car crash.
‘Rory was hurt too, but to a lesser degree. However, he has a nasty leg wound that I’ve been told he mustn’t put any weight on for the time being. The hospital phoned the surgery to ask for a district nurse to come and dress the wound, and keep an eye on it.’
He was leading the way back into the shop and Phoebe followed, not having been able to get a word in so far. But she was used to anxiety creating a non-stop spate of words, and had listened carefully to what he had been saying.
‘Here he is,’ he said, opening the door of a sitting room at the back of the shop. A young teenage boy, with a bandaged leg resting on a stool in front of him, looked up from the computer game he was playing for a moment and then went back to it.
‘Switch that off for a moment, Rory,’ the harassed uncle ordered, and the boy obeyed reluctantly.
‘Hello, there,’ Phoebe said. ‘I’ve come to have a look at your leg, Rory.’
He nodded sullenly but didn’t speak, and kneeling beside him she gently removed the dressing.
When the injury was revealed she saw that a deep gash had been stitched, most likely from when he’d first been taken to A and E after the crash. However, the skin around it over quite a large area had been scraped off and was looking sore and weepy, so she hesitated before using more of the cream he’d been given by the hospital.
‘It’s my dad’s fault,’ the youngster grumbled as he looked down at his leg. ‘He always drives too fast. I hate him. Supposing I can’t play footie again!’
‘Shush,’ she said gently. ‘It would have to be much worse than this for that to happen. I’m going to ask one of the doctors from the surgery to come and look at your leg.’ Signalling to Jake to go back into the shop so they could talk, she smiled at Rory reassuringly and followed his uncle as he led the way out of the room.
‘If only Rory wasn’t so difficult,’ he said when they were out of his hearing. ‘He isn’t usually like this.’
‘He’s feeling frightened and insecure,’ she told him. ‘The poor boy has been involved in a car crash, which must have been terrifying. Even though from the sound of it his parents were the ones most seriously hurt, all he can see at the moment is what it did to him.’
She was reaching for her mobile phone. ‘I’m going to see if Dr Fenchurch is back from his rounds. I need a second opinion before I treat the leg again with the same procedure as before.’
‘I’m afraid Leo isn’t here,’ Millie on Reception told her when she answered the phone. ‘His car broke down as he was leaving his last house call, and he’s out there waiting for the breakdown services to show up. But Dr Balfour is here, and if you give us the address, he says he’ll be right with you.’
Phoebe almost groaned out loud. Since he’d arrived back on his home ground, she’d met the abrupt man twice in the space of twenty-four hours. And each time she hadn’t come out of it as the epitome of efficiency.
He was bound to think that she should be able to deal with this sort of problem with her eyes shut, she thought rebelliously. But Rory was an injured youngster who was frightened and hurting because of his family’s carelessness, and if he couldn’t rely on his father to do the right thing by him, he could rely on her. She knew he needed a second opinion on that leg of his so grudgingly, she gave the address.
When Harry Balfour came striding into the cluttered shop premises ten minutes later, he found Phoebe drinking the coffee that a grateful Jake Stephenson had insisted on offering her, and he frowned. It didn’t look much like an emergency at first glance, he thought. But she put the cup down immediately and took him into the sitting room where Rory was, and he had to change his assumption.
As soon as he saw the boy’s leg, he knew that the district nurse had been right to send for a doctor.
‘How long is it since they sent Rory home from the hospital?’ he asked as he scrutinised the wound.
‘Last night,’ Jake told him.
‘How long since the accident?
‘A couple of days before. His parents are still in there, both with concussion, broken legs and pelvic injuries. Once they’d seen to Rory’s leg, the doctors decided that he would be better out of hospital and sent him to me, his uncle, for the time being.’
So far Phoebe hadn’t spoken. Harry Balfour had that effect on her, making her clam up when she should be showing him that she was no pushover. When he turned to her after he’d finished examining the leg, he found himself looking into her wide brown gaze and seeing a defiant kind of wariness there.
Yet not for long. It quickly turned to surprise when he said crisply, ‘You were right to send for one of us. I’m of the opinion that Rory is allergic to the antiseptic cream they gave him at the hospital. Although it is highly recommended by most doctors, I have heard of the occasional case where the patient has had an allergic reaction to one of its components, so we will change the ointment and check the condition of the injury once again after twenty-four hours.’
He was writing out a prescription as he spoke and said to Phoebe, ‘I see there’s a chemist two doors away. If you would like to pop in there and get this made up, perhaps Mr. Stephenson might have another cup of coffee on offer before I depart.’
Chapter Two
SO HARRY BALFOUR was human after all, Phoebe thought while the chemist was making up the prescription. Not as approachable as that nice guy Jake maybe, but not quite as scary and abrupt as she’d at first thought. Although, of course, it was early days. He didn’t yet know there was a teething infant just across the landing, and his reaction to that might depend on just how much he valued his sleep!
When she returned to the shop, he’d departed, leaving a message to say he’d gone back to the practice to prepare for the second surgery of the day. So once she had put the new antiseptic cream on Rory’s leg and placed a clean dressing over the infected area, she bade uncle and nephew goodbye, promising to return the next day to check on the effects of the new cream, and proceeded to the next housebound patient on her list.
She was back at the surgery by half