Best of Friends. Cathy Kelly
to meet you,’ Roxie said to Abby. ‘I love your work.’
‘Thanks,’ Abby said mechanically. She was too shattered to say anything else. She made her way to the ladies’ room across the hall, and Flora followed her.
‘I know it’s tough,’ said Flora, when she emerged from the cubicle to wash her hands, ‘but Roxie has a point, Abby. Youth is in.’
‘I know that,’ said Abby, somehow managing to hide how desperately hurt she was.
‘We’d all hate you to be upset. You’re our friend, Abby – that goes beyond TV.’
‘Course I’m not upset.’ Abby’s hands shook as she took out her make-up pouch. She daren’t try to use her lipliner. Her face, pale and haggard with shock, stared back at her. Her new chestnut streaks looked ridiculously harsh against her pale face. Her previous all tawny tint had suited her colouring better.
Flora was watching her. Somehow, Abby recovered.
‘This is a job, after all, and job descriptions change. I’m a professional, Flora. You should know that,’ she said.
‘Sorry.’ Flora gave Abby’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. ‘I forgot. They don’t call you the most down-to-earth presenter on the box for nothing.’
Abby did her best to look down-to-earth, even though she felt like lying down on the tiled floor of the ladies, drumming her heels and screaming about the unfairness of everything.
‘You know, I wasn’t sure I liked Roxie at first, to be honest with you,’ Flora was saying, redoing her plait, ‘but she has some great ideas and she’s all right behind that tough exterior.’
‘Yeah, for sure.’ Abby zipped up her handbag. ‘Must fly, Flora. I’ll talk to you soon, OK?’
She managed to leave the building without meeting Brian or Roxie.
‘Oh, Abby,’ sang Livia as Abby rushed past reception, ‘Mr Redmond was looking for you.’
‘Can’t stop. Sorry, Livia,’ said Abby politely. She could not face Brian Redmond now. ‘Bye.’
She rushed to the car park, leather skirt creaking wildly. Only when she was in her car and past the security barrier did she allow herself to break into floods of tears.
That same afternoon, in the doctor’s surgery in the centre of Dunmore, Lizzie Shanahan searched the correspondence pile for a letter to the specialist. Mrs Pender stood in front of the desk, looking only slightly less shocked than she had the previous day when she and Mr Pender had emerged from the surgery with the gently delivered but nonetheless startling news that Mr Pender needed to see a specialist for further discussion on the results of his blood test for prostate cancer.
Lizzie found the letter and the attached Post-it note on which she’d written directions to the specialist’s office.
She smiled warmly at Mrs Pender, doing her best to radiate both calmness and complete ignorance of whatever was in the letter to the specialist. Lizzie knew exactly what it said because she’d typed it and because the doctor’s receptionist knew almost as many secrets as the doctor. But the patients were better off not really being aware of that.
This patient was too worried to go along with the sanctity-of-the-surgery façade. ‘I haven’t slept a wink since I heard,’ Mrs Pender said weakly. ‘Do you think it’s bad, since they got him an appointment so quickly?’
Lizzie, who’d been told to plead emergency on the phone to the specialist’s office because Mr Pender’s blood test results signalled prostate cancer, felt a huge surge of pity for the woman but managed to look innocently surprised at the question.
‘They may have had a cancellation, Mrs Pender,’ she said kindly, weighing up the merits of lying and deciding that the poor woman would possibly hear enough bad news from the specialist tomorrow without lying awake all night from anxiety.
Sleeplessness was a problem Lizzie knew all about. And she was aware that women worried five times more about their husbands’ health than they did about their own. Not a problem Lizzie had any more.
‘Yes, a cancellation, that could be it.’ Mrs Pender brightened at the news and went off with her letter.
Lizzie scanned the reception room. It was a quarter to five. There were two people waiting. One was an elderly gentleman who’d looked uncomfortable on being told that Dr Morgan, the lady doctor, was on. The other patient was a weary-looking young woman with a small, red-faced baby on her denim lap. The baby cried non-stop, the tormented tears of teething that could reach ear-shattering decibel levels. The woman shot apologetic looks at Lizzie as the baby launched into another miserable aria. Lizzie had paid her own dues at the coalface of teething babies and gave the young mother an understanding grin in return. Lizzie had a very infectious grin. It was something to do with the combination of her wide, smiling mouth, rosy cheeks that shone through all cosmetics, and lively chocolate-brown eyes that sparkled beneath her shaggy blonde-streaked fringe.
It was ten to five when Dr Morgan opened the surgery door and called in the elderly man. Lizzie was due to leave at five and Clare Morgan, who was the most considerate employer Lizzie had ever encountered, leaned round her office door and said: ‘Lock the door when you go, Lizzie. I’ll let the patients out when we’re finished.’
Lizzie smiled her thanks and began to tidy up, leaving a list of the evening’s patients for Dr Jones, who’d be in at seven for two hours. There was no receptionist on in the evenings, and although Lizzie could have done with both the money and the time out of the house, she’d never suggested working at night too. Dr Morgan, who’d been kindness itself since the divorce, would have been shocked at the notion of Lizzie spending all her time working. Dr Morgan, divorced and the mother of adult children herself, was a firm believer that freshly single women had to make new, exciting lives for themselves. Lizzie outwardly agreed with all of this and inwardly wondered whether Clare Morgan planned her week’s television viewing on a Saturday too, circling the programmes she wanted to watch in the TV guide, putting asterisks beside interesting documentaries. Probably not.
Lizzie locked the surgery door and, twenty minutes later, she was walking round the supermarket on Dunmore’s Cork Road, a basket over her arm as she debated what to buy for dinner. That was one of the nice things about living alone, she thought to cheer herself up. You could eat whatever you wanted. Myles had hated tuna in tins, while Lizzie could have eaten it every night. He loved proper dinners too, not speedy suppers like beans on toast. Now, she could eat beans and tuna together if she felt like it. She rounded the frozen pizza corner and went bang into Josephine who lived four doors up. Josephine, a gossiper of professional standard, was wielding a loaded trolley that proclaimed to the world that she had a husband and four big sons to feed. Giant family packs of meat and many loaves of bread were packed precariously on top of each other. If her trolley could speak, it would have loudly said, ‘I have a life.’
‘Oh, hello, Lizzie,’ she greeted. ‘How nice to see you.’
Lizzie made a sudden decision. She couldn’t face Josephine’s gentle probing. Her single-person basket clearly said that she had no life and the carafe of red wine that had been on special offer would proclaim that she coped with this lack of a life by knocking back litre bottles of booze.
‘Lovely to see you!’ she said gaily, and kept walking. ‘Sorry, but I’m rushing. I have someone dropping in and I’m late!’ Lizzie smiled broadly to imply a busy, action-packed existence that left no time for concerned ‘how are you doing?’ conversations amid the frozen food.
From the corner of her eye, Lizzie could see Josephine’s garrulous husband amble over to the trolley. Thank God she’d made her escape. She couldn’t face both of them. She rushed round another corner and hurried down the tea and coffee aisle, knowing exactly what Josephine would