Jo slept late most days now, napped in the afternoon and took it easy after dinner – it seemed as if she saved herself to go midnight swimming with Elizabeth and Lucy whenever she could. It had become her social life, now she didn’t have the energy to gad about the place at her usual speed. Last night, Elizabeth had made her a boiled fruit cake and they’d caught up on all the village gossip for the week. It caught her by surprise; now she was ensconced in an almost full-time capacity as the practice receptionist. She heard every little tittle-tattle from around the village. Not that she could discuss what went on in the practice; Mrs Kenny’s gout and Mr Parkinson’s lumbago were strictly off limits, but it’s not as if anyone wanted to hear about them anyway.
No, instead, sitting there all day long with a stream of locals passing through, she caught up on everything from the local tidy towns operations to the most pressing deliberations of the parish council. Really, sometimes, Elizabeth felt quiet light-headed with the amount of information coming at her, but then, in the evening, she would ramble off upstairs, grab her coat and head for the cove, with Lucy and sometimes Jo, to laugh their way into the darkness. Into the sea.
She hadn’t done a thing about getting something organised. In fact, for a woman who’d spent a lifetime on committees she wasn’t even sure she knew where to start. Another day almost over already and now she could feel the whole idea bubbling away like a wanton pressure that was pursuing her every move.
‘Are they worth making an offer on?’ Lucy was smiling at her, pulling her from her thoughts.
‘I’m not sure, it depends on how much you’ve got?’ Elizabeth said.
‘Go on then,’ Lucy asked, leaving back the final medical file of the day. She’d just shown Miranda Corrigan to the door. There wasn’t a lot you could do for old age, but Lucy’s bedside manner seemed to give her a great lift.
‘I… it’s silly really.’ Elizabeth shook her head. ‘It’s this charity swim; I’m not sure where to start…’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t imagine telling old Miranda Corrigan that we’re all stripping off down to our birthday suits and does she fancy sponsoring me fifty pence to freeze my bottom off in the midnight waves.’
‘Why not? I can almost guarantee you Miranda will be the first one into the water if her rheumatism doesn’t kick in on the day. Callie will be there for sure.’ She was right of course; Callie Corrigan was a good sport. ‘In fact, I’ll ring Callie first thing in the morning. She’ll get all the girls in the mills to sign up for us.’
‘Really?’ Elizabeth brightened.
‘Of course, and when we get posters printed and sponsorship cards, I promise, every woman in the village will join it.’
‘People do love Jo.’
‘They do and it’s a really good cause,’ Lucy agreed. ‘But they love you too and they’ll all turn out to support this; they’ll turn out to support you. It’s only five weeks – not long at all.’ Lucy looked up at the calendar. It wasn’t that far away but by then Elizabeth knew she was calculating that Jo would be much weaker. ‘Don’t worry about getting people on board; our only worry is keeping Mum well enough to join us on the night.’
‘I know. That’s why it’s good for us to have something to think about outside of…’ Elizabeth let her hands fall to her sides. ‘Jo is so looking forward to it. I think it could really be something to aim for. You know what she’s like: she won’t give in too easily.’
‘You’re right. Let’s start focusing on this properly, instead of things we can’t change.’ Lucy kept her voice firm. ‘We can put up posters here, talk to every woman who comes in the door…’ Lucy stopped. ‘I’ll ask Niall to put a poster together and we can print it off…’
‘Really?’
‘Okay, so we’ll need to get a permit from the council and then ring the local branch of the charity, tell them what we’re planning. I’ll mention it to every patient in the surgery and if they’re not up for joining us, we’ll get a contribution out of them. The charity will surely help with the admin for us and sponsorship cards. We can knock some support out of the drug suppliers and…’ Lucy grabbed a pencil and paper from the desk, started a to-do list. ‘Here, how’s this?’
‘Well, it’s…’ Elizabeth read through it. There was a list of things to get done for the next few days, but everything could be organised from right here in the surgery. ‘It’s perfect. What would I do without you?’ she said softly and she realised, that if she sold the surgery and Lucy moved on, she’d be losing so much more than just a good doctor for the community and a great colleague, she’d be losing a dear friend.