‘We haven’t actually talked nuts and bolts, just that if it ever came up for sale, he might be interested in looking at it.’ She smiled. ‘The notion of having to repair the roof and insulate the place didn’t seem to faze him either, so that’s positive.’
‘It certainly is,’ Lucy said, but the news hit her in a way that she’d never have expected and she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it, or indeed why it affected her so acutely. She would really have to give the whole idea some thought, because now, sitting here with Elizabeth, it all seemed so much more pressing. If this house was sold, well, wasn’t it once, so long ago, the house of her dreams? Of course, then she’d believed that if she lived in a big house at the top of the town, she’d be living here with her husband and a couple of kids and maybe a great big bruiser of a dog too. She could cross Jack off her wish list that was for certain now. She was pretty sure that she couldn’t afford to go up against Dan if he wanted to buy the place.
‘Are you okay?’ Elizabeth asked kindly.
‘Yes, I’m fine, just lost in my thoughts.’
‘I haven’t actually done anything yet, so don’t worry and even if I do sell on the surgery, no-one’s going to be able to take it on immediately.’ She reached out and squeezed Lucy’s hand.
‘You mustn’t worry about me.’ Lucy smiled. ‘Really, I still haven’t settled on a plan and much as I enjoy being here, with everything else that’s come my way over the last year, I’m just reluctant to make any major decisions until I’m sure.’
‘Very wise.’ Elizabeth reached forward and topped up both of their cups from the coffee pot on the table. ‘It’s all pie in the sky anyway. I haven’t even looked at Murphy’s cottage.’ Her expression changed. ‘To be honest, I was never keen on her,’ she confided. ‘Eileen – she never smiled, never thought she liked me very much.’
‘I don’t suppose Eileen Murphy liked anyone very much; I really wouldn’t take it too personally.’
‘Still, to find myself living in her house after all these years?’
‘You need to go and have a look first, then decide.’ Lucy knew if there was much to be done here, there was every bit as much work to be carried out on the little cottage next door to her mother’s. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. ‘Do you think Dan might still be interested if you were to only sell the house and garden and move the surgery to the old stables at the end of the garden and keep it all completely separate?’ Lucy had a feeling she was only putting the words on what was running through Elizabeth’s thoughts now. ‘It’s still a very impressive residence and the garden is huge. He’d have a really secure boundary at the finish if the doors and windows were blocked up from this side.’
‘I think it would be well worth taking a look at it, don’t you?’
‘Absolutely,’ Lucy said and although she wasn’t really sure why, she felt a little better with the notion that the surgery would remain separate to any sale. ‘Now…’ She pushed Elizabeth’s phone towards her. ‘You’d better ring up about that cottage.’
The next three weeks flooded into each other. Jo’s cough developed into something approaching a chest infection and it culminated in a trip to hospital and antibiotics so strong, Lucy wondered if they were veterinary prescriptions. The mention of hospice by one of the young doctors was enough to catapult Jo from her bed and when Lucy arrived back that evening, she was sitting in the day chair with bags packed by another patient Jo had collared from the corridor.
She spent the following week at home in bed and although Lucy was glad to have her back at the cottage, it didn’t stop her worrying like crazy that with her compromised immune system, even a chest infection could become a serious health complication for her. Fortunately, with a lot of TLC, hot soups, vitamin C and plenty of gossip from the village by the end of the week, Jo looked much brighter.
‘Actually, I’d say you look ten times better than you did three weeks ago,’ Lucy said. It was the Saturday afternoon and she was sitting on the double bed, facing out towards the sea. She was watching one of the local fishing boats bob across frothy swells that looked like little more than ripples from here. Lucy knew well enough those pretty waves were probably eight or nine foot high, chewing viciously at the boat.
‘Really, I think you’re trying to make me feel better.’