(Part 01)
Chantelle Dooney was a big frumpy looking woman with wild red hair and a ruddy complexion, who dressed in tweeds and looked more like a country vet than a doctor but she was a warm and receptive person and the older patients loved her.
She wasn’t big in the fat or overweight sense of the word, she was tall, a smidge over 6 feet tall to be almost exact and well-made and amply proportioned particularly in the bust.
She was well liked by colleagues and patients generally because she had a heart even bigger that her bust size.
She had first met Dr Claire Andrews when she had worked as a locum in Bushy Down, she had always been a locum and it had suited her and as she was good at slotting in and was adaptable she was never out of work.
But she was also fast approaching 40, as was Claire, so she had decided she had had enough of being a nomad and she had been looking for something more permanent for a while.
So when Claire phoned her out of the blue to offer her a job she jumped at the chance.
She had no roots put down anywhere, no family or close friends, no husband or lover, and no contracts to fulfil, so she made the move immediately.
On the day she started, the first person Chantelle met was Lynn Cooper, a well presented woman at the wrong end of her fifties who had been a receptionist at the practice for 25 years in all.
So Lynn was best placed to show her the ropes and as she had also lived in Shallowfield all of her life she was the font of all knowledge on all local matters as well.
Lynn made Chantelle feel immediately at home and with each successive member of staff joining she felt even more so.
And she experienced feelings she had never had before she actually felt part of the place, she felt like she belonged.
And for the first time in her professional life she was not the newbie and it was such a nice feeling it made her smile.
All The people in the practice thought she was a nice woman so they made sure that she started to participate in local life.
As with most of her new colleagues she found somewhere to live that suited her needs on Teardrop Lake.
And rented Flat 1 in Easy Cliff Lodge which had three bedrooms and a great view of the lake.
She had originally agreed to take a smaller flat in the same house but she had to reassess her needs.
Because she had led a nomadic life style moving from practice to practice or hospital to hospital she only ever took on furnished short term lets and then every time she moved on to the next job she would put her surplus worldly goods into storage and after more than a decade she had stored a bit more than she had pictured in her mind’s eye.
So she went for the third bedroom to accommodate all her music and her books which were her passions.
Richard Grimwood shared her passion for music and literature but in appearance they were opposites, he was shorter by several inches and pipe cleaner thin.
He was the editor of the Shallowfield and Childean Chronicle and lived in Flat 2 in the same building and he had done for several years.
He too had no family ties or personal attachments outside of his work.
He had colleagues he liked and respected and he was liked and respected in return but he was a self-contained man of 45 whose life revolved around the written word.
Richard chose to live by the lake for several reasons, he was a bit of a walker and there were endless trails in the forest and he was a “twitcher” not that he liked the term he preferred bird watcher.
But most of all it was because it was peaceful and quiet and devoid of the sort of people he had to write about day after tedious day in the local rag that nobody read, and only used to line the hamsters cage or light the fire.
His was a smaller flat than the one Chantelle had but he didn’t need so much space he had gone digital some time before, all of his music and reading matter was now stored on a device not much bigger than a cigarette packet.
Richard possessed no more sartorial elegance than Chantelle did but his penchant was for corduroy jackets with elbow patches.
(Part 02)
After three months you would have reasonably thought that given the fact that they lived next door to one another in a block of apartments, and living in a very tight knit community, in which they were both very keen walkers that they would have met each other.
At least nodded to one another in the foyer, which they might well have done given the opportunity, but the truth of the matter was that they had not even met under those circumstances.
In fact were it not for the sound of Wagner emanating from his flat she might well have thought she had no neighbour at all.
Richard would have thought the same thing but the music he detected was Puccini.
And it might well have gone on like that indefinitely had she not been on call one particular night in April.
She was listening to Puccini’s Opera, Gianni Schicchi, and Lauretta’s aria had just begun
#O mio babbino caro#
And her phone rang.
“Damn it” she exclaimed and pressed accept
“Doctor Dooney!” she said
“Hello Doctor this is the County Doc Service, we have an urgent call out, suspected food poisoning”
“Ok, let me just get a pen” Chantelle said “ok fire away”
“Richard Grimwood, Flat 2, Easy Cliff Lodge…”
“Hang on, did you say “Easy Cliff Lodge?” She asked
“Yes Doctor, Flat 2, do you have an ETA”
“I live next door, so ETA one minute” She said and hung up
Chantelle picked up her bag and went out the front door and walked down the landing to flat 2 and knocked on the door, there was no answer so she knocked again.
Had she not been such an experienced on call doctor she might have thought it a hoax but she had good instincts and she didn’t think it felt like a hoax.
When she got no answer after the third occasion she decided to try the door and the handle turned in her hand.
She pushed it open and stepped inside
“Hello!!” she called “I’m Dr Dooney, is there anybody here?”
There was no response but she could hear something down the hall so she went in the direction of the sound.
“Hello!!” she called again “I’m the on call Doctor”
The noise was getting louder and she recognised it now and she quickened her pace and when she reached the bathroom she said
“Mr Grimwood!! I’m Doctor Dooney”
She pushed the door open.
And she found a naked man slumped over the toilet.
He was pale and pasty, covered in vomit and he had soiled himself.
“Oh great” she said “I’m missing Puccini for a drunk”
At first glance that was indeed what he looked like, a common or garden drunk but despite his appearance and his incoherence she was not prepared to take it at face value and after a cursory examination she concluded he was not a drunk.
Fortunately he was not a big man so she helped him up and sat him in the bath.
“I’m just going to clean you up a bit Mr Grimwood” she said and turned on the shower and he threw up again.
The smell in the bathroom was quite extraordinary and she had to step out into the hall to catch her breath where she called for an ambulance.
She went into the bedroom and found vomit and Diarrhoea on the bed and found a towelling dressing gown laying on a chair.
She hosed him down in the shower and then managed to wrap him in the dressing gown and just hoped he wouldn’t soil himself again before the ambulance arrived.
She sat him on the sofa and went back to the bedroom and rummaged through his drawers until she had an outfit of clothes she put them all in a bag with a pair of shoes she found by the front door.
She put the bag next to him on the sofa and went into the kitchen to try and find the source of the contamination.
On the kitchen counter she found the remains of a homemade fish pie.
Her phone went again and she had another call.
“I’ll get on my way as soon as the ambulance arrives” she said
When the ambulance arrived she relayed all the symptoms to them and that she suspected seafood poisoning.
“I have another call in Shallowfield and I’ll get over to the hospital when I’m done” she said
“Ok doc” the paramedic said as they loaded Richard on the ambulance.
(Part 03)
It was indeed seafood poisoning and Richard had to stay in hospital for 24 hours until his fluids were normalised.
As promise Chantelle called in at the hospital to see Mr Grimwood but several hours had elapsed and when she arrived he was already on the ward receiving intravenous fluids, so satisfied all was well she went home to bed.
When she walked through her front door at about 4am she crawled straight into bed but as she lay there she spared a thought for her neighbour who, when he returned home, would not be able to do the same thing.
When she got up later that day she thought again about what her patient would have to face on his return home.
As he lay in his hospital bed he felt mortified, he was both immensely grateful and acutely embarrassed in equal measure.
He thought to himself that it would have been embarrassing enough for a complete stranger to have seen him in his degraded condition but for that person to be a member of the opposite sex and furthermore for it to transpire that the woman was his next door neighbour increased his embarrassment exponentially.
But he was grateful, firstly for the fact that she had persevered despite her getting no answer and for cleaning him up before the ambulance arrived.
In the end his gratitude outweighed his embarrassment and he decided he should show his appreciation in some way.
They kept him in for a second night, so when Chantelle had occasion to be at the Winston Churchill Hospital again that night with an appendicitis case, she went up to the ward Richard was on to check on him but because of the lateness off the hour he was not surprisingly asleep again so she had a quick word with the sister and left.
As he sat on the bed waiting to be discharged next morning it suddenly dawned on him that he had no money for the taxi and he put his head in his hands.
"Is everything ok?" Nurse Elliott asked
I have no money for the taxi" he said without lifting his head
"Yes you have" Samantha replied
"What?" he said looking up
"Dr Dooney dropped your wallet and keys off with Sister last night" Samantha said "they must be in her desk drawer"
"Really?" he said "That’s marvellous”
That was something else he would have to thank her for he thought as he was going down in the lift.
Being a cynical journalist he was not used to nor had any experience of the kindness of strangers, he tended to see the worst side of people or the fluffy “tits and teeth” for the camera types whose smiles merely disguised their venom.
In the cab back to Shallowfield a sudden feeling of dread washed over him, having been told about the condition he was in when he was found he could only imagine the horrors that he would have to face when he got home.
The cab pulled up outside Easy Cliff Lodge, it was a late Victorian building and was a wonderful example of its type, it was once occupied by a very wealthy family, so wealthy in fact that they were able to afford state rooms on the Titanic.
After a prolonged period of disuse it was converted in the 70’s into 4 flats.
He paid the Taxi driver, went inside then he slowly went upstairs and fearing the worst with every step.
He put his key in the door of flat 2, steadied himself and walked in.
Of all the things that he had imagined while seated in the back of the cab he was not prepared for what he found.
Richard looked around and his flat which was absolutely spotless and it smelt of spring flowers, it certainly didn’t smell of what he was expecting.
It wasn’t really any of her business and she wasn’t required to do anymore as his Doctor than she had already done but he was also her neighbour.
So Chantelle phoned a friend of hers who owed his own company whose core business was cleaning up crime scenes, and he owed her a favour, a big favour.
Chantelle figured that compared to blood and guts a bit of excrement and vomit was a walk in the park so she called it in.
Chantelle didn’t normally go to such lengths to help a patient but she did so in his case because it was the neighbourly thing to do and also because she felt a bit guilty for making a snap judgement on him and thinking he was just a drunk.
(Part 04)
Richard really needed to do something to say thank you in some way but wasn’t sure what or how.
There had been no music emanating from her flat and her car had not been parked outside since he got home from the hospital so he assumed she must be away so that took away any urgency, but it didn’t solve the essential problem of how to show his gratitude.
As luck would have it he was out in the woods one evening bird watching, it was his first time since he got home.
As he was still not one hundred percent recovered he stayed close to home, which is how he came to bump into Lynn Cooper who was out walking the dog.
"Hello Lynn" he said
"Hi Richard how are you?” she said “Fully recovered?"
“Yes, thanks to Dr Dooney”
"Is it true you had never met until that night?" Lynn asked
"Yes" he said "Though technically I still haven’t met her" he said to which Lynn looked at him blankly
I have no recollection of it at all, I only know of it by what the nurses told me, which the paramedics had told them" he clarified
"But didn’t she visit you at the hospital?" Lynn queried
"Yes, twice” he said “but I was sleeping on both occasions”
“I see” she said
“I am very grateful for everything she did though” he said “so I wanted to get her a thank you gift”
“She would appreciate that I’m sure” Lynn concurred
“So do you know what flowers she likes?” Richard asked
“She doesn’t” Lynn said definitively
“What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t like cut flowers” Lynn said
“Oh” he exclaimed “so..?”
“Chianti and truffles” Lynn stated
“Chocolate of fungi?” he asked
“Chocolate” she said
“Thanks Lynn”
He had purchased what he had reliably been informed was a particularly good Chianti, he was no judge himself he was more of a traditional ale kind of guy.
The truffles however he could vouch for himself as they were one of his favourites and he bought them from a shop in Abbottsford’s Phoenix Centre called Crazy Chocolatiers.
He waited until a day he noticed her car had reappeared and knocked on the door and waited, he knew she was in because he'd heard the music coming from her flat, Vaughan Williams if he wasn't mistaken.
Chantelle had been away for a few days in Abbeyvale for a three day course on NHS bureaucracy, it wasn’t called that obviously but that’s what she thought of it.
She was so pleased to get home, and she smiled to herself when she thought about it.
Her flat was the first place she really thought of as a home since she was a girl and living with her parents.
She switched on the radio and smiled again as one of her favourite pieces “The Lark Ascending” had just begun.
She sat in the arm chair and let the music wash over her and with barely a minute remaining there was a knock at the door and she frowned.
She got up and walked to the door and looked through the peephole and saw it was Richard Grimwood
“This could be embarrassing” she said to herself
As the door opened he took a deep breath and she said.
“Mr Grimwood” she said “it’s nice to see you fully recovered”
She actually had to resist the temptation to say “With your clothes on”
“Hello doctor” he said but he couldn’t actually look her in the eye as he said it and he was blushing profusely.
Unfortunately though by looking down he ended up staring at her breasts which made him blush even more.
“I cannot express how grateful I am” he began
“Nonsense” she retorted
“I have to disagree on that,” he said almost forcefully “I would just like to give you this as a token of my gratitude”
“Oh” she said
”It’s really quite inadequate under the circumstances” he said but then realised that as he said it he was still looking at her chest, which really wasn’t.
“I mean the gift is really inadequate for what you did” and he blushed again.
Chantelle smiled at his embarrassment, then she looked inside the bag
“Oh how kind”, she said “they’re my favourites”.
“I know, I did my homework” he said and glanced up at her eyes for the first time “I hope you enjoy them”
And as he turned to walk away it was her turn to blush.
(Part 05)
Richard had to drive to Childean three days a week to the Chronicles offices and on one particular morning a few days after he had presented her with her thank you gifts he was in his car, halfway down the northern road when it started to rain, and about fifty yards ahead of him he spotted the distinctive figure of Doctor Dooney walking without a coat.
He pulled up beside her and wound down the window.
“Can I give you a lift Doctor?” he said
“Oh yes please” she said and got in
“It was such a nice morning, so I decided to walk, and then this happened”
“That’s April showers for you” he said
“Indeed” she agreed
And that pretty much set the tone of the conversation and for the duration of the short trip to the surgery they discussed the inclemency of the weather.
“Thank you Mr Grimwood, most kind” as they pulled up outside the surgery
“My Pleasure” he said “Goodbye”
They were apparently both at the Easter Service at St Mary’s though neither of them knew it.
And although he didn’t see her over Easter he knew she was home as he could hear her or at least he heard what she was listening to, Handel’s Requiem.
When May arrived life for Chantelle had settled into a pleasing rhythm, work was going very well and another nurse, Kate Marston, had joined the staff at the practice and they had become friends.
On the May bank holiday Lynn Cooper had invited everyone from the Surgery to a BBQ at Coopers Villa at the east end of Teardrop Lake.
It was a glorious day, not a cloud in the sky, and a gentle breeze was blowing off the lake.
Social events were not her forte but it was an opportunity for her to meet the neighbours and to get to know her colleagues socially.
Chantelle had got a drink and was circulating around the garden when she met Richard coming the other way engaged in conversation with the hostess Lynn.
Lynn laughed at something he said and went towards the house, he hadn’t seen Chantelle and had begun walking away when she said
“Hello Mr Grimwood”
“Oh hello Doctor” he said and met her eyes, but only because he had had a drink or two which no doubt accounted for him saying
“But you should call me Richard, after all you have seen me naked”
“Well I’ve seen a lot of men naked” she said
“Oh dear, that didn’t come out quite as I intended”
And they both laughed and then agreed on Richard and Chantelle.
If either of them thought that was to be the start of something then they were to be disappointed because just then the new nurse Kate Marston arrived at the party with two of the practice Doctors Paul Blair and Alastair Philips in tow.
They arrived together as they all had flats in Dancingdean House.
There appeared to be an obvious love triangle forming with the three of them as they were all of a similar age.
That was true at least for the two Doctors, they were falling for Kate but she wasn’t interested in them.
Kate managed to give the Doctors the slip when they were distracted by the arrival of Amanda Flanders, a famous TV actress and then stole away Chantelle away from Richard and she used her like a body guard for the rest of the party.
She didn’t see anything of her neighbour for the rest of what turned out to be a very busy month which culminated in a Dinner Party at Claire’s Cottage to celebrate Olivia’s birthday one Friday night towards the end of the month.
All the girls from the practice were invited and she was a little apprehensive in accepting because absolutely everyone she spoke to, without exception, told her Claire couldn’t cook to save her life but in the end she thought she should risk it.
Apart from the hostess, Claire, and the guest of honour Olivia the guests were the practice nurses Evangeline and Kate, receptionists Siti and Lynn and of course Chantelle.
And despite her reservation Chantelle enjoyed three courses of gourmet food and copious quantities of wine.
And the hostess with the mostest Claire never lifted a finger all night.
All the food was prepared, cooked and served by Lynn’s daughter Jane who was the Sous chef at the Brown Windsor Restaurant.
Jane moonlighted on her nights off doing home dining experiences.
Claire said it was worth every penny and judging by the way the birthday girl and the other guests all weaved their way home so did they.
(Part 06)
Chantelle had more to drink than she really should have the night before and decided to postpone her planned exploration of the area until the following day when she wouldn’t be hung over.
On Saturday morning Richard rose bright and early as he had been looking forward to getting out in the woods.
He had had a very busy few weeks at the paper, due to staff holidays, and Saturday was his first day off for three weeks.
And the next day he was working again, reporting on the Downshire County Cup Final between Roespring and Childean.
He hoped June would be a quieter month.
It proved that he had hoped in vain, his opposite number on a Sister Paper, The Downshire Journal, in Purplemere had been taken ill and he was asked if he could edit the Journal as well as the Chronicle.
He agreed and the result was he seldom saw his own bed for the whole of June.
June for Chantelle was little better as she seemed to be almost permanently on call, as she was covering for holidays, the up side being she wouldn’t be on call again until August.
Flaming June had given way to humid and oppressive July and Richards’s colleague had finally recovered from his malady so midway through July he actually got a whole weekend off.
So on the Saturday morning he was up with the lark and binoculars in hand, set off for the woods.
Chantelle also made an early start hoping to get some exploration in before the day became too oppressive.
She set off down a familiar path and planned to explore anything that even vaguely resembled a trail.
She was following one such trail when she stopped on the crest of a ridge to mop her brow and then she pinched the V-neck between her fingers and shook it violently causing the material to ripple and thus cause a draft up her shirt.
“What an absolute beauty you are” a voice said causing her to stop what she was doing, but doing so at the precise moment that her neckline was fully agape “and they are gorgeous too”
“I beg your pardon?” she said loudly
“”Wha…” the voice began startled, followed by “oh shit” and the sound of breaking branches and a thud.
Chantelle released her clothing and walked towards the sound of the commotion and identify the pervert.
She pushed her way through some bushes and found Richard Grimwood getting to his feet and rubbing his hip.
“Oh it’s you” she said but in a disappointed tone.
“You frightened the life out of me” he said “I didn’t know there was anyone else here”
“But you said “What an absolute beauty” and “Cor look at that lovely pair”
“I said no such thing” he said indignantly “People only say that in Carry on Films”
“Well what were you doing then?” she said “With your binoculars?”
She managed to say it such a way that the very word binoculars sounded dirty.
“Bird watching” he said “A green Woodpecker”
“Oh” she said almost disappointed
“And from my vantage point I could see the young in the nest”
“Before you fell?” she asked
“Yes” he replied and rubbed his hip again as if he had just remembered he had hurt it.
“Well I’m sorry for the misunderstanding” Chantelle said
“It’s easy done” he said “you are after all”
“I am what?” she asked
“A beauty” he replied and they both blushed.
“So what are you up to today?” he asked “Apart from misquoting from Carry On’s”
They both giggled and then she replied
“Oh just exploring”
“Have you seen all the local sights, The Chapel, the Follies and the Tower?”
“Yes” she said “but I prefer something God made rather than manmade”
“Yes I know what you mean” he said “What about the falls?”
“I went there last week” she replied
“Well what about Lovers Leap?” he said
“Lovers Leap?” she repeated
“Yes it’s kind of rocky shelf that juts out above the cliffs, the view is amazing” he explained
“Great, how do I find it?” she asked
“I’ll show you if you like” Richard suggested
“Oh ok, yes thank you” she replied
The cliffs were an extension of those that formed part of the northern side of Teardrop Lake and formed the natural border between the Teardrop estate and the Dancingdean Forest proper.
Lovers Leap was so called because it was where desperate and broken hearted lovers would leap to their deaths although there was no evidence that anyone actually had.
(Part 07)
It wasn’t a long walk from where they met but it wasn’t an easy one either and they were both sweating profusely by the time they reached Lovers Leap.
But as she walked onto the shelf and took in the vista it took away what little breath she had left.
They sat down on the rocky shelf which bizarrely felt cool despite the heat of the sun and shared the bottle of water from Richards pack.
When they had drunk their fill he gave Chantelle the binoculars and pointed out some of the lands marks and gave her a bit of a local geography lesson.
But most of the time they just sat there and talked about music, favourite composers, performers and individual pieces.
There was common ground on much but were diametrically opposed on others, for example he was a Wagnerian she was very definitely not.
It was the first of several walks in the forest and the first of many discussions on music over the following weeks.
And comments were made at the surgery about her and Richard, nothing nasty or derogatory, but comments about romance and such.
She took it with a pinch of salt after all there was a lot of it about, Claire was all loved up with film director Peter Lutchford, Olivia proposed to the vicar and Evangeline and Siti were having a secret affair which of course everybody knew about.
But Chantelle and Richards relationship was purely platonic and she was happy with that and she was certain that he was too.
By the beginning of September they had begun to cast their net further afield than Teardrop Lake and took weekend outings into the surrounding countryside.
And visited some of the landmarks Richard had pointed out to her from the cliffs.
On the first weekend of September all the residents on the Lake were invited to the Shallowfield Lodge Hotel, for the proprietor’s Rob and Sheryl Brown’s wedding anniversary
Which proved, for various reasons, to be the last time they were able to enjoy the sunshine together before summer turned to autumn.
The possibility of this eventuality was not lost on Richard who knew that the number of outdoor outing would seriously reduce with the advent of autumn and winter.
He also knew it was Chantelle’s birthday the following week in between Olivia’s Hen Night and her wedding at the Chapel.
So he hoped he had a solution but he struggled to find a suitable moment at the party to broach the subject.
Finally right at the end of the afternoon an opportunity presented itself.
“I have a…” he began and then Kate Marston appeared from nowhere and the chance was gone.
The next morning he tried to catch her before she left for work but missed her but he came tantalisingly close.
So he followed her and caught up with her in the car park at the surgery.
“Hello” she said
“I have a pair of tickets for Madam Butterfly at Covent Garden” he said
“Oh yes?”
“I would like to take you on your birthday” he said nervously
“What as a birthday present or a date?” she asked
“Well both” he replied
“Then I can’t” she said
“Oh” he said disappointedly
“I can’t go on a date with you” she replied “you’re my patient”
“Ah and that’s a problem?” Richard asked
“Yes, it wouldn’t be proper” she said
“But it’s a shame to waste a ticket” he persisted “Its Puccini”
“I’m afraid I can’t, you will have to invite someone else to Covent Garden” she said “or change your doctor”
“Ok” he said and left
“Oh that wasn’t quite what I had in mind” she said to herself as she walked through the main door.
She settled herself in her consulting room and was making herself ready for her first patient when there was a knock on the door.
“Come in” she called
When the door opened she saw it was Olivia Adamson, the practice manager.
“Good morning Olivia”
“That would depend” she responded
“Oh?”
“Is there a problem?” Olivia asked
“Why?” Chantelle countered
“One of your patients has just requested a change of doctor” Said Olivia
“Oh, Which patient?”
“Richard Grimwood”
“Really?” She said “That really is excellent news”
“So is there a problem?” Olivia asked
“On the contrary”
Olivia just shook her head and left and Chantelle was smiling broadly as the door closed behind her.
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