Secrets to Keep (22 page)

‘Me teacher wears a skirt and blouse like you have on, only you look prettier than she does, our Aidy,’ piped up Marion, nestled beside her grandmother on the sofa.

Perched sideways on a dining chair by the table, Betty was looking over at her in awe. She thought her big sister beautiful and clever, and aspired to be just like her when she grew up. ‘No one else’ll stand a chance against you,’ she said.

Lounging in the easy chair, one of his badly bruised and battered legs hanging over one arm, George was too engrossed in a
Dan Dare
comic he’d borrowed off a friend to be aware of anything else going on in the room.

The time showing on the old tin clock on the mantle was twenty-five minutes to seven. Aidy took one last look in the mirror that was hanging on the wall opposite the range. She gave her hair a pat, her cheeks a pinch, then smoothed her hands down her skirt. She would just have to do because she hadn’t time to change now anyway.

Full of purpose, determined to prove to the doctor she was the best applicant for his job, and waved off by her family amid shouts of ‘Good luck!’ she set off, arriving outside the surgery at a quarter to seven. She was far too early but that was better than being late. She made to enter the waiting room but stopped short as a bout of nerves hit her. She suddenly
wondered what awaited her inside. How many other applicants was she up against? Were they all far better qualified for the job than she was? What she hoped was that the doctor had failed to notice she had stolen his advertisement and hadn’t replaced it with another so she’d be the only applicant. The waiting room had a small window set in the door. She would take a peek through it …

To her dismay, through the small glass pane she could make out at least ten women and there were possibly others sitting on the bench in an area of the room that wasn’t visible to her. The women were of varying ages, from late-teens to middle aged, and looked neat and tidy. All had a look on their face showing they were as determined to make this job theirs as she was. Most of them were holding brown envelopes. For a moment she wondered what those envelopes could possibly be holding. Then it struck her. Of course, glowing references from previous employers. She hadn’t got one from her last employer. It hadn’t seemed worth while asking after being sacked.

A sense of deep despondency washed over Aidy. She wasn’t the sort to admit defeat easily but she was also no fool. She knew that pitched against the women in that waiting room, she had no chance of landing the job. She might as well go home.

Her shoulders slumped dejectedly, she turned and
began to retrace her steps. She’d hardly gone any distance when she stopped abruptly as a sudden thought struck her like, a thunderbolt.

What if she
didn’t
have any competition? If she was the only applicant, then the doctor would have no choice but to give her the job, wouldn’t he?

Her mind raced as she pondered her idea. With a lot of nerve and luck on her side, it could very well work … She had nothing to lose by having a go, everything to gain if she did succeed. What she was about to do wasn’t honest, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She felt positive most of the women in the waiting room would attempt what she was about to, had they thought of her idea and were in need of this job as badly as she was.

She spun on her heel and retraced her steps, only this time she did not head for the surgery door but for one in the wall that enclosed the yard at the back of the house.

She cringed as the gate squeaked open then quickly relatched it behind her and scooted across the yard towards the back door, all the time praying she hadn’t alerted the doctor to her presence. Should he look out of the window, she would be clearly visible as twilight was only just beginning to fall on this warm late-September evening.

Reaching the back door without mishap, she breathed a great sigh of relief. So far, so good. She
took a tentative peek through the kitchen window. The doctor was in the house somewhere, but thankfully not in there. Deftly opening the back door, Aidy slipped inside, quickly shutting it behind her.

Now she was actually inside the house illegally, what she was in fact doing hit home and fear of discovery had her quaking. Should the doctor find her prowling uninvited around his house, she had no plausible reason to excuse her presence. With a vision of him marching her off to the police station, she shot across the black-and-white-tiled kitchen floor to the door opposite. She opened it up just far enough to steal a glance through. A long empty corridor faced her, the front door at the end along with the staircase. There were four doors leading off the corridor. Two to the left of her, two to her right. The rooms to the left were smaller than those to the right, judging by the space between the doors. She judged the first one on the left to be Doc’s actual surgery, the next one to it the waiting room. The staircase rose beyond. The room to the immediate right must be his sitting room, and the room beyond the dining room. Which room was the doctor in now? Was it too much to hope he was in his bedroom, readying himself for the interviews? Anyway, hopefully she had located the waiting room, which was the one she was after. She would waste no time in getting herself inside.

She made to step out into the corridor then froze as the sound of cutlery scraping on china became audible. The sound had come from the room to the right of her she had judged to be the dining room. The doctor was in there eating his evening meal! In order to get to the waiting room she had to pass that room and he could come out of it at any second … Plus the door was open and her getting past it unseen by him depended on whether he was sitting facing it or with his back to it. Hardly daring to breathe, her heart pounding, painfully Aidy tiptoed over and peeped through the crack between the door and the frame. She could have yelped for joy. The doctor was sitting with his back to the door! Luck was certainly on her side tonight. Dare she hope it stayed on her side a little longer …

Creeping past the dining room and on to the waiting-room door, she paused before it just long enough to take a deep breath to calm her jangling nerves. Then, planting a smile on her face, she grabbed hold of the door knob, turned it and quickly entered, shutting the door behind her.

At her entry the fifteen occupants of the room all looked over at her expectantly.

Feeling no guilt whatsoever for the lies she was about to tell, she addressed them all breezily with, ‘Doc’s asked me to tell you that the job’s gone.’

Before she could say anything more a disgruntled
voice piped up, ‘What d’yer mean, the job’s gone? None of us has had an interview for it yet.’

Aidy looked over to the person who’d protested. She hadn’t noticed her when she had taken a sneaky look through the surgery window earlier. Bella Graves! A nineteen-year-old bleached blonde, her voluptuous figure encased in a shabby red tight-fitting dress, ample bosom spilling out over the low-cut top. She lived with her blowsy mother who was rumoured to be on the game … as quite possibly Bella herself was too … in a crumbling, one-roomed dwelling in a part of the area even the hardest of men thought twice about visiting. The next street to the one Aidy’s in-laws had lived, in fact. Bella was a Pat Nelson in the making. It was glaringly apparent to Aidy that it wasn’t the job Bella was after but the doctor himself, planning to ensnare him with her charms with a view to becoming his wife. Why any woman would want to spend any more time with that sourpuss was beyond Aidy, but was Bella mad to think a man of his obvious breeding would look twice at the likes of her, let alone contemplate marriage?

Scathingly she said, ‘It’s a receptionist the Doc’s after, not a hostess in a cheap night club.’

Bella’s painted face darkened thunderously. Clenching her fists, she jumped up, preparing to launch herself at the other girl, but stopped when Aidy commented: ‘Do you really want to make
yourself look a fool in front of all these respectable women?’

Bella stared murderously at Aidy for a moment, before hissing, ‘You bitch,’ and stomping across the room and out of the door, slamming it shut behind her.

Aidy hid a smile. One down, now for the rest, she thought.

‘You said the job’s gone,’ said a prim-looking woman facing her. ‘Are you saying that Doctor Strathmore isn’t after a receptionist after all then?’

Extremely conscious that time was ticking away, Aidy hurriedly answered her, ‘By “gone” I meant taken. By me. Now …’

‘By you?’ another voice cut in. ‘But you haven’t got what it takes to be a receptionist, Aidy Nelson. All you’ve ever done is factory work.’

Aidy looked across at the woman who’d spoken and recognised her as a local who lived in the next street and whose daughter she had been at school with. ‘Seems the Doc thinks I have, Mrs Hatter. And I’m more qualified than you are, washing milk bottles for a dairy. Now …’

‘Not more qualified than I am. None of you will be,’ a smart-looking, very attractive woman in her thirties spoke up. ‘I’m actually already a doctor’s receptionist and have basic nursing qualifications too. I demand to see Doctor Strathmore and …’

Oh, why couldn’t these women just accept the job was gone and leave? Aidy inwardly fumed. She blurted, ‘You can’t see Doc ’cos … well, he’s out on an emergency … delivering a baby … won’t be back for hours. Now, look, I arrived early and he decided to see me. When he saw I’d everything he was looking for, he didn’t see any point in wasting his time. He asked me to lock up behind you all.’ She strode across to the outer door, opening it wide and saying, ‘So if you don’t mind …’

All looking annoyed at having their time wasted and mouthing their displeasure, they trooped out. Heaving a huge sigh of relief as she shut the door after the last departee, Aidy hurriedly took a seat on the bench just as Ty appeared through the door opposite.

He looked totally confused to find only one person waiting to be interviewed. ‘Where have all the other candidates disappeared to?’ he asked.

She gave a shrug. ‘There’s only me.’

His puzzlement mounted. ‘But I heard voices.’

She gave a short laugh. ‘Well, I haven’t resorted to talking to myself yet so you couldn’t have.’ She stood up then and said eagerly, ‘Would you like me to come through for my interview then?’

He was thinking, I could have sworn I heard the sound of the surgery door opening and shutting on numerous occasions after I saw out the last patient.
Surely I heard it slam only moments ago? I know I heard female voices coming from in here. I know I wasn’t hearing things. But all the evidence is telling me I was. Then he fixed his attention on Aidy and his heart sank. This was the last woman he would have wished his notice to attract. Judging from his previous dealings with her, they’d never be able to work together. Oh, she was dressed presentably enough, and he was gratified to note she wasn’t wearing any make-up which he deemed unsuitable for a job in a medical environment. Whether she was intelligent or possessed the capacity to do the job to his exacting standards remained to be seen.

‘Come through,’ he sighed.

As she took a seat in the chair by the desk that Ty had indicated, Aidy stole a proper look around his surgery. On the three occasions she had visited it recently she hadn’t had a chance to do so. It was very cramped in here. A fat patient, someone of Pat Nelson’s build, would have to turn sideways to squeeze themself between the examination couch and a table holding medical instruments in order to reach the seat beside the doctor’s desk.

Ty had by now sat down in his chair on the other side of the desk and Aidy realised he was talking to her. ‘Oh, sorry, were you saying something? Only I was just having a good look around to familiarise myself with your surgery. It’s a bit tight for space in
here. Couldn’t swing a cat, could you, not without knocking the bottles of medicine off the shelves? Wouldn’t you be better off moving the surgery into a bigger room, to give yourself more space?’

His face tightened at what he saw as criticism of the way he operated his surgery, and her audacity in actually pointing it out to him. The sooner he got this interview started, the sooner he could be rid of her.

Aidy was desperate to impart the working background she had fabricated for herself, rather than answer the doctor’s questions and quite possibly trip herself up. Without waiting for him to lead the interview, she launched into: ‘You’ll be wanting to know all about me? Since leaving school I’ve worked at one place, a factory, started at the bottom and worked my way up …’ She was hoping he’d assume this to mean in the office rather than on the factory floor, which was the case. What she’d said up to now was the truth, but what she was about to say was the opposite.

Without batting an eyelid she hurried on, ‘My bosses must have been happy with my work or they’d have got rid of me, wouldn’t they? Unfortunately the place burned down a few weeks ago … they don’t know what caused it but the shock killed the owner … heart attack … he was such a nice man too. Anyway, all us workers were out of a job so that’s why I’m looking for one. I could get you a
reference from someone who worked with me, if you need one, but of course, in the circumstances, it wouldn’t be on the company paper.’

Colleen would do it for her, for old times’ sake, pretending she had been Aidy’s superior and professing that in her opinion Aidy had proved a faultless employee in all the years they had worked together.

She went on, ‘Your notice said you were looking for someone smart. Well, as you can see, I am. I’m also conscientious and reliable. I’ve got all the qualifications you stated on your notice. I’ll make you a very good receptionist.’