I narrow my eyes at her, wondering if she’s somehow figured it out, or if she’s just fishing. I decide that a strategic retreat would probably be the best move, telling her there is no me and Jake, paying for my coffee and making a hasty exit, trying to hide the grin on my face.
There is a part of me that would love to tell her – it would be so nice to have someone to talk to, to giggle with, to turn to if I start to get the jitters. But we are not teenage girls, and I am way past the stage where I can sit with a pal and doodle love hearts on exercise books, practising my signature with my new love’s name… I think I am, at least.
I drive into the nearest big town, Dorchester, which these days feels like a buzzing metropolis, and fill my time doing touristy things before my meeting. I walk through pretty civic gardens, browse shops, read up on the area’s Thomas Hardy connections, and even treat myself to a visit to the Dinosaur Museum. I know how to live.
By the time I reach my meeting, there is no sign of Dan. I call Connie on the landline, and catch her just after the lunch rush has finished.
“Sorry!” she says, sounding harassed. “I meant to call you – he’s sent you a message but it’s probably not come through. He’s full of cold, thought it best not to come. In fact he says to tell you he’s diagnosed himself with bubonic plague.”
“Right. Well, I hope not. Have you tested him for the usual?”
“Yep, and it was negative – he’ll be fine, love, don’t worry about it.”
“Okay,” I reply, as I walk towards my new colleagues, “well, you know where I am if you need me. I can pop in and check on him later if you’re worried.”
“Thank you, but I’m not, honest – kids get these lurgies all the time. Nothing a day in bed and a paracetamol won’t deal with.”
She is right, of course, and probably has far more experience with these things than I do, having raised three children of her own. I put it out of my mind, and spend the rest of the day in the meeting. I learn a lot, and contribute some ideas, and I come out of it feeling strangely invigorated. There are plans to roll out a mobile breast screening unit, and I find myself looking ahead already, mentally compiling notes of who should attend, those who will go without question and those who I know will take a bit more persuading.
By the time I have come home, walked Larry, and eaten dinner, I am ready for the next stage of my day – and the secret date that Jake and I have planned. Well, it’s at the inn, so I don’t suppose it’s that much of a secret. Maybe I will go in disguise.
I call Connie before I leave, and she reassures me that Dan is still in bed, sweating it out but fine, and I make my way to the pub.
It is, as usual, fully booked, but as autumn kicks in a sense of quiet is settling around the whole village. The bar is busy but not packed, and the customers are clearly residents rather than passing tourists. I sit and read –Far From the Madding Crowd, which I’d picked up in a bookshop in town today – and find that I can picture the scenes so well, the countryside coming to life so vividly now that I live here.
Matt is on duty, and Jake arrives later than planned, walking into the room just after 10pm. He has come straight from London and is still wearing his business clothes, and I find that my heart does a little dance when I see him walking towards me. Something about the suit, the slightly loosened tie, nudges one of those Ls that Connie always talks about into overdrive.
“You look like someone from the cover of a Mills & Boon,” I say, as he places our drinks down on the table top and sits next to me. “Like some ruthless businessman who has a steamy relationship with his secretary.”
He raises his eyebrows, tugs the tie even lower, and replies: “Well, if that was something you’d be interested in pursuing, all you’d need is a pair of specs and your hair pinned up…”
I laugh, and blush, and decide that as we are in public, it would be inappropriate to offer to take some dictation there and then.
“How was your meeting?” I ask instead.
“Good. Productive.”
“Did you buy Jupiter?”
“That would be silly. Maybe Mercury. Yours?”
“Excellent,” I reply sincerely. “Lots of organisations with lots of letters in their titles, but yeah, it was great.”
He smiles at me, and says: “You look excited. And not just about the secretary thing.”
“I am,” I answer, sighing and leaning back against the velvet-coated booth, “and it feels good. I wasn’t sure, when I said I’d stay, if I really would. If I’d get to the end of the trial and just write it off as an interesting experience, and move on to the next thing. I wasn’t sure I could handle it.”
“Handle what?”
“All of these people – not just patients, but people. Being part of a community again. The pressure of actually…caring, if that makes sense?”
I feel his hand on my thigh as he replies: “It makes perfect sense. Letting yourself care about people is a risk, always. In business terms, you could fill a spreadsheet with it – the risk versus the reward, the profit offset against the potential loss. And now? What do you think now?”
The end of my trial will be here before I know it, and I’ve been trying to figure out what I will do next. I have also been trying to disentangle my feelings for Jake from that decision, which of course is impossible. Especially when his hand is on my thigh, and my thoughts are clouded by where else it might journey.
“I think,” I reply slowly, meeting his eyes, “that I will probably stay. I think the profit outweighs the loss.”
He nods, and sips his drink, and remains silent for a torturous few moments. This thing we have, me and Jake – it is lovely. It is sweet and it is fun and it is sexy as hell. But we have never put a label on it, never discussed the future, never had that grown-up conversation about what it might be long term.
