Dorchester: 18th century stone
farmhouse for short or long let. Character
property in idyllic rural setting, 2 mis
from town center, 5 bedrooms, 3
reception rooms, 2 bathrooms,
large quarry-tiled kitchen. 1 acre garden,
adjacent paddocks. Fully furnished,
oil-fired c/h, Aga, garage.
L650p.c.m. Tel: 01305 231494
*2*
I recognized Dr. Arnold as soon as I opened the door to her, although there was no answering smile of recognition from her. I wasn't surprised. We were both twenty years older, and I had changed a great deal more than she had after two decades abroad. She was silver-haired and thinner, late fifties, I judged, but she still had the same rather searching gray eyes and air of unassailable competence. On the only other occasion I'd met her, I'd found her thoroughly intimidating, but today she gave me a sisterly pat on the arm when I told her my husband was complaining of chest pains.'He says it's a pulled muscle,' I said, leading the way up the stairs of our rented farmhouse, 'but he had a coronary six months ago and I'm worried he's about to have another one.'
In the event, Sam was right-it was a pulled muscle from too much digging in the garden the day before-and I concealed my total lack of surprise behind an apologetic smile. Dr. Arnold reproved him for scoffing at my concern. 'You can't take chances,' she told him, folding her stethoscope, 'not when you've had one close shave already.'
Sam, whose memory for faces was almost as bad as his memory for names, buttoned his shirt and cast an irritable glance in my direction. 'It's a ridiculous fuss about nothing.' he complained. 'I said I'd go to the surgery but she wouldn't let me ... just takes it into her head to start treating me like a blasted invalid.'
'He's been biting my head off all morning,' I told Dr. Arnold. 'It's one of the reasons I thought it might be serious.'
'Goddamit!' Sam snapped. 'What's the matter with you? All I said was, I had a small twinge in my side ... which isn't surprising in view of the number of weeds I hauled out yesterday. The garden's a mess, the house is falling down. What am I supposed to do? Sit on my hands all day?'
Dr. Arnold poured oil on troubled waters. 'You should be grateful you have someone who still cares enough to make the phone call,' she said with a laugh. 'I had a patient once whose wife left him to writhe in agony on the kitchen floor while she downed half a bottle of gin to celebrate her imminent widowhood.'
Sam wasn't the type to stay angry for long. 'Did he survive?' he asked with a grin.
'Just about. The marriage didn't.' She studied his face for a moment, then looked curiously toward me. 'I feel I know you both but I can't think why.'
'I recognized you when I opened the door,' I said. 'It's an extraordinary coincidence. You were our GP in Richmond. We lived in Graham Road from '76 to the beginning of '79. You came to our house once when Sam had a bout of bronchitis.'
She nodded immediately. 'Mrs. Ranelagh. I should have recognized the name. You're the one who found Annie Butts. I've often wondered where you went and what happened to you.'
I looked casually from her to Sam, and was relieved to see surprised pleasure on both their faces, and no suspicion...
Sam landed a job as overseas sales director for a shipping company, which took us in turn to Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa. They were good times, and I came to understand why black sheep are so often sent abroad by their families to start again. It does wonders for the character to cut the emotional ties that bind you to places and people. We produced two sons who grew like saplings in the never- ending sunshine and soon towered over their parents, and I could always find teaching jobs in whichever school was educating them.
As one always does, we thought of ourselves as immortal, so Sam's coronary at the age of fifty-two came like a bolt from the blue. With doctors warning of another one being imminent if he didn't change a lifestyle that involved too much traveling, too much entertaining of clients and too little exercise, we returned to England in the summer of '99 with no employment and a couple of boys in their late teens who had never seen their homeland.
For no particular reason except that we'd spent our honeymoon in Dorset in '76, we decided to rent an old farmhouse near Dorchester, which I found among the property ads in the
The reality was rather different. England had changed into New Labor's 'Cool Britannia' during the time we'd been abroad, strikes were almost unknown, the pace of life had quickened dramatically and there was a new widespread affluence that hadn't existed in the '70s. We couldn't believe how expensive everything was, how crowded the roads were and how difficult it was to find a parking space now that 'shopping' had become the Brits' favorite pastime. Hastily the boys abandoned us for their own age group. Garden fetes and village cricket were for
