The Country Doctor's Choice by Maggie Bennett Page A

once. Mr Kydd would be furious.’
    ‘Oh, come off it, Shelagh, it’s Christmas and these good people have come a-wassailing. We can’t let them go without a carol.’
    ‘Oh,
please
, let them sing ‘Silent Night’!’ begged Mrs Peacock.
    McDowall nodded to Jeremy North, and they began to sing the carol. Iris Oates’s voice rose up sweet and clear on the high note of
sleep in heavenly peace
, and Rebecca’s bell-like contralto descended to the bottom note in the repeat of the line. No other sound was heard until all three verses were sung, and Shelagh saw that she had to capitulate. Sheformally thanked them for coming, but added that they must leave now because Mrs Peacock needed treatment. Ignoring McDowall who had overridden her authority, she beckoned to Nurse Marie Burns to prepare the patient for suturing.
    ‘Thank you all, it was heavenly,’ McDowall told the singers. ‘Good night and a happy Christmas to you all – and a welcome to our new arrival!’
    ‘Amen,’ they repeated as they left and descended the stairs. Not much was said as they walked back to the church, apart from Cyril voicing his regret that they had not sung ‘Patapan’. Jeremy whispered ‘Thank you, my dear,’ into Iris’s ear, to which she could make no reply. She seemed to be floating somewhere between earth and heaven. All right, so Jeremy North was a married man with a family and was not for her – could never be hers – but that did not stop her from adoring him over the distance between them, and surely she would remember this glorious Christmas Eve until her dying day!
     
    It was Christmas Day in the morning. The Reverend Derek Bolt did not expect the turnout for the 10.30 service to be large, because the church had been packed on the previous evening, swelled by a number of non-churchgoers who had thought it a nice idea to slip back to a time when they had believed without doubting, when there was still a chance that legends could come true, before the clamour of the worlddrowned out the angels’ song. Daphne and his sons were sitting beneath the pulpit, and he hoped the boys would listen to him. He got nothing but good-natured teasing when he tried to talk to them as a father – as a
Dad
. He wanted to express his pride in them, the happiness they brought to their mother – oh,
hell
, there was that woman again, sitting two pews back from his own family. Now her presence would intrude on all the thoughts he tried to convey in his sermon on this special day of the year. For the next hour there she would be, gazing at him soulfully: she would completely spoil it for him.
    Asking for forgiveness and God’s help, the vicar proceeded with Morning Prayer. Seated at the organ, Jeremy North too had his unspoken thoughts. His eyes searched the sea of faces, but he knew there would be no sign of Fiona, Denise or little Peter. Somebody whispered, ‘It’s a pity none of his family are here,’ followed by a whispered reply, ‘They say there’s trouble with all three. Poor Mr North!’
    Jeremy had in fact almost pleaded with Denise to come, but she had tearfully apologised, saying that she felt very ill, and Fiona had refused to leave her.
    ‘Poor girl, just as she’s found a decent boyfriend, and now this,’ Fiona had sighed. ‘And I’ll get no help at all with the turkey and trimmings.’
    ‘The turkey’s in the oven on a low gas, and when I get back I’ll take over in the kitchen, and you can take a couple of hours off,’ he had reassured her.
    ‘Somebody’s got to stay around here in case the phone rings and it’s Roy,’ she said with a worried frown.
    ‘As long as it’s only Roy and not the police. Sorry, Peter-poppet, you won’t hear Granddad making a joyful noise on the organ this morning.’
    The Christmas service began; the hymns were lustily sung, the collection taken and Derek made the due preparation for Communion. The wafers and the wine, symbolising the body and blood, were taken from the altar; a