Read Summer at Shell Cottage for Free Online Page B

nothing to worry about, we’re just a little concerned about
some of the language Teddy has been using lately . . .
    Just try it, love
, Freya thought grimly.
And then I can guarantee you’ll hear some
really
bad language.
    She hadn’t imagined motherhood to be like this. Years ago, the summer she was pregnant with Dexter, she and Vic had been in Devon and had gone out for the day to a National Trust property
– a big beautiful house by the sea with sprawling, flower-filled gardens. They’d paused for a picnic and watched, smiling, as a family had rolled down the steep grassy hill together,
laughing, then tumbled into a tangle of arms and legs at the bottom.
We’ll be like that
, Freya had thought happily, one hand resting on her bump as they munched their cheese and
salad sandwiches.
We’ll be the sort of family that rolls down hills in the sunshine, just for fun.
    Only, as it turned out, they were the sort of family who squabbled in cars and never got anywhere on time and lurched from one laundry and party-food crisis to another.
    And now she had arrived at work, trying to put the mayhem out of her mind, turning her head as usual to avoid the GOT A PROBLEM? poster (
Oh, bore off
), but just five minutes after her
arrival, in had come Elizabeth, the manager of the GP practice, asking if she could ‘have a word’.
Monday, you total Talamanca
, Freya thought under her breath as she tried to
contort her face into something resembling a pleasant smile. ‘Of course!’ she replied with faux cheer.
    Dr Elizabeth Donnelly was a tall, chic fifty-something woman, always immaculately turned out, with keen grey eyes that seemed to look right into you; Freya had often imagined Elizabeth’s
patients squirming uncomfortably as they confessed in a reluctant mumble that yes, okay, they probably did drink more than ten units a week, and no, all right, they supposed they didn’t
really do enough exercise, you got me there, doc.
    Now that cool grey gaze was turned on Freya and she was immediately gripped by a forgotten-my-homework lurch of anxiety. Was something amiss? She’d come into work so hungover last Friday
she must have reeked of alcohol but whiffing a bit hokey wasn’t a crime, was it? She swallowed, trying to push down her nerves and wishing she’d thought to chew more gum and spray on
extra perfume that day.
    ‘Have a seat,’ she said, gesturing to the empty chair in front of her desk.
    Elizabeth closed the door and sat down with a beige cardboard file on her lap. ‘I believe you saw Ava Taylor and her mother last week,’ she began.
    ‘Ava and Melanie? Yes.’ Freya gave a short laugh. ‘I see them pretty regularly, to be honest.’
    Elizabeth wasn’t smiling. If anything, she looked severe. She opened the file, removing a handwritten letter. ‘And according to Melanie, when they came in last Thursday, you sent her
away without a prescription, telling her Ava had – ’ she peered at the blue notepaper – ‘a summer cold.’
    Freya’s heart banged hard as Elizabeth raised her head and looked steadily at her, waiting for a response. She didn’t like the sound of this. Why had Melanie written to Elizabeth
about her appointment? What was going on? She tried to compose herself and remember the exact exchanges of the visit. ‘I examined Ava and she had a slight temperature as I recall,’ she
said.
    ‘You told Mrs Taylor, and I quote from her letter, “She has a bit of a sniffle and is probably just feeling sorry for herself”.’
    Freya reddened. Her own words sounded glib and heartless when repeated back like that. ‘Well, you know, Melanie does tend to overinflate every ailment,’ she said defensively. ‘Ava was displaying cold symptoms, but seemed quite cheerful otherwise. She wasn’t distressed or unresponsive.’ She recalled the curious gaze of the baby as Freya had examined
her, the way Ava had bounced her hands around and how it had reminded her of a piano player. That