Winter at Pretty Beach by Polly Babbington (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

other staff at the surgery - they’d all been very good to her when she’d been burnt at the fish and chip shop, and Juliette had even done a home visit when the pain relief had made her so nauseous she’d had her head down the toilet for nearly a day.

This man though, he’d started working about six months before and it had gone downhill quickly since then. Everyone in Pretty Beach was talking about him and his manner. He’d been rude to Holly about her face not moving, had made a comment about Jessica and Camilla and according to Juliette who had to work with him a few days a week, had an eye which didn't always look you in the face. It was crazy that he’d been getting away with it for so long. How had he come with good references?

Peter Vicarage was treating her as if she was the village idiot because she was hoping to get pregnant at forty. From his attitude, he appeared to not only not care, but also had a disdain for the whole thing. Sallie had sat there fuming, and as he’d wittered on, had decided that she would make a complaint. Not before getting a referral though - she needed that so she put up with the tail-end of his lecturing with a smile and a nod. It was a coping mechanism someone had taught her in the cafe for an annoying customer. Simple and effective; you kept your mouth closed, eyes up and smiled and nodded while in your head thinking of something else. She smiled and nodded as he continued, and he opened a drawer and flicked through a thick, blue book.

Peter reached over, pulled the wireless keyboard towards him and started to type. Sallie looked at the time on her phone; a few more minutes and she would be out of there with the referral. She managed to keep her mouth shut, smile and nod until he had finished, printed off the letter and signed the bottom with that undecipherable doctor’s scrawl they all thought kept them out of trouble. He passed it over, taking another look down her top.

She could smell unwashed skin and stale cigarettes as he shifted in his chair and followed his gaze down to her top and caught his eyes as he looked back up.

‘Looking at anything in particular Mr Vicarage?’ She asked and slowly crossed her legs.

He spluttered, his face flushed, ‘I think I have seen enough Miss, oh and it’s Doctor.’

‘I’m sure you have, Mr Vicarage, oh, and it’s Mrs Broadchurch-Chalmers by the way.’

That had taken the wind right out of his sails. Peter Vicarage had emphasised the ‘Miss’ in her title and had not realised the connection. Sallie hadn’t changed her name to include Chalmers on her documents but she knew that Peter Vicarage had a link to Ben - Peter Vicarage had messaged him a couple of times hoping for a ride in a seaplane.

‘Mrs Chalmers? As in the Chalmers family? As in Ben Chalmers?’ He looked at her, a wave of embarrassment going across the beady little eyes.

‘Yes, as in Ms Sallie Broadchurch-Chalmers to you.’

Disdain raged through Sallie’s body - she was even more annoyed that once he knew she was married to a Chalmers, his attitude had changed. She smiled and nodded. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him see she was affected and besides, she might need him on this journey with the IVF.

She had wondered how he would have behaved if Ben had been with her. If the lecturing would have been the same. She very much doubted that, but Ben was in Alaska and as they had decided, she was getting the ball rolling in all this for the New Year.

Sallie had picked up her bag from the chair, sensing his slimy eyes looking her up and down and strode to the door defiantly, feeling his gaze rove down over her legs. She’d opened the door, jutted her chin out and walked out and now as she went about getting the cottage ready for the next set of guests, she couldn’t get the slimy little toad out of her mind.

As she finished the boatshed cottage preparations and backed her way out of the door, the horrid doctor and his condescending attitude was still whirring round and round her head. She walked back into the Boat House, grabbed her coat and bag and headed down the laneway.

She felt too angry to phone Ben and too irritated to stay at home and hoped that a change of scene would do her some good.

She pulled the strap of her bag up over her shoulder, checked her phone for any missed texts and decided she would stop by Maisy’s cafe for a cup of tea and a piece of cake to calm herself down.

She made her way to Maisy’s cafe. It looked warm and inviting from the outside - little fabric-covered lamps glowed in the window, hanging baskets full of pansies swung outside in the wind and a hand-painted sign announced it was warm inside and to come in for hot soup, warm tea and home-made cakes.

As she passed the bay window at the front, Sallie peered in - a few customers sat cosied up next to the fire with bowls of steaming soup in front of them and Suntanned Pete was sitting in the corner, glasses on, flicking through his tablet.

Sallie steamed in, the warmth, delicious smells and homely feel hitting all her senses at once. She walked over to the corner, next to a huge, old cabinet filled with interesting finds collected from all around Pretty Beach. She put her bag on the chair, waved hello to Pete and sat down on the sofa opposite to think more about the appointment with Dr Vicarage. He’d had the uncanny knack of making her feel both angry and small at the same time. He had assumed, probably by her accent, that she was not