Mrs. Edith Whitcombe felt a twinge in her chest and called for a doctor. Not that she was truly unwell, but there was simply no one left to talk to.
The doctor who arrived was unfamiliaryoung, slight, with red-rimmed eyes. A long cucumber stuck out of her paper bag.
«Do come in,» Edith invited, eyeing the cucumber with mild curiosity.
The doctor hesitated, left the bag by the door, slipped off her boots, and followed. Edith had never known a physician to remove their shoes in a patients home, and this small act endeared the girl to her immediately.
«Your heart?» the doctor murmured, perching on the edge of the sofa where Edith had reclined.
«The wretched thing,» Edith confirmed. «Thumping away. In my heels, my knees, my earseven places I shant mention.»
With delicate fingers, the doctor pressed her stethoscope to Ediths back, then her chest, frowning all the while.
«My knees,» Edith prompted. «Listen to my kneestheyre thumping something awful.»
The doctor shook her head, refusing.
«Arrhythmia,» she declaredthen burst into tears so violently that Edith clutched her own chest in alarm.
«Is it that bad?»
«No, not youme!» the doctor sobbed. «Youll be fine with tablets, but II»
Ediths spirits lifted at once. A conversation was unfolding, and her heart settled into a steady, expectant rhythm.
«Has a man upset you?» she asked briskly, tightening her dressing gown.
«I havent got one!» the girl wailed. «Thats the whole trouble!»
«Ah, a boyfriend then. Left you, did he?»
The doctor wiped her face with her sleeve and fumbled for a crumpled prescription pad.
«Never mind the pills,» Edith cut in. «Lets have tea instead.»
«Im on duty,» the girl sniffed, scribbling.
«So am I,» Edith said firmly, marching to the kitchen.
The doctor trailed after her, despondent, stethoscope still in her ears.
«Take that thing out!» Edith scolded, setting out jam, biscuits, and chocolate-covered marshmallows.
The girl yanked the stethoscope free and wept anew.
Only now did Edith see how very young she wasfreckled nose, rough hands, despair in her eyes.
«Out with it,» Edith commanded, settling in.
«Ive prescribed you excellent tablets,» the girl whimpered.
«Dont care for them. Tell me why youre crying.»
«Allergies,» the girl lied, sipping scalding tea.
Edith glanced at the thermometer outside.
«Bit late for that, dear. Its ten degrees out!»
«Then its nerves!» the girl cried, stuffing a marshmallow into her mouth.
Seizing the moment, Edith blurted, «Your fellows left you for another, hasnt he?»
The girl nodded, marshmallow bulging, fresh tears plopping into her tea.
«And this other girla friend of yours?»
«Sister!» The girl swallowed hard and jammed the stethoscope back in her ears.
«Your own flesh and blood?!» Edith gasped, clutching her chestthough her heart beat steady and eager, anticipating drama.
«Stepsister. But close enough.» She listened to her own heartbeat through the stethoscope, then pulled it out. «Ive arrhythmia too. Got any valerian?»
«Of course!»
Edith fetched a tincture known only to her, her grandmother, and a particularly intuitive Cornish mystic. It loosened tongues, lifted spirits, and stirred matrimonial longings. She poured a measure.
The girl drank, brightened, and spilled her tale unprompted.
«I loved Peter. He loved me. Three years we were devoted! He was finishing his thesisonce he had his doctorate, wed marry. Buy furniture, lease a car. He studies nuclear fusion. No metal withstands his experimentstungsten was his last hope, but even that failed. If it hadnt, hed have his degree by now. We went to cinemas, kissed in doorways, sat in cafésall proper-like. I treated patients when not lovestruck; he hunted for fusion-proof metals. Thenout of nowheremy sister swoops in. A singer! Trained at the Royal Academy. Peter took one look and forgot fusion, forgot tungsten, babbled about singing like Ed Sheeran. I knew then. Love at first sight. Passionate, reckless, blind. My sister fancied his academic prospects, dropped out, and moved here under his nuclear-fusion umbrella. I ought to have foughtfor love, for our futurebut Ive shifts, emergencies!»
She gulped more tincture.
«Yesterday Peter proposed to her. She said yes. I nearly hanged myself. As physicists sayI almost blew the vacuum pump with plasma! Im the third wheel in this nuclear-songbird circus.»
She jammed the stethoscope back in, ate all the raspberry jam, and smiled vacantly.
Edith rubbed her hands and fetched her laptop.
«Goodness!» The girl gaped at the device. «Whats that for?»
«Were finding you a husband!» Edith typed furiously.
«Oh no!» The girl shot up. «I shant hunt love online!»
«Loves love, however found. Hereforty-two, divorced, banker, fond of travel, cabbage pies, dogs.»
«Let him keep the dogs! I cant bake, I hate travel, and forty-twos practically pensioned!»
«Very well. Nextthirty-three, single, corporate manager, prefers brunettes, blondes, redheads. Hobby: intimacy. Tired of flings, seeks one steady flame.»
«Youre a matchmaker? Where dyou find these men?»
«A professional! Two weeks idlethats why my hearts acting up. Global crisis. No one marries now, too afraid of commitment. Even mistresses are too costly. Then you appearheartbroken, arrhythmic, allergic, stethoscope in ears! Providence sent you!»
«I dont need»
«Your name?»
«Mary. Or Marina.»
«Mary-Marina, you must teach that physicist a lesson!» Edith typed faster. «Ah! Hereloves the name Marina. Wants a tall, blue-eyed model with dimples. No, scratch thatdimple-obsessed men are trouble. Here! Twenty-five! San Francisco! Millionaires son! Villa! Yacht! Handsome!»
The girl peeked.
«Ugh! Hes hideous! Like an orangutan!»
«But a millionaires son! Villa! Yacht! Handsome! Better than scraping metals in a lab!»
«I dont want his money! His father dies tomorrow, and Im stuck with that ape! I dont speak a word of American!»
Edith peered over her glasses.
«Never had such a picky client. Most claw at millionaires!»
Flushing, the girl poured more tincture, drank, and declared:
«Let me choose.»
«Unorthodox,» Edith grumbled. «My job.»
«Your jobs tea and chatter. Ill pick my own.»
Edith pushed the laptop over.
Five minutes later, the girl stabbed the screen.
«Him!»
«Madness! Hes a joke listing! Thirty, single, reindeer herder. Name: Mike.»
«Perfect!»
«A herder! Hes Sami! Lives in the tundra!»
«Exactly! Him or no one.»
Edith sighed, wrapped a shawl about her, and shuffled to the door.
«Where are you going?»
«To fetch the herder.»
«The tundra?!»
«Hes my neighbour!»
«The millionaires son too?»
«No, hes my friends neighbourshe lives in California.»
«Wait! I was joking!» The girl grabbed her cucumber bag.
But Edith locked her in and returned ten minutes later with Mike, flowers, and champagne.
The girl wept by the window, stethoscope in ears.
«Mike,» he said, offering a Sami-carved amber pendant.
«Marinawell, Mary. Or mouse. Whichever,» she mumbled, inspecting it.
«Mouse,» he murmured. «I like white mice.»
«I cant accept this.»
«Please. Ive plenty.»
Edith felt suddenly superfluous. She slipped out as Mike poured champagne.
Outside, night had fallen. The bench was empty.
Edith listened to her heartno pain, only curiosity.
Would it work? Would they?
No one to ask.
Mike was a jest listing. He studied economics, visited his aunt near Tromsø, and charmed the buildings elderly widows. He fixed unfixable things, treated untreatable ailments, predicted economic trends, andmost cruciallytalked for hours over endless tea. The kindest soul Edith knew, but Sami, thus surely needing a Sami bride.
Yet here they wereamber, champagne, talk of jumping from windows!
Edith eavesdropped through her open window. Laughter, clinking glasses.
No surprise. Mike mended all things. Reviving a heartbroken doctor? Childs play.
She smiled, crossed herself, and returned to the benchwhere Mrs. Agnes from upstairs walked her corgi.
Someone to talk to!
«Mikes not so confirmed a bachelor! And the doctors physicist left her! Mike gave her amber! She called him mouse! Theyre drinking champagne!»
Agnes gasped, spat sunflower seeds into a paper twist, and listened raptly as Edith spun the talenuclear fusion, millionaires, the doctors stubborn choice.
«Theyre still drinking,» Edith finished.
«Not anymore. Theyre jumping out the window.»
Edith bolted up. «I locked them in!»
Agnes yanked her back. «Theyve found a way. Lookskinny things! Slipping right through the bars!»
The doctor clambered out, cucumber bag in hand. Mike slithered after, landing atop her. They rolled in the grass, laughing, pummeling each other like children.
«Its begun,» Agnes sighed. «Whats your fee?»
«After they wed. Lest he flee to his reindeer.»
The doctor suddenly leapt up. «Ive a call! An old man next door!»
«Let me help,» Mike said. «I treat everything.»
«Dont be absurd! Hes in hypertensive crisis!»
«No such thing!»
«Reindeer herders may not have it, but civilised folk do!»
«Your patients lonely. Thats cured with tea, whisky, dominoes, and talk. Youll need me.»
Arm in arm, they left.
Edith hurried inside to phone old Mr. Thompsonlest his «hypertension» spoil the young couples fun.
«You marry him,» Agnes called after her.
«Not likely! He dislikes dogs!»
A week later, the doctor rang.
«How are you, Edith?»
«Well enough,» Edith said cautiously.
«My physicist quarrelled terribly with my sister.»
Ediths pulse spiked. Was this why Mike had vanished? Had he fled to Norway?
«He crawled back, begging. Said hed found the only metal that withstands fusionhimself! That he never loved her, only me!»
«I see,» Edith whispered, fanning herself with a newspaper.
«But I told him his fusion was worthless!» the girl giggled. «Mike and I leave for Tromsø next month!»
«Tromsø?! Its freezing!»
«Burning hot,» she corrected. «Youve no idea!»
«I offered you San Francisco.»
«San Franciscos for the old and poor. Whats your fee?»
«A pair of little Sami grandchildren,» Edith laughed. «And a photo of you jumping from the window,» she added, «with the cucumber still in the bag.»
