by Rachel Green

tied 2nd place

My heart almost skipped a beat when I saw the classified ad in the New Medical Practice. Third share in General Practitioner’s surgery for sale, including client list and all fittings, Laverstone, Wiltshire. Price on application. I’d grown up in Laverstone, still had ties there. An aunt, a cousin…probably most of my childhood friends. It would be odd to go back after ten years away; people there would still remember the child I used to be.

I answered the advertisement and, a week later, had a reply from Dr Glover and went to meet him. I remembered him well. He’d seen me through childhood inoculations, scraped knees and chicken pox. He was the only doctor in the practice in those days, though the surgery had grown with the town. He always smelled of soap and disinfectant, and kept a jar of barley sugar on his desk for his younger patients. We couldn’t do that now since there are too many regulations about offering sweets to children. We could be sued if they developed diabetes, for example, or be blamed if they got cavities in their teeth.
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