The Goodmans Read online

  The Goodmans

  by

  Clare Ashton

  The Goodmans

  by Clare Ashton

  Copyright © 2018 Clare Ashton. All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Credits

  Editor: Jayne Fereday

  Cover: Fereday Design

  Published by:

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Jayne

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About

  Chapter 1.

  Dr Jude Goodman was certain of many things.

  Her beloved home town of Ludbury, in the rolling hills of the Welsh-Shropshire borders, she imagined eternal. It was a quintessential and timeless English town, with medieval sandstone walls encircling Georgian streets and timber-framed houses. At its apex, an ancient church tower rose above the pastel and brick terraces and glowed red in the sun’s rays. Change came slowly to this place.

  That her parents would live here until their dying days was another unspoken certainty that formed the bedrock of Jude’s existence. Her mother, all passion and drama, could test the patience of a Labrador, while her father was the epitome of all things comfortable and predictable. How they’d got together eluded Jude’s comprehension, but together they’d been for so long that understanding was no longer required. They simply were.

  Her most lasting and closest of friendships with university chum and now resident of Ludbury Dr Abby Hart was another immovable truth.

  On this autumn evening, Jude returned from her life with boyfriend Bill and job as an inner-city locum for much needed respite in the bosom of her family and best friend, while Bill worked through the weekend. It was a habit formed over the last five years, so engrained it felt like another universal constant.

  But as Jude arrived on the train from across the green Shropshire plains, little did she know that over the coming days all but one of these certainties would remain unchallenged.

  For a start, how could she know that when Abby Hart spotted her that her friend’s heart soared so high?

  “Jude!” Abby shouted. Her vigorous wave hid none of her excitement.

  Abby’s heart lifted higher still when her friend beamed and waved back from beneath the medieval tiers of the upper street. Jude strode towards her, generous mouth in a wide smile. Wavy sun-kissed hair cascaded and bounced around her shoulders, so thick Abby wanted to bury her hands in its depths while gazing into eyes that shifted in shades between grey and green. Jude towered above the elderly afternoon shoppers and her walk exuded confidence, a demeanour that had made her popular at university and the same friendly authority engendered trust with her patients now.

  Abby sighed as Jude came closer, listening to the click of the heels from long leather boots on the pavement and admiring the jersey dress that slipped around Jude’s curves in a feminine fashion but left her Amazonian physique undiminished.

  You see, Abby couldn’t think of Jude highly enough. When Jude made an entrance, it was almost as if angels sang, but it was actually Waterloo Abby heard in her head, ever since Jude’s grandmother had commented on her “proper woman thighs”, which were decidedly Abbaesque.

  “Mmmm,” Abby said, oblivious to making such a sound.

  What a fine place between Jude’s thighs must be. Soft and warm, warm and soft, so very soft.

  Abby’s parietal lobe nagged at her to concentrate on something else.

  “Dr Hart. Dr Hart?” Someone tugged on her arm, a small tug like a child’s.

  “Muh?”

  Abby looked down to see a grey mop and bespectacled face peering up.

  “Mrs Malady. I’m sorry, I was miles away.” Or actually a soft place not so far away.

  “I missed my appointment Dr Hart. I’m really sorry.” The achingly thin woman grasped Abby’s sleeve with a trembling hand.

  Abby smiled. “No problem, Mrs Malady. We were overbooked in any case. It wouldn’t have been an issue.”

  “I need to see you. I’ve been waiting over week for my appointment. My Billy was late picking up the kids and I tried to get here as fast as I could, but the receptionist said I was late and you’d already gone.”

  Abby’s shoulders slumped. Even on their quiet days, there were more urgent patients than slots. The non-urgent cases gave up booking until their symptoms worsened and they too became an emergency.

  “I’m sorry,” Abby said. “Can it wait until Monday when we can sit down and talk properly?”

  “She says I’ll have to wait a week.”

  “I’ll tell Becky on reception to double book the last appointment, then we can take as long as we like. We’ll sort you out.”

  “Thank you, Dr Hart. You are good to me.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Not all’s as good as you.” The old woman gave her a fragile look of gratitude. “Bless you.” And only then did she release Abby’s arm.

  She tottered down the street with a gait so perilously unsteady Abby winced watching her leave. The woman needed knee surgery but was likely at the bottom of a long waiting list.

  “Like many others.” Abby sighed and turned her attention to her approaching friend.

  At least Mrs Malady’s intervention had distracted from Abby’s hopeless admiration of Jude. Abby tried not to make a habit of admiring her best friend’s thighs. She’d long ago reconciled herself to Jude’s unobtainability. Her friend had never shown an inclination towards Abby or any other woman. She had no shortage of male interest and she’d been with her boyfriend for an eternity.

  It’s just that sometimes Abby slipped. Thankfully not often and it was paramount her friend never knew.

  Abby opened her arms out wide as she reached her friend. Oh it was good to see her.

  And Jude observed, with not a clue as to why it should be, “You look well. Extremely well.” She enveloped Abby in a hug, lifting her from the ground with e
nthusiasm.

  When dropped back to Earth, Abby flicked away her long fringe, and blue feline eyes looked up at Jude. Rosy cheeks and full lips shone in a smile. Although Abby was by no means short she tilted up her head to meet Jude’s gaze.

  It was easy to see why Abby had been popular with women at university – she’d stood out with her height, especially when accompanied by her statuesque friend, and her open and warm personality was difficult to resist.

  Abby was wearing her pale linen jacket and tailored dress for work and Jude narrowed her eyes at her friend.

  “It was your day off today, wasn’t it? I knew you’d end up at work anyway.” Abby was comfortingly predictable.

  Abby stroked the back of her short dark hair, a habit when embarrassed and another constant in Jude’s life.

  “I did try, honestly.” Pink bloomed on her cheeks. “The new receptionist didn’t check the holiday calendar and went crazy when she spotted my appointments empty.”

  “I bet she did. Like a little oasis of doctor time.”

  Abby laughed.

  “I knew you’d find a way to sneak in anyway.”

  Jude was teasing to hide her concern. It was easy to work every waking hour as a GP and she was watchful of her friend becoming overworked. But then Abby had been strong for months, actually years. No panic attacks, no disabling anxiety, no longer crippled by every soul she couldn’t save. Not even Jude, who knew Abby’s expressions better than her own, better than her boyfriend’s, could see the ripples of vulnerability that ached deep inside.

  “At least the receptionist rearranged the last appointment so I could get away early.”

  “Come on.” Jude cosied up, arm in arm and bosom to bosom. She didn’t have to say where they were headed.

  Like every Friday, the pair walked down a narrow timber-framed alleyway, which loomed above them as if trying to peer down at the pedestrians. Abby glanced into the little cheese shop tucked beneath one of the tiers and waved to a woman behind the counter. The petite and pretty blond waved back with a shy smile then pretended to concentrate on the array of cheeses on the counter.

  Jude squeezed Abby closer as they walked by. “Has she asked you on a date yet?”

  “What?” Abby wrinkled her nose. “No. Why should she?”

  “Let me think. Because you are the most eligible lesbian in town.”

  “That’s silly–”

  “Because you had them running after you by the dozen at university.”

  “Not exactly–”

  “Because she blushes every time you wave and self-consciously lifts her hand to her face before remembering she’s wearing a glove covered with cheese.”

  “I haven’t noticed.”

  “And I bet she’s still looking at you this very moment.”

  Abby peered over her shoulder, then reddened. “Yes, she is.”

  “Besides,” Jude continued with a smile. “You are the nicest person in the world and she’d be mad not to want you.”

  Abby was about to protest again when she stopped. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for saying I’m one of the nicest people you’ve met.”

  “It’s true. Nicest and most dear to me.”

  They broke from the shadow of the alleyway into sunshine in the main square. Jude breathed in instinctively. The food market was in full swing beneath white and green striped awnings, trading into the evening to catch hungry workers on their way home. The smell of Mediterranean herb loaves and artisan pizzas drifted from a wood oven. The aroma of warm chocolate wafted from a stall where the holder worked it into flower shapes. The brewery was tempting the susceptible with its spiced ales. A more fragrant and tantalising market Jude couldn’t imagine and it was a key feature of this food capital of Shropshire, where the local Indian boasted a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

  But they skirted the edge of the market: past the temptations, past the market hall and along the four-storey town houses, which housed more temptation in the Chocolate Gourmet shop.

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Jude said.

  “Hmm?”

  “If Cheese Shop Lady hasn’t plucked up the courage to ask the eligible doctor on a date, why don’t you ask her?”

  “You can’t call her Cheese Shop Lady.” Abby sounded indignant but smiled.

  “Ah, is the cheese element an issue?”

  “No. It’s just Cheese Shop Lady isn’t an attractive description. And she is pretty.”

  “What’s wrong with cheese? Love over mouldy Shropshire Blue? Passion with Stinking Bishop? I can see that working.”

  “Stop it.” Abby nudged her in the ribs, the smile still twitching on her face.

  Jude could read her so well. When to tease and tickle, when to pull her friend close and when to ease off.

  “I’m happy by myself at the moment,” Abby said. “That’s all. I like things the way they are.”

  And Jude had no doubt about that from her friend’s contentment in her company. Perhaps it was because they were more mature in their early thirties. Not so impatient to accept every date or every suitor on Abby’s side, not so precious about Bill to spend every minute with him on Jude’s. Perhaps that was it.

  “Come on,” Jude said. “I think it’s my turn to buy.”

  With no need to specify which café or what they would order, they crossed the square towards their favourite Garden Café and sat outside, ample thigh to Rubenesque bottom, whipped cream and marshmallows topping a hot chocolate each.

  Abby gazed at her with big eyes, all rosy-cheeked in the sun and warmed by the hot chocolate, more beautiful than ever. Yes, that must be why the lovely Abby was still single. Another constant. Why would Jude expect it to change?

  Chapter 2.

  “That floozy’s back.”

  Maggie Goodman’s snapped open her eyes. The nasal sneer had emanated from over the garden wall.

  “She’s up there,” the female voice said with disdain. “Darling, are you listening? I saw her with my own eyes. I can’t have any respect for that woman anymore.”

  The weight of the world, at least the weight of Maggie’s immediate anxieties, descended with a thump and she groaned as if winded.

  She’d been lying on the mossy cushion of grass, enjoying the evening sun that peeped over the garden wall making this usually shady spot a balmy haven. Her body had relaxed into the moss’ forgiving hold, a warm kiss to her neck, a soothing squeeze down her spine, a gentle pinch on the bottom through her jeans, all the way to her bare feet.

  It was something she indulged in to distract from life falling to pieces and from her body, which was gradually doing the same.

  Maggie closed her eyes, attempting to regain tranquillity.

  The swollen river at the end of the garden murmured its soothing song and, as Maggie’s cares lifted from her body, her mind swirled with the beginnings of sleep. She could have been herself at any age, but always in this blissful state she imagined herself a student again, dozing on the quad lawn on a summer’s day, her arms reaching for the exciting touch of another’s.

  “Carrying on like a scarlet woman,” the sneer interjected.

  “Oh for…” Maggie sat up.

  Barbara Petty. The neighbour. The one thorn in Maggie’s idyllic patch. No matter how much pleasure their Georgian garden brought, with its al fresco dining terrace and antique iron furniture, to the colourful acer trees and sweep of lawn to the river, this malevolent cloud would blow in from next door.

  “What on earth is Caroline Argent doing with Richard Goodman? If her husband knew, God have mercy on him, she’d be thrown out of town.”

  Irritation squirmed up Maggie’s back and all sensual mossy relaxation was in vain. Her heart rate rocketed, her tension headache pounded and she balled her fists tight.

  “Fucking woman,” Maggie muttered.

  Her pelvis crunched as she shuffled on her bottom and she spared her knees a moment before standing. How she begrudged this procedure. It seemed like yesterday she could leap up from t
he college lawn without even knowing bodies could have such limitations. She stood up, every joint reminding her thirty years had in fact passed.

  Truth be told, she had aged kindly and Maggie was one of those women who although looking her fifty-five years, looked good on it, especially after embracing it the last few years.

  It all started when she’d made the mistake of wearing her glasses to check in the mirror. After the shock of a hundred creases in sharp focus, she simplified her makeup routine and returned to soft-focus checks without her cruel lenses. It was a look that suited her much better.

  She’d cropped off her much-loved strawberry blonde hair. After years of plucking the grey, her son Eli, who’d inherited her quick wit and sharp tongue, mentioned it odd how she'd only greyed at the back of her head. After an embarrassed hand to cover the neglected area, and an attempt to boot Eli up the backside, she whisked herself off to the hairdressers. Her long locks were removed and she welcomed the ash-grey hair many a younger woman requested at the salon. The resulting short and ruffled style set off her heart-shaped face better than any longer variety ever had.

  And, now she’d recovered from standing, it was with a quick fluid step that she retreated towards the house. Her once willowy body, which refused to retain an ounce of fat as a student, had filled out into one which many of her generation would never see again.

  “I think it’s disgusting.” Barbara Petty’s vitriol cut through the air and halted Maggie in her stride. “At their age. Carrying on with affairs? What would the children think?”

  Children? Children?! Maggie ground her teeth. Christ, Jude was in her thirties and Eli had a mind in the gutter. They wouldn’t give a flying fuck about people in their fifties having affairs. Which, she realised, was Richard’s argument.

  Speaking of the devil, the man himself appeared. Her imperturbable husband leaned against the double-door frame, an amused smile on his face.