‘I don’t want them to grow up without a dad. But, well, we’ll see.’ She looked down at the little girl, now swinging around her legs as a young boy might swing on a lamp post. ‘He’s very nice your Uncle Tom, isn’t he?’ she asked.

The child nodded.

‘He farms just beyond the town. But it’s early days yet. Early days.’ She looked reflective for a moment, then gathered her thoughts and spoke more briskly. ‘Anyway, Doctor Devon, I don’t want to take up any more of your time. But thank you so much. You were very kind. Made it much more bearable.’

‘Oh, Mrs Fraser…’

‘No, really you did. I don’t know how we’d have coped without you. Anyway, Daisy’s brought you a thank you letter, haven’t you Daisy?’

The child nodded.

‘Give it to the doctor then,’ instructed her mother.

The child reached into her mother’s shopping basket and pulled out an envelope that was addressed in a childish scrawl: To Docter Deven.

‘Thank you. Thank you Daisy. That’s very kind.’ He laid the envelope on his desk.

‘We’ll be going now then. Come on Daisy.’ Christopher stood up as Mrs Fraser took Daisy’s hand and walked her towards the door. Then she turned. ‘I do hope everything turns out all right for you, Doctor. Like it has for me.’

‘Thank you Mrs Fraser. That’s very kind of you.’

With more murmured encouragement, the mother and daughter left the surgery and closed the door behind them.

Christopher sat down heavily in his chair. However long he might have been a doctor, and however long he carried on being one, he didn’t think he would ever get used to the worst injustices of life. To the twists of fate that could deprive a thirty-year-old mother of her husband and three young children of their father.

He picked up the envelope and turned it over in his hand. It had been decorated with brightly coloured flowers, painstakingly drawn out in felt-tipped pens. He used a knife to slit open the flap and pulled out the home-made card inside. It showed a man in brown trousers and a white shirt holding a bucket. He was standing next to a black and white cow in a green meadow dotted with yellow flowers. Above them, in the middle of a blue sky decorated with fluffy white clouds made of stuck on bits of cotton wool was an angel with golden wings.

He opened the card and read the simple legend inside, written out as neatly as a five-year-old hand could manage: Docter Deven–My Hero–Love Daisy xxx.

He laid the card on the desk, leaned forward on his arms and wept.

Chapter 6

Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.

The Shrike and the Chipmunks, James Thurber, 1894–1961