bottles of medicine off the shelves? Wouldn’t you be better off moving the surgery into a bigger room, to give yourself more space?’
His face tightened at what he saw as criticism of the way he operated his surgery, and her audacity in actually pointing it out to him. The sooner he got this interview started, the sooner he could be rid of her.
Aidy was desperate to impart the working background she had fabricated for herself, rather than answer the doctor’s questions and quite possibly trip herself up. Without waiting for him to lead the interview, she launched into: ‘You’ll be wanting to know all about me? Since leaving school I’ve worked at one place, a factory, started at the bottom and worked my way up …’ She was hoping he’d assume this to mean in the office rather than on the factory floor, which was the case. What she’d said up to now was the truth, but what she was about to say was the opposite.
Without batting an eyelid she hurried on, ‘My bosses must have been happy with my work or they’d have got rid of me, wouldn’t they? Unfortunately the place burned down a few weeks ago … they don’t know what caused it but the shock killed the owner … heart attack … he was such a nice man too. Anyway, all us workers were out of a job so that’s why I’m looking for one. I could get you a reference from someone who worked with me, if you need one, but of course, in the circumstances, it wouldn’t be on the company paper.’
Colleen would do it for her, for old times’ sake, pretending she had been Aidy’s superior and professing that in her opinion Aidy had proved a faultless employee in all the years they had worked together.
She went on, ‘Your notice said you were looking for someone smart. Well, as you can see, I am. I’m also conscientious and reliable. I’ve got all the qualifications you stated on your notice. I’ll make you a very good receptionist.’
So please, please, give me the job, she inwardly begged.
She might well satisfy another doctor, but not Ty. He stared at her blankly, his mind racing. She did indeed seem to have all the qualifications he had stated he required in his receptionist, so how was he going to justify turning her down? There was, though, one remaining qualification she hadn’t mentioned.
‘I do also want someone with nursing experience.’ He began to rise to see her out. ‘Thank you for coming …’
‘Just a minute,’ she cut in. ‘I have got nursing experience.’
He sank back down on his seat, hiding his inward dismay. ‘But if you’ve only worked for that one employee, how have you gained that?’
‘Through dealing with my family. My younger brother and sisters are always needing some wound tending to. You know what kids are like, forever getting into scrapes or falling over. They all had mumps and chickenpox when they were younger and I helped my mam look after them then. My husband, too, has suffered the usual cuts, scalds, you name it, and I haven’t had one go septic on me yet. I’m nursing my gran through her accident and she’s coming along nicely, although she did re-break her leg as you know, but that was only because she decided to try it out before it was properly healed.’ Aidy flashed him a grin and jocularly concluded, ‘Any more experience than that and I’d be able to do your job, wouldn’t I?’
Ty stiffened. Was she really comparing his years of hard study at medical school and his term spent as a junior doctor in a hospital with her cleaning and dressing a few cuts and abrasions for her family? This woman really was infuriating. He stared at her fixedly, fighting to find some excuse to deny her the job. All he could come up with was, ‘You’re not really what I’m looking for.’
Aidy stared back at him, stunned. As far as she was concerned she fulfilled all the criteria he’d stipulated, so why wasn’t she what he was looking for? She didn’t like the cold way he was looking at her either. Then it struck her why she wasn’t the sort he was looking for. The simple fact was, he didn’t like her as a person. Well, that didn’t bother her. She didn’t like him. She’d be surprised if anyone actually did, with that abrupt, superior manner of his. But she needed the job