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with people who just want to be patients has been enough to show you what general practice is all about.'
    'Yes, it has.' Sophie drained her glass. Cardboard and soap weren't too bad when you got used to them. 'I love it. It's what I want to do, Dad.'
    Sophie's father, a consultant surgeon in the same Auckland hospital in which Greg worked, sniffed incredulously. Then he modified his tone. 'Even so, that doesn't mean you can never come back to live in Auckland. We have general practices up here as well.' Her father managed to make the practice of family health sound like an alternative therapy. 'Just because Greg has decided that general practice isn't for him, that certainly isn't enough of a reason for you to break off your engagement.'
    'That's not the only reason.' Sophie sighed, tipped her glass upside down and then looked longingly towards the fridge. She needed a cordless telephone.
    'He apparently thinks it has a lot to do with it.'
    'Our engagement had become a habit, Dad. We hardly saw each other during our house-surgeon rotations and now we're going in different directions. If our relationship was strong enough for marriage it would have happened years ago. We're good friends. We always will be, but it's not enough.'
    'It's what your mother and I started with. It was good enough for us.'
    Sophie's memories of her mother had faded in the years since her death but she had never appeared to her daughter to be a particularly happy or fulfilled person.
    'It's not enough for me,' Sophie stated bravely. 'Not any more. I've got my own life to lead, Dad. I'm making my own decisions now.'
    Her father snorted with exasperation. 'You always have. You're stubborn, Sophie, and I have to say I think you're making a big mistake. Your abilities and education are being wasted.'
    'And I suppose they wouldn't be wasted if I married Greg?'
    'They wouldn't be wasted if you came back and took up some kind of specialist training.'
    'I am doing specialist training,' Sophie snapped. 'I happen to think that general practice is special.' She heard a beeper sound over the phone and her father sighed heavily.
    'I've got to go. We'll continue this some other time, Sophie.'
    Sophie had no doubts about that. She stared at the phone as she replaced the receiver. Why had it always been so impossible to win her father's approval? And why didn't it start to matter less the more often it happened?
    Greg used to approve of her. Their high-school romance had flourished as Greg had supported Sophie's attempts at independence in her choice of clothing, sports and recreation. Her father had disapproved of her staying away from home. Sophie and Greg had joined a tramping club and had gone on as many weekend expeditions as possible. Her father disliked loud music. Sophie and Greg had gone to rock and roll dancing lessons and had used the conservatory at Sophie's house to practise. The years at medical school had seen an improvement in her relationship with her father, but it had been the calm before the storm. The storm being Sophie's adamant desire to work in general practice.
    Even then Greg had supported her. They both shared a vision of the satisfaction and value of being part of a community and committed to good, old-fashioned, front-line medicine. It was the perfect scenario for doctors married to each other. Even Ruby Murdock recognised that. She could share the practice and cut her hours down while the children were babies. A flexible partnership. Family and community orientated. Not driven by ambition and high-powered consultancy positions. That had been the plan right from the start. It had been their wholehearted agreement on such a lifestyle choice that had cemented their relationship to the point of announcing their engagement.
    The plan had remained intact as both Sophie and Greg had moved through the range of specialties appropriate to GP training, including paediatrics, general medicine, A and E, general surgery and geriatrics. It had remained