‘Your skin’s cleared up nicely,’ Daniel observed, ‘and the cosmetic surgeons have done some nice work on your facial scarring.’ Jordan’s care had been more multi-disciplined than most, and he had a list of doctors to see that morning, but Daniel didn’t just check his abdomen, he was interested in his entire patient. ‘How’s the weakness in your arm and leg?’
‘Coming along,’ Jordan said. ‘I’m having a handrail put in the bathroom but, apart from getting in and out of the bath, I can pretty much manage everything—except surfing…’
‘Give it time.’ Daniel smiled. ‘With the progress you’ve made in last few weeks, if you carry on with the rehab programme and put that bit extra in yourself, I’ve no doubt in my mind that you’ll be back doing what you love in the not-too-distant future.’
‘Done any surfing, Doc?’ Jordan asked, as Daniel held up a finger and asked him to follow it with his eyes without moving his head.
Louise smothered a smile at the image of the terribly upright Daniel waxing his board and catching a wave.
‘None,’ Daniel answered. ‘Now squeeze my hands as hard as you can.’
‘So what sport do you play?’ Jordan pressed, lying down when Daniel gestured him to do so and again without prompting lifting each leg in turn as Daniel pressed against his ankle to test the strength in each side. ‘Let me guess—cricket?’
‘Not any more.’ Daniel grimaced, catching Louise’s eye as she passed him an ophthalmoscope and even managing to impart a small smile at the memory of his most recent sporting injury.
Finally Daniel examined Jordan’s stomach, first reading the reports from the tests Jordan had had earlier in the week and asking how things had been going, then lifting his gown and listening to bowel sounds before gently probing his handiwork.
‘Looks like a bit of jigsaw, doesn’t it?’ Jordan said, nervously making small talk, clearly wanting Daniel to be pleased with his findings—desperate not to have to return to the colostomy bag he had hated so much. ‘But I don’t mind.’
‘It’s looking great,’ Daniel said. ‘I’m very pleased with how things are progressing. But it’s very important that if there are problems, you see me sooner rather than later. You’ve had a lot of surgery on your stomach and there’s always a chance that there might be some problems with scar tissue or adhesions. Do you remember me explaining that to you?’
Jordan gave a nod and despite the bravado, despite the spiky hair and piercings, he looked like a nervous teenager who had been through way too much in his short life.
Louise knew how he felt, knew the sadness that had overwhelmed her when there had been a real possibility that Declan might need a colostomy, but also knew that at the end of the day sometimes in life choices had to be faced. As Daniel hesitated for a moment before continuing, Louise knew that he was remembering it, too.
‘If there are any problems, I want you to come and see me. Don’t put it off because you’re worried that you’re going to have to have a colostomy. As I’ve told you many times, that’s something we both want to avoid.
‘Right.’ Offering his hand, he helped Jordan to sit up. ‘How many more doctors have you got pencilled into your diary today?’
‘Just the dermatologist and the psychiatrist.’ Jordan rolled his eyes as he got dressed and Louise tidied the room and changed the paper sheet on the examination bed, ready for the next patient. ‘Then I’m back next week to see the neurosurgeon.’
‘Well, clearly the dermatologist is doing his job.’ Daniel smiled. ‘And from the smile on your face I’d say you’re doing well with the psychiatrist, too.’
‘It helps.’ Jordan gave a tiny shake of his head, as if he couldn’t believe he actually believed it himself. ‘You know when you told me I should see a shrink I only agreed to it to get you off my back. But, you know, he’s really helped me to make sense of things, deal with all the changes.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’
‘You know all my mum kept saying when I first came round was that it didn’t matter—that no matter how bad my injuries were, it didn’t matter how I looked so long as I was alive. But it did matter to me.’ His eyes met Daniel’s. ‘And you were the only one who seemed to understand that. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that, didn’t want anyone seeing me at my lowest, and then when Sally dumped me I just kind of hit rock bottom.’
‘You clawed your way back, though,’ Daniel said. ‘And just look at you now.’
‘I reckon I’ve had a lucky escape.’ Jordan grinned.
‘I’ll say. Did you ever see the photos of your car?’ But Jordan just laughed.
‘I was talking about Sally! I’ve met someone else—her name’s Ashley.’ And as he spoke on, Jordan didn’t look nineteen all of a sudden. Such was the certainty in his voice it was as if Jordan was the older, wiser one. ‘And I know it’s early days, but I also know it’s going to work. I thought I was happy with Sally, but now I know I wasn’t even close. I know I’d have got through this without Ashley, but it’s one hell of a lot easier with her, Doc.’
For the first time the easy chatter between them faltered. Daniel didn’t respond straight away, his expression completely unreadable, his eyes a million miles away. But Jordan carried on, not noticing the change in Daniel. ‘I’ve said thanks to all the staff and I’ve meant it each time, but I owe you a lot more than just thanks, Doc.’
‘You owe me nothing.’ Daniel’s voice was gruff as he snapped back to attention. ‘Seeing you doing well is enough reward.’
‘Well, I got you this anyway.’ Jordan pulled a rather tatty envelope out of his pocket and handed it to him. ‘I didn’t know what to get you, so I thought of what I’d want.’
Louise was intrigued as Daniel opened the envelope, watched as a smile etched over his face.
‘A CD voucher.’
‘Yep. Everyone likes music, so I figured you could choose what you liked—wish my bloody aunts would do the same, instead of buying me awful T-shirts and socks all the time.’
‘I’ve got plenty of socks.’ Daniel smiled, but his voice was still hoarse. ‘Thanks very much, Jordan. It’s much appreciated. I’ll see you again in another six weeks.’
‘I wrote you a message in the card as well…’ As Daniel started to open it, Jordan reached out his good hand to stop him. ‘Maybe read it later.’
‘Come on, Jordan,’ Louise said, as Daniel sat down at the desk to write up his findings. ‘I’ll take you through to the waiting room and let the receptionist know that you’re ready for your next appointment.’
After speaking to the receptionist and making sure that Jordan was on the list for the dermatologist, Louise called the next patient in. Elsie Redditch, an elderly lady, needed the varicose ulcers on her ankles to be seen and re-dressed but refused Louise’s offer of a wheelchair, proudly insisting on walking but taking for ever to manage the short distance.
‘You’ll have to shoot me before you put me in one of those things,’ she said tartly, but did take Louise’s arm when she offered it.
‘Did you take a painkiller before you came?’ Louise asked, hoping that she had as varicose ulcers could be supremely painful.
‘Two,’ Elsie said, leaning more heavily on Louise’s arm as they finally reached the examination room. ‘And if they don’t work then I’m going to ask them to knock me out next time!’
‘We can give you some gas to breathe while we change the dressings if they’re really hurting.’
‘I’m not in the maternity ward, am I?’ Elsie quipped, and Louise grinned at the old lady’s sharp wit.
‘No, but it’s the same sort of gas as is used on the labour ward. You can take as little or as much as you like and it offers temporary relief…’ Louise started to explain, but as she opened the examination room her voice trailed off, because sitting at the desk in the examination room where she’d left him maybe fifteen minutes ago was Daniel. His face was in his hands, his back taut with tension as he stared down at the card Jordan had written for
him. Despite the chatter, despite the rather abrupt opening of the door, Louise realised he didn’t even know anyone was there, lost somewhere in a world of his own.
And if his pain hadn’t been so palpable, she’d have just carried right on in, prompting him to move, but instead she quietly closed the door, affixed the ‘engaged’ sign then turned to the elderly lady. ‘Elsie, I’m sorry to do this, but it would seem this room is already in use. Can I take you to the one next door?’
‘Do they have gas in there?’ Elsie checked.
‘Absolutely.’
She’d sworn that next time he would come to her.
Had sworn never to lay herself open to him again. But that wasn’t how love worked. That had been her head talking and now it was her heart.
‘Just suck hard on the gas, Elsie,’ Louise prompted gently, for despite the urgency in her heart to get to Daniel, she refused to rush the old lady. ‘I’m just squirting some saline onto the gauze—it’ll feel a bit cold.’ She hadn’t even started to remove the dressing. A long soak with saline would be needed before she even attempted to remove the dressing, but so painful were these types of ulcers that even a gentle squirt of water could prove agonising.
‘Done. How was that?’
‘The gas helped,’ Elsie said, handing back the mouthpiece and smiling appreciatively at Louise. ‘Can I have that when you take them off?’
‘Of course,’ Louise said. ‘Right, are you comfortable there? I’m going to leave them to soak for ten minutes or so and then Dr Evans will be in and we’ll remove the dressings.’
Heading out into the corridor, Louise placed the ‘engaged’ sign and hung Elsie’s clipboard on the door to alert Luke he had a patient in there.
‘Louise!’ May, the charge nurse, paused as she dashed past. ‘Do you want to go to coffee?’
‘Please,’ Louise answered. ‘I’m soaking some varicose ulcer dressings in exam 4, a seventy-eight-year-old lady named Elsie Redditch. I’ve laid everything out for Dr Evans. They’re very painful. She needed gas—’
‘Fine,’ May interrupted, more than used to re-dressing ulcers, but smiling to Louise for bringing her up to speed. ‘How are you enjoying Outpatients?’
‘A lot,’ Louise answered honestly.
‘Not quite the drama of a busy surgical ward.’ May smiled. ‘But we still know how to keep you busy. You know, I’ve been very pleased with your work. There’s a permanent job coming up after Christmas—maybe you should think about applying for it. Preference is given to internal applicants. And,’ she added, calling over her shoulder as she bustled off, ‘the hours are great for a busy working mum.’
Which was what she was, Louise realised. A busy working mum, who might not be blazing a trail in her career, might not be earning her stripes on a high-dependency surgical unit, but there would be time for all that later. Right now she was making a living, using her brain and keeping busy, and Louise realised with a shiver of pride at being offered a permanent job—she was doing OK.
Unlike Daniel.
Gently opening the door, completely unsure of his reaction, she tiptoed in to see he was still where she left him, only this time he turned around a touch when she came in. His face was such a picture of abject misery that she ignored her head and followed her heart. She crossed the room and placed her hand on his shoulder, feeling the tension beneath her fingers, half expecting him to shrug her off or ask her to leave—bracing herself for another rejection—never envisaging what would come next.
Instead of pushing her away, he was pulling her towards him, gathering her to him, holding her, pulling her onto his lap, rough with need. His desperate mouth found hers, pressing his lips to hers, parting them with his tongue, kissing her as if he was drawing from her, his arms wrapped so tightly around her she could barely breathe. But she didn’t need air, just needed him, drew from him, absorbed him. And it was so completely out of character, this formal, conscientious man caressing her at work, his rough hands searching her body, his face scratching hers, his kiss so rough and demanding, so desperate and hungry, his emotions so out of control in this tiny, closed room, that sensibility might have dictated fear and yet all she felt was him.
Knew that in his own way this was Daniel coming to her, perhaps for the first time, asking without words for help to get through. And it wasn’t an apology this time, Louise knew that, but a plea for understanding—a need, a desire to escape whatever it was that haunted him. And she allowed him that temporary reprieve—let him draw on her for comfort.
So she kissed him back, felt the hard, lean lines of his body pressed against her, kissed him back with the fierce passion he clearly needed, obliterated his pain for as long as she could—empowered by his desire. Because even if he hadn’t said a word, for the very first time he wasn’t holding back. Even if he wasn’t telling her what she needed to know, Louise knew it would come, knew by his frenzied kiss, his disregard for protocol, his utter, blatant want, that finally he was giving that little piece of him she’d so desperately craved.
Eventually he pulled back before it could go any further, before the urge to take her there and then became too over-whelming. He released her just enough to look into her eyes, and it was all there. Even if he hadn’t said a word, everything she really needed to know was there.
‘He wrote that he’s actually glad in some ways that it happened.’ There were tears in his dark eyes as Daniel handed her the card and she silently read it. ‘Glad for what he went through. How can he be?’
‘Because he’s come out the other side,’ Louise ventured, trying and praying that she’d say the right thing. ‘Because he’s happier now than he was before the accident.’
‘I’ll never be glad that it happened.’
And as he offered her the elusive it, she touched his damp cheek and gently shook her head.
‘You don’t have to tell me.’
She actually meant it—her thirst for more intimate knowledge quenched now. Quite simply, she loved him, trusted him enough now, to spare him the unnecessary pain of reliving it if he truly didn’t want to, the kiss they had just shared telling her way more than words ever could have.
‘I had AML.’ He ignored her offer, starting perhaps at the hardest part. AML, short for acute myeloid leukaemia, was a devastating illness that struck the young and was one of the most fatal of the leukaemias. Even without hearing the rest, she closed her eyes for a second, knowing that he would have been through hell. ‘I had everything going for me. I was in my final year at med school, on the first rugby and cricket teams, and I was in love…’ He frowned for a second, asking with his eyes if it was OK to say that, and she nodded, nodded because somehow she’d known he must have been. ‘Her name was Kate, she was in the same year as me, and we just knew we were going to be together. You know how you just know?’
Again she nodded, because the second she’d laid eyes on him that had been exactly how she’d felt. ‘Kate got pregnant—a complete accident but, you know, I was pleased. We both worked it all out—she’d take a year off and then pick up her career. We were going to make it…’ And though it hurt like hell to hear about her, to know that he’d truly loved before, it was far less painful than being denied his past, so Louise listened, listened as he told her how much he’d loved and how his whole world had fallen apart.
‘I started coming out in bruises and I was tired all the time. I tried to put it down to working and playing too hard. I was working in a bar some nights, trying to save up for the baby, and I decided that the bruises were from a rough game at the weekend, but in a matter of days I knew I was in real trouble. I went and had a blood test one lunchtime and by the evening I was lying in a bed in the oncology ward, booked in for a bone-marrow biopsy in the morning and asking Kate to bring in my oncology textbooks.
‘The more the results came in, the worse it looked. The prognosis was awful and I knew that even if I did make it through, the next year or two were just going to be an endless round of chemo and hospital. But m
y family were great, I had amazing friends and I had Kate and the baby…’ His face screwed up as if he was right back there, living it all over again, so instead of looking at him she held him, buried her face in his shoulders, felt his face in her hair, his body dragging in air as he steadied himself.
‘The day the chemo started I had to sign all the forms, was told that I’d undoubtedly be left infertile, that if I’d been well enough to I could have left samples for the future. But I was really ill by then—I mean, really ill—so they just went ahead with the treatment. Kate didn’t come by for a few days and if I’m honest, I was just too out of it to really notice. But when she did…’ He wasn’t holding her now, it was Louise holding him, waiting patiently for whatever came next. And when he couldn’t go on, she tried to make it easier for him, said words that must hurt so much to speak out loud.
‘She’d lost the baby,’ Louise said softly, and it wasn’t a question but a statement, so sure she had been that she now understood his pain, never having fathomed how deep it really ran.
‘She’d ended the pregnancy.’
Louise felt her heart stop for a moment, all the platitudes she’d been silently rehearsing since he’d first started to tell her imploding—because nothing she could say could make this right. ‘Without discussing it with you?’
‘She probably knew I’d try to talk her out of it.’ Louise sat on his lap and stared aghast at him, all her training flying out of the window—staying impassive an impossible feat when it was someone you loved in pain.
‘I tried not to blame her—I mean, I was so wrapped up in myself I never stopped to think how scared she must have been, knowing that I was probably going to die and that even if I lived, effectively she’d be coping on her own for a while. Money would have been tight—’
‘No!’ Angrily Louise shook her head. ‘They’re all just excuses, Daniel, and you know it. And I’m not talking about whether Kate was right or wrong to end the pregnancy—I’d never, ever judge—but to make that decision for you, to take away your chance of fatherhood without even discussing it with you…’
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