Accidental Reunion

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Pressure sores, along with dehydration. I shouldn’t have accepted her really, as I haven’t got any beds left, but according to the GP she’s in a bit of a mess and I could hardly refuse to take her. Her GP was pretty upset the home didn’t call him out a lot sooner. Some of these nursing homes need to take a good long look at themselves. It seems more about profit than people these days. Sorry.’ Yvonne gave a thin smile. ‘I’ll get off my soapbox now. It just gets to me sometimes.’

  ‘I know,’ Lila said softly, swallowing a lump in her own throat. ‘It gets to me, too. Anyway—’ she deliberately brightened her voice ‘—there’s a couple of free beds on the medical ward. If you admit the patient to Med 1 you can transfer her over to AGU tomorrow.’

  ‘Looking for some action, Yvonne?’ Grinning, Declan joined the group.

  In an instant Lila felt as if her senses had been put on high alert. She could almost feel the breeze from him as he walked over.

  ‘He thinks only staff in Emergency do any work.’ Yvonne grinned. ‘Just because my patients are old, it doesn’t mean they’re not sick,’ she scolded lightly. ‘I still have to use my brain.’

  Lila jumped down from her stool as Harry, the porter, wheeled a patient back from X-Ray. ‘Declan, would you mind having a quick look at these? Diana thinks it may be pneumonia and he’ll probably need to be referred on.’

  ‘Sure.’

  With an easy smile he took the X-rays from Harry and made his way over to the viewing box.

  ‘Phew,’ Yvonne said. ‘It’s a different place here at night.’

  ‘We’re not normally this quiet,’ Sue said almost defensively.

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Yvonne smiled. ‘It’s just so much more relaxed and friendly. I was down here this afternoon and the unit manager nearly had a fit because I brought my coffee round the front.’

  ‘That’d be right,’ Lila groaned.

  ‘So how come it’s so different down here at night?’

  ‘Different staff,’ Lila said, climbing back onto the high stool. ‘Night staff on the whole are a lot nicer—in my opinion, of course. We’re not all pulled into the politics of days, fighting over any interesting patients, trying to look busy when it’s quiet.’ She laughed. ‘Now, who’s up on their soapbox?’

  ‘And what does Hester have to say about all this?’ Yvonne gestured to the tray overloaded with cups and cakes and biscuits.

  ‘Plenty,’ Lila admitted. ‘But I’ve told her that when she provides enough staff so that we can have our full breaks I’ll put away the running buffet, but until then it stays. Speaking of which, I’m going to have a huge slice of cake—do you fancy a piece?’

  ‘Just a small one, and then I’d better get on and do some work.’

  ‘Where were you before you worked here?’ Lila asked, plunging a knife into a vast walnut cake.

  ‘Home—Scotland,’ Yvonne added.

  ‘So what brings you to Melbourne?’

  Yvonne shrugged. ‘I just fancied a change, a few personal reasons.’

  ‘Declan was saying he worked in Scotland for a while,’ Sue commented as the knife Lila was holding froze in the cake.

  ‘He’s one of the personal reasons,’ Yvonne said lightly.

  ‘You worked with him there.’ Suddenly Lila’s voice was strangely high.

  ‘A bit more than that,’ Yvonne admitted, and Lila saw she was blushing.

  ‘So you’re an item?’ Sue pushed happily, delighted to be the first with the gossip.

  ‘Well, we are living together,’ Yvonne admitted, blushing ever deeper as she did so. ‘So, yes, I guess we are.’

  The knife was working rapidly now, slicing the cake with lightning speed. It had never even entered her head. Not for a single second. Even with Yvonne’s accent, even when Declan had mentioned he’d worked in Scotland, even the fact they’d started on the same day. Not once had it occurred to Lila that they might be together.

  There just didn’t seem to be anything between them. OK, so she’d hardly seen them together, just at Yvonne’s lecture and for a couple of minutes this evening, but there was nothing that had indicated to Lila they were a couple. No stolen glances, no sexual tension, nothing. Yes, they were at work. And, yes, you didn’t have to be constantly touching to be a couple, but surely there would have been some vibe? Surely. Her mind whizzed back eight years. They could have been on the other side of the room yet there had always been an energy between them—a constant awareness that had permeated the room.

  She wasn’t still hung up on Declan—it was over, over, over.

  It just seemed so unfair, that was all. His life had moved on, ever onwards, while she herself seemed frozen where he’d left her. And not even there, apart from her wardrobe perhaps. Eight years ago she had been stunning, had had a great social life and a glamorous job. Eight years, five extra kilos and no social life later, that’s where Declan had found her.

  ‘Are you still here?’ Declan grinned at Yvonne.

  The same way he grinned at everyone, everyone except her.

  ‘Still here. One more patient to admit and then I’ll head off home, though I think I might wait for her to arrive in the doctors’ mess and have a doze while I’m waiting. I don’t suppose you picked up milk, like I asked?’

  Yvonne glanced over at Lila, an almost imperceptible flash of triumph in her eyes. She knows about us, Lila realised, and she’s making sure I know that they’re together now.

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ Declan answered cheerfully, completely oblivious to the sudden tension in the tiny annex. ‘I’ve rung Chest Med, Lila,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘They want the patient sent straight up to the ward and they’ll clerk him there.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Sue said, swinging down from the work bench.

  But Yvonne hadn’t finished turning the knife. ‘Anything else you want me to pick up from the all-night store, Declan—anything you fancy?’

  Declan laughed ‘Plenty, but let’s just leave it at milk for now, huh?’

  Once Yvonne had gone Declan helped himself to a huge piece of cake. ‘Who made this?’

  ‘Lila,’ Sue said as she picked up the patients’ files and headed off to the ward.

  ‘Really?’ Declan took a tentative bite and grabbed his throat. ‘Put out a crash call, I’ve been poisoned.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Lila said, suddenly finding her tongue. ‘But, then, everything always was a joke to you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Declan asked, his voice suddenly serious.

  ‘You know full well.’

  ‘No, Lila, I don’t. What have I done now?’

  She shot him a look. ‘You mean apart from strolling back into my life and expecting us to be friends?’

  ‘Yes, Lila.’ His voice was deep and his eyes searched hers. ‘Yes, Lila,’ he repeated. ‘Apart from that.’

  What could she say? That the news he was living with Yvonne had devastated her? That, though she hadn’t even realised it, she had somehow harboured a hope that maybe, just maybe there might have been a chance for them?

  Of course not. She tore her eyes away. Lying was hard enough without looking at him. ‘I think I made a mistake yesterday,’ she replied finally, ‘when I said we could be friends. There’s too much water under the bridge.’

  She turned to go, but for the second time in as many days he caught her arm again, stopping her from leaving, forcing her not to leave the conversation there.

  ‘If anyone should be hurt about the water under the bridge, Lila, it’s me.’

  ‘What?’ Unable to believe her ears, she shot him a furious look. ‘You think you were the one that got hurt?’

  ‘You finished it, Lila.’

  ‘I’m back. Anyone else to go up?’ Sue barged in, oblivious to the conversation that was taking place.

  ‘Sue, I just need a word with Lila,’ Declan said quickly.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, doctor.’ Pointedly Lila pulled her arm away.

  ‘No, you tw
o go right ahead,’ Sue said brightly, ignoring Lila’s desperate eye signals. ‘I’ll buzz if things pick up out here.’

  They ended up in Hester’s office, Lila’s cheeks burning with anger and the strangest awareness at finding herself finally alone with him. As Declan closed the door he turned slowly, his face serious. Suddenly he looked older, so much older than the carefree young man she had once known.

  ‘You finished with me,’ he said, as if the last couple of minutes had never happened. ‘You were the one who ended two years with a single phone call. Who packed up and moved without leaving a forwarding address. Hell, I’ve still got a box of records and clothes you left at my place, make-up and jewellery you left on my dressing-table which you never came back for.’ His voice was rising now, and Lila was stunned to hear the pain behind it. ‘And you think you’re the one that got hurt?’

  Lila shook her head angrily. ‘You sound like you don’t know why I went, Declan. You sound as if you truly believe you did nothing wrong.’

  ‘What, Lila? What did I do to merit that? I knew you were upset about your mother. I knew you’d had a shock, but to just vanish like that…’

  She had never once looked at this from his point of view, too full of anger and hurt to have believed there had been another side to this painful story. But he deserved to be hurt, Lila reminded herself, a steely resolve returning. He deserved it.

  ‘You laughed at me,’ she rasped, years of pain welling to the surface. ‘I needed you to be there for me and you laughed.’

  Declan’s face was incredulous. She watched the colour drain from his cheeks as he listened to her words.

  ‘Lila.’ He shook his head, bewildered. ‘I never laughed at you, never.’

  ‘When I said I wanted to do nursing,’ she reminded him, the memory of that day seared into her brain with aching clarity.

  ‘But I wasn’t laughing at you. I was confused, trying to make you see sense. Lila, you hated blood, hated anything like that. Fair play to you, you’ve gone on and done it and from what I can see you’re a fabulous nurse. But back then…Lila, we were so young, so carefree, surely you can see why I laughed. I laughed at the idea, never you.

  ‘I’d have been there for you. I’d have helped—I truly would have. Hell, Lila, the moment you walked out I got all my books out, tried to find out more about Alzheimer’s to see if there were any new treatments, any drugs or advances. It never even entered my head you weren’t coming back to me.’

  Lila shook her head, unable to take Declan’s slant on things, refusing any attempt at an explanation. What she expected next from Declan she truly didn’t know, a further attempt to justify the past perhaps, a plea for understanding, an apology perhaps. Certainly not what did come next.

  ‘You’re telling me that you threw it all away on the basis of a misplaced laugh?’

  Lila looked up sharply at him, her blue eyes meeting his steely grey ones. Not a hint of the carefree charmer she’d known so well looked back at her. No lazy smile, no crinkle as his eyes met hers now. Just the cold steel of his stare.

  ‘You hurt me,’ she intoned.

  For the longest time he stared, bewilderment clouding his eyes for an instant. But only for an instant, the ice soon returning.

  ‘What the hell do you think you did to me, then?’ And turning, he left her standing there.

  Suddenly her entire perspective of that fateful day had shifted. That bitter argument had formed the basis for a burning and later simmering anger, an anger that had stayed with her for eight long years. An anger that had kept the pain of her loss at bay.

  For she had lost so much on that day—her partner, her lover, her best friend.

  As the horror truly dawned, Lila put a shaking hand up to her lips.

  Had she been so blind that she had let everything go? Let everything go for nothing?

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘OH, COME on, Lila, even if you just come for an hour.’

  Lila shook her head. ‘Sorry, Sue, I really can’t.’

  ‘But why not?’ Sue insisted. ‘You don’t have to buy anything, it’s more just an excuse to have a glass of wine and a bit of a giggle.’

  A glass of wine and a bit of a giggle sounded pretty tempting, but the logistics of going to Sue’s lingerie party simply weren’t worth it. Lila hated dumping on Shirley. Particularly on a Saturday night and even more so now.

  Somehow, and probably with no good reason, she didn’t want Shirley to feel even more tied to her sister. Didn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire.

  ‘Give me a copy of the brochure,’ Lila suggested. ‘I’ll buy something.’

  Handing over a brochure, Sue gave Lila a worried look. ‘I don’t want you there just to buy something.’

  ‘I know,’ Lila assured her, acutely aware that Declan had just joined them at the nurses’ station.

  ‘So why can’t you come?’

  Lila shrugged dismissively.

  ‘You never seem to go out…’

  Lila shot Sue a look that told her to be quiet, but, unperturbed, Sue continued relentlessly. ‘There’s the emergency department ball in a couple of weeks. I bet you don’t go to that either.’

  Declan seemed to be concentrating hard on the notes he was writing, but Lila was positive he was listening.

  ‘I might,’ Lila said lightly.

  ‘But that’s what you always say, and then you end up not going. Come on, Lila, if you can’t come to my lingerie party at least come to the ball. I’m not taking no for an answer. We single girls need to stick together, and anyway it will be fun.’

  ‘What, seeing the Horse in a new blanket?’

  Sue grinned. ‘Can I put your name down, then? Everyone will be rapt if you finally make it to something.’

  Lila took a deep breath. Sue had a point. She rarely attended work functions, and the truth was that her low social profile was starting to be noticed.

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll come,’ Lila said finally, to keep Sue quiet in front of Declan.

  ‘When you’ve finished arranging your social schedule, there’s a patient I’d like a hand with, Sister.’ Declan’s animosity didn’t go unnoticed.

  It had been two weeks since their confrontation in Hester’s office. Two long weeks where they had studiously avoided each other or, when forced to, had spoken almost politely.

  At work she coped, or at least appeared to. Not quite the consummate professional—the chance of a promotion wasn’t that inviting. But she worked diligently, determined that Declan shouldn’t see how hurt she was, how he had overturned her world just by coming back.

  How devastated she was that he was seeing Yvonne.

  ‘Ellen Whiting, eighty-four year old. She’s been admitted from a nursing home with fever for investigation. I need you to help me sit her up so that I can listen to her chest.’

  ‘Fine,’ Lila replied crisply, though her heart sank. It had been hard enough putting on a façade of friendliness, but even that had been so much easier than this obvious animosity.

  All that was put aside, though, as they entered the cubicle to examine the patient. Ellen Whiting was a tiny, frail lady, barely conscious.

  ‘Mrs Whiting, I am Dr Declan Haversham and I’m going to examine you and see if we can’t make you a bit more comfortable.’

  The genuine tenderness in his voice, the gentle way he examined the frail lady came as a surprise to Lila. She had never for a moment expected him to be brusque, but the compassion he showed the elderly woman as he gently probed her abdomen and listened to her chest was another painful glimpse of the man she had lost.

  ‘Could you help me to lift her forward so that I can listen to the back of her chest?’

  Between them they gently sat Ellen forward and Lila pulled up her nightgown to enable Declan to listen with his stethoscope.

  ‘She’ll need a chest X-ray,’ he said once he had finished listening. ‘I’m going to put in an IV and get some fluids started. And then take some bloods and we’ll get some antibiotics g
oing.’

  He scribbled his orders on the casualty card and handed it to Lila without looking up.

  ‘I’ll get the IV trolley,’ Lila suggested helpfully, but Declan shook his head.

  ‘No problem. I can manage. If you can just get the antibiotics drawn up, that would be good.’

  Standing at the drug cupboard, she knew he was near before she saw him.

  ‘Have you seen my tourniquet?’ Declan asked finally, when it was obvious he couldn’t find it anywhere.

  ‘No. Here, use mine.’ But as she pulled it out of her pocket Declan shook his head.

  ‘It’s all right, it must be around somewhere.’

  Lila pursed her lips. ‘Would you like me to pull the drugs up in another room while you look?’

  His brow furrowed at the sarcasm in her voice. ‘Sorry? What are you going on about?’

  ‘I can pull the drugs up elsewhere if it makes you so uncomfortable—being in the same room as me, I mean.’

  Declan gave a weary sigh. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Lila.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do, Dr Haversham. Just remember, while you’re spending so much time trying to avoid me, it was you that suggested we be friends, at least at work. You were the one who said you didn’t want me feeling uncomfortable.’

  ‘And are you?’

  Lila took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘And it’s not only me. All the staff know there’s an atmosphere, they have no idea why.’

  Declan shrugged, looking up as she caught her breath in irritation. ‘What have I done wrong now?’

  ‘I’d forgotten how much that irritated me. The way you shrug things off, the way you just dismiss what I’m saying.’

  ‘Poor Lila,’ he said slowly. ‘Poor, hard-done-by Lila. I’ve treated you so badly, haven’t I?’

  Suddenly the keys in her hand came under close scrutiny as she avoided his searing gaze.

  ‘Not only did I laugh at the wrong moment eight years ago, but I had the audacity to accept a promotion in my home town without checking whether you’d had a career change and might possibly be on the staff. I’m just so thoughtless sometimes.’

  His sarcasm bit through her.