She turned towards the house.
‘Yes, and then plenty of work to do, putting it all together,’ she agreed, but Anne’s frowning face told her the woman had something on her mind. Was she worried Caitlin would press her for Harry’s father’s details—or feeling guilty because she didn’t want to reveal them? ‘I’ll let you know how it’s going if you like.’
Anne shrugged, as if the outcome of Caitlin’s work held little interest for her, but Caitlin had sensed her fear when she’d spoken of Harry’s illness—a fear not for her son but for her daughter who shared his bloodlines. With her medical background she’d understood what Caitlin was trying to do—and also how important that work might be for Rachel’s future. Yet, for the work to be complete, she would have to reveal the name of the children’s father—a secret she’d kept successfully for at least nine years.
As Caitlin walked away, she wondered about Anne’s lover. Were they still involved with each other? Could she turn to him with her doubts and questions, talk her dilemma through with him? Or had he cut himself off from them? Perhaps been in the city at the same time she’d been studying, then left her for someone else?
But that was hardly likely, given the gap in ages between the children!
And now? Was Anne looking for another man? Someone to act as a father to her children, to provide her with companionship—with love?
And why should she need love any more than you do? Caitlin demanded of herself. Then she sighed, for her scornful question lacked its usual zest, and she wondered if perhaps she did need love.
Quickening her pace as if she might outdistance her thoughts, Caitlin turned her mind from love to mental shopping lists. In spite of what she’d said to Connor, there was a limit to how long she could exist on bread and breakfast cereal—particularly now she’d run out of milk.
She had her list complete by the time she reached the hospital and decided she’d drop off her notes at the house then drive up town to the supermarket. Mike Nelson interrupted these plans, once again calling to her from the front veranda of the hospital.
‘Do you lie in wait for me or do you keep watch on everyone approaching the place? Surely an axe murderer intent on doing away with your patients would creep around the back?’
He grinned at her and motioned for her to come up the steps.
‘Nellie keeps watch at the back,’ he pointed out. ‘Actually, I was heading back to my office and saw you coming this way. Decided it was time you had the guided tour. Come along.’
He led the way into the building, passing his office on the left and taking the next door on that side.
‘You came in to see Granny, so saw the rooms down that side. Along this corridor is the emergency room—what used to be A and E until we became Americanised—then a small treatment room, and next to that the theatre.’
‘For an older building, it’s remarkably well laid out,’ Caitlin said, appreciating how services like X-ray and pathology had been clustered near these suites for efficiency.
Mike beamed at her.
‘Thanks—that’s partly my doing. When the Health Department started talking about building a new hospital, I told them it was a shame to pull down a building that worked, so their planners came up and together we nutted out what needed to be renovated.’
They walked through the wing that housed the hostel then he led her into the kitchen—behind the yellow line that divided off the food preparation area.
‘Here, too, we just altered things so the food preparation area is classed as a restricted area—see Nellie’s gown and slippers—but staff can come in here, even sit at the table like they did in the old days, and have a cup of coffee and talk to Nellie, who stays on the other side of the table.’
It seemed a good compromise to Caitlin, who’d sat at a similar table in the kitchen of the hospital in her old home town, being spoilt with goodies from the cook.
Mike departed, leaving Caitlin with Nellie who pressed a plate of freshly cooked scones on her and offered to prepare Caitlin’s evening meals.
‘There’s a proper dining room just across the hall,’ she said, nodding towards the door. ‘And a book in there. You just write down what time you’ll be in for a meal, and I’ll have it ready for you. That’s if you don’t want to come in here.
‘Saves you doing any shopping,’ Nellie continued. ‘I know about cooking in temporary quarters—doesn’t matter what you choose to make, there’s always one ingredient you don’t have.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Caitlin responded, unwilling to admit that her ‘cooking’ rarely required ingredients. She steamed or stir-fried vegetables and usually grilled her meat, fish or chicken, a little pepper and a dash of soy sauce her only condiments. ‘But I’m better being independent. It’s hard to know when I’ll be wanting meals.’
Nellie seemed unfazed by her decision.
‘Suit yourself, but any time you’re feeling hungry at about seven, there’ll be food in here—and company.’
Was that it? Caitlin wondered as she crossed the yard between the hospital and house. Did Nellie want to talk to her? As company, or for some other reason?
Mike had explained that the domestic staff, including a kitchen hand who did the heavy work for Nellie, all finished by five—some earlier. One wardsman was on duty at night to assist the nursing staff should moving a patient be necessary, and he helped the aides serve the meals. The wardsman also acted as the X-ray technician and a general gofer for the nurses.
So he’d be in the wards, or the small staffroom, she assumed, and Nellie would be on her own until supper was over and she could go home.
OK, so I’ll go over and have dinner with Nellie one night, Caitlin decided. But not tonight!
She’d reached her front door and hesitated before reaching out to open it.
Don’t be silly, she chided herself, clutching the doorknob and turning it firmly.
It moved obligingly but when she pushed against it, the door refused to budge.
She rattled the doorknob and tried again, kicked the lower panel and had another go—then remembered Connor talking about keys! Someone had locked the place.
With a weary sigh she turned back towards the kitchen.
‘I can’t get into my house,’ she complained to Nellie, who laughed delightedly then reached into the capacious pocket of her apron.
‘Forgot to tell you. Connor found a key. He locked the place and told me to give you this.’
She handed Caitlin a long, old-fashioned-looking black metal key.
‘We used to have keys like that at home. Same one opens every door in the house—even opened our next-door neighbours’ place as well.’
Caitlin added her thanks then retraced her steps to her front door. Now they’d limited the people who could get into her place to those who lived in the older houses or happened to have a key that fitted.
Like Anne Jackson?
She shook her head to clear the thought. It was ridiculous. Anne was defensive because of her situation—but to wish harm to another woman?
The key worked, and a cursory glance around the place failed to reveal any new message of disaster.
Great! Shopping first then back to work. Or perhaps a little work…
She could feel her fingertips buzzing with an urgency to key in the new information, and it was only the thought of having to pour water on her cereal in the morning that won the inner battle.
By six o’clock her groceries had been put away and she’d cooked and eaten a plate of vegetables, so she could work through for a few hours without having to stop for a proper meal. Later, she’d take a break—perhaps at ten—and have some supper then.
She smiled at this evidence of order and domesticity and finally allowed herself to settle in front of the computer screen.
Her excitement grew as she added more and more names to her ‘tree’. The families were meshing and intertwining, and her fingers flew across the keys, issuing commands, demanding new configurations o
f the information, tying the threads of relationship from one family to the next.
At some stage she’d heard an ambulance, its screaming siren cutting through the night air like the cry of an animal in pain. Work for Connor, her brain had registered, but she’d not been diverted long, her mind too focussed on the emerging pattern.
She heard the knocking but it took a minute for its meaning to register. Pushing reluctantly away from the computer, she straightened up, grimacing as muscles that had been inactive for too long protested at the movement.
A nurse she hadn’t met stood outside, looking worried and distracted.
‘Connor said could you come. It’s a—’ The young woman broke off then tried again. ‘It’s a…’
She burst into tears.
CHAPTER SIX
WHATEVER it was, it was urgent, Caitlin realised, putting an arm around the nurse’s shoulders, making soothing noises, but leading her straight back to the hospital.
‘Get yourself a cup of tea,’ she told the nurse, abandoning her near the kitchen. Then, putting together urgency and the ambulance siren, Caitlin made her way to the emergency room Mike had shown her earlier.
Anne and Connor were bent over a patient near the door. Perhaps hearing her approach, Connor looked up.
‘MVA. Could you check that lad?’ he asked, nodding to the second bed in the small room. ‘Mike’s on his way in.’
MVA—motor vehicle accident—the same shorthand was used in emergency departments all over the country.
‘Come on, damn you, live!’ Connor was muttering at his patient as Caitlin pulled a curtain around the second bed.
She picked up the transfer papers from the ambulance and the file the upset nurse must have started. Warwick Bell, aged seventeen. Concussion. Lower limb damage. The rest of the information on the sheet was sketchy and Caitlin realised the ambulance attendants’ attention had been centred on the more seriously injured occupant of the car—the young man Connor was willing back to life.
Caitlin concentrated on Warwick. He was unconscious and had an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose but no tube in place so presumably his airway was clear. His neck was protected by a cervical collar and a short spine board was still strapped around his torso. She picked up the stethoscope that hung above the bed and listened to his chest. Once Mike arrived they could use an oximeter to check oxygen saturation in his blood.
Blood next—no bad external bleeding, though he had blood seeping from scrapes and cuts on his face and a bandage on his left forearm which she assumed covered a flesh injury. His blood pressure was good, pulse a little fast. She checked his injured leg, noticing the swelling below the knee, and stripped off his right shoe and sock, seeking a peripheral pulse in his foot. It was there, faint but noticeable, so she knew blood was still getting through.
She slid a catheter into the back of his left hand, knowing fluids could be needed urgently if his condition deteriorated, took a vial of blood for typing and testing, then moved on.
Through the curtain, she could hear Connor talking, entreating his patient to stay alive. The clatter of instruments, the murmured conversation between Anne and Connor suggested it was an epic battle and Caitlin felt her chest grow tight as she wondered if they’d win.
But she had her own patient to tend. Head next. She was talking to him all the time, and now she asked him to open his eyes. To her surprise, his eyelids flickered and with only a little further encouragement, he managed the task. Blue eyes, as clear as a baby’s but empty of any understanding. His pupils were dilated but even in size, and responded when she shone a torch into them. She kept talking to him, seeking a response to voice commands. He moved a finger when asked, but didn’t respond verbally, though he was obviously aware of his pain, groaning as Caitlin touched his body.
‘Warwick, speak to me, tell me how you feel.’
The blue eyes focussed this time, and one word—‘Lousy’—made Caitlin feel better. That one word, though it came out a bit garbled, told her Warwick’s level of unconsciousness was not as great as she’d feared.
Mike arrived as she was noting her assessment of her patient on the chart, classing him as thirteen on the Glasgow coma scale, where severe injury started at eleven and coma with a score of seven or less.
‘Hell, it’s Warwick! Where’s Kirstie?’
Caitlin looked blankly at the new arrival.
‘The nurse who was on duty—covering Emergency. Slight build, blonde hair.’
Caitlin recognised the description of the nurse who’d come to get her, and explained to Mike she’d left her near the kitchen.
‘Are you OK here for another few minutes?’ Mike asked, and Caitlin, who was surprised to find how much of her training was coming back to her, nodded.
‘I’ll have to find her,’ Mike explained. ‘Warwick’s her brother.’
Left on her own, Caitlin first repeated the check of her patient’s vital signs—still good—then turned her attention to a secondary survey. Warwick was moving now as full consciousness returned, lifting his arms to try to orientate himself. He moved his left, less injured leg on command, which reassured Caitlin about spinal injury.
She unstrapped the spine board but left it where it was until Mike returned to help her remove it. Took off Warwick’s other shoe and sock, then cut off his torn and blood-stained jeans.
‘Hey, they’re good,’ he protested, but as she’d found a deep, soft tissue wound on his left thigh and was swabbing it clean, the protest died in another cry, this one of pain.
She worked her way carefully over his body, cleaning bits of dirt out of contusions, putting fresh dressings on his arm, tending all the superficial wounds.
Mike returned.
‘One of the other nurses on duty is taking care of Kirstie,’ he told Caitlin. ‘So, what next?’
‘X-ray.’
‘OK.’
A fluent string of oaths from beyond the curtain had them both glancing that way.
‘Bad?’ Mike asked, and Caitlin nodded.
‘I think so,’ she said quietly.
She and Mike wheeled Warwick through to X-Ray, where, with the help of the wardsman, they shifted Warwick onto the X-ray table.
‘We’ll manage this part,’ Mike told her. ‘What do you want?’
‘Right leg for sure, then head and neck as precautionary measures. According to the transfer papers, he was wearing a seat belt but there could be indications of whiplash.’
Mike nodded, and Caitlin left them to it, returning to the emergency room and the patient Connor had been swearing over.
Anne was gone, and Connor was bent over the bed. He straightened and turned as he heard Caitlin approach.
‘We lost him,’ he said, ashen-faced with defeat. ‘Stupid, stupid boy, out there speeding and no seat belt. Massive head and chest injuries. His parents are here. I’ll have to talk to them.’
He walked past Caitlin and down the corridor, his usually straight shoulders bowed.
Uncertain what to do next, Caitlin waited, then Anne returned with a sheaf of papers in her hand.
‘Always paperwork,’ she said, the bitterness of defeat in her voice, too.
‘Can I do something?’ Caitlin asked.
Anne shrugged, then perched on a stool, glanced at the clock and bent her head over the forms.
Mike returned. ‘Connor’s seen the films. Head’s OK but there’s a bad fracture of the fibula. Must have been the way he was sitting in the car. The flying surgeon comes tomorrow, so we’ll leave the leg until then. Connor’s ordered a drip and some pain relief, and said we can put Warwick to bed. Thanks for your help, Caitlin. We really appreciate it.’
Thus dismissed, Caitlin made her way back to her temporary home, feeling flat and somehow dissatisfied.
Even the computer failed to lure her, though hunger finally asserted itself and she flicked on the kitchen light and considered her options. Nice to have options! Toast perhaps, with peanut butter and honey—that should cover a few of the b
asic nutritional groups. And a cup of tea—given the late hour and the likelihood that she’d soon be heading for bed.
But she didn’t head to bed, too unsettled by the evening’s activities. She took the tea and toast into the bedroom and settled in front of the computer again.
She was wondering why the threads of relationships coming together on the machine failed to thrill her when the security lights came on, dazzling her eyes as their brightness flooded the bedroom. A soft tap on the door announced her visitor, and she opened it to see Connor standing there, his hair ruffled, his face still etched with strain.
‘Saw your light on and thought I’d pop in,’ he said lightly, trying a smile but failing so dismally she wanted to put her arms around him and give him a hug.
‘I’ve just made tea. Want some? And toast? Or I’ve got some scones.’
Caitlin took his hand and tugged him in. As she reached behind him to shut the door, the outside lights went out, and in the sudden darkness she saw a movement in the shadows on the hospital veranda—a flash of white as if someone had stood there watching, then moved away as the door began to close.
One of the night staff grabbing some fresh air, she told herself, more concerned with her visitor than the unknown person on the veranda.
‘Sit down,’ she said to Connor. ‘I assume you’ve just been talking to the parents. That has to be the crappiest job in all of medicine.’
He shrugged his shoulders then rubbed his hand through his hair, completing the disarray.
‘You could say that!’ he muttered, then he looked around as if uncertain of his whereabouts. ‘I should go home. Shouldn’t be bothering you…’
The words trailed into nothingness and Caitlin took his hand again, but this time she turned him towards her so she could look into his face.
‘Talk about it,’ she suggested, as his despair washed over her as well. ‘Talk to me. It won’t hurt and it often helps. You know that, Connor. It’s not the first time.’
He nodded, and she took him in her arms and drew his body close to hers, offering a comfort as old as time itself. ‘Stupid young fool!’ he said, pressing the words against her hair. ‘Why won’t kids learn? Why, when they see the graphic horror of road accidents on TV, do they still believe they’re invincible?’
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