Nurse in a Million

by Jennifer Taylor

  ‘A small incision is made just here in the abdomen and a catheter inserted into the peritoneal cavity. Dialysate is passed through the catheter and left for several hours while waste products and excess water from the blood vessels lining the peritoneal cavity seep through the peritoneal membrane. The resulting fluid is drained off through the catheter into the empty bag.’

  ‘And that’s what you’re thinking of doing in this instance?’ Piers questioned eagerly.

  ‘Yes. I’d prefer him to have haemodialysis but it just isn’t possible so this is the next best thing. Get scrubbed up and you can see how it’s done.’

  Rafferty turned to Natalie as a delighted Piers hurried away. ‘I’m going to take the boy straight to Theatre. We daren’t wait or we’ll lose him. Will you assist me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Natalie didn’t waste time as she called Lauren over and explained what was happening. Within a very short space of time they were in Theatre. Rafferty glanced at Ben, who was acting as his anaesthetist, and as soon as he got the go-ahead he set to work, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction at how smoothly the procedure progressed. Natalie seemed able to anticipate his every need so that he didn’t have to ask for whatever he needed. They’d always worked well together in Theatre, though, their actions so in tune that it was like a well-honed routine.

  He sighed to himself as he finished securing the catheter. If only their life outside Theatre were as harmonious, they wouldn’t be having all these problems. But that was like wishing for the moon to drop into his lap and it wasn’t going to happen. He and Natalie either had to find some way to work through their problems or call it a day.

  Natalie handed Rafferty a piece of tape and waited while he secured the catheter into place. Every time they were in Theatre together, she was struck afresh by his skill. She’d worked with a lot of surgeons over the years but few had possessed his delicacy of touch. He was swift but sure, never cutting needlessly and always mindful of the extent of the scarring that would be left behind. It was little wonder that his patients praised him so highly after they recovered. A patient under Rafferty’s care was very fortunate indeed, and her heart swelled with pride at the thought.

  ‘That’s about all I can do for now.’ He suddenly looked up and she hastily gathered her thoughts.

  ‘At least he has a fighting chance now,’ she said evenly, placing the last of the instruments they’d used onto the trolley.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  There was a faintly depressed note in his deep voice and she glanced uncertainly at him because it wasn’t like him to exhibit any doubts about his work. ‘Are you worried about him?’ she asked, choosing her words with care because she sensed that his concern wasn’t wholly for their patient.

  Was he worrying about them? she wondered all of a sudden, and just as suddenly knew it was true. It troubled her to think that their relationship was intruding on his work when he’d always been so focused before. It made her see that they had to resolve the situation soon because it wasn’t fair to either of them to carry on this way. However, it was the thought of what the resolution might be that was so difficult to deal with.

  ‘I’d worry about anyone in his condition,’ he replied tersely, turning away from the operating table.

  Natalie didn’t say anything else. She’d had her answer and it was her own fault for asking if it hadn’t been to her liking. She cleared everything away, carefully checking the instruments against her list to make sure they were all accounted for before she took them through to be cleaned and sterilised.

  By the time that was done, Joanna had arrived with another patient so Natalie ended up staying on to assist her. It was gone seven before they finally left Theatre and everyone was in the mess tent having dinner. She heard Joanna groan as they crossed the compound together.

  ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!’

  ‘I hope you mean that because I’m not sure what’s on the menu tonight,’ Natalie said, grinning at her. She ducked inside the tent then paused and looked around for somewhere for them to sit. All the seats seemed to be taken but Brian must have spotted them coming in because he stood up and waved.

  ‘I’ve just about finished here so one of you can have my seat,’ he offered when they went over to him. ‘And there’s a free place over there on Rafferty’s table.’

  Natalie glanced at Joanna. ‘Which do you fancy?’

  ‘I’m easy,’ Joanna replied, stifling a yawn. ‘Oh, excuse me! I’m obviously not toned up for this hectic pace yet.’

  Natalie laughed as she gently pushed her down onto the chair. ‘Sit yourself down before you fall down! Maybe Brian will behave like the perfect gentleman and fetch your dinner for you.’

  Brian immediately offered to fetch Joanna a tray so Natalie left them to it while she went to collect her own meal. She took her tray over to Rafferty’s table. Ben was sitting with him and Patsy and Piers as well, and they all looked up when she approached.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ she asked, more as a matter of form than because she thought they would object to her sitting with them.

  ‘Of course not.’

  Rafferty shuffled along the bench to give her some room so Natalie plonked her tray on the table and sat down. Picking up her fork, she dug it into the savoury concoction of meat and vegetables which she’d been served. All the catering was done by their ground crew and the meals were usually very basic—stew and shepherd’s pie, sausage and mash, that kind of thing. Piers grinned as he watched her fork up a mouthful of the stew.

  ‘I was afraid we might end up eating bush tucker so it was a huge relief to see what was on the menu tonight.’

  ‘Grubs and bugs, you mean?’ Natalie chuckled. ‘It can be arranged if you fancy it. I’m sure Wally, who’s in charge of the crew, could turn out a mean scorpion pie if he set his mind to it.’

  ‘No, thank you very much!’ Piers shuddered. ‘I’m more than happy to stick to what I know.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame you,’ Rafferty put in. He turned to Natalie. ‘Remember those meals we had when we were on Baffin Island?’

  ‘Do I?’ She groaned. ‘My stomach still hasn’t recovered!’

  ‘Why? What happened?’ Piers demanded. ‘Baffin Island is off the coast of Canada, isn’t it, so what were you doing there?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s off the northeast coast of Canada, very close to the Arctic Circle. It’s mainly the Inuit who live there and although there’s some mining carried out, they tend to stick to the old way of life,’ Rafferty explained. ‘We’d gone there because there’d been an outbreak of measles. More than thirty people had died so we offered to help run a vaccination programme.’

  He paused to drink some coffee before carrying on. ‘We were working closely with the Canadian authorities and they’d arranged to have our supplies airlifted to one of the more remote settlements where we were planning to set up camp. Everything was going very smoothly until one of the helicopters was blown off course and managed to drop the crates containing our food supplies into the sea.’

  ‘And as luck would have it, there was a terrible storm brewing so they were unable to send out a replacement shipment,’ Natalie put in, chuckling. ‘It meant we had to eat what the local people gave us, which turned out to be a selection of raw whale and seal meat!’

  ‘Oh, gross!’ Piers turned a delicate shade of green. ‘I don’t know how you ate it. I couldn’t have done.’

  ‘We didn’t have a choice,’ Rafferty pointed out mildly. ‘It was either eat it or starve, although I have to say that I wouldn’t be in a hurry to repeat the experience.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Natalie agreed, smiling at him.

  Their eyes met and she felt her heart leap when she saw the warmth in his gaze. It was a moment of closeness that had been all too rare recently and she only wished that it would last. Deep down she knew that they could reach a true understanding if they could shut out everything else, but it wasn’t possible to divorce themsel
ves from life. If their relationship was to last, they had to learn how to overcome their problems, not avoid them. It shouldn’t have been that difficult really. If they loved one another, they could find a way round all the uncertainties, but did Rafferty love her enough to try to find a solution? It always came back to that same question and she was no nearer to knowing what the answer was.

  The thought put a bit of a dampener on her mood. Natalie finished her supper, only joining in the conversation when someone asked her a direct question. Rafferty was unusually quiet, too, and she couldn’t help wondering if he was thinking much the same as her. It was all very unsettling, in fact, so she was glad when she could make her escape at last.

  She went straight back to her tent and lay down on her bed but even though she was exhausted after the busy day they’d had, it was impossible to sleep. Joanna came back a short time later and they chatted while she was getting ready for bed but Natalie was still wide awake long after the other woman had fallen asleep.

  In the end, she got up and left the tent, hoping that a breath of fresh air would help to settle her down. The camp was winding down for the night and there was just a skeleton staff left on duty to take care of their patients. Natalie carefully bypassed the areas where she might have bumped into anyone and left the camp, following the path that led to the village which was the main site of the excavation work.

  They were just a few miles from the coast and the whole area had been devastated by the hurricane. The local people earned their living by growing bananas and plantains for export but most of the trees had been uprooted during the storm. Now great swathes of dried mud covered the fields and she sighed as she saw the damage that had been caused. It was going to be very hard for the people to rebuild their lives after such a disaster and it made her own problems seem very insignificant by comparison. Surely two intelligent people should be able to sort out their differences?

  She rounded a bend and ground to a halt when she spotted a figure up ahead. There was no moon that night so it was very dark along this section of the path. She could just make out the outlines of the search-and-rescue teams’ tents in the distance, but the camp was still some way off. She was very conscious all of a sudden that she was on her own and was just about to go back rather than risk a confrontation with a stranger when the man turned and she gasped in relief when she realised it was Rafferty.

  ‘Oh, you gave me a shock!’ she exclaimed as he came towards her. ‘I didn’t realise it was you at first.’

  ‘What are you doing out here on your own?’ he demanded gruffly.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go for a walk in the hope it would help to settle me down,’ she explained, knowing he had every right to be angry with her. It was a cardinal rule that members of the team shouldn’t wander about on their own at night, and she’d just broken it.

  ‘I thought you had more sense than to go wandering around on your own. Anything could have happened to you out here at this time of night.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t do it intentionally to upset you, although everything I do nowadays seems to annoy you. You’d probably object if you thought I was breathing at the wrong rate!’ she snapped back, because she was tired of being made to feel that nothing she did met with his approval.

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ His expression had turned thunderous. ‘You’re behaving like a child now because you don’t like to admit that you were wrong to wander about.’

  ‘So I’m childish now, am I? Anything else? I mean, you may as well get it all off your chest while you have the chance.’ She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. ‘You’ve been waiting to have a go at me, Rafferty, so don’t hold back.’

  ‘I have not been waiting to have a go at you, as you put it,’ he retorted, brushing past her. ‘Now, it’s late and I think we’d be better off in bed instead of standing here squabbling.’

  ‘I am not squabbling!’ She grabbed hold of his arm and stopped him, too incensed by his high-handedness to care about what she was doing.

  ‘No? Well, forgive me if I don’t agree. In fact, I’d say it’s all we ever do. We argue and squabble and I, for one, am sick and tired of it.’

  His green eyes blazed into hers and her breath caught when she saw the emotion they held because his response seemed way over the top for the seriousness of her crime. She had no idea why he was so angry with her but instinct told her that she needed to defuse the situation before it got completely out of control.

  ‘Look, Rafferty—’ she began, but he didn’t give her a chance to finish.

  He shook off her hand and her heart sank when she saw the set expression on his face. ‘Don’t bother, Natalie. There isn’t any point trying to smooth things over again. Every time we talk to each other we end up arguing, and we can’t carry on like this. It isn’t fair to either of us. We have to accept that the situation isn’t going to change and get on with our lives.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ she whispered, her throat constricting with fear so that her voice sounded thin and shaky when it emerged.

  ‘That our relationship isn’t working and never will work. We come from two different worlds and that’s why we never agree about anything, that’s why we’re continually arguing.’

  ‘How can you say that? You make it sound as though we have nothing in common and it isn’t true. We do the same type of job and we both care passionately about the same issues—’

  ‘And we’re both too stubborn to accept that sometimes you can’t make a relationship work. That’s what we’ve been doing, isn’t it? We’ve been trying to make it work—like fitting a round peg into a square hole, pushing and shoving to make everything fit together—but it’s never going to happen. No matter how hard we try, our relationship still isn’t going to fulfil our expectations, is it?’

  He took hold of her by the shoulders and drew her to him, held her for a single heartbeat then let her go, and Natalie knew without the shadow of a doubt that this was the end, that it was the last time he would ever hold her in his arms.

  She reached out to him in panic, gripping hold of his hands, her fingers digging into his flesh because she refused to accept that they couldn’t work things out if they tried. ‘You’re wrong! We can make it work, Rafferty, if we love each other enough. That’s all it will take to solve our problems.’

  ‘I wish it were that simple.’

  He gently withdrew his hands and she felt her heart stutter to a halt when she saw the shuttered expression on his face. It was obvious then that he didn’t agree. Maybe he knew in his own heart that he could never love her the way she wanted him to, love her to the exclusion of everything else, and there was no way she could make him.

  Tears welled into her eyes and she spun round because she refused to let him see her crying. If he hadn’t been moved by her pleas then she didn’t want him to be moved by her tears. The last thing she wanted from him was pity!

  She ran back along the path, ignoring his pleas for her to stop, because there was no point in talking any more. Maybe she hadn’t asked him how he felt about her, but she hadn’t needed to because she had her answer now. He didn’t love her as much as she loved him and there was nothing else to say. All she could do was to try and get through the next few days with her dignity intact, even if her heart was in tatters, and then they could go their separate ways.

  Joanna was fast asleep when she went back to their tent so Natalie lay down on her bunk and buried her face in her pillow so that her sobs wouldn’t wake her, yet oddly after a few minutes she found that she couldn’t cry any more. It was as though all her emotions had suddenly frozen solid and she couldn’t feel anything except a kind of numbness and disbelief that it had actually happened. It was a relief because all the feelings that were churning around inside her were too awful to deal with.

  Natalie closed her eyes and tried to sleep because she knew that in the morning it would be different. When she saw Rafferty again, that was when it would hi
t her afresh, but she would have to get used to the idea of being without him because she wasn’t going to try and change his mind. There was no point. He didn’t love her the way she loved him and she refused to settle for scraps. This really was the end of their affair.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘GET that shifted immediately. I don’t expect to see sacks of clinical waste lying around. If you can’t maintain an acceptable level of hygiene, you may as well go home.’

  Rafferty strode out of the ward before he really let rip. He knew he’d been a bit hard on Patsy but if there was one thing he wouldn’t tolerate, it was the lowering of standards. Cross-infection was a major hazard even in the best-equipped hospitals and it was doubly dangerous in a situation like this.

  ‘How dare you speak to one of my nurses like that?’

  He swung round when Natalie followed him out of the tent, feeling his stomach lurch when he saw the fury on her face. It had been two days since they’d had that talk, two days during which time he’d hardly been able to think straight because of what he’d done. He had ended their relationship, told her that he no longer wanted her in his life, and it felt as though he had ripped out his own heart and ground it into the dust.

  ‘I shall address the staff any way I see fit,’ he snapped back, pain bolstering up his anger. ‘Although if you’d been doing your job properly in the first place, I wouldn’t have needed to speak to Patsy like that. There is no excuse for leaving clinical waste lying about the ward, as you very well know.’

  ‘For your information, that sack had been put there exactly five minutes before you arrived and the reason it was left there was because one of the patients suffered a cardiac arrest. Patsy and I had to drop everything while we resuscitated him.’

  She strode towards him, her beautiful face set, her eyes haunted, and it was the latter that hurt more than the angry words could ever have done. To see the evidence of the damage he had caused was more than he could bear, but he knew that he mustn’t weaken otherwise he could end up making the situation worse.