Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 2

by Various Authors

  He had tried to insulate himself against these negative feelings. He couldn’t, wouldn’t suffer again.

  He realised that he was going round in circles, not facing the big question. Could he give Maddy up? Always supposing she wanted to see more of him. Halfway along the corridor he made a decision and turned back to the medical centre. He had to see her. Never mind if she was tired, she must help him. He wasn’t sure of what he was going to say to her, he just knew he had to say something.

  Then he realised what he was trying to do. He was handing over responsibility to her. What did she think he ought to do? He had never done this before in his life. He was asking, not deciding. But he felt he had made some kind of a decision.

  Back in the medical centre he tapped on Maddy’s door then peered inside. No Maddy. A nurse came in to collect some more medicines, and when Ed asked her she said that she had seen Maddy two minutes ago on her way to the children’s playroom. And she had looked terrible.

  Ed nodded, rushing off to the playroom. There he was told that Maddy had just been in, asking for Robbie, and someone had seen her climbing up to the next deck. They didn’t know what she was doing there. Ed wondered, too. There was nothing for her up there except lifeboats. Then it struck him. Robbie the devil who wanted to be a pirate. Who had already picked out the lifeboat he wanted as his pirate ship. Who had fallen off it once.

  Ed ran up the stairs and out onto the lifeboat deck. It was windy, cold and there was no one about. No sign of Maddy or Robbie. He looked up and down and down and something flapping in the wind caught his eye. A scrap of blue—the colour of the scrubs Maddy was wearing. What was it doing halfway up a lifeboat davit? That was dangerous!

  He ran along the deck, looking up to see Maddy precariously balanced, leaning over the lifeboat. She shouldn’t climb in the state she was in! He shouted to her, then climbed up behind her, seeing her half-spreadeagled over the lifeboat canopy. She held Robbie by his jacket collar to stop him sliding off the edge of the canopy and into the sea. Her face was twisted with pain.

  He was bigger, stronger, more fit than Maddy. He lunged forward, grabbed Robbie and dragged him under one arm. The three of them were balanced there. What should he do next?

  ‘I’m all right for a minute,’ Maddy gasped. ‘I can hang on. You get Robbie down.’

  He looked at her, thinking frantically. Was he abandoning another woman he loved? Then common sense took over. Carefully he climbed back down to the deck, keeping a tight arm round the little boy. For once, Robbie had the sense to stay still.

  Robbie was now safe on deck, scared but otherwise fine. Ed looked up again to see the woman he now knew he loved.

  Maddy’s grasp loosened. He saw her plummet and desperately he dived to catch her but he just couldn’t manage it. Her head hit the deck. And he recognized the sound that sickened him—Maddy had a fractured skull.

  Feelings that he had hoped to forget rushed back so strongly that he had to choke back a cry of despair. This couldn’t happen again! He loved Maddy!

  It was nearly the hardest thing he had ever done. He was a doctor. Maddy was someone injured. What was needed now was professional skill, not emotion.

  Calling to Robbie to stay where he was, he checked Maddy’s vital signs. She was still alive. ABC—airway, breathing, circulation. All seemed, well, adequate. Still alive. The gentlest of palpations of the skull—yes, fractured. A delicate touch at the back of the neck. There appeared to be no damage to the spine but it was hard to tell.

  He needed help! He buzzed the medical centre. Dr Wyatt was there. ‘I’m up on the lifeboat deck, starboard side. Come up yourself and get two stewards to bring up a stretcher. Maddy has a fractured skull. I want you here now!’

  ‘On our way,’ said Dr Wyatt. ‘I’ll bring some stuff and a hard collar.’

  A distant bit of Ed’s brain told him to remember to congratulate her on her quick thinking. He needed a hard collar and had forgotten to ask for one!

  Now the captain. Ed buzzed again, told Ken, the captain’s steward, to interrupt the captain, whatever he might be doing. This was an emergency. And while he waited for the captain to come on the line he looked at the sky. Yes, it looked possible.

  ‘Yes, Dr Tremayne? Captain Smith here.’

  It was good to hear that calm efficient voice. He would be calm, efficient himself. As much as he could. ‘Captain, Maddy Granger has just had a bad fall and has a fractured skull. This is serious, far beyond my expertise. I’m taking her to the medical centre for now but she needs to go to hospital urgently. Is it possible now to get a helicopter to the ship?’

  ‘I think so. I will see to it at once as a matter of extreme urgency. I’ll ring down to the medical centre as soon as there is news.’

  ‘The nearest competent hospital is St Piran’s,’ said Ed. ‘The head of A & E is Ben Carter. I’ll contact him.’

  ‘Good. I’ll arrange the helicopter transport.’

  There was the rattle of feet on the deck and a horrified Dr Wyatt and two stewards ran up. Ed detailed one steward to take the now crying Robbie back to his mother. Then, with help, he slid Maddy’s neck into the hard collar. Then they gently lifted their unconscious patient onto the stretcher and took her down to the medical centre.

  Ed looked at her white face. Another white face kept flashing into his mind, and there was the memory of a death. Please, this couldn’t happen again. But he had to concentrate!

  In the medical centre Maddy was examined for other injuries. There didn’t appear to be any. Just the skull. Just!

  He looked down and his heart rate suddenly surged as Maddy’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at him, blinked and waited for consciousness to arrive. ‘Hello, Ed. I fell, didn’t I? Is Robbie…?’ and then she lapsed into unconsciousness again.

  Twenty minutes later there was a phone call from Captain Smith. ‘The chopper is on its way. Can you prepare to load the patient in half an hour?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Holding her own,’ Ed said. ‘So far anyway. Captain, I want to go with her.’

  ‘Of course. I think your work here is more or less done. Dr Wyatt can take over.’ There was a tiny pause to show that the captain was moving from professional to personal and then he said, ‘Ed, I want know what happens. Maddy—we all think a lot of her.’

  ‘I’ll keep you posted,’ Ed promised. Then he turned to stare down at her.

  Ten minutes after that there was another call, this time from his friend Ben Carter at St Piran’s. ‘You have a patient for me, Ed?’

  For now this wasn’t the woman he loved, this was a patient. There was no time for emotion. ‘She fell and smashed her head. Obviously she’s concussed and she’s drifting in and out of consciousness. Blood pressure up, slow pulse. I’ve taken X-rays, there’s a depressed fracture and some fragmentation. I suspect a subdural haematoma, and I’ve got an IV line in to deal with any dehydration through blood loss.’

  ‘Sounds like I need to see her urgently. I understand there’s a chopper bringing her in?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, I need to have a look at her and we need CT and MRI scans. Once I’ve got those we’ll have her in Theatre. I’m getting the team together.’ There was a short pause and then Ben said, ‘Your voice is cracking, Ed. Is this girl a personal friend of yours?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Ed said quietly.

  This was silly, Maddy thought. No, not silly, weird. She knew she was floating in and out of consciousness. The odd thing was, when she was conscious she was able to have quite intelligent conversations. Well, she thought they were intelligent. They just suddenly…stopped.

  Her head hurt. But if she turned it slightly she could see an IV giving set dripping blood into her. Yes, she must have lost quite a lot of blood. That would be why she felt quite so weak and…

  She knew that her injury was serious. Possibly extremely serious. She had seen it in the faces of Dr Wyatt and the nurses. Dr Wyatt h
ad told her that this wasn’t her area of expertise. She wondered what expert they might manage to find and if it would be in time. And where was Ed?

  The odd thing was that this should have happened just when she was beginning to be able to feel again. Feel emotionally, that was. It was as if a black cloud had lifted. She could see possibilities all around her, saw that there were chances that she ought to take. Ought to have taken.

  Ed Tremayne. She had started to feel something for him. Perhaps she should have fought harder against letting him go. Though where would that have got him now? More misery? She knew that this injury was serious. It would have been a pity if he had…She drifted off again.

  Somehow she knew that quite some time had passed since she had last been conscious. And when she came to she knew that her condition had deteriorated. But she could still think clearly, even though it was an effort to open her eyes, to turn her head. And there was Ed. The man she loved!

  He looked different. The old iron face had gone, she now could tell exactly what he felt. Of course, he was terribly worried. But there was something else that she wasn’t quite certain of. A new expression on his face that she had never seen before.

  He took her hand, lifted it to his lips and his eyes never left her face. ‘You weren’t here when I woke up before,’ she said. She was amazed at how weak her voice sounded.

  She thought he was fighting to keep his feelings under control. ‘Did you think I wanted to leave you here to be injured on your own? It was so hard, leaving you! But there were things I had to arrange. We’ve got a helicopter coming to take you to hospital.’

  ‘You’re coming, too!’ She didn’t want to be parted from him.

  ‘Of course I’m coming, too. You’re going to see a friend of mine, Ben Carter. He’s a surgeon.’

  ‘So I need a surgeon? I’m that bad?’

  ‘Ben had a look at your X-rays, we had a video connection. He wants to have a closer look.’

  ‘You mean open up my head. So you know what’s wrong with me?’

  It was strange how weak she felt and yet how alert. Something to do with her injury? No, nothing like that. But she saw the doubt and fear in Ed’s eyes and she guessed what he was not telling her.

  ‘We’re not sure yet. It’ll all be clearer when Ben has operated.’

  ‘Ed! The two of us have always been honest with each other. At least, we’ve tried, though I’m not sure how well we have succeeded. Now, never mind about reassuring the patient. Tell her honestly what her chances are.’ She paused a moment to get her breath, and then went on, ‘There are definite reasons I need to know.’

  She saw him debating, wondering whether to tell her or not. She was glad when he decided to be honest.

  ‘There is pressure from fragments of broken bone in your skull, causing bleeding into the brain. We don’t know how serious the bleeding is, but it’s got to be stopped soon. Ben needs to drill through to try to relieve the pressure, tie up the leaking blood vessels and deal with the bone fragments. He won’t know how hard the job will be till he gets inside.’

  ‘What are my chances?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Listen, Ed! I’ve been a theatre nurse in A and E, I know what skull fractures are like. I’ve seen enough road accidents. And you’ve turned into a terrible liar—you couldn’t convince anyone. It’s really important that I know the worst possible thing that could happen to me.’

  He gave up trying to hide things from her, she was too certain about what she wanted. ‘There’s a risk that you could slip into a coma and never come out of it.’

  She held his gaze. ‘So what are the chances of that happening to me?’

  He didn’t answer at first. She could see his pain was even greater. But then she knew he would act like the doctor he was, the man who could do whatever was necessary, whatever it cost him. ‘The chances of success are about fifty-fifty. Ben thinks that we daren’t wait any longer. He’s been talking on the radio to some expert in London, and the man agrees we need to operate at once. Your condition is deteriorating every minute.’

  Strange how detached she felt, she thought. This was like talking about someone who wasn’t her. ‘That’s more or less what I had guessed. Don’t worry, I can take it.’

  ‘You can take it! What about…?’ Once again she saw the giant effort he had to make to calm himself. Then he went on, ‘For the moment I’m your doctor. I have to ask you if you agree to this operation. You know the risks involved. I have to ask you if you are willing to sign the consent form.’

  ‘I’ll sign it now. Can you get it and fetch me a pen?’

  She had a moment alone while he fetched the form. She considered, made a decision then wondered if it was the right one. ‘Life’s too short to spend changing my mind,’ she muttered to herself. Life was too short? It could be even shorter now her decision was definite. But the prospect of the operation really didn’t alarm her. It was something else.

  Ed came back in the room held out a pen and paper. ‘Read what it says,’ he urged. ‘I don’t want you to…’

  She scrawled her name across the bottom of the sheet. ‘I’ll read it afterwards,’ she said. ‘Just out of curiosity. Ed, sit down, there’s something I want to say to you.’

  He sat, took her hand again. ‘Maddy, don’t waste your strength. We can—’

  ‘No. I need to talk. I have to because I might doze off again and that would be terrible. You said I had a fifty-fifty chance of pulling through. Well, in case I don’t, there’s something I want to say to you. If I might die, I think that I have licence to say it. I don’t need to worry about whether it’s proper or not. And, Ed, you don’t need to say anything.’

  She took a breath. Now she had decided, she had to hang on, just for a while longer. She could feel unconsciousness creeping up on her, but she had to say this first. ‘Ed, I meant what I said this morning. I do love you. Forget all that rubbish about shipboard romance, about this being out of time, not to be thought about. I love you.’

  Why that funny way he was looking at her? As if he’d just heard news that surprised him. As if something odd had just occurred to him.

  He shook his head, as if not certain. Then he did jerk her into full consciousness. ‘And I love you, Maddy,’ he said. And, almost as if it was an afterthought, ‘Will you marry me?’

  But after that first wonderful shock she felt the clouds gathering in her head again. His face seemed to blur, she was sinking into something deep and warm and comforting. ‘You certainly know how to make a girl feel good,’ she managed to whisper. ‘Now I’ve got something to dream about. Marry you? Of course I will.’

  She knew she was smiling as she fell asleep.

  For a moment Ed stared down at the unconscious Maddy. He’d just asked her to marry him and he knew that it was what he wanted. More than anything. He would marry Maddy and they would be happy together—if she survived. And suddenly fear hit him, stronger than ever. A fifty-fifty chance. How could he cope? He had lost one woman he loved—how could he bear to lose another?

  Then he told himself not to be a coward. He had tried to avoid falling in love because of the pain that loss might bring. But now he knew that the risk was worth taking. He was in love. And it was wonderful.

  ‘Not quite as bad as I had feared,’ said Ben. ‘X-rays are good but they don’t tell the whole story. Can’t be certain yet, of course, but I feel…reasonably hopeful.’

  Ed supposed that this was the best that could really be expected from a surgeon. He watched as Ben stripped off his blood-spattered scrubs and threw them into a bin.

  ‘They’re bringing her to now,’ Ben went on. ‘You can go in if you like. She might just recognise you.’

  Ed went into the recovery room. A nurse smiled at him and left them alone. Ed looked down at Maddy’s pale face, half-hidden by a turban of bandages. There was a sudden surge of pity for something that wasn’t really too important. When it wasn’t fastened up for work, Maddy’s hair was light brown, sh
oulder length, and he thought it beautiful. He suspected she was rather proud of it. But now much of it would have been cut away. It would take months to grow back. Well…things could have been much worse.

  There were tubes in her arms and behind the trolley there were monitors giving a constant flow of information. Automatically he scanned them. No obvious cause for alarm. Things seemed to be fine.

  He bent to kiss her cheek. He couldn’t see much of her forehead. She didn’t smell like the woman he had kissed so passionately the night before. Now there was the smell of antiseptic and that unforgettable theatre smell. No matter. It would pass.

  He straightened, looked down at her. And her eyelids flickered. She saw him, her eyes opened fully. ‘Hi, Ed,’ she whispered. Then her eyes closed again.

  ‘You made it,’ he whispered. That was good enough.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THIS was a lovely room, Maddy thought. She had the room to herself and at the bottom of the bed she could see French windows that opened out to the garden, and beyond that the sea. In time she would be able to sit outside on the terrace and watch the boats sailing in and out of the harbour.

  She wasn’t really sure how things had worked out this way. As she had no family, no close relations, the captain had arranged with Ed for her to be transferred from St Piran’s to this nursing-home in Penhally Bay. The company would pay for it. She had been asked if this was what she wanted. Maddy had been content to leave all the decisions, arrangements to Ed. He was good at this sort of thing.

  That was…what was it?…three days ago. She had been sedated most of the time. She had seen Ed twice every day. But she hadn’t been able talk to him, to make sense of what he was saying. She had just held his hand. But now she was recovering, she didn’t have to sleep quite so much. And she could look about her. Think of the future.