Heartbeat (Medical Romance)

by Ramsay, Anna

  It was at this point, as she lay flat on her back, meditating in the darkness and shrouded by mosquito netting, that the image of a tall sweaty unshaven man, leaning bold-eyed and insolent against her door jamb, superimposed itself so remarkably on her inner vision that Jenni sat up, open-mouthed and wide awake, clutching the thin sheet to her throat and almost convinced Ross McDonnell himself was right this moment, there, just outside her room—

  What an extraordinary trick of the imagination, when it was Paul she was thinking of and the doctor was the very last person on her mind … but listen!

  Footsteps were passing her door, muffled voices, Matthew Blarney's and yes, that deeply disturbing voice like a trickle of ice down the channel of her spine. To hear him so close, just when she'd been ... Jenni swallowed repeatedly, her mouth so dry she might have swallowed sand.

  He must have been called to an emergency.

  Sighing, Jenni dropped back on to the pillow and reconsidered her long devotion to her sister's ex-boyfriend.

  The sight of Paul still made her heart beat faster, although those handsome features were bearded now and his formidable frame pared to the bone. He held all that fatal attraction of the older man. You couldn’t just have a love-affair with a man like that. Well you could – but he’d expect marriage in the long run and Jenni was no longer sure about the wisdom of going down that particular road.

  Maybe, thought Jenni, sleep far away and her senses alert and wide-awake, maybe that's what I'm suffering from: A Fatal Attraction. And the nightmares are a warning of just what my fate would be.

  'Saints preserve me!' she exclaimed aloud, using Bea’s favourite expression.

  A few feet away on the other side of the thin partition, a sleepy voice complained, 'Wha'ser matter?'

  Stifling her giggles, Jenni rolled over on her front and pulled the thin pillow over her head. She yawned and her eyelids flickered and closed, the golden lashes feathering her cheeks. There'd be lots of babies, she thought dreamily. He was a physically affectionate and demonstrative man—that was his nature. Time couldn't alter that ... she drifted back into a troubled shallow sleep.

  Beatrice kept a close watch on Father Paul's little friend during those first couple of weeks. She knew Dr McDonnell considered the demands of bush nursing would be too much for Nurse Westcott. He had stated his views in the privacy of her office and with grim satisfaction.

  'By the way, those eye ointments and drugs in the dispensary—where did they spring from? Worth their weight in gold to me!' he exclaimed with a puzzled frown.

  Bea slapped a mug of coffee down in front of him as they sat in her tiny office. 'Where do you think they came from?’

  Ross scratched his stubbled head. He certainly hadn't brought that lot back from Dar.

  'You want to be thankful they didn't all melt on that murder of a bus ride.'

  'Hell's bells! You mean? ... But her case must have weighed a ton. Expensive too—how could she afford it?'

  Bea filled him in with the rest of the story, relishing the discomfort on the doctor's unshaven face. 'You don't much care for that young woman, do you?'

  'Oh, come on, that's hardly fair,' he protested. 'She’s competent enough.'

  Ross's eyes were narrowed slits of conjecture. It was a look that Bea recognised as contributing strongly to the doctor's rather formidable image; the African nurses were very shy of him; they found him awesome—though it was clear he was driven by a deep concern to help their people.

  'But why come here, why pick on the Good Shepherd Mission?' His finger stabbed the air. 'Because of Paul, isn't it? She's after him, Bea.’

  ‘Heaven forfend!’

  Yes, you may well look like that! Going to cause one helluva commotion, isn't it, if that's her little game…’

  Chapter Five

  The medical team held a weekly meeting of senior staff to review the past seven days and plan for the next. To keep the bursting hospital diary up to date. Outpatient and 'outreach' clinics, all must be recorded; non-emergencies scheduled for minor surgery; expectant mothers likely to need assisted deliveries to be admitted days in advance and given a well-earned rest from long hours coaxing food crops out of the parched soil.

  Someone had to hold the fort while the team gathered in the cramped medical office, and today it was Sister Bea's turn. Sister Joanna got called away to a minor crisis on her ward.

  'I'm demonstrating to a group of visiting eye surgeons in Dar next Thursday and Friday,' Ross reminded them. 'We haven't any deliveries booked in till the following Tuesday. If one of our "problem" mums decides on an early production, our highly competent nurses will have to cope without me. Sylvia, you'll take my ante-natal clinic as usual. Now let's see—'

  He tapped his pencil on the wooden table top, leafing back through the diary to see how many of his under-fives clinics the new nurse had helped in. With a specialist nutrition course under her belt Westcott was proving worth her weight in gold. (Ross referred to her in his thoughts as Westcott. Somehow it served to defeminise this disturbingly vivid young woman.)

  Recalling his earlier reservations, the doctor was thankful Westcott had settled in with so little flap. And she wasn’t doing a bad job either, travelling out to isolated regions to set up and organise new feeding clinics. It had to be admitted, considering her objectively (which was easier when you didn't look at her big bright eyes and bee-stung lips), she did seem to be as physically tough as she claimed.

  But Ross didn't blame himself for having initial doubts about the outspoken Miss Westcott; with a face and figure like that, his reservations about her usefulness had been entirely justified. So what was she doing out here?—apart from the obvious!

  And another thing, frowned Ross, rubbing his chin. Was it sensible to have Matt always drive her out into the bush? Matt was clearly taken with the redhead and had stopped moping over his girl Charming.

  Wouldn't it be advisable to take Westcott with him—instead of Sylvia who was badly in need of a decent break. Get Westcott away from Matt. And get her away from Paul too, come to that.

  The busy nurses were fidgeting on their hard wooden chairs while the doctor pondered over the complications in the diary.

  'Hmm,' he said suddenly, and lifted his head to look quizzically at Jenni. It hardly seemed fair to burden the girl with extra responsibility, but there was nothing else for it. 'Can I entrust the under-fives clinic to you? With the assistance of SEN Lutu who is familiar with my routine.'

  Jenni bridled at his doubtful undertone. With her background and qualifications? If she couldn't handle such a clinic she should be ashamed of herself. 'Yes, I should think so,' she said coolly.

  'No think about it, Nurse. Either you can cope or you can't.'

  'I can! But perhaps you'd rather change the date so you can do it yourself!' said Jenni huffily, her temper and her colour rising. Ross noted this and his eyebrows drew together in an ominous vee.

  'We can't do that,' interrupted Sylvia bossily. 'Getting patients to keep appointments is a problem at the best of times. We’ve tried marking their cards with seven strokes to indicate seven days, but either they lose the cards or they can't count or their husbands can't count or no one in the village can count. We can't rearrange clinics at the drop of a hat.'

  The office was cramped and airless. Jenni's uniform clung damply to her midriff, and she plucked it away from her skin with irritated fingers. She tried to play it cool, and failed. 'You know something, Doctor?' she snapped. 'A pair of willing hands doesn't get a nurse a contract to work out here. It takes specialist qualifications—and a grilling on motivation!'

  'Weeding out the idealists!' agreed Sylvia with a nod of the head.

  Leaning back in his chair, Ross stared down his arrogant nose at Jenni’s pink face, her dusty feet, damp tendrils of coppery curl escaping from the thick plait of her hair. He stunned her with a slow provocative grin. 'And to think I thought you came for love!'

  Her fingers dug into her palms. 'And what's that sup
posed to mean?' she fired back recklessly.

  Had they been alone this would have led to a stand-up row in which Jenni would have been obliged to tell the most frightful lies. But Ross, after an astute glance at Sylvia whose face had turned oddly white and set, as if the sight of people arguing made her ill, asked calmly and with a change of tack, 'So, have we dealt with everything for this week?'

  Sylvia cleared her throat. 'There's the theatre list—' she began. Her voice wobbled and immediately Ross got up and gripped her shoulder. Sylvia managed a brave, wan smile.

  'We can sort that out later,' he suggested kindly.

  Jenni looked on, baffled. Sylvia usually seemed such a tough cookie. And Ross - she would have sworn on it - had all the emotions of a block of granite. But not where each other was concerned, that was for sure!

  She checked her fob watch. Just time to grab a sandwich before getting back to the ward: she'd feel more civil with something in her stomach after missing breakfast. And besides, the theatre list was Sylvia's concern.

  And thank heaven for that! Her inner eye could just picture it. She grimaced as her sense of humour struggled to the surface, bringing with it a vision of Ross the Boss. Masked and gowned and backing her up against the wall in that shoebox they called an OR, fixing a gleaming scalpel at her throat and demanding, 'The truth and nothing but the truth, Nurse Westcott.'

  Sylvia was welcome to the joys of scrubbing for Dr Ross. She was much better qualified for it anyway, with a diploma in ophthalmic nursing and considerable theatre experience. Jenni could see this would make an even greater bond between nurse and eye surgeon. But she told herself she didn't envy Sylvia one bit.

  'I'll leave you to it,' she said, jumping thankfully to her feet to make good her escape.

  But at that moment the door opened and Paul's smiling self came to join them, his head ducking under the low doorway, his piercingly blue eyes moving from face to face and settling in surprise on Sylvia. 'Ross, any chance you could spare me Jenni for a couple of hours?' he asked.

  'Take her away,' said Ross, as if dismissing an unruly pupil from his presence.

  Jenni glowered at the two men.

  'Sylvia?' Paul came further into the room. He was wearing his white cassock and he looked magnificently tall and bronzed. His hair looked overdue for its usual brutal cut and tantalising twists of silvered-blond feathered the nape of his sunburned neck. In a glance he had taken in his Jenni's heightened colour—and Sylvia's contrasting pallor. 'My dear girl,' he exclaimed in obvious and genuine concern, 'you're as white as a sheet! Are you not well?'

  Jenni pushed past them and out of the door, leaving Sylvia to bask in all this masculine attention. She leaned her back against the wall and lifted her face to the midday sun, closing her eyes and letting all those hostile emotions drain out of her foolish system. Heat could do very strange things to people. She didn't like herself very much today. And she was tired, tired, tired. All the time. So tired. Though she dared not allow a glimpse of such weakness to show.

  'Ah, there you are.'

  She felt Paul take hold of her arm and though it didn't make sense she wanted to shake herself free. She opened her eyes, blinking against the strong light. Looked at him and the world came right again. Her sudden smile held all the old affection. 'I really should go and help Bea—this feels like playing truant. Where are you taking me?'

  'We don't get much time to ourselves, do we. I've fixed it with Bea for you to take an extra-long lunch break.' As she heard this, Jenni's heart skipped a beat. Paul was taking the initiative — they were going to be alone together, just the two of them, how romantic ... he might even … he might even be about to propose! Jenni gave a shiver of alarm at being plunged so abruptly into the fulfilment of her dreams.

  'Will you just look at me,' she protested with a nervous little giggle, 'all untidy and dust all over my feet!'

  Paul squeezed her roughened hand and swung it high as they marched together across the compound to the dining room.

  'I thought we might interrupt Father Thomas with his confirmation class so you could have a chat with the seniors and tell them about the children who have written them all these wonderful letters. Then when you have done that, we could take a stroll down to the village and see old Chief Wamabola. He took a real shine to you, you know.'

  'Great.' Jenni swallowed her disappointment and rushed on, sounding to her own ears like a breathy schoolgirl. 'Thanks for rescuing me back there. Things were getting a bit heavy. Sylvia looks to me as if she doesn't get enough sleep!' she added sarcastically, hopping on one leg to shake a stone out of her sandal.

  Such a fuss because a nurse was looking a bit pale!

  She thought Paul gave her a rather peculiar look. And his voice was reproving as he said, 'Sylvia's not a moaner. She caught malaria very badly when she first came out here and we couldn't persuade her to go home. It flares up from time to time. Ross is going to give her a thorough body check. Incidentally, you are taking your malaria pills?'

  'Yes, of course,' said Jenni. 'I’m sorry. I didn't know about the malaria. What rotten luck.' Here was the explanation for Nurse Anstey's variable moods. 'Poor old Sylvia!' she murmured thoughtfully.

  'Hardly old,' chided the tall handsome priest, 'she's not even thirty. Whoops, here comes trouble!'

  Freed for playtime after eating their lunch, the schoolchildren came pouring into the compound. A crowd soon surrounded the two adults, small hands grabbing at Paul's cassock, piping voices beseeching him to play cricket. 'Father Paul! Father Paul! Come on, come on!' the children shrilled eagerly, till Paul clapped his hands over his ears and promised to give them an hour before sunset so that they could practise before the next match with Daktari Ross and Bwana Matt.

  'Ross plays cricket?' questioned Jenni, setting down the tray of sandwiches and lemonade on the trestle table.

  Paul pulled out her chair and waited for her to sit down. 'Didn't you see the match after church? Oh no, of course—you were on nights last weekend.' He prised open a sandwich. 'Peanut butter, I'd never have guessed. You want to see him in action — demon fast bowler is our Ross.'

  'Demon McDonnell—how apt.' Jenni beamed at Paul over the rim of her glass.

  'And you're as wicked a little lady as ever. Your demon doctor has been saying some very complimentary things about you, Jenni Westcott!'

  For once Jenni's quick wit deserted her. She lapsed into a stunned, if momentary, silence.

  From the start she had been enchanted by the local children, fizzing over with good health and happiness, their faces polished with smiles, well clothed and tidy as they sat on long wooden benches in the Mission school. Their village was one of the few with access to a year-round supply of fresh uncontaminated water.

  Later that afternoon Jenni was led in proud procession headed by the Chief (who habitually walked about in a white robe under a black umbrella wearing a pair of Paul's dark glasses) and his elders, and accompanied by the skipping children fresh out of school. She was taken to admire an electric pump and generator installed through the efforts and fund-raising of Paul and his indefatigable team.

  But the overall picture was far bleaker. And the workload was harshly demanding, just as she had been warned it would be. At the same time, to squat in a mud hut among African women and share in the joy of birth was an intensely moving experience. She relished the responsibility of organising talks on nutrition and hygiene in the villages, with the African nurses acting as interpreters; training health workers and birth assistants; prescribing and administering drugs and vaccinations. After all, back home a nurse couldn't even prescribe an aspirin!

  During those early weeks, by suppertime Jenni was so weary that she ate like an automaton and would have laid her head on the table and gone to sleep there and then.

  Her cheerful smile was the stubborn façade behind which she concealed her exhaustion from the rest of this band of stalwarts. The tropical heat was draining most of her energy.

  But it wasn't just
the climate, she knew that. If only they had better equipment, drugs, sterile dressing packs—it would make the daily routine so much simpler. Sometimes as she boiled syringes over a makeshift campfire she would shudder, remembering how in her nice modern hospital back home she had heedlessly tossed disposable syringes into the bin. Here in this primitive and isolated village a clean hypodermic was as precious as gold dust.

  No packs of pre-sterilised dressings and instruments in an 'outreach' mission clinic. Everything, from bandages to scalpels, had to be packed just so in the big metal autoclave which to Jenni was like something out of the Black Museum. A rattling, hissing monster caged in its own special room and seemingly on the perpetual verge of blowing the Clinic sky-high.

  At the end of a twelve-hour working day, Jenni would collapse in the privacy of her room for a precious half-hour before supper. Lying on her bed, dripping with perspiration and dive-bombed by mosquitoes, she could just hear Ross McDonnell's satisfied 'I told you so.'

  Oh, the humiliation if she should be sent slinking home like some whipped dog beaten by Ross's stronger will.

  'Physically not up to scratch. There can be no weak links in our chain. Miss Westcott.'

  And disappointment was too feeble a word to describe her distress if she should be separated from Paul—and all because of another man's dislike. Small wonder Jenni found she was automatically going out of her way to avoid situations where she and the doctor might end up alone together.

  Came the day when she realised she'd cracked it. Tired, but not exhausted; grimly satisfied with the day's achievements rather than depressed at so much left undone. Gritty realism taking over from the high hopes that she'd started out with. She had come through this ordeal by heat—and she knew now that she would see out the duration of her contract.

  No excuse for Demon McDonnell to get rid of her now.