First Blood

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Isn’t it horrid? Come down and have one with me. I know a place where the beer’s good and they sometimes have a bottle of good Vouvray on the go if you insist on wine. They do great ham sandwiches too. With the crusts on, thick and solid. You might as well. There’ll be shepherd’s pie in the canteen and they make it with shepherds who’ve been dead a long time.’

  She blinked, startled, and he held out his other hand. ‘I’m Toby Bellamy,’ he said.

  She concentrated on what Sheila had told her and remembered. ‘Ah, guts.’

  ‘Precisely. Which means I know what’s good for ’em. So, coming to my favourite pub? It’s a civilized one. No juke-box.’

  ‘I like juke-boxes,’ she said, a little nettled. He had an air of self-satisfaction that reminded her of Ian and was not at all attractive. He seemed to realize there was something wrong and looked anxious, his face crumpling a little. And that was nothing like Ian, and she thought, To hell with it. And said, ‘But why not? Yes, that’d be fun.’

  3

  George was sitting at her desk working over the previous day’s reports when the door was pushed open without even the usual perfunctory knock. She looked up with a frown. She’d been finding it hard enough to concentrate as it was. Last night’s casual drink and ham sandwich at Bellamy’s favourite pub had turned into a late session of loud laughter and even, heaven help her, Karaoke singing (she blushed to remember it now), which she’d enjoyed enormously, but which had meant she’d woken this morning with the sandy-eyed awareness that she’d slept for far fewer hours than she should have done, and a disagreeable internal sensation that told her she’d had rather more food and drink than had been good for her. The last thing she wanted now was interruptions.

  It was Sheila, looking ruffled, pink and excited all at the same time. She beamed at George with breathless pride and said quickly, ‘So sorry to bother you, Dr Barnabas, but it’s Mr –’

  ‘It’s all right, Sheila.’ The voice came from behind her and was loudly authoritative and clear though there was a thickness about it that was unpleasant. ‘I can speak for myself, thanks.’

  George knew she knew the voice and couldn’t place it for a moment, but then remembered. The man who had spoken so eloquently at the meeting yesterday. Last night he had sounded smooth and placatory; now he was arrogant and a great deal too sure of himself. At once the anger she had felt against Sheila for interrupting her melted and reshaped into protectiveness. ‘I’m busy, Sheila,’ she said. ‘So perhaps you can ask the – er – gentleman to wait. I’ll let you know when I’m available –’

  But he set Sheila aside as casually as if she’d been an inanimate object and came into her office to stand in front of her desk and smile at her, one hand held out in a friendly gesture. She looked directly at him and ignored the hand.

  ‘Richard Oxford. Do forgive me for barging in on a busy woman, but I have a string of appointments in Town – you know how it is. I just wanted to fit this little chat in before I got too deeply into my day. I’m sure you’ll understand.’ He looked over his shoulder briefly. ‘Thank you, Sheila,’ he said pointedly and Sheila gave a little gasp and closed the door behind her before scuttling away with a clatter of excited footsteps.

  ‘I too have a great deal to do,’ George said crisply, and got to her feet. ‘So if you’ll forgive me perhaps we can make an appointment that will suit us both and –’

  ‘This won’t take a moment.’ He had pulled the other chair from the side of the room and now sat easily, leaning back with crossed legs. ‘As you’ll see, I waste no time in coming to the point. I just want to talk to you about any special needs you may have here.’ He flicked a glance around the room, clearly sneered at its shabbiness and dismissed it, all at the same time. ‘I may be in a position to see that you get anything you need. Extra equipment. Materials. Money, even.’ He smiled, widely, and the thickness of his face that she’d noticed last night seemed to increase as the jowls melted together into heavier folds and his eyes hooded with the pleats of sagging eyelid that hung over them. ‘Not that that’s so easy, but it’s surprising what can be possible if it has to be.’

  She sat down again, damned if she was going to stand in front of him. ‘Look, I’m not sure why you should think you can come in here and –’

  ‘Oh, as to that.’ He waved a hand vaguely. ‘You don’t really understand this place yet. But you will, you will!’ He leaned forward confidentially and at once she leaned further back in her own chair. He didn’t seem to notice. ‘You see, I have a deep and abiding affection for this place. Yes. A deep affection. Always have had, you know. Living here as I do, so near, I raise funds for dear Old East. Quite large sums. Been doing it for more years than I care to remember. The truth is, Old East would be in big financial trouble without my efforts. Roehampton Hospital has that television chappie raising their funds, and Old East has me. But you were at the meeting last night, so you know who I am and what I do.’

  ‘Was I? And do I?’

  ‘Oh yes. I saw you there.’ He smiled at her even more widely and small crevasses appeared in each cheek and she thought, sickened, The bastard had dimples once and still tries to use them. ‘I never miss a thing, you know. Novelist’s eye. I see everything, store it all up, keep notes.’ He dimpled again but she didn’t respond, holding her face as unsmiling as it had been since he’d barged in, and for the first time he seemed aware that he was not as welcome as he had assumed he was. ‘You’ll find that I’m very much part of Old East,’ he went on a little sharply. ‘The Dean – Professor Dieter, you know – and the admin side, they understand my role as fundraiser-in-chief. Just as their predecessors did. I’ve been here for many years.’

  ‘Really?’ She was sharp herself. ‘Inasmuch as an NHS hospital has to have such a person, of course.’

  ‘Oh, this one does, and never think otherwise. In fact every hospital does these days. All that socialist claptrap – it’s obvious a hospital has to get its funds wherever it can. Once we get Trust status, of course, it’ll be easier. I’ll be a non-executive member of the Board’ – he produced a little crow of laughter – ‘non-executive by label, that is. In fact I’ll do a great deal more than the paid staff, just as I always have. But that’s by the by. I just wanted to tell you that I could be of help to you, with your co-operation, in providing your department with all sorts of useful things.’ He turned his head to one side like an enquiring bird and again showed the crevasses in those powdery cheeks.

  ‘What do you mean, co-operation?’ she said bluntly and he shrugged, clearly amused.

  ‘Who can say? It depends what’s going on, doesn’t it? I might need support in some way, with a Board matter, perhaps.’

  ‘That won’t concern me.’

  ‘Oh, it might, it might. You may find yourself a member of the Board. Many of the staff will be, of course. Executive members. And you’re the head of pathology –’

  ‘It’s a very small department. It’s unlikely. And, anyway, the hospital isn’t a Trust.’

  ‘Yet. Its time will come.’ He got to his feet. ‘But think about it. Let me have a list of items you might need, by all means. Once we’ve raised all the money we need for the children’s ward, who knows where we may be turning our attention next.’

  ‘Well, let’s see the children’s ward finished first, shall we?’ She looked at her watch. ‘And now, if you’ll forgive me …’

  He got to his feet. ‘My dear girl!’ He was beaming. ‘I’m grateful to you. I hadn’t noticed how time was running on and I’m at risk of being late and that would never do. So discourteous to one’s appointments, hmm? Well, glad we were able to have this little chat. You can find me when you need me. Just ask Sheila, or, indeed, anyone here at Old East. They all know me. I’m part of the fabric of the place.’

  Again he grinned at her and this time, to her relief, went. She stood there beside her desk rubbing the hand he’d shaken on her white coat, feeling it dirtied in some way. He was as nasty a man as she coul
d remember meeting; and the whole discussion had been ridiculous. The last thing she’d do if she needed anything for the lab, she promised herself, would be to use his fundraising services. She’d rather have a car trunk sale of all she owned. And she went back to her reports. Oh, the politics of this place! Every hospital was political, of course it was, but this one seemed to be showing itself as more devious than most. Well, she’d learn whom to trust and whom to avoid, in time. Right now she had at least identified the one to put on top of her avoidance list.

  The crocuses in the scrubby flowerbed in the small courtyard at the front of the admin building startled George. How could they be there so soon after Christmas? It certainly seemed only a matter of days since she’d arrived at Old East in the third week of January; yet here were spring flowers. And then she thought, working it out, But it’s been at least six weeks, and was even more startled. Six weeks; it didn’t seem possible.

  She went on round the flowerbed to duck in under the walkway that led towards the main ward blocks. She didn’t usually spend much time in the wards; when they needed someone to do something fairly trivial from path. she’d tell them firmly that since she didn’t have either a registrar or a houseman, they’d have to settle for one of her blood-letters, and even the most intransigent of the consultants – like Le Queux – had learned that she wouldn’t come running just when they crooked their fingers, however senior they were. She might be a consultant without any medical support staff (yet, she thought wrathfully; Professor Dieter was being really impossible about the problem but she’d lick him!) and a very recent and young consultant at that, but she was still a consultant. But when it suited her she didn’t mind going to consult on the more tricky ones, and today’s was a very tricky one indeed.

  That’s why I’m so willing to be clinical today, she told herself as she hurried through the cold grey morning; this case really is very difficult. Bad enough the poor little devil had lost so much of her colon to Crohn’s disease; to have battered her liver with an overdose of paracetamol had been the act of a madwoman. And she smiled a little wryly at the thought. Perhaps she isn’t that mad; would I like to be twenty-three with nothing but a life of invalidism and nurturing an ileostomy bag to look forward to? Maybe I’d have tried to throw myself away if I’d been in her shoes. Anyway, that’s why I’m going to ICU. She has the most alarming liver-function results any of us have ever seen in a living creature; she ought by rights to be dead, but she’s still hanging on and that’s fascinating. The fact that she’s Toby Bellamy’s patient is beside the point, it really is.

  Toby Bellamy; she let herself think about him. He really is great fun. He might look scruffy and seem vague about ordinary daily matters but he’s got a sharp mind and he’s funny. Men who make you laugh are incredibly attractive: you believe you could actually live with them for a lifetime –

  She pulled herself back from the thought. For an intelligent, educated, highly professional and well-motivated woman, she really was behaving in a most absurd fashion, she scolded herself. And then thought furiously of Ian. It was all his fault. If he hadn’t turned up and made her start thinking in such a sentimental fashion about marriage and housewifery and family building such ideas would never have entered her head. But because he’d talked that way she had suddenly become aware of her age, and the number of healthy child-bearing years she might have left to her. Articles in the tabloid papers that littered the medical common room and in the women’s magazines she saw at the hairdressers that wittered on about biological clocks running down suddenly seemed not only of enthralling interest but of deep import. I’m thirty-five, she thought now mournfully, as she cut across the adjoining walkway which would take her past Green block to Red block and the intensive care unit. Thirty-five. If I got pregnant now, I’d be in the high-risk group. I’d be an elderly primip – Oh, the hell with it! People have babies at forty and gone and they do fine. But that’s only five years down the line, does that mean you’d have to settle for just one? And –

  She walked faster in an attempt to leave the stupid thoughts behind, knowing she was being childish to label them stupid when what she meant was she didn’t like them; and then saw Kate Sayers coming towards her from the X-ray department and grinned widely to welcome her, relieved to have company.

  ‘Are you coming to ICU as well?’ George asked. ‘I hear they’ve put out a three line whip on the Bellew girl.’

  ‘Um. She’s been dialysed twice already this week. Kidneys are playing up badly. But I think they’ll do, if the rest of her does. How’s the blood picture?’

  ‘Like Jackson Pollock,’ George said. ‘All over the place. A complete mess. I think we could stabilize her, mind you, given time. It all depends on how long they can keep the liver going, let alone the heart.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Kate said abstractedly and they turned left as they reached the way that led to outpatients. Beneath their feet the lines of different coloured paint that showed the routes to the various parts of the hospital were so scarred and faded it was hard to make them out, and George, looking down at them, thought, They look the way I feel. Not sure where they’re going or why.

  Behind her Kate suddenly yawned, a great jaw-cracking grimace, and George looked at her sympathetically. ‘Emergency last night? It must be hell, that. Like being a junior again only you’re a bit older and not so able to survive on nil sleep. It’s one of the reasons I went into pathology, hating to be dragged out of bed at night. I’m useless when I am.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that. I don’t get hauled out for work that often. David Mount’s a good registrar and takes the burden off. No, this was Penny. She’s got chicken pox and spent most of her night up and shouting about how she itches.’

  ‘Penny?’

  ‘My four-year-old. The little one’s probably going to get it too, and then, heaven help me, with Oliver away –’

  ‘He’s a doctor too?’

  Kate shook her head, and looking at her George could now see the weariness. Her eyes were pouched and reddened and her skin a yellowish colour. ‘No. He’s a journalist. He’s in the Balkans right now, on that reconstruction conference. So I can’t even lean on him.’

  They’d reached the entrance to Red block but George hesitated. Kate stopped too and looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘Is it so difficult?’ George said abruptly and Kate quirked her head in puzzlement. ‘I mean, being a wife and mother and all that and a full-time job here as well?’

  ‘Difficult?’ Kate said and stared at her with her slightly bloodshot eyes looking a little remote and glassy. ‘Difficult? I’m not sure what the word is I’d use, but it certainly isn’t difficult. Bloody impossible, more like. But there you go. I manage it somehow. It’s only for a few years, I suppose. Till they get past this awful stage of getting one damned bug after another. They’ll be at school eventually and it’s got to get easier. I’ll tell you this much, it’s made me much better at dealing with patients’ parents. I know what it’s like.’ She shook her head and managed a grin. ‘By God I do,’ she ended feelingly and held the door open. ‘Well? Shall we go and see what we can do in ICU?’

  The consult went well. The girl was improving, by some miracle. Her liver was ticking over tolerably well, now that her blood was being carefully dialysed, and they’d got her fluid balances and medication the way they wanted them. She was conscious more often now, Toby Bellamy reported as they – Kate and George and Agnew Byford who was offering a cardiac opinion – clustered round him and looked at the notes. All he needed now was to see how they could push her a little faster, without damaging the progress they’d made already.

  Byford started talking about her cardiac output and Toby listened and then joined in, arguing a little pugnaciously. George watched as the two men went at each other with some heat, and tried to be objective about Toby. Did she really like him as much as she suspected she did? In fact, was she getting rather too emotionally involved? It was an almost impossible question to answ
er, she decided, and that meant all she could do was take her time. Make no decisions either way in a hurry, her deep inner voice murmured, sounding very much like her mother. You only make terrible mistakes.

  Kate went away at her usual speed once Toby had assured her that he could deal with the dialysis at present, though she promised to check later that afternoon. Byford, muttering a little, went too, and George made for the door. She’d done her job, assessing the blood picture and advising what the next steps should be, and now she wanted out. She disliked intensive care units; always had. They seemed to be so ambivalent somehow; although there were patients there was none of the humanity and warmth of the ordinary wards, where people filled the big spaces with clutter and noise and smells and their complaining voices, for these patients were inert and silent; nor was there the cool scientific calmness of the laboratories with their glittering equipment and humming, rattling, hissing machinery, even though such paraphernalia was here too. ICUs fell unhappily between the two stools and that made her uneasy. But Bellamy, who had returned to the bedside, called quickly, ‘Hold on, George!’ and after a few words with the nurse, who was adjusting the intravenous lines, came over to her.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Got a moment for some coffee? There’s usually some in the office.’ And, not waiting for a reply, he took her elbow and led her into the small room which adjoined the main ICU and looked out into it through a wall-sized window.

  He fussed over coffee cups as she sat perched on the desk, and again she tried to look at him dispassionately. He was wearing ICU whites, a short-sleeved white shirt over white cotton trousers that were too tight for him. His buttocks showed hard and shapely through the thin fabric and she felt a little frisson crawl across her belly, and looked away. But all she could look at were his arms, which were just as shapely and well muscled and had a drift of hair that had a golden tinge to it into the bargain, and that didn’t help at all. She lifted her eyes and tried to concentrate on somewhere safe and chose the back of his neck, beneath the white theatre cap that barely contained his rough hair, and that was even worse. The nape of his neck was soft and curved a little under the curls like a child’s, with a deep cleft that bore warm shadows, and she thought helplessly, Goddamnit, I really fancy this guy! and took the coffee cup he brought her feeling more than a little shaky. Maybe it was more than being anxious about running out of baby-making time, after all. My God, but I’m fickle! Two months ago I was devastated because one guy dumped me and here I am aching to get into another one’s pants. And I thought I was in love with Ian! It just goes to show you something, but I wish I knew what it was …