A Mother by Nature

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘We’ve got twenty-one beds,’ she told Adam, walking down the ward towards the orthopaedic section, his area of special interest. ‘Six acute medical, six surgical, six orthopaedic and three single or family suites for more critical or noisy or infectious patients. We’ve got an isolation ward for barrier nursing or immuno-compromised patients—that’s another single, but I don’t tend to count it. It’s the only room that doesn’t get stolen for other things.’

  ‘Stolen?’ he said with a slow smile.

  Anna rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, yes, of course—the lines get blurred and we end up with kids muddled up in the wrong place because of numbers, which drives the bed manager potty and the consultants come to blows over who has which bed for which child.’

  His mouth kicked up in a crooked smile of appreciation, and her heart flip-flopped in her chest. Concentrate, she told herself sternly.

  ‘We keep the age groups together if we can—the long-stay older kids are the worst, as you might imagine, and the teenagers in traction are a nightmare.’

  ‘Well, there’s a thing,’ he murmured. ‘You could always put any really difficult kids in the Stryker bed for a little while just to get a taste of real deprivation of liberty.’

  ‘What, like throwing prisoners of war into the cooler? What a fascinating thought…!’

  He laughed, and she thought her knees were going to give way. He’s probably married with a million children, she chided herself crossly, and told herself to mind her own business.

  ‘Have you moved far?’ she asked as they walked down the ward, her insatiable curiosity getting the better of her anyway.

  ‘About a hundred and fifty miles or so. I was in Oxford.’

  ‘Oxford? How lovely. How will you cope with the rural isolation of Audley?’ she asked with a laugh, and then her mouth, running on without her permission, added, ‘Doesn’t your wife mind?’

  ‘She might if I had one, but I don’t,’ Adam said lightly.

  ‘That must make it easier,’ she replied, trying not to smile with delight because he was free, but his next words took the wind right out of her sails.

  ‘Not really,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got three children under six and a Danish au pair with attitude, and we’ve bought a huge Edwardian house that needs every nook and cranny kicked into shape. Easier it’s not, but I like a challenge.’

  She ground to a halt outside the playroom, and turned towards him, guilt prickling her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sincerely. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude.’

  ‘You’re not intruding,’ he said with a gentle smile that reassured her slightly. ‘I’m just feeling a little overawed by what I’ve taken on. How about you? Are you married? Single, widowed, divorced, or other, please specify?’

  Anna laughed, relief flooding through her at his light-hearted tone. ‘Single,’ she replied. Endlessly. Regrettably.

  She never found out what he would have said next, because the playroom door flew open and a child came barrelling through it full pelt and nearly knocked her over. Her hand flew out and grabbed him by the shoulder, steadying him, and she looked down into his sparkling, mischievous eyes and shook her head.

  ‘You’ll never learn, Karl, will you?’

  He grinned. ‘Sorry, Sister. I was in a hurry.’

  ‘I noticed. That was how this happened in the first place, wasn’t it? Too much of a hurry?’ She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘You’re going to hurt someone with that cast in a minute as well. Do me a favour and go and sit down and do something quiet. You’ll be going up to Theatre later this morning, and you really could do with being calm beforehand.’

  ‘Perhaps Karl should be our first experiment with the Stryker bed?’ Adam said softly under his breath.

  ‘What a good idea,’ Anna murmured, eyeing young Karl thoughtfully.

  He looked from one to the other, not sure what they were talking about but obviously edgy. ‘What’s a—whatever you said sort of bed?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘You lie in it like the filling in a sandwich, and it turns over from time to time. It’s for keeping people with certain conditions like spinal injuries very still.’

  ‘Or settling down overactive youngsters,’ Adam added with a smile that belied his words.

  ‘You’re winding me up,’ Karl said, still not quite sure, and Anna laughed and ruffled his hair.

  ‘You got it. Go and find something quiet to do, there’s a good lad, and I’ll come and give you your pre-med later.’

  He shot off, clearly relieved, and with a smile they headed back towards the kitchen. ‘He’s got a non-union of the radius after a nasty fracture. They just can’t get it to heal, so they’re going to sort him out in Theatre this morning and probably pack it and plate it. I’m not sure if they’ve decided exactly what they’re doing.’

  ‘Who’s doing it?’ he asked.

  ‘Robert Ryder. Have you met him yet?’

  Adam shook his head. ‘No. Perhaps I’ll track him down, see if I can observe. Might be interesting.’

  ‘I’m sure he won’t mind, he’s very approachable. How about that tea now?’ she added as they arrived back at the nursing station by her office. But then the phone rang and it was A and E to say that there was a patient on the way up, a frequent visitor who had suffered yet another serious asthma attack and was now stable but needing observation.

  ‘Can you hang on?’ she asked him, explaining the case briefly to him. ‘I really need to see to this child, he’s a regular. Or you could help yourself to tea. You’re more than welcome.’

  ‘I’ll pass. I’ll go and meet the rest of the paediatric team about the hospital, and make a nuisance of myself elsewhere. I might go into the orthopaedic theatres and have a nose around, introduce myself to Ryder and see if I can observe Karl’s op, as I said.’

  She felt a pang of what could only have been regret. ‘OK. Maybe next time,’ she suggested, and could have kicked herself for sounding like a breathless virgin. Ridiculous. She was too busy to have tea with him anyway! ‘Have a good day,’ she added with a smile.

  ‘I’m sure I will—and thanks for the guided tour. I’ll see you tomorrow, no doubt.’

  Anna watched him go out of the corner of her eye as she scanned the ward for the most suitable place to put young Toby Cardew, and she suddenly realised that she was looking forward to the next day for the first time in ages.

  Gone were the blues she’d felt that morning, replaced by a shiver of anticipation. Adam was apparently unencumbered by a wife, the fact that he had children already was hardly a turn-off to a paediatric nurse and, anyway, the more the merrier.

  You’re getting ahead of yourself, she cautioned as she went to sort out a bed for Toby. Just because you think he’s attractive and he asked about your marital status, that doesn’t mean it will go any further—and, anyway, he might have terrible habits. Why did his wife leave him?

  She might have died. Perhaps he’s suffering from intractable grief, her alter ego suggested.

  Funny. He didn’t look like a man suffering from intractable grief. He just looked tired round the eyes, and, if she hadn’t been mistaken, he’d been interested in her. She hadn’t been mistaken. She knew that look. She’d had plenty of practice at intercepting it over the years.

  Too many years, too many times, too many near-misses. The trouble was, the older she got the more likely that the men of her age would be already settled in a permanent relationship—at least, the ones worth having!

  Maybe this was one time when she wouldn’t have to fend the man off. Maybe this time the advances, when and if they came, would be welcome. Goodness knows, it’s about time, she thought.

  ‘Who was that?’

  Anna looked round at Allie Baker, her staff nurse and second in command, and wagged a finger.

  ‘You’ve got one of your own,’ she told her friend.

  Allie grinned. ‘I know, and I wouldn’t swap him for the world. I just thought whoever that was was rather gorgeous. So who is he?’

 
; ‘Adam Bradbury, our new paediatric orthopaedic surgeon.’

  ‘I didn’t know we had an old one.’

  ‘We haven’t,’ Anna replied with a smile, checking forms on the clipboard at the end of the vacant bed. ‘It’s a new post. He’s going to be doing developmental problems and post-traumatic reconstruction, that sort of thing, as well as working with the oncologists on bone cancers and the neurologists on spina bifida and so on. I gather he’s rather clever.’

  Allie grinned. ‘And he’s got your name on him.’

  Anna smiled self-consciously. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. He’s got three kids and no wife.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Allie looked at her in horror. ‘Three kids?’

  Anna shrugged. ‘I like kids.’

  ‘You’d have to, working with them all day and going home to them at night. Maybe they’re teenagers and nearly off his hands. Maybe they live some of the time with his wife.’

  Anna laughed and pushed Allie out of the way gently. ‘I’ll tell you if I ever get a chance to find out. In the meantime, I’ve got things to do and you’re holding me up. Toby Cardew’s coming back.’

  Allie rolled her eyes. ‘Not again? Whatever this time?’

  ‘I have no idea. This attack was quite severe, I gather. His parents are going potty trying to find the trigger. Their house must be so clean! Mrs Cardew spends hours a day mopping it down.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not the house. Maybe it’s school, or something on the journey, or a kid he sits next to?’

  ‘They’ve addressed all that. Maybe one day it will fall into place—it’s probably something really obvious that they’ve overlooked.’

  The squeak of the A and E trolley alerted them to the new arrival, and Anna went to greet him. ‘Hello again, young man,’ she said with a smile of welcome, and patted his hand reassuringly. ‘Can’t stay away, can you? Must be our wit and charm that keeps you coming back.’

  The boy gave a weak grin, and his mother shot Anna a tired, slightly desperate smile. ‘Sorry to be a nuisance,’ she apologised, but Anna brushed her words aside.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said briskly. ‘That’s why we’re here, and we’re always pleased to see a familiar face. Right, let’s have you in bed and make you comfortable, shall we?’

  They quickly shifted young Toby across onto the bed and settled him, then left him to rest. Allie made Mrs Cardew a cup of coffee, Anna went to give Karl his pre-med and it only seemed like five minutes before the boy was back from Theatre, his arm cast in a back slab to allow for swelling and with the hand raised.

  He wouldn’t be running around for a few days at least, Anna thought, and wondered if Adam had observed the operation. No doubt she’d find out tomorrow.

  A tiny surge of what felt like adrenaline ran through her, and she caught herself looking at her watch and counting the hours until she’d see him again…

  CHAPTER TWO

  ADAM was due to start the day with a clinic, followed by a ward round to meet the new admissions on whom he’d operate that afternoon. He’d gone back to the ward and checked the notes yesterday evening, and had been foolishly disappointed to find that Anna had gone.

  Pity. He’d wanted to tell her about his part in Karl’s operation, and discuss what they’d done.

  Strictly business, of course. Still, he’d see her today.

  That lock of hair that kept falling forward and curving round her cheek was plaguing him. He’d been having fantasies about it all night—which was crazy because he always had fantasies about dark hair spread across his pillow in a fan, and hers was short and red. Dark red, admittedly, but red for all that, and far too short to fan satisfactorily.

  Still, he wondered how it would feel sifting through his fingers…

  Like silk. It was soft, heavy hair, essentially straight, with just enough bounce to curve under and curl around the pale pearly shell of her ear…

  Damn.

  He scooped the post off the floor in the lobby and scanned through it, grinding to a halt at the telephone bill. It was the final bill for the old house, and it took his mind off Anna and her attributes very effectively.

  He opened it with grim resignation, but even his wildest expectations were exceeded by its stunning proportions. Helle must truly have spent all day, every day, on the phone to her family and friends in Denmark.

  He shook his head in despair, and ran upstairs to her room, rapping loudly on the door. ‘Helle? Get up now. I want to talk to you immediately.’

  There was a shuffling noise, and the door opened to reveal his hapless young au pair, her hair on end, her eyes blurred with sleep, dragging on a dressing-gown.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, looking puzzled.

  ‘This is the matter,’ Adam said tightly, brandishing the thing under her nose. ‘The telephone bill. It runs into four figures, Helle, and it’s not even a complete quarter. I want you downstairs dressed in five minutes, and you’d better have a damn good explanation or you’ll be packing your bags and catching the next flight home.’

  ‘Good,’ she said miserably, and burst into tears. ‘I want to go home. I hate it here.’

  You’re a sucker, he told himself as he opened his arms and comforted the young woman while she cried. She was little more than a child herself, and it was a lot of responsibility. He should have talked to her more, been kinder to her, instead of expecting so much.

  ‘Come downstairs,’ he said more gently, easing her out of his arms. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea and talk about it before the children get up.’

  She nodded and sniffed, scrubbing her nose on the sleeve of her dressing-gown. ‘I’ll get dressed.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  He ran back down, put the kettle on and glanced at his watch. It was still only six-thirty, and he wondered if Anna was up yet or if she worked nine to five to cover admissions and pre- and post-ops. If she worked shifts and was on an early she’d be on her way there now. If not, she might still be in bed, her hair tangled round her face, her lashes like crescents on her cheeks, her mouth soft with sleep—

  ‘You need a life, Bradbury,’ he growled, and banged two mugs down on the worktop just as Helle came into the room.

  She hovered apprehensively in the doorway, and he waved her in. ‘Come in, sit down, I’m not going to bite you. I just want to know what’s going on.’

  She sat but, being Helle, she couldn’t just sit. She played with the salt, she shredded a paper towel that had been left on the table, tearing it systematically into tiny strips while she waited for the axe to fall.

  ‘Talk to me. Tell me all about it,’ Adam said softly, sliding a mug across the battered old pine table, and she looked up, her eyes like huge pools filling yet again.

  ‘I’m just lonely—I want my mum. I’m homesick. I thought it would get better, but then you said we were moving and I had to say goodbye to all my friends, and I thought, how will I cope in a new place?’

  A tear fell, splashing on her hand, and she scrubbed it away and went on, ‘It was hard before, when my friend Silke was just round the corner. Now it’s impossible. I don’t know anybody, and the children are at school and there’s nothing to do, and I just sit and cry—’

  ‘So you ring your mum.’

  She nodded miserably. ‘I’m sorry, Adam. I didn’t realise it would be so expensive.’

  ‘It’s as much as your wages,’ he pointed out, not unreasonably.

  ‘But some is you,’ she defended with truth, and he shrugged.

  ‘A little. Perhaps the first hundred pounds.’

  She swallowed. ‘May I see it?’

  He handed her the bill—the itemised section that ran to page after page—and she studied it in silence and handed it back.

  ‘Are you going to send me home?’

  ‘Do you want to go? Do you really want to go? Are you so unhappy? I don’t want you to be unhappy, Helle. It doesn’t help anyone—not you, not me, and certainly not the children.’

  She nodded and snif
fed. ‘I do want to go. I’ll miss the children, but I’m so lonely. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had a wife, it would be another woman to talk to. It’s different—I can’t talk to you like I could to a woman.’

  Nothing would be so bad if he had a wife, he thought defeatedly, including his own loneliness, but it was out of the question. Lyn’s defection had scarred them all, and there was no way he was going there again.

  ‘I’ll ask my mum,’ Helle went on, miserably shredding another paper towel. ‘Maybe she’ll pay the phone bill.’

  ‘Never mind the phone bill. Just do me a favour and stay until I can get someone else, and then I’ll forget the bill—OK? Only stay off the damn phone in the daytime, please, until you go home. Deal?’

  He wouldn’t understand women if he lived to be a hundred, he thought as Helle burst into tears. He found her an unshredded piece of kitchen roll and watched as she hiccuped to a halt and blotted herself up.

  ‘Deal,’ she said finally.

  ‘Good. Now, do you suppose you could get the children up in time for school today, please?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll wake them now.’

  He ate a piece of toast, kissed the children hello and goodbye in one and left for work, his mind on his afternoon list. He had yet to meet the other members of his firm, the registrars and house doctors that were allocated to him in this new speciality that the Audley Memorial had set up.

  Most hospitals had one or two consultants who tended to handle the paediatric work. It was unusual to find a post dedicated to it, and he was looking forward to the challenge. He understood they would take referrals from other hospitals within the region once his post was established—it would become the local specialist centre for paediatric orthopaedics, centralising treatment in Suffolk and making it more accessible for patients and their families.

  That meant better visiting arrangements, which in turn meant happier patients getting better quicker. He approved of that.