Ally gave a very reluctant smile at his insight. It was a question she’d pondered many a night when she’d packed up after a class that had run way overtime.
‘And they always have a list,’ Rory carried on, warming to the subject as he registered her reaction. ‘One father-to-be waylaid me in the corridor at work the other week to ask about perineal massage to stop his wife from tearing.’
‘So?’ Ally frowned.
‘He had a list of oils and asked me to choose the one that was most appropriate.’ Rory gave her a wide-eyed look. ‘I told him to save his money and that a pair of scissors—’
‘You didn’t!’ Shocked, she interrupted, then glared as he laughed.
‘No, of course not. I told him that the hundred-dollar oil on the top of his list sounded great, and then I used the sterile scissors a couple of weeks later.’
‘Perineal massage works,’ Ally retorted. ‘You’re so anti anything remotely alternative.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Rory said, mopping up the last of his egg yolk with his toast. ‘In fact, perineal massage is way up on my list of recreational activities…’ Green eyes met hers but it was Ally who looked away first, Ally who blushed purple before he continued, ‘for parents-to-be. It creates intimacy, gives the mum some much-needed pleasure, but I’m not convinced it reduces the episiotomy rate.’
How had he done that? As Win came into the staffroom, flustered, Ally flicked through the paper and stared unseeingly at an ad for a flash new sports car. Just one pause, one flash of his eyes and a safe medical topic had bordered on dangerous—or at least it had for her. Rory, it would seem, was completely unfazed, his generous grin aimed at Win now as she came to collect his plate.
‘I’ll wash it, Win,’ Rory feebly argued as she replaced his empty mug with a full one and took his eggy plate. ‘It’s the least I can do. That was the best breakfast I’ve had for ages.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Win chided, but her beaming face said otherwise. ‘It’s great to see you back here, Dr Rory.’
‘Great to see you too, Win.’ Rory smiled back, clearly delighted to see her again. ‘What’s all this nonsense I hear that you’re thinking about retiring?’
‘It’s true.’ Win’s resigned voice had Ally looking up and she silently prayed that Rory would tread carefully. Win had been the maternity unit’s domestic for more than three decades and had run the place with utter devotion over the years. Widowed at a young age and the mother of five children, she had worked a mix of morning and evening shifts to earn enough to raise her children. And in the thirty-five years she had worked on the unit the entire place had remained spotless under her care. Win looked after the patients and staff of the maternity unit way and above the call of duty, cups of tea appearing at busy times, a piece of home-made cake coming out during quieter ones. But way more valuable than the tea and cake was Win’s insight: on more occasions than Ally could recall, she had found Win chatting to an anxious mum, somehow putting a woman at ease in the way only the voice of wisdom could. Many times the powers that be had tried to get Win to sign a new contract, to schedule her hours in line with the rest of the health network, but she had stood firm, keeping to the old rules. But now Win couldn’t do it any more. She couldn’t manage the forty-hour weeks, and reducing her hours would mean signing the dreaded contract, which could see her allocated to any ward in the hospital.
‘I need to cut down my hours. I was hoping to just do one shift a week—you know, to keep my hand in—but if I do, my supervisor has told me that they won’t be able to guarantee that I’ll be rostered here on the maternity ward. She’s spoken with management and they said I’ll have to go to wherever I’m needed most if I’m only working one shift a week. I could end up on A and E perhaps or maybe even Intensive Care, and that’s the last thing I want.’
‘A change is as good as a rest,’ Rory offered, and Ally just wished he’d drop it, sucking in her breath as he pushed on. ‘But if you don’t want to go to another ward, just tell them that you belong here,’ Rory said, as if it was that easy. ‘The ward will back you. After all, you’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive. Surely the hospital should bend over backwards to accommodate you, shouldn’t they?’ He looked over at Ally, clearly expecting her support. ‘Have you spoken to Win’s supervisor about this?’
‘Of course I have,’ Ally answered, but her eyes were warning Rory to drop it. Ally, along with most of the senior staff on the maternity ward, had been vocal in her efforts to keep Win, but the sad fact of the matter was that she was considered too old and too inflexible for the job. The truth, though Win didn’t know it, was that the powers that be knew full well that Win couldn’t bear to work anywhere other than her beloved maternity ward, and that was the very reason they weren’t offering it—they wanted her to leave! It had been left to Vivien, the maternity unit manager, to soften the blow a bit, to explain to Win that despite the staff’s protests, if she signed the new contract, there was no guarantee she’d be working on maternity.
Once Win had gone, Ally half expected Rory to pick up the conversation where it had been before Win had come in—to tease her a little bit more—but Rory had other things on his mind.
‘Did you really speak to her supervisor?’ Rory checked.
‘I just said so, didn’t I?’ Ally answered abruptly.
‘So why can’t she stay?’ Rory pressed.
Ally wished he would just leave it. ‘Rory, I did speak with her supervisor, so did Vivien, so did Mr Davies, the consultant, but, as much as we all adore Win, that’s not the issue.’
‘Win’s been here—’
‘Win’s been here for more than thirty years,’ Ally broke in. ‘Which is exactly the problem. Win runs the ward as she did when she started. She refuses to change her routine.’
‘Why should she,’ Rory answered, ‘when clearly her way works?’
‘It doesn’t any more, though,’ Ally snapped. ‘Take the eggs! The days are gone when you bring food in from home and give it to the patients. As nice as it is to spoil the mums, there are health regulations that have to be followed, and for ages Win refused to abide by them. Over and over the staff tried talking to her, telling her that she couldn’t keep cooking for the patients, but she refused to listen. It took two written warnings—’
‘Written warnings!’ Rory’s voice was incredulous. ‘Over eggs on toast! You know when I applied for the registrar’s position here, I was sent a load of stats, and one of the things that stood out was the infection control rate. This may be a relatively small suburban hospital but the infection rates in this ward are second to none. That has nothing to do with luck, you know, Ally.’
‘I know that,’ Ally flared, surprising even herself at her defensive stance. ‘But you’re not aware of all the circumstances, Rory.’
‘Enlighten me, then,’ Rory answered, but Ally shook her head. She stood up and for the first time in living memory she didn’t pick up her cup and put it in the sink, she just left in on the table, ‘Why should I, Rory? You can’t just disappear for three years and then swan back and expect nothing to have changed.’
‘Of course things change,’ Rory answered, but Ally wasn’t listening.
‘You disappear for three years and then expect to swan back and pick up exactly where you left off. Well, like it or not, life goes on with or without you. Rules change, people change…’ Stupid tears were pricking at the back of her eyes and Ally swallowed hard to keep them in. ‘And I’m sorry if you come back and don’t like what you find, but if you were that concerned about Win and her blessed eggs then you shouldn’t have left in the first place!’
There was this horrible, prolonged silence. Knowing full well that she’d gone too far but refusing to back down, she glared at him with angry eyes and her lips set in a pale rigid line until finally Rory responded.
‘This isn’t about Win, is it?’ There was a distinctly nervous edge to his voice as realisation dawned. Looking across the room at his shocked expression, Ally
did the only thing she could in the circumstances: gave a tiny half-laugh and shook her head.
‘I guess not.’
‘Is it about…?’ He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t need to. The appalling discomfort that filled the room was stifling now.
‘Just forget it, Rory,’ Ally attempted, but she knew it was futile. How could she ask him to forget something she so clearly couldn’t? ‘It’s just…’ Raking a hand through her hair, she stumbled to find the right words. ‘I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.’
‘No one’s asking you to,’ Rory pointed out. Ally, I wanted to talk last night.’
‘Last night?’ An ironic grin twisted on her mouth. ‘Three years after the event! Well, that’s fine, then, why didn’t you just say so? Rory, just because you’ve had more girlfriends than I can even recall, just because you can walk away so easily, it doesn’t mean that I can. We shared a house for years and if you learnt anything about me in that time, surely it was that casual sex wasn’t exactly my forte!’
‘Ally don’t…’ Rory shook his head. ‘There was nothing casual about that night.’
‘Oh, I beg to differ.’ Tears weren’t threatening now, tears weren’t even close. Her eyes glittered angrily as she stared back at him. ‘You didn’t even wake me up to say goodbye. You were in that taxi and on the way to the airport before the sun had even come up. And even allowing for my comparatively high standards, I’m sure you’d agree that one tatty postcard four months later merits the word casual!’
‘Ally.’ Crossing the room, he faced her. ‘We both knew at the time it wasn’t going to work…’ It was Rory stumbling over his words now, Rory attempting to do the one thing he wasn’t very good at—let a girl down gently, ‘We both wanted different things.’
‘Meaning?’ Ally frowned. Maybe she didn’t want the answer to the question she was asking, but after three years she knew that she needed it, needed to somehow find closure.
‘Look at you,’ he said, doing exactly that, the space between them disappearing as he placed his hands on her shoulders and stared down at her. The first physical contact in three long years and her body seemed to unfurl beneath him. His touch, which had been so absent, was now so wonderfully familiar and it hurt, literally hurt, not to respond, to just stand there and feign nonchalance as each pore, each cell awoke from dormant hibernation. Somehow she stared coolly back at him as Rory delivered an extremely well-rehearsed speech.
‘We both wanted different things,’ Rory said softly.
Ally attempted to open her mouth and mimic the words as he delivered them, because it was the same speech she had heard recited by his tearful ex-lovers as she’d comforted them, and now it was being aimed at her. But Ally was brutally aware that, unlike those times, there was no one outside waiting with a box of tissues, no one to sit on the stairs with and hold her hand as she digested her loss. Not only were they sharing a house but she had to work with him! She would have to face Rory, work alongside him for months, years even, so she took it with all the dignity she could muster, and held tears firmly in check as Rory attempted to let her down gently.
‘Look at you, Ally,’ Rory said again. ‘You’re an idealist…’
‘What?’ That wasn’t part of his usual recital. Maybe he’d picked it up in America. Perhaps he’d added a few more lines to his pep-talk!
‘You have this amazing vision, Ally. You’re devoted to your career, your home. You know exactly where you’re going—’
‘What on earth has that got to do with anything?’ Ally questioned, watching as Rory’s forehead creased in exasperation.
‘I guess what I’m trying to say is what happened that night—’
‘Will never happen again!’ Ally broke in, and finished this difficult, uncomfortable conversation. ‘I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as an idealist, Rory, but I do have standards—and what happened that night didn’t reach them!’
‘You’re upset—’
‘No,’ Ally interrupted. ‘I’m not upset—I was upset at the time. Not just with you, Rory, but with myself. It was stupid to jeopardise a good friendship because we were both feeling a bit emotional. It was stupid to go to bed with a guy who’s a self-confessed commitment-phobe. You’re right, we do want different things. A quick roll in the hay because it feels right at the time just isn’t for me. Frankly, I expect better from myself.’
‘But not from me?’
Ally didn’t even bother to answer that one. ‘I just want to make one thing very clear: I hope we can work well alongside each other, be friends again even, but what happened that night was a mistake—and one I have no intention of repeating.’
‘Fine,’ Rory answered, and even if his body didn’t move a fraction she felt the welcoming breeze of distance between them. She could finally manage to breathe again as the guidelines were firmly established. ‘Would it be easier if I moved out? I can ring the doctors’ mess now…’
‘There’s no need for that.’ Ally shook her head, managed a smile even as she went on, ‘So long as I’ve made myself clear.’
‘Clear as crystal.’ Rory gave a tight smile.
CHAPTER THREE
GLANCING down at her watch and seeing that it was well past eight, Ally let out a tired sigh as the last of her antenatal class departed. As she and Rory had jokingly predicted, the session had gone way over. Fiona Anderson a forty-year-old primi gravida, or first pregnancy, who was expecting her baby in just a few days had commandeered every question-and-answer session. She had been accompanied by her equally anxious husband, Mark. Every explanation Ally had given, they had pushed for more information; every positive comment she had made they had questioned, throwing up worst-case scenarios and demanding to know what would happen and generally terrifying the rest of the class! Ally was tired, hungry and, despite being the bubbly, effusive midwife as she had held the class, all she really felt was drained. As much as she loved her antenatal classes, loved the chance to get to know the women on a more personal level, to build a relationship long before they hit the delivery room, sometimes Ally wondered if her job was just a touch too consuming. The emotional energy she put into each and every patient sometimes left her feeling depleted, and tonight that was exactly how she felt.
Depleted.
She wearily pressed the rewind button on the much-viewed video of childbirth she had played to her class tonight and tried to summon up the energy to pack away and go home. She’d dodged Rory last night and after their little tête-à-tête in the staffroom, she was sorely tempted to ring Rinska and hit the social club again rather than face him tonight. But she couldn’t. Rory would know she was avoiding him, might even guess that she was still incredibly uncomfortable around him, and more than any of that, Ally simply didn’t have the energy to stay out again tonight.
Hearing the door open, Ally turned around as Fiona’s nervous face peered around it.
‘Sorry, Ally, I know you must be in a rush to get off. I wanted to mention it in class but Mark said that I’d just scare the other parents if I said…’ Fiona stared down at her rather large stomach, her hand nervously caressing the baby inside. ‘I’m just so worried.’
As tired as she was, looking at Fiona’s anxious face, Ally pushed all thoughts of fatigue and facing Rory firmly away. From the questions Fiona had been asking in class, there was clearly something on her mind and if Fiona didn’t feel secure then Ally’s job wasn’t yet done. A positive frame of mind was essential for labour and with their baby so close to its due date, Fiona was right to come back and talk to her midwife, to voice whatever was on her mind. ‘Where’s Mark?’
‘In the car. I told him to wait there for me there while I spoke to you.’
Ally’s smile was genuine as she smiled warmly at the nervous woman and waved for her to come back in, her only goal being to put her patient’s mind at rest.
‘Do you want to call Mark in? I can talk to you both.’
‘No, thanks.’ Fiona sniffed.
‘So w
hat’s worrying you?’ Ally asked, steering her to a seat and flicking the kettle back on.
‘One of the women from our antenatal class had her baby a couple of days ago. We went to visit her before class, to say congratulations and have a peek at the baby. We’ve become friends, I guess.’
‘Kathy?’ Ally checked, immediately realising the problem.
‘She says she’s going to sue the hospital, that she’s going to ring up a current affairs show and write to the newspapers.’
‘I’m sorry you had to hear all that.’ Ally gave a sympathetic smile, but her heart sank, thinking of poor Rinska if Kathy followed through with her threats.
‘I didn’t say anything in class because I thought I might scare the other mums-to-be, but Kathy is appalled at what happened to her, and so am I. Kathy wanted to have a natural delivery, she was adamant that she was going to have her baby without drugs.’ Fiona wrung her hands in her lap, and Ally could see that she was close to tears. ‘Yet she ended up having a Caesarean section when she didn’t even want one. Kathy said that the doctors and nurses just took over, that they refused to listen to her wishes. The doctor didn’t even speak English very well and Kathy couldn’t understand what she was telling her. She was practically forced to sign the consent form for the operation…’ Ally didn’t interrupt, mindful of patient confidentiality. There wasn’t an awful lot she could say, and it was also important that Fiona get everything off her chest, voiced all of her concerns, before Ally jumped in. ‘Mark and I are very committed to a natural delivery,’ Fiona gulped. ‘I haven’t taken so much as a headache tablet throughout my pregnancy, I didn’t even take the iron tablets the doctor suggested, I chose to get my vitamins from natural sources, and my iron levels have been fine throughout…’ Defiant eyes jerked to Ally’s, her voice turning from anxious to assertive, but Ally had been in midwifery too long not to notice the fear behind her words. ‘I don’t want my labour to turn out like Kathy’s. I don’t want some doctor who doesn’t even know me telling me what to do with my body.’
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