Sticks and Stones

by Susie Tate

  Lou rolled her eyes, relaxed back in her chair, and crossed her arms under her breasts. ‘As if you’re paying any attention. Go on; tell me one fact the Prof has imparted that I missed.’

  Dylan knew that there was a question in there somewhere, and that he was likely meant to answer, but unfortunately his eyes had drifted down to the fabric now stretched across Lou’s breasts and he’d lost focus.

  ‘Um…’ Cach* – what had she just said? With a great deal of effort he managed to drag his eyes away from her chest, and forced himself to look at the Prof instead, willing the blood to rush away from the relevant areas so that he would be able to leave the lecture theatre without embarrassment.

  ‘Exactly,’ Lou put in smugly, apparently pleased that she had won her argument.

  Dylan hated losing to Lou. Over the years they had fought some epic battles. In their third year of Uni Lou and Frankie had a house party which got hopelessly out of hand, and Dylan had decided to turn Lou’s room into a ‘virtual surfing experience’. This mainly involved a succession of drunken people trying to balance on the edge of the bed in a surfing pose, whilst beer from shaken up cans was sprayed in their faces. Even three years later there had still been beer splatters covering the ceiling.

  Lou didn’t say much at the time; she merely removed her knickers from their heads (another essential part of the surfing experience) and ordered them to leave. She waited two months for the perfect retaliation. Much to everyone’s bemusement she spent a whole night at the bar flirting with Bernard (a well known bed-swamper) and buying him beers. At the end of the night she steered a very much worse for wear Bernard out of the bar, and took him back to the flat Dylan shared with Mike. Using the spare key the boys had given her for emergencies, she manoeuvered Bernard inside and managed to direct him to Dylan’s bed before he passed out.

  When Dylan stumbled home at two in the morning he was confronted by a urine-soaked bed, and an unconscious Bernard with the words ‘I WIN’ written across his forehead. Needless to say the girl from his tutorial group, whom he’d finally convinced to come home with him, was less than impressed.

  Dylan rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the Prof again, who still seemed to be slightly dazed.

  ‘Where have you been anyway?’ he whispered, irritated that she always seemed to get the best of him, but more irritated by all the attention that he could still see was focused on her after that display.

  This was another odd change he’d noticed in himself over the last few weeks. He had started resenting all the male eyes that fixated on Lou wherever she went. Their new medical student spent the entire Ward Round panting after her yesterday, and Dylan had nearly broken the guy’s foot when he’d ‘accidentally’ run him over with the heavy notes trolley.

  Lou flicked him an odd look, sort of a mixture of annoyance and resignation. ‘Where do you think I’ve been Dildo? Mrs Talbot’s faecal impaction wasn’t going to sort itself.’

  ‘Oh right,’ Dylan muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

  He might have been a little distracted on the Ward Round and may not have made a note of any of the jobs that needed doing. In his defence he was still stewing over the revision hip he was missing out on that morning after Mr Jowett had told him about it last night at the pub. He may also have sloped off subtly after the round to sneak into theatre so he could assist. After all, surely there wasn’t anything so urgent to do for the grave dodgers that it couldn’t wait until after lunch?

  Suddenly he started feeling a tad bit guilty. He remembered that Lou was actually interested in the Prof’s lecture seeing as she wanted to specialize in stroke medicine. He also remembered how much Lou loved the free lunch that always preceded the weekly grand round. He had noticed that she’d lost weight over the last few months. Even her slutty drug-rep-on-heat dresses, which he knew she deliberately bought at least one size too small, were beginning to hang off her slightly.

  Now that he thought about it, he realized that Lou often had to skip lunch to sort out the wards so she could get to clinic in the afternoon. He frowned. Maybe he should have made a bit more of an effort, but it wasn’t his fault he was being forced to suffer through six months of a specialty he had absolutely no interest in.

  Then again, when he thought back to this morning, he remembered that Mrs Talbot had been pretty uncomfortable…he shuddered; manually disimpacting a patient’s bowel was not what he signed up for as an orthopaedic surgeon. Anyway Lou was tough as old boots, a few extra jobs here and there wouldn’t really faze her. He glanced down at his watch and wondered if he could slope off again to assist Mr Jowett that afternoon.

  *****

  Lou flew through the doors of the outpatient department and smacked straight into Dr Hudson. As both women were carrying a set of notes this caused an explosion of paperwork all over the waiting area.

  Well this is just bloody typical, Lou thought savagely. The one person that she couldn’t afford to piss off was lying sprawled opposite her on the dirty linoleum, her legs akimbo and glasses slightly askew (although her grey helmet of hair was, as ever, completely immobile).

  ‘Louise,’ Dr Hudson said in a surprisingly unruffled voice, despite her compromising position on the floor. ‘I’m grateful, of course, that you finally decided to grace us with your presence.’ She performed an impressively graceful leap up onto her feet, and started brushing off the back of her skirt whilst peering down her nose at Lou. ‘But maybe you could aim for a slightly less dramatic entrance. I know drama is your thing, but we are trying to get through an extremely busy clinic here.’

  As always with Elaine Hudson, Lou was made to feel about two-feet-tall. The woman seemed to have the unique ability to completely squash all Lou’s confidence with a single strategically placed acidic comment.

  ‘So, so sorry Dr Hudson,’ Lou said in a voice laced with mortification, whilst she scrambled around on her hands and knees collecting together all the papers and patient notes they had both been carrying, and separating them into two piles.

  ‘Well as long as it’s all hands on deck now and I haven’t suffered any permanent damage to my coccyx,’ Dr Hudson continued briskly, then narrowed her eyes at Lou who was now making a far less graceful (considering the height of her heels) ascent to her feet. ‘It is all hands on deck isn’t it? Where’s “The Orthopod”?’

  Lou didn’t think she’d ever heard Dr Hudson call Dylan anything other than ‘The Orthopod’, and even that seemed wrenched from her as if the knowledge that orthopaedic surgeons even existed, leave alone that one actually worked in the elderly care department, was abhorrent to her.

  ‘He…um…he…’ Lou furiously tried to think of an excuse for Dylan’s absence. ‘There was a lot of ward work,’ she finished helplessly, trying to smooth down her rucked up skirt whilst balancing the notes on her hip.

  Dr Hudson frowned. ‘Between the two of you, you should have been able to sort the wards and both help with the clinic. You’re pretty senior now Louise, you should be upping your game. If you ever want to have a chance as a consultant you’ve got to be able to delegate.’

  Lou blushed and glanced around at the packed waiting room. Just bloody brilliant, humiliated in front of all the patients she was about to see.

  Dr Hudson swept away past the reception having made her point, leaving Lou to trail dutifully behind her carrying both sets of notes. Five months ago she would have never been late to clinic, never had to miss the Grand Round lunch, never had to cover for a selfish, arrogant, lazy…drop-dead gorgeous…no!

  No!

  Lou frantically tried to push the image of a half-naked Dylan in her bed out of her mind, but she knew from bitter experience that once she was on a roll it was impossible to stop herself: Dylan hung-over in their flat with the blanket over his head, looking so unbelievable cute that she actually had to pinch her arm to stop herself from rushing him, pinning him down, and covering his stubbly, red-eyed face in small kisses; Dylan’s laughter and twinkling eyes after she’d
walked into the mess and asked for ‘Mike Hunt’ (the name he had falsified on her paperwork as the new medical student that was supposedly joining their team); Dylan gazing at Frankie, a look of such longing on his face and such uncharacteristic sadness in his eyes, that it actually made her heart hurt.

  ‘Late again Sands,’ a smug, nasal voice penetrated Lou’s consciousness. She gave a small start and nearly dropped all the notes again. ‘Daydreaming too. Not really out to impress at the moment are you?’

  ‘Miles,’ she said through her teeth. Right, time to focus and get back in the game. No way was this prick getting the best of her today. ‘What’s crawled up your arse? Run out of flies to pull the wings off? Or are you just on your period again today?’

  ‘Whatever,’ Miles sneered, two flashes of colour appearing high on his cheekbones. ‘At least I’m punctual. I’ve already seen my first patient.’ Lou glanced down at the notes he was holding and snorted. Cherry-picking little bastard.

  ‘Yeah, that must have taken all of five minutes. Try to pick off the top of the pile why don’t you,’ she said dismissively, dumping down the notes on the central desk, then picking up the massive tome that was the next in line. ‘New patient’ was written on a post-it stuck on the front, and as she lifted it she realized in horror that it was only volume one. She could hear Miles chuckle as she struggled into her room but kept her head high and didn’t look back.

  The fact that they were direct competitors had already made for a strained relationship. But things only really deteriorated after Lou dumped a cocktail in his lap on a mess night out last year. In her defence she had not been in the mood to have her arse pinched or be told she’d been ‘asking for it for ages’ by a slobbering, drunk, deeply unpleasant Miles. She knew that Miles had an inflated opinion of himself, and it wasn’t as though he was unattractive looks-wise, but with his smug, self-satisfied personality Lou would have rather snogged a dementor.

  She dumped all the notes down and slumped into her chair to fire up the computer. Her stomach rumbled and to her frustration she felt her eyes start to fill up with stupid tears. She rubbed her nose furiously and swallowed hard as she heard the door to her room creak open. Looking up she saw Gwen hovering at the doorway with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. Once Gwen had taken in Lou’s somewhat dishevelled appearance, not to mention the tears in her eyes, she bustled in, shoved the biscuits in front of Lou on the desk, put a comforting arm around her shoulders and pressed her head into her ample bosom.

  ‘Don’t you mind that old dragon now cariad*,’ Gwen soothed in her thick Welsh accent, having obviously heard Lou’s exchange with Dr Hudson in the waiting room. ‘Drink your tea and I’ll send in Mr Griffiths now, in a minute.’

  In Lou’s experience ‘now, in a minute’ could mean anything from a few seconds to a whole week. She gave Gwen a small watery smile and whispered a shaky ‘thanks’, focusing on her tea.

  Unbeknownst to Lou, Gwen tilted her head to the side and hovered at the doorway for a moment. Gwen was far older than she had admitted to medical staffing, or anyone else for that matter. She should have retired years ago, but she loved her job. One of the things she loved most about her job was people watching. All her life the people around her had fascinated Gwen and she didn’t think she had ever met a woman more radiant and full of life than Dr Louise Sands. Gwen frowned as she saw Lou’s shoulders slump slightly. Lately something or someone was taking the shine off Lou’s sparkle, and that, Gwen thought, was a great shame.

  Chapter 3

  ‘You’re a twp* bugger, but I like you’

  ‘Well it’s ridiculous, that’s what it is,’ Mrs Talbot said crossly, shifting on her plastic chair in irritation and clicking her tongue. Lou tipped her packet of Malteasers towards her again and Mrs Talbot wasted no time in grabbing a handful. ‘Bus drivers these day; they should be hung up in the town square by their balls for making us wait so long.’

  ‘I think that might be a bit harsh,’ Lou said mildly around her Malteaser, feeling a fresh wave of sympathy for Mrs Talbot’s husband, who had (as his daughter-in-law put it) ‘found the sweet release of death’ last year after enduring nearly seventy years of marital bliss. Although, since then, dementia seemed to have largely taken the wind out of her sails, so much so that Lou was actually quite heartened by the cantankerous, slightly blood-thirsty streak making an appearance again today, if only briefly.

  ‘Hey,’ Lou looked up at the sound of Frankie’s quiet voice and smiled. Frankie was wearing a glazed expression and sporting a particularly dreamy look in her eyes as she pulled up another plastic chair and sat next to Lou.

  Hurrah! At last something in Lou’s life was going to plan. It looked like the little pep talk she gave Weasel had actually worked, and he’d managed to pull Frankie’s head out of her arse and make her realize how he felt about her.

  With Tom and Frankie what should have been: boy meets girl, they fall in love and boy marries girl, was unfortunately a case of: boy meets girl, girl pines for boy, boy unintentionally humiliates girl in grotty student bar, boy and girl are kept apart by a crazy Welshman who’s in love with girl.

  It was Boxing Day, and Lou knew that Tom had practically kidnapped Frankie yesterday to spend the day with his family after Lou let it slip that she was alone in the flat.

  ‘Sooo?’ Lou drew out the word and smiled at Frankie. ‘Seeing as you look like a junkie after a fix, and you didn’t come home last night I’m thinking that things with Weasel Gankface are back on.’

  Frankie looked at her, pressed her lips together and to Lou’s horror her friend’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Tom was suddenly in front of both of them, his arms crossed around his chest and he was frowning down at Frankie. Lou saw red, and flew up onto her feet.

  ‘I told you what would happen to your meat and two veg if you hurt her Weasel,’ she said in a threatening tone, making a small lunge towards him. Much to Lou’s satisfaction his face paled and he took a step back, his hands flying to cover his groin. He then reached to pluck Frankie up off the chair and held her in front of him.

  Lou relaxed when she heard Frankie giggle and saw that her eyes, although glistening with unshed tears, were still shining with happiness. The sight of a big man like Tom using petite Frankie as a shield was enough to break through Lou’s anger and she smiled. Frankie stepped forward, away from Tom and wrapped Lou in a firm hug.

  ‘I’m happy,’ she whispered in her ear and Lou gave her a squeeze. Lou looked over Frankie’s shoulder at Tom who was watching Frankie like a lovesick puppy.

  ‘Don’t fuck it up,’ she said to him and he smiled. ‘What are you even doing here today Weasel? You’re not on call.’

  He scuffed his feet on the ground and threw her a sheepish grin. ‘I drove Frankie in and then thought I’d check on a few patients, get a bit of paperwork done.’ He shrugged and Lou’s face softened. She knew for a fact that Weasel hated paperwork and would never voluntarily do it, especially on Boxing Day. Her guess was that he just wanted to be where Frankie was; at least until it settled in that she had really come back to him.

  Still, despite this, after Frankie had turned to go, Lou caught his eye, pointed two fingers at her own and then one at him. He smiled but she was pretty sure there was a small flicker of fear there too.

  Lou sat back down next to Mrs Talbot who flicked her an annoyed look.

  ‘All this commotion at the bus stop,’ she said snottily. ‘Most unseemly, and why is everyone standing and walking in the middle of the road.’ She was starting to get agitated now and Lou sighed, putting her hand over Mrs Talbot’s papery one.

  ‘We’re in the ward, remember Mrs Talbot?’ Lou said softly, turning towards her. Mrs Talbot’s confused eyes were now looking frantically up and down the ward corridor at the patients and staff.

  ‘Well I…I need to go home. Dennis will be at a complete loss.’ Her words were shaking slightly and both her hands were now gripping Lou’s in a vice-like gri
p. ‘I don’t feel so well dear,’ she finished in a small voice.

  ‘How about we go back to your bed?’ Lou said briskly. ‘Get you a nice cup of tea and some biscuits.’ Mrs Talbot brightened as Lou led her through the ward and settled her with her tea, turning on the pay-per-view telly.

  ‘Punctuality is just not your thing lately is it Louise?’ The crisp voice pulled Lou up short when she came back out onto the ward corridor. Ugh! She’d been early today, and had already spent half an hour pretending she was at a bloody bus stop whilst she waited for the round to start. Dr Hudson would have to arrive the moment she had left the main ward.

  ‘I was –‘

  ‘Save me the excuses Dr Sands, let’s just crack on.’ Of course it would have to be Dr Hudson on-call today, it couldn’t be her own, more laid back consultant Dr Morris. ‘Where is “The Orthopod”,’ she said ominously.

  ‘Someone call for an orthopod?’ Dylan replied, as he strolled round the corner wearing a Father Christmas hat. He came to a stop in front of them, and, with a flourish, he produced two reindeer antler headbands from behind his back. ‘Merry Christmas! I’ve brought in something to get us all in the spirit.’

  Grinning, he shoved one down onto Lou’s head. Then, to Lou’s horror, he breached the perfection of Dr Hudson’s grey helmet of hair with the headband and unceremoniously adjusted it into position. Dr Hudson’s face had turned an alarming shade of red with barely contained rage, but Dylan, who either didn’t register this or simply didn’t care, merely gave her a small shoulder bump and winked at her with a cheeky grin.

  ‘See, aren’t you feeling more festive already?’ To Lou’s surprise she noticed Dr Hudson relax her furious stance slightly and press her lips together as if she was holding back a smile. Very few females of any age were impervious to his charm, and, as ever, Dylan played on this ruthlessly.

  ‘That’s all well and good Orthopod,’ Dr Hudson said, rolling her eyes at the sheer audacity of his impertinence, ‘but do you think we can be festive and still do the ward round?’