Claimed: One Wife

by Meredith Webber

  One of the problems of operating on elderly patients was the effect of the anaesthetic on them. Grant wondered how they could help this woman who was obviously suffering from disorientation.

  'How do things work here in Queensland? Can we put pressure on the nursing homes?'

  'Sally's already doing that,' Jerry answered. 'But in the meantime, we can't realistically keep her in the neuro ward.'

  'Why? Do we need the bed?'

  'We've a set number of bed days allocated for each procedure,' Daniel reminded him. 'Commonwealth regulatory restrictions which apply to all hospitals.'

  Grant was wondering how to address this when Sally spoke up.

  'Tell him something he doesn't know,' she said crossly to Daniel. Then she turned to Grant. 'Waiting lists for elective surgery, which most neuralgia operations are considered to be, are fairly lengthy, but it's a lack of staff and available theatre hours rather than beds that cause the backlog. At the moment, in the ward, beds aren't a problem.'

  Grant could feel the intensity in her words, and see it in the eyes focussed so directly on his face. It was almost as if she was challenging him. Daring him to make the final decision.

  Well, he'd never been one for following all the rules.

  'If we've a bed available, maybe we should check out the lack of feeling,' Grant suggested. 'Can you come up with some non-invasive and preferably inexpensive tests to cover our hides should anyone question her presence for a few more days?'

  Sally nodded, surprise at this evidence of the man's humanity rendering her momentarily speechless.

  'And ask the social work department to rustle up a longer list of suitable nursing homes. She should have her name down with more than three, but check she approves before they list her anywhere else. You might also remind the social work department it's their job to see to patients' long-term welfare. Get them doing the ring-around for you.'

  Sally was about to remind him that the social work department had responsibility for the entire patient population of the hospital while they only had their handful of neuro patients to consider, but he was already on his feet, signalling that the time for talk was over.

  Action man!

  With a white-tiled bathroom!

  He must have thought she'd taken leave of her senses, asking a question like that.

  As he led the group out to the ward, Sally slipped behind to thank Andy for covering for her.

  'No covering needed. He neither explained why he was late nor did he ask where you were—at least, not until well into the session.'

  'Are you joining us, Dr Cochrane?'

  Sally said a brief goodbye to her colleague then rejoined the team, her normal irritation with the new boss now back in place, no matter how understanding he'd seemed about Miss Wingate.

  The round passed without incident, and Sally, who was due to assist in an orthopedic operation with possible nerve involvement, was heading for Theatre when Grant caught up. with her.

  Again.

  'I'm sorry I didn't make the meeting this morning. Something...' The pause lengthened before he added, 'Personal came up.'

  If she didn't tell him about her little expedition, his brother surely would.

  'Like a lost brother?'

  He looked so startled Sally chuckled.

  'Miss Flintock was worried about you. I drove out to check. Met the carbon copy.'

  She saw the alarm in his eyes and added, 'We didn't make a fuss. No one but Miss Flintock and the team knew you'd gone missing. Your eight-o'clock appointment was cancelled anyway.'

  He said nothing, but the intent look he was giving her was unsettling, so she rattled on.

  'Though it's no use talking to Dickson about anything pertaining to the theatres anyway. Flo, the theatre secretary, is the power in that department.'

  The man threw up his arms in a gesture of pure frustration.

  'The introductory booklet issued to staff should come with a special translation giving the real details of who's who,' he muttered. 'Nothing's what it seems in this place. And how did you know what I wanted to discuss with Mr Dickson?'

  Sally stiffened. Best if she could ignore the final question, as she didn't want to get Miss Flintock into trouble with her boss. Concentrate on the first issue.

  'This place, as you call it, is one of the best run and most successful hospitals in the state. Mainly,' she added, feeling compelled to defend her place of training, 'because the upper levels of staff have the good sense to delegate responsibility to those who have the most experience in each area. What does Ken Dickson know about theatre usage? Book-learning he might have, but in practice our theatre rosters and staffing arrangements work because Flo makes them work.'

  'She won't make the mixed changing rooms work!' Grant Hudson fumed. 'Not if I have anything to say about it.'

  Uh-oh!

  'I'd better get going,' Sally said. 'I'm needed up in Theatre.'

  And on that note she fled, although there'd be no permanent escape. Once he found out from Flo that it had been she who'd lobbied and nagged and plotted to get the trial of mixed dressing rooms, he'd... She didn't know how he'd react, although she suspected the skirmishes they'd had to date would escalate to open warfare.

  Well, if that's what he wanted, that's what he'd get. Just because she was suddenly and unexpectedly beset by biological impulses and physiological reactions to the man, it didn't mean she couldn't hold her own in a battle.

  Grant watched her scurry away. Conversations with Sally Cochrane, while usually illuminating in some way, rarely answered the questions he wanted answered. She had a knack of dragging in a bit of trivia to divert him along a different path.

  Not that she'd succeeded this time. Flo, the theatre secretary, was the person he needed to see. And fighting for male rights in changing rooms should take his mind off his senior resident's legs. And gold-flecked eyes. And inappropriate physical reactions to same!

  'Oh, I can't do anything to change the rooms now!' Flo said to him, after he'd spent two hours waiting—and plotting his attack—until she had time to fit him in to her schedule. 'It's a trial, you see. And trials have to run their course or they wouldn't be trials, now, would they? If, at the end of three months—that's how long we said the trial would be— you still feel uncomfortable changing in with women—not that your changing room would have many, only Sally and occasionally Brenda Watts, and maybe Sue Robertson—'

  Flo beamed benevolently at him, and continued to flood the air with words.

  'You can vote against it. Democratic, that's how we are here. It was the MSC—that's our Medical Specialists' Committee which comes under the MAC, the main Medical Advisory Committee—which decided to trial it. I'm minutes secretary of the MSC as well as theatre secretary, you know. It's the first time they've had the same person doing the two jobs but the MSC only meets once a month so it doesn't interfere with my job here.'

  She paused for breath and Grant thanked her and hurried out of her office. Had she talked so much the first time he'd met her? On his introductory tour of the hospital?

  And if she was always so garrulous, when did she find time to get her work done? Which she must do for, he had to admit, the theatres ran well.

  He was in the corridor outside the secretary's office when the resident he was hoping to banish from his mind came bowling out of the clean area behind the theatres.

  'Ha! Just the person I want to see,' he said, dismissing the avoidance tactics he'd been planning in favour of information-gathering. 'Are you going somewhere urgent or can you have lunch with me? I need someone to explain the workings of this hospital and, as you're its greatest advocate, who better?'

  She looked so stunned he wondered if perhaps he'd taken the keeping-things-professional approach too far.

  'It's only lunch,' he added softly. 'I'm lecturing at two so I won't keep you long.'

  She glanced at her watch and he guessed she was calculating how many minutes, or possibly seconds, she'd be trapped in his compan
y. The thought made him feel unaccountably upset. Time was when women had enjoyed having lunch with him.

  'I suppose so,' she muttered, and the upset turned to pique.

  'Well, don't force yourself!' he growled, and was surprised when she reacted with a chuckle.

  'I'm sorry! I did make it sound as if a scale and clean at the dentist would be a better option. I've got to eat, so why not do it together? I wanted to ask you something anyway.'

  She led the way towards the lift to take them down to the cafeteria.

  'Are you at all interested in Parkinson's? To the extent of knowing much about the latest research? I know your field is pain, but I was reading somewhere about new surgical techniques for Parkinson's and knowing you were in the States last year—' Perhaps alerted by his silence, she broke off, looking up at him, the little gleams in her eyes dancing as she smiled.

  'Talk too much, don't I?' she said. 'This was your call, your invitation. What did you want to know?'

  She looked so contrite he found himself smiling.

  'I'll look out some info on Parkinson's I did happen to pick up in the States last year, and there's an excellent website that's kept updated. I'll give you the location.'

  If he'd expected gratitude he was doomed to disappointment, for Sally had greeted this kindly offer with a frown.

  A distracted frown.

  'He's not really very like you at all, is he?' she said, then she seemed to snap out of whatever world she'd entered, while a pink tide of confusion washed into her cheeks. 'Your brother...I was thinking... Yes, I'd like the website address,' she finished.

  The lift deposited them on the ground floor and they joined the exiting throng. Sally hurried towards the cafeteria but Grant followed more slowly.

  Why on earth would she have been thinking of Tom? She'd met him briefly, and had probably only admitted as much because she guessed Tom would tell him she'd called.

  Yet there she'd stood, all pink-cheeked confusion, while' he'd been at his most accommodating best, answering her question, sharing information with a colleague—developing, he thought, a better relationship between them.

  Professionally, of course.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Standing next to Sally in the food queue, Grant again caught that hint of flowers. Not exactly a perfume. More a suggestion of the scented air one caught walking past a florist's shop. A tantalising pleasantness.

  'Aren't you going to eat something?' she asked, jolting him out of his search for a simile to describe it exactly.

  He glanced down at his tray and realised he'd been pushing it absent-mindedly along the rack, but hadn't managed to put anything on it.

  'I'll have one of these,' he said, hiding his fluster by grabbing the closest offering in the refrigerated cabinet.

  'Very healthy!' his companion said, her lips twitching as she observed the violent pink icing on the bun he'd selected.

  'I was thinking of something else,' he told her, hoping she'd assume his thoughts were on work, not her perfume or the way his nerves felt more alert when in her presence.

  He swapped the bun for a plate of sandwiches then held it out for her inspection.

  'This better?'

  She eyed them doubtfully.

  'I guess so. I mean, the green stuff in the filling is undoubtedly lettuce but the pink goo in the middle one looks very like the icing on the bun. Is it something new they're trialling, do you think? The all-purpose, nutritionally balanced spread which goes with everything?'

  By now, a male nurse behind Grant in the queue had become interested.

  'Everything tastes the same anyway,' he offered, 'so why bother trying to disguise it with different colours?'

  Totally put off by these comments, Grant shoved the sandwiches back into the cabinet.

  'I'll settle for a cup of coffee,' he said firmly, then he glanced at Sally's tray. A bowl of salad, two small bread rolls, a tub of yoghurt, some sliced fruit and two apples were spread across it.

  'The healthy food is right at the beginning,' she told him. 'But don't worry, we can share. If I get hungry later I always keep a packet of fruit bars in my locker. For those days when a lunch-hour seems like a distant memory and a lunch-minute is grabbed at three in the afternoon.'

  'I don't think I'll ever forget those days,' Grant remarked, ordering his coffee then following his companion to the till. 'I remember the relief I felt when I made senior resident and finally registrar. Fewer nights on call, fewer trips down to A and E. Other people to do the running around that killed any hope of keeping to a schedule and having what might pass for a "normal" day.'

  She looked up at him and smiled, the shift in expression fighting up her face, changing it from pretty to vividly attractive.

  You don't get involved with women on your staff, he reminded himself, paying his bill, collecting his coffee then following the woman he wasn't going to get involved with to a table at the far side of the room.

  Ever again!

  She sat down and unloaded her tray, shifting one bread roll from the small plate to the edge of her coffee saucer. Then she piled half the salad onto the plate with the remaining bread roll and passed it to him.

  'You didn't pick up any cutlery so you'll have to manage with the spoon,' she told him, waving away his protest that he couldn't share her lunch.

  'Of course you can,' she told him. 'Eat.'

  She toyed with her salad, finally choosing a tiny tomato and raising it on her fork before glancing towards him and launching into a conversation that told him how firmly focussed her mind must be on work. No matter where his had strayed!

  'There's something else I wanted to ask about, and it kind of follows on from what you were saying about the workload. I've been wondering how much busier this unit has to get before the powers that be—' a half-grin told him she included him in that description '—might consider splitting Neuro into two teams. If we had another first-year and Andy under Daniel, and the second-year, when Chris comes back, and Jerry working with me, it might make the scheduling easier and also cut the workload on individuals.'

  She popped the tomato into her mouth and Grant, his attention distracted by the small red globe disappearing between even white teeth, failed to respond.

  'Of course, we'd have to negotiate more theatre time,' she continued, when the tomato had been dealt with, 'but, in my opinion, treating pain-relief surgery as elective is totally unacceptable. Those patients shouldn't be regarded as urgently as an aneurysm or brain tumour, but certainly not shuffled to the end of the line, their operations put off again and again because an emergency takes their allotted theatre time.'

  Her passion was like a call to battle and he smiled.

  'It's like an echo of words I used to my department head when I was a resident about a hundred years ago,' he told her.

  'Poor old man!' she murmured, the golden glints in her eyes teasing his senses. 'You must be what? All of thirty-five? Six?'

  'Close to that,' he admitted. She was thirty. He knew that from her personnel file. If he told her thirty-six would she think a six-year age difference too much?

  Too much for what? his common sense yelled in his head. You don't get involved with staff, remember? Especially not staff who have very important exams looming later in the year.

  And she hasn't shown the slightest interest in you anyway! More interest in Tom, if you look at it clearly!

  He hauled his mind back to business.

  'Not that my failure to change the status of pain patients at my previous hospital should put us off starting a similar campaign here,' he said, and silently congratulated himself on his control. 'Though we'll have to work undercover, so to speak. I've had enough experience of hospital politics to know a new boy can't go barging in and demanding long lists of reforms.'

  He tried another smile and hoped it was more professional than the previous one had been.

  'In fact, it's what I wanted to discuss. Let's start with the inimitable Flo.'

  He was wat
ching Sally as he spoke—in fact, if the truth be known, he was watching Sally far more often than he should. But, be that as it may, watching her meant he caught a slight tightening of her lips, and a sudden wariness in the wide brown eyes.

  'She's very good at what she does,' his colleague told him. 'Excellent, in fact. When Ted was here—Dr Watson, your predecessor—she's the one who kept him on time, and paged him when he was due in Theatre and generally kept his mind on the job, although his passion for fishing and his plans for his post-retirement around-Australia fishing trip were demanding more and more of his attention.'

  Around-Australia fishing trips? Grant gazed at his informant. Was it the mention of Flo, whose words did just that, which had started a similar flood of useless information from his senior resident?

  'You've already convinced me Flo is the power in that area,' he said, hoping to sound businesslike enough to get Sally back on track. 'What I'd like to know is how to handle the woman. How to get her to shut up for long enough for her to listen to what one wants to say or ask. How to influence her.'

  True to what he was beginning to recognise as her form, Sally swooped on the final—and least important-question.

  'Influence her? You mean, as in flowers, chocolates, or other offerings?' She shook her head decisively, and if the glossy brown hair bounced, Grant only noticed it incidentally. Or so he told himself.

  'Doesn't work!' Sally continued. 'She's incorruptible, our Flo. One of the gynae men once tried everything he knew— talk about bribery and corruption! He even offered a free hysterectomy for Flo's mother. Then he ended up with an hour a week less operating time, rather than the full four-hour session he'd been after.'

  'A free hysterectomy for her mother?' Grant found the words echoing hollowly from his lips.

  Sally nodded.

  'It's true. But to get back to theatre usage, the problem is largely a nursing one. I mean, mere doctors do their rostered hours plus overtime as a matter of course. Junior doctors on staff don't even start to count overtime until they've done seventy hours, and even if they can find time to claim it, Admin always argues.'