They were pulling at their clothes and Nick leapt on the bike and Alison did the same. ‘It was that way,’ Alison said, pointing left, and they headed along the cliff. She felt the slight wobble of the bike as his attention was diverted and her heart was already pumping faster before she saw it for herself—the front of a car crumpled into a tree and a man talking into his phone and waving frantically. Nick slowed down, pulling to a halt, and they both jumped off.
‘I missed the bend,’ the guy was shouting as they took off their helmets. ‘I was going too fast, trying to get to the hospital, she suddenly wanted to push…’
It was so far better than it could have been, except Alison’s heart wouldn’t slow down.
‘What’s your name?’ Nick asked as they ran to the car.
‘Richard.’ His wife’s name was Carly and there was already an ambulance on the way, Richard told them.
Nick was assessing the passenger for injuries and apart from being in advanced labour, there appeared to be none.
‘I’m only thirty-five weeks.’
‘That’s okay…’ He was incredibly calm, unlike Alison. ‘Thirty-five weeks is just fine. Alison, there’s a first-aid box on the bike.’ There was, the hire company had made sure of that, but her hands were shaking so much she could hardly open the clip, and in the end it was Nick who came over and waded through it. There wasn’t much, but there were gloves and Nick pulled them on and told her to do the same then he headed back to the car and gave instructions.
‘Alison.’ She was aware he’d repeated it. ‘Can you help me get Carly into the back?’
She helped the pregnant woman, rolled up a beach towel she found into a pillow and made her a bit more comfortable so she was semi-prone and though Richard was clearly beyond relieved there was a doctor present there was actually very little they needed to do, because nature was taking good care of both patients. All that was required from Nick were a few words of encouragement as he held the baby’s head and guided the new life into the world.
‘The head’s out.’ His voice was calm and Alison looked over his shoulder. She was holding Richard’s T-shirt ready to wrap the babe, and it was all under control, except her heart was still thudding, she could feel the sun beating on her head and hear the distant blare of sirens. But the baby wasn’t waiting for them—with just one final push the body was delivered and there was a bellow of rage from a rather small baby as Nick delivered it onto Carly’s stomach.
‘She’s okay?’ Carly checked, and Nick grinned.
‘He’s great.’
‘I’m having a girl,’ Carly insisted, pulling up her baby boy, but it was a happy mistake and from Richard’s shout of joy, he wasn’t complaining.
The arrival of the ambulance brought comfort rather than relief. Todd and his partner were wonderful with the new parents and baby. Richard cut the cord and then the paramedics transferred Carly to a stretcher.
Nick was on a high. There was a euphoria to him, and he stood with his arm around Alison as the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance.
‘How good was that?’ Nick grinned, with all the joy of someone who finally, absolutely, definitely loved their job. ‘How good was that?’
Only Alison didn’t answer, uncomfortable suddenly as Todd climbed out from the back and closed the ambulance door and she wriggled out of Nick’s arm, remembering they were keeping things away from work.
She could feel Todd’s eyes roam her body, feel her breasts loose without a bra, and as, embarrassed, she ran a hand through her hair she felt leaves and knew, knew how she looked, knew what Todd was thinking.
‘Nice work!’ Todd winked at Nick when he’d closed the ambulance and Alison stood with her cheeks flaming. ‘Good to get an easy one.’
‘Thanks very much.’ Nick shook his hand and all she could see as the ambulance drove away was the car against a tree and all she felt was reckless, and Alison loathed it. All she felt was a tart Nick had taken to the hills—so very easily, as Todd had pointed out.
‘Thanks very much!’ she hurled at him. ‘Did you not hear what he was insinuating?’
‘What?’ Nick frowned.
‘“Good to get an easy one”!’
‘Alison.’ Nick shook his head. ‘He was talking about the birth.’
‘No!’ She felt sick, she actually felt sick. ‘He was talking about me.’
And coming down from the high of the birth Nick started to see it, but Alison didn’t want to hear his apology.
‘I want to go home.’
‘You’re going to let what he said ruin—’
‘It’s already ruined,’ Alison said. ‘And even if we do patch it up, it will be ruined next week…’
‘That’s what I brought you here to talk about.’ He hadn’t meant to say it like this, hadn’t meant to just blurt it out, but she left him with no choice. ‘I’m going to ring work and tell them I’m not coming back early.’ For Alison hope flared, but it was fleeting, so fleeting it was gone before it was recognised. ‘I want to do Asia.’
She could have slapped him.
‘With you,’ Nick said quickly. ‘I do have to go to this wedding in New Zealand but, look, I’ve been thinking about it…’ All night he’d been thinking about it. He saw the flash of tears in her eyes, but he hadn’t finished yet. ‘Why don’t you come—just for a few weeks, however much annual leave you’ve got…’ He was finding this awkward, he knew she was proud. ‘I know you must be stretched with the mortgage and everything, I’ll sort out the tickets and things…’ Alison screwed her eyes closed. ‘We can have a couple of weeks away, just us.’ And it sounded perfect, almost.
But then she’d have to come back.
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘None of this is easy,’ Nick said. ‘Alison, surely you can have a holiday, a few weeks of fun.’ And that word jolted, because that was what this was to him, she reminded herself, fun and a holiday that he wanted to extend—take the good sex with him, and slowly dismantle her heart. She wanted to nod, to say yes, to carry on the crazy ride, but she was scared to.
‘I can’t.’ She shook her head in fury. ‘I can’t just up and leave.’
‘Won’t,’ Nick said, and the pounding pulse in her head stopped for a second and he said it again. ‘You won’t come.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ How dared he? Except Nick did.
‘You didn’t even consider it before you said no.’
‘You don’t know how hard things are for me. I had a massive row with my mother last night…’ Stunned, she watched as he pulled out an imaginary violin. ‘You bastard.’
‘You’ve had me pegged as one from the start.’ Yes, he was being mean, but finally he was angry. ‘I’m asking you to come with me, or at least to just think about coming with me.’
‘And I’m telling you I can’t.’
‘You can’t, can you?’ Finally he got it. ‘It’s not your mum holding you back, Alison.’
‘Just leave it.’
‘No.’ He couldn’t and he wouldn’t. ‘It’s not just your mum.’
‘Let’s just finish it.’ If she was being unreasonable, well, she felt unreasonable. ‘Let’s just finish it here.’
And she did.
When the police arrived and summoned a tow truck, and a couple pulled over in their car and asked if there was anything they could do—actually, there was something.
‘Could you give me a lift, please?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT HAD to be better this way, Alison told herself as she ignored Nick’s texts over the next few days and tried to get used to lugging around a broken heart.
The dazzling blond doctor was a just a little less so over the coming week.
Tired, a bit distracted and to the rest of the team just a little less fun, but he was thorough and kind to the patients and sometimes, quite a lot actually, she felt his eyes follow hers, and sometimes they frowned just a touch when their eyes met, because the Alison he had known
simply wasn’t there any more.
He was kicking himself, angry with himself about how he had handled it. But he was angry with her too—at how readily she could let them go, at how she just retreated back into her quiet, serious shell. Though she was polite and smiled and spoke when she had to, the Alison he knew was in there seemed to have gone.
‘I’m getting nowhere.’ Amy was unusually tense as she handed over her night to Nick. ‘This poor man came in at three—he’s an oncology patient with a brain tumour, but he’s got acute abdomen. He had a scan last week in Outpatients that was apparently all clear, the surgeons don’t want him to have anything till they’ve seen him, but they’re doing an aneurism repair we had in—’
‘So he’s had nothing for pain?’ Nick checked sharply.
‘Five of morphine,’ Amy said. ‘I couldn’t ask him to wait any longer, but it hasn’t touched sides, and the second-on surgeons are in Theatre as well.’ It was a regular scenario—the surgeons couldn’t asses an acute abdomen if the patient was pain free, but the surgeons were stuck in Theatre. ‘I can’t get his notes, he was seen in Outpatients last week…’
Amy really was frazzled—and from the nursing handover it made sense. It had been an extremely busy night, but nothing usually fazed Amy. Still, Alison remembered she had swapped her nights with Nick for a family thing a few weeks ago and guessed that maybe it had something to do with things.
‘If they’re in Theatre it’s not going to be this team that takes him.’ Nick was completely reasonable. He looked up at the medical roster. ‘I’ll ring Howard’s team—he’s on take today and I’ll get one of them to come down before they start rounds. I’ll go and have a quick look at him now.
‘Alison,’ he added, because she was cleaning up the night staff’s chaos, because she was the only one around, because he had to, ‘can you come with me?’
‘His daughter, Vivienne, is getting upset,’ Amy added.
‘I’ll sort it,’ Nick replied. ‘Go home,’ he ordered.
‘Thanks,’ Amy said. ‘What will we do without you?’
Nick could have sworn he felt the roll of Alison’s eyes, but chose to ignore it, heading for the cubicle instead. ‘Hi, I’m Nick. I’m an emergency registrar…’
‘So was the other one!’ A woman, presumably Vivienne, snapped. ‘Where are the surgeons?’
‘I’m going to speak with today’s team,’ Nick said, ‘but first I need to take a quick look for myself at your father.’
Jim was frail, thin and clearly in pain, and Nick didn’t prod and poke him unnecessarily, but he agreed with Amy’s finding that the problem was acute—because even if Jim’s condition was terminal, an operation might be needed to relieve his pain.
‘I need those old notes,’ Nick said once they were outside the cubicle.
‘The day receptionist is here,’ Alison said, ‘and Outpatients will be opening. I’ll ask her to track them down.’
‘Thanks.’ He hesitated. ‘Alison?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Alison said.
‘Can we talk?’
‘About work?’ she checked, and when he pushed his tongue into his cheek, she shrugged. ‘Then sorry, no,’ Alison said, and headed for Reception.
‘How’s the flat?’ Another line she was getting used to. Libby, the receptionist, asked the question as Alison popped in to check on the location of Jim’s notes.
‘Shabbier than I remember it,’ Alison admitted. ‘I’m painting before I move in and I don’t remember a pea-green carpet when I bought it, but it must have been there.’
‘Are you replacing it?’ They stood making idle chit-chat as Libby tapped away on the computer and did her best to locate the notes Nick wanted.
‘I was going to learn to live with it,’ Alison said, ‘but the more I paint, the greener it gets.’
‘You’ll get there,’ Libby said, and then she shook her head. ‘Those notes can’t have come back from Outpatients.’
‘They really need them,’ Alison said. ‘He’s been seen by Gastro and the surgeons and they’re all passing him on. He needs to be sorted. The family’s getting really frustrated and frankly I don’t blame them. Can you ring them again?’
‘For all the good it will do.’ Libby rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll go over now and have a look myself,’ she offered. ‘Could you just take these through for me?’ She handed Alison a couple of rosters but as Alison walked through, the family caught her.
‘Did you get his notes?’
‘The receptionist is going to go over to Outpatients now—’ She didn’t get to finish. Jim’s daughter let out several hours of frustration in a few caustic sentences, and Alison stood there, shaking her head a touch as a security man started to walk over.
‘I know how hard this must be—’
‘You know nothing,’ Vivienne retorted. ‘That’s my father suffering in there, not that you care. Did you enjoy your coffee break? He hasn’t had a drink since he arrived, he’s sobbing for some water—’
‘Vivienne.’ Nick came over, gave Alison a tight, grim smile. ‘Let’s take this to an interview room.’ He’d cut right in and Alison was grateful for it, annoyed with herself for not suggesting the same thing but glad that someone else was dealing with it. Alison glanced down at them as she popped the medical rosters on the bench. They were nothing to do with her, just the doctors rosters for the next four weeks, and normally she wouldn’t have given them thought. Except today, she scanned the sheet and saw the absence of Nick’s name, saw that Cort Mason was, in fact, coming back, and it just rammed home the truth. There it was, in black and white, as if she needed reminding, that in just a few days Nick Roberts would be gone.
‘She apologises.’ Nick came over to make a phone call. ‘She’s going to say it herself—’
‘There’s no need.’
She was close to tears all of a sudden but was determined not to let him see. ‘Libby’s gone over to Outpatients to try and find them—he was there last week.’
‘He should have been admitted last week,’ Nick said, and then, a little more tactfully, he told the voice on the end of the phone the same thing, and as Alison went to go he caught her wrist, which was the most physical he had ever been at work and the only contact in days. And she couldn’t bear it, yet she took it, waited as he concluded his call, Nick doodling on the hateful rosters as he spoke on the phone.
‘They’re going to admit him.’ He gave her the details and then there was just a slight frown as he looked her over and she didn’t like his scrutiny.
‘Are you really okay?’
‘I’ll get over you, Nick, don’t worry.’ She didn’t turn round, because for the first time since his arrival, the first time in years in fact, there were tears, not just in her eyes but trickling down her cheeks, and Alison fled to the toilets, blew her nose and told herself she was being stupid, told herself she’d warned herself that this would happen.
‘Alison?’ Ellie was just dashing in before the start of her late shift, the surprise evident in her voice at catching her friend less than strong, because over the years she’d never seen her cry. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m tired,’ she admitted, because suddenly she was. ‘And there’s this poor man, he’s been shoved from pillar to post. He’s been here since two this morning and we’ve only just found him a bed, his daughter just went off at me—’
‘I know,’ Ellie said, because anyone who worked in Emergency did know that families sometimes took out their frustration on the closest target, and even if Vivienne hadn’t been that bad, some days it just hurt.
‘All okay?’ Sheila, the NUM, came in then and Alison even managed a wry smile that her escape to the loos had become so public and made a little note to herself not to go into meltdown till she was safely in a cubicle.
‘A relative upset her,’ Ellie explained.
‘It’s not just that,’ Alison admitted. ‘I don’t feel so great.’
; ‘You don’t look so great,’ Sheila said, and because it was Alison, who was always stoic, she knew it wasn’t an excuse. ‘Why don’t you take a half-day? What are you on tomorrow?’
‘An early.’
‘Go home.’ Sheila was firm and fair and knew how hard her staff worked. ‘If you don’t feel any better this evening, give us a call so we can arrange cover tomorrow.’
Alison felt more than a little guilty as she collected her bag, because even if she was tired and teary, there was another reason for it. The bus took for ever, it just crawled along and stopped at every stop. Maybe she was more than tired, she decided, trudging up the street to her house. Maybe she was getting the flu or something.
It was Tuesday, because the house smelt like beef stroganoff as she entered, though it smelt stronger today. Alison headed for her room, but the smell was in there too, permeating the whole house. She opened a window, swallowing a couple of times, and then fled to the loo, which was thankfully a lot quieter than the one at work.
‘No.’
She actually said it out loud as she headed back to the bedroom, climbed into bed and very deliberately blocked that thought, and blocked it again when her mum came home and Alison had to fly back to the bathroom again.
‘I think I’ve got gastro,’ Alison said, and there were benefits to living at home, because she got some water, then tea and toast all brought to her, and her mum rang up Sheila to say that she wasn’t well and wouldn’t be in tomorrow.
You okay? I heard you were sick.
She read his text at ten p.m. and didn’t reply.
Just turned on her side and tried to get to sleep.
She truly didn’t know what to say.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘YOU look terrible.’ Ellie breezed into her bedroom on her way to a late shift. ‘Or are you just not wearing mascara?’
Her Little Secret Page 10
