'Less gloopy. Anyway, I like chocolate. Is there a law against it?'
She held up her hands in surrender. 'Absolutely not.
Each to his own. Come on, we can't hang about here all day, I've got lots to do.'
'I expect your boss is a real slave-driver,' he said with a grin. 'We'd better not upset him.'
They went into the coffee-lounge and sat down on a low, comfy sofa in the corner. He didn't seem to be in the least bit worried about being seen with her, and when she dropped a sticky dollop of Danish down her chin, he didn't have the slightest hesitation in wiping it off with her napkin in a frankly proprietorial gesture that left her slightly flustered.
'I told you it was too gloopy,' he said with a smile, and she forgot about everybody else in the room. It was as if the sun had come out, and suddenly she didn't care what anybody else thought of them. It was nobody's business but their own, and if he wasn't worried, she wasn't.
Predictably her bleeper distracted her, and she had to leave him and go to A and E. As she went down the corridor Mike Taylor, one of the SHOs, fell into step beside her.
'That looked cosy,' he said casually. 'Trying to sleep your way to the top?'
She stopped in her tracks and glared at him. 'How dare you make such a disgusting suggestion?' she snapped.
He threw up his hands in surrender. 'Don't shout at me, lady. If I looked like you, I'd probably try it.'
'You are vile,' she muttered, turning away and hurrying towards A and E. She heard footsteps following her, and spun round, saying, 'Leave me alone!' only to find Max standing there, looking startled.
'Annie?' he said questioningly, and she closed her eyes and sighed.
'Sorry. I thought it was someone else.'
'Mike. I saw you talking to him—you didn't look impressed. That's why I followed you. What did he say?'
'He accused me of sleeping my way to the top,' she snapped, shouldering a door out of the way.
'I wish,' Max muttered, catching the door as it swung back in his face. 'I take it you put him straight?'
'I tried.' She stopped and pulled out her ponytail band, scraped her hair back and replaced the band almost viciously. 'Look, I'm going to be late. I have to go. Just—maybe it would be a good idea if we weren't seen together like that in the hospital.'
'Like what? Friends?'
She shrugged. 'Whatever. I have to go. Thanks for the coffee.'
He winked at her, and she turned and almost ran the last few steps to A and E. Maybe if she buried herself in work she'd forget about Mike and his vile suggestion...
Max went up to his office and asked the switchboard to page Mike Taylor. Moments later the phone rang.
'Yes, sir?'
'I'm in my office. Get up here now.'
'I'm a bit busy—'
'Tough. If it isn't life or death, be here. That's an order.' He banged the phone back on the hook and glared at it. How dare he insult Annie like that?
In the two minutes it took Mike to get to his office, Max had calmed down. Not much, just enough that he didn't put his fist straight down Mike's throat as he walked through the door.
The man strolled in and hitched up a chair, and Max gave him a chilling look. 'Did I invite you to sit down?'
Mike stood up again, suddenly seeming to notice just how angry Max was. He paled a little. 'What can I do for you, sir?' he said.
'You can apologise to Dr Shaw, for one,' he said, his voice clipped. 'How dare you say anything like that to her? You were totally out of order.'
'I'm sorry.'
'I should damn well hope so, but you can tell her that yourself. Not that it's any of your blasted business, but we happen to be old friends, and if we want to have coffee together, pardon me for pointing it out but I don't believe we need your permission. The other thing you can do for me is keep firmly out of my way and my registrar's way, and when you have to speak to either of us, we'll have the professional respect and courtesy we're entitled to.'
He turned away. 'That's all. And watch it. Anything else like this and you'll be finding yourself another job.'
The door closed with a muted click, and he leant his head against the window and stared down into the car park below. Falling out with his SHO on his fourth day in the hospital was hardly to be recommended, but he'd never liked the man from the moment he'd met him.
He was cocky and opinionated, and destined one day to make one of those arrogant consultants that put the patients' backs up and alienated the general public. Well, not if Max had anything to say about it. He'd have to prove himself first before he'd give him a reference worth having, and just at the moment that was going to be an uphill struggle!
Oh, hell, what did it matter? He was a junior doctor, and with any luck not so far gone that Max slicing him down to size wouldn't make a lasting impression. If it didn't work—well, frankly Max would happily have another go.
He smacked a fist into his open palm and ground his teeth, then dropped into his chair and swivelled it, propping his feet on the desk. Maybe Annie was right and they shouldn't see so much of each other in public. He didn't care if people talked about him, but he cared for Annie, and if they were saying things like that—
His bleeper squawked, and he picked up the phone and called the switchboard.
'Oh, Mr Williamson, you're wanted on the ward. Dr Shaw would like to see you.'
'Thanks.'
He hung up, shrugged into his white coat, picked up his bleeper and headed for the lift.
Annie was flummoxed. A patient who had come in for elective surgery on her gall bladder was complaining of constant excruciating pain in her abdomen, which didn't fit with her gallstones.
The pain was just wrong somehow, too severe and in the wrong place, and her abdomen was rigid. It looked for all the world like peritonitis, but she couldn't imagine why.
She was hugely relieved to see Max striding down the ward towards her, his long legs eating up the ground.
'What's the problem?' he said, quickly scanning the woman with his eyes.
'Abdominal pain of sudden onset, rigid abdomen— she's in for cholecystectomy tomorrow.'
He frowned, peeled back the bedclothes and very, very gently touched her abdomen.
The woman let out a scream of pain, and he straightened, his lips pursed.
'OK, let's get some painkiller into her. Has she had anything yet?'
Annie shook her head. 'I wanted to get you first. If you'd been held up, I would have given her something, but it seems an odd pain for gallstones.'
'It's nothing to do with gallstones. I'll lay odds she's got a perforation somewhere from taking antiinflammatories for the pain. Let's get her comfortable and then she needs a trip to Theatre because, whatever's wrong, it's urgent and surgical.'
He wrote her up for diamorphine, injected it slowly into her arm and watched as she gradually relaxed a fraction and began to cry silent tears of relief.
'Don't worry, Mrs Bradley, we'll sort you out,' he reassured her. He turned to Annie. 'Do we have next of kin we can contact?'
'Yes—Damien's doing it. He thought she might not be up to signing a consent form and he suspected you'd want to operate.'
He nodded. 'Right, let's get her up to Theatre. I'm not going to worry about consent forms, we've got one already for the op tomorrow and we need to move fast. She's getting shocky. I want a line in and normal saline, please, and cross-match for transfusion if necessary.'
He rattled off a whole list of other tests that needed doing, and Damien jotted them down, then inserted the giving set and withdrew enough blood for the tests before setting up the saline drip.
'Right, we'll go and scrub, if you could send her up, Damien, please?'
The charge nurse nodded, and Max and Annie headed for the door.
'I think you can do this one,' he said to her as they went out into the corridor. 'Should be nice and obvious what it is.'
'I hope so,' Annie muttered, wondering what she knew about perforations.
>
'Don't worry,' he said, throwing her a grin. 'I'll be there. I won't let you mess it up or forget anything.'
He was right. It was nice and obvious, a huge perforation in the patient's stomach, and because Max was there, watching, she felt she could relax and do what she thought was appropriate.
Occasionally he made a comment, such as 'Take a little more—that's better' or 'Try a different angle', but most of the time he just held the retractors and watched in silence. And when she'd finished, he grinned at her, his eyes crinkling over the mask, and said, 'Well done.' She felt like a million dollars.
She'd done the gall bladder as well—there was no point in putting the woman through two operations, and the gall bladder had been pretty critical on its own—so by the time she'd finished Annie felt quietly pleased with herself.
'I'm not convinced you needed me at all for that,' Max said with a smile as they left the theatre.
'Oh, I don't know. You were quite useful, holding the retractors, and you're very decorative,' she replied with a twinkle in her eye, and he chuckled.
'Such a lack of respect— Oh, talking of which, have you seen Mike Taylor yet?'
She felt her smile fade. 'No—why?'
'Just curious.'
She frowned at him. 'Have you said something?'
'Just a quiet word in his ear.'
Somehow she didn't believe that. She couldn't imagine it would have been 'just' anything, although it might have been quiet. Deathly quiet, she imagined. Max wasn't the sort to shout at colleagues or underlings. Oh, dear. She wondered what Mike would say when he saw her next, and decided she didn't really care. So long as Max wasn't affected by it, she could live with the rumours. She knew the truth—and it was infinitely worse than Mike had suggested.
Max left the hospital shortly after Mrs Bradley came back down from Recovery, and when Annie got home it was to find a note for her that had been pushed through the letterbox.
'Are you busy? Still don't know your phone number, but I'm going to look at a house at seven. Fancy coming? Ring me.'
He'd written down his phone number, and she looked at her watch and bit her lip. Seven was a little early. She wanted to bath Alice and put her to bed, and just recently she'd been a little unsettled.
She rang Max on the cordless phone while Alice was sitting up splashing in the bath, and nearly dropped the phone in the water.
'I can't talk, I'm bathing the baby. I just wanted to say I might come—what time are you leaving?'
'Seven. The appointment's not till half past, but I'm not sure of the way. Why, what's the problem? I can probably change the time.'
'No, don't worry,' she said. 'I just don't want to leave before Alice is asleep. She's been restless and unsettled recently, and I think she's teething. And she's about to fall over. I'll ring you,' she said hurriedly, and dropped the phone to the floor just in time to catch Alice as she toppled backwards with a giggle.
'You're a monster,' she told her little daughter, and scooped her out of the bath, snuggling her up in the fluffy towel and cuddling her close. She was damp and sweet-smelling, and Annie ached with the continual pain of parting from her daily. She wanted to be with her, to see her take her first step, say her first word, do her first wee on the potty.
Swallowing hard, she dashed away the tears against her shoulders and hugged Alice. Predictably her daughter cried out and wriggled to be free, and Annie patted her dry and dressed her in her nightclothes.
She was settled in her cot by five to seven, but Annie hadn't changed or eaten or even so much as run a brush through her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror in despair.
Her top was soaked, she was covered in baby powder and her hair needed washing—and the doorbell was ringing. Please, she prayed, don't let it be Max. But, of course, it was.
Annie stuck her head out of the flat door and pulled a face at him. 'I'm a mess. I can't possibly go like this, and I don't want to make you late.'
He walked calmly down the hall, scanned her spattered form with laughing eyes and suppressed a smile. 'Bathtime?' he murmured, and she rolled her eyes.
'You noticed.'
'Drag on some jeans and a clean T-shirt or something. It's only the estate agent, it's an executor's sale.'
'I haven't even eaten.'
'Nor have I. We'll get something afterwards.'
She gave up, because he clearly wasn't going to, and anyway she wanted to see the house, because at some point she knew Alice would end up spending time with him in his home, and if for no other reason, she wanted to see it.
And it's nothing to do with seeing if you'd like to live in it yourself, of course, she mocked herself silently as she dressed. Ever the optimist.
She stuffed her feet into her comfy old loafers, grabbed her bag, stuck her head round Alice's door and checked that she'd gone off and then ran.
Her mother cut off her list of instructions.
'I can deal with Alice. I don't need to ring your mobile. You go and have a good time.'
'We're just looking at a house,' she protested, but her mother smiled one of those smiles and ushered them out.
Oh, hell. Drat her parents, they were both besotted with Max.
His car was outside, a three-year-old Audi estate, nothing flashy but very respectable. It was also quite quick, she discovered moments later as he flipped out onto the main road and headed north-east.
'So what are we going to look at?' she asked.
'A 1930s house on the edge of town. It's been lived in by the same owner from new, and according to the agent it probably hasn't been decorated since it was built. It needs rewiring, plumbing, new bathroom and heating, kitchen—you name it—but it's in half an acre, it's got four bedrooms and I can afford it, which I'd never do if it was already done up.'
It sounded lovely, but Annie was good at painting mental pictures and the reality seldom lived up to them.
He passed her a piece of paper with the address on it, and a map with a red splodge marking the house's approximate whereabouts. 'Can you get us there?'
'Easy,' she said, finding one of the elements of her mental picture had been right, at least. She'd chosen the right area. It only took them ten minutes to get there, so they were in plenty of time even though she'd stopped to change and tidy herself up.
They cruised slowly down the road, looking for the elusive numbers that were tucked away on gateposts hidden by laurel hedges, or on doors, or beside doors—it was as if everyone wanted their address to be a secret, she thought.
'No wonder the emergency services complain so bitterly about finding addresses,' Max said, and then suddenly they saw it.
Big and solid and built of red brick, it stood at a slight angle to the road, with an arched entrance to the open porch in the centre, a large bay window to one side, a flat window to the other. It was slightly L-shaped at the front, with an interesting roof-line, and although there was only a small wooden garage at one side there was room for a proper brick-built double garage in its place.
Max pulled up on the road outside and they got out, walking slowly up the overgrown drive.
'The back garden should be west facing,' Annie said, remembering the map, and she looked up to see the position of the sun. It was behind the house, and would now be flooding the garden with evening light and showing it in all its tangled glory.
Max nodded thoughtfully. 'If it's as good as the front garden, it's going to take a bit of work to rescue it. It can't have been touched for years, but there are some roses over there sticking up out of the jungle with beautiful blooms on them, and there are all sorts of other things. I don't know what they are.'
Annie looked and reeled off a list. 'Day-lilies, perennial geraniums, dianthus, lavender—and given a little care and attention, it'll be beautiful. That's a hydrangea,' she said, pointing to a huge plant in the middle of the overgrown drive, smothered in heavy mops of pink, 'and I know the lawn around the edges is knee-high and unkempt, but it's easy to imagine it tidied up. Oh
, Max, it's going to be gorgeous!'
Max wished he could see it through her eyes. She was sparkling with enthusiasm, and as he knew next to nothing about gardening, he would have to believe her when she said it could be rescued.
'It is lovely,' he said slowly. 'The house looks a good size, too, and the roof looks OK. No obvious cracks in the walls.'
He scanned the window-frames, and although some of them were peeling, the wood seemed solid enough. He poked one with his car keys, and it was firm. Good. With everything else to do, he really didn't need to replace all the windows as well.
He heard a car pull up behind him, and turned to see the estate agent approaching, one hand clutching a few sheets of paper, the other one outstretched towards him.
'Mr Williamson!' the man said. 'I'm from the agents. You have a set of details?'
'No, I don't. I only saw the property in the paper this afternoon.'
'Take these, then, it'll help you remember afterwards.' He handed the papers over, shook hands with Annie and said, 'Nice to meet you, Mrs Williamson.'
Max didn't bother to correct him. He was too busy thinking it actually sounded rather good, and anyway, it was irrelevant.
The agent unlocked the door and pushed it open, sweeping all the junk mail out of the way with his foot. 'It's a while since we came here—we had a buyer but he dropped out arid so it's back on the market again. Why don't I leave you to have a look round on your own? I'll be around if you need me.'
Max nodded and opening the details he went first into the large room with the bay window. It was obviously meant to be the dining-room, and overlooked the front garden. He could imagine that it would be a lovely place for a lazy breakfast at the weekend, and it had perfect proportions.
On the other side of the hall beside a tiny cloakroom was a room that would make an ideal study, and behind it was a big sitting room facing down the tangled garden. Beside the sitting room was the kitchen, and beyond it a whole collection of odd little rooms and cubby holes that could easily be opened up to make a lovely big kitchen-breakfast room.
He felt excitement building inside him and turned to Annie.
'What do you think?' he asked.
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