‘Believe me, that guy could have qualified for the next Olympic games, judging by the speed he left the treatment room,’ the sister declared. ‘What were you treating him for?’
‘Back pain.’
Jane rolled her eyes heavenwards and groaned. ‘And you gave him some painkiller. Oh, Hannah, drug addicts always insist they’re suffering from either back pain or migraine because they know damn well there isn’t a lab test or X-ray in the world which can disprove it. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.’
Known to everybody but me, Hannah thought wretchedly. It had never occurred to her—not even for a second.
‘Look, forget it,’ Jane continued, seeing her expression. ‘We’ve all been conned at least once in our professional careers.’
Not Robert Cunningham, Hannah thought as she suddenly saw him and realised he must have heard every word. Robert Cunningham had probably never been conned even when he’d been a student doctor.
He would think her so stupid and naïve. She felt both as she miserably erased Paul Weston’s name from the white board. And Paul Weston probably hadn’t even been his real name. That would be as fictitious as the symptoms he’d given her.
‘Hannah—’
‘You don’t have to say anything, Robert,’ she said, turning to him quickly. ‘I know I’ve been a fool—’
‘The first drug addict I ever treated told me he had kidney stones,’ he interrupted. ‘He had every symptom right down to blood in his urine. I sent a sample off to the lab, but the poor bloke was in such pain I gave him morphine while he waited. When the lab report came back there was blood in his sample all right. Chicken blood.’
‘Chicken blood!’ she gasped. ‘But your patient—’
‘Disappeared, having got what he came for. It’s happened to all of us, Hannah, so don’t lose any sleep over it.’ He turned to go, then a slight smile curved his lips. ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve just had word back from Theatre. You were right about that little girl who came in. She was bleeding into her stomach, but she should be all right, thanks to you.’
Why on earth had she ever thought him aloof and arrogant? she wondered as he walked away. He was kind and nice, and when he smiled like that, and his dark grey eyes didn’t have those lurking shadows in them, he could be very nice indeed.
It was the single bright moment in a day that turned into an unremitting round of chest pains, broken limbs, and accidental poisonings.
‘Thank God we’ve only got another half-hour to go,’ she told Floella as she binned yet another pair of latex gloves. ‘I’m absolutely shattered.’
‘Snap,’ the staff nurse said laughing. ‘And I’m afraid it looks like we’ve got another big one. Thirty-six-year-old male, very bad gash on his right hand, according to Reception.’
To Hannah’s relief, however, the wound looked considerably worse than it actually was.
‘It only needs a few stitches,’ she told the plump, florid-faced, middle-aged man after she’d examined him. ‘I’ll get Staff Nurse Lazear to clean it for you, then I’ll insert some sutures.’
‘No.’
‘You won’t feel a thing, honestly,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I’ll give you something to deaden the pain—’
‘I’m not bothered about the pain,’ he interrupted with irritation. ‘I just don’t want that black touching me.’
Hannah paused in the middle of filling her syringe and turned slowly to face him. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That black. I don’t want her touching me. I want somebody else.’
‘Well, it may surprise you to learn that this is not a supermarket where you can pick and choose,’ Hannah said tightly. ‘Staff Nurse Lazear is one of our most experienced nurses—’
‘I don’t care how experienced she is,’ the man snapped. ‘I want somebody else.’
‘And perhaps you’d prefer to bleed to death!’ Hannah flared.
The man levered his not inconsiderable bulk upright and Floella tugged quickly at Hannah’s sleeve. ‘Look, I really don’t mind asking Jane to help you—’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Hannah exclaimed. ‘He’ll have his hand cleaned by you, or he can leave right now!’
‘You can’t do that,’ the man protested. ‘You doctors have taken a…a hypocrite’s oath to help people.’
‘Our Hippocratic oath requires we help members of the human race, sir,’ Hannah threw back at him. ‘And right now I don’t think you come even close to qualifying!’
The man’s florid face reddened alarmingly. ‘Why, you stuck-up little bitch! I’ll teach you—’
‘OK, what’s going on in here?’ Robert demanded, throwing open the cubicle curtains, his eyes cold, his face taut.
‘This…this gentleman—and, believe me, I’m using the word extremely loosely,’ Hannah replied icily, ‘seems to have a problem with our nursing staff.’
‘I don’t have any problem,’ the man exclaimed. ‘I just don’t want any black treating me.’
Robert stared at him silently for a second, then stepped out into the treatment room and beckoned to Elliot. ‘Could you take over in here for Dr Blake, please, Dr Mathieson?’
‘Now, just a minute,’ Hannah protested as the SHO nodded. ‘This is my patient—’
‘Not any more, he’s not,’ Robert declared, gripping her so firmly by the elbow that, short of kicking his shins, there was nothing she could do but accompany him out of the cubicle and down the treatment room.
Which didn’t mean she had to like it, and when he released her she turned on him angrily. ‘You had no right to do that!’
‘I’m the special registrar—I can do whatever I like,’ he said calmly. ‘Now, why don’t we go to the staffroom, have a nice cup of tea—’
‘I don’t want a cup of tea!’ she stormed. ‘I want to know why you pulled me out of there. Why you let that jerk get away with what he said!’
‘I did not let him get away with it.’
‘You sent in Elliot—’
‘And did I ask Flo to leave?’ he demanded. ‘Did I?’
‘No, but—’
‘Hannah, that man was going to hit you, and the only way to defuse the situation was to send in somebody with a much cooler head.’
She bit her lip. Robert was right. She’d lost her temper, and she shouldn’t have.
‘OK, I admit I handled the situation badly,’ she muttered, ‘but I don’t need protecting. I can take care of myself.’
Dear God, he thought, if she believed that, then it wasn’t a babysitter she needed but a bodyguard. ‘Hannah, London isn’t Edinburgh—’
‘And Edinburgh isn’t some quaint Highland village where we all leave our front doors open and never lock our cars,’ she exploded. ‘We have Aids, a huge drugs problem—’
‘Which didn’t help you when you met a real drug addict, did it?” he retorted, then sighed when she coloured. ‘Look, as you clearly have a very volatile temper, I think it might be better if I restrict you to treating female patients for a while until you learn how to control it.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘My decision, Hannah,’ he declared. ‘And it’s non-negotiable,’ he added in a tone that brooked no opposition.
She opened her mouth, then clenched her teeth together until they hurt. She’d been right the first time. He wasn’t nice. He was arrogant, and obnoxious, and stupid, but much as she longed to say so she knew she couldn’t.
‘Very well, sir,’ she said instead. ‘May I go now?’
‘Hannah—’
‘I’ve still got five minutes of my shift left, and with any luck I might be able to find some frail little old lady or a five-year-old child, you think I can safely treat!’
‘Hannah, wait—’
But she didn’t wait. She simply strode past him, her cheeks red, her back ramrod stiff with anger, leaving him gazing impotently after her.
‘Everything OK now, boss?’ Elliot asked as he emerged from cubicle 2, and Fl
oella escorted Hannah’s clearly very chastened patient back to the waiting room.
‘OK?’ Robert repeated. ‘Elliot, that damn girl is going to get herself killed!’
‘Yeah, she’s feisty enough.’ The SHO grinned.
‘Feisty? Of all the knuckle-headed, irresponsible—’
‘And you’re always Mr Calm, are you?’ Elliot observed, but Robert didn’t smile back.
‘She says she can take care of herself,’ he fumed, as though the SHO hadn’t spoken. ‘She says she doesn’t need protecting!’
Elliot’s blue eyes became suddenly thoughtful. ‘Ah.’
‘Standing up to a bully like that—good God, Elliot, he must have outweighed her by at least fifty kilos!’
‘Stupid.’ Elliot nodded. ‘Definitely stupid.’
Robert thrust his fingers through his black hair in exasperation. ‘What am I going to do with her, Elliot? When I think of what could have happened, what undoubtedly will happen…’
The SHO’s mouth turned up at the corners. ‘Yeah, she is kinda cute, isn’t she?’
‘Cute?’ Robert spluttered. ‘Cute?’
Desperately he tried to think of something swingeing, sarcastic, to retort but failed miserably—and to his acute irritation was reduced to walking away in disgust, much to Elliot’s obvious amusement.
‘What’s so funny, Elliot?’ Jane asked as she came out of the office and saw him laughing.
‘Nothing yet, Janey. But in a couple of months’ time, maybe less…’ His blue eyes sparkled. ‘I think life around here could get really interesting!’
CHAPTER THREE
‘I HATE afternoon shifts,’ Floella grumbled. ‘Starting at three, finishing at eleven. By the time I get home my husband and kids are in bed, and I’m too exhausted to do anything.’
‘I hate nights,’ Hannah observed, following her and Jane across the street towards the entrance to St Stephen’s. ‘Trying to sleep during the day, all the drunks to look forward to at night—’
‘Yes, but afternoon’s—’
‘Hey, will you two lighten up?’ Jane protested. ‘It’s a beautiful September afternoon. There’s not a cloud in the sky…’
‘And not a window in A and E for us to admire it from,’ Floella pointed out. ‘I want to win the lottery and never have to work again. I want to travel the world and meet people who wouldn’t recognise a stomach pump if they fell over one, far less know how to use it.’
And I want Robert Cunningham to get off my back, Hannah thought irritably as they walked through the treatment-room doors and she saw him deep in conversation with Elliot.
Ever since the SHO had quite rightly pointed out that the department couldn’t function properly if they restricted her to treating female patients, Robert had been like a bear with a sore head. Nit-picking, carping, hovering about her if she got anywhere near a male casualty, and it was driving her slowly and completely mad.
So talk to him, her mind urged. Tell him you’re not an idiot, that you know what you’re doing, and you won’t take unnecessary risks.
Yeah, right, she thought ruefully as she hung up her jacket and turned to see Robert watching her, a deep frown pleating his forehead. Frankly, cutting your own throat would be an easier and far less painful way of solving your current problems.
‘You know, once—just once—I’d like to come to work and find the waiting room completely empty,’ Floella grumbled, glancing through the stack of notes which had come through from Reception.
‘Not a hope, I’m afraid,’ Jane sighed. ‘Any priority?’
‘The fourteen-year-old in cubicle 3, I’d say,’ the staff nurse observed. ‘Complaining of shortness of breath. History of asthma, according to his mother, and none of his usual medications seem to be working.’
They weren’t. The teenager was gasping and gulping for air, and his fingers and lips were blue, a clear sign of cyanosis.
‘How long has he been like this?’ Hannah asked the boy’s mother after she’d sounded his chest.
‘About an hour,’ the woman replied, panic plain in her eyes. ‘I phoned our doctor and when I told him how drowsy he was, not seeming to know where he was—’
‘Pulse 130 over 65,’ Floella murmured.
Hannah turned to the teenager’s mother with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. ‘Wouldn’t you be a lot more comfortable in one of our private waiting rooms? There’s tea, coffee—’
‘I want to stay with my son.’
‘I know you do,’ Hannah said soothingly, beckoning to their student nurse, Kelly Ross. ‘But there’s really nothing you can do here, and I promise we’ll let you know what the situation is as soon as we can.’
The boy’s mother reluctantly allowed the student nurse to lead her away.
The drowsiness and disorientation she’d noticed in her son, coupled with his rapid pulse rate, meant that too much carbon dioxide was building up in the boy’s blood. They needed to take a pulse ox. to determine how much oxygen was left in his blood, and though the procedure wasn’t a frightening one—it simply involved slipping a small plastic clip onto his finger containing an electrode which could read the oxygen content directly through his skin—the results would determine just how ill he was.
And with a pulse ox. of 82 he was very ill indeed.
Swiftly Hannah reached for an endotracheal tube to ease the teenager’s laboured breathing. Once—oh, it seemed like a lifetime ago now—she would have approached this particular procedure with trepidation, but not any more. Now it was all too unfortunately commonplace.
‘You’ll be wanting a chest X-ray, CBC and a coag. panel?’ Floella said, once the tube was in place and she’d set up an IV line and attached cardiac electrodes to the boy’s chest to monitor his heartbeat.
Hannah nodded. The chest X-ray would reveal if there was any damage to the boy’s lungs. The CBC would tell them how many red and white blood cells there were in his blood, and the coag. panel would test his body’s ability to clot.
‘Everything OK in here?’
Hannah gazed heavenwards with disbelief. Good grief, didn’t Robert Cunningham trust her to treat even teenage boys now?
‘Everything’s fine, thank you,’ she replied curtly.
‘BP 160 over 95, pulse 140,’ Floella announced.
Well, perhaps not exactly fine, Hannah amended mentally. The teenager’s heart was working much too fast, trying to compensate for the low level of oxygen in his blood, and they had to stabilise him quickly.
‘OK, Flo, I want epi. and solumedrol intravenously, and albuterol through the ET tube,’ she declared.
The staff nurse nodded. With luck the epinephrine—the adrenaline—would regulate the boy’s blood pressure and pulse, while the solumedrol and albuterol should ease his breathing.
‘I presume you’ve taken samples for a CBC and a coag. panel?’ Robert observed.
‘You presume correctly,’ Hannah replied, trying—and failing—to keep the edge out of her voice as Jerry Clark appeared with his X-ray equipment. ‘Chest X-rays only, please, Jerry.’
‘Anything for you, Hannah, love,’ he replied, then added with a knowing leer, ‘and I do mean anything.’
Of course he did, the little creep, but she managed to smile back. Slapping the smirk off his face would have been infinitely more preferable, but she’d very quickly learned that if you were a junior female doctor at St Stephen’s, and wanted your X-rays processed fast, you had to put up with Jerry’s clumsy attempts at flirtation.
Robert obviously didn’t agree with her. In fact, judging by his icy expression, Jerry was lucky not to be sailing out of the cubicle by the seat of his pants.
Which would have suited Hannah just fine until she noticed Robert was throwing her a glance of equally arctic proportions. Did he think she actually liked toadying to an odious little creep like Jerry? She wouldn’t have touched the X-ray technician with a bargepole, but as she was neither a male doctor nor a special registrar she couldn’t afford to be antagonisti
c.
‘His BP and pulse are coming down,’ Floella murmured. ‘I think he’s stabilising, Hannah.’
The teenager was. His fingers and lips weren’t nearly so blue, and his breathing was a lot less laboured.
‘Are the coag. panel and CBC results back yet, Flo?’ she asked.
The staff nurse handed them over to her. There was nothing in them to suggest anything other than a very severe asthma attack, neither did the teenager’s X-rays show any sign of lung damage, but the quicker he was in Intensive Care the happier Hannah would be.
‘That must be our fourth asthma case in the last three days,’ Jane commented as Floella and one of the porters wheeled the teenager out of the treatment room on his way to IC.
Hannah nodded. ‘I was reading an article the other day that said asthma was on the increase because so many of our houses are centrally heated. That, coupled with wall-to-wall carpeting—’
‘And when the two of you have quite finished discussing interior design you might remember that we have a full waiting room of patients out there!’
Hannah’s jaw dropped as Robert strode past them, his face tight and angry. She and Jane had taken a five-second breather. Five miserable, measly seconds to discuss what might cause asthma. There had been no need for him to be so rude, no need at all.
‘I’d keep out of Robert’s way for the rest of the afternoon, if I were you,’ Jane murmured, clearly reading her thoughts. ‘And if you need any help, ask Elliot.’
‘Too damn right I will,’ Hannah said tartly. ‘Honestly, Jane, that man—’
‘Hannah, his wife was knocked down and killed exactly a year ago tonight.’
‘Oh, God, no,’ Hannah gasped, turning quickly in time to see Robert disappearing into cubicle 8. ‘No wonder he’s being so difficult. Is there nothing we can do—nothing we can say—that would help?’
‘Just keep out of his way,’ Jane declared. ‘Believe me, he won’t thank you for anything else.’
Perhaps not, Hannah thought as their shift sped by. She followed Jane’s suggestion, consulting Elliot if she needed any advice, closing her ears to the sound of Robert’s snapped, caustic orders, but her heart went out to him every time she saw him.
A Wife for Dr. Cunningham Page 4
