Kitabı oku: «The Spice of Life», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

THERE was a strange car in the consultant’s slot the following day.

Kathleen found herself heaving a sigh of relief. If he had come by car, then she wouldn’t have to endure the sight of him in all that black leather gear looking like something from Star Wars. All he needed was a sweeping black cloak …

She hauled herself back to reality. Damn the man. He was persecuting her, and he didn’t even know it! She hadn’t been able to sleep at all the night before for thinking of him, and some of her thoughts had been unprintable.

But then, yesterday had been a funny old day, clouded as it was by the memory of Steve Blower’s traumatic and tragic death and the image of Jack comforting his parents. It seemed inconceivable that the man who had teased her so unforgivably in the morning had been so filled with compassionate understanding later in the same day. She had had him pegged as an emotional lightweight, probably good at his job in a technical sense but untroubled by messy feelings.

Instead, he had proved himself to be capable of great human emotion. Odd, that. Jim had been good with relatives, but Jack had some extra dimension to add to it.

She had pondered on it all night—that and the image of his laughing eyes and the way his full, firm lips tipped so readily into that wickedly sexy smile.

Just a flirt, she chastised herself, and probably a married flirt for all that. After all, he must be pushing forty at the very least to be a consultant in A and E, although he didn’t look it by any stretch of the imagination.

Well, only the once, when Steven Blowers had died and he had looked up at the parents, and then a curious bleakness had stolen over his face and drained the life away. Then he had looked older.

With a sigh, she got out of the car and locked it, walking deliberately by his car to peer curiously inside.

It was a very ordinary car, a middle of the range Ford in deep blue metallic with a roof-rack on it and the back full of—ropes? How odd.

She made her way into the department, greeting all the staff with a smile and a friendly word. Amy Winship was on earlies, and flashed her a grin.

‘Morning, Sister.’

‘Good morning, Amy. Is Mr Lawrence in his office?’

‘No, he’s gone to get some breakfast. He arrived at four, apparently. There was a pile-up—they called him in.’

She nodded. Yes, he would certainly earn his keep in this job, she thought drily.

She went into her office and took the report from the night sister, then swung cheerfully into her routine.

She was busy taking off a back-slab and replastering a fracture when Jack appeared, sticking his head round the door and grinning.

‘Morning, Irish.’

She shot him a black look and squeezed the water out of a bandage viciously. ‘Good morning, sir!’ she said pointedly.

His grin widened. ‘Having fun?’

‘Absolutely. Want to help?’

He shook his head. ‘You’re managing just fine, I’d only get in your way. I’ll watch, though.’

And he did, propping himself up against the wall and chatting lightheartedly to the patient while she wound the plaster bandage round the broken wrist.

‘There,’ she said with a smile when she had finished. ‘We’ll let that set for a little while, then X-ray it again to check that it’s nicely lined up. OK?’

The patient, a woman in her forties, nodded. ‘Thank you both. It feels much better already than it did yesterday.’

Kathleen forced a smile, showed the lady to the waiting area outside the X-ray room and went back to clear up her mess.

‘Thank you both, indeed!’ she muttered.

‘I did talk to her to set her at her ease,’ he justified mildly.

Kath snorted. ‘She was already at her ease, sir, and while we’re on the subject of putting people at their ease, my name is Sister Hennessy!’

He grinned, totally unabashed. ‘I’ll try and remember that, Irish.’

She wondered if she would lose her job if she tossed a sodden plaster bandage right at his grinning mouth.

Probably, but by God, it would be worth it!

A brow twitched. ‘I wouldn’t,’ he warned softly.

She lost the battle and laughed. ‘Now, would I?’

‘Quite likely!’

She met his eyes, searching for any lingering trace of the bleakness she had seen the night before, but there was none, only undiluted wickedness flirting with her senses.

Well, he was wasting his time because as far as he was concerned she had no senses left!

She wiped the sink down viciously. ‘Can I do anything for you?’

He chuckled. ‘Now that’s a thought to play with!’ he said softly.

‘Damn it, Jack Lawrence—’

She turned, the soggy, dripping plaster bandage in her hand, but he was gone, only the last swoosh of the swing door left to show he had ever been there.

She sighed and shook her head. Aggravating man. She mustn’t let him take the rise out of her like that. He just seemed to find it so infuriatingly easy!

She caught up with him later in the staff-room, cracking jokes about second-rate coffee.

‘So,’ she said, ‘how did you get on with that young man’s friend last night?’

His face lost its sparkle. ‘Ah, Danny. Well, he was very distressed, as you can imagine. They’d been lovers for some time, apparently. A few months ago they had a row, and Steve stormed off and went nightclubbing in London for the weekend. He caught HIV from a casual encounter, didn’t realise and they patched up the row. The rest, as they say, is history.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘How sad—what a dreadful waste.’

‘One of the dangers of casual, unprotected sex. If you’re going to live that life, you have to learn to do so responsibly.

‘You don’t have to engage in casual relationships,’ she replied, more sharply than she had intended.

He arched a brow. Tut, tut, Sister Hennessy. Your Catholic upbringing is showing.’

‘And what if it is?’ she retorted, her chin lifting.

He met her eyes reprovingly. ‘We’re here to help, not to pass judgement. It’s no business of ours to referee lifestyles.’

‘But that’s nonsense! I wouldn’t hesitate to tell an overweight, unfit man that he was putting his health at risk. Why should I be allowed to give him dietary advice and not be able to advise a young person not to engage in indiscriminate sexual activity?’

He grinned. ‘You don’t tell an overweight man not to eat, you tell him what he can eat safely. Ergo, when you give advice on sexual behaviour, you don’t say, “You mustn’t”, you say, “Do it like this”—likewise junkies. You have to give them clean needles and good habits, not moral outrage and prohibition.’

‘Who in the hell is talking about moral outrage?’ she demanded, her voice rising.

He just grinned wider, bent forwards and dropped a kiss on her startled lips.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured absently, and walked away, leaving her riveted to the spot, astonished.

‘Well, well, well—I do believe our dear Sister Hennessy is speechless!’

She glared at Ben Bradshaw, dragged some air into her deprived lungs and marched swiftly down the corridor into her office, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Then she let out the breath and sagged against the desk. Dazed, she lifted her fingers and rested them against her lips. They felt—tinglingly alive, soft and warm and swollen, aching for—for what? For more?

With a whimper of disgust and confusion, she sank into her chair and stared absently at the mound of paperwork. Damn him. Why did he have to do that? As if he’d known she’d spent all night wondering about the feel of his lips on hers, about how it would be if he kissed her.

She’d never expected rockets to go off and stars to shoot in all directions—leastways, not from just a casual brush of flesh against flesh …

She suppressed a shiver. Damn him. There had been nothing casual about that kiss. Brief, yes, and outwardly innocent, but my God, packed with promise!

Well, it wasn’t about to happen again!

She got to her feet, checked her cap in the little mirror on the wall and marched out into her department.

She rapped on his door, swung it open and stood in the doorway, not trusting either of them if it was shut.

He raised his eyes from the paperwork on his desk and leant back in the chair, a lazy grin on his face.

‘I suppose you want an apology?’ he said unrepentantly.

‘Don’t you ever—ever!—pull a stunt like that again!’

The grin widened. ‘Sorry—didn’t you enjoy it? Perhaps next time——’

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ she returned, her voice torn between a growl and a whimper. ‘There will be no next time!’

‘Pity. I was rather looking forward to it.’

She glared at him. ‘You’re incorrigible.’

He shrugged, a laughing, arrogant, almost Gallic shrug. You would have thought it was a compliment, she thought crossly.

‘I try to be.’

‘Well, don’t. This is my department, and I won’t have you lolling around here undermining my authority——’

‘My dear girl, nothing I could do could possibly undermine your authority,’ he drawled lazily. ‘The entire department cowers at the sound of your voice. I should have thought a little evidence of human frailty would merely enhance your reputation—and the association would do mine a power of good!’

She snorted. ‘Your reputation would be greatly enhanced if you took yourself seriously!’

Something changed in his face then, some fleeting spectre that drained the life from his eyes and left them cold and hard.

Then he smiled, a dangerous, cynical smile.

‘Life’s too short to take it seriously, Irish. You should learn that, before it’s too late.’

And with that he picked up his pen and returned to his paperwork, dismissing her.

She was in the staff lounge making herself a drink when he came in half an hour later.

‘Coffee?’ she asked, more as a reflex than anything. He shuddered and shook his head.

‘Think I’ll pass. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about yesterday. What’s hospital policy on HIV testing after an incident like yesterday?’

‘I don’t think we have a policy. It’s never been a problem before. If someone knows they’ve been contaminated by a needle or a knife, for instance, then I think the testing certainly is available.’

‘But not otherwise?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Why should it be necessary? I mean, I don’t think anyone took any risks, and we were all wearing gloves anyway because of the state he was in—I would be worried that it would make people panic unnecessarily. You know, rather like getting an adverse smear test, and before you know where you are you’ve convinced yourself you’ve got cancer when it was probably just a lousy smear and they didn’t get enough cells. Do you understand what I’m saying? I don’t think we should threaten people’s conception of their immortality unnecessarily, and I’m perfectly certain we’re all quite safe.’

He shrugged. ‘It was just an idea. Professionally, if I felt there was a risk I should want to know that I was clear so I was certain there was no danger of me passing anything on to a patient or a future partner. I mean, if you did contract it, wouldn’t you want to know?’

She met his eye determinedly. ‘Of course, if I felt there was a real risk, but I wouldn’t pass it on anyway. I’m extremely careful at work and I don’t have indiscriminate sexual relationships.’

He laughed softly, and it tickled up her spine. ‘Your rosary’s showing again, Irish. I didn’t say anything about indiscriminate sex. Take Ben, for example. He’s married. I gather his wife’s pregnant. Now how would he feel if he contracted the virus from a freak accident at work and gave it to his wife and child just because we had failed to test him?’

Kath stared at him, stupefied. ‘Maggie’s pregnant? When?’

He grinned lazily. ‘Well, I hardly liked to ask him that!’

She clicked her tongue irritably. ‘You know what I mean …’

‘Ask him—I’m sure it’s not a secret.’

‘I wonder why he hasn’t said anything?’ Kath mused.

‘I think they only knew this morning, and you’ve been so busy being cross——’

‘Huh! How would you like it if you were sexually harrassed?’

He grinned again. ‘Try me.’

She drew herself up and sniffed. ‘Don’t be absurd. Why would I want to do that?’

‘Because you’re curious? Because you’re secretly dying to press that delightful body up against me and find out how it feels?’

He was so close to the truth that she flushed and looked away. ‘Please,’ she muttered in a strangled voice. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’

His deep chuckle curled round her insides and squeezed. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll leave you in peace with your atrocious coffee.’

Her head came up. ‘Jack?’

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. ‘Hmm?’

‘About the testing—do you really think it’s necessary?’

‘In this case, no, but I think we should keep an open mind if anyone asks. I doubt if they will, but just keep your ears open.’

She nodded, and with a wink, he was gone, leaving her dealing with her curiosity about how his body would feel pressed against hers, and the slow recognition that the coffee was, indeed, atrocious.

‘Who is he, do we know?’

The ambulanceman shook his head. ‘Collapsed in the park. Nobody knows him, no ID. Passer-by saw him and reported him—thought he was drunk. He was unconscious when we got to him.’

‘Right, thank you, Sid.’

Kathleen bent over the unconscious patient and sniffed. No alcohol, but he was clammy and grey, and quite likely hypoglaecaemic. There was a pin-prick hole in the tip of his left thumb, and she nodded. Diabetic, gone into a coma from low blood sugar. She left the cubicle to find a blood test kit, and came back to find the new houseman, Joe Reynolds, ordering head X-rays and a neurologist’s opinion.

She rolled her eyes and wondered how to tackle it. Young doctors were usually only too willing to take advice, but every now and again you got one like this lad, who clearly was all at sea and didn’t know how to light the flares!

‘Not a bad idea,’ she said, ‘considering he’s probably banged his head when he passed out. Diabetics often damage themselves, don’t they?’

He looked faintly startled. ‘Diabetics? Does he have a Medic Alert bracelet?’

‘I have no idea, but he——’

‘Well, then, I think it would be safer to assume a neurological cause such as CVA, don’t you, Sister?’ he said loftily.

‘Certainly, Doctor, if you say so,’ she replied sweetly, containing the urge to crown him for his patronising ignorance. After all, how long would it take to do a blood test with a Haemastix strip? Thirty seconds? What he was planning would tie half the hospital up for the entire morning!

Jack was busy, dealing with a nasty fracture, so she went to the nursing station and picked up the phone. Tage Dr Marumba for me, could you?’ she asked the switchboard. Seconds later she was connected to the consultant physician.

‘Are you busy, Jesus? I wonder if I could offer you a cup of coffee in my department within the next couple of minutes?’

There was a deep chuckle from the other end. ‘My pleasure, Kathleen. Problems?’

‘You might say that.’

‘Be right down.’

‘Bless you.’

She put the receiver down and went back into the cubicle. ‘Should we take some bloods for chemistry, Dr Reynolds?’ she asked mildly.

‘Ah—good idea, Sister. Perhaps you’d like to do the honours?’

‘Certainly.’ She withdrew fifty millilitres of completely unnecessary blood from the patient’s arm, filled up the appropriate bottles and then put a blob on the treated strip and glanced at her watch.

As she finished she heard Dr Marumba’s deep, cultured rumble in the corridor.

She stuck her head round the curtain and winked. ‘Nearly done here, Dr Marumba. Could you give me a minute?’

‘Sure.’ The tall man elbowed his way past the curtain and peered at the patient. ‘Interesting—looks like hypoglycaemia, doesn’t it, Dr Reynolds?’

The SHO’s jaw dropped. ‘Ah—um—well, it’s certainly a possibility, sir.’

Jesus nodded. ‘Oh, yes, see the strip—blood sugar way down. Well spotted. I see Sister Hennessy’s done all the necessary tests for you. Well done. Glucagon?’

‘Ah—well, yes, I—’

‘Good, good. Well, I mustn’t hold you up. Perhaps I’ll come by for coffee another time, Sister. I can see you’re busy here with Dr Reynolds.’ He brushed past Kathleen, and the orthodontic miracle of his smile flashed against the rich ebony of his skin. His wink was wickedly conspiratorial.

‘I’m sorry about the coffee,’ she apologised, working hard on her straight face.

‘Forget it—it’s better upstairs, anyway.’

‘Not you, too!’ She turned back to Joe Reynolds and smiled innocently.

He returned the smile warily. ‘I guess I owe you an apology, Sister.’

She let her smile mellow. Poor boy, he had no idea his downfall had been engineered. ‘Think nothing of it,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been doing the job for years, don’t forget. Experience counts for a lot, Joe. OK, what next?’

He opened his mouth, shut it again and grinned sheepishly.

‘Glucagon?’

She waited.

‘Um …’

‘We’ll go through it together, shall we? Then he can go and rest in the day ward for a while.’

The relief on Joe’s face would have been comic if it hadn’t been so worrying. Yet another one she was going to have to watch like a hawk, she thought wearily. Between him and Amy Winship, they were well staffed with idiots at the moment.

Oh, well, it would give her two bodyguards if she didn’t ever let them out of her sight. That way she might have some protection against Jack Lawrence and his hyperactive lips!

It worked till Thursday, but then Amy was on days off and Joe had a cold. Inevitably it meant that she and Jack were in closer proximity, and it threatened to push her sanity over the brink.

Though why it should, lord only knows, she thought. What is it the man has that’s so darned appealing?

Charm, her alter ego told her. Lazy, sexy, masculine charm—bucketfuls of it, coupled with a certain vulnerability that showed every now and then. Unfortunately it was a potent combination, and there was no known cure.

By about two-thirty she had run out of ways of dodging him. They had a patient with multiple lacerations of the face and neck following a fall through a window, and he needed extensive suturing. Never having seen Jack suture, she wondered if she ought to call the fascio-maxillary surgeon over from the Norfolk and Norwich, or if she could, indeed, trust Jack to do a decent job. Their own fascio-max man was on holiday that week or the problem wouldn’t have arisen.

She decided there was only one way to deal with it, and that was directly.

She found him in his office.

‘How’s your suturing?’ she asked without preamble.

‘My suturing? Pretty good—why?’

‘We have a patient with multiple lacerations of the face and neck and our fascio-max is away—I was just wondering if you were good enough,’ she replied bluntly.

He smiled—which was just as well. He could have flipped, having his professional competence challenged like that.

‘I think she’ll be safe with me,’ he said mildly.

‘He.’

‘Even better. I’ll practise on the jaw-line—then if it isn’t good enough, he can always grow a beard to hide it.’

His voice was so bland she really wasn’t sure if he was joking, but having asked and received an apparently satisfactory reply, she decided she had no choice but to go with him.

‘He’s in Cubicle Four.’

Jack nodded. ‘I’ll have a look, but then I think we’ll move him into Ops if I think it’s justified. I’ll need a good work light.’

He went in to the patient, a man in his thirties, and smiled a hello.

‘I was enjoying that cup of tea,’ he said mournfully.

The man attempted a smile. ‘Sorry, Guv. Made a bit of a mess, haven’t I?’

‘Just a shade. Still, soon have you sorted out. I think we’ll move you into a little theatre we have down here for just this sort of thing, OK? I’ll get the nurses to move you and get you comfy, and I’ll have a bit of a wash and change. See you in a tick.’

By the time Kathleen had sorted the patient out and found someone to give his wife a cup of tea and explain what was happening, Jack was back in Theatre, clad from head to toe in green theatre pyjamas, with a J-cloth hat and a mask.

‘Good, ennit? Just like the telly,’ he said to the man, and received a lopsided grin for his pains. ‘You know, you really ought to do something about that razor you’ve been using!’

The man chuckled. Kath knew what Jack was doing, unobtrusively trying to assess the range of movement and any possible nerve damage indicated by loss of mobility in any of the facial muscles.

She relaxed. Already gowned and masked herself, she drew up the lignocaine and opened the suture packs.

Three hours later Jack tied the last suture and stood back to survey his work.

‘Bee-ootiful.’

It was. Oh, the patient looked a mess, but Kath had seen the enormous care that had gone into the alignment of each suture, the meticulous attention not only to the innumerable tiny little muscle fibres, nerves and blood vessels but to laughter lines and wrinkles to ensure that the tissues were realigned as closely as possible to their original position. He sealed the whole area with plastic skin to prevent infection, and then stripped off his gloves and stretched.

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ the patient said a little stiffly. He was going to find it rather difficult to talk for a few days, Kathleen realised.

Jack smiled warmly. ‘My pleasure. I’m afraid you won’t be Miss World again, but you’ll do. All adds character. Come back in a week for a check-up and to have the majority of the sutures out, or earlier if they give you any trouble or get infected. Try and keep them dry, and take the painkillers we’ll give you for the first few days. How did you get here?’

‘My wife drove me.’

He nodded. ‘Good. Well, get her to take you home and look after you. You’ll be off work for a week. Sister will give you a certificate, and you’ll need a follow-up next time you come if you’re still a bit sore. Hopefully you won’t need it.’

With a cheery wave he left them, and Kathleen helped the man to his feet and put him in a wheelchair.

‘Don’t want you collapsing on us—not good for the department’s reputation,’ she joked lightly, and wheeled him round and handed him over to his wife.

She found Jack in his office, leaning on the window with a cigarette in his hand.

‘You smoke!’ she said in horror.

‘Only under duress. That was a long old job. Thanks for your help.’

‘You’re welcome. You did it well. I’m sorry I asked you if you were good enough.’

He chuckled. ‘Your privilege, my darling girl. I hope you aren’t going to find me anything else to do tonight.’

‘Why, tired?’

He grinned. ‘No, I was hoping you’d join me for that drink.’

She was caught without defences, her mind still playing with the idea of being his darling girl.

‘Ah—drink?’ she said helplessly.

‘Yes, you know, as in go into a pub and order something in a glass and eat a few nuts and so on.’

She wasn’t sure about the ‘and so on’, but there didn’t seem to be any way out of it without being churlish.

‘Um—perhaps just a quick one …’

‘Am I treading on anyone’s toes?’

Toes?’

‘Yes, toes. As in, some resident lover or whatever—perhaps Mick O’Shea?’

‘Mick?’ She was startled.

He shrugged. ‘You were all over each other on Monday morning.’

‘Oh, that—no, Mick’s a friend.’

His brow arched delicately.

‘Truly! I’ve known him for years.’ She eyed Jack suspiciously. ‘What about you? I don’t suppose you’re married?’ she said bluntly.

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Are you crazy? Why would I want a wife?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Why would anybody want a wife? I’m sure there are all manner of reasons.’

He chuckled. ‘None good enough for me, I’m afraid. Never again.’

‘So you’re divorced?’

He nodded.

‘I’m not going to bed with you.’

He blinked, and caught the smile before it got away. ‘Of course not.’

‘I mean it!’

He grinned wickedly. ‘What d’you think I’m going to do, drag you behind a hanging basket and rip your knickers off?’

The image was so outrageous that she giggled. ‘All right. What time?’

‘Seven-thirty? Do you want me to pick you up?’

‘On that bike? No way, José. Just tell me where.’

‘Rose and Crown, Tuddingfield?’

She nodded. ‘OK. I’ll see you there at seven-thirty.’

Deciding she was crazy, she made her way back to her room, collected her things and was just about to leave when a man carrying a young boy walked up to the doors.

He looked a little lost, and Kathleen went up to him.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘Oh—it’s my son—he’s got cystic fibrosis, and my wife’s gone away for a few days with a friend for a break. I thought I could cope, but they sent him home from school and I just can’t seem to shift the stuff off his lungs.’

Indeed, the child was rattling and bubbling, coughing weakly and obviously in great discomfort.

Kathleen put her arm round the man’s shoulders and led him in.

‘Come round here with me, and we’ll find a physio to take care of things for you. What’s his name? Do we have any notes on him in the hospital?’

‘Anthony Craven—yes, you’ve got stacks of notes. I’m sorry, I feel such a fool. I was sure I could cope but the CF clinic people had all gone home by the time I realised I couldn’t manage—’