Kitabı oku: «The Surgeon's Marriage Demand»

CHAPTER ONE

DEBORAH would have said she was crazy. Deborah would have taken one look at the peeling paintwork, the worn and scruffy floor of the waiting room of the Belfield Infirmary’s A and E department, and said, ‘Liv, are you out of your mind?’

A small smile curved Olivia’s lips. Maybe her sister was right. Maybe she was crazy, but this was what she wanted. Not a pristine, state-of-the-art A and E department, but a place that needed her as much as she needed it. A department where all her organisational talents could be used to the full. She couldn’t wait to get started.

‘They’re moving very quickly today, aren’t they?’

Olivia turned in her seat to see an elderly woman smiling at her, and smiled back. ‘Quickly?’ she repeated.

The woman nodded. ‘Madge on Reception said she didn’t think I’d have to wait for more than two hours today.’

Olivia’s smile vanished. Two hours? OK, so the waiting room was crowded but according to the head of human resources the department had two consultants, a specialist registrar, a junior doctor, plus a full complement of nurses. If they couldn’t manage a fast turnaround on a wet Sunday afternoon in September, how on earth did they manage at Christmas, New Year and during the summer holidays?

‘What are you here for, dear, if you don’t mind me asking?’ the woman continued, and Olivia coloured guiltily.

‘Stomach pains,’ she muttered, and the woman tutted sympathetically, which made Olivia feel even guiltier, but she could hardly tell her elderly companion the truth. That she was snooping. Snooping to find out how efficient—or otherwise—the Belfield’s A and E department might be.

It had been her sister Deborah’s idea.

‘Why don’t you turn up incognito before you officially start work?’ she’d said when Olivia had told her she’d got the job. ‘It’s amazing what you can find out when nobody knows who you are.’

Her sister had been right. Of course, her sister had also said Olivia would be married with a family by the time she was thirty, but big sisters couldn’t be right about everything. Not even big sisters who had the perfect job, the perfect husband and two equally perfect children.

Unconsciously Olivia shook her head. It wasn’t Deborah’s fault that everything she touched turned to gold, whereas she always seemed to end up with the fuzzy side of the lollipop. And things were going to be different from now on. As from tomorrow she was the new clinical director in charge of the A and E department of the Belfield Infirmary, and it sounded good. Actually, it sounded downright wonderful.

‘Uh-oh, looks like trouble,’ the elderly woman beside her exclaimed.

It did. Olivia had noticed the two young men earlier. One was clearly in need of medical attention while the other was obviously only there for moral support. Unfortunately his idea of moral support had been to sing raucous football songs and drink from a bottle for the last forty minutes, but up until now he’d simply been an irritant. Now he’d obviously become bored with waiting and had lurched across to the reception desk. Judging by the receptionist’s tight expression, he wasn’t engaging in pleasantries.

An uneasy frown creased Olivia’s forehead as she watched him. Situations like this could all too easily get out of hand, and whatever the receptionist was saying wasn’t working. Neither, it appeared, was her panic button if the non-arrival of any burly security men was anything to go by.

Oh, blow the incognito bit, Olivia decided, getting quickly to her feet. The receptionist needed help, and she needed it now. But before she could move, her elderly companion reached up and caught hold of her arm.

‘It’s all right, dear,’ she said as the door leading to the examination rooms suddenly opened. ‘Mr Hardcastle’s here. He’ll soon sort everything out.’

Olivia turned in the direction of her companion’s gaze, and blinked. So this was Seth Hardcastle. Seth Hardcastle who, according to his file, was thirty-six, single and one of A and E’s two consultants. What the file had failed to mention—and Olivia really felt it should have—was that he was also six feet two, with thick black hair and possessed a pair of the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

‘He’s very good looking, isn’t he?’ her companion whispered.

He was. He also looked like the kind of man Olivia had spent a lifetime avoiding. The kind of man whose idea of commitment was a long weekend. The kind of man who’d broken more female hearts than she’d had caffe lattes. She sat down again fast.

‘He’s actually a real sweetie underneath,’ the elderly woman continued, seeing Olivia wince as the consultant asked the receptionist something then jabbed a warning finger in the young man’s chest.

No way was this man a sweetie. This was a man used to giving orders, and having them obeyed. A man who took life by the scruff of the neck, but never any prisoners, and as from tomorrow she was his boss.

So what? her mind protested when Seth Hardcastle suddenly caught hold of the young man by the lapels and began propelling him towards the exit. You’re the new clinical director in charge of A and E. The whole point of you moving from Edinburgh to Glasgow was to make a fresh start. You were going to be the new super-confident, in-your-face type, remember?

Except that perhaps she ought to revise the in-your-face bit, she decided as Seth Hardcastle catapulted the young man out into the street. In fact, perhaps she ought to forget about it completely, she thought with a gulp when the consultant turned and cracked a smile at the enthralled waiting room. A smile she felt all the way down to her toes.

‘He’s wonderful, isn’t he?’ Her companion beamed.

He was certainly something, Olivia thought as she watched the consultant disappear back into the examination rooms, and yet he hadn’t got the clinical director’s post. He should have done. At thirty-six he had two years’ more experience in A and E than she did, and yet he’d been passed over. Which meant he was flawed in some way.

Not in the attractiveness stakes, her mind whispered, and she stamped on the thought quickly. Lack of commitment? Not judging by the way he’d come to the receptionist’s aid. Too abrasive? She shivered, though the waiting room was warm. She certainly wouldn’t want him looming over her the way he’d loomed over the young punk.

‘Looks like we’ve got more trouble,’ the elderly woman beside her sighed.

Olivia’s head snapped round. The waiting room was silent, or as silent as two lustily crying babies and several extremely active children could make it. ‘I don’t see—’

‘Madge is going to make an announcement. That always means trouble.’

Her companion was right. The receptionist was tapping on her desk for attention, and then she cleared her throat.

‘I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but there’s been a multiple car crash on the A82 south of Loch Lomond. The casualties are on their way to us now so I’m afraid our reviewed waiting time looks likely to be three hours.’

A collective groan of resignation went up from the waiting room, and Olivia bit her lip. Casualties. That could mean anything from two to twenty-two people, and in an emergency A and E needed every qualified member of staff it could get.

She glanced down at her baggy tracksuit bottoms and sweatshirt emblazoned with the words MAKE MY DAY. She was hardly dressed for the occasion but it couldn’t be helped. With a sigh she pulled a scrunchie from her handbag, dragged her shoulder-length brown curls back into a ponytail and stood up.

‘Leaving, dear?’ the woman beside her said.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ Olivia replied ruefully, and made her way to the reception desk to introduce herself to the receptionist.

‘ETA for the casualties ten minutes, Seth,’ Sister Babs Grant declared, putting down the phone and reaching for her notepad. ‘One severe chest and head injuries, one nasty leg wound, a woman who’s fractured both her femurs and a seven-year-old with extensive burns.’

‘Burns?’ The consultant frowned, and the sister nodded.

‘The car he was travelling in caught fire after the pile-up. I’ve paged Tony, alerted Intensive Care and Theatre’s on standby.’

Jerry Swanson grinned. ‘Poor Tony. He’s only just gone off duty after a sixty-hour shift.’

‘Hard work’s good for the soul,’ Seth observed. ‘Especially for the souls of junior doctors. Keeps them off the street and out of the pubs.’

‘I bet you didn’t think that when you were a junior doctor.’ The specialist registrar laughed, and Seth’s lips curved.

‘Still don’t if I’m honest. And speaking of honesty,’ he continued as Babs hurried away, ‘I don’t care what you say. I give this Olivia Mackenzie three months and she’ll walk.’

The specialist registrar groaned. ‘Seth, you’ve been gnawing at this particular bone ever since we heard she’d got the job. Dr Mackenzie starts work here tomorrow. Live with it.’

‘How?’ Seth protested as he strode down the examination room and Jerry followed him. ‘It should have been obvious to anyone that A and E’s no place for a woman. It’s like a battlefield in here some nights and it’s tough enough watching our own backs without having to look after a woman as well.’

‘Our nurses seem to manage.’

‘Only because they know which patients are the troublemakers and which are the druggies,’ Seth argued back. ‘This woman will know damn all.’

‘Perhaps Admin don’t plan on her actually working in the department,’ Jerry observed. ‘Perhaps they feel we’re more in need of a co-ordinator rather than a hands-on consultant.’

‘Oh, terrific. That’s all we need—another pen-pusher. Three months, Jerry. I’ll give her three months, and she’ll throw in the towel.’

‘She’s bought a house in Edmonton Road. Doesn’t sound to me like she intends throwing in any towel.’

A frown creased Seth’s forehead. ‘And we know this how?’

‘Charlie in Dietetics happened to see her when she came for her interview. They got talking, and he happened to mention how hard it was to find rented accommodation in Glasgow. She said it wasn’t a problem as she’d bought one of those old houses in Edmonton Road.’

‘And did Charlie happen to find out anything else?’ Seth asked caustically.

‘Just that she’s thirty-four, divorced and seemed nice.’

‘Nice?’ Seth repeated with exasperation. ‘We don’t want nice, Jerry. We want a tough, committed, hands-on boss, not some wimp who’ll run screaming from A and E when a druggy throws up on her, or a roll-over merchant who’ll accept all of Admin’s crackpot ideas without a murmur.’

Jerry sighed as he erased the name of the last patient he’d seen from the whiteboard. ‘Seth, I hate to say this, but this antagonism you seem to feel towards Dr Mackenzie…’ He shot his boss a swift, sidelong look. ‘It’s not simply a bad case of sour grapes, is it?’

Seth opened his mouth, then closed it again. Jerry was right. Dammit, he’d worked in the A and E department of the Belfield Infirmary for the past twelve years. He was good at his job, and to be passed over for a thirty-four-year-old outsider who knew damn all about the department…

‘OK, so maybe I do think it should have been an inside appointment,’ he conceded, suddenly realising that his specialist registrar was waiting for a reply. ‘The department has two consultants, me and Watson Forrester—’

‘Watson still works here?’ Jerry eyebrows rose. ‘That’s going to come as a big surprise to everybody.’

A slight tinge of colour darkened Seth’s cheeks. ‘OK, so maybe he’s not been pulling his weight lately—’

‘Seth, he’s never here. If he’s not off to some conference, he’s away at a seminar. He wants out of A and E. You know it, and so do I.’

Seth did, but it didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, it made him feel worse. He gazed round the examination room, at the peeling paint, the tattered cubicle curtains, and bit his lip. ‘Jerry, do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut?’

‘Can’t say I do. I get the blues occasionally—everybody does—but there’s far too much variety in A and E for me ever to get bored.’

Once Seth would have agreed with him, but just lately he’d had the worrying feeling that their patients were beginning to merge, to blend, into faceless, nameless anonymity. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this job.’

‘Seth, you’re thirty-six,’ Jerry protested. ‘You don’t get burn-out in A and E until you’re fifty.’

‘Maybe I should sign up as a doctor on one of those luxury cruise liners,’ Seth continued as though his specialist registrar hadn’t spoken. ‘The ones that sail the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.’

‘Dispensing sea-sickness pills and fighting off the advances of the blue-rinse brigade?’ Jerry grinned. ‘I’d give you a month, and you’d be bored out of your skull.’

‘Médicins sans Frontiéres, then,’ Seth murmured. ‘They’re always looking for new doctors.’

Jerry started to laugh, then stopped when he saw his boss was in earnest. ‘Okay, let’s forget all this crap about Dr Mackenzie, cruise ships, and Médicins sans Frontiéres. What’s wrong, Seth—and I mean really wrong?’

The consultant picked up the whiteboard eraser from the table, stared at it for a second, then tossed it down again. ‘I don’t know—and that’s the honest truth. All I do know is nothing seems fun any more. Not my job, not dating, not even sex.’ He frowned. ‘Especially not sex.’

‘I don’t see how changing your job is going to make your sex life any better,’ Jerry pointed out. ‘Look, who are you dating at the moment?’

Seth looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. ‘Nobody. I haven’t been out on a date since June.’

‘You haven’t had sex for three months? Seth—’

‘I’m losing it, aren’t I?’ the consultant exclaimed. ‘If I can’t even be bothered to have sex any more, I’m definitely losing it.’

Jerry stared thoughtfully at him. ‘No, you’re not. I think you’re just beginning to realise there’s more to life than work and a string of casual relationships. I think what you need is to settle down with just one woman.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Seth spluttered. ‘The minute a bloke settles down, he’s brain dead.’

‘Hey, I take great exception to that,’ Jerry exclaimed. ‘Carol and I have been married for a year, and I’m certainly not brain dead.’

‘Not yet, but you soon will be,’ Seth said darkly. ‘In a couple of years’ time your idea of a sparkling evening’s entertainment will be sitting in front of the television, poring over some DIY magazines. And when the kids start arriving…’ He shuddered. ‘I’ll ask how they are—just to be polite—and you’ll whip out their latest photographs and start telling me all about little Isolde’s first tooth and Tristram’s first step.’

‘That isn’t being brain dead,’ Jerry said uncertainly. ‘It’s…it’s being proud of your family, loving them, being committed to them.’

It also meant waving goodbye to any exciting foreign holidays because little Isolde didn’t like travelling, Seth thought glumly. Goodbye to any visits to a restaurant or to the movies because little Tristram got upset if he was left with a babysitter. And it wasn’t just the kids who made you brain dead. It was living with the same woman for the rest of your life, having to see the same face over the breakfast table every morning.

‘Seth, listen—’

The consultant couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. The examination-room doors clattered open and the paramedics who’d attended the multiple car crash appeared, each clamouring for attention.

‘Twenty-six-year-old male, Doc. Open leg wound, Glascow coma scale 3-3-4. Blood loss extensive, definite class 11 shock. His saturation levels are falling and he’s hardly moving any air.’

‘My bloke’s in really bad shape, too, Doc,’ another paramedic declared. ‘Chest and head injuries. GCS 2-2-4. We’ve tubed him and set up an IV line, but his BP’s been falling steadily since we lifted him.’

‘Tony—where’s Tony?’ Seth demanded, and to his relief the junior doctor appeared. He looked as though he’d been dragged out of bed, but at least he was there.

‘Seth, the child with the burns needs attention, and fast,’ Babs declared, casting her professional eye quickly over the trolleys. ‘He’s cyanotic for sure.’

The child was. Even from where he was standing Seth could see the characteristic blue tinge of the boy’s face which indicated his blood wasn’t receiving enough oxygen.

‘Jerry, you take the bloke with the head and chest injuries, I’ll take the child. Tony, the guy with the open leg wound is yours. Tube him, but keep a careful watch for any signs of a tension pneumothorax or major rupture of his diaphragm.’

‘Right,’ the junior doctor replied, looking anything but happy.

‘What about my patient, Doc?’ one of the paramedics protested. ‘Diane Lennox, late thirties. She’s fractured both her femurs, and I think she could be bleeding internally.’

Seth stared indecisively at the badly burnt child, then across at the female casualty, and exploded. ‘This is ridiculous! We need another pair of qualified hands. We need another doctor—any kind of doctor!’

‘Will I do?’

Seth spun round to see a tall, slender woman wearing a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words MAKE MY DAY, gazing back at him, and shot a fulminating glance at Madge from Reception who was hovering beside her. ‘Madge, could you escort this lady through to the relatives’ waiting room? She shouldn’t be—’

‘Seth, she’s not a relative,’ the receptionist interrupted. ‘She’s a bona fide doctor. I’ve seen her ID, and Admin have verified it. She starts work tomorrow, and she’s actually—’

‘Boss, I’ve got the tube in, but this bloke’s trachea has definitely shifted to the left,’ Tony Melville exclaimed, panic plain in his voice.

‘Then he obviously needs a needle thoracotomy,’ Seth retorted, more caustically than he’d intended, and the junior doctor flushed.

‘I know, but I’ve never done one before, and…’

Impatiently Seth snapped on a pair of surgical gloves, strode across the examination room and deftly thrust a needle into the patient’s chest.

‘I’ll insert a thoracotomy tube for you in a minute,’ he declared when a satisfying hiss of air came from the patient’s lungs, ‘but in the meantime start him on a two-litre infusion of Ringer’s lactate and then get a sterile pad over his leg and apply pressure to stop that bleeding.’

The junior doctor nodded, and Seth swung round to discover that Madge had disappeared and Dr Sweatshirt had not only donned the spare white coat they kept hanging on the back of the examination room door but she’d also slipped an IV line into the badly burnt child’s arm and was in the process of inserting a catheter into his bladder.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he exclaimed, shooting back across the examination room and elbowing her roughly aside.

‘What it looks like,’ Dr Sweatshirt protested. ‘The child urgently needs fluids to counteract shock, and surely we need to know how much smoke he might have inhaled?’

She was right, but even if her ID was legit that still didn’t mean she knew anything about A and E medicine. She could be a dietician or, even worse, a chiropodist.

‘What’s your specialisation?’ he demanded.

‘I majored in surgery, but surgery isn’t my specialisation now. Look, I think I can set your mind—’

‘Paediatrics, or adult?’

‘Adult, and if you’d just let me finish—’

‘Seth, my head and chest injuries need Neurology,’ Jerry called. ‘I’m stabilising him as best I can, but he’s definitely got an intracranial haematoma.’

‘OK, I’ll—’

‘Seth, could you please come and take a look at Mrs Lennox?’ Babs exclaimed. ‘Her BP’s all over the place.’

‘I’ll be there in a—’

‘This child’s urine is very dark,’ Dr Sweatshirt observed. ‘Looks like possible myoglobinuria to me—iron and protein being released from a damaged muscle into his blood and urine. You really should be taking blood samples.’

‘And do I look as though I’ve got six pairs of hands?’ Seth exclaimed with frustration, then swore under his breath when a tide of hot colour washed across Dr Sweatshirt’s cheeks.

He shouldn’t be taking out his frustration on her. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. She hadn’t needed to offer to help, especially as she didn’t officially start work at the Belfield until tomorrow. ‘Look, I’m sor—’

‘Seth, I really do need you,’ Babs protested. ‘Fiona and I have got an IV line into Mrs Lennox, and we’ve checked her ABCs, but we’re not doctors.’

Ms Sweatshirt was. She’d been right about the possibility of myoglobinuria, and with a specialisation in surgery she probably knew as much—if not more—about burns patients as he did.

‘OK, Dr whatever-your-name-is,’ he said brusquely. ‘Can you take care of the child while I check out Mrs Lennox?’

Dr Sweatshirt nodded. She didn’t meet his gaze but she nodded, and he hurried across the examination room.

‘I’ve paged Orthopaedics,’ Babs declared. ‘Do you want Fiona to get the technicians down for a scan?’

‘Yes, please, and, Babs…’ He lowered his voice. ‘Would you assist Dr Sweatshirt? Watch what she does, and if you’re worried—’

‘Seth, I’ll assist her with pleasure, but you heard what Madge said. She’s a bona fide doctor, and she starts work in the hospital tomorrow, so stop stressing. Ye gods, if ever a woman looked as though she knew what she was doing, she does.’

She did, Seth thought as he glanced across at Dr Sweatshirt. She looked calm, in control and completely professional. She was also quite attractive if a man’s taste ran to women with soft brown eyes and riotously curly brown hair pulled back into a lopsided ponytail. His didn’t. He preferred big-busted blondes with pizzazz, not skinny, wholesome-looking women who looked as though they could have got a part in a remake of Anne of Green Gables, but that didn’t excuse the fact that he’d been quite unforgivably rude to her.

He sighed as he inserted a catheter into Mrs Lennox’s bladder, then checked her femoral pulses. Time for an apology. Time for a quick blast of the old Hardcastle charm.

He cleared his throat pointedly, and saw Dr Sweatshirt’s head come up.

‘I owe you an apology, don’t I?’ he said. ‘I’ve been quite appallingly rude to you when you didn’t need to volunteer to help, so if you want to lob an IV bag in my direction I promise I won’t duck.’

She looked momentarily startled, but when he threw her one of his guaranteed gotta-love-me Hardcastle grins he was the one who blinked when an answering smile slowly curved her lips. Hey, but that smile was quite something. It lit up her face, completely transforming her. Maybe she could be his type after all. Not permanently, of course, because he didn’t do permanence, but maybe for dinner tonight, a few dates…

‘I’ve just realised I don’t even know your name,’ he said, upping his smile a notch. ‘I’m Seth Hardcastle, A and E consultant, and you are—’

‘OK, which of you jokers called for a brain expert?’

Seth turned to see the consultant from Neurology standing in the doorway, and laughed. ‘Jerry did, but I wouldn’t say no to a quick brain transplant.’

‘I don’t do freebies, Seth.’ The consultant grinned, but as he walked towards Jerry it wasn’t Seth who sighed but Olivia.

She needed a quick brain transplant too or, perhaps more accurately, a quick course in self-assertiveness. She should have told Seth Hardcastle who she was. She should have said, Look, sunshine, I’m your boss, but the trouble was she’d never been the ‘Look, sunshine’ type. She’d always favoured the softly-softly approach both in her personal and her professional life, coaxing by persuasion rather than by confrontation, and it had worked. Well, it had worked in her professional life at any rate.

‘Liv, Phil was a jerk, and you divorced him,’ Deborah had said. ‘Get over it, move on.’ And she would. Eventually. But six months wasn’t nearly long enough to forget that the man who had promised to love and cherish her had been bedding his secretary on a depressingly regular basis throughout their short married life.

‘Are you all right?’

Babs was gazing at her curiously, and Olivia forced a smile.

‘I’m fine. It’s just…Is the department always this chaotic?’

The sister chuckled. ‘You should see us on a Saturday night. I don’t know how we’d manage without Seth and Jerry.’

Jerry Swanson. The department’s specialist registrar. Thirty-two and married to one of the nurses in Women’s Surgical, according to his file. She could handle him, but Seth Hardcastle…

The trouble was he looked even more impressive up close than he’d done in the waiting room. He shouldn’t have done. His blue eyes were bloodshot, his chin was dark with stubble and his black hair was falling carelessly over his forehead. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for days. He also looked as sexy as hell, and it wasn’t a reassuring combination.

‘I know Seth can be a bit abrasive,’ the sister continued, clearly misinterpreting her silence, ‘but he’s one of the best consultants I’ve ever worked with.’

And if I don’t toughen up, he’s going to walk right over me, Olivia thought as she heard Seth snap at something Tony Melville had said.

‘Oh, hallelujah,’ Babs exclaimed with relief. ‘Here come the crispy squad.’

The crispy squad. The irreverent name most A and E units gave to the burns unit. The crispy squad would take care of the little boy, Neurology was attending to the chest and head case, and Seth and Jerry could look after Mrs Lennox and the man with the open leg wound. She wasn’t needed any more. She could simply slip away, and she fully intended doing just that when she suddenly heard Seth say her name.

‘I’m afraid Seth’s on his high horse about our new clinical director,’ Babs said ruefully as a slight crease furrowed Olivia’s forehead. ‘He’s not very happy at her appointment.’

Not very happy was the understatement of the year, Olivia thought as she heard Jerry declare, ‘Look, all I said was I can’t see Admin appointing somebody with no A and E experience,’ and Seth flashing back, ‘Well, if she’s not a pen-pusher, I bet her so-called experience consists of performing unnecessary cosmetic operations on women with more money than sense.’

A spurt of anger flared inside Olivia as she stared at the consultant’s irate face, a spurt she hadn’t felt since she’d found out about Phil’s extra-marital affair. Just who the hell did Seth Hardcastle think he was? Well, she might not be able to tell him who he was, but she sure as shooting could tell him what he was.

She strode across the examination room, her brown eyes flashing, and arrived in time to hear Seth declare, ‘Just don’t come complaining to me when you discover she’s as much use as a plastic bag in a thunderstorm. This woman—’

‘This woman feels she ought to introduce herself before you say anything else,’ Olivia interrupted, her voice ice-cold. ‘I’m Olivia Mackenzie, your new pen-pushing clinical director.’

Jerry let out an anguished groan, but Seth didn’t look one bit discomfited. Instead, he met her gaze squarely.

‘I suppose you’re expecting an apology?’

‘Well, your manners could certainly do with some work—’

‘We don’t have time for manners in A and E, Dr Mackenzie, not when our patients are often bleeding like stuck pigs.’

‘No, but you seem to have plenty of time to bad-mouth a colleague behind her back,’ she snapped. ‘For your information, I worked for ten years in the A and E department of the Edinburgh General, and even if I hadn’t I would have expected you to extend me the courtesy of at least meeting me before you tore my character to shreds!’