Читать книгу Maybe This Christmas…? - Алисон Робертс - Страница 6

‘HER name’s Sophie Gillespie. She’s six months old.’

A surprisingly heavy burden, but perhaps that was because Gemma hadn’t thought to bring a pushchair and she’d been holding the baby on her hip for far too long already. The A and E department of the Queen Mary Infirmary in Manchester, England, was heaving and, because it was Christmas Eve, it all seemed rather surreal.

Reams of tired-looking tinsel had been strung in loops along the walls. A bunch of red and green balloons had been tied to the display screen, currently advertising the waiting time as being an hour and a half. And if they were this busy when it wasn’t quite seven p.m., Gemma knew that the waiting time would only increase as new cases came in by ambulance and demanded the attention of the doctors and nurses on duty in the department.

‘Look… this is an emergency.’

‘Uh-huh?’

The middle-aged receptionist looked as if she’d seen it all. And she probably had. There was a group of very drunk teenage girls in naughty elf costumes singing and shouting loudly in a corner of the reception area. One of them was holding a bloodstained cloth to her face. Another was holding a vomit bag. A trio of equally drunk young men was watching the elves with appreciation and trying to outdo each other with wolf whistles. The expressions on the faces of the people between the groups were long-suffering. A woman sitting beside a small, crying boy looked to be at the end of her tether and she was glaring at Gemma, who appeared to be attempting to queue jump.

The receptionist peered over her glasses at Sophie, who wasn’t helping. Thanks to the dose of paracetamol she’d given her as she’d left the house, the baby was looking a lot better than she had been. Her face was still flushed and her eyes over-bright but she wasn’t crying with that frightening, high-pitched note any more. She was, in fact, smiling at the receptionist.

‘She’s running a temperature,’ Gemma said. ‘She’s got a rash.’

‘It’s probably just a virus. Take a seat, please, ma’am. We’ll get her seen as soon as possible.’

‘What—in a couple of hours?’

Gemma could feel the heat radiating off the baby in her arms. She could feel the way Sophie was slumped listlessly against her body. The smile was fading and any moment now Sophie would start crying again. She took a deep breath.

‘As soon as possible might be too late,’ she snapped. ‘She needs to be seen now. Please…’ she added, trying to keep her voice from wavering. ‘I just need to rule out the possibility that it’s meningitis.’

‘Rule out?’ The receptionist peered over her glasses again, this time at Gemma. ‘What are you, a doctor?’

‘Yes, I am.’ Gemma knew her tone lacked conviction. Could she still claim to be a doctor when it had been so long since she’d been anywhere near a patient?

‘Not at this hospital you’re not.’

Gemma closed her eyes for a heartbeat. ‘I used to be.’

‘And you’re an expert in meningitis, then? What… you’re going to tell me you’re a paediatrician?’

Like the other woman waiting with a child, the receptionist clearly thought Gemma was trying to queue jump. And now there were people behind her, waiting to check in. One was a man in a dinner suit with a firm hold around the waist of a woman in an elegant black dress who had a halo of silver tinsel on her head.

‘Can you hurry up?’ the man said loudly. ‘My wife needs help here.’

Sophie whimpered and Gemma knew she had to do something fast. Something she had sworn not to do. She took another deep breath and leaned closer to the hole in the bulletproof glass protecting the reception area.

‘No, I’m not a paediatrician and I don’t work at this hospital.’ Her tone of voice was enough to encourage the receptionist to make eye contact. ‘But my husband does.’ At least, he did, as far as she knew. He could have moved on, though, couldn’t he? In more ways than just where he worked. ‘And he is a paediatrician,’ she added, mentally crossing her fingers that this information would be enough to get her seen faster.

‘Oh? What’s his name, then?’

‘Andrew Baxter.’

The woman behind her groaned and clutched her stomach. The man pushed past Gemma.

‘For God’s sake, I think my wife might be having a miscarriage.’

The receptionist’s eyes had widened at Gemma’s words. Now they widened even further as her gaze flicked to the next person in the queue and a look of alarm crossed her face. She leapt to her feet, signalling for assistance from other staff members. Moments later, the man and his wife were being ushered through the internal doors. The receptionist gave Gemma an apologetic glance.

‘I won’t be long. I’ll get you seen next and… and I’ll find out if your husband’s on call.’

No. That was the last thing Gemma wanted.

Oh… Lord. What would Andy think if someone told him that his wife was in Reception? That she was holding a child that she thought might have meningitis?

He’d think it was his worst nightmare. The ghost of a Christmas past that he’d probably spent the last six years trying to forget.

Just like she had.

Dr Andrew Baxter was in his favourite place in the world. The large dayroom at the end of Queen Mary’s paediatric ward.

He was admiring the enormous Christmas tree the staff had just finished decorating and he found himself smiling as he thought about the huge sack of gifts hiding in the sluice room that he would be in charge of distributing tomorrow when he was suitably dressed in his Santa costume.

It was hard to believe there had been a time when he hadn’t been able to bring himself to come into this area of the ward. Especially at this particular time of year. When he’d been focused purely on the children who were too sick to enjoy this room with its bright decorations and abundance of toys.

Time really did heal, didn’t it?

It couldn’t wipe out the scars, of course. Andy knew there was a poignant ache behind his smile and he knew that he’d have to field a few significantly sympathetic glances from his colleagues tomorrow, but he could handle it now.

Enjoy it, even. And that was more than he’d ever hoped would be the case.

With it being after seven p.m., the dayroom would normally be empty as children were settled into bed for the night but here, just like in the outside world, Christmas Eve sparkled with a particular kind of magic that meant normal rules became rather flexible.

Four-year-old Ruth, who was recovering from a bone-marrow transplant to treat her leukaemia, was still at risk for infection but her dad, David, had carried her as far as the door so that she could see the tree. They were both wearing gowns and hats and had masks covering their faces but Andy saw the way David whispered in his daughter’s ear and then pointed. He could see the way the child’s eyes grew wide with wonder and then sense the urgency of the whisper back to her father.

Andy stepped closer.

‘Hello, gorgeous.’ He smiled at Ruth. ‘Do you like our Christmas tree?’

A shy nod but then Ruth buried her face against her father’s neck.

‘Ruthie’s worried that Father Christmas won’t come to the hospital.’

‘He always comes,’ Andy said.

His confidence was absolute and why wouldn’t it be? He’d been filling the role for years now and knew he could carry it off to perfection. Being tall and broad, it was easy to pad himself out with a couple of pillows so that his body shape was unrecognisable. The latest beard and moustache was a glue-on variety that couldn’t be tugged off by a curious child and it was luxuriant enough to disguise him completely once the hat was in place.

Ruth’s eyes appeared again and, after a brief glance at Andy, she whispered in her father’s ear again. David grinned at Andy.

‘She wants to know if he’s going to bring her a present.’

‘Sure is.’ Andy nodded. There would be more than one that had Ruth’s name on it. Every child on the ward had a parcel set aside for them from the pile of the donated gifts and parents were invited to put something special into Santa’s sack as well. Not that Ruth would be able to join the throng that gathered around the tree for the ceremony but, if her latest test results were good, she should be able to watch from behind the windows and receive her gifts at a safer distance.

‘Of course, he can’t come to deliver the presents until all the girls and boys are asleep,’ Andy added, with a wink at David. ‘Might be time for bed?’

Ruth looked at him properly this time. ‘But… how does he know I’m in hos—in… hostible?’

Andy knew his face was solemn. ‘He just does,’ he said calmly. ‘Santa’s magic. Christmas is magic.’

He watched David carry Ruth back to her room, making a mental note to chase up the latest lab results on this patient later tonight. He might put in a quick call to her specialist consultant as well, to discuss what participation might be allowable tomorrow.

Andrew Baxter was a general paediatrician. He was the primary consultant for medical cases that were admitted to the ward and stayed involved if they were referred on to surgeons, but he was also involved in every other case that came through these doors in some way. The ‘outside’ world was pretty irrelevant these days. This was his world. His home.

It didn’t matter if the young patients were admitted under an oncologist for cancer treatment or a specialist paediatric cardiologist for heart problems or an orthopaedic surgeon who was dealing with a traumatic injury. Andy was an automatic part of the team. He knew every child who was in here and some of them he knew extremely well because they got admitted more than once or stayed for a long time.

Like John Boy, who was still in the dayroom, circling the tree as he watched the fairy-lights sparkling. Eleven years old, John Boy had a progressive and debilitating syndrome that led to myriad physical challenges and his life expectancy was no more than fifteen to twenty years at best. If the cardiologists couldn’t deal with the abnormalities that were causing a degree of heart failure this time, that life expectancy could be drastically reduced.

Of mixed race, with ultra-curly black hair and a wide, white smile, the lad had been fostered out since birth but had spent more of his life in hospital than out of it and he was a firm favourite on this ward. With his frail, twisted body now confined to a wheelchair, John Boy had lost none of his sense of humour and determination to cause mischief.

Right now, he was making some loud and rather disgusting noises, his head hanging almost between his knees. Andy moved swiftly.

‘Hey, John Boy! What’s going on?’

John Boy groaned impressively and waved his hand feebly. Andy looked down and stepped back hurriedly from the pile of vomit on the floor.

‘Oh… no…’

A nurse, Carla, was climbing down the ladder she had used to fasten the huge star on the top of the tree.

‘Oh no,’ she echoed, but she was laughing. ‘Not again, John Boy. That plastic vomit joke is getting old, you know?’

Andy nudged the offensive-looking puddle with his foot. Sure enough, the edge lifted cleanly. John Boy was laughing so hard he had to hold onto the side of his wheelchair to stop him falling out and the sound was so contagious everybody in the room was either laughing or smiling. The noise level was almost enough to drown out the sound of Andy’s pager.

Still grinning, he walked to the wall phone and took the call. Within seconds his grin was only a memory and the frown on his face was enough to raise Carla’s eyebrows. She straightened swiftly from picking up the plastic vomit. She dropped it in John Boy’s lap, which caused a new paroxysm of mirth.

‘What’s up, Andy?’

But he couldn’t tell her. He didn’t want to tell anyone. It couldn’t be true, surely? He kept his eyes focused on John Boy instead. On a patient. An anchor in his real world.

‘His lips are getting blue,’ he growled. ‘Get him back to his room and get some oxygen on, would you, please, Carla?’

He knew they were both staring at him as he left the room. He knew that the tone of his voice had been enough to stop John Boy laughing as if a switch had been flicked off and he hated it that he’d been responsible for that.

But he hadn’t been able to prevent that tone. Not when he was struggling to hold back so many memories. Bad memories.

Oh… God… If this was really happening, why on earth did it have to happen tonight of all nights?

The emergency department was packed to the gills.

Andy entered through the internal double doors. Serious cases were filling the resuscitation bays. He could see an elderly man hooked up to monitors, sitting up and struggling to breathe even with the assistance of CPAP. Heart failure secondary to an infarction, probably. Ambulance officers were still hovering in the next bay where a trauma victim was being assessed. One of them was holding a cyclist’s helmet, which was in two pieces. The next bay had staff intubating an unconscious man. A woman was standing in the corner of the bay, sobbing.

‘I told him not to go up on the roof,’ Andy heard her gasp. ‘I didn’t even want a stupid flashing reindeer.’

The cubicles were next and they were also full. One had a very well-dressed woman lying on the bed, a crooked tinsel halo still on her head.

‘Can’t you do something?’ The man with her was glaring at the poor junior registrar. ‘She’s pregnant, for God’s sake…’

So many people who were having their Christmas Eves ruined by illness or accident. This would have been a very depressing place to be except for the numerous staff members. Some of the nurses were wearing Santa hats or had flashing earrings. All of them, even the ones having to deal with life-threatening situations, were doing it with skill and patience and as much good cheer as was possible. Andy caught more than one smile of greeting. These people were his colleagues. The closest thing he had to family, in fact.

He smiled back and reached the central station to find a nurse he’d actually taken out once, a long time ago. Julia had made it very clear that she was disappointed it had never gone any further and she greeted him now with a very warm smile.

‘Andy… Merry Christmas, almost.’

‘You, too.’ Julia’s long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail that had tinsel wound around the top. ‘You guys look busy.’

‘One of our biggest nights. Have you just come to visit?’

‘No, I got paged. A baby…’ Andy had to swallow rather hard. ‘Query meningitis?’

Julia looked up at the glass board with the spaces for each cubicle had names and details that it was her job tonight to keep updated. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell…’

‘Brought in by a woman called Gemma… Baxter.’ The hesitation was momentary but significant. Would Gemma have gone back to her maiden name by now? She couldn’t have got married again. Not when they’d never formalised a divorce. Julia didn’t seem to notice the surname and Andy hurried on. ‘Someone called Janice called it through.’

‘Janice?’ Julia looked puzzled. ‘She’s on Reception. In the waiting room.’ Julia frowned. ‘If she’s got a query meningitis it should have come through as a priority. I hope she’s not waiting for a bed or something. Let me go and check.’

‘That’s OK, I’ll do that.’ He could almost hear the wheels turning for Julia now. She was staring at him with an odd expression.

‘Did you say her name was Baxter? Is she a relative?’

Was she? Did it still count if you were still legally married to someone even if they’d simply walked out of your life?

Andy had reached the external set of double doors that led into the waiting room. He spotted Gemma the instant he pushed through the doors. It didn’t matter that the place was crowded and it should have been hard to find anybody—his gaze went unswervingly straight towards her as if it was some kind of magnetic force.

The impact was enough to stop him in his tracks for a moment.

His head was telling him that it didn’t count. Their marriage had been over a very long time ago and there was nothing there for him now.

His heart was telling him something very different.

This was the woman he had vowed to love, honour and cherish until they were parted by death. He’d meant every single word of those marriage vows.

For a moment, Andy could ignore everything that had happened since the day those vows had been spoken. He could forget about the way they’d been driven apart by forces too overwhelming for either of them to even begin to fight. He could forget that it had been years since he’d seen Gemma or heard the sound of her voice.

What he couldn’t forget was what had drawn them together in the first place. That absolute surety that they were perfect for each other.

True soul mates.

For just that blink of time that pure feeling, one far too big to be enclosed by a tiny word like love, shone out of the dark corner of his heart that had been locked and abandoned for so long.

And… and that glow hurt, dammit.

Sophie was starting to grizzle again.

Gemma bounced her gently and started walking in a small circle, away from the queue waiting to see the receptionist. What was going on? She’d been told to wait but she’d expected to at least be shown through to a cubicle in the department. With the drama of the staff rushing to attend to the woman having a threatened miscarriage she seemed to have been forgotten.

Had they rung Andy? Was he on call or… even worse, had they rung him at home and made him feel obliged to come in on Christmas Eve and sort out a ghost from his past?

Oh… Lord. He probably had a new partner by now. He might even have his own kids. Except, if that was the case, why hadn’t he contacted her to ask for a divorce? She’d had no contact at all. For four years. Ever since she’d packed that bag and—

‘Gemma?’

The voice was angry. And it was male, but even before Gemma whirled to face the speaker she knew it wasn’t Andy.

‘Simon! What are you doing here?’

Not only was it Simon, he had the children in tow. All of them. Seven-year-old Hazel, five-year-old Jamie and the twins, Chloe and Ben, who were three and a half.

‘Go on,’ she heard him snap. ‘There she is.’

Hazel, bless her, was hanging onto a twin with each hand and hauling them forward. No easy task because they were clearly exhausted. What were they doing out of bed? They’d been asleep when Gemma had left the house and they were in their pyjamas and rubbing bleary eyes now, as though they hadn’t woken up properly. Ben was clutching his favourite soft toy as if afraid someone was about to rip it out of his arms.

A sudden fear gripped Gemma. They were sick. With whatever Sophie had wrong with her.

But why was Simon here? OK, he’d arrived at the house a few minutes before the babysitter had been due and she’d had to rush off with Sophie but… but Hazel’s bottom lip was wobbling and she was like another little mother to these children and never cried.

‘Oh… hon come here.’ Gemma balanced Sophie with one arm and held the other one out to gather Hazel and the twins close. ‘It’s all right…’

‘No, it’s not.’ Simon had a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, pushing the small boy towards her. ‘Your babysitter decided not to show.’

‘What? Oh, no…’

‘She rang. Had a car accident or some such excuse.’

‘Oh, my God! Is she all right?’

‘She sounded fine.’ Simon shook his head. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Gemma but, you know… I had no idea what I was signing up for here.’

‘No.’ Of course he hadn’t. This had been a blind date that an old friend had insisted on setting her up with. Just a glass of wine, she’d said. At your local. Just see if you like him. He’s gorgeous. And rich. And single.

There was no denying that Simon was good looking. Blond, blue-eyed and extremely well dressed, too. And… smooth was the first thought that had come to mind when she’d let him into the house. But definitely not her type. He’d been horrified when she’d said she had to get Sophie to the hospital and could he please wait until the babysitter arrived.

And…

‘How did you get them here?’

‘I drove, of course. You practically live in the next county.’

Hardly. The house was rural, certainly, but on the very edge of the city, which made Queen Mary’s the closest hospital, otherwise Gemma would have gone somewhere else.

‘What about the car seats?’

‘Ooh, look…’ Jamie was pointing to the area of the waiting room set up to cater for children. ‘There’s toys.’ He trotted off.

‘He didn’t use them,’ Hazel said. ‘I told him and he…’ Her breath hitched. ‘He told me to shut up.’

Gemma’s jaw dropped. She stared at Simon, who simply shrugged.

‘Look, I could’ve left them in the house. If Jane had told me anything more than that you were a cute, single chick who was desperate for a date, I wouldn’t have come near you with a bargepole. I don’t do kids.’

Chloe chose that moment to hold her arms up, asking to be cuddled. When it didn’t happen instantly, she burst into tears. Sophie’s grizzles turned into a full-blown wail. Ben sat down on the floor and buried his face against the well-worn fluff of his toy. Simon looked at them all for a second, shook his head in disbelief, turned on his heel and walked out.

Gemma had no idea what to do first. Hazel was pressed against her, her skinny little body shaking with repressed sobs. Gemma didn’t need to look down. She knew that there would be tears streaming down Hazel’s cheeks. Both Chloe and Sophie were howling and… Where on earth had Jamie got to?

Wildly, Gemma scanned the waiting room as she tried to tamp down the escalating tension from the sounds of miserable children all around her. The action came to a juddering halt, however, when her gaze collided with a person who’d been standing there watching the whole, horrible scene with Simon.

A man who had shaggy brown hair instead of groomed blond waves. Brown eyes, not blue. Who couldn’t be considered well dressed with his crooked tie and shirtsleeves that were trying to come down from where they’d been rolled up. But her type?

Oh… yes. The archetype, in fact. Because this was Andy. The man she’d fallen in love with. The man she’d known would be the only one for her for the rest of her life. For just an instant, Gemma could forget that this was the man whose life she’d done her best to ruin because the first wave of emotion to hit her was one of…

Relief.

Thank God. No matter what happened in this next micro-chapter of her life, she could deal with it if she had Andy nearby.

Her touchstone.

The rock that had been missing from her life for so long. Yes, she’d learned to stand on her own two feet but the ground had never felt solid enough to trust. To put roots into.

The blessed relief that felt like a homecoming twisted almost instantly into something else, however. Fear?

He hadn’t said her name but he looked as angry as Simon had been when he’d stormed into the waiting room of Queen Mary’s.

Or… maybe it wasn’t anger. She’d seen that kind of look before, during a fight. Partly anger but also pain. And bewilderment. The result of being attacked when you didn’t know quite what it was about and why you deserved it in the first place.

Gemma didn’t know what to say. Maybe Andy didn’t either. He was looking at the baby in her arms.

‘I’ll take her,’ he said. ‘You bring the others and follow me.’