Читать книгу Just a Family Doctor - Caroline Anderson - Страница 5

THE ward was busy the next morning when she arrived for work at seven. She’d thought she wouldn’t sleep, but in fact had gone out like a light when her head hit the pillow. That’s what happiness does for you, she’d told herself as she scrabbled around getting ready in a hurry. Or, more likely, half a bottle of red wine, a brandy and that sinfully laced chocolate dessert!

She had arrived in the nick of time, and found the night staff getting the children ready for their breakfast. There was always a flurry of visits to the loo and a rush round with bedpans to the immobile patients at that time of the morning, and Allie was as busy as any of them.

Anna was there, taking report from the Night Sister, and the moment it was done she joined Allie in the little single room where she was replacing Darren’s colostomy pouch.

The twelve-year-old had come in with a rectal abscess, with fever and severe pain, following chronic constipation and an appalling diet, and after investigation they had decided to operate. The surgeons had cut through his bowel above the abscess and brought the cut end out through the wall of his abdomen in a temporary colostomy, to rest the affected area and allow it to heal, and for the next few weeks at least he would have to tolerate the indignity of a bag stuck on the front of his tummy.

Still, at least it wasn’t permanent, Allie thought, carefully peeling the old bag away and sealing it and throwing Anna a smile at the same time.

‘Morning.’

‘Morning. Hi, Darren, how’re you doing?’ Anna asked, and chatted for a moment to him, then perched on the end of the bed and watched Allie work. ‘A little bird tells me you went out for dinner with Mark last night, you sly old fox,’ she murmured.

Allie felt a rush of guilt, then stifled it. I got there first, she told herself—five years ago! ‘Not really dinner,’ she denied, still not sure exactly what had happened. ‘We went to the bistro—it was my birthday. Can you hold your T-shirt up higher for me, Darren? That’s lovely. Thanks.’

‘And did you bring cream cakes in?’ Anna prodded, clearly feeling no malice towards Allie for having stolen the brightest prospect on the ward for years. ‘No, you didn’t. I hope you’ve brought them today.’

Allie smiled ruefully. ‘Sorry. I haven’t had time to get to the bakery—anyway, cream cakes are fattening, isn’t that right, Darren?’

‘Yeah—and I can’t have one, so you can’t either.’

‘No, you can’t, but we could always save you one for later—we need any excuse we can get for a cream cake at coffee time!’ She propped herself on the edge of the treatment couch and grinned at the patient. ‘We all need treats, don’t we, Darren?’

Darren nodded. ‘I fancy a cream cake. I’m bored with eating nothing decent. Can’t you sneak off to the bakery now?’

‘No—and anyway, you know you can’t have a cream cake,’ Allie told him with mock sternness. ‘You need to rest your stomach for a few more days, not overload it with junk food, and besides, it’s not my birthday any more.’

‘We could pretend.’

‘No, we couldn’t. It’s too soon after your operation.’

He poked his tongue out, and Allie chuckled and pressed the new pouch firmly in place. ‘We’ll pretend when you’re better. There. That’s you sorted. I’ll come and see you in a while—unless you want to go into the playroom and watch telly with the others?’

He shook his head. ‘Not yet. Perhaps tomorrow.’

‘OK.’ She smiled and gave him a quick hug, then pushed the trolley back to the treatment room and cleared up the equipment. ‘He hates it,’ she murmured to Anna as she worked.

‘I know. It must be hell on a kid to have a colostomy, even if it’s only temporary. Let’s just hope the abscess clears up quickly.’

‘Absolutely—but at least he’s not in so much pain now. He just needs to heal and learn to eat the right foods—and definitely no cream cakes, no matter how bored he is.’

‘Which gets us back to your birthday and the rather gorgeous Mark Jarvis.’

Allie laughed and popped the bag of waste into the bin. ‘It was just a quick meal,’ she lied. ‘Nothing special.’

‘What was nothing special?’

Her heart sank. Of all the times for him to walk in—

‘Nothing.’

‘Excuse me,’ Anna said, and slid out, winking at Allie as she went.

‘What was nothing special?’ Mark said again, and Allie, sighing, turned to face him.

‘Our meal last night. She was being curious—I was just saying that to get her off my back.’

He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Were you? Or did you mean it?’

She thought of lying, of covering her own emotions to protect herself, and then she looked into his eyes and knew she couldn’t lie. ‘No. I didn’t mean it.’

‘That’s all right, then.’ He smiled, his mouth kicking up at the corners and creasing his eyes. ‘What are you doing?’

She washed her hands and scrubbed them on a paper towel. ‘Just redone Darren Forsey’s colostomy pouch.’

‘Oh, joy. Bet you enjoyed it. I’ve come in to have a look at him, amongst others. How is he?’

‘Fed up. He’s better than he was, but he’s still got to deal with the colostomy for a few weeks and endless suppositories, and I think he’s going to die of embarrassment. Your little girl with appendicitis is bright and lively today, though.’

He chuckled. ‘Bounced back, has she? Kids are amazing.’ His smile faded as he looked at her, and he glanced down at his hands, then back to her, his eyes seeming to see right through her. ‘If dinner really wasn’t nothing special, how about tonight?’

She sorted out all the negatives. ‘Tonight?’ she repeated, her heart jiggling in her chest and a smile fighting its way onto her lips. ‘What about tonight?’

‘I wondered if you fancied a drink. We could grab a bar snack or something, too. There’s a pub I’ve been told about in a village a few miles out, and it’s supposed to have a really nice atmosphere. The food’s supposed to be good, too.’

Should she play it cool and stall him for a week?

No. Subterfuge wasn’t her thing, never had been, never would be. She let the smile escape. ‘Sounds great. What time?’

‘Seven again? I could pick you up, now I know where you live.’

‘Anna will be unbearably curious.’

‘Anna needs a lover,’ he said firmly.

‘Mmm. I think she fancied you for the job.’

His neck went an interesting shade of brick. ‘Tough,’ he murmured. ‘Right, must get on. Where’s Darren? In his room?’

‘Yes—just opposite the nursing station, in the single room. Can you manage?’

‘You keep asking me that. No faith,’ he said drily, and she watched him go, stifling a sigh of sheer enjoyment. It wasn’t just adolescent fantasy, he was good-looking. Very decorative. She eyed the soft, thick hair on his head. It was the colour of a gold nugget, not bright, just warm and interesting and tinged with fair bits where the sun had bleached it. It looked infinitely touchable—

And she was in danger of losing her job and her marbles if she didn’t pull herself together!

She cleared away the last of her bits and pieces, washed her hands again and went out into the ward. There was a baby crying, little Amy Fulcher, who was in under observation after severe abdominal pain with no obvious cause.

Her mother had gone outside for a short walk in the fresh air, and Allie scooped up the eighteen-month-old and cuddled her, walking her up and down and crooning to her until she settled again. Poor little scamp was exhausted, because she’d been crying off and on all night. It seemed likely that the surgeon in charge of her case would decide to operate today to investigate, but the baby seemed reasonably well apart from the pain.

Mark came over to her as she was settling the baby down against her shoulder, and brushed his hand lightly over her head. ‘Poor little scrap. They’re going to X-ray her again,’ he told her. ‘Apparently they think she might have bands or adhesions around the intestines.’

‘Mmm. She’s a bit old for bands to suddenly be a problem at eighteen months, and she hasn’t had any previous surgery to give her adhesions, but it could be, I suppose. The symptoms fit. It’s obviously not that bad because she’s not shocky or vomiting—’

Flying in the face of God, she thought a second later, as Amy retched and covered her uniform in green bile.

‘OK, I take that back. Thank you, darling. How lovely. Shh, sweetheart, it’s all right now,’ Allie said under her breath, soothing the baby automatically. She went quiet, and Allie laid her down in the cot and looked at her shoulder and chest in despair. She’d deal with it later. Just now she had to wipe the baby’s mouth and make sure she was all right.

Certainly the crying had stopped. Mark looked over her shoulder.

‘Well, it seems to have done the trick—she’s more comfortable now,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Jolly good. I’m so glad one of us is.’

He chuckled, and patted her other shoulder. ‘You smell gorgeous.’

Thank you so much,’ she said with a huge false smile. ‘I can’t tell you what it’s like from this side.’

‘Did someone chuck on you, Nurse?’ one of the boys asked, cruising past on crutches and regarding her uniform with undisguised mirth.

‘Just a bit. How’s your leg?’

‘Excellent. I can go home today, maybe, if the X-ray’s all right.’

‘Good. That’s great.’ It was. Healthy young boys with damaged limbs were a nightmare to entertain and keep quiet, but fortunately for the most part they healed at a huge rate of knots and thus weren’t such a drastic problem.

‘You just want to get rid of me,’ he said mournfully, and Allie laughed.

‘You guessed, Tim.’

Tim flashed her a grin and set off again. He was getting too darned good on those crutches—

‘Can I make a suggestion?’

Allie glanced up at Mark, glowering at his twinkling eyes and twitching mouth.

‘Change my clothes, perhaps?’

‘You guessed.’ He smiled. ‘Great minds, eh?’

She sniffed, curled up her nose expressively and headed for the sluice.

‘I’ll just strip this tabard off and find a clean shirt, then I’ll be back to write that lot up. I don’t suppose you’d like to report it to the surgical team? Oh, and find someone to sort Amy out?’

‘Sure.’ Mark grinned, waggled his fingers and went into the office to use the phone, and Allie dealt with the little crisis to her person, washed her hands for the thousandth time that day and pulled on a clean shirt from the stores.

‘Hi-ho,’ she mumbled, tugging the clean tabard straight and heading back to the ward.

Mark sniffed and smiled. ‘Better.’

‘All part of the job,’ she said with a grin. ‘I’ll go and check on Amy. I just dropped her, poor little kid. Did you find anyone to sort her out?’

‘Anna’s gone to do it.’

‘Thanks.’ She flashed him a grateful smile and went to see how Amy was now. Anna was still with her, changing her and settling her on a clean draw-sheet.

‘OK?’

Allie smiled. ‘Yes, thanks. I always get in the way.’

‘Don’t we all? Her mother’s on the way back—I rang the coffee shop and asked them to tell her. She’d just nipped in for breakfast. The surgical reg is on his way down—I think they may operate this morning now.’

Allie nodded. ‘I wondered. Still, she’s on nil by mouth already, so there’s no delay.’

Mrs Fulcher arrived back then, and Allie left Anna talking to her and went to see what else she could find. As sure as eggs, there’d be plenty.

It was after four before she got away, not the three o’clock her shift should have ended, but they’d had a flood of post-ops back from General Surgery and Orthopaedics, and she’d had to say goodbye to Tim, and what with one thing and another the time had just slipped by.

She went home and threw her washing together and walked to the laundrette round the corner, read an out-of-date magazine while the clothes sloshed round in the machine and then read another one while the tumble dryer finished the job. She didn’t get home until half past six, and then had to plead with Lucy for the bathroom.

Consequently she was late—which was a nuisance because it meant Lucy got to answer the door and let Mark in, and Allie was like a cat on hot bricks while she finished getting ready, wondering what she was saying.

She needn’t have worried. Lucy, predictably, was talking about herself, and Mark was looking polite. Funny how she could read him already—or did she mean still?

She flashed him a smile. ‘Hi. Sorry I’m late—I had to go to the laundrette and do the dreaded washing.’

‘That’s OK.’ He stood up and smiled at her flatmate. ‘Nice to meet you, Lucy,’ he murmured, and taking Allie’s arm, he ushered her out of the door.

His car was outside—a very normal, ordinary car, nothing too big, just a sensible car for the town. She was surprised. She would have expected him to have a—well, a sexier car, somehow, but what? A Ferrari, for heaven’s sake? A Mercedes?

He was only an SHO.

And that was another thing that was puzzling her. Surely by now he should have been a registrar? Unless he’d taken time out for something else … She’d have to ask.

He opened the passenger door for her, went round and slid behind the wheel. Suddenly the car seemed much smaller, and astonishingly intimate.

‘All set?’ he asked, throwing her a grin, and she nodded.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Pulham St Peter. It’s just north of here, and the pub’s very good, so I’m told.’

Pulham wasn’t far. She settled back against the actually very comfortable seat and watched him out of the corner of her eye. Within seconds she was totally relaxed. He was a good driver, quiet, competent and not hasty, but he didn’t hang about, either.

She realised she felt safe, and it was a strange feeling. She was normally edgy with other people driving her. She didn’t have long to worry about it, though, because they were pulling up in the pub car park in no time, and he was ushering her into the busy, crowded bar.

It was noisy and full, but by a miracle another couple vacated a table in the corner just as they had got their drinks and they were able to sit down out of the way and study the menu.

‘Shall we eat in here, or in the restaurant?’ he asked her.

Conscious of the price and the fact that tonight she was definitely going halves, she said, ‘In here, I think.’

He nodded, scanned the menu again and looked at her. ‘Decided yet?’

‘Scampi and chips—and I’m paying for mine.’

He chuckled. ‘How did I know that?’

He went to the bar armed with her money and placed the order and paid, and then came back and handed her her change. ‘There you are, you stubborn, independent young woman.’

She smiled and pocketed the money. She felt better now. She didn’t want to feel she owed him anything. Not that he would take advantage, but there had been the odd occasion in her past where a man had felt he had a right to her body because she’d accepted a meal from him. It hadn’t taken her long to dissuade her erstwhile suitors, but it had left a nasty taste in the mouth, and she didn’t want to mess up their budding relationship—

‘Penny for them.’

She laughed. ‘Not a chance. What are you having?’

‘Same as you.’

Their eyes clashed, and she looked away, her heart hammering. Oh, Lord. It would be so easy to fall for him. She cast around for a neutral topic of conversation, and remembered her thoughts about his career progression.

‘Tell me about your work,’ she said, sipping her drink. ‘How come you’re still an SHO? I would have thought you’d be a registrar by now.’

He grinned wryly. ‘I would have been, but I changed horses in the middle of the race. Well, actually, I changed races. You know I wanted to do general surgery, like my father?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I remember. You were keen.’

‘I was—until I started doing it. Then I felt curiously detached from it all. The patients come in with a problem that someone else has detected, you fix it, and they go away. You never see them again, never know how they are unless there’s a problem.’

‘But that’s good. If you don’t see them again, you’ve done your job.’

He shook his head. ‘Maybe—but it’s not the job I want to be doing. I want to find the problem, send them to get it sorted and follow it up afterwards at home.’

‘But that’s general practice,’ she said, a little bemused.

‘Exactly.’

She stared at him in astonishment. ‘But you’re going to be a surgeon.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not any more. That’s why I’m doing paeds, why I’ve done obs and gynae, and A&E, and general medicine, and geriatrics—’

‘You want to be a GP?’ she said slowly, the penny finally dropping.

He smiled. ‘Yes—why not?’

Why not? She thought of the stress her father was under, of his partner who had found the strain all too much and taken the easy way out, leaving his wife and two young children to cope alone without him—

‘Why not?’ she said incredulously. ‘Because it’s an awful life, that’s why not. It’s dreadful. That’s why they can’t recruit GPs for love nor money. It’s stressful, it’s bogged down with paperwork, the hours are horrendous, it’s a thankless task—’

‘No. It’s not a thankless task. It might be all the other things, but it’s not a thankless task, and the hours are much better now. Nearly all GPs are in cooperatives, so their time on call is much better organised and less stressful.’

She snorted. ‘Talk to my father about it.’

‘I have—I did. He agrees.’

‘No, he doesn’t. Well, he might have done five years ago, but he doesn’t now. Why do you think he’s taking early retirement?’

Mark shrugged. ‘To enjoy the rest of his life while he still can?’

She snorted again. ‘Not my father. He’s a workaholic. No, it’s stress, I know it is.’

‘Well, whatever, it’s what I want to do, Allie,’ he said quietly, straightening the edge of his beermat with a strong, blunt fingertip. ‘I’m not cut out for hospital medicine, I know that now.’

She was stunned. Shocked, confused, utterly baffled by his announcement. He was going to be a surgeon. She’d always known that. It was who he was—wasn’t it?

She sipped her drink again absently, and then the barmaid called out a number and Mark stood up, coming back moments later with two fragrant, steaming baskets of scampi and chips nestled on absorbent paper napkins, two wooden forks and a selection of condiments in another basket.

‘Here—it smells gorgeous.’

It did. Fattening, wicked and absolutely lovely. She let her breath out on a quiet sigh, sprinkled salt liberally over her food with total disregard for her health, and tucked in.

A GP, for heaven’s sake—

‘Allie?’

She looked up, searching his face for any clue that he’d been winding her up, and found none.

‘What?’

‘What’s the matter?’

Was she so easy to read? She shrugged. ‘I just thought—I don’t know. I always knew you were going to be a surgeon.’

He grinned. ‘Well, I’m not. Believe me, I was shocked as well. You’ll get over it. The scampi’s good. Do you want some tartare sauce?’

‘Mmm.’ She tore the corner off the packet and squeezed it out mechanically, then stuck the little wooden fork into a piece of scampi and bit into it. He was right, it was good. She put thoughts of his career out of her mind and concentrated on eating and enjoying his company, but something had gone, like a light being switched off inside her.

It was only later, after he’d taken her home and given her another of those sizzling kisses on the doorstep, that she realised why.

They had no future, because there was no way she could spend her life with anyone who was going into general practice. There was no way she’d marry him if things went that far. She couldn’t bring children into the world knowing their father might not last the course. She’d seen at first hand the havoc it could cause in a woman’s life, and she had no intention of letting it happen to her.

Then she chided herself for being ridiculous.

You’re getting a bit ahead of yourself, Allie Baker. You’ve had two dates—and one of them didn’t even really count. Stop acting like he’s asked you to marry him!

She got ready for bed, climbed under the chilly duvet and snuggled down, and waited fruitlessly for sleep to come.

They had a new admission the next day, a little girl of seven from the cystic fibrosis clinic. Claudia Hall had been diagnosed with CF at birth, and was currently struggling with yet another deep-seated chest infection.

She was coming in for intravenous antibiotics to combat it, and Allie greeted her and her very pregnant mother affectionately. It was the second time she’d been in in the few months Allie had been on the ward, the last time to insert a gastrostomy tube in her stomach so she could have special feeds delivered by pump overnight to boost the amount she was able to eat, because her appetite was dreadful and she wasn’t able to take in enough to sustain herself.

Everybody thought CF was just a chest condition, Allie mused, and yet it affected the intestines just as much, causing havoc with the assimilation of food and secretion of enzymes. In fact if Claudia ate anything with fat in it, she took handfuls of enzyme pills to enable her to digest it properly. Between the enzymes and the tube feeds, Claudia had been gaining weight, but now she’d lost it again with this infection. Allie had hoped they wouldn’t have to see her again so soon, and it was a shame. She’d had more than enough to deal with already in her short life.

‘Where am I this time?’ the little girl asked as she looked round the all too familiar ward.

‘Nice bed by the window—that do you?’ Allie said with a smile.

Claudia nodded. ‘Yes, please. I don’t want to be in the Winnie the Pooh room again.’

Allie laughed. ‘Well, you won’t have to this time because you’re MRSA free, so we won’t have to isolate you. How’s Piglet?’

Claudia pulled up her jumper and showed Allie her gastrostomy tube, nicknamed Piglet because of the Winnie the Pooh room she’d been put in when she’d gone down with the MRSA infection in the gastrostomy site. ‘He’s fine. Still eating all night.’

‘Good. Right, we need to admit you and do all the paperwork, then you can go and find out who’s in the playroom.’

‘Is Katie still here?’ she asked.

Allie shook her head. ‘No, sorry. She went home a few weeks ago. There are a couple of girls of your age, though. I’m sure you’ll get on with them.’

Claudia nodded and scrambled up onto the bed, triggering a coughing fit that ended in her vomiting. Allie was prepared. It was a frequent occurrence with CF children, and she was ready with a paper bowl.

‘She’s really gone downhill the last few days,’ her mother Jayne explained. ‘She’s been coughing more and more—Dr Barrett thought she should come in and get it sorted. She’s got pneumonia this time—I suppose it makes a change from Pseudomonas.’

Allie nodded. ‘Yes, she’s down for gentamycin. That should clobber it. Can’t have you feeling this poorly, can we?’ she said with a smile for Claudia, who was flopped against the backrest looking exhausted.

‘She hasn’t been sleeping all that much,’ Jayne said, and Allie could tell by the bags under her eyes that Jayne hadn’t, either.

‘When’s the new baby due?’ she asked.

‘Three weeks, but I may not make it that long. I’ve got dodgy ligaments in my pelvis and it’s so painful. I have to wear a belt round my hips to support it, and it’s getting really tiresome, not to mention difficult to move around, so they might induce me early.’

As if the poor woman didn’t have enough on her plate. ‘It’ll soon be over,’ Allie said comfortingly, and then turned back to Claudia. ‘All right, poppet? Feeling a bit better?’

She nodded, but it was only politeness. She looked awful, poor kid, and Allie wanted to hug her.

‘Dr Jarvis’ll be here in a minute, I expect, and he’ll check you over and get your IV line in. Then we can get some bug-zapper into you and you should start to feel a bit better.’

Claudia nodded again, and Allie flipped open her file and took out the sheet at the front with all the labels on. They were printed with name, address, next of kin, hospital number and so forth, and were stuck on anything to do with the patient. It saved hours of copying and potential inaccuracy—when they were right.

Allie checked, on the principle that one could never be too sure. ‘Are all your details still the same? Address, phone number and so on?’

Jayne nodded. ‘Yes, nothing’s changed.’

‘Good.’ She stuck Claudia’s labels on the charts, clipped them to the end of the bed and took her temperature and blood pressure. The respirations she’d already done surreptitiously while Jayne had been talking, and they were up, as she’d expected.

‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ she asked Jayne when she’d finished.

‘Oh, I’d love one. Can I make it?’

Allie shook her head. ‘You sit there, I’ll find someone to do it for you. Weak, black, no sugar—is that right?’

‘How did you remember that?’ Jayne asked softly, and looked near to tears. Allie guessed that this pregnancy had been very difficult for her. She had a horrendous obstetric history, by all accounts, and it was touch and go whether this one would be all right. Still, at least she was almost there. That was a huge improvement.

‘I have a very retentive memory for useless information,’ she told Jayne now, and with a smile, she left them alone and found Pearl, the Jamaican ward orderly. ‘You couldn’t take a cuppa to Jayne Hall, could you? She’s over there. Weak, black, no sugar.’

‘I remember, darlin’, don’t worry. I know Jayne very well. Sometimes I think she lives here. Sure, I’ll take her a cup of tea. I was just goin’ to ask her myself.’

Allie left Jayne in Pearl’s capable hands, and thought not for the first time what a gift to the ward the matronly woman was. She was possessed of infinite kindness and patience, and seemed to be able to keep order with the bored and naughty children absolutely effortlessly. They all adored her, and it was mutual. She would have made a wonderful nurse, but perhaps she was more useful as an orderly, because she never had to do anything unpleasant to the children and that made her easier to trust.

Allie checked on Amy Fulcher who had come back from Theatre yesterday after she’d gone off duty. She was looking better already, much more comfortable, and her mother was slumped in the big vinyl armchair beside her, sleeping.

It seemed a shame to wake either of them, so Allie left them to it for a little while. Sleep was probably more useful than anything to the baby at the moment, and the mother was exhausted.

She looked across at Claudia’s bed and saw Mark had arrived and was chatting to them. He had one hip hitched up on the edge of the bed, and he was smiling and teasing Claudia into smiling back. He was good with children, she realised, and wondered why he didn’t go into paediatric surgery.

He’d been so keen, so certain of his choice—

She shook her head. She was still stunned by his revelation, and was trying to reconcile herself to the bitter fact that there could be no future for them beyond the immediate one of a few dates—except maybe, because he was the only man she’d ever felt like this about, a brief affair.

Nothing lasting. Nothing permanent. No happy ever after. Just something to remember him by when he moved on.

She swallowed hard and found herself something to do at the other end of the ward, away from him and his laughing eyes and wide, ready smile that made the sun come out.

Her reprieve was short-lived, though, because he asked her to assist him with Claudia’s intravenous line. He was putting in a long line, not as long as a Hickman line that went all the way to the heart, but one that went into the arm in the crook of the elbow and up into the top of the chest.

‘As you know it lasts longer than a needle cannula,’ he explained to Jayne and Claudia, ‘and this treatment’s going to take a couple of weeks. We don’t want to have to keep putting in another line and messing you about, do we, Claudia?’

Claudia shook her head, and they moved her into the treatment room where they undertook the more sterile procedures. Allie was the ‘clean’ nurse, and a younger staff nurse was the ‘dirty’ nurse, the one who handled the outside of the packets and opened them for Allie, who was scrubbed and gowned and ready to assist.

Mark scrubbed as well, and then they settled down with Claudia to insert the line into her little arm. It was splinted straight, and would stay like that until the line came out, which was a bit restricting but one of the penalties for not having to have the line changed constantly.

Her mother was there, of course, supportive as ever, and Allie wondered how Mark would deal with Claudia and her independent attitude. Her mother had brought her up as far as possible with input and control over her illness, and her quiet courage and calm dignity were terrifying.

As for Mark, it was the first time Allie had seen him doing any procedure, and she was impressed. Claudia cried, of course, but only a little, and he was very kind and gentle with her, and it was over in no time. Allie secured the end of the line with tape and made sure the splint that kept her elbow straight was comfortable, and then she was given the first dose of antibiotic through it.

It seemed such a shame to have to put her through it, Allie thought sadly, but it was a small price to pay to combat the germs in her chest which were playing havoc with her breathing and damaging the already fragile structure of her lungs.

‘All right now?’ Mark asked, checking his handiwork and smiling at Claudia.

She nodded, looking wan and exhausted against the white pillows. Allie wanted to cry for her. She wanted to cry for all of them, but she couldn’t, of course, so she smiled and hugged and dished out sensible advice and struggled on.

Just like Jayne, she thought with sympathy, struggling on with her softened pelvic ligaments so that every movement made the two ends of her pubic bones scrape together at the synthesis, the join in the middle at the front. It wasn’t a joint anyone was ever aware of, unless something like this happened.

It must be horribly painful and difficult, Allie thought with another surge of sympathy as she pushed the bed back to its place in the ward. Still, not for much longer. It would soon recover once the pregnancy hormones disappeared from her system.

‘Can I go and see who’s in the playroom?’ Claudia asked her, and Allie nodded.

‘If you want to. Take a paper hat with you, just in case you’re sick. Want me to introduce you to the others?’

She shook her head. “S OK,’ she said pragmatically. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘She’s so independent,’ Jayne said in admiration, sinking into the big armchair by the bed. ‘You’d think she’d be clingy, but she’s not. She just gets on with it, no matter how awful. She’s got such guts—’

Jayne broke off, her lips pressed together in a firm line, and Allie wondered what it must be like to have a child with CF and know there was a one-in-four chance that the baby she carried would have inherited the same dreadful and debilitating disease.

She patted her shoulder, giving quiet comfort and support, and then left her to grab a few precious moments alone to rest in the comfy chair. Allie reckoned she’d earned it.

She managed to slip up to the canteen for lunch, by a miracle, and was sitting propped up in an easy chair in the corner nursing a cup of tea when Beth strolled over.

‘He’s gorgeous,’ she said without preamble. ‘I saw him today in Outpatients. I had to cover. He is just luscious.’

Allie didn’t pretend not to understand. ‘I know,’ she said glumly.

Beth dropped into the chair opposite and gave her a curious look. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘I’m the one that should have the long face. At least he’s interested in you—he wouldn’t have noticed if I’d got six legs!’

Allie laughed. ‘Beth, you’re silly. He’s going to be a GP,’ she added after a pause.

‘How wonderful. There are far too few of them out there.’

‘I don’t want him to be a GP. It’s so stressful.’

‘Isn’t that rather for him to decide?’ Beth said pointedly. ‘And anyway, what does it matter? He’s here now, he’s giving out all the right messages—you’d have to be mad to ignore it. Well, mad or dead or totally sexless.’

Beth was right—and Allie wasn’t any of those things, at least not where Mark was concerned. Well—mad, maybe, but that was different.

She finished her tepid tea and set the cup down. Happy ever after was probably a figment of the imagination, anyway, but there was no time like the present. Who said every relationship worth having had to end in marriage?

She gave the bemused Beth a dazzling smile. ‘You’re a love. See you later.’

And feeling much brighter than she had all day, she went back to work.