Читать книгу Summer in Sydney - Fiona McArthur - Страница 18

HE TRIED to leave it.

Cort really did.

But when he was called in late on Monday night, he sensed the second he arrived that Ruby wasn’t there.

There was no one he could ask without making things obvious, which was what he was hoping to avoid.

He couldn’t even ring her, because they hadn’t even swapped phone numbers, which, Cort told himself, was a pretty good indicator as to what they had both wanted from each other that night.

It just felt like something more now.

‘I’m going to lie down in the on-call room for a couple of hours.’ Cort yawned around seven a.m., because he was officially on duty at nine a.m. and two hours’ sleep was too good to pass up.

‘No, you’re not.’ Hannah grinned as she walked over. ‘We’ve got a mum who’s not going to make it up to Maternity.’

‘Oh, God,’ Cort groaned, because this was happening rather too often. The car park for Maternity was currently closed so that new boom gates could be erected, which meant mums-to-be were currently having to walk a considerable distance further, and on more than a couple of occasions they landed in Emergency.

‘We’ve rung Maternity, they’re sending someone down.’ Hannah smiled ‘Come on, Cort—let’s go and have a baby!’

‘I’m not responsible enough,’ Cort said, and Hannah grinned back, but it was Cort who checked himself, because normally he’d have said nothing. Normally, he didn’t joke along with the staff, not even a little bit. Usually he just rolled up his sleeves and got on with whatever job presented itself. Ruby had changed him, Cort realised. Ruby really was infectious.

‘Hi, there …’ Cort smiled at the mother who was groaning in pain but, unlike the last couple of maternity patients who had landed in Emergency, Cort wasn’t quite sure if she was at that toe-curling, holding-it-in stage. He put a hand on her stomach and asked a couple of questions, but to save her from two examinations, as Maternity was sending someone down, he decided to hold off for a moment.

‘Can you believe it?’ Hannah was looking more than a little boot-faced when Cort stepped outside. ‘Maternity sent a grad midwife—she’s just washing her hands.’ Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘She looks about twelve!’

Cort said nothing. Hannah was clearly offended that, on her summons, the entire obstetric team wasn’t running down the corridors now, but privately he thought it was a little wishful thinking on Hannah’s part that an emergency room birth was imminent.

‘Hi, there!’ Cort deliberately didn’t react when it was Tilly who walked towards them and was also quietly grateful that she introduced herself as if they had never met. ‘I’m Matilda. Tilly. We’re incredibly busy in Maternity at the moment, so they asked me to dash down and see if I could help.’

‘She’s through there,’ Cort said, and told her a little of his findings, adding, ‘Though I haven’t done an internal yet.’

‘I’ll come in with you,’ Hannah said.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Tilly politely declined.

She was very calm and unruffled and thanked both Cort and Hannah then disappeared into the cubicle as Hannah sat brooding at the nurses’ station, staring at the curtains like a cat put out in a storm. ‘If we say we need help,’ Hannah said, ‘surely they should send—’

‘They’re busy,’ Cort interrupted. ‘And I guess they figured the patient can’t come to much harm as there are doctors and nurses here.’ He would normally have left it there, but Ruby must still be in the air for him, because he looked over and continued the conversation with Hannah. ‘Have you thought about doing midwifery?’

‘Me?’ Hannah scoffed, then rolled her eyes and added a little sheepishly, ‘Every day for the last six months or so. I’m just not sure it’s worth trying—I’m nearly fifty. I’ve been in Emergency for ever.’

‘Maybe if you’re nicer to Tilly you could see if you could spend a few hours up there. It might help you make up your mind.’ He looked over as Tilly came towards them.

‘She’s fine.’ Tilly smiled. ‘Still a while to go, I think. I’ll take her up to Maternity—how do I arrange a porter?’

‘The porters are just having a coffee. I’ll take her up with you if you like,’ Hannah offered. ‘I’ll just go and grab my cardigan.’

And there was a moment, just a moment where he could have asked Tilly why Ruby hadn’t come in—to check if she was okay or had, in fact, just not shown up. A moment to acknowledge Tilly and to step down from the safe higher ground of Senior Reg and just talk as you would to someone you knew casually, who was a friend of someone you cared about.

He chose not to take it.

Hannah returned with her cardigan and a marked shift in attitude towards the grad midwife and Cort pushed through the morning, but it all felt wrong. The busy department felt strangely quiet without that blaze of red to silently ponder, and at lunchtime, unable to face the staffroom, Cort headed up to the canteen.

‘It’s good to get away from there, even for a little while.’ Sheila joined him in the canteen queue and Cort gave her a smile, though his own company was really all that he wanted. It had been a long night, followed by a very long morning.

‘I thought you were on nights this week.’

‘I’m supposed to be in for a management day,’ Sheila said as they shuffled down the queue and rather dispiritedly checked out the food on offer. ‘Which is a bit of a joke—I haven’t even seen my off ice.’

The queue slowed down and Cort yawned and asked for another shot to be added to his coffee. Instead of the chicken salad he was half considering, or the cream-cheese bagel that was curling at the edges, he decided to push his luck with the canteen lady.

‘Can I have a bacon sandwich?’

‘Then they’ll all want one,’ she said, because most of the meals were wrapped in plastic and pre-made now, except on very rare occasions.

‘He’s been here eighteen hours straight.’ Sheila put in a word for him and as Cort turned to thank her, a normal day, a normal shuffle along the queue in the canteen suddenly somehow brightened.

She was like a butterfly.

Swooping in on a gloomy canteen, which was wall to wall navy and white uniforms and dark green scrubs or sensible suits, Ruby gave it colour.

Her hair was down and she was wearing denim shorts that showed slim, pale legs and a sort of mesh shirt that was reds and golds and swirls of white, and she had on leather strappy sandals and was just so light and breezy that apart from the lanyard round her neck and the anxious-looking woman by her side, you’d never have known she was working.

The queue passed him as he stood waiting for his order and he listened as she stood and helped her patient with her food selection, encouraging her and gently suggesting alternatives, and she made him notice things that he never had before. Like how kind the staff were with the patient, and how other staff behind in the queue didn’t huff and puff and moan about how long she was taking, but with a nod from the cashier moved subtly past.

He saw Ruby’s calm presence, and he saw something else too—that just as she felt she couldn’t do Emergency, couldn’t stand what he did, he realised that he couldn’t readily do her job either. He could not stand with endless patience as the woman struggled with a seemingly simple decision, pasta or potato salad, but, Cort knew, what a vital job it was.

‘Maybe rice?’ the patient said, and Cort felt his jaw clench, but Ruby just nodded.

‘That sounds good.’

And Ruby waited and waited for her patient’s decision, except she didn’t seem to be waiting, just pausing, and Cort found himself wanting to know what the woman would choose, to prod her in the back and say, ‘Just have the rice, for God’s sake.’ Because, yes, there were some jobs that not everyone could do.

‘Here we are, Cort.’ The largest bacon sandwich ever came over the counter and for the first time since he’d been a teenager, Cort thought he might blush as he took the plate, headed over to Sheila and sat down.

‘I’ve had a word with some of the staff,’ Sheila said, because it was easier to talk away from the ward. ‘As you know, I’m going to do a stint on nights and see how it’s all going on there.’

Cort took a sip of his coffee and nodded.

‘How’s Jamelia?’

‘She’s doing better,’ Cort admitted, though his eyes kept wandering to where Ruby was warming her patient’s meal in the microwave. ‘She just needs someone to shadow her and I’ve spoken with Doug about it—we’ll get there,’ he said, because they would.

‘I’ve got a good team, Cort,’ Sheila said. ‘I know they can go a bit far at times, but they have to deal with a lot.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ He was more than aware of that.

‘We just need to remember we are a team,’ Sheila said. ‘And that sometimes we struggle. All of us do, Cort.’ He glanced up at her, because for a moment there he thought she was referring to him. ‘It’s good to hear you went out last week.’

Cort rolled his eyes and took a large bite of his sandwich.

‘It really is,’ Sheila said. ‘You want teamwork, Cort, well, you have to be a part of it.’

And his eyes roamed the canteen as he went to take another bite and then he saw where she was sitting and Ruby looked over at him and somehow the sandwich didn’t taste quite so nice. Part of him wanted to take another bite, a really big one, but instead he put the sandwich down and then he was rewarded with a very private smile, and that did it.

He would go there tonight, Cort decided.

He would go over, because he knew that she was struggling and he didn’t know if she’d told her friends, and, he admitted to himself, if he was going to be there at any point in the future, then he ought to be there for her now.

‘Not hungry?’ Sheila frowned at his discarded sandwich.

‘Not as much as I thought I was.’

‘Is that Ruby?’ Sheila asked, knowing full well that it was. ‘Doing an agency shift?’

Cort said nothing, just as he usually would.

‘She finishes soon,’ Sheila said, which she never usually would either. ‘I’m having a lot of trouble getting that one through.’ She picked up the untouched half of Cort’s sandwich and took a bite. ‘She’s like Lila …’

‘Your daughter?’

‘Both vegetarians, both live on another planet.’

Cort drained his coffee and still said nothing, but for the second time in fifteen minutes or so he was blushing.

‘I still don’t know if she’ll turn up for her shift. What is it with these girls? My daughter just dropped out of maths—two years of study gone, just like that.’

‘Sheila,’ Cort asked, ‘what if your pager went and they asked you to go and work on Ophthalmology?’

‘They wouldn’t.’ Sheila flushed, because she could not stand eyes—they were her thing, the one thing she ran from—she didn’t even like putting in eyedrops.

‘If they did, though?’ Cort said. ‘If they told you that you had to spend six weeks there—and in the ophthalmic theatre too.’

‘I’d say no,’ Sheila said. ‘Because I’m allowed to. Emergency is an essential part of her course. Anyway …’ Sheila met him with a firm gaze ‘… let’s hope she turns up and that we can keep things uneventful for her.’ And that was all she did say, but he took the warning, because in three years he’d never so much as looked at anyone and, yep, Emergency could be a horrible place to work at times and he didn’t want any more of the spotlight falling on Ruby.

‘Cort?’ Sheila checked, and he nodded. Nothing more was said, but both fully understood.

As he headed back to work, deliberately he avoided Ruby’s table, and deliberately he didn’t glance back.

It hurt not to be acknowledged, though Ruby did her best not to let it show, just concentrated on her patient, the aim to keep things light and uneventful, because Louise hated eating in public.

‘Can we go now?’ Louise said, for perhaps the fiftieth time.

‘Soon,’ Ruby said, gently but firmly, deliberately eating her salad as slowly as she could. ‘I want to finish my lunch, I won’t get another break.’ Though as Sheila walked directly towards them, Ruby was rather tempted to take the easy option and tell Louise they were heading back to the unit.

‘Hi, there, Ruby.’ She gave a brief smile to Louise too.

‘Hi, Sheila.’ Ruby wasn’t too embarrassed to be seen working. As a third-year student, she was able to practise as a division-two nurse and a lot of the students crammed in as many shifts as they could. Still, it was just a little awkward given she was due to be on night shift tomorrow.

‘Are you doing some agency?’

‘Hospital bank.’ Ruby gave a sweet smile and then pointedly turned her attention back to her patient. When Sheila continued to hover, Ruby extended the conversation a touch. ‘It’s my last one for this week.’

‘Good,’ Sheila said, ‘because you’ll need all your wits about you for night duty. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Looking forward to it,’ Ruby said as Sheila finally left.

‘Who was that?’ Louise asked.

‘The A and E NUM.’ Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘She’s not too bad really, but she runs a tight ship.’

‘She reminds me of my mother.’ Louise gave a wry smile and Ruby was delighted to see that now the conversation was rather more normal, without thinking, Louise took another mouthful of food.

‘Funny you say that!’ Ruby grinned. ‘I remind her of her daughter apparently.’

It was a slow walk back to the unit, deliberately so, because Louise would have happily run all the way back, just to burn up a few extra calories, but Ruby deliberately ambled, and never in a million years would Sheila, or even Jess, Ellie or Tilly, realise that as she stopped by the guest shop and chatted about some flowers, her mind really was on the patient, that this was, in fact, a deliberate action and part of her job.

Doing this, she was happy, Ruby realised, then tried to push away that thought, although it was occurring all too frequently lately. She could stay a div two if she didn’t complete Emergency, or Sheila insisted that she repeat, but Ruby didn’t have to—she could still work in her beloved psych. Okay, she might not be able to go as far in her career as she would like, but she could still do the job she loved.

As she swiped her ID card and they entered the unit that actually felt like home, Ruby had no intention of not showing up tomorrow.

It was just nice to have options, that was all.