Читать книгу A Marriage Meant To Be - Josie Metcalfe - Страница 8

‘SO, WHERE do we go?’ Steph said when the two of them had been reunited with their luggage.

Callie almost smiled when she realised that they had both opted for almost identical rucksacks in which to carry their worldly belongings.

‘First, we need to find somewhere to stay the night,’ Callie said, looking out at the rapidly darkening sky beyond the enormous doorway to the coach terminus. They’d managed to outrun the threatened bad weather so far, but it didn’t look as if it would be long before they’d get soaked if they hadn’t found somewhere. ‘That might be a good place to start,’ she suggested, pointing to the internet café on the other side of the road.

‘Uh, I don’t think the café will stay open all night,’ Steph said uneasily. ‘I’ve got a bit of money to find a cheap hotel or something. I told you my stepfather gave it to me for the abortion but I reckon it was a bribe, too, so I wouldn’t tell Mum it’s his.’

Callie chuckled. ‘I’m far too old to want to spend the night sitting in a café,’ she said. ‘I was actually going to go on the internet and see what I can find around here without having to march up and down in the dark.’

‘You can do that?’ Steph marvelled with all the arrogance of the very young for those they consider too ‘past it’ to cope with modern technology, and Callie suddenly felt as old as Methuselah’s grandmother.

‘Let’s find out,’ she suggested, and they set off into the chilly evening.

They reached the other said of the road and Callie was just stretching out a hand to open the door when there was the sound of running feet approaching. Before she could even shout a warning their malodorous fellow passenger had barged into Steph, sending her slamming into the pavement as he made off with her rucksack.

‘Steph! Are you all right?’ Callie demanded, as she dropped to her knees beside the dazed youngster.

‘Callie…?’ she quavered, clearly shocked. ‘What…? My bag!’ she gasped, and started to struggle against Callie’s hold. ‘It’s got all my money in it.’

‘Steph, stay still!’ she warned. ‘You hit your head pretty hard when you went down. Let me check you over before—’

‘But he’s stolen my bag,’ she insisted. ‘He’s getting away.’

‘Sweetheart, he’s gone. We’ll never find him,’ Callie said gently, while she held both of Steph’s shoulders to try to stop her from moving. ‘Now, please, let me check your head to see if there’s any damage.’

Perhaps it was the calm insistence in her voice that finally got through the young girl’s distress, but with tears already leaking out of the corner of her eyes and running into the too-black hair she stared up at Callie with a beaten expression in her eyes.

‘Oh, Callie…What am I going to do now?’ she whispered.

Behind them Callie heard the shop door open and looked back over her shoulder to see a gangling young man looking down at them.

‘I saw what happened and phoned for an ambulance. The police are on their way, too,’ he said. ‘Should I make her a cup of tea? That’s supposed to be good for shock, isn’t it?’

‘Thanks for making the call to the emergency services, but it’s better not to give her anything to eat or drink until she’s been checked out, just in case anything’s broken,’ Callie explained, as she performed a swift primary survey.

It was light enough, there on the pavement where the lights from the shop shone brightly, to see that Steph’s pupils were equal and reactive to light and she didn’t seem to have broken anything. There was a painful place where the back of her head had met the ground and the start of a goose egg, but she didn’t even seem to have broken the skin, let alone be losing any untoward fluids.

‘Can you remember what happened to you?’ she asked gently, and Steph threw her an old-fashioned look.

‘Callie, I haven’t got concussion or amnesia. I’ve been mugged and had all my stuff nicked and I’m all alone in a city I’ve never visited before with nowhere to stay for the night. Oh, and I can remember the date and who’s the prime minister.’

Callie chuckled when she saw the face Steph pulled. ‘Not your type?’ she teased. ‘Well, I don’t think you’ve done yourself any major damage, but for the baby’s sake I think you ought to be checked over in the hospital.’

‘Hospital!’ she wailed over the sound of an approaching ambulance. ‘I don’t need to go there, do I? You said you couldn’t find anything wrong.’

‘Hey, Steph, look on the bright side. In the hospital it’ll be warm and dry and they’ll give you a bed to lie on.’

‘Hey, classic!’ she scoffed wearily. ‘I get mugged and lose all my money so I can’t afford even a cheap hotel but, gee, guess what? The mugger injures me so I get a bed for the night.’

Callie hoped her smile was reassuring but when she went to step aside to allow the paramedic to do his job Steph grabbed for her hand and held on tightly.

‘You won’t leave me, will you? Not until…’ Her face fell as she suddenly realised that she had no idea what was going to happen to her.

Callie’s heart went out to her, especially when she heard the tremor in her voice when she was answering the handsome young paramedic’s questions.

‘I’ll stay with you if you want me to,’ she offered, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘I haven’t got anywhere else I need to be in a hurry.’ Nowhere she needed to be for the rest of her life, if the truth be told.

‘Are you sure?’ Steph asked, seeming painfully young in her insecurity; definitely not old enough to be thrown out to fend for herself in a strange city.

‘I’m sure these nice young men won’t mind if I come for a ride with you,’ she said firmly, meeting the eyes of Mike, the good-looking young paramedic, with an authority learned the hard way during many hours of duty in a busy hospital A and E department. ‘Especially given the fact that you’re pregnant. They like pregnant mums to be calm and happy.’

‘We certainly do, Stephanie,’ he said with a broad smile, generously taking the hint without an argument. ‘So you just settle yourself back and enjoy the ride in our luxury limousine.’

‘Limousine!’ she scoffed with a dismissing glance around the functional interior. ‘Where’s the plush carpeting and the mini-bar?’

‘Hey, don’t knock it,’ Mike protested. ‘I cleaned that floor myself, just before we came out to get you, and we’ve got lots of things in here that you don’t get in a mini-bar—such as oxygen on tap.’ He gently adjusted the mask over her face as he teased her and Callie could already see some of Steph’s tension easing.

Her own anxiety had reduced the moment she’d seen how competent the ambulance crew was. Now she just needed to be certain that neither her young travelling companion nor her unborn baby had suffered any hidden injuries and she could go on her way.

Except she couldn’t really do that with a clear conscience, knowing that Steph was now without any funds whatever. Yes, she would have a free bed for the night, tonight, but after that? What resources were there for underage pregnant girls in this city? Were there any hostels or refuges? The ideal situation would be a purpose-built home where she could stay while she waited out the rest of her pregnancy, preferably with counsellors available to tell her about the options available to help her to decide whether to keep her baby or give it up for adoption.

Perhaps she would be able to find out that sort of information while she waited for the A and E staff to check Steph over. She spared a longing thought for St Mark’s, where such local gems had been collated onto the hospital database so that it would be readily to hand. Unfortunately, neither she nor Stephanie would be going back to that area again, at least not for the foreseeable future.

‘Right, ladies, hold tight and we’ll be on our way,’ the driver called as he started the powerful engine.

Callie sat herself out of the way and put her rucksack on her lap, wrapping both arms around it as she watched the paramedic check Steph’s vital signs again and note his findings on the case notes he’d started.

‘Just a few questions, Stephanie. The usual things, all right?’ he said with pen poised. ‘I need your name, address, date of birth and the name of your next of kin so we can notify them where we’ve taken you.’

Callie saw the youngster’s tension return full force.

‘My name’s Stephanie…Smith and I’m fifteen,’ she said tersely.

‘And?’ Mike encouraged, even though it was obvious she’d given a false surname.

‘And I’ve got no address and no family to notify,’ she said with a stubborn expression on her face that told Callie it would be useless to try to push her any further. The paramedic threw her a concerned glance over Steph’s head but he obviously thought the same thing if his resigned sigh was anything to go by.

‘Stephanie, that can cause problems for us,’ he said gently.

‘Why should it? I can take care of myself,’ she said belligerently.

‘You probably can,’ he agreed, ‘but according to the law, if you’re under sixteen we have to have the permission of a parent or guardian to treat you.’

‘That’s easy, then. Just stop the ambulance and I’ll get out, then you won’t have to worry about getting sued.’

‘Steph, sweetheart…’ Callie began, not really knowing what to say. She’d often had to start treating youngsters before she could get parental consent—a victim of a car crash or a child in status asthmaticus couldn’t wait for paperwork. Hopefully, Steph’s condition wasn’t life-threatening, but if it were…from the little that the youngster had told her on the coach, she was feeling too bitter at the moment to be willing to contact her family, and without a surname there was no way of tracking them down behind her back.

But if the alternative was watching a fifteen-year-old with a potential head injury disappear onto the streets without a penny to her name…

She unzipped a pocket on her rucksack and fished out the purse buried deep inside, out of the way of light-fingered passers-by.

‘Here. Will this help with the paperwork?’ she asked as she offered her hospital ID card.

She saw Mike’s eyebrows shoot up when he read it and was uncomfortably aware that in her jeans and jumper she didn’t look much like the professional photo he was looking at. But apart from that speculative look in her direction he confined himself to copying the relevant information on Steph’s form.

‘A and E,’ their driver announced cheerfully, although Callie would have bet that he’d been listening to every word going on in the back and would be grilling Mike later.

‘We hope you enjoyed your journey,’ he said as he opened the double doors at the back of the vehicle, sounding just like a holiday tour guide, ‘but sincerely hope you won’t be travelling with us again.’

‘Tony, you idiot,’ scolded one of the nursing staff waiting to receive them. ‘What have you brought for us this time?’

‘Two lovely ladies,’ he announced cheerfully, as he and Mike flipped the lock to release the wheels and slid the trolley smoothly out onto the apron and through the doors of the emergency department with Callie in their wake.

‘This is Stephanie,’ Mike said as soon as his hands were free to consult his clipboard. ‘She’s fifteen years old and approximately twenty-eight weeks gestational. She was mugged and fell, hitting her head on the pavement. Brief loss of consciousness but her obs are now all within normal ranges with pupils equal and reactive. No obvious breaks but the start of a lovely big egg on the back of her head.’

‘Are you her mother?’ the young nurse demanded, and Callie was so taken aback by the unexpected question that she hadn’t managed a word before Steph butted in.

‘No. She’s my friend,’ she announced fiercely, reaching for Callie’s hand and clinging to it. ‘She was there when it happened and I want her to stay with me.’

‘That won’t be a problem as long as she doesn’t get in the way,’ the young nurse said kindly, and Mike had to stifle a chuckle when he caught Callie’s eye. He opened his mouth, obviously intending to tell the team about her qualifications, but Callie gave her head a sharp shake, hoping he would keep the information to himself. Now was not the time to end up answering an inquisition about why she was so far from home.

She was also feeling overwhelmed by such familiar surroundings, having trouble coping with the fact that even though everything was so similar to St Mark’s, there was one huge difference—there was no chance of coming out of the cubicle and seeing Con’s familiar figure walking towards her with that sexy smile deepening the dimples either side of his mouth.

Not that she’d seen much of that sexy smile over the last few weeks and months. She hadn’t felt much like smiling, either, but in her case it had been because she’d been mourning the death of the baby that would have made her life complete. She’d thought Con had been mourning, too. It had taken blunt words to open her eyes to the true state of affairs between them.

A very junior registrar came in a few minutes later and was doing very well until he caught sight of what Mike had written on Steph’s case notes. Suddenly he became all fingers and thumbs and started second-guessing himself over every little thing until Callie couldn’t stand it any more.

‘I’ll just go out and make a call while you’re organising the ultrasound scan, shall I?’ she suggested, taking pity on the poor man’s nerves.

‘You won’t go away, will you, Callie?’ Steph demanded, looking younger than ever swathed in a voluminous hospital gown.

‘I promise,’ Callie said with an encouraging smile. ‘But I need to do something about my accommodation. We aren’t all getting free beds for the night.’

‘But you will come back, won’t you?’ she said, sounding as uncertain as a little child left for the first time in an unfamiliar place, but clearly hoping that no one would be able to hear the pleading in her voice.

‘As soon as I’ve made my calls,’ Callie reassured her, and slipped out of the cubicle.

‘Can you direct me to a phone I can use to call out of the hospital?’ she asked one of the women at the reception desk, having chosen her for the kindly way she’d spoken to the last person to approach her. ‘And do you have any sort of directory of organisations in this area who provide sheltered accommodation for runaways or pregnant girls?’

The woman blinked at the question, but Callie would have to give her points for the fact that her smile never wavered neither did her eyes stray towards Callie’s waistline.

‘I’ve got some telephone numbers on a database on the computer. I could call them for you, or would you like me to print them out?’

‘Could you print them out, please? Until my friend has finished having her tests, she won’t know when she’ll be released.’

‘I wouldn’t wait till then before you make contact,’ she advised softly, as the printer started chattering, beckoning Callie to the far end of the reception desk to give them some semblance of privacy for their conversation. ‘There’s an excellent YMCA but they’re always so heavily over-subscribed and only take people in on a night-by-night basis, so there’s no continuity. There’s only one official residential centre in town, and that takes the girls up to six weeks after the birth, so they rarely have any beds free.’ She paused a moment in thought then wrote something on the paper. ‘This one I’m adding at the bottom of the list is still trying to start up at the moment—they’re struggling financially, so they won’t have the same number of carers. It’s a private one, not officially on the hospital list yet. A friend told me it’s being set up by a woman whose teenage daughter ran away from home when she discovered she was pregnant, and then died.’

Callie thanked her for the information and set off for the phone. She could only imagine the feelings of guilt that were driving the poor woman to set up some sort of refuge, but directing Steph to somewhere that could fold before the end of her pregnancy might not be the best course.

Fifteen minutes later she had to admit that she was out of options and started to dial the number written on the bottom of the list in the receptionist’s neat script. The sight of the woman’s surname startled her for a moment and brought back one of her worst memories from the time she had been doing her rotation in Obs and Gyn.

‘Yeah?’ said a bored voice when the phone was answered, the sound barely audible over the racket going on in the background.

‘Is that The Place to Go?’ Callie asked, wondering if she’d misdialled.

‘Yeah,’ said the same bored voice.

‘Is Mrs Keeley there?’

‘Who? Oh, you mean Marian. Nah. She had to take Jess to ’ ospital. ’Er waters broke,’ she offered, with the first glimpse of real emotion in her voice.

‘Which hospital did they go to?’ Callie asked over a superstitious shiver when she heard the woman’s first name. What were the chances that there were two people called Marian Keeley who had each lost a pregnant teenage daughter? What were the chances that she would be the one who had provided the spark that had made Callie decide between specialising in Obs and Gyn and A and E?

‘She’s taken ’er to City. It’s where we all go when it’s time,’ said the laconic voice on the other end of the line. ‘Can I take a message? I dunno when she’ll be back, mind. Babies can take hours to be born sometimes. And it can hurt a lot, too,’ she added with an audible edge of fear to her voice.

‘That’s why they give you gas and air to breathe,’ Callie said matter-of-factly. ‘To take the pain away.’

‘You’ve got kids?’ she interrupted, almost eagerly.

‘No, but I’m a—’

‘Well, what would you know about it, then?’ the girl snapped, and Callie was left with the dial tone burring in her ear.

‘That went well,’ she muttered wryly as she replaced the receiver and made her way back towards the curtained cubicles.

‘Come with me, Callie,’ Steph said as soon as she caught sight of her. ‘They’re taking me up to the place where they do scans.’

Callie hadn’t done anything about finding herself accommodation for the night yet, but she couldn’t bring herself to rebuff the youngster, not when she was the closest thing she had to a friend.

She let Steph’s nervous chatter wash over her as she rationalised that she could always book into a hotel for one night, even if it meant she had to start looking for a job sooner rather than later. Also, if they were going up to the antenatal department for the ultrasound, it might be close enough to the labour ward for her to see if she could make contact with Marian Keeley.

‘Callie! Look!’ Steph exclaimed a little while later as she saw the indistinct image appear on the screen. All her fear and disappointment seemed to have been banished by that one shadowy impression with its tiny heart beating so valiantly. ‘It’s the baby! My baby!’ she whispered, with a mixture of fear and awe as the being growing inside her became real for the first time. ‘Look! It’s moving!’

It felt as if a giant vice was being tightened inexorably around Callie’s heart. She could remember all too clearly her own terrified joy when she’d seen her baby’s heart beating, and for the first time had allowed herself to hope that she and Con would finally have their miracle.

‘Would you like a picture to keep?’ the technician asked.

The intense look of longing that swept across the youngster’ s face was a far cry from the resigned defensiveness she’d worn as a shield when Callie had first met her. Her ‘Yes! Please,’ was every bit as fervent as Callie’s had been, and she had no doubt that it would be evidence of a precious memory, as her own early scans had been.

Then, she’d been amazed how different it had been to look at the scan of her own child rather than that of a patient. With professional distance between them, she’d been able to look at the images analytically; when it had been her own baby, she’d demanded, ‘Is the baby all right?’ every bit as anxiously as any other expectant mother.

‘Everything looks fine so far,’ the voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘No sign that your accident did any damage to the baby or to the placenta.’

‘So that means I can go?’ Steph said, although Callie thought she could detect a little less eagerness in the words than before. Perhaps the young girl was actually feeling the reassurance of having so much professional help around her.

‘Not until the morning,’ the midwife who had been assigned to Steph said firmly. ‘Although it was brief, you did suffer some loss of consciousness, so we’d like to keep you under observation for a while just as a precaution. In your case, that’s more important because of the baby. Anyway,’ she added cheerfully, ‘it will give you a chance to look us over and get to know us before you come in for the real thing.’

It was another half an hour before Steph was settled in the small four-room ward with two heavily pregnant companions, and Callie was glad to see that both of them were so eager for the novelty of a new person to talk to that they weren’t about to let her young friend’s defensive prickles put them off.

Callie had almost forgotten about contacting Marian Keeley until she was leaving the antenatal side of the department. She’d turned into the reception area and couldn’t help glancing through the safety glass panel in the doors that divided the mothers with babies from those without.

Right at the other end of the corridor she caught sight of a bustle as several people in theatre scrubs were rushing towards the door with the sign for the delivery room hanging above it.

‘Jess’s baby?’ she murmured aloud, and wondered if there was any way she could find out without asking the staff to break patient confidentiality. If the baby had already arrived, she might have missed her chance to meet the woman she hoped would have a suitable place for Steph. If Jess was still in labour, she might still be able to speak to her.

‘Can I help you?’ said the young midwife, who emerged from the room just the other side of the doors and pushed one of them open to speak to her. ‘It’s husbands only at the moment. General visiting hours don’t start until seven, after the evening meal is over.’

‘It was one of your visitors I was hoping to catch,’ Callie said with a smile. ‘I’m looking for Marian Keeley. She came in with Jess…’

‘Ah, you’re one of Marian’s new volunteers, are you?’ she said with a sudden welcoming smile. ‘Come in and have a cup of coffee while you’re waiting for her. She shouldn’t be long now. Jess is already pushing and…’

At the far end of the corridor there was the sound of a faint wail and her smile grew even wider.

‘Oh, I do love that sound!’ she exclaimed as she beckoned Callie into the room behind her. ‘I’ve delivered dozens already, but it still gives me a thrill. I’m Jenny, by the way. How do you take your coffee? Milk and sugar? I’ll make one for Marian as soon as she’s settled Jess onto the ward.’

‘I’m Callie,’ she offered distractedly, her innate honesty urging her to confess that she wasn’t one of Marian’s volunteers, but what could she say? That she’d never met the woman? That might not be true if she was the same Marian Keeley she’d met nearly two years ago. ‘Milk with just the tiniest bit of sugar would be perfect,’ she said in the end, deciding that explanations could wait until she came face to face with the refuge’s owner.

‘Surely you’re not watching your weight. You certainly don’t need to,’ chatted the young woman as she spooned instant coffee into two mugs and waited for the kettle to boil.

‘Trying to cut down on my coffee intake by making it less palatable,’ Callie admitted wryly. ‘At one time I was drinking it black and nearly thick enough to stand a spoon up.’ It had been one way of getting through the brutal regime that doctors put themselves through to qualify and she’d virtually become addicted to the stuff. Then she’d heard that it could be a factor for couples experiencing difficulty in conceiving and was definitely frowned on for pregnant mums and had completely cut it out of her diet.

Even though it had been nearly five months since she’d lost her precious baby she hadn’t returned to her former coffee intake, feeling as if it would be some sort of admission that she’d given up all hopes of motherhood.

‘How do you stand on the subject of biscuits—chocolate biscuits, to be precise?’ Jenny asked as she held up a rather posh tin. ‘A gift from some very happy parents.’

‘Biscuits are definitely one of the major food groups and chocolate is essential for the existence of civilisation,’ Callie declared solemnly, then grinned as she beckoned the tin closer.

‘Is this a private party or is there room for one more?’ said a voice at the door. ‘I’m gasping for a cup of tea.’

‘Marian!’ Jenny said as she leapt to her feet, but Callie hadn’t needed the unintentional introduction. The woman in the doorway was someone she’d never forgotten even though she no longer resembled the grief-ridden fury she’d last encountered.

She saw the moment that the bereaved woman recognised her and braced herself for another tirade.

‘Dr Lowell!’ she gasped and stared at her open-mouthed for several startled seconds before hurrying into the room. To Callie’s utter amazement the woman bent to throw her arms around her for a fervent hug. ‘Oh, Dr Lowell, I’m so glad to see you. I tried to contact you at the hospital but they said you weren’t on Maternity any more and I’ve felt so guilty…so guilty for what I said to you that day…And it wasn’t your fault…I knew it wasn’t your fault…That you’d done your best to save Lisa…That it was my fault if it was anyone’s that she’d gone off like that, and—’

‘Hey, Marian, slow down,’ said Jenny, clearly stunned by the woman’s unexpected reaction to her visitor. ‘What’s going on here? Callie said she was one of your volunteers.’

‘Actually, I didn’t…’ Callie began, unhappy with the implication that she’d lied, even though she knew she hadn’t corrected the midwife’s mistaken assumption. Marian’s voice overrode hers easily.

‘I should be so lucky!’ she exclaimed with a dramatic roll of her eyes as she slumped into the nearest chair, clearly well at home in the room. ‘Jenny, I don’t know whether she’s said anything, but this is the doctor I was telling you about a little while ago. She was there when my Lisa died. She and her husband were the ones who saved my granddaughter’s life.’