Unperfect

by Susie Tate

  “Sir!” I clipped out, before clicking my heels together and lifting my hand to my forehead in a full-on salute. Sometimes my brain short-circuited a little around authority figures and I lost touch with what was respectful and normal, and what was just plain odd. Nigel looked unimpressed. “Er, hi. You, um, wanted to see me?” I said, lowering my arm and biting my lip. “It’s just I’m in the middle of a ward round. The junior doc I left to finish off doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, so I might need to –”

  “Right, right,” he said, and he swallowed as his hand moved to his neck to attempt to loosen his collar. “I, I . . .” he trailed off and gave my outfit another pained look. “We have a special visitor. It’s a rather . . . sensitive matter, so before you go in I’m going to have to ask for your discretion.”

  “Oooh discretion.” I smiled, as excitement leaked into my voice. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m the soul of discretion. Like a blind badger with laryngitis – you can trust me.”

  He blinked. Twice.

  “Just . . . just please, try to be professional, alright?”

  “Yes, sir!” This time for some reason I gave a double salute, which ended up as sort of jazz hands manoeuvre. Nigel closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second.

  “Okay,” he said eventually. “Follow me.”

  *****

  “Dr Murphy?”

  I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I didn’t seem to have the power in my jaw muscles to close it. I was lost for words. Not a common occurrence for me. In fact, I could not recall ever being lost for words before, even in childhood.

  I stared at the strong, tanned hand that was extended in my direction. His shirt had cufflinks, cufflinks. The only time any of the men in my life ever wore cufflinks was to weddings, and only then if they could find them: often they settled for safety pins. Nigel cleared his throat and I gave a small start. My hand jerked forward, but instead of just taking his, I smacked it . . . hard. Horrified, I withdrew my hand and took a small step back. He blinked at me and slowly lowered his arm, without changing his expression – as if small women smacking him happened on a regular basis. I felt heat flood my cheeks and realised I was blushing. I never, never blushed. I was a sexual health doctor for badger’s sake: nothing ever embarrassed me. Embarrassment just wasn’t a Kira thing. But standing here in front of this man, I was paralysed with it.

  Barclay Lucas.

  In the flesh.

  Standing in Nigel Derwent’s office and regarding me with a baffled expression.

  He looked even better than he did on the telly. His tie was ever so slightly loosened. His thick, dark hair was more ruffled than normal and he had stubble darkening his jaw line. The only thing that remained immaculate was his pocket square. And he was tall. Really tall. Damn it, I needed to close my bloody mouth.

  “Kira?” Nigel prompted through clenched teeth and finally, finally I managed to snap my mouth closed.

  “Er, sorry,” I said into the silence, “about the hand slapping.” I gestured between my hand and his. “That was weird.”

  Barclay gave me a measured look, ran his fingers through his hair and then turned his attention to Nigel. “This is the Dr Murphy in question? There isn’t another, different Dr Murphy?” His crisp, posh, public school accent was unbelievably intimidating at close range.

  Nigel shrugged. “She’s the only Dr Murphy in the hospital. Believe me, if I could find another one, I would.”

  I scowled at Nigel and crossed my arms over my chest.

  Barclay sighed and propped a hip up against Nigel’s huge desk. “Dr Murphy, please, take a seat,” he offered, sweeping his hand out to the two crappy, plastic NHS standard-issue chairs beside me.

  “Yes, yes,” Nigel said, bustling to the other side of his desk to his own leather over-sized chair. “Let’s all sit down and discuss this . . . situation.”

  Barclay, however, made no move from his position next to the desk. He had crossed his arms over his broad chest and was staring at me like I was a bug under the microscope. My eyes flicked from Barclay to Nigel and I raised my eyebrows but did not sit down.

  “You treated my brother,” Barclay told me.

  I frowned. “Your brother?”

  “Yes, my brother. Henry.”

  “Henry?” I said under my breath and then my mouth dropped open again. “Holy sh–Shetland Iles! Henry Lucas. Henry is your brother?”

  I felt the heat fade from my cheeks as they drained of all colour. Was he here to complain? I thought Henry had got over the whole me telling him he’s a wankpuffin, a pussy and a misogynistic dickhead thing. It had happened over a month ago, and last week when I’d seen him in the waiting room, he’d lifted his chin and given me a very small smile of acknowledgement. His skin had been clear and he was looking way less skeletal now. Prof said his viral load had dropped dramatically. Had the little shit gone whining to his brother because I’d sworn at him? If so, he was more of a pussy than I’d thought.

  “Listen, I’m sorry if he found my methods a bit . . . heavy on the profanity and light on the, er . . . respect. But, before I started dropping f-bombs . . .” Nigel made a choked sound from behind his desk which I ignored “. . . he wasn’t listening to a word I was saying. And I didn’t–”

  “Dr Murphy,” Barclay said, cutting me off. “You saved my brother’s life.” Barclay didn’t say this in an emotional way, merely as if he was stating a fact.

  My eyes went wide with surprise. Not a complaint then.

  “Before you saw him in clinic, he had never taken his antiretroviral medication. After he nearly died of pneumonia, he cut my parents off completely and barely speaks to me. Nothing we said, nor any of the private consultants I paid thousands for, or even Professor Patel could convince him to start treatment. But he sees you for ten minutes and he’s . . .” Barclay paused and looked away for a moment as he swallowed. When he spoke again, his voice had a rough edge to it. “He has hope. You gave him hope. So, Dr Murphy I don’t give a damn what sort of profanity you used when you spoke to him. In my mind you’re a miracle worker.”

  “Oh,” I said as I took a long blink. “Um, well. That’s . . . good to know.”

  “He says he’s not seeing you in the clinic anymore,” Barclay continued.

  “Well, he’s under Prof’s care and I don’t usually run the HIV clinics. I just step in to help Prof every so often. I’m mostly on the wards or in the sexual health clinic.”

  “I want Henry to see you in clinic,” he said, his tone firm. I narrowed my eyes – I’d never been terribly good at taking instructions from authority figures, no matter how handsome they were.

  “Well, yes, I’m sure that can be arranged,” Nigel put in. “We’ll easily sort things out so that Dr Murphy will–”

  “Mr Derwent,” I said, all business now and, with the way Nigel’s eyebrows went up, I could tell I’d surprised him. “With respect, you don’t know how my department functions. We’re short-staffed in the sexual health clinic and on the wards. Neither of those are areas that Prof is going to be able to help with. I do not run the HIV clinics and–”

  “I’ll pay you,” Barclay cut me off, again. My temper flared.

  “I get paid by the hospital,” I told him.

  “I’ll pay you to see him privately, outside of your hospital hours.”

  “I don’t do private work. I do enough hours here. Way over what I’m contracted.” I gave Nigel a pointed look and he shifted in his chair. GU medicine was chronically understaffed.

  “Then I’ll pay the hospital for a replacement to cover you. Two replacements. And I’ll pay you to see my brother.”

  “Privately?”

  “Privately.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t do private work.”

  “Are you being deliberately obtuse?” Barclay clipped, and I realised that it wasn’t just my temper that was flaring.

  “No, I am not being,” I paused and lowered my voice to a poor imitation of his
posh one, “‘deliberately obtuse’. I’m just telling you: I don’t do private work ever. I work for the NHS exclusively.”

  “That’s not true,” he shot back. “You’ve worked for Médecins sans Frontières. You worked for them last year.”

  I beat back the shock that he knew so much about me, and levelled him with my best withering look. “That is hardly private work, Mr Lucas.”

  “It’s not exactly NHS work either.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Just because I worked for a humanitarian organisation, who only covered my living expenses by the way, does not mean I am for hire.”

  “I’ll pay you five hundred pounds per appointment with Henry. Plus, travel expenses to the house. He . . . he won’t agree to extra visits to the hospital.”

  “Mr Lucas, I don’t think you under–”

  “A thousand. A thousand per appointment.”

  “I don’t do private work,” I gritted out.

  “Why not? What the hell is wrong with private work?”

  “I just don’t do it. I don’t need the hassle of setting up the extra indemnity cover. And it’s . . . it’s against my principles, okay?”

  “It’s against your principles to earn perfectly good money?”

  “No, Mr Lucas. It’s against my principles to earn money outside the NHS, looking after rich people who can use their money to jump the waiting lists. I know that might be tricky for someone of your political persuasion to understand, but it’s not why I went into medicine. Anyway, Henry should stay under Prof’s care. He is a leading light in HIV, he lectures all over the world. And Henry has to come into the clinic. That’s where the blood tests are taken, that’s where we have all the equipment.”

  “I know Professor Patel’s credentials,” Barclay said through gritted teeth. “Why the hell do you think I had Henry go to his clinic in the first place? I’m not saying he should stop coming into the hospital clinics. This would be extra input for him.”

  “Right, well . . .”

  “He needs you,” he said, that rough quality back in his voice and an almost desperate expression crossing his face. “My little brother needs you, Dr Murphy. We almost lost him.” And then his blue eyes connected with mine and he swallowed, before saying the one word that I knew could break my resolve. “Please.”

  I sighed and looked down at my feet before meeting his eyes again. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” He’d pushed up from the desk now, his arms were uncrossed and the corners of his mouth had tipped up in a barely-there smile. I took in a sharp breath and ended up choking on my own saliva. Seriously, the man was so attractive it was almost unreal.

  “Y–yes,” I managed to get out through my coughing.

  “Are you quite alright?” Barclay asked.

  “Fine, fine,” I spluttered, feeling a couple of tears streaming down my now likely red cheeks and feeling like an idiot. I scrubbed them away, glad that I’d forgotten mascara that morning and cleared my throat. “I’ll see Henry, but not as his doctor.”

  Barclay’s eyebrows drew together and he re-crossed his arms. “What do you mean ‘not as his doctor’? How else would you help him?”

  “Look, he needs to carry on seeing Prof at the hospital. And I don’t take money for private work. If you really think that him seeing me would help, then I’ll go to him. But no payment. No nothing. Not private work. As a friend.”

  “You’ll go and see him . . . for free?” He looked truly confused now.

  “Listen, you say he needs to stay motivated. You say he found what I told him helpful. Well, I don’t have to do that in a medical capacity. I can do that as a friend.”

  “Well, I’d really rather formalise the agreement.”

  I suppressed another eye roll at his stuffy tone. “Well, I’m not exactly a formal gal and I’m not going to take over his care from Prof. So, it’s my way or no way.”

  “You’re very . . . unusual,” he said, staring down at me with a bemused expression.

  “Yes, yes, I am.” I stood up a little straighter and gave him a wide smile. The light buzzing that had been going off intermittently from his pocket grew more insistent, and he finally withdrew his phone, giving the screen an angry glance.

  “Right, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go. If I can have your mobile number then I’ll text you the details.”

  “Oh sure,” I said, rattling it off and trying not to get too excited that Barclay Lucas had my phone number. He made a move to leave after he’d typed it into his phone and I leapt up from the chair to block his way, sticking my hand out for him to shake. “I guess this means we’re friends too now,” I said through another wide smile.

  “As long as you’re going to see Henry then . . .” he trailed off and shook my hand, looking less than impressed at the prospect of a friendship with me in the offing. His hand was warm and dry and his grip was firm. I stared down at the veins running along the back of it and the light dusting of hair over its surface as if it was the most fascinating sight I’d seen that year.

  I, Kira Murphy, was holding hands with Barclay Lucas.

  He eventually pulled back, but my hand had decided that it was quite happy where it was for the moment and so clung on, only letting go when he gave his a sharp tug and I nearly fell into his broad chest.

  “Righty ho!” I said as he skirted around me, giving Nigel a cursory, parting head nod.

  “Oh, er . . . about my phone,” I called out. Barclay had just reached the door and had his hand on the knob – he looked wistfully at his potential exit for a moment before turning back to me.

  “Yes?” he asked with forced politeness.

  “Well, the cheeky badger’s not that great at text messages.”

  “It can’t receive text messages?”

  “It can, it’s just they don’t really display as any language I would be able to recognise. Started to do it a few weeks ago. I got excited for a bit ’cause I thought I might be receiving intelligence from the Russians, but the guy at Carphone Warehouse seemed to think it’s just ’cause it’s a Nokia from 1998.”

  “You have a phone from 1998?”

  “It can take calls though. So you could ring me. Except I don’t really take it anywhere, and I only check it once every couple of days and, er . . . sometimes I forget.”

  One of Barclay’s hands went up to the back of his neck and he stared down at his shoes. “Do you have an email address?”

  “Hmm, no,” I admitted, making an eek face at Nigel who looked on the verge of a heart attack.

  “Dr Murphy, you do have an NHS email,” Nigel put in, shooting me a furious look.

  “Oh, yes. See, I don’t really check that either so . . .”

  “You’re an NHS doctor,” Barclay told me. Something I already knew. “Surely an NHS doctor has to be contactable in an emergency?”

  “I do my on-calls on site and I have a work phone and a pager for them. My personal mobile doesn’t factor.”

  “Christ, so what are we left with? Smoke signals?” He let out a deeply frustrated sigh. “Right, okay, my PA will ring you on your phone and she’ll contact Mr Derwent.”

  “Yes, yes that’s fine,” stammered Nigel, who had been going more and more red in the face throughout my exchange with Barclay. He scrambled up from his chair and made his way around the desk. “Of course, I can get hold of Dr Murphy.”

  “Sorted then,” I said. “Get your minion to give me the deets of Henry’s gaffe, and a time he wants me to come over, and we’ll work it out. Easy.”

  “Dr Murphy,” Barclay said as he turned away from the door and towards me again. “Do you know what I do for a living?”

  “Er, yes. I kind of do,” I murmured.

  “Then you must realise that a lot of my time is spent in meetings, negotiating with people, yes?” I nodded. “So, believe me, I have a good frame of reference and a vast amount of experience to draw on when I say that this,” he pointed back and forth between us, “was anything but easy.”

  Anything but Easy i
s available on Amazon now.

  About Domestic Abuse

  As a GP I work with victims of domestic abuse and those in a women’s refuge. Unfortunately, the pandemic seems to have exacerbated this problem. For many people home is not a safe place and being trapped there during lockdown was a disaster.

  I’m so sorry if anyone who is reading this does not feel safe in their own home. You are not alone. There is help available. This should not be happening to you. For those in the UK the Gov.uk website lists all the information and helpline numbers.

  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-abuse-how-to-get-help

  Click on any of the links below for information on the following:

  Recognise domestic abuse

  Get help and support

  Check whether someone has an abusive past

  Get a court order to protect you or your child

  Support someone you know

  Find additional information and support

  Get help if you think you might be an abuser

  How to call the police when you can’t speak

  Acknowledgements

  I’ll start by saying a massive thank you to my readers. I never dreamt that people would take the time to read the stories I have thought up in my freaky brain, and I am honoured beyond words. I am also eternally grateful to the reviewers and bloggers that have taken a chance on me – your feedback has made all the difference to the books and is the reason I’ve been able to make writing not just a passion, but a career.

  Thank you to my agent, Lorella Belli, for your support and encouragement. To Jo Edwards my fantastic editor and dear friend – thank you, thank you and I’m so sorry about all the semicolons! Thanks also to Steve Molloy for such a wonderful cover design.

  Last but not least thanks to my very own romantic hero. He’s been married to me for thirteen years now and he supports me unconditionally. I love you and the boys to the moon and back.