Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘What about my application?’ Charlotte’s eyes were urgent. ‘Will I still be considered for one of the permanent positions?’

  That wasn’t Harriet’s domain and after a moment’s pause Judith finally answered, ‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’

  Both women sat in silence until the door closed, and it was Harriet that took up where Charlotte had left off.

  ‘What about her application?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Judith fiddled with the paperwork in front of her. ‘She’s got all the makings of a great emergency nurse, she’s just too bold at times.’

  ‘She’s twenty-one,’ Harriet pointed out. ‘And gorgeous to boot. Hell, I’d have probably lifted his phone number at that age.’

  ‘Would you?’ Judith asked dubiously, and Harriet coloured.

  ‘No!’ She gave a low laugh. ‘But I’d have been very tempted. Come on, Judith, imagine if you were twenty-one and newly qualified and someone as gorgeous as Ciro—’

  ‘He’s not my cup of tea.’

  If Harriet had been a bit pink before, she was positively flaming now, Ciro’s rather surprise revelation suddenly coming to mind. But Judith just looked at her and laughed.

  ‘Have you only just cottoned on?’

  Harriet gave a tiny wince as she nodded. ‘Just.’ Harriet gave a little giggle. ‘And, of course, it doesn’t matter to me a bit. I’m just going to blush horribly for the next half-hour or so.’

  They both fell into silence but it wasn’t uncomfortable, the two women thinking long and hard about the young nurse’s future.

  ‘Do you think it was Charlotte that let it slip about you and Drew?’

  Harriet gave a shrug. ‘I’ve no idea, but I’m sure I was the talk of whatever bar she was in the next night.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave the decision as to whether she gets the position to you.’

  ‘But I’ve only been here a few months, it’s not my call.’ As Harriet attempted to protest, Judith became more insistent.

  ‘I don’t care if you’ve been here six months or six years, Harriet. You’re an emergency nurse as much as I am, and this has possibly affected you the most. I need to know now. Admin want to know today, so they can get the letter of offer out.’

  ‘So Charlotte was one of your choices?’

  ‘She was.’ Judith nodded. ‘But, as I say, it’s up to you.’

  And Harriet thought for a good couple of minutes. Her first instinct was to say no, that Charlotte didn’t deserve the job, that there were better candidates.

  But were there?

  ‘She’s got all the makings of a great emergency nurse,’ Harriet said finally. ‘And I honestly believe that she’s had a fright today.’

  ‘Grown up a bit, even?’

  Harriet nodded. ‘I may live to regret this, but I think she’ll be great.’

  ‘So do I,’ Judith agreed. ‘I think you’ve made the right choice. Now, I’d better email Admin with our decision, but don’t let Charlotte know.’ She gave a shrewd wink. ‘It might do her good to stew for a while.’

  ‘One of her closest friends works there.’ Harriet grinned. ‘We might have scared her a bit, but I can guarantee that she’ll know she’s in before the end of the shift.’

  ‘Speaking of which…’ Judith looked up from the computer ‘…how about we go for a drink? Strictly as friends.’ Judith grinned.

  And like a reflex action, Harriet blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I swear that I’ll be back to normal tomorrow,’ she said, fanning her flaming cheeks with her hands. ‘And there was me feeling sorry for you. You’ve got the best sex life out of the lot of us.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Judith laughed. ‘But I could really use a drink and a chat tonight. I’ve had it up to here with stupid young girls getting themselves pregnant and even sillier young nurses falling for a doctor who’s clearly just passing through…’ Her voice trailed off, her eyes blinking in concern behind her thick glasses as Harriet visibly crumpled, balling her fingers into her eyes in an attempt to hold back the tears. Harriet’s lips trembled as Judith shot from her seat and put her arm around her. ‘Whatever’s wrong?’ Her voice was very concerned. ‘Harriet, tell me, what on earth’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Harriet attempted, but it changed midway, her voice breaking into a sob, tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘Everything…’ Harriet stopped trying to hold it all in, her words strangling in her throat as she tried to get them out, scarcely able to believe, even as she said it, that it was her own life she was describing. ‘I’m one of the idiots who fell for him.’

  ‘Ciro?’ Judith checked, and Harriet gave a pitiful nod. ‘You and Ciro?’

  ‘Ciro bloody Delgato can add me to his list of conquests…’

  ‘You’re being daft,’ Judith chided. ‘The fact even I didn’t know about it surely shows it meant more than a passing fling. I was just shooting my mouth off before. Ciro’s lovely…’ Judith’s hand tightening on Harriet’s shoulder was like opening the floodgates. Tidal waves of emotion flooded in as Harriet finally admitted the appalling truth.

  ‘Those stupid girls getting themselves pregnant that you were talking about…’ She couldn’t believe she was saying it, couldn’t believe that it was actually happening to her. ‘Well, I think that I may be one of them.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘I NEVER thought I’d be buying one of these.’

  Placing a loaded carrier bag on the kitchen bench, Judith pulled out the offending article then proceeded to unload the rest of her wares, pulling out tissues and folate tablets—and tampons, just in case Harriet was mistaken. It reminded Harriet of Ciro emptying the emergency rations on her kitchen bench before their first night together as a couple, and she promptly burst into tears all over again.

  ‘It’s stress,’ Judith said wisely as Harriet duly padded off to the bathroom. ‘And don’t forget that you’ve had an anaesthetic as well—they can play havoc with your cycle.’

  ‘How long does it take?’ Harriet asked Judith, returning with the plastic indicator. She placed it on a magazine on the coffee-table and tried to forget that the blessed thing was there.

  ‘Long enough to open one of these!’ Popping the cork on a bottle of champagne, Judith filled up two glasses. ‘Come on, Harriet, you’re not sunk yet.’

  It was the longest two minutes of her life. She sat there, sipping champagne as the minutes ticked away like hours, not sure how she wanted it to turn out. A negative result would be just that: the end of the end. And yet…

  Staring over at the white piece of plastic that would determine her fate, despite the appalling circumstances, despite the cards stacked against her, a part of Harriet actually wanted it to be positive. She had a flutter of excitement inside and if there was such a thing as maternal instinct it kicked in then, images of jet-haired mocha-eyed babies flicking into her consciousness, a permanent reminder of all that could have been.

  A mistake this baby never would be.

  ‘Time’s up!’ Ever practical, Judith drained her glass before she headed over to the coffee-table. Picking up the plastic indicator, she stared at it for a long time before finally looking at Harriet.

  ‘Congratulations!’

  ‘Well, that’s that, then!’ Kissing goodbye to those mental images, Harriet raised her glass, but as Judith still stared Harriet’s heart seemed to stop beating, the congratulations Judith had offered perhaps not quite the reverse joke Harriet had expected. ‘I’m not?’

  ‘Oh, yes, you are.’

  And even from the other side of the room, Harriet could see the dark cross in the middle of the indicator, and she stared open-mouthed at a piece of blotting paper that had suddenly changed her world.

  ‘It will be OK!’ Judith was trying to comfort her, trying to say the right thing, and somehow managing.

  ‘I know it will,’ Harriet gulped.

  ‘Whatever you decide to do, I’ll be there.’

  And Harriet knew what Judith was offering, but without hesitation
she turned it down.

  ‘I’m keeping it, Judith. It has nothing to do with whether it’s right or wrong…’ Accepting the glass of water Judith had poured, she downed it in one. ‘It’s just not me.’

  ‘Then Ciro needs to know,’ Judith said sensibly, but Harriet shook her head, appalled at the prospect of telling him yet equally appalled at the prospect of not telling him, of making such a mammoth decision on her own. Because even if Judith was there, even if Judith was being the best a friend could be, at the end of the day it came down to Harriet.

  The choices she made in the next few weeks were ones that she and her baby would have to live with for the rest of their lives—which was a sobering thought indeed.

  ‘He might be upset at first, but once he’s calmed down—’

  ‘No!’ Harriet shook her head, tentatively at first, not a hundred per cent sure of the path she should follow and struggling to keep up with Judith. ‘I don’t think I’m going to tell him.’

  ‘Oh, Harriet.’ Judith shook her head. ‘You can’t just let him go without knowing.’

  ‘Oh, but I can.’

  And as easily as that she decided. She cupped her hand over her stomach and focussed on the life inside her. Ciro was moving on with his life, his notice had already been handed in, and their relationship was definitely over. What good could it possibly do to tell him?

  ‘There’s no need for him to know. It’s not as if we’re going to be working alongside each other—hell, he’s heading back to Spain.’

  She moved out onto the balcony. It was easier to be outside than in, easier to stand looking out at the sea and inhaling the delicious night air, to watch the waves endlessly rolling in, the stars still shining brightly, as everything in Harriet’s universe changed.

  ‘I heard him today, Judith. Heard him tell me that he’s prepared to pay for his mistakes.’

  ‘You said yourself to young Pippa that the father needed to know,’ Judith pointed out wisely. ‘I heard you, Harriet, when we were waiting to transfer her. You said that as hard as it might be to tell him, he had a right to know.’

  Harriet turned and faced her friend. ‘Pippa’s fifteen years old, she needs her family, needs all the help she can get, and she needs the father to take whatever responsibility he can. But I’m almost thirty.’ Harriet ran a tongue over her dry lips, tasted the salt of the ocean and drew on its strength. ‘I’ve lived through one bad relationship, Judith, and I can think of nothing worse than doing it all over again—Ciro staying with me out of some sense of duty, watching the passion, all the love we had slowly die until neither of us even have the energy to care much when it’s over.’

  ‘But you don’t have to be together,’ Judith pointed out. ‘Ciro still needs to know.’

  ‘Why?’ Harriet didn’t even look over, just stared into the darkness, somehow picturing the scene, a horrible future scenario in which she had no desire to partake. ‘So that he can send me a cheque every month, or draft a letter through his solicitor to demand that the baby takes Spanish lessons so it’s not out of its depth on its annual custody visit? What’s that going to achieve?’

  ‘He’s its father.’

  ‘A father who doesn’t want to settle down.’ Harriet couldn’t even cry, numb shock setting in now. ‘And if I can’t have all of him, I don’t want the crumbs. Surely you can understand how I feel. Women bring up babies on their own all the time—some even choose from the outset that they’re going to be a one-parent family!’

  ‘It doesn’t mean that it’s easy,’ Judith countered. ‘And, yes, some women decide that’s what they’ll do because it’s the only way that they can have a baby. But it’s different here, Harriet. This isn’t some nameless sperm donor, you’re talking about a man you’ve been in a relationship with, a man you maybe even love…’

  ‘I do love him.’ Harriet’s voice was a strangled whisper, and she buckled as Judith put her arm around her. ‘That’s why I have to do it this way.’

  ‘To make it easier for Ciro?’ Judith asked, for once her voice not judgmental. She was trying hard to understand, but she still didn’t quite get it, and Harriet shook her head.

  ‘No, Judith, to make things easier for me.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘DÓNDE es el apartmento de Dr Delgato?’

  Possibly the most stunning women Harriet had ever seen greeted her in rapid Spanish as, pale-faced and attempting to hold down half a slice of toast, Harriet dashed out of her door in a vain attempt to get to work on time.

  Almost as soon as the indicator had turned positive, morning sickness had arrived, and the apartment, along with Harriet, had a permanent scent of bleach, toothpaste and mouthwash, which only served to exacerbate things!

  ‘I look for Dr Delgato,’ the dark-haired beauty explained, screwing up her nose as she did so and peering inquisitively over Harriet’s shoulder into her apartment. ‘He say second door from the lift, so you can tell me where he is. I come straight from aerpuerto. I am his sister, Cara.’

  The one with the terrible taste in men, Harriet thought dryly, wondering how someone so beautiful could, over and over, get it so terribly wrong! No one had the right to look that good when they’d come straight from the airport. Not even a hint of jet-lag marred Cara’s gorgeous features. Her long dark hair rippled down her slender shoulders as if she’d just stepped out of a beauty salon, and her almond-shaped eyes narrowed as she stared at Harriet, her pretty nose sniffing the air. But for all her arrogance, for all her confidence, if it had been a few weeks ago Harriet would have squealed in delight, would have gleefully introduced herself to this ravishing stranger, but, given she’d already been through this scene the previous night with one of his other sisters—Estelle, the studious one—instead, Harriet gestured upwards.

  ‘You’re on the wrong floor. Dr Delgato is the next one up.’

  ‘No!’ Annoyingly she shook her head.

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet responded with more than a hint of irritation. ‘As I explained to your sister last night, Dr Delgato lives on the fifth floor, second door from the lift. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m already late.’

  ‘Bloody vultures,’ Harriet moaned to herself, grinding the gears all the way to work. She could just imagine them sitting around Ciro’s apartment like witches around a cauldron, discussing their brother’s latest victim.

  Well, a victim she refused to be!

  Checking her appearance in the rear-view mirror, unusually for Harriet these days, she added an extra slick of lipstick, utterly determined to impress the interview panel she would be facing that morning. Plagued with guilt for even considering taking on the role, without revealing she was pregnant. Judith had been the one to talk Harriet out of divulging her status—telling her in her usual militant terms that not only didn’t she have to divulge her pregnancy in the application process, even if she were nine months gone and in active labour, her condition had no bearing on the selection process.

  Nurses got pregnant all the time and, furthermore, as Judith took apparent delight pointing out, in the absence of any child maintenance from a certain completely-in-the-dark doctor, Harriet would be needing the best wage she could possibly muster. With Judith’s pep talk ringing in her ears, Harriet managed to get through the interview. Answering each question thoughtfully, she pondered the various scenarios the interview panel tossed at her. Shaking hands at the end, she even indulged in a mental image of herself in the smart red blouses the ANUM wore.

  The maternity version, of course!

  ‘What’s this?’ Screwing up her face, Harriet tried to decipher the appalling scrawl in front of her then, giving in completely, she thrust the casualty card at Ciro, who was working at the nurses’ station. ‘I can’t even make out what it’s supposed to be, let alone dispense it.’

  Polite attempts at small talk had long since run out—at least on Harriet’s part—and by the time they had reached Ciro’s last day in the department they were reduced to clipped requests when anyone was present and f
ractious barbs from Harriet when they were unfortunate enough to find themselves alone.

  ‘Sorry!’ Scribbling out his drug order, Ciro rewrote it, still in his unique appalling scribble but at least it was in English this time. ‘I wrote the Spanish name for it.’

  ‘Which would be fine,’ Harriet mumbled, taking the chart and heading off, ‘if we were in Barcelona.’

  ‘A simple mistake,’ Ciro retorted. ‘I’m sorry my English isn’t perfect enough for you!’

  ‘Your English is fine.’ Harriet turned, smiling sweetly, but it went nowhere near her eyes. ‘And I’ll forgive you for your handwriting, given that dyslexia clearly runs in the family.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your sisters!’ Her fake smile disappeared. ‘Clearly they don’t know the difference between the numbers four and five.’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, Harriet!’ Ciro’s voice had an almost weary note to it, as if she were some sort of raving lunatic he was trying to placate.

  ‘Estelle and now Cara have both been to my door, pretending they don’t know which apartment is yours.’

  ‘I had no idea. They must have got lost…’ Ciro put his hand up in apology. ‘I am sorry you were disturbed.’

  And somehow he managed to turn it all around until Harriet didn’t even know what she thought any more. Why would Ciro’s sisters be coming to look at her? Why would Ciro’s sisters even care about yet another woman whose heart their brother had broken?

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Harriet managed a very small smile. ‘I’m sorry I even brought it up.’

  ‘How was your interview?’ Ciro asked magnanimously, but Harriet couldn’t do it, couldn’t even pretend to be polite, couldn’t stand and make idle chatter with the man who’d stomped all over her heart. Without answering, she turned and walked away.