by Susie Tate
She cleared her throat and focused on his computer screen. ‘I can’t do the Grand Round tomorrow. You’ll j-just have to get someone else.’
Pav sighed. ‘Listen, we’ve been through this before. I don’t know why it’s such a big problem. The Grand Round is fairly informal. It won’t take up much of your time. And it’s relevant to everyone. It’s important, Millie.’
Another flinch, this time accompanied by a small frown. Pav crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t lying. Her research – her published research – was going to revolutionize pre-op care. Yes, okay, it was in his interest to get Millie to speak so that she would at least consider the conference. But it was important stuff and it was relevant to everyone. To be honest he was starting to lose patience with this woman. That was why he’d scheduled her to talk at the Grand Round without consulting her. Why couldn’t she even be bothered to present it to her own hospital? The one that had helped her test and audit the bloody thing in the first place.
‘If I just forward somebody else the slides, they could present it with Anwar instead. It doesn’t have to be me, I mean –’
‘Dr Morrison,’ Pav snapped, reverting to formality, seeing as the gentle approach was not working for him, ‘as far as I’m aware you’ve never presented anything at a Grand Round. Don’t you think it’s about time you did?’
‘I’m not –’
‘Why can’t you spare the thirty minutes it would take, anyway?’ he asked, straightening to his full height, which was nearly a full foot taller than the woman in front of him, who had given up balancing on her one heel and sunk down to stand on her other foot. ‘Would it kill you to participate for once?’ He felt his frustration bubble up again and didn’t seem able to tamp it down. There was something about being around this woman and not having her fully acknowledge him, connect with him, that was driving Pav insane.
‘Pav, I think –’
‘Shut up a minute, Jamie.’
‘I just can’t,’ she said. ‘It’s impossible, I –’
‘It’s not impossible,’ he cut her off again. ‘You’re at work that day. Your head of department says you’ve no commitments conflicting with that time. I’m sorry but you’re just going to have to –’
‘Please,’ she whispered, meeting his eyes in her desperation, and he could have sworn that they were glassy with unshed tears. He frowned and pushed away from the desk towards her, but she stumbled back. Pav held his hands up and retreated a step to give her the space she obviously needed. She was holding her bag in front of her almost like a shield. His frown deepened as he saw that her knuckles were white from her grip on the leather.
‘Hey,’ he said, gentling his tone. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You’re –’
‘Fine,’ she cut in, her voice coming out in another bark. He watched as her eyes cleared of moisture and her expression turned cold. ‘I have to go.’ She turned towards the door. There was something so achingly vulnerable about the way she was hobbling across the room that Pav forgot her earlier reaction to him. He stepped over to intercept her before she could leave, and cupped her elbow.
‘Listen, maybe we should …’ His voice died as she wrenched her arm from his grip, stumbling again and nearly going down but gripping the door handle to steady herself. She straightened slowly, then focused back on his shirt collar.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘I don’t think –’
Without letting him finish she pulled open the door, kicked off her shoes, snatched them up with her handbag, and ran out into the corridor. By the time Pav looked out after her she was gone.
‘That chick is weird,’ Jamie said through a smile as Pav went back to his desk to grab his wallet; he was already late for his list that afternoon.
‘Yeah,’ he muttered, shoving his wallet into his back pocket and rubbing the back of his neck. ‘Yeah, she is.’
‘Maybe you should let her off this presentation business,’ Jamie suggested. ‘Doesn’t seem to be her gig. And you know what Libby says about Dr M. being misunderstood. That she’s … well … sensitive … or something.’
Pav frowned at the door, then shook his head. ‘She’s not given me any real reason she can’t do it, mate. It’s not enough of an excuse that she just doesn’t fancy it. We’ve all got to contribute from time to time. She needs to get over herself and quite frankly she needs to stop being so prickly and start becoming a team player. I mean, how long has she worked here now and everyone still calls her Dr Morrison? Get over yourself. Smile more, look people in the eye; it’s not rocket science. Jesus.’
Chapter 7
Absolute terror
Millie stared out at the audience and swallowed, her eyes flicking back to the laptop in front of her. There was still a low murmur of voices through the lecture theatre, but as she continued to stand there, saying nothing, silence slowly spread until you could hear a pin drop. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine as she cleared her throat, her eyes flicking up to the sea of faces before going back to the much safer territory of her laptop. She knew Anwar was behind her but she was too scared to turn her back on the audience to seek him out. Don had promised her he would sit in the front row, but she hadn’t been able to pick him out, likely due to the fact that she only seemed to be able to manage looking up for a microsecond at a time. She gripped the sides of the lectern until her knuckles turned white, and tried to slow her breathing.
‘I …’ Her voice came out as a strangled squeak, about two octaves higher than was normal. She attempted another micro-glance into the audience and this time her eyes clashed with His dark brown ones, which she could see were clouded with annoyance under thick brows lowered in a frown. Millie was used to hostile looks, she knew she was not a person people warmed to, but for some reason the negative reaction from this man hurt her more.
After humiliating herself in front of him and practically begging not to do the Grand Round, she hadn’t been able to face him again in person. She’d sent a few emails suggesting alternatives to her actually standing up to give the talk, but they had all fallen on deaf ears. Eventually she had given up and decided that maybe if she used some of the techniques she learnt with Anwar, maybe she could do it. He’d given her a couple of extra sessions to help her get ready for it. And he was going to give the second half of the presentation. She only had to talk for five minutes maximum; she’d look at Don on the front row instead of the audience; she’d remember to keep her breathing slow; she’d …
‘I …’ She tried to start again but her vocal cords still refused to cooperate. When she looked up her eyes caught on one of the cardiology consultants who had confronted her last week after she changed one of his requests to a more appropriate scan. A testosterone-fuelled cardiologist with a dented ego was a tricky beast to placate, and unfortunately Millie’s social skills had been nowhere near up to the task. She hadn’t missed his muttered ‘Nuclear bloody Winter’ comment as he’d stalked out of the radiology department, and she could plainly see the satisfied smirk on his face now.
She looked back down at her laptop but the words of her PowerPoint presentation were blurring; all she could see were rows and rows of her colleagues, all with the same mocking smiles on their faces, all revelling in her embarrassment. A sick feeling swept up over her as she felt heat flood her face. Her stomach roiled and she took a shaky step back from the lectern, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Pins and needles were spreading up from the tips of her fingers to her upper arms and the edges of her vision were closing in. She looked up, desperate to catch sight of Don, but instead her eyes snagged on His yet again. The annoyance from earlier was now replaced with confusion – and he had risen halfway out of his seat. Before she could look away everything went black.
*****
Pav surged forward when he saw her start to fall, but was too late to prevent the sickening thud of her head hitting the floor. What was that great big oaf of a psychologist doing, standing behind her and watching her go down with a shocked
expression on his face? Bloody move, you idiot! Catch her!
When she’d first stood up and spared only a few aloof, cold glances at the crowd, Pav had been annoyed. Her obvious reluctance to speak to a group of doctors she worked with pissed him off. So, when her knuckles turned white as she gripped the lectern, her face flooded with colour, her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, and a bead of sweat trickled down her temple, he’d been confused. What he would never forget was the unmasked terror in her eyes as she’d looked up at him that last time, or the way her face had drained totally of all its previous life and colour, before she sank to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
Pav knelt down next to her, tilted her head and lifted her chin, then lowered his ear over her mouth whilst he felt her carotid pulse in her neck. His own breath left him in a sudden exhale of relief when he felt hers against his cheek and his fingers registered the pulsing of her artery. He brought her far hand over to the other side of her face, lifted the arm nearest him up so it lay at a right angle to her body, and then hooked her under the knee across from him to pull her onto her side and into the recovery position.
She may have been breathing and her pulse may have been strong, but it didn’t change the fact she looked … dead … the fine veins on her eyelids standing out against the still-pale skin covered in a sheen of sweat.
‘Dr Morrison,’ he said, giving her shoulder a gentle shake and smoothing back into place a tendril of light-brown hair that had escaped her ever-present bun. ‘Millie?’
‘Jesus Christ,’ a voice next to him said as whoever it was tried to push him to the side. ‘Sweetheart, come on. Talk to Don now.’
Pav looked up to see Don Phillips’s wrinkled face focused on Millie. The old man’s features were soft with concern as he looked down at her.
‘Enough of this nonsense now, Millie,’ Don told her, attempting a stern tone that was undermined by the concern threading through the words. ‘Who’s going to get me back onto the system for reporting this afternoon if you’re lounging around on the floor?’ Millie’s thick eyelashes stirred and slowly blinked open until she was looking straight at Pav. She stared at him for a moment before her brow furrowed and that dreadful fear from earlier started creeping into her expression.
‘Out of my way, you big bloody idiot,’ Don snapped, giving Pav a surprisingly hard shove from the side. ‘You’re the last thing she wants to see right now. Show’s over, folks,’ he said to the gathering crowd around them as Millie proceeded to curl further into a ball on the floor and squeeze her eyes shut.
‘Are you lot deaf?’ Don shouted when the people around them were slow to react. ‘I said bugger off.’
That seemed to get everyone moving much more rapidly. Don shot Pav a furious look and jerked his head towards the door before softening his expression again and prising away one of Millie’s hands, which were both clutched to her chest, to take it in both of his.
‘All over now, love,’ he murmured, stroking the side of her head. ‘Can’t stay here now though; think old Prof Binky’s lecturing this afternoon and the med students might find a woman on the floor a touch offputting.’
Pav watched Millie’s wide grey eyes blink a couple of times as she scanned the crowd around her. She was terrified.
‘Now, now, Millie,’ Don said, his voice managing to be soft and commanding at the same time. ‘You focus on my face now. Nothing else. Understand?’
Once Millie was focused on Don, some of the fear leaked out of her expression.
‘Right, you’re going to stand for me now, love, okay?’
Millie let out a breath and closed her eyes but gave Don a tight nod. Everyone other than Anwar had moved back from her after Don’s outburst, but they were yet to actually leave the lecture theatre. Pav felt a surprisingly strong wave of annoyance as he surveyed the curious people around him, a fair few of whom were rubbernecking to try and get a glimpse of the prostrate Millie. Nosey bastards.
‘Right, clear off!’ he found himself shouting. ‘You heard me: get back to work. Grand Round is cancelled.’
There was a pause as the low hum of voices subsided following Pav’s outburst. A few of the surgeons at the front gave him curious looks.
‘Doors are at the back people. I’m sure you’ve all got things to be getting on with; if not I can always take another look at the consultant rotas.’
That got everyone moving and after about ten minutes the lecture theatre was nearly empty. The only people left other than Anwar and Don were Libby and Jamie, who both made their way down to the front.
Anwar was kneeling in front of Millie actually holding her hands and talking to her in a low voice. For some reason the sight of her hands in Anwar’s gave Pav an inexplicable feeling of annoyance.
‘Millie?’ Libby asked tentatively. Pav felt that wave of irritation again: Libby was on first name terms with Millie whilst he had barely ever received proper eye contact from her. He normally had a lot of time for Libby; she had after all managed to pull his best friend Jamie’s head out of his arse last year. The bastard was a lot more cheerful since they got together, and even more so since Libby had married his ugly mug. But for some reason, at this moment, he just wanted her to leave. In fact, for some reason he wanted them all to leave and for him to sort out Millie.
‘She’s fine,’ Anwar said, not taking his eyes off Millie. ‘If I can just –’
‘How do you know she’s fine?’ Pav cut in, his growing irritation showing in his tone. She’d just been unconscious for fuck’s sake. She dropped like a bloody stone. What business did Anwar the psychologist have saying that she was fine. And bloody Don nodding along with him as well. The old man was just an image fiddler; he probably hadn’t practiced any real medicine in over a century.
‘Young man,’ Don said with what sounded like infinite patience, as if he was talking to a small, unruly child. ‘Anwar and I know Millie; you do not. Please step away and let me deal with this. Okay, love, you ready to stand? Then we’ll walk to the office and you can do some reporting. Yes?’
Pav’s eyebrows went up into his hairline and he shook his head in disbelief.
‘You’re going to make her work? After she’s just collapsed?’ he said, his voice rising with uncharacteristic anger. Jamie had stopped looking at Millie and Don in favour of Pav now, his eyes alight with curiosity. ‘Listen, move out of the way, you two. She shouldn’t be walking and she needs to be seen in A&E. They can do an ECG, take some blood, do a proper work-up.’ Pav moved forward and knelt down at Millie’s other side. Millie’s wide eyes fixed on his for a moment like a deer in the headlights before she focused on his shirt collar.
‘Pav,’ Libby called, her voice sounding panicked for some reason. ‘I don’t think that’s a –’ He felt her small hand on his shoulder but shrugged her off to lean forward and slide one of his arms around Dr Morrison’s shoulders and the other under her knees. As soon as his body made contact with hers and he lifted her a few inches off the ground (she weighed next to nothing), he knew something was terribly wrong. Her whole frame stiffened and she let out such a terrified shriek that it felt like it was tearing right through to his soul.
‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered as she flung herself away from him to land back on the floor. Before he could move a muscle she had scuttled back at lightning speed into the furthest corner of the lecture theatre.
‘I told you to let me handle it,’ Don said in a low voice as Anwar sighed.
‘What … ?’ Pav whispered, then broke off briefly to swallow as he looked across at the now trembling Millie.
‘Millie.’ Anwar was now approaching her with his hands held up as if in surrender. Her eyes fixed on him and some of the anxiety leeched out of her expression. For some reason the fact that this guy could calm her when all Pav seemed to do was instil absolute terror made his gut tighten with annoyance. ‘Slow your breathing, okay? Get control of those thoughts. Come back to us.’
‘Right,’ she whispered, still focused on Anwar.
‘I …’ Her eyes flicked over to Pav but Anwar moved to block her line of vision.
‘Try thought-stopping,’ Pav heard him murmur, then peered around the big guy’s back to see Millie whisper ‘Stop’ to herself. One of her hands had pushed up inside her other sleeve and Pav’s mind flashed to the image of her bruised forearms. He made to move forward but Don’s hand came up to his chest to stop him.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asked in a low voice.
Don sighed. ‘I do not have time to explain everything to you, Stavros.’
Pav didn’t bother to correct him.
‘All I can say is that she will be able to sort herself out, but she needs quiet, she needs her work, and she needs you lot to all, please, leave her alone.’
‘Pav,’ Jamie said softly, ‘he’s right, mate. Let’s leave them to sort it out.’ He tugged on Pav’s arm, trying to get him moving towards the exit, but Pav stood his ground, staring at the trembling ball of human in the corner.
‘Anwar and I’ll see to her,’ Don told him firmly. Pav dragged his eyes away from Millie to look into Don’s sincere, faded blue eyes, and he puffed out a breath. Jamie tugged on his arm again, a little more forcefully this time, and after a final nod to Don and glance at Millie, he turned to leave.
Chapter 8
Strong enough
Pav peered through the crack in the door. Millie was sitting at her desk, staring at the screen in front of her with her computer mouse in her hand, steadily clicking through the images. After each one she would touch-type a report, click to save, and then move to the next image.
She did not stop to stretch, she did not take a drink or glance at her phone: nothing. Her eyes were glued to the screen in front of her and she was so still it was almost unnatural.