Almost imperceptibly under the green oxygen mask Ivy’s lips moved, the vivid smear of lipstick out of place in her exsanguinated face.
‘We need to move her,’ Sav ordered. It could have been anyone speaking and Isla’s response would have been the same.
‘Hold on!’ Putting up her hand as the trolley started to move, Isla’s irritation was evident. Yes, it was urgent, yes, Ivy’s injuries were life-threatening, but she was an eighty-two-year-old woman and with the best will in the world, with the best modern medicine had to offer, there was a fair chance she wouldn’t make it. Ivy deserved a chance to speak if at all possible. ‘Ivy, did you want to say something?’
A tiny nod was her only answer and to the surgeon’s obvious irritation Isla lifted the mask and waited as Ivy ran a dry tongue over her lips, before finally mouthing a single word.
‘Amy.’
‘Amy?’ Isla checked. ‘Your neighbour, Amy? Don’t worry, Ivy…’
‘Si—’ Again Ivy struggled to speak. ‘My sister.’
Isla gave a small, gentle laugh, squeezed the old lady’s hand a little harder. ‘She’s not a busybody, then, Ivy, she loves you. I’ll tell her what’s happening. You just concentrate on getting better.’
‘Tell her I love her, too.’
And she was gone.
Resus doors sliding open, a couple of bumps as Ivy’s IV pole hit the doorframe, the surgeons running on ahead to scrub as Kerry and the porter started the mercy dash up to Theatre and Sav paged the orthos to let them know what had taken place. Isla stood there for a moment, in the empty space where Ivy’s gurney had been. Resus was noticeably quiet now, the chaos of the last fifteen minutes evident, half-opened packs discarded, wrappings littering the floor. Isla started the task of cleaning up and restocking.
‘Welcome back!’ Jayne gave her a rueful smile. ‘About before…’
‘It’s fine.’ Isla shook her head. ‘Heath’s the doctor.’
‘It has nothing to do with that,’ Jayne replied. ‘I paged the surgeons while I fetched the Valium. As Sav said, there probably was an element of alcohol withdrawal, but at the same time I knew you weren’t likely to make a fuss unnecessarily, especially on your first day.’
‘Don’t believe it for a minute.’ Sav’s heavily accented voice made both women jump, but for different reasons. Jayne, having been unaware of his presence, swung around, while Isla blinked in surprise as the Sav of old seemed to materialize before her eyes, his seductive mouth curving into a lazy smile, his easy chatter, relaxed mannerisms such a teasing glimpse of the man who had turned her world around all those years ago. ‘I met Isla on her first day as a grad nurse and, believe me, there was nothing submissive about her. I believe the first words we exchanged were in the heat of a row.’
For a beat of a second Isla stared dumbly at him, stunned, completely stunned at the change in him, almost as if the agony of the past fourteen months had never happened, as if the pain that had brought them to this point was an awful figment of her imagination. The delicious, effusive charismatic man she had mourned for so long was suddenly back, but the welcome in her heart faded almost as quickly as it had started. Seeing Jayne smiling back at her, clearly completely at ease with this side of Sav, had Isla’s mind whirring, tiny flames of anger licking the edges of her confusion.
‘Isn’t that right, Isla?’ Sav prompted, but still she stood there, staring utterly dumbfounded at him. What she had expected on her return to work Isla truly hadn’t known—scathing superiority, vague irritation, cold indifference even, but not this.
Never this.
‘Well, good for Isla,’ Jayne said instead, oblivious to the undercurrents. ‘Emergency can always use a nurse with a bit of spark. I’d better get rid of this Valium.’ Picking up the kidney dish Jayne moved off.
‘I’ll come with you and sign for it,’ Isla offered, but Jayne waved away her offer.
‘I’ll be fine. Can I leave you to finish the clean-up and keep an eye on Mr Campbell? Kerry will help when she gets back, but it’s a good way to find your way around Resus and work out where everything’s kept for yourself.’
‘Fine.’ Isla nodded. ‘Fine,’ she said again as Jayne breezed off, leaving her facing Sav as if for the first time, the silence deafening until finally Isla broke it.
‘What was that, Sav?’
‘What?’
‘That!’ angry eyes flashed at him, angry, bewildered eyes as she struggled to hold it together, a shaking hand running over her forehead. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, knowing this was neither the time nor place for a private discussion, but they had been married too long for Sav to misinterpret her single word, the shorthand language couples reverted to easily translated as his mouth set in the familiar grim line. Black eyes stared back at her and they both simultaneously moved a few steps out of earshot of the remaining patient.
‘Are you accusing me of flirting?’
‘Flirting!’ Isla gave an incredulous snort. ‘You think I’m worried you were flirting?’
‘I would hope not.’ Finally he looked at her. ‘Because the last woman I flirted with, Isla, was you.’
‘I know.’ Swallowing hard, she felt an angry blush spread over her cheeks.
‘And if every time I have a laugh or joke with one of the staff, it is going to evoke this type of response, it would seem my doubts about us working alongside each other were merited after all.’
Somehow the conversation had turned. With one stroke he had tipped it into the dangerous territory of the bedroom, where Sav always won, but Isla stood firm, refusing to allow him to relegate this to the rantings of a jealous wife.
‘I just don’t understand how come you’re so different here.’ Her voice was low and urgent. ‘How you’re suddenly so nice, so easygoing, everyone’s best friend.’
‘Because, Isla,’ Sav replied crisply, ‘I’m at work.’ And stalking off, he left her reeling in confusion.
Resus had long since been cleaned, the department that had started nearly empty was full now, and Isla had made more trips to X-Ray and the wards than she cared to remember before she faced him again.
But he was everywhere.
‘Sav?’
His name was the single word on everyone’s lips, the one man they could all turn to for advice, the absolute lynchpin of the department, and Isla watched from a relative distance and witnessed at first-hand the demands that were placed on him over and over again, from a fretful parent refusing an anaesthetic for their child to an irate nursing coordinator insisting there were no beds, yet somehow he managed to deal with each and every request, somehow he managed to literally be in three places at once, kind but stern, authoritative yet sympathetic.
The man she had fallen in love with.
‘Sister Ramirez?’ An exceptionally well-groomed elderly woman, teetering towards her in a smart tweed suit and high heels, dragged Isla out of her introspection as she remade a gurney after taking yet another patient to a ward. ‘The receptionist told me I should speak to you. My name is Amy Baker.’
‘Ivy’s sister.’ Isla smiled, shaking the woman’s hand. ‘I’ll just let the consultant know that you’re here and then see if there’s somewhere more private where we can talk.’
‘Ivy’s not…?’ Amy started, and Isla quickly shook her head.
‘Ivy’s in Theatre,’ Isla responded calmly but firmly. ‘She took a turn for the worse, that’s why I contacted you.’
‘I was just at the shops, buying her some toiletries and a couple of nightdresses.’ She waved a few carrier bags as Isla darted over to the nurses’ station where Sav stood juggling a phone call, the intern and the casualty card he was writing on.
‘Sav.’ Even Isla managed a wry smile as she joined in the chime of people vying for his attention. ‘I’ve got Ivy Dullard’s sister here. I left a message on her answering-machine, asking her to come up.’
‘What does she know?’ Sav asked, straight to the point and barely looking up as he wrote on the bac
k of a casualty card and barked a few orders down the telephone.
‘Just that Ivy’s in Theatre.’
‘OK.’ His eyes scanned the whiteboard and, picking up a marker, he scribbled Ivy’s name on one of the free boxes and added Amy’s. ‘Put her in interview room two, tell her…’ He gave a small shrug. ‘You know the drill, Isla. I’ll be along soon.’
‘Fine.’ Isla stood there for a second as Sav frowned down at her.
‘You’ve spoken to relatives before, Isla,’ Sav pointed out.
‘Many times.’ Isla bristled. ‘I just don’t happen to know where interview room two is.’
It was Sav giving a wry smile now. ‘Sorry.’ He looked almost sheepish. ‘I guess from the way you’ve been this morning, I somehow expected you to know. It’s over there.’ He pointed and as Isla made to go he pulled her back, well, not pulled exactly but his fingers brushed her polo shirt, his hands closing loosely around her upper arm. Isla swallowed hard, brutally aware of the contact, as Sav spoke in lower tones. ‘That was a compliment, by the way.’
‘Was it?’
Bewildered eyes turned to his.
‘You’re good at this, Isla.’ He stared down at her, really stared, and it wasn’t Sav the consultant, wasn’t Sav the doctor, but Sav the man looking into her eyes now. ‘Maybe you were right to come back after all.’
She’d loved to have dwelt on it, would have loved to roll his words over and over in her mind, but Amy was waiting and, taking the lead, Isla led her to the small interview room.
‘First of all,’ Isla explained as she looked around the room with the same unfamiliar eyes as Amy, ‘this is my first day here, so I’m not very well versed on all the doctors’ names, or where the relatives’ toilets are….’
‘That’s fine.’ Amy smiled, obviously grateful for Isla’s honesty. She took a seat where Isla gestured. ‘You said on the telephone that Ivy had been taken to Theatre.’
‘That’s right.’ Isla nodded. ‘What do you know about Ivy’s injuries?’
‘That she’s broken her hip,’ Amy ventured. ‘And that she has a small tear on her…’ Her face crinkled in confusion.
‘On her spleen,’ Isla said, and Amy nodded.
‘That’s right, although the surgeons said that it didn’t need an operation, that they were just going to observe it. That’s pretty much all I know. Soon after that Ivy got cross with me and told me to leave.’
‘When I came on this morning,’ Isla started, choosing her words carefully, not wanting to unduly alarm Amy but not wanting either to underplay the severity of Ivy’s condition, ‘Ivy was quite comfortable, her observations were stable and she was waiting to go to Theatre for a hip repair. However, she became extremely confused and agitated and it soon became apparent that she was unwell. It would appear that the injury on her spleen had extended, which required her to be taken urgently to surgery. That’s where she is now.’
Isla let her words sink in, looking up quietly as the door opened and Sav came in.
‘This is Sav, he’s the emergency consultant,’ Isla introduced them, gently omitting his surname to avoid Amy losing track of the conversation. ‘I was just explaining to Mrs Baker how Ivy deteriorated fairly rapidly this morning and that at this stage we believe it was due to the wound on her spleen extending.’
Sav gave a grateful nod and sat down.
‘Is she going to die, Doctor?’ Amy’s voice had a pained dignity behind it, her slender body bolt upright as she addressed Sav, an utter contrast to her feisty sister. But there were similarities. The make-up on Amy Baker was beautifully applied but, like Ivy’s, there was nothing subtle about it, and they both clearly shared a passion for loud jewellery, though something told Isla that the many rings adorning Amy’s fingers were real.
‘I cannot say.’ Sav’s accent was thick, but his words were very clear. ‘Your sister is elderly and also, from what I have seen of her, she appears rather weak and undernourished.’
‘She doesn’t eat,’ Amy confirmed. ‘I take her a meal every night but it ends up in the bin.’
‘Any operation has its risks, but for someone in your sister’s condition the risks will be greater. I have to say, though, Mrs Baker, that initially we were unsure as to the reason for your sister’s agitation.’
‘She doesn’t need a reason.’ Amy gave a pained smile. ‘Ivy’s very good at getting agitated.’
‘She drinks?’ Sav checked, and Isla could only admire his directness.
‘A lot,’ Amy admitted. ‘Since she lost her husband.’
‘Did he die recently?’ Sav asked, but Amy shook her head.
‘Twenty years ago. I’ve tried to help her, I’ve tried over and over to get her to stop, but she tells me that I’m just interfering, to leave her alone. I don’t know what else I can do.’
‘Until Ivy admits she has a problem, there’s really not a lot that you can do,’ Sav said gently, ‘except be there for her, which you clearly have been.’
‘Ivy doesn’t even like that. She’s never really liked me. Since we were little Ivy’s always been jealous of me, because I’m younger and prettier than her.’ She gave a low laugh. ‘Can you believe I’m seventy-five years old and saying that?’
‘That’s families for you.’ Sav smiled gently.
‘We’ve always fought. She couldn’t have children, so I tried to keep her close to mine, not to share them with her exactly, but I hoped she’d be a special aunt, that she’d be close to them, but instead of doting on mine, she moaned that they were too noisy, too naughty. You know what children are like…’ Amy was rambling now and they both let her, knowing that sometimes idle talk was needed when bad news was processed. ‘Now, when the grandchildren come over, she gets even crosser, says that they’re out of control and disturbing her peace when they’re just being children. Do you have children, Doctor?’
‘I have twin boys,’ Sav said, and Amy gave a trembling smile.
‘Then you know what it’s like.’ Her eyes turned to Isla, who sat there, face paling, tears pricking her eyes at Sav’s cruel dismissal, her mouth as dry as sand. ‘What about you, Sister? How many have you had?’
Isla could feel Sav’s discomfort, feel in that tiny beat of time the abyss between them widen. ‘Three,’ Isla said softly, somehow finding her voice, somehow managing to hold it all in. ‘I’ve had three.’
‘Ivy sounds very lonely,’ Sav ventured, clearing his throat and shifting the conversation. ‘Isla here found some vodka in her bag which she took from her—with Ivy’s consent, of course—but afterwards Ivy became very upset. We assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that it was alcohol withdrawal that was causing her confusion, but it became apparent very quickly that there was a physical reason for her confusion. Her blood pressure dropped very suddenly, so we moved her over to Resus and treated her aggressively, and by the time she went to Theatre she was responsive.’
‘Did she say anything?’ Amy asked, tears sparkling in her lavishly made-up eyes.
‘She asked me to let you know,’ Isla said, glad, so glad that whatever the outcome Amy would have something to cling to, ‘that she loved you.’
‘I don’t think so.’ A tear slid down Amy’s face and her strained smile was almost patronizing. ‘It’s very sweet of you to try—’
‘Isla isn’t trying to make you feel better here, Mrs Baker. Our job is to deliver the facts to you, which hopefully we have,’ Sav said firmly but kindly.
Isla watched with her breath bursting in her lungs as he put out a hand and squeezed the woman’s shoulders, imparting comfort so easily, instinctively knowing what this stranger needed. Inexplicably Isla was jealous—jealous that even though it was merited, even though it was absolutely the right thing to do, Sav could somehow reach out, could comfort a stranger in their darkest of moments, yet, for whatever reason, he simply couldn’t do it for her.
‘I have to get back out to the department now, Mrs Baker,’ Sav said, standing up, ‘but as soon as we hear from Theatre we will let y
ou know.’
‘He’s very nice,’ Amy said after Sav had left and Isla sat staring at her hands, wrestling with her emotions. Sav’s lingering scent still filled the room, but every word Amy uttered merely twisted the knife further into Isla’s heart. ‘Very honest and open,’ Amy continued. ‘I admire that in a man.’
CHAPTER FIVE
JAYNE had told her to go and take her lunchbreak, but even a well earned forty-five minutes, sitting with her feet up, paled into insignificance as Sav stalked passed the staffroom and headed for his office, laughing over his shoulder at something a passing colleague had said, incensing Isla so much that with barely a thought she marched down the corridor behind him, knocking once on his office door and not waiting for a reply before pushing it open.
‘How dare you dismiss him?’
‘This isn’t the place, Isla.’ Sav barely even bothered to look up as she exploded into his office, slamming the door behind her, two spots of colour flaming on her cheeks, angry tears glistening in her eyes. His voice had a warning ring to it which Isla chose to ignore.
‘Oh, I’d say this is exactly the place, Sav. This is probably the only place where I’m actually going to get more than a sentence out of you. How dare you just dismiss Casey?’
‘Did you want me to tell her, Isla?’ There was a challenge in his voice that unnerved her, pushing her an inch off her high moral ground as Sav stared coldly at her. ‘Did you want me to sit in the interview room and tell a virtual stranger who already had enough on 67 her mind that fourteen months ago yesterday I lost my son?’
‘No…’ Her mind spun like a merry-go-round, her lips chasing a response that simply wouldn’t come, and like a petulant child almost, Isla stamped her foot in frustration, appalled that he couldn’t see it, devastated that Sav quite simply couldn’t see the problem.
‘You can do it when your mum rings, or a neighbour drops by, you can do it for the kids, hell, you can do it for a stranger in the street, but you still can’t do it for me.’
Emergency--A Marriage Worth Keeping Page 5