Helen nodded. She remembered Mrs Merrick very well. The poor woman had been terrified that she might have cervical cancer, and unfortunately her smear had come back from the lab showing abnormal cells.
‘She’s scheduled for a cone biopsy on Thursday, isn’t she?’ Helen asked.
Liz nodded. ‘We’ve also got in a sterilisation, a D and C and a pelvic-floor repair job.’
Helen took the notes the sister was holding out to her. ‘Anything else I should know?’
‘Yup, but you’re not going to like it.’
Liz’s eyes were gleaming, and Helen shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I’m not up to guessing games this morning, Liz. Just tell me, OK?’
‘Your favourite patient was readmitted last night.’
‘My favourite patient?’ Helen repeated, only to groan when she followed Liz’s pointed gaze. ‘Mrs Foster’s back?’
‘Apparently she developed severe stomach pains last night after she’d finished wallpapering her sitting room.’
‘After she did what?’ Helen gasped.
‘Hey, this is Mrs Foster we’re talking about, remember,’ Liz said. ‘The woman who burst her hysterectomy stitches while trying to go to the loo.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Her husband said she’s very house-proud.’
‘Did her husband also say she was an idiot?’ Helen protested, then frowned when a thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘Just a minute. You said she was admitted last night?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But I was on call last night, and nobody phoned me. Who admitted her?’
Liz flicked through the notes left by the night staff, then shook her head. ‘That can’t be right. It says here that Mark did, but—’
‘He wasn’t on call last night—I was,’ Helen completed for her.
‘Do you want me to find him, ask what happened?’ Liz asked, and Helen shook her head.
‘I’ll speak to him later. What damage has Mrs Foster done?’
‘Mark wasn’t sure, according to these notes, so he’s booked her in for investigative surgery on Thursday.’
Which was going to completely wreck their operating schedule, Helen thought, fuming inwardly, and it was all so unnecessary. A hysterectomy wasn’t some trivial procedure, the operational equivalent of slapping a plaster on a cut finger. It was major surgery, surgery that took both time and great skill to perform, and yet because of her own stupidity Mrs Foster could have endangered all the work Tom had done.
‘How is she this morning?’ she asked, her face tight, angry.
‘Not happy.’
It was the understatement of the year. Far from being chastened and upset, Mrs Foster was in full complaining mode. If her operation had been carried out by a better surgeon this wouldn’t have happened. If the facilities at the Belfield weren’t so inferior she wouldn’t have had to be brought back in again.
‘Does that woman possess no working brain cells?’ Helen demanded when she finally managed to make her escape. ‘Everything that’s happened is her own damn fault, and yet to hear her talk you’d think we were the ones to blame.’
‘A classic case of too much money and not enough to do, if you want my opinion,’ Liz replied. ‘Which isn’t something either you or I will ever suffer from.’
Too true, Helen thought ruefully, only to stiffen when she saw Tom coming into the ward.
He looked tired. Tired and drained, as though he hadn’t slept last night. She hadn’t slept either, perched on the very edge of their mattress, deliberately maintaining a wide, cold space between them, and it hadn’t been any better when they’d got up.
They’d eaten a virtually silent breakfast together, a silence broken only by Emma’s and John’s chatter, and then they’d shared an equally silent drive into work. Occasionally she’d felt his eyes on her. Had once even heard what had sounded suspiciously like an impatient huff, but determinedly she’d said nothing.
Petty, Helen, her heart whispered as she stared at her husband. Giving him the silent treatment is petty. Does it matter who suggested buying you flowers—who actually bought them? Tom must have been really worried about you to talk to Gideon, so what does it matter whose idea they were?
‘Doris said Tom bought you some flowers yesterday,’ Liz said. ‘Is he in the doghouse for something, or have the two of you got something to celebrate?’
Yes, it does damn well matter, Helen thought grimly, her guilt evaporating in a second under the speculative gleam in Liz’s eyes. She wasn’t the one who might just as well have told the world and his wife that they’d had a row. She wasn’t the one who’d admitted—actually admitted—that the flowers hadn’t even been his own idea in the first place, and had then got Doris to buy them for him.
‘Tom just wanted to buy me some flowers, OK?’ she retorted. ‘It’s nothing to get excited about.’
And that was stupid, really stupid, she thought, groaning inwardly when she saw the sister’s eyebrows rise.
Why hadn’t she made a joke about it? Said, What husband isn’t in the doghouse at some time or another? Being defensive hadn’t got her anywhere. Being defensive had simply fanned the rumour mill that Doris had already started, judging by the curiosity on Liz’s face.
‘Liz—’
‘I hear Mrs Foster’s been readmitted,’ Tom interrupted as he joined them. ‘What happened?’
Never did Helen think she’d actually welcome the opportunity to talk about their most troublesome patient, but she welcomed it now. The woman might be a complete pain in the butt, but at least she was a safer topic of conversation than those damn flowers.
‘It seems she developed severe stomach pains last night after she’d finished wallpapering her sitting room,’ she replied.
‘After she finished doing what?’ he exclaimed, and Helen nodded.
‘I know, but apparently Mrs Foster’s very house-proud.’
‘Mrs Foster would also appear to be in dire need of a brain transplant,’ Tom declared grimly, then frowned. ‘Just a minute. You said she was admitted last night? But you were on call last night, and I didn’t hear the phone ring.’
Both of them would have heard the proverbial pin drop in the stony silence that had hung over their bedroom last night, she thought uncomfortably, but she didn’t say that.
‘I can only think that somehow the switchboard must have called Mark by mistake,’ she said instead.
‘The switchboard isn’t paid to make mistakes,’ he flared. ‘Mark worked a fifteen-hour shift yesterday, and the last thing he needed was to be called out during the night.’
‘I know, but—’
‘Why didn’t he tell them you were on call, not him?’
‘I don’t know,’ she protested, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Liz was tiptoeing discreetly away. She didn’t blame her. She didn’t much like being interrogated first thing in the morning either. ‘Look, the switchboard made a mistake, and for some reason or another Mark decided to take the call. End of story.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ he insisted. ‘We’re all entitled to time off. Would you like to be called out in the middle of the night if you were off duty?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know why they called him and not me. If you’re so concerned about it, why don’t you ask Mark or the switchboard?’
‘There’s no need to get snippy.’
‘I am not getting snippy,’ she hissed, uncomfortably aware that his voice was rising and Annie was watching them curiously from the end of the ward. ‘It’s you who’s making a big deal out of this.’
‘That’s right—blame me,’ he retorted. ‘Everything seems to be my fault nowadays, so blame me.’
Why was this happening? Helen wondered as she stared up into her husband’s stormy face. Why did they appear to be totally incapable of having any sort of conversation nowadays without riling one another?
‘Tom—’
‘I wish to heaven I’d never bought you those
damn flowers.’
‘You didn’t, as I recall,’ she flashed back before she could stop herself, then bit her lip when his eyes rolled heavenwards. ‘Tom, I’m—’
‘Look, are you going to beat me over the head with those damn flowers for ever?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry, OK? I shouldn’t have asked Doris to buy them for you, OK? What more do you want from me?’
For you to tell me you love me, she thought, her heart twisting inside her. I just…I want you to tell me you love me. I want you to say that you find me desirable, and attractive, and I mean more to you than just a cook, a housekeeper and the mother of your children.
Tears burned in her throat. Desperate, unhappy tears. ‘Tom…Tom, do you love me?’
He stared at her as though she’d just said something completely ridiculous. ‘Helen, this is hardly the place—’
‘Tom, do you love me?’ she insisted.
‘Of course I do,’ he replied, impatience and irritation plain on his face. ‘Good grief, we’ve been married for ten years, haven’t we?’
It wasn’t an answer. Not the answer she wanted, and certainly not the one she needed.
‘Tom, please—’
‘I have to go,’ he interrupted as his pager went off. ‘Look, we’ll talk about this some other time—later—tonight.’
They wouldn’t, she thought as he hurried away. He was working until eight o’clock this evening, and the eight o’clock would probably become nine or ten, and by the time he got home he’d be too tired to discuss anything, or she’d be called out, and so it would go on, and on.
Mark had said marriages ended when they were no longer fun, but what happened to a marriage when you felt you no longer knew your husband? When you didn’t know what he thought, or how he felt? OK, so she’d always known Tom found it difficult to put his feelings into words but how hard could it be for him simply to tell her he loved her?
Unless he didn’t.
The thought sliced through her brain like a laser.
Maybe he didn’t love her any more. Maybe that was what all their rows and arguments were about. He didn’t love her any more, and their marriage was over.
How often had she heard the words ‘I didn’t know—I never suspected that he was having an affair’ from distraught female friends? How often had she supplied the tissues and the comforting shoulder, and thought how lucky she was? It had never occurred to her, not for a minute, that her own marriage might end not with a bang, but with a whimper. End because of irritation, or boredom, or familiarity.
‘Helen, I don’t like to hurry you but it’s way past ten, and your ward round should have started half an hour ago.’
I don’t care if it’s past midnight, Helen thought, turning blindly to see Liz hovering behind her. I don’t care if I never do another ward round in my life. My marriage is falling apart. I think my marriage is falling apart, and I want to find Tom to ask him, to find out, but I can’t. I’m an SHO. I have a job to do, and I’ve got to do it, even if it feels as though my whole world is collapsing around me.
Somehow she got through the morning. Somehow she managed to reassure the D and C patient, and the sterilisation one, and even managed to smile a farewell to Mary Alexander, who was finally going home with her daughter.
‘I’m just so very grateful to everybody.’ Mary beamed. ‘You’ve all been so marvellous.’
‘Just don’t forget to keep taking the heparin,’ Helen reminded her. ‘We don’t want you back in again with another clot.’
And Mary smiled, and nodded, and she and her husband were so happy, so obviously very happy.
Yvonne Merrick wasn’t. Yvonne was frightened, and tearful, and clearly wanted to be anywhere but here.
‘Has Dr Brooke explained what’s going to happen on Thursday?’ Helen asked, sitting down on the edge of her bed. ‘That he’s going to remove a piece of your cervix under a general anaesthetic?’
‘He said he would test the sample, and if…if it proved to be cancerous he would use a laser to burn the cells out.’
‘You’re not going to feel anything, Yvonne,’ Helen said, seeing the way the woman was twisting and untwisting the bedcover between her fingers. ‘The procedure’s completely painless—’
‘But what if the sample reveals cancer?’ Yvonne whispered. ‘My aunt—she had cervical cancer years ago, and when they operated they found it had spread everywhere. What if—?’
‘Yvonne, we’ll cross that bridge when—and if—we get to it,’ Helen said firmly, but Yvonne wasn’t listening.
‘I should have gone to my GP about the bleeding—I know I should—but I kept hoping it would go away.’
How often had Helen heard that? Too often. But there was no point in telling Mrs Merrick she’d been stupid. The woman obviously already knew it.
‘Look, why don’t you try to get some rest?’ she said instead. ‘Or if you can’t,’ she continued, seeing Yvonne shake her head, ‘why not go through to the television room? Worrying about what might or might not happen on Thursday isn’t going to do you any good.’
Neither is worrying about the state of my marriage, Helen thought as she walked slowly out of the ward and along to the staffroom. If Tom has decided it’s over, then I want to know, for him to tell me so.
‘You look as rough as I feel,’ Annie said when she saw her.
‘I’ve certainly had better mornings,’ Helen admitted. ‘Is there any tea left in that pot?’
‘Whatever’s left will be well and truly stewed,’ the girl said, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll make you some fresh.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘It’s no bother,’ Annie declared, emptying out the used teabags and switching on the kettle. ‘I tell you one thing, Helen, the sooner this new consultant arrives, the better. It must be five or six weeks since Gideon and I managed to get a weekend off together.’
Helen couldn’t remember the last time she and Tom had been off together. Maybe that was the trouble. Maybe they’d simply drifted apart. But if they had, surely they could get together again?
‘Isn’t happy at the Merkland Memorial.’
Oh, Lord, what was Annie talking about? Something about the Merkland Memorial. Her brother David worked there, didn’t he?
‘You think your brother might be interested in the post here?’ she hazarded, hoping she was right.
‘Oh, he’ll be interested all right, but Gideon wants the best man for the job. I, of course, think David would be far and away the best, but…’ Annie shook her head, and laughed. ‘I could just be the teeniest little bit biased.’
Helen smiled as she took the cup of tea the junior doctor was holding out to her. ‘It’s no bad thing to be biased in favour of somebody you love.’
Slowly she unwrapped the sandwiches she’d bought from the canteen, only to frown down at them. Ham and pickle. Why on earth had she bought ham and pickle? It was Tom’s favourite, not hers. With a sigh she took an unenthusiastic bite, then glanced up to see Annie’s eyes on her.
Lord, had Annie just asked her something? Get your brain in gear, Helen. Get your brain in gear, and pay attention.
‘I’m sorry, but my mind was miles away,’ she said with an uncertain laugh. ‘What did you just say?’
‘Nothing, actually, but…Look, I don’t want you to think I’m being nosy or anything, but Doris said Tom bought you the most gorgeous flowers yesterday.’
Was there anybody in the hospital who didn’t know about those damn flowers? If there was, she wanted to shake that person by the hand.
‘Annie—’
‘I just love getting flowers, don’t you?’ the junior doctor continued brightly. ‘They make you feel so special, so cared for.’
I’ve got to tell somebody, Helen thought. If I don’t tell somebody I’m going to go mad, and Annie’s not a gossip, I know she’s not.
‘Not if the person who gives you the flowers didn’t actually buy them,’ she sighed. ‘Not if it wasn’t even their idea in the first place, but s
omebody else’s.’
‘Sorry?’ Annie said in confusion.
‘Tom didn’t buy me the flowers, Annie. He asked Doris to buy them for me, and it was Gideon who came up with the idea.’
‘Did Gideon tell you that?’ the junior doctor demanded. ‘If he did, I’m going to kill him when he gets home tonight.’
‘No, it wasn’t Gideon,’ Helen replied with an uneven laugh. ‘It was Tom.’
‘Tom told you that he didn’t buy the flowers, and they were Gideon’s idea?’ Annie shook her head and muttered something unprintable under her breath. ‘Lord, but men can be such idiots.’
‘And uncaring,’ Helen murmured, but Annie heard her.
‘No, not uncaring,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s obvious that Tom loves you—’
‘Is it?’ Helen interrupted with a crooked smile. ‘I’m afraid I’m beginning to wonder about that.’
‘Oh, Helen…’
Annie didn’t get a chance to finish what she’d been about to say. The door of the staffroom swung open and Mark appeared.
‘Hey, would you rather I went back out again?’ he said, his eyebrows rising quizzically as Annie bit her lip with annoyance and Helen gazed at her sandwich as though it was the most riveting thing she’d ever seen. ‘If I’m interrupting something…’
‘Of course you’re not,’ Helen said with an effort. ‘We were just discussing the new consultant—wondering who it will be.’
‘Do you think Tom will apply for the post?’ he asked, pulling up a chair, and sitting down as the staffroom phone rang and Annie went to answer it. ‘I know he likes his Obs and Gynae work, but it would be a big step up for him.’
How should I know? Helen thought. I don’t know anything about what goes on in my husband’s head any more.
‘That was X-Ray for me,’ Annie said as she put down the phone. She glanced uncertainly from Mark to Helen. ‘It’s not urgent, so if you’d rather I stayed…?’
Helen shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m fine.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she said firmly, but Mark clearly didn’t think she was as Annie left. He was gazing at her thoughtfully, and her heart sank. Could he have heard about the flowers, too? Stupid question. Of course he had, and the last thing she wanted was to discuss her husband with him. Think, Helen, she told herself, think, and then she remembered. ‘What’s this I hear about you moonlighting for me?’
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