The Good Father

by Maggie Kingsley

  She was babbling, she knew she was, and with an irritated shake of her head she started inputting data, but when she risked a quick glance up he was still there.

  ‘What’s wrong with your car?’ he said.

  ‘There’s an odd clinking sound coming from one of the back wheels.’

  ‘Sounds like it could be a wheel bearing or a brake pad needing to be replaced.’

  She didn’t care what it sounded like, she just wished he’d go away. The longer he stood there the more she was noticing things about him—silly things, stupid things—like his hair wasn’t actually completely black but had little threads of silver in it. Like his eyes were such a very dark grey they looked almost like granite, and like the fact—the very big fact—that he looked tired again, and she could feel an overwhelming urge to say, ‘Come on, put your feet up, I’ll make you a cup of coffee’.

  Ignore him, she told herself. Ignore him and he’ll go away.

  ‘Incidence of jaundice in premature babies of twenty-eight to thirty-two weeks gestation,’ she read, staring fixedly at her computer screen until her eyes watered. ‘Worldwide studies suggest a marked increase in the number of male children who are…’

  Faintly she heard a door shut and looked up. He’d gone. Finally he’d gone, but that didn’t mean the danger was over. From now on she was going to have to avoid looking at Gabriel’s hair, or his crooked smile. She’d vowed when Andrew had left never to get involved with anyone again, and she’d meant it. This weekend she was going to buy a dog. No, not a dog. It was cruel to have a dog and then be at work all day. She’d buy a hamster. She could relate to a hamster. They spent all their days running round in circles, too.

  ‘Oh, Maddie, thank goodness you’re here!’ Lynne exclaimed, putting her head round her door, looking red-cheeked and flustered, and Maddie smiled.

  ‘Where else would I be?’

  ‘Well, Gabriel always seems to be sending you off places.’

  So Lynne had noticed, too, Maddie thought grimly. She really was going to have to call Gabriel on it. One day. When she could look at him without noticing his smile, or the silver flecks in his hair, or…

  ‘Private business.’

  ‘Private business?’ Maddie repeated in confusion, as Lynne gazed at her in mute appeal. ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away. What did you just say?’

  ‘It’s the New Zealand embassy. There’s some problem with my husband’s passport, and they want me to call them back. Admin cuts up rough if we use departmental phones for private calls so I wondered if you could sit in my office and answer any phone calls while I use the phone in the communal staffroom.’

  ‘Oh, Lynne, I really don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Maddie said slowly. ‘What if there’s an emergency with one of the babies?’

  ‘Nell’s there, and a full complement of nursing staff. Ten minutes, Maddie—fifteen minutes tops—that’s all I’m asking for.’

  ‘Lynne, if Gabriel finds out he’ll hang us both out to dry.’ She thought about it. ‘No, he won’t. He’ll crucify us.’

  ‘He won’t find out. He’s gone up to Maternity to talk to Mrs Scott about Diana.’

  Maternity was on the fifth floor of the Belfield Infirmary, NICU was on the fourth. It was much too close for comfort.

  ‘I’d like to help, Lynne, I really would, but—’

  ‘All I’m asking is for you to sit in my office and answer the phone. I’m not asking you to do any nursing.’

  The ward manager was gazing at her pleadingly, hopefully, and Maddie chewed her lip. ‘Fifteen minutes tops, you said?’

  ‘Oh, Maddie, you’re an angel.’ Lynne beamed. And you won’t regret it—I promise you won’t.’

  Maddie hoped she wouldn’t regret it either as she sat in Lynne’s office, gazing at the charts on the wall, the calendar ringed with the dates of staff holidays and the pile of infant progress reports in the out-tray. As long as nothing happened, they’d get away with it. As long as nobody arrived wanting to talk to Lynne, and Gabriel stayed in Maternity, they wouldn’t be found out, but they were taking one hell of a risk.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing, skulking in here?’ Nell asked as she came into the office, and when Maddie told her she let out a low whistle. ‘If Gabriel finds out…’ She drew a finger expressively across her throat and Maddie shuddered.

  ‘Don’t, Nell. Every time I hear a door opening I think it’s him coming back.’

  ‘Look, why don’t you join me in IC, instead of fretting in here?’ her cousin suggested. ‘Oh, come on,’ she continued as Maddie shook her head. ‘I bet you’re dying to have a really good nose about without he-who-must-be-obeyed breathing down your neck.’

  Maddie hesitated. She would like to look at the ward properly, see what advances and changes there’d been in an IC unit in the last two years, but…

  ‘What harm can it do?’ Nell coaxed. ‘It’s not as though Gabriel has forbidden you to go there. Good grief, he’s always sending you to the unit on some errand or another.’

  That settled it, Maddie decided. She really was going to have to call Gabriel on it.

  ‘Maddie…?’

  ‘OK, I’ll have a quick look round,’ Maddie said. ‘But only for five minutes. I daren’t risk any longer.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll need any longer,’ Nell said, leading the way across the corridor and pushing open the door of IC with her hip. ‘There haven’t been that many changes since you last worked in an NICU.’

  ‘How are the Thompson twins doing?’ Maddie said.

  ‘Ben’s still on the ventilator, but we’ve managed to transfer Kieran to the infant flow driver.’ Nell glanced across at her with a wry smile. ‘You miss all this, don’t you?’

  She did, and in a few years’ time, when Charlie was more settled and Susie was older, she’d like nothing better than to return to nursing, but for now…For now she knew the decision she’d made had been the right one.

  ‘Has Diana Scott stabilised?’ she said and Nell sighed.

  ‘The ultrasound revealed she does have PDA. Gabriel started her on medication to try to close the blood vessel, and it seems to be working, but you know what they say about preemies…’

  ‘Two steps forward, one step back.’ Maddie nodded and walked across to the little girl’s incubator.

  Diana was such a cutie. Too small even for the smallest nappy, she had a little cotton wool ball nestling between her tiny legs to collect her faecal emissions, a tiny woollen hat on her head to ensure she didn’t lose any heat, and her eyes were fused shut like a kitten’s.

  Maddie chuckled as she stared down at her. They’d have to be thinking of getting her a new hat soon, because the one she was wearing was already riding up.

  ‘Would you like to give Ben Thompson his antibiotics?’ Nell said. ‘We think he may have an infection so—’

  ‘You’re giving him the antibiotics as a precaution until you can have the cultures tested,’ Maddie finished for her, and Nell laughed.

  ‘Once an NICU sister, always an NICU sister.’

  ‘Looks like it.’ Maddie grinned, but as she began to walk towards Ben Thompson’s incubator she suddenly stopped.

  They’d have to be thinking of getting Diana a new hat soon.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Nell asked curiously as Maddie swung back to Diana’s incubator, pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, put her hand through the circular aperture on the side and gently eased off the little girl’s hat. ‘Maddie, I said, is—’

  ‘Where’s Jonah?’ Maddie interrupted, her eyes fixed on the monitor on the wall behind Diana’s incubator where the graphs of her vital signs were displayed.

  ‘In Transitional Care, but—’

  ‘Nell, her fontanelle’s bulging. I noticed her hat was too tight, and it shouldn’t be tight when she was born only a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Oh, my Lord—an intra-ventricular haemorrhage,’ Nell exclaimed. ‘Stay where you are—I’ll page Jonah.’

  Maddie had no inten
tion of going anywhere. She’d seen this happen before with very premature babies. The vessels in their developing brains were very fragile and it only needed one to rupture for it to lead to an intra-ventricular haemorrhage—bleeding into the brain. Diana needed an ultrasound scan to establish how bad the bleeding was, followed by a lumbar puncture to reduce the amount of fluid, because if the bleeding wasn’t stopped she could develop severe hydrocephalus, and all too often there was no way back from that.

  Ultrasound equipment. Jonah would need to use the ultrasound equipment, and Maddie raced to the bottom of the ward and wheeled the machine back to Diana’s incubator.

  Lumbar-puncture equipment. Where the hell was the lumbar-puncture equipment? Gabriel may have sent her here often, but she’d always been so annoyed that she hadn’t paid any attention to where the medical equipment was kept. Frantically she scanned the ward, only to jump as the ward door banged open and Gabriel appeared, closely followed by Jonah, Lynne and Nell.

  ‘Nell said we have a possible IVH here,’ Gabriel said, his face taut.

  ‘Diana’s fontanelle’s bulging,’ Maddie replied. ‘I knew you’d want to do an ultrasound,’ she added as his eyes fell on the machine, ‘so I brought it over. I would have got you the lumbar-puncture equipment, too, but—’

  ‘Jonah, I want an ultrasound, a.s.a.p. Sister Howard, I’ll need our smallest spinal needle. Move it, everybody.’

  They did. Like a well-oiled machine, the staff sprang into action and Maddie stood as far back as she could so as not to get in the way. She knew she ought to leave, but her eyes remained fixed on Jonah as he performed the ultrasound scan, and then on Gabriel as he reached for the spinal needle. Lynne had said working with him was an education, and she’d been right. Calmly, coolly he inserted the needle into Diana’s tiny spine and drew off the excess fluid as though he was doing nothing more challenging than taking a splinter out of somebody’s thumb.

  ‘I want her started on phenobarbital and daily lumbar punctures,’ he said, pulling off his surgical gloves and binning them. ‘Hopefully that will stabilise her. If it doesn’t, we’ll try ventricular tapping. I don’t want to insert a shunt unless we absolutely have to.’

  Because once a shunt baby, always a shunt baby, Maddie finished for him silently.

  ‘At least the bulge in her fontanelle was noticed quickly,’ Jonah said, shooting Maddie a well done smile.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Gabriel observed, turning slowly round to face her. ‘I understand we have you to thank for flagging up this emergency.’

  ‘It was just sheer luck,’ Maddie replied. ‘I’m sure if Lynne had been here she would have spotted it immediately.’

  Oh, big mistake, Maddie, she thought, as Gabriel’s eyebrows snapped down and Lynne gazed at her in anguish. Mega, mega mistake.

  ‘If Lynne had been here,’ Gabriel repeated, his voice suddenly silkily smooth. ‘So where exactly was Sister Howard?’

  Maddie glanced across at the ward manager but, from the abject terror in Lynne’s eyes, it was clear she would never come up with a convincing story.

  ‘She was—’ Think fast, Maddie, think fast. ‘She was in her office—on the phone—talking to—to one of the pharmaceutical reps. I know I should have called for her, but I guess—I suppose—my old nursing training just took over, and I…I…’

  Her voice trailed away into an uncomfortable silence and she couldn’t meet his gaze. Her excuse was feeble, pathetic. He would never believe her, not in a million years, and she stared at her shoes, waiting for the explosion to come. But to her amazement it didn’t.

  ‘As you’ve so rightly pointed out,’ he said, ‘you should have called for Sister Howard, but thankfully you’re experienced enough to recognise the condition and to know what to do about it.’

  They’d got away with it. She didn’t know how they had, but he seemed to have bought her story. Before he could question her further she hurried out of the ward, thanking her lucky stars that her guardian angel had been looking out for her.

  For the rest of the afternoon she kept her head down and her fingers on her keyboard. No way was she going to risk leaving her office and walking into Gabriel. All she wanted was for five o’clock to come, for her to be on her way home, so when her office door opened just before five and Gabriel appeared, her heart plummeted to the very bottom of her stomach.

  ‘If it’s about the graph sheets on jaundice, I’ve finished them,’ she said, quickly reaching for the printouts.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘What I wanted to ask you was—’

  He came to a halt as her phone rang but, as she reached with relief to answer it, her relief very quickly turned to dismay.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, when she replaced the receiver and began scrabbling in her handbag for her diary.

  ‘You were right about my car. The wheel bearing and a brake pad need to be replaced, but they have to order the parts, which means I can’t have my car back until tomorrow. I’ll have to phone my neighbour, ask if she can look after the children until I get a bus home.’

  ‘I’ll drive you home.’

  She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t possibly impose.’

  ‘No imposition,’ he said. ‘You live at 19 Cornville Avenue, and I pass it on my way home.’

  Maybe he did, but he didn’ t normally leave the unit when she did. In fact, there were times when she wondered if he ever left the unit at all or if he perhaps slept in one of the broom cupboards.

  Gift horse, Maddie, her mind whispered. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, not when you know how Charlie freaks out if you’re not there when he gets home.

  ‘Well, if it’s no trouble…?’ she said.

  ‘No trouble at all. Why don’t you go down to the car park and wait for me there while I tell Jonah I’m leaving? My car’s the silver BMW.’

  Nice, she thought, but nice didn’t even come half way close to describing Gabriel’s car.

  ‘I ought to have become a doctor instead of a nurse,’ she said when she slid into the plush leather passenger seat beside Gabriel, and saw the array of high-tech dials and switches adorning a dashboard that wouldn’t have looked out of place at NASA.

  ‘Is that a dig at the salaries neonatologists make in comparison to nurses?’ he said, and she smiled.

  ‘Yup.’

  He laughed. ‘Believe it or not, I think nurses are paid a derisory salary for the work they do.’

  She believed him. Whatever else he might be, she knew he always said what he thought.

  ‘By the way,’ he continued, ‘I wasn’t fooled for a second by your cock-and-bull story about Sister Howard.’

  She froze in her seat. ‘Gabriel—’

  ‘If you weren’t an experienced NICU sister, I’d have nailed you and Lynne to the wall, but as you are I decided to let it pass.’ He glanced across at her. ‘You’re obviously not only a very gifted nurse, you also clearly enjoy it, which makes your reluctance to return to nursing doubly confusing.’

  ‘I explained why I couldn’t return to nursing at my interview,’ she reminded him. ‘Charlie and Susie need me.’

  ‘Not for twenty-four hours a day,’ he said. ‘They’re hardly babies and there are some excellent child-care facilities available.’

  There were, but it hadn’t taken her long to discover that by the time she’d paid for child care she would be working for nothing. And then there was Charlie. He’d already gone through more than enough in his short life without him feeling that she, too, had abandoned him.

  ‘A secretarial post suits me best at the moment,’ she said firmly, but as he deftly negotiated the rush-hour traffic on Great Western Road and began to drive up Cornville Avenue, she suddenly realised she was facing another dilemma.

  Good manners suggested she ought to invite him to stay for dinner to say a thank you for driving her home, but common sense told her it was hardly likely he normally had his dinner at six o’clock, or that his meal would consist of macaroni cheese, eaten alongside two inevitably
bickering children.

  ‘Do you…would you like to come in and meet Charlie and Susie?’ she said, as he drew his car to a halt outside her house. ‘They should be home in about ten minutes.’

  Which ought to be enough to shock him into putting his foot down hard on the accelerator, she decided. But to her surprise he nodded.

  ‘I’d like that,’ he said, and as they got out of the car he gazed up at the two-storey red brick building and said, ‘This is a lovely house.’

  ‘You should have seen it when Amy and John bought it. I told them they were insane, but John was good with his hands. So was Amy.’

  ‘You know, with property prices soaring the way they are, you could make a very nice nest egg if you sold it and moved to something smaller,’ he said as she led the way inside.

  ‘No, I couldn’t,’ she said, dropping her front-door key into a dish on the hall table and ushering him into a bright and sunny living room. ‘For a start, we’d have to buy another house and, as you said, property prices are sky high at the moment so after paying for the other house there wouldn’t be any nest egg left.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And even if an estate agent could guarantee I’d make a small fortune, I still couldn’t sell it,’ she continued. ‘It’s the children’s home, full of memories of their parents. They’ve lost so much in their short lives, I couldn’t take that away from them, too.’

  ‘Which is all very laudable,’ he said firmly, ‘but sometimes you have to think of the economics of a situation. When all’s said and done, it’s just a house.’

  And a cow is just a ruminating quadruped. Boy, but somebody had really done a number on this man at some point in his life, and it had been a good one.

  ‘That sounds like the children,’ she said, hearing the front door open and the sound of running feet. ‘Charlie might not speak to you, but don’t take it personally, and Susie will probably be in major strop mode, but that’s just puberty.’

  ‘Maddie, I have met children before,’ he said with a touch of irritation.