Yes, but I bet they were all in incubators and none of them could talk back.
‘Aunt Maddie, you’ll never guess what—’ Susie slewed to a halt, pushed her way-too-long auburn fringe back from her eyes, and gave Gabriel a hard stare. ‘I didn’t know we had a visitor.’
‘This is my boss, Gabriel Dalgleish,’ Maddie said. ‘He kindly gave me a lift home because the garage won’t be able to fix my car until tomorrow.’
Susie subjected Gabriel to another assessing stare and he smiled back at her, all jolly and hearty and avuncular. ‘Hello, Susie, and what’s your favourite subject at school?’
Oh, don’t, Maddie thought, seeing Susie’s eyes roll. You’ll be asking her next what she wants to be when she grows up, and then you’ll well and truly be marked down in her book of life as a complete dweeb.
‘Where’s Charlie?’ Maddie said to forestall him.
‘He’s here,’ Susie said, dragging her brother out from behind her. ‘He got a B for his story.’
‘Oh, well done, you!’ Maddie exclaimed. ‘Was it the story about the dog with the three legs?’
Charlie ducked his head with a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure.
‘His teacher put a silver star on it,’ Susie continued, pulling a folder out of her brother’s schoolbag and holding it out for Maddie to see. ‘And she wrote “Excellent”, too.’
‘I’m so proud of you, Charlie.’ Maddie beamed, giving him a hug. ‘Really, really proud.’
‘And if you stick in, Charlie, and work hard,’ Gabriel observed, ‘you might get an A next time.’
I’m going to kill him, Maddie thought as she felt Charlie’s thin shoulders go rigid in her arms. I don’t give a damn about his past, or what hurt him back then, I am going to kill him.
‘I think your B is absolutely terrific, Charlie,’ she said quickly. ‘I think you’re smart, and wonderful, and as a reward for getting that star I’m going to break out the triple chocolate ice cream for dessert.’
It didn’t help—she’d known it wouldn’t. All the shy pleasure and uncertain pride had disappeared from Charlie’s blue eyes and in its place was the blank look she hated, the withdrawn look that always tore at her heart.
‘Charlie—’
‘I have homework to do,’ he muttered, and before she could stop him he trailed out of the sitting room, dragging his school-bag behind him.
‘I have homework, too,’ Susie said. ‘And as for you,’ she added, turning to Gabriel, ‘you’re a jerk.’
Gabriel laughed a little uncertainly as Susie slammed out of the sitting room. ‘I see what you mean about puberty.’
‘That wasn’t puberty,’ Maddie said tightly. ‘Susie was right—you are a jerk.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Don’t beg mine—beg Charlie’s,’ she said furiously. ‘Why did you tell him that if he tried harder he might get an A next time?’
‘Because he might,’ he protested. ‘If he got a B today, then with a little application he could get a higher grade next time. It’s called encouraging children to aim high.’
‘Or undermining and denigrating what they’ve achieved,’ she retorted.
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘How will Charlie ever find out what he’s capable of if you don’t encourage him to work that bit harder? My parents always told me when I got an A that if I worked harder I could get an A plus.’
That figured. ‘Why?’
He stared at her blankly. ‘What do you mean, why? So I could achieve the highest possible grades, of course.’
‘For whose benefit—theirs or yours?’
The colour on his cheeks darkened slightly. ‘Look, all I’m saying is children should be encouraged to reach their full potential, and you’re not doing that with Charlie.’
She took a deep breath to calm herself but it didn’t work.
‘Do you have any idea of how wonderful it is for Charlie to be able to write anything at all?’ she exclaimed. ‘No, of course you don’t. You just waltz in here, thinking you know everything about me and my family, and in the space of five seconds utterly destroy what it’s taken me two years to achieve.’
‘You’re over-dramatising—’
‘Why do you think I haven’t worked for two years, Gabriel?’ she demanded, and he looked uncomfortable.
‘I suppose I just assumed—’
‘That I wanted a holiday from nursing?’ she finished for him. ‘That I had a yearning to sit at home and watch soaps on the television all day while my bank balance dwindled away to nothing?’
‘Maddie—’
‘He was there, Gabriel. Charlie was there, in the car with Amy and John, when their car went off the road and hit the safety barrier. He was just six years old, and he saw the barrier break, saw it…saw it go straight through his mother, almost cutting her in half.’
All the colour drained from Gabriel’s face. ‘I didn’t know. I—’
‘He was in hospital for four months with a broken leg and internal injuries, but what was worse—much worse—was that he didn’t talk for over a year. Not one single word,’ Maddie said, her voice shaking. ‘He just used to sit in a corner and rock. And then, when he finally started speaking again, he screamed. For weeks and weeks, he screamed.’
‘But he’s better now,’ Gabriel said uncertainly. ‘Recovered.’
‘Of course he’s not recovered,’ she protested, wondering how he could possibly be so blind. ‘I don’t think anyone—far less a child—ever fully recovers from something like that. He copes. He has his good days and his bad days. On his good days he’ll speak, he’ll try to do his lessons at school, and on bad days…’ She choked down the tears she could feel welling in her throat. ‘He sits in a corner staring at the wall and nothing I say, nothing I do, reaches him.’
‘I…I don’t know what to say,’ Gabriel said awkwardly.
‘Well, that has to be a first,’ she retorted, and saw a flash of anger darken his face.
‘I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.’
‘Too damned right you have,’ she said, and for a second she thought he was going to say something—perhaps argue with her—but he didn’t.
Without a word he strode out of the room, and she clenched her hands tightly to stop herself from running after him and beating him senseless.
How could he have been so cruel? She’d known he was arrogant and thoughtless, but to do that to Charlie…
‘Has your boss gone?’
She turned to see Susie standing in the living-room doorway, and took a shuddering breath to calm herself. ‘Yes, he’s gone.’
‘He’s an idiot, and a jerk, and I don’t like him,’ Susie said, and Maddie walked over to her and gave her a hug.
‘You know something, sweetheart? I don’t like him very much at the moment either.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘WE’VE been carrying out the daily lumbar punctures you ordered on Diana, and giving her medication, but it’s not stabilising her condition,’ Nell said as she stood beside Gabriel and Jonah at the little girl’s incubator. ‘The ultrasound scans indicate fluid is continuing to build up faster than we can extract it so it looks as though we’ll have to start ventricular taps through her fontanelle.’
‘I wasn’t aware you’d recently qualified as a doctor, Sister Sutherland,’ Gabriel said, and a faint wash of colour darkened Nell’s cheeks.
‘I was simply repeating what you said last week, Mr Dalgleish—’
‘Then it’s hardly stop-press news, is it?’ he retorted, and Jonah threw Nell an ‘Oh-Lord-but-it’s-going-to-be-another-one-of-those-afternoons’ look.
‘Do you want me to schedule the insertion of the internal catheter for tomorrow morning?’ Jonah asked.
‘Of course I want it scheduled for tomorrow morning,’ Gabriel snapped. ‘When did you think I wanted it for—the first week in September?’
‘No, but then, I’m only a specialist registrar and not a highflying neonatologist, so I wouldn’t presume to rea
d your mind,’ Jonah said smoothly, and Gabriel’s eyebrows lowered.
‘You’re pushing it, Jonah.’
‘Likewise, Gabriel,’ the special registrar replied, and when the two men’s eyes met it was Gabriel who looked away first.
‘Why are Kieran Thompson and Ashley Ralston still here?’ he demanded, striding across the ward. ‘My instructions were for them both to be moved into Special Care this morning.’
‘We did intend moving them,’ Nell said quickly, ‘but Tommy Fenton kept pulling out his IV line and Hannah Wallace—’
‘I don’t care how busy you were,’ Gabriel interrupted. ‘We desperately need IC incubators, so if any babies can be safely transferred to Special Care you move them when I say so, not when you feel like it.’
Nell bit her lip and Jonah’s jaw set.
‘Now, listen, Gabriel—’
‘Have you started Ben Thompson on the bronchodilators and diuretics I prescribed?’ Gabriel demanded, as though Jonah hadn’t spoken. ‘His last X-ray showed definite signs of lung scarring. It’s inevitable with him having been on a ventilator for so long, but we want to minimise the damage as much as possible.’
‘I was wondering if his failure to thrive might be due to something we’re not picking up,’ Nell said tentatively. ‘I know nothing’s showing up on his obs, but I have a feeling—it’s nothing I can put my finger on—’
‘How frequently is his oximeter going off?’ Gabriel asked, and Nell frowned.
‘No more than we’d expect for a preemie, so it’s definitely not respiratory distress syndrome, but I still think—’
‘You are not paid to think, Sister Sutherland, you are paid to know, and if you have difficulty with that concept perhaps I should be looking for your replacement.’
Nell flushed scarlet, and Jonah banged down his clipboard, his brown eyes furious.
‘OK, that does it,’ he said. ‘I want a word with you outside, Gabriel.’
‘I have a round to complete—’
‘I don’t care if you’re scheduled to meet the Queen herself!’ Jonah exclaimed, striding towards the IC door. ‘I want a word with you now.’
Gabriel followed him with clear irritation, but when they were outside in the corridor Jonah didn’t give him a chance to say anything. He rounded on him immediately.
‘I don’t know what burr has got under your saddle,’ he said, ‘but treating me like dirt because you’re in a bad mood is one thing—I’m old enough and tough enough to ride your punches—but when you start in on the nursing staff—’
‘Jonah—’
‘I’ve had enough, Gabriel. Nell has had enough, Lynne has had enough—damn it, even the cleaning staff have had enough—so until you can start behaving like a halfway civilised human being again, we’d all appreciate it if you could take a leave of absence. Preferably a long one.’
‘Jonah, listen,’ Gabriel protested, but the specialist registrar didn’t listen. He simply walked away, and Gabriel let out a long and colourful oath as he watched him go.
What the hell was wrong with Jonah? OK, so maybe he ought to have been a little more tactful towards him and Nell, but when he gave an order he expected it to be obeyed. Neither did he appreciate being told the blindingly obvious.
It was like Maddie, he decided as he walked out of the unit and along to his consulting room. She’d overreacted, too, when he’d made that comment to Charlie last week, and now she clearly regarded him as the kind of man who would drown puppies. OK, so he would have moderated his words if he’d known the child had been so badly traumatised, but…
You shouldn’t have said anything at all. Not to Jonah, or to Nell Sutherland, and most certainly not to Charlie.
OK, all right, he would apologise to Jonah and Nell. He’d tell them he hadn’t been sleeping well this past week, and they’d understand, but Charlie…
He groaned as he sat down behind his desk. If only he’d known about the boy. If only he’d thought before he’d spoken—but he hadn’t thought. Susie had been staring at him, clearly deeply unimpressed, and Charlie hadn’t even been looking at him at all, so he’d said the first thing that had come into his head. The first bloody stupid thing, and now he couldn’t get Charlie’s face out of his mind, or the way the boy had trailed out of the living room, his little shoulders hunched.
Perhaps he could buy Charlie a toy of some kind by way of an apology? Desperately he racked his brains, trying to remember what his parents had bought him when he’d been a child, but all he could remember were encyclopaedias and science books.
‘Sorry to interrupt you,’ Lynne said, sticking her head warily round the office door, clearly expecting it to be chewed off, ‘but you’re not forgetting the pharmaceutical rep is due this afternoon?’
Gabriel gazed heavenwards with exasperation. ‘What time?’
‘Late afternoon, I think, but I’m not sure. You’d better ask Maddie.’
She’d begun to retreat and on impulse he held up his hand to stop her. ‘Sister, what would you buy as a gift for a boy of around…’ Make it vague, Gabriel. ‘Eight or nine or so. I was thinking of perhaps an encyclopaedia, or some sort of science or technology book.’
Lynne wrinkled her nose. ‘My boys wouldn’t thank you for a book of any kind, but they’re not great readers. Maddie’s nephew is eight, so why don’t you ask her?’
Because at the moment she sees me as a cross between the child-catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Grinch who stole Christmas, Gabriel thought as Lynne disappeared.
Then forget it, his mind whispered. She’s only a temporary member of staff so what does it matter if she hates your guts? In a few months’ time she’ll be gone, and then you can forget all about her and Charlie.
Except he wouldn’t forget. Maddie had been right and he had been wrong. Praise mattered at any age, but it mattered even more when you were young. How many times had he rushed excitedly home from school, clutching his report card, only to have his parents pour cold water on his delight by saying, ‘Well done, Gabriel, and we’re sure if you keep up your studies you’ll do better next time.’
For years he’d longed for his parents simply to say ‘Well done’, only to eventually realise they never would. All they cared about was being able to say, ‘Our son, the boy with the highest number of A-Levels in the school. Our son, the youngest specialist registrar in Scotland.’
How could he have forgotten that? How could he have forgotten the desperate need he’d felt as a child for his parents’ approval? But he had forgotten, and in one thoughtless moment he’d crushed Charlie’s delight and pleasure just as his own delight and pleasure had so often been crushed. Somehow he had to make amends, but how?
‘I hear he-who-must-be-obeyed is in a foul mood again today,’ Maddie said as Jonah piled a sheaf of notes into her in-tray.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I know he can be hell to work with at times but this last week…’ Jonah shook his head. ‘Something’s clearly got under his skin, but what?’
Maddie wondered whether she should tell him she’d virtually thrown Gabriel out of the house after what he’d said to Charlie, but as Gabriel possessed all the sensitivity of a gnat she hardly thought her action could have triggered his latest bout of appalling behaviour.
‘Something I can do for you?’ she said instead, as Jonah picked up the letter opener on her desk, put it down again, then began opening and closing her stapler.
‘I was wondering—not that there’s any hurry or anything,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but I was wondering if there was any chance of you typing up my report today?’
She gazed at him severely. ‘Would this be the report Admin has been hounding you for ever since I started work here—the report you only gave me the handwritten notes for last night?’ He looked crestfallen and she chuckled. ‘I did it first thing this morning.’
‘Maddie, you’re a—’
‘Lifesaver.’ She nodded. ‘I know. You keep telling me that. Every time you forget t
o keep your paperwork up to date, which is more times than I’ve had hot dinners.’
Jonah grinned. ‘OK, they say actions speak louder than words, so how about me taking you out to dinner tonight to say thank you?’
She laughed. ‘I was only joking.’
‘I’m not,’ he insisted. ‘In fact, I’ve been meaning to ask you out for ages.’
Maddie’s heart skipped a beat. When he said ‘ask you out’, did he mean as in a date? It sounded very much as though he meant that, but she hadn’t dated anyone since Andrew and she didn’t want to start again. Her life was too complicated, and dating meant involvement and…
‘Jonah, I’m flattered,’ she began, ‘I really am, but—’
‘You think it’s a bad idea,’ he said, his eyes fixed on her, and her cheeks reddened with embarrassment.
‘No—I—It’s just…’
‘Maddie, do you like me?’
What was there not to like? ‘Of course I do, but…’
‘I’m only asking you out to dinner,’ he said gently. ‘Nothing heavy, nothing complicated. Somewhere like the Casio Antonio. The food’s good, the atmosphere’s not pretentious, and I know you worry about Charlie and Susie so I promise I’ll get you home at a reasonable hour.’
He made it sound so simple, and maybe it was. Nell was always saying she ought to get out more, and she knew she would agree to look after Charlie and Susie in a minute, but…
‘So, is it a yes?’ Jonah said. ‘Dinner for two tonight at the Casio Antonio?’
He didn’t have a crooked smile. He had quite ordinary brown hair and eyes and, most importantly—in fact, at the very top of the list she’d compiled of qualities she wanted to avoid in a man—she didn’t feel even the tiniest bit sorry for him.
‘OK—yes,’ she said, and his face lit up.
‘Terrific. I’ll phone the restaurant and book a table for us. I’m guessing you’d prefer to eat early—say seven o’clock?’
‘Seven o’clock would be perfect. I’ll ask Nell to babysit Charlie and Sus—’
‘Maddie, Gabriel wants you in his office right away,’ Nell said, looking decidedly harassed as she joined them.
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