‘There,’ she said, stopping dramatically. ‘This is the culprit.’
They had halted outside the playroom. Chris blinked, not understanding.
‘Back so soon?’ said Faith, pausing beside them. ‘You’ll be charging overtime in advance.’
‘Mr Ford wanted to know why his new department had so little budget,’ said Veronica. ‘So I thought I’d bring him down here to see what it was that you insisted on spending the hospital money on.’
Chris experienced a rush of surprise through his awkwardness. ‘The playroom was your idea?’
Faith’s head lifted proudly, making Chris want to applaud. ‘It certainly was. A small amount of money was allocated from every department in the hospital and it has saved a fortune in bank nursing fees because the staff can bring their kids in here instead of staying off due to lack of childcare. And they are so much happier with the new arrangements that morale has shot up.’
There was a flash of pink on the other side of the glass wall. ‘Faith!’ shouted Molly.
Faith’s eyes met Chris’s. ‘Do you mind if I say “hello”? It won’t be long because I’m due in theatre.’
She was asking him. ‘Of course not.’ He shook Veronica’s arm off.
The woman gave a sharp laugh. ‘Exactly what I warned against. Staff are wasting time with their children instead of working. And this isn’t even Dr Taylor’s child.’
‘I know,’ said Chris. He was becoming very tired of this woman. ‘She’s mine. For the record, this excellently provisioned playroom is one of the reasons I was so keen to take the post at Dale Head.’
Veronica’s mouth opened and shut. She would now execute a complete volte face, thought Chris cynically. He was more interested in watching Faith crouch down next to Molly to look at a ladybird jigsaw puzzle.
‘I need to get back to work, sweetheart,’ she was saying, ‘or I’ll have patients lined up along the corridor on their operating trolleys. Have fun.’
Molly made a face, but the outburst Chris expected didn’t come.
‘Naturally,’ said Veronica, ‘once the nursery had been agreed I stipulated that it must be as well stocked as we could manage.’ She slipped her arm through Chris’s again. ‘As it happens I do have one or two ideas on how to stretch your Obs & Gynie budget. Perhaps we could talk about it over lunch?’
In the playroom, Molly was waving Panda’s arm to say goodbye to Faith. Her attention wandered and she saw Chris. ‘Daddy!’ she yelled happily. Then her face changed to fury as she took in Veronica’s arm. She rushed towards the door, getting tangled in Faith’s legs. ‘Daddy! Want my daddy!’
Faith scooped the little girl up. Her eyes connected urgently with Chris. He nodded tersely through the glass, disengaging himself from Veronica without even thinking about it.
‘And look,’ said Faith, bringing Molly outside, ‘here’s Daddy coming to make sure you are having fun too.’
‘Hello,’ said Veronica. ‘Aren’t you a pretty little girl?’
Molly screamed louder. She knew a patronising tone of voice when she heard one.
‘What a noise,’ said Faith placidly. ‘One quick kiss for Daddy then you pop back inside while he comes and sits in on an appointment with me. He won’t be long.’
Molly glared balefully at Veronica. ‘Will he be in your office?’
‘Yes,’ said Faith. ‘The same office you’ve seen.’
‘Just you and him?’
‘Just me, him, my patient and a queue a mile long down the corridor.’
Molly gave a watery giggle and let Faith carry her back inside.
Chris turned to Veronica. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps we can reschedule.’ He hurried off down the corridor with Faith, knowing his daughter was watching. ‘Thank you,’ he said, really grateful.
‘I did it for Molly,’ replied Faith in a clipped voice. ‘Far be it for me to interfere, Chris, but standing outside the playroom with your arm around a woman Molly doesn’t know was a pretty stupid thing to do.’
‘You don’t think that was my idea, do you?’
She slanted a look at him. ‘You weren’t trying any too hard to shake her off.’
It was true. He’d been loath to make an enemy of a person who could get his department extra budget. ‘Money,’ he said.
‘Chris, this is a small hospital. People will talk.’
He sighed. ‘You’re right.’ And Molly’s reaction had reminded him all over again that he mustn’t form any relationships until she was a lot more stable.
‘Mind you, the way she was looking at you, Veronica would have given you the money for half a dozen new staff.’
‘Faith! You can’t object to me making friends with people who will be friends to the department. Anyone would think you were jealous.’
‘Jealous! Me?’
‘Just joking,’ he said.
‘It might be funny to you, but I ...’ Her pager sounded softly in her pocket. ‘Help, I’m late.’
She lifted it to her ear, listened a moment and then looked at Chris. His senses came alert. The time for joking was over.
Her pace picked up to a jog. ‘I don’t believe it! Today of all days! Jared Carpenter, my junior registrar was about to perform a hysterectomy. Technically I’m observing. I’m to be his second. The patient is anaesthetised, Jared is all scrubbed up – and he’s tripped over, fallen on his hand and dislocated two of his fingers! No way he dare operate now and the op needs to be done asap. Patient is asthmatic. We’ve been monitoring the case with the anaesthetist. I’ve really got to hurry.’
Chris found himself running alongside her. ‘Are you going to let me help again?’
She looked at him in some irritation. ‘Of course I am. A patient’s care is at stake. I’d accept help from Attila the Hun if he was a qualified surgeon.’
‘I’m a better surgeon than Attila the Hun. Let’s go and see what we can do.’
Chapter Five
Faith suspected that neither she nor Chris had ever scrubbed up so quickly in their lives before. The patient was asthmatic, which always made anaesthesia a problem. This had to be done quickly. There was just time for them both to recheck the notes and the X-rays, and to confer with the anaesthetist. ‘I don’t want you to hurry,’ the anaesthetist said, ‘just be quick.’
‘That’s an anaesthetist’s joke,’ she told Chris. Then they entered the theatre.
The patient, Jenny Sullivan, was forty-five years old, had been suffering from fibroids with considerable distension and pain. After talking to her, and her GP, it had been decided not only to remove her uterus but also her ovaries – as well as a hysterectomy she was to have an oophorectomy. She already had three children, was past child-bearing age and there was a history of ovarian cancer in her family. Best to remove the ovaries.
‘I’ve watched you operate,’ Chris said, ‘and I have every confidence in you, I thought you were brilliant. But you’ve never watched me work in the theatre except for that bit of closing. Would you like me to lead?’ He saw her hesitate and added, ‘This is entirely your decision and I will be happy with it.’
If she had been in doubt, then that remark would have convinced her. She nodded crisply. ‘Very well. You lead.’
The patient was wheeled in. Faith saw Chris studying the X-rays illuminated on the wall behind them. ‘Jared and I had decided on a vertical incision,’ she said, ‘the uterus is too bulky for comfort and the fibroids are massive.’ This would mean that Jenny would have a more obvious scar – but safety was more important than beauty.
Chris grinned underneath his mask. ‘I can do a bikini line incision,’ he said, not boasting, but with quiet confidence. ‘With the right help.’
‘You’ve got it,’ replied Faith.
They both looked down at the patient, swathed in green cloths, with only the necessary area of body exposed. Chris took up his scalpel, paused for that moment that Faith recognised so well. You were about to cut into a living body. No matter that you were trying to heal, it was
an intrusion. Then Chris made the first incision and such thoughts were banished.
Faith fitted the self-retaining retractors to hold the wound open. Chris then clamped, sealed and cut the ligaments that held the uterus in place. Then he dissected out the organ, prepared to remove it. Faith watched, assisted. Chris was good. His fingers moved quickly but surely. What he was doing would seem obvious and easy to an unknowing spectator. But Faith recognised the vast skill that was involved. She also noticed how well they worked together. She anticipated his wishes, knew what he was going to do next. The adrenalin sung in her veins as they worked. They were a good team.
And finally the excision was complete. The job had been done – well done. ‘Do you want to close?’ Chris asked her.
She shook her head. ‘No. I like watching you work.’
So Chris closed, nodded to the anaesthetist. ‘The job is all yours now.’
‘Good to work with you both,’ said the anaesthetist. ‘You were quick.’
* * *
Faith and Chris drank coffee together afterwards. Jared had watched through the observation window and was full of praise. He wasn’t in any pain, he said, he’d had his hand X-rayed, there were no bones broken. He felt such a fool for tripping over, but said it had almost been worth it to watch them work.
‘Who put your fingers back?’ Faith asked him.
‘Did it myself straight away. I just got hold of them and pulled.’ He drained his own coffee. ‘I’ll be off to check on Mrs Sullivan’s post-operative care. See you.’
And so Faith was left alone with Chris. Between them there was that bond that comes when two people know they have co-operated and done a good job in a tricky situation. It gave her the confidence to say, ‘I hope you won’t take offence, but you look exhausted. More than the op warranted. Trouble with Molly again?’
He sipped his coffee. ‘You could say that. After she came home from seeing you last night she was almost the perfect child. Enjoyed her bath and she was soon asleep. But she woke up at four this morning and there was no calming her. No special reason, nothing had upset her – in fact just the opposite. She’d had a happy time with you. But old demons came back and neither of us got much sleep for the next couple of hours.’ He shrugged. ‘I just have to hope that it will pass. In time.’
‘I’m sure it will. You’d better go, Chris. You said you wouldn’t be long.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m really not interfering, but have you thought of buying her a pad and a set of crayons and encouraging her to use them? Sometimes it helps for children to express their feelings by drawing.’
‘It’s worth a try. She enjoyed drawing with you. Even if it does mean she’ll want to draw instead of going to bed. And I hope you won’t mind, but I wondered why you had crayons to hand?’
She hadn’t expected this question, wasn’t sure what to answer. After a short hesitation, she said, ‘I used to draw and paint a lot. But I’ve not done any for the past few years.’
Uneasily, she saw that his eyes were now alert. He had realised there must have been some traumatic reason to make her give up. ‘Any special reason why?’ he asked.
‘I had plenty to do here at hospital,’ she said. ‘Painting took a back seat and then just quietly faded away.’ She could tell by his expression that he had not accepted her story but he was too courteous to say so. Time for her to distract him before he wanted to know more. ‘Shoo,’ she said briskly. ‘Go and get Molly.’
* * *
Much to her relief, Chris wasn’t in the next day. Just the weekend to go, then he would be her boss full-time. It was going to be difficult.
It was. Chris instituted morning briefings that she thought wasted valuable time, then infuriatingly he drew up a rota showing when he was in charge and when Faith would take over that left her with more time than she was used to. He was scrupulous about dividing observations and admin with her and even magicked up a second junior registrar on a short-term transfer. Faith felt comprehensively outmanoeuvred.
Jared had spread the word about Chris’s theatre skills, so within the department he was treated with as much respect as in the wider hospital. Which was fine, thought Faith fairly, but the way her colleagues were falling over themselves to be nice to him, she didn’t think she’d be missed when she left Dale Head to pursue her own career. And that was a tiny bit hurtful.
More of a problem would be Molly. She had taken to coming over in the early evenings, just for an hour or so to play and draw and give Chris a bit of a respite. After the fury she had shown on seeing her father apparently paying attention to Veronica – and Faith’s tart comment on it, which she had regretted the moment it was out of her mouth – they had come to an unspoken agreement, working as colleagues, but preserving a distance between them when it came to their private lives. It was as if the fence between their gardens was a mental as well as physical barrier. Faith knew Chris couldn’t risk getting involved in another deep relationship and Heaven knew it was the last thing on her mind. But she was coming to love his little girl and would miss her bright chatter. And when she was being honest with herself Faith was aware that the moments she and Chris spent during handover time were assuming more importance than they should. She was worried about his well-being as well as Molly’s.
She was in the canteen towards the end of the week – another side-effect of Chris’s rota was that there was time for proper lunch breaks – when Abbey Kirk plumped herself down next to her.
‘Are you busy?’ asked Abbey.
‘Not for twenty minutes. What’s up?’
‘Your young neighbour, Molly Ford. At times she plays with the other kids, seems happy with them, is enjoying life like any five-year-old should. Then there are times like right now. She finds herself a corner, curls up in it and won’t shift. She’s been in the Wendy house for over an hour. I’ve tried half a dozen times to tempt her out – but she just won’t have it. I ask you, a five-year-old Greta Garbo, just wanting to be alone?’
This was troubling. ‘What does Chris say?’
‘That she’s had problems and to let her be.’ Abbey sighed. ‘If I try to force her out there’s a scene and that upsets the others. So I just keep an eye on her and hope that she’ll come back to normal. But she was murmuring your name when I went past just now, so I wondered ...’
Faith found she was already on her feet. ‘Of course. Poor little scrap.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d heard her this morning. She’s one confused kid. When she’s good she’s perfect. When she isn’t –’
‘I know. They live at the bottom of my garden, remember?’
‘Must make it tricky. Jack took to Chris at once – said he was a gentleman. But it must be odd living next door to the man you’re working with.’
‘We keep home life and working life separate.’
Abbey looked at her shrewdly. ‘You’ve got a lot in common. Roughly the same age, both single and ...’
‘Abbey! You’re sounding like my sisters. We’re colleagues and neighbours. That’s all.’
‘But you have got a soft spot for Molly?’
‘Of course I have. That’s why I’m coming with you now.’
* * *
Faith crouched at the opening to the Wendy house. ‘Hello, Molly, I’ve come to see you. Will you come out?’
Molly was sitting right at the back, looking out. There was silence for a moment, then she said, ‘You can come in if you want.’
‘I wouldn’t fit. Wendy houses are for little girls. If I got in there I’d be like a snail with a shell on my back.’
Molly gave a tiny giggle. ‘But I like it in here,’ she said.
‘If you come out you can cuddle next to me for a while.’ Faith moved backwards and wriggled down into a large bean bag like the one she had seen in Chris’s lounge. ‘There’s plenty of room here for two.’
Molly sighed, then slowly came out of the Wendy house and burrowed close beside Faith. Faith put an arm round her. ‘It’s nice here isn’t it?’
she said. ‘Don’t you want to play with the other children?’
Molly didn’t speak, just shook her head.
‘Why not?’
‘Want to be with Daddy. Or with you.’
Faith winced even as she felt her heart melt. It was good to be wanted and she liked Molly. But the child shouldn’t be dependent on her. It wouldn’t be fair.
‘You’ll be with Daddy as soon as he finishes work. Meanwhile Hannah over there is having a teddy’s tea party. You could take Panda.’
Molly looked dolefully across. ‘But if I do, I’ll have to play Hannah’s way, not mine.’
Faith felt a rush of relief. Molly was simply having trouble adjusting to not being the biggest fish in the pond any more. ‘Well, that’s not too bad. You play Hannah’s tea party her way, then maybe she can play fairies with you your way. And after that, you might be able to make up a game together.’
Molly looked unconvinced. ‘I like playing my way all the time.’
‘Well, yes, we all do. But ...’ Faith tried to think of something that would help her fit in. ‘It’s how life works, sweetheart. For instance, I was looking after Daddy’s department before he got here, so I did it my way. But now he is in charge, he’s doing things his way. Some of my ideas he didn’t see the point of – like going out to visit nervous patients in their own home before an operation – but he’s sticking with them because I told him they work. And some of his ideas, I didn’t see the point of – like having a meeting every morning so the whole team knows what everyone else is doing – but I tried it for a few days and he’s right, it does make a difference. People feel more involved.’
Molly’s small body was tense with concentration. ‘All right,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll play tea parties with Hannah.’
Faith kissed her forehead. ‘Good girl. Give people a chance and they’ll give you a chance.’
‘And then will you come and have tea with us at our house? Daddy said that if I wanted to invite anyone for tea, then I could.’
The Lakeland Doctor's Decision Page 7