Annie nodded, slightly confused by the uncharacteristic vehemence in Toby’s voice, the jumble of emotions in his expression. But before she could say anything, his pager buzzed and the moment was gone.
He looked at the message, reached for the phone in the room, keyed in a number. ‘No, nothing at the moment. Certainly will. I’ll be there in five minutes.’ He hung up and turned to face her, his easygoing smile back in place.
‘I’m needed in the delivery suite,’ he told her. ‘See you later?’
‘Later,’ she agreed.
When he had gone she wondered just what genuine depression he had seen. Or what was the put-on depression? And why was he concealing it from her? Could he have been depressed himself? The moment she thought of the idea, she laughed. Toby depressed—never! But he had certainly been affected by someone.
‘Probably nothing,’ the duty registrar told Toby, ‘but the midwife was right to call us. Primigravida, her temperature spiked. But it’s down to a tolerable level now. I’d like you to keep an eye on things for the next half-hour or so. You’ve got the time?’
‘I’ve got the time,’ Toby said. ‘Which room?’ He had been asked to be present at a birth. And he thought that at that moment there was nothing that he would rather do. After what he’d seen today he wanted to witness the happiness, the excitement of the mother. It meant a lot to him.
Unless there was an emergency, the midwife was in charge in the delivery room. If a doctor was there, he was there to assist, not take control. Courteously Toby asked permission to be in the room and then introduced himself to the mum-to-be.
Zoe Gladstone was having her first baby. Her husband was a soldier stationed abroad who couldn’t get back home in time for the birth. Her mother was ill. So there was no family member to hold Zoe’s hand, to encourage her, to tell her that everything was going well.
The midwife was Angie Quest, a very experienced woman. Toby had worked with her before, knew her to be a miracle of kindness. But she had to attend to the baby as well as Zoe.
Everything appeared to be going well and it was, but he had realised that the tears streaming down Zoe’s cheeks were because she was lonely, not so much because of the pain.
So with Angie’s permission he stayed for a while, brushed the hair from Zoe’s sweat-beaded forehead and had his hand squeezed as the contractions got more frequent. He talked to her, about nothing very much, smiled at her, told her the baby would come soon and she’d know it was all worthwhile. ‘You’re doing fine, Zoe,’ he said eventually, ‘I’ll be back when it’s all over and you’ve got a fine baby.’
Zoe’s eyes widened. ‘You’re going? You’re not staying to help me?’
He smiled. ‘You don’t need my help. Angie here is a wonderful midwife—she’s brought dozens of babies into the world and knows far more than me.’
‘I know but—ow! It’s nice having you here.’
Toby glanced at Angie who winked and shrugged her shoulders. He thought of what he had to do that afternoon: more paperwork. Well, it could wait. This was hands-on medicine. Formally he asked, ‘Would you like me to stay and assist, Angie?’
‘I’d be glad of your help. You can take soon.’
‘Just have to check in with my partner.’ Toby went to an internal phone where he couldn’t be overheard and rang Annie’s extension. ‘If you can manage without me, I’d like to stay down here a bit longer,’ he said.
‘Problems?’
‘Not really. I’m just assisting with a birth.’
‘OK. Don’t worry, I can cope here.’
They understood each other, Toby thought as he replaced the receiver. They were a good team.
He turned back to the panting mum-to-be. ‘When Angie says I can take, that means I get to hold the baby. Don’t worry, these are safe hands.’ She returned his smile, despite the pain she was in. ‘Now, have you thought of names yet? You still don’t know if you’re having a boy or a girl, do you?’
‘What’s your name?’ Zoe asked.
‘I was christened Tobias and I’m called Toby,’ he told her. ‘And that you don’t want. Tobias Gladstone. Never!’
He stayed for the next quarter of an hour, and then it was time. A perfectly straightforward birth, commonplace for midwife and doctor. But both of them knew that it was one of the half-dozen most important events in Zoe’s life. And they respected that.
Soon it was time to wheel Zoe to the postnatal room. Toby looked down at the pale but smiling new mother, glanced at the little bundle by her side. ‘I still think James is a better name than Toby,’ he said. ‘But you must make your mind up. You know, I really enjoy delivering babies.’
‘That’s because you don’t have to have one.’ Zoe looked at him meaningfully. ‘Doctor, it hurts.’
‘Quite,’ said Toby. ‘Quite.’
‘You’re a bit late,’ Annie said as he walked into their doctors’ room. ‘Been kept busy in Delivery?’
‘Just staying a while to observe. One of my patients put me straight about things. It was quite a shock.’
‘Put the all-knowing Toby straight! Yes, that must have been a shock to your system. What did she say?’
‘I said I enjoyed delivering babies and Zoe Gladstone said that was because I didn’t have to have one. She also pointed out that the process hurt.’
‘It does? You learn something every day, don’t you?’ Annie mocked.
‘Life is a learning process.’ He poured himself a coffee, came to sit next to her. ‘Every day I discover more and more that there are things that I know less and less about.’
‘And when I met you first I thought you knew everything. You knew the best place to get a Chinese takeaway, the easiest place to park at hospital, the quickest way to get in and out of town without hiring a taxi.’
‘A veritable fount of knowledge.’ He looked at the chocolate digestive biscuit she was holding. ‘Do you know if there are any chocolate biscuits left in the dispensing machine?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They’ve all gone. But here.’ She handed him what was left of her biscuit.
‘I couldn’t eat your biscuit!’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve had one already. Anyway, I must get off to work.’ She stood, made for the door.
‘Are you enjoying working here with me?’ he called after her. ‘Enjoying it as much as I am?’
She stopped, thought a minute. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘And I quite like working with you. I didn’t expect to but we make quite a good medical team, don’t we?’
‘Quite a good medical team indeed.’ And she was gone.
He finished her chocolate biscuit, rolled the silver paper into a ball, and flicked it expertly into the wastepaper basket.
He’d been working closely with Annie for over a fortnight now and had enjoyed every minute of it. He enjoyed their little medical discussions, enjoyed their joking with each other, in the corridor or in the staff lounge. Their clinic was more intimate than the hospital; he was friendly with all the staff. Annie and he were like two members of a family.
He had wondered about working so closely with Annie. But they were doing fine. And she had just said—she quite liked working with him. Only quite liked? Quite?
A couple more things struck him. He hadn’t been out with a girl for—oh, weeks now. And he felt no great need to do so. And when he came into work, if he knew that Annie wasn’t going to be there for any reason, he felt disappointed. Not that there was anything between them or going to be anything between them. He knew that couldn’t happen. But… she only quite liked working with him?
CHAPTER THREE
Annie had had a good day, hard but satisfying. In the morning she’d run a clinic. For much of the afternoon she had been at the house of Heather Cross, a girl in the second trimester of her first pregnancy.
There was a problem. Mary Betts, the community nurse, had asked for a second opinion. She wasn’t quite sure what was—or might be—wrong. And what made the problem worse was that Heather fe
lt such pain when moving that she said she couldn’t come to the hospital for a normal consultation. Although experienced, Mary was new to working in the community, not used to having to work on her own without anyone instantly available to consult. So she had phoned Annie.
‘I know that some mothers can feel unspecified pain,’ Mary had said, ‘and I’ve had primagravidas who imagine or exaggerate the pain. But so far Heather has been a perfect patient. The baby’s wanted, the husband’s supportive, Heather’s been to all the classes and so on. She’s a sensible, level-headed person. And I just don’t know where this pain is coming from.’
So Annie had gone round. And she had agreed with all of what Mary had said. Heather appeared to be the perfect mum-to-be. She was prepared, well informed. She was also obviously in great pain when she walked. But after a detailed examination Annie could find no medical reason for it.
It was better to be honest. ‘I’m just not sure what’s wrong,’ Annie confessed. ‘I’ll take a specimen so we can run a urine test, but I doubt we’ll find anything. So I’d like to come back with a colleague to examine you—say, tomorrow?’
Heather was fine with this, but just to be on the safe side Annie stayed a while longer, offering reassurance and checking there were no other concerns or worries, before she finally said goodbye.
‘Which colleague are you bringing?’ Mary asked as they walked out of Heather’s neat little house.’
‘Toby Sinclair.’
‘Heather will really like him,’ Mary said. ‘I’ve worked with him a bit. He’s a lovely man, isn’t he?’
‘A very lovely man,’ said Annie. Did Toby have this effect on all the women he worked with? Even middle-aged, married women with three children like Mary? Then she realised she was being unfair. Toby was Toby, everybody’s friend.
She had hardly seen him in the morning, not at all in the afternoon. She was quite looking forward to talking about Heather’s case with him, trying to decide what was best for her. Probably they would eventually have to bring in a registrar, ask for his diagnosis and learn from him. But it would be nice to have first made a diagnosis of their own.
Toby wasn’t in his room. She wrote him a quick note, summarised what she had seen, explained her doubts and asked if he had any free time the next day.
There was a bit of a surprise for her as she walked into the corridor. Calvin was waiting for her, a big smile on his face and a travelling bag in his hand. She was getting on very well with her new flatmate—largely because they rarely met. When they did she found him polite, friendly and considerate, and she felt she’d made a good choice.
Chatting, they went into the doctors’ room and Annie started to make the inevitable coffee.
‘I’m off down to London for the weekend to see Sarah,’ Calvin said. ‘I’m not going back to the flat so I brought that magazine I promised you, with the special section on neonatal abnormalities.’
He handed her an American medical magazine. Annie looked at the price, and winced. No wonder the hospital felt it couldn’t afford a subscription.
‘Thanks a lot, Calvin. I’ll get it back to you when I’ve taken some notes.’ Then she thought. ‘It’s only Thursday. Why the long weekend?’
Calvin’s smile grew even broader. ‘Celebration time,’ he said. ‘Big celebration time. My wife is absolutely and properly pregnant. And we’re both over the moon.’
‘Calvin, I’m so happy for you!’ Annie knew that Calvin and Sarah had been trying for a baby for some time. It had just taken a little longer than anticipated. But this was good news. She was happy for her friend, threw her arms round him and kissed him on the cheek. In sheer delight Calvin hugged her back, lifted her and whirled her round.
The door opened and Toby walked in, closely followed by his twin sister Carly.
‘Annie, put Calvin down, he’s a married man,’ he drawled. ‘Carrying on like this in working hours. What will the staff get up to next?’
It was meant to be a joke. But Annie could hear the edge of steel in his voice. Toby was angry. With her?
‘It was just my good luck,’ said Calvin, blissfully unaware of the undercurrents. ‘Hi, Carly.’
‘Hi, Calvin,’ Carly said. ‘How’s things? You seem happy.’ She had worked with Calvin in Chicago; the two of them were old friends.
Annie realised from Carly’s troubled expression that she had detected her brother’s ill temper.
‘I am happy,’ Calvin bubbled on. ‘I was just telling Annie here, and now you two can share my good news. My wife is pregnant.’
‘Calvin, that’s wonderful!’ Now Carly came over to kiss Calvin, and Annie saw that Toby looked a little shamefaced.
Calvin hugged Carly as enthusiastically as he had hugged Annie and then said, ‘I must go, I’ve got a train to catch. Hope I can buy some flowers at the station.’ And then he was gone.
There was silence for a moment and then Toby mumbled, ‘I’ve got the papers you wanted here.’ He opened his locker, took out a folder of notes and handed it to Carly.
‘Thanks.’ Carly nodded, then went on, ‘I’m going to see Jack and Miranda in half an hour—fancy a lift there to visit?’
‘Be an idea.’
‘I’ll come back for you.’ Carly left.
Annie said nothing. Toby poured himself a coffee and offered Annie one.
‘Thank you, no.’ The silence continued.
Toby tried again. ‘Good news for Calvin, isn’t it? He’s got what he’s been wanting. The man’s so pleased that he’s positively radiant.’
‘Isn’t he just?’ Now it was Annie’s turn to have steel in her voice. She went on, ‘You know, Toby, when you came in and found Calvin hugging me, I could have sworn that you were upset. Angry even.’
Toby was instantly on the defensive. ‘Me? Upset? What have I got to be upset about? Seeing you and Calvin just took me by surprise for a moment. Anyway, it’s nothing.’
‘You’re right, it was nothing. I’m only glad that Calvin didn’t notice how you felt, but at the moment he’s so happy the entire world is his friend. But Carly certainly noticed.’
‘There was nothing to notice.’ Toby’s voice was distinctly uneasy.
Annie hadn’t been too sure how she felt. She knew she felt something—but what was it? And now she was certain. It was pure, scorching anger. For quite a while now she had been getting on quite well with Toby. She liked his company, enjoyed working with him. But suddenly, with just one look and one careless expression, he had brought out feelings that she thought she’d buried.
‘What right had you to feel angry at my being with someone?’ she snarled.
This time he didn’t bother to deny the accusation. ‘No right,’ he admitted.
‘No right at all. You know, Toby, I’ve been easy on you. You dumped me. I suppose that was your right. And I did what you knew I’d do. I accepted it and made as little fuss as possible. I know that you told me that our affair was only for fun, was only going to be something casual, but your body said more than your mouth did. When we were together I felt that we were making love—not having casual sex. And that typical male excuse: don’t fall for me, I’m not worth it. Well, I did fall for you, Toby, and you should have known I would, and it hurt.’
Silent he stared at her, his eyes wide with shock.
Then, in a perfectly normal voice she said, ‘Sorry about that. It was most unprofessional. It won’t happen again. Please, forget it.’
‘I… I’m sorry I upset you,’ he muttered eventually. ‘I didn’t really know… Is there anything I can do?’
‘Pour me that coffee, please. I’m going to freshen up.’
She left. After washing her face in cold water and putting on fresh make-up, Annie went back to the doctors’ room. There was no Toby, just a cup of newly made coffee, a saucer on top of it. And a little handwritten note: Sorry, got a call to make.
Perfectly calmly, Annie sat and drank the coffee.
Toby didn’t have a call to make, he just needed
to be alone. He sat at his desk in his room, feeling bewildered.
He thought he had been, well, reasonable with Annie. She was right in one respect: he had ended their affair because he knew she was getting far too fond of him. And perhaps he was getting too fond of… No. Forget that.
For a moment he wondered if he should tell the real, honest truth about why they’d had to part. But the thought frightened him. No way could he do that. No one in this hospital knew—not even his older brother or twin sister.
He didn’t want comfort; he knew there could be none. So there was no point in telling her. And people would only try to help. He didn’t want help; he’d learned to cope with things on his own. In his own way.
He was still thinking when Carly came in to take him to visit Miranda and Jack. ‘Want to say goodnight to Annie?’ Carly asked. ‘I saw her in one of the treatment rooms.’
He tried to be his normal urbane self. ‘No need really. I’ve said it once already.’
‘Right.’ Carly led him to her car, said nothing until they were safely out of the hospital grounds. Then, ‘So what exactly are your feelings for Annie now?’
He jerked. They were twins, but quite different in character. How come she could suddenly read his mind? ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t got any feelings for Annie. Well, I like her and I like working with her. She’s a good doctor.’
‘There’s more to it than that. I saw your anger when you saw her with Calvin.’
‘It was nothing, perhaps surprise,’ said Toby. ‘I was just tired.’
But he was shocked. Was he so transparent? He was supposed to be the one who could conceal his feelings.
‘I remember the short time you were together with Annie,’ Carly went on. ‘You seemed very happy together. It didn’t last long but you seemed to be getting closer to her than anyone for a while. You looked to be the ideal couple.’
‘Carly! Can you stop talking about this? You’re imagining things. It’s stupid and it’s pointless.’
‘My, my, what’s upsetting my twin brother? Where’s the easygoing chap that everyone knows?’
The Doctor's Baby Surprise - An Accent Amour Medical Romance Page 4