by Liz Lawler
Chapter Eleven
In the female changing room Stella showed her to an empty locker and handed her the keys for it. She pointed out the rack of shelves against a wall packed neatly with laundered blue scrubs in different sizes, and to a large laundry skip against another wall where dirty ones went after use. On a bench in clear polythene was a pair of new theatre shoes waiting for Tess. She was impressed that someone had actually thought ahead to order her new shoes before her first list. She had waited three months for her own theatre shoes at St Mary’s. Leaving her to change, Stella said she’d see her back out on the floor when she was ready.
Tess felt like the new kid on the block. Even though this clothing was as familiar to her as the next person here, wearing it made her feel self-conscious, like she was putting on the uniform for the first time. Checking her hair was under her cap, her nails were clean, and her shoes fit, she went back to Stella to begin the tour.
As Tess stepped into an empty operating room she gave a contented sigh. Everything was familiar. When asked what she did for a living, Tess would say she worked in theatre and then have to explain – not that type of theatre, up on a stage. But not unlike it either. In both there was a performance, in both an audience. In both, fine performances were the norm, but sometimes something could go badly wrong. And occasionally you could be lucky enough to be in the audience when pure brilliance is on display with a star performing.
Tess didn’t ask any questions as she was shown along an L-shape corridor of theatres. It was a different hospital, but the layout was the same. The same named storerooms, the same labelled shelves with the same supplies to equip a smooth run every time something was needed. In the Recovery Room, where patients were still sleeping, she heard the same phrases she’d heard a thousand times before. Nurses calling encouragements. ‘Open your eyes. Squeeze my hand.’
Tess smiled to herself feeling a lot less new.
At one o’clock she took five minutes out to visit the bathroom to cool down a little. Her face felt warm from lots of smiling at new colleagues, whose names she had already forgotten, as in blue scrubs and theatre caps it was hard to distinguish one from the other and put a face to a name. In time she would get to know them, but for now she would make do with using eye contact to start up a conversation.
Stella was easy company and Tess felt genuinely welcomed. She was not only friendly, she was organised.
Tess knew what she would be doing for the rest of the week: a two-day induction course held in the Education Block, starting tomorrow, followed by two days’ orientation back in the Theatre Department. So an easy week, really.
‘You know we have a band 6 position available?’ Stella said, as they stood ready to leave the office, where they had been sat chatting. ‘Did you not feel like going for it?’
Tess shrugged her shoulders lightly. ‘I think I’ll be happy being a band 5.’
‘After being a band 6?’ Stella sounded surprised.
Tess felt her recently cooled face warm again. She wasn’t about to tell Stella that her reason for not going for a more senior position was because she had a husband who thought they were planning for a family, and who might question the wisdom of taking a senior position when she would be stopping work soon. She was wondering if she should tell Stella she was married. It might be better in the long run for her to know now.
The opportunity was interrupted by a knock at the door. A porter wanting to let Stella know a delivery of pizzas had arrived. She suggested Tess could look in some of the unoccupied theatres as most of the morning operation lists were now over so Tess made her way back to the corridor of theatres.
She had yet to see the emergency theatre. An operation had been ongoing for the last three hours. Earlier, she’d seen the circulating nurse come rushing out to fetch something, and had felt a tension in the air. The circulating nurse or ‘runner’ then fairly flew back to the theatre carrying what was urgently needed.
She was about to step into another theatre when the doors to the emergency theatre opened, and the trolley was wheeled out. She stood back against the corridor wall to allow the patient to pass. A network of wires stuck out from his neck as if the man was part human part machine. The trolley was loaded with medical equipment, short drip stands attached to either side of it, holding swaying bags of fluids and blood, and monitor screens brightly lit up so as to see at all times heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and ECG trace. It was a critical watch right now to be ready if the machines emitted warning beeps to respond if the blood pressure dropped or the heart rate rose. Or worse still – flatlined.
A huddle of staff followed. Their euphoria and relief was palpable as they talked fast among themselves. She heard the word ‘brilliant’ said a few times. ‘Bloody brilliant’ from one. Then some made room for the person joining them so that they could give him a small clap. Wearing a theatre mask and cap low down on his forehead, his face was all but hidden, but Tess didn’t need to see it to know it was Daniel. Daniel getting a clap from colleagues for a miracle just performed.
‘A leaking triple A,’ Stella said quietly in her ear, having now joined her. ‘It was nearly too late for him by the time he got here. His wife put off calling for an ambulance because she thought he had trapped wind. Had the poor man pulling up his knees to his chin to pass it. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.’
Tess’s eyes widened at the thought of that scenario. Madness! Pulling his knees up to his chest would have increased his intra-abdominal pressure. A leaking triple A – abdominal aortic aneurysm – was a lethal condition, not many patients survive. Most die suddenly at home and of those that make it into hospital, only half make it through the operation. Like waiting for an overstretched balloon full of water to burst, an overstretched artery would eventually do the same. Unlike water that could escape through a tiny pinprick in a balloon, blood was thicker and clotted as it left the artery, leaving a gelatinous plug in the wall – the only thing stopping them from bleeding out into their abdominal cavity, and exsanguinating. The only hope of survival was at the hands of a skilful vascular surgeon, who could control the artery whilst the abdomen repeatedly filled up with blood. A leaking triple A wasn’t just any old vessel bulging out its walls with trapped blood, it was the main artery of the heart. The main high-pressured pipeline feeding blood to the rest of the body.
Tess felt a thrill as she witnessed this moment. She’d never seen a surgeon being clapped before. She was letting her pride go to her head, but just for a moment she wanted to feel a little smug. To feel a little sense of ownership. And hug the secret of knowing those hands touched her.
Stella took hold of her arm and was now propelling her towards him.
‘Mr Myers,’ she called. ‘Well done from all of us. I hear it was a little hairy?’
Tess moved to stand behind Stella as he pulled off his mask and grinned at the woman. ‘Stella, it was a bloody nightmare in there at one point. I am mightily relieved, let me tell you. And bloody grateful to this team!’
Another round of applause sounded from the small group, and Daniel waved it off good-naturedly. ‘All right, the lot of you; I wasn’t alone in there dealing with it. You lot were there too, you know. Give yourselves a clap not me.’ One or two back-patted each other.
‘Free pizza and cake for the lot of you in the staff room when you get a chance to eat,’ Stella announced, which saw most of them quickly disperse, leaving the corridor near empty except for Daniel, Stella and Tess. Stella made the introductions. ‘Mr Myers, let me introduce you to a new member of our team. This is Tess Morris, just joining us today. She’s a very experienced scrub nurse and cites vascular surgery as one of her special interests, would you believe.’
‘My hands have been washed,’ he said, as they shook hands. He put his head to one side, a small smile appearing as he looked her straight in the eye, and Tess felt herself tense up. She wondered what Stella would think of him looking at her this way with them only just supposedly meeting. ‘Nice
to see you here, Tess.’
Tess held her breath as Stella spoke. ‘You two know each other?’
Tess shook her head at the same time Daniel nodded his, and she saw disappointment in his eyes as he saw Stella confused.
‘I’m sure it will come back to Tess if we give her a minute,’ he said, turning to Stella to give a rueful smile. He folded his arms as if to settle and wait for Tess’s memory to return.
Tess could feel heat climbing up her neck.
Stella was staring at him wide-eyed, then spoke quickly as Tess turned red. ‘You’re embarrassing the poor girl, Mr Myers. Of course she’ll remember you. It’s just the shock of seeing you here, no doubt, that’s lost her tongue. I’ve just realised you both worked at St Mary’s. It’s no doubt thrown her to suddenly see you down this neck of the woods,’ she stated, looking at them for confirmation. ‘Having only recently been working together somewhere else?’
‘No, we never worked together,’ Tess answered truthfully, the only truth to give in this whole damn deception. She should have told Stella this morning she was married to one of the surgeons. It might have made Stella wonder why Tess hadn’t mentioned it at her interview, as it wouldn’t have lost her this job if she had, but Tess could have brushed that over and made some excuse. In a workforce as big as the NHS it was impossible not to have married couples sometimes work together. So long as you conducted yourselves in a professional manner, and kept personal lives out of it, it wasn’t a problem.
She looked at Daniel as she spoke another truth. ‘I do remember you at St Mary’s, Mr Myers. You were well known, but I never did your lists as I was always paired up with Mr Kumar or Mr Hassan.’
Stella seemed to understand this as she was nodding. ‘And that can happen,’ she said, sounding pure Irish. ‘I looked a right eejit not long ago. I asked this doctor had he been here long and how was he liking it here. The poor man looked at me and said he’d been here two years. The trouble is I never step foot in Day Surgery so I’m not familiar with the faces.’
Tess felt rising panic from the half-truths being told, and breathed in deeply to bank it down. She was sinking in a mire of deception and what excited her five minutes ago, pretending not to know him and finding the play-acting even a little titillating, was now like a bucket of cold water over her head. Working together shouldn’t have caused this problem. Being married needn’t have been a problem either. It was Tess who had made it one by deliberately not mentioning her married name at the interview in case somehow they connected her to Daniel. With both of them coming from St Mary’s it wouldn’t have been that difficult to join the dots if she’d said she was called Myers. She didn’t want anyone telling him she’d applied for a job. She wanted to tell him herself once she got it. He hadn’t said she couldn’t work but neither had he encouraged it. He thought they were trying for a family.
It was too late to say something now. She had let it go on too long. She had let Stella come to her rescue and provide a reason why Tess couldn’t remember their new surgeon. Their being married was now like a state secret. So who would he now introduce her as to his colleagues, when she met them? Miss Morris? Or Mrs she-forgot-she-was-married Myers?
She could cry, she really could, for going and spoiling what was to be a new day. She had ruined it completely, including her job, by not thinking things through properly. She could already see it happening. She would have no choice but to leave because as much as she wanted to stay, keeping the truth of them a secret would be impossible.
Chapter Twelve
Martha rummaged in her bag, nearly losing her head inside it in her quest to find something.
‘What are you looking for?’ Jim asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said, putting the bag down by her feet and sitting up straight again in the seat with a piece of fruit cake in one hand.
‘Are you going to eat that now?’ Jim asked, his tone suggesting she shouldn’t.
‘I am. I’m starving. I’d eat my own hand if not for this cake.’
The waiting room had thinned out since Martha and Jim arrived. They had a long wait after getting there too early. Jim’s idea, of course, to stop her going off and watching the house. She could sometimes read him like a book. He’d managed to keep her at home for God knows how many days now, because of getting a simple chill, and insisting she see a doctor before she went outside again. She said no to Jim this morning, telling him she wasn’t going to the doctor again. But he’d bullied her into coming by reminding her she promised. What she promised she had no idea. She just hoped it was the doctor she liked, having a memory of the woman being a sensible sort. Sensible shoes, she was thinking.
A small boy who’d been running around in circles stopped in front of her, looking at her with his big blue eyes. Martha stared back and couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was holding his small thumb up for inspection to show her his plaster. He put his other little hand to the side of his head and patted curls.
‘I felled over, and got the baddest, baddest –’ he stretched arms wide to show her how bad ‘– baddest blood. My hair was red,’ he announced solemnly.
Martha couldn’t take her eyes off him, off his solemn little face. His black hair wasn’t bloody now, thank goodness. The blood was all gone. Someone had washed it well and his lovely curls were dry again.
‘Martha… Martha!’
Martha peeled her eyes away from the boy’s hair. Jim was talking to her, his face was worried.
‘Are you OK there?’ he asked. ‘You seemed in a bit of daydream.’
Martha turned to look at the little boy again but something was different. His light brown hair wasn’t black. He wasn’t the little boy she saw.
‘I’m OK,’ she said, wishing the little boy gone.
‘Martha King?’ a voice called.
Martha looked up at hearing her name and saw a woman of about fifty standing in an open doorway. She stared at the doctor and hoped this visit wouldn’t take too long, or that she wasn’t going to ask the same questions that Jim asked. Following Jim she reminded herself to remember that it was spring.
Her blood pressure was a little high, her tongue a little dry, but no chest infection, thank God.
‘How’s your water works?’ the doctor asked.
‘I spend enough pennies in the day, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Any stinging when you pass it?’
‘No. And my number twos are fine as well in case you were going to ask that,’ Martha said primly, before giving the doctor her own opinion of her health. ‘Look, Doctor, I’m as fit as a flea. Ask Jim here. I walk for miles every day. I can’t remember the last time I spent a whole day indoors before this. I’m never ill, apart from this brief chill I got, but that’s passed and I’m well now.’
The doctor smiled at Martha, and Martha found herself looking at the woman’s shoes. Brown leather slip-ons, the leather looked baby-soft; probably Hush Puppies.
‘How often do you have to use your spray for the angina?’ the doctor asked, on her feet now, examining Martha’s neck and palpating the veins.
‘Not too often,’ Martha told her, ignoring Jim’s look. He’d have her wrapped up in cotton wool if he had his way.
The doctor put her stethoscope against Martha’s neck and listened. Martha wanted to tell her the heart wasn’t there.
The doctor sat back down at her desk, and Jim and Martha stayed quiet while she stared at some things on her monitor screen. After a minute or so she turned in her chair to look at them both. Some of the liveliness had gone from her eyes as she smiled at Martha.
‘It sounds like physically you’re doing well, though I’d like to get a second opinion on the blood flow in your neck to make sure it’s getting through the vessels nice and strong. I’d like to take some blood from you here today, and then arrange to get you seen by a different doctor at the hospital, where we can get a scan of your neck. Would that be all right for you, Martha?’
Martha nodded. Wondering why the doctor
was asking. She could walk to the hospital in twenty minutes, she wasn’t being asked to go a long way.
‘Good, we’ll get that sorted for you then,’ she said, turning back to the screen, tapping quick fingers across her keyboard. Martha was relieved it was nearly over, except for taking her blood, which shouldn’t take long as she had good veins.
‘How are you, Jim?’ she asked, while typing.
‘Good,’ he replied. ‘Can’t complain.’
Martha was surprised he knew her doctor, before thinking she was probably his doctor too.
‘He can if you let him,’ she butted in, giving Jim a fond look.
The doctor gazed at the two of them as if curious about the relationship. ‘How long have you two been living together?’
Jim sat forward in his chair. ‘I moved in with Martha after her husband died. That has to be two years now.’
‘He has my sympathy,’ Martha said. ‘Having to put up with a landlady like me.’
‘So you’re with Martha quite a lot of the time?’
Martha answered for him. ‘All the time if I let him. He’s taken it upon himself to be minding me, I think,’ she informed the doctor, giving her a direct look.
Jim then contradicted the charges against him. ‘That’s not true, Martha. You look after yourself mostly. You just get a little forgetful sometimes.’
Martha stared at him as if he’d suddenly turned a traitor. How dare he say that in front of her doctor?