The Consultant's Italian Knight

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘Why does the waiting room look as though it’s been taken over by the cast of a Wild West movie?’ she asked faintly, as she gazed out over the sea of Stetsons, cowboy boots and denim.

  ‘Because there’s been a bit of a fracas at the Silver Dollar pub,’ Terri explained. ‘It was a line dancing night, and somebody made a comment about General Custer’s girlfriend, and then Wyatt Earp pitched in with his dollar’s worth, and Annie Oakley decided she wasn’t having any, and…Well, it all got a bit out of hand.’

  ‘So, I see,’ Kate said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the number of people who were gazing back at her with bloody noses, black eyes and split lips. ‘OK, let’s get some triage working here. Where’s Colin?’ The junior doctor appeared from behind her, looking every bit as stunned as she felt. ‘You take the broken noses and split lips. Paul—’

  ‘There’s an MVA on the way,’ the specialist registrar interrupted stiffly. ‘Two car pile-up on the outskirts of the city, serious chest injuries, and multiple fractures.’

  ‘OK, Terri and Colin, you assist Paul with the MVA. Mario…’ She squared her shoulders. ‘You and I will clean up Dodge City.’

  And they did, but it took a long time. A very long time.

  ‘Just how many people were in this pub?’ Kate asked wearily after she’d shepherded what felt like the fiftieth middle-aged man with a series of steri-strips across his nose out of the treatment room.

  ‘Line dancing’s very popular,’ Mario murmured, ‘as is country and western music.’

  ‘Heaven alone knows why,’ Kate exclaimed with irritation. ‘All this stand-by-your-man garbage even if he grinds your face into the dust. Who on earth can ever take that seriously?’

  ‘Hey, save your anger for your ex,’ Mario protested. ‘I’m just an innocent bystander here.’

  ‘I’m not getting at my ex,’ Kate declared. ‘I just don’t get country music. All they ever sing about is how their wives or husbands have left them, the farm has burned down, and their dogs have been run over.’

  ‘I expect you like classical music,’ he declared. ‘Opera, that sort of thing.’

  She did, but something about the way he said it had her bristling instantly.

  ‘Actually, I’m more of a heavy metal rock fan,’ she said, and he gave her a long, sideways glance.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ she protested, but his silence was so deafening that she added quickly, ‘Are there any more hillbillies out there?’

  ‘I think that was the last one, but I’ll go check.’

  He strode out of the treatment room and as Kate washed her hands she noticed Colin scurrying out of cubicle 2.

  ‘How did the MVA go?’ she asked.

  ‘One DOA, the other went up to Theatre about an hour ago.’

  The junior doctor looked stressed, and exhausted, and near to tears, and Kate walked over to him.

  ‘You OK?’ she asked, and Colin tried for a smile but didn’t pull it off.

  ‘A and E…It’s a lot more fraught than I’d thought it would be,’ he admitted. ‘I’m enjoying it, of course,’ he added swiftly, ‘but—’

  ‘You wonder how you’re ever going to cope,’ Kate finished for him. ‘Colin, we all feel that on the bad days. The days when we lose a patient, or some particularly obnoxious drunk questions our parentage. What you’re feeling—it’s perfectly normal.’

  ‘Dr Simpson doesn’t seem to think so,’ Colin muttered, and Kate straightened up.

  ‘Paul is not head of this department, Colin, I am, and if I say what you’re feeling is normal, then it is, OK?’

  The junior doctor gave her a wobbly smile, but when he went back into cubicle 2 she saw that Mario had come back and was watching her.

  ‘What you just said to Colin wasn’t kind, and it wasn’t helpful,’ he observed. ‘If he can’t hack it now, he sure as hell isn’t going to be able to when you’re not around to hold his hand.’

  For a second she gazed at him in stunned disbelief, then her chin came up.

  ‘Now, listen here, Mario Volante,’ she began, but he didn’t let her finish.

  ‘You need guts to survive in A and E, Kate, and if it had been me, I would have told him to get out now because he hasn’t got them.’

  ‘Well, lucky for him, I’m not you,’ she retorted. ‘Dammit, must you always be so cynical about everything?’

  ‘Just telling it as I see it, Kate.’

  ‘Then you’re telling it wrong,’ she declared, and Mario shrugged.

  ‘If you say so,’ he replied. ‘Oh, and I was right about the hillbillies,’ he added. ‘That was the last one.’

  And what is it with you? she wanted to say as she watched him begin to erase the name of the last country and western fan they had treated from the whiteboard. One minute you’re being all kind, and supportive, and the next…

  She just didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand him at all, and with a shake of her head she turned to see who was next on the waiting list only to notice a wallet lying on the floor of cubicle 4.

  The country and western fan must have dropped it. It happened all the time. People were always leaving things behind in A and E. False teeth, walking sticks, handbags. Once Terri had even found a set of extremely sexy underwear which had them all laughing and speculating for weeks.

  With a sigh she walked over to the cubicle and picked the wallet up, but as she did a photograph fell out. A photograph of a young woman with long auburn hair. A young woman who actually looked a little bit like her. Of course the girl was considerably slimmer, not to mention being much prettier, but her hair colouring was the same, and…

  ‘That’s mine.’

  She looked up to see Mario standing in front of her, his face expressionless, and felt her cheeks prickle with heat.

  ‘I—I wasn’t snooping—honestly I wasn’t,’ she stammered. ‘The photograph just fell out of the wallet when I picked it up. I didn’t know it was yours.’

  ‘No.’

  Oh, hell, but she’d rather he yelled at her—even accused her of stealing—than simply stared at her with absolutely no warmth at all.

  ‘She…She’s very pretty,’ she said, holding the wallet and photograph out to him. ‘The girl in the photograph.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She waited for him to say that the girl was his wife, or his sister, but he didn’t. He simply slid the photograph back into his wallet and pocketed it, and she forced a smile to her lips.

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend keeping your wallet in your pocket. You’d be surprised at how many light-fingered types come into A and E.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  And I want somebody—anybody—to come and interrupt us, Kate thought, as she gazed uncomfortably into his blank face. Somehow she had inadvertently intruded on something deeply personal and she wished with all her heart that she’d never seen the wallet, never picked it up, and most of all she wished she had never seen the damned photograph.

  ‘Kate, I’ve got what looks like a case of food poisoning here,’ Terri declared, sticking her head out of cubicle 3. ‘Vomiting, diarrhoea, and her last meal was a hamburger at a friend’s barbecue.’

  Kate didn’t care what the case was. She was just overwhelmingly relieved to have a legitimate excuse to get out of Mario’s company for a few minutes, but her relief quickly turned to dismay. Within an hour, the waiting room was filled to overflowing again, and virtually each and every one of the patients had food poisoning.

  ‘Well, at least we know what the theme of the night is,’ Terri said as she helped the white-faced, middle-aged man they’d been treating out of the cubicle. ‘Last night it was chest pains, tonight it’s food poisoning. Funny how that often happens, isn’t it?’

  ‘Hilarious,’ Kate said grimly. ‘If I had my way I’d ban all barbecues.’

  ‘Oh, come on, you can’t really blame people for wanting to take advantage of this hot weather,’ Terri pointed out. ‘Let’s face it,
Aberdeen doesn’t usually get the kind of weather associated with the Bahamas, so people want to enjoy it.’

  ‘Yes, but can’t they enjoy it without having a barbecue?’ Kate protested. ‘Or, if they’re going to have one, can’t they at least make sure their food is cooked thoroughly and to a high enough temperature? At this rate, we’re going to run out of tetracycline.’ She glanced round the treatment room, and frowned. ‘Where’s Mario?’

  ‘Cubicle 6.’

  Something in Terri’s voice made Kate look round quickly.

  ‘He’s not having another row with Paul, is he?’ she said. ‘Tell me he isn’t. I really don’t think I—’

  ‘The police bought in three youngsters half an hour ago,’ Terri interrupted, her face grim. ‘Two girls and a boy, aged between three and nine. One of the neighbours noticed the youngest one rummaging in her dustbin, and asked what she was doing. Turns out the kids have been living off breakfast cereal for the past week because mum took off on holiday to Spain with her boyfriend a fortnight ago.’

  ‘And left them behind?’ Kate said faintly.

  ‘According to the kids, she gave them fifty pounds to feed themselves, but a teenager robbed them on their first trip to the shops.’

  ‘Why didn’t they tell somebody—this neighbour, or the police?’ Kate asked with dismay, and Terri sighed.

  ‘Because the nine-year-old is smart enough to know if she blew the whistle on mum they’d all end up in foster care, and none of them wants that.’

  Kate bit her lip. No matter what she saw in her work, the sheer thoughtlessness, stupidity and utter callousness of human beings never ceased to amaze her. Maybe it would one day, but she knew that if that day ever came it would be time for her to hand in her notice.

  ‘How’s Mario coping?’ she said, remembering how angry he had been earlier. ‘Kids can be difficult, especially if they’re traumatised.’

  ‘He’s doing brilliantly,’ Terri replied. ‘After Paul checked them over and pronounced them all to be a little malnourished but otherwise medically fit, Mario sent down to the kitchens for some food for them, and he’s been keeping them entertained ever since.’

  He still was, Kate realised, as she walked over to cubicle 6. She could hear his deep voice, and it sounded as though he was telling the children a story so she waited until he’d stopped, then poked her head round the curtains.

  ‘Need any help?’ she asked, though it was obvious he didn’t from the smiles on the faces of the children.

  It was also rather obvious that there was a very strong smell of dried urine and faeces emanating from the three children, but it didn’t seem to bother Mario. He grinned back at her as he sat on the examination trolley, with the youngest girl on his knee, and the two older children tucked in on either side of him.

  ‘We’re doing just fine,’ he said. ‘In fact, you’re just in time to hear my updated Cinderella story. The one where Cinders leaves her kitchen, becomes a kick-ass detective and arrests her stepsisters for speeding.’

  ‘How come Cinders doesn’t become a kick-ass consultant?’ she protested, relieved to see his taut, closed expression had gone.

  ‘Because she wouldn’t get to put the baddies in jail.’

  And that Mario would dearly have liked to put the mother of the three children in jail was plain from his expression when the social services arrived and the children were removed from the treatment room, tears streaming down their faces.

  ‘What a mess.’ Kate sighed as she watched the children go. ‘What’s going to happen to them, Mario?’

  ‘If we can’t find their mother, and the chances are we won’t when all the kids know is she’s somewhere in Spain,’ he replied, ‘they’ll have to be placed in foster homes.’

  ‘Exactly what they didn’t want,’ Kate murmured, and he nodded. ‘You were terrific with them,’ she added, trying to make him feel better. ‘Do you have kids of your own?’

  ‘My wife and I didn’t have any. Just as well, really, considering we got divorced.’

  ‘You must have younger sisters or brothers, then,’ she said, remembering the girl in the photograph, and saw his face darken.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Maybe you’re just an instinctive dad,’ she said, hoping to provoke at least a smile, but she didn’t get one.

  ‘And maybe I should get back to work,’ he said instead, and before she could stop him he had turned on his heel leaving her staring, bewildered, after him.

  ‘What did I say?’ she asked as Terri joined her, and the sister shrugged.

  ‘Beats me. Maybe he just doesn’t like being considered caring. You know what some men are like. They think if you tell them they’re caring, what you really mean is they’re soft.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kate murmured, but she didn’t believe it for a minute.

  A man like Mario, who could make—and take—so many jokes at the expense of his own sexuality, wouldn’t have given a damn about what other people thought. Somehow her words had inadvertently hit a very raw spot inside him, and she would dearly like to know what it was.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KATE sighed as she watched the elderly man and his wife walk slowly back down the treatment room. He had been so apologetic as she’d stitched the bad gash he’d sustained in his leg after he’d fallen in the street, so worried that he was taking up too much of her time and he hadn’t. He had been a gentleman in every sense of the word, gently joking about his whole body starting to fall apart now he was eighty, calling her ‘Miss’, which nobody ever did nowadays.

  ‘Problem?’ Terri asked, pausing as she passed her, and Kate shook her head.

  ‘I’m just thinking what a very nice couple they are.’

  ‘People like that—they’re a dying breed,’ the sister observed. ‘Polite, willing to wait for as long as it takes, grateful for the help we’ve given them…Yup, definitely a dying breed.’

  They were, too. In A and E people yelled, swore and fought, and that wasn’t just the psychiatric patients who had forgotten to take their medication. It was the ordinary members of the public, too. People who would never normally raise their voices, and yet the minute they came into the unit they seemed to leave any compassion and human grace they possessed at the door.

  ‘Did I hear him say he and his wife had been married for over fifty years?’ Terri continued and, when Kate nodded, she chuckled. ‘Yikes, but he would have got a shorter sentence if he’d murdered her.’

  Kate laughed, too, but as she watched the elderly man’s wife gently help him through the door, a lump unexpectedly filled her throat.

  ‘I picked the right man, dear,’ the elderly woman had replied when Kate had asked her for the secret of her long and happy marriage, ‘and I never ever let the sun go down on my anger.’

  It sounded so simple, Kate thought, as she heard the distant, all too familiar sound of an approaching siren, but how did you know if you’d picked the right man? She’d thought she had when she’d married John, but she quite clearly hadn’t. OK, so she had also all too frequently gone to bed angry, but surely if John had been right for her they shouldn’t have had quite so many arguments in the first place?

  ‘Two ambulances on the way,’ Mario declared. ‘Hit-and-run, and a motorcycle accident.’ His forehead furrowed slightly. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, dredging up a smile. ‘Just fine.’

  But she wasn’t fine, she thought, as he hurried down the treatment room and she watched him go.

  A week. She had only known him a week, and yet sometimes she felt as though she’d known him a lifetime. Of course, she didn’t really know him, not properly. She knew he kept a photograph of a girl in his wallet. She knew he hated drunk drivers and couldn’t bear cruelty to children. She also knew he enjoyed teasing and flirting with her but, increasingly, she’d caught him staring at her with an odd, almost hard look in his eyes. She’d tried calling him on it, demanding to know what was wrong, but he’d immediately sprung into teasing
mode, leaving her wondering if she had perhaps imagined that look, but she knew she hadn’t.

  Does it matter if you don’t understand him? she asked herself, as she heard the clatter of the outside door which meant an ambulance had arrived. Does it matter if there are huge areas of his life that you know nothing about? In a couple of weeks he’ll be gone, and you’ll be able to get your life back to normal. There’ll be no more teasing, no more irritating wind-ups. It will be lovely and peaceful.

  And dull.

  ‘Is it the hit-and-run, or the motorcyclist?’ she asked, pulling herself together as Mario appeared beside two paramedics who were pushing a trolley.

  ‘Hit-and-run, Doc,’ one of the paramedics replied. ‘White married male, name Ewan Fraser, aged forty-five, compound fractures to his right and left tibia and fibula. A member of the public said he was thrown up onto the bonnet of the car, then catapulted back onto the road.’

  ‘And the driver didn’t stop?’ Kate exclaimed, and the paramedic shook his head.

  ‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, Doc?’

  It did indeed, she thought.

  ‘GCS and BP?’ she asked.

  ‘2-2-4, 60 over 40.’

  Both scores were much too low, even taking into account the fractures Ewan Fraser had sustained and the fact that his face and arms were a mess. He would eventually need the skills of both orthopaedics and plastics, but it was his laboured, rasping breathing that concerned her most.

  ‘OK, folks, ABCs and fast,’ she instructed. ‘Terri, get me a BP, and pulse, then cut his clothes off. Mario—’

  ‘I’ll insert an endotracheal tube,’ he finished for her, and Kate wished she was standing closer to him so she could stand on his foot as Terri shot him a startled glance.

  He’d been doing that increasingly over the past week, both sounding and behaving more and more like the doctor he had been rather than the auxiliary nurse he was supposed to be, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to blow his cover. She supposed she would have been the same if she had tried to masquerade as a nurse, but she was going to have to warn him about it, and the sooner the better.