The Doctors’ Baby Bond

by Abigail Gordon

  ‘Your little one will be fine with us, Dr Bell,’ she said. ‘It’s always a wrench, having to leave them the first time, but we’ll take good care of him.’

  Andrina nodded. It was the sensible thing they were doing. If it worked out all right, it might be a good idea to keep Jonathan away from the surgery on a regular basis.

  As she handed him over to one of the young assistants, he gave the toothless smile that always made her heart twist.

  ‘Please, take special care of him,’ she said to the girl. ‘This child is the light of my life.’

  Bending over the baby, Andrina didn’t see Drew’s expression. If she had she might have thought that for a moment the doting uncle was missing and in his place was a sober-faced stranger.

  Andrina was making no secret of her love for the child, and for a strange moment he was envious. It must be a wonderful feeling to be the light of someone’s life, he thought as they went back out to the car, instead of featuring merely as bank balance and bedmate.

  When they arrived at the practice there was no time for any more pondering. It was like it had been the previous day, and would continue to be so until the flu outbreak had run its course.

  Yet Andrina’s first patient hadn’t got flu. Michael Rayner was in a very poor state of health due to acute liver failure. He was in and out of hospital frequently until such time as a transplant could be arranged.

  The sixty-year-old’s condition was due to having been given infected blood some years ago during an operation, and his health had slowly deteriorated ever since.

  ‘My stomach is swollen again,’ he said morosely, ‘and I keep feeling drowsy and confused. I can see another spell in Intensive Care coming up if a liver isn’t available soon.’

  When Andrina examined him she saw that his stomach was indeed distended and they both knew why. Excess fluid forming in the abdomen was part of the condition, as was drowsiness and confusion, because of dysfunction of the brain. Unless a liver became available soon, he was going to die.

  ‘I suspect that you have another infection,’ she told him. ‘It would account for the increase of fluid and the other symptoms. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I do think we need to get you back in hospital, Mr Rayner. I could prescribe antibiotics but there is no guarantee that the infection would clear up with just that, and your condition can’t be allowed to worsen. We need to have you under medical supervision all the time until there is some improvement.’

  ‘Aye, all right,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ll go home and get my things ready. My bag is still packed from the last time I was in, and then I’ll phone for an ambulance.’

  ‘Do you have someone who can accompany you to the hospital?’

  He shook his head. ‘My wife died last year and now the only kin I’ve got is my daughter, who lives down south. So, no, but I’m quite capable of managing on my own. I know the routine off by heart, I’ve been admitted so many times.’

  ‘All right, then, but do, please, let the surgery know as soon as you’re discharged. And, Mr Rayner?’

  ‘What, Doctor?’

  ‘Next time one of us will come to you. Just ring and ask for a visit.’

  He gave a grim chuckle. ‘I’m that bad, am I?’

  Andrina had a smile for him. ‘Let’s just say that you’re a very brave man.’

  As she filled in his notes to record the visit, she was thinking that it would be bad enough for Michael if his condition was self-inflicted due to heavy drinking, but to have a diseased liver because of negligence in the system must be a very bitter pill to swallow. She prayed that soon an organ would become available. He deserved that chance.

  When she arrived at the nursery in the late afternoon, leaving Drew to finish off all the odds and ends that the hectic day had brought, Jonathan smiled his little smile again when he saw her and her world righted itself. He was all right, she thought thankfully. Clean and well fed and obviously not fretting.

  ‘Here he is,’ Serena said as she handed him over. ‘We’ll look forward to seeing you both again tomorrow.’

  Andrina nodded and told her, ‘If any of the children appear unwell during the next couple of weeks, send for us. Alternatively, advise the parents to do so. It looks like we have a flu epidemic on our hands.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We will,’ she said. ‘Dr Curtis mentioned it last night. He’s a charming man, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ Andrina agreed. Even old Mrs Carslake at the top cottage, wrinkled and bent with arthritis, had remarked the other day, ‘It always gives me a lift, seeing Dr Curtis. If I was fifty years younger he would have to watch out.’

  * * *

  When Drew came striding in Jonathan was propped up on the sofa surrounded by cushions so that he wouldn’t fall off. As always Drew went straight across to where he was.

  ‘How did it go?’ he asked as Jonathan cooed up at him.

  ‘Fine,’ she told him thankfully.

  When they’d eaten, Drew said, ‘I can’t assist with Jonathan’s bathtime tonight. I’ve brought some paperwork home with me that has to be done, and then I have to go out.’

  Andrina was in the process of undressing the baby and when his tiny body was revealed Drew came to stand beside them.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he breathed, his glance taking in the woman who had learned to love someone else’s child and the recipient of that love lying serenely in her arms.

  But wrapped inside the stiff confines of a plastic apron, and wondering where Drew was off to after he’d done the paperwork, it never occurred to Andrina that the comment had been directed at her just as much as the baby, and breaking into the moment she enquired, ‘Will you be out long?’

  ‘Er…I might be. It all depends,’ he said, still not offering to explain where he was going. ‘It’s something that I’ve been intending doing for a while and don’t want to put it off any longer.’ And that was it.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked.

  ‘No, of course I don’t,’ she said quickly. ‘You don’t have to ask my permission when you want to go out in the evening.’

  ‘True. I don’t have to ask your permission, but I do have to make sure that you haven’t got anything planned yourself.’

  That will be the day, she thought wryly, unless she wanted to take Eamon up on his offer, and she wasn’t that desperate yet.

  ‘It’s only fair,’ he was saying gravely. ‘Because we’re just as much partners in what goes on here as we are in the practice. Agreed?’

  She smiled. When it came to sweet reason Drew was a past master, but why was he being so mysterious?

  ‘Yes. Agreed,’ she told him, and began to climb the stairs without further comment.

  Watching her, Drew was gripped by a sudden feeling of uncertainty. They’d been in harmony until the day of the christening. Happy in what they were doing. Happy in what they were sharing. And he didn’t want it to change. But it had and, memorable though it had been, he wished he hadn’t kissed her.

  Yet she’d kissed him back with equal passion, so he need have no guilt on that score. But it didn’t alter the fact that they’d broken the unspoken terms of the agreement and, much as he had no wish to turn out on a chilly night to cross swords with his ex-wife, maybe a few hours away from Andrina wasn’t a bad idea.

  Jonathan would be talking eventually, Drew thought as he seated himself at the desk in the study and pulled the paperwork he’d brought home towards him. What would they do then? Teach him to call them Mummy and Daddy and when he was older explain the circumstances?

  But supposing one of them had branched away before that time. How would they resolve that situation? They both loved Jonathan equally. He, Drew, was the blood relative, but it was Andrina who had taken him into her life when there had been no one else to do it.

  There was a way to prevent that sort of situation occurring, but Andrina would probably think him a cold fish if he suggested it. His pulses were leaping at the very thought, but he didn’t think Andrina w
ould feel flattered if he proposed to her under the present circumstances.

  Another problem was that once he’d said what was in his mind, what they had now would be gone for ever. He could shatter the idyll and find there was nothing to replace it with if she refused.

  She’d reappeared in the doorway with Jonathan wrapped in a big white towel and when she saw his expression she asked, ‘What’s wrong? You look as if your lights have suddenly been put out.’

  ‘I just had a thought that caused a minor power cut,’ he said unsmilingly, and reaching out for the baby he pushed the paperwork to one side. As he looked down at his nephew he was asking himself if it was worth the risk. He could feel moisture on his brow. Supposing she said no? Supposing she said yes?

  He supposed he had a nerve for even contemplating such a thing, and before he did anything else he had to sort Tania out. The present situation with his ex-wife just couldn’t be allowed to continue.

  * * *

  What was all that about? Andrina wondered as she went into the kitchen to prepare Jonathan’s bottle. She’d never seen Drew look so solemn. There’d been no signs of Tania in recent days so she didn’t think it was anything to do with her, but she still felt that those two had some unfinished business.

  She wished that just once in a while Drew could see herself as she really was. He only ever saw her surrounded by baby things, or behind her desk at the practice. On the one occasion when she could have made an impression she’d worn ‘the dress’ and reminded him of someone that he said he wanted to forget.

  She fed Jonathan while Drew continued with the paperwork he’d brought home, and then took the baby up and settled him for the night. When she looked in on him a few minutes later he was fast asleep with one tiny fist tucked beneath his chin.

  ‘He’s well away,’ Drew’s voice said from behind her, and when she turned she saw that he’d changed and was ready to go out.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said casually. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  ‘I won’t. Have no fear,’ she told him, knowing that she sounded snappy.

  His sombre expression of earlier came back for a moment but he shrugged it off and with a wave of the hand went striding down the stairs as if he couldn’t wait to get out into the night.

  The moment he’d gone the curiosity she’d been holding in check leapt forth. Instead of curling up on the sofa as she would have done if he’d been there, Andrina wandered from room to room restlessly, until she realised that she was behaving like a doubting wife and flopping down in front of the fire she sat gazing into its embers.

  The heat from it was making her drowsy and she was on the brink of dozing when she heard Jonathan’s cry. It was a chesty sort of wail, not a bit like his usual lusty yell and it brought her back to full consciousness in a flash.

  When she picked him up she could feel fever in him. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright, and in spite of being a doctor she was just as panic-stricken as any other loving mother on seeing their infant poorly.

  * * *

  Andrina wasn’t aware of it but Tania had appeared at the surgery shortly after she’d left to collect Jonathan that afternoon. She’d been her usual strident, outrageous self and had only been willing to leave when Drew had agreed to call round that evening to discuss a proposition she wanted to put to him.

  It was the last thing he wanted to do, spend time with her when he could be with Andrina and the baby, but it would give him the opportunity to make her realise once and for all that she was not in his life any more. The fact that she thought that she could be said a lot for her incredible arrogance, but tonight she was going to get the message, he thought grimly as he pulled up in front of her parents’ house.

  They were a pleasant elderly couple and well respected in the community, which was more than could be said for their daughter.

  He was wishing now that he’d told Andrina where he was going, but he knew instinctively that if he had she would have got the wrong idea and he hadn’t wanted that to happen.

  Tania was dressed to go out when she opened the door to him and, pulling it to behind her, she said, ‘Let’s go to the Grouse. I don’t want to talk in front of my parents.’

  ‘All right,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘Hop in.’

  When they’d settled themselves in a quiet corner Drew said flatly, ‘So what do you want to talk about, Tania?’

  ‘Us of course,’ she said wheedlingly in the husky voice that grated on him so much these days.

  ‘There is nothing to discuss. I’ve told you a thousand times, we’re finished.’

  ‘You haven’t heard what I have to say,’ she protested. ‘I want us to get back together, Drew, and as you seem so set on having a kid of your own I’m willing to oblige.’

  That brought back the cold anger that had torn him apart before, and he told her, ‘You don’t listen, do you? How many times do I have to tell you that I want nothing more to do with you? I do want children of my own, but not with you, Tania, never with you. And in the meantime I’m totally happy looking after my nephew.’

  ‘And having an unpaid nursemaid thrown in helps, no doubt,’ she snarled. ‘I can’t see you fancying her for anything else. Not when you’ve had someone like me.’

  Goaded by her conceit, he told her, ‘Compared to Andrina you are nothing. I want you out of my life permanently and the sooner you realise that the better.’

  He got to his feet.

  ‘I’m going, Tania. I have better things to do.’ And leaving her fuming and frustrated he went, but not to return to the farm. He needed time to cool down. His ex-wife was the only person he’d ever met who could enrage him to such a degree. She was willing to oblige, he thought furiously. Willing to give him a child. Big deal!

  He turned on to the hill road and once he was up on the moors stopped in a lay-by and sat staring into the starlit night for what seemed an eternity. Then at last, feeling calmer in spirit, he drove home to the place where he was happiest.

  * * *

  When he got back to Whistler’s Farm Drew was surprised to see that the lights were still on. When he went inside he found Andrina pacing up and down with the fretful baby in her arms.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked immediately.

  Because of her anxiety and the fact that he’d been out when she’d needed him, she was less than pleasant in her reply.

  ‘Jonathan’s got a temperature,’ she cried. ‘How could we not have noticed that he wasn’t well before he was put down for the night?’

  ‘Steady on,’ he said equably. ‘We didn’t notice because he was fine. Whatever is wrong with him has obviously come on since. If I’d thought he was sickening for something I wouldn’t have gone out.’

  The clock on the wall indicated that it was half past one and, still frazzled, Andrina said, ‘I’m surprised that you bothered coming home. Why didn’t you go straight to the surgery? This is the result of taking him to the nursery. We should have realised that he was more likely to pick something up there than anywhere.’

  She knew that she was being unreasonable but she couldn’t help it. It was due partly to Drew having been wherever he’d gone for so long, but the main reason was her concern over Jonathan, the fact that he’d become ill so quickly.

  Ignoring her comments, Drew said levelly, ‘What have you given him?’

  ‘Just infant paracetamol. Because I’m not sure what it is. Do you think it could be the flu bug?’

  ‘Have you sounded his chest? Remember, he’s not had the whopping cough vaccine yet.’

  ‘Yes. It wasn’t clear but there was nothing to suggest that.’

  ‘Good. Because there’s a lot of it about, mainly because of fear of a bad reaction on the part of parents. Give him to me, Andrina. I’ll see if I can get him to sleep and will have him in my room tonight.’

  ‘I’m quite capable of looking after him,’ she told him with the snappiness still present.

  He sighed. ‘Did I say you weren’t? If all this is becau
se I’ve been out for a few hours, maybe I’d better remind you that we are both free agents. You don’t own me, and I don’t own you. So let’s not let the situation get out of hand.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘The doctor in me has been overtaken by the anxious parent.’

  What on earth was he saying? Drew wondered. It would have been an ideal moment to put the question that had been foremost in his mind all the time he’d been listening to Tania’s arrogance, and instead he’d pushed them further apart.

  As soon as he felt himself up against the firm warmth of Drew’s chest, Jonathan closed his eyes and went to sleep. Although she was relieved to see it, it didn’t make Andrina feel any less fractious.

  Jonathan often slept through the night now, but as Drew carried him carefully upstairs she said, ‘I’ll make up a bottle just in case.’

  ‘Yes, do that,’ he agreed unsmilingly, ‘and then go to bed yourself. I’m in charge.’

  It was as if he was saying, Make yourself scarce. I’ve heard enough from you for tonight.

  So she did just that, but not to sleep. She may have been sent packing but it didn’t mean that she was taking a back seat. Not if her precious child might need her.

  Twice she tiptoed into Drew’s room to check on the baby and found the man himself watching her from where he lay against the pillows, fully awake.

  ‘He’s all right, Andrina,’ he said the second time. ‘The paracetamol has brought his temperature down and he’s breathing easier. It could be early teething. Go back to bed. You can trust me, though anyone hearing you earlier wouldn’t have thought so.

  ‘If you want to know where I’ve been, I had something to discuss with Tania. We needed to talk. Obviously if I’d known Jonathan wasn’t well I would have come back immediately. Does that satisfy you?’

  ‘You don’t have to explain,’ she told him flatly, as all the implications of what he was saying came crowding in on her. ‘As I’ve already said, I’m sorry for kicking up such a fuss.’