The Doctors’ Baby Bond

by Abigail Gordon

  Simon Standish, the male nurse that he had engaged to take care of him, had rung him a couple of times with progress reports and now he was about to see for himself how his elderly patient was recovering.

  It wasn’t going to be a prolonged call as the weather was getting steadily worse, which was one of the reasons why he was stopping off—in case the Brewsters became snowed in on the lane where theirs was the only house.

  He found Tim still improving, and the atmosphere in the household calm and organised, with Angela content to see her husband being cared for and, amazingly, Tania less strident. She was more amenable in word and deed and, where at one time she would have fastened onto him like a leech, he got the impression that she was only mildly pleased to see him.

  When he was leaving the nurse came to the door with him, and when Drew remarked on the change in his ex-wife Simon smiled.

  ‘I made it clear from the start that I wouldn’t put up with any tantrums. I’ve met her type before. I told Tania that she had to pull her weight, no sulks or aggravation for her parents, and she appears to have taken note of what I said.’

  Drew smiled.

  ‘You seem to be just the right sort of person to cope with her.’

  Simon grinned back at him. ‘There are more ways of nursing than giving medicine. Tim Brewster needs tranquillity if he is to get well again, and with a petulant hothouse flower like his daughter around it would have been in short supply if she hadn’t changed her ways. She was a challenge that I couldn’t resist, but I’m only tough with her for her own good.’

  As he was pulling out of the Brewsters’ drive Drew’s mobile rang and he stopped the car. It was Marion, sounding anxious.

  ‘We had a call from Eli Thompson a few minutes ago,’ she said. ‘He was having breathing problems. I tried to get hold of you but you must have been out of range.’

  ‘I’ll go there now,’ he said.

  ‘Dr Bell has already gone. That’s why I’m ringing you. I’m worried about her. The road that leads to the reservoirs is so dark and what the winds will be like out there I shudder to think. It’s so open. The snow is beginning to drift here so it will really be piling up around that area.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ he said briefly. ‘Who’s going to pick Jonathan up?’

  ‘I am. I’ll take him to my place until one of you shows up.’

  ‘Fine.’ And with nerve ends tightening he went to track down Andrina.

  * * *

  This had been a mistake, Andrina was thinking as she came out of Eli’s cottage into the wild night. It had been difficult enough getting there, and while she’d been inside it had got worse. She should have done as Marion had suggested and got an ambulance out there without embarking on the nightmare ride herself. As a much heavier vehicle than her small car, it wouldn’t have been at so much risk.

  The old man had calmed down when she’d got there but he was still wheezing heavily, which wasn’t surprising with the woodsmoke from the fire and tobacco smoke from a battered clay pipe polluting the air.

  The oxygen had brought immediate relief and after showing him how to use it she’d produced the antibiotics she’d taken with her.

  ‘Your tubes are not in very good shape,’ she’d told him chidingly.

  ‘What do you expect at my age?’ he’d croaked.

  It hadn’t been the moment to point out that not smoking and trying coal on his fire instead of wood might help, so she’d told him, ‘I want you to be cared for over Christmas. I’m going to phone for an ambulance. The weather is dreadful out there and it might take it some time to get here, but it is what you need. They will either keep you in hospital or find you a temporary place in a care home.’ As he’d opened his mouth to protest she added, ‘Please, don’t argue. It will be just for over the holidays and until your chest clears.’

  ‘Why didn’t young Drew come to see me instead of you?’ he’d grumbled.

  ‘He will be saying the same thing,’ she’d told him. ‘And now I’ve got to get going before I’m snowed in here.’

  As she drove slowly along the narrow lane that led away from the cottage Andrina was acutely conscious of the dark still waters to one side of the track.

  With headlamps full on she could see that there was quite a drop to the water, with a low metal barrier separating it from the road. In daylight it was a picturesque spot but not tonight. She was only minutes away from the village, yet it felt as if she was in no man’s land.

  At the end of the track was the road, and once she was on it she would feel safe. The gritters had been out and conditions there would be much better. But first she had to get there.

  As the car slithered and crunched on the snow, veering from side to side in the darkness, and the waters of the reservoir glittered up at her, her hands were so tight on the steering-wheel her veins were bulging.

  Suddenly it happened, the thing she’d been dreading. She lost control of the car on a particularly icy part of the track and went through the barrier.

  She waited for it to plunge into the cold waters but it came to a halt, and as it teetered on the edge of the drop she was flung forward. Her head hit the steering-wheel and she knew no more.

  * * *

  As Drew turned off the road onto the track that led to Eli’s cottage he saw headlamps ahead of him and thought that it must be Andrina on her way back. No one else would have cause to be driving along there in such weather. But in the same second he realised the lights weren’t moving and they weren’t pointing towards him either. They were shining across the water, which was ominous.

  With dread engulfing him, he drove on, and when he saw the outline of the car hanging over the edge of the drop his insides turned over. He was out of his own vehicle in a flash, and as he ran round to the driver’s side he saw Andrina slumped over the wheel.

  His first thought was to get her out, but supposing the movement sent the car into the water and her with it before he’d had the chance to free her? That would be catastrophic.

  He had to get help, and fast, but first he checked her pulse and was relieved to find its beat reassuring. She was making no movement while unconscious, but he reasoned if she came round and moved it could send the car over the edge.

  He phoned the emergency services and was told that there was an ambulance already on its way to Eli Thompson’s.

  ‘How long is it going to be?’ he asked tightly. ‘I have a car here ready to topple into the reservoir and my colleague is inside it, unconscious.’

  ‘A good ten minutes. It set off a quarter of an hour ago, but road conditions are grim. Sounds as if you might need the fire services as well,’ the emergency operator said.

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ he said abruptly, ‘but, please, radio the ambulance and tell them that we need them first.’

  He was assuming that Andrina had hit her head as the car had jolted forward. Her seat belt had prevented her from going through the windscreen, otherwise she would have been in the water before he’d got there, so she must have hit the steering-wheel.

  As he was bending over her she groaned and opened her eyes, and he said urgently, ‘Don’t move, Andrina. The car is hanging over the edge of the reservoir.’

  She looked at him blearily and he knew that what he’d said hadn’t registered.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked in a slurred voice. ‘I’ve sorted Eli out and sent for an ambulance.’

  He nodded. ‘Good girl. Now, what I want you to do is stay very still. I’m going to get in the back of the car to balance it more evenly and we’re going to stay like that until help arrives. If we both end up in the water at these temperatures, Jonathan could be an orphan twice over.’

  There was no answer. She was slumped back in the seat this time, eyes closed and head lolling.

  It wasn’t too long before the ambulance came pushing its way through the snow towards them, but it seemed like an eternity. When two paramedics peered through the window of the car, he urged them, ‘Get my colleague out f
irst.’

  ‘It might go over with you in it if we do,’ they told him. ‘We need some more weight at the back here while we lift her out.’

  ‘Just do it,’ he urged. ‘Her safety is all I care about.’

  ‘Hello, there,’ a voice called from behind, and a fireman appeared from the whirling flakes, but there was no sound of the vehicle that had brought him there.

  ‘We can’t get the appliance up here it’s too narrow,’ he said, taking in the situation immediately, ‘but if we three put our weight on the back to level the car, you can get out of the back seat and lift her out.’

  It worked, and as two more members of the fire crew appeared at that moment, carrying loose rocks to prop up the car, the paramedics stretchered Andrina to the ambulance.

  ‘What about the old fellow that we came to pick up?’ one of them asked. ‘How much further is it to his place? If we leave it much longer, we mightn’t be able to get to him.’

  ‘Just down the road there,’ Drew told them, his glance on Andrina’s white face. ‘He’s in his nineties and has developed bronchial problems.’

  ‘Fine,’ one said, and as the firemen lumbered off, having told Drew that they would come back in daylight hours now that the car was safe, they went to collect Eli.

  There were a few protests when they got to the cottage, but Drew was in no mood for delays, and as soon as the old man had put some tobacco and a clean pair of long johns in a plastic carrier bag, they were off.

  * * *

  If he hadn’t gone to the Brewsters’ this would never have happened, Drew thought dismally as he waited for Andrina to come back from X-ray. Or at least it would have been he whose life had been at risk, not that of the woman who had given new meaning to his days. If he’d gone straight back to the surgery he would have been in time to take Eli’s call and go out there himself.

  The old fellow had been admitted to a geriatric ward and was waiting to see the doctor, and Drew couldn’t help thinking that this was the best place for him over the Christmas holiday. He would have food and warmth…and company.

  ‘No damage done,’ the doctor in Accident and Emergency told them when he’d examined Andrina’s X-ray. ‘There’ll be lots of bruising, but you’ll do. We’re going to keep you in for a couple of days to check for concussion, but we should have you home for Christmas.’

  Andrina had become fully conscious in the ambulance and her first thoughts had been for the baby.

  ‘Jonathan?’ she’d asked tearfully. ‘What about him?’

  ‘I’ve rang Marion and explained what has happened,’ Drew had told her, ‘and she’s going to keep him with her for the time being.’

  She’d turned away to stare bleakly at the darkened windows of the ambulance. Some Christmas this was going to be.

  And now the doctor in A and E was telling her that she was to be kept in for observation. Was anything ever going to go right for them? she wondered.

  They put her in a small side ward and the moment she was settled she urged Drew to go and see to Jonathan.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ he said.

  It was true. He would relive those moments beside the reservoir for the rest of his days, but he knew that Jonathan came top of her list of priorities. He wasn’t sure what his position was. Tagging on after Eamon most likely.

  Andrina smiled for the first time since he’d found her.

  ‘I’ll be all right. Just go and take him home. I won’t be expecting you back. You’ll have enough to do, feeding him and putting him to bed.’

  ‘I could come back afterwards. Marion would come round, I’m sure.’

  ‘Not in this weather. Thank you for coming to find me, Drew. Though I didn’t know anything about it at the time, which perhaps was fortunate. I thought I was going into the water, you know.’

  ‘Yes, well, you didn’t, did you?’ he said quietly, as he digested the fact that he’d just been told to stay away. ‘Do you want Eamon to come and see you?’

  ‘Eamon? No.’ She wasn’t giving anything away. ‘I’m tired and my head hurts. I’m going to try to sleep when you’ve gone.’ With a catch in her voice she added, ‘Just two days to Christmas and I’m stuck in here.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ he asked sombrely.

  ‘Yes, of course it does. It’s Jonathan’s first Christmas.’

  ‘You could have been drowned out there. That would have mattered. There will be other Christmas-times for Jonathan and he’ll need you then.’

  ‘And you. He needs you just as much as he needs me.’

  ‘Yes, well, we’ll have to see, won’t we?’

  He was preparing her, she thought, conditioning her for what was to come. She still had the feeling that Tania had been forgiven, but without taking him up on what he’d said she closed her eyes, and when she opened them a few seconds later he’d gone.

  * * *

  He could understand Andrina being worried about Jonathan after what had happened, Drew thought as he began to sort out the Christmas decorations after putting the baby to bed, but she could have been killed. Mercifully she hadn’t been and he’d been sending up prayers of thankfulness ever since. But someone had to get ready for Christmas and he was the only one to do it.

  He’d reluctantly rung Eamon and told him what had happened and he’d been eager to go and see her, but Drew had explained that Andrina had said she wanted to be left alone and he’d agreed to stay put.

  Drew wasn’t to know that ever since she’d been so willing to go to the hunt ball with him Eamon had started to hope again, even though he knew he was only second best.

  Drew was debating whether to cancel the party they’d arranged for Christmas Eve. It was only two days off, and with Andrina in hospital there would be no point to it, unless she came home by then…and felt up to it.

  * * *

  He went to see her in the lunch-hour between surgeries the next day, and the moment he appeared beside the bed she asked, ‘How is Jonathan?’

  He smiled. ‘How did I know that would be the first thing you’d say? He’s fine. Said he would have come with me but he had a date with Serena.’

  She smiled back, but it was more of a grimace as her head was still tender from the bump of the previous day.

  ‘The doctor has been to see me,’ she told him, ‘and he says I can go home in the morning. I’ll get a taxi so that you don’t have to leave morning surgery.’

  ‘I will pick you up,’ he said firmly. ‘Forget the taxi. James can manage on his own for a little while.’

  ‘All right. Whatever you say,’ she agreed meekly.

  There was still the feeling of listlessness in her, as if all her hopes and dreams were slowing down into nothing.

  ‘I think we should cancel the party on Christmas Eve,’ he told her, and that brought a reaction.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. Let’s keep to the arrangements. It’s not as if we’re planning a state banquet. I need some company after yesterday’s events.’

  It wasn’t true. She needed him…and Jonathan. No one else. But he wasn’t to know that because she kept putting off telling him that she loved him in case it all fell apart even more.

  ‘All right,’ he said flatly, thinking she was desperate to see Eamon. ‘The party is on. I’ve got all tomorrow to get ready for it. Now I have to go. I wish I didn’t, but I’ve still got some home visits to do.’

  ‘Eli came in to see me this morning,’ she said, wanting to keep him by her side.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Still wheezing but on the mend. Having had a good breakfast and a nice meal last night, he’s beginning to think that Christmas won’t be so bad.’

  ‘That’s good. I’ll pop in to see him before I leave.’

  ‘He’ll like that. He wanted to know where you were when I got to his cottage.’

  He laughed, and bent and kissed her bruised cheek gently. ‘Take care until I get you back home, Andrina.’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ she said easil
y, and thought that situation might occur sooner than he was expecting if she could use some persuasion on the medical staff. If it was going to be their first and last Christmas together, she was going to make every moment count. Her apathy had gone. She was feeling positive for the first time in days.

  Early that evening Andrina spoke to the ward sister and asked if she could go home.

  ‘I have a young baby at home. It’s his first Christmas and we have much to do before Christmas morning. I feel all right now, and the doctor did say I could go in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with him,’ she said with an understanding smile. ‘That’s if I can find him. He might have gone off duty.’

  The nurse came back a few moments later and the smile was still there.

  ‘He was still around and, yes, he says you can go. But no exertion, and if you start to feel ill or have any severe head pains you get back to us immediately. And we want you back in Outpatients on January the second.’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ she agreed.

  When the nurse asked if she should ring Drew to come for her, Andrina told her that he would have had a very busy day and she didn’t want to bother him but she would be obliged if she would ring for a taxi.

  * * *

  Andrina was smiling as she put her key in the lock. At least part of her world was righting itself. She was back home with those she loved. In a matter of seconds she would see Jonathan. He would be asleep at this time but just to look down at him would be enough.

  As the door swung back her jaw went slack. She’d been assuming too much. The baby wasn’t in bed. He was in Tania’s arms, smiling up at her in the cluttered hall that was full of holly, mistletoe and packages.

  That was the first thing her astonished gaze took in. The second was Drew, smiling and relaxed, coming through the door that led to the kitchen with two glasses of wine.

  When he saw her he almost dropped them.

  ‘Andrina! This is a surprise!’ he said, putting the glasses down on the hall table. ‘I thought you weren’t due home until tomorrow.’

  ‘So it would seem,’ she said drily as she went up to Tania and held out her arms for the baby.