by Sam Archer
‘No, that’s all right –’ she began, but he held up a hand.
‘I know you’re off for the weekend. You don’t want to spend it with a stiff neck and back after enduring a night on one of these beds. I’ve experienced them myself.’ He put a palm behind her back in a gently ushering movement, not quite making contact, though she felt a small thrill between her shoulder blades as if he’d touched her.
The hospital corridors, while not quite empty, were far less busy at that hour, and their footsteps echoed off the walls. Melissa strode along beside Fin, feeling as awkward and as tongue-tied as a sixteen-year-old. When Fin asked, reasonably enough, where she lived, for a few heartstopping moments she couldn’t remember. Then she collected herself, faked a coughing fit to cover her silence, and told him.
His car was a bottle-green Jaguar XK8, not new but well-looked after. She sank into the leather passenger seat, revelling in the luxury of it. The aroma in the cockpit-like interior was that of the leather itself, plus aftershave and a hint of something she couldn’t at first identify. Later she grasped it. It was the smell of Fin himself, a subtle, indescribable scent that was subliminal and unique to him.
He swung the car up the ramp with practised ease and into the streets above. The icy sleet was coming down at a slant, its bleakness failing to hide the grandeur of the London river view, one that never failed to captivate her: the quirkiness of the London Eye against the spectacle of the Palace of Westminster.
They spoke about work, as doctors find themselves doing even when off-duty. Melissa kept up her end of the conversation without fully paying attention to it. Instead, her awareness was focused on physical sensations: the snug fit of the leather under her bottom and thighs, warmed by her own body heat; the maddening, delirious aroma she’d noticed immediately on climbing in; and above all, the presence of Fin beside her, the closest he’d ever been to her for this length of time. She glanced at his strong, deft hand curled around the steering wheel, the fingers ringless, a simple silver link securing the white shirt cuff at his wrist. From time to time she looked at his profile, a perfectly natural thing to do when he was talking, and marvelled at the cleanness of the lines of his face, the smooth straight nose, the wryly curving lips, the firm jaw with a dusting of night stubble. And every now and again he looked across at her in return, and his gaze pinned her to her seat and tightened her chest.
All too quickly the Jaguar reached the bohemian streets of Bayswater. She almost told him the wrong turn-off, wanting to prolong the journey by even a minute, but she bit her tongue. He pulled down the narrow mews and she pointed to the block of flats.
‘Here we are.’
‘Nice little street.’ He peered out the window, glancing around.
Melissa was suddenly gripped by a crazy notion. An idea so outrageous it could only have come from the wild region inside everyone that doesn’t care about rules or propriety or any of those civilised trappings.
What if I invite him in?
There could be no coyness about it. No ambiguously innocent enquiry if he’d like to “come in for coffee”. It was nearly two-thirty in the morning. He was a man, she was a woman, and there were feelings between them which she knew he was aware of as much as she was, even if they’d never come remotely close to discussing them or even referring to them. If she invited him in, and he accepted, they would both know exactly where things were going to lead.
It would force the issue out into the open, that was for sure. Put an end to this tension which, however giddying and perversely pleasurable, was quite frankly tearing her apart. If she asked him in and he accepted, their lives would change irreversibly. Her future, until a few weeks ago so mapped out, so dominated by a single goal, would at one stroke become a vast, frightening expanse of uncertainty.
And if he said no?
If he said no, her future would remain on track. She’d suffer humiliation, and horrified embarrassment, and a small part of her would wither and die and form a scar that would distort her soul a little.
Melissa had seconds to decide, every passing moment an eloquent statement in itself. The rush of physical sensation had become a torrent now. Fin sat watching her, the Jaguar’s engine idling. Had he leaned towards her a little or was she imagining it? Inadvertently she felt herself lean towards him. His face was close enough that his eyes, so grey and yet expressive, were flicking back and forth between hers. His mouth moved, the sensuous lips parting a fraction as if his breathing was deepening and he needed to inhale and exhale using more than his nose.
‘Hope you get some sleep,’ he murmured, raising his eyebrows.
The moment was gone, whipped away like a whisper into a hurricane, and Melissa was stammering her thanks and slamming the door and fumbling for her keys. When he didn’t immediately pull away she realised he was waiting to see her safely inside her flat, so she waved and walked to the entrance of the flats, trying to make it a saunter but feeling like a foal taking its first steps.
Her hand shook so much that it took her four attempts to push the key into the lock, and by the time she reached the warmth of her rooms the tremors had taken hold of her entire body so that she flopped on to her bed, fully clothed, weak and drained and in utter turmoil.
***
In Fin’s dream, she was before him, real in the sense that there was nothing hazy or insubstantial about her but ethereal in that he couldn’t touch her.
Melissa wore an evening dress, a shimmering blue number that bared her back and shoulders and sheathed her figure tightly and ended above her knees. Her blonde hair was piled artfully on top of her head and her lips and eyes were touched just lightly with makeup.
She moved in a slow dance in front of him, her huge eyes fixed on his, her limbs and hips shimmying to music only she could hear. He watched the slow pursing of her mouth, the liquid wink of light off moisture on the lower lip. His gaze travelled down the soft line of her throat to the hollow at its base, to her slim exposed shoulders and then further, over the swell of her breasts, their slopes pushed forward by the dress and shadowed in between. Still lower, he took in her tight waist and the slowly swinging curves of her hips, down her long slender legs to the narrow ankles and feet.
Almost imperceptibly she advanced towards him, not walking so much as gliding. As she drew nearer he became aware of tiny pinprick beads of perspiration in the dip between her breasts. Mesmerised, he reached out a hand to run a finger across the moisture, but found that even though she was close enough to touch he somehow couldn’t quite reach her.
She smiled, showing beautiful even white teeth, her red tongue playing behind the upper row, teasing.
I want you, her voice breathed as if from far away.
Fin twisted awake with a cry. For a moment he heard a thumping in the stillness of his bedroom, before realising it was his heart trying to break free from his chest. His breathing came hoarse and guttural. The sweat was slick on his face and his bare chest and he noticed his fists were gripping sodden wads of sheet.
Lower down, under the bedclothes, he was painfully aroused.
He lay for a few minutes, swallowing to try to lubricate his dry mouth and throat, willing his pulse and breathing to slow down. Once his vital signs were back to normal, he realised he wasn’t going to go back to sleep any time soon, not under these circumstances. He swung his legs out of the bed and padded naked to the bathroom.
In the shower, Fin set the water to a few degrees above unbearably cold and turned the power up high. He grimaced as the stinging needles scoured the sweat from his body.
It had been so close. The tipping point had been reached, and although he could understand the reason for Melissa’s hesitation, Fin was certain she would have asked him up to her flat. He’d had to break the moment by saying goodnight and taking his leave, because he wouldn’t have been able to bear the look in her eyes if he’d turned her down, not just the immediate look but the hurt and shame that would linger there for the rest of her time working with him.
Fin knew, however, that that was only part of the reason he’d spoken before she could. If he was honest with himself, he was more afraid of what would have happened if he’d found himself saying yes to her.
He towelled himself dry; then, seeing it was already five-thirty in the morning, he decided he might as well stay up. He took particular care with shaving, concentrating on the quotidian task as if it were an especially complicated surgical procedure, in an attempt to focus his thoughts on something else. Just when he thought he’d got a grip, he peered at his face in the wall mirror and, unbidden, an image came to mind of Melissa stepping wet and nude from the shower behind him, her hair plastered darkly to her shoulders, her body completely exposed to his gaze...
Oh, for crying out loud, Fin, he thought, and went to grab a tracksuit and training shoes, deciding on a punishing ten-mile run in the cold.
***
It was an especially nasty injury. The man had fallen against the sharp spike of a railing and his bowel had been perforated. Once the mess in his abdominal cavity had been cleared up, he’d need part of his bowel resecting and a colostomy to be created. It would in all likelihood be reversible, but the man had several months of unpleasantness ahead of him.
Melissa was by now, more than three months into the job, confident and experienced enough to handle this kind of procedure herself, and she took charge as the lead surgeon on the operation with smooth ease. She’d returned from her long weekend at her parents’ with renewed energy, not least because she’d had a chance to see her brother again. Since her return she and Fin had been getting along better than ever, an easy camaraderie having developed between them which made her feel if nowhere near his equal, then at least less like his junior colleague, which of course she still was.
Neither of them had mentioned a word about the night he’d given her a lift home. She’d woken the next morning feeling frustrated as hell, yet strangely delighted at the same time. No, nothing had happened, and yes, he’d been the one to say goodnight. But far from feeling rejected, she felt validated instead. He’d been aware of what she was on the point of asking, and he’d headed her off because he didn’t trust himself to say no.
She was prepared to wait. At least she knew now that there was a possibility, even a probability, that her feelings were reciprocated. For now, it was enough that some of Fin’s reserve towards her had disappeared, that she felt he was at last pleased with the work she was doing.
As Melissa pushed through the doors into the theatre where the man lay anaesthetised and ready for the procedure, she saw that the nurse assisting her was none other than Deborah Lennox. While primarily in charge of the post-operative wards, Deborah was also a qualified theatre sister and sometimes helped out with surgery to cover staff absences.
Deborah nodded to her, her eyes steady over the mask she wore. Relations between the two women had thawed a little since their clash several weeks earlier, though they remained coolly polite rather than friendly towards one another. They hadn’t mentioned the argument as if by silent, mutual consent. Deborah had herself been away on leave for the past couple of weeks and so Melissa hadn’t seen her for some time.
Melissa made the initial incision and the operation began. It went as smoothly as might reasonably be expected, with the usual surprises including unexpected bleeding vessels which needed to be cauterised or tied off. Behind Melissa the anaesthetist sat on his stool and hummed tunelessly as he read a magazine. Melissa wasn’t one of those surgeons who needed music playing in order to operate, so there was no soundtrack.
She became aware of Deborah’s gaze upon her from early on in the operation, but managed to catch the nurse’s eyes only once before they darted away. Melissa also became conscious of a coldness from the other woman, as if the thaw of the last few weeks had been only a temporary reprieve.
Not again, Melissa thought wearily.
In addition to the two of them and the anaesthetist, the theatre was populated by a junior doctor who was assisting Melissa and two junior nurses, one of them scrubbed up and helping Deborah carry out tasks such as suctioning while the other one performed jobs not requiring sterility, such as adjusting the light over the operative field. At one point the nurse doing the suctioning moved closer to get better access and her gowned hip nudged a clamp, which clattered to the floor.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered in terror. Melissa shook her head.
‘Never mind.’ She looked over at the second nurse. ‘Could you open a new one, please?’
On the other side of the patient Deborah’s eyes blazed. ‘Nurse, another clamp.’
Melissa frowned. ‘I’ve already –’
‘It’s for me to ask, Ms Havers. Not you.’
Melissa watched her for a long moment, then shrugged and applied herself to the field once more.
The rest of the procedure progressed without incident, and Melissa was the first out of the theatre, leaving the enthusiastic junior doctor, an aspiring surgeon himself, to suture closed the last layer of the abdominal wound. She degloved and degowned and went into the female locker room, which was otherwise empty.
Deborah came in a few minutes later and Melissa rounded on her.
‘What exactly is your problem?’
Deborah stood, hands on hips, squaring off. ‘As I said, it’s not for you to be telling my staff what to do.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Melissa felt the anger rising again. ‘I didn’t tell her to do anything. I asked her if she could please replace a piece of equipment. You ask the junior doctors to do things all the time and I don’t get all upset about it. What’s really going on? What’s eating you now?’
Deborah opened her mouth, then held her breath for a moment before expelling it in a long, slow sigh. ‘I warned you.’
‘Warned me what?’
‘I told you to watch yourself with Mr Finmore-Gage.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Again a pause. Deborah said, quietly: ‘Two or three weeks ago. Someone saw you get into his car late at night.’
The words were like individual blows, and for a second Melissa was stunned. ‘Who?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Somebody in the car park, who told somebody else. Now everyone knows.’
‘Oh, for the love of –’ Melissa was so angry she didn’t know where to look. ‘He was giving me a lift home. It was two in the morning, we’d both been working late, and I’d missed the last Tube. I can’t believe people are reading something into it.’
‘Can’t you?’
Melissa thought about what the nurse had just said. Now everyone knows… Were she and Fin grist to the department’s gossip mill, then? Was every friendly greeting followed by a knowing smirk behind her back?
Deborah stepped a pace nearer, not close enough to be belligerent. She said, her voice still quiet, ‘You see what happens. People hear things, they spread stories. Authority is compromised, and with it morale suffers. The department suffers, and so in turn do the patients.’
Melissa pressed her fingertips against her forehead and massaged the skin. ‘I know that, Deborah. I understand. But I’m telling you, there’s nothing to gossip about. He gave me a lift home. That’s all. Nothing happened between us.’
‘Whether or not that’s true, it’s beside the point. You should have been more careful. Of course it’s going to be interpreted only one way.’
‘It was just a lift home.’ But Melissa knew there was no point in arguing. Deborah’s mind was made up.
Deflated, Melissa turned to go. Now she’d have to be constantly on her guard, watching her colleagues for signs that they were talking about her. She’d misinterpret innocent comments, would pore over every facial expression. It was no way to work.
A thought struck her. Well, she could limit the damage. She turned back to Deborah.
‘One thing. I don’t want to find out that you’re stoking the fire. Spreading rumours about me or Fin, however grounded in reality you believe them to be.’
The
nurse rolled her eyes, sighed. ‘For heaven’s sake, girl. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying to you? Of course I won’t go aggravating an already difficult situation. Why would I want to make things any worse than they are?’
Because you’re jealous of me, and you want me gone, or at least neutralised, Melissa thought. She said nothing, instead giving a curt nod and turning on her heel.
Whatever Deborah’s motivation, Melissa thought as she headed to the wards, normally Melissa would have heeded any warnings that she was putting her reputation in jeopardy. Reputation was essential, along with clinical acumen, in order to get anywhere in the cutthroat medical hierarchy. To be told that she was being gossiped about because of some action of hers, even one that had been misinterpreted, would usually have made her especially cautious in the future. But it was a mark of how much she’d changed, even in the last couple of months, that she was less bothered than she felt she ought to have been.
Because, in truth, she didn’t want to back off. Didn’t want to put emotional distance between herself and Fin, not even for the sake of her career. And besides, wasn’t there more than a grain of truth in the gossip? Nothing had happened between her and Fin after she’d climbed into his car… but it very nearly had. In fact, she was increasingly certain it would have, if Fin hadn’t intervened when he did.
As she set to work on the ward, reviewing the patients’ medication charts, Melissa shook her head inwardly. Being a trauma surgeon in the making was a complicated life by anyone’s standards. She hadn’t realised her life could become even more complicated.
Chapter Five
Fin had been a doctor and in particular a trauma surgeon for long enough to be able to maintain a calm demeanour in the face of human suffering, but that didn’t mean an especially nasty injury couldn’t provoke a wince within him. He peered at George Harrow’s face as the man sat propped up on a hospital bed. Harrow was sixty years old and had the tough, level-eyed features of a stoic, though he must have been in a great deal of pain.