He was gone before she had time to answer, making for the stairs rather than the lift, pausing, as he opened the fire door, to throw a cheeky smile over his shoulder.
‘I make up names for people. Want to know yours?’
Not particularly, Alana thought, but, remembering the vulnerability she’d sensed earlier, she nodded anyway.
‘Dragon Lady!’ he said, then he disappeared into the stairwell, the heavy fire-door shutting slowly and noiselessly behind him.
Alana smiled to herself. Would he have called her something nicer if she’d let him win the tennis game?
CHAPTER TWO
ALANA was up at sunrise the next morning, feeding her animals, setting out fresh water for them, then moping around the flat because it was far too early to go to work.
In the end, she set off anyway, knowing there’d have been a number of new admissions over the weekend and determined to be on top of who was who in case the elusive Rory Forrester finally arrived.
He’d been appointed as senior physician in the internal medicine department months ago, and had apparently spent at least a week in the hospital. And though Alana hadn’t met him, she’d felt the wind from the new broom he’d wielded.
Then just as suddenly, he’d gone. Personal problems, someone had said, while had others suggested it had been illness, or a better offer from a hospital overseas.
Now he was back, and for some unknown reason determined to get involved with Eight B—a ward generally ignored by the senior physicians. Consultant specialists dropped in—it was another of Alana’s bugbears that they never came on time—to see patients who might eventually come under their care, but the senior physicians in the past had been content to let Eight B run itself.
Maybe he’d get over it. Maybe he’d come once then never come again. Maybe he’d listen to reason if she spoke to him about the students.
Maybe the moon would turn blue!
Reaching the hospital, she shut the possible problems away in the far reaches of her mind, though it was already crowded back there with the smelly T-shirt syndrome and the profile.
Forget the profile, think of work. She would not let things that might not happen bother her.
Half an hour before change of shift, the corridors were quiet, the foyers empty of people. Enjoying the sensation of being alone in a place where she knew there were over a thousand inhabitants, she smiled to herself, and was still smiling when the lift doors opened and she stepped inside.
Rory Forrester, wedged behind one of the complicated cleaning trolleys the housekeeping staff trundled endlessly along hospital corridors, glimpsed the smile first.
Or perhaps he noticed it because it was Monday morning, and he was by nature a Monday-morning grump. This particular Monday morning he’d had so many added pressures, work had seemed like the best option.
So the smile irritated him, and the fact that it had widened, and brightened—sparkled, in fact—when she greeted the porter with the trolley was an added annoyance.
He studied the smilee—or what he could see of her past the mop and broom heads behind which he stood—as, apparently oblivious of anyone else in the lift, she chatted with the middle-aged man. A tall, slim, fit-looking woman, with shiny blonde hair pulled back into a neat knot at the back of her head. Her skin was lightly tanned, and there was an air of freshness and enthusiasm about her that was all out of kilter with what he thought of as ‘hospital Mondayitis’.
She seemed vaguely familiar, not as someone he’d met in his brief preliminary sojourn at Royal Westside but maybe someone he’d seen on a ward.
She was also, not at all vaguely, attractive. Conventionally so in a neat controlled way, but also in the sense that he felt the elusive tug of the physical magnetism—that kind of attraction—which drew men to women.
Hoots of mocking laughter sounded in his head. With a backlog of five months’ work to catch up on, and seemingly insurmountable personal problems to sort out, he’d have no time for even the smallest dalliance—should he be so foolish as to even contemplate such a thing.
But his physical self must be feeling the effects of what was beginning to seem like permanent celibacy, because it was the second time he’d felt that tug of attraction recently.
The first had been as recently as Saturday night.
Another place, and another blonde—that one in a severe black suit, which had contrasted sharply, and incredibly sexily, with the long blonde hair cascading across her shoulders. He’d tried to ignore her but had then decided it was fate, and had intended introducing himself during the interval, but his pager had vibrated against his hip during the last movement and he’d had to leave the concert as soon as he’d decently been able to.
Rory closed his eyes at the memory of Saturday night’s drama, sighed deeply and rubbed his hand through his overlong hair. He’d better learn to live with frustration, because he suspected celibacy was going to become a way of life for a long time into the future.
The lift stopped and the woman got out, followed by the man with the cart. Rory glanced at the floor indicator lights and cursed softly. Surely he’d pressed four, where his office was located. Had the thing stopped and he’d not noticed—too busy brooding over his problems? Or a slim, tanned blonde?
Though while he was on the eighth floor he could check out the admissions ward, Eight B, which came under his overall control. Unfortunately, just as he made this decision—which had nothing to do with the blonde—the lift doors closed, and he was whisked back down to the basement car park where he started all over again.
Alana ignored the comments about her early arrival, settling herself on a spare chair at the nurses’ station and tapping the computer keyboard to get rid of the screen saver and bring up some patient details. She smiled to herself—she wasn’t the only one fretting about the new specialist’s arrival. Rex Jones, the cleaner on Eight, had come on duty early to make sure the new man, should he visit the wards on his first day, could find no fault with the floors.
‘I know Mrs Armstrong, don’t I?’ she said to no one in particular when the first new patient’s name flashed across the screen. As no one answered, she read the notes and realised she did know the woman, who’d been admitted with severe anaemia towards the end of the previous year. Endoscopy, where a tube with a miniature camera on it was inserted down her throat and into her stomach, had revealed bleeding polyps in her stomach, and although these had been cauterised on her last admission, it was now possible more had ruptured.
Leaving the computer, Alana walked through to see the elderly woman.
‘I’m so glad you’re still here,’ Mrs Armstrong greeted her. ‘Apart from Sue, who was on duty last night, everyone else is new.’
Alana perched on the side of the bed, automatically registering the woman’s rosy colour, no doubt as a result of the blood transfusion she’d been given the previous evening, and bandages down one side of her head.
‘What happened this time?’ Alana asked.
Mrs Armstrong looked embarrassed.
‘So silly. I must have fainted, and I hit my head. Fortunately Alf got hungry and when I wouldn’t feed him—I was lying on the floor, out cold—he went over to my neighbour’s because she fed him when I was in hospital last time, and he thought he might scrounge a meal over there.’
Mrs Armstrong smiled.
‘At least, that’s what I think. My neighbour, she says Alf went over to tell her I needed help, but cats wouldn’t do that, would they?’
Alana was pleased Mrs Armstrong had mentioned cats—she’d been thinking Alf must have been a relative and wondering why he’d gone next door for food rather than phoning an ambulance himself.
‘Anyway, Jenny, that’s my neighbour, phoned the ambulance, and here I am. I have to see someone about my polyps again, because if it’s not them making me weak and stupid, it might be something else.’
Alana lifted Mrs Armstrong’s file, wondering if other tests had already been carried out or suggested, but t
here was no indication of what might be going on. The admitting doctor in A and E had ordered the blood transfusion when the first blood tests had showed up the severity of the anaemia, but that was as far as the investigation had progressed.
‘I want to go home!’
The querulous voice echoed around the eight-bed room.
‘That woman always wants to go home,’ Mrs Armstrong said, nodding towards the gaunt, dishevelled woman in the bed opposite her. ‘She’s been saying it all night. But it’s obvious she can’t because she’d never be able to look after herself.’
She tapped her head significantly, and said, ‘I might be passing out at times, but at least my brain’s still working.’
Alana nodded.
Bessie Oliver had been in Eight B for nearly a week now, Ted Ryan conspiring with the nursing staff to keep her as long as possible while the social work department tried desperately to find her a placement in a nursing home.
Excusing herself from Mrs Armstrong, Alana crossed to Bessie, knowing the confused woman often quietened if someone sat with her for a while.
‘Hello, Bessie. I’m Alana. I’m one of your nurses. I hope you enjoyed your breakfast. Cereal and eggs, that’s what you usually have, isn’t it?’
Rheumy brown eyes met hers, and although Bessie didn’t answer, she seemed more at ease.
Alana straightened her bed linen, talking all the time, hoping her voice might soothe the patient enough that she’d doze off. A hope dashed when a voice, not loud but certainly carrying, penetrated the air.
‘Good morning, ladies. No, I’m wrong. We’ve got one gent. Good morning, ladies and gentleman. I’m Rory Forrester and although you haven’t met me before, I’m actually your doctor.’
As soon as he’d given the general introduction, Rory felt stupid, but when the nurse at the desk—Sue something—had led him into the big room, the first person he’d seen had been the blonde from the lift.
She was still smiling—this time at an addled-looking woman in a bed on the far side of the room—and once again the smile—this early on a Monday morning—had thrown him so much he’d behaved like a circus ringmaster entering his domain.
He scowled at the blonde.
It was the fact she looked so healthy—like a sleek, fit animal—that made her so attractive, he decided as Sue led him forward to meet the first patient. She probably jogged, he added gloomily to himself, as moving reminded him of the aches and pains in his back and leg from his recent foray into exercise—a race up three flights of stairs which he’d lost to his thirteen-year-old opponent.
Lost? He’d been tempted to call in paramedics to revive him!
Alana stared at the man. Tall and rangy, he had soft wavy black hair, badly in need of a trim, flopping down over a high forehead and curling slightly just above his ears. His skin was pale, suggesting his eyes might be blue, but it was too far away to see their colour. She felt a shiver of apprehension, and told herself it was because the man had been upsetting her life even before she’d met him, though her body was registering a strange sensation of familiarity.
Which definitely couldn’t have anything to do with how he smelt, because he wasn’t within smelling distance.
He was introducing himself to each patient in turn and she took the opportunity to look more closely at him.
Of course she’d never met him. He was undoubtedly a ‘once seen never forgotten’ kind of man.
Yet…
Work! Alana reminded herself, though trying to inject a stern note into mental orders was difficult.
As the Eight B charge nurse and senior nurse on the day shift, she should have been at the desk to meet him. Though Sue Croft was still here and they hadn’t done the handover so Sue was nominally in charge. Anyway, Sue was enjoying the moment—leading the specialist forward, introducing him to each patient, talking and waving her hands and looking admiringly up into his eyes.
For a moment, Alana wished she could make the vomiting noise Kirsten did so well, then, surprised by the strength of her reaction, considered whether she might just be feeling a faint twinge of what might just have been envy.
Oh, please! Get with it here!
Mentally berating herself for entertaining such stupid thoughts, she spoke again to Bessie, though a stray flash of resentment that Sue would have had the opportunity to check his eye colour did intrude momentarily.
The pair reached Bessie’s bed, where Alana had remained, mainly because she wasn’t certain what else to do.
‘This is Alana Wright, Eight B’s charge nurse. She should have been the one meeting you this morning, but you were early and Alana hadn’t done the handover with me so she couldn’t have given you the latest information. Alana, this is Dr Forrester.’
Alana’s polite greeting dead-heated with an appraising kind of ‘Ah!’ from the specialist, and she realised Ted had probably told him about her student ban. And possibly a few other of the gripes Alana generally had about the medical staff’s behaviour on Ward Eight B.
Blue. The eyes were blue, with flecks and a rim of darker blue, so she guessed in some lights they’d look almost black.
Sue was still speaking but, having developed a habit of tuning out about three-quarters of what Sue said, Alana barely heard. Too busy studying Rory Forrester as he spoke quietly to Bessie—too busy trying to work out why he seemed familiar.
At least he was talking to Bessie before he picked up her file. Too many of the doctors, including the specialists, tended to put the file notes first, studying them while they might or might not speak to the patient. Eyes on the notes, not on the person they were treating. As if notes could tell more than people!
She gave him a small tick, but it didn’t balance the very large cross against his name on account of the students.
‘I’ll be starting student rounds next week,’ he said, the timing so spot on she could have sworn he’d stolen the word out of her thoughts. But he was still flipping through pages on Bessie’s file, so she guessed he couldn’t be checking out the inside of her head at the same time.
‘I’d like to talk to you about that,’ she replied. ‘Preferably before they start.’
He glanced at his watch.
‘I’ve a meeting with Admin shortly, but I’ll try to get back here later in the day. In the meantime, can you tell me why Mrs Oliver is here?’
Alana hesitated and Sue Croft leapt into the breach.
‘Kind-hearted staff,’ she responded. ‘But, of course, they’re day shift staff making the decisions. It’s easier for the day shift when more nurses are on duty to help, so they don’t bear the brunt of her irrational behaviour.’
A dark eyebrow cocked in Alana’s direction.
‘She was admitted with a badly ulcerated leg, which is still healing. It’s hard to give Bessie IV antibiotics as she pulls out the tube, so she’s been having them orally and we’ve been treating the wound as well.’
For a moment she thought she might get away with this bland but carefully edited explanation, but the eyebrow remained cocked and the look on the man’s face told her he’d wait until she offered more.
‘She lives with her granddaughter who usually manages her just fine, but Bessie’s general health is deteriorating, and the senility is increasing, and at the moment Prue, the granddaughter, is newly pregnant and sick with it. She has a two-year-old and a four-year-old, and just can’t cope at present. The ulcer developing to the stage it did was an indication of that, because normally Prue is an excellent carer.’
She looked Rory Forrester in the eyes, and dared him to argue, but surprisingly enough he nodded.
‘No respite beds available?’
‘Not for dementia sufferers. Not at the moment. What Bessie really needs is a permanent placement in a nursing home because, with three small children, Prue just won’t be able to manage her, no matter how much she might want to.’
‘Well, as long as we don’t need the bed,’ the specialist said, and Alana was compelled to give him anoth
er small tick.
But two ticks didn’t balance out the cross either.
He walked away, accompanied by Sue, though he did turn to nod to Alana before he left the room and paused by the nurses’ station to shake hands with Sue, before heading out of the ward.
‘My, but he’s a handsome one, isn’t he?’ Mrs Armstrong said, and one of the other women agreed, going on to tell her fellow patients how he looked just like her nephew Phil.
Maybe that’s why he’d seemed familiar, Alana decided. He looked like someone else she knew.
But he didn’t. Well, no one she could think of, and surely she’d remember someone so darkly good-looking, so dangerously and elementally attractive that she was reminded of a panther or some other big, untamable cat.
‘Cats seem to be a theme lately,’ she muttered to herself as, ashamed of her fantasies, she made her way out of the room to listen to Sue’s account of the night’s activities.
A woman who’d been admitted at midnight with the pain usually associated with kidney stones was due to be transferred to the renal unit when a bed became available later in the day. The sole man in the big room where Mrs Armstrong was had been admitted the previous day with severe chest pains, and when the ECG carried out in A and E hadn’t revealed any anomalies, further tests had been ordered, which explained why he was with them rather than down in Coronary Care.
The other patients were the usual mix of elderly people being stabilised in some way—dehydration being a major problem with the hot weather still hanging around—and younger people undergoing tests as various doctors tried to determine what was wrong with them.
These younger patients were in single or two-bed rooms ranged along the other side of the nurses’ station, while, next to the eight-bed room, a smaller four-bed room was given over to elderly patients whose main problems were caused by the general deterioration of age. Mr Briggs, who had end-stage emphysema, lifted a hand in greeting when Alana walked in, but even that small effort caused an increase in the wheezing, gasping effort as he dragged oxygen through the nasal tube into his diseased lungs.
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