‘Never silly,’ he said. ‘And I know you’re worth waiting for.’
She thought of something they could do together, she wanted just to spend time with him. Peter Brooks was back at home now. And after an awkward start he and Nancy seemed to be growing closer together. Peter was still ill but he was a much more likable man than he had been.
She told Adam this and went on, ‘I’d like you to come and talk to them both. You need to examine Peter and it’s good to see him so different.’
‘Fair enough. I fancy a trip out into the country with you.’
‘This is business, not pleasure!’
‘Who could think it could be anything else?’ She could almost believe he was as hurt as his voice suggested—until she saw him smile.
It was a late autumn day, clear but cold. They set off in her car, both enjoying the ride. Soon they were in the countryside, the familiar landscape of green hills and white limestone walls.
Amy heard a buzzing somewhere near and slowed down, knowing what it would be. A moment later both of them jerked. A quad bike suddenly leapt over the ditch by the side of the road. It bounced clear of the ground in front of them and set off like an enraged bee up the fellside. The driver turned and waved at them. It seemed an incredibly steep hill to climb.
‘Are those things safe?’ asked Adam. ‘I’ve seen them a lot. And that driver is acting like a lunatic.’
‘They’re very handy on farms,’ Amy said. ‘They can get where a tractor can’t and are supposed to be safer than a motorbike. A lot of people have them, they’re handy for rounding up sheep and so on. The trouble is, they’re fun to drive. And to take chances with.’
He nodded. ‘I’m still a boy at heart, I’d like to try one myself. But I’d wear a helmet. Not like that young man.’
She grinned. ‘A shepherd with a helmet instead of a crook?’ It was good to be out with him, talking easily, joking with each other. They did get on so well together, in all sorts of ways.
But she frowned. There was something wrong. Something digging at the edge of her consciousness, something she had forgotten or something wrong. What?
He noticed her frown. ‘Problems?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, I’m not sure.’ She pulled into the side of the road, turned off the engine. Then she had it. ‘Listen! That quad bike that we saw. We can still hear the engine.’
‘True. Noisy things, aren’t they?’
‘No, listen. When you hear those things the engine note goes up and down all the time, because they’re always changing speed. But that engine note has been the same for the past five minutes.’
They both listened, it was true.
‘Suggesting?’ he asked, though she knew he knew what she meant.
‘The quad is stuck somewhere, somehow. And the driver can’t turn off the engine.’
‘Probably nothing. But it’s a fine day and we have some time. Let’s go for a little walk.’
She drove back to where the quad bike had raced up the fellside and parked her car. Then they both set off to climb upwards. She noticed Adam carried his doctor’s bag with him. He was worried too. Or just being careful.
It was a hard slog upwards. The hill was steep, little edges of limestone protruding, sheep running away, baaing. Soon she was out of breath, her uniform sticking to her. Adam was obviously fit. Other than loosening his tie, he showed no sign of fatigue. He took her hand to help her upwards and she liked it.
But they were now both apprehensive. The screaming of the engine got louder, the note remained the same. And they got to the top of the fell.
There was a path running along the ridge. The side they had climbed had the gentler slope. The other side of the fell dropped precipitously downwards then there was a sheer cliff dropping to the river. A dangerous place.
They saw the quad bike first. It was upturned, four wheels spinning uselessly in the air, on the edge of a little shelf about four feet below the path. Its engine was still howling and they could see it vibrating, stones rattling downwards from under it. Just below the quad bike was the outstretched figure of the rider. He didn’t move, apparently unconscious. Amy shivered. It wasn’t a good place to be. If he moved, he could roll right down the slope.
Adam shouted, ‘He must have tried to ride along the path and tipped over. I’ll see what we can do for him, you phone for an ambulance. This is beyond us, we need paramedics.’
Clutching his bag, he scrambled down as Amy stayed on the ridge to phone. She gave precise instructions, explaining that her car would mark the best place for the ambulance to stop. Then she moved down to join Adam.
He had turned off the engine of the bike, it was easier to think and talk when the constant screaming had stopped. Then he had started to carefully examine the driver. Stones slipped from under Amy’s feet as she came alongside Adam.
‘ABC is fine,’ he muttered. ‘No immediate problem with his breathing or circulation.’ He pointed to a bloody wound on the man’s head. ‘I think he’s concussed. Get a pad out and put it over that, will you, Amy? Then we’ll slip a hard collar on him, just in case. He should have worn a helmet!’
‘Tell him that when he comes to,’ said Amy as she deftly applied one of the dressings from the bag. ‘What about the spine? Was he thrown onto the rock or did he roll onto it?’
Adam shrugged. ‘No way of telling yet. He needs...’
There was a rattling noise. A few stones rolled down towards them, one or two landing on the rider’s body. They looked up. The quad bike was right above them, balanced very precariously on the edge of the little platform.
Adam said, ‘I. think we’ll risk injuring the spine and ease him a couple of feet to the—’
Then it all seemed to happen in slow motion— though it must have been very fast indeed. More stones rattled down towards them, some of them quite big. They looked up at the quad bike and saw that it had slipped another few inches, was, in fact, coming over the edge of the platform. It was going to roll towards them and land on them.
Amy saw the indecision on Adam’s face and then that determined look that she had seen so often before. First he pushed her, violently, so she fell on her back, winded but out of harm’s way. Then, just as the bike was about to land on him and the rider, he lunged at it and tried to push it to one side so it would miss them. And, somehow, he succeeded.
Amy was desperately trying to drag air into her lungs. But she heard him gasp then saw the quad bike roll and bounce down the hillside, to disappear out of sight. She could breathe a little easier now. She looked at Adam.
Now there were two unconscious figures.
She was probably bruised a bit and shaken quite a lot but there appeared to be nothing seriously wrong with her. Still, rather than stand upright, she crawled over to Adam’s unconscious body, afraid of what she might find. She had to stay calm!
He was breathing. ABC checked. Blood streaked across his face, another nasty head wound. Then her eyes widened in horror. There was a dark stain on the torn shoulder of his jacket that grew as she looked at it. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the bag and cut away all the fabric, exposing a great gash high on his arm. Blood pulsed out from the wound, the brachial artery had been severed. Adam was bleeding to death.
Quickly, Amy took a couple of pads and pushed them hard down on the wound. She then dragged his body round so his arm was as high as it would go, harder for the heart to pump blood out.
Keeping up the direct pressure, she took out her phone and dialled the emergency services again to tell them there were now two casualties, one with a torn artery, with resultant rapid blood loss. Calmly, the woman on the phone tried to tell her what to do. ‘I’m a nurse,’ Amy cut in, ‘I know what to do. Just get the ambulance here. Please hurry.’
Monitoring Adam’s vital signs, Amy felt lonely, lost. She knew that in an injury there always seemed to be more blood than there really was—but, even so, there seemed to be a vast amount. She changed the pads as blood began to seep th
rough the first set, and looked at Adam’s face. It was white—of course. Too white?
Again with one hand she managed to dial a number, got through to the surgery. Rita recognised the urgency in her voice at once, fetched Dr Wright out of a consultation. Amy told him where she was, what had happened to Adam and the quad rider. Talking to him calmed her a little. He told her what she already knew—that she was doing the only things possible. Then he said he’d see what he could do to speed up the ambulance—but they both knew that all that could be done had been done.
She rang off, looked down at Adam. There was a limit to the amount of blood a body could lose. She remembered that the average person had approximately five litres of blood. Lose two litres and you would die.
Concentrate! Had she heard the distant sound of an ambulance siren? That had been some time ago. She didn’t dare hope or think, she just concentrated on her fingers and tried to keep the blood from escaping. She now needed to grab for another set of pads. Blood was starting to ooze through the ones she had.
It came as a surprise. There were voices, shockingly near. One said, ‘All right, love, there’s help here, we’ll be right with you.’ She looked up, saw two men carefully climbing down towards her, both dressed in fluorescent green coats. One held a large bag, the other carried a stretcher.
As she looked another two men arrived, similarly dressed. Someone put an arm around her, helped her to stand as another man thrust a fresh pad onto Adam’s bleeding arm. She was helped to the path and someone wrapped a blanket around her then asked if she was OK.
‘I’m fine, fine, I’m a nurse.’ She dragged her thoughts together, then gave a concise account of what had happened, what she and Adam had done. Case histories in accidents were important. ‘You will let me know how he is,’ she pleaded.
‘We’ll do what we can.’
It was even harder sitting there on the path, doing nothing, than it had been trying to keep Adam alive. But she knew the best thing to do was to keep away, to leave everything to the experts. As she thought this, two of the paramedics climbed up to her, carrying the quad driver, now strapped into a stretcher. How was Adam?
Shockingly, she found herself thinking of her dead husband. She remembered sitting by his bed, knowing he would never recover, would probably soon die. She hadn’t loved him, all feeling for him had gone. But she remembered wondering what it would be like if she did still love him. How would she feel? Well, now she thought she knew. She couldn’t take any more hurt. She loved Adam! Why hadn’t she told him so? And another thought struck her, so horrible as to be almost unthinkable. What if it was now too late?
She wanted to scream with horror. But years of training, years of observing accidents had taught her one thing above all others. Panic was always wrong, often dangerous.
She looked down the side of the fell, there was an ambulance there, her own car and, to her surprise, another one. And climbing up towards her was Dr Wright.
He reached her, panting. She said, knowing that her voice was faltering, ‘Adam’s lost a lot of blood. Will you see how he is?’
He glanced down and said, ‘The paramedics are doing a great job. Now, let’s look at you.’
It was the swiftest of examinations, but at the end of it he said, ‘I think you’ll be fine. Now, wait here and then I’ll get you down.’
‘But Adam! I want to go to hospital with him and I...’
‘Just sit here a minute,’ he soothed. ‘Adam’s being looked after by the experts.’
He went and had a quick word with the paramedics and then came back to say, ‘They’ve got a drip into him, his condition’s stabilised but it’s important that they get him to hospital as quickly as possible. Now, I’m your doctor and I’m telling you that you are going home. You can do nothing for Adam at the hospital. Nothing yet.’
‘Is he going to die?’ Was that nearly hysterical voice hers? She didn’t want an answer but she had to ask.
Ever the professional, Dr Wright answered carefully. ‘He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s a strong, fit man. I think we can be hopeful.’
As he spoke she saw the paramedics climb up onto the path, Adam between them strapped to the stretcher. She caught one glimpse of his face. Then the paramedics set off . ‘Let’s go home then,’ she said.
There were things to do. She was taken home, told to have a bath and then go to bed. Dr Wright examined her again, winced at the bruises that he found and made her take a sedative. After her repeated requests he phoned the hospital and was told that Adam’s condition was dangerous but not critical. When it was possible he would go into surgery to have the torn artery repaired. The scalp wound wasn’t serious. And the driver of the quad bike was doing fine. Dr Wright phoned Sylvia and arranged for Elizabeth to be looked after overnight. He phoned the school, arranged for Johanne to be brought home.
There was just too much emotion, too much to think about and too little Amy could do. She loved Adam and she’d never told him so. And now perhaps it could be too...no, she wouldn’t, couldn’t think that. But after a while, perhaps because of the sedative, Amy slept.
Amy had worked in a hospital, had done her share of comforting. She had reassured anxious relatives about the state of their loved ones. But she had never actually experienced the combination of terror and boredom there was in waiting. There was nothing she could do. That evening she, Johanne and Dr Wright sat there and drank plastic cups of coffee and waited and hoped.
The surgeon came to talk to them. He said the operation would be difficult—the gash was deep, there were tears in the artery wall. They were still pumping blood into him, but the surgeon felt reasonably confident. Adam would have to convalesce, of course, but in time all should be well.
He looked at Amy approvingly. ‘Good thing you were with him and you were a nurse. You saved his life, you know.’
Johanne burst into tears and threw her arms around Amy.
More waiting, perhaps two hours. And then the surgeon returned with a beaming smile on his face. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘And though I say so myself, a pretty good job too. Of course, there’s always the chance of complications but there should be no trouble now.’
‘Can we see him?’ Johanne quavered.
‘You certainly can. But you’ll not get much sense out of him.’
Amy knew this was possibly not a good idea for Johanne. People fresh out of surgery seldom looked their best. But they went anyway.
Adam managed to smile at them, touched Johanne’s hand. Amy leaned over him, kissed him on the forehead. Then his eyes shut and he drifted into unconsciousness. The nurse suggested that they might like to wait till the morning, he’d be in a better state then. So they left.
Dr Wright insisted that Amy take a couple of days off, so the next day she took Johanne to the hospital. Adam was pale but otherwise apparently fine. There was a heavy dressing on his arm, a smaller one on his head. And he was pleased to see them both.
Johanne kissed him first, but very cautiously tried not to touch him. ‘I’m all right,’ he told her. ‘You can hug me if you want.’ So she did, and then burst into tears again.
Then Amy leaned over to kiss him. Just a friendly kiss because Johanne was there and they didn’t want to start her thinking. Not quite yet. But she felt for his hand and squeezed it, and she knew he knew what she meant.
There were cards and flowers from the surgery, all wishing him well. He had already seen the surgeon who was very pleased with his progress. They were planning his discharge already. ‘He asked if there was a good district nurse to look after me,’ Adam said with a grin.
‘Not me,’ Amy said. ‘No way will I be your nurse. But I’ll come round and cook your meals.’
‘No, I will,’ Johanne said. ‘I want to come home now, Dad, and look after you. Though I’ll be sorry to leave Amy and Elizabeth.’
‘We’ll work something out,’ Adam said. ‘But I’d rather have you at school than acting as a nurse. In fact, I suspect I’ll be quite capable of look
ing after myself. Or I might find some other solution.’
He was looking at Amy as he said this and she knew the secret message he was trying to get across.
‘You’ll have a lot of help, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘And I’ll do everything you want—everything.’
When he smiled back at her she knew he had got her message.
Johanne was with Adam every time Amy visited him. But the next day she managed to sneak a couple of minutes alone with him. She started by kissing him properly.
‘I thought I might lose you and my life seemed worthless,’ she whispered. ‘So I’m asking for a second chance. Now isn’t a good time. But when you’re better I want you to tell me that you love me again. Then we’ll start from the beginning. Well, from after when you spent the night at my house. Is that a good idea?’
‘I’m feeling better already,’ he said. ‘Will you kiss me again before Johanne comes back?’
She and Johanne visited every night until he was sent home to his flat. Then Johanne went to join him and Amy visited most nights anyway. Johanne was a real helper—which meant that Adam and Amy didn’t have too much time alone together. Amy thought this was probably a good thing as it was not a good time to make decisions. But he knew what she felt. And from time to time he looked at her, and she gave him a secret smile because she knew what he was feeling too.
She knew some men just couldn’t take illness or injury—they showed a side of themselves that no one had suspected. Adam wasn’t like this, he was a perfect patient. Occasionally Amy suspected he was in pain but he never said anything, was never short tempered. And she loved him more and more. Nothing had been said so far but that didn’t matter. Now she knew they had time.
There was one last problem, one last obstacle she had to surmount, and it came as a shock. As she picked up Elizabeth one evening, her mother casually handed her a carrier bag.
A Doctor to Come Home to Page 14