by Lilian Darcy
It was out of character, and Annabelle saw that she wasn’t the only one to notice it. Sue Thorpe was working again tonight. She’d had years of experience in the operating theatres at Coronation Hospital, and knew everyone. Divorced and with a couple of grown children, she acted like a cross between an interfering mother and everyone’s favourite school teacher.
She also found plenty of time to take in exactly what was going on, and Annabelle caught the sharp, assessing glance she shot at Dylan from across the room as he said shortly, ‘No, Cam, I’ve said that shouldn’t be a problem, haven’t I? His legs are all right for the moment, and they can wait till you’re done. I’ll stay on hand until then, just in case we get a further complication. Let’s get started, shall we? If you don’t repair that tear in the spleen, it’ll be academic because he’ll have lost too much blood.’
They were already transfusing it in as fast as they could.
The atmosphere didn’t get better. Annabelle could see that Dylan was trying to stay calm and pleasant—battling to do so, actually. Even when he spoke cheerfully, it didn’t sound natural. Why was it such a struggle? Purely because he was tired? That shouldn’t be a problem. He wouldn’t have reached this stage in his career if he couldn’t function under pressure and fatigue.
Finally, it clicked.
He’s in pain.
She was more and more sure of it as the long and gruelling operation proceeded. The patient’s condition wasn’t good. His blood pressure was dangerously low, and Cam Brewer had to work with total concentration to repair the extensively damaged spleen. Only once that was stitched up and the abdomen closed did the patient’s condition improve a little.
‘This leg is just lovely!’ Dylan muttered, when he was able to get to work at last. He listed a long string of equipment he’d need. Plates and pins of different types. ‘I’m doing a damned jigsaw puzzle!’
He was in pain.
Annabelle remembered the night he’d looked in her bathroom cabinet for painkillers, and his not-quite-convincing agreement when she’d asked if he had a headache.
They had now reached the most difficult part of Dylan’s work—the smashed and twisted left leg, through which a jagged and splintered bone still protruded.
He stepped back. ‘I want to call Alex Sturgess for this,’ he announced.
‘Yeah?’ said the resident, David Yan.
Cam Brewer looked surprised, too. They had enough doctors here, including a second orthopaedic registrar, Brian Collins, who wanted the experience. This wasn’t one of Alex’s private patients and, although it was difficult, it wasn’t the kind of surgery that he would expect to be summoned for.
Whatever Dylan was suffering, it must be bad—bad enough to put doubt in his mind as to whether he could safely get through the operation.
Sue had already moved to the wall-mounted phone. ‘Could we have Dr Sturgess paged at home, please?’ she said.
‘I’ll keep going,’ Dylan said. ‘Don’t want to wait. He can take over when he gets here.’
‘Is there a problem, Dylan?’ Cam asked.
Dylan gave a technical answer which made enough sense to satisfy everyone—the complex nature of the pinning and plating required, the fact that both legs were involved, the need for fast work.
Satisfied everyone, that was, except Annabelle.
What was it? Migraine? Vision problems?
Pain. Definitely pain. His mouth looked tight and thin, as if he were tasting vinegar. There were grim lines etched around it, his eyes were suffering, and he was sweating. She could see the dampness at his temples and a shine on his upper lip.
But she couldn’t ask him about it. Not now. If he wanted people to know, he would have said something. At least Alex would get here as soon as he could. She knew that from personal experience. He could make it out of his house within two minutes of being called in, even at two or three in the morning, and he always took such calls seriously.
‘Yes,’ he said when he arrived. ‘I’m glad you called me, Calford. This is a good one. Brian, you’ll get a lot out of this. Now, the way we’re going to do it…’
They were in surgery for another four hours.
The change-room felt blessedly cool. Dylan locked the door and pulled his damp T-shirt over his head. Breath left his body on a shudder of exhaustion. The whole long night had been appalling.
At one point, a couple of hours into the operation, he’d looked ahead to what he still had to do, with a patient who was hovering dangerously close to death, and had thought in panic, I can’t! The pain’s too bad. I don’t feel safe. If I made a mistake…
That was when he had asked for Alex to be called in, and he had to be grateful to the other man for not questioning it. The senior surgeon had worked quickly, and had delegated expertly, showing all of the brilliance that, at times like this, excused his worst behaviour. Now the patient was doing better than they had feared.
‘But I’m not,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not doing very well at all.’
He needed to see someone, get some tests done. The self-diagnosis that had taken him off to the physiotherapist for a bit of massage was obviously off base. He was starting to sketch out the more serious scenarios now. Permanent damage. A malignant growth. A pinched nerve that would never settle back where it belonged.
And if the pain continued, then his career couldn’t. He couldn’t operate if his back went on feeling like this, day after day. Any medication strong enough to numb the agony would hopelessly compromise his mental acuity and his fine motor control.
Dylan shrugged his shoulders into a business shirt and put on the tie that was hanging in his locker. It was Monday morning, and he had rounds. As soon as they were over, he’d phone a colleague—not Alex, spinal problems weren’t his area in any case—and ask to be seen.
Kemp McAllister, as first choice. Simon Grant as back-up. This morning, if possible. A professional favour. Now that he’d made up his mind this was serious, he wanted to know the full story as soon as he could.
Annabelle was hovering outside the change-room. Waiting for him? Looked like it. Instantly, there was the usual current of electricity and perception between them. She looked tired, but her eyes were wide and dark, and he was flooded with the warmth of her concern.
‘You’re in pain,’ she said at once. ‘I could tell, all through the operation. Where, Dylan? What is it?’
‘It’s my back,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t let’s talk about it here.’
She must have thought he meant, Let’s talk about it somewhere else, because she nodded straight away and said, ‘Want to grab a quick coffee? I’m a little bit late, but Mum knows that can happen sometimes. Another twenty minutes won’t hurt.’
‘All right,’ he agreed. He wanted it, suddenly. Wanted her, sitting across the table from him and listening while he talked it out.
‘Just let me change,’ she said, and was in and out within three minutes. She’d exchanged the night’s limp theatre suit for a pastel top and skirt, and she looked as cool and fresh as a flower.
They found the quietest corner of the hospital’s public café, and she set her caffe latte down on the table in front of her, leaned across it and touched his hand. ‘Are you afraid it’s something serious?’
‘I’m—Yes.’ He let out a sigh, but kept the worst of his feelings bottled in. No point in admitting to the full range of panicky scenarios that filled his mind. ‘It’s too soon to think that way,’ he said, more decisively. ‘I haven’t seen anyone yet. But the pain was…pretty bad last night. I didn’t want anyone to guess.’
‘No one did. Except me. You hid it pretty well. Sue knew something was bothering you, but she shrugged it off, I think. Put it down to fatigue, and the surgery you’d had earlier in the day. Has it been coming on for a while? Was that why you were delving in my medicine cabinet that night?’
‘Yes.’
‘You said it was a headache.’
‘No, I let you say it, and I didn’t contradict you. That�
��s not quite so bad, as lies go!’
There was a silence. Dylan thought about the night some more, and was certain that she was thinking about it, too. The first night they’d slept together. One of far too few such nights, full of a promise and delight that hadn’t been fulfilled because she’d finished it. She’d had reasons. He conceded that. But should those reasons have been deal-breakers?
Missed connections like this just…happened in today’s world. At the moment, it seemed like an enormous waste, and he couldn’t help feeling angry about it.
‘Look, phone me, won’t you?’ Annabelle said. Her voice wasn’t quite steady. Her coffee was already almost gone. She was gulping it down. ‘Tell me the news. Or come over to my place. I really mean that, Dylan. If you need to talk.’
To talk?
She was leaning forward, her eyes big and warm and her mouth full with compassion. Another inch, and their fingers would have touched. Another six inches, and he could have captured that mouth in a long, deep kiss. Except…
Talking? That was what she was offering?
‘No, thanks,’ he answered.
‘Oh.’ She sat back a little, having sensed his rebuff with ease.
Well, good!
Hell, talking?
If she was going to reach out, he wanted a heck of a lot more from her than that! He wanted to take hold of that soft, pretty hand and squeeze it. He wanted to feel her fingers lacing through his and stroking his skin. He wanted each touch to contain the erotic promise of sex, and a lot more besides.
Angry with her, he scalded his throat with the last mouthful of his black espresso and stood up.
‘Rounds,’ he said. ‘With the other business, my back, I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Dylan…’ She stood up as well, and followed him. ‘If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask, OK?’
And that was when he totally lost it.
‘Is that the only role you feel safe with, Annabelle? Is it too frightening to have wants and needs of your own? You practically threw me out the door because I gave you a bit of help. Not meant as a transaction of any kind. Just because I cared. And you couldn’t take it. But now that you get the chance to be saintly Sister Drew again, you’re right at home. What kind of an avoidance strategy have you got going there?’
‘I’m not in the least saintly.’ She flushed. ‘I—And I certainly don’t want to be!’
‘I used to think that about you—that the title of Sister fitted you, as if there was still that Florence Nightingale aura around you. And I think I was right.’
‘That’s an insult, Dylan.’
‘Is it? Deal with it! For a while, just recently, I thought I was wrong. Alex dropping you at your own wedding jolted you out of your accustomed role for a while, but now you’re getting another chance to hide inside it again. No, there’s nothing I “need”, OK? Nothing that you’re offering, anyway. On the other hand, there’s plenty that I want. I think you know what I mean. Let me know if the situation changes, and I might still be interested.’
She nodded slowly. She looked stricken, and he felt a twist of remorse inside him, but she said nothing, and he wasn’t going to wait any longer. As he left the café, he didn’t give her a backward glance.
‘Nothing showed up on the CAT scan, Dylan,’ said Kemp McAllister. ‘Your spine is in great condition.’ He amplified the statement with technical language, because he rightly guessed that Dylan would want full detail. ‘Look at the pictures yourself later on.’
He slid the big envelope containing the images from the scan across his desk, then gave the announcement that Dylan had expected.
‘I’m going to send you for an MRI. It’s still possible there’s a tumour that the CAT scan didn’t pick up.’
‘Pressing on the nerve.’
‘That’s right. The sailing trip might have caused some temporary, localised inflammation, which increased the pressure on the nerve and caused that first bout of pain. As the inflammation subsided, the pain did, too. But if there is a tumour and it’s growing…’
‘The pain is back again, and increasing, even without the earlier inflammation,’ Dylan finished.
He didn’t need to ask any more questions or hear any more explanations from Kemp. He knew as much as the other man did now. Too many ifs. If there was a tumour at all. If it was operable. If it was operable, but so integrally connected to the spinal cord that its removal would leave him with loss of function in his legs…
And before any of those ‘ifs’ could be eliminated, there was the MRI.
Although he’d never had one himself, he knew exactly what was involved—total immobility for well over half an hour in an extremely confined and painfully noisy cylinder of high-tech machinery, while his back was scanned in minute cross-sections and an image was generated.
The procedure wasn’t painful—if you didn’t count the assault on the eardrums—but many people found the sense of confinement, immobility and powerlessness quite terrifying. He’d had one patient recently who had shaken so much that the scan had been almost useless.
Dylan wasn’t a big fan of confined spaces. For preference, he would have chosen pain.
He cleared his throat. ‘When can they fit me in? Any idea?’
‘I’ll call the imaging centre myself and try to get a cancellation for you. First available chance, Dylan, don’t worry.’
‘What do you really think, Kemp?’
‘Truth? I’ve seen tumours presenting like this. I’ve even seen septicaemia presenting like this—abscesses pressing on the spine.’
‘I very much doubt it’s septicaemia!’
‘I agree. That was just an illustration. But let’s wait for the MRI before we conjecture any further.’
The wait took four days. Finally, on Friday at seven-thirty in the morning, he got a hurried call from Kemp saying, ‘Short notice—I meant to call you last night—but if you can clear your schedule for this afternoon, the imaging centre can fit you in at three.’
‘Three today?’ Get Brian to cover the last two hours of his fracture clinic. Should be fine. ‘Thanks, Kemp.’
Putting down the phone, he turned to find Annabelle emerging from the nurses’ change-room in her street clothes after her eleven till seven shift in Theatre Two.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t help—Was that Kemp McAllister you were talking to?’ He didn’t reply at once, and she went on hurriedly, ‘I wasn’t eavesdropping. I just heard you say his name. And I was hoping you’d phone, Dylan. I’ve been…thinking about it…about you…all week.’
‘I’ve got an MRI booked for three o’clock this afternoon,’ he told her.
There was no point in prolonging the conversation by trying to duck her interest. They’d slept together. They’d had the beginnings of a relationship. There was still a pull. A huge pull, if he was honest, despite the fact that any anger between them definitely went both ways, now. He’d been fairly brutal to her on Monday, and he wasn’t sorry about it.
‘OK,’ was all she said. Those usual big, warm eyes. That usual slow, careful nod. Then she added, ‘I’ll be thinking of you, Dylan.’
‘If you think it’ll help,’ he drawled, laying the sarcasm on thickly.
‘Yes, I think it will,’ she retorted, colour warming her cheeks like two ripe peaches.
‘Good for you,’ he muttered. He turned away down the corridor without waiting to see if she’d heard.
Surprising how much it hurt to be angry with her, like sandpaper rubbing on sunburned skin. The long morning of surgery he headed into five minutes later came as a relief.
Duncan loved his first morning at playgroup. It was held at a local church hall with plenty of toys, a shady fenced yard, a sand-pit and climbing equipment. He was wary at first, and clung to Annabelle tightly.
She didn’t quite know why he was doing it, but relished his need and their closeness. Dylan had hurt her this morning. Angered her, too, the way he’d angered and hurt her on Monday mornin
g with his accusations about saintliness and hiding. Could there be any truth in what he’d said? She had been thinking about it all week, but didn’t have any clear answers.
Something to do with her feelings about Vic. She’d known for a while that some of her actions and her decisions were direct responses to how she felt about Vic’s way of approaching life.
Vic had lurched from one career path to another—journalism, modelling, web-site design, catering. Although it hadn’t seemed to bother her, she’d never stuck at anything long enough to get good at it, or to make any money.
Annabelle herself, in contrast, had enrolled in nursing and had never deflected from her original goals.
Vic had fallen passionately, ecstatically and painfully in love several times a year. On cloud nine while the affair was at maximum sizzle, pit of despair when it ended…until the next exotic and unlikely lover came along. As well as the Greek barman, there had been a surf-shop owner, a garage mechanic, a singer in a band, a TV news cameraman—more men than Annabelle could tally up.
Annabelle, on the other hand, had had a couple of cautious relationships with cautious men, both of which had ended by mutual agreement before anyone had become too deeply involved. Alex’s departure from their wedding had been the only romantic event that could have vied for dramatic content with Vic’s flamboyant history of affairs.
Vic had been her own woman, answerable to no one, in charge of her decisions and in charge of her life. Independent. Self-sufficient.
Annabelle had always looked to other people—their needs, their approval.
Except…
That was only Vic’s perception, she realised as Duncan showed her the star shapes he was making with pink play dough. How independent was Vic really? With everything she did, someone else had to pick up the pieces for her afterwards.
Annabelle had made calls to Vic’s catering clients to cancel their bookings and recommend another firm. ‘I’m sorry, Belle. I’m rotten at this. I’m losing money hand over fist. And I can’t face those people.’ She’d cleaned Vic’s flat when Vic had broken her lease to go overseas. ‘I just don’t have time. The best flight deal I could get has me flying out Monday. Getting away is going to give me some perspective, and I really need that right now!’