‘I’m Steele,’ he said to his patient.
‘Dr Steele, if you want to be formal.’ Candy smiled at the elderly man as she checked his blood pressure. She was trying to keep her voice light but Steele could hear the shaken notes to it.
‘I thought the place was on bypass,’ he said to her as she pulled off her stethoscope.
‘Mr Elber arrived just before we closed.’
‘Can I have a brief word?’ he said, and he watched her eyes screw up at the sides a fraction but she nodded and followed him outside.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Steele said, but Candy shook her head.
‘Please, don’t.’
‘Candy—’
‘Please, don’t. I can’t talk about it. I think I’m going to go home,’ she said. ‘Lydia offered.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘I think I just want to go home.’
‘Come round tonight,’ Steele said, ‘or I’ll come over to you.’
‘I don’t want you to,’ Candy said. ‘I don’t want to sit and cry over my ex with you. It’s too weird.’
‘It’s not,’ he said, but he didn’t push it. ‘Call me if you change your mind.’
‘Thanks.’
Candy headed off and spoke with Lydia and said that, yes, on second thoughts, she was going to go home.
The news had come completely out of the blue. All the staff were stunned. Candy had headed straight back out to the department, not really knowing what to do, when she’d seen that Mr Elber was sitting on a trolley and had been pretty much left to himself.
Now the complete numb shock that had hit her after finding out that Gerry was dead was wearing off and she was very close to tears.
And very scared too.
She changed and as she headed out of the department she saw Louise walking in on her way to work.
‘Candy.’ Louise came straight over. ‘I just heard about Gerry. It’s such terrible news...’
Candy started to cry but as Louise wrapped her in a hug, feeling Louise’s pregnant stomach nudging into her was just about the last straw.
‘I know you had a bit of a thing going on last year,’ Louise said. ‘It must be so—’
‘Louise,’ Candy begged, ‘it’s not that that I’m crying about.’ Well, it was, but she certainly wasn’t about to tell Louise the entire truth either. ‘I think that I might be pregnant and I don’t know what to do...’
‘Come on,’ Louise said, and led her to the canteen. There were groups sitting and talking, some from Emergency and in tears, so it didn’t look out of place that Candy was crying.
Louise went and got them both drinks and then came over.
‘How late are you?’ Louise asked, knowing full well that Candy was seeing Steele—she’d seen them in the car after all.
‘I’m not late,’ Candy said. ‘But I’ve been feeling sick and I’m so tired...’ She knew it didn’t sound much to go on. The awful thing was that she knew that she was. ‘I simply can’t be pregnant,’
‘It will be okay,’ Louise said. As a midwife she was extremely used to a woman’s shocked tears when they first came to the realisation that they were pregnant.
‘I don’t think it can be,’ Candy sobbed, ‘and I can’t tell you why.’
Louise sat and thought for a moment. If Steele was only here for a few more weeks, which was what she’d heard, then it wasn’t any wonder that Candy was upset.
‘I don’t know who to talk to,’ Candy said, and then blew her nose and told herself to get it together.
‘Can you talk to me?’ Louise offered. ‘Do you want to do a pregnancy test? I’ll come with you.’ When Candy said nothing Louise pushed on. ‘Could you talk about it with Anton?’ Louise asked. Anton was Louise’s husband and one of the most sought-after obstetricians in London. ‘I was just on my way to have lunch with him so I know that he’s got time to see you.’
Candy nodded.
It was time to find out for sure.
Louise took out her phone and sent a text and a few moments later she got a response. ‘He says to come to the antenatal clinic and he’ll see you. I’ll take you over there now.’
‘People will wonder what I’m doing in the antenatal clinic.’
‘People will think we’re just two friends catching up for lunch,’ Louise said. ‘Don’t be so paranoid.’
As they arrived at the clinic Candy felt a moment’s reprieve as she looked around at the pregnant women all sitting waiting for their turn to be seen.
She was overreacting, she told herself.
This world didn’t apply to her.
‘You might as well come in,’ Candy said to Louise as they arrived at a door that had a sign with Anton Rossi written on it. ‘He’ll only tell you what’s happening anyway.’
‘God, no.’ Louise rolled her eyes. ‘Unfortunately for me Anton’s all ethical like that. If you tell him not to tell me, then wild horses wouldn’t drag it from him! You don’t have to worry about that.’ Louise gave her a lovely smile. ‘But if you do want to tell me then I’m dying to know!’ She gave Candy a cuddle just before she went in. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Candy really hadn’t had anything to do with Anton before this. She just knew him by reputation and had seen him occasionally when he’d come down to Emergency to review a patient there.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch break,’ she said. ‘Thank you for seeing me so quickly.’
‘Louise said that you were very upset.’
Candy nodded. ‘I know that everything is confidential but the thing is, this is terribly delicate and—’
‘First of all,’ Anton interrupted, ‘you are right—everything you tell me is completely confidential. I never gossip.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m not even taking notes. Do you want to tell me what’s happening?’
‘I think I might be pregnant,’ Candy said. ‘The thing is, my partner...’ She didn’t even know if Steele was that but she pushed on. ‘It can’t be his.’
‘Because?’
‘He’s infertile.’
‘Have you been seeing someone else?’ Anton asked gently—he was used to that being the case—but Candy shook her head.
‘I’ve only been with my current partner for a couple of weeks. We weren’t supposed to be serious, but...’ It sounded so terrible put like that but Anton’s eyes were sympathetic rather than judgmental. ‘I had a one-night stand with my ex a couple of months ago.’ She thought back. ‘Three months, maybe. We used condoms.’
‘Nothing is fail-safe,’ Anton said.
‘I went on the Pill afterwards,’ Candy said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anything to happen again but I just decided I wasn’t coming off it. I have had my period.’
‘A normal period?’ Anton checked.
‘It’s been light but I thought that was because the day I got it I started the Pill.’
‘The first thing we need to do—’ Anton was very calm ‘—is to find out if you are indeed pregnant.’
He gave her a jar and a few minutes later she sat in his office and she knew, she simply knew that she was. A few moments later Anton confirmed it.
‘Candy, you are pregnant.’
He let it sink in for a moment.
‘How do you think your partner will react?’ Anton asked.
‘I don’t think I’m going to find out,’ Candy said, and she just stared at the wall. ‘There’s really no point telling him. We both agreed from the start—’
‘What about the father?’
Oh, that’s right. Candy’s brain was moving like gridlocked traffic. It was like telling a joke and forgetting the punch line, because she hadn’t told Anton the good part yet. ‘You know Gerry, the head of nursing in Emergency...’
‘Oh, Candy.’ Immediately he took her hand. Anton didn’t gossip—in fact, he had been in this office all morning—but he had seen the email twenty minutes or so ago informing everyone that Gerry had passed away while on holiday in Greece and that Emergency was on bypass.
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Of course you don’t know what to do at the moment,’ he said. ‘This is all too much of a shock. How long have you been worried that you might be pregnant?’
‘Since yesterday,’ Candy said. ‘A patient said something. I know I’m a bit overweight, it just...’
‘Hit home?’
Candy nodded.
‘I knew you were pregnant before I did the test,’ Anton said, which concerned him a little as it did not seem to fit with her dates. ‘We could do an ultrasound now, here, and see exactly where we are,’ he suggested. ‘Are you ready to do that?’
She nodded.
‘Go to the examination table and undo your jeans. He came over and had a feel of her stomach but said nothing—though he was starting to think that Candy would soon be in for another shock.
He squeezed some gel on and turned the machine away from her. ‘Can you turn the sound off, please?’ Candy said, because she didn’t want to hear its heartbeat.
‘Of course I can.’
He took a few moments, running the probe over her stomach and pushing it in over and over.
‘I really am sorry to interrupt your lunch break,’ Candy said, more for something to say because she was dreading the next conversation.
‘My wife would have been nagging me to do an ultrasound on her anyway.’ He smiled and then he looked across at Candy. ‘I shan’t be discussing this with her.’
‘Thank you.’
He had finished.
‘Stay there,’ Anton said as she went to sit up. ‘You are close to thirteen weeks pregnant, which means conception was eleven weeks ago.’
‘I’ve had my period, though.’
‘Breakthrough bleeding,’ Anton said. ‘Nothing to worry about. All looks well on the ultrasound. Obviously your hormones are everywhere right now.’
‘Would the Pill have harmed it?’
‘No. Many, many women I have seen have taken the Pill while not knowing that they are pregnant. You’ve had no symptoms?’ Anton checked.
‘Not really.’ Candy shook her head and then lay and thought back over the past few weeks. ‘I had what I thought was a bug and I’ve felt sick a couple of times and been a bit dizzy, but I never really gave it much thought.’ She looked up at Anton. ‘I’ve been so tired, though. I mean seriously tired. I actually booked a holiday because I was feeling so flat.’
‘Candy,’ Anton said gently, ‘I’m not surprised that you have been feeling exhausted—it’s a twin pregnancy.’
It was just as well that he had kept her lying down.
Candy lay there, stunned, trying and failing to see herself as a mother of twins. Finally she sat up and when she took a seat at the desk Anton gave her a drink of water.
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘As of now,’ he said, ‘I would expect that your mind is extremely scattered. Is there anybody that you can talk to about this?’
‘Not really. My parents will freak,’ Candy said, panicking just at the thought of telling them. ‘I can’t tell anyone at work or it will be everywhere.’
He nodded in understanding but he was practical too. ‘You are going to start showing very soon—in fact, you are already,’ Anton said. ‘I could feel that you were pregnant before I did the ultrasound. Your uterus is out of the pelvis and you will show far more quickly with twins.’
‘I can’t have it, Anton,’ Candy said, but then she started to cry because it wasn’t an it. It was a them.
‘Candy, you do need a little time to process this news but you also need to come and see me next week. You don’t have much time to make a decision. I do want you to take the time to think very carefully about this.’
She didn’t need the time. In that moment, she had already made her choice.
‘I can’t...’ Candy said, and then took a deep breath. ‘I’m not having an abortion.’
‘Well, you have a difficult road coming up,’ Anton said, ‘but I can tell you this much—I will be there for you and in six months from now you will have your babies and today will be just a confusing memory.’
‘Thank you.’
They chatted some more and Candy told him that she was booked to go to Hawaii next week. ‘Can I still go?’
‘Absolutely!’ he said. ‘It will be the best thing for you. Let your insurance company know. Put me down as your obstetrician. I do still want to see you next week, though. You need to have some blood tests and I want to go through things more thoroughly with you. Right now, it’s time for the news to sink in.’
Poor thing, Anton thought as she left his office. He had looked after many women whose partner and even ex-partner had died and knew that it was a very confusing time.
He smiled as there was a knock at the door and Louise came in. ‘How was she?’
‘She’s fine,’ Anton said, and then rolled his eyes as Louise picked up the gel. ‘Step away from the ultrasound machine, Louise.’
‘Please,’ Louise said. ‘It’s wide awake. I can feel it kicking.
‘Because it probably knows its lunchtime,’ Anton said. ‘Come on, I would actually like to get some lunch.’
‘Is Candy okay?’ Louise shamelessly fished as they walked down to the canteen. Anton absolutely trusted his wife but part of what he adored about her was that she could not keep a secret and so, to be safe, he said nothing.
‘She’s on with him...’ Louise nudged.
‘Who?’ Anton frowned.
‘The sexy new geriatrician that just walked past,’ Louise explained. ‘Candy is on with him.’
He loathed gossip, he truly did, but, unusually for Anton, he turned his head.
He felt sorry for her new partner too and tried to imagine how he would feel if his gorgeous wife had already been pregnant when they’d met.
Anton was man enough to admit that he didn’t know.
* * *
Candy stepped into her flat and put down her handbag and she didn’t know where to start with her thoughts.
Just after seven there was a knock at the door and Candy opened it to the angry questions and accusations of her parents.
‘Where were you?’ her mother asked, and demanded to know where Candy had been last night and the night before that.
‘We came over and you were not home.’
‘Please, not now,’ Candy said.
Yes, now.
‘For the last two weeks you are hardly home. We call around and the lights are off. We telephone and you don’t pick up.’
‘I’m twenty-four years old, Mum,’ Candy said. ‘I don’t have to account for my time...’
She might as well have thrown petrol on the fire because all the anger that had been held in by her parents since Candy had moved into her flat came out then.
She was heading for trouble, her mother warned.
They didn’t raise her to stay out all night.
Who was she going to Hawaii with?
Candy thought of Steele then and stood there, remembering the beginning of tentative plans.
How much simpler life had seemed then.
‘I’m not discussing this,’ Candy said. ‘I’m very tired. It’s been an extremely long day.’
She simply refused to row.
When they finally left she stood in the hall.
No one understood. Her friends at work thought she was ridiculous to worry about what her parents might think, but she did. Candy loved them. She just didn’t know how to be both herself and the daughter they demanded that she be.
Imagine telling them that the she was pregnant.
She simply could not imagine it.
Not just pregnant, but pregnant with twins and the father was dead.
Candy dealt with things then as any rational, capable adult would.
She undressed, climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her head.
CHAPTER TEN
‘HI.’
Steele could hear the tension in her voice when Candy called him
on Saturday, though she was trying to keep her voice light.
‘Hi, Candy.’
‘Is it okay if we give it a miss tonight?’ she asked. They had planned to go to a stand-up comedy and the tickets had been hard to come by.
‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘I doubt you’re in the mood for laughing out loud. Do you want me to come over?’
‘I’d really just like a night on my own,’ she said.
Another one.
And then another.
And then another.
On Tuesday, four days before she flew, Steele saw her briefly in the admin corridor. She was coming down from Admin, where she had been trying to sort out her salary for her annual leave when she bumped into him.
‘How are you doing?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I actually can’t stop and speak. Lydia has messed up my annual leave pay and I’ve been trying to sort it out.’
He walked in the direction of Emergency with her. ‘How’s the mood in Emergency?’
‘Pretty flat,’ Candy said. ‘His funeral is being held in Sunderland, where he’s from, but the hospital is holding a memorial service for him. They’re naming the new resuscitation area after him,’ She gave a tight smile. ‘Thankfully I’ll be in Hawaii when it’s held.’
‘Thankfully?’
She shook her head. She really didn’t want to discuss how mixed up she was feeling right now, especially with Steele. She had considered changing her holiday so she could attend the memorial service but the thought of facing his parents there was too much for Candy. While she knew she had to tell them, she wanted to get her own head around it first. As for them naming Resuscitation after him! Well, the thought of wheeling patients in and out of Gerry’s Wing, day in and day out, had her stomach in knots.
Then she turned and looked at the man she was quite sure she loved with all her heart and she wanted to break down and tell him. She wanted the pregnancy to go away and to be back to where they had once been, but it certainly wasn’t Steele’s problem so she gave him a very tight smile. ‘I do have to go.’
He nodded and watched her dash off.
Leave it, the sensible part of his mind said as he headed back to the geriatric unit and went and hid in his office.
He was certain now that Candy was pregnant. In a matter of days her body had changed and she was completely unable to meet his eyes.
Baby Twins to Bind Them (Mills & Boon Medical) Page 9