Doctor on Loan

by Marion Lennox

  Hugo was good, she thought gratefully. So good!

  And then, magically, the thing was done. Within moments Hugo was placing one tiny, lusty baby boy into Mary-anne’s waiting arms, ready for introductions to his parents.

  And Christie didn’t know who was more stunned, the baby, the parents—or her. But she was so grateful she was close to tears. She’d left the baby totally to Hugo, but one look at mother and baby was enough to know that all was well.

  How could it not be? The little one’s yell of indignation was enough to wake the dead!

  ‘Well done,’ Hugo said softly, and she flushed with pleasure.

  ‘Well done yourself,’ she told him, but he shook his head.

  ‘Anaesthetics is what I do, lady. That was one efficient Ceasarean from a general practitioner.’

  It shouldn’t matter. Praise shouldn’t make any difference at all, but it did. It made her feel fantastic. Top-of-the-world fantastic.

  The baby was premature. He wasn’t fully developed, and the last thing he’d needed had been a general anaesthetic crossing the placenta into his tiny body. Plus, she’d have been able to give him no attention at all. She’d have run a real risk of losing him if she’d had to operate alone.

  And now it was over. Mother and baby were safe, and Christie’s emotions were threatening to overwhelm her. She sutured the wound with swift, sure stitches, trying to hold back tears of happiness and relief and aware that Hugo’s eyes were on hers.

  ‘You’re exhausted,’ he said softly, adjusting the saline drip. ‘I can cope with this,’ he told her. ‘There’s no problems with the baby and I’m quite capable of suturing. Leave Mary-anne and me to finish up here.’

  But that was taking things too far. She might have allowed an unknown doctor to give an anaesthetic in an emergency, but to leave him in charge…And he still had a headache and he still had fluid on his lungs!

  ‘Uh-uh.’ She shook her head and bit her lip. ‘Mary-anne, could you ask Louise to take Mr Tallent back to bed?’

  ‘The label is “Dr” Tallent,’ he said, his eyes creasing into teasing laughter. ‘Or don’t you believe me yet?’

  ‘I believe you.’ Epidurals were one of the hardest anaesthetics to get exactly right, and she knew now that this man was the best. ‘But you’re my patient and you’re suffering from a head wound.’

  ‘Still hankering after drilling burr holes?’ he teased, and Christie flushed. He had her totally unsettled.

  ‘No.’ She bit her lip. ‘But…Please, go back to bed.’ In truth she was so weary and confused that she could hardly think. She needed time out.

  He seemed to sense it. As Louise entered the room in response to the bell push, he looked at her and smiled again.

  ‘Very well, Dr Flemming,’ he said. ‘Never let it be said that Dr Tallent doesn’t know when he’s not wanted. OK, troops.’ He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Wheel me away.’

  If only someone would do that for her…

  Christie finished Liz’s suturing and checked the infant. She’d placed him in a humidicrib where he’d stay until she was sure everything was fine, but, apart from the fuzz of soft hair all over his body that told her he was premature, he looked terrific. If he’d gone to term he could well have been a twelve-pounder, she thought, wincing for Liz. As it was, he was a healthy seven.

  ‘We’ve been very lucky,’ she told Liz, and Liz gave her an exhausted smile.

  ‘I know. Isn’t he lovely?’

  ‘He is, that.’ Christie looked down at the tiny baby and gave a crooked smile, but to her surprise Liz was laughing at her.

  ‘Not him, stupid,’ she whispered. Liz Myers was a friend as well as a patient. She and Christie were the same age and had spent their childhood holidays exploring every inch of Briman Island together, plus getting into every conceivable type of scrape. Now, while her husband was away making very important phone calls, the new mother somehow found the energy to tease her friend. ‘Of course our baby is gorgeous, but I meant our wonderful Dr Tallent.’

  ‘Oh…’

  Liz managed a chuckle.

  ‘It seems you have a much more interesting patient than me,’ she whispered. ‘And you don’t need to tell me—you are interested!’

  Was she?

  Christie headed back to the nurses’ station, made herself a really strong coffee and sank back onto a chair in relief. It felt so good to stop for a moment—to have a moment’s respite.

  And Liz’s comments drifted back.

  Was she interested?

  It was a stupid question, she decided. How could she be interested in a man she knew nothing about? Sure, he was an anaesthetist—a very competent and good-looking anaesthetist, she conceded—but he was a Brisbane specialist and that was all she knew. For all she knew he had a wife and three kids.

  Maybe he was gay!

  Gay? No!

  She remembered the feel of his eyes on hers, and the random thought flew out the window. He was definitely not gay, she told herself firmly. No, no and no! Maybe he was a bit too much the other way for her liking.

  She wrinkled her nose at where her thoughts were taking her. Ridiculous places! Places it wasn’t worth the effort to think about. The one thing Dr Christie Flemming didn’t have time for was a love life.

  When Christie had made the decision to practise medicine on Briman Island she’d accepted that her chances of marriage were somewhere between zero and nothing. The islanders saw her as a doctor, and nothing more. If a local lad had fancied his chances, threatening to burden her with children and domestic responsibilities, the rest of the islanders would have come close to tarring, feathering and banishing him to the mainland!

  It wasn’t quite as obvious as that, Christie thought ruefully, but it was there for all that. Unsaid, but thought. The islanders left her strictly alone. The doctor was one apart—not like any other woman. Untouchable.

  More than forty years ago, Doctors Martha and Stan had come to the island already married. Christie had come alone, and that was how she’d stay.

  ‘Which is fine by me,’ Christie told herself wearily, shoving herself reluctantly to her feet again. ‘Anyone touches me now and I’ll fall right over. Dinner and a nap before evening rounds, Dr Flemming, or you’ll drop where you stand.’ The events of the night before—plus the decent bout of seasickness—had taken their toll and were threatening to overwhelm her. ‘Just head for the cottage and put yourself to bed for an hour. And take it from there.’

  She woke at seven the next morning.

  Christie opened one eye and then the other. Then she glanced at the clock on her bedside table, gave a yelp of horror and sat bolt upright. She’d slept for thirteen hours straight!

  Thirteen hours! How…?

  She was still wearing the jeans and sweater she’d lain down in last night, but the morning sun was streaming through her bedroom window, the storm waves were crashing on the beach, the sea was glistening in the morning sun—it had finally stopped raining—and the island’s bird population was declaring that it was indeed morning.

  ‘Grandpa!’ She flung her bedcovers back, yelling almost as she woke. Dear heaven…She hadn’t even checked on the old man last night.

  She always checked Stan, every four hours. His breathing was so shaky. She worried about pneumonia, as he kept turning onto his back in his sleep and shoving away his pillows.

  She’d set her alarm. What had happened?

  The hospital must have rung for orders. Why hadn’t she heard the phone? She should have checked Liz and her baby again, and Hugo Tallent, and Mary Adams, and Ben…

  First things first. ‘Grandpa!’

  He wasn’t in his room!

  ‘Grandpa!’

  No answer. She dived for the front door, flung it open—and her grandfather was coming up the beach path to the house. He was walking carefully on his frame, and beside him, looking dapper and dressed and ready for the day, was Hugo Tallent.

  Christie’s home was one of a pair of
whitewashed fisherman’s cottages about five hundred yards from the hospital. Christie usually drove Stan to and from the hospital, but now he was operating under his own steam. As was Hugo.

  Hugo was in his wheelchair but he was pushing himself, his strong hands easily propelling the wheels. It was hard for him to slow to the old man’s pace, Christie saw, but he did it carefully, matching her grandfather exactly.

  Grandpa saw her as she opened the door, and he grinned and waved. The pair of them looked absurdly pleased with themselves.

  ‘Good morning, lass,’ Stan called. ‘Had a good sleep?’

  Hugo grinned, too. ‘Top of the morning to you, Dr Flemming, and it’s a wonderful morning—if only this wind would die. I’m thinking of getting my chair fitted with sails. I’d be halfway across the island by now.’

  She had no answer. She was so dazed she didn’t know what to say. Instead, she stood back and watched as the odd couple manoeuvred themselves through the door.

  They didn’t manage it without difficulty. Stan always had trouble, but Christie knew better than to try and help. This was an ancient fisherman’s cottage with stone walls two feet thick. The doors weren’t built for walking frames—or for wheelchairs—and Hugo had to manoeuvre back and forth until he finally made it.

  ‘Your grandpa asked me for breakfast,’ Hugo told her. She was still stunned as Stan made a beeline for the kettle and his beloved cuppa, but Hugo seemed every inch at home. He filled the kitchen with his presence. ‘Stan’s promised me wood-fired toast, island butter and home-made strawberry jam. Is that OK with you, Dr Flemming?’

  ‘I…Fine. It’s Grandpa’s house.’ Christie put a dazed hand up to her riot of curls and pushed them out of her eyes—hoping maybe he’d look different if she did. He didn’t. ‘I guess…’

  ‘You look ruffled,’ Hugo said kindly. ‘Doesn’t she look ruffled, sir?’ He turned to Stan. ‘Do you think we’re upsetting her by barging in like this?’

  ‘She looks like she slept in her clothes more like,’ Stan growled. ‘Like she does half her life. These days she sleeps on the run. Go and have a shower, lass, and come and eat with us.’

  ‘But…’ She looked helplessly from Stan to Hugo and back again. ‘I need to check…The hospital…’

  ‘The hospital is fine,’ Stan told her. ‘Hugo and I have seen to everything.’

  Hugo and I…

  ‘What exactly have you seen to?’ she asked, her heart sinking. Stan was liable to get confused. If he’d measured drugs, or ordered dosage changes, or tried to set up a drip…

  ‘Don’t look so worried,’ Stan told her. Normally he’d hate this type of inquisition. He knew he couldn’t cope, but it broke his heart that he couldn’t. Now, though, he parried her worry with good humour. ‘When you had your nap last night this young fella and I had a talk. I knew you were dead beat, and we could help each other. So after he finished having his chest pounded—his lungs are clear now, by the way—we organised a system.’

  ‘A system…’

  ‘First we shot Louise over to turn off your alarm,’ he told her, his enjoyment increasing as the look of astonishment on her face grew. ‘It was only sensible,’ he went on. ‘You’d gone thirty six hours without sleep and it was crazy to go longer.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Then Hugo and I did a ward round,’ he continued. ‘I introduced him to everyone, we went over charts together, discussed medication, did what needed to be done…’

  Christie’s eyes flew to Hugo’s. He gazed calmly back at her, his brown eyes tranquil. His eyes gave her a message, nonetheless. Nothing had been done that shouldn’t have been done. Things were fine.

  ‘Grandpa—’

  But Stan was unstoppable. ‘Then Hugo suggested I sleep in the ward last night so we could be woken together if things went wrong. Nothing did—apart from old Mrs Grayson’s drip packing up which Hugo didn’t bother to wake me for because his fingers are a darn sight steadier than mine.’

  She shook her head, thinking this through. ‘But Ben. I meant to spend time with him last night.’

  ‘Hugo had a long talk to him last night,’ Stan told her. ‘The kid slept like a log. Same as you. Hugo’s been with him again just now, and reckons he’s fine. So you can take that worried look off your face, girl, and go and get yourself decent. For once in your life you have no work to do.’

  No work to do!

  Christie stood under the shower and let that sink in. She was still confused, but she was feeling light years younger than she’d felt the day before.

  It hadn’t just been the thirty-six hours without sleep which had left her exhausted, she thought dazedly, examining why she felt so different. It was the culmination of overwhelming work she’d faced since Stan’s stroke, together with the burden of looking after Stan.

  In one night Hugo had lifted that burden for thirteen glorious hours. She didn’t know how he’d persuaded the old man to sleep at the hospital, but it had been a masterstroke. She knew without him telling her—there was something about the look of sheer intelligence in Hugo’s brown eyes—that he’d seen the problem, and he’d had the nurses slip in and check on Stan as often as she did here. If Stan had slipped down on his pillows and had spent the night without breathing easily, he wouldn’t have been as sprightly as he was this morning.

  So now she’d had thirteen hours sleep without any dire consequences. She felt like she’d been handed a million dollars. No, better!

  She towelled and dressed in clean T-shirt and jeans—in truth, she owned little else. Then she ran a comb through her damp curls and for some reason she stared at her reflection for just a moment longer than usual before she left her room. Her reflection looked puzzled. It was as if something was changing but she didn’t know what.

  As if she was changing.

  Ridiculous. She gave herself a rueful grin and told herself she was imagining things.

  Out in the kitchen the men were making toast on the wood stove. Hugo was holding a piece of bread to the flame on his toasting fork, and as Christie re-entered the kitchen the scene before her was so domestic that she blinked.

  So did Hugo.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, his eyes creasing into a smile of welcome. Despite her lack of cosmetics, her damp curls and her bare toes, he thought she looked gorgeous. By the look in his eyes there was no mistaking what he thought, and Stan saw and chuckled.

  ‘She’s quite a lass, my Christie,’ he said, and Hugo nodded.

  ‘She is at that, sir. Not like most doctors in my circle of aquaintances.’

  ‘Cut it out, you two.’ Christie tried to glower but it didn’t quite come off. Her cheeks were on fire. This man made her feel strange, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked the sensation. ‘Do I really not need to go to the hospital straight away?’

  ‘Glenys is in charge and she’ll ring the moment she needs us,’ Hugo told her.

  She frowned. ‘Glenys?’

  ‘Glenys is your charge nurse,’ he said kindly, and she shot him a look of exasperation.

  ‘I know who Glenys is. I’m just surprised you do.’

  ‘Hey, I know everyone in the hospital,’ he assured her. He motioned to the clothes he was wearing—a khaki fisherman’s jersey, moleskin trousers and yachties’ shoes. ‘Mary-anne brought me in a pile of her husband’s clothes and stopped for long enough to give me a who’s-who guide to the whole island. If you need any local gossip, just ask me.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Toast?’ he enquired. ‘It’s very good.’

  ‘I do need to go,’ she managed. ‘Liz’s baby—’

  ‘Baby Myers is already drinking,’ he said blandly. ‘Liz has expressed colostrum and he’s taken a little—enough to make everyone happy. I’m sure we can take him out of the humidicrib for feeding but we left that decision for you.’

  ‘As we did Hugo’s leg.’ Stan chortled. ‘He’s not too happy about sitting in a wheelchair, but I reckoned I’d like someone with twenty-twenty eyesight to have a l
ook before he bears weight. The agreement we made with each other last night was that we wouldn’t do a thing that both of us weren’t happy with. So he had to stick with the wheelchair until you check it. Together we make one fine doctor, Christie, love.’

  Together they did. Christie looked down at her grandpa, calmly sipping his tea, and she felt a lump the size of an orange form in her throat. Stan had been so unhappy—so humiliated by his illness—but in this one night Hugo had given him back his dignity. Stan had been able to help his granddaughter when she’d been in trouble, and that one small thing…

  She grabbed a tissue from the sideboard and blew her nose—hard.

  ‘You’re not catching a cold, I hope?’ Hugo asked. He was watching her thoughtfully, but there was a twinkle in his eyes that showed he knew exactly what she was thinking. And why she’d blown her nose.

  ‘It’s hay fever.’ She sniffed. ‘All this wind.’

  ‘And all this hay,’ he agreed, the twinkle deepening. He looked out of the window at sea, sand and seaweed. ‘Yep, I can see it.’

  ‘You know darn well hay fever is caused by more than hay.’

  ‘I’m only an anaesthetist and failed sailor, lady,’ he told her. ‘What would I know?’ He chuckled and pulled his toasting fork back from the fire to check his handiwork. ‘But I do have a new skill. Toast-maker! Do try some of my cooking, Dr Flemming. I think you’ll find it extraordinarily good.’

  And she did.

  Toast, in fact, had never tasted so good. Sitting at the kitchen table, her elbows spread on the scrubbed pine and her mouth full of hot buttered toast, Christie started to feel so good she felt almost unreal. Floating.

  This man kept her in a bubble of laughter. He joked with her grandfather but was deeply respectful of all the old man had to say. He asked intelligent questions, listened, made soft jokes that made the old man smile—in short, he brought a new lease of life to the kitchen which hadn’t been there since her grandmother had died.

  Christie drank it in, and so did her grandfather. This man was here for such a short while, Christie thought ruefully. She could afford to absorb it while she could. Their contact with the mainland was sparse—her medical contact almost negligible, apart from hearing back about patients she’d sent away for treatment.