Victoria did not feel safe.
‘Hey!’ Glen warned the guy lying on the kerb as he lashed out with his boot. ‘We’re trying to help.’ He looked over to Victoria. ‘Can you bring the stretcher closer?’ Glen said, and then he asked the police who were holding the man to get a better grip on him.
It was Victoria who drove the patient to hospital while Glen stayed in the back.
Nothing was actually said, but Victoria knew only too well that she wasn’t carrying her share of the load.
Glen was lovely; he always was.
He sensed that she had lost her nerve and so he put his big body in between Victoria and the patients during a few of the trickier call-outs. But late on Sunday night, coming into the early hours of Monday morning, after attending a domestic dispute, Glen told her something.
‘You need to tell work.’
‘I know.’
She was on leave after this shift but she would tell her line manager about the baby this morning, when they returned to base.
And then the wheels would all be put into motion, and on her return from leave her duties would change and Victoria would no longer be operational.
‘What time’s your ultrasound at?’ Glen asked.
‘Ten.’
‘You’ll be wrecked,’ he said because they finished at eight.
‘I’ll grab an hour of sleep at the station after we finish,’ Victoria said.
‘Is Dominic coming with you?’
‘I don’t want him to.’
‘Let him be there.’
‘Just leave it.’
She took a bite of her sandwich. She was not going to be discussing this with Glen, but also, she noted, he didn’t offer to come with her this time.
Perhaps now that Glen knew who the father was, he felt that it wasn’t his place to offer, but all the same, she felt terribly alone.
Victoria’s job was her rock and a huge part of her identity.
She was excited to become a mother, yet it felt a little as if everything familiar was being stripped away.
How was she going to work and be a single mum?
Just who would be looking out for the baby on nights such as this?
Would Dominic really be there for them?
She tried to imagine him dropping over to her flat to look after their little one while she headed out, or taking the baby over to his.
How long would that last? How long till he tired of any arrangements they made or, like her father, suddenly got called into work and decided that his job was more important than hers?
Or what if he met someone else, which of course he would one day, and decide that his new family was his priority?
As her mother had done.
And then she tried not to think of the other possibility—the two of them together, knowing the odds were that they wouldn’t work. He still hadn’t sorted things out with his family. Even with a desperately ill baby the brothers were unable to be close.
And as for her?
Victoria had never been close to anyone.
That was her real fear—that, even with the best of intentions, he might give them a go for the sake of their baby, but that Dominic would one day tire of her and simply leave.
‘How do you and Hayley make it work?’ Victoria asked, but she didn’t get her answer—a call-out came and as the address was given Victoria recognised it straight away.
‘That’s Penny.’
They put on the lights and Glen drove skilfully through the dark London streets and soon they were pulling up at her house.
The lights were on both upstairs and down and, as they made their way up the path, Victoria saw that the front door had been left open.
‘Through here.’ Penny’s father was on the phone trying to find out how much longer the ambulance would be, which Victoria knew from experience meant things were bad. She took a breath and went through to the lounge.
‘Hello, beautiful!’
Victoria’s smile was bright and no one would ever guess that Victoria’s heart sank when she saw Penny.
Julia was lying on the sofa with her daughter and holding her little girl’s body in her arms.
Penny’s hair was loose and it was damp with sweat; her eyes were sunken and she was struggling so hard simply to breathe. Glen put on oxygen as Victoria carefully checked the little girl over.
‘I’m going to use the bag to help you breathe, Penny,’ Glen said, and as Penny breathed in, Glen assisted her, pushing vital oxygen into her lungs.
She was terribly hot, though as Victoria peeled back the blanket she saw that she still had on her little tutu.
Victoria chatted to the little girl, but made sure she didn’t ask too many questions so that Penny could save her energy.
Her lungs were full of fluid and as Victoria inserted an IV into Penny’s arm she barely flinched.
‘You are such a brave girl,’ Victoria said. ‘I’m going to give you some medicine now and that’s going to get rid of all that horrible fluid that is making it so hard to breathe.’
Penny became a bit agitated but Julia knew why. ‘She doesn’t like the diuretics because they made her wet herself once, but that doesn’t matter, Penny.’
It did to her though.
‘I’ve got a bed pan in the ambulance,’ Victoria said, ‘and we’ll put lots of pads on the stretcher, so if you do have a little accident we’ll have you all cleaned up before you go into the Castle.’
Penny nodded and Victoria pushed through the vital medicine.
The oxygen was helping, and with the other medications she started to calm. Soon her breathing was a little deeper, and the horrible mottled tinge to Penny’s skin was starting to recede.
They needed to get her to Paddington’s.
This time there was no question that she could get onto the stretcher by herself so Glen gently picked Penny up. He placed her on the stretcher and made sure that she was safely secured, and then together he and Victoria raised it up.
‘Ready for the off?’ Victoria said as she always did.
And always Penny nodded and smiled, or if she wasn’t well enough, as was the case today, would do a little thumbs-up sign.
Today though, she spoke. ‘Not...’ She gasped but she couldn’t finish her sentence and Julia moved to reassure her.
‘We’ve got everything with us, Penny,’ Julia said, because she always made sure that she had Penny’s favourite things.
But Victoria knew that that wasn’t what Penny had been trying to say.
Victoria had seen it happen in many patients—they just wanted a moment more in their home, though usually they were much older than Penny when they felt that way.
‘It’s okay, Penny,’ Victoria said. ‘We can take a minute.’
Yes, she was time critical, but the priority, too, was to cause the little girl minimum distress, and rushing her out against her wishes would only cause her to get upset. And so she stood and waited as Penny’s eyes moved around the room.
And Julia understood then what her daughter had meant when she had tried to say that she wasn’t quite ready to leave.
Penny wanted to take a long look at her home.
And she did.
She looked over at the television, which had been paused in the middle of a cartoon, and all of her favourite characters were frozen on the screen. Then her eyes went to the chair and then over to the sofa where she had lain and she was imprinting it all.
Penny didn’t know if she would be coming home.
Julia, who was very strong and used to seeing her daughter unwell, was choking up.
‘Why don’t you get a glass of water, Julia,’ Victoria suggested, and as Julia wept in the other room, Penny sat just taking in the memories of her home.
Glen, of course, was tearing up and Penny gave him a stern look that warned him to stop then and there.
Julia bustled back in and saw Penny’s eyes linger on a photo. It looked like a holiday snap of the family at the beach. ‘Shall we bring that with us, darling?’ Julia asked.
Penny nodded and then rested back on the pillows and now she gave her usual little thumbs up.
She was ready.
Peter, her father, gave his daughter a kiss and told her that he was going to lock up and would see her soon at the hospital.
Once in the vehicle they alerted Paddington’s to let them know they were on their way along with the details and status of the patient that they were bringing in.
Glen drove and Victoria sat in the back with Julia and Penny. There was no need for sirens as the streets were empty, but the lights were on and if needed Glen would use the siren at traffic lights or if the situation changed.
The mood was sombre.
Usually Julia would read Penny a story on the way to the hospital but she just sat there while the blue lights of the ambulance shadowed her face.
‘Story...’ Penny said.
‘Well, let me see...’ Victoria answered. And she let Julia sit quietly and gather herself for whatever lay ahead.
Victoria thought for a moment; she had told Dominic that she didn’t believe in fairytales, but growing up she had loved them, just like any little girl.
She had just never had to make one up before.
Victoria thought for a moment and then she told Penny about a turret and a magic castle and a little girl who used to sneak behind the files and find her way up there. And she watched as Penny gave a faint smile so Victoria knew she must be telling the tale okay. ‘There’s a princess who lives there and she watches over all the babies and children.’
‘Truly?’ Penny gasped.
‘Of course,’ Victoria said. ‘I told you, it’s a magic castle.’
And she held the little girl’s hand and told her some more and it really did seem to soothe Penny.
Her colour was terrible though and her heart was galloping, but then Penny looked up at the blacked-out windows and smiled.
Victoria glanced up too and relief flooded her as the familiar roofline came into sight.
The not-so-new Dr Thomas Wolfe was waiting for them. Victoria had been right—he had worked here. She recognised him from many years ago when she had just started to work on the ambulances, but this was no time to reminisce with him.
She was just relieved that someone so skilled was here to greet this very sick little girl.
Thomas listened to the handover as they moved her onto the resuscitation bed. He thanked the paramedics as he examined the patient and Victoria saw his expression was grim as he listened to her back and chest.
‘You’re doing very well, Penny,’ he said to her, and he gently sat her back. She was upright in the bed as she was still struggling to breathe. The nurses worked deftly alongside him, attaching Penny to monitors and leads and pulling up the drugs and IV solutions that Thomas was calling for.
Victoria had done her job—she had delivered Penny safely to the Castle, and that had used to be enough for her. But so badly she wanted to stay and see how Penny was doing.
She actually had to prise herself away.
Maybe it was because she herself was going to be a mother that suddenly things were affecting her more.
Or maybe it was that since Dominic had come into her life she simply felt everything more acutely.
It was as if her emotions had been reset to a heightened level and Victoria felt on the edge of tears as she saw more staff running into the resuscitation room.
‘I’m going to go and get a drink,’ Glen said.
‘Sure.’ Victoria nodded and she set about making up the stretcher, telling herself to stop getting so upset, that it was just work.
Of course, Glen didn’t really want a drink; his flask was in the ambulance and there was a coffee machine close by.
He walked through the department and stood in the kitchenette; he clung to the bench and told himself to take some deep breaths.
And that was where Dominic found him.
‘Hi there,’ Dominic said, but he got no response.
He knew that Glen’s presence meant that Victoria was here somewhere, but he could see that Glen was struggling, and so, instead of heading out, he spoke with him for a while.
Dominic discovered that indeed Glen and Victoria had been at Piccadilly on Friday.
No, he didn’t push for information but he guessed, and rightly so, that the weekend had taken a bit of a toll on both of them. Dominic was very grateful to this man for looking out for her.
And they spoke about the fire at Westbourne Grove and how there had been no choice really but to move forward when they had seen just how precarious Lewis’s injuries were.
Then Dominic listened as Glen told him about Penny, about how bad it had been back at the house and how she had asked to stay for one lingering look.
‘Poor little mite,’ Glen said. ‘You just can’t help but compare them to your own sometimes.’
And then Glen asked him something.
‘Do you remember a child we brought in...?’
And he spoke about a little girl that had been brought in a few months ago, one around the same age as Glen’s daughter.
Yes, Dominic remembered it well—it was the same child that Dominic had lost on the operating table.
‘I’d do anything for my children,’ Glen said, ‘and I just hope that for her I did the same, but I wonder if we’d just been a bit quicker extracting her from the vehicle and if we’d—’
‘Glen,’ Dominic interrupted.
Not unkindly.
He had gone over the very same questions about the same little girl himself, and so had the coroner.
‘There was nothing that anyone could have done. Even if she had somehow been operated on at the scene, still there was nothing that could have been done.’
‘I know that,’ Glen admitted. He just needed to hear it again.
And again.
He really did need to talk it through.
‘She really got to me.’
‘I know,’ Dominic said. ‘It was awful.’
All losses hit hard, but some had the capacity for major destruction and that was what was happening with Glen.
‘Victoria keeps on at me to go and speak to someone about it.’
Dominic was very glad that Victoria was on to things, and he was glad that this partnership looked out for each other.
‘I think that would be very wise,’ Dominic said. ‘And if you do have any more questions, or talking it through raises some, then you can come and talk to me.’
Glen nodded. ‘I’m just going to take a minute before I go back out.’
‘Sure.’
Dominic walked out through to the department and he saw Victoria standing by the made-up stretcher, reading her phone. Dominic made his way over to her.
She felt him approach but Victoria didn’t look up.
‘Your colleague is crying in the kitchen,’ Dominic told her, and though he kept it light he also let her know what was going on.
‘I know.’ Victoria looked up then and rolled her eyes. ‘I’m going to politely pretend not to notice.’
But she had noticed, Dominic knew. Glen had just told him that Victoria had addressed this with him on many an occasion.
‘Was it very grim at the house?’ he asked.
‘Not really,’ Victoria said.
And Dominic frowned because Glen had just told him, in detail, that it had been awful—that Penny had asked for a moment to look around before they left and that Julia had become upset.
T
hen, as casually as anything, she told him that unless she got another call-out this morning, this would be the last time they ran into each other like this.
‘I’m probably going to be working in the clinical hub—dispatch—from now on.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘It’s procedure,’ Victoria said. ‘I’ve got two weeks’ leave, starting at the end of this shift, but when I come back I shan’t be operational.’
‘Good,’ Dominic said. ‘Well, I’ll miss seeing you but I think it’s better than the risk of being out there.’
‘I’ll still see you at the Save Paddington’s meetings, I hope.’ Victoria smiled.
‘You shall.’
Dominic was doing his best to stay back and not crowd her.
He was finding it hell.
Maybe he should take her at face value, Dominic reasoned. Maybe he should simply accept it when she said that things did not get to her, and that she really would prefer to go through this alone.
Yet it did not equate to the passionate side she revealed at times and, he was certain, she hurt just as deeply, even if she did not show it.
He should walk away, just treat her as coolly as she said she wanted, but instead he tried another tack.
‘I’m expecting a transfer from Riverside,’ Dominic said. ‘I’ve actually just been speaking with your father.’
‘Lucky you,’ Victoria said, and got back to reading her phone.
‘What did he say to you, Victoria?’ He saw her rapid blink as she deliberately didn’t look up. ‘When you had that row, what did he say?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to go over it again.’
‘Please do,’ Dominic said. ‘Of course, if it’s too upsetting...’
‘It’s not that.’ She shrugged. ‘It just paints me in a rather unflattering light. He pointed out that my mother didn’t just leave him.’
She didn’t say it verbatim, but he could almost hear Professor Christie saying that she had left her too.
‘How does that paint you in an unflattering light?’ Dominic asked.
‘Well, I can’t have been the cutest baby.’ She tried to make a joke.
‘How old were you when she left?’
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