The Italian Doctor's Perfect Family

‘Dr Gillies is our family doctor. Part of his job is to get someone else to see his patients if he’s not sure what’s wrong. It’s called referral.’

Alice absorbed the information with a small frown. Then her face brightened.

‘Knock, knock,’ she said.

‘Who’s there?’ Pip responded obligingly.

‘Dr Costa.’

‘Dr Costa who?’

‘Dr Costa lotta money.’

Pip’s grin faded with astonishing rapidity as she realised she wasn’t the only one to have heard Alice’s joke, but the tall, dark man, whose sudden presence seemed overwhelming in the small consulting room, was smiling.

‘I don’t really cost much at all,’ he said to Alice as he eased his long frame into the remaining empty chair and leaned forward slightly. ‘I’m free…and I’m all yours.’

Alice was staring, open-mouthed, and Pip could sympathise with the embarrassed flush creeping into the girl’s cheeks. She would have been thoroughly disconcerted to have a dose of masculine charm like that directed at her. Poor Alice would have no idea how to respond.

The soon-to-be-teenage girl was currently the sole focus of attention from a man who had to be far more attractive than any one of the pictures of the movie-star and pop idols that Alice and her friends already enjoyed discussing at length.

With hair and eyes as dark as sin, a killer smile and that intriguing accent, it was no wonder that one of the senior ED nurses had sighed longingly when Pip had explained the necessity of accompanying Alice to this appointment.

‘I wouldn’t miss that opportunity myself.’ Suzie had laughed. ‘In fact, I wonder if I could borrow someone’s kid?’

‘It’s only because my mother’s got some kind of horrible virus that’s making her vomit and Alice is too young to go by herself.’

‘It’s not a problem,’ Suzie had assured her. ‘Your voluble Mr Symes has probably only got a virus as well. I’ll keep a close eye on him while you’re gone.’ She waved Pip towards where Alice was waiting patiently on a chair near the door. ‘Go. Enjoy!’

And with that smile from Dr Costa now coming in her own direction, it was impossible not to feel a curl of very feminine pleasure. Philippa could hear an echo of Suzie’s sigh somewhere in the back of her head as she returned the smile.

‘And you must be Alice’s…sister?’

The noticeable hesitation was accompanied by a spark of curiosity in those dark eyes, but who wouldn’t wonder about such an obvious age gap between siblings? There was also a subtle frown that suggested the doctor was puzzled by the somewhat unorthodox situation of a sibling accompanying a new patient to a medical consultation.

That inward curl shrivelled so fast it was a flinch, but Pip managed to keep her smile in place for another heartbeat. About to correct his assumption, she was interrupted by Alice.

‘Mum’s sick,’ Alice informed Dr Costa. ‘Isn’t she, Pip? She couldn’t come with me today ’cos she’s got some horrible bug that’s making her throw up all the time.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that!’

He really sounded sorry, too. Pip took a deep breath.

‘We didn’t want to miss this appointment.’ She didn’t need to catch the meaningful glance from Alice that pleaded with her not to make any corrections. It could be their secret, couldn’t it? Dr Costa wasn’t the first person to assume they were sisters and it was much cooler than reality as far as Alice was concerned.

It seemed perfectly reasonable. Secrets were fun after all, and if they were harmless, they only added to bonds between people.

‘There’s quite a waiting list to get into one of your clinics, Dr Costa,’ Pip added calmly, as she shot Alice just the ghost of a conspiratorial wink.

‘Call me Toni. Please.’ He was eyeing her white coat. ‘You’re on staff here, Pippa?’

‘It’s Pip. Short for Philippa.’ Though she liked Pippa rather a lot more, especially delivered with that accent. ‘And, yes, I’ve just taken up a registrar position here. I’m a month into my run in the emergency department.’

Alice was watching the exchange with keen interest.

‘I thought you were supposed to be Italian,’ she said to her doctor.

‘I am. I come from Sardinia, which is a big island off mainland Italy.’

‘Tony doesn’t sound very Italian.’

‘It’s Toni with an “i”,’ she was told. ‘Short for Antonio. Will that do?’

Alice returned the smile cautiously. ‘I guess.’

It was Pip’s turn to receive another smile. ‘Thank goodness for that. What would I have done if I couldn’t have established my credentials? Now…’ He reached for the manila folder on the desk. ‘Tell me, Alice, how is it that you’ve come to see me today?’

Alice looked puzzled. ‘I came on the bus from school. I often do that now so that Pip can give me a ride home in her car. I used to have to catch two buses.’

Pip caught the unspoken appeal as the paediatrician opened the file. He wasn’t getting the short cut he might have hoped for in this consultation.

‘Alice’s GP made the referral,’ she said helpfully. ‘He’s been trying to find a cause for recurrent abdominal pain with associated nausea and vomiting and some general malaise that’s been ongoing for several months now.’

Toni Costa was nodding as he skimmed the referral letter. ‘No evidence of any urinary tract infections,’ he noted aloud, ‘but your doctor’s not happy to settle for a diagnosis of childhood migraine or irritable bowel syndrome.’

‘Mmm.’ Actually, it had been Pip who hadn’t been happy to settle for an umbrella diagnosis, but she didn’t want to have anyone else thinking she was interfering because of her training.

The swift glance she received from her senior colleague conveyed a comprehension of her thought that was instant enough to be unsettling, but his expression suggested a willingness to respect her opinion that Pip appreciated enormously. The invitation to say more was irresistible.

‘Mum had a cholecystectomy for gallstones a few years ago,’ she told Toni. ‘And she had an episode of pancreatitis last year. The symptoms were rather like what Alice seems to experience.’

Pip paused, waiting for the kind of reaction Dr Gillies had made to the suggestion. The unsubtle query of how soon after Shona’s illness Alice’s symptoms had appeared. As though Alice was disturbed enough to be suffering from Munchausen’s syndrome and had latched onto a known condition. As if you could fake the symptoms like tachycardia and pallor and vomiting that could come with real, severe pain!

‘And you’re concerned about a possibility of an hereditary condition?’

‘Yes.’ The tension in Pip evaporated. Toni Costa was going to take her concerns seriously. Her opinion of this man shot up by several notches.

‘What’s a hairy-de-tairy thing?’ Alice demanded. She gave Pip a suspicious glare. ‘You never said I might have that.’

Toni was smiling…again, and Pip decided that was just the way his face naturally creased all the time. Did smiling always make those almost black eyes seem to dance? No wonder he was so popular with his patients.

‘Hereditary just means it’s something you were born with,’ he was explaining to Alice. ‘You get a whole parcel of genes when you born and some of them come from your parents and grandparents and something hereditary means it came in the parcel.’

‘Is it bad?’

Toni shook his head, making sleek waves of rather long, black hair move. ‘It doesn’t mean anything by itself, Alice. It’s like catching one of your buses. If it’s hereditary it just means you already had your ticket. If it isn’t, you’re buying the ticket when you jump on the bus instead. It’s the bus we’re interested in, not the ticket.’

Was he always this good at explaining things to children? Further impressed, Pip watched the satisfied nod that made Alice’s ponytail bounce.