One Night in Emergency

It felt strange, being left alone in the department. Not that she was really alone, there were a few patients still around, a few doctors writing their notes up at the desk and the rest of the staff were bobbing in and out of various cubicles. But, standing at the nurses’ station, Eleanor couldn’t help but feel a bit smugly important, as well as nervous in case anything should come flying through the doors and she would, temporarily at least, be the one to deal with it.

‘How much longer will he have to wait?’ A ruddy-faced rugby player popped his head around the curtain and Eleanor made her way over, pulling out the casualty card from the clipboard.

‘Shouldn’t be long.’ Eleanor peered at the card. ‘He just needs some strapping and a tetanus shot.’

She expected an argument, after all she was just standing there, but instead the man disappeared behind the curtain and Eleanor listened with increasing impatience as the drunken guffaws got louder.

‘How long will the doctor be?’ The father of the toddler in cubicle two came over, a worried frown on his face, and Eleanor gave a sympathetic smile.

‘Not too much longer. It has to be a registrar or consultant that discharges Marcus, and unfortunately they’re both stuck in Resus at the moment. They know that you’re waiting, though.’

‘Fair enough.’ He gave a tired shrug. ‘He’s just getting upset with all the noise, you know.’ He nodded pointedly towards cubicle one.

‘I do know,’ Eleanor said grimly. She was about to tell him it shouldn’t be much longer again, about to run with the usual spiel, but Pier’s words had struck a chord.

Then be a good nurse.

Mary was just trying to share the workload by telling them to save cubicle one for her. Eleanor could just picture the scathing look if she came out of Resus and saw her standing at the nurses’ station, twiddling her thumbs when there was still work to be done. Well, she’d learnt her lesson the hard way with Rita. By the time Mary came out, there wouldn’t be a patient in the department and she’d have started cleaning the trolleys. Picking up the kidney dish with the tetanus shot in it, she smiled at Marcus’s father. ‘Leave it to me.’

Breezing into the cubicle, she shot her most withering stare at the five men standing around the trolley. ‘Would you mind keeping the noise down, guys? We’ve got a young child next door and your noise is upsetting him.’

‘Sorry!’ The sarcastic response from the ruddy-faced man Eleanor could deal with, but when the other hangers-on started wolf-whistling Eleanor began to understand why Mary might have dealt with it better. But just as she started to wonder if perhaps she should leave the job to Mary after all, she found a rather surprising ally in her patient.

‘Cut it out, guys.’ His voice was deep and firm and brought an instant response, his five teammates instantly cutting the wisecracks and offering their apologies. For the first time Eleanor looked at her patient.

Then looked again!

For the past couple of hours she’d remained indifferent to the sight of six-foot-four, thick-necked, broken-nosed rugby players, but only a general anaesthetic could have rendered her indifferent to this one.

He was so huge that he made the gurney look like it belonged in the paediatric bay, yet there wasn’t an ounce of fat on his solid frame that was way too big for the white hospital gown that stretched over his wide chest, blond tousled hair framed a rugged face and somehow he even managed to make the customary broken nose look endearing, but, then, one couldn’t linger too long on his broken nose when navy eyes were attempting to focus. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said, gesturing to his raucous friends. ‘They’re getting bored.’

‘Which would be understandable if they were two years old,’ Eleanor replied crisply, determined not to let him see he was having the remotest effect on her. But her bossy nurse routine only delighted the crowd, the cat calls starting up again, growing ever louder, the whistles more piercing as Eleanor’s blush darkened. But when little Marcus in the next cubicle started crying again, Eleanor’s patience finally snapped. ‘Right, you can all wait outside while I fix up…’ She glanced at the casualty card. ‘Mr Hunter.’

‘Rory,’ her patient offered, but Eleanor wasn’t really listening. In best assertive nurse mode she shooed the last of the stragglers in the vague direction of the waiting room.

‘I thought Mary was going to come and patch me up,’ Rory ventured once they were alone.

‘Sister Byrne is busy with a sick patient in Resus,’ Eleanor answered crisply, ‘so you’ll have to make do with me.’

‘That’s fine,’ he responded easily. ‘And you are?’

‘Sister Lewis.’

He was squinting at the name badge hanging around her neck, or at least Eleanor hoped that was what he was attempting to focus on.

‘Do you have a first name?’

‘Sister Lewis will do just fine,’ Eleanor replied firmly. ‘Now, you’ve already been stitched up.’ Peering at the notes, she put them down before turning to her patient. ‘It’s the left thigh, isn’t it?’

‘I hope so, given that’s the one they stitched.’ Lifting his gown, he pulled back the dressing before, annoyingly—extremely annoyingly, in fact—reaching over to the silver trolley beside the gurney and helping himself to a wad of gauze.

‘Please, don’t.’ Eleanor shook her head. ‘The trolleys are sterile.’

‘Really?’ He gave her a slightly nonplussed look and Eleanor was forced to relent somewhat. ‘Well, they’re clean and I’m supposed to restock them soon. It doesn’t make things easy when the patients help themselves.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ It didn’t, but it was far easier to be bossy, far easier to be slightly cross, than focus on his thighs—very nice thighs, too, Eleanor thought reluctantly, extremely muscular, blond-haired thighs that needed to be strapped.

‘I’ll need to shave you.’

‘Sorry?’ There was no question that he was apologising this time and, clearing her suddenly dry throat, Eleanor forced a brisk smile.

‘The doctor wants your thigh strapped,’ Eleanor explained patiently. ‘Because you’re so, er, muscular he wants the sutures to have some support for a couple of days. That’s why he wants you to have crutches as well…’

‘But why do you want to shave me?’

‘I don’t want to,’ Eleanor corrected. ‘I have to. Believe me…’ Echoing Mary’s words, she flashed an efficient smile and said, ‘You’ll thank me for my foresight once the strapping comes off.’

‘I’ll look like a zebra,’ Rory moaned. ‘I read that hair grows back thicker and darker once you shave it.’

The grumbling smile he flashed at her wasn’t making this any easier.

‘Utter rubbish,’ Eleanor scoffed, while feeling horribly guilty.

‘It’s true. I read it in a magazine—a women’s magazine,’ he added, as if it might make a scrap of difference.

‘Well, if you’d read on, the magazine would undoubtedly have told you that the down side to waxing is sheer agony, which is what you’ll get when the sticky plaster comes off if I don’t shave you first. Wait there,’ Eleanor added, fleeing for the safety of the stock cupboard and trying to even out her breathing as she located fresh heads for the clippers.

She could do this, Eleanor told herself firmly. Gorgeous men with massive hairy thighs were part and parcel of Emergency, so she’d better just buckle down and get used to coping with it.

‘Right!’ Pulling the curtain back, she marched in with the clippers.

‘Right,’ Rory responded glumly, as Eleanor swallowed hard and turned on the clippers, hoping his inebriated state would mean that he wouldn’t notice her shaking hands.

‘How much are you taking off?’ Rory asked with a slight note of panic.

‘Well, you need your thigh strapped,’ Eleanor pointed out, ‘not a small sticky plaster.’ But despite her best efforts, the bossy nurse routine was getting harder and harder to keep. Despite his friends, Rory Hunter had been the perfect patient and Eleanor relented with an apologetic shrug. ‘I’m really sorry about all this,’ she mumbled. ‘It really will grow back quickly.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘And itch like hell, too, no doubt.’

‘Then I’m glad I’m not a woman.’ Rory grinned. ‘Must be hell, doing this every week.’

Eleanor laughed, really laughed. ‘Well, generally we’re not quite so hairy…’ Her voice trailed off as his navy eyes attempted to meet hers, the room impossibly hot all of a sudden as the conversation tiptoed into dangerous territory.

‘Roll over and I’ll do the back,’ Eleanor responded quickly.

He did as he was told. In fact, he was the model patient, lying quietly as Eleanor dressed the large cut and then strapped his thigh securely. ‘Not too tight?’ she checked, and he shook his head. He even lifted the sleeve of his gown without asking as she approached with his tetanus shot.

‘Your arm might be a bit sore for a couple of days.’