St Piran’s: The Wedding of The Year

‘Pot and kettle?’ he said, and Ben chuckled.

‘Go in and see her, she’s waiting for you. And give me your car keys, I’ll get it moved. It’s obstructing the entrance and the ambos are getting cross.’

He handed over the keys, thanked Ben and went to see Kate.

How long could he be?

Ben had insisted she should lie there for a while and wait for Nick, and frankly she didn’t have the strength to argue. Anyway, there was nothing she could do for Jem now except will him to be alive, and she could do that lying down in A and E as well as she could hovering outside the scanner room in Radiology.

Once Nick was back, she’d get up and go and sit there, waiting for news, but for now, she was lying wide-eyed, alert, her adrenaline running flat out, her pulse rapid, her throat dry.

‘You’re a mess, Kate Althorp,’ she told herself, and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t sleep. No way. But she could shut out the light.

She’d dozed off.

Or so he thought, but as Nick stepped into the cubicle, her eyes flew open.

‘Is there any news?’ she asked, her face worried, and he shook his head.

‘No. I’ve just spoken to Ben, but they haven’t heard anything. Josh is with him in CT. Are you OK to go down there now?’

She gave a humourless little laugh that cut him to the bone, and tried to smile. ‘Sure. My right ankle hurts, but I’ve got some arnica gel in my bag, I’ll put it on later. Let’s go.’

‘Want me to do it now?’ he asked, wondering how he’d cope with touching her, smoothing his hand over her skin, feeling her warmth beneath his fingers and knowing she wasn’t his to touch, to hold—to love?

Would never be.

‘Not now. Later, maybe. I need to be with Jem.’

‘I’ll get a wheelchair,’ he told her. ‘Stay there.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Nick,’ she said, swinging her legs down and wriggling her feet into her damp shoes with a grimace. ‘I’m perfectly capable of walking. I’m fine.’

She wasn’t. She wasn’t fine at all, but she had guts. He tried to smile, but his own guts were strung tight. He tucked her hand in his arm so she could lean on him, and walked with her to Radiology, glad they were moving fairly slowly. He was feeling a little light-headed and wondering if his stubborn insistence on giving two units had been such a good idea after all. It was a quarter of his circulating blood volume—enough to crash his blood pressure into his boots. He ought to get something to eat and drink, but now wasn’t the time.

‘He’ll be out in a minute, he’s nearly done,’ the receptionist told them, and they sat and waited, Kate suddenly even more nervous because of what the CT might show up.

She thought her stomach was going to turn inside out it was churning so hard, and the painkillers Ben had given her didn’t seem to be helping. Well, they were helping, but not enough. She rolled her neck slightly to ease it, but it didn’t work. It was because she was tense, coiled like a spring, poised for bad news.

‘I can’t sit here, I’m going to have to walk around,’ she told Nick, pushing herself to her feet just as the doors opened and Jem was wheeled out by Josh and the anaesthetist. The radiologist came over to them, nodded to Nick and then turned to her.

‘Mrs Althorp?’

‘Yes,’ Kate said, trying not to fall down and feeling Nick’s firm hand on her waist holding her in place. She dragged her eyes from Jem and the gap in the blankets showing the frame holding his pelvis rigid, and leaned against Nick, grateful for the support, both physical and emotional, wondering what was coming, hardly daring to ask. ‘How is he?’ she managed, her throat tight.

‘Stable. No damage apart from the fracture—he’s been lucky, and there’s no sign of a bleed from the head injury, so they’re taking him straight up to Theatre now. You’ll need to go up with him and sign the consent forms, if you haven’t already done it, and I imagine you’ll want to wait up there for news?’

She nodded and looked at Jem. She wanted to talk to him—touch him, just touch him so she could reassure herself he was still alive, but he was unconscious, still under anaesthetic. She leant over the trolley anyway, and rested her hand on his cheek briefly, reassured by his warmth but frowning at the bruises as they walked towards the lift.

‘Jem? It’s Mum,’ she said softly. ‘You’re all right, my darling. You’re going to be OK, can you hear me? I’ll be waiting for you, OK? I’ll be here, all the time. I love you—’

She cracked, and Nick hugged her to his side as they followed the trolley to the lift and went up with him. They watched him go through into Theatre, and then Nick guided her to the chair-lined recess, and the long wait began…

‘So that’s your father-in-law?’

Ben grunted in confirmation, and Josh watched him. ‘Interesting undercurrents between him and the woman. I thought he was the kid’s father at first. It took me a minute to work it out. He seems OK—bit distant, but supportive. I take it they’re friends?’

Ben sighed and put down his pen, and Josh propped his hips on the back of the other chair and raised an eyebrow.

‘She’s a colleague as well. He’s known her for years.’

Josh nodded. ‘I know you didn’t always get on with him. Jack mentioned that he could be…’

‘Difficult?’ Ben supplied, his smile wry, and Josh grinned.

‘He probably wasn’t quite as polite as that.’

Ben gave a grunt of grudging laughter. ‘Yeah. But that’s all behind us now.’

‘Is it? I passed Jack on the way into Resus, and he was steaming down the corridor with a face like the Grim Reaper. I take it they’d had words?’ Josh waited, but Ben obviously wasn’t being drawn. He capped his pen and pushed his chair back, changing the subject.

‘Nice job, Josh,’ he said. ‘The ex-fix. Very neat. You’re going to be an asset to the department.’

He took the hint. ‘Thanks. Let’s hope I can convince them all.’

‘Giving you a hard time?’

He shrugged. ‘Some of them. Not all. I’m the new boy. They’re suspicious.’

‘Well, they don’t need to be. I’ll have a word.’

‘No, leave it. I’ll win them round—I’ll bring in doughnuts and smile a lot, work a bit late, you know the routine. A little of the blarney thrown in for good measure…’

‘Well, don’t expect it to impress me, I know you better than that, and they won’t be fooled by it. Stick to what you’re good at. Save a few lives—that’ll win them round.’

‘I’ll do that for an encore,’ Josh said with a lazy grin, happy that Ben, at least, seemed pleased to have him there. Shrugging away from the desk and putting the Tremayne family out of his mind, he went off to conquer some of the sceptics.

How could the time pass so slowly?

Kate watched the hands crawl round the clock face—a minute, two. She shifted yet again on one of the padded plastic armchairs, resting her head back against the wall with a fractured sigh.

‘He’ll be all right, Kate,’ Nick said, for the hundredth time, and she just nodded slightly and flexed her ankle.

It was enough to make her wince, and she felt him shift beside her.

‘Give me the arnica gel’

She handed it to him and pulled up her trouser leg a little, kicking off her shoe, and he squeezed a blob onto his fingers and crouched in front of her, so she could rest her foot against his lean, hard-muscled thigh. That was all the running and walking he did, mile after mile over the moors, trying to outrun his demons. She could feel the muscles flex beneath her sole as he shifted his position slightly, and the open neck of his shirt gaped so she could see the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat, hard and fast, driven by the adrenaline that must be coursing through his body as it was through hers.