Hot-Shot Doc, Christmas Bride

He was still frowning. ‘Isn’t it a bit early for this kind of thing?’

She looked at him askance. ‘Hardly. It takes time to organise things around Christmas…decorations, presents, food. And sometimes we arrange a short entertainment or radio show. We can’t throw it all together in a couple of days, you know, and if we have a pantomime group coming to do a brief production we need to pay them an advance.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t see why everyone has to make such a fuss around the occasion. The world seems to go crazy at this time of year. It amazes me that the shops are full of Christmas stuff from as early as the end of September. Why we have to suffer three months or more of hype is beyond me.’

‘Hype?’ She sent him a doubtful look. Where was his sense of Christmas cheer? Was he one of those dour people who were averse to celebrations? ‘Well, that’s the way it is. Personally, I appreciate having plenty of time to make preparations—and I love the atmosphere in town at this time of year, with everyone crowding out the stores, looking for gifts for their loved ones.’

His expression was sceptical. ‘You’re a sentimentalist.’

‘So what if I am?’ She lifted a finely arched brow. ‘I see nothing wrong with that, and I’m certainly not alone in feeling that way.’ She straightened her shoulders and moved on towards the doctors’ room. If he had a problem with the festive season that was his loss, and she wasn’t going to argue the point.

‘Christmas is my favourite time of year, when all the family gets together.’ She smiled, thinking about it. ‘My grandparents live about fifty miles away from here, but they’re coming over to the Pennines to spend the holiday with us, and my brother will be home from university.’

‘Really? It sounds as though you have a good time to look forward to. I can’t say I’m that enthusiastic about the season for myself.’ He frowned. ‘So, what’s the plan for this cheque presentation?’

She studied him for a moment or two. How could anyone not enjoy this special time of year? Was there something more to his indifference than a simple aversion to hype?

‘Well, Dr Meadows…Steve…always said a few words on these occasions. And since you’re the one in charge here today, I imagine they’ll expect you to be on hand if it’s at all possible.’ She added a warning note. ‘We do try to show how much we appreciate all their hard work. They take on all sorts of fund-raising activities for us throughout the year, and they bring a lot of good feeling into the hospital.’

He pushed open the door of the doctors’ lounge and sent her a thoughtful glance. ‘I’m glad you told me about this. What time are they likely to arrive?’

‘Around lunchtime, I would imagine…perhaps twelve-thirty. I expect one of the managers will deal with the actual proceedings.’ She began to empty the contents of her holdall on to the table, and a variety of plastic containers filled with pastries spilled out. ‘Perhaps I’d better ask one of the desk clerks if she can find time to put the food out in Reception.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I hope no one in A&E is desperately in need of attention from me right now.’

‘Only a youth with a badly gashed hand. One of the nurses will tend to him in the first instance, but as soon as she’s cleaned the wound it will need suturing. After that there are half a dozen walking wounded who could do with your help.’

‘Oh, right.’ She stacked the containers neatly on the table and then said, ‘Again, I’m sorry about being late. My neighbour’s going to have a look at the car for me to see if he can figure out what’s gone wrong with it. He said it sounded as though there was a problem with the fuel pump.’ She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it up on a hook at the side of the room, before going in search of her stethoscope. She found it in her locker, along with other bits and pieces that she pushed into the deep pocket of her skirt.

‘Is your neighbour a mechanic, then?’ Josh asked.

Alison shook her head, sending her hair into a flurry of activity. His gaze followed the ripple of silk before settling on her features once more.

‘No,’ she said, ‘but he can turn his hand to most things. He fixed the plumbing when it went wrong, and then he looked at the washing machine when it refused to work. If we waited for the landlord to sort things out we’d still be waiting now.’

‘We?’

‘My flatmate and I…Katie. She’s a senior house officer, too, working with me in A&E.’

‘I see.’ He nodded. ‘I take it she made her own arrangements for coming in here today?’

‘That’s right. She had an early case conference to attend, so she was gone before I realised I had a problem.’

‘Hmm.’ He absorbed that. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better to have a garage mechanic look over your car? What if your neighbour can’t fix it for you?’

She started towards the door. ‘Well, then I suppose I’ll have to do that.’ She guessed he was trying to make sure that her lateness wasn’t going to be a frequent occurrence. ‘It would be unfortunate, though, because it will probably cost me an arm and a leg if I have to go to a garage, whereas this way I can give Tom a realistic amount of money for his time and trouble—that will give him a boost and help him to get back on his feet, and I’ll benefit at the same time.’

‘Does he need a boost?’ They walked together towards A&E. ‘Is your neighbour in trouble of some sort?’ Josh’s brows had come together in a dark line. Clearly he was having a problem coming to terms with her lifestyle.

‘I’d say so. He’s an engineer, but he found himself out of work when the company he worked for folded, and then he’s had difficulty getting another job…which in turn means that he can’t afford to pay the mortgage, and now the building society is beginning to make nasty rumbling noises about repossession. None of that bodes very well for a happy Christmas, does it?’

‘It doesn’t bode very well at any time of the year,’ he commented.

They had only just set foot inside the A&E unit when his bleeper went off. He glanced briefly at the displayed message. ‘That doesn’t sound like good news,’ he murmured. ‘There’s been an accident on the motorway. I guess things are going to become hectic around here very soon. Alison—I want you to stay with me.’

He moved away then, and went to organise the rest of the staff, directing who was to do what before striding towards the ambulance bay. Alison quickly followed him.

‘Twenty-five-year-old male,’ the paramedic reported, wheeling a casualty towards the resuscitation room. ‘Had to be extricated from his car. His blood pressure’s low and he has a broken leg and arm. He also has chest and abdominal pain.’

‘Thanks.’ Josh took control as the patient’s condition deteriorated even further. He began to insert a tube into the patient’s throat, connecting it to the oxygen delivery system. ‘Okay, let’s get an intravenous line in and hook him up to the monitors.’ He made a hasty but thorough examination of the patient, and then ordered a chest X-ray, skeletal survey and a CT scan of the head, thorax and abdomen.

‘We’ve multiple injuries here,’ he said, showing Alison the results a short time later. ‘Apart from the chest injury he has fractures to his right arm and leg and a liver laceration. The broken bones have been splinted, so we’ll concentrate on checking for abdominal injury.’

‘His abdomen is slowly enlarging,’ Alison pointed out. ‘That means there must be some internal bleeding. We need to get him up to Theatre.’

He nodded. ‘Make the arrangements. I’ll do an emergency laparotomy to see what’s going on in there.’

Just a few minutes later, after they had both scrubbed in, Josh began to operate on the patient. Alison assisted by retracting the edges of the incision he made into the patient’s abdomen. ‘He’s bleeding from the hepatic vein,’ she said urgently.

Josh was already tending to it. ‘I’ll do a resection of the liver, but I’m afraid I’ll have to remove the gall bladder.’ All the time he was speaking he was cauterising the tissues that were bleeding and checking for other damage. Alison was in awe of the way he worked. Every action was careful, precise, and no time was wasted. After a while, though, he let out a deep breath and said, ‘That’s it, I believe. We can close him up now. Would you do that for me, Alison?’

She nodded and prepared to suture the wound. This man had opened her eyes to what a skilled surgeon was capable of. ‘What are we going to do about his chest injury?’

‘Nothing for the moment. We’ll keep an eye on things, but let’s make sure his condition is stabilised before we do anything else.’ He thanked the team who had assisted him and pulled off his surgical gloves, dropping them into a bin. ‘I’ll go and see how the other casualties are doing.’

It was some time later, after the mayhem finally subsided in A&E, that she was able to go along to the minor injuries treatment room to see the teenager who had hurt his hand.

He was a pale-looking youth, around sixteen years of age, she guessed, and even though he was lying on a bed, leaning back against the pillows, she could see that he was tall and lanky, with a shock of dark hair and strangely haunted, unhappy grey eyes. There was a bruise beginning to form around the lower edge of his jaw, as though he had been punched.

‘Rees, I’m so sorry you’ve had to wait for such a long time,’ she told him. ‘We’ve been busy looking after some people who were injured in a road traffic accident.’

‘That’s all right,’ the youngster said. ‘The nurse let me know what was happening. I didn’t mind waiting.’

‘That’s good.’ She smiled at him. ‘There aren’t many people around here who say that.’ She glanced around the empty room. ‘Are your parents waiting for you somewhere?’

‘No.’ He looked anxious for a moment, and then started to cough—a deep, chesty cough that racked his whole body for a second or two. ‘Someone who was passing by brought me in. I said I’d be all right, but she insisted on bringing me here. She said she wanted to wait with me, but she had to go to work.’

‘Would you like me to get in touch with your parents?’

‘No…thanks. They don’t need to know I’m here.’ The words came out abruptly, in a staccato manner, causing Alison to wonder why he was so anxious at the mention of them. She sat down beside his bed and began to carefully inspect his hand. There was a ragged, deep gash across his palm. ‘So how did this happen?’

‘I stumbled over some rough ground. I was a bit dizzy and I wasn’t really looking where I was going. I started to fall and put out a hand to protect myself, but there was broken glass on the verge and that’s how I cut myself.’

She nodded, not quite sure whether or not she believed him. The edges of the wound were deep, as though his hand had been rammed by a broken bottle. According to his notes, the woman who had brought him in had said she’d found him wandering in the street, looking dazed. ‘It looks nasty, doesn’t it? Have you any idea what caused the dizziness?’

He shrugged. ‘No, not really.’ He coughed again.

‘Everything all right in here?’ Josh put his head around the door, and Alison wondered if he had come to check up on her. Perhaps he was looking in on all the A&E staff?

‘We’re fine,’ she said.