Dr Right All Along

‘Excellent. Lucy can help you with that—in fact, it might be a good idea if she were to shadow you for the next week or so.’ He sent Matt a querying look. ‘It’ll give her a good insight into what goes on in Paediatrics.’

Matt hesitated just for a moment, and then said, ‘That’s fine. I’m okay with that.’

Lucy held her breath for a second or two, trying to take it in. She was to follow Matt around? Her mind skittered, seeking a way out of the situation, before coming around to the inevitable conclusion that there was no escape.

She had to be professional about this, of course. Obviously the professor had no idea how she and Matt tended to avoid one another back at the house, if only for the sake of peace and quiet. Something that had been easy enough when Jade and Ben had been around, but now …? She was doomed. Not only were they being thrown together at home, now they were to work together, as well. How long would it be before they found themselves at loggerheads over something or other?

Matt looked at her, and for a moment their glances met, each of them keeping their innermost thoughts hidden.

‘I’ll leave things with you, then,’ Professor Farnham said. ‘Any problems, and James will be around to help you out.’

Lucy looked anxiously at the baby after the professor had left. ‘He’s so small and vulnerable,’ she said softly. ‘I’m glad it’s not me having to do an invasive procedure on him. Are you okay with it?’ She sent Matt a troubled look. She felt unnaturally queasy at the thought.

He shrugged. ‘It has to be done if he’s to get better,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s take him over to the treatment room, and then we’ll scrub up.’

She went with him and helped him to lay out a trolley with the necessary medical equipment. It was something she’d seen done many times, and she knew well enough how to clean the baby’s skin and drape the chest area with dressings.

Matt sedated the baby, and all appeared to be well. Even so, her stomach lurched as he anaesthetised the area and prepared to make the incision. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. It was odd, this feeling of being out of synch with everything. She was usually on the ball and quite happy to go along with whatever procedure was needed.

Matt carefully identified the area over the baby’s rib and began to insert the chest tube. Lucy felt a wave of nausea swell up inside her. It threatened to overwhelm her, and immediately she began to panic. All of a sudden she felt hot, with beads of perspiration breaking out on her brow, and her heart was pounding so much that she could feel it in her throat. She felt faint.

This couldn’t be happening to her, not here, not now. Whatever would Matt think of her if she were to disgrace herself by being sick, here in the treatment room?

‘Are you all right?’ he asked, pausing as he checked that the tube was in place.

‘I’m fine,’ she managed, keeping her head down. She handed him the collecting device and he connected the tube to it so that the drained fluid could be accumulated and made available for testing.

‘You don’t look all right,’ he commented. ‘You’re very pale. Are you going to be sick?’

She shook her head and swallowed hard. She wouldn’t allow herself to be sick. Heavens above, she’d seen this operation performed many times before, and it didn’t make sense that now, of all times, she should want to throw up.

‘We’ll have to take him down to X-Ray to make sure that the tube is in the right place,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘I’ll just … I’ll … Excuse me a minute, will you?’ The way she was feeling, she knew she wouldn’t make it as far as Radiology, so she grabbed the opportunity to escape. Their work was more or less done here, and she wouldn’t be missed for a minute or two, would she? All she could think about was getting outside and finding some fresh air before she made a complete fool of herself.

It was probably too late, anyway. Matt had already guessed that she wasn’t feeling well, and he would come to the only possible conclusion, that she wasn’t fit to be a doctor if she felt faint assisting with a commonplace surgical procedure.

She didn’t wait for Matt to answer. Instead, she headed outside and made for the paved area set out in the L-shape created by the wall of the children’s ward where it met up with the treatment area. Fortunately for her there was no one around, and she found a bench to sit on, where she bent forward and put her head between her knees.

She stayed like that for a few minutes, only coming up for air when the nausea had passed.

‘Are you feeling any better now?’ For the second time that day, Matt startled her by arriving when he was least expected.

‘Oh,’ she said, looking at him aghast. ‘I thought … I thought I was on my own out here.’

He nodded. ‘It’s okay. No one else knows but me. How are you?’

‘Better,’ she admitted. ‘Much better. I’m sorry I rushed out on you. I don’t know what came over me. Is the baby okay? Does he still need to go to X-Ray?’

‘I asked the nurse to take him over there.’ He studied her, his dark eyes brooding. ‘I’m guessing you’re not likely to be pregnant, so the other explanation for you feeling ill could be lack of food. Let’s get you over to the cafeteria, and you can get some proper food inside you.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t do that—I have to get on. Professor Farnham wants to see my case notes. He’ll want to know where I am.’

He frowned. ‘I doubt he’ll be waiting with bated breath. Did you eat properly while you were at your parents’ house?’

‘Of course I did.’ She looked at him, astonished that he could think otherwise. ‘Though … well, I missed tea, because I went with Dad to look over one of his projects, and by the time we arrived back at the house there were visitors waiting for us.’ She thought things through. ‘I should have made myself a snack for supper, I suppose, but it was late and I was so tired I just wanted to crawl into bed.’

He raised a dark brow. ‘I thought going home was supposed to be relaxing?’

She gave him a wan smile. ‘You know how my father is. He never stops. He’s always on the lookout for new properties to develop. And whenever I did get half an hour to myself, I switched on my laptop and did some work for my exams.’

‘Lord help us.’ He rolled his eyes heavenwards. ‘You won’t even reach first base as a doctor if you don’t know how to keep yourself healthy.’

She mulled that over for a while. Of course, he was right. He must have a very low opinion of her, and she deserved it. It was very depressing, and all at once she was swamped with guilt for letting things get to this state.

‘Come on,’ Matt said. ‘I’ll take you along to the cafeteria.’ He placed a hand beneath her elbow and helped her to her feet. ‘And don’t even think of asking for a salad. Jade told me you keep that perfect figure by cutting out pasta and fries, and anything else that might tend to add the pounds. That’s a silly way to be going on. You have to be at the top of your game, for heaven’s sake. You need nourishment.’

Jade had been talking about her? How could she do that with Matt, of all people?

‘I know that,’ she protested. ‘If I don’t eat those foods, it’s because I’m not keen on them. It’s nothing to do with watching my weight. I don’t do that—I don’t even think about it.’

He made a disgruntled, scoffing sound and urged her on, walking with her through the entrance door and along the corridor towards the cafeteria.

‘Sit down,’ he said, when they arrived there and he had picked out a table by the window. ‘I’ll go and order for you.’

He started to walk away. ‘Hey, hang on a minute,’ Lucy called after him. ‘You don’t even know what I want.’ She frowned, feeling unaccountably annoyed. Perhaps that was another side effect arising from lack of sleep and practically nothing to eat.

He turned and looked at her as though he was dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘I thought pancakes with strawberry syrup, and waffles with ice cream on the side. That way you get to eat and be cheered up at the same time. Those are your favourites, aren’t they?’

‘Well, um, yes … but …’ How did he know that? She didn’t even know that he must have been watching her over these last few months. Waffles and ice cream for breakfast? She weighed it up in her mind. Then again, why not? ‘Oh, what the heck …’ She gave up the struggle and saw the faint smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Then he swivelled around, and she watched him stride over to the counter to place the order. He was still shaking his head as though he was trying to fathom how they had come to be in this situation. She hated the fact that she’d had to be rescued by him. It would have been so much simpler if they could have gone on passing each other like ships in the night. That way, neither one of them would have needed to try to understand the other.

When he came back to the table a few minutes later he was carrying a tray that was filled with goodies, along with two steaming cups of coffee. ‘That should do the trick,’ he murmured, laying the dishes in front of her. ‘Tuck in.’

She didn’t need a second bidding. Only when she’d finished with the pancakes and was ready to start on the waffles did she look up at him and notice that he was working his way through a burger and chips.

‘First rule of medicine,’ he said. ‘Make sure that you’re fuelled up and ready to go.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ she murmured. She smiled, relaxing for the first time that morning, and he stopped eating, looking at her oddly, as though he’d never really seen her before.

‘I wasn’t expecting to be working with you,’ he said, after a while. ‘That might take some getting used to for both of us.’

‘Yes, I expect so.’ She gave him a fleeting glance before turning her attention to the waffles, still warm from the grill, with ice cream slowly melting into the syrupy hollows. ‘You said you were given this placement at the last minute. What happened to the one you’d already chosen?’

‘I had to talk to the consultants about it. I really wanted to do Paediatrics, and the opportunity seemed too good to miss. I didn’t think they’d go for it, but in the end they seemed happy to change things around, and so here I am.’

She nodded, finishing off her dessert and leaning back in her chair, a satisfied expression on her face.