The Doctor's Longed-For Family

He nodded. ‘One of them, at least. I still have to meet up with someone from Administration in half an hour or so.’

She blinked. ‘Oh.’ It occurred to her that she was beginning to sound repetitive, and she pulled herself together and sent him a puzzled glance. She said cautiously, ‘I can’t help feeling that I know you from somewhere. Your voice is familiar somehow, but I’m almost certain that we haven’t met.’

His mouth made a crooked shape. ‘Only through correspondence perhaps. I’m Matt Calder.’ He gave her a look from under half closed eyes. ‘From the TV programme Emergency Call. You are the same, “Abby Byford from the Chilterns”, who sent in the email about the show, aren’t you? Do you remember me now?’

She gave a sharp intake of breath. Her mouth dropped open and she quickly clamped it shut again. She stared at him in horror. ‘You,’ she said at last. ‘It’s you, of all people?’

She shook her head. This was the man who had splattered her email all over his website and read out her comments over the airwaves, and she had actually been civil to him. ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she muttered. It felt for all the world as though she had invited the devil himself into her office.

He must have picked up on something of her train of thought because he said in a dry tone, ‘I realise that it must have come as a shock to you to find me here, but I can assure you that I’m a perfectly reasonable man. We may have conflicting views, but there’s nothing wrong with airing both sides of the argument, is there?’

She didn’t answer him right away. Instead, she stood up and started to pace the room, more to work off her rising sense of irritation than anything else. ‘You ridiculed me,’ she said at last. ‘You talked about using the off switch as though I was a moron. I have to tell you, I just don’t believe that’s the answer. The problem goes much deeper than that. Your programme is an intrusion. You invade people’s privacy.’ She used the words as though they were weapons, stabbing at him.

He tipped his head slightly to one side, studying her as though she was an interesting specimen. ‘I don’t believe that’s so, and I wasn’t implying for an instant that you were lacking intelligence in any sense. I just feel that you can’t go on living in a time warp. This type of show is a regular on the media these days.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Then I have to say I think that’s a great pity.’

He frowned, but he wasn’t about to let up. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it would seem logical to switch off the TV set if you’re not happy with what is being shown. I happen to think that what we do is important. We keep people informed about what might happen in certain situations. We show them how the system works and help them to know what to do in an emergency. Knowledge is power after all, and you have to remember that the individuals we film have all given their consent for the footage to be shown on TV.’

Had they really? Abby sniffed in disagreement, a wave of exasperation rising up in her at his bland reply.

‘Have they?’ She scowled at him. ‘And how informed was that poor woman’s consent while she was struggling to cope with her labour? From what I could see, she was more concerned that someone would give her painkillers than what was going on all around her.’

‘You know, these programmes don’t go out live on air, and if it makes you feel better, I can assure you that I made certain that we had Megan’s full consent. We asked her again after she’d had the benefit of analgesics and time to think it through. I feel that we were very discreet in the way we filmed the birth, and I don’t think the finished product would upset many people. Nothing was shown that couldn’t be watched on daytime television.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion, though I’ll grant that some attempt was made to preserve her dignity. That’s something at least, I suppose.’ It was a concession of sorts, but she had to drag it up from deep within her. By now she’d definitely had her fill of Dr Matt Calder. ‘It still seems like an intrusion to me.’

She straightened her shoulders and went on, ‘I want to thank you again for what you did for the little boy…for Adam. I’m sure his parents will be very grateful to you for that.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then added, ‘As you’re not here for an interview, I hope you’ll understand if I say goodbye to you now and show you out. I have four other people to see, and when I’m finished here I have patients to attend to.’

Her green eyes flickered. He, on the other hand, probably had nothing more pressing to do than to keep a late lunch appointment with a TV executive.

He didn’t appear to be at all fazed by her dismissal of him. Instead, he reached for her hand, taking it between his palms, and said, ‘It’s been interesting to meet you, Dr Byford. Perhaps we’ll have the chance to chat again later today after my appointment with your admin department. I’d very much like to look in on Adam to see how he is doing after his surgery.’

‘I dare say that’s a possibility.’ Abby couldn’t think straight with him holding her hand that way, and she wasn’t about to commit herself to anything. With any luck, she would be engrossed in her work by then and well out of reach of this man.

He let her go, and slowly her senses began to settle down once more. She felt hot all over and her head was filled with cotton-wool clouds that only dissipated once he had taken a step back from her. It was just as well they did, because she had work to do. How was she supposed to conduct interviews with her brain in absent mode?

She saw him out of the room, but as she walked out into the corridor with him, she saw that Helen was hurrying towards them. The registrar stopped in her tracks, looking at him in wonder.

‘You’re Matt Calder from the TV, aren’t you?’ she said in an oddly breathless tone. ‘I can’t tell you how much I enjoy your programme…and your website…and I always try to catch your radio slot whenever it’s being aired while I’m driving to work.’ She stared at him in open-eyed wonder. ‘Are you here for the A and E post? Please, say that you are…I’ll be the envy of all my friends if you decide to come and work here.’

Matt smiled at her. ‘Actually, no, I’m not. I wish it were otherwise, but I’m really only free for a few mornings a week.’

‘That’s all right. That’ll do fine,’ Helen said, a note of eagerness in her voice. ‘Whatever you can spare—anything—that would be great by me.’ Her eyes were wide with anticipation.

Matt gave a soft laugh. ‘I’m glad you think so. I’m sure we would work very well together, given the chance, but, alas, I have other commitments at the moment. I’m filming over the next couple of weeks because we still have to do four more shows to complete the series.’

‘Couldn’t you do the show from here?’ Helen was clearly getting desperate now, and Abby gave her a sharp nudge with the toe of her shoe.

‘What?’ Helen reluctantly turned her gaze to Abby.

‘I think Dr Calder is going to be too busy to do that,’ Abby said in an even tone. ‘Besides, we shouldn’t delay him any longer. He has an appointment to keep.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Helen murmured. She turned her gaze back to him. ‘Do you really? That’s such a shame.’

‘I do. Dr Byford is quite right. I have to be somewhere else in a few minutes, but you’ve certainly given me food for thought and I’ll bear your suggestion in mind. Perhaps when my recording of Emergency Call comes to an end, I’ll have more time to spare.’ Matt threw a brief sideways glance in Abby’s direction, and she wondered if he was deliberately trying to rile her. ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet both of you.’

‘Believe me, the pleasure was all mine,’ Helen said huskily.

Abby tugged on her arm and pulled her into the office as Matt turned away and began to stride down the corridor. ‘You’ve obviously taken leave of your senses,’ she hissed. ‘What are you on?’

‘Pheromones,’ Helen replied in a distracted voice. ‘Sheer, unadulterated male pheromones and animal magnetism. He has it in droves. He should bottle it. He’d make a fortune.’

Abby made a wry face. ‘I think you’d better take a minute to pull yourself together,’ she said. ‘We have work to do.’

Helen sighed. ‘I suppose we do, but I can tell you now, not one of the candidates is going to stand up to what I have in mind, not after that.’

‘Then I suggest you come back down to planet Earth, and make it quick,’ Abby said briskly. ‘We have to do some serious interviewing. I need to find someone who can fit in with the department and take some of the burden off our shoulders.’

‘Oh, well, if you put it that way…’

A couple of hours later, Abby had to admit that they were no nearer to solving their problem. ‘The trouble is, the hours we’re offering people are either too few or too many,’ she told Helen. ‘Nothing seems to fit in with what the interviewees had in mind, and from our point of view we need someone who has strong paediatric qualifications. I don’t think that any of those people would be able to work under pressure. They just don’t seem to have the experience.’

‘It looks as though another advert will have to go in, then?’ Helen queried.

‘I guess so. I just wonder if we’ll get any more response than we had the first time around.’

They made their way back to A and E, and she went to check on the progress of three-year-old Adam. He had come through everything all right, and it cheered her up that she could say as much to the distraught parents who were at his bedside.

‘Would you come and take a look at the girl in room one?’ Sam asked a little later. ‘She’s the two-year-old that I mentioned earlier. I’m beginning to be quite worried about her. She hasn’t had her full range of vaccinations because of illness in the past, so until the tests come back, I’ve no idea what I’m dealing with. She isn’t responding to antibiotics, and her fever is raging. Her heart rate is fast, as well as her breathing, and the pulse oximetry reading is very low. Do you think we need to do a lumbar puncture?’

They were already walking towards the treatment room. ‘That’s a very invasive process,’ Abby said. ‘Is there any sign of a rash?’

Sam shook his head. ‘Not as such, but she appears to be very ill. I’m afraid that she’s not responding to treatment, and that she might be going into septic shock. It seems as though there’s a systemic inflammatory response.’

Abby looked at the toddler and her heart immediately went out to the child. She was dreadfully ill, unresponsive, and a brief examination left Abby concerned that her circulation was shutting down, despite the resuscitation procedures they had put in place.

The parents were tearful, pleading with her to do something for their baby.

‘I know this is difficult for you,’ she told them. ‘Lucy is very ill, but we’re doing everything possible to help her. It looks as though she has a bacterial infection of some sort, possibly a form of pneumonia, and so far it isn’t responding to treatment. I’m going to change the antibiotics and add something to assist her circulation. We just have to hang in there and wait for the medicine to take effect.’

Turning to Sam, she said in an undertone, ‘We’ll add a vasopressor to assist the blood flow, and a steroid to see if that will do something to reduce the inflammation.’

Sam looked anxious, but she said softly, ‘You’re doing all right. You’ve done everything possible.’

‘I hope it’s enough.’

She nodded. It was frightening to see a child looking so ill, and Lucy’s desperate condition weighed heavily on her mind as she left the room.