One Baby Step at a Time

‘From an ancient dog or one with a gum problem.’

‘And the kid with his head stuck in the bars of his cot,’ Nick recalled. ‘You’d have thought his father would have had a hacksaw to cut through a bar and release him instead of taking the cot to pieces to bring it in for us to do it.’

‘It did look funny.’ Bill smiled at the memory of the two parents arriving with the side of the cot held between them, and the grandmother carrying the perfectly contented baby, which had been looking around with wide-eyed curiosity and doubtless wondering about all the fuss.

‘Cute baby, though,’ Bill added, although she knew she should dodge baby conversations altogether because even after more than a year it hurt to see other people’s babies.

‘Very cute,’ Nick agreed, rising to his feet as his pager buzzed.

‘Drunk in cubicle three,’ the duty manager told Bill as she returned to work. ‘There’s a nurse in there with Nick but they might need more help.’

Bill closed her eyes for a moment. Babies were upsetting enough, but if there was one thing she hated, it was handling drunks. They came in all shapes and sizes, and varied from angry and abusive, through straight obstreperous, to wildly happy, laughing hilariously as they threw up on your uniform and shoes.

‘Obstreperous,’ Nick said under his breath as Bill entered the cubicle. ‘He’s had a fall, I’d say into a bougainvillea as he has multiple abrasions, a dislocated finger and some very nasty thorns sticking out of his legs.’

The man in question was insisting he was perfectly all right, if Bill was translating his drunk speech correctly, but whenever he moved on the examination table the thorns dug in and he’d yelp with pain.

‘I’m going to give him a local anaesthetic then fix the finger,’ Nick continued. ‘If you two can hold him still for a minute, I’d be grateful.’

The finger joint went back into place, and the young nurse cleaned and bandaged the man’s hand so the finger would be supported while the joint healed.

‘We’ll start on the thorns,’ Nick told Bill, but it was easier said than done when the man kept insisting he was fine and trying to climb off the table.

‘Who brought him in?’ Nick asked the young nurse.

‘His wife. She’s out in the waiting area.’

‘Could you ask her to come in?’ Nick smiled as he made the request and Bill couldn’t help but notice the nurse’s blush.

Still winning women over wherever he goes, she thought, but though she’d thought it a thousand times before, this time it didn’t prompt a smile.

‘Being a nuisance, is he?’ the woman who entered demanded, before turning to her husband. ‘Now, listen, you, sit still and let the doctor do his job or I’ll take you home and throw you back into the bougainvillea myself, and don’t think I wouldn’t do it.’

The man on the table quietened immediately and looking from him, a bulky six-footer, to the small slim wife, Bill had to smile.

‘Thank you, madam.’ Nick gave the wife a small bow. ‘It’s good to know who’s the boss in the household.’

She smiled at Nick.

‘It probably wouldn’t work if he was a habitual drunk, but as it is, he can’t hold his grog so mostly he doesn’t drink, but we’ve just had our first grandchild and he went out with his mates to wet the baby’s head—they insisted, and now look at him. Fine example for the kid he’ll be!’

She spoke fondly and even smiled at her husband, settling into a chair beside the wall to make sure he behaved.

Bill worked beside Nick, swabbing each scratch and wound as he pulled out the thorns.

‘I can do this,’ she said to him, but he shrugged away her offer and continued working until they had the now sleeping drunk patched up and able to be released to his wife.

‘Just watch the wounds in case they begin to fester. There’s no point starting antibiotics if he doesn’t need them, but come back or go to see your own GP if they worry him,’ Nick told her as he helped her take the man out to the waiting room where an aide would help her out to the car.

‘Babies do keep cropping up,’ he said to Bill as she came out of the cubicle, a bag of debris in her hand.

I’m glad he said that, Bill decided, setting aside her own feelings and thinking just of Nick. It must mean he’s over or getting over the loss of what he’d thought would be his very own family.

‘Some nights are like that,’ she reminded him. ‘I’d far prefer a run of babies, as long as they’re not too sick, to a run of drunks.’

‘Hear, hear!’

This from the nurse who had followed Bill out of the cubicle, although she’d spoken to Nick rather than Bill. The nurse was from an agency—distinctive in the agency uniform—someone Bill didn’t know. But studying her now, as the nurse continued to chat to Nick, Bill realised she was exactly his type—tall, curvy, blonde.

And, no, that wasn’t a stab of jealousy. Her and Nick’s friendship had survived a long stream of blondes, some, like Serena, Bill had seen in photos, and some she’d only heard about through emails and texts.

The agency nurse was now suggesting she and Nick have a coffee and as the ER was virtually deserted, it was only natural he should accept, although he did turn his head to ask, ‘Want another coffee, Bill?’

Bill shook her head and headed off to dispose of the rubbish, hearing the agency nurse question the name Bill and Nick explaining.

This had to stop! she told herself as she hurled the bag of rubbish down the chute. Her friendship with Nick had survived because neither of them had ever had the slightest interest in the other in a romantic way. Growing up, she’d have as soon considered falling in love with one of her brothers.

It had to be that she hadn’t seen him for so long that she was suddenly seeing him as a man.

Reacting to him as a man!

When had she last seen him?

He’d been in New York, proposing to Serena, when she’d broken off her engagement to Nigel, and although Nick had promised faithfully he’d be home for her wedding, once that was off, he’d headed for foreign parts, doing his bit for the army once again.

Oh!

It all fell into place now. There’d been no mention of a second deployment overseas prior to all that happening, but obviously he’d been sufficiently upset to want to get as far away as possible from everyone and everything.

Poor Nick!

Nick chatted to the nurse—Amanda—and wondered why Bill hadn’t joined them.

Not that it mattered. Amanda was amusing and obviously happy to keep both sides of the conversation going so he could brood a little over the reactions he was feeling towards Bill.

Physical reactions!

Disturbing, because at the same time it felt a little like incest—this was Bill, his friend …

‘So, you’ll come?’ he heard Amanda ask.

Unwilling to admit he had no idea what she was talking about, he said, ‘Of course!’

‘Great. The boat will leave from the City Marina, gangway four, at ten.’

‘Ten today?’ Dead giveaway, that question, but it had just burst out.

‘No, Saturday, silly,’ Amanda said, giggling and cuffing him lightly on the arm, moving close enough on the settee for him to know he should have been following the conversation.