The Perfect Treatment

Abby nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you. I would like to see him, find out what’s happened.’

‘Sorry about my obtuseness earlier.’ He had the grace to apologize. ‘I had, of course, no idea.’

‘No,’ Abby said quietly, managing to imply by her tone that one should not make flash judgements. He was very attractive, she acknowledged again, lowering her eyes to the paper she held. There was even a hint that he would, perhaps, have a natural charm if he were to let himself go a bit. Not that she was one to talk…

‘I’ll see if I can set it up,’ he said, ‘and find out where Dr Ryles is.’

‘I hope he’s survived,’ she ventured.

‘So do I.’

As he strode over to a telephone in the room she watched him, her mind active. His reaction to her news, for someone new to the hospital, had been greater than she had expected. She wondered where he would have met Dr Ryles, who had been at University Hospital for at least twenty-five years.

All at once, she had a very odd, very powerful premonition that Dr Contini would figure large in her life…and not just on the professional level. The feeling was so strong, so peculiar, that she shivered. Telling herself that she was being ridiculous, she turned away from him to stare out the window, away from his disturbing presence.

It wouldn’t do for her to feel anything of that nature for her senior colleague. She had made a pact with herself not to get involved with anyone before she had at least finished her post-graduate training and got herself established in her first permanent job as an MD. There was no time for real romance; she had to earn a living, had to give something back to her parents who had supported her so unselfishly all her life, among other things helping to meet the financially crippling fees for medical school. They were going to need it. Her dad often joked that if they could remain the working poor, rather than the non-working poor, they would be all right. She seldom forgot that ‘joke’ for long.

Not that she would be Dr Contini’s type. She frowned down at the paper in her hand, the words a blur. Probably he would go for a high-society woman. Anyway, she found herself speculating, he would no doubt be married—he must be in his mid-thirties.

Maybe she found him disturbing because he reminded her of what she had never had…real love, passion. Maybe that was it, when such a large part of her own life was, through necessity, focused on work. At the same time, she felt a certainty that he could be a formidable enemy.

She walked to the door to wait for him, all at once wanting to get out.

‘I spoke to the emergency department,’ he said, coming over to join her. ‘He’s in the coronary care unit now. Still all right.’

‘That’s great,’ she breathed, relieved of a sense of responsibility.

They collided as he moved to open the door for her and she moved to open it for herself. ‘Steady,’ he said, smiling. ‘Tell me, Dr Gibson, are you usually this…er…’

‘Klutzy?’ she offered.

The smile on his face broadened slowly, lightening his attractive features, ironing out subtle signs of strain. Abby found herself transfixed, staring at him at close quarters, as he held his arm in front of her to secure the heavy door. With his face only inches from her own, she had the absurd urge to lean forward and place her lips against his firm mouth.

‘That isn’t the word I would have used,’ he quipped, ‘but it’s as good as any, I guess. I don’t mean to be unkind.’ He added the last words softly, in such a way that Abby felt as though she were melting, leaning towards him. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself yet again…

‘I am frequently this way,’ she conceded, forcing a jokey tone. ‘My friends tell me it’s a sign of genius, the absent-minded-professor syndrome, so naturally I take them at their word.’

‘Hmm…let’s hope they’re right. Such a trait could be a professional liability.’ Still he smiled, his eyes exploring her face.

‘Oh, they are right!’ she insisted, pushing past him to get out, aware of him physically with every sense in her being.

‘Just to be on the safe side, Dr Gibson, let me carry those books,’ he said.

CHAPTER TWO

THE coronary care unit was quiet, peaceful, set up in an area of the acute-care floor of the hospital where there was no through traffic and where noise could be kept to a bare minimum. They entered through a heavy door that closed silently behind them.

A nurse sat at a desk in the nursing station, looking at a bank of individual computer screens which were monitoring the four patients who were in her section. Each patient was connected up to leads going to the electronic equipment which would relay the information to the screen. Any irregularities of heartbeat, blood pressure and oxygen levels of the blood would immediately be known.

Although all was peaceful, Abby knew that she would not want to be a patient here, lying in bed, wondering if your heart would stop at any moment. Walking beside Dr Contini, she looked around her as they approached the nurse silently.

‘Is Dr Ryles here?’ he asked. The nurse gestured towards an area down a short corridor where there were a few individual rooms.

‘Room three,’ she said with a smile.

‘How is he?’ Abby said.

‘Pretty good, considering. He’s stable now. His wife’s with him at the moment,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s sleeping, so we don’t really want him to be disturbed.’

‘Sure,’ Dr Contini said. ‘We won’t wake him.’

In room three, Dr Ryles lay on his back in the narrow bed, the monitor leads attached to his bare chest. A small computer screen by the bed showed the spiky graph of his heartbeat, as well as the heart rate and blood pressure. Abby’s eyes went automatically to that screen as they entered silently. What she saw there confirmed that he was stable, his blood pressure near normal, the heartbeat good.

He was still on oxygen, his colour good now, while intravenous fluids dripped slowly from a litre plastic bag hung beside the bed. Abby felt her anxiety diminish somewhat. The team from the emergency department had been in time after all.

Mrs Ryles, who looked about the same age as her husband, was sitting beside the bed, her face turned to him. She rose to her feet as they stopped at her side. Her pale face showed evidence of tears, the eyelids swollen and red, and she registered surprised pleasure at seeing Dr Contini.

‘Hello, Ginny,’ he said softly, holding out his arms to her. ‘I’m sorry to be meeting you again so soon under these circumstances.’

‘Oh, Blake.’ The woman’s voice trembled as she went gratefully into the arms that Dr Contini offered her. They embraced in a silent hug. ‘Thank God you’re here.’

So they were friends after all. Abby stood aside, watching them, her own emotions very close to the surface as she saw the tears again on the wife’s face. When they had satisfied themselves that Dr Ryles was indeed all right, Dr Contini gestured that they should go outside to the main corridor where they could talk without disturbing anyone.

‘This is Dr Gibson,’ Blake Contini introduced her when they were outside. ‘She was the one who found Will.’

Mrs Ryles grasped Abby’s outstretched hand with both her own. ‘I want to thank you,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I understand that he was in the basement, where he might not have been found for some time. If you hadn’t found him…hadn’t known what to do, or what you were looking at…he might not have survived. Thank you. You saved his life.’

‘I—I’m very glad that I was there,’ Abby said. ‘I…really didn’t do a lot. I was just able to call someone.’

‘You were there—that’s the main thing!’ Ginny Ryles said emphatically. ‘It’s all this business about the downsizing that’s going on here, you know, that has brought this on with Will…all the budget cuts.’

‘That’s most likely a contributing factor,’ Abby agreed wryly, as the distraught woman articulated more or less what she had been thinking herself that morning.

‘It’s all the underhand business of deliberately running down departments, without telling the professional staff what has been planned, so that private companies can take over the radiology work of this hospital,’ Ginny Ryles went on with bitter passion, as though she had been waiting to speak to someone about it for a long time.

Abby nodded, while Dr Contini stood silent. ‘I don’t doubt that for one moment…not for one moment,’ Mrs Ryles went on. ‘He’s talked about nothing else for weeks. All the stress…It has to get to someone. It has to.’

‘Yes,’ Abby agreed, picking up the frustration in the woman’s words.

Blake Contini took the woman’s arm. ‘Come with me to the hospital cafeteria, Ginny,’ he said kindly. ‘I’ll buy you coffee, or anything you want. We can talk there. Dr Gibson has to get to Outpatients.’

‘Thank you, Blake. You’re very kind, and I do appreciate it,’ Ginny Ryles said.

‘Dr Gibson.’ Blake Contini turned to Abby. ‘I’ll see you in Outpatients in a little while. I have some patients to see there. I’ll square things for you with Dr Wharton about taking time off.’

‘All right. Thank you,’ Abby said. ‘Well, goodbye, Mrs Ryles. I expect I’ll see you again, I’ll probably look in later…He’s in good hands.’

‘Thank you again, Dr Gibson. I’m planning to spend most of the day here with Will. I’ll only go out of my mind if I stay at home,’ Mrs Ryles said quietly.