All The Care In The World

Callum looked up, screwing his green eyes up in such a way that even his cynical practice manager’s heart began to pound rather erratically.

He was relatively new at training prospective general practitioners, and he had interviewed so few that it didn’t take him long to recollect the female doctor who had come to him for an interview. He frowned.

Nancy Greenwood.

Yes, of course.

She had been on a training scheme in the picturesque cathedral city of Southbury, but there had been some kind of trouble and her trainer had rung Callum to ask if she could transfer to him. Dr Farrow, her trainer, had been reluctant to discuss her desire to change her training practice, other than to reassure Callum that she was an excellent doctor and that her reasons for wanting to move were personal, beyond her control and rather distressing.

That had been enough for Callum—he wasn’t the kind of man to intrude, unasked, into someone’s private life. He liked and respected Dr Farrow, both personally and professionally. An endorsement from such a man was all he needed to agree to see Dr Nancy Greenwood.

And the only fact which swam to the forefront of his memory of that meeting was that she had been so small! But, then, at an impressive six feet and three inches comparative lack of stature was something that Callum was well used to!

And young, he reminded himself suddenly. She had looked much too young to be a doctor. He remembered thinking that at the time and had seen that as a reflection on just how ancient he must be getting. Thirty-three next birthday—just where did the time go? he wondered fleetingly.

Jenny saw him frown. ‘Her CV is on the top of that other pile if you want to look over it again before she arrives.’

‘Thanks,’ said Callum, but he was so engrossed in a leader from last week’s BMJ that he didn’t take in a word of Jenny’s last sentence and the CV remained, sitting unread, on top of the pile.

The flame-red sports car slid to a halt outside Purbrook Surgery, drawing the usual mixture of admiring and envious glances.

Switching off the ignition to the accompaniment of interested stares, Nancy found herself wishing that she could trade it in for a more discreet and ordinary car—not one that risked alienating the patients because it looked so flashy! But she couldn’t trade it in, not yet, anyway, because the car in question had been a present, and everyone knew that you should never look a gift horse in the mouth...

She got out of the car slowly, delaying walking into the surgery for as long as possible for she realised that her hands were still shaking like mad. The gold wedding band on her finger gleamed mockingly up at her as she tried to block this morning’s row out of her memory and settle herself into a more receptive frame of mind for her first day as a trainee in general practice. A few deep breaths should help settle her equilibrium.

Nancy filled her lungs with air and expelled it slowly, vague memories from a distant yoga class coming to her aid as she pushed open the surgery door, determined that her face should not register her reaction to the ugly, biting taunts that she’d been forced to endure before she’d left for work this morning.

Shaking her head to dispel the all-too-vivid images of her husband’s face distorted with a cold and untouchable anger, Nancy walked into the surgery—straight into the muted clatter of the main reception area.

Behind a desk sat the receptionists, some speaking into telephones as they made appointments and answered queries and others pulling patients’ notes out of the grey filing cabinets which had mushroomed to fill all the available space behind them. A computer terminal hummed quietly in a corner and a fax machine began to spew out paper as a message came through.

One of the receptionists looked up questioningly at Nancy as she stood slightly hesitantly before the desk.

‘Do you have an appointment?’ she asked Nancy, without preamble, her eyes flickering over her with interest.

Nancy shook her dark head. ‘No, I haven’t,’ she began. ‘You see, I—’

‘I’m afraid that the doctor won’t see you without an appointment,’ said the woman automatically, though not quite as kindly as she might have done if Nancy hadn’t been wearing a suit which probably cost as much as her entire month’s salary!

Nancy, who had spent a sleepless night in the spare room and taken part in renewed hostilities at breakfast this morning, was not best pleased at being mistaken for a patient! Looking like a patient implied that you looked unwell or out of sorts. And that implication was a little too close for comfort!

‘Do you always jump to conclusions?’ she enquired mildly.

The receptionist bristled. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she queried frostily.

Nancy bit her lip. She really mustn’t take all her impotent frustration out on a woman who was, after all, only doing her job. ‘It’s just that I’m Dr Hughes’s new registrar, not a patient,’ she explained helpfully. ‘If you had simply asked whether you could help me, rather than whether or not I had an appointment...’

Her voice tailed off as the other woman glared at her, and she realised that she had put her foot right in it. Maybe Steve was right, she thought distractedly. Maybe she was impossible to live with.

‘I have worked at this practice since it first opened ten years ago,’ the receptionist informed her rather coldly, ‘and I really think I am past the stage of being taught how to do my job properly—particularly by a newcomer!’

Nancy tried one more time. She managed a watery, apologetic smile. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to offend you,’ she told the woman truthfully. ‘It’s just that at the moment I’m learning all about asking open-ended questions instead of closed questions, and I—’

‘Please excuse me for a moment,’ the woman said, looking slightly mollified as the telephone in front of her began to ring and she picked it up like a lifeline. ‘Good morning!’ she trilled brightly. ‘Purbrook Surgery!’

Resisting the urge to ask someone else where she might find Dr Hughes—she didn’t want to offend the receptionist still further—Nancy was forced to endure a tedious wait while the woman conducted her conversation.

Nancy waited until the receptionist had finished scribbling down what were obviously blood results from the local hospital and had replaced the receiver before fixing an inoffensive smile onto her face. ‘I’m Dr Hughes’s new GP registrar,’ she said for the second time. ‘Nancy Greenwood.’

The woman blinked. ‘Registrar?’ she queried blankly. ‘Oh! You mean you’re the new trainee?’

Nancy shook her smooth, dark head. ‘Not any more. We have a new name,’ she answered with a rueful smile. ‘I’m surprised that nobody bothered to tell you.’

‘Oh, they probably did,’ said the woman airily, ‘but maybe you haven’t worked in a doctors’ surgery very much before—I’m afraid that the staff are much too busy with keeping everything running to learn new courtesy titles!’

Nancy was well practised in the art of keeping her face poker-straight. ‘I’m sure you are,’ she answered soothingly. ‘And if you could just point me in the direction of Dr Hughes’s consulting room I promise not to hold you up any longer.’

The woman hesitated, dying for the opportunity to witness Callum Hughes’s reaction to this slimly built but rather opinionated young woman, but then the telephone shrilled into life again and she reluctantly indicated a big notice at the end of the corridor. ‘Turn left at the end and just follow the signs to Dr Hughes’s consulting room—you can’t miss it!’ she said quickly as she picked up the phone. ‘Good morning! Purbrook Surgery!’

Nancy had to pick her way across the waiting room and every pair of eyes followed her—as they did all new arrivals—with an interest which bordered on the hypnotic.

There were very few people left, but it was almost eleven and consultations began at around eight-thirty. Nancy suspected that the waiting room would be full to bursting first thing in the morning.

The patients left were the usual mixed bunch—a hot-looking baby, grizzling in his frazzled mother’s arms, a pale and sulky-looking boy of about ten who kicked listlessly at the leg of his chair and two people who appeared to be in the best of health, though sniffing loudly and intermittently. They looked ideal candidates for the diagnosis of heavy colds, though Nancy, but you never could tell. She knew that one of the cardinal rules of diagnosis was that you should never even think about making one before being cognisant with all the facts!

Nancy glanced around her as she walked towards the corridor where Dr Hughes had his office. Most of the waiting room, whilst decorated in the usual bland, pale shades, had a distinctively homely feel to it. Glossy magazines were stacked everywhere and brightly coloured toys were littered in one corner of the blue-grey carpet, where a small child was playing quite happily.

Nice to see that patient care had won over tidiness, thought Nancy approvingly. Though it was a bit like walking through a minefield, she decided with some amusement as her elegant navy court shoe only narrowly missed landing on a teddy bear’s plump abdomen!

Dr Hughes’s consulting room was at the far end of the corridor, and as she drew to a halt in front of it she noted that his brass name-plate was much longer than those of his two partners—for the simple reason that he seemed to have twice as many letters after his name as they did!

She rapped smartly on the door, and heard the equally smart response, ‘Come!’

Nancy walked straight into the surgery and her veneer of composure was shattered like the breaking of a glass as she stared into the piercing green eyes of the broad-shouldered man, sitting behind the desk

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_368d8131-f887-50b6-9e91-9d102bfc47c5)

WHEN Nancy Greenwood’s name had been brought up earlier by Jenny, Callum’s first thought had been that he remembered her only briefly and vaguely—but now he discovered he was wrong. Completely wrong.

Because when the door opened and the woman in the navy blue suit stood on its threshold, staring into his eyes, he was aware of nothing more than a bone-shaking familiarity about her. As if that earlier brief and apparently vague glimpse of her been enough to commit every line of her to everlasting and glorious memory.

She was as small as he remembered—a tiny, wee thing with soft, pale skin and clear brown eyes which were shaped like pebbles. Her hair was dark and shiny and clipped back rather severely from her face, though, in Callum’s opinion, such restriction was unnecessary for he found he could imagine it, hanging in a glossy curtain to her shoulders, the way it had been when he’d interviewed her before.

He cleared his throat but, even so, his voice sounded even deeper than usual as he said, ‘Come in, Dr Greenwood, though perhaps I’d better call you Nancy. You don’t mind me calling you by your first name, do you?’

He raised his dark eyebrows enquiringly and Nancy shook her head automatically, both bemused and charmed by his obvious friendliness. At that precise moment he could have called her anything he darned well pleased!

‘I’m Callum Hughes,’ he continued. ‘And you must, of course, call me Callum. We’re very informal here.’