Mistress Of The Groom

‘Nope. Not this baby.’ He delicately lifted her hand. ‘It’s a fairly straightforward break so I’m just going to strap it to your ring finger to pull the bone straight while it heals.’

‘Just strap it up?’ It sounded too easy. ‘For how long?’

‘Probably three weeks.’ He touched her little finger and she winced. ‘Have you taken anything for the pain?’

‘Only a couple of aspirin last night...it was all I had in the flat.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘You’ll definitely need something stronger than that by the time I’ve finished with you. You’re going to have an uncomfortable few days until the local inflammation eases and the healing process starts. I’ll give you an injection of local anaesthetic now and a prescription for painkillers that you can have filled at the clinic pharmacy. They’re fairly strong, so don’t mix them with anything else.’

The anaesthetic was fast-acting, and Jane could watch in detachment as he tucked cotton wool between her little and ring fingers and firmly strapped them together, covering the adhesive with a short crepe bandage that encompassed her hand, leaving her thumb and other two fingers free.

‘That’ll protect the strapping and remind you and everyone else that you have an injury. Try to keep it dry and use the hand as little as possible. Don’t drive or do anything that puts a strain on the blade of your hand—the more you promote movement in the area the longer the bone’ll take to heal. And if the pain gets worse, or you’re worried for any reason, come back.’

Jane frowned. Her father had been a stoic, but she was a weakling when it came to physical suffering. Perhaps it was something she had inherited from her mother, who had walked out on her husband and child when Jane was only six because—according to Mark Sherwood—‘She didn’t have the guts to make a go of it. Typical woman—would rather snivel and run away than stand up for herself when the going gets tough.’

‘Why should the pain get worse?’ she asked the doctor warily.

‘The most likely reason is because the strapping is too tight. But...sometimes, if there are complications and the bone doesn’t heal properly, we might have to ask an orthopaedic surgeon to operate. But it’s highly improbable in your case—unless you intend to try for another knockout!’

Jane ignored this tactless attempt at a joke and studied her hand with its bulky wrapping. ‘Three weeks...’ she said gloomily.

‘Look on the bright side—at least it’s your left hand,’ he said.

Jane looked up at him. ‘I’m left-handed.’

‘Oh. Bad luck. What kind of work do you do?’

‘At the moment, none at all.’

He quickly recovered his irritating bounce. ‘Good. That’s good! It means you can rest that hand—’

‘It means I can starve,’ she corrected him. ‘If I don’t find a job soon I won’t be able to pay for food and rent, let alone medical bills.’

He put his hands up. ‘Hey, don’t shoot—this is covered by Accident Compensation; you’ll hardly have anything to pay. What kind of job are you looking for? What sort of qualifications do you have?’

If Jane hadn’t been tired, hungry and scraped raw by the previous night’s encounter she might have been amused at being patronised by an earnest young man no older than herself who was probably scarcely out of medical school.

‘Managerial,’ she said tersely. ‘But the sort of positions I’m interested in seem few and far between these days.’

Especially with Ryan Blair handing her the modern equivalent of the Black Spot—a red-flagged credit-rating.

‘So I’ve lowered my sights and lined up a few interviews for office jobs, sales, temping...the kind of thing that requires a certain manual dexterity, or at least an ability to write...’

‘You can still use a keyboard—’

‘Not very efficiently.’ She shrugged. ‘If I was doing the hiring I probably wouldn’t give me a job. You don’t take on someone if there’s a chance they’ll be applying for sick leave before they even get started!’

‘What about Social Welfare; will they help?’

She sighed, beginning to think that pride was another luxury she would have to learn to do without. ‘I’m involved in some heavy-duty financial wrangling...I’m not eligible for any government assistance until it’s straightened out.’

‘You’re certainly eligible for support payments if your injury prevents you from working,’ said the doctor, scribbling on his pad. ‘They’ll pay you a percentage of your weekly earnings averaged out over the past year. I’ll get the receptionist to give you an application form before you leave...’

Jane muttered an agreement as she accepted the prescription he had scrawled out, not wanting to get into a prolonged discussion of her depressing situation. The problem was she hadn’t earned any income in the last twelve months. So desperate had been the situation at Sherwood Properties that she had waived her salary and ploughed it back into the business, living off her various platinum credit cards in the expectation of better times ahead.

Over the next few days Jane saw several opportunities that she had managed to set up slip out of her bandaged grasp, just as she had predicted to the young doctor. She had done everything right—dressing smartly, if incredibly slowly, getting Collette to put her hair into its customary sleek roll, checking out the buses to make sure she wouldn’t be late for the widely dispersed interviews and presenting a pleasant, quietly confident demeanour no matter what the provocation. From her shrewd observations two of the rejections were genuine declines, the other three were because of her identity.

On the way back to the city bus terminal one lunchtime, aware of an empty afternoon stretching ahead of her, Jane impulsively called into the first employment bureau she had registered with, and the owner—a bluff, straightforward woman whom Jane knew slightly from her former life—was quietly blunt.

‘I’m telling you this, Jane, because I think it’s unfair for you to waste any more of your time...but I’ll deny every word I say outside this office. A bureau like mine depends on a lot of repeat business from the big companies. If we don’t deliver what the clients want and cater to their every whim someone else will get the business. The truth is, if I place Jane Sherwood in a job right now I risk losing several lucrative contracts, and I’m not prepared to do that. It’s probably the same at other agencies. There’s a lot of influence at work. I’m afraid you’re very much on your own...’

So what else is new? thought Jane that night as she decided on an omelette for dinner. The harsh reality was that she had always been more or less on her own. Even when her father had been alive their relationship had been more competitive than supportive.

A job wasn’t even her top priority any more. She had to move out in three days and she still hadn’t found a place to live.

There was a knock on the door and she nearly dropped an egg. It was the mousey man from the flat on the other side of Collette.

‘Telephone for you.’

‘Oh, thanks.’ She gave him a grave smile and nipped out into the hall, still holding the egg, to where the receiver dangled on its long grimy cord from the battered wall-phone. Eagerly she tipped the egg into the shallow cup of her bandaged hand and picked up the gently swinging receiver. ‘Hello?’

‘Miss Sherwood?’

Only one man said her name with that particular blend of menacing sibilance.