CHAPTER SIX
‘DID I see you getting out of Mr Jackson’s car just now, Verity?’ asked Julia Morris.
Verity pulled her bobbed hair back into a tight pony-tail and sighed. If only student nurse Morris applied as much energy and curiosity to the workings of the operating theatre as she did to the love lives of those who worked there then she had the makings of a future nurse manager!
But Verity wasn’t the type of nurse who enjoyed pulling rank or causing a row so instead she merely gave a nod to her junior. ‘Yes,’ she said briefly, which to anyone with any degree of sensitivity would have indicated that she did not want to pursue the subject further.
Not so to Julia Morris. Julia was in the same set as Anna Buchan and two more different nurses you could not hope to find. Her brown eyes glinted with curiosity as she watched Verity push a stray strand of golden hair beneath her theatre cap. ‘Does he live near you?’
Verity fell into the trap that she didn’t even realise had been set. ‘No,’ she answered with a frown. ‘He’s living in the doctors’ mess. I think.’
‘Oh?’ Julia’s eyes bulged like a frog’s with pure excitement. ‘So he just happened to be passing your flat first thing, did he?’ she queried slyly.
But by now Verity was past caring about what the hospital grapevine would make of all this. She had far more to worry about, she realised, than her reputation. ‘That’s right,’ she lied but she superstitiously crossed her fingers as she said it.
‘Really?’ queried Julia insolently.
Refusing to get riled—for what good would that do her already shot nerves?—Verity gave a prim smile. ‘ “Really”,’ she repeated mockingly.
‘But won’t Mr Brennan mind?’ asked Julia slyly.
Verity met her gaze full on. ‘And why should Mr Brennan mind?’ she challenged.
It was clearly not the reaction that Julia had hoped for. So she tried another tack. ‘He’s terribly dishy, isn’t he?’
She was persistent, she would say that for her! Verity retained her bland expression as she pushed her slim feet into her white clogs. ‘Who? Mr Brennan?’ she queried, deliberately misunderstanding.
Julia drew her thick brown brows together. ‘Mr Jackson!’ she corrected. ‘And he’s single!’
‘Then I wish you all the luck in the world,’ observed Verity evenly and was rewarded with an astonished expression on Julia’s face, after which she lapsed into a kind of stunned silence then disappeared in the direction of the coffee-room.
Which left Verity wondering what to do next. Thanks to Benedict she had arrived much too early for work. Normally the staff all filed into the coffee-room for a drink and a chat before the list started.
Normally.
This wasn’t normal and Verity didn’t feel normal. It would be hell to have to sit and face Benedict as though there wasn’t this great secret between them.
So she wouldn’t. She would find out which list she was scrubbing for and then she would clean her theatre up...
‘Verity!’
Verity turned to the shrill, familiar voice of Sister Saunders, who was beaming at her expansively.
‘Glad to see that you took my little lecture to note,’ the older woman smiled, and Verity blinked in confusion.
‘Lecture?’
‘About rushing into work at the last minute. You’re bright and early this morning, aren’t you, and with plenty of time to have a civilised start to the day before the list begins? Come and have some coffee—Gisela’s assuming her usual matriarchal role and making some for everyone,’ she chuckled.
‘Sister, I don’t really think—’
‘Although,’ and Sister Saunders lowered her voice as though Verity hadn’t spoken, ‘she’s especially enthusiastic this morning. Yesterday Benedict brought in some of the most wonderful coffee I’ve ever tasted!’
Did he make a habit of that? wondered Verity. Had he also provided the department with Belgian chocolates and macadamia nuts? And here she had been thinking that his gesture had been in some way special. ‘I’d better not, Sister,’ she said, but Sister Saunders was shaking her head in that decisive way of hers.
‘Nonsense!’ she boomed heartily. ‘I shan’t take no for an answer! If I were as slim as you I’d be eating all day! Which is probably why I’m not,’ she added with a rueful note of insight as she patted her ample belly. ‘Now, tell me, Verity,’ she lowered her voice to a stage whisper as they approached the coffee-room. ‘How do you rate him?’
Verity blinked. ‘Who?’
‘Mr Jackson!’
It took Verity a moment or two to realise that Sister Saunders meant professionally. ‘Um—he seems very thorough,’ she answered honestly. ‘Fast yet neat. A textbook operator, I guess. Of course I haven’t seen him tested yet so I can’t judge how he would be in an emergency.’ But she doubted that he would panic; people rarely got to senior registrar level unless they were able to cope in the most horrendous situations.
Sister Saunders looked at her with exasperation. ‘That wasn’t what I meant, my dear!’
‘Wasn’t it?’ asked Verity innocently.
‘I meant as a man!’ rasped Sister.
Verity smiled at the older woman’s indomitable matchmaking, slightly relieved that she could still smile and especially about a subject that was so sensitive. ‘Oh, he’s been given top marks for hunkiness by the juniors,’ she answered airily.
‘Julia Morris, I presume?’ snorted Sister. ‘That young woman would flutter her eyelashes at anyone with a Y chromosome in their body. And she talks too much!’ She blinked her eyes innocently. ‘Heard from Jamie, have you?’
Verity wondered what it might be like if your private life was actually private! ‘Er—he rang up a couple of nights ago.’
‘Having a good time, is he?’
‘He says that Disneyland is everything they say it is and more and that Harriet loves it.’ He had also said, at some length, that he missed her and that Sammi would have enjoyed Disneyland, too. Which Verity didn’t doubt for a moment. It just made her feel a bit guilty about denying Sammi something that was most children’s dream.
And of course then she hadn’t encountered Benedict...
Sister Saunders pushed open the door to the coffee-room and Verity realised that there was no way in the world that she was going to be able to avoid seeing Benedict without exciting gossip in the department or bad feeling between the two of them. So she mentally girded herself to react calmly when she saw him, her eyes quickly sweeping around the room until she found him.
He was talking busily into the phone, one hand gesticulating as he barked out a series of questions, then nodded his head and put the phone down, his movements all athletic grace as he turned to face Verity.
Their eyes met for a long, silent moment and Verity realised that something fundamental between them had changed. The secret between them might be unspoken while they were at work but it was a secret shared. And whether or not Benedict blamed Verity for keeping Sammi’s existence from him, nonetheless a bond existed now between her and the father of her child. And it—or rather, he—wasn’t just going to go away, either, even if she wanted him to. And Verity wasn’t at all sure that she wanted him to.
She poured coffee for herself and Sister and settled down on a chair by the window and tried very hard to nod her head and look interested when Barney Fisher, one of the anaesthetists, began telling her about a new vegetarian restaurant that had opened within walking distance of the hospital.
‘We all ought to go there one night—a whole bunch of us,’ Barney said, pushing his John Lennon spectacles back up his long, thin nose. ‘Think it’s a good idea, Sister?’
Sister Saunders smiled. ‘You young ones go. I’m much too set in my ways. I’m sure that Gisela and Verity would be delighted to sample lentil stew or whatever it is they give you.’
Gisela nodded eagerly and Verity didn’t bother saying anything since no one would probably get it together to organise it anyway!
‘And how about you, Benedict?’ grinned Barney. ‘Game? Or are you strictly a meat and two veg man? I can somehow imagine you with a plateful of flesh that’s almost crawling off the plate!’
‘Meaning that he’s macho and rugged-looking, I suppose?’ defended Julia Morris gushingly, then blushed as she saw the brief but unmistakable look of irritation that Benedict flashed at her.
‘I enjoy vegetarian food immensely,’ Benedict told Barney with a smile. ‘Count me in.’
‘Ooh! Me, too!’ chorused two of the recovery room nurses immediately and Verity rose soundlessly to her feet and went over to the sink with her coffee-cup. She was not about to witness the sight of every female in the hospital clamouring to be part of an outing just because it happened to include the delectable Mr Jackson!
But just as she tipped her half-drunk coffee down the sink there was the fast shrilling of a bleeper and Verity didn’t have to hear the deep voice answering to guess that it was Benedict’s. Nor to hear his rapid monosyllabic responses to know that it was serious.
He hurried out and Verity, having now jettisoned her cup of coffee for no reason whatsoever, gave him a couple of minutes to disappear and then left the room herself.
She went into Theatre looking for work and, after a determined hunt, managed to find two trolleys which had traces of dust around the wheels. These she wiped down thoroughly before checking all her packs of instruments off against the morning’s list. It was boring but necessary work—and at least it kept her occupied.
Her heart sank slightly when Julia Morris came in, announcing gaily that, ‘I’m your scrub nurse for the day! Lucky old you, Verity!’
Honestly! How could she be so nonchalant after virtually accusing Verity of spending the night with the new senior registrar? The girl had the skin of a rhinoceros, Verity decided as she held a small silver-coloured kidney dish out to be filled up with normal saline.
Barney popped his head round the door of the anaesthetic room which led directly into Theatre. ‘The first patient is on his way up,’ he said. ‘Where’s our surgeon?’
‘Here,’ came an instantly recognisable voice from across the theatre and then Benedict walked in and Verity was shocked by his outward appearance.
She knew immediately that he must have had bad news, less from the lack of colour in his face than by the hard, heavy set of his shoulders. She watched the muscles beneath the thin blue material of his top bunching together in tension and she felt an undeniable urge to go to him; to take him into her arms; to rub all that tension away beneath her fingertips.
Verity suddenly forgot all her good intentions about keeping work and private lives separate. She moved blindly away from her trolley and walked over to him, not even aware of Julia Morris’s huge, wide eyes watching them.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked softly.
He rubbed at his temples distractedly. ‘That emergency I had in the middle of the night, remember?’
Verity nodded, now only too aware of Julia’s excited inrush of breath as she mused on the implications behind that remark.
‘The mother was doing just fine, given the circumstances,’ he told her heavily. ‘Until about half an hour ago when she started complaining of calf pain. She was on a heparin drip—everything. And then she died in front of us.’ His voice shook very slightly. ‘There was nothing we could do—’
‘What happened?’ asked Verity, shocked.
‘A massive embolism, most probably—maybe from one of the pelvic veins, although we’ll need the post-mortem to confirm. Her husband was waiting outside. He’d just come back from Special Care. At least the baby’s still alive...just.’ The green eyes were bleak as they stared at Verity without seeing her. ‘There was nothing we could do to help her,’ he finished bitterly. ‘Nothing.’
Julia’s eyes were huge. ‘Gosh, Mr Jackson,’ she asked unwisely. ‘Do you always get so involved with your patients?’
From the filthy look he gave her Verity knew that she had better intervene before she had a bust-up on her hands. ‘Just let Mr Jackson get scrubbed in peace, would you, Nurse Morris? Perhaps you could make yourself useful and go into the anaesthetic room and find out if the patient has been intubated yet?’ she asked with crisp authority. When Julia had gone she gave him a long, rueful look. ‘Anything I can get you?’
His eyes refocused on her oval face, so serene and undemanding. He had forgotten just what easy company she could be. ‘Anything at all?’ he queried.
She smiled. ‘Within reason.’
‘That nurse was right, you know; I don’t normally react this way when one of my patients dies—however shocking or unexpected.’ He frowned and narrowed his eyes, the ebony sweep of his lashes completely obscuring the brilliant colour. ‘I don’t want to have to wait until tomorrow for an explanation, Verity,’ he told her baldly. ‘I want to get it sorted out as soon as possible. Tonight, whether it’s prudent or not. I don’t care.’
And she could understand that. She, too, had been rather regretting her earlier decision to wait. How much peace of mind would either of them get if they waited? She nodded. ‘OK, Benedict. Tonight it is. But let me put Sammi to bed first.’
Before he could reply the door from the anaesthetic room swung inwards and Julia reappeared, her brown eyes quickly darting from one to the other. Almost as though she expected to find the two of us kissing, thought Verity with acid amusement.
‘The patient has just gone under,’ she announced, using the slang term for anaethesia.
Benedict put the taps on full blast and doused his arms and elbows in water before squirting a huge dollop of pink antiseptic soap into the palm of his hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said briefly, so quietly that only Verity could hear, and she wondered whether it was her imagination or did his voice sound unbearably bleak?
The patient was lying on the table by the time he approached, his gloved hands raised in the air as if in supplication and his gown flapping open.
Julia sprang to the rescue. ‘Shall I tie your gown for you, Mr Jackson?’
He glanced around the theatre in mock question. ‘Unless the good fairy’s going to float down from out of nowhere and do it then I suggest you’d better,’ he said sarcastically, and Julia flushed.
Verity glanced up from her where she was laying all her instruments in neat lines on the sterile cloth which covered her trolley. Julia might be intensely irritating, yes, and Benedict might be upset but there was really no excuse for him to talk to the juniors like that.
He sensed her watching him and looked up. Green eyes clashed with an accusing aquamarine blaze and he gave a small shrug as he took her silent reprimand in.
That was the last thing he needed—Verity acting as his conscience—but, having said that, as reproaches went it was fairly irresistible! He turned to the student nurse beside him who immediately sucked her cheek-bones and her stomach in and he hid a smile. He didn’t want her passing out on them through lack of oxygen to the blood!
‘Forgive me for biting your head off, Nurse...?’ he queried.
‘Morris!’ gushed Julia, pleased that she had skipped breakfast that morning. She might not be as slim as Verity Summers, she thought triumphantly, but she was a good five years younger and she didn’t have a child at home with no husband!
‘Morris,’ Benedict echoed blandly. ‘Lack of sleep always makes me grouchy.’
‘That’s OK,’ answered Julia. ‘Busy night was it?’
A sardonic green glance shimmered across the table. ‘You could say that,’ he answered.
Verity felt her cheeks growing pink. Why wouldn’t he stop looking at her like that? And fancy giving Julia all the ammunition she needed to have the news around the hospital by lunchtime that the new surgeon had spent the night at her flat! She could have wept—because this really was a case of all smoke without fire. Benedict hadn’t laid one finger on her!
Benedict performed two D and Cs—Dilatation and Curettage—of the uterus. The first was done for a young woman of twenty-four who had miscarried at sixteen weeks and was done routinely in such cases where products of the lost pregnancy might have been retained in the woman’s womb.
‘This is her third miscarriage,’ said Benedict, frowning. ‘She’s desperate for a baby, too. Looks like a Shirodkar suture next time round.’
‘What’s a Shirodkar suture?’ asked Julia Morris eagerly.
Benedict thought that if the girl stood much closer to him they would be joined at the hip. While the only woman he wanted to be joined at the hip with was standing as cool and as aloof as if he had not been in the room. He shifted his weight away from the student nurse. ‘Ask Verity,’ he suggested mildly. ‘I’m sure she’ll be able to tell you all about Shirodkar sutures.’
Verity took a used swab from him, thinking that he could be the devil himself. She somehow doubted whether Julia was at all interested in learning; she certainly hadn’t shown any great tendency to ask questions before the arrival of Mr Jackson! But it was obvious that she wanted Benedict to tell her and not Verity. Still.
‘It’s a treatment for cervical incompetence,’ she said. ‘Which this woman clearly has. Cervical incompetence is when a woman is unable to carry a baby to term, usually for reasons unknown. So the doctor puts in an unabsorbable suture, which is placed around the internal os of the cervix. This is usually done during the early stages of pregnancy. The patient is then allowed to go to full term and normal labour follows when the stitch is removed. Is that clear?’ Verity raised her eyebrows questioningly and Julia gave a brief nod, rushing forward to untie Benedict’s gown.
The next case up was Ethel, their very own sandwich lady, who was having a hysteroscope—where a telescope-like instrument was passed through the vagina and into the uterus. This investigation was generally performed under general anaesthetic and in Ethel’s case it was to discover the causes of her irregular bleeding with periods which had been coming at two to three week intervals.
Verity’s gaze idily drifted towards the door as Barney and his nurse wheeled the unconscious patient through from the anaesthetic room. ‘How’s Ethel?’ she asked him.
‘Sleeping like a baby,’ smiled Barney. ‘Lovely lady, Ethel! Always gives me any leftover sandwiches at the end of the day!’
‘So she’s the one who’s responsible for our spreading hips!’ giggled the anaesthetic nurse.
Benedict’s eyes glinted as they lingered on the lower part of Verity’s body. Oh, really? he mocked silently, but then he remembered the laughter lines around Ethel’s careworn face when she had informed him last evening that he had eaten her favourite staff nurse’s sandwich and flirtation was forgotten.
He hadn’t seen her in Clinic himself; Jamie had. But he knew what diagnosis the consultant suspected. Please don’t be what I suspect it to be, he thought as he watched Julia slide the patient’s legs into the position known as the lithotomy position which gave the surgeon easiest access to the vagina.
Very carefully Benedict inserted the hysteroscope through the vagina and into the uterus and, after visually examining the area, he passed a slim instrument down the hysteroscope which enabled him to snip off some tissue samples.
‘Let’s get this biopsy off to Histology, can we?’ he asked crisply when the samples were safely deposited in labelled, sterile pots.
Next up he had two repair operations for prolapse of the uterus, one of which turned out to be a lot more complicated than he had anticipated, and by the time lunchtime arrived Benedict was exhausted.
He was reluctant to go and eat his sandwich in the coffee-room; he wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
He put a spare white coat on over his theatre suit and took the lift all the way down to the main entrance of the hospital, buying a can of cold cola and a sandwich from the shop in the foyer and taking it out into the garden.
The architect of St Jude’s had been a man with an extravagant imagination, which a generous benefactor had allowed him to freely indulge. The hospital was built on the lines of an old-fashioned castle with four large wings forming a central square, in the midst of which was the courtyard of paths, flower-beds and small lawns that formed the famous hospital garden.
Considering that it was in the middle of London the garden was an oasis of calm and peace. Mature shrubs and trees had been planted during the hospital’s two-hundred year history and it boasted one of the finest mulberry trees in all England. Volunteers regularly gave their time to tend to the perfectly manicured lawns and it was part of St Jude’s policy that patients on rehabilitation should be given what was known as ‘practical physiotherapy’—gentle tasks, such as deadheading flowers, which helped their progress and helped the hospital, too!
Today the last of the daffodils were waving their serated yellow trumpets in the light, warm breeze. The sun blazed down and above Benedict’s dark head the sky was the brightest, clearest blue that he could ever remember seeing. He recalled a line from a poem he’d learnt as a boy, ‘all in the blue unclouded weather’. And then wondered what on earth had prompted him to bring to mind Tennyson’s romantic yet ultimately tragic story of the Lady of Shalott.
But maybe that was what the discovery of progeny did to you. Made you aware of your own mortality so that your senses became finely tuned. He couldn’t remember ever having lived in the moment the way he was doing just now.
He stared at his sandwich without enthusiasm.
Just how much of Sammi, he wondered, was Verity prepared to let him have?