A Medical Liaison

‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

The lift shuddered to a halt and he stood aside to let her pass.

‘We have forty beds, divided into the two wards—twenty on Belling, which is male, and twenty on Dale, which is female. In addition we have a five-bedded coronary care unit attached to Belling—and Dr Fenton-Taylor guards these jealously.’

‘What’s he like?’ she asked.

She saw a small frown cross his forehead while he considered the question.

‘Like?’ There was a pause. ‘He’s like most consultants of his generation and ability—brilliant, autocratic, occasionally intolerant.’

A suprisingly honest appraisal, she decided as she walked up the wide corridor beside him, but he spoilt it all with his next comment.

‘He likes good-looking women around,’ he said, his lip curling in an expression of derision. ‘So you should be all right.’

He was not going to get away with that.

‘You’d better get this straight,’ she stated forthrightly. ‘I have never traded on being a woman to get on in life, and I don’t intend to start now!’

He laughed. ‘No? A woman who doesn’t flutter her lashes and squeeze out every bit of sex appeal she’s got? Surely a contradiction in terms, Dr Gray?’

How bitter he sounded. She turned flashing dark blue eyes on him.

‘A medical version of the casting couch, you mean? Hardly, Dr Forrester—or else I might have been tempted to hang around the sitting-room late last night to take you up on your. . .er. . .offer.’

Their argument was abruptly terminated by their arrival at the ward, but she couldn’t miss the look he gave her. It seemed that he was very good at dishing out nasty little comments, but not so good at taking them!

He marched on to Belling with her at his side, taking her straight into the office to meet Sister. The cold-eyed blonde who jumped to her feet to greet him could hardly have been more different from the cheery Mandy Patterson. Her sister’s uniform of dark navy with white spots looked as though it were a size too small since it clung provocatively to her body in a way that no functional nurses’ uniform was supposed to.

The ash-coloured hair was drawn back from her face and neck in the regulation manner, but small fair tendrils had been teased out, so that it looked more like the coiffure on a classical Greek statue than the working hairstyle of a busy ward sister. Large eyes of the palest grey were skilfully made even bigger by the expert use of sooty shadow and mascara.

Irreverently, Louisa was reminded of the old nursery tale ‘Oh, Grandmama—what big eyes you have.’ Now here, she thought, was someone who did use sex appeal almost as second nature. It would be interesting to see whether Adam Forrester objected to this kind of treatment.

The husky voice matched the body and the hair and the eyes perfectly.

‘Adam!’ she exclaimed warmly, the glossy lips glimmering into a perfect smile. ‘I’ll come round with you.’

It sounded as if she were conferring the highest honour in the land on him, Louisa thought with amusement, watching to see what the interaction was between them, surprised and slightly disappointed to see him return her treacly smile with an amicable grin.

‘I’ve brought along my new house officer, Magda. I’d like you to meet Louisa Gray. Louisa—this is Sister Magda Maguire.’

She must have noticed Louisa standing at Adam’s side, but the grey eyes turned towards her now for the first time, the smile dimming fractionally, the eyes frankly assessing. Or was she just being paranoid? Had Adam Forrester’s unwelcoming behaviour made her expectations of St Dunstan’s totally unrealistic—and was she misinterpreting a simple look?

But she knew that many nurses resented female doctors, resented their proximity and relationship with their male colleagues. Lots of nurses still behaved in a very territorial way towards doctors, and in years gone by women doctors had posed little threat—their numbers had been so small. But today, when they comprised almost half the intake of medical students. . .Well, Magda Maguire need have no concern on her account—she would rather spend a weekend with a man-eating tiger than spend an evening in the company of the foul-tempered Dr Forrester.

‘Hello, there!’ smiled Magda. ‘Louisa, wasn’t it? You must tell me all about yourself. Where did you do your training?’

‘At Barts.’ Louisa prayed that she didn’t sound too much on the defensive.

‘Really?’ The other woman looked interested. ‘I am impressed! One of London’s most famous hospitals—and yet you decided not to do any of your house jobs there?’

The inevitable question. ‘No. I wanted to come to St Dunstan’s.’

‘Oh?’ Magda seemed to be expecting more, but she could whistle for it, thought Louisa stubbornly, knowing all the time how weak and feeble her explanation sounded. Because, although St Dunstan’s was a well-respected and busy general hospital, it carried none of the élitism and status attached to St Bartholomew’s—known to its staff as ‘God’s own hospital’.

The grey eyes stared at her reproachfully for a moment, then turned to gaze fondly on Adam.

‘Would you like me to show her the ward? Leave you to have your coffee and do your paperwork in peace?’

He looked at Louisa for a moment, then nodded his agreement.

‘That would be a great help. Is that all right with you, Dr Gray?’

How formal he was with her! ‘Perfectly. Thanks, Sister.’ She was aware that her voice sounded stiff, starchy even.

She left the office, following the neat, swinging rear of Magda Maguire, feeling disgruntled. The day had got off to a bad start, and there was no doubt in her mind who was responsible.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS her first full day as a working doctor and she was mentally and physically unprepared for the sheer hard work, the relentless pace of it, and the demands. As a student she had done a ‘shadow’—tailing the house officer for four weeks, to give her a taste of the job. But this time she was on her own. True, she had her SHO, her registrar, and ultimately her consultant to call upon, but she had been taught as a medical student not to abuse the back-up system. They each had a heavy work-load—she must get on as best she could, save in a real emergency where she felt unable to cope.

Magda Maguire had pointed out the geography of the ward, and then taken her to each patient, where Louisa had quickly written down their name and initial diagnosis, intending to bone up on them that evening so that she was fairly well acquainted with them in time for tomorrow’s ward round.

Then she returned to Dale and did the same there, and Mandy Patterson made her a cup of coffee for which Louisa was extremely grateful, but she had no chance to drink more than a couple of mouthfuls, and by the time she returned it had formed a thick skin and had to be thrown away.

And in between trying to learn all about forty new patients and their illnesses, she was having to deal with some of the problems which had arisen overnight, and non-urgent problems from the preceding weekend. One patient had developed a livid red rash after being commenced on a new drug treatment. Another’s intravenous infusion had ‘tissued’—the cannula had slipped out of the vein into the surrounding tissue—and it took Louisa ages to resite, partly because she was not yet very practised at it, but the sound of Magda Maguire clicking her tongue impatiently beside her did little to improve her confidence.

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