Читать книгу: «The Surgeon's Marriage»

CHAPTER ONE

HELEN stared at the damp towel hanging over the banister. It was strange how something so ordinary, so innocuous, could set your teeth on edge. Especially when it was nothing new. In fact, every morning for the past ten years Tom had come out of the shower and thrown his towel over that self-same banister.

Then why don’t you simply tell him to stop doing it? her mind asked as she lifted the towel and carried it down the stairs to the kitchen. Tell him it’s driving you crazy.

‘Because if I do,’ she told the potted plant on the window-sill, ‘Tom will say, “If it bothers you that much, why didn’t you mention it before?”’

And she’d be forced to admit that it hadn’t bothered her before, but now it did, and Tom would either frown uncomprehendingly or smile in that horribly knowing fashion which meant, Oops, it must be Helen’s time of the month again so I’d better tread carefully.

Tears filled her eyes, and she angrily blinked them away. It wasn’t her time of the month. She wished it was. At least then she’d have some excuse for the odd feelings of dissatisfaction and irritation which had been plaguing her recently. And she had nothing to be dissatisfied about. She had a good marriage, two healthy, beautiful children, a job she loved—

‘Mum, I can’t find my white T-shirt, and I need it for gymnastics.’

She glanced round to see her daughter standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘If you need it for gymnastics you should have told me yesterday.’

‘But I always have gymnastics on Mondays—you know I do. Tuesday’s art, Wednesday’s—’

‘Your green one’s washed and ironed.’

‘But everyone else will be wearing white. I’ll be the odd one out—’

‘Mum, have you seen my trainers?’

‘I’m talking to Mum,’ Emma protested.

‘Big deal,’ her brother exclaimed. ‘Mum, my trainers…’

‘They’re in your wardrobe, John. Which is where you should have put them when you got home from school on Friday, instead of just dumping them down in the hall,’ Helen called after her son as he dashed away.

‘Mum, about my white T-shirt. Couldn’t you—?’

‘Helen, it’s half past eight. Are you ready to go?’

‘Does it look like I am?’ she protested, seeing her husband’s head come round the kitchen door. ‘Emma, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wear your green T-shirt, and that’s final.’

Emma wandered unhappily away, and Tom’s eyebrows rose. ‘Problems?’

‘Just the usual Monday morning mayhem,’ Helen said irritably, taking a scrunchy out of her pocket and twisting her shoulder-length blonde hair back into a ponytail. ‘Honestly, there are times when I wonder why we ever had children.’

‘Because of one split condom nine years ago?’ Tom grinned, and a reluctant smile curved her own lips.

That faulty condom had a lot to answer for. For a start it had put paid to their plans when they’d got married not to have children until they were both Obs and Gynae specialist registrars. Tom had made the grade, but it had never been an option for her, not after the twins had been born.

She’d never regretted it. OK, so perhaps occasionally she thought it would have been nice if both she and Tom could have fulfilled their dreams, but the children were a joy and a delight when they weren’t driving her mad, and being an Obs and Gynae SHO was responsibility enough when you had a pair of lively eight-year-olds to look after.

‘That’s the school bus,’ Tom declared as a horn sounded outside. He glanced down at his watch and frowned. ‘Helen, I hate to hurry you, but we really do have to go. I’ll start the car, shall I?’

The smile on her lips died. He couldn’t perhaps have offered to wash the breakfast dishes first, or tidy up the sitting room? No, of course he couldn’t. The dishes would still be waiting for her when she got home tonight, and the sitting room would still look as though a bomb had hit it.

Oh, stop it, Helen, she told herself as she shepherded Emma and John out to the school bus, trying hard to ignore Emma’s reproachful expression which said all too clearly, Everyone else’s mum would have remembered my T-shirt. Tom’s a good husband, a loving husband, and you know he would have washed the dishes in a minute if you’d asked him. Yes, but I shouldn’t need to ask him, she argued back. He should have known.

‘Everything OK, love?’ Tom asked, shooting her a puzzled frown as she got into the car beside him, then fastened her seat belt.

‘Fine,’ she managed to reply, but everything wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot.

Tom would probably have said she was simply suffering from a bad case of overwork, and maybe she was. This last month at the Belfield Infirmary had certainly been a nightmare, what with Rachel Dunwoody suddenly taking compassionate leave because of the death of her aunt, then Annie Hart and Gideon Caldwell getting married.

Not that she begrudged the junior doctor and ward consultant their happiness—in fact, she’d been delighted when they’d finally got together—and poor Rachel had obviously been shattered by her aunt’s death so it wasn’t surprising she’d asked for time off, but all the upheaval had meant so much extra work for her and Tom, and she was feeling it.

‘This friend of yours who’s standing in for Rachel,’ she said as Tom negotiated the busy rush-hour traffic. ‘You said he’s been working in Australia for the last ten years?’

Tom nodded. ‘Mark headed out to Sydney right after he qualified. He worked there for a couple of years, then moved to a senior house officer’s post in Canberra, and he’s been working as a specialist registrar for the last eighteen months in Melbourne.’

‘And he’s going to Canada in six weeks,’ she said, trying and failing to keep the envy out of her voice. She’d wanted to work abroad, too, when she’d been younger, but then the children had arrived, and the years had flown by, and here she was still living and working in Glasgow. ‘I hope he isn’t going to find us too boring after all his travelling.’

‘Why should he think we’re boring?’ Tom said in surprise. ‘I don’t think we’re boring and, knowing Mark, he’s probably only going to Canada because some irate boyfriend is after him.’

‘Some irate boyfriend?’ she repeated, bewildered, and her husband grinned.

‘Back in med school there wasn’t a girl who wasn’t potty about him. In fact, he actually had the nerve to poach a couple of my girlfriends, but…’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘The crazy thing is we still stayed friends. Maybe it’s because he could always make me see the funny side of things.’

‘Charming as well as handsome,’ she observed. ‘Sounds like a pretty potent combination.’

‘It is. Mind you, I’m talking about the Mark Lorimer I knew a long time ago. Ten years of Australian sun, sea and food could have made him fat, bald and charmless.’

‘Is that true concern I hear, Tom Brooke, or a bad case of wishful thinking?’ she teased, and her husband’s lips quirked.

‘What do you think?’

That he had no need to envy his friend, she decided. Tom was a good-looking man—better-looking now, in fact, than he’d been when they’d first met. At twenty-four he’d been a lanky six-footer, with a shock of brown hair, and a pair of smiling grey eyes. Ten years on, the hair and eyes were still the same, but he’d filled out, grown more muscular, and it suited him.

I’ve filled out a bit in the last ten years, too, she thought wryly, but I doubt if anyone would say it suited me.

She was snacking too much, that was the trouble, but she never seemed to have time for a proper meal. If she wasn’t racing round Obs and Gynae, she was chasing after John and Emma, making sure they’d done their homework properly and had clean clothes to wear for the next day.

Apart from white T-shirts, she thought guiltily, suddenly remembering Emma’s disgruntled face. She’d wash and iron it tonight, after she’d done the weekly shop at the supermarket.

‘Helen, are you quite sure you’re OK?’

She looked up blankly to see they’d arrived at the Belfield Infirmary and Tom was gazing at her with concern.

‘Of course I am,’ she replied, bewildered. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Because…’ To her surprise he suddenly reached out and gently cupped her cheek in his hand. ‘I’ve been speaking to you for the last five minutes, and I swear you haven’t heard a word.’

To her acute dismay the tears she’d felt earlier began to resurface, and she gulped them down quickly.

‘I’m fine—honestly I am,’ she replied with a shaky smile. ‘Just…just a little tired.’

He swore under his breath. ‘It’s all the extra hours you’ve been working recently, not to mention having to look after John and Emma and me. Look, why don’t I do the weekly shop tonight—give you a break?’

For a second she was tempted, then a bubble of laughter came from her. ‘Tom, if you do the shopping I know exactly what will happen. You’ll come back from the supermarket with enough food to feed an army, plus a whole load of stuff that nobody likes because you noticed it was on special offer.’

His lips curved. ‘What if I promise to stick to your list?’

‘I’ll do the shopping. I’m OK—really I am,’ she insisted, seeing his frown reappear. ‘Now that Mark Lorimer’s starting work today, everything will be fine.’

And it would be, she told herself as she got out of the car and followed Tom into the hospital. With the department fully staffed again she wouldn’t be so tired all the time, and stupid, niggling little things wouldn’t keep irritating her. She knew they wouldn’t.

‘OK, cheer me up on a cold April day,’ she instructed Annie when she found the junior doctor in the staffroom, getting ready to go off duty. ‘Tell me the ward was quiet last night, that not one single emergency came in, then give me permission to go home.’

‘You don’t want cheering up,’ Annie protested. ‘You want a miracle.’

‘I know, but it was worth a try.’ Helen laughed. ‘OK, what’s the current situation?’

‘Mrs Foster burst some of her stitches last night. Apparently she was straining to pass a motion—Yes, I know,’ the junior doctor said as Helen groaned. ‘Not the brightest thing in the world to do when you’ve just had a hysterectomy, but there you go. Mrs Dawn accidentally dislodged her catheter at midnight—’

‘Oh, no.’

‘And—and,’ Annie continued, ‘just to add to the overall fun and excitement, Mrs Alexander suddenly developed a deep-vein thrombosis in her leg.’

‘Is she all right?’ Helen asked with concern.

‘Gideon’s put her on anticoagulants, and we’ve got her in compression stockings, but it looks like we could be in for big problems when she gives birth.’

It did. Mary Alexander was thirty-six weeks pregnant, and she’d only been sent in by her GP because he thought her blood pressure was a little high. A Caesarean might be the answer, but if the clot moved to her lungs during the operation…

‘I’ll have a word with her once I’ve done the ward round,’ Helen murmured, and Annie grimaced.

‘A word is probably all you’ll have time for. Honestly, Helen, I feel like I’m living at the hospital at the moment, and if Gideon hadn’t insisted on me employing a home help I don’t know how I would have managed with Jamie.’

Helen nodded. She could remember only too well how hard it had been when her own children were smaller, trying to juggle their needs and the demands of her job, and it was doubly difficult for Annie. Gideon wasn’t Jamie’s father, and although the little boy obviously liked the consultant, it would take time for him to accept his mother’s new husband completely.

‘Things will be better now Dr Lorimer’s here,’ she said encouragingly as she followed Annie out of the staffroom. ‘With the department fully staffed again—’

‘But he’s not here. At least, not unless he’s hiding in a cupboard.’

Helen came to a halt. ‘What do you mean, he’s not here? He phoned Tom from London last night to say he was just about to board the Glasgow plane.’

And to reminisce about old times, she thought, remembering the gales of laughter she’d heard coming from her husband when he’d taken the call.

‘Maybe he’s got lost between the airport and the Belfield. Maybe he’s taken one look at what passes for spring weather in Britain, and headed straight back to sunny Australia. All I know is—’ Annie bit off the rest of what she’d been about to say, and groaned. ‘Oh, Lord. Why do I know this means trouble?’

Helen turned in the direction of the junior doctor’s gaze, and her heart sank, too. Gideon was striding towards them, looking tight-lipped and harassed, and Tom didn’t look any happier beside him.

‘I’m afraid we’ve got a problem,’ the consultant declared without preamble. ‘Dr Lorimer’s still in London. Apparently Heathrow Airport’s fogbound, and though he’s hoping to make it to the Belfield by mid-afternoon, we’re not to hold our breaths.’

‘And?’ Helen asked with foreboding, sensing there was a very definite ‘and’ hanging in the air, and equally certain she wasn’t going to like it.

‘We’ve got a postpartum haemorrhage on our hands. I’m on my way to it now. Tom’s going to take my morning clinic, but that means—’

‘You want me to take Tom’s,’ Helen finished for him unhappily.

‘Sorry, Helen.’

So was she. She hated taking somebody else’s clinic at short notice. It meant seeing people ‘blind’, with scarcely enough time to read through their notes, but it couldn’t be helped. Emergencies were just that. Unexpected events that nobody could predict.

‘Look, would it help if I stayed on for a couple of hours?’ Annie said, beginning to unbutton her coat. ‘Jamie will be at the day-care centre by now—’

‘What I want is for you to go home and get some sleep,’ Gideon said firmly. ‘You’ve just finished a full night shift.’

‘Yes, but if we’re short-staffed—’

‘Home, Annie. Now.’

‘Three weeks married, and already he’s bossing me about,’ the junior doctor protested, and Helen laughed, only for her laughter to die when Gideon suddenly put his arm around his wife and kissed her.

It wasn’t a passionate kiss—the ward corridor was hardly the place for it—but as the couple drew apart a hard lump formed in her throat.

When was the last time Tom had looked at her the way Gideon was looking at Annie? When was the last time she’d looked at Tom with such obvious love in her eyes?

Good grief, woman, you’ve been married for ten years, not three weeks, a little voice protested at the back of her mind. You can’t expect either you and Tom to be still wandering round in that heady, crazy state of euphoria that couples feel when they first fall in love.

No, her heart whispered, but surely I should be able to remember when he last told me he loved me. Surely I should at least be able to remember when we last made love.

Her heart contracted and, unable to bear looking at the couple any longer, she began walking down the corridor, only to discover Tom had come after her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, coming to an awkward halt. ‘Did you want to talk to me about your clinic?’

‘What I’m more interested in—more worried about—is you,’ her husband replied. ‘Helen, what is it—what’s wrong?’

He looked anxious and perplexed, but as she stared up at him she also saw that he looked completely exhausted, and a wave of guilt surged through her. He’d been working so hard at the hospital recently—much harder than she had been—and yet here she was, feeling sorry for herself just because they hadn’t made love in ages. And it was as much her fault as his. ‘I’m too tired, Tom’ had become her stock reply to any overture he might have made recently.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she said swiftly. ‘I’m just thinking about your poor friend, stuck in London—’

‘But you looked so pale just a minute ago,’ he pressed. ‘Quite white, in fact.’

‘That’ll teach me to forget to put on any make-up.’ She smiled, trying to lighten his mood, but it didn’t work.

‘You don’t hear me when I’m talking to you,’ he continued. ‘You’re tired all the time, and now your colour’s coming and going. Look, perhaps you should let me examine you, give you a thorough check-up.’

‘You just want an excuse to get my clothes off,’ she said, her brown eyes dancing, ‘and you don’t need one. We’re married, remember?’

‘Helen, be serious.’

‘Life’s too short,’ she insisted. ‘Tom, I’ve been thinking—why don’t we hire a babysitter the next time we both have a weekend off? We could head off somewhere romantic like the Isle of Skye. We haven’t been anywhere alone for ages, and—’

‘Do you think you could be hitting an early menopause?’

Her jaw dropped. ‘Do I what?’

‘I know you’re only thirty-two,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘but it would certainly explain your mood swings, your abstraction and fatigue—’

‘Tom, I am not starting the menopause,’ she snapped. ‘If I look tired, maybe it’s because I am tired. Tired of cooking and cleaning. Tired of constantly tidying up after you and the kids, and tired of being expected to be a super-efficient SHO into the bargain.’

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she bit her lip. She hadn’t realised she’d been feeling so put upon and taken for granted lately, but now she’d said it she knew it was true. It might have been better, though, if she’d couched her complaint in less confrontational language. Her husband clearly thought so, judging by the dull flush of colour sweeping across his face.

‘Tom—’

‘Sorry to interrupt you, Doctors,’ the department secretary declared, ‘but it’s twenty past nine, and your clinics were supposed to start at nine.’

‘Our clinics will start when we’re ready to start,’ Tom replied, his voice uncharacteristically brusque. ‘Until then I’d be obliged if you’d allow us some privacy.’

Doris looked crushed. She also looked curious. Very curious.

‘That wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do,’ Helen protested the minute the woman had gone. ‘Doris is the biggest gossip in the hospital, and just because you’re angry with me—’

‘I don’t think this is the time or the place for a discussion about our private life, do you?’ he said stiffly.

Oh, really? she thought. Well, she wasn’t the one who’d started it with all this stupid talk about the menopause. She wasn’t the one who hadn’t been pulling her weight at home.

‘Fine,’ she said, her voice every bit as taut and cold as his. ‘Then perhaps you could consult your diary and pencil me in for a day when it would be convenient.’

And before he could reply she walked into his consulting room and slammed the door shut.

The menopause. He had the nerve to suggest that her tiredness and irritability might be due to the menopause. That would teach her to marry a gynaecologist. One mention of being tired and fed up, and her husband’s mind had immediately gone into diagnostic mode.

Well, his mind could just come right out of diagnostic mode, she decided, sitting angrily down at his desk. She might not have known how aggrieved she’d been feeling, but now that she did know she could see it was time he pulled his weight at home—way past time.

And way past time for her clinic to start, she realised with a muttered oath as she caught sight of the clock on the wall.

‘Forget it, Helen,’ she told herself, pulling the stack of files on the desk towards her and hitting the intercom button. ‘Think about it later, but right now forget it.’

And she managed to until her last patient turned out to be Jennifer Norton.

‘I’m feeling fine, thank you, Doctor,’ Jennifer said as she eased herself up onto the examination table. ‘In fact, now I’ve got over the morning sickness, the only thing I want is for my husband to stop fussing over me.’

Lucky you, Helen thought, but she didn’t say that.

‘You can’t really blame him for fussing,’ she said instead, wrapping the blood-pressure cuff round Jennifer’s arm. ‘You gave us all a big fright back in February.’

Jennifer had. At just eight weeks pregnant she’d been rushed into the department with vaginal bleeding, and as her pregnancy was the result of her fourth IVF treatment the signs weren’t good. Luckily the bleeding had stopped, but Jennifer still had a long way to go.

‘You’re fourteen weeks pregnant now, aren’t you?’ she murmured, watching the blood-pressure gauge.

‘Fourteen weeks gone, only another twenty-six to go.’ Jennifer laughed a little nervously. ‘Is it OK—my blood pressure?’

‘It’s up a little, but that might just be because you knew you were going to be examined today. Unless you’ve been doing something really silly, of course, like redecorating the whole house.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing. If I so much as look at a duster my husband’s down on me like a ton of bricks, saying I’m doing too much, putting the twins at risk.’

‘I’d enjoy the pampering while you can,’ Helen said with more of an edge than she’d intended. ‘Speaking as the mother of twins myself, you’re going to need all the energy you’ve got once they arrive. Twelve bottles a day to sterilise and prepare. Two dirty bottoms to change. Two little bodies that suddenly sprout six arms and legs when you’re trying to get them dressed to go out.’

Jennifer smiled. ‘But I bet you never regretted having them.’

‘On good days, no. On bad days…’ Helen rolled her eyes heavenwards, and Jennifer laughed. ‘OK, I see from your notes that you’ve already had your spina bifida scan, so I just need to take a blood sample and then we’ll do a quick scan to check on how your babies are doing.’

To Jennifer’s clear relief the scan revealed that the twins were the correct size and development for their gestation.

‘I hate having these scans,’ she admitted as she wiped the conductive gel off her tummy and pulled up her trousers. ‘I know they’re necessary, but I’m always terrified you’re going to tell me something’s wrong.’

‘It’s understandable to worry after all you’ve been through,’ Helen said gently. ‘Now, we’d like to see you again in a month’s time—’

‘Another scan?’

‘’Fraid so. Hey, look on the bright side,’ Helen continued as Jennifer groaned. ‘It will give you the chance to see how much your babies have grown, and we’ll be able to check on your blood pressure at the same time.’ She flicked through Tom’s diary. ‘How does the second of May sound?’

‘Fine by me. Brian and I aren’t exactly living a wild social life at the moment. Not that we were ever great party-goers even before I got pregnant,’ Jennifer said ruefully. ‘My husband’s the original stick-in-the-mud, stay-at-home bloke.’

Helen smiled, but when the woman got to her feet she suddenly said on impulse, ‘How long have you been married, Jennifer?’

‘Fifteen years. Cripes, that’s longer than the average sentence for murder, isn’t it? Not that I’ve ever felt like murdering him—at least, not often.’

‘Husbands do drive you mad sometimes, don’t they?’ Helen said with feeling.

‘And how.’ Jennifer nodded. ‘In fact, Brian and I went through a really sticky patch a couple of years ago. I thought he was taking me for granted, he thought our marriage was in a rut.’

Which has got absolutely nothing to do with Jennifer’s medical condition, Helen told herself firmly, so you can’t possibly ask how she solved the problem, but she did, and Jennifer laughed.

‘We talked.’

‘That’s it?’ Helen said in surprise.

‘The best answers are often the simplest.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Talking clears the air, stops things festering. So does accepting neither of you is perfect. If you don’t accept that, then you end up like one of these weird film stars, constantly flitting from relationship to relationship, in love with the idea of being in love.’

Jennifer was right. It was silly to be envious of Gideon and Annie. Stupid to let little things annoy her. She loved Tom, and he loved her, and at least he’d noticed something was wrong, which was more than could be said for a lot of men. OK, so his explanation might have been totally off the wall as far as accuracy was concerned, but at least he’d noticed.

Which meant she was going to have to apologise, she realised as she showed Jennifer out. Not for what she’d said—she wasn’t going to take a word of that back—but perhaps she could have phrased it better, picked a better time to raise the subject.

She glanced down at her watch and sighed. Time. It was the one thing she never seemed to have enough of, and she didn’t have any spare now. Lunch would be yet another quick sandwich in the staffroom, and then it was on to the ward round.

A ward round that did little to improve her spirits or her temper. She didn’t mind spending forty minutes with Mrs Alexander—heaven knew, the woman had just cause to be worried about her unborn baby after having suffered a deep-vein thrombosis—but she was in no mood for Mrs Foster’s complaint that her hysterectomy stitches wouldn’t have burst if they had been inserted properly.

‘Some days it just doesn’t pay to get up, does it?’ Liz Baker, the sister in charge of the Obs and Gynae ward, observed sympathetically when Helen strode towards her, her cheeks red with barely concealed anger.

‘Tell me about it,’ Helen began. ‘That Mrs Foster—’

‘Is a pain in the butt.’ Liz nodded. ‘I know, and I hate to have to add to your problems but Haematology’s just been on the phone. Apparently one of the blood samples you took this morning isn’t quite right. Look, why don’t you use the phone in the staffroom to call them back?’ Liz continued as Helen groaned. ‘Get yourself a cup of coffee at the same time.’

A cup of coffee sounded good. Something considerably stronger sounded even better, she decided when she left the ward and began walking towards the staffroom, only to see Tom coming towards her.

She came to an uncertain halt. He did, too.

‘I’m sorry.’

They’d spoken in unison, and Tom shook his head. ‘You have nothing to apologise for, but I obviously do. I hadn’t realised I wasn’t pulling my weight at home.’

‘No, but you get called out a lot more at night than I do,’ she replied, more than willing to meet him halfway. ‘And I don’t have all your departmental meetings.’

‘Yes, but I should have noticed you were doing it all. The trouble is I’ve been so busy, and…’ He shook his head. ‘No, that’s no excuse. Being busy is no excuse for not pulling my weight, and I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, we’re not heading for the divorce courts over this or anything,’ she said gently as he stared at her, his grey eyes troubled. ‘All I’m asking for is a little more help around the house and with the children.’

‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want, you’ve got.’

She chuckled. ‘That’s dangerous talk, Tom. What if I ask you for the moon?’

His grey eyes softened. ‘If you want the moon I’ll get you the moon. If you want…’ He paused and his face creased into a broad smile of welcome. ‘Mark, you old reprobate, you’ve finally got here.’

Helen glanced over her shoulder, and blinked.

Wow.

Wow, wow and triple wow.

Tom hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said his friend was handsome. In fact, Tom hadn’t been nearly fulsome enough, she thought, automatically tucking in her tummy and standing up straighter, only to feel slightly silly afterwards because this was Tom’s friend and she didn’t need or want to impress him.

But Mark Lorimer was impressive. Tall, and tanned, with thick black hair, and green eyes. Not a wishy-washy anaemic green, but green like sparkling emeralds, and fringed by quite indecently long black eyelashes.

‘Helen, this is Mark,’ Tom said unnecessarily after he and his friend had indulged in that mutual backslapping routine which heterosexual males always seemed to feel obliged to perform whenever they met a friend they hadn’t seen for years. ‘Mark, this is my wife, Helen.’