Emergency: Wife Lost and Found (11 page)

‘I know.’ Lorna admitted glumly, then rallied. ‘I did my rotation in Edinburgh.’

‘How many years ago was that?’ May did nothing to soothe her. ‘They’ve invented an entire new set of problems now—crack this and meth that, and there’s no such thing as closing time now. Last drinks used to be
at eleven, that’s when they
start
now. Just what do you do all night?’ She asked Shona accusingly, as if she were the entire youth problem.

‘We dance!’ Shona said. Young, gorgeous and minus insecurities, she did a strange spaced-out motion that had every one giggling, even Lorna. ‘Like this!’

‘That’s not dancing!’ May jeered. ‘This is dancing.’ And she took Shona by the hand and spun her round till the whole room was laughing, even Lorna, and she loved them. She loved them all and wanted to fit in, wanted to be one of them, but she could never be so loose with herself and anyway there was no point really, because in a couple of weeks she’d be gone. In a couple of weeks, if she did get a job, if James did put in a word, she’d be in another London hospital and starting all over again.

‘Come on, Lorna!’ May gave her a very nice smile. ‘I’ll look after you.’

She certainly did. May, Lorna realised, looked after everyone. She had her finger on every pulse and not just the patients’. She could smell trouble before it even arrived and there was something so stoic about her, something so
right,
that she commanded respect even from those who never usually gave it—because, Lorna worked out, watching her chatting to Rita, a tired sex worker who was holding a wad of gauze to her scalp, May respected them.

And so too did Lorna.

A London A and E brought in a very fresh set of problems—some she recognised, some she didn’t, but always Lorna tried.

‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ she said to Rita at two a.m. when she finally got around to stitching her scalp.

The language that followed defied imagination. May put on the kettle and prepared to mop up tears, but Lorna wasn’t crying.

‘You can’t change the world,’ May said.

‘No!’ A little prim face stared her right in the eye. ‘But if she’d let me, I’d change it for her.’

It was rather uplifting when at six a.m. a street-weary face reappeared and asked for the ‘posh Scottish doctor’. May duly buzzed Lorna and her pale, sleep-deprived face appeared.

May wasn’t privy to what was said. Lorna took two mugs of coffee into the interview room and emerged a good hour later. But as May filled in her time sheet and rinsed her Thermos before placing it in her basket, at some level she knew something good had been done at the crack of dawn—something very good indeed.

Nothing that would change the world, of course, May thought as her beloved husband kissed her hello, her tea and toast waiting just as it always was when she did nights. He kissed her goodbye this morning as he dashed to his own work but May sat in the living room for a quiet moment of reflection before heading off to bed. Yes, something had been done this morning that would hopefully change one person’s world.

It was plenty to get to sleep on.

S
HE
wore her glasses chain. It was actually very useful, even if she did look like a sour old spinster, but she didn’t care. No, what Lorna cared about more was when James was called in at eleven on the Saturday night.

‘Sorry, James.’ She heard Abby call out to him as Lorna sat perched on the end of a gurney in Resus, taking a cardiac history from a recent arrival. ‘We’ve had two stabbings and trauma and the surgeons are all in Theatre. I can’t stop this arm bleeding.’

‘No problem,’ James said, and Abby glanced over, saw him tying a plastic apron over his going-out-on-a-Saturday-night clothes and pulling on some rubber gloves. He nodded over to her, a polite nod, not a hint of suggestiveness, or the teeny wink that he would normally have given, and Lorna knew that the door to his heart was finally closed to her.

‘Ellie didn’t seem too impressed at me pulling you away.’

For just a second their eyes met, James a touch uncomfortable, Lorna trying to pretend that a six-inch knife hadn’t just plunged through her heart.

‘Ellie’s used to it,’ James said. And that, as they say, was that.

Lorna dropped her gaze and carried on taking the patient history. James pulled back the gauze on the arterial bleed and called for the light to be lowered and for a pair of forceps. They did their best to get on with the rest of the night.

‘He just needed stitching.’ Abby popped her head into the suture theatre later, where Lorna was checking a patient’s BP. The place was steaming. A thick pile of white cards was clipped to the theatre door and every one of them was waiting to be sutured.

She’d been working her way through them, trying not to care that James had long since gone, trying not to think about his nice big bed and Ellie in it. She had sutured Mr Devlon’s hand wound as Abby had instructed, but just as Lavinia was setting up for the next one, the patient had a dizzy turn as he climbed down off the theatre bed.

‘I’ll take him to one of the cubicles. He can have a little rest before he goes home.’ Lavinia offered, only Lorna wasn’t happy with that.

She
had,
even though it had hurt, taken on board Abby’s criticism and had picked up speed, trying not to stall on minor details, which was, Lorna admitted to herself, her usual way. She had found out why doctors had a reputation for messy writing as she’d signed her name at the bottom of countless casualty cards and done her very best not to take a lengthy history and then do a full body examination for a straightforward sprained ankle.

Only it went against her methodical mind—if the doctor wasn’t looking for trouble, then who else would?

And Mr Devlon was a tough man, a carpenter by trade who had, as he’d told her, been stitched more times than he could remember, so why was he looking so grey and about to faint?

‘It happens sometimes after stitching.’ Lavinia had his head down and was telling him to take deep breaths, and, of course, patients often did feel sick or faint after stitching, Lorna knew
that
much, but there was something about Mr Devlon that didn’t seem right to her.

‘Pop him into a cubicle,’ Lorna said, ‘and get him into a gown and I’ll come and take a proper look at him.’

‘Abby’s already examined him,’ Lavinia said. ‘He’s for discharge after stitching.’

‘Except he’s about to faint.’ Lorna was having great difficulty asserting herself, but Abby had told her to after all! ‘Just put him in a cubicle, please.’

She could almost feel the daggers Abby was shooting into her back as she headed for the cubicle, but at three a.m. this Sunday morning, even if she cared, she cared about her patients more. She refused to practise sticky-plaster medicine, just because some registrar told her that was how it should be done!

Lavinia had got him into a gown and, of course, he looked the picture of health now, smiling and joking away to the nurse as Lorna walked in.

‘How are you feeling now, Mr Devlon?’

‘Grand!’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened in there.’

‘You cut your hand on a Stanley knife?’

‘That’s right,’ he agreed as Lorna skimmed through his brief notes. ‘I’m laying a carpet.’

‘There was no dizziness?’ She watched him hesitate for just a moment before he answered.

‘Well, I felt a bit dizzy after,’ he admitted, ‘but there was quite a bit of blood.’ He smiled at Lavinia, who was standing with a rather bored expression on her face, but she smiled nicely back at the patient. ‘Got it all over the new carpet. The wife’s not going to be too pleased.’

‘I’m talking about when you cut yourself,’ Lorna said. ‘Was there any dizziness prior to that?’

‘Well, maybe a bit.’ Mr Devlon shrugged. ‘I just came over a bit queer.’

‘Has that happened before?’

‘Nope.’

‘Never?’ She was chatting away as she examined him, trying to be quick, yet trying not to rush things, sensing Mr Devlon’s reluctance and noting it to herself.

‘As I said to the other doctor, apart from the odd accident at work, I’ve never had a day’s sickness in my life.’

‘Okay.’ She’d listened to his chest, had examined him neurologically, and now she lowered the trolley and asked him to lie flat so she could examine his abdomen.

‘Have you been feeling well today?’

‘A bit off…’ He gave a sort of small grimace as Lorna probed. ‘Look, I passed a bit of blood. This evening, before I started on the carpet.’

‘Fresh blood?’ Lorna checked in a matter-of-fact voice, but Mr Devlon didn’t answer. Irritated and restless, he sat up. He took a couple of big breaths but his face was a horrible grey colour again.

‘Actually, I need to go to the bathroom.’

‘Could you get a pan please, Lavinia?’

Lavinia was about to roll her eyes, of that Lorna was quite sure, but her bored expression quickly changed as she glanced down at the patient. The once ruddy pink Mr Devlon was grey, and sweating profusely, trying to get off the trolley to get to the bathroom as finally the two women worked together.

Lavinia, grabbed a pan from under the trolley and talked calmly to the embarrassed, restless man as Lorna pulled on an oxygen mask.

‘It’s okay,’ Lavinia said, pressing the call bell for assistance. The poor man was lying sweating on the trolley and on the point of collapse as Lorna quickly wrapped a tourniquet around his arm, but Lorna could see her fingers trembling, and knew she was going to miss.

‘I’ll do it.’ Lavinia swiftly nudged her out of the way and completed the procedure as Lorna ran through a drip.

‘What have we got?’ May dashed in just when she was needed. The patient had collapsed totally and they had him flat on the trolley now, the pan had been taken away, and the head of the bed lowered as they dashed him over to Resus.

‘Massive PR bleed,’ Lorna responded in a matter-of-fact voice, deliberately not looking at Abby as she joined them in Resus. ‘He had one earlier in the evening but was reluctant to say.’

‘Isn’t that the hand injury?’ May could chat and summon the surgeons at the same time. ‘I thought he was on his way home.’

Had Abby bothered to try and get to know her better, she’d have known that Lorna wasn’t one to gloat—victory was rather hollow when it meant a patient was sick. All Lorna wanted was guidance instead of criticism but, rather than improve matters, if anything it made them worse. Lorna, given what had happened to Mr Devlon, was completely paranoid about all her patients now and slowed down further, if that was possible. Abby, defensive and scornful, took every opportunity to point out that if you worked in Emergency long enough there were always patients that surprised you, and as Lorna rang the on-call paediatrician for an opinion on a sore throat, rather tersely Abby told her that not every child had meningitis, not every child merited bloods and admission,
just in case.
Both women were right and both women were wrong—that was the nature of medicine and Lorna was struggling with it.

Really struggling with it, in fact.

But nothing, not a hellish night at work, or a boss that was out to get her, compared to losing James.

The station was virtually empty at seven-thirty a.m. on a Sunday morning.

She sat on the platform and checked her phone, to see again if he had called her. Though why he would or should, Lorna had no idea. He didn’t have to justify himself to her.

And he didn’t.

No blinking light on her answering machine when, frozen, she made it home.

Showering and pulling on her mint green pyjamas
and the socks of James’s she’d kept, she set her alarm and curled up in bed.

Told herself she had to go to sleep because she had to be on the ball for tonight’s shift.

Told herself it was good that he was moving on, because now maybe she could.

Told herself that once this wretched operation was over she’d feel better.

Except she couldn’t stop crying.

H
ER
four nights of hell were nearly over and all Lorna wanted was to leave and never return, was seriously considering doing that just as soon as this shift was over.

She’d hardly sat down since nine p.m. and the clock was nearing six, and though she’d gone to have a quick rest in the staffroom she’d found James asleep in there.

He’d been called in three times and had clearly given up on going home. He’d been stretched out over several seats, absolutely zonked out, his mouth slightly open, one hand dangling on the floor, the other on his stomach.

He was wearing theatre blues, and the top had lifted to show just a little glimpse of his stomach. Lorna had sat with her cup of instant soup, trying to concentrate on some early morning TV show, except it sounded like her father preaching, so she’d turned her gaze away and stared at James instead.

At his big feet and his thick thighs, and that lovely floppy fringe, and that chest she loved to bite.

And those lips that had so many times kissed her. Never more had she wanted to wake him with one.

And then she’d stared down at the bit she was avoiding looking at, because one of the advantages or disadvantages of threadbare hospital blues was that you could tell James dressed to the left.

It really wasn’t much of a break, so Lorna gave in, rinsed out her cup and headed back out. She settled for gulping a cup of coffee at the nurses’ station and, of course, Abby had to dash past at that point on her way to a patient in Resus.

‘Do you need a hand?’ Lorna called, but Abby just tossed her head.

‘Carry on with your break.’

‘Call this a break!’ Lorna rolled her eyes at Lavinia, who giggled.

‘She’s a great doctor,’ Lavinia said. ‘She just rubs people up the wrong way.’

‘Even you?’ Lorna checked.

‘Even me.’

‘I know she’s a great doctor, I’m living proof after all. I keep reminding myself that she saved my life.’

‘She probably regrets it now.’

It was the first time, the very first time, Lorna glimpsed fitting in, the first time she’d shared a joke or chatted easily with the bitchy clique of the emergency team, and all Lorna knew was that she wanted more.

‘Right!’ Lavinia downed the remains of her mug. ‘We’d better get on and clear this place a bit before the day staff get here. It’s been a shocking weekend.’

‘Has it?’

‘Awful!’ Lavinia nodded. ‘Still, it’s nearly over now.’

She touched wood the second she said it, but it was already too late—the alert phone trilled and even as
Ambulance control told her there was a paediatric arrest en route, the ambulance was screaming in. Paramedics raced through the department with a loose-limbed little blue bundle and suddenly, for Lorna, the pressure was on.

‘Where’s Abby?’

‘She’s in with the aneurism,’ May said calmly, her heart sinking as the paramedics laid down their lifeless load. Lorna was bagging the baby as May massaged his chest. ‘The paediatricians
are
coming,’ she explained, ‘but they’re stuck on ICU. I’ve called the second on call and the second anaesthetist.’

‘Get James.’ Lorna’s voice was wobbly, but she said it quite clearly. She wished in fact that James would walk through the door this very second.

‘He’s just left for home.’

‘Call him to come back,’ Lorna said.

She’d dealt with death. As a rural GP it was part of her life, and she’d even dealt with babies and children, but they had been so few and far between that as she stared down at the little mottled, white scrap, Lorna wondered just what the hell she was doing here—why anyone would
want
this job, when death was a daily occurrence.

May was delivering massage to the tiny little shell of a life, Lavinia was trying to get IV access and Lorna knew she had to attempt intubation. Often it was done by the time the patient arrived, but in this case the attempt had been unsuccessful and it had been decided to bag the baby and get him to hospital. In the absence of an anaesthetist it was up to her try. She inserted the laryngoscope and suctioned his airway till she could see
the epiglottis and vocal cords. She willed herself calm and even though her hands were shaking the tube was passing through and May secured it for her, taking over the bagging as Lorna tried to find a vein on the other fat little arm as Lavinia was having trouble. Her hands were still shaking so violently she must surely miss, but she pushed in the needle and could feel the sweat break out on her brow in sheer relief as she got the little flashback of blood that meant she was in.

‘Nice work,’ May said, telling Lavinia to tape it securely, then helping Lorna with the tiny drug doses that were required in a paediatric arrest. Lorna was doing well herself, because she had dealt with this before and she had kept herself up to date. She was also so obsessive she had read and re-read the protocol till it was taped to her brain.

‘There’s blood in the ear canal…’ She checked his eyes, saw the damage and for a second closed her own. It was wrong to jump to conclusions, so she deliberately didn’t, examining him carefully and drawing on the little diagram. She noticed the swelling on his thigh and the shortened leg that looked as if it was fractured.

She had relatives sobbing in the interview room, an abused baby who was moribund and she wanted to scoop him up and hold him, only she couldn’t. ‘Get X-Ray.’ They were already there and so, too, thankfully the paediatricians, with James running in behind.

The baby was given every chance, every last chance, but everyone knew he wasn’t going to make it. The rush of expertise arrived some fifteen minutes before the little life officially ended, the police were already in with the parents, and Lorna could only stand there as James went in to break the news.

‘Do you want to come with me?’ It was a stupid question, there wasn’t a person on earth who would want to be there, but she knew what he meant, that if this was to be her job then this was the type of conversation she needed to get used to having. The right thing to do would be to say yes, to swallow down the tears that were threatening to choke her, to watch and learn from a more experienced colleague how to deal with the parents and police and myriad conflicting parties before she had to go in and do it by herself—only she couldn’t.

‘I’d rather not.’

‘Lorna.’ James voice was firm. ‘I’ll do the talking. You ought to observe.’

‘I’d rather not,’ she said again, because she’d
really
rather not.

She was a strange little thing, James thought as he chose to leave it. Like a twig that might snap or break, except that this one bent. According to May, she’d done an outstanding job, which was what mattered the most—it was right that he didn’t stretch her to breaking point by having her in with the relatives.

‘I’ll get him ready for the parents.’ May, lovely, lovely May was matter-of-fact but crying quietly as she wrapped him up and held him in her arms, all the tubes staying in place because this was a coroner’s case.

‘Will they be able to hold him?’ Lorna asked, stroking the white cheek and stunned at the speed at which life ended. ‘I mean…’

‘The courts will decide who’s responsible.’ May hugged the little boy close. ‘Not us. You treat them with dignity and respect even if it kills you inside to do so.’

‘Does it kill you inside?’ Lorna asked, glad somehow
that she’d seen May crying, not that there was much evidence now. May had dabbed at her cheeks with a tissue and was waiting for James to tell her to bring the baby to his family. Lorna was relieved that she wasn’t the only one who was utterly devastated by what had just taken place. ‘I mean, do you get used to it all?’

‘Never.’ May said. ‘I’d leave if I did.’

Yes, babies died and, yes, it wasn’t that rare an occurrence in a busy emergency department, but it was still a subdued team that greeted the day staff. The police and family were still there and the baby was too, and everyone was a little bit gentler on everyone else this morning. In fact, no one complained that she took for ever on her notes. Lorna sat with a big mug of tea and wrote up all that she’d done, even managed a smile at a joke from one of the porters, but her face was so pale, her subtle blusher now looked as if it had been slapped on, two streaks of tawny colour down the side of her face. Her hands were shaking when she handed her notes over to the paediatrician and, despite appearances, James knew she was having trouble holding it together. He couldn’t stand the thought of her going home alone to deal with it, instead of letting some of it out here, amongst staff who could give her some support.

When she pulled on her coat, and his on call had officially ended, instead of hanging around to clear the place, he walked through the department with her. He could not let her go home on the underground alone.

And it wasn’t just because she was his ex, or maybe it was, but he had to try and talk to her.

‘Don’t go home yet.’

‘I’m tired.’ She was clipping out of the department and refusing to slow down.

‘You haven’t even cried,’ James said. ‘You cry at everything.’

‘If I start, I don’t think I’ll stop.’

‘You will,’ James promised. ‘You need to go over it, Lorna.’

‘Why?’ she snapped. ‘Is it going to bring him back?’ She was almost running now, but he caught her arm and made her stop, stood in the corridor outside Emergency, which at nine a.m. was crowded with people, and it was neither the time nor the place. Lorna told him as much as he bundled her into a small annexe beside the admissions desk. ‘I’m not surprised that you’re having trouble holding onto doctors. My shift ended more than an hour ago.’

‘Talk to me, Lorna.’

‘No, because I’m tired and I just want to go to bed. I don’t need some touchy-feely session to tell me that what I’m feeling is normal or to give me permission to be angry.’

‘No, you don’t,’ James said, letting her go, because he
was
crossing the line but, hell, it was hard to be just a colleague around her and it was killing him to let her go home to cry alone. ‘But you do need to—’

‘I need to go home,’ she said. ‘Away from this place. I’m tired of being made to feel useless, I’m tired of being told I’m too slow and I’m too cautious.’

‘You’re doing well.’

‘Oh, please,’ Lorna scoffed. ‘I’ll be told off now for calling you in without Abby’s permission, no doubt!’

‘Abby spoke to me before. She said you’ve really
picked up. She told me about the perforated ulcer and how you noticed it when she didn’t.’

‘She told you?’

‘And you know you did a good job with that baby.’

‘Not good enough, though.’

‘Lorna, no one could have saved him. Do you realise what a good job you did in there? You intubated him, you got IV access. You with your shaking hands who’d miss one of my veins managed to get it in to a collapsed baby.’

‘How?’ She asked the bit that she truly didn’t understand, the bit that terrified her most, the bit she was certain she could never do. ‘How can you talk to them, be nice to them, when you know…?’

‘We don’t know, Lorna.’

‘Please.’ She knew not to jump to conclusions, had been very careful not to when she’d been assessing the patient, but now, having read the little boy’s medical history, both of them deep down knew the truth. ‘How can you sit in there with them and be polite, knowing what’s gone on?’

‘Because for me it’s easier,’ James said. ‘Because, like you with your crying, if I started saying all the things I actually wanted to say, then I’m sure I’d never stop.’

He’d always loved kids, had teased her at the start of her marriage that he wanted five at least, and he’d have been such a brilliant father. It was hard to believe that ten years on he wasn’t one yet and it was over between them, except for one thing—except for the one thing they’d never, ever been able to discuss.

And maybe it was because they were finally over, or
maybe it was because she was exhausted and drained and weeping inside for that waste of a little boy’s life, that for the first time she said it.

‘We’d have been such good parents.’ Even though he wasn’t pushing her to talk now, even though she could walk away, she chose not to. The floodgates crashed open and pointless as it was because that was just the way life was, finally she said it. ‘It’s not
fair
, James.’