Unknown (17 page)

They didn't talk about the past or the future and they didn't talk about what would happen at work.

When he took her into the hospital the next morning he kissed her hard before she left his car, winding his hands into the tangled raggedness of her hair and holding her still while he ravished her mouth and left her breathless and heated.

But when she arrived on Orange, after running back to her room to change her clothes, his greeting in front of the others was entirely neutral.

'Merrin, one of the children's wards just called up to say that the child who's first on the theatre list for this morning's running a temperature,' he told her evenly. 'Go and see while we finish here. If you're worried call Chris Jennings. If he wants to postpone his operation that's fine with me.'

The child had a high temperature and a sore throat and sore ears, and Merrin asked one of the paediatric SHOs to see him. The other doctor diagnosed a probable viral infection and suggested delaying the operation.

The anaesthetist agreed with that assessment. 'The surgery's not urgent so just book him for a month or so,' he told Merrin over the telephone when she explained. 'I'm in Theatre now so I'll let them know here. Have you told Neil?'

'He's just coming now,' Merrin said slowly, her eyes riveted on the man in question even though his brief glance in her direction was impersonal as he held open the main doors of the children's unit for Douglas and Lindsay. He'd kissed her, caressed her, parted her legs and made love to her throughout the night, but somehow he could hide that now while she remained weak with longing for him. 'I'll speak to him,' she said huskily. 'And I'll book the child in for another month.'

'Dr Jennings wants him to be postponed,' she told the other three doctors. 'So, Prof, you'll be starting with the baby in bed six. Timmy Parker.'

'We'll see him first.' He took the notes from her outstretched hand. 'Doug, this is the baby you saw in Casualty at the end of January with the hernia. Come and have a look now.'

Merrin trailed behind them automatically, aware of the worried looks she was receiving from Lindsay and the rather forceful way the other doctor pushed the notebook into her hands, but still quite unable to shake herself out of her languor.

'Are you getting flu?' Lindsay demanded, catching at her arm as they moved between Timmy Parker's room and the main ward, then to the first bed on the right. 'Your face is all pink and you look like you're on another planet.'

'I'm fine.' Physically at least, aside from the soreness of muscles unaccustomed to exercise. She tried to look fine. 'Was that home tomorrow?' she said vaguely.

'Home today,' her boss repeated, his enigmatic regard meaning she couldn't tell if he minded her lapse in concentration. 'Stitches out at his GP's on Saturday. No hospital follow-up.'

'No follow-up,' she echoed, writing that down not because she needed to record the detail but because if she looked at him much longer she was afraid she'd begin to melt.

As they hurried back through into the main hospital corridor after the round, Mr Sanderson, coming the other way with his own team, waylaid them. 'Neil, those audit figures you're demanding,' he said, signalling for his juniors to wait for him. 'The idea's ludicrous. A word in your ear.'

'Doug, Lindsay, I'll see you up there,' the professor said impatiently. 'Wait, Merrin. Harry, you've got two minutes. What is it?'

'Frankly, I've better things to do than waste my time, sifting through old records,' Merrin heard the older surgeon begin irritably, but Neil's face had hardened and he waved Merrin away towards the other doctors gathered further along the corridor away from them, and she realised that he didn't want her to listen to his discussion.

'How's Mrs Ramsden?' she asked Mr Sanderson's house officer, as she strolled over to them, referring to the patient whose blood count she'd had to check the night she'd been on call.

'Shush, Merrin, we're trying to hear.' Fiona, Mr Sanderson's registrar, shook her head at her. 'Don't look like you're listening. He's going to blast him.'

'Mr Sanderson?' Merrin said sharply, turning back towards the two surgeons who were locked in what looked like a heated argument. 'Why?'

'Don't look!' The SHO pulled her shoulder around again. 'Pretend you're not interested. Not Mr Sanderson. The Prof. He's going to blast the boss sky high. We can't wait.'

'But why?' Merrin strained her ears but the two men spoke in such low tones that she couldn't tell what they were saying.

'Profs ordered an audit on general-surgical lists,' the house officer hissed. 'We have to go back through twelve months of theatre records, confirm them with the patient notes and record the numbers of routine cases where the consultants are present in Theatres versus how many the registrars and SHOs are left to do alone.'

Merrin wondered what all the fuss was about. 'What's the point in doing that? If you're talking about the scheduled list, not emergencies, then the consultants are there pretty much the whole time, aren't they? That's their job. That's what they're paid for.'

'We know that and Prof knows that but try telling it to Mr Sanderson,' Fiona whispered. 'When the figures come out he knows he's in big trouble. Most of the time he doesn't even bother turning up to his list. Twice when we've needed help in an emergency this year no one's been able to find him and we've had to call the Prof in.'

'Mr Sanderson's too busy raking in the dosh in his private practice,' the house officer explained, obviously seeing that Merrin still didn't understand what they meant. 'Thirty minutes doing a hernia and he can earn the same as a half a day in the NHS.'

'If money's so important to him then he should quit the NHS,' Merrin said righteously. 'Doug says there're some fantastic registrars waiting to take up consultant positions here. Mr Sanderson should leave public hospital work to the doctors who care.'

'That might just be about to happen,' Fiona said gleefully. 'Profs been pushing him to retire but he might be about to quit. He looks furious.'

Unsure if the registrar meant Neil or Mr Sanderson, Merrin peeped around, but to her relief it was the older man who looked as if his temper was out of control. With a grim look back to where his juniors were gathered, he made a fierce signal to them and stalked on ahead, leaving Merrin alone as the other doctors hurried after him.

'Coming to Theatre?' Neil's expression was utterly calm and he made no mention of what had just happened as he came forward to join her.

'There's work on the ward,' she explained huskily, looking up at him, wide-eyed, sickly aware that she couldn't conceal anything about the way she was feeling from him. 'I've got some discharges—'

'Nothing that won't wait.'

'It's only ten past eight,' she said mechanically. She could see his awareness of how she felt in his eyes and she could hardly breathe. 'I can go up to the ward and do my work and still be in Theatre in time for the start of your list.'

'Not now. Stay with me now.' His hand went to the small of her back and he directed her towards the stairs, his touch superficially impersonal enough a gesture not to seem odd to any observer, she registered, but she felt the heat in his grip and the urgency in the way he propelled her upwards and it made her melt.

'I love you,' she whispered. 'Can we go to your office?'

'My secretaries will be in. Here.' On the same floor as Theatres now, he urged her around into the shadows behind the main corridor and into a dusty little room which might once have been a library because it was full of shelves but they were cobwebbed and old and there were no books.

The door had no lock but he lifted her dress and turned her, urging her back against the door so her body held it closed. 'You're driving me insane,' he said harshly, unfastening her. 'How the hell am I supposed to keep my hands off you if you keep looking at me like that?'

'I don't want you to keep your hands off me.' Her hands and mouth as urgent as his, she touched his eyes, his mouth, his ears, his neck, the freshly shaved smoothness of his jaw. 'I don't want you to ever stop touching me.' She gasped as he slid down her, understanding what he wanted. Shamelessly she spread her legs for his mouth. 'I love you touching me.'

Afterwards he held her up against the door, kissing her face, nuzzling her, adjusting her clothing and supporting her because she couldn't stand alone. 'It's almost time,' he said roughly, his mouth at her ear. 'I have to go.'

Raggedly she murmured, 'I'll come and watch your first cases.' There were voices outside in the corridor and she lifted her head at the sound, blinking at him with languid doubts. 'Neil, I don't want anybody to see—'

'It's all right. Don't worry. We'll go separately.' He waited a few seconds until the voices moved on, then eased the door open. 'It's clear now so you go first. I'll give you a couple of minutes before I follow.'

But to her dismay her escape didn't go entirely unobserved. Douglas, in theatre blues, was striding along the main corridor just as she hurried out of the area behind the lifts, and he stopped short and stared at her, his expression puzzled, hers, she suspected, panicked. 'Your hair's a mess,' he remarked, frowning at her. But then slowly, his gaze turning speculative, he added, 'Profs not here yet. Merrin...? Have you seen him?'

'Yes
.' Merrin wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then lifted her other hand to smooth her tangled hair self-consciously. She knew she must be flushing heavily and the realisation made her more nervous. 'He's...on his way. Is it urgent?'

'Not really.' Douglas was looking behind her to where she'd come from and nervously she registered that his regard had turned sharp. 'What—? Why were you down there?'

'Just on my way to Theatre,' she murmured, dropping her eyes. 'I'm sure Prof won't be long.' Avoiding his eyes, she scuttled around him and in through the side doors into the theatre corridor.

She raked her hair into place with her fingers and showered quickly, scrubbing her pink face with cool water, before changing into theatre gear.

The dampness of Neil's hair as he emerged from the male dressing room opposite, pulling his hat on at the same time as she came out into the foyer, suggested that he'd done the same.

'Stop, Merrin.' His eyes were narrowed and intense. He took her arm and drew her into the equipment room beside them. 'You've missed half of it,' he said quietly. While she held her breath he slowly pushed her hair back beneath the elastic of her paper hat. 'That's better. Now you look like a real surgeon.'

'What did I look like before?' she asked huskily.

'Like an angel.' His mouth brushed the swell of her cheek just below her eyes. 'An alluring, seductive, wanton angel. Now scoot.' He slapped her backside lightly. 'Before I forget what I'm supposed to be here for.'

She didn't scrub for Timmy Parker's herniotomy. He only needed one assistant, he told her, meaning Lindsay, although he made room for her to stand close so she'd have a good view.

'OK, Neil. Any time.' Chris Jennings nodded to him. 'He's under.'

'Thanks.' The surgeon made a tiny, smooth incision. 'Shirls, some music, I think,' he instructed. 'What have you got?'

Merrin was looking up when he spoke and she sensed something like a shock wave encircle the theatre. Shirley's eyes snapped wide open, Chris Jennings looked up sharply, his gaze incredulous, and the scrub, nurse was staring at Neil as if he'd gone mad. Even Lindsay looked astonished.

'Um...well.' Merrin saw that Shirls looked flummoxed. 'What about that Ella Fitzgerald?' she asked roughly.

'I'd like that.' Neil, apparently unaware of the furore his request seemed to have provoked, was still working. 'Swab, Lindsay. Lindsay...?'

'Swab. Yes.' The SHO seemed bemused, her hands unusually clumsy as she dabbed at the wound. 'Sorry.'

'I'll just go find the tape,' Shirley said. 'It's probably in the office.'

Merrin had to leave soon after the music started. In her bemusement at encountering Douglas in the corridor, she'd forgotten to leave her bleeper at Theatre reception and the ward bleeped her to see some relatives of one of her patients. After that she was kept busy on the wards and didn't make it back to Theatre.

Lindsay came up just after one, bearing a burger and a strawberry shake. 'No problems?'

Merrin looked up from the admission she was completing. 'Nothing in particular. What's happening this afternoon?'

'Colonoscopy clinic at one-thirty,' Lindsay told her, opening her lunch. 'You should come if you've got time. It's always interesting.'

Douglas appeared in the doorway. 'Merrin, Mr Wood's barium enema? Have you seen it? I've looked everywhere.'

'Under "W" beneath the trolley,' she told him crisply. 'I put it there an hour ago.'

'"W". Of course.' He rolled his eyes. 'How could I forget?'

'Doug, guess which surgeon wanted music this morning?' Lindsay grinned at him.

'Shirls told me. She couldn't believe it.' To Merrin's puzzlement, Douglas was looking at
her.
'How long has it been?'

'Two years. After his wife died he stopped the music,' Lindsay explained to Merrin, who promptly felt herself stiffening. 'He used to love jazz while he was operating and he was a real Ella Fitzgerald fan. Today's the first time he's asked for it since.'

'Interesting,' Doug mused, still looking at Merrin. 'And what does our little house officer think? Hmm, Merrin? What's your opinion on this?'

'I think that he's entitled to music if he wants it.' Carefully she closed the notes she was working on. 'And I think it's not a subject worth speculating about. Personally I love Ella Fitzgerald. I'm going to lunch.'

'You know, I really think there's something different about him lately,' Lindsay said firmly. 'He's more relaxed or something.'

'My vote's on the "or something",' Douglas observed dryly. 'What do you think, Merrin?'

'I'm sure you know best.' Merrin kept her gaze firmly averted. 'You obviously think you do. See you in clinic.'

Sandra Corby, the young mother she'd seen the Friday before in Outpatients, did have what looked like a bowel tumour. Merrin stood beside Neil and held her breath while he took a delicate biopsy of the ragged mass, feeling sick.