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you know him well?’ Rinska asked, taking in Ally’s rather bewildered frown. Ally gave a sort of vague, noncommittal nod, not particularly sure it would be appropriate to tell Rinska that at this very moment he was probably tucked up in her heavily scented bed! ‘We used to share a house.’

      Rinska’s glittery eyeshadow stretched just a touch further.

      ‘With about three others. I bought a house on the beach when I was a student and over the years I’ve had more doctors and nurses as housemates than I can count. Rory was one of them.’

      ‘You bought a house on the beach when you were a student—how?’ Rinska asked, filling in a patient’s notes in her massive flamboyant scrawl as she happily chatted. ‘I couldn’t afford a beach box, let alone a house.’

      ‘Believe me; it had nothing to do with making an astute investment. A few of us were looking to rent and all the places were absolute bombs. My grandmother had left me some money, not a fortune but enough for a deposit. I saw this house for sale and fell in love with it—it was a bomb as well.’ Ally grinned. ‘But it was a bomb that was sitting right on the beach, with views to die for! I worked out that if everyone chipped in the rent it would cover the mortgage, and the next thing I knew I was standing at an auction.’

      ‘It would be worth a fortune now.’

      ‘Probably.’ Ally shrugged. She had no intention of selling and, anyway, she was far more interested in what Rinska had to say about Rory. ‘So what else have you heard about the new reg?’

      ‘Just what I told you. He’s more than happy to intervene if nature isn’t progressing as quickly as he’d like it to. I wonder how he’s going to fit in here?’

      ‘Well, he fitted in fine before.’

      ‘Ah, but he was an intern then.’ Rinska gave a dry smile. ‘And we all know that an intern isn’t allowed to have a single independent thought. I think you should brace yourself for a whole new doctor.’

      ‘Well, we’ll soon find out,’Ally answered as casually as she could, scarcely able to believe that in a matter of hours she’d be working alongside Rory again. ‘But he surely knows that Bay View isn’t exactly high-tech or a high-intervention hospital. If he wants that type of thing he should be working in the city, not at some suburban bayside hospital.’

      ‘Tell him when you see him,’ Rinska said as Ally clicked off her pen and closed the patient folder she was writing in. ‘What time are you due to finish?’

      ‘In half an hour,’ Ally answered. ‘I’m just going to check on Mrs Williams’s progress and then I might pop in and see Kathy before I give handover.’

      ‘How is Kathy this evening?’ Rinska asked, and Ally could hear the tense edge to Rinska’s usually confident voice.

      ‘The same,’ Ally sighed.

      ‘Still blaming me?’

      ‘She’s blaming everyone now—from the porter who wheeled her to Theatre, to the nurses, the consultant who came in and, yes, to you.’ Ally gave a sympathetic smile. ‘Rinska, you didn’t do anything wrong.’

      ‘I know that.’ Rinska gave a tired nod. ‘But try telling that to Kathy. Maybe she’s right,’ Rinska sighed. ‘Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough, but I was honestly trying not to scare her too much. I thought she understood how serious the situation was.’

      ‘She didn’t want to understand,’ Ally said wisely, because even if Rinska was highly qualified, she still needed her colleagues’ support.

      Kathy Evans was well known to everyone on the maternity ward. She had delivered a healthy baby boy three days earlier but, despite the fact that both mother and baby were doing well, Kathy was bitterly disappointed with how her labour had turned out and was making her feelings known to anyone who cared to listen—and extremely loudly!

      Kathy had come in for an attempted VBAC—a vaginal birth after a Caesarean section. When she’d had her first child, the baby had been too large to negotiate the pelvis and an urgent C-section had been performed, much to Kathy’s disappointment. A staunch advocate of natural delivery, she had been disappointed that she hadn’t been able to achieve one and had been determined that her ‘mistake’ wouldn’t be repeated again. Previously it had been considered that ‘once a Caesarean always a Caesarean,’ but over the last few years, when appropriate, women had been offered a trial of labour. Things didn’t always work out as planned and often women still ended up requiring surgery to deliver their baby, but statistics were encouraging and the tide was starting to turn. Kathy had been determined that she would be successful in her quest to have a natural delivery, had done extensive research in her library and on the internet and was convinced that it was more a question of mind over matter than anything else. But even though her second baby was a much smaller one, Kathy’s uterus hadn’t contracted efficiently, and after a prolonged labour with minimal progress Rinska had become concerned by some rather ominous signs in Kathy’s and the baby’s observations and had called in Mr Davies, who had performed an emergency Caesarean section.

      ‘Rinska, you had no choice but to call in Mr Davies to perform a Caesarean section. And that’s coming from me—one of the strongest supporters in the unit for natural birth and minimal intervention. It would have been considered negligent if you hadn’t intervened when you did. You know that!’

      ‘I do know that.’ Rinska gave a small tired smile, obviously grateful for her colleague’s support. ‘I just guess I need to keep hearing it. Over and over in my mind I’ve gone through Kathy’s labour and I really cannot think of anything that I could have done differently, except perhaps explain things a little more clearly to her.’

      Ally gave a dubious frown. Rinska, despite her heavy accent, despite the fact English wasn’t her first language, always spoke eloquently to the patients, always found the time, even in the most dire of circumstances, to keep her patients informed, and now here she was doubting herself.

      Checking that no one was nearby, Rinska spoke in low tones. ‘I think she’s going to make a formal complaint.’

      ‘Then let her,’ Ally said with a confidence that belied how she really felt—even if Rinska was in the right, a formal complaint and the ensuing investigation was a horrible thing for anyone to go through. ‘Anyone who looks at her charts will know that you had no choice but to call in Mr Davies, and at the end of the day Mr Davies is the one who operated…’

      ‘I know,’ Rinska sighed. ‘But it’s me she’s really against. She was already in Theatre by the time Mr Davies arrived. She says that I panicked and overreacted, that I dramatised the situation just to get him to come in.’

      ‘That’s ridiculous.’

      ‘It’s also the last thing I need right now. Ally, please, don’t say anything, but I’m actually applying for a consultant’s position.’

      ‘Here?’ Ally beamed and Rinska nodded.

      ‘It’s early days, my paperwork isn’t quite through yet, but hopefully in a few weeks I can start doing the job I’ve trained so hard for. It’s not that I mind being a resident and having to double-check everything with a registrar who knows less than me…’ Rinska gave a low laugh at her own bitter voice. ‘Well, a little, perhaps, but it has helped me to learn about the hospital system from the bottom upwards, which can only be good. But it’s still been a tough year. And now just when there’s an end in sight I’m going to have this complaint to deal with. It’s not going to look good for me.’

      ‘You’ll be fine,’ Ally said firmly, and she meant it. ‘When does your shift end?’

      ‘Half an hour ago,’ Rinska said wryly. ‘I might head over to the social club afterwards. Do you want to come?’

      Ally was about to shake her head. The hospital social club wasn’t really her scene but the prospect of a drink and a chat with Rinska was rather more inviting than sitting in the movies alone just so

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