LITMIR.BIZ

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who came, young and chatty and just the tonic for Kane, Fleur decided. She handed him over, running through the theatre checklist yet again.

      ‘Thanks, Felicity, here’s his X-rays. How is it round there?’

      ‘The cubicles are filling but Resus, where I am, is empty. I hope it stays that way.’

      ‘You’ve just jinxed yourself.’ Fleur grinned. ‘Good luck, Kane. I’ll arrange for a porter to bring your stuff up to the ward.’

      Stripping his bed, Fleur placed the linen into the skip and removed the name card above the bed then sorted all Kane’s belongings into one of the hospital’s blue property bags, deciding not to ring the orderly to wash the bed until Hilda had been discharged.

      Collecting a couple of towels and a wash cloth on the way, she walked over to Hilda.

      ‘Mrs Green?’ Fleur gently patted her arm. At first glance Hilda appeared to be dozing, her knitting resting in her lap, her glasses on the edge of her nose, but the bottom set of her false teeth was slipping out of her slack mouth and with alarm Fleur noticed her darkening lips.

      ‘Mrs Green!’ Fleur’s voice was louder, more insistent as she felt for a pulse. Hastily she let the head of the bed down and removed the pillows, grabbing the emergency tray situated on each shelf above the bed. Removing the false teeth which were obstructing Hilda’s airway, she deftly inserted a small plastic tube to keep her airway clear and pulled Hilda onto her side, placing an oxygen mask on before making the short dash to the desk and hitting the panic button which would summon help immediately.

      Before she’d even made her way back to the bedside a doctor appeared, immediately sensing the urgency in Fleur’s actions as she raced back to Mrs Green.

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘I was just about to take her for a shower when I found her unconscious.’

      Not waiting for the rest of the staff to appear, he kicked the brakes off the bed. ‘We get her to Resus now.’

      The imperfect English and stunning looks could only mean that this was the man Kathy had been describing. But there wasn’t time for niceties as they pushed the bed along the highly polished floors, the staff standing back to let the all-too-familiar sight pass by.

      Gliding into Resus, Fleur immediately attached Hilda to an array of monitors.

      ‘Her oxygen sats are low and her respiration rate is only six.’

      Mario flicked on his torch. ‘She’s blown a pupil. I’ll bag her—you page the anaesthetist and neurosurgeon.’

      A couple more staff had joined them now, working on the inert body, setting up IV infusions and an intubation tray. Fleur ran for the telephone and put out the emergency pages but, replacing the receiver, in that instant it hit her— it was all too soon, much too soon. ‘I’ll get Danny.’

      ‘He’s in his office and Felicity is up in Theatre. I need some IV dexamethasone now.’

      Like a deer caught in headlights, she stood there for a second as Lucy rummaged through the drug trolley.

      ‘Now!’ Mario demanded more loudly.

      Her hands shook as she located the drug. Just preventing stabbing herself with the needle, she pulled up the solution into the syringe and handed it to Mario’s impatiently outstretched hand.

      ‘Run through some IV mannitol.’ He looked at the closed resuscitation doors expectantly. ‘Where the hell is the anaesthetist?’

      ‘I only just put out the page,’ Fleur replied quickly. ‘They’ll all be up in Theatre.’

      ‘Then I need you to help me.’ Giving Hilda several swift pumps of oxygen, he removed the ambu-bag and slid a laryngoscope into her slack mouth.

      ‘Size seven ET tube.’

      Two years ago he wouldn’t have needed to ask. The intubation equipment would have been handed to him before he’d even thought it. But this wasn’t two years ago, this was today, her first day back…

      Shaking, dropping tubes as she frantically located the correct size, she attempted an explanation. ‘I’m not supposed to be in Resus, I don’t do Resus…’

      He looked up, just for a second. The sapphire blue of his eyes seemed out of place with his dark Mediterranean looks, but they were blazing with frustration and anger as he addressed her curtly. ‘Then just what the hell are you doing, working in Emergency?’

      His words echoed Fleur’s thoughts exactly.

      ‘Fleur, what’s going on?’

      Gratefully she swung round at the sound of Danny’s voice. ‘My quiet morning just ended.’ Glancing over at Hilda lying flat and lifeless, tubes and wires crowding her body, it might just as well have been Rory lying there. Overwhelmed, overwrought, with a sob Fleur fled the room.

      ‘G’day, there, sweetie—time for your morning break?’ Beryl, the domestic, made no comment about Fleur’s reddened, watering eyes. It happened all too often in this place. ‘Why don’t youse sit down and I’ll bring you a brew? Now, what would you like—a cappuccino or a caffè latte, or just an espresso?’

      For a second Fleur thought Beryl was having a joke, but she started when she saw the huge stainless-steel contraption Beryl was lovingly polishing. ‘Where on earth did that come from?’

      ‘Dr Mario bought it for us, his first week here. ‘‘How am I supposed to function on this slop?’’ he said, all Latin like, as he threw his coffee into the sink, and that very afternoon here it was. Now, what can I get you?’ Beryl showed her the works and in no time the delicious aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the room as Beryl frothed the milk. ‘Just gorgeous,’ she said with a small sigh, and Fleur was positive Beryl wasn’t referring to the coffee!

      Sitting in the empty staffroom, Fleur berated herself over and over. She had been a fool to come back, a fool to think she could just walk in to her old job and carry on as if nothing had happened, when everything had changed.

      It had seemed such a good idea when Kathy had first suggested it. With the government’s latest drive to encourage nurses back into the work force, job share was a concept that had been bandied around like a supposed gift from the gods. Reasonable shifts, flexible rosters, all like manna from heaven for nurses trying to juggle child care and young children. But half the pay with all the responsibility, Fleur had pointed out when Kathy had first broached the subject.

      ‘Come on, Fleur,’ she’d urged. ‘You said yourself, money’s a bit tight. And besides, it would do you good to get out a bit more. You know I want to cut back my hours and we’d both have built in babysitters. It’s the perfect solution. Heaven knows, they’d welcome you back with open arms—that place has really been going to pot lately. There’s just not enough senior staff and morale is really low. It would be great for everyone.’

      And after a couple of glasses of wine, well, maybe more than a couple, Fleur had found herself starting to agree.

      So now here she was, sitting in the staffroom feeling like the biggest failure in the world. She should never have come back, never have let Kathy talk her into it. Not only was it unfair on the staff, it was downright dangerous for the patients!

      * * *

      In contrast to the first half of the morning, the hand clinic ran smoothly. Danny had been right in his prediction that it would be a big clinic, and patient after patient trooped through—some bandaged, some with slings, others with their injured hands in plastic burn bags. Each hand injury seen in the department was always reviewed the following day, or in this case on the Monday following the weekend. More often than not, a simple re-dressing was all that was required, but in a few cases a more significant problem was detected on review which more than merited the manpower and time that the clinics took. Mario and Luke Richardson, the senior consultant, were both extremely experienced and zipped through the patients. It didn’t take long

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