A Medical Liaison

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‘You seem to have a problem with communication, Dr Forrester. How surprising for someone who has worked so much in the media! You are rude and boorish. And a bully,’ she added, thinking of how he had snapped so unnecessarily on the telephone. ‘Personally, I’d get something done about it if I were you—it can’t make you a very good doctor, now can it?’

She didn’t bother to wait around for his reply, but she saw that her barb had definitely reached its target, for his face was as black as thunder.

The short walk back to her room seemed to last forever. It felt as though she was walking the plank. She didn’t know what she was expecting him to do—rush after her and blast her out—but, in fact, he did nothing.

Once inside, she waited until she heard him go back to his room before she hurried in to use the bathroom. She bathed and brushed her teeth and wrapped her dressing-gown around her tightly before going back to her room, remembering his words and feeling stupidly afraid that perhaps she might come face to face with his naked body.

She read her book for a while longer, and decided to turn in for an early night before starting her new job—she wanted to be refreshed and rested to face all the hard work which lay ahead of her.

And then she did something she’d never done in all the time she’d lived away from home.

Turning the key in the door, she locked herself in.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_15abef73-1650-5647-af08-7d6c6d6e0a0f)

LOUISA awoke with that curious feeling of disorientation which accompanied the first night spent in a strange bed. Even before she opened her eyes she seemed to sense the unfamiliar surroundings, and she came to slowly, seeing the pale light of the winter morning come creeping through the ghastly hospital curtains of orange and brown.

She sat up and clicked off the alarm clock she had not needed—she was so used to waking before seven that it had now become second nature to her. Her fears of the night before now served only to niggle her with an embarrassed shame. No doubt the women doctors who had fought for this particular equality would be appalled if they’d known that she had barricaded herself in her bedroom like some medieval virgin—but then, they had probably never met Adam Forrester!

Nevertheless, she sat still in bed for the moment, clad in one of the baggy T-shirts she always wore, listening out for any signs of life or, more specifically, any indication that the man himself might be roaming around the flat in his threatened lack of attire.

But she heard nothing, and so swung her legs out of the bed, pulled on her dressing-gown and headed for the bathroom with a youthful exuberance which was hard to dispel.

The irritating events of the afternoon and evening before slid into their correct place in the rational light of a new day—the bickering between herself and that mixed-up man were of little consequence to her today. She scrubbed her face with vigour, heart beating faster than usual, longing to start her new job.

She dressed with care. Unfair though it might seem, the clothes that a woman doctor wore were important. In many hospitals jeans or indeed any kind of trousers were out. It was a rule which was unstated, but a rule none the less which most of the women adhered to. Anything too frivolous, too obviously feminine, was frowned upon as well, so frills or very short skirts would not find favour with the hierarchy. The idea, she had decided long ago, was to sublimate their sexuality in as attractive a way as possible!

She donned a knee-length black skirt, teamed with a dark green shirt of shot silk which she had picked up in the sales. Matching dark green woollen tights and slim black patent shoes gave her a neat, co-ordinated appearance and she tied her dark chestnut waves into a pony-tail at the nape of her neck with a broad black velvet ribbon.

That done, she pulled on her white coat and checked the pockets for the equipment she would need each day on the wards. Stethoscope, patella hammer, ophthalmoscope and auroscope. She carried a book which listed all the commonly used drugs, their side-effects and contra-indications, and a thick black pocket notebook which she would shortly begin filling in with the names and diagnoses of all her new patients.

She was to report to Dale Ward at eight-thirty, where she would meet the rest of the team for a ‘breakfast’ meeting. Her new consultant was Dr Stanley Fenton-Taylor and she couldn’t wait to meet him. She had been interested in cardiology since her pre-clinical days as a student, reading the erudite yet intriguing books on this specialist subject with fervour. When she had learned that she had gained a job on his firm, she had been disbelieving, then overjoyed, and it had made up for her decision to leave Barts. It had been a prize which had come at the end of the worst period of her life—and if it hadn’t completely compensated for the events which had occurred, then it had certainly made her view her future with an entirely different attitude.

The flat was deserted, and she made herself some coffee which she drank down quickly and afterwards washed and dried the cup up. All was neat and tidy, so he must have washed up after their omelette last night. Well, she wouldn’t have to tolerate such a touchy flatmate for much longer. And, by the end of her first day’s work she would be able to come and pick up her belongings and move to somewhere more congenial.

It was a bleak, dull October morning with a fine grey drizzle in the air, and by the time she had walked over to the main building to Dale Ward a few wispy curls had escaped from the stark lines of her pony-tail, giving her face a sweetly feminine appearance.

She found the ward easily enough, and tapped on the door of Sister’s office. She wanted to follow all the protocol of hospital life correctly; she knew from experience how first impressions counted and if she wanted to be liked by the ward staff, then she must make sure she was suitably polite and likeable.

‘Sister’ turned out to be surprisingly young—possibly even younger than Louisa herself, a tall girl with luminous green eyes smiling at her from behind dark-rimmed glasses. She stood up as Louisa entered the room and held out her hand.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘You must be our new house officer—I’m Amanda Patterson—known as Mandy—we don’t stand on ceremony much here!’

Louisa shook the proffered hand. ‘I’m pleased to hear it! Louisa Gray—nice to meet you.’

‘The breakfast meeting has already started,’ explained Mandy. ‘I think they always tell you to come along a little later on your first day. It’s held in the large interview room at the end of the ward. Come with me and I’ll show you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Louisa, following her out of the office and on to the ward, trying to quash the feelings of nervousness which had suddenly arisen. She didn’t really like the thought of trooping in late in front of the whole team.

‘Has Dr Fenton-Taylor arrived yet?’ she enquired.

Mandy turned to her in surprise. ‘Oh, but he’s in America until Christmas—didn’t you know?’

Louisa digested this surprising piece of information. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

‘But don’t worry,’ smiled Mandy. ‘One of the Research Fellows is standing in for him.’

They walked down the highly polished floor of the aisle between the beds and she could see patients watching her curiously. As they passed one elderly woman’s bed she heard her comment to her neighbour.

‘Bit young for a doctor, ain’t she?’

Louisa had to hide a smile and Mandy grinned at her conspiratorially.

‘Don’t worry, they’ll soon get used to you. They keep telling me that I’m too young to be a sister—it’s obviously not just policemen who start to look younger as one gets older!’ They were both laughing as she pushed open a door and Louisa was confronted by the sight of about nine men in white coats, sitting around in easy chairs in a circle and drinking cups of coffee.

‘Good luck,’ whispered Mandy. ‘Gentlemen—this is your new house officer!’

Louisa smiled nervously and looked around, trying to take it all in. As with all large groups of people, it took a moment for her mind to clear enough to look at them as individuals.

Some warning sound was clicking furiously in her mind, and her eyes travelled to the centre of the group, to the man who was obviously in charge of the proceedings. Now getting to his feet, moving his long legs reluctantly, watching her with an expression on his face which was not quite a smile—she found herself staring into the face of Adam Forrester.

‘Dr Gray, I presume?’ he asked and she nodded automatically, still too shocked by his appearance to say anything.

‘I shall be standing in for Dr Fenton-Taylor until he returns from the States. Shall I introduce you to the rest of the team?’ he was saying smoothly, guiding her by the arm until she stood in the centre, with all the uplifted, interested masculine faces greeting her. She hardly took a word in.

‘Basil James is my registrar and Huw Lloyd is our SHO. The other reprobates you see before you are a handful of medical students, who I’m afraid will be astounding you with their appalling lack of knowledge over the next few weeks.’ There were cries of dissent at this. ‘Oh, and by the way—I’m Adam Forrester, Research Fellow.’

The turquoise eyes were hard and cold as they stared at her and her heart sank. Of all the unfair twists of fate. She had been rude and retaliatory to a man who was effectively going to be her boss for the next eight weeks or so. And while she didn’t consider her response to his bad temper to be unjustified, she was far too intelligent to put her career on the line just in order to get her own back verbally. What on earth would he say to Dr Fenton-Taylor—the man on whom she would be relying for a reference? Damn, damn and damn!

Refusing a cup of coffee, she sat down to join in the meeting. She would just have to work like a Trojan. She imagined that the brittle Adam Forrester could be a hard taskmaster—she had better give him no opportunity to criticise her.

He had seated himself in a chair opposite her. ‘We’ve almost finished discussing the patients—the main ward round isn’t until tomorrow afternoon, so you’ve time before that to get to know some of the diagnoses. After we’ve finished here, I’ll show you where our other ward is and you can meet the staff there.’

She nodded and listened while he began talking about a patient who was suffering from the rare condition of Takayasu’s disease. One of the students hadn’t heard of it and asked a question. She watched with interest as he changed the tack of his talk, switching from esoteric deliberation to a simple yet unpatronising explanation which the student appeared to grasp quite easily. It seemed that he knew his stuff.

The dark head had turned in her direction. ‘Perhaps Dr Gray might be able to enlighten you on the aetiology of this syndrome?’

All the heads had swivelled in her direction—talk about being put on the spot! She began to rack her brain for the causes, when suddenly, to her relief, the facts came rushing back to her in the same smooth sequence that she’d learnt them from her textbook. Facts. Reliable, conclusive facts. Thank heavens for facts!

She recounted all that he had asked her fluently and at the end of her talk she saw that she had their total attention—she even thought she had noticed a rather grudging nod from Dr Forrester—but on that she could have been mistaken! At any rate, she had passed her first test with flying colours.

‘Not bad,’ he remarked, getting to his feet. ‘I think that’s all for today, everyone. Let’s go over to Belling now, Dr Gray.’

She followed him up the ward, having to move quickly in an effort to emulate his long-legged stride. As he passed the ward office, Mandy came out with a drug chart for him to sign which he did willingly enough, even muttering an aside which produced a wide grin from the ward sister. Mandy, for one, seemed to find him pleasant enough, Louisa thought.

The lift doors slid open and they stepped inside. It was empty save for them, and she was immediately aware of the enforced silence and lack of eye contact which travelling in a lift always seemed to provoke, but she wanted to clear the air.

‘Did you know that I was going to be working with you?’ she asked, staring up at him.

He shrugged. ‘I knew that I had a new houseman starting, yes, and I knew that it was a woman. Once I’d found out that you were a doctor, I didn’t need the ability of Einstein to work out that you were most probably that person.’

She was furious. ‘But you didn’t think it prudent to tell me that you were my new boss?’ she demanded.

‘Slightly difficult, as you refused to tell me your name!’

He had conveniently forgotten that the reason for that was because he had embarrassed her so hatefully. ‘This is going to make things very difficult, isn’t it?’

He frowned. ‘On the contrary—if you’re moving out and our only contact is through work, then provided you do your job properly, I can anticipate no problems. I have no intention of letting a personality clash jeopardise your future—if that’s what you’re afraid of.’

It took the most monumental effort on her part not to snap back at him, but she forced herself to concentrate on why she was here—not to engage in a bickering match with some egocentric ex-media star, but to work!

She cleared her throat. ‘Would you mind telling me exactly how many medical beds we have?’

He clapped his hand to his forehead in an expression of mock amazement.

‘Unbelievable! It only took you three minutes to get your mind back on to the job—not bad for a woman!’

She deserved it, she knew that—but it did not make the criticism any less easy to bear. She had been tittle-tattling like an overgrown schoolgirl and that, on top of everything else, would do little to improve his opinion of her. He probably had her firmly registered in his mind as a vacuous, immature female doctor who couldn’t keep her mind on her job for more than a second. And she knew how much first impressions counted. . .

‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

The lift shuddered to a halt and he stood aside to let her pass.

‘We have forty beds, divided into the two wards—twenty on Belling, which is male, and twenty on Dale, which is female. In addition we have a five-bedded coronary care unit attached to Belling—and Dr Fenton-Taylor guards these jealously.’

‘What’s he like?’ she asked.

She saw a small frown cross his forehead while he considered the question.

‘Like?’ There was a pause. ‘He’s like most consultants of his generation and ability—brilliant, autocratic, occasionally intolerant.’

A suprisingly honest appraisal, she decided as she walked up the wide corridor beside him, but he spoilt it all with his next comment.

‘He likes good-looking women around,’ he said, his lip curling in an expression of derision. ‘So you should be all right.’

He was not going to get away with that.

‘You’d better get this straight,’ she stated forthrightly. ‘I have never traded on being a woman to get on in life, and I don’t intend to start now!’

He laughed. ‘No? A woman who doesn’t flutter her lashes and squeeze out every bit of sex appeal she’s got? Surely a contradiction in terms, Dr Gray?’

How bitter he sounded. She turned flashing dark blue eyes on him.

‘A medical version of the casting couch, you mean? Hardly, Dr Forrester—or else I might have been tempted to hang around the sitting-room late last night to take you up on your. . .er. . .offer.’

Their argument was abruptly terminated by their arrival at the ward, but she couldn’t miss the look he gave her. It seemed that he was very good at dishing out nasty little comments, but not so good at taking them!

He marched on to Belling with her at his side, taking her straight into the office to meet Sister. The cold-eyed blonde who jumped to her feet to greet him could hardly have been more different from the cheery Mandy Patterson. Her sister’s uniform of dark navy with white spots looked as though it were a size too small since it clung provocatively to her body in a way that no functional nurses’ uniform was supposed to.

The ash-coloured hair was drawn back from her face and neck in the regulation manner, but small fair tendrils had been teased out, so that it looked more like the coiffure on a classical Greek statue than the working hairstyle of a busy ward sister. Large eyes of the palest grey were skilfully made even bigger by the expert use of sooty shadow and mascara.

Irreverently, Louisa was reminded of the old nursery tale ‘Oh, Grandmama—what big eyes you have.’ Now here, she thought, was someone who did use sex appeal almost as second nature. It would be interesting to see whether Adam Forrester objected to this kind of treatment.

The husky voice matched the body and the hair and the eyes perfectly.

‘Adam!’ she exclaimed warmly, the glossy lips glimmering into a perfect smile. ‘I’ll come round with you.’

It sounded as if she were conferring the highest honour in the land on him, Louisa thought with amusement, watching to see what the interaction was between them, surprised and slightly disappointed to see him return her treacly smile with an amicable grin.

‘I’ve brought along my new house officer, Magda. I’d like you to meet Louisa Gray. Louisa—this is Sister Magda Maguire.’

She must have noticed Louisa standing at Adam’s side, but the grey eyes turned towards her now for the first time, the smile dimming fractionally, the eyes frankly assessing. Or was she just being paranoid? Had Adam Forrester’s unwelcoming behaviour made her expectations of St Dunstan’s totally unrealistic—and was she misinterpreting a simple look?

But she knew that many nurses resented female doctors, resented their proximity and relationship with their male colleagues. Lots of nurses still behaved in a very territorial way towards doctors, and in years gone by women doctors had posed little threat—their numbers had been so small. But today, when they comprised almost half the intake of medical students. . .Well, Magda Maguire need have no concern on her account—she would rather spend a weekend with a man-eating tiger than spend an evening in the company of the foul-tempered Dr Forrester.

‘Hello, there!’ smiled Magda. ‘Louisa, wasn’t it? You must tell me all about yourself. Where did you do your training?’

‘At Barts.’ Louisa prayed that she didn’t sound too much on the defensive.

‘Really?’ The other woman looked interested. ‘I am impressed! One of London’s most famous hospitals—and yet you decided not to do any of your house jobs there?’

The inevitable question. ‘No. I wanted to come to St Dunstan’s.’

‘Oh?’ Magda seemed to be expecting more, but she could whistle for it, thought Louisa stubbornly, knowing all the time how weak and feeble her explanation sounded. Because, although St Dunstan’s was a well-respected and busy general hospital, it carried none of the élitism and status attached to St Bartholomew’s—known to its staff as ‘God’s own hospital’.

The grey eyes stared at her reproachfully for a moment, then turned to gaze fondly on Adam.

‘Would you like me to show her the ward? Leave you to have your coffee and do your paperwork in peace?’

He looked at Louisa for a moment, then nodded his agreement.

‘That would be a great help. Is that all right with you, Dr Gray?’

How formal he was with her! ‘Perfectly. Thanks, Sister.’ She was aware that her voice sounded stiff, starchy even.

She left the office, following the neat, swinging rear of Magda Maguire, feeling disgruntled. The day had got off to a bad start, and there was no doubt in her mind who was responsible.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_24da4203-0e51-5019-8c1a-77c401b1df03)

IT WAS her first full day as a working doctor and she was mentally and physically unprepared for the sheer hard work, the relentless pace of it, and the demands. As a student she had done a ‘shadow’—tailing the house officer for four weeks, to give her a taste of the job. But this time she was on her own. True, she had her SHO, her registrar, and ultimately her consultant to call upon, but she had been taught as a medical student not to abuse the back-up system. They each had a heavy work-load—she must get on as best she could, save in a real emergency where she felt unable to cope.

Magda Maguire had pointed out the geography of the ward, and then taken her to each patient, where Louisa had quickly written down their name and initial diagnosis, intending to bone up on them that evening so that she was fairly well acquainted with them in time for tomorrow’s ward round.

Then she returned to Dale and did the same there, and Mandy Patterson made her a cup of coffee for which Louisa was extremely grateful, but she had no chance to drink more than a couple of mouthfuls, and by the time she returned it had formed a thick skin and had to be thrown away.

And in between trying to learn all about forty new patients and their illnesses, she was having to deal with some of the problems which had arisen overnight, and non-urgent problems from the preceding weekend. One patient had developed a livid red rash after being commenced on a new drug treatment. Another’s intravenous infusion had ‘tissued’—the cannula had slipped out of the vein into the surrounding tissue—and it took Louisa ages to resite, partly because she was not yet very practised at it, but the sound of Magda Maguire clicking her tongue impatiently beside her did little to improve her confidence.