Sticks and Stones (2 page)

Once she was sitting up with her legs under the covers she pulled off the lid and started delicately pulling out the tattered photographs, which she laid out around her. At the bottom of the box was a small pink and white shell. She turned it over and over in her hands for a moment before gripping it firmly in one of her fists, which she brought up to her chest. With her other hand she reached for one of the photos and traced the shape of the face dominating it with her index finger, before grabbing the pillow that Dylan had been sleeping on and bringing it up to her face.

She hugged the pillow and inhaled deeply before letting the silent tears track down her cheeks. For the longest time she remained absolutely still except for the deep breaths she took from the pillow as her tears started to soak into the material. Her eyelids started drooping as the first light of dawn began to shine through her window, and she finally succumbed to sleep lying in the middle of her photos, holding the small pink shell, with her face buried in the pillow she was still clutching like her life depended on it.

A great shame

Despite the fact the Grand Round was in full swing, Lou didn’t do the standard open-the-doors-just-a-crack-and-slope-through-to-find-an-inconspicuous-place-to-sit-in-the-lecture-theatre. No, in true Dr Sands fashion she burst through the double doors, and beamed her mega-watt smile at the audience, who had all turned away from the interminably dull Professor Henderson to watch her entrance. 

Dylan sat back in his seat and rolled his eyes. If anyone had made an art out of drawing a room’s attention it was Lou. He looked back at her as he heard her stage-whispered greetings to people either side of the aisle, as if she was walking down her own personal red carpet and greeting her fans.

She flounced down to the front on her sky-high heels and he had to suppress a laugh as she grabbed a handout from the desk in front of the lectern, winked at the Prof, and in another obnoxiously loud stage whisper said, ‘Sooo sorry to have missed the start Professor, you know how I
live by
the
crucial
content of your lectures.’

As normally happened to any male in receipt of the full Louise Sands charm offensive the Prof’s eyes became unfocused and he nodded his head dumbly. With her long blonde hair flowing down her back and around her face, and wearing one of her fitted business dresses which showcased her endlessly long legs she could probably have told the Prof he was the dullest man alive and still have received the same reaction. Spinning round on her heel she strode back up to where Dylan was sitting, scowled at him until he was forced to make room for her, and sat down with a flourish of her handout and a dramatic hair flick, which succeeded in sending the handouts of the bench above flying in multiple directions.

‘Quite finished?’ Dylan mumbled in her ear, inhaling her fresh citrusy scent and closing his eyes briefly against the impact. In the weeks since he’d spent the night in Lou’s bed he felt like he was going slightly insane. Her scent, the way she spoke, her smile, her laugh, in fact everything about her turned him on. After years of regarding her beauty in a rather abstract way whilst he obsessed over Frankie, it was like the shutters had been violently pulled away from his eyes, and he now found it difficult to focus on anything else in her presence.

‘What are you on about now Dildo?’ she hissed out of the side of her mouth whilst still maintaining a perfect smile for the Prof and her fans.

‘Are you quite finished prancing about like the main attraction at “Stringfellows” during a bloody clinical meeting.’

Lou rolled her eyes, relaxed back in her chair, and crossed her arms under her breasts. ‘As if you’re paying any attention. Go on; tell me one fact the Prof has imparted that I missed.’

Dylan knew that there was a question in there somewhere, and that he was likely meant to answer, but unfortunately his eyes had drifted down to the fabric now stretched across Lou’s breasts and he’d lost focus.

‘Um…’ Cach* – what had she just said? With a great deal of effort he managed to drag his eyes away from her chest, and forced himself to look at the Prof instead, willing the blood to rush away from the relevant areas so that he would be able to leave the lecture theatre without embarrassment.

‘Exactly,’ Lou put in smugly, apparently pleased that she had won her argument.

Dylan hated losing to Lou. Over the years they had fought some epic battles. In their third year of Uni Lou and Frankie had a house party which got hopelessly out of hand, and Dylan had decided to turn Lou’s room into a ‘virtual surfing experience’. This mainly involved a succession of drunken people trying to balance on the edge of the bed in a surfing pose, whilst beer from shaken up cans was sprayed in their faces. Even three years later there had still been beer splatters covering the ceiling.

Lou didn’t say much at the time; she merely removed her knickers from their heads (another essential part of the surfing experience) and ordered them to leave. She waited two months for the perfect retaliation. Much to everyone’s bemusement she spent a whole night at the bar flirting with Bernard (a well known bed-swamper) and buying him beers. At the end of the night she steered a very much worse for wear Bernard out of the bar, and took him back to the flat Dylan shared with Mike. Using the spare key the boys had given her for emergencies, she manoeuvered Bernard inside and managed to direct him to Dylan’s bed before he passed out.

When Dylan stumbled home at two in the morning he was confronted by a urine-soaked bed, and an unconscious Bernard with the words ‘I WIN’ written across his forehead. Needless to say the girl from his tutorial group, whom he’d finally convinced to come home with him, was less than impressed.

Dylan rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the Prof again, who still seemed to be slightly dazed.

‘Where have you been anyway?’ he whispered, irritated that she always seemed to get the best of him, but more irritated by all the attention that he could still see was focused on her after that display.

This was another odd change he’d noticed in himself over the last few weeks. He had started resenting all the male eyes that fixated on Lou wherever she went. Their new medical student spent the entire Ward Round panting after her yesterday, and Dylan had nearly broken the guy’s foot when he’d ‘accidentally’ run him over with the heavy notes trolley.

Lou flicked him an odd look, sort of a mixture of annoyance and resignation. ‘Where do you think I’ve been Dildo? Mrs Talbot’s faecal impaction wasn’t going to sort itself.’

‘Oh right,’ Dylan muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

He
might
have been a little distracted on the Ward Round and
may
not have made a note of any of the jobs that needed doing. In his defence he was still stewing over the revision hip he was missing out on that morning after Mr Jowett had told him about it last night at the pub. He
may
also have sloped off subtly after the round to sneak into theatre so he could assist. After all, surely there wasn’t anything so urgent to do for the grave dodgers that it couldn’t wait until after lunch?

Suddenly he started feeling a tad bit guilty. He remembered that Lou was actually interested in the Prof’s lecture seeing as she wanted to specialize in stroke medicine. He also remembered how much Lou loved the free lunch that always preceded the weekly grand round. He had noticed that she’d lost weight over the last few months. Even her slutty drug-rep-on-heat dresses, which he knew she deliberately bought at least one size too small, were beginning to hang off her slightly.

Now that he thought about it, he realized that Lou often had to skip lunch to sort out the wards so she could get to clinic in the afternoon. He frowned. Maybe he should have made a bit more of an effort, but it wasn’t his fault he was being forced to suffer through six months of a specialty he had absolutely no interest in. 

Then again, when he thought back to this morning, he remembered that Mrs Talbot had been pretty uncomfortable…he shuddered; manually disimpacting a patient’s bowel was not what he signed up for as an orthopaedic surgeon. Anyway Lou was tough as old boots, a few extra jobs here and there wouldn’t really faze her. He glanced down at his watch and wondered if he could slope off again to assist Mr Jowett that afternoon.

*****

Lou flew through the doors of the outpatient department and smacked straight into Dr Hudson. As both women were carrying a set of notes this caused an explosion of paperwork all over the waiting area.

Well this is just bloody typical
, Lou thought savagely. The one person that she couldn’t afford to piss off was lying sprawled opposite her on the dirty linoleum, her legs akimbo and glasses slightly askew (although her grey helmet of hair was, as ever, completely immobile).

‘Louise,’ Dr Hudson said in a surprisingly unruffled voice, despite her compromising position on the floor. ‘I’m grateful, of course, that you finally decided to grace us with your presence.’ She performed an impressively graceful leap up onto her feet, and started brushing off the back of her skirt whilst peering down her nose at Lou. ‘But maybe you could aim for a slightly less dramatic entrance. I know drama is your thing, but we
are
trying to get through an extremely busy clinic here.’

As always with Elaine Hudson, Lou was made to feel about two-feet-tall. The woman seemed to have the unique ability to completely squash all Lou’s confidence with a single strategically placed acidic comment.

‘So, so sorry Dr Hudson,’ Lou said in a voice laced with mortification, whilst she scrambled around on her hands and knees collecting together all the papers and patient notes they had both been carrying, and separating them into two piles.

‘Well as long as it’s all hands on deck now and I haven’t suffered any permanent damage to my coccyx,’ Dr Hudson continued briskly, then narrowed her eyes at Lou who was now making a far less graceful (considering the height of her heels) ascent to her feet. ‘It
is
all hands on deck isn’t it? Where’s “The Orthopod”?’

Lou didn’t think she’d ever heard Dr Hudson call Dylan anything other than ‘The Orthopod’, and even that seemed wrenched from her as if the knowledge that orthopaedic surgeons even existed, leave alone that one actually worked in the elderly care department, was abhorrent to her.

‘He…um…he…’ Lou furiously tried to think of an excuse for Dylan’s absence. ‘There was a lot of ward work,’ she finished helplessly, trying to smooth down her rucked up skirt whilst balancing the notes on her hip.

Dr Hudson frowned. ‘Between the two of you, you should have been able to sort the wards and both help with the clinic. You’re pretty senior now Louise, you should be upping your game. If you ever want to have a chance as a consultant you’ve got to be able to delegate.’

Lou blushed and glanced around at the packed waiting room. Just bloody brilliant, humiliated in front of all the patients she was about to see.

Dr Hudson swept away past the reception having made her point, leaving Lou to trail dutifully behind her carrying both sets of notes. Five months ago she would have never been late to clinic, never had to miss the Grand Round lunch, never had to cover for a selfish, arrogant, lazy…drop-dead gorgeous…no!

No!

Lou frantically tried to push the image of a half-naked Dylan in her bed out of her mind, but she knew from bitter experience that once she was on a roll it was impossible to stop herself: Dylan hung-over in their flat with the blanket over his head, looking so unbelievable cute that she actually had to pinch her arm to stop herself from rushing him, pinning him down, and covering his stubbly, red-eyed face in small kisses; Dylan’s laughter and twinkling eyes after she’d walked into the mess and asked for ‘Mike Hunt’ (the name he had falsified on her paperwork as the new medical student that was supposedly joining their team); Dylan gazing at Frankie, a look of such longing on his face and such uncharacteristic sadness in his eyes, that it actually made her heart hurt.

‘Late again Sands,’ a smug, nasal voice penetrated Lou’s consciousness. She gave a small start and nearly dropped all the notes again. ‘Daydreaming too. Not really out to impress at the moment are you?’

‘Miles,’ she said through her teeth. Right, time to focus and get back in the game. No way was this prick getting the best of her today. ‘What’s crawled up your arse? Run out of flies to pull the wings off? Or are you just on your period again today?’

‘Whatever,’ Miles sneered, two flashes of colour appearing high on his cheekbones. ‘At least I’m punctual. I’ve already seen my first patient.’ Lou glanced down at the notes he was holding and snorted. Cherry-picking little bastard.

‘Yeah, that must have taken all of five minutes. Try to pick off the top of the pile why don’t you,’ she said dismissively, dumping down the notes on the central desk, then picking up the massive tome that was the next in line. ‘New patient’ was written on a post-it stuck on the front, and as she lifted it she realized in horror that it was only volume one. She could hear Miles chuckle as she struggled into her room but kept her head high and didn’t look back.

The fact that they were direct competitors had already made for a strained relationship. But things only really deteriorated after Lou dumped a cocktail in his lap on a mess night out last year. In her defence she had not been in the mood to have her arse pinched or be told she’d been ‘asking for it for ages’ by a slobbering, drunk, deeply unpleasant Miles. She knew that Miles had an inflated opinion of himself, and it wasn’t as though he was unattractive looks-wise, but with his smug, self-satisfied personality Lou would have rather snogged a dementor.

She dumped all the notes down and slumped into her chair to fire up the computer. Her stomach rumbled and to her frustration she felt her eyes start to fill up with stupid tears. She rubbed her nose furiously and swallowed hard as she heard the door to her room creak open. Looking up she saw Gwen hovering at the doorway with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. Once Gwen had taken in Lou’s somewhat dishevelled appearance, not to mention the tears in her eyes, she bustled in, shoved the biscuits in front of Lou on the desk, put a comforting arm around her shoulders and pressed her head into her ample bosom.

‘Don’t you mind that old dragon now cariad*,’ Gwen soothed in her thick Welsh accent, having obviously heard Lou’s exchange with Dr Hudson in the waiting room. ‘Drink your tea and I’ll send in Mr Griffiths now, in a minute.’