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'The lab rang and asked me. Apparently, most of it got spilt.'

'I see—well, there's no need to broadcast it. We don't want the patients thinking we're all careless,' hissed Yona
out of the corner of her mouth as she reapplied the rubber tubing around the patient's biceps. When she felt the slight ballooning of the big vein on the front of the elbow joint, she deftly inserted the hypodermic needle and drew off the required amount of blood.

'I didn't want to constrict her too much in case I did any damage,' said young Dr Perkins when the procedure was over.

Even though he couldn't possibly have got this far without knowing it, Yona explained the difference between a tourniquet tight enough to stop the blood flow and control serious haemorrhaging and seconds of light pressure meant to produce a venous backlog sufficient to allow the removal of small quantities of blood for testing.

'Who actually told you to do this anyway?' Yona asked when he'd insisted that he understood.

'Sister Evans. She said—'

'I can imagine what she said. Now, in future, if anybody other than Professor Burnley, Dr Price or myself, er, suggests that you do anything you're not sure about or haven't done before, you come straight to one of us three. Understand?'

'Oh, I've done that particular thing lots of times,' he said airily. 'Only that woman's got very difficult veins. A lot of people have, I find.'

'If you've done it lots of times, how come you didn't know to remove the tourniquet?' Yona asked keenly.

She had him there and he knew it. 'You may have qualified, -Dr Perkins, but that's only the beginning,' Yona told him quietly but firmly. 'Please remember that.'

She went back to her interrupted work, but found she couldn't concentrate. That was the third time in as many days that she'd had occasion to reprimand him—and after the last time she'd overheard a sympathetic nurse explain
ing in a loud whisper that he mustn't mind poor Dr MacFarlane. She'd recently had a Big Disappointment and Sister says we must all Make Allowances for her!

Sister had been quite officiously kind this last week and Yona was finding that even harder to bear than her former hostility. So many of the hospital staff had been at the Burnleys' party that the whole hospital knew of her split with Mike scarcely twenty-four hours later.

Mike. Yona tried hard not to think of him, but he was always in her mind, refusing to be dismissed. She hadn't seen him since the day of the party and at first that had been a relief. Now it was an anxiety and a pain.

Once her initial anger and resentment had died down, Yona found herself hoping desperately that some time, somehow, things would work out for them, but each day that passed without so much as a glimpse of him made that increasingly unlikely. He had to be deliberately avoiding her—and that meant he'd accepted the break, even if she hadn't.

It could never have worked—you know fine it couldn't, she told herself for the millionth time as she gathered up all the papers and notes in the doctors' room and went to finish off in the peace and quiet of Ted's room in Outpatients.

She'd only just sat down at the desk when the door was flung open and she heard Mike exclaim, 'What the hell? Where's Ted?'

It was so close to the first thing he'd ever said to her in this very room on her first day that Yona almost cried out in pain. She fought back the emotion. 'Ted is at a one-day conference in Oxford,' she said quietly after a moment.

'So you're trying out the consultant's chair for size!'

Yona clenched her teeth. 'I'm sorting some facts and
figures Ted asked for—away from the distractions of the ward.'

'Here?'

She clenched her fists hard this time under cover of the desk, determined not to lose her poise. 'Why not? It's the obvious place. Most of the data I need is kept here and I have Ted's permission to use his room.'

'You never put a foot wrong, do you?' he asked with suppressed and baffled fury.

'What I always try to do is what my boss would want.'

'With an eye to the future.'

Any feelings of regret had been smothered by his cruel taunting. 'You bastard!' she exploded. 'Just because I don't conform to your antiquated ideas of the perfect woman, you can't allow me any virtues! Well, paint me as black as you like, if it's any comfort. I don't know what I ever saw in you! You're nothing but a selfish, puffed-up bully—and I hope I never see you again!'

A spasm of pain flashed across his face and was gone before she could be sure she'd actually seen it. Then he turned on his heel and left her without another word.

Yona put a shaking hand to her head, which was throbbing unbearably. She'd had too many of these heads since the break-up. All down to tension, of course, but she'd never imagined that a tension headache could be quite this bad.

She remembered hearing her father say once that if he could he'd prescribe the occasional backache or flu for all hospital workers—it would make them more sensitive to the sufferings of their patients. Wait till I get home, Dad, thought Yona, searching fruitlessly in her pocket for some aspirin. I'll tell you that the occasional tension headache would be quite sufficient!

Instead of going to lunch, Yona went to the pharmacy to ask for some paracetamol. Having taken it, she lay down on the couch in Ted's room with the blinds down. She had a clinic that afternoon and by the time her first patient arrived she was feeling a bit better, but it was hours before the headache went away.

Over the next two weeks, Yona had too many more of those headaches, some of them severe enough to affect her vision. She hoped she wasn't starting with migraines—that was all a busy doctor needed. It was all down to stress, of course— though why had she started having queasiness as well? She couldn't remember feeling, let alone being, sick since she was a small child.

Two days before she was due to go on holiday, Yona realised that she'd missed a period. She had to sit down to take in the likeliest reason for that. But, no, it wasn't possible. She wasn't on the Pill, but Mike had always been so considerate. And yet...

She couldn't believe the joy flooding over her. It was crazy in the circumstances. Abortion was the sensible option, but she knew she couldn't, no matter what the difficulties and the cost—career-wise or any other way. She laid protective hands over her stomach, symbolically guarding her treasure.

'You've got another of your heads,' surmised Ted, coming into her consulting room and catching her staring into space with a dreamy, far-away look on her face.

She came back to the present and said, 'Only a mild one.'

'I've accepted your reluctance to consult a colleague here in the Royal,' said Ted, 'but will you promise me to see somebody when you get home? And another thing. You ought not to drive all that way alone, Yona. You must go by train.'

'All right—but only to please you, Ted. It's only tension, you know. I'll be fine when I've—when I've had a rest.'

'Perhaps, but young healthy women don't suddenly start getting headaches for no good reason, and you should know that.' He glanced at the pile of records on her desk. 'Though I must say that looks like enough to give anybody a headache—you've had a heavier clinic than I've had today. Away home with you now and put your feet up.' Then, just before leaving the room, he turned and said awkwardly, 'I hear that the Mellings, father and daughter, have gone off on a cruise. Nice for some.' Then he shambled out before Yona could say anything.

She found she didn't know what to make of that bit of news. She'd have expected Fran to stick to Mike like glue now she'd got him back. Then she realised that this holiday had probably been planned some time ago, before the doctor's accident—before the quarrel.

Mike was parking his car when Yona got home. It was only the second time she'd seen him since their break-up. She could see he meant to make a dash for it, but he was waylaid by the merry widow from the second floor and Yona arrived at the lifts just seconds before he did.

'You're early tonight,' she heard herself saying.

'It happens sometimes.' He pressed the button for the lift again before he asked, 'Aren't you supposed to be going on holiday soon?'

'Yes—right after work on Friday.'

'You'll be glad to be at home again, I suppose,' he said.

'Yes...it seems a long time since I was there.'

'About four months.'

'Four months and three days.' Oh, God! Was this what they had come to? Making awkward small talk, like the merest acquaintances meeting accidentally? Desperately Yona raked her tired mind for something meaningful to say, but his lift came before she could come up with anything.

'Well, have a good rest,' said Mike. 'You look as though you could do with it.' Then he stepped in, the doors closed and he was gone.

Meg insisted on taking Yona to the station. 'Ted doesn't trust me not to fly,' said Yona when Meg came to the hospital to pick her up.

'You've got his number all right,' said Ted's devoted wife. 'Anyway, he's quite right, Yona. No driving and no flying until you're sorted out. I hope you've booked a seat.'

'I couldn't at such short notice so I'm going first class.'

'I do believe the girl's learning some sense at last,' returned Meg. 'Well, have a lovely time, dear—and come back fighting fit.'

Yona promised to do her best on that score, while wondering if she'd have the courage to come back at all in her condition. She still hadn't started her period.

To her astonishment and delight, her father was waiting for her at Edinburgh's Waverley station. He cast a clinical but fatherly eye over her and said, 'I'm glad you've got a man like Ted Burnley to keep an eye on you. He phoned me yesterday. He doesn't like these headaches you've been getting and neither do I so we'll be doing something about them while you're at home.'

It was useless to argue—Yona knew that. But what would they all think when they knew the rest? She meant to keep her precious secret as long as she could.

After a happy reunion with her family, followed by a restless night of apprehension, Yona found herself at Edinburgh's famous Royal Infirmary, being passed from consultant to consultant. It was first confirmed that she wasn't pregnant, and then she saw a neurologist first, then an endocrinologist and finally a chest specialist for good measure. What the blazes did they think was the matter with her? CAT scans, blood tests, X-rays and then, of all things, a skin biopsy for a Kveim test.

By then she'd tapped into their thinking and was ready for the verdict.

'There is a small pituitary tumour in the very early stages,' they told her. 'It's almost certainly benign and we're inclined to put it down to sarcoidosis—there are the typical changes apparent in the X-rays of your hands and feet. However, the Kveim test will confirm the diagnosis when we eventually get the result.' Yona knew there'd be a six-week waiting period for that.

'Headaches, vomiting, visual disturbances and increasing lassitude,' she summarised. 'I should have suspected something of the sort. Especially when my periods stopped— another symptom.' Against all reason Yona was ready to weep over not being pregnant.

'It's in the very early stages,' the consultant repeated, 'so we'll try high doses of steroids first—which is, after all, the treatment for sarcoid. Then radiotherapy if necessary and we'll only go for surgery as a last resort. It would be a pity to shave off any of that lovely hair.

'You'll have to stop work, of course, while you're on such high doses of prednisolone,' he continued, 'but then you'll know that already.'

Yona agreed, having seen that coming, and by the time she got home she knew exactly how she would be playing this. Her father wasn't home yet so she shut herself in his study to phone Ted.

He wasn't at all surprised to hear the diagnosis, but when she insisted on resigning he protested vigorously. 'I don't care how long you're off, your job will be here for you!' he exclaimed. 'Dammit, girl, you're the best registrar I've ever had.'

'Bless you for that,' said Yona, feeling quite tearful at the tribute, 'but it has to be this way. Now that Mike and I— But I don't need to spell that out, do I? Please, Ted, you've got to promise me that you'll not tell him or anybody else the truth—barring dear Meg, of course.' She knew she couldn't bear it if Mike were to contact her out of pity.

'The story is this. I was homesick for Edinburgh and now I'm back home I don't intend to leave again. Is that clear?'

'You surely don't think anybody is going to believe that of a girl with your backbone, do you?' he demanded.

'People must believe what they choose, Ted. That is my story and I'm sticking to it. And you must admit that my way makes sense. You can't do without a registrar for any length of time, and this way you get to appoint a new one quickly. End of story. Do this for me as a friend, Ted—
please!
I'm begging you.'

It took a while longer, but she convinced him in the end. 'Not a word about my health now—to anybody,' she warned him finally.

'Well, if you're quite sure this is the way you want it, I guess I have to agree,' he said. 'But I shall phone every week to see how you are.'

'If I recover well enough for hospital work—and go on till I'm sixty—I'll never have a better boss than you, Ted Burnley,' said Yona, then she hung up.

It was the last day of September, and Yona was dozing in the garden of the MacFarlane family's holiday cottage on the Isle of Arran. They'd all agreed that this was the obvious place to bring her to convalesce once the initial arduous treatment was over and her dosage of steroids could begin to tail off gradually.

A bumble-bee, buzzing lazily inches from Yona's nose, woke her up. She looked up at the cloudless blue sky, then sideways at the little whitewashed cottage nestling into the gentle hillside. The cottage had been left to Mother by her granny, a native Arranach, and the whole family loved it dearly.

Yona sat up, the better to appreciate the magnificent panorama around her—the rolling hills, dotted with woodland and dying heather, the sparkling waters of Brodick Bay, the majestic mountains away to the north, dominated by Goat Fell, the highest yet the easiest to climb.