Unknown (4 page)

In her weak state, Yona responded gladly to authority and meekly promised to do as she was told.

By Saturday the fever was away and, although her legs felt rather rubbery, her head was clear. She got up, took a leisurely bath and put on jeans and a sweater. She was debating a trip to the hospital to clear her desk when somebody knocked on her door. 'Come in,' she called, expecting the chambermaid.

'I'm Meg Burnley—Ted's wife,' said the plump, merry-eyed brunette who came in. 'I hope you haven't been feeling neglected, but Ted's been up to his eyes and I was working full time this week, which I don't usually. Anyway, I've come to carry you off to our house for the weekend—if you think you can bear it. You don't know anybody down here, do you? So that has to be better than convalescing in an hotel.'

'How wonderfully kind!' exclaimed Yona, who hadn't been looking forward to the next two days. 'If you're quite sure I'll not be a trouble...'

Meg said she'd never heard such nonsense and they'd been intending to ask her for Sunday in any case.

The Burnleys lived in a charming, four-square ex-farmhouse in a pretty village on the northern fringes of the
city. By the time they'd returned her to her hotel on Sunday evening, Yona was firm friends with both of them. 'It was worth coming to work down here just to meet you two lovely people,' she told them, getting a farewell hug from both Burnleys for that.

Ted had said he didn't expect to see Yona at work before Wednesday, but she was there as soon as he was next morning. 'I'm quite better,' she insisted when he frowned at her. 'So. please, sir,
what would you
like me to do?'

'As
you're told,'
he
riposted, 'but, as that's obviously a non
-
starter, how
about running one or two little errands for
me?
Apart from anything else, it'll help you to learn the layout of the place. But have a word with Sharon first. She wants to know if you saw any flats to your liking on her list.'

While confined to bed, Yona had sifted through Sharon's submissions and one stood out a mile—a two-roomed place with a balcony, on the top floor of a modern service block which overlooked a leafy park and was scarcely five minutes' drive from the hospital. Having arranged to view it that evening after work, she picked up her list of errands.

It was while discussing some unusual findings in a patient's blood samples with the chief biochemist that Yona got her first inkling of a possible cause for Mike Preston's reservations, about her.

Their business concluded, Dr Nonie Burke asked the new girl how she was settling in.

By then, Yona was used to that question and she replied that everybody she'd met so far had been amazingly kind and helpful.

From that, Dr Burke promptly assumed that Yona had not yet met Mike Preston.

Ah! thought Yona. She'd heard it said that Nonie Burke was a fine chemist and an even finer gossip. 'Once or twice,' she said. 'Just briefly. I'm sure he's very—efficient...' She wondered if that was enough to get Nonie going.

It was. 'Of course you know he was dead against your appointment.'

'No, I didn't,' returned Yona, although that had been fairly obvious, come to think of it. 'Is he one of the die-hards who don't think medicine is a woman's job?'

'That, too, probably, though I don't know for sure. The thing is, a particular friend of Mike's was one of the applicants, and the guy was absolutely desperate to get the post.'

Yona recalled the other three on the short list—a woman and two men. She wondered which one fitted the bill. 'There was a chap—a worried-looking man rather older than the rest of us. Lewis, I think his name was...'

'That's the one. He and Mike were contemporaries at medical school, but an early marriage, kids one after the other and no peace or spare cash to buy time to study for his membership... Get the picture? Love has ruined more than one promising career,' declared Nonie Burke scornfully. As well as liking to gossip, she was said to drift effortlessly from man to man, always managing to avoid serious involvement.

'It's lucky for me that Mr Preston had no say in the appointment, then,' said Yona.

'His friend stood no chance anyway—not without his MRCP. And with Professor Sir William MacFarlane's daughter on the short list,' declared Nonie bracingly. 'But what's with this Mister stuff? I'd no idea you Scots were so formal. Listen, if there's anything I can do to help you settle in...'

Yona thanked her and said she'd remember that.

Unfortunately, well-meaning Dr Nonie Burke had already done just the opposite, by depressing her on two -counts, had she known it!

The wretched thing was that there seemed to be no way of finding out whether her father's worldwide reputation had really played a part in her selection. She would just have to sit it out, while doing her damnedest to prove her worth.

Mike's antipathy might be easier to deal with—now that she knew the cause of it. She was eager for their next encounter, but when would that be?

Thursday morning, and Ted had another of those hated meetings, but he'd left a string of things for Yona to attend to before the ward round.

Two new patients had been admitted the day before— one of Ted's and Yona's own Mrs Kavanagh, seen last week and almost her first patient. As Yona had expected, Mrs Kavanagh was dangerously anaemic so, before giving Ted's patient the once-over, Yona set up a drip for transfusion.

'That is a junior's job, Doctor, so where is Dr Connor?' asked Sister, who had taken a dislike to the houseman.

'Dr Connor is busy with the routine blood samples,' Yona answered patiently, 'and I want this lady to have two pints of whole blood as soon as possible.'

But, surely, an hour or two,' Sister protested.

'I have no objection to undertaking lowly tasks when the occasion demands,' said Yona in her grandest manner. It had been a pretty good take-off of Sister herself, had she realised it—and probably the reason for Sister retreating in some disarray.

The routine examination of the other new patient came next, so that Yona would be au fait with all the new problems before the group discussion after the round. Then she chased up X-rays and lab reports. By the time she returned to the ward, Ted was ready to start.

The round followed the same pattern as on her first day except that this time Yona knew all the patients. That was just as well because the prof was in what Charlie Price called his Mastermind mood.

'Why isn't Mrs Jacobson wearing her forearm splints, Dr MacFarlane?'

'She's developed some painful nodules over the olecranon processes, sir, so I asked the plaster technician to shorten her splints. I'll reapply them as soon as they come back.'

'I see. It's a pity about the nodules, but it's not surprising—given the severity of her condition.'

'Why the cervical collar for Mrs Baker, Dr MacFarlane?'

'She was complaining of pain last night and when I checked her over I found that her grip was very weak. I've arranged for an X-ray of her cervical spine in case there's some subluxation.'

Yona got an A-plus for that, and another when the boss read her meticulous notes on the new patients. 'You must have been in very early this morning, Doctor,' he commented.

'She was in the ward soon after eight, sir,' Sister Evans put in. 'Before Dr Connor,' she added with a touch of malice.

'If the old dragon had her way, this entire unit would be staffed by women,' whispered Charlie in Yona's ear.

There was no answer to that so Yona pretended she hadn't heard.

'I'm going over to Ortho now to say hello to last week's ops cases,' said the prof when the round was over. 'You may as well come too, Yona.'

He must have sensed her surprise because he added, 'It's not strictly necessary—they're in Mike's excellent care while they're in his wards—but I think they like to know I've not forgotten them.'

'And I'm sure they appreciate the thought,' agreed Yona, warmed by this further proof of his commitment. She'd definitely made the right choice in coming to Salchester.

She felt less sure about that when they found Mike Preston on Orthopaedics. 'Ted—good to see you,' he said first, and then to Yona with rather less warmth, 'I hope you've recovered from your bout of flu—or whatever it was, Doctor.'

That had sounded as though it had been a bout of self-indulgence he'd suspected, but she was resolved to meet his hostility with all the good humour she could manage. 'Yes, I am, thank you, Mr Preston. And I'm glad of this chance to apologise properly for disrupting your operating session.' The smile that went with that was wasted on him.

'Nobody supposes that you did it on purpose,' he said. 'Strange, though, all the same. It's not as though there's flu going about just now.'

'There was quite a lot of it in Edinburgh when I left,' she recalled. 'I do hope I didn't bring it with me,' she added half-laughingly.

'So do I,' returned Mike, deadpan. 'It'd play havoc with an already critical bed situation.'

Yona's striking blue eyes darkened almost to purple as they always did when she was irritated. She flashed Mike Preston an angry look, before turning to Ted and asking in a voice of honey whether it might not have been wise to put her in quarantine.

He grinned widely and treated her to a friendly pat on the shoulder. 'I'm inclined to leave you on the loose for the present,' he said with a chuckle. 'And if there is an
epidemic, I'll take the blame. After all, I was the one who urged you to start work as soon as possible. OK if we say hello to our mutual patients, Mike? I promise not to let Yona breathe on 'em.' He was completely unaware of the tension between the other two.

'Sure, and, as you say, she's your responsibility.'

He nearly said 'problem', thought Yona as she followed her boss in the ward. It's not my fault his friend didn't get the job, so why must he be so unpleasant? What have / done—apart from just being here?

She put that problem aside while Ted chatted to and laughed with the shared patients, visibly raising their morale. Then he introduced them to Dr Redmond's successor and Yona said that she was looking forward to seeing them in the follow-up clinic.

'It isn't strictly necessary to make these visits,' Ted repeated as they left the unit, 'but, as I said before, I think they appreciate it.'

'I'm sure of it,' she agreed, her mind still half on Mike Preston and his attitude. 'My father always says that it's the willingness to go that extra mile which marks out the good doctor from the merely competent one.' Damn her unwary tongue! She'd sworn never to quote her father as an authority on anything in this new environment. Mike Preston could take the blame for that!

But Ted was agreeing wholeheartedly. 'Your father is a wise man, as well as an exceptionally clever one,' he said.

At the clinic that afternoon Yona saw Dr Redmond's old cases while Ted took the new patients. The first two were routine, but the third rang some bells.

Mrs Smith had been diagnosed as having rheumatoid arthritis—that was, the definitive sheepcell test had been positive—but today she was complaining most of her sore eyes. 'And it seems like I'm never free of the cold, Doctor.

It's cough, cough, cough all the time and my husband says I'm driving him mad.'

'It can't be much fun for you either,' said Yona, thinking, Honestly! Some men! 'Do you cry much?' she asked.

'Oh, no, Doctor—he's not that bad!' She'd quite misunderstood Yona's question. 'Anyway, I don't think I could cry if I tried. My eyes feel that dry—and my mouth.'

'Just as I expected,' confirmed Yona as she examined Mrs Smith's eyes, finding the tell-tale ulceration of the cornea. 'I'm going to prescribe some special eye drops which you should find comforting.' Then she asked if the patient was taking her chloroquine and aspirin regularly, as prescribed.

'Like clockwork, Doctor,' came the answer. 'I haven't forgotten what a state I was in before I started.'

'That's the ticket! The pharmacy here will give you enough of the eye drops to get you started and I'll write to your GP today so that he'll know what we're giving you when they're finished.' That's only the second case of Sjogren's syndrome I've ever seen, Yona realised as Mrs Smith went out.

She told Ted all about it as they compared notes on the clinic afterwards, while strolling towards the exit. Naturally, he wanted all the details.

'No hair loss or nail changes—just the keratoconjunctivits and dryness of the upper respiratory tract so far, so I hope we can contain it with hydrocortisone eye drops. She's such a dear little woman, Ted! Why is it that only nice folk get ill in this horrible world?'

'Wait until you're my age, Yona,' he advised with a rueful smile. 'I've met a few who asked for all they got— and so will you before you're done with the job.' Then he changed the subject by saying, 'Do you know, I can't remember the last time I finished work before six. I only hope Meg doesn't have a heart attack when she sees me home at a decent hour for once.'

'Meg doesn't have a cardiac problem, does she?' Yona asked quickly.

'Bless you, no—and I trust she never will. I'd be lost without Meg.'

'I know,' she said impulsively. 'You two are like the two sides of a coin.'

'It's a great piece of luck to find your one and only early in life,' he declared with heart-warming simplicity. 'It saves all those wrong leaps in the wrong direction other people seem to make,' he added whimsically.

'All the men I've felt inclined to leap at so far have preferred their women to be thick as two short planks,' Yona was astounded to hear herself admitting—but, then, Ted, like his wife, was so easy to talk to.

'Then they were the dumb ones—and a sight too dumb to deserve you,' he declared, causing her to laugh aloud.

'That's better,' he said, laughing himself. 'Now, be off home with you while you have the chance of escape.'

'Not before I've been back to the unit to check on Mrs Kavanagh, boss. She was a bit depressed this morning so I promised I would.'

'You're a kind girl,' he told her warmly. 'And kindness in a doctor is as important as skill. Not that you haven't the skill,' he added hastily. 'I wasn't saying that.'