“
Please.”
Harry said quietly, and left without making eye contact with
Mike.
“
What’s going
on?” Julia asked her, when they were safely away from the
hospital.
“
Well Chris
fell asleep last night, after I’d pretty much thrown myself at him.
Mike is not talking to me at all. And that creep that assaulted me
when we were at University has left about ten messages on my mobile
phone.”
“
Wow. That
really is horrible.” Julia paused then added respectfully, “That
might actually be the worst day you or I have had for a really long
time.”
“
Thanks,”
said Harry grinning at her, “I feel better now.” And she did, right
up until the point when the man who had taken her innocence so
roughly, crashed through a red light into her side of the
car.
Chapter
nine
Julia called an ambulance
and held her hand as they cut her out of the wreckage and lifted
her onto a stretcher. She felt a savage searing pain down her arm
and her hip and closed her eyes. Julia knew her story, Julia could
talk for her, and she listened to the woman who cared about her
relating her details. They rushed her into the heart of casualty,
where the monitors clustered closely together and the alarms chimed
softly. She heard the paramedic condensing her down into a couple
of tight phrases. “Twenty seven year old female paraplegic, severe
lacerations to the left forearm and the left leg, significant blood
loss.” She felt the bloods being taken out of her right arm, she
answered the questions as steadily as she could. Yes she knew where
she was, she knew the day, she knew her name. She let them shine
the light into her eyes and through it all she held Julia’s hand
very tightly, determined not to cry.
“
Hello,” said
a voice she recognised, and she looked up into Jeff’s gentle eyes.
“I was hoping it wasn’t you.”
“
Not as much
as I wish it wasn’t me,” she said ruefully.
“
Have the
pain meds kicked in yet?”
“
Not
really.”
“
I’m sorry
Harry. We’re still trying to stabilise your blood pressure, once we
do that we can give you something stronger.” She nodded and closed
her eyes again. She tried to take her mind back to glorious old bed
and breakfast that they visited in the Lake District, tried to
smell the wood smoke and remember the sight of the hills. “One
final thing,” he said apologetically, “I’m going to need to look at
your wounds, I want to see if we can suture them with local
anaesthetic.” Apologetically he held up the shears that would cut
through her clothes. She nodded again and concentrated on her
breathing, thought about taking a boat out onto the water and
drinking wine in the sun.
Chris focussed on the
tricky repair he was finishing. He could see Mr Patel trying to
catch his eye through the glass, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk.
Taking Harry home had been his idea, and he blamed him for the fact
that she didn’t seem to be talking to him. A junior surgeon opened
the door and smiled nervously at him. “Mr Patel asked me to close
up for you.”
“
Why?”
“
He says he
needs to talk to you urgently.” The younger man told him, hating
the tremor in his own voice. Chris looked at him and forced himself
to remember how it felt to be a trainee.
“
Okay,” he
said finally, “I’ll be inspecting your suturing later.” The junior
doctor nodded miserably, and Chris thanked the theatre staff and
walked outside.
“
Harry has
been in an accident.” His mentor told him, he knew Chris too well
to try to sugar the truth.
“
What
happened?”
“
A drunk ran
a red light and hit her friend’s car. He’s damaged her arm and her
leg.”
“
Which arm?”
he asked unsteadily.
“
Her
left.”
Chris leant against the
wall feeling suddenly sick. “That’s her dominant side.”
“
Poor kid.”
The older man said softly.
“
Where is she
now?”
“
In resus.
They’re trying to stabilise her blood pressure.”
“
Who’s
working on her?”
“
Jeff.” Mr
Patel told him, holding his gaze. Chris left the theatres at a run
and started down the corridor. “Chris calm down, you know he’s the
best.”
“
He stole
Nicola from me, I’m not let that happening again.”
“
Well I don’t
really know what happened with Nicola, but I can see how Harry
feels about you.”
“
Not
anymore,” Chris said wretchedly, “I fell asleep last night, just
after she offered herself to me.” He stopped suddenly and ran his
tired hand through his hair. “I just wanted the first time to be
good. Not tired and a bit forced.”
Mr Patel looked at him in
silence, then said coolly, “There’s a beautiful young woman down in
accident and emergency, she’s been badly hurt and she must be
terrified. At the moment she’s having her arm sutured without
proper anaesthetic because of how unwell she is, and if you are
going to lean against the wall feeling sorry for yourself when you
should be holding her hand then you’re not the man I thought you
were.” Chris started moving then, he looked apologetically at the
elegant surgeon and pushed open the doors to the hive of activity
that marked the gateway to the hospital. Mr Patel watched him go,
he knew what had happened to his family, but he cared about the
younger man too much to watch him let the beautiful woman slip
through his grasp.
Chris walked into the
heart of accident and emergency without noticing the way the staff
slipped respectfully out of his path. He scanned down the white
board until he saw her name, then he stepped behind the curtains
and felt his chest tighten. Harry was lying very still, she was
wearing the tattered remains of her favourite blouse, and a
possessive part of his mind noted with relief that her lovely chest
was covered. Her left hip was exposed, and he fought the urge to
throw everyone else out and look after her himself. Then he forced
himself to take a deep breath, he knew this was the time to be
gentle. “Hi,” he said tenderly, and smiled when she opened her big
dark eyes.
“
You came.”
She said quietly.
“
Of course I
did.” He nodded at Jeff and touched Julia’s arm. “Have we got any
bloods yet?” He couldn’t help asking.
“
The system
is really slow again.” Jeff told him, he leaned out of the curtains
and asked one of the nurses to chase the bloods again. The charge
nurse nodded then counted to ten. She liked Jeff, she really did,
but sometimes she wondered if he had any idea how unreasonable he
was. She had been phoning the IT every ten minutes for most her
shift, and she would keep phoning them, she didn’t need any
reminders.
She managed to get
through, and she spoke to the same man she always seemed to get.
“It might interest you to know that it’s one of your own down
here,” she said bitingly. “That pretty girl who uses the
wheelchair.” There was silence, then the line went dead. She put
down the phone and went to answer one of the alarms. “Try working
in a real department.” She said under her breath.
Mike banged on Belinda’s
window just as she was finishing a particularly pleasing flow
chart. “Harry has been in an accident.” He told her, and ran out of
the portacabin. Belinda thought about following him, then realised
that there was nobody left in her department. She sighed and sat
down in Mike’s recently vacated seat and wondered why she was
always the last to know to about anything.
Mike was breathless by
the time he reached accident and emergency. He tried to attract the
attention of one of the fast moving figures, but they wove around
him, slowing him down and adding to anxiety. He replayed the moment
she had smiled at him and he had not smiled back until he spotted
the signs to resus and pushed open the door. “Can I help you?”
asked a voice that he recognised.
“
My friend,”
he said unsteadily, “you told me she was hurt.”
“
You’d be
more use to her if you made the blood results appear faster.” She
said, but then she smiled at him and pointed to the cubicle in the
middle of the row. “In there,” she said, “just follow the smell of
testosterone.”
“
Hi,” he said
awkwardly, crowding in beside Julia and Chris. Harry opened her
eyes and smiled at him. She was really pleased that he was talking
to her again, but if she was honest, then she just wanted them to
give her a decent painkiller and leave her in peace.
“
I’m really
sorry,” Mike said unsteadily, “I was an idiot, and when I heard
that you had been hurt, I had to come down here and tell you how
much I care about you.”
“
What did you
do?” Chris couldn’t help asking,
“
I didn’t
talk to her all day.”
Harry closed her eyes
again and Jeff looked up sharply at the scruffy technician. “This
is not the coffee room.” He said bitingly.
“
Shall we get
some air?” Julia asked him, and he nodded forlornly and led the way
out into the corridor.
“
Chris was
talking too.” He said finally.
“
I know, it’s
unfair, people never yell at men like Chris.”
“
She was
right though,” Mike said finally, “that nurse, I would be more use
to Harry if I kept the blood results stabilised.”
“
Probably.”
Julia conceded gently.
“
Would you
come with me?” he asked, and realised how lovely she looked when
she smiled.
“
I’d like
that very much.” She said, and tucked her arm through
his.
“
What’s
happening?” Belinda asked him, as they walked arm in arm down the
echoing stairs to the bay of computers.
“
She’s a
trust employee,” Mike said defensively, “and she’s a doctor, so she
might have some useful insights.” Julia nodded, surprised at how
pleased she felt to finally have a role in this crisis.
“
I was asking
about Harry.”
Julia felt the lump of
pain settle down in her stomach again. “She’s not well, the cut on
her arm is not too bad, but the cut on her leg is really deep.
She’s lost a lot of blood and they’re trying to stabilise
her.”
“
I’m sorry.”
Belinda said softly, and gestured to his screen, “it looks like
there’s something really important that you can do.” Julia nodded
at him and he took a deep breath, at last he was riding in to her
rescue, but somebody else was holding her hand. Julia put a cup of
coffee down beside him and smiled at him. He smiled back at her,
the knights must have had a supporting cast he decided, and maybe
they didn’t have to sleep alone.
Chris looked at her
beautiful face and wished more than ever that he had taken to her
to bed the night before. “How are you doing?” He asked her
softly,
“
I’m okay,”
she said unconvincingly, biting her lip as Jeff finished the
careful work on her arm.
“
Harry I’ve
got some good news for you at last,” Jeff told her, “the metal
missed all the major structures in your arm, you’ll have quite a
scar, but there should be no permanent damage.”
“
Thank you,”
she told him, “I can live with that,” she moved her fingers
tentatively and smiled at him.
“
The wound on
your hip is much deeper, when we’ve cross matched your bloods,
we’re going to have to operate.”
Harry took a deep breath
and forced herself to smile shakily at him, “Okay then,” she closed
her eyes, and tried to think her way back to the Lake District, but
the memories of her childhood in hospital kept
intruding.
“
Excuse me,”
a very large policeman appeared in the cubicle and smiled at her.
“I know that you’re still getting treatment, but I’m going to need
to interview you and your friend.”
“
Not now.”
Chris told him, glad to have someone to glower at. “Can’t you go
and arrest the idiot that did this?”
“
My boss is
arresting him, it turns out he’s some kind of fancy Lord, you know
how funny they are.”
Harry suppressed a smile
and opened her eyes briefly, “I’ll be happy to speak to you
tomorrow.” she told him, and provided her details.
“
You didn’t
tell him.” Jeff said quietly, when his heavy tread faded
away.
“
I find that
it usually complicates situations.” she said ruefully.
The hospital was silent
by the time Jeff had finished the operation. The long corridors
echoing as their lonely party navigated the arrows on the polished
floors back up to the surgical ward. Chris took a deep breath, this
was his space, usually he sat in the office and they brought him
coffee and entertaining anecdotes. But now he felt awkward and
unsure. “So she's the reason you've gotten all preoccupied.” the
charge nurse said with a grin. He nodded and sat down beside her
bed. “She’s a lucky girl,” the nurse said feelingly.
Chris smiled at her,
remembering the last time he had been alone with Harry, he wondered
if she would agree. “Do you think we can resite the drip in her
arm? She's paralysed and she can't move her legs, I want to make
things as easy as possible for her.”