Just Friends To Just Married?

His head dipped towards hers. And they stood there for a few seconds in the moonlight with their foreheads touching. ‘I’m just glad you’re here, Viv. I couldn’t cope with any of this without you.’

She had so much she wanted to say right now—about the hospital, the responsibilities, the issues that needed to be sorted out straight away. But it wasn’t the time. He didn’t need that right now. What Duc needed right now was his friend.

She reached up and put her hand over his, giving it a squeeze. ‘And you don’t need to.’

They stood for a few more moments, before Duc slung his arm back around her shoulders and they walked back to the bungalow.

As he pushed open the door, he gave her a half-smile. ‘Hey, Viv?’

She was already eyeing her discarded white pyjamas, dying to jump straight back into them. She glanced back at him. ‘What?’

He gave her a weary smile. ‘Welcome to Hanoi.’

CHAPTER FOUR

VIVIENNE HAD WORKED in a lot of places. She generally lasted between six months and a year before moving on. She made friends superficially at each new workplace. She was good at her job and generally had a good feel for people—she naturally knew who to avoid and who to trust. Her instincts had always been sound—except, of course, when it came to men.

Viv seemed to have an inbuilt ability to find the worst man in the room—no matter where she was. Her love life had been one disaster after another. The only guy that had been half-good was Archie, an electrician she’d met when she’d worked in Bristol. Archie had been too good, too nice—even Duc had liked him. But Archie had got too close. He’d tried to support her when she’d tried to trace her birth mum and then found out she was dead. His sympathy had felt overwhelming. His questions about how she was feeling had probed into emotions she wasn’t ready to deal with. It was almost like he had been trying to ‘fix her’—and Viv didn’t need to be fixed by anyone.

So she’d done what she did best, and retreated quickly. Instead, seeking out men who were their own natural disasters, and emotionally unavailable to her, made her life simpler. It made it easier to keep the shell she’d constructed around herself unbroken. Duc was the only person who’d ever been allowed to tap at the surface—the only man she’d ever really trusted. Which was why she was here, trying to get her head around her role within this hospital.

By day three she’d begun to get a feel for the place again. May Mắn Hospital had always been a little different. She’d only been here for short spells, but there was something about this place—it had a little buzz around it that she couldn’t explain. Before, she’d just imagined it was because of the connection to Duc. His parents had always been the heart and soul of the place.

Walking through the corridors, she could almost sense the echo of them. She half expected to turn a corner and walk into either one of them.

Trouble was, the staff had relied on them so much for, well, everything.

Lien seemed to have a good head on her shoulders for the day-to-day running of the hospital. For the general medical patients she was the go-to clinician. But she didn’t know anything about rotas, ordering supplies, or maintenance of the building. Her husband, Joe, helped out at some of the antenatal clinics. He’d worked as a GP back in Scotland, and could do general antenatal care, as well as regular hospital duties. But what was most interesting was the fact he seemed to have a real panache for working with the kids. They seemed to gravitate towards him—even though he still struggled with the language barrier, much the same as she did. It probably helped that he had a young son of his own, but watching her colleagues gave Viv a chance to understand the skills of those around her.

While all that was well and good, she hadn’t found anyone who had the skills she needed as an obstetrician. There was a visiting plastic surgeon, there was Duc, and there was a whole host of part-time nurses working within the hospital.

Trouble was that between Hoa and the other obstetrician there really had been no one else to look after the steady stream of pregnant women who came to the hospital. Viv had learned quickly that not all women in Hanoi presented early enough in their pregnancy to have any kind of antenatal screening.

Viv was lucky. One of her jobs had been on a Scottish island and had required her to have further training in carrying out sonograms. This meant she found herself doing routine sonograms on a whole range of women at different gestations, coming up against a whole host of potential issues.

The truth was, she couldn’t do this on her own. She was a midwife. Not a consultant.

She wandered through the corridors in the midst of another busy day. Duc was sitting at the desk in her father’s office, his head resting on one hand.

‘Knock, knock,’ she said as she walked in.

He looked up. There were dark circles under his eyes. Even though she knew he went to bed at night, it was clear he wasn’t sleeping.

He started to stand up but she shook her head as she sat in the chair opposite him. ‘Don’t. There’s no emergency. But we need to talk.’

His brow creased. ‘Just don’t tell me you’re leaving.’

She gave a weak smile. ‘Not yet. But you know me. I never hang my hat anywhere for long.’

He opened his mouth as if he was about to respond, then shook his head and held out one hand. ‘So, what’s up?’

She nodded. This was business. It had to be. She could see gaps that she wasn’t comfortable working around.

‘Things need to be clearer. At any other hospital I’ve worked at, we have protocols. A strict set of guidelines that everyone follows for certain events, certain conditions.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘Thing is, at May Mắn? The protocols were your mum—literally. She knew everything, and everyone just went on her say-so. While that was fine when she was here...’

Duc winced and she cringed at her choice of words, but Viv kept going, this was too important. ‘Now...she’s not. Staff need guidelines to work to. Written-down guidelines. Maybe even stuck-to-the-wall guidelines. Your mother and Dr Tan were their safety net. Not all the nurses are midwives here. Some of them don’t know the first thing about dealing with maternity patients. In lots of cases the care isn’t difficult. They just need specifics. What to do, what to look out for, when to raise the alarm.’ She paused for a second, letting her words sink in.

Part of her was amazed at herself. She never really stayed anywhere long enough to look at procedures and protocols. Last time she’d been here, she’d been just as guilty of using Hoa as her sounding board. But Hoa wasn’t here now, and staff were unsure.

‘This could be relatively simple. There are protocols and guidelines for most things in hospitals the world over. We can choose the ones that work here, and you can get someone to help me translate them. The staff can do short training sessions, and we can put the most important ones in easy, visible places as reminders.’

Duc put his head in his hands. He was shaking it. ‘I can’t believe something so basic isn’t in place.’ He glanced back up, an incredulous look on his face. ‘How come this wasn’t done before?’

Viv pressed her lips together. It wasn’t up to her to judge. She’d no right to. She was just an outsider here. All she knew was that some of the staff were out of their depth and dealing with cases that stretched their abilities. They didn’t have the back-up that was normally in place.

‘We need some safeguards.’ She put her hand on her chest. ‘And I need some safeguards. Have you thought about getting another obstetrician, or at least another midwife?’

Duc sighed. ‘Of course. But my hands have been tied with red tape that I don’t understand. I am so out of my depth I don’t even know which way to turn.’ He held up both hands. ‘This?’ He looked around. ‘This was just a place to come and help out. Do a few ward rounds, prescribe some antibiotics, help with the occasional clinic. Cover the on-call so my mum and dad could have a few nights together.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘What I know about obstetrics I could write on the back of a postage stamp. I’ve spent the last two days panic-reading about emergency caesarean sections just in case it happens in the next few days.’

He shook his head. ‘Have you any idea how long it takes to advertise a post, check someone’s credentials, then wait for them to give notice at a previous post?’

Vivienne leaned across the desk towards him, put her head on her hand and raised one eyebrow, obviously waiting for the penny to drop.

After the briefest of seconds Duc realised what he’d said. ‘Yeah, sorry about that. Did I wreck your chances of ever getting another job with that health authority?’

Vivienne sat back and gave a half-hearted shrug. Truth was, she’d quite liked the place where she’d been working. The staff were pleasant enough, and she’d managed to rent a flat in a nice area. A flat that was now currently empty. Maybe she was getting old. It was the first time she’d ever really thought like that. ‘You know me,’ she answered flippantly. ‘Only take one job per health authority then I move on.’

‘Keep that up and you’ll eventually run out,’ said Duc. He was watching her carefully.

‘That’s why every now and then I throw a whole different country into the mix.’ She leaned right back and put her feet up on the table. ‘I was contemplating Ireland next. Probably Dublin. Anyway, I told my boss it was an unexpected family emergency. I might have left them in the lurch a little, but I’d just finished two weeks on call—and that’s definitely not allowed. I’d bent over backwards to help them cover shifts, and I worked hard.’

Duc’s eyes clouded a little. ‘Family,’ he said softly.

Vivienne gulped. ‘That’s what we are,’ she said simply. ‘At least, that’s what I think we are.’

She meant it. Getting into midwifery college at seventeen had been a blessing. A year later her adoptive parents had died and when she’d tried to track down her birth parents it hadn’t exactly been good news. Her birth mother had died from cancer years earlier and her father had spent his life in and out of prison. She didn’t have any idea where he was right now. When she’d qualified at age twenty, she’d taken every opportunity that had come her way.

Her salary was enough to rent somewhere reasonable in whatever city she took a job—some of the hospitals even had staff accommodation at reduced rates. Duc had been the one reliable, relatable friend she’d made along the way. Her ground level. The person she spoke to most. The person she always connected to.

It was odd. Although they’d visited before, she was now seeing Duc in a completely new light. It was clear he’d never seen himself as an integral part of May Mắn hospital. His career aspirations had never been here. He’d always been focused on being a surgeon.

But now? With his parents dead, she did wonder if he might reconsider.

Duc gave her a sad smile. ‘Family. Yeah. It’s just you and me now. Maybe you should reconsider, I don’t know if I’m that lucky right now.’

He stood up, pushing his chair back, and headed for the door. As he reached the doorway he paused and looked back at her. The circles under his eyes were so dark. He was still hurting. Of course he was. She was supposed to be here to take some of the burden. Instead, she’d just come in and heaped a whole lot of trouble on top of him. What kind of a friend was she really?

‘After the will reading tomorrow,’ he said slowly, ‘I’ll get to some of this stuff. I will. I promise.’

He looked as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She gave a stiff nod.

He’d just lost both parents. How on earth could she expect him to think straight? If she really wanted to be a friend, she was going to have to step up.

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