Playing the Joker

Scrubbed and changed into the disgustingly unflattering green theatre pyjamas and white anti-static boots, her gown and mask tied, she made her way into the operating theatre where Alex was already waiting.

Their patient was in the ante-room, and Jo could hear the anaesthetist talking to her.

Suddenly he stuck his head round the corner.

‘She’s complaining of flashing lights—I think she could be going into a fit.’

Jo moved instantly, but Alex was there before her, snapping out orders and setting up a lytic cocktail drip which was attached to the cannula mercifully already in her arm.

As he connected it, she went into the tonic stage of the convulsion, her body going rigid, her face contorted. After a few seconds she lapsed into the clonic stage, jerking uncontrollably. They held her arm still to try and prevent the drip from being wrenched out, and gradually as the sedatives took effect the convulsions eased and she lapsed into a coma.

Jo looked up and met Alex’s eyes, and he winked at her reassuringly.

‘Your patient, Dr Harding—I think we should proceed with the section when we’ve scrubbed again.’

She smiled faintly at him. ‘Good idea.’

They walked out to the scrub-room and stood side by side at the sinks. She was tempted to lean on him, and tell him how grateful she was that he had been there to share the horror of that moment.

She’d never seen an eclamptic fit before, and, while she was glad that better antenatal care had removed the risk almost completely, she had to admit that it did nothing to prepare you for an unexpected case like Mary Jenkins.

She dried her hands, pulled on a fresh set of gloves and made her way back with Alex into the operating-room.

Their patient was on the table, draped and swabbed and ready for her attention.

Alex stood quietly opposite her, his hands ready to cauterise or irrigate or hold retractors, always steady, there before she had to ask, but never once commenting or implying that he would have done it differently.

Finally she was through all the layers of muscle and into the uterus, and as he held the retractors steady, she reached inside and brought out a tiny, squalling scrap.

There was a collective sigh of relief as the baby yelled her protest, and Alex smiled at her.

Jo looked away. ‘She looks fine,’ she said abruptly, and clamped the cord and cut it.

The midwife took the baby to a cot and laid her in, and checked her Apgar score while Jo delivered the placenta and started suturing.

‘Apgar nine,’ the midwife said after five minutes, and Jo nodded.

‘Lucky,’ Alex commented.

‘Thanks to your quick action,’ Jo said, echoing all their feelings. There was a general murmur of agreement.

At last she had tied the final suture and the woman was wheeled away to Recovery.

Alex and Jo went up to the little rest-room and relaxed while the theatre was prepared for the next case.

‘You were very generous,’ he said, ‘especially considering that I took over your patient.’

She smiled. ‘I didn’t mind,’ she assured him. ‘I was just grateful for your quick action.’

‘I only did what you would have done.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

He looked steadily at her. ‘You would have coped.’

‘I know, but I’m still glad you were there.’

He looked quickly away. ‘Tell me about your list,’ he instructed.

She filled him in, and he nodded but didn’t comment, except to ask if she minded if he watched.

‘Of course not,’ she replied, but her heart thudded, either with tension because he would be watching again or delight because he would still be near her. If she was honest, it was probably both.

The first patient on the list proper was June Turner, who by now had had her epidural set up and was waiting for them in Theatre, her gowned and masked husband waiting at her side.

‘Hello, June; hello, Mike,’ Jo said cheerfully. ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting—we had a bit of an emergency. This is Alexander Carter, the new consultant.’

June’s relaxed smile faded a little, and her eyes flicked from Jo’s face to his and back again.

‘Oh. Does that mean you aren’t going to do the operation?’

Jo grinned. ‘No way. I’m not handing you over to anyone! Right, are you all set?’

The green screens were set up, masking their activity from June and her husband, and she was swabbed and draped ready for her operation.

‘OK, June, I’m just going to make the first incision now.’

She stroked lightly and swiftly with the scalpel, and Anne Gabriel, who was assisting, swabbed and irrigated and held retractors and smiled at June over the curtain as Jo worked.

Jo herself was busy working her way through the layers of scar tissue in the old incision line. In very little time she reached the uterus, and looked at June. ‘OK, here we are. The scar actually looks fine, so I suppose that means you don’t want to be sterilised?’

Mike grinned. ‘Nice try, Dr Harding.’

She laughed. ‘OK, I’m just going to open the uterus and then you’ll have your baby.’

June smiled, Mike held her hand even tighter and Jo carefully penetrated the first layer.

‘Suction, please,’ she said, but Anne was there already, and in no time the baby was in her hands. ‘It’s a boy,’ she said with a smile that lit up her eyes above her mask, ‘and he looks lovely!’

She handed the baby over the screen and into his mother’s waiting arms, and then clamped the cord and cut it as Mike leant over and kissed his son.

The pain crashed into her with all the force of an express train, and she took a steadying breath.

You really would think it would get easier, she mused, but it doesn’t, and for some reason today it’s even worse. In the midst of all the chaos and congratulations, she lifted her head and met Alex’s eyes, and looked away.

Her own must have reflected her misery because later, after the Turner family had left the theatre and Jo had completed her list, she found Alex by her side, his face concerned.

‘Are you OK?’ he said in an undertone.

‘Of course I’m OK. Why should I not be?’

He shrugged. ‘Search me. I just thought you looked a bit pole-axed in there for a minute with the Turners.’

She busied herself removing her soiled gown and putting it in the bin. ‘Don’t be silly. Everybody’s moved by the birth of a baby.’

He moved round in front of her and tipped her chin. ‘I didn’t say moved, I said——’

‘I heard you. You were mistaken. Excuse me.’

She pushed past him and went to shower and change. When she emerged he was gone, and she managed to avoid him for the rest of the day.

She went home exhausted at seven, and made herself an omelette. She was too tired and stressed out to eat it, though, and poked it around for a few minutes before giving up.

Anne rang her later to ask if she was all right.

‘Of course I’m all right—what’s the matter with you all?’ she snapped, and then felt immediately guilty.

Anne, however, knew her too well to take umbrage, and quietly wished her goodnight before hanging up.

It was a long week, and by the end of it Jo’s nerves were flayed to a shred.

Alex had been everywhere, popping up like a jack-in-a-box every time she turned round. However, he had taken her at her word and was leaving her alone, making no further attempt to persuade her to go out with him.

He had made a real impact with the staff, and Anne thought he was charming and could quite see why Jo had fallen so hard and so fast.

‘Why don’t you talk to him?’ she said again, and Jo had to avoid her after that.

That afternoon Jo had delivered a baby and Alex had popped in just in time to see her cradling the babe against her breast and holding the tiny hand in her own.

‘It suits you—you ought to try it some time,’ he suggested, and with a wicked wink he left her.

Anne Gabriel had been there, too, and after one look at Jo’s shocked face had taken the baby from her and finished clearing up after the delivery without asking any questions.

As soon as possible, Jo had escaped home and attacked the housework, but that just made her even more exhausted and left her mind whirling in a body that ached from end to end. Feeling even more miserable, she made a cup of tea and took it up to wallow in the bath with a book she hadn’t had time to finish.

She undressed and hung up her skirt, throwing the blouse and underwear into the laundry basket.

How could she get Alex Carter out of her mind? He was haunting her, the might-have-beens overwhelming in the light of his constant presence.

And the worst of it was she still loved him—loved him more with each minute that passed, because she was getting to know him now and everything that she discovered just reinforced her first impressions.

The sadness that she always carried with her seemed almost too heavy to bear tonight. How right he had been, because she wasn’t the person he had known four years ago. It would be strange if all the things that had happened had left her quite untouched.

She closed the wardrobe door and stood back to study herself with a critical eye.

Her hair was thick and heavy, falling over her shoulders and framing her face with a tumble of wild flame. Her skin was pale and smooth, though cursed with freckles, and her full breasts were firm and creamy, tipped with rose-pink nipples. Below them her waist was neat, her tummy smooth and flat.

Beneath the gentle swell of her hips her legs were endless, long and shapely, and at their juncture the soft, thick curls clustered enticingly.

She was all woman—strong, healthy, designed to tempt a man and lure him to her bed, and there to conceive his children in the wild ecstasy of passion.

Her mouth twisted and her gaze returned to the curls that hid the hated scar.

It was just an illusion, that mother-earth look of hers. She wasn’t a woman at all, just a cardboard cutout, an android, an imposter.

How could you be a woman without a womb?

CHAPTER THREE

FOR most of the people there it was just another party, but Jo was celebrating the end of her last day as an SHO prior to her forthcoming appointment at the Audley Memorial Hospital in Suffolk as a very junior registrar.

Her new boss, Owen Davie, was probably one of the old school, but Jo was confident that she would get a good grounding in what was quite definitely an up and coming hospital.

The long and gruelling year as SHO was finally ended, she had a new job to look forward to, and she was in the mood to party.

Although she was on her own, she wasn’t truly on her own. The hospital community was a close-knit one, and she would know most of the people who would be there tonight.

She had dressed with her usual flamboyant zeal, in a silky, figure-hugging sheath with a thigh-high split and a low back, in shimmering coral-pink silk that draped like a dream. With her red hair it should have been a disaster, but it was a devastating combination and she felt as good as she looked.

By the time she arrived the party was already going with a swing, and she found herself a drink and a convivial group of friends and settled down to celebrate.

An hour and a couple of glasses of cheap wine later, she was dancing with a bespectacled and rather amorous young doctor who was barely tall enough to look her in the eye when the door opened to admit another group of people.

She noticed him immediately, something about him setting him apart from the group and attracting her attention with all the force of a powerful magnet.

He was tall, taller even than her, and thin, his clothes rather loose as if he had lost weight recently or had been ill.

Then he turned, and she was so shaken by the look of utter desolation in his eyes that her steps faltered and she stood quite still, her eyes locked with his.

Her escort floundered to a halt and peered closely at her, asking if she was all right, but she excused herself absently and made her way across the room, elbowing her way through the crowd until she was by his side.

‘Hi!’ she yelled over the throbbing beat. ‘You’re a stranger—welcome to the local madhouse. I’m Jo.’

She held out her hand, and after a second he took it and held it, his eyes meshed with hers again. Once again she was struck by the depth of pain in his soft brown eyes.

‘My name’s Alex,’ he said eventually, his voice deep and slightly husky, as if he hadn’t used it much recently.

He was still holding her hand, as if he was almost afraid to let her go, and for a second it crossed her mind that he might be crazy. He lifted his other hand and touched her cheek lightly, his fingers cold.

‘Are you real?’ he murmured. ‘You look so lovely—so vibrant and alive. I’d forgotten people could look like that.’

She laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that triggered a convulsive movement of his jaw, almost as if it hurt him to hear her laugh. She realised he wasn’t crazy, just terribly, inexpressibly sad.

‘Oh, I’m real,’ she said wryly. ‘I’m celebrating—would you like to help me?’

‘I’m not sure I’m much use,’ he told her with a helpless shrug, but he kept hold of her hand.

Someone decided it was time to change the tempo, and the lively music faded out, to be replaced by Roberta Flack singing ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’.

‘Dance with me,’ Jo murmured, and he looked startled for a moment, as if she had suggested they should fly.

Then, releasing her hand, he drew her close into the circle of his arms and rested his forehead against hers. As they swayed together to the hauntingly beautiful melody, Jo felt the tension drain out of him and a new, more vibrant tension replace it, a tension that caught her up and drew her closer to him, so that she leant into his body and gave herself up to the sensation.

Her hands were laid against his chest, and she could feel the unsteady thud of his heart beneath her palms. Sliding her arms round under his jacket, she eased nearer to him, and his hands pressed warmly now against her back, to cradle her closer to his chest. A small sound, half-groan, half-sigh, escaped him as the soft fullness of her breasts pressed against the solid wall of his chest.

‘God, you feel so good,’ he murmured, and his voice slurred slightly as if he was a little drunk.

Jo didn’t care—who was she to complain? She snuggled closer and hugged him. ‘You feel pretty good yourself,’ she said huskily.

She tipped back her head slightly and met his eyes. They were blazing, like a wildfire out of control, and she felt the heat licking at her, drawing her in.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he rasped, and with a surprisingly strong grip he led her out of the room. ‘Where can we go?’ he asked, his voice harsh with desperation.

‘My flat,’ she told him, a trifle breathless. ‘Wait here, I’ll get my things.’

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