Dr Mathieson's Daughter

Hands off—he’s mine. That was what she’d said, and there’d been no need. Gussie was welcome to Elliot. In fact, right now the paediatric sister could have had him gift-wrapped with a bow round his neck.

‘Your son’s had this pain at the top of his chest for the last three days, you said?’ Elliot said, once Jane had got the boy and his mother settled.

‘At first I thought David had simply pulled a muscle, playing basketball,’ the boy’s mother replied, twisting her hands together convulsively, ‘but when the pain didn’t go away—’

‘Keen on sport, are you, David?’ Elliot asked as Jane helped the boy off with his shirt.

‘Only basketball,’ he replied. ‘The other boys at my school prefer soccer, but basketball…Basketball’s the best.’

Gently Elliot pressed on the boy’s chest. ‘Does it hurt when I do this?’

The boy shook his head. Not musculoskeletal pain, then, Elliot decided, or the pain would have increased under pressure.

‘Do you have any other aches and pains anywhere?’ he asked, taking his stethoscope out of his pocket and smiling encouragingly at the teenager.

‘I don’t think so.’ David frowned. ‘Sometimes I get an odd feeling in my back, but that’s all.’

Elliot’s ears pricked up. ‘Odd in what way?’

‘It’s hard to explain. It’s…it’s a sort of ripping feeling. I’m sorry but I can’t really describe it.’

He didn’t need to. The minute Elliot placed his stethoscope on the boy’s chest he heard a distinctive whooshing sound. A sound similar to that he’d heard in much older patients with leaky heart valves. But surely a boy of thirteen was far too young for that?

‘Jane, could you get me an ECG reading, please?’ he murmured casually.

She nodded.

‘So, you play a lot of basketball, do you, David?’ he said as Jane deftly applied the sticky electrodes to each of the boy’s arms and legs, then across his chest.

‘His school thinks he could play professionally when he’s older,’ his mother replied, clearly torn between maternal pride and concern.

‘My height helps a lot,’ her son said quickly, shooting his mother the speaking glance all boys used when they were deeply embarrassed. ‘You don’t have to jump up so far to reach the basket when you’re as tall as me.’

And he was tall—almost as tall as I am, Elliot thought pensively. Rangy, too, with extremely long fingers, and suddenly somewhere in the back of his mind a memory stirred. A memory of something he’d read in a medical journal a long time ago, and he hoped to heaven he was wrong.

‘ECG reading normal,’ Jane murmured.

‘Chest X-ray, please, Sister Halden,’ he said, then turned to the boy’s mother. ‘Has your son always been tall for his age?’

‘Not when he was a toddler, but when he hit seven…’ She shook her head ruefully. ‘It costs me a fortune every time he needs new clothes and shoes. Nothing in any of the ordinary kids’ shops fits him, you see.’

Because he wasn’t an ordinary boy, Elliot thought sadly, when Radiology had processed David’s chest X-rays.

He had Marfan’s syndrome, a rare, inherited condition which caused the aorta—the major blood vessel leading from the heart—to become abnormally enlarged, and one of the first indications of the condition was that sufferers were always extremely tall as children with unusually long fingers.

‘Historians think Abraham Lincoln might have had Marfan’s, don’t they?’ Jane commented after the boy and his mother had been transferred up to the medical ward where further tests could be performed.

Elliot nodded. ‘Thank goodness his mother brought him in when she did. With that enlarged aorta, he could have had a heart attack at any time, but at least now we can give him beta-blockers to control his heart problems, and get him fitted with an orthopaedic corset before his spine starts to become deformed due to the weight of his bones.’

‘No more basketball for him, though, I guess,’ Jane sighed.

‘No. No more basketball,’ he answered, and wondered why he should find that thought so deeply depressing.

Oh, he’d always cared about the patients who passed through his hands, had fought tooth and nail to save many of them, but this young boy…

Perhaps it was because he seemed so very young, scarcely more than a child, despite his height. Perhaps it was because all of his dreams to become a world-class basketball player were now lying in the dust.

No, it wasn’t that, he realised. It had been the look of total devastation on his mother’s face when he’d taken her into one of their private waiting rooms to explain what was wrong.

David’s mother would willingly have given everything she possessed to spare her son pain. Would even have given her own life if he could have been cured. That was love. Real love. And he felt none of that for his daughter.

You don’t know her yet—haven’t even met her—his mind pointed out, and unconsciously he shook his head. It wasn’t as simple as that. Even if he’d wanted to be a father—and at the moment he certainly didn’t—he didn’t know how to be one.

He could do Lover. Oh, he could do a great Lover, provided there was no talk of long-term commitment. He could even do Friend. A sympathetic, willing shoulder for any woman to lean her head on if she needed it, but Father?

There was no way he could do Father—no way—and a wave of panic washed over him.

Panic that didn’t get any less when a case of accidental poisoning came in a mere forty minutes before he and Jane were due to leave for the airport.

‘We’re really cutting it fine,’ Jane murmured, seeing his eye drift to the treatment-room clock while they waited for the results of the blood count and chemistry tests. ‘Thank goodness we brought a change of clothes into the hospital just in case.’

He nodded, but he’d hoped to have time to shower, to wash the smell of the hospital off him before he met his daughter, but now it looked as though he’d be phoning the airport to tell them to look after her until they could get there. It was a great start. A really great start.

‘Look, why don’t the pair of you just go?’ Charlie Gordon said. ‘It’s not like we need either of you here. Flo and I can look after your patient.’

Elliot shook his head. ‘It’s asking too much—’

‘Elliot, I’d bet money that your blood pressure is higher right now than your patient’s,’ the SHO said with a grin.

‘Probably, but—’

‘Charlie’s right, boss,’ Floella chipped in. ‘We don’t need you here, and it would be awful if your little girl arrived with nobody to meet her.’

She was right, it would. But still he looked across at Jane uncertainly. ‘What do you think?’

‘Who am I to disagree with the others?’ She smiled. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

They made the airport with five minutes to spare.

‘Relax, Elliot,’ Jane said, seeing him scanning the Arrivals board anxiously for information about the 21.00 plane from Paris. ‘The plane might land at nine o’clock, but she’ll have to collect her luggage first, remember, so try to relax.’

Relax? How could he possibly relax when all his instincts were urging him to run, to leave town, to give no forwarding address? He glanced at his watch, then straightened his tie. ‘Do I look all right? I mean, this suit…?’

‘You look fine.’ Actually, she wished he’d brought a pair of casual trousers and a sweatshirt to change into at the hospital instead of a suit and tie, but now was hardly the time to tell him so.

‘Should I get her some flowers, do you think?’ he continued, seeing a man emerging from the florist opposite with an enormous bouquet. ‘Girls always like flowers, don’t they?’

‘Daffodils would be nice…’

‘Not roses, then?’ he queried. ‘You think roses would be too much?’

For sure they would be too much. Roses were for an adult, not a little girl, and she would have told him that if she hadn’t suddenly caught a glimpse of his face.

He looked tense. Tense, and taut, and grim.

Surely he couldn’t possibly be nervous at the prospect of meeting his daughter? Of course he wasn’t. The very idea was ridiculous. He was resentful, yes. Probably even a little bit angry at his ex-wife for doing this to him, but super-confident Elliot nervous about meeting a child? No way. Never. And yet…

Gently she put her hand on his arm. ‘Elliot, all she needs is to feel loved and wanted.’

‘Loved and wanted.’ He nodded, for all the world as though he were ticking off a mental check list of dos and don’ts.

‘Just be her father,’ she continued, ‘and she’ll adore you.’

Be her father? He couldn’t do it—he knew he couldn’t—but a voice over the loudspeaker had announced the arrival of Flight 303 from Paris, and Jane was pushing her way through the crowded concourse, leaving him with no choice but to follow her.

‘Do you have a photograph so we’ll know what she looks like?’ she asked, breaking into his thoughts.

It had never occurred to him to ask if the solicitor had one! Relax, he told himself, feeling a trickle of sweat run down his back. How many six-year-old kids can be travelling on the plane from Paris? Even if there are dozens she’ll have somebody from Donna’s French solicitors with her.

She didn’t. She was on her own. OK, so one of the air stewardesses was holding her hand, but she was still on her own, and somebody had pinned a label onto her coat for all the world as though she were a parcel to be collected, not a child, not a person.

A surge of quite unexpected anger flooded through him. Anger that was just as quickly replaced by an altogether different emotion as the stewardess led his daughter towards him.

She looked exactly like Donna. The same long auburn hair, the same large dark eyes, the same elfin features. The face that stared uncertainly up at him was the one which had loved and then taunted and mocked him during his marriage, and despite all his best efforts to prevent it he felt himself beginning to withdraw. Knew it was wrong, that she was only a child, but he couldn’t stop himself.

And Nicole sensed his withdrawal. He could see it in the clouding of her eyes, and though he managed to swiftly dredge up his brightest smile he knew the damage had been done.

‘Elliot….’

Jane’s hand was at his back, urging him forward, and he cleared his throat awkwardly.

‘Hello, Nicole. I’m…I’m your father.’ She gazed up at him without expression and a fresh wave of panic assailed him. What if she didn’t speak any English? Donna had been French. She might never have seen any need for her daughter—his daughter, he reminded himself—to learn English.

‘Nicole…I’m…Moi…Je…Je…’ He bit his lip. Oh, God, but he’d never been any good at languages. ‘Nicole…Moi…votre père?’

‘I know.’

The reply had been barely a whisper.

‘And this…’ He caught Jane’s hand in desperation. ‘This is my friend, Jane Halden. We…we’re…’

‘Flatmates,’ Jane said quickly, coming to his rescue. ‘Your father and I are flatmates.’

What now? Elliot wondered as the air stewardess disappeared, the loudspeaker announced the arrival of the 21.15 from Berlin and his daughter stared at the floor. What did he do and say now?

Jane had no such doubts. She simply got down on her knees, gave the little girl a hug and began talking about the flight from Paris.

Which is what he should have done, he realised bleakly as he retrieved Nicole’s luggage. But it was too late to think about that now. Too late for a lot of things.

All he could do was drive them back to his flat and listen to Jane and Nicole chattering away quite happily while he sat in silence, feeling as much use as a lamb chop in a vegetarian restaurant.

Dinner was no better. Nicole ate little, and said less. Jane—bless her—kept up a steady stream of conversation while Nicole valiantly attacked her fish fingers, but it was a relief when his daughter finally pushed her plate away and asked if she could go to bed.

Jane didn’t linger long afterwards. There was plenty she wanted to say. Things like ‘What happened to the famous Mathieson charm?’ And ‘Couldn’t you at least have tried to make some conversation?’ But it would keep.

A lot of things would keep, she decided as she took her pyjamas out of her suitcase and smiled ruefully as she looked at them.

Passion-killers. That’s what Frank had called the men’s red-and-white-striped pyjamas she liked to wear, and she supposed they were, but she liked them, always had. They were cosy on wintry nights, cool on hot summer evenings, and if they were as sexy as a pair of flannelette knickers then so much the better while she was staying with Elliot.

Not that she had anything to fear on that score, she thought wistfully as she changed into them. She was just Jane. Just good old dependable Jane.

And you should thank your lucky stars you are, her mind declared while she brushed her teeth. How long do Elliot’s girlfriends usually last—a month, six weeks? Gussie was doing well at two months. Actually, Gussie was doing incredibly well to have lasted two months.

Sleep, she told herself firmly. Get into bed and get some sleep. And she tried. She really did try, but two o’clock saw her no sleepier than before, and she’d just decided to get up and make herself a cup of tea when she heard it.

The unmistakable sound of a child’s muffled sobs in the silence.

She was out of bed in a second, tiptoeing quickly down the corridor so as not to wake Elliot, but her stealth was unnecessary. He was already awake, already heading in the same direction, and he came to a halt with clear relief when he saw her. She stopped too, but it wasn’t relief she felt. It was an altogether different emotion.

He only wore boxer shorts to bed. Nothing on top at all. Nothing to disguise the fact that his chest was even broader and more muscular than she’d ever imagined. And the boxer shorts…She swallowed convulsively, and resolutely shifted her gaze to his face and kept it there.

‘Nicole’s crying,’ he said unnecessarily.

‘She’ll be missing her mother,’ she managed to reply. ‘Feeling a bit lost.’

‘I guess so.’

‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ she continued, half turning to go.

‘Leave me?’ he gasped. ‘But you can’t. I mean, I don’t know what to do!’

‘Elliot, all she needs is for you to hold her, cuddle her!’ she exclaimed, unable to hide her exasperation. ‘How hard can that be?’

‘Can’t you do it?’ he begged.

‘Elliot—’

‘Janey, I told you I wasn’t any good with kids. I’ll only muck it up if I go in there, say the wrong thing.’

‘But—’

‘And I have to get some sleep,’ he continued in desperation, seeing the shock and disapproval in her face. ‘I’ve got a meeting with Admin tomorrow about next year’s budget, and I must have my wits about me.’

For a second she stared at him speechlessly, then she drew herself up to her full five feet one, her grey eyes blazing.

‘Go, then!’ she snarled. ‘Go and get your precious sleep, and I hope you have nightmares. You deserve to, because you sure as hell don’t deserve a lovely little girl like Nicole!’

And he didn’t, she thought furiously when she went into Nicole’s bedroom and gathered the little girl into her arms. He didn’t deserve anybody’s love.

To think that at the airport she’d been stupid enough to wonder if his apparent callousness might be an act. An act he’d adopted because he was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to cope. But it wasn’t an act. He was just selfish to the core.

And as she cradled Nicole to her, holding the little girl tightly until she finally fell asleep, she didn’t know that Elliot remained outside the bedroom door, listening. Didn’t know that as he stood there, his hands clenched against his sides, his forehead leaning against the door, that he felt not only like the biggest heel of all time but also the world’s biggest failure.

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