The Surgeon's Marriage

Jennifer smiled. ‘But I bet you never regretted having them.’

‘On good days, no. On bad days…’ Helen rolled her eyes heavenwards, and Jennifer laughed. ‘OK, I see from your notes that you’ve already had your spina bifida scan, so I just need to take a blood sample and then we’ll do a quick scan to check on how your babies are doing.’

To Jennifer’s clear relief the scan revealed that the twins were the correct size and development for their gestation.

‘I hate having these scans,’ she admitted as she wiped the conductive gel off her tummy and pulled up her trousers. ‘I know they’re necessary, but I’m always terrified you’re going to tell me something’s wrong.’

‘It’s understandable to worry after all you’ve been through,’ Helen said gently. ‘Now, we’d like to see you again in a month’s time—’

‘Another scan?’

‘’Fraid so. Hey, look on the bright side,’ Helen continued as Jennifer groaned. ‘It will give you the chance to see how much your babies have grown, and we’ll be able to check on your blood pressure at the same time.’ She flicked through Tom’s diary. ‘How does the second of May sound?’

‘Fine by me. Brian and I aren’t exactly living a wild social life at the moment. Not that we were ever great party-goers even before I got pregnant,’ Jennifer said ruefully. ‘My husband’s the original stick-in-the-mud, stay-at-home bloke.’

Helen smiled, but when the woman got to her feet she suddenly said on impulse, ‘How long have you been married, Jennifer?’

‘Fifteen years. Cripes, that’s longer than the average sentence for murder, isn’t it? Not that I’ve ever felt like murdering him—at least, not often.’

‘Husbands do drive you mad sometimes, don’t they?’ Helen said with feeling.

‘And how.’ Jennifer nodded. ‘In fact, Brian and I went through a really sticky patch a couple of years ago. I thought he was taking me for granted, he thought our marriage was in a rut.’

Which has got absolutely nothing to do with Jennifer’s medical condition, Helen told herself firmly, so you can’t possibly ask how she solved the problem, but she did, and Jennifer laughed.

‘We talked.’

‘That’s it?’ Helen said in surprise.

‘The best answers are often the simplest.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Talking clears the air, stops things festering. So does accepting neither of you is perfect. If you don’t accept that, then you end up like one of these weird film stars, constantly flitting from relationship to relationship, in love with the idea of being in love.’

Jennifer was right. It was silly to be envious of Gideon and Annie. Stupid to let little things annoy her. She loved Tom, and he loved her, and at least he’d noticed something was wrong, which was more than could be said for a lot of men. OK, so his explanation might have been totally off the wall as far as accuracy was concerned, but at least he’d noticed.

Which meant she was going to have to apologise, she realised as she showed Jennifer out. Not for what she’d said—she wasn’t going to take a word of that back—but perhaps she could have phrased it better, picked a better time to raise the subject.

She glanced down at her watch and sighed. Time. It was the one thing she never seemed to have enough of, and she didn’t have any spare now. Lunch would be yet another quick sandwich in the staffroom, and then it was on to the ward round.

A ward round that did little to improve her spirits or her temper. She didn’t mind spending forty minutes with Mrs Alexander—heaven knew, the woman had just cause to be worried about her unborn baby after having suffered a deep-vein thrombosis—but she was in no mood for Mrs Foster’s complaint that her hysterectomy stitches wouldn’t have burst if they had been inserted properly.

‘Some days it just doesn’t pay to get up, does it?’ Liz Baker, the sister in charge of the Obs and Gynae ward, observed sympathetically when Helen strode towards her, her cheeks red with barely concealed anger.

‘Tell me about it,’ Helen began. ‘That Mrs Foster—’

‘Is a pain in the butt.’ Liz nodded. ‘I know, and I hate to have to add to your problems but Haematology’s just been on the phone. Apparently one of the blood samples you took this morning isn’t quite right. Look, why don’t you use the phone in the staffroom to call them back?’ Liz continued as Helen groaned. ‘Get yourself a cup of coffee at the same time.’

A cup of coffee sounded good. Something considerably stronger sounded even better, she decided when she left the ward and began walking towards the staffroom, only to see Tom coming towards her.

She came to an uncertain halt. He did, too.

‘I’m sorry.’

They’d spoken in unison, and Tom shook his head. ‘You have nothing to apologise for, but I obviously do. I hadn’t realised I wasn’t pulling my weight at home.’

‘No, but you get called out a lot more at night than I do,’ she replied, more than willing to meet him halfway. ‘And I don’t have all your departmental meetings.’

‘Yes, but I should have noticed you were doing it all. The trouble is I’ve been so busy, and…’ He shook his head. ‘No, that’s no excuse. Being busy is no excuse for not pulling my weight, and I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, we’re not heading for the divorce courts over this or anything,’ she said gently as he stared at her, his grey eyes troubled. ‘All I’m asking for is a little more help around the house and with the children.’

‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want, you’ve got.’

She chuckled. ‘That’s dangerous talk, Tom. What if I ask you for the moon?’

His grey eyes softened. ‘If you want the moon I’ll get you the moon. If you want…’ He paused and his face creased into a broad smile of welcome. ‘Mark, you old reprobate, you’ve finally got here.’

Helen glanced over her shoulder, and blinked.

Wow.

Wow, wow and triple wow.

Tom hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said his friend was handsome. In fact, Tom hadn’t been nearly fulsome enough, she thought, automatically tucking in her tummy and standing up straighter, only to feel slightly silly afterwards because this was Tom’s friend and she didn’t need or want to impress him.

But Mark Lorimer was impressive. Tall, and tanned, with thick black hair, and green eyes. Not a wishy-washy anaemic green, but green like sparkling emeralds, and fringed by quite indecently long black eyelashes.

‘Helen, this is Mark,’ Tom said unnecessarily after he and his friend had indulged in that mutual backslapping routine which heterosexual males always seemed to feel obliged to perform whenever they met a friend they hadn’t seen for years. ‘Mark, this is my wife, Helen.’

‘It’s nice to meet you, Mark,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Tom’s talked such a lot about you.’

Which wasn’t exactly true. In fact, her husband hadn’t mentioned him at all until Rachel Dunwoody had taken compassionate leave, but it hardly seemed polite to say so.

‘You’ve come as a bit of a surprise to me, too.’ He grinned, clearly reading her mind. ‘Tom never said he was married, but now that I’ve met you…’ his green eyes swept over her ‘…all I can say is I hope he knows what a very lucky man he is.’

It was flattery, of course. Tom had always said she had the loveliest smile he’d ever seen, and the biggest brown eyes, but she knew her limitations. She wasn’t beautiful—not even particularly pretty—and she laughed and shook her head.

‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’

‘Actually, no, I don’t.’

He was still staring at her, still holding her hand, and to her acute embarrassment she realised she was blushing.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, pull yourself together, she told herself severely, quickly withdrawing her hand. You’re a thirty-two-year-old mother of two, and just because an absolutely jaw-droppingly gorgeous man is smiling at you shouldn’t mean that you should start behaving like a dumbstruck teenager.

‘The fog’s all gone from Heathrow Airport, then?’ she said. Oh, jeez, Helen. He’d hardly be standing here if it wasn’t, would he? ‘I mean—I meant—you must be really tired after all your travelling.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘But, then, I’ve always been able to sleep anywhere.’

He certainly didn’t look as though he’d just spent goodness knows how many hours on a plane, and then been marooned in an airport. He looked pristine, and immaculate, and she just knew she must look as though she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, her hair coming loose from her scrunchy, her sweater the first thing that had come to hand that morning.

Not that it mattered, of course. She was a doctor, here to work, but…

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me,’ she said, beginning to back up the corridor. ‘I have blood results to chase up—’

‘Hey, you’re not abandoning me already, are you?’ he protested, and Tom smiled.

‘Of course she’s not. In fact, I’ll make sure Helen takes care of you, shows you the ropes.’

It made sense. Tom was hardly likely to expect Annie to do the honours when she was only a junior doctor, but Helen couldn’t help but wish her husband hadn’t suggested it.

She wished it even more when she got to the end of the corridor and glanced back. Mark and Tom were deep in conversation, but Mark must have sensed her gaze on him because he suddenly looked up and smiled. A warm, wide smile that sent a disturbing shiver of awareness racing down her spine.

A disturbing shiver that she didn’t want to feel.

CHAPTER TWO

GIDEON drummed his fingers absently on top of his desk, then frowned. ‘How long has Mrs Alexander been with us now?’

Tom glanced down at his notes. ‘A week.’

‘OK. As the venogram didn’t show any sign of the clot moving, we’ll keep her on the heparin until a week on Thursday, then induce her. I know it’s risky,’ he continued as Tom looked uncertain, ‘but to perform a Caesarean on a woman who’s had a deep-vein thrombosis…’ He shook his head. ‘Too much could go wrong.’

‘Which brings us to Mrs Foster,’ Tom observed. ‘She’s still complaining about her burst stitches.’

‘Mrs Foster should think herself damn lucky she’s not in Intensive Care,’ Gideon retorted. ‘What the hell was she thinking of, straining to pass a motion after major surgery?’

‘I know, but she’s driving Helen crazy, saying her burst stitches were due to negligence, sloppy surgery…’

‘I’ll have a word with her.’ The corners of the consultant’s lips quirked. ‘Better yet, why don’t I get Mark to have a word with her? He’s supposed to have quite a way with the ladies, isn’t he?’

Apart from with Helen, Tom thought with a slight frown. Obs and Gynae might have been inundated with nurses suddenly discovering an urgent need to visit the ward since Mark’s arrival a week ago, but Helen had remained strangely reticent whenever he’d asked how she was getting on with him.

‘He is a good doctor, isn’t he?’ Gideon continued, clearly misinterpreting the frown. ‘I mean, I’m not employing him simply to sweet-talk difficult patients…’

‘He’s one of the best,’ Tom reassured him. ‘He might be the most terrible flirt, but what he doesn’t know about Obs and Gynae could be written on a postage stamp.’

Gideon looked relieved. ‘In that case, I wish we could employ him permanently instead of for just six weeks. Oh, I know he wouldn’t accept a longer contract with us even if we could offer it,’ he continued when Tom made to interrupt. ‘Nobody in their right mind would swap a job in Canada for one at the Belfield, but—’

‘We need him.’ Tom nodded. ‘Even if Rachel was back we’d still need him. I take it Admin still won’t agree to us advertising for another member of staff?’

‘Admin says what it always says. Until the hospital gets more funding we’re to manage as best we can. It’s the old story. Live long enough, old horse, and eventually you might get hay.’

Tom laughed. ‘I’ve never thought of myself as an old horse, but now you come to mention it…’

‘Yup, beasts of burden, that’s us. And speaking of being overworked….’ Gideon picked up one of the files on his desk, then put it down again. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m being nosy, or interfering where I’m not wanted, but Annie was saying…’

‘Annie was saying?’ Tom repeated blankly as the consultant came to an obviously embarrassed halt.

‘Well, you know what women are like, Tom,’ Gideon said in a rush, ‘and she’s probably got it all wrong, but she was saying to me the other day that she thought Helen looked a bit down, a bit depressed.’

Annie had noticed? Annie, who had been at the Belfield for less than four months, had noticed? Tom bit his lip. Dammit, he should have been the first one to see there was a problem, and yet he hadn’t. Maybe women were better attuned to picking up on that sort of thing than men, or maybe he was just insensitive. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

‘Helen’s fine,’ he murmured. ‘Just tired, like the rest of us.’

Probably more so since he’d been helping out at home, he thought ruefully, but how was he supposed to know that the little round symbol with the cross through it meant, Do not tumble-dry?

‘Hell, I should have been in Theatre ten minutes ago,’ Gideon exclaimed, quickly getting to his feet only to pause, his eyebrows raised. ‘Unless there’s something else you want to discuss with me?’

For a moment Tom hesitated, then shook his head. The consultant might be his friend as well as his boss, but some things were private, and revealing that Helen had accused him of not pulling his weight definitely came under the heading of private.

He was running late, too. Rhona Scott was booked in for an outpatient hysterosalpingogram this morning, and though he’d asked Helen to prepare her for him it wasn’t fair to keep either of them waiting. Rhona was a natural born worrier, and as for Helen…the last thing he wanted was to give her another opportunity to accuse him of taking advantage of her.

No, that wasn’t fair, he thought with a deep sigh as he strode down the corridor towards his consulting room. It had clearly taken a lot to make her say what she had, but why on earth hadn’t she said something before? OK, so maybe he’d never been much of a New Age man, but neither was he a mind-reader.

‘Problems?’ Helen said, seeing his frown when he opened the door of his consulting room to find Rhona Scott already prepared and waiting.

‘No more than usual,’ he replied irritably, only to groan when he saw Helen stiffen. Why the hell had he said that? He hadn’t meant to sound so snippy, but there was nothing he could do about it—not with Mrs Scott staring curiously at him. ‘All set for your hysterosalpingogram, Rhona?’ he said instead.

‘To be honest, no,’ she said. ‘Call me chicken, but the thought of you putting some dye up into me…’ She shuddered. ‘Are you absolutely sure I can’t have an anaesthetic?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid the only way we can get really good X-ray pictures of the insides of your Fallopian tubes, and find out why you’re having such difficulty getting pregnant, is to carry out the procedure while you’re wide awake. It won’t hurt,’ he added, seeing her flinch when he picked up the small tube. ‘You may feel a momentary discomfort when I insert the dye into your uterus, but I promise that’s all you’re going to feel.’

Rhona didn’t look convinced and out of the corner of his eye he saw Helen reach out and catch hold of her hand.

She’d always been much better at dealing with patients—people—than he was. Maybe it was another female thing, but he’d always found it a lot harder to get the right blend of sympathy and understanding, and he could still get it wrong.

Very badly wrong, he thought, remembering how angry Helen had been when he’d suggested she might be going through an early menopause. Well, OK, so his diagnosis might not have been the right one but, dammit, he’d been worried about her. He still was.

It was all very well for her to keep on saying she was simply tired, and if she had more help at home everything would be fine, but he couldn’t rid himself of the nagging feeling that there was more to it than that. Something he was missing, but what the ‘something’ might be was beyond him.

‘Dr Brooke?’

Helen’s eyes were on him, clearly wondering why he hadn’t started the procedure, and he flushed slightly.

‘Just checking the dosage,’ he lied, but she didn’t buy it. He hadn’t really expected her to. After ten years of marriage, she could read him like a book. He’d once thought he could do the same with her, but recently… ‘Ready, Rhona?’ he said, forcing his mind back to the present with difficulty.

She nodded nervously, and as carefully and gently as he could he began inserting the tube into her cervix through her vagina.

‘It’ll all be over in a second.’ Helen smiled reassuringly down at the woman. ‘Once the dye is in your uterus it will show up white on a special screen we have, and after we’ve taken a few X-rays you can go home.’

‘Will I get the results today?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Tom replied. ‘We have to process and examine them first, you see.’ Not to mention being so damn swamped with patients that we just don’t have the time, he added mentally. ‘But I’ll get our secretary to make an appointment for you to come in and see me on Friday, if that’s OK?’

Rhona nodded.

‘Not much more to go now,’ Helen declared. ‘Just keep on relaxing. Good, Rhona…Well done…That’s it.’

‘The dye’s in?’ the woman exclaimed. ‘But I didn’t feel anything.’

‘I’d have hung up my stethoscope if you had.’ Tom smiled. ‘OK, all I want you to do now is to lie as still as you can while our technician takes the pictures.’

‘I should have got my hair done for the occasion, shouldn’t I?’ Rhona said with a shaky laugh, and he chuckled and patted her shoulder.

‘You look fine.’

Her X-rays, unfortunately, didn’t.

‘No wonder she hasn’t been able to conceive,’ Helen observed. ‘That swelling where her right Fallopian tube joins her uterus—it means the tube is completely blocked, doesn’t it?’

‘It looks like it,’ Tom replied. ‘If the blockage hasn’t extended right through the uterine wall I could certainly perform a cornual anastomosis—cutting out the blocked section of the Fallopian tube and rejoining it—but…’

‘Our theatre schedule’s so full it’s anybody’s guess as to when Rhona could have the operation,’ she finished for him.

Tom nodded, then frowned. ‘I’m going to pull strings on this one. It’s crazy for her to have to wait when we’ve got somebody of Mark’s calibre on the team.’

‘Mark has experience of tubal surgery?’ she exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Oh, there’s lots of things you don’t know about me.’ A deep male voice chuckled, and Tom saw his wife jump as though somebody had lit a firecracker behind her.

‘Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?’ she said. ‘Creeping up on people like that. Is there something wrong on the ward?’

‘Apart from the fact that you’re not there?’ Mark grinned. ‘Not a thing.’

Tom wryly shook his head as he saw a deep flush of colour cross his wife’s cheeks. Same old Mark. Still couldn’t resist turning on the charm, flirting with every woman he met. Helen didn’t appear to appreciate it, though. In fact, she looked angry, tense, and deftly he steered Mark towards the X-rays.

‘OK, earn your salary. Take a look at this.’

Mark stared at the screen. ‘Somebody’s uterus, right?’

‘No, somebody’s left foot,’ Tom responded. ‘Cut the jokes, Mark—tell me what you think.’

‘That right Fallopian tube—it could simply be scarred, but…’ He shook his head. ‘Blocked, I’d say, but the clarity’s not very good. What did you take the pictures with—an old box Brownie camera?’

‘Mark.’

He grinned. ‘OK—OK. Probably blocked, perhaps due to an infection caused by a coil. How old is your patient?’

‘Thirty-six. Married for eight years, and been trying for a baby for the last six.’

‘And she’s only just having an exploratory hysterosalpingogram now?’ Mark gasped. ‘Jeez, what the hell have you guys been doing for the past five years?’

‘Working our way through a very long waiting list,’ Helen snapped before Tom could say anything. ‘The Belfield doesn’t have a separate infertility clinic, so we treat people as and when we can. Rhona only got onto our list last year—’

‘But—’

‘Look, we do the best we can, OK?’ Helen said impatiently, and Mark sighed.

‘Well, all I can say is things are very different in Australia.’

Helen muttered something which sounded suspiciously like, ‘So how come you didn’t stay there?’ and Tom shot her a puzzled glance.

He was the one who usually got angry and frustrated, dealing with the limitations of the service they could offer, but Helen hadn’t sounded simply angry, she’d sounded positively antagonistic.

Awkwardly he cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know what happens in Australia, but under the NHS there’s a nine-month to a year waiting list for non-urgent surgery, and a cornual anastomosis is considered non-urgent. I know,’ he said as Mark’s eyebrows shot up, ‘but that’s how it is.’

‘Then why the hell do you put up with it?’ Mark demanded. ‘Dammit, Tom, you’re a first-rate surgeon. If you went to Oz, or to the States, you could be head of your own department, and not have to put up with this sort of crap.’

‘Perhaps,’ Tom said, ‘but Helen and I like the Belfield. It’s where we met, and we’ve a fondness for the old place.’

‘Which doesn’t mean we’re always going to stay here,’ Helen said swiftly. ‘I mean, who’s to say what’s round the corner for any of us—what changes we might make?’

Mark glanced from her to Tom thoughtfully. ‘So it’s only old Tom who’s reluctant to move, is it? You always did play it too safe, mate.’

‘Whether I do or whether I don’t is immaterial,’ Tom replied, wondering what on earth had made Helen say what she had, and not liking the reference to himself as ‘old’ either. ‘Mrs Scott is certainly not going to have to wait nine months when we’ve got someone with your experience on the team. I’ll have a word with Gideon, insist we get her in while you’re here to help me.’

‘In that case, I’d better take a closer look at these X-rays,’ Mark said. ‘If we’re going to be operating on this lady, I want as much information as I can get.’

Tom nodded but he couldn’t help but notice that when Mark moved closer to the screen, Helen instantly stepped back.

‘If you don’t need me any longer I have a mass of paperwork to catch up on,’ she said. ‘Not to mention my antenatal clinic in an hour.’

She was already heading for the door, and Tom quickly followed her. ‘Thanks for holding the fort for me, love. I really appreciate it.’

She smiled up at him, but she didn’t even so much as glance in Mark’s direction as she left, and Mark’s eyebrows rose.

‘Whoa, but did it suddenly get distinctly chilly in here, or what?’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Tom observed tightly. ‘Criticising our department and its equipment wasn’t exactly the smartest thing in the world to do.’

‘Just telling it like it is,’ Mark replied. ‘It’s not my fault if Helen is hypersensitive to criticism. In fact…’ He came to a halt as he encountered a look in Tom’s eyes. A look he’d never seen before. A look that held neither warmth nor amusement, and he held up his hands defensively. ‘Hey, no offence meant, mate. Look, I’ll apologise to her, OK?’

‘Do that,’ Tom declared, his grey eyes hard, cold. ‘I don’t like my wife upset, and I won’t have her upset. Not by you, not by anyone.’

Mark stared at him for a second. ‘Tom the protector. Tom the defender. You’ve changed since our med days, haven’t you?’

‘If you mean I’ve grown up—realised what and who is important in my life—then, yes, I’ve changed,’ Tom replied. ‘Helen is more important to me than my job, this hospital and our friendship, and you’d be well advised never to forget that.’

Mark grinned. ‘Whoops, but I’ve suddenly got that chilly feeling again. Look, I’ve said I’ll apologise,’ he continued as Tom’s eyebrows snapped together. ‘I’ll even grovel if I have to. Satisfied now?’