The Doctor's Family Secret

‘I know that, but you still need to take note of what I’m saying. I work in A and E almost every day, and I know what needs to be done to make the department function better. I want management to know exactly what we need to make this place second to none.’

‘Believe me, you’ve made your position very clear.’ Laura could imagine her father’s tight-lipped expression. ‘I can assure you that I will put your ideas to management.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for anything to happen,’ Nick said, thrusting the door open even wider. ‘And much as I’d like to stay and argue the point with you, I have an A and E department to attend to.’

David’s comment was equally terse. ‘And I have a desk full of paperwork and a lot of catching up to do. I’ll talk to you later, Nick.’

Nick swept out into the corridor and slowed to a halt as he saw Laura. She pretended to be engrossed in the view of the landscaped quadrangle below the window, but she glanced up as he approached.

‘Is my father free now?’

He sent her a seething glance. ‘He’s all yours.’

‘Well, that’s good. I thought I would spend my coffee-break with him.’ Without further ado, she walked into the office and closed the door behind her. After the exchange she had just heard, she didn’t care that she’d left Nick standing in the corridor.

‘Laura…it’s good to see you.’ Her father looked up and put aside the file that he had just opened, laying it down on the desk.

‘How has your first day back at work gone? I’ve been worried about you. I didn’t think you were well enough to come back yet.’

He shook his head. ‘It was just a virus. I’m well enough now and, anyway, I get bored just sitting at home with nothing to do. I may just as well be here and getting on with things.’

Laura looked at the paperwork cluttering his desk. ‘You mean you wanted to get back to work because you knew all this would be piling up. You work too hard. I’m sure that’s why you got the virus in the first place. They put too much on you.’

She studied him carefully. ‘I just saw Nick coming out of your office. Has he given you more problems to deal with?’

He gave a faint grimace. ‘I expect that young man will go far. I always knew that he would be a man to be reckoned with one day. When I was a consultant here, he was on my team, and I could see that he was energetic and full of ideas. He has a quick intelligence, a brilliant mind, but he’s also headstrong and impatient.’

‘He’s giving you trouble?’

‘He wants to see things change, and he wants it brought about quickly. So do I, but I’m used to the way these things work. Nothing gets done overnight, no matter how hard you push. It’s the way things are, and I’ve learned not to let it get me down. There are people in management who have their own ideas of what changes need to be made, and everything is a matter of compromise.’

‘Are you regretting that you went into management?’

‘No, not at all. I couldn’t carry on as an A and E consultant after the accident affected the use of my hand, but I knew that I could be an effective administrator and that my experience as a doctor would be invaluable in making sure that administrative decisions were solidly based.’

Laura reached out and covered his hand with hers. ‘And now you have Nick hassling you every day. That wasn’t what you’d bargained for, was it?’

He smiled wearily. ‘It’s all part and parcel of the job, I suppose. I need to try to meet Nick halfway because he’s full of good ideas, and basically I’ve always thought that should be encouraged. I think we might lose him otherwise, and much as we rub each other up the wrong way, and as much as his going would make my job easier, it would be a great loss for the hospital, I’m sure. There aren’t many men who have his expertise.’

Laura frowned. ‘Is that a possibility? Is he thinking of leaving?’

‘I know that he wants a post as a consultant. He has all the qualifications necessary and I know that he’s been looking around.’

If Nick went, that would make things easier all round, Laura reflected, but she kept her thoughts to herself. The way things were, the constant arguments with Nick couldn’t be doing her father any good at all. ‘I wish there was something that I could do to make life easier for you. I hate to see you looking so drained.’

He smiled. ‘If I look like that it’s only because I’ve been unwell for a while. Anyway, you do enough to help me already. It’s good to be able to talk things through with you. I know you have a difficult job of your own. I know what it’s like to deal with the cut and thrust of A and E. It isn’t easy.’

‘Which reminds me,’ she said, taking a quick glance at her watch, ‘it’s time I was getting back to work.’ She gave him a quick hug. ‘I’ll see you at home later.’

Back in the department, she checked on Lewis and then made the final arrangements for him to be admitted to a ward. His analgesics were working, and he looked a lot more comfortable.

She dealt with a few minor injuries, and was thankful that no major emergencies cropped up in the moments before her shift finished for the day. She had been on the go for several hours, and she would be glad to get back home.

Her jacket was in the doctors’ lounge, and when she went to retrieve it, she found that Nick was there, helping himself to coffee from the espresso machine.

He was frowning over the rim of his cup.

She glanced at him. ‘You look serious. Is that because of a problem in A and E, or could it be that you didn’t get what you wanted from my father when you went to see him this afternoon?’

‘A and E doesn’t give me too much of a headache. As for your father, at least now we both know where we stand.’

‘I tried to warn you to stay away from him. I don’t think you should be pressurising him right now. He’s been off sick with a nasty virus, and this is his first day back in his office. I’m not convinced that he’s fully well yet and, added to that, he has a backlog of work to get through. The last thing he needs is you harassing him. You need to give him time to get himself sorted.’

‘If he’s not well enough, he shouldn’t be back at work.’

Laura glared at him. ‘And then things really would grind to a halt, wouldn’t they?’ She pressed her lips together. ‘I might have known you’d take that attitude. I don’t think you appreciate just how much he does for this hospital. But, then, you’ve never tried to see things from his point of view, have you? If you did, perhaps you wouldn’t be so hard on him.’

His expression was cool. ‘Do you really think your father needs you to rush to his defence? I know that you came to Wales to be near him, and that you’re living under his roof, but does that mean you have to watch over him every minute of the day like a mother hen?’

Her mouth tightened. ‘That isn’t what I do. I don’t think you can have any idea of normal family life,’ she said, fighting to keep her self-control, ‘or you wouldn’t talk like that.’

‘I believe my family gets along very well together,’ he commented mildly. ‘We live within a reasonable distance of one another and we visit regularly. I was simply saying that the fact that you’ve been away from home for some time and only recently returned to the nest might have made you a little over-protective.’

Her head lifted. ‘Since you brought the matter up, I’ll tell you how it is. I moved back into my old home because it was the sensible thing to do. I needed somewhere to stay, and my father offered me a place. He and I get along well together and I care very much for him. But perhaps you find that too difficult to understand?’

Nick gave a wry smile. ‘I understand it well enough. I just don’t know what could have possessed you to up sticks and come back here when you had a perfectly good job in Lincolnshire. You were doing well at the hospital from what I heard, and you could have gone on to better things. The city had a lot to offer—good accommodation, plenty of nightlife. Why leave all that behind to come and live here in the wilds?’

‘You seem happy enough to stay here,’ she retorted. ‘Why should I be any different?’

‘I was born here. I grew up with the mountains all around, and the sound of the sea in my ears.’

‘Perhaps you don’t realise that I’ve spent most of my life here, too,’ she said tautly. ‘I went away to train as a doctor, to see what life was like in other parts of the country, but deep down I feel that I belong here more than anywhere else. And after my mother died a few years ago that feeling was even stronger. I felt that I needed to be with my father.’

She sent him a stony look. ‘Seeing what he has to put up with, I’m more than glad that I did return. I don’t know why you have to be at loggerheads with him all the time. You shouldn’t be pressurising him this way.’ She pulled in a deep breath. ‘Anyway, you’re not the consultant in charge. Why don’t you leave it to Mr Edwards to make the decisions? It’s not right that you should go over his head. You’ll be able to put your own ideas into place well enough when you’re a consultant yourself.’

‘You know as well as I do that Tom Edwards is near retirement. In the meantime, he’s content to let things meander on in the same old way that they’ve always done. Besides that, it seems to me that he’s not been well for a long time now. He won’t admit it, but it all adds to him not wanting to alter the status quo.’

He had a point, certainly. Laura had noticed that Tom Edwards had been struggling to cope recently. It had been worrying her for some time because she knew that Tom suffered from angina, but he was insistent that he could cope and that he wasn’t a danger to his patients. Up to now he had been managing, keeping his condition under control with medication, but she had a feeling that his attacks were becoming more frequent these days.

‘At least you seem able to recognise frailty in some people,’ she retorted. ‘I was beginning to wonder if that was possible. I wouldn’t put it past you to have his job in your sights already.’

Nick’s expression was drily amused. ‘You wouldn’t be too happy about that, would you?’

‘Not if it meant that you would have the opportunity to hassle my father even more than you do now. I think I would sooner you applied your energies to anything but that.’

‘I’ll do what I can to oblige,’ he murmured, ‘but I’m making no promises, you understand.’

She stared at him. There was a dancing light in his eyes that belied his words, and she sensed that he enjoyed riling her.

Turning away, she shrugged into her jacket. She wasn’t going to spend time dwelling on what he said.

Even so, as she left the room the image of his wry smile stayed with her.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ISN’T that your brother in the waiting room, Laura?’ Sarah Harris, the triage nurse, surveyed the rows of patients who were waiting to be seen. ‘Shall I send him along to see you?’

Laura quickly signed off a patient’s chart and went to look through the treatment-room door to the waiting room beyond.

‘Matthew…here? What on earth can have happened?’ Worriedly, she noticed that four-year-old Connor was with him. ‘I hope nothing’s happened to Connor.’ She filed away the chart and said quietly, ‘It’s all right, Sarah, I’ll go and have a word with him.’

Connor must have seen her already, because he came rushing towards her with a whoop of joy. ‘Aunty Lor,’ he exclaimed, putting his arms up and hugging her around her legs. ‘My daddy’s cut himself. Can you make him better?’ He looked up at her, his little face a mixture of enthusiasm and confident expectation.

‘I promise I’ll do my best, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and talk to him, shall we?’ Lightly ruffling his fair hair, she held his hand and walked back with him towards her brother.

‘Hello, Matthew,’ she said with a slight frown. ‘What are you doing here? What happened?’

Matthew gave her a quick smile. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, really. It was just one of those stupid accidents. I wanted to have a go at fixing the fence back home, and I was cutting through a fence panel when it happened.’

He lowered his voice, turning his head away slightly so that his son wouldn’t hear. ‘I didn’t realise that Connor was right behind me, and when he said something to me, the saw slipped and cut my hand. I don’t think it’s too bad, but I thought perhaps it might need a stitch or two.’ His mouth made a rueful quirk. ‘Catherine’s out on a shopping trip, so I had to bring Connor with me. I wouldn’t normally want him to be hanging around an emergency room.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after him.’ She inspected Matthew’s injured hand and winced. ‘Come on through to the treatment room, and I’ll take a proper look at it.’

Nick was already at work in the treatment room, and as Laura walked in he emerged from a cubicle where he had been examining a woman with an injured hip.

He spoke quietly to the nurse, asking for various tests to be carried out and calling for a surgical consultation. Then he walked towards Laura and said, ‘Tom’s dealing with a burns patient, and I think he might need someone standing by. Would you be able to do that?’

It was an unusual request, and Laura paused before answering. He hadn’t asked her to assist, just to stand by. ‘How urgent is it?’ she queried. ‘I can help, but this is my brother and his son, Connor. I’d like to attend to them myself, if possible.’

He nodded, glancing at dark-haired Matthew and the boy. ‘OK. I’ll get someone else to work with Tom.’

Laura frowned, sensing that there was something more going on than she was being told. ‘Is there a problem?’

He gave Matthew and Connor a fleeting glance, and then said in a low voice, ‘Probably not. It’s just a feeling. Tom was looking a bit off colour this morning.’

‘This probably won’t take me too long,’ Laura said. ‘Matthew’s had a bit of a disagreement with a saw. From the look of things, that hand will need three or four stitches.’

Connor fidgeted. He was looking around, his eyes screwed up in a frown as he took everything in. The unit was busy this morning. Several of the cubicles were occupied, and there was a smell of antiseptic about the place, which added to the austerity of the atmosphere. Laura had the feeling that her young nephew felt uncomfortable amongst all these strangers, who were all so much larger than him.

Nick must have sensed it, too, because he smiled at Connor and said, ‘Perhaps one of the nurses can find you a colouring book and some pencils, or maybe a jigsaw. Would you like that?’

Connor nodded solemnly, but still clung to Laura’s hand. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was staying firmly by her side.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Nick promised. Looking at Matthew, he studied his features carefully, and then said in a contemplative tone, ‘I can’t say that I can see much of a likeness between you and your sister.’

His blue-grey eyes travelled over Laura, coming to rest on her wild shoulder-length curls with a curiosity that made Laura’s cheeks flush with heat. Her hair was naturally curly, and she had never been able to make it do what she wanted.

‘Then again,’ he murmured, ‘perhaps you’re glad that you don’t have her flame-coloured hair.’

Matthew smiled wryly. ‘That’s true enough. It looks good on Laura, though. People say much the same about Connor and me because he’s fair and I’m dark. He takes after his mother.’

Laura interrupted gently. ‘I really think we should see to your hand now, Matthew, don’t you? It must be very sore. We should at least get you cleaned up.’

Nick moved away to attend to his own patients, and Laura led Matthew to a cubicle, making sure that Connor was seated where he wouldn’t be able to follow proceedings too closely.

After a moment or two a young nurse put her head round the screen and brought the jigsaws and colouring materials Nick had promised. ‘There you are, young man,’ she said lightly. ‘These should keep you occupied for a while.’

‘Thanks, Amy,’ Laura said. At least while Connor was busy she could concentrate better on Matthew’s hand. The gash was quite deep and rough around the edges, but she cleaned it up and injected a local anaesthetic, before suturing the wound.

‘You’ll need to keep it clean,’ she told him. ‘I’m putting a dressing on it, but you might need to pop into the GP’s surgery and get that changed after a day or so. The stitches can come out in about ten days. I’ll do that for you at home, if you like.’

‘Thanks, Laura. I’m glad that you were on duty today. I feel foolish enough about landing myself in this situation as it is. I’d sooner keep it in the family.’

She grinned at him. ‘Perhaps this will teach you to be a bit more wary. I thought it was common knowledge that when you have a four-year-old around you need eyes in the back of your head.’

He laughed. ‘Just wait till you’ve got one of your own.’

Laura gave him a crooked smile. That wasn’t likely to happen any time in the near future, was it? Up to now she hadn’t met anyone that she wanted to spend her life with, and even when she did meet a man who was halfway decent, she always felt that some element was missing.

It probably wasn’t the men who were at fault. She sometimes wondered if there was something within herself that was acting as a barrier to finding happiness and fulfilment. But she didn’t have time to dwell on that right now. She had work to do, and that at least provided her with deep satisfaction.

She saw Matthew and Connor out a few minutes later. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you both at home later?’ she said, waving them goodbye. Catherine’s shopping trips usually went on for longer than an hour or so, which gave Matthew an excuse to come and visit.

Laura went in search of Tom, to find out whether he still needed help.

Nick was attending to Tom’s burns patient, a young man, and Laura wondered where the consultant had gone.

‘We’ll get you transferred to the burns unit within the next hour,’ Nick was saying. ‘For the moment we’ll keep the area moist and make sure that there’s no danger of infection setting in. Just ask the nurse if you need more pain medication.’

He spoke quietly to the nurse, and then turned to Laura. Moving away from the cubicle, he said, ‘I take it that your brother’s gone home?’

‘Yes. It didn’t take long to fix him up.’ She glanced around. ‘Where’s Tom?’

‘He went to have a word with the patient’s relatives. He’d done all that was necessary for his patient, but the family were anxious and needed reassurance.’

‘He was coping all right, then? From what you said earlier, I thought there might be a problem looming.’

Nick shrugged. ‘I guess I was wrong.’

Laura gave him a sideways glance. It wasn’t like him to admit a mistake…or to make one, for that matter. ‘It was thoughtful of you to send those jigsaws for Connor,’ she murmured. ‘They kept him amused for quite a while.’

His jaw moved in a faint grimace. ‘Well, you know my feelings about this place and children. It isn’t a good environment for them, and if I can brighten up the experience for them in any way, that’s what I try to do. It’s something I’ve mentioned to your father.’

‘You could try approaching the Friends of the Hospital for funds. I’m sure if you put your case in a suitable fashion they would want to help in any way they could.’

‘I think my plans would take more financing than they would be willing to provide. Besides, I believe that your father, being in administration, is the man who holds the key to unlock the funds. You’d think that since he was a consultant himself in A and E, he would know what needed to be done and he would have some sympathy for the changes I’m suggesting.’

Laura bridled at his tone. ‘I’m sure that he does. After all, he was the one who set aside separate cubicles with resuscitation equipment especially for paediatric patients. When he was in charge there wasn’t the money to do any more than that. Besides, he spearheaded the drive to get the public to donate funds for the MRI machine that the hospital has now. That took a lot of effort and persuasion and years of hard work. You don’t give him enough credit for what he has done.’

Nick’s eyes darkened. ‘I accept that he did a good thing where the MRI machine was concerned. It’s what he plans to do now that concerns me.’

‘Whatever he does, it will be with the best of intentions,’ she said sharply. ‘If my father is cautious, you should realise that it’s because he sees both sides of the coin.’

‘You mean that he has to toe the management line. He’s forgotten what it was like to be at the cutting edge of things.’

‘That’s unfair.’

‘Is it?’

Laura’s opened her mouth, ready to speak her mind, but just then Jenny hurried towards them.

‘You have to come quickly, both of you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s Tom—I think he’s having a bad angina attack. He’s in the doctors’ lounge. I’ve tried giving him his usual medication, but it’s not working.’

‘We’re on our way.’ Nick was already moving towards the door, and Laura was at his heels.

Tom Edwards was in his early sixties, a tall, thin man, with greying hair. Now he was slumped on the floor, beads of perspiration on his forehead and his face ashen.

‘I left him in the chair while I went to get help,’ Jenny said. ‘The attack must have worsened while I was coming to find you. I’ve already given him aspirin.’

‘Good thinking.’ Nick was loosening Tom’s tie and then he positioned him so that his upper body was elevated. Laura grabbed some cushions to help support him.

‘Tom, can you hear me?’ Nick spoke in a low, urgent voice and Tom made a faint movement of his head in acknowledgement.

‘You’ll be all right. We’ll take care of you,’ Nick said, beginning to make a swift examination. ‘Are you in pain?’

Again, Tom managed to nod faintly. ‘Chest. Bad.’ He began to choke, and Nick said quickly, ‘Don’t try to talk. We’ll take care of you now.’

Tom subsided, and Nick turned swiftly to Laura. ‘I’ll intubate. Let’s get him hooked up to oxygen quickly.’ Glancing at Jenny, he said, ‘We’ll give him glycerine trinitrate sublingually to expand the arteries, and set up an infusion of isosorbide dinitrate. You had better do an ECG, and keep an eye on his blood pressure.’

‘Will do.’

Laura was already starting an intravenous line. Tom looked to be in a bad way, and she was afraid that if they didn’t work fast he would go into cardiac arrest. ‘Are we giving beta-blockers and morphine?’

He nodded, working swiftly as he answered. ‘I’ll make arrangements for him to be admitted.’

Laura taped the IV line in place, and for the next few minutes they worked as a team to resuscitate their consultant.

‘If he’s not pain-free in forty-eight hours, they’ll probably want to do coronary angiography. Given his condition over the last few months, I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up having bypass surgery. It’s been a wonder to me that he’s coped for this long.’ His mouth tightened as he spoke, and Laura frowned.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I guessed this would happen one day,’ Nick said under his breath. ‘I’ve been telling him for a long time now that he should have opted for early retirement on health grounds, but he wouldn’t listen.’

‘Can you blame him for that? He’s worked hard all his life to get where he is, and no one would lightly throw it all away.’

His mouth twisted. ‘That’s what your father said. They’re great friends, aren’t they, he and Tom? He went out of his way to defend his actions.’

‘Because he believed the medication was working.’

Nick shook his head. ‘It’s clear that it wasn’t. I told Tom that he shouldn’t be treating patients while he was ill, but he always said that we work as a team and that there would be enough warning of an impending attack for him to be able to hand over to someone else.’

Laura sent Tom a swift, anxious glance, but it was doubtful that their patient could hear what they were saying.

‘That’s true, though, isn’t it?’ she murmured. ‘He put himself at risk by carrying on, but not his patients.’