At least with the patient between them things couldn’t get too personal, she reasoned.
She had reckoned without her response to his presence. It was enough that Finn was in the room. He didn’t have to look at her or talk to her or touch her—all of which he did, of course, while he was working. Nothing personal, all strictly professional, but it was enough to drive her to distraction.
Finally they were finished, and Mr Gibbs was asked to come back on Wednesday to have the stitches checked and the dressing changed.
Janna quickly cleared up, then headed back to her room, leaving Finn organising a prescription to be delivered that afternoon from the dispensary at the main surgery in Craigmore.
She was about to escape when he reappeared in her doorway, lounging comfortably against it and cutting off her retreat.
‘What now?’ she asked, a little shortly.
His eyebrows rose. ‘Sorry, am I holding you up on your visits? I just wanted a word about Betty Buchan. She seems to be getting more and more confused.’
‘She is,’ Janna agreed. ‘Her neighbours worry about her, but they keep tabs on her and let me know if they think anything’s wrong. She reports to them daily on the phone.’
‘If she could remember what time of day it was,’ Finn said drily. ‘I gather she woke the shop in the middle of the night again to order her groceries.’
Janna had heard about that. It was getting more difficult to see the funny side of Mrs Buchan’s confusion now, and Janna was increasingly worried about the elderly lady’s safety.
‘I’ll go and see her again,’ she told Finn quietly. ‘I think it’s maybe time she went into some sort of care. I’ll see if I can persuade her.’
‘Won’t her family mind if you interfere?’
‘What family?’ Janna scoffed. ‘They don’t give a damn. Someone has to take responsibility, and her family won’t.’
‘Or can’t?’
‘Won’t,’ Janna said firmly. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘Yes—Janna, have I got something contagious?’
Her smile faded. ‘Contagious?’ she said in mock innocence. ‘You tell me.’
‘Janna, stop it. We need to talk.’
‘No, Finn,’ she corrected, ‘you need to talk. What I need is to get on with my rounds. Please lock the door on your way out.’
And with that she walked away from him for the third time. She wondered how many more times she would get away with it.
Not many, she suspected—not unless he had changed even more than she imagined.
THE day was one of quiet, routine visits for Janna, interspersed with the usual forgetful tourists. Appalled to discover that the nearest chemist was over an hour away by car, they rang the nurse.
‘I’ve left my drugs behind, dear, and I can’t possibly ask my friends to take me all that way,’ one lady told her, and then it transpired that she couldn’t remember what they were all called. Those funny little pink and white ones—you know. And some yellow ones with something written on them.’
Janna had to call the patient’s GP in Manchester and sort out a repeat prescription, then phone the surgery at Craigmore to get them to make up the drugs and send them out with the next delivery.
Another family of visitors had a child with tummyache. Janna called to find that the father and two younger children had gone out for a walk on the beach, and the mother and Julie, the little girl with the pain, were quietly reading a book.
Not, Janna thought, what most little girls would want to do on a beautiful sunny day. She looked pale and pasty, and Janna’s first instinct was appendicitis. However, the pain didn’t seem bad enough, so Janna asked a few questions about the origin of it. Apparently it had been there off and on since just before they left, and the mother reported a history of ‘nervous’ tummyache in the child.
‘She hates change, and I wondered if she was worried about coming up here. She’s had to leave her rabbit with a friend and it’s been fretting her, and sometimes she gets tummyache just from worrying,’ the mother explained.
Janna examined her, asked about problems with passing urine, or if she had constipation or diarrhoea, took her temperature and pulse and found them more or less normal.
‘Are you worried about anything, Julie?’ Janna asked her.
The little girl nodded slowly. ‘My rabbit,’ she said.
Janna turned to the mother. ‘Could you ring the people looking after her, so Julie can reassure herself? Perhaps that really is all that’s wrong.’
‘Oh, dear, I feel so silly,’ Mrs Harvey said apologetically. ‘I didn’t mean to waste your time, but she did look so pale.’
‘She is pale, and I don’t mind you calling me out. You did entirely the right thing, Mrs Harvey,’ Janna soothed the young mother. ‘We never mind coming out to a child with tummyache or earache. However, this time I really think it’s probably nothing much to worry about. Just keep an eye on her, and if you’re still worried give me a ring later on and I’ll get the doctor to pop in and have a look at her before tonight, OK?’
With a smile and a wave to the wan little girl on the sofa, Janna left them and went to old Mrs Buchan.
She came to the door in her nightdress and dressing-gown, looking faintly surprised. ‘It’s you, hen—I wondered who was calling in the middle of the night. Come away in—it’s awful late, but I dare say we could ha’ a wee dish o’ tea.’
‘Mrs Buchan, it’s lunchtime,’ Janna told her gently. ‘See, the sun’s high in the sky.’
She squinted over Janna’s shoulder, her brow creased in confusion, and then her eyes filled and she turned away. ‘So it is. Come away in anyway, hen, it’s nice tae see you just the same.’
Janna followed her in, shaking her head slightly. Poor old thing, if only she hadn’t started to lose her mental faculties she would be fine on her own, because her body was still fit, honed by the harsh life and fresh air. The little croft was simple but spotless, and as Janna followed her into the kitchen she wasn’t surprised to see freshly baked bread out on the side.
‘Had to bake ma own bread—the shop didnae have any.’
At four o’clock on a Monday morning, Janna reasoned, they probably wouldn’t have had.
‘Mind,’ she added, ‘Moira was cross wi’ me because I woke her up from a wee nap—fancy that, Janna, having a nap in the shop in the middle of the afternoon!’
‘I thought it was night-time, though?’
Her brow creased. ‘So Moira said.’
‘You’re
