as they could for the operation.
Initially they would open him up to see if they could establish the extent of the tumour. Then they would remove as much as was necessary, depending on the progress of the growth. If it was too far advanced to hope for a cure, they would perform a palliative operation designed to minimise pain and distress in his remaining months. If they felt there was any hope of saving him, they would perform probably much more radical surgery including the removal of all of the descending colon, the rectum and anus and any affected lymph glands, in the hope that this more drastic approach would remove all the malignant cells.
Tom, however, was not optimistic.
‘It looked too far gone, Helen. We’ll do what we can, but —’ He shook his head. ‘Still, we can only try. Right, I’ll go and have a chat to him.’
Tom’s pessimism was well founded. When they finally opened Mr Church up on Thursday, they found the cancer had spread too far to hope for a cure, with metastases in the lymph nodes and invasion of surrounding organs, including his liver.
Ross felt that any surgical intervention should be aimed at causing as little distress as possible, and so they removed part of the descending colon and rectum and rejoined the ends, thus removing any immediate danger of obstruction and leaving the man his dignity for the short time he had left.
Tom found Helen after he came out of Theatre, and filled her in.
‘What a damn shame,’ she said sadly. ‘He’s such a nice man.’
‘A least his wife will know what to expect,’ he said enigmatically, and left her, puzzled, while he went to snatch some lunch before his clinic in the afternoon.
Ross came up during the afternoon and spoke to Mrs Church, and then Helen had the unenviable task of dealing with the shattered woman.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said over and over again. ‘I thought he had piles. I kept telling him not to make such a fuss, and now it turns out he’s dying!’ She pressed her fist against her mouth to stifle the sobs, but to no avail. Helen put her arm round her and let her cry, and after a few minutes she tried to pull herself together. Helen gave her a cup of tea, and Mrs Church was halfway through it before the tears got the better of her again.
It was nearly five and time for Helen to hand over to her staff nurse for the evening before Mrs Church finally left, and as a consequence Helen had a mountain of paperwork to wrestle with before she could leave.
She was just coming to the end of it when Ross and Tom came in headed for the coffee-pot.
‘How’s Mr Church?’
‘Asleep—he was very dopey. Ruth’s specialling him.’
Ross nodded. ‘I’ll pop in and have a chat before I go home tonight, if he’s awake enough. Otherwise I’ll see him in the morning. What about Judy Fulcher?’
‘She’s doing well—her peritonitis is settling and she seems to be responding well to the antibiotics. Alex Carter came and saw her yesterday and confirmed a generalised gynae infection—he wants to keep an eye on her. Seems she’s got gonorrhoea, chlamydia and candida among other things.’
Tom wrinkled his nose. ‘Delightful. I thought she was married?’
‘She is,’ Helen told them. ‘Perhaps her husband brought the bugs home?’
‘How thoughtful,’ Ross commented drily. ‘Some people have all the luck.’
Tom chuckled and put his cup down. ‘Well, if it’s all the same to you I’m going to stick my nose in a book. I’ve got my viva coming up altogether too quickly.’
‘You’ll walk it,’ Ross said with a yawn. ‘Oh, God, I’m tired. Think I’ll go home to bed. Oh, before you go Tom, Lizzi and I are having a barbecue on Saturday—all very informal, just a swim and a burger in a bun. Lizzi ordered me to make sure you come. She says it’s high time she met you.’
Tom smiled slightly. ‘Thank you, that would be lovely. I’ll look forward to it.’
Ross turned to Helen. ‘What about you—any chance you can make it?’
‘Yes—super. Thanks, Ross.’
‘I tell you what—why don’t you come together? Very ecologically sound—and there won’t be so many cars on my grass!’
Tom gave a short laugh. ‘Fine—provided Helen doesn’t mind?’
She met his eyes—those strange, haunting blue eyes—and thought of spending all that time alone in a car with him. ‘No—no, I don’t mind,’ she said quickly, and her voice was slightly breathless, like an eager girl’s, she thought in disgust.
Ross shot her a keen look, but simply said, ‘Good. That’s fine. Any time after three.’
Then she was alone, with the prospect of spending Saturday afternoon and evening with Tom, and wondering what on earth she had let herself in for.
‘Wow.’
Helen glanced across at Ross’s house, sprawling down the hillside like a Spanish villa, and then at Tom, who looked faintly thunderstruck.
‘It is a bit, isn’t it? Look, park over there by those others under the trees.’
‘Lord—a cast of thousands,’ Tom said softly. He swung his Sierra off the drive on to the broad sweep of lawn that was covered in cars and pulled up beside a big dark grey Mercedes estate. ‘I’m going to lower the tone a bit in this,’ he joked, and tipped his head towards the Mercedes. ‘Oliver’s?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘He’s on call, but I guess his registrar will be doing it this afternoon.’
‘Surprise, surprise,’ Tom muttered under his breath. ‘The joys of being a registrar.’
Helen chuckled. ‘Poor old boy—you look really hard done by.’
He had the grace to laugh. ‘Yes, I’m really badly treated, aren’t I?’
‘The trouble with Ross,’ she told him as she gathered her things and climbed out of the car, ‘is that he is incapable of delegating. That’s why he’s always so tired. He flings himself whole-heartedly into his job, and insists on doing the best for his patients. If that means he does the operation, so be it.’
Tom regarded her thoughtfully over the top of the car. ‘But is it always the best for his patients? If he’s tired, will he perform well?’
‘The curse of the houseman. I think Ross perhaps hasn’t realised that he’s grown up!’
Tom chuckled. ‘No, I think he feels the rest of us haven’t—that’s why he mothers and spoon-feeds us! Where do we go?’
‘Follow the noise—and you’re wrong, you know. He’s been very complimentary about your operating—says you’re good—and from Ross, believe me, that’s high praise indeed.’
They strolled together across the grass and round the side of the house to the pool area, and Helen tried to ignore the long, lean, hair-strewn legs that
