and keep as still as you can,’ she asked Roger as she pressed the start button.
But he was too out of breath to comply and the trace was nothing like the clean image Alice had hoped for. Dammit! She screwed up the sheet of paper, hoping that Andrew wasn’t watching.
‘Let’s try that again,’ she said calmly. ‘If you could manage to hold your breath for just a second or two while the machine captures a picture, that would be great.’
Roger managed but the sheet that emerged was missing several pieces of information that it should have recorded.
‘You’ve lost a leg lead.’ Andrew was probably looking at her with the same kind of studied neutrality his tone held. Alice felt her cheeks reddening as she pushed the sticky patch more firmly to the skin of Roger’s left ankle.
This was mortifying. Such a simple task that she was more than capable of performing, but she was managing to make herself look completely incompetent. Worst of all, this was more important than it should have been. The old need to attract praise by being the best was so ingrained it was automatic. She still wanted to be noticed. To be seen. How pathetic was that?
Andrew was getting Roger to blow through the straw again so he’d be out of breath and she’d have to wait to try getting the recording again. When she did and it worked beautifully, Andrew wasn’t even paying attention. Peter had come in and they were discussing the next management step. Because their patient was wide awake, they couldn’t use an external electrical charge to the heart to revert the rhythm unless they sedated him heavily. The better option was to try adenosine—a drug that gave the chemical equivalent of a jolt of electricity.
It usually worked a treat and Alice knew exactly what to do. The procedure was tricky because the drug had a very short time of being effective. It had to be injected into the right arm to get to the heart as fast as possible and it had to be chased along with a large bolus of saline. Two people had to work in unison and Alice had been the one to push the flush on many occasions.
A favourite task. A bit of a challenge to get the timing right; a few seconds delay and, sometimes with even the first dose, they would watch the screen and see the heart rate magically decreasing. The adenosine was drawn up. The big fifty mil syringe of saline was drawn up. There was one port of the IV line and both needles would go in at the same time.
Peter was hanging around to watch. The paramedics had come back from tidying their ambulance and they wanted to watch, too. Andrew had the adenosine in one hand, the saline in the other. It took two hands to push that flush as fast as possible so he needed a nurse. One who knew what she was doing.
‘Alice is experienced,’ Peter said. ‘Done this a few times, haven’t you, Ally?’
She nodded, aware of a wave of pleasure at the boost to her self-esteem as she moved around the head of the bed to change sides. The perfect twelve lead ECG was sitting on top of the machine she was leaving behind but it had yet to be seen. Alice was more than happy to be given an opportunity to redeem her apparent lack of competence.
But Andrew was looking at the nurse who was already standing by his side. ‘Have you done this before, Jo?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing to it. Hold the barrel of the syringe firmly and put the base of your other thumb on the plunger. I’ll inject the adenosine and as soon as you see my plunger hit the bottom, you push in the saline as fast as you can.’
Jo shot a glance at Alice, who had stopped in her tracks and was probably looking as dismayed as she felt.
Alice glanced at Peter but the head of department merely raised an eyebrow. If their new team member wanted to take the time to help staff develop their skills then he could hardly protest.
Neither could Alice, despite feeling even more mortified than she had when she’d messed up getting that ECG trace.
‘You’re IV qualified, aren’t you?’ Andrew asked Jo.
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s do this.’
Jo positioned herself closer to Andrew. Their gloved hands were touching. Side by side. Syringe by syringe. Of course, Jo had no trouble performing her part of the task and then everyone was looking at the monitor.
Alice heard the distinctive sigh from Roger which showed that the drug had reached its target, but she didn’t wait to enjoy the potential satisfaction of seeing a successful result. Nobody noticed as she turned and quietly slipped out of the Resus area.
Alice wasn’t needed in here. And she certainly wasn’t wanted by the consultant in charge.
CHAPTER TWO
NOT being able to afford a decent car had its advantages.
You could throw anything into the back of this ancient four-wheel drive. Dogs, saddles, dirty covers—it made no difference. You could also have your foot flat to the floor and not break the speed limit. Even if you were very angry and upset and weren’t even thinking about how fast to take the corners, you were safe.
Living this far out of town had its advantages, too. You left the city well behind and could see only the green of paddocks and hills and the deep blue of a late afternoon sky. Autumn colours gilded tall poplar trees and animals grazed peacefully beneath them. Sheep and cattle and fat pet ponies. A goat on a chain was eating the long grass of someone’s roadside verge.
Work was left behind along with the city and the further away Alice got, the more she could feel all the upsets of her day receding. Some time out was exactly what she desperately needed. Escape to the place she loved more than any patch of the earth she had ever discovered. Turning off the main road, she drove into a valley. Towards the end of this road was a property bordered by a river and enclosed by hills like a geographical hug. Hidden from the world and, for the moment at least, entirely hers.
The long driveway was lined by oak trees that were well over a hundred years old. Leaves drifted lazily from great heights and Alice rolled down her window to smell the season. A hint of damp moss and rich soil. A faint whiff of smoke from a bonfire on some neighbouring farm. The chimneys of the enormous old house weren’t giving off any smoke, of course. Why would they, when the house had been empty for so long?
Finding new owners seemed unlikely in the short term. Who could afford a rather rundown old mansion these days when it was a good twenty minutes drive from the city? The cost of petrol alone would put people off, never mind the extensive renovations needed and the effort of keeping up a hilly property of at least fifty acres. The longer it took, the better as far as Alice was concerned. She was more than happy to be here as the only human tenant.
Alice took the fork in the driveway before she got more than a glimpse of the big house through the trees. She drove towards the river now. Towards the cottage that had once housed shearers and had been rented out a year ago to her friend, Mandy. Seeing the small weatherboard dwelling ahead of her, with her dog, Jake, guarding the front step, Alice could finally let go of everything bad the day had thrown at her.
The shock of being pulled back to a past she had thought long gone. Having the ashes of a distant one-sided romance stirred and finding it still showed a dismaying warmth. Enough of a glow to make the embarrassment of being deliberately put in her place as a less important staff member far more intense. Last, but by no means least, was the knowledge that if she wanted
