style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Just out.’ Ally shrugged, trying to feign nonchalance, trying so hard just to walk away, but even as she did, a question stilled her.
‘It’s not a problem, is it?’
‘Problem?’ Swinging around for the first time, she managed to actually look at him, her eyes frowning as they met his.
‘Me.’ Rory looked back at her. ‘Being here. If it is, you just have to say. I don’t want to…’ For a second he faltered. ‘I mean, if your boyfriend’s going to be worried by my staying here, you just have to say.’
‘Why would it be a problem, Rory?’ Still she looked at him, even managed a very thin smile. ‘I’ve got an old friend staying for a couple weeks until he finds somewhere else. Why would anyone have a problem with that?’ She turned and walked to her car. Thankfully the door was unlocked and Ally slid inside. Shaking hands pushed the key in the ignition, and she attempted a smart reverse but failed miserably, instead doing bunny hops the whole length of her driveway.
She’d sit in the movies alone if she had to!
Watch the same film twice over if it kept her out till after midnight.
Anything other than letting him glimpse the effect his return was having on her.
‘Let the poor woman rest!’ Rinska moaned, and Ally smothered a smile as the throaty Polish accent sighed into the phone. ‘I’ll be there when I can.’
‘Problem?’ Ally checked.
‘According to this very eager student, Mrs Williams isn’t progressing as she should. He wants me to do another internal to see how far along she is.’
‘But she’s doing well.’ Ally frowned. ‘I was only in there a moment ago.’
‘How did you find her?’ Rinska asked, clearly valuing Ally’s opinion.
‘Nervous, excited—a typical first-time mum. I told Jake—the student—to suggest a deep bath. She’s got ages to go yet.’
‘She’s only one centimetre dilated.’ Rinska rolled her glittery blue-eyeshadowed eyes at Ally. A consultant in Poland, Rinska was now relegated to working as an intern in Australia until her qualifications were approved and, though it must be hellish for Rinska to be such a tiny cog in a big wheel, Ally was delighted to have such a knowledgeable doctor on the shop floor. ‘She’ll still be labouring when we come back tomorrow morning. She’s hoping to do it without analgesia.’ A rather loud moan coming from delivery suite two had both women grimacing a touch—well aware that there was a lot of pain still to come! ‘Well, at least she’s got a chance of making a natural delivery—tomorrow it will be a different story. ‘
‘Tomorrow?’Ally frowned.
‘Mrs Williams is already ten days over her due date—from what I’ve heard, the new registrar that is starting doesn’t believe in letting nature take its course. She’d have been put on a Pitocin drip and strapped to a monitor a couple of days ago if he were already here.’
‘Are you talking about Rory Donovan?’Ally checked. ‘I’ve worked with him—I guess he tended to err on the side of caution but I always thought that he was really good.’
‘He is.’ Rinska shrugged. ‘At least, according to his stats, all his mothers and babies do well—but his Caesarean rate is way higher than mine.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘Or rather, what mine was. He’s a great doctor, I’ve no doubt about that, but I doubt he’d have let Lucy go so overdue—that’s all I’m saying.
‘Do you know him well?’ Rinska asked, taking in Ally’s rather bewildered frown. Ally gave a sort of vague, noncommittal nod, not particularly sure it would be appropriate to tell Rinska that at this very moment he was probably tucked up in her heavily scented bed! ‘We used to share a house.’
Rinska’s glittery eyeshadow stretched just a touch further.
‘With about three others. I bought a house on the beach when I was a student and over the years I’ve had more doctors and nurses as housemates than I can count. Rory was one of them.’
‘You bought a house on the beach when you were a student—how?’ Rinska asked, filling in a patient’s notes in her massive flamboyant scrawl as she happily chatted. ‘I couldn’t afford a beach box, let alone a house.’
‘Believe me; it had nothing to do with making an astute investment. A few of us were looking to rent and all the places were absolute bombs. My grandmother had left me some money, not a fortune but enough for a deposit. I saw this house for sale and fell in love with it—it was a bomb as well.’ Ally grinned. ‘But it was a bomb that was sitting right on the beach, with views to die for! I worked out that if everyone chipped in the rent it would cover the mortgage, and the next thing I knew I was standing at an auction.’
‘It would be worth a fortune now.’
‘Probably.’ Ally shrugged. She had no intention of selling and, anyway, she was far more interested in what Rinska had to say about Rory. ‘So what else have you heard about the new reg?’
‘Just what I told you. He’s more than happy to intervene if nature isn’t progressing as quickly as he’d like it to. I wonder how he’s going to fit in here?’
‘Well, he fitted in fine before.’
‘Ah, but he was an intern then.’ Rinska gave a dry smile. ‘And we all know that an intern isn’t allowed to have a single independent thought. I think you should brace yourself for a whole new doctor.’
‘Well, we’ll soon find out,’Ally answered as casually as she could, scarcely able to believe that in a matter of hours she’d be working alongside Rory again. ‘But he surely knows that Bay View isn’t exactly high-tech or a high-intervention hospital. If he wants that type of thing he should be working in the city, not at some suburban bayside hospital.’
‘Tell him when you see him,’ Rinska said as Ally clicked off her pen and closed the patient folder she was writing in. ‘What time are you due to finish?’
‘In half an hour,’ Ally answered. ‘I’m just going to check on Mrs Williams’s progress and then I might pop in and see Kathy before I give handover.’
‘How is Kathy this evening?’ Rinska asked, and Ally could hear the tense edge to Rinska’s usually confident voice.
‘The same,’ Ally sighed.
‘Still blaming me?’
‘She’s blaming everyone now—from the porter who wheeled her to Theatre, to the nurses, the consultant who came in and, yes, to you.’ Ally gave a sympathetic smile. ‘Rinska, you didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘I know that.’ Rinska gave a tired nod. ‘But try telling that to Kathy. Maybe she’s right,’ Rinska sighed. ‘Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough, but I was honestly trying not to scare her too much. I thought she understood how serious the situation was.’
‘She didn’t want to understand,’ Ally said wisely, because even if Rinska was highly qualified, she still needed her colleagues’ support.
Kathy
