a very little top, but at least it covered her. She lay back and closed her eyes again and Cort opened the little purple sack on her bedside and tipped out her worry dolls.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Checking on them,’ Cort said. ‘And they’re looking a lot more frazzled than they did last time I was here.’
She almost smiled.
‘I’m a happy person usually,’ she said. ‘At least I was till I worked there. I’m not going back.’
‘Up to you,’ he said.
‘Anyway—I’m not your responsibility.’
And given twelve hours or so ago they’d been in this bed together, somehow he felt that she was.
‘I spoke to Sheila.’
‘Oh, that’s really going to stop the gossip.’
‘Not just about you,’ Cort said. ‘Emergency is a difficult place to work and sometimes the atmosphere and the people can turn nasty. It’s how they deal with it,’ Cort explained. ‘You see so much, you get hard, you get tough, and sometimes it just gets like that. People forget to support one another and they just need a little bit of nudging. It can be a very nice place. We’re a great team usually,’ Cort said.
‘I don’t care if they’re all singing and smiling and holding hands,’ Ruby said, ‘I’m not going back. It’s not just the staff, it’s the patients and the relatives …’ She closed her eyes and tried to explain it. ‘It’s the violence of the place.’
‘It’s not exactly a walk in the park on the psych ward,’ Cort pointed out. ‘If you’re talking violence …’
‘They’re sick, though,’ Ruby flared in passionate response. ‘In Emergency they’re just plain drunk or angry.’
‘You’re a good nurse.’
‘No, I’m not.’ She hated being placated. How did he know she was a good nurse? He’d seen her hold one arm. He didn’t have much to base it on.
‘You’re going to be a great psych nurse, but part of that means you need good general training.’
She knew he was right.
‘And that also means that you can be appalled and devastated by what happened at work this afternoon. That was a shift from hell.’
Finally she looked at him.
‘Are you upset?’
He just sat there, because he tried so hard not to examine it, he really tried to just get on with the job, but she made him do so and finally he answered.
‘I’m gutted,’ Cort said, realising just how much he was, and he closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a breath. ‘I guarantee everyone on that shift today is.’ He heard her snort a disbelieving sigh, and even if he didn’t go on paint-ball excursions, he always supported his team, everyone, at any time, even here in her bedroom.
‘Everyone hurt today—whether or not they show it as you might expect. The thing is, Ruby, you’ll be gone from there in a couple of weeks, but they are there, day in, day out, doing their very best not to burn out.’
Her phone rang and Ruby frowned at it.
‘It’s work.’ She swallowed then answered it, and opened her mouth to speak and then listened, said goodbye and hung up.
‘That was Sheila. She wants me back in for my early tomorrow, and she says if I do that she won’t say anything about what happened today.’ Ruby gave a tight shrug. ‘She sounds like my mother.’
To Cort it didn’t sound like Sheila, because she always had plenty to say on everything, but he chose to keep quiet, because at least Ruby seemed to be thinking about going back.
‘I shouldn’t have run out.’ She closed her eyes and all she could see was Violet, just a sweet little angel, and she wanted to weep at the horror, to fold up into a ball and sob, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t while he was there.
‘Just go,’ she said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not leaving you on your own.’
‘I’m not your problem. Why would you want to help me?’
‘You were very helpful to me last night.’ He said it so awkwardly that she actually laughed.
‘You make it sound like I cured your erectile dysfunction or something.’
‘Er, no.’
‘Helpful?’ She wouldn’t drop it, she really was the strangest person he had ever met. ‘What do you mean, I was helpful?’
‘Nice, then,’ Cort said. ‘When I didn’t know I even needed someone to be. So now it’s my turn to be nice to you. Come on, I’ll take you out for dinner.’
‘I don’t want dinner.’
‘Okay, you sit with your tissues and I’ll fetch you a bottle of wine, shall I? How about a tragic movie? I’ll just sit in the lounge and read a magazine till your friends get home, but I’m not leaving you on your own. Is there anything to eat in this place?’
‘Okay, okay!’ Ruby said.
He looked at the floor that seemed to be her wardrobe, and after a huff and a puff she stood and went to the real one and selected a skirt that Cort thought a little too short and a top not much bigger than the bra thing she was wearing, then she did something he wasn’t expecting.
She turned and gave him a smile, a big, bright, Ruby smile, and he didn’t return it because he knew it was false.
‘You don’t go that fast to happy.’
‘I do,’ Ruby said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t mope about.’
‘I don’t need entertaining,’ came Cort’s response.
He took her to a place near his flat, which was a suburb further than hers from the hospital, and, yes, he hoped no one from work would see them and, yes, it felt strange to be out with a woman who wasn’t his wife.
‘Just water for me.’ She beamed when the waiter handed him the wine menu. ‘You go ahead, though.’
‘Just water, thanks,’ Cort said, because he needed all his wits about him tonight. As he stared at the menu he told himself he was being stupid. He’d been out with friends, with his sister, with colleagues, but that had been different. Then he looked over his menu to where she sat and knew why. He hadn’t been out in a very long time with a woman he’d made love to and he was clearly rubbish at one-night stands because as much as she insisted she wasn’t, she felt a whole lot like his problem.
He just couldn’t read her.
He knew she was bleeding inside yet those brown eyes smiled up at the waiter.
‘Mushroom
