ONE
LOLA TOOK A sip of sweet tea and did her best to blank out the anxieties vying for space in her head. Am I up to the job? Can I cope with making life-or-death decisions? Where are the toilets?
Over the rim of her cup she watched a sea of blue scrubs fill up the hospital canteen. The laughter and general chatter of her new colleagues did little to comfort her. They were so at ease, confident in their surroundings. She was sure she was the only first-year doctor here with knots in her stomach. Despite her promise to herself that her placement here in the Belfast Community Hospital would be another step towards independence, she was tempted to run.
Until recently she’d always had her brothers close by, to reassure her and take her by the hand when she needed it. It had been her idea to leave home once she’d graduated from medical school, although she wasn’t sure if moving across the city to flat-share with her best friend counted as a particularly bold move.
Right now she needed one of those warm bear hugs only big brothers could give. This sense of isolation wasn’t alien to her, but it was still as daunting as it had been at fifteen, when her whole world had fallen apart. Even now, almost ten years later, Lola couldn’t shake off the paranoia that everyone was watching her and judging her and that at some point she’d be made to pay for being different.
She jumped as the first dramatic chords of her mobile phone’s ringtone blared from her pocket and jolted her back from her nightmarish thoughts. It wouldn’t do for her to get lost in those dark thoughts of pain and humiliation when she was due for her induction into the emergency department in fifteen minutes.
She was sure every pair of eyes in the room swivelled towards her as her clammy hands fumbled to retrieve the phone.
‘Hello, sis.’
Instead of turning it off, she’d managed to accept a call from the eldest of her three big brothers. That protective older sibling intuition was uncanny.
‘Er…hi, Jake.’
She would have given a sigh of relief if it hadn’t have been for the ‘No Mobile Phones’ signs screaming at her from the walls. If she didn’t take the call now the rest of the family would surely hound her all day, since it was they who’d insisted she carry this blasted thing. Tea abandoned, she hurried out into the corridor to avoid further disapproving stares.
‘How’s it going?’ Jake unknowingly provided the virtual arm around her shoulders that told her she wasn’t on her own.
‘I haven’t started yet. I’ll phone you when I get home.’ Tears pricked Lola’s eyes that her siblings knew her well enough to pre-empt her anxiety in an unfamiliar environment. Despite their sometimes overzealous interest in her personal life, she didn’t know what she would do without them.
‘I’m in the car park. I’ve got something for you.’
Jake sounded so pleased with himself Lola didn’t have the heart to snub him. Besides, an actual hug would surely set her up for the rest of the day.
‘In that case I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.’
This time she did hang up, and then raced through the gleaming white corridors to meet him, the flat rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the polished hospital floors.
Jake stood waiting for her in the ambulance bay, his striking features attracting the attention of every passing female. All three of her brothers resembled their father with their swarthy appearance, whilst she was the image of her blonde-haired, green-eyed mother. Sometimes she believed that was the reason her father had distanced himself from her. She was a painful reminder of the woman who’d walked out on him and left him to raise four children alone.
‘I came to wish you good luck.’
Jake pulled her into his arms, only releasing her when she was sure she could hear ribs cracking.
He thrust a crumpled parcel into her hands. ‘And I got you this.’
‘Thank you.’
She ripped off the tatty wrapping to reveal a shiny new stethoscope. The thoughtfulness couldn’t fail to make her smile. Although she didn’t receive much support from either of her parents, with her mother AWOL and her father more concerned about himself, her brothers more than made up for it.
‘We made sure we got you a pink one—just in case.’ Jake grinned at the family joke.
In order to keep her brothers from pinching her stuff when they were growing up, Lola had learned at an early age to mark her belongings in boy-proof colours.
‘Thank you. It’s lovely, Jake. But I really have to run. I don’t want to stuff things up on the first day.’ She gave him a peck on the cheek and slung the gift around her neck.
‘No problem. You’ve got this.’
Another lung-squeezing embrace emphasised his complete support, but Lola was forced to wriggle away as time marched on. She said her goodbyes and waved him off, waiting until he was out of sight before she started running again.
Out of breath, she slid to a halt behind the group already assembled in A&E.
‘How nice of you to join us.’
The cutting French accent of her new superior called to her above the heads of her colleagues. She’d heard tales of all the newbies falling for the Gallic registrar and she could see why. Henri Benoit was the stereotypical tall, dark and handsome dreamboat. It was as well Lola had sworn off men prettier than her, or she’d be devastated on a personal level as well as a professional one at starting off on the wrong foot with him.
‘Sorry. My brother wanted to wish me good luck.’
Even to herself she sounded like a five-year-old on her first day at big school. Lola whipped the stethoscope from around her neck and wrung it between her hands. The shine of her gift had been dulled under the scorn of her superior.
‘Well, Dr—’ he scanned her staff pass ‘—Dr Roberts. In future could you leave your personal life outside the hospital doors?’
‘It won’t happen again.’ Marking a target on her forehead was the last thing a self-confessed wallflower wanted.
‘Bien. Now that we’re all here I will show you where everything is before we let you loose into the big wide world.’
The use of Benoit’s mother tongue didn’t make him any less intimidating to Lola, but she could almost see the cartoon love hearts in the eyes of the other new female recruit standing next to her. Even the distinctly masculine members of the group were hanging on to his every word.
In different circumstances Lola too might have sighed at the sexy sound of a real live Frenchman instead of the usual Belfast brogue, but as far as she was concerned a scolding couldn’t be considered romantic in any language.
Thankfully the heat was off Lola as the registrar took the lead on a whistlestop tour of the department, with most of his eager new staff members nipping at his heels. All except one thoroughly chastened recruit, who hung back and did her best to fade into obscurity.
‘This is the resus room and monitoring station. These are
