bike-riding Georgie who’d greeted him at the airport yesterday. This morning she was wearing a professional white coat over jeans, T-shirt and sandals. Her sandals were crimson, matching her toenails. There were little gold crescent moons on each toenail. Despite her bruising, she’d gone to some trouble with her make-up—her lips matched her toenails.
There were traces of yesterday’s Georgie left, but she looked young, vulnerable and afraid.
How could he ever have thought she was a tart?
‘I don’t want her brain damaged,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’ll operate myself if I have to.’
She knew what the score was. Internal bleeding could cause—would cause—irreparable damage. The only option was to operate to relieve pressure, a tricky operation at the best of times, but here …
‘You’re not doing anything while we have Alistair. Gina says you’re good,’ Charles said grimly.
‘Let’s run a CAT scan first,’ he said. ‘I’m not doing anything on the basis of one X-ray. I don’t have a clue where the bleeding is. We need to get a definitive diagnosis and I’m not moving without it. And then I need the equipment.’
‘I suspect we have most of what you need,’ Charles told him. ‘Many of our indigenous people refuse to go elsewhere for treatment so if someone’s available, we fly in specialists and they operate here. We’ve had a couple of neurosurgeons who’ve done locum work here, and they’ve set up a store of surgical equipment. If you weren’t here, I’d have to ask Cal to do it. But he’s a general surgeon. He doesn’t have your level of expertise.’
‘He’d still do it,’ Georgie said bluntly. ‘Will you?’
And the thing was decided. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘OK, get this radiologist here now. I’ll check the scans, the equipment and the personnel available, and then we go. Let’s move.’
If anything could take Georgie’s mind off Max, this was it. Urgent, lifesaving surgery.
It had to be done. The CT—computerised tomography—scan showed very clearly a build-up of fluid, and when they shaved Megan’s hair they could see swelling. Not huge swelling, but it was there.
Then there was a swift family conference. Lizzie was exhausted, but fully conscious and aware. She was appalled at what was happening to her daughter—but at first she couldn’t believe Smiley would have done such a thing.
But the evidence was irrefutable. The white-faced woman held Davy’s hand and trembled while Davy answered Georgie’s questions.
‘It was when Megan was hungry and Mummy was asleep,’ Davy said, faltering. ‘Megan started crying. Dad burned her with his cigarette and then when she wouldn’t stop he hit her hard against the wall.’
For a moment Lizzie looked like she was about to pass out, but then anger took over and by the time Georgie explained exactly what the problem was, it was just as well Smiley was safely locked up.
‘Just save her for me,’ Lizzie said, close to tears. ‘I swear he’ll never lay a finger on her again but, please, Georgie, make her well.’
‘We have Alistair,’ Georgie said, and felt an almost overwhelming relief that this skilled surgeon was right here, right now.
She returned to Theatre to find everything was in place. Alistair examined Megan once more and then he nodded.
‘We have no choice. We go in now or brain damage’s inevitable. As it is …’
‘I should have picked it up yesterday,’ Georgie repeated, immeasurably distressed.
‘There were no signs yesterday. All her symptoms could be explained by dehydration. They probably were caused by dehydration. I’m thinking this bleeding’s gradual and slow, so we might be in time. There’s no need to punish yourself over it.’
‘So stop blaming yourself,’ Charles told her. ‘That’s Georgie’s specialty,’ he told Alistair. ‘She takes on the problems of the world and makes them her own.’
‘Well, you’re not on your own here,’ Alistair said. ‘Lizzie’s OK’d the operation? If she approves, we go in.’
‘We shouldn’t ask you. You’re not covered by insurance or medical indemnity,’ Charles reminded him.
‘But you are asking, right?’
‘I guess we are,’ Charles said, and managed a smile.
‘But Lizzie wouldn’t sue,’ Georgie said, horrified.
‘Smiley might,’ Charles said.
‘Alistair won’t care,’ Georgie said roundly, and Alistair met her look and held it.
‘God knows, I have no taste for heroic surgery,’ he said bluntly. ‘I’d like a skilled paediatric surgical team on this one, but we make do with what we’ve got.’
‘Maybe you’d better put your suit on first,’ Georgie said faintly.
‘Suit?’
‘It makes you look clever,’ she told him. ‘Shorts and sandals don’t cut it in the clever stakes and I want you to be clever.’
‘So no stilettos, Dr Turner?’
She managed a shaky smile. ‘No stilettos. Megan is too important.’
And after that there was no time to think of anything. There was certainly no time for Alistair to don his suit—he put on operating gear over his shorts and left it at that. Emily was called away from her hair appointment to perform the anaesthetic. Yes, this afternoon she planned to be a bride but ‘I’ve got hours and hours and how long does it take to put on a dress?’ Cal assisted Alistair and Georgie assisted Cal. Four doctors, three nurses and they were all needed.
That they all knew what to do was a testament to Alistair’s skill. ‘He does a lot of teaching,’ Gina had told Georgie, and she believed her. For not only did Alistair’s fingers move with skill and precision, knowing exactly what he was doing, improvising for any equipment he couldn’t find with a dexterity that left her awed, he also seemed to know exactly what everyone else in Theatre was doing—where every person needed to be moments before they needed to be there.
His soft orders filled the room, and under his commands they worked as a team that a major teaching hospital could be proud of.
The procedure sounded straightforward enough, but what looked straightforward in textbooks was technical surgery of the most challenging kind. First he needed to lift a piece of Megan’s small skull, working with infinite precision, aware that any false movement would aggravate the bleed. Then he worked carefully through the dura mater—the tough membrane around the brain—carefully separating the dura to locate the subdural clot causing the swelling.
After that he had to evacuate the haematoma and make sure there was no further bleeding from ruptured blood vessels. The skill lay in causing no more damage. This tiny brain was still developing. Any fractional miscalculation could have consequences for life.
Alistair worked as if this were a normal, everyday procedure. His demeanour
