with a non-adherent dressing.
Finally he declared the operation finished, and Frankie sagged against the wall outside and looked at the clock in disbelief. It had taken nearly two hours, but she was very pleased with herself—until her boss pointed out that it could and should have been done in half the time.
‘Still,’ he added with a slight smile that softened his weary eyes, ‘you did a good job. Well done.’
High praise. She could have hugged him, but thought better of it and concentrated instead on pouring them another cup of coffee and this time drinking hers quickly before the phone could ring again.
They were lucky. His bleeper didn’t squawk until later, when they were back on the ward following up the post-ops, all of whom were doing well.
Mary O’Brien, the ward sister, handed him the phone and he spoke to the switchboard briefly before being connected.
Frankie wasn’t really listening, but it was impossible not to hear what he was saying, and anyway she was fascinated.
‘What do you mean you’re at the station? Jane, you can’t do this to me! I’m at work—yes, I know it’s a bank holiday. It just means that we’re even busier—no, I didn’t get the day off; my senior registrar did. He worked Christmas, remember?
‘You’ll have to get a taxi to the house—what do you mean you haven’t got any money? Get a taxi here, then. What about your train fare? Oh, Jane, for heaven’s sake!’
He looked at Frankie doubtfully. ‘Can you hold the fort? Just for half an hour? My daughter’s got herself in a mess.’
‘Of course,’ Frankie assured him, far from confident. She didn’t know the hospital, she didn’t know all she felt she should about orthopaedics, even though she’d spent the past month reading solidly on the subject, and she felt totally at sea. In, as they said, at the deep end.
‘Mary, look after her for me,’ he said to the kindly ward sister, and then, with a wry smile and a weary shake of his head, he strode quickly off the ward and away to his errant daughter.
At least, Frankie assumed she was errant. It certainly sounded as if she was, at least a little.
‘Can’t his wife drive?’ she found herself asking.
Mary O’Brien snorted. ‘Oh, yes—but she’s in London and it’s her the child’s run away from yet again. They’re divorced—have been for years.’
Frankie blinked, part of her mind registering with interest the fact that his wife no longer lived with him. Then her mind belatedly latched onto the information about the child. ‘Run away?’ she queried.
‘I expect so. I should think there was a wild party last night and she hates it. Nice kid. I expect you’ll meet her in a while; he often has to bring her in when she does something like this, poor little scrap.’
Poor little scrap? ‘How old is she?’ Frankie ventured, suddenly concerned for a little girl torn in the war between irresponsible adults.
‘Oh, thirteen or so. Twelve, perhaps?’
So, not a little girl at all but quite a big girl—which meant either that Robert Ryder was wearing better than he had any right to or that he had started a family somewhat younger than was prudent.
Remembering the warmth of his body and the intoxicating scent of his skin as they’d stood side by side for hours in the theatre, she thought the latter most likely.
As sure as eggs is eggs, she thought, he wasn’t any less attractive in his early twenties. It would have taken a very level-headed girl to turn him away if he had switched on the charm. Heavens, even when scowling the man is absurdly attractive!
The door opened and a staff nurse popped her head round the door. ‘Mrs Jenkins is in pain—any chance of a boost to her painkillers?’
Mary O’Brien turned to Frankie. ‘Would you?’
‘Of course.’ She stood up and followed the staff nurse out, and was joined a moment later by Mary O’Brien with the keys to the drugs trolley.
‘What would Mr Ryder normally give her?’ Frankie asked the ward sister.
‘Oh, just some stronger tablets—a paracetamol and codeine combination, usually. What did she have yesterday?’ They checked the drug chart and then Frankie filled it in and Mary dished out the pills and gave them to the patient.
‘Soon have you feeling more the thing,’ she said kindly, plumping up the pillows and settling the patient more comfortably against them. She had had osteoarthritis for years and had been given her second hip replacement three days before, Mary told her. She had refused any opiates and so it was proving difficult to get her pain under control, but she was being very brave about it and the situation was gradually improving.
‘She gets tired by the end of the day, though, and in the middle of the night she suffers from it. If we could give her pethidine it would be better, but it makes her terribly sick and she says she’d rather be in pain than be sick.’
‘Can’t the anaesthetist do something to make her pain-free without nausea?’
Mary smiled. ‘I’m sure, but she won’t let him try. She’s got a bee in her bonnet since she had the other hip done ten years ago, and she can’t believe things have moved on that far. She’s convinced she’s better off like this, and so the poor old dear will just have to suffer for it. It won’t be for long. She says bad as it is it’s better than her old hip was, so all in all she’s quite happy most of the day!’
They went back into the ward office, Mary to do some paperwork, Frankie to scan the notes and try and bone up, so to speak, on some of the cases.
They were sitting quietly working when the door burst open and a tall, slender girl with long, straggly fair hair flounced into the room.
‘I suppose I’ve got to sit here and wait till you’ve finished—I said I’d be all right at the house!’ she grumbled.
Her father followed her, his scowl firmly in place, lines of strain etched round his mouth and eyes.
‘Jane, for God’s sake, just for once in your life do as you’re told, could you? Unlike your mother I have a job to do and responsibilities—’
‘Yeah, like me.’
He sighed and stabbed his hands through his hair. ‘Yes, like you, and the countless patients out there waiting for a little piece of me, and all the others for whom fate has a little treat in store tonight—I’m afraid, like it or not, you’ll have to share me, and for now that means sitting there while I ring Mrs Bailey and see if she can come and look after you this evening—’
‘I hate Mrs Bailey!’ the girl wailed. ‘I don’t need a babysitter—I’m thirteen, for heaven’s sake! You always baby me—’
‘Well, you should have thought of that before you got on the train, shouldn’t you?’ he said irritably as he punched numbers into the hapless phone.
‘Why is it always my fault?’ she said unhappily, and Frankie, watching out of the corner of her eye, noticed a gleam of moisture
