ladies. All well?’
He chatted easily to them as they went up to the ward, and Charlotte felt the tension in her ease. Then the doors swished open and with an impersonal hand that felt like a branding iron he ushered her out of the lift.
His hand fell away naturally as they cleared the door, but Charlotte could feel its imprint in the small of her back for what seemed like hours. Her heart sinking, she realised that he was a toucher, one of those people who didn’t shy away from physical contact but touched and patted and hugged as easily as most people breathed.
For Charlotte, who found all but the most necessary physical contact almost threatening, working with him would be difficult in the extreme. Once again she wondered how on earth she was going to cope.
The woman didn’t require any assistance from them for her delivery, but William was called to repair the tear in her perineum after the gynae clinic, and he turned it into a lesson for Charlotte.
Somewhat shy herself, she wondered how the woman would cope with having two of them discussing such an intimate area of her body, but William laughed and chatted and smiled at her over the drapes, and talked constantly about the baby while he worked, so there was no possibility of any shyness or inhibition.
He was so natural, such an easy communicator, and Charlotte found herself relaxing as she watched over his shoulder.
‘Can you see the different muscle layers underneath?’ he asked her at one point, and she had to steady herself against his shoulders as she leaned forward. She could feel the bones of his shoulder beneath her hand, and the solid column of his spine against her body.
‘I think so. Which groups are they?’ she asked him, and was annoyed that her voice was a trifle breathless.
He pointed out the various muscles by name, and then showed her where the muscle fibres had separated. ‘See—there’s a little tear here. You have to be careful not to miss that sort of thing or you can leave the patient susceptible to a prolapse of the posterior wall of the vagina—and we don’t want that, do we, Karen?’
‘Certainly not,’ the patient replied with a laugh, and Charlotte watched as he drew the torn muscle layers together with soluble sutures.
‘There. The skin is the easy bit, but because the area is so well-supplied with nerves you don’t want too many knots, and you have to be careful not to put them in too tight or when the tissues swell they hurt like the dickens, don’t they?’
‘I couldn’t sit down for weeks with the first,’ Karen agreed.
‘Ah, well, you had a large episiotomy, if I remember rightly from our previous conversation.’
That’s right—he was a breech.’
‘How old is he now?’ William asked conversationally as he put in a subcutaneous running suture.
As they chatted, Charlotte watched with interest and not a little trepidation. Would she be able to repeat this procedure with his guidance? Because one thing was certain—he wasn’t going to be able to spoon-feed her forever.
Within a very short time the suturing was finished and William slid back the stool and rolled his head on his neck, standing up and stretching.
‘All done,’ he told the patient, and stripped off his gloves. ‘Now, I need a cuddle with this baby—if I may?’
The woman laughed. ‘Be my guest—actually, I wouldn’t mind a cuddle with him myself.’
‘I’ll bring him to you,’ William promised. He washed his hands, dried them and went over to where the nurse was just finishing the baby’s bath.
‘Hello, little chap,’ he said softly. ‘May I?’
The nurse nodded, and Charlotte watched, fascinated, as William’s big hands slid round under the baby and lifted him confidently into the crook of his arm.
As the baby’s cheek brushed against the fabric of William’s white coat, he turned towards the big man, his tiny mouth open, searching.
‘He’s rooting—here, I think he wants to be fed.’
The midwife propped the woman up into a sitting position, and then William perched on the bed and passed the baby to his mother.
‘Hello, my darling,’ she crooned softly, and, lifting her gown, she settled the baby expertly at her breast.
In seconds the room was filled with the rhythmic sucking sound, and they left the happy pair alone to their blissful feed. As they walked back up the ward together, William glanced at the clock on the wall.
‘Just after six. Not bad, for a day that was supposed to end at five.’
‘When did it start?’ she asked him.
He laughed. ‘Oh, two this morning—and yesterday finished just before midnight.’ He paused at the door.
‘Fancy a drink?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks—I’ve got a pounding headache.’
‘Maybe another time,’ he said, and, turning away, he thrust the door out of his way with the flat of his hand and strode quickly towards the lift. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he threw over his shoulder.
She watched him go thoughtfully. She hadn’t lied. She did have the most frightful headache, but there was more to her refusal than that.
She made her way home, weary, her mind full of the new things she had seen and done—her first delivery of sorts, the gynae clinic, the happy mothers with their babies—and William, of course, larger than life, full of warmth and compassion, his skilled hands steady, strong and yet gentle.
She regretted not going for a drink with him. It might have been fun, and one quick drink wasn’t going to affect their relationship.
Still, it was too late now, and probably just as well.
She took some pills for her headache, but it was joined by another ache, deep in her heart, that nothing could ever take away.
THAT first week was fascinating for Charlotte. Despite the August heat that made everything close and muggy, the windows in the tall maternity block were open and it was light and airy, a pleasant place to be.
She found herself shadowing William constantly, always at his elbow being instructed in one technique or another, and when on Thursday night he finally allowed her to do the night on call he insisted on being around just in case.
‘Anything at all, you call me. You can clerk the patients on admission, and you can handle any of the slightly tricky deliveries, but I want to be there beside you. OK?’
She nodded, not feeling in the least that she was being mollycoddled unnecessarily, because she had discovered that in obstetrics things could happen very fast, and when they did the window for correcting the problems could be frighteningly small.
