I could get to quite like this. Not every day, of course—you can have too much of a good thing—but once in a while? Yup, I reckon I could live with that.’
He was joking—she knew he was—trying to make her feel better—but it didn’t help.
Why did this have to keep on happening to her? She never used to be so inefficient. She never used to be so clumsy, and yet in less than a week at the Belfield she’d been late twice, trashed the contents of a tea trolley and now cannoned into her boss for the second time.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said unhappily. ‘I know I’m late again.’
‘I wondered about that. Liz kept telling me you were in the toilet, and I was beginning to think you might need to see me in a professional capacity.’
He was smiling but, try as she may she couldn’t smile back. ‘Please, don’t blame Sister Baker—she was only trying to help. I had…There were problems at home.’
All amusement instantly disappeared from his face. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
Just my son realising that when I leave him I’m going to be gone for hours. Just the question of what am I going to do tomorrow, or the day after, if the same thing happens again.
Tell him, her mind whispered, he’ll understand.
But what if he didn’t? The male doctors at the Manchester Infirmary had been anything but sympathetic when a female doctor was late, or distracted, because of family problems.
‘Unreliable’ had been one of their favourite comments. ‘Not sufficiently committed’ had been another. And always the implication had been the same. That it was a mistake to employ a female doctor with a young child.
‘No, it was nothing serious,’ she said. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘But—’
‘Do I have time to look at the files of some of the patients you’ll be seeing this morning?’
He knew she was changing the subject. He also looked as though he’d very much like to press her on why she’d been late, but abruptly he turned on his heel and led the way into his consulting room.
‘Take your pick.’
She stared at his desk. Her pick? Good grief, there had to be at least fifty—if not more—files sitting there.
‘How long did you say this clinic was supposed to last?’ she asked involuntarily, only to colour when she suddenly realised how that might sound. ‘Not that it matters, of course. I mean, that’s what I’m here for—to learn, to assist. And I know we don’t work nine to five, and—’
‘Annie, I wasn’t about to whip out a placard with the words “Poor attitude—lack of commitment” written on it,’ he snapped. ‘So relax, OK?’
The colour on her cheeks darkened. ‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Half of those files belong to patients we’ll be seeing today. The other half belong to patients I’ll be seeing on Monday, and I’m taking them home with me for a quick read-through at the weekend.’
‘Oh, right.’ She nodded. ‘Sorry.’
And I wish to heaven you’d stop apologising to me, Gideon thought, selecting the top file from the pile on his desk and handing it to her. The woman he’d met on the stairs might have got his intentions all wrong but at least she’d had some spunk about her. Lord, but she’d been angry that day, her blue eyes flashing, contempt plain on her face, but he’d liked her. He still did, but not when she behaved like some stressed-out, scared rabbit.
She’d said there’d been trouble at home. Could she be looking after an infirm or elderly relative—was that why she’d been late this morning? Her file might tell him but to get it he’d have to ask Admin, and he knew only too well what the gossiping girls who worked there would make of such a request.
‘Mr Caldwell’s interested in Annie Hart,’ they’d snigger, and they’d be right.
But not in the silly, lovesick way they would mean. His interest was purely professional. Based solely on safeguarding the best interests of the department. And yet as he saw a small frown suddenly crease her forehead he couldn’t help but wonder what it would take to make her smile—really smile. Dammit, she couldn’t be any more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and yet she looked as though she carried all the cares of the world on her shoulders.
‘Annie—’
‘Miss Bannerman has fibroids?’
Well, it wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind as a topic of conversation, but if talking about their first patient would make her relax he was more than willing to go with it.
‘Carol was referred to me six months ago because of excessive menstrual pain and bleeding, and bladder problems.’
‘The bladder problems would be due to the pressure of her fibroids?’ she suggested, and he nodded.
‘Fibroids—or benign tumours of the uterine muscle to give them their correct name—are very common amongst women over thirty-five. It’s only when they start to interfere with a woman’s life—as they have done in Carol’s—that we need to do something about them.’
She handed him back the file. ‘I notice you’ve been treating her with drugs.’
‘Fibroids are caused by too much oestrogen in the body. If we can decrease the level, the fibroids usually shrink, and the pain and excessive bleeding lessens, but—’
‘The drugs can’t cure the fibroids, and as they tend to have side-effects if taken for too long, it’s not a long-term solution,’ she finished for him.
He stared at her thoughtfully. Woody had said she was bright, and she obviously was, but bright doctors didn’t necessarily make good ones. Annie could have all the book learning in the world, but if her communication skills with patients were as poor as they were with him…
He cleared his throat. ‘On Carol’s last visit I told her she really only had two options. A hysterectomy, or a laparoscopic myomectomy. She’s coming in today to discuss those options, and I’d like you to advise her.’
‘Me?’ she faltered. ‘But—’
‘As you said yourself, you’re here to learn.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I’m not going to abandon you, Annie,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll sit in—put in my pennyworth if you need it—but I think it would be a useful exercise, don’t you?’
She obviously didn’t, and he could see her point. Throwing her in at the deep end on her very first clinic was deeply unfair. It was also, as it turned out, a revelation.
The minute Carol Bannerman walked in, Annie became a different woman. Gone was the nervous, apologetic person he kept meeting, and in her place sat a calm, understanding professional. A professional who gently and simply outlined the two procedures, showing not a trace of impatience or irritation whenever Carol asked for clarification.
Which
