that they were just keeping things going till Marjorie arrived.
‘Hello.’ Marnie felt the sleepy weight of Charlotte stir in her arms as she lowered her onto a bed. ‘Daddy’s just in with a patient; he said to make sure you had a comfy bed. I’m Marnie.’
‘I know,’ Charlotte said, and turned over and went back to sleep.
Adam was a bit tearful and asked where his dad was. ‘I’m here, Adam.’ Harry came in at that moment. ‘You can go back to sleep.’
‘How’s Dr Vermont?’
‘He’s not well at all,’ Harry said, ‘but Marjorie’s with him so that’s good. You just turn over and go to sleep and I’ll let you know more in the morning.’
Marnie felt a swallow in her throat at the disruption to their little lives. Saw how, with barely a murmur of protest, Adam did as he was told and rolled over.
‘What’s happening round there?’ Marnie asked once they had moved away from the sleeping twins.
‘Marjorie told them to stop.’ Harry’s voice wavered and Marnie watched as he struggled to keep it together. After all, less than half an hour ago he’d been putting cream on Adam’s spots.
He went over to Abby, who was sitting at the desk, crying quietly, and put a hand on her shoulder, but he spoke to Marnie. ‘I think you might want to put the ambulances on diversion—a lot of the staff are going to be really upset.’
‘Sure.’ Marnie nodded. ‘I’ve arranged for a couple of nurses to come down from the wards to help out.’
‘Good. Are you okay?’ Harry asked.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Marnie said, though she could feel tears stinging at the back of her nose, but, really, it wasn’t her place to be upset. She’d only known Dr Vermont a short while and, more importantly than that, she was the manager. Like Harry, tonight really wasn’t about her—it was about doing their best for Dr Vermont and his family and the colleagues who would miss him so much.
‘Who found him?’ Harry asked. ‘Eric said that he collapsed in his office.’
‘We were in my office,’ Marnie corrected. ‘We were having supper and talking…’ She pressed her fingers into her eyes for a brief moment and then recovered. ‘He just stopped talking in mid-sentence.’
‘You might need to speak to Marjorie,’ Harry said, as he headed back out there. ‘She might want to hear what happened from you.’
Marnie nodded. ‘Harry!’ She called him back. ‘I don’t know his first name.’
‘Gregory,’ Harry said. ‘Gregory Vermont.’
Marjorie was as lovely as Dr Vermont had been and, though devastated, she was very stoic too.
‘He spoke very highly of you,’ Marjorie said when she’d been in to see her husband and was sitting down in his office, which was filled not just with his many certificates but with photos of his family too. ‘He said you were going to bring a bit of order to the place…’ She swallowed. ‘Harry said that you were with him when it happened?’
‘We were in my office,’ Marnie said. ‘We were having our supper break and talking about…’ She glanced at Harry, who filled in for her.
‘The Harry problem?’
‘The staff issues,’ Marnie said. ‘He was actually talking about you. How you’d managed to have a career but how he couldn’t have been an emergency doctor without all your support.’ There was a flash of tears in Marnie’s eyes as she recalled the conversation, such a simple one at the time but it was so much more meaningful now. Marjorie gave a grateful smile as Marnie recalled Dr Vermont’s final moments, gave her the comfort of knowing he had been speaking about his wife and a marriage that had so clearly worked.
‘He was telling me how you used to keep a flask of coffee by the bedside. Then he just stopped speaking, Marjorie,’ Marnie said. ‘There was no pain, no discomfort, I promise you that. For a moment I honestly thought that he’d fallen asleep…’
She heard a sniff and looked over. It was Harry. He’d been holding Marjorie’s hand but now it was more that she was holding his.
‘He thought the world of you,’ Marjorie said to Harry, and Marnie watched as Harry nodded.
She felt as if she was glimpsing something incredibly private as, just for a moment, Harry gave in to his grief and screwed up his face, trying and failing not to weep.
‘When you came to do your residency, he said what a great emergency doctor you’d make,’ Marjorie said, and Harry nodded again but pulled himself together, when perhaps he didn’t have to. Dr Vermont and Marjorie were, Marnie was fast realising, so much more than a colleague and his wife to Harry. They clearly went back years.
Marjorie went to sit with her husband again and to speak with her family, who were starting to arrive.
It was a wretched night and looked no better by morning. Marnie had placed the department on bypass so that no ambulances were bringing patients in, though the walking wounded still trickled in. There were a couple of ward nurses helping out and one of the surgeons had come down to assist too. The nursing staff had known Dr Vermont for a lot longer than she had and needed each other more than they needed her, so Marnie took herself around to the observation ward and sat with the twins. She went through the doctors’ rosters and tried to work out how the department could possibly work without even one senior doctor.
‘Are you okay?’ Harry came in a little later to check on the twins. He didn’t want to wake them again and also wanted to be there to tell the day staff the sad news himself when they started to arrive.
‘Of course.’ Marnie nodded. ‘You?’
‘I just can’t take it in,’ Harry admitted, sitting down at the desk beside her and talking in a low voice so as not to disturb the twins. Harry picked up the doctors’ roster. It was already a mess—a mass of red crossings-out and locums and gaps in the schedule, and that had been before Dr Vermont had so suddenly died.
‘So much for leaving,’ Harry said.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Harry admitted. ‘I’ve just about used up every last favour. I’ll have to do something, though. I simply can’t imagine this place without him. He and Marjorie were so good to me when Jill had her accident…’ He hesitated, not sure if Marnie was interested in hearing his thoughts or if she was just being polite.
‘Go on,’ Marnie offered, but Harry looked over at the sleeping twins and shook his head. ‘Not here.’
They moved to the small kitchenette where they could talk and still keep an eye on the children.
‘Jill was on ICU for two weeks after the accident.’ Harry paused for a moment, which he so rarely did—he simply didn’t have the time or the reserves to examine the past, but the emotion of losing such a close friend and colleague forced a moment of reflection. ‘Jill had massive head injuries.’
‘How?’
‘A
