this awkward first bit to get through, he told himself, but really he knew that for as long as she was there, awkward was how it was going to feel.
Still, no one would notice if he ignored her. He wasn’t exactly known for his small talk, or for flirting with the nurses.
‘Where did you disappear to last night, Cort?’ Siobhan wasted no time in asking. ‘One minute you were there …’
‘I wasn’t aware …’ Ruby found she was holding her breath as Cort stood up and ended Siobhan’s fishing with a very frosty response ‘… I needed to hand you a sick note.’
Sheila’s eyes widened as Cort stalked off. Siobhan’s face reddened and Connor let out a low whistle.
‘Someone got out of the wrong side of bed,’ Connor explained. ‘He’s been like that all morning.’
Or just the wrong bed perhaps, Ruby thought. As the afternoon wore on, crabby was actually a very good description that she’d come up with, because he growled at any member of staff who approached, whether on foot or by phone, although he was very nice to the patients, not that they had many in.
Resus, to Sheila’s clear annoyance, was quiet. One chest pain came in and Ruby attached him to the monitors and ran off a trace, her hands shaking as Cort came over and she handed over to him.
‘ST elevation …’ Cort spoke to her just as he would any student, pointed out the abnormalities in the tracing and took bloods as an X-ray was performed, but the cardiologists were quiet too, and the patient was soon taken up to the catherisation lab, leaving Ruby just to clean up and then mooch around, checking and double-checking everything.
‘The ward’s ready for Justin.’ Hannah came off the phone and Ruby saw her chance to escape.
‘I’ll take him,’ Ruby offered, because it wasn’t Resus she wanted to avoid now but Cort, who was sitting nearby.
‘Hannah can take him,’ Sheila said. ‘I want you to stay in Resus.’
‘There are no patients, though,’ Ruby pointed out.
‘There will be,’ Sheila said. ‘For now you can check all the equipment.’
‘I just have,’ Ruby said.
‘Double-check,’ Sheila said, ‘and then you can re-check the crash drug trolley.’
It was possibly the longest, most excruciating shift of her life. Sheila was determined that Ruby was not going to get caught up, as she so often managed to, in other things, and Cort watched, while trying not to, and simply couldn’t make her out.
Ruby was competent and certainly not lazy. If anything, she was looking for jobs to do, and she was smiling and happy with all the patients, more than happy to stand and talk to them. He didn’t get why she annoyed Sheila so much.
‘God, it’s quiet,’ Sheila moaned, and Cort looked up, because in Emergency you can think it’s quiet, you can know it’s quiet, you just never ever say that it is—and in response to Sheila’s foolishness the emergency phone shrilled.
‘You’ve jinxed us now.’ He gave a half-smile and calmly picked up the phone, before a leaping Sheila could answer it, but he wasn’t smiling at all when he hung up.
‘House fire. Mum’s out—she’s coming to us with smoke inhalation, they’re going in for the children. Seems that there are two.’
‘Okay.’ Sheila snapped into action, and so too did Cort, calling down the anaesthetist and paediatric team as Sheila allocated her staff. ‘Ruby, come with me and set up for number one, Hannah and Siobhan take number two …’
Mum arrived and though distraught was physically well enough to go to the trolleys, but Ruby could smell smoke as she was rushed past and she could smell it on a firefighter who was brought in too, as well as a paramedic who came and gave them more information as he received it on his radio, before it made it to the emergency phone.
‘They’re out, both in full arrest.’
Happy now? Ruby wanted to say to Sheila as her stomach churned in dread. Is this busy enough for you?
But of course Ruby didn’t say anything. Instead, she did everything she was told and everything she possibly could to save the little girl in front of them. And she would have given anything she could if only it might work.
She watched Cort work and work and work on the child and she stood there when she really wanted to run. She saw her hands shaking so much she actually stabbed herself with a needle and had to discard the drug and put a sticky plaster on as Sheila snatched up a new vial and swiftly pulled up the drug.
She could feel her body soaked with adrenaline, every instinct begging her to flee as, when hope had long since left the building, Cort made the decision to stop.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the whole team then moved and helped work on the other little doll that had been brought in behind her sister.
She was bright red from the carbon monoxide, and absolutely and completely perfect, on the outside at least. Again Ruby just stood there as Siobhan and a horde of people moved her up to ICU, with her little sister forever left behind.
‘I’ll go and speak to the parents,’ Cort said.
‘Dad’s just arrived,’ Hannah said. ‘He’s in with Mum.’
‘Okay.’ Cort’s eyes flicked to Ruby, but he wasn’t that cruel. ‘Hannah, could you come with me?’
‘Ruby,’ Sheila said. ‘Come and help me get Violet ready.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Her parents will want to see her.’
She stared at the curtain and what was behind it.
‘I can’t,’ Ruby said.
‘You need to.’ Sheila was insistent. ‘We still need to look after Violet and her family.’
‘I can’t,’ Ruby said, and it was final. She could not be in the department for even a second longer. She could smell the smoke and hear the mother’s screams, and she wasn’t leaving them short because as a student she was supernumerary anyway and, Ruby realised as she headed to her locker and took her bag, they didn’t need a nurse who couldn’t cope.
‘You can’t just walk out mid-shift,’ Sheila said as Ruby walked back with her bag.
‘I’m sorry, Sheila.’ She just had to get out of there. She wasn’t being a drama queen, she knew Sheila was far too busy to beg or to follow her, and her warning was brusque and firm when it came. ‘Ruby, do you realise what you’re doing?’ Sheila checked.
‘Absolutely,’ Ruby answered. Siobhan had just returned from ICU and actually smirked as Ruby walked past. ‘I’m getting out of the kitchen.’
