was imminent.
‘Hi, there!’ Cort deliberately didn’t react when it was Tilly who walked towards them and was also quietly grateful that she introduced herself as if they had never met. ‘I’m Matilda. Tilly. We’re incredibly busy in Maternity at the moment, so they asked me to dash down and see if I could help.’
‘She’s through there,’ Cort said, and told her a little of his findings, adding, ‘Though I haven’t done an internal yet.’
‘I’ll come in with you,’ Hannah said.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Tilly politely declined.
She was very calm and unruffled and thanked both Cort and Hannah then disappeared into the cubicle as Hannah sat brooding at the nurses’ station, staring at the curtains like a cat put out in a storm. ‘If we say we need help,’ Hannah said, ‘surely they should send—’
‘They’re busy,’ Cort interrupted. ‘And I guess they figured the patient can’t come to much harm as there are doctors and nurses here.’ He would normally have left it there, but Ruby must still be in the air for him, because he looked over and continued the conversation with Hannah. ‘Have you thought about doing midwifery?’
‘Me?’ Hannah scoffed, then rolled her eyes and added a little sheepishly, ‘Every day for the last six months or so. I’m just not sure it’s worth trying—I’m nearly fifty. I’ve been in Emergency for ever.’
‘Maybe if you’re nicer to Tilly you could see if you could spend a few hours up there. It might help you make up your mind.’ He looked over as Tilly came towards them.
‘She’s fine.’ Tilly smiled. ‘Still a while to go, I think. I’ll take her up to Maternity—how do I arrange a porter?’
‘The porters are just having a coffee. I’ll take her up with you if you like,’ Hannah offered. ‘I’ll just go and grab my cardigan.’
And there was a moment, just a moment where he could have asked Tilly why Ruby hadn’t come in—to check if she was okay or had, in fact, just not shown up. A moment to acknowledge Tilly and to step down from the safe higher ground of Senior Reg and just talk as you would to someone you knew casually, who was a friend of someone you cared about.
He chose not to take it.
Hannah returned with her cardigan and a marked shift in attitude towards the grad midwife and Cort pushed through the morning, but it all felt wrong. The busy department felt strangely quiet without that blaze of red to silently ponder, and at lunchtime, unable to face the staffroom, Cort headed up to the canteen.
‘It’s good to get away from there, even for a little while.’ Sheila joined him in the canteen queue and Cort gave her a smile, though his own company was really all that he wanted. It had been a long night, followed by a very long morning.
‘I thought you were on nights this week.’
‘I’m supposed to be in for a management day,’ Sheila said as they shuffled down the queue and rather dispiritedly checked out the food on offer. ‘Which is a bit of a joke—I haven’t even seen my off ice.’
The queue slowed down and Cort yawned and asked for another shot to be added to his coffee. Instead of the chicken salad he was half considering, or the cream-cheese bagel that was curling at the edges, he decided to push his luck with the canteen lady.
‘Can I have a bacon sandwich?’
‘Then they’ll all want one,’ she said, because most of the meals were wrapped in plastic and pre-made now, except on very rare occasions.
‘He’s been here eighteen hours straight.’ Sheila put in a word for him and as Cort turned to thank her, a normal day, a normal shuffle along the queue in the canteen suddenly somehow brightened.
She was like a butterfly.
Swooping in on a gloomy canteen, which was wall to wall navy and white uniforms and dark green scrubs or sensible suits, Ruby gave it colour.
Her hair was down and she was wearing denim shorts that showed slim, pale legs and a sort of mesh shirt that was reds and golds and swirls of white, and she had on leather strappy sandals and was just so light and breezy that apart from the lanyard round her neck and the anxious-looking woman by her side, you’d never have known she was working.
The queue passed him as he stood waiting for his order and he listened as she stood and helped her patient with her food selection, encouraging her and gently suggesting alternatives, and she made him notice things that he never had before. Like how kind the staff were with the patient, and how other staff behind in the queue didn’t huff and puff and moan about how long she was taking, but with a nod from the cashier moved subtly past.
He saw Ruby’s calm presence, and he saw something else too—that just as she felt she couldn’t do Emergency, couldn’t stand what he did, he realised that he couldn’t readily do her job either. He could not stand with endless patience as the woman struggled with a seemingly simple decision, pasta or potato salad, but, Cort knew, what a vital job it was.
‘Maybe rice?’ the patient said, and Cort felt his jaw clench, but Ruby just nodded.
‘That sounds good.’
And Ruby waited and waited for her patient’s decision, except she didn’t seem to be waiting, just pausing, and Cort found himself wanting to know what the woman would choose, to prod her in the back and say, ‘Just have the rice, for God’s sake.’ Because, yes, there were some jobs that not everyone could do.
‘Here we are, Cort.’ The largest bacon sandwich ever came over the counter and for the first time since he’d been a teenager, Cort thought he might blush as he took the plate, headed over to Sheila and sat down.
‘I’ve had a word with some of the staff,’ Sheila said, because it was easier to talk away from the ward. ‘As you know, I’m going to do a stint on nights and see how it’s all going on there.’
Cort took a sip of his coffee and nodded.
‘How’s Jamelia?’
‘She’s doing better,’ Cort admitted, though his eyes kept wandering to where Ruby was warming her patient’s meal in the microwave. ‘She just needs someone to shadow her and I’ve spoken with Doug about it—we’ll get there,’ he said, because they would.
‘I’ve got a good team, Cort,’ Sheila said. ‘I know they can go a bit far at times, but they have to deal with a lot.’
‘I’m aware of that.’ He was more than aware of that.
‘We just need to remember we are a team,’ Sheila said. ‘And that sometimes we struggle. All of us do, Cort.’ He glanced up at her, because for a moment there he thought she was referring to him. ‘It’s good to hear you went out last week.’
Cort rolled his eyes and took a large bite of his sandwich.
‘It really is,’ Sheila said. ‘You want teamwork, Cort, well, you have to be a part of it.’
And his eyes roamed the canteen as he went to take another bite and then he saw where she was sitting and Ruby looked over at him and somehow the sandwich
