bought a house in Edmonton Road. Doesn’t sound to me like she intends throwing in any towel.’
A frown creased Seth’s forehead. ‘And we know this how?’
‘Charlie in Dietetics happened to see her when she came for her interview. They got talking, and he happened to mention how hard it was to find rented accommodation in Glasgow. She said it wasn’t a problem as she’d bought one of those old houses in Edmonton Road.’
‘And did Charlie happen to find out anything else?’ Seth asked caustically.
‘Just that she’s thirty-four, divorced and seemed nice.’
‘Nice?’ Seth repeated with exasperation. ‘We don’t want nice, Jerry. We want a tough, committed, hands-on boss, not some wimp who’ll run screaming from A and E when a druggy throws up on her, or a roll-over merchant who’ll accept all of Admin’s crackpot ideas without a murmur.’
Jerry sighed as he erased the name of the last patient he’d seen from the whiteboard. ‘Seth, I hate to say this, but this antagonism you seem to feel towards Dr Mackenzie…’ He shot his boss a swift, sidelong look. ‘It’s not simply a bad case of sour grapes, is it?’
Seth opened his mouth, then closed it again. Jerry was right. Dammit, he’d worked in the A and E department of the Belfield Infirmary for the past twelve years. He was good at his job, and to be passed over for a thirty-four-year-old outsider who knew damn all about the department…
‘OK, so maybe I do think it should have been an inside appointment,’ he conceded, suddenly realising that his specialist registrar was waiting for a reply. ‘The department has two consultants, me and Watson Forrester—’
‘Watson still works here?’ Jerry eyebrows rose. ‘That’s going to come as a big surprise to everybody.’
A slight tinge of colour darkened Seth’s cheeks. ‘OK, so maybe he’s not been pulling his weight lately—’
‘Seth, he’s never here. If he’s not off to some conference, he’s away at a seminar. He wants out of A and E. You know it, and so do I.’
Seth did, but it didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, it made him feel worse. He gazed round the examination room, at the peeling paint, the tattered cubicle curtains, and bit his lip. ‘Jerry, do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut?’
‘Can’t say I do. I get the blues occasionally—everybody does—but there’s far too much variety in A and E for me ever to get bored.’
Once Seth would have agreed with him, but just lately he’d had the worrying feeling that their patients were beginning to merge, to blend, into faceless, nameless anonymity. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this job.’
‘Seth, you’re thirty-six,’ Jerry protested. ‘You don’t get burn-out in A and E until you’re fifty.’
‘Maybe I should sign up as a doctor on one of those luxury cruise liners,’ Seth continued as though his specialist registrar hadn’t spoken. ‘The ones that sail the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.’
‘Dispensing sea-sickness pills and fighting off the advances of the blue-rinse brigade?’ Jerry grinned. ‘I’d give you a month, and you’d be bored out of your skull.’
‘Médicins sans Frontiéres, then,’ Seth murmured. ‘They’re always looking for new doctors.’
Jerry started to laugh, then stopped when he saw his boss was in earnest. ‘Okay, let’s forget all this crap about Dr Mackenzie, cruise ships, and Médicins sans Frontiéres. What’s wrong, Seth—and I mean really wrong?’
The consultant picked up the whiteboard eraser from the table, stared at it for a second, then tossed it down again. ‘I don’t know—and that’s the honest truth. All I do know is nothing seems fun any more. Not my job, not dating, not even sex.’ He frowned. ‘Especially not sex.’
‘I don’t see how changing your job is going to make your sex life any better,’ Jerry pointed out. ‘Look, who are you dating at the moment?’
Seth looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. ‘Nobody. I haven’t been out on a date since June.’
‘You haven’t had sex for three months? Seth—’
‘I’m losing it, aren’t I?’ the consultant exclaimed. ‘If I can’t even be bothered to have sex any more, I’m definitely losing it.’
Jerry stared thoughtfully at him. ‘No, you’re not. I think you’re just beginning to realise there’s more to life than work and a string of casual relationships. I think what you need is to settle down with just one woman.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Seth spluttered. ‘The minute a bloke settles down, he’s brain dead.’
‘Hey, I take great exception to that,’ Jerry exclaimed. ‘Carol and I have been married for a year, and I’m certainly not brain dead.’
‘Not yet, but you soon will be,’ Seth said darkly. ‘In a couple of years’ time your idea of a sparkling evening’s entertainment will be sitting in front of the television, poring over some DIY magazines. And when the kids start arriving…’ He shuddered. ‘I’ll ask how they are—just to be polite—and you’ll whip out their latest photographs and start telling me all about little Isolde’s first tooth and Tristram’s first step.’
‘That isn’t being brain dead,’ Jerry said uncertainly. ‘It’s…it’s being proud of your family, loving them, being committed to them.’
It also meant waving goodbye to any exciting foreign holidays because little Isolde didn’t like travelling, Seth thought glumly. Goodbye to any visits to a restaurant or to the movies because little Tristram got upset if he was left with a babysitter. And it wasn’t just the kids who made you brain dead. It was living with the same woman for the rest of your life, having to see the same face over the breakfast table every morning.
‘Seth, listen—’
The consultant couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. The examination-room doors clattered open and the paramedics who’d attended the multiple car crash appeared, each clamouring for attention.
‘Twenty-six-year-old male, Doc. Open leg wound, Glascow coma scale 3-3-4. Blood loss extensive, definite class 11 shock. His saturation levels are falling and he’s hardly moving any air.’
‘My bloke’s in really bad shape, too, Doc,’ another paramedic declared. ‘Chest and head injuries. GCS 2-2-4. We’ve tubed him and set up an IV line, but his BP’s been falling steadily since we lifted him.’
‘Tony—where’s Tony?’ Seth demanded, and to his relief the junior doctor appeared. He looked as though he’d been dragged out of bed, but at least he was there.
‘Seth, the child with the burns needs attention, and fast,’ Babs declared, casting her professional eye quickly over the trolleys. ‘He’s cyanotic for sure.’
The child was. Even from where he was standing Seth could see the characteristic blue tinge of the boy’s face which indicated his blood wasn’t receiving enough oxygen.
‘Jerry,
