the cause this time. Kathryn found herself mirroring Tim’s earlier action and fiddling with her own pager’s safety cord.
‘I…couldn’t stay any longer.’ She hoped Tim’s memories of that evening were less clear than her own. Sean’s patent ill humour at her involving herself in the case had been humiliating enough at the time.
‘I hope your evening wasn’t entirely ruined.’
The odd tone of the comment made Kathryn glance up in surprise, and she caught an expression she had no hope of reading in Tim’s gaze. She needed to get him off any track concerning her personal life so she smiled brightly.
‘Heck, no! That was the most exciting thing I’d done in years. It was what persuaded me to throw in my practice nurse job and train as an ambulance officer.’
‘And is your…husband happy about it?’
‘Sean?’ Kathryn looked away, trying to sound casual and ignoring the odd hesitation in Tim’s query. He wasn’t to know how laughable the notion of her being out to dinner with anyone other than her husband was. It was laughable enough to make her smile again. ‘He’ll cope.’
She was unaware of the defiant tilt her chin adopted. He’d have to cope. There was no way he was going to interfere with her new career. Even mentioning Sean had added a new tension to the atmosphere and Kathryn’s shiver had little to do with the chilliness of the garage they were standing in.
Care was going to be needed in future not to allow any mention of her home life to intrude on her work hours. This career was her hope for the future. An escape. Something Sean had no part of, and she intended to keep it that way despite the clutch of any tentacles of guilt. Most importantly, she didn’t want Tim or anyone else at Inglewood station knowing anything about her marriage.
If you could even call it that.
Fortunately, Tim seemed completely uninterested. He snapped his pager into the holder clipped to his belt and Kathryn followed his example.
‘There are other priorities as well.’ His tone was coolly professional once again. ‘At times we’re on standby for fires or armed offender callouts for the police, long-distance transfers and back-up assistance for other ambos. You’ll pick it all up in no time.’
‘I hope so.’ Kathryn watched Tim open a side door of the ambulance.
‘Here we have the ramps, carry chair, hare traction splint and KED. Have you covered using the KED?’
Kathryn nodded. Her class had been through more than one scenario training them to use the body splint to help extricate car accident victims. Having to attend a major car crash on her first day was a prospect that had kept her awake for a large part of the previous night. The image of trying to cope with such a scene took turns with an even greater fear—that she might have to defibrillate someone for the first time.
When the side door refused to close easily, Tim took a few minutes to rearrange the contents. Kathryn watched him, aware that her fears about what the day might bring and what would be revealed about her competence paled in comparison to a much darker fear that Tim had inadvertently reminded her of. A fear that had presented one of the largest obstacles to her career change.
Tucked away in her boring job as a GP nurse in an old-fashioned clinic in the suburbs had been safe. It had been easy to keep up the pretence of a happy marriage with the elderly GP who had been a close friend of Sean’s father because he hadn’t been any more interested in Kathryn than he was in his patients. Old Dr Braithwaite had been far too busy having an affair with the clinic’s receptionist and Kathryn had been forced to turn a blind eye because she knew, better than anyone, that it wasn’t always the husband’s fault. It was quite possible for a totally inadequate wife to drive a man into the arms of another woman. A whole string of them, even.
And here she was taking on a career she was determined to excel in, which meant she would be working with a lot of men. Inglewood station was a peripheral city response base that housed both fire and ambulance crews, and being assigned here accentuated the difference in the age group and numbers of her new colleagues. She was going to be in almost daily contact with a lot of men who would inevitably be very sympathetic to Sean…if they knew. Kathryn would end up being labelled in terms she couldn’t bear to imagine, even if there was justification in such derision.
Her problems had nothing to do with life on the outside, however. An ‘outside’ that was now a new start. The future had always been haunted by the unknown but for the first time in many years some of those unknowns were exciting. Compelling, even. Kathryn had taken the first brave steps on a solo journey she had every intention of continuing.
Straightening her spine, she caught one of the swinging doors as Tim opened up the back of the ambulance and she pushed it to catch in the open position.
‘Are you comfortable with the layout and finding what you need in here?’
She nodded confidently. ‘That’s something I can do.’
‘Right. Quick test, then.’ Tim vaulted into the back of the ambulance, surprisingly lightly for such a big man. He tapped the sliding glass door of an overhead locker. ‘What’s in here?’
‘Straps for the scoop stretcher or backboard, hard hat, cervical collars, maternity kit and incontinence pads.’
Tim grinned. ‘Let’s hope we don’t need too many of those on your first day. And this one?’ He tapped another locker on the opposite side of the truck.
‘Dressings in three sizes, bandages—also in three sizes—saline pouches, triangular bandages and another hard hat.’
‘Where’s the IV gear?’
‘In the drawer under the life pack.’ Thoughts of Sean or fears of her private life being exposed were mercifully fading into oblivion. This was fun.
‘And?’
Taken aback, Kathryn frowned as her gaze raked the remaining storage spaces. ‘Well…the giving sets and pressure cuff and bags of saline are in that locker over there and…um…’
‘What happens if we need to put an IV line in when we’re not in the back of the truck?’
‘Oh-h.’ Kathryn rolled her eyes at her obvious omission. ‘There’s supplies of everything in the resuscitation kit.’
‘Good.’ Tim touched the large, tackle-type box with his foot. ‘We’ll go over the kit later. Are you familiar with this type of life pack?’
Kathryn nodded. ‘That’s what we’ve been using for training.’
‘You’re qualified to defibrillate manually, aren’t you?’
Her nod was a lot slower this time. ‘I haven’t done it for real yet. Only on dummies.’
Tim’s smile was quick. ‘We’ll try and make sure your first arrest patient isn’t too bright, then.’
Kathryn laughed but was disconcerted at the way Tim’s gaze veered instantly away from her face. A slightly awkward silence fell, which added to Kathryn’s confusion. This was like a roller-coaster. Whenever she felt that Tim was being friendly and they were establishing some kind of rapport, it got flicked off like a switch and that inexplicable tension
