senior surgeon had been close to seventy and everyone apart from the matron had gone in awe of him. It hadn’t mattered that you had to shout to make yourself heard because he was going deaf; watching him operate had been a privilege. In those days age and experience had been things to honour and respect—not like today, when the moment you got past forty-five you were considered to be past your best.
Back in his office, he found that his secretary, Kelly, had already sorted his mail into urgent and non-urgent piles. On the top of the urgent pile was a GP’s report on one of her female patients. As he studied it he pushed aside his conversation with Brian, frowning as he read the doctor’s findings.
A lump had been detected in the patient’s breast and an immediate operation would be necessary to perform a biopsy and removal if the lump was found to be malignant. She was a relatively young woman, only in her mid-thirties, and he knew from experience the trauma she would experience over the potential loss of a breast, but given the choice between that and losing her life …
His frown deepened as he reached into his jacket pocket for his diary, flicking it open until he found what he was looking for.
‘Kelly, how much emergency space have I got left on Thursday?’ he asked his secretary.
‘Thursday,’ she repeated, studying his lists. ‘None …’
‘Well, then, we’ll have to make some; Mrs Jacobs needs surgical attention straight away.’
‘But Thursday’s just two days away; you could afford to hold on until early next week.’
‘No, it has to be Thursday the tenth; the date is crucial,’ he told her. ‘Let me see the list, will you?’
When she handed it to him he studied it thoughtfully.
‘We’ll cancel Sophie Jennings’ non-urgent operation and put that in the beginning of next month,’ he announced.
Kelly pulled a small face. ‘We’ve had to cancel it once already due to another emergency, and you know how much she complained then …’
‘It can’t be helped,’ Richard told her. ‘Get her file out, will you, and I’ll write to her? Oh, and get me Mrs Jacobs’ file as well; I’d better phone her and speak to her personally.’
‘Problems?’ Elizabeth asked later that evening as they sat at their table in Mario’s and she watched Richard pushing his food unenthusiastically round his plate.
‘No more than usual,’ he told her drily. ‘All I ever seem to hear from Brian these days is money and budgets. What the hell is happening to the world today, Liz, that we judge the success of a hospital not on how many lives it saves, or on how much it improves the quality of its patients’ lives, but on how much money it can save?’
Elizabeth shook her head sympathetically. It was a familiar argument and very much a sore point with him at the moment.
‘The Health Service is under a great deal of financial pressure,’ she reminded him gently. ‘Look at the way you’ve had to go to the public to raise money to help fund this new Fast Response Accident Unit. At least that’s one cause that you and Sir Arthur are united on.’ She smiled. ‘He’s every bit as keen and determined to get the unit for the General as you are.’
‘Yes,’ Richard growled. ‘Someone ought to tell him that he’d be doing everyone a better service if he concentrated more on his fund-raising and less on finding fault with everything we do … Everything’s changing, Liz—good men being pensioned off for no better reason than the fact that …’ He paused, shaking his head. ‘I feel so out of step somehow. Am I wrong to believe that we should put our patients first?’
‘No, you’re not wrong,’ Elizabeth assured him. She put down her knife and fork, feeling her way as tactfully as she could. ‘But knowing you’re right isn’t always … you can be very stubborn,’ she told him gently. ‘There are circumstances when it’s sometimes easier to get your point of view across by being a little more flexible.’
She knew what was really bothering him; she and Sara and been discussing it earlier.
‘How’s Dad going to feel if the General amalgamates with the Northern and they offer him early retirement?’
‘Offer him early retirement?’ Elizabeth had queried ruefully. ‘Your father is far more likely to see it as being pensioned off; he won’t like it at all.’
‘No, and it won’t help that your working and your career is just beginning to take off …’
‘Oh, Sara, you’re not being fair,’ she had protested. ‘Your father has always encouraged me in my work …’
‘Mmm … but his career has always taken priority, hasn’t it? Oh, I know how pleased he is for you, how proud he is of you, but if he was sitting at home all day while you——’
‘It won’t come to that,’ Elizabeth had interrupted her firmly.
‘No? Ian was saying the other day that two or three of the older, more senior men at the Northern have already been approached with a view to getting them to go, and Dad is only a few years off sixty …’
Now, as she watched him, Elizabeth’s heart sank a little. She knew how much his work meant to him and she knew what a blow it would be to his pride, his sense of self-worth if he was asked to retire before he was ready.
Perhaps if she subtly tried to underline the advantages of his not having to work as hard, just as a precautionary measure. Her mouth curled into a rueful smile. Burgeoning career woman she might be, but in many ways she was still very much caught up in the traditional role of the supportive wife. That was how her generation had been brought up.
‘Oh, did you manage to get over to see Sara?’ Richard asked her, changing the subject.
‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘She’s feeling a bit frazzled. I offered to have Katie for a few days to give her a break; I’ve still quite a lot of holiday leave to take.’
‘You always were a soft touch,’ Richard told her. ‘For all of us …’
‘I’m glad you’re honest enough to include yourself in that comment,’ she teased him.
‘How do you feel about getting out of here and going home?’ Richard asked her urgently, leaning across the table so that the hovering waiter could not overhear what he was saying.
Elizabeth looked at him quickly to confirm that she hadn’t misunderstood the subtle message he was giving her. In the early days of their marriage, when their passion for one another had still been new and exciting, it had been no strange thing for them to leave early from dinner parties and other social events, Richard claiming quite untruthfully that he was on call, when in fact what he had wanted, what they had both wanted, was to go home and make love.
Laughing together, they had hurried back to their small flat, their urgent eagerness for one another as intoxicating as a heady wine, but these days their lovemaking, although still pleasurable, tended to be a far more leisurely and considered affair, its spontaneity tempered originally by the demands of a growing family and more latterly by their individual career demands and a certain natural lessening of the intensity of their desire.
‘Does that mean what I think it
