tired, and if she had more help at home everything would be fine, but he couldn’t rid himself of the nagging feeling that there was more to it than that. Something he was missing, but what the ‘something’ might be was beyond him.
‘Dr Brooke?’
Helen’s eyes were on him, clearly wondering why he hadn’t started the procedure, and he flushed slightly.
‘Just checking the dosage,’ he lied, but she didn’t buy it. He hadn’t really expected her to. After ten years of marriage, she could read him like a book. He’d once thought he could do the same with her, but recently… ‘Ready, Rhona?’ he said, forcing his mind back to the present with difficulty.
She nodded nervously, and as carefully and gently as he could he began inserting the tube into her cervix through her vagina.
‘It’ll all be over in a second.’ Helen smiled reassuringly down at the woman. ‘Once the dye is in your uterus it will show up white on a special screen we have, and after we’ve taken a few X-rays you can go home.’
‘Will I get the results today?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Tom replied. ‘We have to process and examine them first, you see.’ Not to mention being so damn swamped with patients that we just don’t have the time, he added mentally. ‘But I’ll get our secretary to make an appointment for you to come in and see me on Friday, if that’s OK?’
Rhona nodded.
‘Not much more to go now,’ Helen declared. ‘Just keep on relaxing. Good, Rhona…Well done…That’s it.’
‘The dye’s in?’ the woman exclaimed. ‘But I didn’t feel anything.’
‘I’d have hung up my stethoscope if you had.’ Tom smiled. ‘OK, all I want you to do now is to lie as still as you can while our technician takes the pictures.’
‘I should have got my hair done for the occasion, shouldn’t I?’ Rhona said with a shaky laugh, and he chuckled and patted her shoulder.
‘You look fine.’
Her X-rays, unfortunately, didn’t.
‘No wonder she hasn’t been able to conceive,’ Helen observed. ‘That swelling where her right Fallopian tube joins her uterus—it means the tube is completely blocked, doesn’t it?’
‘It looks like it,’ Tom replied. ‘If the blockage hasn’t extended right through the uterine wall I could certainly perform a cornual anastomosis—cutting out the blocked section of the Fallopian tube and rejoining it—but…’
‘Our theatre schedule’s so full it’s anybody’s guess as to when Rhona could have the operation,’ she finished for him.
Tom nodded, then frowned. ‘I’m going to pull strings on this one. It’s crazy for her to have to wait when we’ve got somebody of Mark’s calibre on the team.’
‘Mark has experience of tubal surgery?’ she exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Oh, there’s lots of things you don’t know about me.’ A deep male voice chuckled, and Tom saw his wife jump as though somebody had lit a firecracker behind her.
‘Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?’ she said. ‘Creeping up on people like that. Is there something wrong on the ward?’
‘Apart from the fact that you’re not there?’ Mark grinned. ‘Not a thing.’
Tom wryly shook his head as he saw a deep flush of colour cross his wife’s cheeks. Same old Mark. Still couldn’t resist turning on the charm, flirting with every woman he met. Helen didn’t appear to appreciate it, though. In fact, she looked angry, tense, and deftly he steered Mark towards the X-rays.
‘OK, earn your salary. Take a look at this.’
Mark stared at the screen. ‘Somebody’s uterus, right?’
‘No, somebody’s left foot,’ Tom responded. ‘Cut the jokes, Mark—tell me what you think.’
‘That right Fallopian tube—it could simply be scarred, but…’ He shook his head. ‘Blocked, I’d say, but the clarity’s not very good. What did you take the pictures with—an old box Brownie camera?’
‘Mark.’
He grinned. ‘OK—OK. Probably blocked, perhaps due to an infection caused by a coil. How old is your patient?’
‘Thirty-six. Married for eight years, and been trying for a baby for the last six.’
‘And she’s only just having an exploratory hysterosalpingogram now?’ Mark gasped. ‘Jeez, what the hell have you guys been doing for the past five years?’
‘Working our way through a very long waiting list,’ Helen snapped before Tom could say anything. ‘The Belfield doesn’t have a separate infertility clinic, so we treat people as and when we can. Rhona only got onto our list last year—’
‘But—’
‘Look, we do the best we can, OK?’ Helen said impatiently, and Mark sighed.
‘Well, all I can say is things are very different in Australia.’
Helen muttered something which sounded suspiciously like, ‘So how come you didn’t stay there?’ and Tom shot her a puzzled glance.
He was the one who usually got angry and frustrated, dealing with the limitations of the service they could offer, but Helen hadn’t sounded simply angry, she’d sounded positively antagonistic.
Awkwardly he cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know what happens in Australia, but under the NHS there’s a nine-month to a year waiting list for non-urgent surgery, and a cornual anastomosis is considered non-urgent. I know,’ he said as Mark’s eyebrows shot up, ‘but that’s how it is.’
‘Then why the hell do you put up with it?’ Mark demanded. ‘Dammit, Tom, you’re a first-rate surgeon. If you went to Oz, or to the States, you could be head of your own department, and not have to put up with this sort of crap.’
‘Perhaps,’ Tom said, ‘but Helen and I like the Belfield. It’s where we met, and we’ve a fondness for the old place.’
‘Which doesn’t mean we’re always going to stay here,’ Helen said swiftly. ‘I mean, who’s to say what’s round the corner for any of us—what changes we might make?’
Mark glanced from her to Tom thoughtfully. ‘So it’s only old Tom who’s reluctant to move, is it? You always did play it too safe, mate.’
‘Whether I do or whether I don’t is immaterial,’ Tom replied, wondering what on earth had made Helen say what she had, and not liking the reference to himself as ‘old’ either. ‘Mrs Scott is certainly not going to have to wait nine months when we’ve got someone with your experience on the team. I’ll have a word with Gideon, insist we get her in while you’re here to help me.’
‘In that case, I’d better take a closer look at these X-rays,’
