Doctor Knows Best Read online

  “I wonder if the chicken here is any better than at my last hospital,” he remarked as they took their seats at an empty table by the window.

  “I sincerely doubt it,” replied Megan truthfully with a laugh. “I must warn you that it is usually quite a challenge to the digestive system. It never fails to amaze me how chicken can be turned into something with the texture of leather.”

  “It takes years of practice as a hospital cook,” he replied, echoing her laugh.

  Actually, Megan enjoyed her lunch more than she had anticipated. The conversation flowed easily and apart from giving him the low-down on Casualty she also found out a little about him. He had been a senior lecturer in a large London teaching hospital, but had decided to switch from an academic career to a clinical one, and for that reason had moved out of London.

  “I missed the daily contact with patients,” he said. His father had been a Harley Street consultant he told her, and he still had the family house in Cheyne Walk, although his father had died. So I wasn’t so far out about you, Megan thought with satisfaction. I knew you had that expensive air about you.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to do the same as your father?” she asked. “It’s very hard work here, for not nearly as much money.”

  “I know that,” came his reply. “I don’t need the money, and I certainly don’t need the private medicine.” There had been a finality about his tone of voice that precluded her from asking any further questions.

  It was as they left the canteen that Megan’s brother Richard came hurrying by. He was a third-year medical student and had just started the clinical part of his training. “Hi, Megan,” he shouted as he zoomed past, white coat flying out untidily behind him, “Don’t forget our date—eight o’clock tonight. Hope your wrist is OK.”

  Megan laughed. I hadn’t forgotten,” she replied. She was about to inform Giles Elliott that she had been roped into the medical student’s Christmas revue, but the words got stuck in her throat when she saw the very disapproving look on his face.

  “He is a little young, isn’t he?” he snapped.

  “Young?” echoed Megan in surprise and with a burst of indignation. She supposed his disapproving look was on account of her brother’s untidy appearance. “He is twenty,” she said. “In fact he’ll be twenty-one in January.”

  “Really?” replied Giles Elliott in a strange voice. “And how old are you?”

  “That is a very personal question,” retorted Megan, really vexed by this time. She was twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven, but she didn’t think that it was any business of his.

  “You are right, of course.” His voice cut across hers sharply. “It’s none of my business. Let’s get back to work, shall we?”

  His previous friendliness seemed to have vanished like a puff of smoke. I thought it was women who were supposed to have moods, thought Megan, feeling a little disgruntled at his mercurial change of attitude. He strode along the never-ending corridors back towards Casualty, Megan practically having to run to keep up with him.

  By the time the afternoon had come to an end and five-thirty had arrived, Megan was heartily sick of Giles Elliott, the casualty department and everyone in it. In the morning he had been all sweetness and light, but in the afternoon he had swept through the place like a hurricane. Nothing anyone did was right; the two senior house officers were trembling in their shoes and the pupil nurses were so nervous that they started dropping things at the mere sight of him.

  Megan kept her temper with difficulty. Outwardly she remained cool and calm, encouraging her nurses and dutifully making notes on all the procedures Giles Elliott wanted changed.

  “What’s the new consultant like?” asked Sister Moore who was coming on duty for the evening shift.

  “High and mighty,” replied Megan through clenched teeth. “He thinks he is God’s gift to medicine. I really can’t think how we ever managed to treat any patients successfully before we had the services of the marvelous Mr. Giles Elliott.”

  “Sounds as if you had a bad day,” observed Sister Moore. She was a comfortable, middle-aged woman who had returned to nursing, working in the evenings and nights only, to supplement the family income. “Don’t be too hard on him, it’s probably a case of the new broom.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him!” exploded Megan. “He has reduced everyone else to the verge of hysteria! That’s not the way to get the best out of one’s staff.” she flung her thick navy blue cloak around her shoulders angrily and, picking up her bag, marched purposefully out of the department.

  “Goodnight, Sister,” came a familiar male voice behind her. “Enjoy your date.”

  “I’m sure I shall,” replied Megan coldly, looking over her shoulder briefly to acknowledge him. “Goodnight.” As she continued down the length of the corridor towards the exit by the side of the out-patient fracture clinic, she was keenly aware of the fact that his piercing blue eyes were following her progress along the corridor. And as she turned the corner towards the exit she saw, out of the corner of her eye, that he was still standing outside his office.

  He looked strangely alone and Megan was almost tempted to wave goodnight to him. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. Don’t feel sorry for him, he is probably planning another assault course for you to overcome tomorrow! So with a defiant toss of her dark curls, which somehow always managed to escape from underneath her cap, she turned the corner without acknowledging the fact that she had seen him still standing there.

  During the rehearsal for the Christmas Revue that evening, Megan found it difficult to concentrate. Her mind kept returning to Giles Elliott, even though she determinedly did try to concentrate on the work. When she reflected on his behaviour that afternoon in an unemotional way, she had to acknowledge that everything he had said was right. The department had got a little slack, for there had not been a consultant in charge since the previous one had retired nine months earlier. Having been saddled with two completely green senior house officers had not helped much either. Normally there was one experienced SHO to show the new one the ropes, but this year… Megan sighed. Perhaps she should have explained that to him.

  Mentally she gave herself a shake. Oh well, no use worrying about it, she thought resignedly—tomorrow is another day. Her normally cheerful spirits bubbled to the surface as she threw herself wholeheartedly at last into the rehearsal.

  Rather reluctantly she allowed herself to be persuaded into participating in a saucy sketch which involved playing the part of a patient, very provocatively dressed in brief bra and pants. The idea was that every night the students would drag one of the senior consultants up from the audience and on to the stage, and make him plaster her leg. The plaster of Paris bandage would be “doctored” so that it embarrassingly fell to pieces when he tried to use it and Megan’s role was to flirt outrageously with the consultant and make his task even more difficult.

  They practised it and Megan didn’t mind too much. It was all good fun, and she knew from past experience that, however much they protested, the senior consultants were always flattered at being hauled out of the audience. They knew when they bought their tickets that there was more than a fifty-fifty chance that they would actively participate in the proceedings before the evening drew to a close.

  By the time the rehearsal finished it was way past midnight and Megan was glad that she had brought her car and not walked or caught a bus. They had been using the lecture theatre at the medical school which was about four miles away from the hospital in the centre of the city. On arrival back at the hospital she parked her ancient little Mini in the car park nearest to the nurses’ home and started to walk briskly towards the tower block.

  It was an intensely cold night. Her breath was like puffs of steam in the bitterly cold air as she blew on her fingers in a vain attempt to keep them warm, wishing she had had the foresight to have worn some gloves. The first frost of winter tonight she thou
ght, stepping into the pool of light at the entrance to Casualty. Because it was so cold she decided to take a short cut to the nurses’ home, which meant crossing in front of the department entrance. The large red letters, CASUALTY, illuminated by the floodlights, stood out clearly, a signpost to anyone needing treatment.

  She had just started her walk across the forecourt where the ambulances drew up when, to her astonishment, she saw the obviously very weary figure of Giles Elliott come out. He turned up the collar of his overcoat and hunched his shoulders against the biting cold of the night air. Megan started. Surely he couldn’t have been working continuously since she had left at five-thirty? Slowing her stride she hung back, hoping he wouldn’t see her, but he did almost immediately.

  “You’re not going to get much sleep tonight, Sister,” he remarked. Megan thought his voice sounded tired but friendly—or was the friendly part her imagination?

  “Oh, I’ve been at rehearsal,” she heard herself explaining. “It’s the medical students’ revue and I’ve got roped into it.” She laughed. “I must need my head examined, getting involved with that crazy lot!”

  “I suppose that young man who spoke to you at lunch-time is in it,” he said.

  “Oh yes, of course,” replied Megan enthusiastically. “He is one of the leading lights.”

  “I can imagine,” came the wry reply. Then, to Megan’s consternation, he put his hands either side of his head on his temples.

  “Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly. On a sudden impulse she hurried forward and put her hand on his coat sleeve.

  He smiled and she noticed how exhausted he looked, with lines of weariness etched into his face. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all,” he replied. “A nasty accident came in, and I felt I just couldn’t leave one inexperienced senior house officer with a case like that. The other registrar was tied up in theatre with a surgical emergency from one of the wards, so there was no one to help him.”

  Reaching across suddenly with his other arm he took her hand, which had been resting lightly on his coat sleeve, and clasped it. “My word, your hand is cold,” he said softly. “Perhaps I should burst into song and sing ‘Your tiny hand is frozen’!”

  “His voice held a joking note, almost teasing, but his eyes were clouded and looked into Megan’s large brown ones seriously. She looked away quickly as her heart gave an unpredictable lurch, and she could feel it beating uncomfortably loudly against her ribs. The warmth from his large hands sent strange tingling sensations throughout her whole being. She was conscious that she had never reacted to anyone in that way before.

  Megan gulped self-consciously, then tried to laugh lightly as she said, “You know what they say, cold hands, warm heart.”

  “And is it?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Is it what?” asked Megan, unable to tear her gaze away from his magnetic blue eyes.

  “Is your heart warm?”

  “Well, I…er,” Megan felt her cheeks burning in spite of the cold night air. “I really don’t know,” she mumbled.

  He laughed and released her hand. “We are both tired and mustn’t stand here talking all night,” he said. Then he added, “I was only teasing, you know. I wasn’t expecting a confession on the state of your heart.”

  “Yes, I mean…yes, I know,” stammered Megan. “Goodnight.”

  She sped on her way back to the nurses’ home, a strange warmth pervading her being. At the same time she was cursing herself for behaving like a dumbstruck sixteen-year-old, just because he had held her hand.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning passed fairly uneventfully, at feast as far as Giles Elliott was concerned. His piercing blue eyes seemed to be everywhere and observe everything, but Megan noticed thankfully that he wasn’t in such a fearsome mood as the one he had been in the previous afternoon.

  “I was dreading this morning,” confessed Jamie Green, one of the senior house officers. “Yesterday I couldn’t put a foot right, but today he has actually congratulated me for reading an X-ray correctly!”

  He and Megan were busy in one of the cubicles, cleaning and dressing superficial lacerations on the legs of a ten-year-old girl who had taken a nasty tumble from her bicycle.

  “Perhaps he’s still tired after last, night,” said Megan. Then she grinned mischieviously at Jamie. “We had better be thankful for small mercies! There’s no knowing when he’ll strike again.”

  “How is this young lady?” A familiar deep voice behind her made Megan jump. She and Jamie exchanged guilty glances, both hoping their conversation hadn’t been overheard.

  Giles Elliott picked up the casualty card lying beside the patient and quickly scanned the brief notes. “Hmm, I see you fell off your bicycle,” he said to the little girl.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her eyes wide and dark against the pallor of her face. “Mummy will be cross, I’m not supposed to ride on the road.”

  “Where is Mummy?” he asked gently, noting that there was no parent’s signature on the card.

  “She is on her way in,” Megan replied for the little girl. “We had to telephone her at her workplace. She had already left for work before Amanda here decided to ride her bike to school.”

  “I see,” he said slowly. Then he smiled reassuringly at the anxious little girl. “You have been very lucky indeed—all you have got are some grazes and bruises. So if you promise me that you won’t ride your bicycle again on the road, at least not until you are older, I’ll try and persuade your mother not to be too angry.”

  “I promise,” whispered Amanda, smiling at him gratefully.

  Huh, your charm works on women of any age, thought Megan, watching him. He only had to smile and the child responded to him in much the same way Megan herself had responded. The only difference is you should be old enough to know better, Megan told herself.

  As far as Amanda’s mother was concerned, there was no need to worry. She was so glad to see her precious daughter in one piece that there were no recriminations for her breaking the rules. However, Giles Elliott made a point of emphasising that Amanda had promised him she wouldn’t ride her bicycle on the road again. At least, not in the foreseeable future. Mother and daughter left the casualty department, the little girl’s legs swathed in dressings as she held on tightly to her anxious mother’s hand.

  Giles Elliott stood beside Megan watching mother and daughter as they made their departure. “That’s the problem of latch-key children,” he said with a sigh.

  “Yes, I suppose it is a problem,” agreed Megan. “But if you are divorced, like Amanda’s mother, a single-parent family trying to cope with work and a child, there is no alternative, is there?”

  “No,” he agreed, a grim look on his face.

  Something puzzled Megan. He seemed to take it almost personally, almost as if it was his own worry, but before she had time to dwell on these thoughts something happened that put the whole episode completely out of her mind.

  A man in his middle fifties had come in with a sprained ankle—not a particularly bad sprain but it did need a support. After all the routine questions had been asked and his ankle had been X-rayed and examined by one of the junior doctors, Megan left a student nurse, who had plenty of experience, to put on the supporting bandage.

  She was standing at the desk by the side wall opposite the patients’ cubicles and was about to call in the next case, when the cardiac arrest signal went off on her bleep. Even as she turned around, before she heard the automatic voice over the bleep system, she saw that the man had keeled over, falling from the couch to the floor, pinning the young student nurse beneath him. She had obviously had the presence of mind to push the cardiac arrest button as they both fell.

  For once everything went with clockwork precision. The anaesthetist on call happened to be in Casualty at that moment, so there was no delay in intubation, and after only half an hour a resuscitated p
atient, stable enough to be moved, was being wheeled up to the coronary care unit for observation.

  Megan turned her attention to the student nurse. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. “I’m afraid there wasn’t much time to enquire before.” The girl gave a nervous laugh. “Yes, I’m OK, but I must admit that I do feel a bit shaky now that it’s all over.”

  “You go off and have a coffee now,” Megan told her. “You look as if you could do with a break. Take a friend with you, we can manage without two of you.”

  “Are you sure?” the student hesitated.

  Megan looked around Casualty. All was quiet for the moment. “See for yourself,” she said. “Take your chance now, while you can. We may not be as quiet as this for the rest of the day!”

  It was only after they had gone that Megan realised Giles Elliott hadn’t been there when the arrest had happened. Pity, she thought ruefully, he would have seen us at our most efficient.

  Jamie Green was sitting at the desk looking at some X-rays on the wall-mounted screen and Megan wandered over to him. “Pity our new consultant, Mr. Giles Elliott, wasn’t around to see our efficient arrest team in action,” she remarked.

  Jamie pulled a face and gave a resigned sigh. “Yes when everything goes with textbook precision there is never anybody to see it. Not anybody important, anyway.” He raised his eyebrows expressively. “But when something goes wrong, you can be sure you hit the headlines!”

  “That’s one of the hazards of medicine—the criticism is far faster in coming than the praise.” Giles Elliott had walked up behind without either of them hearing him.

  Megan turned round quickly, feeling slightly irritated. He seemed to make a habit of looming up into conversations. It was irrational of her, she knew, to feel that way, particularly as he had been very pleasant. It was just that the sound of his voice made her jump and inexplicably sent her heart into a crazy erratic rhythm—and anyway, she told herself, trying to ignore the beating of her heart, she wasn’t too keen on having a consultant looking over her shoulder, particularly when the consultant concerned noticed everything!