The Surgeon's Marriage. Maggie Kingsley

is it—what’s wrong?’ Helen asked as Mark took her by the elbow and steered her to the bottom of the ward, leaving Annie to comfort the woman.

      ‘At the moment nothing more drastic than a very bad case of indigestion, but…’ He shook his head. ‘What do you know about thalassaemia major?’

      ‘That it’s a serious, inherited childhood anaemia, most commonly found in people of Mediterranean or Asian descent.’ Helen glanced over her shoulder at the sobbing woman. ‘Is that why Mrs Dukakis is so upset—is she a thalassaemia carrier?’

      ‘Mrs Dukakis hadn’t even heard of the condition until I asked her whether she had any other children,’ Mark said grimly. ‘She thought she was having a miscarriage.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Helen, she only came to Glasgow four months ago. Before that she and her husband lived in a poor, very isolated part of Greece with limited medical facilities. All she knows is she’s given birth to two other children, and neither of them reached their second birthday. The wasting disease, the people in her village called it.’

      What must it be like to lose two children? Helen wondered, staring at Nana Dukakis. To feel them grow inside you, feel them move, then give birth to them, only for them to die so quickly. It didn’t bear thinking of.

      ‘It’s too late to take a sample from the baby’s umbilical cord to find out if it has thalassaemia major, isn’t it?’ she murmured. ‘If she’d known she was a carrier when she first arrived in Glasgow we could have done the test, then offered her a termination, but at six months pregnant…’

      ‘It’s too late, but there’s still a lot we can do,’ Mark declared, his green eyes encouraging. ‘First we need to test her and her husband to find out if they’re both carriers. If her husband’s not, this baby might be all right, and even if it isn’t we can start giving it monthly blood transfusions as soon as it’s born, and regular injections of Desferal to ensure its liver and kidneys aren’t damaged.’

      Regular blood transfusions and injections of Desferal. It sounded a wretched life for a little baby, and Mark must have read her thoughts because he smiled. A small, rueful smile.

      ‘It’s better than the alternative, Helen, and new treatments are being tried out all the time. We’re getting excellent results from bone-marrow transplants, and there’s also a lot of work being done with gene therapy.’

      He was right, she knew he was, and it was stupid of her to be thinking so negatively. ‘What have you told her?’

      ‘The truth. There was no point in skirting round the subject, so I told her I thought her other children had died because they had thalassaemia major, but if we started treating her baby as soon as it was born there was a very good chance it could live to be as old as you or I.’

      Helen nodded, then sighed as more immediate concerns suddenly occurred to her. ‘You know we can’t possibly keep her in—not for indigestion.’

      ‘I’m going to sweet-talk Admissions, ask if she can at least stay for the night. It will give her time to calm down, and me the chance to run some tests.’

      ‘It’s going to take some real sweet-talking,’ Helen commented. ‘We’re wall-to-wall patients at the moment.’

      He grinned. ‘You don’t think I’m up to it?’

      Oh, he was up to it all right, she thought. In fact, if he treated the women who worked in Admissions to one of his blinding smiles they’d probably agree to Mrs Dukakis staying in one of their private rooms for the duration of her pregnancy.

      ‘Actually, you might not have to talk to Admissions,’ Annie said, overhearing the last of their conversation as she joined them. ‘Mrs Foster went home this morning—’

      ‘Hallelujah!’

      ‘And Rhona Scott’s not due in for her cornual anastomosis until Monday—’

      ‘So unless an emergency comes in we’ve got a vacant bed for the next few days.’ Mark’s eyes lit up. ‘Liz could OK it for me, couldn’t she?’

      ‘Yes, but—’

      ‘Oh, Liz, light of my life, joy of my heart,’ he exclaimed, heading off towards the sister before either of them could stop him. ‘Could I have a word?’

      Annie shook her head as she watched him go. ‘He’s quite something, isn’t he? Handsome, charming and about as reliable as a fifty-pence watch.’

      ‘You reckon?’ Helen murmured, seeing Liz frown, then nod, then dissolve into helpless laughter when Mark kissed her soundly on the cheek.

      ‘Don’t you?’

      There was a very decided edge to the junior doctor’s voice, and Helen glanced back at her thoughtfully. She’d never asked—had never thought it was her business to ask—why Annie hadn’t married her son’s father, but now she thought she knew.

      ‘Annie—’