That was how she had felt as a child whenever she was left here.
Yes, left.
Her father’s quick check-in at work often turned into hours but, though alone, and though lonely, here Victoria had always felt safe.
‘I don’t want it to close,’ Penny said again.
‘I know that you don’t.’ Victoria nodded. ‘But Riverside is a gorgeous hospital and the staff there are lovely too.’
‘It’s not the same.’ Penny shook her head and there were tears in her grey eyes.
‘You don’t have to worry about all that now,’ Victoria soothed. ‘It might not happen.’
She wished she could say it probably wouldn’t but it was looking more and more likely with each passing day.
And it mattered.
‘Penny!’ Karen, a charge nurse, recognised Penny straight away. ‘You didn’t come all this way just to see me, I hope!’
‘No.’ Penny gave a little laugh, but just as Victoria went to hand over, Karen was urgently summoned.
‘It’s fine—we can wait.’ Victoria nodded.
They stood in the corridor and made sure that Penny was okay, while Glen chatted with her mother and Victoria started to fill out the required paperwork.
He was there.
She knew it.
And although they clashed, although she had told herself that she hoped he wouldn’t be there this evening, Victoria had lied.
She wanted to see him.
Dominic MacBride had been working at Paddington’s for a few months.
He was from Edinburgh and that low Scottish brogue had Victoria’s toes curl in her heavy boots. Or was it his blue eyes and tousled black hair?
Or was it just him?
She couldn’t quite place why she liked Dominic so much. He was crabby with the paramedics and he and Victoria tended to clash.
A lot!
And he was making his way over.
‘Here we go,’ Glen said under his breath, referring to the argument that Dominic and Victoria had had three days ago.
Victoria was very confident in all her dealings and her assertion seemed to rub Dominic up the wrong way.
He made his way straight over.
‘Are you being seen to?’ he checked.
‘Yes, thanks,’ Victoria said. ‘Karen’s taking care of us. She’ll be back shortly.’
Victoria got back to filling in the patient report form but, just as she did, Julia chimed up.
‘She’s a direct admission but she’s just going to have a quick chest X-ray before she goes to the ward.’
‘I see.’ Dominic nodded and then he came over to where Victoria stood. She could feel him in her space and that he was requiring her attention but she carried on writing her notes, refusing to look up.
His scent was subtle, soapy, musky and male and the faint traces cut through the more familiar hospital scent.
And still she did not look up.
‘Could I have a word, please?’ he asked.
And now Victoria looked up, quite a long way, in fact, because he was very tall and broad.
He was wearing dark navy scrubs and he needed a shave. He looked as if he had either rolled out of bed or should be about to roll into one and she did her best to stop her thought process there.
‘Sure,’ Victoria said. She was about to be churlish and add, In a moment, and then take said moment to finish her report, but instead she moved away from the stretcher and followed him into a small annexe.
He leant against a sink and she stood in front of him, not quite to attention but she was very ready to walk off.
‘Can you not see how busy we are?’ Dominic said. ‘We don’t have time to do the wards’ work as well.’
‘I don’t make the rules.’
‘You know them though and your patient is a direct admission,’ Dominic said. ‘If she goes up to the ward she can wait in a comfortable bed.’
Victoria said nothing.
They both knew the unofficial consensus was that Penny would be pushed to the front of the X-ray list, just so she could quickly be moved up to the ward.
The annexe was very small.
Dominic was not.
He was tall and broad and his eyes demanded that she look at him; Victoria rose to the challenge and met his angry glare as he spoke.
‘I’ve just come from explaining to a father that there’s a three-hour wait for an X-ray. Your arrival has just added to that load.’
‘So what would you like me to do?’ Victoria asked.
She just threw it back at him because, despite the comfortable bed that Penny would have on the ward, once there she would be shuffled to the bottom of the X-ray pile. It could well be midnight before she was brought down to the Imaging Department.
‘It’s not just a matter of filling in an X-ray request,’ Dominic said. ‘She should be examined before she goes around. If anything happens to her without her being seen—’
‘So,’ Victoria calmly interrupted, ‘what would you like me to do?’
She did not engage in small talk; she was confident and assertive and refused to row.
‘There you are.’ Karen came into the annexe. ‘Cubicle four has opened up if you’d like to bring Penny through.’
She and Dominic stared at each other.
The choice was his.
‘Fine,’ he eventually said, and Karen nodded and went back to Penny.
‘Next time...’ Dominic warned, but Victoria just shrugged and walked off.
‘Victoria!’
She halted.
There was an angry edge to his voice, but that wasn’t what stopped her—she didn’t think he even knew her name, so his use of it surprised her.
‘Don’t just shrug and walk off when I’m trying to have a conversation.’
‘A pointless one,’ Victoria said as she turned around. ‘In fact, we had the same conversation three days ago.’
His mood had been just as bloody then and she watched as his eyes shuttered for a moment.
‘As I said then, I just go where I’m told and deal with the inevitable angry consequence—I get your ire if I bring the patient here, or the ire of the ward if they arrive without the X-ray.’
She went to walk off, but this time it was Victoria who changed her mind and continued the conversation.
‘Sometimes it’s made easy though and the staff get that I’m just doing my job. That’s generally the case at Paddington’s, though I guess it just depends who’s on. I have to go and move my patient and then I’m out of here. Which is just as well...’
And then she crossed the line.
For the first time she made it personal. ‘Your misery is catching.’
Dominic watched as she swished out of the annexe and he let out a long breath.
They were both right.
There were limited resources and the staff all fought for the charges in their care.