‘It’s no problem.’
‘Actually,’ Siobhan answered, ‘if another emergency comes in, or someone goes off and you’re holding a baby, it becomes one!’
‘Ooh, that smells nice!’ Sheila’s only comment was about the smell wafting over as Siobhan stirred her supper. ‘What is it?’
‘Veal and noodles,’ Siobhan said, and just for a second, so small no one, not even Ruby, noticed, there was a shadow of a smile on Cort’s mouth as Ruby rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath.
‘That’d be right.’
She hated it, Cort fully realised. Behind the smile she was in torture, and given what had gone on, he’d made it much worse for her.
‘Thanks so much.’ A tearful mum came and took her baby and tried to scoop up the toddler, who was on the floor.
‘I know I keep asking, but have you any idea how much longer?’
‘We’ll get to him as soon as we can,’ Siobhan answered before Ruby had a chance. ‘Only there are still a couple of patients before him and it will take two staff to hold him down and we just can’t spare them at the moment.’
‘But you’ve time to sit and eat,’ the mum snapped.
‘I’m eating my supper at the desk because I’m on hold to Poisons Information and I expect to be for the next half-hour,’ came Siobhan’s tart response.
‘I’m actually supposed to be on my break, but I’m here to hopefully free up a colleague.’
Yes, she was right, but it could have been handled so much better, because the mum promptly burst into tears. ‘There are drunks down in the waiting room. I can’t sit and breastfeed …’
And Ruby truly didn’t know what to do. There was literally nowhere to put them. Every cubicle was full, all the interview rooms were taken, and though, had it been up to her, she’d have popped Mum into the staffroom, the reality was it was needed for staff to get a break from the perpetual craziness.
‘Bring him through.’ Cort stood up. He didn’t have time, but he’d just have to make it.
‘Suture room’s not cleaned from the last one.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Ruby said, and glanced at Siobhan. ‘And I can hold him by myself.’
Ruby scuttled off and did the quickest clean-up she could, then washed her hands and set up a trolley for Cort.
‘You’ll need a drawer sheet to wrap him in.’ Cort came in, but didn’t look at her. ‘Mum won’t be able to help with holding him.’
‘I know.’
He pulled up the anaesthetic so that the little boy wouldn’t see the needle, opened up the sutures then told Ruby to bring him in.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Adam,’ Ruby said, and flushed, and it was stupid and so, so irrelevant that it was the same name as her brother’s, but it just made a point, a stupid point, that they knew more about the other than they ought to officially. ‘I’ll go and get him.’
‘You don’t have to come in,’ Ruby offered, but his mum was sure that she’d rather.
‘Well, if it gets too much,’ Ruby said, just as she’d seen the others do, ‘just slip out.’
‘He’s going to struggle and scream,’ Cort explained, ‘and it will sting for a bit when I put the anaesthetic in, but after that he won’t feel a thing.’ He explained a little further as Ruby tightly wrapped the little boy. ‘It’s not fair to settle him down only to stick him with a needle, so once the anaesthetic is in, we’ll try and calm him.’
The only way one person could hold him was to practically use the weight of her body over the swaddled child and hold his face with two gloved hands as he screamed loudly in Ruby’s ear.
‘It will be finished soon, Adam,’ Ruby said, and she swore she felt the needle go in as he shrieked even louder.
‘That’s it.’ Cort’s voice was loud and deep and caught Adam by surprise. He paused his screaming for just a second. ‘All the horrible bit’s finished with,’ Cort said to the little boy, and then spoke to Ruby. ‘Loosen up on him while it takes effect.’
‘It’s okay.’ His mum tried to soothe him, but the baby was crying now too and she was about to as well—either that or pass out. ‘I think I’ll go out …’
‘We’ll take good care of him,’ Cort said, and then he looked down at the toddler. ‘I’m going to make it better in a moment and then you can go home.’ He spoke to him in a matter-of-fact voice and maybe all the fight had left him, but the little boy did stop screaming. ‘It’s not going to hurt now.’ He turned to Ruby. ‘Go round the other side.’ She did so and Cort changed his gloves and put a little green drape over his head, and they were back to where they started, away from the bedlam and shut in the suture room, but there was a whole lot more between them than a patient now. ‘You just look at Ruby,’ Cort said, which Adam did, and though he did whimper a few times, he was much calmer as Cort worked on quietly.
‘Could it have been glued?’ Ruby asked, because it would have been much easier.
‘It needs a couple of dissolvable sutures—it’s a pretty deep cut,’ Cort explained. ‘And it needed a good clean.’ He turned and smiled as a much calmer mum stepped into the room. ‘Just wait there,’ Cort said, but very nicely. ‘He’s in the zone. If he sees you he’ll think it’s over. We shan’t be long.’ There was one more snip and then as he went to clean it, Ruby could see what he meant by in the zone, because the second Adam sensed it was over, he shot up, saw his mum and not a tightly wrapped drawer sheet or Ruby could have kept him still a second longer.
‘Mum!’ He burst into tears all over again.
‘We’re finished!’ Cort said. ‘You get to choose your plaster now.’ And he would have left it to Ruby, but he didn’t, took just that one moment to help the little boy select.
‘Thanks so much. I’m sorry about before …’ the mum said.
‘We’re sorry you’ve had to wait,’ Ruby said.
‘That nurse …’ she explained. ‘I know she should get her proper break. I had no right to say anything.’
‘It’s fine,’ Cort said.
‘I don’t know how you do it.’ She looked at Ruby, who smiled back at her. ‘I don’t know how you can work in this place.’
‘You get used to it,’ Ruby said, because it was either that or fall into the woman’s arms like Adam and beg her to take her away from here.
‘Take him home to bed and let him sleep, but you need to check him regularly.’
‘I’ll have him in with me.’
‘Good. Stitches out in five days at your GP.’ He went through all the head-injury instructions as Ruby found a leaflet then started to clean up.
‘Cort,’ Ruby said, because it was the only chance she had to do so, ‘about—’
‘Leave it, Ruby.’ Because he just couldn’t do this.
‘I am sorry.’
So that made it fine, then. Mature he may be, but still it hurt and he just didn’t have it in him to accept her apology as easily as that.
‘You just concentrate on getting through your work.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘What do you want, Ruby?’ He glanced to the door to check no one could hear. ‘You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear.’ When she opened