And really the answer didn’t matter.
She and Jed were over. If he had slept with Penny she just wanted to be as far away from them both as possible when the truth came out. ‘I’m thinking of taking the job in the fracture clinic.’
Penny looked up.
‘Why?’
‘Because …’ Jasmine shrugged ‘… it’s not working, is it?’
‘Actually, I thought it was,’ Penny said. ‘I was worried at first, thought you’d be rushing to my defence every five minutes or calling me out, but apart from that morning with the baby …’ She thought for a moment before she spoke. ‘Well, seeing you work, you’d have said the same to any doctor.’ She gave her sister a brief smile. ‘You don’t have to leave on my account. So long as you can keep your mouth shut.’
Her mum had made trifle—a vast mango one with piles of cream—and normally Jasmine would have dived into it, but she’d lost her appetite of late and Penny ate like a bird at the best of times. Louise took one spoonful and then changed her mind.
‘I must have eaten too fast,’ Louise said. ‘I’ve got terrible indigestion.’
‘I’ll put it back in the fridge,’ Jasmine said, clearing the table.
‘Take some home,’ her mum suggested. ‘I don’t fancy it.’ She smiled to Simon, who was the only one tucking in. ‘He can have some for breakfast.’
‘Jasmine.’ Penny caught her as she was heading out of the front door. ‘Look, I know I kicked up when I found out you were going to be working in Emergency.’ Penny actually went a bit pink. ‘I think that I went a bit far. I just didn’t think we could keep things separate, but things seem to be working out fine.’
‘What if you get the consultant’s position?’ Jasmine checked. ‘Wouldn’t that just make things more difficult?’
‘Maybe,’ Penny said. ‘But I don’t think it’s fair that you have to change your career just because of me. You’re good at what you do.’
It was the closest she had ever come to a compliment from her sister.
‘Look,’ Penny said, ‘I do want to talk to you if that’s okay—not here … not yet.’ She closed her eyes. ‘It’s …’ She blew out a breath. ‘Look, you know how I bang on about work and keeping things separate? Well, maybe I’ve being a bit of a hypocrite.’
‘Are you seeing someone?’
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’ Penny shook her head. ‘Let me just get the interview over with. I mustn’t lose focus now.’ She let out a wry laugh. ‘Who knows, I might not even get the job and then there won’t be a problem.’
‘Sorry?’ Jasmine didn’t get it. ‘I thought you were desperate to be a consultant.’
‘Yes, well, maybe someone else might want the role more than I do,’ Penny said. ‘Forget I said anything. We’ll catch up soon.’
And as Jasmine lay in bed that night, she was quite sure she knew what the problem was.
Penny was worried that if she got the position it might hurt Jed.
For the first time in a long time Penny was actually putting another person before herself. She actually cared about another person.
The same person her younger sister had been sleeping with.
Monday morning was busy—it always was, with patients left over from a busy weekend still waiting for beds to clear on the ward, and all the patients who had left things till the weekend had passed seemed to arrive on Emergency’s doorstep all the worse for the wait. Jed didn’t arrive in the department till eleven and was wearing a suit that was, for once, not crumpled. He was very clean-shaven and she knew he wasn’t making any effort on her behalf, especially when Penny came back from a meeting in Admin and her always immaculately turned-out sister was looking just that touch more so.
Clearly it was interview day.
She had to leave.
It really was a no-brainer—she could hardly even bear to look at Penny. She made the mistake of telling Vanessa on their coffee break that she was going to apply for the fracture clinic job.
‘You’d be bored senseless in the fracture clinic.’ Vanessa laughed as they shifted trolleys to try to make space for a new patient that was being brought over. Unfortunately, though, Vanessa said it at a time when Lisa and Jed were moving a two-year-old who had had a febrile convulsion from a cubicle into Resus.
‘I’d be glad of the peace,’ Jasmine said, and she would be, she told herself, because she couldn’t go on like this. It wasn’t about the workload, more about having to face Jed and Penny every day and waiting for the bomb to drop when he found out that she and Penny were sisters.
She could not face her sister if she ever found out that she and Jed had been together, even if it had been over for ages.
But then she looked over and saw that Lisa and Jed were there and, more, that they must have heard her talking about the fracture clinic job.
She wasn’t so much worried about Jed’s reaction—no doubt he was privately relieved—but Lisa gave her a less-than-impressed look and inwardly Jasmine kicked herself.
‘Sorry,’ Vanessa winced. ‘Me and my mouth.’
‘It’s my fault for saying anything,’ Jasmine said, but there wasn’t time to worry about it now. Instead, she took over from Lisa.
‘Aiden Wilkins. His temp is forty point two,’ Lisa said. ‘He had a seizure while Jed was examining him. He’s never had one before. He’s already had rectal paracetamol.’
‘Thanks.’
‘He’s seizing again.’ Just as Lisa got to the Resus door, Aidan started to have another convulsion. Jed gave him some diazepam and told Jasmine to ring the paediatrician, which she did, but as she came off the phone Jed gave another order. ‘Fast-page him now, also the anaesthetist.’
‘Everything okay?’ Penny stopped at the foot of the bed as Vanessa took the mum away because she was growing increasingly upset, understandably so.
‘Prolonged seizure,’ Jed said. ‘He’s just stopped, but I’ve just noticed a petechial rash on his abdomen.’ Penny looked closely as Jed bought her up to speed. ‘That wasn’t there fifteen minutes ago when I first examined him.’
‘Okay, let’s get some penicillin into him,’ Penny said, but Jed shook his head.
‘I want to do a spinal. Jasmine, can you hold him?’
Speed really was of the essence. Aiden needed the antibiotics, but Jed needed to get some cultures so that the lab would be able to work out the best drugs to give the toddler in the coming days. Thankfully he was used to doing the delicate procedure and in no time had three vials of spinal fluid. Worryingly, Jed noted it was cloudy.
Jasmine wheeled over the crash trolley and started to pull up the drugs when, as so often happened in Resus, Penny was called away as the paramedics sped another patient in.
‘Penny!’ came Lisa’s calm but urgent voice. ‘Can I have a hand now, please?’
‘Go,’ Jed said. ‘I’ve got this.’
The place just exploded then. The paediatrician and anaesthetist arrived just as an emergency page for a cardiac arrest for the new patient was put out.
‘Jed!’ Penny’s voice was shrill from behind the curtain. ‘Can I have a hand here?’
‘I’m kind of busy now, Penny.’ Jed stated the