‘That’s the school bus,’ Tom declared as a horn sounded outside. He glanced down at his watch and frowned. ‘Helen, I hate to hurry you, but we really do have to go. I’ll start the car, shall I?’
The smile on her lips died. He couldn’t perhaps have offered to wash the breakfast dishes first, or tidy up the sitting room? No, of course he couldn’t. The dishes would still be waiting for her when she got home tonight, and the sitting room would still look as though a bomb had hit it.
Oh, stop it, Helen, she told herself as she shepherded Emma and John out to the school bus, trying hard to ignore Emma’s reproachful expression which said all too clearly, Everyone else’s mum would have remembered my T-shirt. Tom’s a good husband, a loving husband, and you know he would have washed the dishes in a minute if you’d asked him. Yes, but I shouldn’t need to ask him, she argued back. He should have known.
‘Everything OK, love?’ Tom asked, shooting her a puzzled frown as she got into the car beside him, then fastened her seat belt.
‘Fine,’ she managed to reply, but everything wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot.
Tom would probably have said she was simply suffering from a bad case of overwork, and maybe she was. This last month at the Belfield Infirmary had certainly been a nightmare, what with Rachel Dunwoody suddenly taking compassionate leave because of the death of her aunt, then Annie Hart and Gideon Caldwell getting married.
Not that she begrudged the junior doctor and ward consultant their happiness—in fact, she’d been delighted when they’d finally got together—and poor Rachel had obviously been shattered by her aunt’s death so it wasn’t surprising she’d asked for time off, but all the upheaval had meant so much extra work for her and Tom, and she was feeling it.
‘This friend of yours who’s standing in for Rachel,’ she said as Tom negotiated the busy rush-hour traffic. ‘You said he’s been working in Australia for the last ten years?’
Tom nodded. ‘Mark headed out to Sydney right after he qualified. He worked there for a couple of years, then moved to a senior house officer’s post in Canberra, and he’s been working as a specialist registrar for the last eighteen months in Melbourne.’
‘And he’s going to Canada in six weeks,’ she said, trying and failing to keep the envy out of her voice. She’d wanted to work abroad, too, when she’d been younger, but then the children had arrived, and the years had flown by, and here she was still living and working in Glasgow. ‘I hope he isn’t going to find us too boring after all his travelling.’
‘Why should he think we’re boring?’ Tom said in surprise. ‘I don’t think we’re boring and, knowing Mark, he’s probably only going to Canada because some irate boyfriend is after him.’
‘Some irate boyfriend?’ she repeated, bewildered, and her husband grinned.
‘Back in med school there wasn’t a girl who wasn’t potty about him. In fact, he actually had the nerve to poach a couple of my girlfriends, but…’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘The crazy thing is we still stayed friends. Maybe it’s because he could always make me see the funny side of things.’
‘Charming as well as handsome,’ she observed. ‘Sounds like a pretty potent combination.’
‘It is. Mind you, I’m talking about the Mark Lorimer I knew a long time ago. Ten years of Australian sun, sea and food could have made him fat, bald and charmless.’
‘Is that true concern I hear, Tom Brooke, or a bad case of wishful thinking?’ she teased, and her husband’s lips quirked.
‘What do you think?’
That he had no need to envy his friend, she decided. Tom was a good-looking man—better-looking now, in fact, than he’d been when they’d first met. At twenty-four he’d been a lanky six-footer, with a shock of brown hair, and a pair of smiling grey eyes. Ten years on, the hair and eyes were still the same, but he’d filled out, grown more muscular, and it suited him.
I’ve filled out a bit in the last ten years, too, she thought wryly, but I doubt if anyone would say it suited me.
She was snacking too much, that was the trouble, but she never seemed to have time for a proper meal. If she wasn’t racing round Obs and Gynae, she was chasing after John and Emma, making sure they’d done their homework properly and had clean clothes to wear for the next day.
Apart from white T-shirts, she thought guiltily, suddenly remembering Emma’s disgruntled face. She’d wash and iron it tonight, after she’d done the weekly shop at the supermarket.
‘Helen, are you quite sure you’re OK?’
She looked up blankly to see they’d arrived at the Belfield Infirmary and Tom was gazing at her with concern.
‘Of course I am,’ she replied, bewildered. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Because…’ To her surprise he suddenly reached out and gently cupped her cheek in his hand. ‘I’ve been speaking to you for the last five minutes, and I swear you haven’t heard a word.’
To her acute dismay the tears she’d felt earlier began to resurface, and she gulped them down quickly.
‘I’m fine—honestly I am,’ she replied with a shaky smile. ‘Just…just a little tired.’
He swore under his breath. ‘It’s all the extra hours you’ve been working recently, not to mention having to look after John and Emma and me. Look, why don’t I do the weekly shop tonight—give you a break?’
For a second she was tempted, then a bubble of laughter came from her. ‘Tom, if you do the shopping I know exactly what will happen. You’ll come back from the supermarket with enough food to feed an army, plus a whole load of stuff that nobody likes because you noticed it was on special offer.’
His lips curved. ‘What if I promise to stick to your list?’
‘I’ll do the shopping. I’m OK—really I am,’ she insisted, seeing his frown reappear. ‘Now that Mark Lorimer’s starting work today, everything will be fine.’
And it would be, she told herself as she got out of the car and followed Tom into the hospital. With the department fully staffed again she wouldn’t be so tired all the time, and stupid, niggling little things wouldn’t keep irritating her. She knew they wouldn’t.
‘OK, cheer me up on a cold April day,’ she instructed Annie when she found the junior doctor in the staffroom, getting ready to go off duty. ‘Tell me the ward was quiet last night, that not one single emergency came in, then give me permission to go home.’
‘You don’t want cheering up,’ Annie protested. ‘You want a miracle.’
‘I know, but it was worth a try.’ Helen laughed. ‘OK, what’s the current situation?’
‘Mrs Foster burst some of her stitches last night. Apparently she was straining to pass a motion—Yes, I know,’ the junior doctor said as Helen groaned. ‘Not the brightest thing in the world to do when you’ve just had a hysterectomy, but there you go. Mrs Dawn accidentally dislodged her catheter at midnight—’
‘Oh, no.’
‘And—and,’ Annie continued, ‘just to add to the overall fun and excitement, Mrs Alexander suddenly developed a deep-vein thrombosis in her leg.’
‘Is she all right?’ Helen asked with concern.
‘Gideon’s put her on anticoagulants, and we’ve got her in compression stockings, but it looks like we could be in for big problems when she gives birth.’
It did. Mary Alexander was thirty-six weeks pregnant, and she’d only been sent in by her GP because he thought her blood pressure was a little high. A Caesarean might be the answer, but if the clot moved to her lungs during the operation…
‘I’ll