Chapter Ten

‘I NEED to listen to your chest.’

James loved his job, but at times the system frustrated him. Lorna had dozed after lunch and slept most of the evening, eating some of the chicken soup he’d brought for her and drinking a glass of water as per his instructions. She promptly went back to sleep, only to wake after midnight, coughing and crying and coughing some more. This patient should not have been sent home, aside from the fact that her home was a six-hour drive away, it was too soon for a layperson to be expected to look after her. Worse, James thought as he leant her forward and listened to her chest, was the idea of her lying in a hotel room, coughing and in pain, with no one to look after her. No, this patient should be in a hospital bed, James said to himself as, embarrassed for her, he helped Lorna with her buttons and listened to the front of her chest.

The bruising was appalling. He had been slightly taken aback by the strength of her analgesics, but, hey, seeing the bruising, he accepted it now.

No wonder she’d sobbed when he’d put on the seat belt. Lorna was the toughest woman he knew, and for just a flash, a little flash, he remembered that first night home after her operation. Lorna had been in pain, but had lain quietly beside him and not once acknowledged it. How he’d wished that she had.

‘A few creps…’ He pulled off his stethoscope. He’d checked her temp and it was on the high side of normal, but James was sure it had recently been otherwise. Despite her urgent coughing, regular deep breathing was proving difficult, which meant, given the noise he had heard on her chest, that a chest infection was brewing.

‘You ought to be re-admitted.’ He saw her anguished look. ‘Okay, we’ll start you on some antibiotics, but if things don’t turn around quickly, you’ll have to go back for a chest X-ray. You need to do more deep breathing and coughing.’

‘I can’t stop coughing!’

James headed over to work. It was a trip he was used to making in the middle of the night and he smiled when he saw May.

‘Did we call you in?’ May asked.

‘Nope. I’m here for myself, well, Lorna actually. She’s recuperating at my place for a few days before she goes back to Scotland.’ He chatted as he wrote out a script and gave it to May. The emergency department carried a supply of drugs that could be dispensed at night, and May found a bottle of antibiotics while James took a vial and a needle and syringe.

‘I’ll give her an IM shot and then hopefully she’ll be okay on oral. How long are you on nights for?’

‘A couple of weeks. All the senior staff are having to pitch in,’ May tutted. ‘I know it’s not the time or place, but we are so short of medical staff, there’s too much falling on the nurses.’

‘We’re interviewing,’ James said. ‘There are more ads in the papers this week. That’s all we can do at the moment.’

‘Well, tell Lorna to hurry up and get well.’

‘I’m hardly going to work with my ex-wife, May.’ He grinned as she walked with him through the department.

‘Well, she’s staying with you, so you clearly get on and Ellie can’t mind. She’s a nice girl, Ellie.’

‘She is.’

‘It was nice to meet her.’

Driving home, there was a certain disquiet in James as he realised for the second time that day he had chosen to let people think Ellie and he were still an item. It was easier, James consoled himself, far, far easier than letting May get ideas. And as for Lorna…walking back into the house, he still hadn’t come up with an answer to that one.

‘That does hurt!’ Funny that Lorna was less embarrassed getting a penicillin shot in the bottom from James than from some strange nurse. He was so matter-of-fact and so…James. The only real discomfort was the needle.

‘Yes, but it works,’ he said as she settled back on the pillows. ‘I stopped at the petrol station and bought you some blackcurrant cordial. You’re not drinking enough.’ He returned a couple of minutes later with a big glass of her favourite drink when she was ill and made her drink the lot.

‘Right.’ He sat on the side of the bed. ‘I have to go to work tomorrow. I don’t want to. In fact, I don’t think you should be on your own.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Listen,’ James interrupted, not up to small talk at two a.m. ‘We’re short on doctors, the place is struggling, so I have to be there, but I’m five minutes away. If we get a lull I’ll come home. Also I’ll ask my cleaning lady to stay a couple of hours extra.’ He grinned at her wide-eyed look. ‘Do you think the house looks like this by itself? Actually, even with Pauline, it doesn’t normally look this good. She’s really gone to town for you coming. Usually it’s a bit chaotic, she’s not exactly obsessively tidy, but she is kind and sort of…’ He tried to think of the word. ‘Sort of a mum.’

‘Not my sort of mum, I hope!’ Lorna said. ‘That’s the last thing I need.’ Which made her smile, which made him laugh, which made her laugh too, which of course made her cough.

‘Get some sleep,’ James said once her coughing fit was over. ‘I’ll put my head in in the morning, but I won’t wake you.’

‘Thank you,’ Lorna said. Then she said it again, but with different emphasis, so grateful he was there, that he had stepped in and that it was James looking after her during this horrible time. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re more than welcome.’

‘And I am sorry,’ Lorna added, ‘for all the trouble.’

‘These things are sent to try us!’ James said in a Scottish accent, mimicking her father as he had never been able to before, and when she laughed he was relieved that she did.

Oh, she was trouble all right. Despite her prim little ways and her assurances that she would be gone in just a few days, James knew that as he stretched out in his rather basic spare room a whole pile of trouble had just landed in his life and upended it.