Angel Kate (5 page)

'I can imagine,' murmured Kate, looking down at her neatly folded hands so that Mrs Harris shouldn't notice the twinkle in her eyes.

Tom Galvan was creating a right old pantomime, by the sound of things. Couldn't they appreciate how frustrating it must be for him? Stuck in a hospital bed while his theatre lists built up and his team struggled to carry on as best they could without their neuro-surgeon chief.

Experienced nurse of character, indeed! It's obvious no one else wants the job.
Kate's lips tightened.
Mrs Harris is afraid I'll turn her down - and what's she going to do then?

I don't see myself as a tough no-nonsense cookie—and I don't really think Mrs Harris does either. But she knows I've experienced worse things in life than a wounded surgeon on the rampage.

Mrs Harris got up and came round to the front of her desk, looking up at the tall skinny staff nurse. 'We have to help Mr Galvan come to terms with what has happened. The medical staff are extremely concerned for his future but the prognosis is hopeful. You will do it, won't you, Kate. You won't let me down.'

Kate nodded and smiled. 'Of course I will, Mrs Harris.' She could have added, because I care about what happens to Tom Galvan, and I'll put up with whatever comes my way. And also it gets me off A&E, she thought and felt her shoulders sag.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

The CNO smiled back, relief written all over her  cheerful face. 'We don't yet know what the outcome of Tom's injuries will be. Underneath it all, there's a lovely lovely man facing potential catastrophe and the end of his career. I know we can rely on you to be understanding. You've been involved with this case from the start. Can you start tomorrow? Excellent. Go on home and get a good night's rest.'

Because you're leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire,
figured Kate wryly.

'And report to Sister Carter eight am sharp.
'

Next morning, pulling over her head the white uniform dress worn on the private wing, Kate was much less confident. As she snapped the press-stud fastenings in place she pulled a face at the sight of herself in the mirror. She was far from vain, but this was verging on the ridiculous. The dresses provided were far too big. But it was a temporary job so she'd have to make do. She tightened her navy belt and  fastened the silver nurses' buckle her mother had given  her on graduation.  

'At least I'll be able to scotch all those rumours about Mr Galvan having arms amputated and personality-altering head injuries.'

*  *  *

The Sister-in-Charge concluded her brisk résumé of the cases on Corridor B. 'Now Kate, I think that's everything. If you find yourself with a quiet moment take a look at the relevant case notes. But your prime responsibility is Mr Galvan.'

'Of course, Sister.' Kate tucked notebook and pencil back into her pocket.

This staff nurse looked cool as a cucumber, Sister Carter was relieved to note. Tall, straight-backed. No make-up and a severe hairdo that dragged her hair away from her pale face. Steady eye contact.

She wasn't a youngster and that was just as well.
Stamina, and a natural authority that doesn't offend others
, to quote Mrs Harris. It would take more than a grumpy surgeon to make
this one cry.

Though it sickened her to ask, Kate made herself say it. 'Could there be a degree of brain damage? There's a rumour that Mr Galvan's unusual behaviour is the result of trauma. '

Sister Carter snorted inelegantly. 'Nothing of the kind on his CT scan. No, he's just being a naughty boy and causing me a lot of trouble. He's angry with everyone and everything. Never a day's illness in his life—and suddenly finds he's as vulnerable as the next man!' Beneath an expanse of blue cloth her impressive bosom heaved.

But the indignation was a mite simulated because like all the rest, Sister Carter was under the charismatic surgeon's spell. All it needed was a nurse capable of keeping cool under fire. He was a darling, really. One of the sweetest of men in his normal frame of mind.

'You have my permission to bind and gag him if need be. Stand up to our Tom, give him what for. I've told him he needs his bottom smacked and that the
last
person I'm sending him is a blonde student nurse with enormous …!' Sister Carter tut-tutted and raised her eyes to heaven.

Kate got the picture. In fact it gave her what seemed, on the spur of the moment, a brilliant idea! It would only take a moment.

'Sister,' called a voice from one of the rooms and with an encouraging nod of dismissal, Sister Carter bustled off. Just then came a crash at the far end of the corridor. Kate swung on her heel and hurried in the direction of the noise. 'What on earth!' she exclaimed, following the door numbers. Uh -uh! Room 27, I might have guessed.

It sounded mighty like Tom Galvan had hurled his breakfast tray at someone. And the way he was bawling about the food it was a wonder the other occupants of Corridor B didn't justifiably complain.

Time to put her plan into action.

The staff cloakroom lay immediately to her left, so Kate with beating heart slipped inside. This was going to be a real challenge. Wanted to be specialled by a curvy blonde, did he? Well, he was going the wrong way about it. Bad behaviour was going to get its own reward.

Adding a touch of the powder used on latex gloves to her already pale complexion, Nurse Wisdom assumed an expression of tight-lipped severity. Yes, great, that would do nicely. On her nose she stuck her dark-framed reading glasses; they gave her a nicely  forbidding air and a blurred image of anything further away than a good book. First impressions counted, and if the prospect of being ministered to by a no- nonsense, humourless young woman failed to calm this irascible patient —then she'd eat her … eat her… well, it would just have to work. With the belt loosened, Kate's uniform dress hung limp as a sack. She looked like a  long streak of flat-chested lightning, curveless,
really
unappealing. Mr Galvan wouldn't recognise the girl from the car park in a month of Sundays. Even James would do a double take.

'Better hide this,' she muttered to herself, unfastening her name badge and slipping it into her pocket. 'I'll say my name's Jane, plain Jane. No, that won't work because Jane's such a pretty name. I'll be
Gertie
.
Nurse Gertie. Gertie the Dragon.

There was a poor little nurse weeping on the landing, a small slip of a thing in a stained white uniform.

Prudently allowing time for the surgeon to cool down, Kate decided her first priority should be to check out this unfamiliar territory with its immaculate carpets and huge pots of greenery that looked as the leaves got a polish every morning along with the rest of the Wing. More like a hotel than a hospital. It was impressive. No doubt about that.

The entire wing had been refurbished at vast expense by the private hospital group which—after much deliberation—St Crispin's had brought in to manage its NHS pay beds.

From this upper floor Kate could see the great medieval cathedral crowning the steep hill and dominating the city. It was a wonderful sight, high above them, lit by the sun. But this was no time to be admiring the view. Next Kate checked out the pristine kitchen. There was milk in the fridge but she daren't stay long enough to make a cup of tea.

A nurse emerged briefly from Room 30 but scuttled into 29 as if afraid of getting mixed up in someone else's problem.

I never even had time to say cheerio to Simon and Mike and the rest of the team,' she thought regretfully, feeling very much the stranger yet again

Ah well, time to beard the lion in den 27. He should have cooled off by now. I'll bet he's regretting that unkind carry-on.

Yes, decided Kate, squinting out of the window at the far end to see if she could get a glimpse of the path labs where James would be working. Yes, I bet if I walk in there without knocking, catch Mr Galvan offguard with his defences down … There he'll be, sitting by the window in his dressing gown, a rug over his knees, his features wan and drawn, the scars on his handsome face vivid against the pallor. Drumming restless fingers on the chair arms and hating himself—the anguish in his eyes as he asks himself
Why am Í behaving like this? Somebody—help me
. And in answer I'll whisper, I will. Here I am!

A nurse bustled past brandishing a bedpan. 'You got No. 27?—and the best of luck!' she hissed, grimacing from the door of the sluice.

Kate's stomach gurgled in alarm. She squared her shoulders and with a determined finger jabbed the thick-framed spectacles back into place. The prescription lenses were hopelessly strong. Maybe this wasn't such a genius idea.  

Her white face adopted the now-we're-going-to-behave-ourselves-aren't-we expression perfected five minutes ago in the staff lavatory. She knocked on his door and before her nerve could go AWOL launched herself over the threshold of Room 27—stepping squelch on top of a soft-fried egg which had landed sunny-side up on the smart new carpet.

The man in the bed grinned. A medical textbook with a broken spine had landed on a rasher of bacon. Shards of china crunched beneath her sturdy laced shoes. 'Ugh!' exclaimed Kate, hopping on one leg, squinting through her glasses at congealed yellow yolk embedded in her ridged crêpe sole.

'Feel free to use my bathroom,' offered her patient, making no attempt to conceal his amusement, 'you're the funniest sight I've seen all week.' His left arm was out of action, encased in plaster of Paris. With the pen in his right hand he gestured towards an open door to starboard.

Kate bit back the first words that came to mind and limped across the nice blue carpet into the bathroom. Wiping her shoe clean she glared through the half-open door at the man in the bed, annoyed with herself for making such an undignified entrance and boiling with outrage at the mess he had made and which she was going to have to clear up. Great start!

Her VIP patient lay propped up against a triangle of pillows, apparently naked apart from his bandages. The unmade bed was littered with official-looking forms which Mr Galvan was studying with total concentration, scrawling notes on a clipboard with his uninjured right hand.

He didn't look in the least bit sorry. For himself, his behaviour—or anyone else, for that matter.

So I'm invisible, am I? frowned Kate. This is all going SO wrong. She knew she ought to read him the riot act, but why stress herself. Far from being dismayed by the new Nurse Dragon, Mr Galvan wasn't giving her a second glance. He was completely absorbed in his papers.

Well, she'd have to say something! Kate put her shoe back on and closed the bathroom door with a bit of a slam to demonstrate her annoyance. He didn't even glance her way.

'Good morning, Mr Galvan,' she said sternly. 'Good morning,' came the automatic reply.

This was polite enough, but he didn't look her way.

Under cover of clearing up the mess he'd made, she watched him with darting glances which resolved into blatant stares. The facial cuts and grazes were still livid but looked to be healing cleanly. A sterile dressing protected the abdominal incision which was healing well, according to Sister Carter. But that rigid snowy plaster clearly hampered Tom Galvan's actions and irritated him. The left hand, noted Kate on automatic professional pilot, remained swollen.

In spite of the plaster and bandages Tom Galvan's body looked as fit and tautly-muscled as when she had prepared him for surgery. And surely no one with a serious head injury could work with such concentration?

But he'd no business lying in bed all day. Did he want to end up with a thrombosis? And what if Frank Davy should arrive for his morning's round and discover his patient in a chaotic unmade bed? It was high time this patient was up and in a chair. He should be encouraged to walk up and down the corridors for exercise. No one should be bothering him with paperwork at this stage of recovery.

Kate piled the debris onto the breakfast tray and hurried back to the kitchen, in her haste almost colliding with the door. Whoops! Drat the eyewear. It would have to go before she broke  her nose walking into something. She stuffed her glasses in her pocket.

She turned back into the corridor just in time—too late!—to see Professor Davy going into Mr Galvan's room, Sister Carter close behind, indicating with a flap of the hand that Nurse Wisdom should lend a hand with some of the other patients.

It was over an hour before she got back to Room 27. Mr Galvan was still in bed working, but his papers had been stacked into several piles over locker and bed table and Sister had plumped his pillows and tidied the sheets.

Kate regarded him with appreciation. The ruffled untidy dark hair looked as if a woman had just run her fingers through it. Rumpled white cotton sheets deepened the warm smooth olive tones of his skin, the glossy tangle of hair curling over and around the sterile dressing emphasising his tantalising masculinity.

No getting away from it, Tom Galvan was a disturbingly attractive hunk of man.

She gave a sudden start of alarm as she realised she'd been caught momentarily off her guard. Those lowered eyelids had deceived her, concealing the direction of Tom Galvan's gaze. He was watching her watching him. Watching her with an amused look in his eye as he scrutinised Judy Carter's latest offering: the bright spark who'd entertained him earlier with her impromptu breakfast cabaret.

Kate blushed like a teenager. Helplessly she felt the beat of colour transform her smooth pale cheeks.

Tom's practised eyes worked upward from the elegant ankles. Shame they didn't wear black stockings on Maynard. Her hospital badge told him this was a home-grown St Crispin's staff nurse. Bit of a streak of lightning, she was, and so shapeless it was hard to tell if she was coming or going.

Hah! She'd taken off those silly specs she clearly couldn't see through. That blush almost made her pretty. Wide sparkly brown eyes—at the moment somewhat alarmed (wait till he gave her something to be alarmed
about!).
Finely-boned slightly aquiline nose which added to her elegant aura. Firm chin. Painfully scraped back hair. And a gentle, shapely mouth that had an extraordinary tendency to turn itself into a sprung trap. But pale as a pint of milk and just as shapely.