Unknown (6 page)

'Then, please, don't let me delay you,' he said in the same courteous way, before striding on.

Yona looked after him. She was feeling rather disappointed. From curtness to courtesy had to be an improvement, but it wasn't what she'd been hoping for. But what had she been hoping for? Oh, blast the man and his silly prejudices! She'd waste no more time on him.

Mike Preston was certainly not in the forefront of Yona's mind for some time after that. Ted suggested that she take a couple of days' leave at the end of that week and with Meg's eager help and knowledge of the Salchester shops carpets and curtains were bought, and some small pieces of furniture as well, to supplement what would be coming from Edinburgh the following week.

'You're very wise to get the whole place decorated before you move in,' said Meg on Friday afternoon when they slipped into a coffee-bar to take the weight off their feet.

'And it was wonderful of you to find me that obliging little man who would do it so quickly,' returned Yona. 'I only hope that tomorrow fortnight isn't too soon for my
house-warming party, but I'm on call again the weekend after.'

'Of course it's not too soon! Put if off too long and there'll seem little point,' said Meg sagely.

'You always say the right thing,' Yona told her admiringly.

'More by luck than judgement,' claimed Meg. 'And now, if we're quick, there'll just be time to get to Chirk's for the bathroom fittings before they close.'

'Have I really been here four whole weeks?' asked Yona when Ted reminded her that that afternoon's clinic would be a combined one with Mike's.

'Does it seem longer, then?' he asked.

'No—not as long. Let me see now... The first weekend I visited you, the next I went to Liverpool for that symposium, the next on call, this last one shopping with Meg— you're quite right! And I can hardly believe it.'

'Thank you for your vote of confidence,' Ted said solemnly.

'What? Oh, boss, how could you? What I meant was that I can't believe I've been four whole weeks in Salchester. And you know fine that's what I meant!' she was saying firmly when Mike came in.

He looked curious and Ted said serenely, 'My registrar was just giving me a telling off.'

'Was she now?' Mike eyed Yona askance. 'If she were mine, I wouldn't put up with it. How many have we got today?'

'Five,' said Ted. At the same moment Yona said, 'Six.'

'Sorry, five,' she corrected herself. She'd become confused at the idea of belonging to Mike Preston in any capacity. 'I never could count,' she excused herself.

'It's a good thing that you're not Mike's registrar, then.'

Ted chuckled. 'Ortho requires a certain degree of numeracy—with so many toes and fingers to choose from.' He picked up the first folder. 'This is a sad case really, Mike, but it's got its happy side, too. A girl of twenty-five with a twelve-year history of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis who's just got herself engaged and is desperate to walk up the aisle without crutches. But, to do that, she'll need a total hip replacement.'

Yona expected Mike to refuse there and then as hip replacements had a limited lifespan, but he said, 'I did a replacement for a thirty-year-old man only last week, although it was really Hobson's choice. His hip had been shattered in a car crash. Of course, he was hale and hearty before the accident... Still, there's no harm in me taking a look at her. Let's have her in.'

She was very pretty, with soft blonde hair and wide, trusting blue eyes. It was cruel to see her shuffling, old woman's gait and distorted feet in boat-like orthopaedic shoes. And her twisted little hands could only just grasp the upright posts of the forearm crutches she required.

As always, Ted said exactly the right thing. 'You're looking very pretty as usual, Karen. Is that a new necklace?'

She beamed at him with real affection, which was not to be wondered at when he'd been her friend and doctor since she was twelve years old. 'Fancy you noticing,' she said, delighted. 'Roy gave it to me instead of an engagement ring. I mean, who'd want to wear rings on hands like mine?' she asked of Yona.

'Who'd ever notice anything else on somebody with hair like yours?' asked Yona. 'Such a gorgeous colour and beautifully styled. You must give me the name of your hairdresser.'

'No problem.' Karen smiled. 'She's my mum. Her shop's on the Central Parade.' That was Salchester's foremost shopping mall. 'You'd suit the new executive cut. Doctor.'

'When you girls have finished admiring each other, we should get down to business,' reproved Mike, but with a smile in his voice.

He's quite good at saying the right thing, too, thought Yona. Well, sometimes. To anybody but me...

When Mike had finished examining Karen, he sat down beside her and explained simply and clearly the pros and cons of a hip replacement at such an early age. Relief of pain and increased movement now, to be set against probable reversion to her present state in about fifteen years' time—and with no promises about a second successful operation if her disease didn't go into remission.

But Karen had already made up her mind. 'Thanks for spelling it out, Doctor, but I'll be forty by then so what will it matter?'

'That's me definitely on the scrap heap, then,' said Ted wryly when Karen had gone and they were waiting for the next patient.

'And I've barely got five years to go,' Mike added with a rueful grin. 'Should we book into Sunset House now, d'you think?'

'It used to be said that life begins at forty,' Yona said bracingly. 'Personally, I can't wait.'

Mike eyed her clear-skinned prettiness for a long second and without any apparent admiration, before saying, 'That's too bad—it looks to me as though you've got a long wait.' He'd sounded so daunting that it took her quite a while to realise that he'd actually paid her a compliment.

She hardly had time to feel pleased before a nurse brought in the next patient and said, 'Dr Price has been trying to bleep you, Doctor. One of the new inpatients has just collapsed.'

Yona thanked her, leapt up and darted out. She took the stairs two at a time to reach the bridge that connected Outpatients with the main ward block.

'Most likely a diabetic coma,' she was pronouncing about ten minutes later. 'Has he no history?'

'There is nothing to that effect in the admission notes and somebody will answer for that,' threatened Sister Evans in a voice that spelt doom for poor Chris Connor.

'Not necessarily,' Yona disagreed. 'Occasionally a major episode like this is the first warning.' Hardly ever, in fact, but she wanted Chris to have the benefit of the doubt.

She stayed a long time on the ward, waiting to be sure of her diagnosis, and by the time she returned to Outpatients the clinic was over. When she'd given Ted the details of the latest crisis he said, 'Mike left you a message. He thanks you for the invitation to your house-warming, but as he's on call next weekend he may not be able to come.'

Yona had expected nothing else and she'd only asked him because it would have looked odd to leave him out when she'd asked all her other colleagues.

Ted went on, 'He also said how surprised he was when he realised you'd bought a flat in his block.'

'I've done
what?'
Yona was astounded. She'd left his invitation on the desk in his consulting room because she didn't know where he lived.

'So you didn't know either, then.'

'No, or I'd not have—' She broke off. To say she'd never have bought her flat if she'd known Mike would be a neighbour was just plain silly. Especially as they would probably come and go at different times. Besides, there was more than one entrance so why need they ever bump into one another? 'Are you quite sure you don't mind me taking Friday off again this week, Ted?' she asked quickly to cover up her apparent confusion.

'How else will you manage to move in, my dear girl?' he asked, but he was wondering what it was that she'd almost said instead.

'Stop fussing,' said Nonie Burke the third time that Yona got up to count glasses and rearrange the canapés.

Nonie was not only a first-rate biochemist and A1 gossip—she had also been a great help in arranging the house-warming. She had produced an old schoolfriend who was now a gourmet party caterer and on good terms with the best cut-price wine merchant in town.

Tonight, Nonie had turned up an hour early, wearing an apron over a shimmering gold silk catsuit because, as she said, if she'd offered her help, a proud stiff-necked Scot like Yona would have pretended she didn't need it.

Yona knew she was fussing. She also knew why, and she didn't like what she knew. For a mature, successful woman of twenty-seven to revert to teenage angst behaviour just because she couldn't get on the right side of one wretched man was pathetic. Yes, you're absolutely pathetic, Catriona Jean MacFarlane, she was telling herself when the doorbell announced the first arrivals.

They were the Burnleys—punctual as promised. Meg had seen the flat before on moving day, but this was Ted's first visit. He strolled round, glass in hand and admiring everything, while Nonie gave Meg the latest hospital gossip.

It wouldn't be a large party—Yona hadn't been long enough in Salchester to acquire many acquaintances. There'd just be the staff from the unit with their partners, Nonie, who was temporarily without one, and Yona's near neighbour Gil Salvesen—if he could get away from the studio in time. Only Sister Evans had declined.

Gil had been quite a find, a raffish, forty-ish, laid-back television producer with a roving eye which had soon homed in on his newest neighbour. He also had a wicked sense of humour and soon had Yona laughing whenever they met. She wasn't the least bit attracted to him.

Guests were invited for drinks at eight, with a buffet supper to follow, so when neither Gil nor Mike Preston had turned up by nine Yona decided not to delay the meal any longer. They were all at the dessert stage by the time Mike appeared. He had come without the partner specified in the invitation and Yona supposed that must be because he was on call. He put a bottle wrapped in fancy paper on the hall table in passing, and said he could only stay a minute.

In the living room he looked round and said, 'I must say this all looks very nice.' It was as though he'd been expecting a shambles.

'I'm so sorry that your friend couldn't come,' said Yona, stung afresh by his attitude.

'Which friend would that be?' he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

'I put "and partner" on all my invitations,' she reminded him.

'But I don't have one,' he returned briefly.

'Is there anybody here whom you don't know?' Yona tried next in her best hostessy manner. She wanted to remind him there was supposed to be a truce between them.

Mike looked round again. 'No, I don't think so. You've gone to a lot of trouble,' he said, on noticing the buffet.

Yona saw no reason to tell him she'd employed a caterer. 'Please, help yourself,' she was saying as Gil strolled in.

He knew nobody but Mike and had to be introduced all round, though whether he'd remember so many names was doubtful. Not that it mattered because Nonie latched on to him right away.

'They make a good pair,' said Mike, suddenly appearing at Yona's side some time later.

'Nonie and Gil? Yes, they're very alike in some ways.' She shot him a quick sideways glance under her lashes. 'Kind to strangers, full of life—and great fun.'

He took that personally, as she'd meant him to, but rather than get into an argument she said quickly, 'Please, excuse me—it looks like time for me to go and make some coffee.'

'And it's time I was going,' he said, but he followed her into the kitchen.

'It was good of you to come at all when you're on call,' said Yona, to hide her disappointment at the shortness of his stay. 'And thank you for the present—that was very kind.'

'Routine,' he insisted. Then he asked her abruptly how she liked working at the Royal.

She was surprised. 'Very much, thank you.'

'You're not homesick?' he persisted.

'There's not been much time for that so far. Why do you ask?'

'Meg told me that you knew nobody in Salchester before you came.'

'That's true, but, then, I came to Salchester to further my career.'

'Which is very important to you.'

'Is that bad?' asked Yona, wondering where all this was leading.

'No—of course not. Only most women value their private lives more than their work.'

'Does that not depend on what work they're doing?' she asked, more puzzled than ever. 'I think I enjoy my leisure as much as the next woman, but doctoring isn't like—well, say, doing part-time work in an office or shop for a spot of extra cash. To medicine, you have to give your all— especially if you're a woman. Too many men still secretly see medicine as an all-male preserve.'

'If that was meant personally, let me tell you that I've nothing against women doctors,' he said sharply.

'Really? Then I've been misinformed,' Yona said quietly. She'd had hopes of this conversation when he'd followed her into the kitchen, but they had long since faded.

'So that's why you've been so hostile,' he said.

'Me—hostile? Forgive me for asking, but is it not the other way round? I'm not the one whose good friend was pipped at the post for a job.'

He didn't flare up as she'd half expected. 'I thought I'd already made my position clear on that point,' he said quietly. 'I ask you how you like Salchester and whether you're homesick—as I would ask any new colleague—and in return, I get a feminist lecture on sex discrimination. I really don't know why I bother. Nor can I see why the Burnleys and others find you so enchanting!' he added for good measure, before wheeling round to collide with Meg in the doorway. He muttered a hasty apology, told Meg he'd be in touch and left.

'What was that all about?' asked Meg, her eyes bright with speculation.

'I wish I knew,' Yona sighed honestly. 'That man is a closed book to me.'

'Mike? But he's one of the most straightforward men I know!' Meg exclaimed in astonishment.

'I'll have to take your word for that, Meg, dear,' said Yona, 'because he's keeping his good side well hidden from me. But back to basics. I came out here to the kitchen to make the coffee!'