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'If I
remember correctly, you're on call this coming weekend,' said Ted to Yona as they made their way up to the wards for the weekly round on the Thursday following her house-warming party.

'I was, Ted, but I've changed with my opposite number on Chests.'

'Great! That means you can come to us on Sunday, then. Meg's got a young niece who can't decide between medicine and dentistry and Meg thinks that talking to you might help her to make up her mind.'

'Oh, dear! I'd have loved that, but as soon as he heard I was off, Gil Salvesen offered to show me Lake Windermere.'

'Just make sure that's all he shows you, then,' advised Ted, who hadn't taken to Gil. 'Well, here we are—and, my word, doesn't Sister look fierce today?' he asked in an undertone.

They started as usual on the women's ward, where Mrs Kavanagh had just completed her time on cortisone, intravenous iron and total bedrest and was now, as she put it, raring to go.

Ted said that he was glad to hear it, but a gentle stroll to the bathroom and back, plus the daily exercise class with the physios, would do nicely for the next week or so.

'Mrs Baker wishes to go home,' announced Sister as they moved on to the next patient.

'Out of the question,' said Ted. 'That neck hasn't settled down yet and I'm not letting her off traction until her neck brace is ready.'

'She's threatening to sign herself out,' declared Sister, who thrived on this sort of thing.

'Why?' Ted asked reasonably.

'She says that Mrs Jacobson's snoring is driving her mad.'

'Then why not put Mrs Jacobson in the side ward if she's keeping the other patients awake?'

'She isn't. Only Mrs Baker has complained.'

'Then put Mrs Baker in the side ward. Really, Sister, I shouldn't have to waste my time on this—it's a nursing problem.' Yona had rarely seen Ted so irritated.

'Mrs Baker is very determined,' warned Sister.

'And so am I,' Ted said grimly.

Mrs Baker was persuaded to accept a bed outside the range of Mrs Jacobson's nocturnal concerts and harmony was. restored.

At least it was until they got to the assistant administrator, Medical Division. She'd had the side ward to herself since admission and wasn't pleased to hear that she was to have a room-mate. 'I would have thought, Professor, that someone of my standing in this hospital—'

'You'll be pleased to hear that you may go home tomorrow, Ms Starkey—or this evening if you prefer,' said Ted with a deceptively innocent smile.

That didn't please her either. 'I was counting on staying at least until Tuesday next. I'm having my kitchen redone while I'm in here.'

'Good, that—coming from a disciple of the quick-turnover school,' whispered Charlie Price in Yona's ear. She'd been thinking the very same thing.

Ted had, too, but he was very diplomatic. 'We've diagnosed your problem and established your drugs regime. That done, it's now in your best interest to leave hospital. What you need is a change of air for your convalescence before returning to your, um, arduous duties.'

'Is there any chance that mine is an industrial illness?'

'Compensationitis, as well as SLE,' Charlie whispered this time.

'Absolutely not,' said Ted, going on to explain that systemic lupus erythematosus was a disease of the immune system and so insidious in onset that she had almost certainly had it for years, before noticing anything much in the way of symptoms. 'I'd say that spraining your ankle was a blessing in disguise,' he wound up.

It took some doing, but Ms Starkey was eventually persuaded that she was well enough to go home.

'I hope they don't all take this long or we'll be here all night,' grumbled Charlie as they moved on.

'You're extremely grumpy today,' teased Yona.

'Pre-exam nerves,' he said. 'I've got my Membership practical tomorrow—or had you forgotten?'

'I'm afraid I had,' she confessed. 'Good luck—I'm sure you'll do brilliantly.'

Ted was asking Sister what they could expect in the men's ward.

'Mr Donkin is still intractably constipated, but we're dealing with it,' she informed him.

'How?' wondered Charlie in a murmur. 'If it really is intractable—'

Yona shushed him as Sister continued, 'And Mr Bowes has some psoriasis on his elbows.'

'I knew it!' said Ted. 'Didn't I say that man was a psoriatic arthropathy? Is it bothering him much, Sister?'

'He says not—he just thought it was dry skin flaking off.'

'I'm very glad to hear it—it must be hellish when it itches. Did you find time to examine that man transferred from the General this morning, Yona?'

'Yes, I did. I doubt that he's a true rheumatoid, though. He seemed more like a non-specific infective arthritis to me.'

'The sheepcell test will settle that. Why, Dr Connor?' he shot at Chris.

But Chris had learned a lot in the past six weeks. 'Definitive for rheumatoid arthritis, sir.'

'We'll make a doctor of you yet,' joked Ted as they approached the first male patient.

*

'Can you do me now, Doctor?' drawled a familiar voice from the doorway as Yona sat in her room in Outpatients, doing her letters at the end of the day.

She looked up, astonished to see Gil. 'What on earth are you doing here?' she asked.

'Right at this moment I'm cadging a lift into town,' he said. 'Didn't you tell me you were dashing in after work?'

'Yes, but you shouldn't be here, Gil—really, you shouldn't. How did you get past Reception?'

'I told them I was your lover—what else?'

She couldn't help giggling at that. 'I bet that interested them!'

'They were all madly jealous, let me tell you. Will you be long? Only I've got an appointment.'

'I've just this minute finished—but, Gil, you must promise me never to do this again.'

Predictably, he wondered why not.

'Because—oh, because gentlemen callers are not allowed in the building!'

'Not even a marine would believe that,' he said. 'But for you—anything!'

'Oh, Gil, you are a fool.' She was laughing as they left the building together.

'But you like me,' he said, giving her a squeeze that nearly had them both falling over on the steps.

As bad luck would have it, Mike Preston had parked beside Yona that morning and, of course, he had to be there now, talking to another consultant. 'For heaven's sake, behave and get in quick before he sees you!' hissed Yona, while asking herself why it was so important that Mike shouldn't see her there with Gil.

'Why?' asked Gil, as she might have expected. 'I'm not afraid of him even if you are. Hi, there, Mike,' he called out. 'I've just been discussing a major documentary with your bosses.'

'I can't wait to see it,' Mike called back, looking anything but eager.

Yona was already in the car and was desperate to get away, but Gil reached out and switched off the engine. 'You really must get over your curious fear of that big bear,' he said, sounding quite fatherly. 'You wouldn't want me to think you had a girlish crush on him, would you?'

'Don't be so ridiculous!' she said furiously, starting the car again.

'I'm not so sure it is ridiculous,' said Gil, sounding amused. 'It could be thought very suitable—except that Nonie says he's already fixed up.'

'Nonie is a terrible gossip—and you're even worse!'

'You
do
fancy him,' he challenged just as she backed out much too fast over the uneven, rutted surface. The car lurched as it went over a particularly bad bump, then Yona spun the wheel like a rally driver and shot off towards the exit.

'Hey, steady on, for God's sake—I thought you'd knocked him down then,' breathed Gil, screwing round in
his seat to peer backwards over his shoulder. 'No, I think you managed to miss him—at any rate, he's still upright. Just as well—that's no way to get a man!'

'When I need your advice on that subject, I'll ask for it!' retorted Yona through clenched teeth. 'Now shut up and let me concentrate on the traffic!'

'Sister Evans wants to see you in the office when you've got a minute, Dr MacFarlane,' said Staff Nurse the minute Yona stepped onto the unit next morning.

'Now what's wrong?' she wondered aloud.

'Nothing that I know of,' answered the girl, 'but, then, who knows with Sister?'

'Who, indeed?' murmured Yona, resolving to keep the old dragon waiting while she checked with the houseman.

Yona had simmered down overnight, since driving off in such a rage with Gil. She'd hardly known then with whom she was most angry—Gil for teasing her, herself for overreacting or Mike just for being there.

She found young Dr Connor halfway down the men's ward, collecting routine daily blood samples. 'How's it going, Chris?' she asked.

'Not so well as it would if Sister didn't keep ordering me to do something else,' he grumbled.

It wasn't for Sister to order the house officer about. 'What sort of things?' she asked.

'Oh, listen to chests, examine joints that are more than usually painful, help the nurses to lift patients in and out of the bath...'

Par for the course, except the last, but all to be requested—not demanded. 'How many more specimens have you got to collect?' asked Yona.

'I've not started on the women yet, and with Charlie away for his exam—'

'I'll help you,' she said comfortingly, 'and if Sister finds you any more wee jobs before we've finished, just you refer her to me. I dare say she's forgotten that Charlie is off today.'

'And pigs might fly,' sighed Chris.

All the women were enchanted with Yona's efforts. 'Never felt a thing, Doctor.'

'You're ever so quick.' They were only two of the comments.

'Practice makes perfect and, boy, have I had a lot of practice,' she laughed. 'So that's the Dracula act over for the day, girls.' Then she went at last to see what Sister wanted.

When she saw Yona she pushed a tin moneybox across the desk. 'I am collecting for a silver wedding present for the Professor and Mrs Burnley, Doctor,' she said grandly.

'You're in plenty of time—it's not for another six weeks,' said Yona, diving into the pocket of her white coat for her purse and taking out a ten-pound note. 'No, I insist,' she said, when Sister said that was too much from a newcomer. 'They've both been so very kind to me—I don't know what I'd have done without them.'

'The professor and his wife are always kind to new members of staff, Dr MacFarlane,' revealed Sister, in case Yona should think there was anything special about her. The phone rang and Sister picked it up, then said, 'Yes, she's right here, Mrs Lee. No, I'm sure it isn't. I'll tell her.' She replaced the phone, before revealing, 'The professor's secretary has found a folder she knows he wants for his lecture this morning, and she wondered if you'd call in for it on your way to join him.'

'Yes, of course I will. And if there's nothing else, then—'

'No, not at the moment.' Yona was dismissed.

Why does that woman always make me feel as if I'd just
been carpeted? she wondered as she hurried down to Sharon's office.

Sharon handed over a bulky file as she said how much she and her husband had enjoyed Yona's party. Then, before Yona could thank her for her nice little thank-you note, Sharon burst out, 'Isn't it awful about poor Mr Preston?'

'What about him?' asked Yona, her eyebrows raised.

'He had a nasty accident to his foot last evening and now he's in plaster, right up to the knee.'

Accident, last evening, foot, plaster... Yona felt as though she'd been kicked in the stomach by a horse. 'How...unfortunate,' she breathed, only just managing to hide her horror until she got out of the room. She stumbled back to her own room to think.

He'd been right beside her car on the passenger side, so when the car had lurched as she'd backed out so furiously, it hadn't been on account of the rutted ground, as she'd thought, but because she'd run over Mike's foot! Wait, though. Gil had checked and had said that Mike was still upright... Held up by the other consultant, no doubt!

Yona wanted nothing more than to run home and hide, but she couldn't. She had to go and tell her boss how she'd put his friend and a senior colleague in the hospital!

'It's only just round the corner so you'll have no difficulty finding it,' Ted had said confidently when telling Yona the day before how to get to the building where the seminars for GPs were held. Today, though, she was so preoccupied with the horror of having run over Mike's foot that she turned left instead of right as she left the hospital.

Her imagination was in overdrive. She could see the screaming headlines.
Consultant Surgeon Knocked Down by Furious Female Colleague. Woman Doctor Runs Amok in Hospital Car Park
. Would there be an inquiry? Almost certainly, when the accident had occurred on hospital premises. But where was she? That sign said
Salchester Women's Hospital
and Ted hadn't mentioned that. She must be lost.

The first passerby didn't speak English, but the second one pointed her in the right direction. Ted was just about to start his lecture and looked very relieved when Yona hurried in with a whispered apology and put the folder he wanted on the lectern.

Ted was a very good lecturer—clear, concise and gently humorous. The doctors loved it, but Yona only heard about half of what he said. By the time the lecture was over, she'd imagined herself up before the General Medical Council— via the psychiatrist's couch!

When the doctors had all drifted out in search of lunch, Ted said to Yona, 'I hope that gave you some idea of the level to pitch when it's your turn to hold forth. And don't look so scared,' he urged bracingly. 'Just remember that you know a lot more about rheumatology than almost any GP you're likely to meet.'

'You haven't heard,' she said on a dying breath because he wouldn't be treating her as usual if he had.

'Heard what, Yona?'

'About the accident. To M-Mike Preston.'

'I certainly have not! What's happened?' he asked sharply.

'He's got a crushed foot. A c-car ran over it.'