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Vividly so. 'It's Merrin,' she told him breathlessly. 'Merrin Ryan.'

'Merrin.' He seemed to almost hesitate at that but then his regard sharpened and he reached into one of the pockets of his white coat, extracted a bleeper and passed it to her. 'Merrin, see if you can find the owner of this. She's a medical house officer, one of the ones on duty for the weekend. Fair hair like yours but not as long, I think. I don't remember her name.'

He was already out the door before she could say anything. 'Tell her it never bleeped,' he called. 'Don't bother staying for my round tonight. See you both tomorrow.'

'That's strange.' Lindsay was looking at the bleeper their boss had given Merrin. 'Why on earth would he be carrying a medical house officer's bleeper?'

Merrin felt sick. Even before she checked the side pocket of her coat, where she'd been carrying her bleeper all weekend, she knew she'd find it empty. Her fingers curled around the orange bleeper and she double-checked the number engraved along the top of it and confirmed her worst fears. 'It's not a medical bleeper,' she said soberly. 'It's mine.'

The poor man she'd bullied into massaging her feet had been Professor McAlister. Afterwards, when she'd fallen so deeply asleep that she'd practically been in a coma, his worry about the safety of her patients had driven him to take control of her bleeper. What would he say when he realised that that comatose bully was his own house officer?

Fortunately
Lindsay didn't seem to expect Merrin to have an answer to her question about the bleeper, because her attention dropped to the paediatric case notes they both still clutched. 'Now, what have we got?' she mused. 'Just five discharge summaries here and a couple of prescriptions. We'll do them now together to save time then head back upstairs.'

She showed Merrin the stationery cupboard behind the ward clerk's desk where the discharge forms were kept and then where to collect the drug charts to fill in the discharge medications they wanted to prescribe.

'Read through the notes and make sure you understand what they've had done,' Lindsay instructed, giving her two sets of notes and showing her where to write the relevant details on the form which would be sent to their patients' GPs. 'Unless Prof says that he wants to see people again, follow-up should be by the GP. If he wants to see them again make a note here and the ward clerk will book them an outpatient appointment if the nurses haven't already arranged it. If you're not sure ask Doug or me.'

While Lindsay started the first letter, Merrin started reading another set of notes but then she shut them, staring blankly at the immunisation chart on the wall in front of them. 'Is he always like that?' she asked finally.

'That was slow for him.' Lindsay's smile was understanding. 'Actually, over the last couple of years he's slowed a lot. We've even been a bit worried about him. But, still, compared with anyone else he's amazing.'

'He's incredible.'

'Wait till you see him in Theatre. His technique's flawless yet he's so fast it's scary.'

Merrin believed it. 'From what I saw at the weekend he's got three times as many patients as any of the other surgeons, plus he must have all his academic and teaching work as well. How on earth does he manage it?'

'He's here till midnight most nights.'

'His poor wife,' Merrin said weakly. It seemed impossible that such a man wouldn't be married. 'How does she cope?'

'He's widowed.' Lindsay looked back at the notes. 'His wife died. Almost two years ago now. I was on maternity leave at the time and I wasn't around but apparently the whole hospital was in shock for weeks. She was a nurse in Casualty. She was on her way to work on night duty and her car was hit by one driven by a drunk driver.'

She looked back at Merrin. 'You saw how abrupt he was just now with that guy in ICU. He has zero tolerance for drunk drivers and Simon D'Souza's blood alcohol was twice the limit.'

Merrin felt terrible. She barely knew the professor and she'd never met his wife but she had a romantic heart and the images Lindsay's words provoked touched it. 'How sad,' she said softly. 'How terribly, terribly sad. Was she very beautiful?'

'Very. Douglas says he heard that she was pregnant at the time but—well, that might just be a rumour. Prof never talks about anything to do with her.'

'Oh.' Merrin felt tears begin to prickle behind her eyes. 'Oh, the poor man.'

'Don't let on that you know anything,' Lindsay said quickly. 'He wouldn't appreciate it.'

'I'll remember,' she promised, dabbing at her damp eyes with a tissue.

'And try not to fall in love with him,' the older doctor added, brusquer now.

'I think it might be too late,' Merrin said faintly, hoping that she was joking but heavily aware of a dull aching around her heart.

'Then just keep quiet about it and hope it goes away,' Lindsay replied, but her regard was sympathetic. 'Seems to happen to all of us, unfortunately.'

'Even if you're married?' Merrin knew from the weekend that Lindsay had a husband and children.

'Even if you're happily married with a wonderful husband and two lovely boys,' the SHO answered. Her smile was gently self-mocking. 'Look around when he walks anywhere and you'll see women going dreamy, all over the place. I can't see him marrying again, though. Frankly, if he did I wouldn't envy the woman he chooses. From what I've seen it's pretty obvious that no one will ever be able to take his wife's place. His work will always be the most important thing in his life now.'

Merrin thought that sounded tragic. But since there wasn't anything she could do about it she simply vowed to do everything she could to make things easier for him by dedicating herself to her work during her attachment to his team.

She spent most of the day with Lindsay, paying close attention while the other doctor showed her where things were kept and how to arrange simple investigations like blood tests and X-rays. They had eight admissions for Theatre the following day and Lindsay helped her with them as well as with the work she had to do on the ward.

It wouldn't always be like that. 'Monday's the only day I'm not scheduled for Theatre or teaching or Outpatients,' Lindsay explained over afternoon tea in Orange Ward's cramped doctors' office. 'We're all on the wards for the morning and evening rounds but apart from Mondays you're mostly alone between times.'

'You can always bleep us if you need advice or help,' Douglas told her, munching his way through the French fries he'd brought up from the McDonald's restaurant in the hospital's foyer. 'Occasionally one of us has to go out to one of the other hospitals or to the medical school— Wednesday afternoon next week, for instance, we'll both be over at St Joseph's for a clinic—but mostly we're about the place somewhere.'

'Profs office is on the top floor.' Lindsay pinched one of the registrar's chips. 'He's got two secretaries and if he's not answering his bleeper or mobile one of them will always know where he is.'

Douglas peered at Merrin's notebook and the notes she'd been taking. 'Has Lindsay given you a timetable?'

She flicked through the pages and showed him the outline she'd drawn. 'Theatre all day tomorrow and Thursday mornings, day surgery Friday mornings, clinics Wednesday morning, Thursday and Friday afternoons. On call every Tuesday and one Friday and one weekend a month. Do I get to go to Theatre?'

'If you can manage it,' Douglas told her, speaking with his mouth full. 'When we're running two lists we normally need you to help with one, but other times you just come if you want to. It's worth it if you're keen. Profs a terrific teacher and you'll learn a lot.'

'Unfortunately your main job for the next six months is going to be the ward work,' Lindsay told her. 'We'll help, of course, but the bulk of it falls on you. How much else you can fit in depends on how efficient you are as much as how keen you are.'

'I'm keen.' Merrin vowed to work hard at efficiency. She'd stay till midnight every night like her boss if it meant that she earned herself enough free time during the day to get to Theatre. As a student she'd scrubbed a few times but had never been allowed to do much more than occasionally hold a retractor. She was eager to learn more.

Douglas had finished his chips and he checked his watch then picked up the phone on the desk beside him. 'Four o'clock,' he told them, dialling a number. 'I'll let the on-call team know we're leaving early. There's nothing brewing, is there?'

'All quiet,' Lindsay confirmed.

'What about the late ward round?' Merrin asked.

Lindsay had told her that they did a routine round every evening before going home but now the other doctor shook her head. 'We always finish early after a weekend on,' she explained. 'Prof will come in later and go around with one of the nurses. He knows how tired we are. He said this morning that he's not expecting us to wait around.'

But after falling asleep with her feet in his lap Merrin knew for sure that she'd had more sleep than her consultant the night before and she felt terrible. 'I'll stay a bit longer,' she told Lindsay quietly, not wanting to interrupt Douglas as he was speaking to another doctor now and handing over their patients for the evening. 'I could start in on that list of things we'd decided to leave till tomorrow, and that'll mean I might get to Theatre in the morning.'

'Up to you.' Lindsay stood up. She yawned. 'And as much as I admire your enthusiasm, you're on your own. I need my bed.'

'Me too.' Douglas, having finished his telephone conversation, also yawned as he replaced the receiver. 'I'm out of here. Merrin, you need a lift anywhere?'

She shook her head. 'I'm living in at the hospital until I find somewhere else.'

They both pulled faces and Merrin realised that they must know what sort of standard accommodation that entailed. 'Poor you,' Lindsay crooned, on her way out. 'See you tomorrow. Don't work too hard.'

Lindsay and Douglas had told her that the evening round generally started some time between five and six, but it was nearer seven before she finished her chores on the ward and there was still no sign of her consultant.

One of the nurses suggested she try his office. 'He won't mind,' she told her sympathetically. 'Otherwise you could be waiting hours. If Profs on his own we sometimes don't see him till very late. I mean midnight late. He might be busy with paperwork. If you don't want to go up there you could try bleeping Mm.'

But Merrin was reluctant to do that—it seemed too intrusive. 'I'll check his office,' she declared. 'It's up above here, isn't it?'

'Level eight,' the nurse confirmed. 'If he's not there, he might be across in the medical school. He's got a proper laboratory there for his research and another office.'

The corridor housing the surgical offices was dark but she found Professor McAlister's easily enough because it was the only room with light shining under the door. She knocked quietly, waited a few seconds, then knocked again more firmly.

'Yes?'

Taking a deep breath, she twisted the handle and pushed open the door. 'Professor McAlister...?' But her words trailed off and her mouth dried.

His chair was swivelled away from his paper-strewn desk and he'd tipped himself back in it and had his feet crossed up on the window-sill behind the desk, as if he'd been studying the view rather than his work. His hair, despite its brevity, was tousled, as if he'd been running his hands through it. But it was the darkened shadows around his eyes and the heavy-lidded bleakness of his regard that drew her attention.

He looked like a man in pain. Her heart went out to him.

'Prof, I didn't mean to disturb you,' she said huskily. 'I was just wondering if you were going to do a round tonight, but... Do you want me to get you a coffee?'

'Coffee?' He frowned at her, his regard distracted, and she realised he was having trouble making sense of her being there. 'Er...?'

'Merrin,' she told him. 'It's Merrin. I'm your new house officer. Prof—'

'I know, Merrin. I know who you are.' Shaking his head slightly, he let the chair fall back into place and swung around, his expression losing a little of its distraction as he came around to face her. 'Coffee, no. Thank you but no.'

'What about a burger?' she suggested. 'It's getting late. I could run downstairs to McDonald's and get you one. You must be hungry.'

'I'm not.' If he thought there was anything strange about his house officer questioning him about his eating habits, he didn't say anything, and he rose to his feet. 'I don't expect you to wait after a weekend on call. Didn't the others tell you?'

'They told me but I wanted to stay,' she explained. 'Prof, you don't look very well. Shall I get you anything? Have you got a headache? Do you want some paracetamol? Is there anything you need?'

'No. Nothing.' He shook his head slightly, as if trying to clear his thoughts again, and she looked up at him, still concerned about the difference in him now compared with the dynamic man she'd met that morning, but he merely collected a white coat from the rack by the desk and hauled it on as he came towards her. 'We'll go round now so you can get away,' he told her, his voice firming. 'Are there any problems you know about?'

'Not on the wards,' she said, still watching him, relieved to see the energy slowly returning to his expression.

They took the stairs down to Orange and by the time they arrived on the ward she saw that he was almost back to normal. The round went quickly again, although with less of the frenetic haste of the morning one and more time spent actually chatting With patients rather than ordering tests and inspecting wounds,. He spent several minutes with each of his pre-op patients who'd been admitted for surgery the following day, and she saw that he took care that they had no unanswered questions before he moved on.

'I went to ICU earlier,' he told her when they'd finished on the surgical wards. 'And there's only one child and I'll check him later myself, so that's it. Thanks, Merrin. Go home and get some sleep.'

'What about you?' She spoke involuntarily, too distressed by the memory of how he'd looked earlier to pay any attention to the appropriateness of her talking to him like this. 'Are you going home?'