Alison Roberts - Midwives On-Call

‘You can’t be.’

He didn’t reply. He climbed out of the wagon, dug his hands deep in his pockets, glanced back at his wreck of a car and looked at her again.

‘Why can’t I, Em?’ The wreck of the car faded to secondary importance. This was suddenly all about them.

‘Because I work here.’

‘It’s the most specialised neonatal service in Melbourne. You know that’s what I do.’

‘You went to the States.’ She felt numb. Stupid. Out of control. She’d been sure her ex-husband had been on the other side of world. She didn’t want him to be here.

‘I did specialist training in in-utero surgery in the States.’ This was a dumb conversation. He was out of the car, leaning back on one of the concrete columns, watching her as she clung to the steering wheel like she was drowning. ‘I’ve accepted a job back here. And before you say anything, no, I didn’t know you were working here. I thought you were still at Hemmingway Private. I knew when I came back that there was a chance we might meet, but Melbourne’s a big place. I’m not stalking you.’

‘I never meant …’

‘No?’

‘No,’ she managed. ‘And I’m sorry I crashed into your car.’

Finally things were starting to return to normal. Like her heart rate. Her pulse had gone through the roof when the cars had hit. She’d been subconsciously trying to get it down, practising the deep-breathing techniques she used when she was pacing the floor with Gretta, frightened for herself, frightened for the future. The techniques came to her aid instinctively now when she was frightened. Or discombobulated.

Discombobulated was how she felt, she conceded. Stalking? That sounded as if he thought she might be frightened of him, and she’d never been frightened of Oliver.

‘Can we exchange details?’ she managed, trying desperately to sound normal. Like this was a chance meeting of old acquaintances, but they needed to talk about car insurance. ‘Oliver, it’s really nice to see you again …’ Was it? Um, no, but it sounded the right thing to say. ‘But I’m late as it is.’

‘Which was why you crashed.’

‘Okay, it was my fault,’ she snapped. ‘But, believe it or not, there are extenuating circumstances. That’s not your business.’ She clambered out of the car and dug for her licence in her shabby holdall. She pulled out two disposable diapers and a packet of baby wipes before she found her purse, and she was so flustered she dropped them. Oliver gathered them without a word, and handed them back. She flushed and handed him her licence instead.

He took it wordlessly, and studied it.

‘You still call yourself Emily Evans?’

‘You know we haven’t divorced. That’s irrelevant. You’re supposed to take down my address.’

‘You’re living at your mother’s house?’

‘I am.’ She grabbed her licence back. ‘Finished?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to take mine?’

‘You can sue me. I can’t sue you. We both know the fault was mine. If you’re working here then I’ll send you my insurance details via interdepartmental memo. I don’t carry them with me.’

‘You seem to carry everything else.’ Once more he was looking into the car, taking in the jumble of kids’ paraphernalia that filled it.

‘I do, don’t I?’ she said, as cordially as she could manage. ‘Oliver, it’s good to see you again. I’m sorry I wrecked your car but I’m running really, really late.’

‘You never run late.’ He was right: punctuality used to be her god.

‘I’m not the Emily you used to know,’ she managed. ‘I’m a whole lot different but this isn’t the time or the place to discuss it.’ She looked again at his car and winced. She really had made an appalling mess. ‘You want me to organise some sort of tow?’

‘Your car’s hardly dented. I’ll handle mine.’

‘I’m … sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Oliver, I really am sorry but I really do need to go. If there’s nothing I can do …’

He was peering into her wagon. ‘I doubt your lock’s still working,’ he told her. ‘Once my car’s towed free …’

‘Locks are the least of my worries.’ She slung her bag over her shoulder, knowing she had to move. She knew Isla was short-staffed this morning and the night staff would be aching to leave. ‘Look at the stains,’ she told him. ‘No villain in their right mind would steal my wagon and, right now, I don’t have time to care. I’m sorry to leave you with this mess, Oliver, but I need to go. Welcome to Victoria Hospital. See you around.’

RUBY DOWELL WAS seventeen years old, twenty-two weeks pregnant and terrified. She was Oliver’s first patient at the Victoria.

She was also the reason he’d started so soon. He’d been recruited to replace Harry Eichmann, an obstetrician with an interest in in-utero procedures. Oliver had started the same way, but for him in-utero surgery was more than a side interest. For the last five years he’d been based in the States but he’d travelled the world learning the latest techniques.

The phone call he’d had from Charles Delamere, Victoria’s CEO, had been persuasive, to say the least. ‘Harry’s following a girlfriend to Europe. There’s no one here with your expertise and there’s more and more demand.

‘It’s time you came home. Oliver, right now we have a kid here with a twenty-one-week foetus, and her scans are showing spina bifida. Heinz Zigler, our paediatric neurologist, says the operation has to be done now. He can do the spinal stuff but he doesn’t have the skills to stop the foetus aborting. Oliver, there are more and more of these cases, and we’re offering you a full-time job. If you get here fast, we might save this kid shunts, possible brain damage, a life with limited movement below the waist. Short term, I want you to fight to give this kid a happy ending. Long term we’re happy to fund your research. We’ll cover the costs of whatever extra training you want, any staff you need. We want the best, Oliver, and we’re prepared to pay, but we want you now.’

The offer had been great, but he’d had serious reservations about returning to Melbourne. He’d walked away from his marriage five years ago, and he’d thought he’d stay away. Em had deserved a new life, a chance to start again with someone who’d give her what she needed.

And it seemed his decision had been justified. Seeing her this morning, driving a family wagon, with milk stains on her shoulder, with every sign of being a frazzled young working mum, he’d thought …

Actually, he hadn’t thought. The sight had knocked him sideways and he was still knocked sideways. But he needed to focus on something other than his marriage. After a brief introduction with Charles, he was in the examination room with Ruby Dowell. Teenage mother, pregnant with a baby with spina bifida.

‘At twenty-two weeks we need to get on with this fast,’ Charles had told him. ‘There’s such a short window for meaningful intervention.’

Ruby was lying on the examination couch in a cubicle in the antenatal clinic and, as with all his patients, he took a moment at the start to assess the whole package. Her notes said she was seventeen. She’d been attending clinics in the Victoria’s Teenage Mums-To-Be programme. When the spina bifida had been detected on the scans she’d been offered termination but had declined, although the notes said she intended to give the baby up for adoption after birth. Right now she was dressed in shorts and an oversized T-shirt. Her mouse-blonde, shoulder-length hair was in need of a wash and a good cut. Apart from the bump of her pregnancy she was waif thin, and her eyes were red-rimmed and wide with fear.

She looked like a wild creature trapped in a cage, he thought. Hell, why was she alone? Her notes said she was a single mum, but she should have her mother with her, or a sister, or at least a friend.