Carol Marinelli - One Night in Emergency

‘Now, Eleanor, hold his arm for me while I put another IV in and see how I shave the area before I put a wad of tape on. It might seem like a small detail but when Mr Papadopoulos is ready to have his IV removed, you can be sure he’ll thank us for our foresight.’

‘I’ll remember.’ Eleanor nodded. ‘Is there anything else you need?’

‘Could you ask Vicki to come and check some morphine for me?’

Which shouldn’t have been a problem, but instantly Eleanor felt relegated. She was more than capable of checking controlled drugs, it was part of her job, but yet again Mary seemed intent on treating her like a student. ‘I can check morphine, Mary,’ Eleanor pointed out, quietly grinding her teeth as Mary effectively dismissed her.

‘Just ask Vicki to come in, would you? You get on with emptying those cubicles. How is it going out there?’

‘It’s settling. Just a few more to be patched up and sent home.’

‘Good lass.’ Mary nodded. ‘Save cubicle one for me, mind. I’ll come and see him when I’m done in here. If you could just find Vicki for me and ask her to come in, that would be grand.’

‘We’re nearly there.’ Pier gave a tired smile as Eleanor came out. ‘I must have a drink or you’ll be treating me for a faint. Vicki said to sort out our breaks between us—do you want to go first?’

‘You go,’ Eleanor offered, knowing Pier was just being polite. ‘I’ll just finish up here.’

‘There’s nothing to do.’ Pier shrugged. ‘Everything is under control. Mary said to leave cubicle one for her—he just needs some strapping and a tetanus injection, which I’ve already pulled up. Agnes is just sleeping it off in between asking for bedpans and the toddler in cubicle two just needs the doctor to listen to his chest now that his nebuliser is finished, then hopefully his parents can take him home.’

‘Then go.’ Eleanor grinned. ‘Even I can manage that lot.’

It felt strange, being left alone in the department. Not that she was really alone, there were a few patients still around, a few doctors writing their notes up at the desk and the rest of the staff were bobbing in and out of various cubicles. But, standing at the nurses’ station, Eleanor couldn’t help but feel a bit smugly important, as well as nervous in case anything should come flying through the doors and she would, temporarily at least, be the one to deal with it.

‘How much longer will he have to wait?’ A ruddy-faced rugby player popped his head around the curtain and Eleanor made her way over, pulling out the casualty card from the clipboard.

‘Shouldn’t be long.’ Eleanor peered at the card. ‘He just needs some strapping and a tetanus shot.’

She expected an argument, after all she was just standing there, but instead the man disappeared behind the curtain and Eleanor listened with increasing impatience as the drunken guffaws got louder.

‘How long will the doctor be?’ The father of the toddler in cubicle two came over, a worried frown on his face, and Eleanor gave a sympathetic smile.

‘Not too much longer. It has to be a registrar or consultant that discharges Marcus, and unfortunately they’re both stuck in Resus at the moment. They know that you’re waiting, though.’

‘Fair enough.’ He gave a tired shrug. ‘He’s just getting upset with all the noise, you know.’ He nodded pointedly towards cubicle one.

‘I do know,’ Eleanor said grimly. She was about to tell him it shouldn’t be much longer again, about to run with the usual spiel, but Pier’s words had struck a chord.

Then be a good nurse.

Mary was just trying to share the workload by telling them to save cubicle one for her. Eleanor could just picture the scathing look if she came out of Resus and saw her standing at the nurses’ station, twiddling her thumbs when there was still work to be done. Well, she’d learnt her lesson the hard way with Rita. By the time Mary came out, there wouldn’t be a patient in the department and she’d have started cleaning the trolleys. Picking up the kidney dish with the tetanus shot in it, she smiled at Marcus’s father. ‘Leave it to me.’

Breezing into the cubicle, she shot her most withering stare at the five men standing around the trolley. ‘Would you mind keeping the noise down, guys? We’ve got a young child next door and your noise is upsetting him.’

‘Sorry!’ The sarcastic response from the ruddy-faced man Eleanor could deal with, but when the other hangers-on started wolf-whistling Eleanor began to understand why Mary might have dealt with it better. But just as she started to wonder if perhaps she should leave the job to Mary after all, she found a rather surprising ally in her patient.

‘Cut it out, guys.’ His voice was deep and firm and brought an instant response, his five teammates instantly cutting the wisecracks and offering their apologies. For the first time Eleanor looked at her patient.

Then looked again!

For the past couple of hours she’d remained indifferent to the sight of six-foot-four, thick-necked, broken-nosed rugby players, but only a general anaesthetic could have rendered her indifferent to this one.

He was so huge that he made the gurney look like it belonged in the paediatric bay, yet there wasn’t an ounce of fat on his solid frame that was way too big for the white hospital gown that stretched over his wide chest, blond tousled hair framed a rugged face and somehow he even managed to make the customary broken nose look endearing, but, then, one couldn’t linger too long on his broken nose when navy eyes were attempting to focus. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said, gesturing to his raucous friends. ‘They’re getting bored.’

‘Which would be understandable if they were two years old,’ Eleanor replied crisply, determined not to let him see he was having the remotest effect on her. But her bossy nurse routine only delighted the crowd, the cat calls starting up again, growing ever louder, the whistles more piercing as Eleanor’s blush darkened. But when little Marcus in the next cubicle started crying again, Eleanor’s patience finally snapped. ‘Right, you can all wait outside while I fix up…’ She glanced at the casualty card. ‘Mr Hunter.’

‘Rory,’ her patient offered, but Eleanor wasn’t really listening. In best assertive nurse mode she shooed the last of the stragglers in the vague direction of the waiting room.

‘I thought Mary was going to come and patch me up,’ Rory ventured once they were alone.

‘ Sister Byrne is busy with a sick patient in Resus,’ Eleanor answered crisply, ‘so you’ll have to make do with me.’

‘That’s fine,’ he responded easily. ‘And you are?’

‘Sister Lewis.’

He was squinting at the name badge hanging around her neck, or at least Eleanor hoped that was what he was attempting to focus on.

‘Do you have a first name?’

‘Sister Lewis will do just fine,’ Eleanor replied firmly. ‘Now, you’ve already been stitched up.’ Peering at the notes, she put them down before turning to her patient. ‘It’s the left thigh, isn’t it?’

‘I hope so, given that’s the one they stitched.’ Lifting his gown, he pulled back the dressing before, annoyingly—extremely annoyingly, in fact—reaching over to the silver trolley beside the gurney and helping himself to a wad of gauze.

‘Please, don’t.’ Eleanor shook her head. ‘The trolleys are sterile.’

‘Really?’ He gave her a slightly nonplussed look and Eleanor was forced to relent somewhat. ‘Well, they’re clean and I’m supposed to restock them soon. It doesn’t make things easy when the patients help themselves.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ It didn’t, but it was far easier to be bossy, far easier to be slightly cross, than focus on his thighs—very nice thighs, too, Eleanor thought reluctantly, extremely muscular, blond-haired thighs that needed to be strapped.