Caroline Anderson - Saving Dr Gregory

Polly nodded. Of course. Do you want Mrs Major to come back this afternoon if it’s positive?’

Matt shook his head. ‘I don’t think there’s any need. If you find you can’t eat, then we can arrange for you to go into hospital so that you can be consistently monitored and maintained. Hopefully it won’t come to that—I don’t think it will—but they may want to take over your ante-natal care.’

‘Aren’t there any pills you can give me?’

‘I’d rather not,’ he said, after a slight pause. ‘I’m never sure about them. Let’s give it a whirl without first. I’m sure you’ll be all right.’

He rose to his feet and limped to the door.

‘Oh!’ Mrs Major exclaimed ‘You’ve hurt yourself!’

He gave her a lopsided grin. ‘Polly beat me up,’ he said sorrowfully.

‘Ignore him,’ Polly advised, throwing him a black look and fighting down another blush.

He limped off down the corridor, chuckling quietly. Polly explained to the bemused patient that Matt had nearly been run off the road that morning.

‘Lucky for him you were there!’ Mrs Major said, and Polly smiled tightly. She was not a vindictive person, but this tetanus injection was beginning to sound attractive!

It was much later that Polly got her revenge, and it wasn’t at all as she had expected. She met up with Matt over lunch—a snack taken in Reception after he came back from doing house calls, while he explained what he wanted her to do during the ante-natal clinics. First she was to weigh each patient and take her blood pressure, then check her urine with the Multistix, entering the results on the co-op card as well as the patient’s notes. Then Matt wanted her present to chaperon during examinations, but not otherwise. There were six patients booked for the afternoon session, and he ran over the notes quickly with Polly. There was nothing unusual about any of them, except for one elderly primip, a thirty-five-year-old unmarried woman who had decided she wanted a child.

‘She shouldn’t be a problem,’ Matt said, ‘she’s very fit and healthy. She’s in a stable relationship but there’s no question of marriage, so don’t ask her, and for goodness’ sake don’t call her Mrs Harding. It’s Ms—on pain of death! On the other hand, this very married lady——’ he thrust some notes at Polly ‘—Sarah Goddard, has three children already. The last one was born in the car on the way to hospital, and she only just got there with the second. Going on her record, we’ve opted for a home delivery! She’s due at the beginning of January, but she probably won’t go to term. Right, I’ve got some letters to write and some results to sift through. I’ll see you at three on the dot. We’ve only got an hour, so we have to keep moving fairly rapidly. If anyone has a problem, we tend to run over and lose our tea break. I really don’t want to, especially as I’m on call tonight, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.’

He gave a wry smile, and Polly felt herself respond against her better judgement. He was such a tease, she thought, but such a nice person with it. She watched as he unfolded himself and limped cautiously towards the door.

‘Have you done anything about that leg yet?’ she asked, concerned despite herself.

He shook his head. ‘I can’t reach it to stitch it, but I think you’re right. I don’t suppose you’d like to do it now—that is, if I can trust you?’

Polly’s eyes widened. ‘Me?’ she mouthed.

‘You can suture, can’t you?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but——’

‘But nothing. Please? Stephen and Mike are too busy, and I hate to see a good woman go to waste——’

Polly stood up and stalked past him. ‘Come on, then,’ she threw over her shoulder, and went into his consulting room.

‘Take your trousers off and lie down,’ she instructed, scrubbing up her hands and sorting out the lignocaine injection and the tetanus booster.

‘I get a feeling of déjà vu ,’ he commented, kicking off his shoes and removing his trousers.

‘Just shut up and lie down,’ she said irritably. She didn’t like the way he made her feel, not one bit. She was never irritable—never. He brought out a side of her she didn’t even know existed, and it was a side she didn’t think she liked. However, he seemed to hit all the wrong buttons all the time.

She picked up the lignocaine syringe and got Matt to check it.

‘Don’t mix them up,’ he warned, a thread of laughter in his voice.

‘Serve you right if I did,’ Polly replied, and resisted the urge to plunge the needle into his leg unnecessarily hard. After injecting the local anaesthetic into the area around the wound and disposing of the syringe, she picked up the other and asked, ‘Where do you want the tetanus booster—gluteus maximus?’

He rolled over sharply, eyes laughing. ‘No way! I want to be able to sit down. Here will do. I’m going to be limping anyway.’ He pointed to his thigh and watched as Polly slapped his leg, swabbed it and injected it with practised ease.

‘Not bad,’ he said mildly, ‘but was it necessary to slap me first?’

‘Technically, no, spiritually, yes,’ Polly replied, dropping the syringe into the sharps bin. ‘Right, let’s get you sewn up, Dr Gregory.’

He rolled on to his stomach, propped his chin on his folded hands and mumbled something.

‘What?’

‘I said I’m sorry. I should have told you who I was, but I was enjoying your ministrations and I was afraid you’d flounder if you knew who I was. I didn’t mean to tease you at first, and in the surgery…’

‘… it was just too good an opportunity to miss. I know. Right, hold still. Is it numb?’

At his nod, she removed the butterfly plaster, swabbed the wound and carefully trimmed away the softly curling hairs around the area. Then she inserted the suture needle, drawing the ragged edges of the wound together. ‘I’m going to do two, I think. It’ll be neater. Not that it’ll show with all this fuzz.’

‘I’ll be devastated if I’m scarred, Polly. I’ll hold you personally responsible,’ he threatened.

‘You are in a very vulnerable position,’ she warned him. ‘If I were you, I’d be very quiet!’

Just then Mike Haynes popped his head round the door. ‘Ah, there you are. Very neat, Polly. Well done. Don’t forget to fill in the paperwork so we can claim!’

Polly smiled. Oh, no. This one’s on me,’ she said with a light laugh.

‘Can you give me a minute when you’re done, Matt?’ Dr Haynes asked, and Matt nodded.

‘We won’t be long.’ Polly tied off the suture, clipped it neatly and covered the wound. ‘Let me see that tomorrow, and I’ll change the dressing,’ she told him, disposing of the refuse and stripping off her gloves.

He slid off the couch and dressed quickly, then on the way past, he dropped a quick and meaningless little kiss on her lips.

‘Thanks, Polly.’

His smile held his apology, and Polly smiled back her forgiveness. In truth, she couldn’t have done anything else, because something inside her had come alive at his kiss, and she couldn’t have stopped the smile if her life depended on it.

THEY met up again at three for the ante-natal clinic, and Polly had an opportunity to see Matt Gregory in action. She found it a real eye-opener.

Far too young to assume a paternalistic attitude, with his warm, open smile and solid bulk he just became everyone’s favourite brother. He asked searching personal questions with gentle understanding, said nothing trite or patronising, and managed to refrain from avuncular pats or the worse alternative, chilling professional distance.

He treated the women in his care with respect, interest and a touching tenderness, as if what they were doing was somehow special—which of course it was.