Sharon Kendrik - All The Care In The World

‘And is that the case?’ asked Jenny in surprise.

Callum nodded. ‘Oh, undoubtedly. General practice has suffered from intellectual rubbishing by hospital staff for much too long now. And it’s time that we stood up and showed the world that we’re proud to be general practitioners.’

‘Yes, Dr Hughes,’ said Jenny, hiding a smile which bordered on the wistful. It was such a waste, she thought fleetingly, that a man as good-looking and as gorgeous as Dr Callum Hughes should channel all his passion and his energy into his job!

‘Anyway, she’ll be here at about eleven,’ she continued equably. ‘I told her to arrive later than we would usually expect—explained that you were just back from holidays and that you’d have a lot of catching up to do. I said it was probably best to come after surgery on her first morning, rather than throwing her straight in at the deep end. I do hope that’s all right?’

Callum was frowning at a rather bolshie letter from a consultant who had recently moved into the area. Though his surgical reputation was good, he clearly wasn’t the world’s greatest diplomat! ‘Hmm? Yes, that’s fine, Jenny,’ he said absently, and then, as he heard the practice manager head towards the door, he lifted his head and said, ‘What’s her name, by the way?’

‘It’s Nancy,’ said Jenny. ‘Nancy Greenwood.’

‘Pretty name,’ he commented, with a smile.

‘Yes,’ agreed Jenny, wondering why fate didn’t lend a hand by sending Dr Hughes a single doctor instead of one who was married! ‘You met her when she asked to be transferred from the Southbury scheme. Remember?’

Callum looked up, screwing his green eyes up in such a way that even his cynical practice manager’s heart began to pound rather erratically.

He was relatively new at training prospective general practitioners, and he had interviewed so few that it didn’t take him long to recollect the female doctor who had come to him for an interview. He frowned.

Nancy Greenwood.

Yes, of course.

She had been on a training scheme in the picturesque cathedral city of Southbury, but there had been some kind of trouble and her trainer had rung Callum to ask if she could transfer to him. Dr Farrow, her trainer, had been reluctant to discuss her desire to change her training practice, other than to reassure Callum that she was an excellent doctor and that her reasons for wanting to move were personal, beyond her control and rather distressing.

That had been enough for Callum—he wasn’t the kind of man to intrude, unasked, into someone’s private life. He liked and respected Dr Farrow, both personally and professionally. An endorsement from such a man was all he needed to agree to see Dr Nancy Greenwood.

And the only fact which swam to the forefront of his memory of that meeting was that she had been so small ! But, then, at an impressive six feet and three inches comparative lack of stature was something that Callum was well used to!

And young, he reminded himself suddenly. She had looked much too young to be a doctor. He remembered thinking that at the time and had seen that as a reflection on just how ancient he must be getting. Thirty-three next birthday—just where did the time go? he wondered fleetingly.

Jenny saw him frown. ‘Her CV is on the top of that other pile if you want to look over it again before she arrives.’

‘Thanks,’ said Callum, but he was so engrossed in a leader from last week’s BMJ that he didn’t take in a word of Jenny’s last sentence and the CV remained, sitting unread, on top of the pile.

The flame-red sports car slid to a halt outside Purbrook Surgery, drawing the usual mixture of admiring and envious glances.

Switching off the ignition to the accompaniment of interested stares, Nancy found herself wishing that she could trade it in for a more discreet and ordinary car—not one that risked alienating the patients because it looked so flashy! But she couldn’t trade it in, not yet, anyway, because the car in question had been a present, and everyone knew that you should never look a gift horse in the mouth...

She got out of the car slowly, delaying walking into the surgery for as long as possible for she realised that her hands were still shaking like mad. The gold wedding band on her finger gleamed mockingly up at her as she tried to block this morning’s row out of her memory and settle herself into a more receptive frame of mind for her first day as a trainee in general practice. A few deep breaths should help settle her equilibrium.

Nancy filled her lungs with air and expelled it slowly, vague memories from a distant yoga class coming to her aid as she pushed open the surgery door, determined that her face should not register her reaction to the ugly, biting taunts that she’d been forced to endure before she’d left for work this morning.

Shaking her head to dispel the all-too-vivid images of her husband’s face distorted with a cold and untouchable anger, Nancy walked into the surgery—straight into the muted clatter of the main reception area.

Behind a desk sat the receptionists, some speaking into telephones as they made appointments and answered queries and others pulling patients’ notes out of the grey filing cabinets which had mushroomed to fill all the available space behind them. A computer terminal hummed quietly in a corner and a fax machine began to spew out paper as a message came through.

One of the receptionists looked up questioningly at Nancy as she stood slightly hesitantly before the desk.

‘Do you have an appointment?’ she asked Nancy, without preamble, her eyes flickering over her with interest.

Nancy shook her dark head. ‘No, I haven’t,’ she began. ‘You see, I—’

‘I’m afraid that the doctor won’t see you without an appointment,’ said the woman automatically, though not quite as kindly as she might have done if Nancy hadn’t been wearing a suit which probably cost as much as her entire month’s salary!

Nancy, who had spent a sleepless night in the spare room and taken part in renewed hostilities at breakfast this morning, was not best pleased at being mistaken for a patient! Looking like a patient implied that you looked unwell or out of sorts. And that implication was a little too close for comfort!

‘Do you always jump to conclusions?’ she enquired mildly.

The receptionist bristled. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she queried frostily.

Nancy bit her lip. She really mustn’t take all her impotent frustration out on a woman who was, after all, only doing her job. ‘It’s just that I’m Dr Hughes’s new registrar, not a patient,’ she explained helpfully. ‘If you had simply asked whether you could help me, rather than whether or not I had an appointment...’

Her voice tailed off as the other woman glared at her, and she realised that she had put her foot right in it. Maybe Steve was right, she thought distractedly. Maybe she was impossible to live with.

‘I have worked at this practice since it first opened ten years ago,’ the receptionist informed her rather coldly, ‘and I really think I am past the stage of being taught how to do my job properly—particularly by a newcomer!’

Nancy tried one more time. She managed a watery, apologetic smile. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to offend you,’ she told the woman truthfully. ‘It’s just that at the moment I’m learning all about asking open-ended questions instead of closed questions, and I—’

‘Please excuse me for a moment,’ the woman said, looking slightly mollified as the telephone in front of her began to ring and she picked it up like a lifeline. ‘Good morning!’ she trilled brightly. ‘Purbrook Surgery!’