CAROL MARINELLI - The Elusive Consultant

It was a joke, a below-the-belt joke that nurses and doctors dished out almost by the minute, a brother-sister-type tease that normally Tessa would have shrugged off before it had even registered in her brain.

But it wasn’t a normal morning, and there was nothing sisterly about the way Tessa was feeling. Max was leaving, there was no denying it now, she’d heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.

It really was going to happen.

All that talk, all that bravado about being friends had all been a lie—a lie she was so used to living. After five years it came as naturally as breathing. And her excuse to him about not being able to offer an impartial feminine viewpoint had been another one.

Feminine she could readily manage, but impartial, well, it wasn’t even a vague possibility.

Max, with his curly brown hair and teasing smile, had never, since the moment Tessa had first laid eyes on him, been just a friend. Max, with his crumpled clothes and banana-skin humour, who could make her cry with laughter one minute and suddenly be serious the next, was so much more than her work confidant, brunch buddy and sounding-board.

There was nothing impartial about Tessa’s feelings.

Max Slater was the man that she loved.

‘SORRY to drag you back, guys. The story’s a bit vague from Ambulance Control so I thought it best to be prepared.’

‘No problem,’ Max replied easily. ‘What do we know so far?’

‘Speedboat versus jet-ski.’

‘Ouch.’ Max rolled his eyes. ‘How many?’

‘Three from the boat, two with seemingly minor injuries and one unconscious, thankfully they were all wearing life jackets.’

‘And the jet-skier?’ Tessa asked, mentally assessing the injuries and matching her staff available.

‘He’s not been so lucky, I’m afraid. It would seem he wasn’t wearing a life jacket. The report from Ambulance Control is that he’s got multiple injuries, including a possible broken neck. They were going to take him straight to the spinal unit, that’s why I held off calling you, but apparently he’s gone into full cardiac arrest in the helicopter so they’re bringing him here.’

The spinal unit was only another thirty minutes or so in the helicopter but, given that full resuscitation was in progress, thirty minutes along the bay was too long and Tessa gave a small grimace. ‘Hopefully we can get him there later. How do you want to work this, Jane?’

Technically the allocation was up to Tessa as she was the charge nurse on duty, but Jane was a senior nurse and this morning Tessa had let her be in charge, gradually allowing more responsibility to fall onto Jane’s shoulders, with the intention being that she could soon oversee the department by herself.

‘Well, I’d like to take the full resus, but I guess if I’m supposed to be running the show I should take the unconscious boat victim and direct traffic.’

‘Good call.’ Tessa’s voice was encouraging, but inwardly she sighed at Jane’s persistent lack of foresight. As good an emergency nurse as Jane was, she had rather too much bravado about her and a noticeable unwillingness to delegate, far happier to be in the thick of things than running the show. It was something Tessa was working on quietly, but with rather limited success. ‘But the boat victim is an unknown entity. You might find yourself just as tied up with him.’

Jane chewed her lip thoughtfully, and Tessa glanced at her fob watch, willing her colleague to hurry up and make a decision.

‘Why don’t you send Kim in?’ Tessa said finally when it was obviously they weren’t getting anywhere.

‘But she’s only a grad nurse,’ Jane protested, itching to pull on her latex gloves and get on with the job she loved.

‘A grad nurse who needs more resuscitation experience,’ Tessa pointed out. ‘First-hand experience is the only way she’ll learn and at least Max is on so he’ll watch her like a hawk. I can oversee them while I deal with the boat victim.’

‘So when I’m in charge I just get to stay in the corridor and direct traffic?’

‘Well, there’s a bit more than that.’ Tessa smiled at her colleague’s disappointed face. ‘You’ll be run off your feet with relatives and us calling for things, but that’s the way it is when you’re in charge, Jane. Someone has to be the chief.’

‘Great,’ Jane muttered as Tessa made her way into Resus, more than happy to be in the thick of things again.

‘Sorry, guys, I was stuck in Theatre. What’s the story?’

Even if Tessa hadn’t recognised the voice, the sudden tension that filled the room told Tessa that Emily had arrived and, more annoyingly, Tessa didn’t even have to look up to know that the sight that would have greeted her would have been one of unruffled, petite beauty.

Emily never looked ruffled. The woman had probably spent the morning pulling dislocated hips and shoulders into place and yet her blonde hair was pulled back into a perfectly neat ponytail, her theatre blues looked tailor-made and her clear, china blue eyes never wandered as she listened intently to the brief history given by a suddenly nervous Jane.

Emily had that effect on women.

On men, too.

Come to think of it, Tessa grumbled to herself as she assembled equipment, even three-year-olds quaked when Emily approached.

She might look like a tiny fragile porcelain doll, but two minutes in her company soon put paid to that. Emily Elves hadn’t made it to orthopaedic registrar courtesy of her good looks, and the fact her father was the top obstetrician in the hospital wouldn’t count for anything when she went for the consultant’s position at the end of the month. No, Emily had made it this far in a man’s world through steely determination, a brilliant medical mind and an utter disregard for emotion.

‘So the jet-skier wasn’t wearing a life jacket.’ Her blue eyes finally swivelled to Max when the history was completed and a wry smile appeared on her smooth face. ‘Did you hear that, Max?’

‘No doubt it’s all I’m going to hear for the next few days,’ Max responded with a slight edge to his voice that instantly had the room enthralled.

‘You see,’ Emily explained, still smiling as she started to pull up some drugs from the trolley, ‘Max Slater, your, oh, so responsible emergency consultant, the lynchpin of the department, the one we’re supposed to look to for guidance, well, he thought he might try his hand at jet-skiing last weekend.’

Everyone laughed. It was the type of conversation that often took place as the adrenaline kicked in while they waited for the arrival of patients, but even though Tessa joined in the laughter a small frown puckered her brow. As commonplace as this type of conversation might be amongst the staff in Emergency, it was a revelation to hear Emily opening up. Emily Elves was eternally private. In fact, normally she went out of her way to keep her professional and personal lives completely separate, yet here she was for the first time in memory telling anyone who was interested about her weekend with Max. There was definitely something strange going on.

But Tessa had no choice but to listen and laugh along with the rest of the rabble and it hurt.

Really hurt.

‘Of course,’ Emily continued, ‘I knew nothing about it. There I was, having a doze on the beach, half listening as some hoon came in way too close to the shore, laughing his head off, whooping with enjoyment and generally making a nuisance of himself, you get the picture. It was only when the yob in question started calling my name did I sit up and take notice...’

‘I was only on the jet-ski for ten minutes,’ Max argued. ‘If that. Mind you...’ he grinned ‘...it was the best ten minutes of my life.’