Cort Mason - Dr. Delectable Read online

  ‘Give her a go, would you?’ Sheila responded.

  ‘No,’ Cort said, and didn’t qualify further, even as Sheila waited, but when Cort remained silent, Sheila turned her frustration back to its regular recipient.

  ‘What are you doing here, Ruby? I told you! I specifically told you not to leave Resus.’

  ‘Mr Mason asked me to come and hold an arm.’ Ruby gulped.

  ‘Someone else could have done that. Now you’ve missed watching an emergency tracheotomy…’

  ‘Oh.’ Ruby wondered how she could even attempt to sound disappointed at having missed out on seeing that! ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘A shame?’ Sheila replied. ‘Are you being sarcastic?’

  ‘I asked her to come in here.’ Cort intervened as Ruby struggled for a better response. ‘She was sorting out a cupboard, so I thought I’d give her—’

  ‘I’ll deal with my nurses, thanks, Cort.’ She turned back to Ruby. ‘I’m sick of this, Ruby…’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘I haven’t got time for this right now. I’ll speak to you at your assessment this evening. Bring a coffee,’ she added. ‘We might be there for a while.’

  Sheila stormed off, and Cort carried on stitching as Ruby sat there with cheeks flaming. Cort knew that if he didn’t deal with this situation now, he’d forget about it or miss out on seeing Sheila later, and with a small hiss born of frustration and anger he stood again, peeled off another pair of gloves and waded out into the department, leaving Ruby sitting there.

  ‘It’s not her fault.’ Cort walked into Resus and straight up to Sheila, who was coming off the phone to ICU. ‘What is a student supposed to say when a senior registrar asks her to come and do something for him? She checked with Connor…’

  ‘Ruby finds excuses all the time, Cort,’ Sheila said. ‘She’d do anything to avoid work and you just gave her the perfect excuse. She searches for them…’

  ‘She didn’t, though,’ Cort said. ‘I approached her.’

  ‘Fine,’ Sheila said. ‘I’ll bear it in mind. Right now I’ve got more important things to deal with.’ Cort looked over to the screened area where Sheila was heading, where the team was working solidly. He caught Jamelia’s eye and she came over.

  ‘Thanks, Cort.’ Jamelia meant it. The hellish intubation had turned into a nightmare just as Cort had arrived and she was incredibly grateful that Cort had taken over when he had.

  ‘Call for help,’ Cort said, ‘preferably before you really need it.’

  Jamelia nodded.

  ‘So,’ Ruby said when he returned to the suture room. ‘It looks like we’re both in trouble.’

  ‘I’m not in trouble,’ Cort said. ‘I’m just running out of size 9 gloves.’

  He sat down and blew up his hair, because it really was warm in the suture room and he was still so angry he could spit. ‘There’s a big difference,’ he said, ‘between hero and ego. If you take anything from this place—take that.’ Ruby nodded.

  ‘I told Sheila it wasn’t your fault,’ he added as she snipped the last of the stitches.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ruby said. ‘Though I doubt it will help.’

  He wanted to ask more, wanted to find out why she was in trouble, but he didn’t want to wonder more about her as well. She stayed quiet as he finished the neat row of sutures then he asked her to put on a dressing, thanked her for her help, peeled off the plastic gloves and washed his hands.

  ‘Cort.’ Jamelia came to the door and it sounded an awful lot as if she’d been crying. ‘Would you mind…?’ She gave a small swallow. ‘Would you mind talking to the relatives for me?’

  ‘I’ll come and take a look at him first.’ Cort nodded and picked up his jacket just as Sheila bustled in.

  ‘Jamelia, the relatives really do need to be spoken to ASAP.’

  ‘I’m going to do it,’ Cort said.

  ‘You go with Cort.’ Sheila glanced over at Ruby. ‘I’ll finish up in here.’

  Ruby would have preferred an emergency tracheotomy, even ten of them, rather than the prospect of sitting with relatives as bad news was delivered, and she fumbled for yet another excuse. ‘Connor said I was to go straight to coffee after doing this.’

  ‘You couldn’t say no to the senior reg when he asked you to do something for him, I can understand that.’ Sheila fixed her with a stare. ‘So don’t say no to the NUM.’

  Ruby nodded and swallowed and glanced up to Cort.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I just want to see for myself how he is first.’

  They walked into Resus and the anaesthetist gave Cort a full briefing. Ruby stood quietly and looked at the young man for a moment then looked away as Cort examined his eyes and his ears and checked his reflexes for himself. She could hear all the anaesthetist was saying and it sounded a lot less than hopeful.

  ‘Let’s do this, then.’

  They walked down the corridor to the little interview room and just as they got there, Ruby was quite sure that she couldn’t go in.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she admitted, and Cort turned round briefly.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Cort said. ‘Come on.’

  And she wanted to turn, wanted to run. For a full three seconds she seriously considered it, except he’d knocked and opened the door and there was a whole family whose eyes turned anxiously towards them. A nurse running off would only terrify them more than they were already.

  It was the only reason she forced herself to go in.

  CHAPTER TWO

  COULD he not give them a little more hope?

  Ruby sat in with the family and listened as Cort gave the grim diagnosis.

  ‘The paramedics were unable to intubate him,’ Cort reiterated.

  ‘But he was bagged…’ The young man’s sister was a nurse and she was absolutely not having it, refusing to accept the grim diagnosis. ‘He would have got some oxygen. And it was just a couple of minutes from the hospital when he went into respiratory arrest.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cort said. ‘However, his airway was severely obstructed, so we’re not sure how effective that was. His head injuries are extensive too,’ he added, and the ping-pong match went on as Ruby sat there, the family demanding more hope than Cort would permit.

  ‘We’re going to move him up to ICU within the next half hour—they’re just preparing for him.’

  ‘Can we see him first?’

  ‘Briefly,’ Cort said, then he warned them all what to expect and Ruby just sat there. He told them it would be a little while till they were able to go in, but someone would be along just as soon as they could to fetch them.

  And as Ruby stared at her knees, she tried not to cry as Cort finished the interview.

  ‘I really am very sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ the sister answered tartly. ‘Just save him.’

  ‘I see from his notes that he’s Catholic,’ Cort said. ‘Would you like us to arrange the priest to visit him?’

  Ruby thought she might stand and run out of there as the family started really sobbing, but at that point Cort stood.

  ‘Someone will be in shortly.’

  ‘Could you not have been a bit gentler with them?’ Ruby asked when they were outside.

  ‘Why?’ Cort asked. ‘Soon they’re going to be approached to consider organ donation…’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  He watched as she walked quickly to the patient toilet and he thought of waiting till she came out, but it wasn’t his problem. Instead he went and spoke to Connor then gave ICU a ring. He then found Jamelia in tears in his office and dealt with her as kindly as he could. Vomiting nurses and emergency doctors who couldn’t deal with emergencies really weren’t his problem.

  He actually felt sorry for Jamelia.

  A temporary locum, she had worked mainly in the country and simply wasn’t used to the volume of patients that came through Eastern Beaches’ doors. She was filling big shoes too—Nick, a popular locum, was on his honeymoon, and though their paths had never cro
ssed, Cort knew the energy and fun he had brought to this difficult place. Jamelia told him that after Nick, and with Cort now back, she felt as though she was a disappointment to everyone. So after a long chat with Jamelia he headed to the kitchen, where someone had made a pot of tea. He poured himself a cup, then frowned at the watery fluid and opened the lid of the pot, only to see a pile of leaves and herbs. He made a mug of coffee instead and headed for the staffroom.

  ‘Why is there a garden growing in the teapot?’ he asked, and sat down.

  ‘Ruby’s herbs!’ Siobhan, another nurse on duty, rolled her eyes. ‘Just in case your immune system needs boosting.’

  ‘I’ll stick with caffeine, thanks.’

  He glanced over to where Ruby sat, reading a book on her coffee break, her complexion a touch whiter than it had been in the suture room.

  ‘Where’s Jamelia?’ Doug, the consultant, popped his head in. ‘Hiding in the office again?’

  ‘Go easy,’ Cort sighed.

  ‘Someone has to say something,’ Doug said.

  ‘I just have.’

  ‘Okay.’ Doug nodded. ‘I’ll leave her for now.’

  ‘You know what they say…’ Siobhan yawned and stretched out her legs. ‘If you can’t stand the heat…’

  And Ruby couldn’t stand this place.

  They just spoke about everything and anyone wherever they wanted, just bitched and dissected people, and didn’t care who heard. She couldn’t stand Siobhan and her snide comments, and she really thought she might say something, just might stand up and tell her what an absolute bitch she was, that any normal person would be sitting in an office sobbing when a twenty-three-year-old was going to die. That laughing and joking and eating chocolate and watching television as the priest walked past the staffroom was bizarre behaviour.

  ‘Ruby.’ It was Sheila who popped her head round the door now. ‘Are you finished your break?’

  ‘Yes.’ She closed the book she had seemed so focused on, except she had never turned a page, Cort realised as she stood up.

  ‘Come into my office then—bring a drink if you want to.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He could see two spots of red on the apple of her cheeks, could see the effort behind her bright smile as a couple of staff offered their best wishes as she headed out of the room, then Siobhan called out to her as she reached the door.

  ‘Ruby, can you empty out the teapot when you use it?’ Siobhan said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Only it’s annoying,’ Siobhan said. ‘Perhaps you could bring in your own teapot?’

  Cort watched the set of her shoulders, saw her turn and look over at Siobhan, and for a second she looked as if she was about to say something less than pleasant, but instead she gave that wide smile. ‘Fine,’ Ruby said, and headed off for her assessment.

  ‘Love to be a fly on the wall!’ Siobhan smirked. ‘Sheila’s going to rip her in two.’

  Someone else sniggered and Cort just sat there.

  ‘What is it with her bloody herbs?’ Siobhan just would not let up and Cort was about to tell her to do just that, but he knew what would happen if he did—there’d be rumours then that he was sticking up for a certain nurse, that he fancied her.

  But Siobhan was still banging on and his mood was less than pleasant.

  ‘Her immune system probably needs all the help it can get in this place,’ Cort said as he stood up and headed out of the staffroom. ‘Given how toxic this place can be at times.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  THEY could fail her.

  Ruby tried not to think about it as she stalled the car coming out of the staff car park. There were new boom gates and the car was so low that, as she leant out of the window to swipe her ID card, it stalled and, grinding the gears in the shiny silver sports car all the way home she wished, not for the first time, that her brother had bought an automatic.

  Normally she walked or took the bus to work, but it was Saturday and she’d promised her housemates to get home as soon as she could and meet them at the Stat Bar, so had taken the car. But as she pulled into Hill Street, the temptation to change her mind and forgo the rapid change of clothes and mad dash out was almost overwhelming—a noisy bar was the last place she wanted to be tonight.

  Far preferable would it be to curl up on the sofa and just hide, but she’d had two excited texts from Tilly already, urging her to get there ASAP because she had some wonderful news.

  Ruby let herself into the house and could smell the perfume her housemates had left behind on their way out. There was a bottle of wine opened on the kitchen table and a box of chocolates too. How much nicer it would be to pour a glass of wine and sit in the darkness alone with chocolate than head out there, but then they’d ring her, Ruby realised, and as if to prove the point her mobile shrilled.

  ‘Where are you?’ Tilly demanded.

  She was about to say that she was going to give it a miss, but could not face the barrage of questions. ‘I’m just getting changed.’

  ‘Well, hurry. I’ll look out for you.’

  Ruby trudged up the stairs, had a rapid shower then tried to work out what to wear—nothing in her wardrobe, or over the chair, or on the floor, matched her mood.

  And it wasn’t just what Sheila had said that was upsetting her. As she’d headed away from her hellish shift and a very prolonged assessment, she’d passed the young man’s family, comforting each other outside the hospital—and worse, far worse, the daughter had come over and thanked her.

  For what? Ruby had wanted to ask, because she’d done absolutely nothing.

  ‘You were lovely with Mum,’ the daughter had said, and only then had Ruby recalled that when Cort had asked them about the priest she’d found herself holding the woman’s hand.

  Their grief was so palpable, so thick and real that it seemed to have followed her home, and despite the shower it felt as if it had seeped into her skin.

  ‘Come on, Ruby,’ she told herself. She turned on some music and danced around the room for a moment, doing all she could to raise her spirits.

  And it worked a bit because she selected a nice cream skirt and a backless halter-neck top, pulled on all her silver bangles and put big silver earrings on. Looking in the mirror, Ruby decided that with a nice dash of lipstick she could pass as happy.

  She didn’t feel quite so brave, though, as she walked down Hill Street, turned the corner and walked past the New-Age shop she had worked in for two years after finishing school. She’d been happy then, if a little restless. Her desk had been stuffed with nursing brochures and forms and she had tried to pluck up the courage to apply to study nursing, telling herself she could do it, that even if didn’t appeal, she could get through her general training and then go on to work in mental health.

  It would seem she’d been wrong.

  She could hear the noise and laughter from the beer garden, knew her friends were wondering where she had got to, and she stood outside for a moment and pretended to read a text on her phone. She looked out at Coogee Beach and longed to walk there in the darkness and gather her thoughts.

  ‘Ruby!’ Tilly, her housemate, caught her just as her decision to wander was made. ‘Finally you’re here!’ Tilly said, and then frowned. ‘Are you okay?’ Tilly always looked out for her, for all the girls really. Ruby wondered whether she should just come out and say that Sheila had warned her that unless things improved she was going to have to repeat her Emergency rotation, except Ruby remembered that Tilly had news of her own and was desperate to tell her friend.

  ‘I’m fine. So what’s your news?’

  Tilly’s face spread into a smile. She was a redhead too, but there the similarities ended. Her hair was lighter and much curlier than Ruby’s and Tilly was taller and a calmer, more centred person. Also unlike Ruby, she was totally in love with her work. ‘I delivered an unexpected breech today. Ruby, it was brilliant, the best feeling ever.’ Tilly was a newly qualified midwife and babies, mothers, bonding, skin to skin were absolute
ly her passion. Even if Ruby could think of nothing more terrifying than delivering a breech baby, she knew this was food for Tilly’s soul.

  ‘That’s brilliant.’ Ruby didn’t force her smile and hug. She was genuinely thrilled for Tilly.

  ‘I just saw this little bottom…’ Tilly gushed. ‘I called for help but as quickly as that he just unfolded, his little legs and hips came out and he just hung there. Mum was amazing. I mean just amazing…’

  Ruby stood and listened as Tilly gave her the first of no doubt many detailed accounts of how the senior midwife had let her finish the job, how the doctor had arrived just as the delivery was complete.

  ‘I’m talking too much,’ Tilly said.

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘Come on,’ Tilly said. ‘Your mob are here too.’

  ‘My mob?’ Ruby asked as they walked in. ‘You’re my mob!’

  ‘There are loads from Emergency here.’

  God, that was all she needed. Half of Ruby’s problem with Emergency was that she didn’t like the staff. Okay, it was probably an eighth of her problem, but they were just so confident, so cliquey, and so bloody bitchy as well, and close proximity to them was so not needed tonight.

  Ruby walked in and straight over to her friends, deliberately pretending not to even see the rowdy Emergency crowd and hoping that they wouldn’t see her. Not that there was much chance of that. With her long auburn hair she always stood out, but they’d hardly be wanting a student nurse to join them, she consoled herself.

  ‘Here she is!’ Jess, another housemate, had already bought her a beer and Ruby took a sip as Jess asked how her shift had gone.

  ‘Long,’ Ruby said, and she did what she always did and smiled, because she was a happy person, a positive, outgoing, slightly flaky person—it was just Emergency that affected her so much. ‘Where’s Ellie?’

  ‘Chatting up “the one”.’ Jess grinned and nodded over to the bar, where Ellie was sitting on some guy’s lap, the pair earnestly talking, utterly engrossed and oblivious to everyone around them. Ruby laughed, because for the next few weeks he would be all they heard about. Ellie, determined to find her life partner and get the family she craved, drifted happily from boyfriend to boyfriend in her quest for ‘the one’, but as Ruby turned back to Jess and Tilly, her eyes drifted to the emergency table, and inadvertently she caught Connor’s eye.