Broken Heart Syndrome, page 5
The weird thing was that despite all her enthusiasm, and despite the fact that she had a scary amount of cardiology knowledge, she wasn’t asked questions in the meetings, and she wasn’t invited to go to the cath lab. Most of the time she was stuck doing the grunt work on the wards and had no opportunity to do anything more interesting. It was bizarre.
What was even more bizarre was that I was asked questions in the meetings, and I was pushed to go to the stupid cath lab. Luckily, so far I had managed to sneak my feet out of my clogs onto the cold floor without anyone noticing. This saved me from passing out, but did not save me from the endless questions Tom asked whilst doing the procedure.
Seeing as I could just about name the coronary arteries at a push, coupled with my difficulty to speak around Tom, I didn’t fare too well during these grillings.
‘Frankie!’ I snapped my head up in confusion from my sketch, having totally zoned out from the meeting.
Tom was standing at the front of the conference room where he had been presenting the echo pictures, and his furious gaze was fixed on me, along with the rest of the cardiology department. I shrunk down slightly, wishing I could disappear. ‘Sorry to interrupt but are you planning on answering the question anytime soon?’
Oh crap.
‘Um-’
‘Maybe the notes you’ve been taking could help us,’ he continued in a dangerous tone. He was weaving through the chairs towards me and I was too frozen in shock to react as he snatched my sketch, whisked it up to the front of the room and slapped it down on the projector.
A large image of three kittens all entangled together appeared on the screen. I was right; echo pictures did look like cats in a bag, the resemblance to the last projected picture was uncanny. Everyone was looking up at the screen, and there was a stunned silence before most of them lost their battles with laughter. Rosie (knowing how shy I was) felt my pain and was squeezing my hand.
I felt the heat hit my cheeks. I had never liked being the centre of attention, and certainly not did not relish being embarrassed in front of everyone. I felt my eyes sting and quickly looked away from Tom, but not before I saw a slightly panicked expression cross his face.
Mumbling something unintelligible to Rosie I ducked my head and slid off the narrow table.
‘Maybe we could move on Tom,’ I heard Dr Williams saying as I squeezed through the other juniors and finally made it to the door. I walked blindly down the corridor thinking how much I sincerely hated cardiology, and how much I hated my stupid, stupid, mean, weasel gankface boss. I may not have been much of a swearer out loud but I certainly could let rip in my head. In my head I even used the c-word, such was my anger.
Realizing that I didn’t know where I was headed and that in no way was I ready to start the ward round, I assessed my options. I considered heading to the mess or hiding away in the sister’s office but knew I could be found easily in either of those locations. I turned on my heel and headed to one place that I thought I could probably be safe.
Mrs Jones was a bed blocker. Patients who are taking up a hospital bed for non-medical reasons are called bed blockers. It’s a huge problem. Huge. It stops beds being available for acute patients and those waiting for surgery. Mrs Jones had been waiting for two months for her nursing home bed to become available. Her dementia complicated the issue, and meant that the wait had been even longer as she needed specialist care. She had come in to cardiology with a heart attack.
Ladies who have made it to the age of ninety are generally tough as old boots. It takes a lot to kill them. Mrs Jones had emerged relatively unscathed from her heart attack, and the next day was back to her cantankerous self, demanding ginger biscuits and tea. But it had become clear that she couldn’t go home: she had been leaving the gas on, there were three sets of keys in her freezer, and she thought the year was 1987.
There was also a slight issue with aggression; when Tom tried to refer her to elderly care to get her off his list she told the elderly care consultant he had a stupid face, and punched him in the nose. She thought I was her niece Tabitha, and I have to say that I was not surprised that her niece didn’t visit.
‘Hi there Gladys,’ I said as I slipped into her side room (no matter how much hibiscrub they used she had remained stubbornly MRSA positive, almost as if by sheer force of will so that she come retain her own room).
‘Oh Tabitha you’re here, thank God.’ She was sitting up in bed, cup of tea in her hand, looking cross. ‘Those darkies aren’t doing anything for me dear. I could wither away in this room and nobody would ever know. They probably wouldn’t find me for days.’ I eyed the mountain of toast slathered in butter and jam in front of her, and raised my eyebrows. She waved her hand in front of the plate in a dismissive gesture. ‘I mean a proper meal dear.’
‘You were polishing off a cottage pie when I came in yesterday,’ I reminded her and she scowled at me. ‘And I’ve told you not to call anyone a darkie. All your nurses are white anyway. The only even vaguely dark skinned person you see is Dr Patel, and he’s from Bognor Regis.’
‘Just stick on the tape you impertinent girl,’ she said grumpily. Her niece had brought in her TV with old VCR player attached and Mrs Jones watched vintage eighties ‘Neighbours’ episodes continuously. I stuck in her favourite one (Scott and Charlene’s wedding of course) and curled up on the big chair next to her bed.
She begrudgingly shared her toast with me, and I began to feel a little better. I mean if there was ever a feel good telly moment it had to be Charlene walking down the isle to ‘Suddenly’.
Mrs Mangel had just caught the bouquet and was eyeing Harold up when Ash stuck his head round the door. I sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
‘Come on Frankie,’ he said smiling as he came in. ‘”A man who cannot tolerate small misfortunes can never accomplish great things.”’
‘I swear to God Ash, one more bloody proverb and I will lose it.’
‘Oh no, another darkie,’ Gladys mumbled unhappily.
‘Gladys!’ I said sharply. ‘What did we talk about?’
Ash was chuckling now, ‘Frankie, “never try to reason the prejudice out of the man. It was not reasoned into him and cannot be reasoned out.”’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I take it the high commander wants to get on with the round now? How did you find me?’
He looked affronted. ‘Mrs Jones is one of our patients Frankie.’
I gave him a long stare and raised my eyebrows. We both knew that neither him nor Tom would ever enter her room willingly.
He shrugged, ‘Okay the nurses gave you away. Look, don’t be too hard on the boss-man.’
I snorted, ‘Me? Hard on him? Were you in the conference room?’
‘He’s just trying to encourage you, get you involved. Cardiology can be a cutthroat specialty Frankie, you’ve got to be on top of your game to be successful.’ Why was he going on about cardiology?
‘I don’t give a flying foo-foo about cardiology,’ I semi-shouted as we approached CCU.
‘You don’t mean that Frankie,’ I heard the deep, familiar voice from behind us, and turned to see Tom striding down the corridor, his brows drawn together.
‘Um, yes, yes, I really do,’ I told his jaw, distractedly noting that he needed a shave, and also noting that his stubble was dense, all man, and, like everything about him, unbelievably sexy.
He sighed, ‘Look I’m really sorry about the meeting. I’ll lay off the questions okay? We’ll just work on getting you up to standard on the ward, and more time in clinic and the cath lab.’
These guys were insane. I wasn’t a cardiology trainee. My brief before I started this job was that I was going to be working for a consultant who didn’t have time for training. They said they needed an experienced core trainee who could do the ward work, but who wasn’t interested in cardiology as a specialty. I was beyond confused, but I couldn’t be bothered to argue the point with them.
‘Okay,’ I agreed, pulling out my list, ‘may as well get this over with.’ We trudged to CCU to start the round and were confronted with two medical students whom the sister told us were attached to our team for the next two weeks. They looked nervous and like they were trying to shrink into the central desk and disappear, a tricky feat as they were both pretty substantial guys. One was tall and skinny with glasses and the other was a big bulky rugby type.
Although having students is a bit of a pain in the arse, and definitely slows the ward round down, Tom seemed genuinely pleased for them to join us. It became apparent very rapidly during the round that neither of them knew anything about cardiology. It was fun to at last sit back and let someone else get grilled for a change. Despite this, Tom was patient with them, and I could see that he had a flare for teaching.
I already knew that he was the head of training in the department so this didn’t surprise me. However, I was becoming more and more confused about why he had been given a core trainee who had no interest in his specialty and was only there for service provision. Maybe he thought he could change my mind about cardiology? I didn’t think this would be a likely turn of events as I could probably write a book on the reasons I hated it.
As there were now three doctors, two medical students and two nurses in tow on our round, it became difficult for him to do his normal routine of keeping me at arm’s length. Day to day it seemed to cause Tom physical pain to be around me, which was fairly insulting.
You’d think I was covered in anthrax or something the lengths he went to avoid touching me. If I were on one side of the trolley he’d move to the other. When we passed each other in the confines of a patient bay he would literally leap out of my way as if I was on fire.
However, the patient bays were small, and with our now swollen numbers we were all packed in like sardines. As always I had the notes, so Tom had to be next to me to read them. I was still smarting for him embarrassing me in the meeting, so I decided to try and piss him off, just a little.
My hair is thick and the kind that often simply won’t stay up because it’s so straight. It falls to my bra strap and is usually in a ponytail. However, in my mad dash to hide in Mrs Jones’ room I had managed to lose my hair band, and it was now loose.
Standing next to Tom, I flicked my hair back over my shoulder, hoping to whack him with it, and give him a dose of whatever disease he imagined I was carrying. After this executing this maneuver I felt him go completely still behind me.
Glancing up at him I noticed that he had stopped breathing, and had that pained expression on his face again. Ha! I then leaned back over the notes on the trolley and started summarizing the plan.
When I looked back at Tom I saw his gaze, instead of being directed at the med students (who were now gamely listening to the patient’s heart with no obvious clue as to what they were doing) was fastened to my lower back. I had on a high-necked pink jumper and black trousers. The jumper (having shrunk a bit in the wash) had a tendency to ride up when I bent over or stretched up, so I knew that the skin of my lower back was now exposed.
No doubt the site of my bare flesh was offensive to him, but I decided I didn’t care and ignored his scowl, continuing to write that day’s entry in the notes.
He was in a bad mood for the rest of the morning, and before stalking off the ward I saw him pull the sister aside. The CCU ward sister was called Mary; she was in her fifties, tall, with short dark hair peppered with grey, and attractive.
I loved her.
She was formidable, and terrified the majority of the juniors, but was, for some reason, wonderful to me. It helped that I wasn’t work-shy, and that I respected her and her knowledge wrought from years of working in cardiology. From the first time I had shyly asked her a question she had taken me under her wing (the cakes I regularly bestowed on the ward might also have had something to do with it).
Tom was talking in a low voice, his head bent to her. I saw confusion cross her face and she looked over at me, bizarrely looking me up and down and then looking even more bemused. She said something back to Tom, her face still puzzled. He made a dismissive gesture and looked a little cross as he replied shortly. She shrugged and then nodded her agreement, albeit reluctantly, to what ever he was asking, and he strode out of the ward without even glancing in our direction.
‘Hi Frankie,’ Mary said as she approached me with a warm smile. ‘Can I have a word a minute?’
‘Sure, what’s up?’ I turned to her, returning her smile.
‘Do you mind coming into my office?’ she asked, glancing at Ash and the med students. Uh-oh, I didn’t like the sound of this, but I nodded and followed her. Once we were seated in her office she looked at me apologetically.
‘Frankie, I need to talk to you about your clothes.’
‘My clothes?’ This was definitely not what I was expecting.
‘Yes, it seems that some…um….some people are finding that what you wear is a little….well….inappropriate.’
‘What do you mean?’ This was so weird; I had never been pulled up on the way I dressed before. Lou had been asked to tone it down a bit with the skirts that barely covered her lady parts, but there was nothing ‘out there’ about my clothes at all.
Mary leaned into me and I could tell that she was supremely uncomfortable. ‘To be honest I have no idea what the problem is. I think you look fine.’
‘By people, do you mean Tom by any chance?’
She shifted her eyes away, ‘Maybe.’
I spent the rest of the day in furious contemplation of what was so offensive about the way I dressed. The only answer I could come up with was that I must be too scruffy. I thought this was a bit rich coming from Tom whose shirts were rarely ironed, shoes were more than a little scuffed, and who was more often than not in dire need of a good shave. But hey, maybe he thought women in medicine should power dress a bit more.
After telling Lou that evening, she looked like she had won the lottery. She’d been waiting for years to overhaul my wardrobe, and I had just handed her the perfect excuse. Luckily it was a Friday, so she had all weekend to drag me round town so she could thoroughly ‘Gok’ me.
Chapter 6
Torture
Tom looked up from the monitor in CCU and froze.
Frankie was walking towards him.
As usual, at his first sighting of her his chest squeezed and his heart rate sped up as he was hit by a wave of lust so strong he actually felt lightheaded. This was made even worse by her transformation. He caught sight of that bloody geris registrar Lou, who had obviously walked with Frankie on her way to her bed blocker ward.
She had paused in the doorway to CCU and was smirking at him. When she saw that she had his attention she winked, gave him a one-finger salute, and flounced off down the corridor. Well at least he knew who was responsible for his latest torture. Not that he thought this shit could get any worse.
Frankie stopped next to the desk and gave him one of her small smiles before she ducked her head to look at her list. This, as always, pissed him off. From the first time he’d seen her again all he had received from her were small smiles, minimal short answers to his questions, and rarely any direct eye contact.
What annoyed him even more was that when he saw her with other people, people she liked, she didn’t give them small smiles - she fucking beamed at them. Her smile, when she really let it rip, could light up a room, transforming her face from gorgeous to almost otherworldly in its beauty.
He took a deep breath and stood up from the chair, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes to try to erase the image of her that was burned into his brain.
He had royally screwed up. The sight of the bare skin of her back, directly after she had flicked her magnificent hair into his face (making him realize that it was even softer and more silky than it looked (and he thought it had looked pretty bloody soft)) and giving him an intense blast of her fresh, clean yet flowery scent, had sent him a little insane.
All he could think was that he had to do something to end the pain, get her to cover up more maybe. So he spoke to Mary, giving her the whole inappropriate clothing thing, and she had rightfully looked at him like he had lost his mind.
He should have known that what he’d said would have been misinterpreted. He was sure that in Lou’s case it was a willful and premeditated misinterpretation, and perhaps he should have anticipated that too.
In his defence it would have been impossible to predict just how magnificent Frankie looked in the high-necked, belted, cream dress she was wearing. It wasn’t like it was even revealing, falling to her knees with a slight flare of the skirt at the bottom. But the way the material hugged her body, throwing it into stark relief, almost made him lose his already strained control.
Her curves, whilst not generous were absolutely perfectly proportioned on her small frame. Her thick, long, shiny, freaking fantastic hair was down her back and framing her face, just the front part secured back with a clip. She wore minimal makeup, but he supposed she didn’t really need it with her olive skin and thick dark lashes framing her chocolate brown eyes.
He knew from the way she moved that she was uncharacteristically wearing heels, but was unprepared for the sight that greeted him as he looked down. Her shapely legs were bare and her small feet were encased in tan coloured, savagely high heels.
He cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded hoarse when he spoke. ‘Shall we get going?’
‘Want to start with the new admissions boss?’ Ash asked from Tom’s other side.
In his fevered contemplation of Frankie’s new look he had forgotten about Ash. He glanced over at him, and Ash raised an eyebrow, giving Tom a knowing look. Tom was finding that Ash did not miss much, and Ash definitely had not missed the way Tom had been looking at Frankie over the last month.
Tom hated that Ash called him boss. Apart from anything, Ash was probably a more experienced cardiologist than him, having already had years of training in Iraq before even starting as a UK registrar. He’d only started doing it when it became obvious to Ash that Tom hadn’t invited Frankie to use his first name.
