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The words came like a bolt out of the blue. It felt like a tidal wave sweeping the ground from beneath her feet. She wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t ready. She swallowed. ‘I...I...’ Panic flooded her. This wasn’t her. She was a professional. She’d had lots of questions or statements thrown at her over the years. None had made her as tongue-tied as this simple request.
She stood up quickly, scattering some of the papers that were on the table to the floor. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve just remembered there’s something I need to do.’ She crossed the room quickly and opened the door, her mouth achingly dry. ‘See you tomorrow.’
The thudding of her heart echoed in her ears as she hurried to her own front door. She’d seen the look on Joe’s face. He’d been totally confused by her actions. But the thought of taking him to meet her parents made her stomach churn in a way she couldn’t put into words.
She’d been down this road before. At medical school she’d known how to dress—designer classics bought from charity shops, clothes that had barely aged from season to season. She had been polite. She’d been able to talk about a vast range of international topics. She’d read widely. All things to hide her background from her fellow students. It had all gone so nicely. Until she’d started dating Reuben.
And he’d wanted to meet her parents. They hadn’t even got that far. As soon as he’d heard where she lived, she’d been dropped like a hot brick. The look of disdain and disappointment that he’d given her had seared into her heart, destroying a little part of her for ever. It seemed as if Joe, despite his humble nature, was from just as rich a family as Reuben had been.
The thought filled her with dread. They were just colleagues, that was all.
But how could Joe meet her parents without judging them? Wasn’t that what everyone from wealth and privilege did? She didn’t want that for her parents. She loved them dearly, and supported the fact they liked where they lived. But anyone walking into the neighbourhood could see the poverty there. It reached out and grabbed you from every faded awning and tumbled litter bin that was strewn across the streets. From the patched-up windows, along with the thin, angular frames of the people who lived there. Malnutrition was a big issue. Overcrowding another.
The area was home to her. Even if it wasn’t the nicest area. She could name most of the families in the same street as her mother and father. Some of these people had cleaned up her grazed knees or wiped her nose when she’d been a tiny kid. She’d been invited to sit at the table of bigger families with a large bowl of food shared out between however many faces were round the table at the time. Sometimes it meant only a few spoonfuls each, but the laughter and chatter around the table had meant that bellies had felt a little less empty.
The thought of walking Joe—the man who practically lived in a castle back in Scotland—down those streets filled her with dread.
Her parents were every bit as polite and hospitable as Joe’s were, and Joe didn’t seem like Reuben in any other way.
But she couldn’t take that chance.
She wouldn’t have her parents judged the way she had been.
Not ever.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY SETTLED INTO an easy routine. Joe took Regan to the international nursery every morning and was back at the clinic to start at eight. Khiem and Hoa were back from their other hospital, and they all split the hospital and clinic duties between them. Joe occasionally helped out Hoa with the maternity side of things to try and keep his skills up. He found the friendly doctor a real pleasure to work with, particularly around maternal conditions and complications specific to Vietnam.
Khiem wore a different-coloured bow-tie every day along with a long-sleeved shirt. At times Joe wondered how he could stand the heat. After wearing shirts for the first two months, he’d eventually adopted the same clothing as Lien and started wearing the lightweight long-sleeved loose tunic tops that she preferred. The first time she’d spotted him wearing a yellow one she’d laughed and taken him to the shop that she favoured where he’d stocked up on white, beige and pale blue versions.
He’d just finished covering the ward round when Khiem called them all down to a staff meeting.
‘How was it?’ asked Lien, and he walked into the room and sat down next to her.
‘Not bad. Two chronic chests, one forty-five-year-old with a suspected stroke, and another young woman I think might have renal problems.’ He shook his head. ‘She hasn’t admitted it but I suspect she might have tried some of the locally brewed alcohol.’
Lien screwed up her face. ‘Oh, no.’
He smiled. He liked it when she did that. It was cute. Not a word he’d usually use to describe a colleague, but cute none the less. He still hadn’t figured out what had made her virtually bolt from his room the other night.
But it had also been the first time since he’d arrived in Vietnam that he’d been feeling a bit worried, a bit sentimental. He had no idea why. But crazy thoughts about genetics and biology had blossomed in his mind like a tiny flower, and it hadn’t helped that the flower had rapidly turned into an orchard with messy unknown things growing there. Then Lien had said a few things to reassure him he wasn’t going mad.
Oh.
That.
Had she thought...? Was that why she’d seemed so off later?
Was he really so turned off to the feelings of those around him? It was hardly an admirable trait for a doctor.
‘Joe?’
Lien was looking at him, and he realised he’d been part way through a conversation about a patient.
He nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve run some blood tests this morning, so when I get the results this afternoon I’ll go back and ask her some more questions. I think she was being careful what she told me this morning. That, and she was just feeling so bad. She was really dehydrated so I’ve got her up on an IV at the moment.’
Lien sighed. ‘Is she a tourist?’
He nodded. ‘She’s a student from Australia.’
Lien gave another sigh. ‘What do you suspect—rice wine? People just don’t realise how strong it is over here.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The normal rice wine is bad enough, at twenty-nine per cent, but if she’s drunk something unbranded...’ She shook her head. ‘The methanol levels can be so high they can be fatal.’
He nodded. ‘I’m watching her. She’s conscious. She does have abdominal pain and vomiting, but her co-ordination seems fine.’
‘Any problems with her vision??
??
‘Not so far, but, like I said, I’m going to keep an eye on her. Right now I’ll keep her hydrated and consider some bicarbonate, or maybe even some fomepizole if it’s appropriate.’
She slid him a curious sideways glance. He smiled. ‘Okay, you got me. I might have consulted with Khiem. It’s my first potential methanol poisoning.’
She held out both hands. ‘Hey, and you’ve been here, what, more than two months? That’s almost unheard of.’ She dropped her hands and gave a small shrug. ‘I like it that you ask if you’re not sure. She could easily have been misdiagnosed. Missing methanol poisoning can be the biggest error a physician makes around here.’
He leaned back in the chair. ‘I just hope she’s going to be okay. That this will just turn out to be rice wine that was too strong for her and it feels like the worst hangover in the world. Hopefully she’ll recover and everything will be okay.’
Khiem hurried into the room. His wife, Hoa, came in behind him, along with a few of the other staff members. They settled down and Khiem picked up a chart from his desk. ‘Sorry to keep you all. I promise this won’t take long. I just wanted to let you all know that we have another staff member joining us for a month. A volunteer.’
One of the nurses frowned. ‘Who is it?’
Lien shot Joe a look. She’d told him that they occasionally had volunteer doctors—usually private, very well-paid consultants who wanted to say they had at least spent some time working in the underprivileged areas in the city.
Khiem smiled brightly. ‘His name is Reuben Le Gran. His father is French, his mother Vietnamese, and even though he doesn’t sound it, he’s a local boy. Did his training in Hanoi, and has also worked in Paris and London. He specialises in plastic surgery, and works out of a private clinic in the Tay Ho district.’
