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Ping gave her a smile as she carried on with her work and brought a single finger to her lips. ‘I couldn’t possibly say.’
Lien nearly exploded. It was obvious that the Scottish charm was already working on her staff. What on earth was he thinking? They had to account for every dose they used. They weren’t a dispensary. On a few occasions they gave out enough medicines to see a patient through the night, but they didn’t give out medicines on a regular basis.
She snatched up her bag and made her way out into the streets. It was around six now, and the pavements were filled with people making their way home from work, the streets filled with traffic. She did her best to dodge her way through the crowds and cross the few streets. The home address wasn’t too far away, but the walk did nothing to quell her temper.
By the time she’d reached the address her heart was thudding in her chest. This wasn’t exactly the best part of town. She had no idea how he’d managed to persuade Mai Ahn to bring him here, but she would make sure it wouldn’t happen again.
The house was on the second floor of an older block of flats, where each storey looked as if it squished the flats beneath it even more. She climbed the small stairwell and walked swiftly along, checking the number before she knocked on the door.
‘It’s Dr Lien, from the hospital,’ she said.
She held her breath for a few moments, and then frowned. Was that laughter she heard inside? The door creaked open and the elderly grandmother of the household gave a little bow as she ushered Lien into the house.
Lien walked through to the main room, where the majority of the family was sitting on bamboo mats on the floor, Joe amongst them.
Mai Ahn was by his side, translating rapidly as he spoke. He had laid the complicated drugs for tuberculosis out in front of the elderly grandfather, instructing Mai Ahn to draw a paper chart with dates and times.
Lien stopped the angry words that were forming in her mouth. Back when she’d worked in the US, dispensary boxes had been commonplace for patients who were on several drugs. But they weren’t widely used here at all. That was what he was doing. He was making a do-it-yourself chart and placing the individual tablets on it.
He looked up and caught her eye. ‘Lien, oh, you’re here.’ His eyes shot protectively to Mai Ahn, whose face revealed she thought she was in trouble. The little girl from earlier was sitting curled into her mother’s lap. She’d done well, had been sent home with a prescription for her own meds, and if they were administered to her, she should do well.
Joe stood up. ‘I was just explaining to the family the problems with drug resistance and how important it is to keep taking their medicines.’
There was a shout behind Lien and she turned to see another two children playing in another room. She swallowed and took a deep breath. ‘This might be common practice for Scotland, Dr Lennox, but it’s pretty unconventional for Vietnam.’
He stood up casually and shook hands with the grandfather, and then the little girl’s father, who also had a chart in front of him. He nodded towards Mai Ahn to get her to translate for him again. ‘Thank you so much for seeing me.’ He nodded to the little girl’s mother. ‘Make sure you collect that prescription tomorrow, and if you think there are any problems, feel free to come back to the clinic and see me again.’ He gestured towards the kids in the other room. ‘And remember to come in for the testing. Remember, we can vaccinate too.’
Lien didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed. He hadn’t just covered the delivery of the prescriptions, he’d covered the public health issues they’d talked about earlier, taking into account multi-resistant TB, contact tracing, further testing and immunisations.
She bowed in respect to the family and spoke a few extra words of reassurance before leading the way out of the house. She waited until the door had closed behind them, and Mai Ahn had hurried on ahead, before spinning around to face him. ‘What on earth were you thinking?’
His brow creased. ‘I was thinking about patients and their medicines. I was thinking about stopping the spread of disease.’
‘We don’t do this.’ She almost stamped her foot. ‘We don’t visit people at home.’
He held up his hands. ‘Why not? Particularly when it’s a public health issue? That mother told me back at the clinic that both the father and grandfather were struggling with their meds. You don’t need to be a doctor to know that’s how the little girl got infected. What about those other two kids? I didn’t even know about them before I got here. Are we just supposed to sit at the clinic and wait another few months until they turn up sick too?’
She could see the passion on his face. It was the first time she’d seen him worked up about anything. ‘Have you any idea about this area?’ she shot back. ‘Have you any idea about any of the areas around here—how safe they are?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Aren’t there places in Glasgow city that you shouldn’t really walk about alone?’
Now he frowned. ‘But you walked here alone,’ he said.
She threw up her hands. ‘But I’m from here,’ she emphasised. ‘You,’ she said, pointing at him, ‘are clearly not.’
* * *
She was furious and he’d obviously played this wrong.
Joe looked down at his trousers and the long-sleeved shirt he’d changed into. He knew with his tall build, pale skin and light brown hair he must stand out like a sore thumb. But instead of venting more frustration on his new workmate, he took a different tack and gave her a cheeky smile. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He watched her erupt like a volcano. ‘It’s not funny!’
Maybe he should wind it back in. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. ‘No, you’re right, it’s not. But neither is the fact that there could be two more children in that household with tuberculosis and two adults risking developing drug-resistant tuberculosis.’ He gave a sigh. ‘I’m just trying to do my job, Lien. I know things are different here. I know the systems aren’t the same as the UK. But I still want to treat patients to the best of my ability.’
There was a noise in the stairwell beneath them, and Mai Ahn rushed back up towards them with a stricken expression on her face. She muttered something to Lien, whose face became serious.
She turned swiftly. ‘Other way,’ she said quietly, pointing to the stairwell at the opposite end of the passage.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked, as the women hurried ahead of him.
Lien’s expression was a mixture of worry and anger. ‘You’ve made us a target, Joe. A Western doctor—rumoured to be carrying drugs in a poor area of town—is always going to cause problems.’
A cold shiver ran over his body. He hadn’t thought about this at all. He tried to relate this to back home. Would he have gone out alone to one of the worst areas in Glasgow? He didn’t even want to answer that question in his head, because the truth was that he had done it before, and would probably do it again. Some parts of Hanoi didn’t seem that different from Glasgow. But he hadn’t meant to put either of his new colleagues at risk. Anything he could say right now would just seem like a poor excuse. He followed them both, turning rapidly down a maze of side streets until they were back on one of the main roads.
Lien didn’t say another word to him until they reached the hospital again. A reminder sounded on his phone and he pulled it from his pocket.
‘Apologies, Lien, I need to collect Regan.’ He hesitated for a second, knowing that things couldn’t be ignored. ‘Can we talk about this later?’
Lien’s face remained stony. She gave a nod to Mai Ahn. ‘Thanks so much, I’ll see you tomorrow. Sorry about the extra work today.’
The words felt pointed. Part of him was cringing and the other part was annoyed.
Lien turned back to face him. ‘I’ll walk with you,’ she said firmly.
It was clear he was about to be told off. First day on the job and he was already in her b
ad books. It wasn’t the best start. He could easily defend his position, but did he really want to get onto the wrong side of his work colleague, who was also his next-door neighbour?
He decided to be direct, since Lien seemed to like that approach herself. ‘I’m sorry about today. I wasn’t aware there are areas in Hanoi that aren’t particularly safe. I shouldn’t have taken Mai Ahn with me. I’ll get a better grasp of the language soon.’
He could see her grip tightening on the handle of her shoulder bag. ‘You shouldn’t have gone at all, Dr Lennox.’ Her voice was clipped.
He took a deep breath, resisting the urge to snap back. ‘You should let me know now—since we’ll be working together for the next six months—are you always going to call me Dr Lennox when you’re mad at me, and Joe all the other times?’
She must have been expecting some kind of argument, because his response made her stumble for just a second. She stopped walking and looked him in the eye. ‘Why do you do that?’
‘Do what?’
People were stepping around them in the busy street.
‘Try and interrupt my train of thought.’
He gave a half-smile. ‘Because your train of thought was going down an angry rail. Can we pause at a station and back up a bit?’
She shook her head at his analogy.
He shrugged and held up his hands. ‘What can I say? I’m the father of a four-year-old. Train and spaceship examples are the ones that usually work.’
She closed her eyes for a second. Her grip on the bag was becoming less pinched. When she opened her eyes again, her pupils were wide. ‘You don’t get it,’ she sighed. ‘The staff and patients at the hospital are my responsibility. Mine.’ She put her hand on her chest. ‘Can you imagine if I had to phone Khiem and Hoa and tell them that our new doctor had been attacked on his first real day of work and now wanted to head back home to Scotland?’
His hands went to his hips. ‘Do you really think I’m the kind of guy to leave at the first hurdle?’
Her gaze was steady but sympathetic, and he could tell from that glance alone that she did think that about him. Disappointment swelled in his chest. Her voice was hushed on the crowded street. ‘What if that first hurdle results in Regan having no parents?’
