‘I don’t know, I never went on a blood run again to find out.’
Millen was fixing her with an impatient stare that said she knew what he meant.
‘I’ve tried to catch myself when it’s happening, the daydreaming. Sometimes it works…’
‘And is this something you’re concerned about happening here? Is that what happened last night before the Address? Is that why you are on the floor in here?’
She let her head hang. It told him all he needed to know.
‘Are you concerned enough about it to allow me to mentor you with this in mind?’ he said. ‘A weekly check-in, daily, if you like, logging when it has happened, and what triggered it? Maybe it happens at times you feel especially pressured? We could ascertain what tasks or conditions are associated with it, try to get to the root of it…’
‘I’ve daydreamed all my life,’ she confessed. ‘I should never have gone into medicine, but it was expected of me and…’
‘But the catastrophising? The panic? Did that happen to you as a child as well?’
She shook her head. ‘It started when I began my training. And it just got worse.’
‘And now? Since you came here?’ Millen asked.
‘It’s been less, much less, since I got here, but it’s not gone away.’
‘OK, well, now we have a baseline to work from. Let’s see what observations we can record, what diagnoses, and what improvements we can make.’
Alice couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘You’re not going to report me? Fire me?’
‘Caring about your mistakes makes you a good doctor,’ he said simply.
‘But hiding them?’ she said, tears rolling down her cheeks now the words were out.
‘I wonder if you werepersuadedinto hiding what happened, against your better judgement? However, we must remember no one was harmed. You caught it before anything happened.’
‘Bastian did.’
‘Who is this fellow anyway?’
‘He was my boyfriend back home. He’s in wound care. He wants to be a consultant in post-cardiothoracic surgical wound care, and I’m sure he will be.’
‘Well, he sounds like a very helpful person to have in your corner. You’re very fortunate to have him.’
Alice was about to exclaim how she didn’t have him but Millen was still talking, telling her about his supportive wife and how she would be waiting at home for him come seven o’clock with his casserole and whisky ready.
‘Fine woman. I’d be lost without her,’ he went on. ‘We must look after the ones who look after us. A doctor’s life is no’ easy, but it would be damn near impossible without our special people supporting us, eh? You cannot do this job for another thirty or forty years without a strong network of support.’
Instead of thinking of Bastian, or her parents, or any of her colleagues or mentors, she thought of one person only, Cary Anderson, and how all she really wanted to do now, after a long sleep and a shower maybe, was fall into his arms and tell him how much she valued him.
‘Dr Hargreave, you need to put this behind you, and you must remember this, above all else you’ve learned in your training; our mottodo no harmmust also be extended to ourselves. Please take care of yourself, Alice. Starting now. I’m dismissing you for the rest of the day. Go get a proper lunch and a good sleep. I’ll finish these samples off, and I won’t be saying a word to Gracie about any of it.’
His expression was so kindly and his words so sincere, Alice thought she might cry again.
‘Now, help me up off this hard floor before I have to be stretchered out of my own surgery.’
31
After a hasty dash uphill, Finlay was dismayed to learn, as he hid behind a rock only a few feet inside the thick Arctic mist, he still had a phone signal, and he knew just who it would be ringing him, but since he was still on shift, he had a duty to pick it up.
‘Finlay?’ came Murray’s voice.
