He took some more crisps. “Ha. Well, yes. And also no. I spend quite a lot of time hoovering the sea floor, in truth. I mean, obviously there are exciting moments, but a lot of it is scraping mud in poor visibility, in the very short window you have before you have to go back up to the surface to depressurize and let someone else take over. And then you have to wait several hours until you can go back down there to spend another two hours scraping around in the cold. In spite of all of this, I love it.”
“Oh. In my mind’s eye you were diving off the east coast of Mexico, uncovering submerged Spanish gold. And when you were on land you were sitting in a rattan chair under a tree, wearing a crisp white shirt, being interviewed by journalists from all over the world about your finds. You were possibly being considered for an award,” I added.
“Wow. How was my salary?”
“Enormous.”
He nodded slowly. “My last job was off the coast near Bournemouth. We lifted two gravestones from the seabed. The water was eight degrees and I was paid two hundred pounds for the day.”
“Eight degrees?”
He chuckled. “I’m Swedish. I know a thing or two about cold. Although I won’t pretend it isn’t nicer to dive in warmer water. I trained in Thailand.”
“To do your job?”
“No, just to dive. But I had an archaeology degree and—well, it’s a long story, but it all sort of came together. Except it also didn’t. There’s only a few people who can do this as their main source of income, and I am not yet one of them. But I will be.”
“Of course.”
He turned and smiled right at me. “But until it can pay the bills, I’ve got plenty of other ways of making money. Please, tell me more about you. Have you ever dived? Do you know Mexico well? What kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m training to be a surgeon,” I said, taking another crisp. I’d been doing this two years now, but I still loved how that sounded. “And I haven’t ever dived because I’d freak out, and, no, I’ve never been to Mexico, sadly.”
“What kind of surgeon?”
“Well, I’m still at the beginning, really. I’m twenty-six. But I alreadyknow I want to do this bit.” I pointed at my upper abdomen. “I’m on colorectal at the moment, but I start a rotation in upper GI—gastrointestinal—in a couple of weeks. That’s what I plan to specialize in. Maybe oesophago-gastric cancer. It’s early days, though.”
“Twenty-six isn’t too early to know what you want, Doctor Carrie. Although aren’t surgeons called Mr. or Mrs. in the UK?”
“A relic from history that we now cling to as a badge of honor. It’s ridiculous, really. I’m Dr. Cole for now, but if I’ve passed my MRCS exams then yes, you may call me Miss Cole, if you wish.”
Johan considered this. “I’ll stick with Carrie Cole,” he said after a moment. “It’s stronger. Anyway, tell me about your training, before you have to head back in.”
So I did. Ambulances wailed in and out; taxis dropped off patients, relatives, staff; medical couriers delivered bloods and specimens; and I told this stranger about the past eight years of my life and my plans for the next six, until I got my CCT. He listened, fascinated, throughout the whole thing. And then, because I couldn’t stop, I found myself telling him about my idea to delay my registrar training for a year, either to take a VSO role in Indonesia or a trauma fellowship in Johannesburg. About how I was beginning to lean in favor of Johannesburg.
“But…” he said.
“But what?”
“There’s a bigbutin there.”
“Oh. Well, maybe…”
He smiled.
“I’m just a bit torn. I…I want the Johannesburg job because I’d probably get to the kind of trauma work that only seldom comes up in London. Gunshots, for example. It’d be an incredible learning experience…” I broke off. “I’m sorry. Can I make clear that I don’t actually want anyone to get shot?”
“Noted.”
“But the one in Indonesia…I’d be helping people who usually have no access to surgery, or even medicine. People living in rural communities hundreds of miles from hospitals. And that’s surely got to be more important than my own career development.”
Johan listened without comment.
“My mum’s a medical activist, so I’ve been hearing half my life about medical impoverishment in places like Indonesia, and I’ve always felt helpless, listening to her…But now here’s an opportunity to do something about it. The daily death rate for treatable problems like appendicitis, for example, which is an operation I can actually do, is terrible. I could really help.”
He nodded, crumpling up the crisp packet.
“And I’m not just trying to please my mother. It’s important to me, too. So I’m genuinely torn.” I breathed out, suddenly, laughing. “And this is textbook me. Getting worked up choosing between two jobs I haven’t even applied for, let alone been offered.”
