Page 5 of The Midwife By the Sea

‘Of course.’ Esther swallowed hard against the emotion bubbling up in her throat. Even at work, things between them were different right now. The conversation they’d just had felt as though it had been between strangers, who’d never worked together before. They were usually in perfect symmetry, able to work side by side seamlessly, almost as if their every move had been choreographed. She hated what this situation was turning her into, and she had to do something to stop the rot, she just had no idea what and now wasn’t the time. All she could do was turn away and focus on the job.

The paramedics arrived less than five minutes later, bringing in the twenty-eight-year-old patient, whose name was Oliver Barns. Another man had rushed into the emergency department straight behind the paramedics, dressed in bike leathers, his motorbike helmet under his arm, and his face deathly pale as he begged Esther to tell him that his friend was going to be okay. When he tried to follow the paramedics through to resus, Esther had been forced to stop him.

‘He’s going to be okay, isn’t he? He’s been my best friend for twenty years and I just need to know that he’s going to be alright. I was following Ollie down the road when he came off his bike, straight in front of me. A cat ran out and he swerved, I could see what was coming, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was like it happened in slow motion.’ The words choked in the man’s throat, and he dropped his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed against almost overwhelming emotion.

‘He’s in the best possible hands, I promise you that.’ Esther put a hand on his arm as she spoke.

‘Can I go with him? He’s always hated hospitals, ever since his mum died of cancer when we were still at school. He’ll be really panicking being in here on his own.’

‘The team need to assess Ollie first, but I’ll find out what’s happening and come and give you an update.’ Her voice was gentle, but the man still looked terrified. ‘I’m Esther, one of the nurses. What’s your name?’

‘Ritchie.’

‘Okay, Ritchie, let’s get you through to the relatives’ room.’

‘I don’t think I can wait in there.’ The man looked at her, the desperation obvious in both his face and his voice. ‘There’s something I need to tell Ollie, and if there’s any chance he might…’

He stopped for a moment, swallowing hard again before he finally managed to continue. ‘I can’t miss the chance to say it.’

‘You won’t.’ Esther usually avoided making promises, unless she was certain she could keep them. Ollie had serious injuries, and although they didn’t appear to be life-threatening, she’d worked in A&E for long enough to know that even critical conditions weren’t always obvious at the start. She’d witnessed people who’d looked stable and who appeared to have every chance of making a full recovery, not making it through to the end of a shift. The paramedics had already said they suspected Ollie had internal bleeding, so she was in no position to promise Ritchie that his friend would be okay, yet somehow, she’d found herself doing exactly that. ‘I’m going to take you through to the relatives’ room, then I’ll find out what’s going on and, as soon as he’s ready to see you, you’ll be able to tell Ollie whatever it is you want to say.’

‘I’m going to tell him I love him.’ Ritchie’s voice broke on the final word and he shook his head. ‘Not just the way you love a mate, but the way you love someone who’s your everything, because he’s mine. When I saw his bike skid the way it did, and I realised he was going to hit the tarmac, I knew it was true.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be really glad to see you and I promise I’ll get you in with him as soon as I can.’ Esther ushered Ritchie towards the door as she spoke, hoping she was right that Ollie would still be pleased that Ritchie was there after he heard what his friend had to say. If not, it could ruin a friendship of over two decades. Something twisted deep inside Esther’s gut at the thought of that, because she knew only too well what it felt like when the connection to your best friend seemed to be slipping away. She didn’t want that to happen to Ollie and Ritchie, and she definitely didn’t want that to happen to her and Danni.

It was almost an hour before Esther was finally able to take Ritchie in to see his friend. Ollie had been stabilised and taken down for a CT scan. The paramedics had been right about him having a broken pelvis, but he also had a ruptured spleen and there were two teams preparing to go into theatre; one to deal with the open fracture in his tibia and re-align his broken pelvis, and the other to remove the spleen and halt the internal bleeding that could otherwise threaten his life. Barring any unforeseen complications, Esther was much more confident now that Ollie would make it through okay, but things could have been very different.

‘Are you alright?’ Esther’s tone was gentle as she walked with Ritchie towards the cubicle where Ollie was waiting to be taken down for his operation.

‘My hands are shaking,’ Ritchie admitted, and his voice trembled too.

‘I know it’s scary, seeing Ollie like this. But he’s stable now and once he’s had the operation, the worst should be over.’

‘I’m more scared about how he’s going to react…’ Ritchie hesitated for a moment. ‘There’ll be no going back, will there? Once the words are out there.’

‘You don’t have to do it now. Not if you don’t feel ready.’ Esther turned to look at the man standing in front of her, his complexion still eerily pale beneath the stubble and his eyes seeming to stare at a point past where they were standing, as if he was trying to look beyond the hospital corridor, into an unknown future, where the implications of his revelation could be seen.

‘When am I ever going to feel ready, if I don’t right now? I could have lost Ollie without ever telling him how I felt. I don’t want to risk that again, especially not when he’s about to have an operation. I don’t want to leave it unsaid, even if it changes everything in the worst possible way.’

‘I’ll leave you to it then.’

‘No, please don’t.’ Ritchie’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘If Ollie reacts badly, I don’t know what I’m going to do, and I might need you to drag me out of there. The last thing he needs is a load of stress before his operation, but I can’t not tell him, I just can’t. I’ve got this weird superstitious feeling that if I wait until after the operation, something will go wrong and it’ll be too late, but if I tell him now, he’ll come through it okay. Even if I try and dismiss that feeling, I just think it’s now or never. Ollie’s parents are on their way here, and they’ll want to be with him after he comes back from the operation, so I might not get another chance.’

‘How about if I wait outside the cubicle, once I’ve run the checks I’ve got to do, just in case you need me?’ Esther wondered for a moment whether she should suggest some kind of code word, but she was confident she’d know if Ritchie needed rescuing. It still felt horribly intrusive to be eavesdropping on a conversation like this, but he’d asked her to and it was obvious how much he was putting on the line.

‘Thank you, I’d really appreciate that.’ Ritchie looked at her again and she nodded.

‘Right, here we go.’ Pulling back the curtain, Esther smiled at the young man lying on the bed. He had a livid bruise on one side of his face and a vicious-looking graze, stretching from elbow to wrist on his exposed forearm.

‘Have you come to take me for the operation?’ Ollie blinked a couple of times, as he looked in her direction and she shook her head.

‘Not yet, I just need to check you’re doing okay, before they come to take you to theatre for your op. I’ve got someone else here too, who needs to see for himself how you are.’ She gave Ollie what she hoped was a reassuring smile and then tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, while she checked that nothing had changed with his vital signs.

‘Ritchie.’ Ollie’s voice was croaky as he tried to reach out to his friend. ‘Please tell me you got all of that on one of our helmet-cams. If I’m going bash myself up like this, I at least want it to go viral.’

‘Is that so you can look heroic, swerving to miss a cat like that?’ Ritchie’s tone was light, but then he glanced in Esther’s direction, catching her eye. Somehow, she knew he wasn’t going to give her the chance to get out of the cubicle before he told Ollie how he felt. ‘I supposed it’d be a good way of getting lots of female attention.’

Ritchie tried to laugh at the end of the sentence, but it didn’t quite come out right, sounding almost like a sob instead, which was probably far closer to the truth of how that idea made him feel.