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‘I’m going to keep him in. Sorry to open up the observation ward so early but...’ His voice trailed off as he caught sight of Celeste, but for whatever reason he chose not to acknowledge her, just carried on giving his orders for the patient. Although she had to offer him no explanation as to her being here, and though there was absolutely no reason to, again, for the ten zillionth and first time, Celeste felt guilty.
Almost as if she’d been caught.
Doing what? Celeste scolded herself, as she walked round to the closed-off observation ward, flicked on the lights and then turned back a bed for Matthew.
She was earning a living—she had to earn a living.
She had ten weeks of pregnancy to go and the crèche wouldn’t take the baby till it had had all its inoculations, so if she stopped now she wouldn’t be working for almost six months.
The panic that was permanently just a moment away washed over her.
How was she going to cope?
Even working full time it was a struggle to meet the rent. With no help from her family, she was saving for the stroller and cot and had bought some teeny, tiny baby clothes and some nappies, but there was so much more she needed. Then there was her bomb of a car...
Celeste could actually feel her panic rising as she faced the impossibility of it all and she willed herself to be calm, willed herself to slow her racing mind down. But that was no help either, because the second she stopped panicking all Celeste felt was exhausted.
Holding the bed sheet in her hand, she actually wanted to climb in, to lie down and pull the sheet over her head and sleep—and get fatter—and read baby magazines and feel kicks and just rest.
‘Feeling better?’ Celeste jumped at the sound of Ben’s voice. ‘After this morning?’
‘I had a stitch,’ Celeste responded just a touch too sharply. ‘And, before you ask, I am quite capable of working. I’m sick of people implying that I shouldn’t be here. Pregnancy isn’t a disease, you know!’
‘I was just being polite.’ Ben gave her a slightly wide-eyed look. ‘Making conversation—you know, with my neighbour?’
She’d overreacted, she knew that, and an apology was in order. ‘I’m sorry—I’ve had a bit of trouble convincing the doctor that I’m capable of coming back to work, and I’ve got Meg questioning me here. I just...’
‘Don’t need it.’
‘Exactly,’ Celeste said. ‘I’m hardly going to put the baby at risk.’
‘Good.’
She waited for the ‘but,’ for him to elaborate, for the little short, sharp lecture that she seemed to be getting a lot these days, but ‘good’ was all he said. Well, it was all he said about her condition, anyway.
‘I’ve booked Matthew in for a scan. He had a small vomit, and I’d rather play safe. He’s a bit pale, and I’m just not happy—they should call round for him soon. I’ve also found a hand injury to keep you occupied...’ He gave her a nice smile and handed her the notes. ‘Fleur Edwards, eighty-two years of age. She’s got a nasty hand laceration, probable tendon, though the surgeons won’t be able to fit her in till much later tonight. Given her age, it will be under local anaesthetic, so if you can give her a light lunch and then fast her—elevation IV antis, the usual.’
‘Sure.’
‘Could you run a quick ECG on her, too? No rush.’
He was nice and laid-back, Celeste thought. He didn’t talk down to her just because she was a grad, didn’t ream off endless instructions as if she’d never looked after a head injury or hand laceration before. And, best of all, he hadn’t lectured her on whether she should be here.
The observation ward was rather like a bus-stop—you were either standing or sitting around waiting, with nothing much happening for ages or everything arriving at once.
Matthew was brought around first, pale, as Ben had described, but he managed a laugh as he climbed up onto the bed as Celeste had a joke with him.
‘You do know exercise is bad for you?’ His mother and girlfriend had both come around to see him into the observation ward, but now he was there and settled they would be heading home. Celeste did a careful set of neurological observations, warning Matthew this would be happening on the hour, every hour. ‘Whether you’re asleep or not...’
She told Matthew’s family about visiting and discharge times and wrote down the hospital and extension numbers for them. Just as she was about to get started on the admission paperwork, the doors opened.
‘Another admission for you...’ Deb, a fellow grad, was wheeling round a rather delightful Fleur—with rouged cheeks and painted on eyebrows, she was dressed in a blue and white polka-dot skirt with a smart white blouse, which unfortunately had been splattered with blood. ‘Fleur Edwards, 82, a hand injury—’ Deb started.
‘Ben’s already told me about her,’ Celeste said, sensing Deb was in a rush. ‘Any family?’
‘Her daughter’s coming in this afternoon.’ They flicked through the charts. ‘No allergies, she suffers with arthritis, but apart from that she seems very well...’
‘I’ll sort things out, then,’ Celeste said, smiling over at Fleur, who was patiently sitting in a wheelchair, her arm in a sling. ‘Is it getting busy out there?’ she asked Deb.
‘It’s starting to—we’ve got a multi-trauma coming in.’
Though she smiled as she went over to help Fleur, Celeste was hit with a pang as Deb left, just a pang of something. She should be out there, would have loved to really immerse herself in this emergency programme, and though she hoped to when she came back from maternity leave, Celeste was also realistic enough to know that her head would be full of other things by then, and that she’d be exhausted for other reasons, namely the baby who was kicking at her diaphragm right now. Still, it wasn’t Fleur’s problem.
‘Hello, Mrs Edwards.’
‘Fleur.’ Fleur smiled.
‘I’m Celeste—I’ll be looking after you this shift.’
‘You should be the one being looked after.’ Fleur clucked. She really was gorgeous. Widowed for twenty years, she was an independent old lady, and she had cut her hand peeling an orange for her morning snack, Celeste found out as she took her history.
‘Well, for now we’ll get you into a gown and into bed, so that we can elevate your hand on an IV pole. You’ve had something for pain—has that helped?’
‘I can hardly feel it, the bandage is so tight.’ Fleur said. ‘Would you mind taking me over to the ladies’ before I get into bed?’
‘Of course.’ Only at that moment Matthew sat up, with that anxious, frantic look Celeste knew all too well, and with a quick ‘Won’t be a moment’ to Fleur she raced over, locating a kidney dish just in time and pulling the curtain around him.
‘It’s okay, Matthew,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll just fetch you a wet cloth...’ And run another set of obs, Celeste thought. He really was terribly pale.
‘I’ve got to get work,’ Matthew muttered. He wasn’t a particularly large 18-year-old, but none the less he was trying to climb out of bed and he resisted as Celeste tried to guide him to lie back down. ‘I have to get to work, I’m going to be late...’
‘You’re in hospital, Matthew,’ Celeste said. ‘You’ve had a bang on your head, remember?’
She was trying to reach for the call bell to summon help, worried that if he became agitated he might fall if he did get out of bed and hurt himself further, but as quickly as it had happened, Matthew seemed to remember where he was and stopped trying to climb out of bed and instead lay back down. ‘Sorry.’ He gave a wan smile and said it again. ‘Sorry. I’m fine now.’ And he seemed so, except, like Ben, Celeste was now worried.
‘Matthew. Do you know where you are?’
‘Hospital.’
She went through his obs—they were the same as before, his blood pressure a smudge higher, but his momentary confusion still troubled Celeste and she buzzed on the intercom. ‘Can you send a doctor round to the observation ward?’
‘Is it urgent?’ Meg checked. ‘They’re just assessing a multi-trauma.’ Celeste looked over at Matthew’s pale but relaxed face and wavered for a moment. He seemed absolutely fine now and his obs were stable but, still, she just wasn’t sure.
‘I need the head injury assessed again,’ she said, thinking it was likely Meg was rolling her eyes now. ‘Let Ben know—he saw him.’ She headed back to Matthew and Fleur gave a worried nod when Celeste said, ‘I’ll be with you soon.’
‘Look after him!’ the old lady said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
Of course, by the time Ben arrived Matthew was sitting up and joking about his moment of confusion and refusing the oxygen that Celeste was trying to give him. ‘Look, I’m sorry to pull you away,’ she told Ben.
