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‘He’s done very well, then,’ she commented. ‘He must…’
‘Why is it that everyone today is so obsessed by youth? What is it about being on the thirty side of forty that earns a man praise while being on the fifty side of it condemns him to the scrap heap…?’
Elizabeth gave him a startled look. ‘You were the one who brought up the subject of his age,’ she pointed out.
‘But as far as Brian and David are concerned you’d think it mattered more than his professional qualifications. There was a time when a surgeon wasn’t even considered experienced enough for a senior post until he had been operating for at least twenty years; these days if you haven’t made it by the time you’re thirty you might as well forget it.
‘Do you know what David’s trying to get Brian to do now? Bring in obligatory medicals for anyone over fifty…’
‘You’ve often said yourself that more than half the operations you do might not be necessary if only people would give the same time and care to having their bodies checked out as they do their cars,’ Elizabeth reminded him gently.
‘Taking sensible health precautions is one thing,’ Richard told her fiercely. ‘Deliberately trying to make out that anyone over fifty isn’t fit…’ He stopped abruptly, shaking his head.
Brian’s memo advising him that from the end of the quarter he intended to institute a system whereby everyone over fifty would have to undergo an obligatory medical test to prove that they were fit to do their job had been sitting on his desk for the last three days unanswered.
The arrogance of David Howarth! Did he really think that Richard would dream of operating on anyone if he thought that he wasn’t competent to do so?
And no matter what David might think, being a good surgeon involved more than perfect eyesight and a steady hand. Those assets, no matter how good, were merely physical, and could not compensate for lack of experience, for the awareness, the knowledge that came with time, for the sixth sense one developed only with age.
Elizabeth sighed under her breath. No matter what David did, Richard would dislike it, because he disliked the man himself. Not that she could blame him for that—she didn’t like him very much herself.
‘It’s time we left,’ she told Richard. ‘I promised Sara we’d be there for five…’
* * *
‘And with the new funding we’ve been able to set up our own X-ray unit and take on a couple of extra nurses so that we can offer our female patients a specialised clinic, not just for routine smears, but for a variety of other aspects of their health as well, from a counselling service for teenagers wanting contraceptive advice right through to older women going through the menopause and wanting advice on HRT.
‘Bernard’s even talking about setting up a mini operating theatre. After all, we’ve got the space now that we’ve got this new purpose-built clinic up and running. You’ll have to watch it,’ Ian teased Richard. ‘If you’re not careful we’re going to be putting you out of business altogether… You’ll be able to take early retirement and spend all day on the golf course…
‘Have you thought about taking early retirement?’ Ian asked him. ‘I know my father is considering it. My mother says she wants them to have some time together while they’re still both young enough and fit enough to enjoy themselves.’
‘Oh, Mum won’t want Daddy retiring yet,’ Sara informed her husband. ‘Not now that her own career is just starting to take off… How are you going to manage while she’s at this conference?’ she asked Richard with a grin.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Sara, I’m an adult, not a young child, and I’d appreciate it if you’d try to remember that…’
/> An uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Katie, Sara’s four-year-old, looked at her mother unhappily, her bottom lip pouting as she lisped, ‘Why is Grandpa croth…?’
‘I’m not cross, Katie,’ Richard assured her, giving his daughter an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry, Sara,’ he apologised gruffly. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that…’
‘It’s OK, Dad. We all know how worried you are about the new unit. Have you any idea yet when you’ll know who gets it…?’
‘No…’
Across the table he saw the looks his daughter and son-in-law exchanged, and he wondered if Ian had heard the gossip on the medical grapevine that the Northern was favourite for getting the unit. He liked his son-in-law and got on well with him, but his loyalties lay in a different direction from Richard’s own, and Richard was reluctant to discuss the General’s budgeting problems with him in case he inadvertently mentioned it to his partners, who might in turn pass it on to their contacts at the Northern.
Not that he would be telling the Northern anything they did not already know, he acknowledged sourly. He suspected that David had already made it clear where his support really lay and why.
‘Grandpa. You’re really, really old, aren’t you?’ Katie suddenly piped up.
‘Katie!’ Sara protested.
‘But he is,’ Katie insisted. ‘Because all grandpas are old… Will you soon be dead?’ she asked Richard cheerfully.
‘Not as soon as you,’ Ian told his daughter threateningly.
Somehow Richard managed to laugh along with Elizabeth as she insisted to Ian that no doubt to Katie at four years old they did both seem ‘really old’.
* * *
