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‘What was your research idea?’ he asked.
‘Once, when I was an intern, I saw a kid brought in from a yacht. He’d gone overboard, had had a life-jacket on, but had been in the water nearly an hour before he could be retrieved. He’d been bashed in the back of the head, and had been unconscious when he’d gone overboard, and was seriously hypothermic when they had eventually pulled him out.
His CT had shown severe cerebral oedema and his ICPs were through the roof—although he had a pulse, there was no blood pressure and everyone thought he was brain dead, and he actually had a flat EEG. It was forty-eight hours after the accident by the time he was hooked up to a ventilator in ICU. Anyway, he was warmed up, and everyone was expecting a brain-dead organ donor but to everyone’s amazement he woke up and eventually was extubated with no subsequent neurologic deficit. It got me to thinking about how the hypothermia may have protected his brain from the neuro insult.’
‘That’s very interesting,’ he said, glancing at her again. ‘One of my proposals is to randomly assign leaking aneurysm patients to standard therapy, or induction of hypothermia on admission, prior to, during and for forty-eight hours after aneurysm, clipping, and looking at a range of outcome parameters. Would you be interested in helping to run that project?’
‘Yes, I would,’ she said, sending him a small smile.
‘Great,’ he said, and returned to concentrating on finding a parking spot. ‘Perhaps we can get together during the next couple of days to fine-tune the details. But for now I’m starving. Is Italian food OK with you?’
‘I’m easy,’ Georgie said, and then realising what she’d inadvertently inferred, gave a little grimace and added hastily, ‘Er … I mean, that’s great.’
Ben just smiled as he came around to open her door.
CHAPTER SIX
THE Italian restaurant he had chosen was small but full of the delicious aromas of garlic and basil and home-cooked pasta. It was run by an Italian couple in their late fifties, Gina and Roberto, who greeted Ben warmly as he came in with Georgie a step or two behind.
‘Buona sera, Dottore Blackwood. Is this your new lady friend? And about time, too. We have been waiting for this for months. Leila Ingham was not pretty enough for you. This one magnifico!’
‘She’s my new registrar, actually,’ Ben said, clearly bursting the restaurateur’s bubble. ‘Georgie, this is Roberto and Gina Di Copella.’
‘Piacare di conoscerla,’ Georgie said with a friendly smile.
‘Parlate Italiano!’
Georgie rocked her hand back and forth in a gesture of modesty. ‘A little.’
Ben waited until they were seated and drinks ordered before he said, ‘I didn’t realise you were a bit of a linguist. That must come in handy at times.’
‘My parents paid for me to go on a six-week holiday to Italy when I finished high school,’ she said. ‘Then I went to France for a month after I finished medical school. Dad’s promised me a month in Switzerland once I finish neurosurgery.’
Ben thought of how he’d had to juggle three part-time jobs just to keep himself enrolled at university. There had been no all-expenses-paid holidays, he hadn’t really had a day off the whole time he had been studying. He’d barely had time to sleep. Did she have any idea how the other half lived? he wondered.
‘I suppose you went to a private school, huh?’ he asked. Georgie searched his face for a moment. ‘Yes, I did,’ she answered. ‘What about you?’ ‘No.’
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked after a little pause.
‘How am I looking at you?’
‘Is it my fault I was born into a wealthy background?’ she asked with a little frown.
‘No, but you need to be aware that others haven’t had it as easy as you,’ he said. ‘In your father’s day university was free—anybody could go as long as they had the academic ability, even those from poorer backgrounds. The graduates of today from every faculty are left with massive debts even before they get started in their chosen career. It more or less rules out a tertiary education for people from less affluent backgrounds.’
‘I’m quite aware of how hard it is for other people,’ she said. ‘But my parents have made a lot of sacrifices to give me the things they want to give me, things they didn’t have when they were my age.’
He gave a little grunt of cynicism and muttered under his breath, but still loud enough for her to hear it, ‘Yeah, like a Porsche and a penthouse.’
Georgie pointedly ignored his comment to ask, ‘Who is
Leila?’
His blue eyes showed no hint of emotion but Georgie could see how his jaw visibly tightened, a tiny jackhammer of tension tapping beneath the skin near his mouth. ‘No one important,’ he answered as he turned his attention to the menu in his hands.
‘You were in love with her?’ The question was out before she could pull it back.
His eyes met hers, a flicker of warning lurking in the dark blue depths. ‘I make it a habit to refrain from discussing my love life or lack thereof with my registrars,’ he said.
