AllFreeNovel
Share Us
'She's doing very well—which reminds me.' Zach's eyes flickered to Keely. 'She wanted you to go and give her a goodnight kiss.'
'No problem.' Relieved to have an excuse to get away from Ally's quizzical gaze, Keely hurried off to find Phoebe.
She took much longer than was necessary to settle the little girl down, curling up on the bed and reading her an extra story.
By the time she rejoined the rest of the adults, they were all seated at the table and Ally was placing an elaborate-looking starter in front of them all.
'It's a new recipe,' she declared with a flourish. 'You're guinea pigs.'
'Great. You really know how to whet someone's appetite.' Sean shook his head in exasperation as he looked at his pretty wife. 'You're not meant to tell the guests they're guinea pigs.'
'So how's general practice,' Zach asked Ally as he tucked into his starter. 'Still seeing all the usual trivia?'
'Trivia?' Ally glared at him and then subsided and smiled when she saw the twinkle in his eye. 'Zach Jordan, you're always winding me up and I fall for it every time. The answer to your question is that general practice is great and, no, I'm not seeing trivia.'
Keely took a sip of wine and looked at her shyly. 'Do you work full time?'
'Yes.' Ally glanced at Sean and laughed. 'But only three days a week in general practice. The rest of the time I'm a general slave and dogsbody.'
'Stop moaning, woman,' Sean growled, but his eyes twinkled and there was no missing the closeness between the couple.
Zach helped himself to a bread roll. 'Don't you ever miss real medicine?'
'No,' Ally said calmly, 'because I'm practising real medicine every day. It's you lot that work in a strange environment. Hospitals are totally alien places. You just treat symptoms there. Never people. In general practice we treat the whole person.'
Sean grinned. 'Since when did you need to treat the whole person to manage an ingrowing toenail?'
'Go ahead. Patronise me,' Ally said loftily, 'but I've lost count of the number of times we've had patients home from hospital—your hospital—with no end of problems that none of you managed to identify. The problem with hospitals is that each consultant just manages the bit he knows about. No one looks at the overall patient. That's what I do.'
Sean gave a smile. 'And you do it very well, angel. Your patients are damned lucky.'
Keely put her fork down, her appetite suddenly gone. Hearing Ally talk had made her realise just how much she didn't want to pursue a career in hospital medicine. She felt exactly the way that Ally did. That there was more to caring for a patient than managing a symptom.
Which wasn't going to make her much of a cardiologist...
'Are you all right, Keely?' Ally was looking at her, suddenly concerned. 'You look as though you've seen a ghost.'
'I'm fine.' Keely smiled at her through stiff lips. 'Tell me more about your job.'
'My job?' Ally shrugged and glanced round at the others. 'Well, why not? It's a quick way to irritate these two and that's always good for a laugh.'
She started to talk, telling them all about the day she'd had in the surgery, about a woman who'd been admitted to hospital with a broken leg, about how they'd had to arrange for all her animals to be cared for.
'The hospital didn't even realise she had animals,' Ally said shortly, clearing the plates and standing up. 'Fortunately one of the neighbours saw the ambulance arrive to pick her up and came haring round here to ask us to sort it out. Which we did, of course.'
She took the plates into the kitchen and returned with the main course, a delicious chicken dish with rice.
'So what about you, Keely?' She served everyone and then looked at Keely curiously. 'Are you staying in A and E or are you doing a GP rotation?'
'Neither.' Keely picked up her fork and tried to summon up an appetite. 'I'm going to be a cardiologist.'
Except that she really, really didn't want to be one. Maybe she should talk to her father. Ask his advice. He was very career orientated but she knew that he loved her dearly. He wouldn't want her to do anything that she wasn't sure about.
'A cardiologist?' Ally glanced up and nodded. 'In Glyn Hughes's team?'
'Not Glyn Hughes's.' Zach's voice was strangely flat. 'Keely's not staying in Cumbria for long. She's going back to London at the end of her six months.'
Ally's face fell. 'You're not staying?' She looked visibly disappointed as she glanced from one to the other. 'But I thought—I assumed—'
