Bishop didn’t bother to glance my way. He turned the newspaper page over and reached for another sandwich. ‘What is?’
‘Eating and reading. At the same time, I mean.’
He sat back in his chair and looked at me with an inscrutable expression. ‘You have something against multitasking?’
I didn’t let his satirical tone faze me. ‘Eating while performing other tasks is a bad habit. It can lead to overeating. You might be full by page three but you keep on eating until you get to the sports page out of habit.’
He closed the newspaper and pushed it to the other side of the table. ‘How long were you going out with your husband before he asked you to marry him?’
There, he’d done it again. I wasn’t imagining it. He’d stressed the word ‘husband’. What was with the sudden interest in my private life? Or did he think it impossible anyone could be remotely interested in me? With the end of my engagement so recent I was feeling a bit fragile in terms of self-esteem. Come to think of it, my self-esteem has always been a little on the eggshell side. ‘Erm, actually, he didn’t ask me,’ I said. ‘I asked him.’
He lifted one of his dark eyebrows. ‘Oh?’
‘You don’t approve.’
‘It’s none of my business.’
I folded my arms and gave him a look. ‘I fail to see why the man has to have all the power in a relationship. Why should a girl have to wait months and months, possibly years for a proposal? Living every moment in a state of will-he-or-won’t-he panic?’
‘Don’t blame me,’ he said mildly. ‘I didn’t write the rule book.’
I pursed my lips, not my most attractive pose, but still. Jem calls it my cat’s-bottom pout. I had the strangest feeling Matt Bishop was smiling behind that unreadable look he was giving me. There was a tiny light in his eyes that twinkled now and again.
‘So how did he take it when you popped the question?’ he asked.
‘He said yes, obviously.’ Not straight away, but I wasn’t going to tell Matt Bishop that little detail. Andy and I had discussed marriage over the years. He just hadn’t got around to formally asking me. I got tired of waiting. I know it’s weird, considering my non-traditional background, but I really longed to be a proper bride: the white dress and veil and the church and the flowers and confetti and the adorable little flower girl and the cute little pageboy.
My parents had never formally married because they didn’t believe in the institution of marriage—any institution, really. They have an open relationship, which seems to work for them. Don’t ask me how. I’ve never said anything to them, but every time I looked at the photos of their thirty years of life together I’ve always felt like something was missing.
Matt picked up his coffee cup and surveyed me as he took another sip. ‘How long have you been at St Ignatius?’
‘Ten and a half months.’
‘Where were you before here?’
‘St Thomas’,’ I said, and tossed the question back, even though I already knew the answer because I’d overheard two of the nurses talking about him in the change room. ‘You?’
‘I trained in London and spent most of my time at Chelsea and Westminster, apart from the last twelve months in the US.’
I wondered why he had gone abroad and if it had anything to do with a woman, here or over there. I hadn’t heard anything about his private life. Word has it he kept it exactly that—private.
My phone beeped with an incoming message and I glanced down to see it was a text from Jem.
How r u doing? it said.
I quickly typed back. Fine.
Within seconds she typed back. What did everyone say?
I typed back. I haven’t told them.
She came back with, Y not?
I typed back the emoticon smiley face with red cheeks. She sent me a smiley face with love hearts for eyes. It was times like this I was truly glad I had a sister. She knew me better than anyone. She knew I needed time to sort my feelings out, to get my head around the idea of being single again.
I had a feeling she also knew it was not so much my heart that was broken but my pride. It’s not that I didn’t love Andy. I loved him from the moment I met him. He was charming and funny and made me feel as if I was the most important person in his life … for about a month. I know all relationships take work and I put in. I really did. It’s just he hadn’t factored in my career. His always came first. It caused many an argument. I mean, it’s not as if someone’s going to die if he doesn’t show up for work. He never seemed to understand I couldn’t take off a day whenever I felt like it because he was bored and wanted company.
I put my phone back in my jeans pocket and met Matt Bishop’s inscrutable gaze. I wondered if he could see any of the thought processes of my brain flitting over my face. I like to think I can keep my cards pretty close, but something about his intense grey-blue eyes made me feel exposed, as if all my insecurities and doubts were lined up on show for his perusal.
‘Any further questions?’ I asked, with a pert look.
He held my look for an extra beat. ‘Not at the moment.’
I turned on my heel and scooted out of there. Colour me suspicious, but I had a feeling there was not much that would get past Dr Matt Bishop’s sharply intelligent grey-blues.
Theatre was tense but, then, Stuart McTaggart always operated that way. He wasn’t one of those surgeons who chatted about what he did on the weekend or how well his kids were doing at Cambridge or Oxford—yadda-yadda-yadda. He didn’t have classical music playing, like a couple of the other surgeons on staff did. He insisted on absolute silence, apart from when he had something to say. I’d had to learn early on to button my lips while in Theatre with him. He was gruff to the point of surly and he barked out orders like a drill sergeant. Some of the junior theatre staff found him terrifying. Some of the more senior staff hated working with him.
Funnily enough, I didn’t find him too hard to handle. I understood the pressure he was under. Patients were more demanding of good outcomes than in the past, or at least they had better access to legal representation and were more aware of their rights. The litigious climate meant a lot of clinicians at the pointy end of medicine were under far greater pressure and scrutiny than ever before. That could be a good and a bad thing depending on the circumstances. It was part of why I wanted to pursue my research. Reducing the stress of the hospital experience was a win-win for everyone. Apart perhaps from the greedy lawyers, of course, but don’t get me started.
Stuart McTaggart was operating on a twenty-seven-year-old man with a very vascular and awkwardly placed benign brain tumour. Jason Ryder was a recently married man with a baby on the way. He was a keen sportsman, playing semi-professional golf. He had collapsed whilst playing in a tournament and been admitted to St Iggy’s via A and E. All was going well until he developed a bleed. Alex Kingston, the surgical registrar, was the first to cop the flak from Stuart.
‘Suck the blood out of the way, Kingston!’ he said. ‘I can’t diathermy bleeders if they’re underwater!’
Next in line was Leanne Griffiths, the scrub nurse.
‘Be aware of what’s happening in the operation, Sister Griffiths. I can’t wait around while you call for more swabs. They should be open, on the table, ready when I need them. Which is now!’
Then it was my turn. Woot. Woot.
‘What blood pressure have you got this patient running at, Dr Clark? He looks hypertensive to me and that’s not assisting with this blood loss!’
And on it went. Everyone was to blame except Stuart. But, then, really, no one was to blame—it was just the nature of the tumour and the stress