was silence for a moment. ‘Was he the one you were going to go to the football with?’ For the first time he heard her sound tentative.
‘Penny …’
‘Oh, God!’ She was a mass of manufactured hormones, not that he knew, and this news came at the end of a very upsetting day. ‘He missed the football match because of me.’
‘It wasn’t something at the top of his bucket list.’ Ethan actually found himself smiling as he recalled the conversation he’d had with Phil when he’d told him that he couldn’t get the time off, the one about the sympathy vote.
And, no, he didn’t fancy Penny, he’d just had a bit too much to drink, he must have, because he was telling her that they’d often gone to watch football. ‘He went anyway—with Justin, his son.’ And he told Penny about the illness that had ravaged his cousin. ‘He got a virus a couple of years ago.’ And he could understand a bit better why the patients liked her, because she was very matter-of-fact and didn’t gush out her sympathies, just asked pertinent questions and then asked how his son and wife were doing.
‘Ex-wife,’ Ethan said, and he found himself musing—only he was doing it out loud and to Penny. ‘They broke up before he got ill, she had an affair and it was all just a mess. It must be hell for her too and she’s coming tomorrow. She’s bringing Justin.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Six,’ Ethan said.
She asked how his aunt and uncle were.
‘Not great,’ he admitted. ‘They’re worried that they won’t get to see Justin so much anymore. It’s just a mess all round.’
And he told Penny the hell of watching someone so vital and full of life gradually getting weaker. How he hated that he had only just made it to the hospital in time. He let out more than he had to Kate, to anyone, and during that conversation Penny found out that it had been his sister who had dropped him off at work, but there was no room for relief or dousing of red-hot pokers, or anything really, as she could hear the heartbreak in his voice.
‘Thirty-six,’ Ethan repeated, and was met by silence. He would never have known that her silence was because of tears. ‘So, while I suppose we were expecting it, it still came as a shock.’ He didn’t really know how better to explain it. ‘And it will be a shock for Justin too.’
‘Poor kid,’ Penny said.
‘Anyway, thanks for swapping.’
He hung up the phone, poured his spaghetti on the toast and then frowned because it was cold. He’d surely only been on the phone for a moment and so back into the microwave it went.
They’d actually been talking for a full twenty minutes.
At five a.m. Penny stood, bleary-eyed, under the shower, trying to wake up. She got out and then dried her hair. At least she didn’t have to worry about make-up yet, given that she would be crying it all off very soon.
And normally the terribly efficient Penny didn’t have to worry about what to wear because her work wardrobe was on a fourteen-day rotation, except it wasn’t so simple at the moment because her arms were bruised from all the blood tests and so her sleeveless grey top wasn’t an option.
Even the simplest thing seemed complicated this morning.
A sheer neutral jumper worked well with her black skirt, except it meant that she had to change her underwear because it showed her black bra, and with all her appointments and tests the usually meticulous Penny’s laundry wasn’t up to date. Racing the clock, she grabbed coral silk underwear that she’d never usually consider wearing for work and then raced downstairs, so rushed and tired that by mistake she added orange juice instead of milk to her coffee and had to make her drink all over again.
Still, Penny thought, she was glad to have been able to help out Ethan, and there was just a flutter of something unfamiliar stirring. Penny hadn’t fancied anyone for ages. Not since she and Vince had spilt up. Well, that wasn’t strictly true—she’d had a slight crush on someone a while ago, but she certainly wasn’t about to go there, even in her thoughts. She drove for what felt like ages until at last, at a quarter to seven, she lay with her knees up, loathing it despite being used to it, as she underwent the internal scan to find out how her ovaries were behaving. And if that wasn’t bad enough, afterwards she headed for her blood test.
‘Morning, Penny!’
They all knew her well.
Penny was determined not to make the scene she had yesterday. She was there willingly after all. But her resolve wavered as she sat on the seat and one of the nurses held her head as she cried while the other strapped down her arm—it was just an exercise in humiliation really.
‘I’m not doing this again,’ Penny said as she felt the needle go into her already-bruised vein.
But she’d said that the last time, yet here she was again, locked in the exhausting world of IVF.
Penny sorted out her make-up in the hospital car park and was, in fact, in the department well before nine.
‘Morning, Penny.’ Mr Dean was especially pleased to see her, because it meant that he could soon go home. ‘I hope that you had a good night’s sleep—the place is wild.’
Of course it was.
‘Where’s Penny?’ was a frequent cry that she heard throughout the day and Penny didn’t really stop for a break, just made do with coffee on the run, but by one o’clock she knew that she had to get something to eat, which she would, just as soon as Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was sorted out.
‘Cardiology knows that you’re here,’ Penny explained to her patient. ‘They haven’t forgotten you. They’re just a bit busy up on CCU.’ The medication patch wasn’t working and Penny was just writing Mrs Hunt up for some morphine when the department was alerted that a severe head injury was on its way in.
‘Can you sort out that medication, Vanessa?’ Penny asked as she pulled on a fresh gown and gloves and her eye shield. ‘Maybe you could give Cardiology another page, just remind them that she’s here?’ Penny said, because one look at her new patient and Penny knew she wouldn’t be back in to see Mrs Hunt for a while.
‘Fight at school,’ a paramedic said as they lifted the young man over. ‘Fell backwards …’
The teen was still in his school uniform and was, she was told, eighteen. Penny shut out the horror and focussed on her patient, feeling the mush of his skull beneath her gloved hands.
‘CPR was started immediately and continued at the scene …’ Penny listened to the paramedics’ handover as she worked. He’d been intubated and they’d got his heart started again, but it wasn’t looking good at all. She flashed a torch into his eyes but they were fixed and dilated. Still, he’d been given atropine, a medication that, amongst other things, dilated the pupils, which could account for that.
Hopefully.
‘Has anyone seen Penny?’ She heard Jasmine’s voice.
‘Curtain one, Resus,’ Penny shouted. ‘What?’ she asked a moment later when Jasmine popped her head around.
‘Nothing.’ Jasmine saw the seriousness of the situation and came and helped Lisa with the young man. The trauma team arrived then as well, but despite their best efforts and equipment things were looking seriously grim.
‘We’ll get him round for a head CT.’ The trauma consultant was speaking with Penny and she glanced up as Ethan came in. He was wearing a black suit and had taken off his tie. His face was a touch grey and he looked down at the young man on the resus bed and then at Penny. ‘I’m just letting you know that I’m back. I’ll get changed.’
‘Before you do, could you just check in on curtain three?’ Penny said. ‘I had to leave her for this.’
Ethan never did get to change. Mrs Hunt’s