Page 18 of Broken Heart Syndrome
I rolled my eyes, ‘Lou what are you on about? He’s an arrogant perv. Didn’t you see him staring down my top? Who does that?’
‘Come on, Frankie, he’s lush. I’d flash him my boobs if he asked.’
‘Don’t you find the whole “princess” thing a bit creepy?’
‘Nah, he’s a wide boy isn’t he, that’s just how they talk.’ Lou was right, he was definitely a wide boy, but did that excuse sneaking looks at my bra whilst I was administering CPRandcalling me princess? Clearly in Lou’s eyes these were relatively minor infractions.
She shoved me forward and I stumbled slightly. ‘Go on, Frank, trot after him and see if they need any help on ITU.’ I recovered my footing and glared at her.
‘Lou, I’m not chasing after any sicko who deigns to sneak a look at my boobs.’
‘Come on. Live a little. You always freeze out guys who show interest.’
‘Lou, he’s not interested in me, you loon. If Scary Glenda was doing chest compressions and you could see down her top, he would have looked.’
Scary Glenda was a frequent flyer in A&E and most doctors in the hospital had encountered her at least once. Her main problems were her daily consumption of at least one bottle of vodka, and her love of bar brawling.
She invariably either staggered in of her own volition, or was dragged in by the police to be stitched up. However, not being content to leave her hospital encounters at this, she often threw in some chest pain, abdominal pain, headaches, and even the occasional toothache, all of which she demanded be sorted out for her. The fact that doctors only receive one day of teaching on teeth (likely because there is an entire separate profession dedicated to them), and the fact that she only had a couple left, did not stop her screaming like a banshee in the middle of A&E, demanding something be done.
I had encountered her during one of her ‘chest pain’ episodes. I did not warm to her. Although her smell and general demeanour were fairly unpleasant, what really tipped the scales for me was her liberal use of the c-word, mostly aimed in my direction. The fact that she attempted to scratch my eyes out after spitting in my face may have also influenced my opinion.
‘He’s just an indiscriminate lech.’
Lou gave me her patent despairing look, and I could see her about to launch into another ‘You need to believe in yourself’ speech; but luckily both our bleeps went off and the tedium of the night shift took over.
Four hours later I was dead on my feet. It was six in the morning and the wards had finally fallen quiet. I thanked God that I hadn’t been covering admissions, as I didn’t think my brain would have been capable of presenting cases on a ward round to a consultant.
My next decision I firmly attribute to insanity induced by forty-eight hours of next to no sleep.
All I wanted was to lie down. I had checked out the mess, and all the sofas were taken. Suddenly an image of a small sofa covered in journals sprung into my mind. Once the image had been conjured up I couldn’t shake it; I could literally taste the luxury of an hour’s uninterrupted sleep.
Bugger it.
Beyond caring, I headed in the direction of the cardiology offices.
Chapter 8
Stolen shortbread
I felt warmth on my face and blinked as I swam up to consciousness. Bright sunlight was streaming in through a window into my eyes. Bizarrely the window I was staring at was not my bedroom window.
Confused, I pushed some hair out of my face and wiped the drool from the side of my mouth. My limbs felt heavy and my head was pounding, evidence of how deeply I had slept. As I stretched, my hand encountered an obstruction, and there was a thud and a fluttering sound of papers falling. Looking up from the nest I had made amongst the journals on the small sofa, my eyes clashed with his clear blue ones.
Holy cow.
I sat up with a start and felt my head swim. Grabbing my phone, I looked at the display. My alarm had been turned off and it was ten in the morning. I groped around for my bleep and came up empty.
Looking up again, I saw my bleep held in his long fingers as he reclined in his office chair. My eyes returned to his and he smiled.
‘Hi,’ I said stupidly. I mean, what do you say to your boss when you wake up on a sofa in his office in a nest made of his journals? Oh God, he was probably one of those people who had order in their chaos, and I was disturbing a delicately structured system on his sofa. ‘Um … I’m sorry if I messed up the order of your papers.’
He looked at the sofa, the floor, and his desk. All were covered in a mass of journals, books, random bits of paper, Post-it notes, and the occasional empty packet of Hula Hoops. His eyes came back to me and he burst out laughing. I sat mesmerized by the beauty of him flat-out laughing, a sight that I thought was beautiful when I first saw it eleven years ago, and was no less stunning now.
‘Does it look very ordered to you, Frankie?’ he asked, still smiling and yanking me out of my trance. I had to admit, it didn’t. In fact it looked like a herd of buffalo had torn through it whilst enjoying lots of junk food.
I bit my lip and my eyes went back to my phone. I needed to explain, but I couldn’t tell him the reason I was so tired that I sought out his office to make a nest on his sofa. He must have thought I was nuts.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I muttered into my phone. ‘I just wanted to get a quick hour of sleep whilst it was quiet, and all the mess sofas were taken. I don’t understand. I could have sworn I set my alarm.’
