Page 24 of The Night Shift
Gus leaned across the desk and gave her the paper with a dramatic flourish.
‘How about you, did you– errr– sleep well?’ Violet asked, the image of a drowsy tousle-haired Gus wearing very few clothes immediately popping into her head. On the previous night shifts she’d noticed little details that might indicate fatigue– the heel of his hand pressed into his temple in the early hours of the morning, the wide expansive yawns as dawn approached, arms stretched over his head, scrub top lifting just enough to catch a glimpse of toned midriff– but now she wondered what he looked like when he was deeply asleep, how the muscles in his neck and shoulders would relax into the pillow, how his lashes would flicker and come to settle brushed against his tanned cheeks, how his lips would part, just slightly, enough to feel his breath against your ear if you were lying next to him… She drifted in this thought for so long that she missed his response and had to ask him to repeat it.
‘I was just saying that I’m looking forward to joining you later,’ he said.
‘For a sleep?’ she said without thinking.
‘Err– no. I meant for a swim.’
‘Of course.’ She looked down at the desk, her cheeks burning and a pulse thudding in her throat.
‘A swim at the lido,’ he continued quickly. ‘Like you’d suggested?’
Violet was still staring hard at the desk surface as if intending to commit the pattern of ink splodges and mug-circles to memory. If she kept her mouth closed, then maybe she wouldn’t say something even more stupid. She heard Gus’s voice falter slightly.
‘Or– would you prefer it if I didn’t?’ he said. ‘It’s no bother. If it’s, you know, your special thing– something that you like to do on your own. I don’t want to be in the way…’
‘No, that’s great,’ she said, looking back up. She felt a slight sense of panic at the idea of his not accompanying her and wanted to say the right thing. ‘I do usually prefer to be on my own, you’re right. But I want you to come. I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.’
‘Of course.’ He grinned again. ‘I forget that Violet Winters is one of those rare individuals who says what they actually mean. I take it if you do change your mind, you absolutely will tell me?’
‘Yes, I will,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think I’ll change my mind. I don’t tend to do that very often.’
‘Steadfastandhonest.’ He closed the cover on the notes he’d been writing in. ‘Rare indeed.’
‘That makes me sound quite dull,’ she said, checking his face– was he making fun of her? ‘Makes me sound like a donkey, or a really boring side character in a novel, the one who hankers after being a bit more interesting.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, standing to leave. ‘You are plenty interesting, Dr Winters.’ He smiled as he brushed past her chair. ‘Plenty interesting. I’ll see you later.’
Violet looked back down at her notes as her cheeks flushed again. Really, she was going to have to stop responding to his gentle teasing in this way– it was most out of character from her point of view, and it wasn’t as if he meant to flirt with her. She was again reminded of Anjali’s words at the start of the week about how Gus made people feel special without really trying. About the fact that this was just his manner, nothing intentional. She mustn’t let herself get sidetracked into thinking she was in any way significant in his life. He was engaged and therefore had obviously found the person who he thought wasreally, properlyspecial– anything else was just a result of his ability to establish an easy rapport.
But she did find herself wondering exactly who this amazing fiancée was, the one woman who Gus had chosen to spend the rest of his life with. She must be pretty impressive to have netted this particular catch because any normal girl on the receiving end of the full beam of his affections would surely spontaneously combust, given that mere mortals such as Violet herself were capable of falling under his spell simply from the peripheral fallout. Still, she shook her head crossly. No point in wondering any further about this mysterious goddess who’d captured Gus’s heart. It was none of her business and Dev would have a field day if he knew she was mooning about like an absolute tragic. She was no romantic heroine, overlooked or otherwise. She was a doctor with a clinical mind and a scientific outlook– romance was neither a topic she was familiar with, nor an item on her ‘to-do’ list. Her response to Gus was purely physical– simple biochemistry playing out in the laboratory of real life. The fact that he made her feel good about herself, and that she really enjoyed his company, was neither here nor there. As she’d already told herself a mere twelve hours earlier, there were myriad reasons as to why she couldn’t be with someone like Gus, even if he hadn’t been engaged to a glamorous television executive, but the main one was that charming, good-looking men were not to be trusted.
Violet risked a quick look down the corridor and saw his figure receding into the distance. He glanced backwards over his shoulder, threw a megawatt smile in her direction and exited the ward like a film star leaving the stage. Annoyingly she felt that same little flutter in her throat, despite her own personal pep talk. She wondered idly about havingNever Trust A Charmertattooed on her lower back to match Dev’s AztecDon’t Be A Dickwarrior motif– because having stern words with herself currently didn’t seem to have sufficient effect.
Gus
Gus made his way along the dimly lit corridor to arrive at the high dependency unit. His registrar Karen had bleeped him earlier about a nineteen-year-old girl who’d been admitted with sepsis. ‘She’s stable,’ Karen said. ‘Family are on their way. Mum sounded pretty shaky so give me a call if you need moral support– not that I think you will.’
From what he could see of the notes, the girl who’d been admitted was an intravenous drug user who had been stable and managing on a methadone programme until her ex-boyfriend had returned on the scene a few days ago, bringing with him a festive bag of contaminated heroin. This had been cooked up and injected directly into one of her scarred veins in significant quantity along with a few bacteria who set up home in her blood stream and multiplied until her system was completely overwhelmed. The result seemed more like bad luck than anything else, sepsis from a faulty batch rather than an intentional overdose, although you never knew for certain what was going through people’s minds when they took a massive amount like this following a period of complete abstinence. Were they chasing a high or did they simply want it all to be over? Gus sighed as he read through the paramedics’ report. Cases like these were always so depressing: kids who should have had their whole lives ahead of them but instead wound up in hospital, gambling with long term disability and death.
Barbara stuck her head around the office door. ‘Mum’s here,’ she said. ‘In the visitor’s room. I’ve made her a cuppa.’
‘Thanks, Barb– tell her I’ll just be a moment.’
He scrolled through the notes on the screen, bracing himself for the conversation he was about to have. He knew that this girl’s mother would be less concerned with the medical information: how badly her daughter’s liver and kidneys had fared, whether her risk of clotting was now reducing, what her lung function was doing. He would be able to tell her that there was unlikely to be lasting damage and knowing that her daughter was alive and being cared for was baseline reassurance– the very fact that the girl was in HDU meant that these things could be assumed. No– what would be troubling this mother was the more nebulous question of why?
Why did my daughter do this?
Was it an overdose or simply a mistake?
Why would she want to end her life?
Why did this happen to us?
Gus knew her pattern of this woman’s thoughts before he’d even met her. Because he’d had very similar thoughts himself.
He recalled the first time he’d been told his father was in hospital. He and his sister, Dot, huddled up on the sofa under the watchful eye of Mrs Greenham from next door. His mother returning, pale, weary with guilt and lack of sleep. Taking his hand in hers as she spoke to him a hushed voice, anxious not to wake his sister who was dozing by his side.
