Maggie Kingsley - The Surgeon's Marriage

Apart from with Helen, Tom thought with a slight frown. Obs and Gynae might have been inundated with nurses suddenly discovering an urgent need to visit the ward since Mark’s arrival a week ago, but Helen had remained strangely reticent whenever he’d asked how she was getting on with him.

‘He is a good doctor, isn’t he?’ Gideon continued, clearly misinterpreting the frown. ‘I mean, I’m not employing him simply to sweet-talk difficult patients…’

‘He’s one of the best,’ Tom reassured him. ‘He might be the most terrible flirt, but what he doesn’t know about Obs and Gynae could be written on a postage stamp.’

Gideon looked relieved. ‘In that case, I wish we could employ him permanently instead of for just six weeks. Oh, I know he wouldn’t accept a longer contract with us even if we could offer it,’ he continued when Tom made to interrupt. ‘Nobody in their right mind would swap a job in Canada for one at the Belfield, but—’

‘We need him.’ Tom nodded. ‘Even if Rachel was back we’d still need him. I take it Admin still won’t agree to us advertising for another member of staff?’

‘Admin says what it always says. Until the hospital gets more funding we’re to manage as best we can. It’s the old story. Live long enough, old horse, and eventually you might get hay.’

Tom laughed. ‘I’ve never thought of myself as an old horse, but now you come to mention it…’

‘Yup, beasts of burden, that’s us. And speaking of being overworked….’ Gideon picked up one of the files on his desk, then put it down again. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m being nosy, or interfering where I’m not wanted, but Annie was saying…’

‘Annie was saying?’ Tom repeated blankly as the consultant came to an obviously embarrassed halt.

‘Well, you know what women are like, Tom,’ Gideon said in a rush, ‘and she’s probably got it all wrong, but she was saying to me the other day that she thought Helen looked a bit down, a bit depressed.’

Annie had noticed? Annie, who had been at the Belfield for less than four months, had noticed? Tom bit his lip. Dammit, he should have been the first one to see there was a problem, and yet he hadn’t. Maybe women were better attuned to picking up on that sort of thing than men, or maybe he was just insensitive. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

‘Helen’s fine,’ he murmured. ‘Just tired, like the rest of us.’

Probably more so since he’d been helping out at home, he thought ruefully, but how was he supposed to know that the little round symbol with the cross through it meant, Do not tumble-dry?

‘Hell, I should have been in Theatre ten minutes ago,’ Gideon exclaimed, quickly getting to his feet only to pause, his eyebrows raised. ‘Unless there’s something else you want to discuss with me?’

For a moment Tom hesitated, then shook his head. The consultant might be his friend as well as his boss, but some things were private, and revealing that Helen had accused him of not pulling his weight definitely came under the heading of private.

He was running late, too. Rhona Scott was booked in for an outpatient hysterosalpingogram this morning, and though he’d asked Helen to prepare her for him it wasn’t fair to keep either of them waiting. Rhona was a natural born worrier, and as for Helen…the last thing he wanted was to give her another opportunity to accuse him of taking advantage of her.

No, that wasn’t fair, he thought with a deep sigh as he strode down the corridor towards his consulting room. It had clearly taken a lot to make her say what she had, but why on earth hadn’t she said something before? OK, so maybe he’d never been much of a New Age man, but neither was he a mind-reader.

‘Problems?’ Helen said, seeing his frown when he opened the door of his consulting room to find Rhona Scott already prepared and waiting.

‘No more than usual,’ he replied irritably, only to groan when he saw Helen stiffen. Why the hell had he said that? He hadn’t meant to sound so snippy, but there was nothing he could do about it—not with Mrs Scott staring curiously at him. ‘All set for your hysterosalpingogram, Rhona?’ he said instead.

‘To be honest, no,’ she said. ‘Call me chicken, but the thought of you putting some dye up into me…’ She shuddered. ‘Are you absolutely sure I can’t have an anaesthetic?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid the only way we can get really good X-ray pictures of the insides of your Fallopian tubes, and find out why you’re having such difficulty getting pregnant, is to carry out the procedure while you’re wide awake. It won’t hurt,’ he added, seeing her flinch when he picked up the small tube. ‘You may feel a momentary discomfort when I insert the dye into your uterus, but I promise that’s all you’re going to feel.’

Rhona didn’t look convinced and out of the corner of his eye he saw Helen reach out and catch hold of her hand.

She’d always been much better at dealing with patients—people—than he was. Maybe it was another female thing, but he’d always found it a lot harder to get the right blend of sympathy and understanding, and he could still get it wrong.

Very badly wrong, he thought, remembering how angry Helen had been when he’d suggested she might be going through an early menopause. Well, OK, so his diagnosis might not have been the right one but, dammit, he’d been worried about her. He still was.

It was all very well for her to keep on saying she was simply tired, and if she had more help at home everything would be fine, but he couldn’t rid himself of the nagging feeling that there was more to it than that. Something he was missing, but what the ‘something’ might be was beyond him.

‘Dr Brooke?’

Helen’s eyes were on him, clearly wondering why he hadn’t started the procedure, and he flushed slightly.

‘Just checking the dosage,’ he lied, but she didn’t buy it. He hadn’t really expected her to. After ten years of marriage, she could read him like a book. He’d once thought he could do the same with her, but recently… ‘Ready, Rhona?’ he said, forcing his mind back to the present with difficulty.

She nodded nervously, and as carefully and gently as he could he began inserting the tube into her cervix through her vagina.

‘It’ll all be over in a second.’ Helen smiled reassuringly down at the woman. ‘Once the dye is in your uterus it will show up white on a special screen we have, and after we’ve taken a few X-rays you can go home.’

‘Will I get the results today?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Tom replied. ‘We have to process and examine them first, you see.’ Not to mention being so damn swamped with patients that we just don’t have the time, he added mentally. ‘But I’ll get our secretary to make an appointment for you to come in and see me on Friday, if that’s OK?’

Rhona nodded.

‘Not much more to go now,’ Helen declared. ‘Just keep on relaxing. Good, Rhona…Well done…That’s it.’

‘The dye’s in?’ the woman exclaimed. ‘But I didn’t feel anything.’

‘I’d have hung up my stethoscope if you had.’ Tom smiled. ‘OK, all I want you to do now is to lie as still as you can while our technician takes the pictures.’

‘I should have got my hair done for the occasion, shouldn’t I?’ Rhona said with a shaky laugh, and he chuckled and patted her shoulder.

‘You look fine.’

Her X-rays, unfortunately, didn’t.

‘No wonder she hasn’t been able to conceive,’ Helen observed. ‘That swelling where her right Fallopian tube joins her uterus—it means the tube is completely blocked, doesn’t it?’

‘It looks like it,’ Tom replied. ‘If the blockage hasn’t extended right through the uterine wall I could certainly perform a cornual anastomosis—cutting out the blocked section of the Fallopian tube and rejoining it—but…’

‘Our theatre schedule’s so full it’s anybody’s guess as to when Rhona could have the operation,’ she finished for him.

Tom nodded, then frowned. ‘I’m going to pull strings on this one. It’s crazy for her to have to wait when we’ve got somebody of Mark’s calibre on the team.’

‘Mark has experience of tubal surgery?’ she exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Oh, there’s lots of things you don’t know about me.’ A deep male voice chuckled, and Tom saw his wife jump as though somebody had lit a firecracker behind her.

‘Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?’ she said. ‘Creeping up on people like that. Is there something wrong on the ward?’

‘Apart from the fact that you’re not there?’ Mark grinned. ‘Not a thing.’

Tom wryly shook his head as he saw a deep flush of colour cross his wife’s cheeks. Same old Mark. Still couldn’t resist turning on the charm, flirting with every woman he met. Helen didn’t appear to appreciate it, though. In fact, she looked angry, tense, and deftly he steered Mark towards the X-rays.

‘OK, earn your salary. Take a look at this.’

Mark stared at the screen. ‘Somebody’s uterus, right?’

‘No, somebody’s left foot,’ Tom responded. ‘Cut the jokes, Mark—tell me what you think.’

‘That right Fallopian tube—it could simply be scarred, but…’ He shook his head. ‘Blocked, I’d say, but the clarity’s not very good. What did you take the pictures with—an old box Brownie camera?’

‘Mark.’

He grinned. ‘OK—OK. Probably blocked, perhaps due to an infection caused by a coil. How old is your patient?’

‘Thirty-six. Married for eight years, and been trying for a baby for the last six.’

‘And she’s only just having an exploratory hysterosalpingogram now?’ Mark gasped. ‘Jeez, what the hell have you guys been doing for the past five years?’

‘Working our way through a very long waiting list,’ Helen snapped before Tom could say anything. ‘The Belfield doesn’t have a separate infertility clinic, so we treat people as and when we can. Rhona only got onto our list last year—’

‘But—’

‘Look, we do the best we can, OK?’ Helen said impatiently, and Mark sighed.

‘Well, all I can say is things are very different in Australia.’

Helen muttered something which sounded suspiciously like, ‘So how come you didn’t stay there?’ and Tom shot her a puzzled glance.

He was the one who usually got angry and frustrated, dealing with the limitations of the service they could offer, but Helen hadn’t sounded simply angry, she’d sounded positively antagonistic.

Awkwardly he cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know what happens in Australia, but under the NHS there’s a nine-month to a year waiting list for non-urgent surgery, and a cornual anastomosis is considered non-urgent. I know,’ he said as Mark’s eyebrows shot up, ‘but that’s how it is.’

‘Then why the hell do you put up with it?’ Mark demanded. ‘Dammit, Tom, you’re a first-rate surgeon. If you went to Oz, or to the States, you could be head of your own department, and not have to put up with this sort of crap.’

‘Perhaps,’ Tom said, ‘but Helen and I like the Belfield. It’s where we met, and we’ve a fondness for the old place.’

‘Which doesn’t mean we’re always going to stay here,’ Helen said swiftly. ‘I mean, who’s to say what’s round the corner for any of us—what changes we might make?’

Mark glanced from her to Tom thoughtfully. ‘So it’s only old Tom who’s reluctant to move, is it? You always did play it too safe, mate.’

‘Whether I do or whether I don’t is immaterial,’ Tom replied, wondering what on earth had made Helen say what she had, and not liking the reference to himself as ‘old’ either. ‘Mrs Scott is certainly not going to have to wait nine months when we’ve got someone with your experience on the team. I’ll have a word with Gideon, insist we get her in while you’re here to help me.’