Chapter 4 #2
‘Well, try again.’ She was raising her voice now, but she couldn’t seem to keep control of her emotions. ‘Where exactly was he when you last saw him? Why didn’t you do anything to stop him going for a swim?’
‘Christ, I think Beth’s got competition.’ The man with the black eye laughed, and Eve completely lost control.
‘You bloody idiot. You’re standing there laughing and your friends could be out there suffering from hyperthermia or worse still, drowning.
What kind of moron are you?’ She was really shouting now, barely aware of what Tom and his friend were saying in response, as Meg suddenly appeared in the cubicle.
‘Are you okay, Eve?’ It was a repeat of the question she’d asked earlier, but it was clear from the look on her face that she already knew Eve was far from okay.
‘These idiots have let the groom and another of their friends go into the sea. It’s pitch-black and freezing out there and even if they don’t drown, they could still die.
’ A sob caught in Eve’s throat and suddenly tears were streaming down her face.
She’d never met the groom, or his friend, so she couldn’t explain why she was crying for them.
Except deep down, she knew her tears weren’t for these strangers.
‘I don’t know why she’s going so mental.’ The man with the black eye gestured towards Eve. ‘Hazza’s all talk, he wouldn’t really get in the sea in this weather. He thought it was cold when we went to Croatia for my stag, so he’s not going to go swimming in Cornwall in March.’
‘Who says I won’t?’ Another man came strolling into the cubicle.
‘Hazza!’ The man with the black eye slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’ve got this doctor shouting at me like I’m a five-year-old for apparently letting you drown or freeze to death.’
‘Nah, James bottled it.’ Hazza shrugged and all the adrenaline that had been racing around Eve’s body seemed to drain out of her, but she still couldn’t stop crying.
‘Christ, can’t you give her a Valium or something.’ Black-eye man was on a roll now.
‘I’m going to have to ask you both to go out to the waiting room if you aren’t receiving treatment.
Your friend needs to be seen by the orthopaedic surgeons and I’ll let you know when you can come and see him.
’ Meg’s tone was calm but forceful, brooking no argument and to Eve’s surprise, both Hazza and the man with the black eye complied without protest.
‘You don’t have to ask me twice. If I wanted to be moaned at, I could have stayed at home. Come on, Hazza.’ Black-eye man put an arm around the groom-to-be’s shoulders. ‘Let’s get out of here. We’ll come back and see Tom when we know whether they’re going to chop off his leg.’
Cackling with laughter, the two of them left and Meg turned back towards the patient. ‘I’m going to call the orthopaedic surgeons and ask them to come down and see you now, but in the meantime, I’ll get one of the nurses to set up an IV with some antibiotics.’
‘Yeah, she said that’s what you were going to do.’ Tom threw a look towards Eve, who didn’t trust herself to speak, tears still streaming down her face.
‘Eve, do you want to take a bit of a break? I can handle things here.’
‘It’s too busy and I—’
Meg cut her off, putting a hand on her arm. ‘You need a break. It’s fine. I can take it from here.’
Eve had been about to argue again, but she knew Meg was right and in the end, she just nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and trying desperately to halt the tears that wouldn’t seem to stop coming.
* * *
‘I feel like such an idiot.’ Eve took the cup that Eden passed her in the staffroom at the end of the shift. The tea looked as if a spoon could have stood up straight in it, it was so strong. When she took a mouthful, it was sickly sweet as well and it was all she could do to swallow it.
‘I know you don’t usually take sugar, but they say strong, sweet tea cures everything, don’t they?’ Eden briefly rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘And you’re not an idiot, sometimes it just all gets too much.’
‘It wasn’t even like I was in the middle of a life-and-death moment, though. I don’t know why the thought of those two guys going into the sea on a night like this freaked me out so much.’ It was a blatant lie, but Eve couldn’t face admitting the truth.
‘I do,’ Meg interjected. ‘I’ve seen patients brought in who’ve been pulled from the sea and far too often it doesn’t end well.
I’ve also seen other stupid decisions that have cost people their lives and it’s such an awful waste.
Those men on the stag do were about our age, far too young to end up on a slab in the mortuary, and sometimes the stupidity and pointlessness of people’s actions gets to you in a way you can’t just shake off. I know, I’ve been there.’
It would have been obvious that Meg was speaking from personal experience, even if her eyes hadn’t darkened at that moment, a shadow seeming to fall across her whole face at the recollection of events she clearly wished she hadn’t witnessed.
For a moment Eve thought about asking her more, but if Meg had wanted to share the details she would have done, and Eve knew better than anyone that there were some things that needed to be kept shut down inside if there was going to be any hope of getting through the day.
‘I guess so.’ Eve tried to inject some lightness she didn’t feel into her tone, and when she caught Isla’s eye it was harder still. ‘I’ve just been more reactive to situations lately than I should have been.’
Isla gave an almost imperceptible nod, but Eve saw it all the same, and when Isla and Eden exchanged a look, she knew for certain what they were thinking.
They’d witnessed her losing it before, when an eighteen-year-old called Callum Sinclair had been rushed in after collapsing on the rugby pitch, his hysterical mother begging the medics to save her son.
Eve had known that they wouldn’t be able to save him and that his mother’s pain wouldn’t be fleeting, it would last forever.
There’d be no looking back to the moment her son had almost died, because he was dead and there was nothing anyone could do to change that.
There’d been so many emotions racing through Eve’s head.
There’d been echoes of the night Max was brought in, the tension in the air, the team throwing everything at the situation to try and save a young life, but the outcome had been different and what had thrown Eve the most was the unwanted thought that had come into her head.
Perhaps it would have been better if Max hadn’t survived.
She didn’t want to think that way, and she didn’t really believe it, but the truth was her Max had died that night.
She’d lost him, but she hadn’t been able to grieve for him in the way she would have done if the team hadn’t managed to save him.
Annie hadn’t had to say goodbye to her son, the way Callum’s mother had, but she’d lost a big part of who Max was.
She just wasn’t ready to accept it and that made it even harder for Eve to be able to express her grief.
All the pushing down of her feelings wasn’t good for her, she knew that, and she could almost feel them poisoning her.
But she was going to have to get a handle on how it was making her react to things, otherwise there was a chance she might not be able to do the job she loved any more.
She couldn’t lose that, because she was scared if she lost one more thing she might not survive it.
‘We all have things that trigger us.’ Isla’s voice was gentle.
‘It’s like that for me if someone comes in and it looks like it might be cancer.
Or if there’s a middle-aged man who reminds me of Dad, and the symptoms of Huntington’s.
We’re all human and if we didn’t have those emotions, if we didn’t care about people going through hard times, I think it would be far worse for our patients. ’
‘It would.’ Eve managed a weak smile, thankful that Isla hadn’t asked what it was that had triggered her.
She was just grateful to have her colleagues’ support, maybe if she allowed them in a little bit more, she could even call them friends.
She had to take steps to bring joy to this new life she’d found herself in, and that seemed like as good a place to start as any.