Chapter 7
‘Oh God, I shouldn’t have had those tequila shots.
I feel like I’m still paying for it two days later and surely all of the alcohol has to be out of my system by now.
’ Esther dropped her head into her hands, as the team sat in the staffroom waiting for Danni to give a briefing about handover from the night shift, during which there’d been a major incident following a fire at a holiday park ten miles down the coast. Esther’s bloodshot eyes made it look as if she’d come straight to work from a bar, but Eve knew there was no way she’d risk being hungover at work, let alone coming in drunk.
‘I told you now that we’re banging on the door of forty, it takes three days to get over a drinking session, not three hours.’ Aidan gave her a wicked grin and Esther shook her head, before grabbing hold of it, as if her head might fall off if she didn’t.
‘I am not nearly forty, I’m only mid-thirties and you’re hurting my bloody head.
’ Esther didn’t look amused, and Eve would have known there was more to her bad mood than a headache even if she hadn’t sworn.
Okay, bloody was pretty mild in the scheme of things, but she didn’t think she’d ever heard Esther swear before.
‘It’s all Gwen’s fault for plying me with the shots at the end of the fundraiser, just because I said I might as well get drunk if I’m not pregnant. ’
There it was, the real reason she was so unhappy and it had nothing to do with tequila, or being teased about her age.
Although the latter might have hit home harder than it would have done otherwise, given that Esther would be all too aware of the tick-tock of the clock that any woman trying for a baby desperately wanted to ignore.
‘Okay, but even so, you know tequila slammers are the territory of the under twenty-fives. Once your frontal lobe is fully developed, they’re far too dangerous.
’ Aidan grinned and looked towards where Eve and Eden were standing together.
‘That’s why these two look so fresh-faced and ready for action.
They didn’t get into a shot-drinking contest with Gwen, who even in her seventies was always going to drink the rest of us under the table.
But she’s the exception that proves the rule. ’
‘God, I so want to be Gwen when I grow up,’ Eden said.
‘Me too.’ Eve’s response surprised her, because she realised it was true, but it had nothing to do with the ability Gwen evidently had to drink whatever she wanted and not suffer for it afterwards.
It was Gwen’s zest for life she wanted to harness, she was involved in so many different things and found joy in all of them from what Eve could see.
Joy had been missing from Eve’s own life for a long time, and it felt as if life was passing her by.
She didn’t want to spend another two years like that, let alone another ten, or even worse, the rest of her life. Something had to change.
‘Everyone wants to be Gwen when they grow up, but right now I just want my head to stop feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, at the same time as being crushed in a vice.’
‘You don’t think there’s any chance it’s the supplements you’re taking that are causing the headache, do you?
’ Meg gave Esther a questioning look. ‘It’s not normal to still be suffering two days later, even if Gwen is the one pouring the drinks, and a lot of prenatal supplements have high doses of vitamin A, which can cause headaches. ’
‘And you know this how?’ Aidan raised his eyebrows. ‘Is there something you’re not telling us, Meg?’
‘I’m a doctor, Aidan and some of us medics know our stuff. Just because you spend all your time scrolling through pictures of Timothée Chalamet!’ She stuck out her tongue and then laughed, her reaction making it clear that he hadn’t hit a nerve with her, and he pulled a face of mock outrage.
‘I only look at his pictures because I’m trying to work out if his haircut would suit me.’
‘You’d need to buy a toupee first.’ Gary’s response was so deadpan that for a moment no one reacted, but then they all started to laugh, even Esther.
‘They call them hair systems these days actually, old man, but you’d know that if you hadn’t been around when man first made fire.
’ Aidan nudged his friend and a warm glow settled in Eve’s stomach.
She loved this, the easy banter between her colleagues that she was finally starting to feel a part of.
She might not be right in the thick of it yet, but she was getting there and she no longer saw herself as a complete outsider.
St Piran’s was beginning to feel like home.
‘Sorry about the delay.’ Danni offered up the apology as she came into the staffroom.
‘I was with Zahir and we were waiting to hear whether any more of the patients we’ve been keeping stable in the department are being transferred to the specialist burns unit in Bristol, or whether they still need to wait for a bed in ICU.
Isla just took a call to say that the burns unit has accepted the last of the patients with more serious burns, so it looks like the crisis is over and we should be in for just another normal day at the office. ’
‘You know you’re not allowed to say that!
’ Esther pulled a face. ‘That’s the first rule of A&E, and you can’t even blame baby brain any more.
I mean when I eventually get pregnant, I fully intend to blame my children for all eternity for ruining my washboard abs, even though I’ve never actually been able to find them, but you looked like a supermodel a week after giving birth.
If you weren’t my best friend and I didn’t love you so much, I might actually hate you! ’
‘Don’t worry, there’s not a chance of there being any washboard abs under here either.’ Danni smiled, but there was a troubled look in her eyes and Eve sensed Eden stiffening beside her.
‘Right, come on then, let’s get to work.’ Danni headed out of the door first and Eve slowed her pace, falling in line with Eden at the back of the group.
‘Was it just me or did Danni look at bit worried about something?’ Eve kept her voice low. ‘You don’t think there’s anything wrong, do you?’
‘No.’ Eden’s response was assured, but when Eve turned to look at her, she had the same troubled expression on her face as Danni had worn. ‘I think she’s pregnant again.’
* * *
Eve held her breath as the paramedics rushed towards her.
Paediatric emergencies were always enough to make her heart sink to the floor, but she knew just from the sight of the tiny little boy lying on the stretcher, who couldn’t have been more than three, how serious it was.
His skin had a blueish grey undertone and his abdomen appeared distended, as he coughed and tried to pull the oxygen mask off his face.
Eve had answered the red phone when the paramedic team had called to say the little boy was on the way, so she knew the cause of his symptoms even before Jeff, one of the paramedics, outlined what had happened.
‘This is Carter, he’s three years old. He was found face down in a garden pond by his mother and he wasn’t breathing at the time of discovery.
She managed to resuscitate him with support from the 999 call handler, but no one saw Carter go into the water and we don’t know how long he was in there for. ’
Eve’s stomach roiled as she looked at the tiny child in front of her, unable to stop herself from thinking about just how different the outcome could have been for him if his mother had found him a few minutes later, or if she hadn’t known what to do to resuscitate him.
She’d seen children brought in who hadn’t made it.
Her training at St James’s had made her more adaptable than many A&E doctors, because she’d specialised in emergency medicine with a sub specialism in paediatric emergency medicine.
It meant she’d witnessed more tragedies than she wanted to think about and seeing Carter looking so vulnerable hurt her heart.
The only positive was that if she’d been forced to bet on it, she’d put her stake on him being okay, because he was alert and had enough strength to fight against the oxygen mask.
He wasn’t completely out of the woods yet, though, due to a phenomenon called secondary or delayed drowning, which had the potential to cause respiratory failure and death, even days after a near-drowning incident.
Carter was safe for the time being and he’d be monitored for any signs once his condition was stabilised and his symptoms treated.
It was the what-ifs that Eve found so much harder to shake off, especially since Max’s attack.
Things could have ended so differently for him that night, if he’d only left the club five minutes earlier or five minutes later, or taken another route through the city.
It seemed impossible to her that their lives could have changed so catastrophically because of such tiny, almost meaningless decisions.
Sometimes the thought crippled her, when she was forced to choose between two seemingly innocuous decisions.
It was such a waste of energy thinking that way, because no amount of considering the what-ifs could change the outcome, but she seemed powerless to stop.
Shaking off thoughts of Max, she looked at Jeff.
‘Given that he’s likely to have ingested pond water, we’ll need to get him on IV antibiotics and warmed IV fluids to bring his temperature up.
I also want a scan to rule out any injuries he might had sustained from falling or jumping into the pond.
Even if all that’s clear he’ll need to be monitored for at least eight hours. Where’s his mum?’
Meg and Esther hurried towards Eve, as she looked past the paramedics, expecting to see Carter’s mother there. She might well need treatment herself, after the shock and trauma of what she’d witnessed, but there was no sign of her.