Hired: GP and Wife / The Playboy Doctor's Surprise Proposal (6 page)

He cleared his throat and said rather gruffly, ‘I…I’ve not come about myself this time.’

Terry tried not to look too surprised, and he continued, ‘It’s my wife, she’s not well. I know she’s not herself, but she won’t make an appointment to see anybody—never wants to make a fuss.’

She sounded the complete opposite of her husband, reflected Terry. She leaned forward. ‘What makes you think she’s not well, Mr Rathbone?’

He looked down at his hands, as if undecided how to describe his wife’s symptoms, then said reluctantly, ‘It’s, well…she seems to get everything wrong. She used to be so efficient. We’re in the hotel business and recently the amount of times she’s been to the wholesalers and come back with the wrong things on the list is incredible. And she’s so clumsy, knocking things over, and then scraping the car going out of the drive innumerable times. The fact is, Doctor…’ His voice sank to a conspiratorial whisper, and he looked round as if someone might be listening to them. ‘The fact is, I’m beginning to think she drinks—secretly, mind. In our business that would be fatal.’

‘Do you smell drink on her breath?’

‘No, but it could be vodka—you can’t detect that, can you?’

Terry wondered how long ago it had been since Cyril and his wife had had a real heart to heart—it sounded as if they were pretty remote from each other.

‘Are you sure you can’t get her to come to the surgery? It would be easier. I will come and see her at the hotel if you like but she may refuse to see me if she hasn’t requested a visit.’

Cyril shook his head. ‘I’m afraid she’s not very amenable to my suggestions, and she’s always been dead set against anything to do with the medical profession. I can’t understand it.’

It would seem inexplicable to him, thought Terry with an inward smile. ‘Look, I’ve got an idea,’ she said. ‘We’re doing a blood-pressure check on all the over-fifties during the next few weeks. Everyone over that age will be invited along, including yourself and your wife. Why don’t you suggest you come as a couple as you would prefer someone with you when you have yours done? I could then use the opportunity to ask her in general terms how she feels.’

Mr Rathbone nodded. ‘Yes, she might do that. It’s a good idea.’ He got up from his chair slowly and said with a certain hesitancy, ‘The fact is, Doctor, my wife’s never been ill in her life—I can’t ever remember her complaining about not feeling well. And I suppose it’s just come home to me that I’d have to cope if she was laid low.’

And you’re frightened, surmised Terry. For the first time perhaps he was beginning to realise how much he relied on her.

‘I’m sure you’d be a tower of strength,’ said Terry bracingly. ‘In the meantime, try not to worry and I’ll probably see you in about two weeks.’

It was amazing how comforting the familiar platitudes could be. Cyril even managed a grateful smile as he went out, and the confident and rather arrogant manner he’d had the first time Terry had met him had gone.

At the end of the morning’s surgery Terry went into the office and poured herself a cup of coffee before she tackled the blood test and biopsy results via the e-mails she’d had that day. Isobel was speaking on the phone, looking grimmer than ever. She looked up at Terry.

‘Atholl had best get down the glen quickly,’ she said, putting the phone down. ‘Hamish Stoddard has collapsed in a field there and his dogs won’t let anyone near him.’

‘What about the ambulance? Anyone called it?’

Isobel pursed her lips. ‘Oh, yes, but it’s got stuck in the mud and they could do with help anyway, getting it out. It’s pouring with rain out there, by the way.’

Atholl had strolled in, also to get a coffee, and raised his eyes to the ceiling when he heard the news. ‘Oh, God, poor old Hamish. I bet the man’s having a heart attack—he’s got a history of angina. I’d better take the Land Rover and get there pronto.’ He snatched some biscuits from the plate by the coffee. ‘I’ll take some of these to distract those bad-tempered dogs of his.’ He turned to Terry. ‘Fancy having your first taste of rural excitement? If you’ve got wellies and a mac, put them on and come with me—I may need help.’

Caught up with the potential drama of the situation, Terry rushed out of the room to collect her outdoor clothing, a little buzz of anticipation zipping through her at the thought of working closely with Atholl, and that old familiar rush of nervous adrenaline that a medical drama produced.

The weather had changed yet again and Terry gazed out of the car window at the lashing rain. The trees in the fields bent in the wind, and dark clouds scudded across leaden skies, with the background shapes of black mountains. How snug the inside of the car seemed, cocooned from the weather, and how aware she was of the closeness of Atholl sitting next to her. He peered through the windscreen as the wipers did their best to cope with the deluge. It was like driving underwater.

‘Nothing like coping with a heart attack in the middle of a field in the pouring rain,’ he commented grimly. ‘As I said, Hamish has a history of cardiac trouble and he’s a heavy smoker, so it’s been a disaster waiting to happen. I’ve been on at him to retire, but he’s a stubborn old fool and won’t countenance it. These sheep farmers won’t give up easily.’

He swung the vehicle in through the rough track to some farm buildings and a group of men huddled round an ambulance at the far end of the field.

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what we can do for him.’

Atholl grabbed his medical bag and they both leapt out of the car and went as quickly as they could through the muddy field to where the ambulance was. And she’d thought she was coming to a quiet little corner of Britain where nothing much happened, reflected Terry wryly. She was beginning to understand what Atholl had meant when he said she’d probably be dealing with a completely different range of situations from the practice in London!

The elderly man was lying on the ground and two sheepdogs were standing guard by him with a small group of men—farm workers and paramedics—grouped beyond him. The ambulance was heavily bedded into the mud—it looked as if it would need a tractor to pull it out.

‘You won’t get near Hamish,’ said one of the men. ‘Those bloody dogs just keep going for us every time we get near him.’

‘I know them only too well,’ said Atholl grimly. ‘They’re called Whisky and Brandy, and, believe me, that’s what you need when you’ve dealt with them…but at least they know me. Let’s see if we can distract them with these biscuits. Have any of you got belts we can use as leads?’

Two of the men took off belts and Atholl gave the dogs some biscuits to tempt them away from their master, then he edged his way towards the stricken man. Terry swallowed hard, taking in the unpromising situation—a man with an acute myocardial infarction in the middle of a field with rain lashing down, an ambulance stuck up to its axis in thick mud and two mad dogs baring their teeth at them. It couldn’t get much more dramatic than this, surely?

‘Terry, follow closely behind me and we’ll take it slowly towards Hamish. I don’t want to upset these dogs more than they already are. Bill, do your best to keep them back from us while I listen to his heart.’

Hamish was lying on his back, his colour a chalky grey as he laboured to take breaths.

‘The pain…’ he gasped, plucking at the neck of his jumper. ‘It…it’s crushing me…’

Atholl dropped to his knees beside the stricken man. ‘We’re here to help you, Hamish,’ he said calmly. ‘And we’ll give you something for the pain.’

Both doctors were doing a quick assessment of the man’s situation, noting his pallor and the faint sheen of perspiration on his brow. Terry crouched down and took Hamish’s hand in one of hers, putting her other on his forehead and feeling the clamminess of his skin. He had to be reassured and calmed, to feel he was in safe hands even if he could hardly take in what she was saying. The all-consuming pain across his chest would be like steel bars compressing him, impairing his ability to breathe. She bent down close to his ear.

‘You’ll be OK, Hamish. Don’t try and talk.’

Hamish mumbled something, his frightened eyes staring at her, although somewhere in the back of his mind and through the crushing pain was the comforting feeling of Terry’s hand holding his. She watched as Atholl pulled up Hamish’s shabby jumper to listen to his labouring heart through his stethoscope, and laid two fingers on the side of his neck. Atholl’s eyes met hers and he shook his head slightly as he heard the heart giving off the irregular thudding of ventricular fibrillation as the lower chambers of the heart contracted rapidly out of beat.

‘Get the oxygen from the ambulance,’ he shouted to the paramedics through the heavy rain and the frantic barking of the two dogs trying to get round the men fending them off the patient.

Two men staggered over with an oxygen cylinder, slipping and sliding in the mud, and Terry took the attached mask and placed it over the man’s face. She watched Atholl slip the cover from a syringe he’d taken from his bag.

‘I’m giving him ten thousand units of heparin split into two doses,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to give it to him all at once and start a massive bleed. We also need some Xylocard. It’s in the pack—can you get it into him?’

‘Yup,’ said Terry. ‘Four mils, OK?’ She pulled the syringe from the pack, checking it was the right one, then pushed the needle firmly into Hamish’s upper arm muscle, giving him the full dose of the local anaesthetic.

‘Let’s hope that does the trick,’ muttered Atholl.

Sounding more confident than she felt, Terry said reassuringly, ‘Xylocard’s very effective in settling an unstable heart rhythm.’

Although Hamish Stoddard probably didn’t realise it at the moment, he was one lucky patient, she thought. Atholl had obviously had great experience with cardiac attacks. She watched his expression as he listened intently to the man’s chest after the injection.

‘How is it?’ she asked, her voice tense.

Atholl closed his eyes to concentrate on the sounds Hamish’s heart was making, then after a few seconds he leaned back on his heels and puffed his cheeks out in relief. ‘Thank God, it’s beginning to get a more normal beat. I think he’s settling down now.’ He turned round to see what was happening behind him. ‘What the hell are we going to do about that ambulance?’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get Hamish to hospital pronto—he could still arrest and then we’re in deep trouble.’

Terry bit her lip and looked at the men still struggling with the ambulance. ‘We’ve no other option—we’ll just have to take him in the Land Rover. If we clear the back, would the stretcher from the ambulance fit in?’

‘Could do. Look, I’ll go and do that with the lads. You stay with Hamish and monitor him.’

Atholl ran over to the small crowd of men still trying to hold the dogs at bay. They were having a difficult job and suddenly one of the dogs bolted through and tore straight for his stricken master, despite the shouts of the men. Terry sensed that the dog was bearing down on them but she wasn’t about to leave Hamish. He needed to see her face and hear her talking to him, someone comforting to hang onto in the sea of pain he must be in.

The dog took no notice of Terry but skidded to a halt in the mud and licked Hamish’s face, then dropped down by his side as if he were guarding him. That’s all the animal wanted, thought Terry, to be near the man he loved.

‘Leave him here,’ she said firmly to a man who had raced over to try and move the dog. ‘He’s doing no harm, and, who knows, it may be of comfort to Hamish to know that his dog’s near him.’

And after that they couldn’t get the animal away from Hamish, although he seemed to sense that the people around his master were trying to help him, and didn’t actively interfere when Hamish was lifted onto the stretcher and carried to Atholl’s Land Rover. He growled ferociously when an attempt was made to shoo him off, but as long as he was allowed to trot by Hamish’s side he was quite calm.

‘We’ll have to let Brandy come with us—the daft animal’s not going to let us take Hamish away without him,’ said Atholl. He looked up at one of the paramedics. ‘Bill, you drive the vehicle and Terry and I will sit by Hamish and try and steady him. More haste, less speed is the byword and, for God’s sake, don’t go through any potholes.’

Crouched in the back of the Land Rover with a wet dog practically on her lap and the patient and Atholl crushed beside her on the other side was a scenario she couldn’t possibly have envisaged when she’d left London a week or two ago, reflected Terry. She held Hamish’s hand and squeezed it, trying to communicate to him that he was not alone, there were people caring for him. She smiled grimly to herself. No doubt about it—she’d been thrown in at the deep end!

She looked at Atholl, wet hair plastered like a seal’s over his bent head as he concentrated on monitoring the man’s heart, oblivious to everything else but keeping his patient stable. Occasionally he glanced out of the window to see how near the hospital they were, then nodded encouragingly at Terry as she tried her best to hold the stretcher steady over the rougher bits of road.

Hamish’s eyes were open now, clouded with pain and fright. He moved his lips behind the oxygen mask, trying desperately to say something to his doctor. Atholl moved the mask slightly and leaned further forward to hear Hamish.

‘Get my son to bring the sheep down from the top meadow,’ the man whispered.

Atholl patted his hand. ‘I will do, Hamish. Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.’

‘Thank you,’ whispered the man, closing his eyes, his face looking pinched and grey in the dim light of the vehicle.

After a journey that must have seemed an age to the stricken man, they deposited Hamish at the small hospital outside Scuola village. Atholl had telephoned ahead to warn them of the emergency admission and there was a team waiting to deal with Hamish as they arrived.

Atholl managed to slip a belt through the dog’s collar and restrain the animal as his master was transferred to a trolley and pushed at speed to the resuscitation room. Both doctors watched as Hamish was taken away and Brandy whimpered as if aware that it would be some time before he saw Hamish again.

‘It’s going to be touch and go. Poor old Hamish…he’s not out of the woods yet,’ said Atholl wearily, bending to stroke the dog.