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‘It’s almost as bad as having three children in private schools.’ Dennis Gilbert made one of his rare contributions to the conversation at one of his wife’s dinner parties. ‘Thank goodness we’re on the countdown to getting the last one off our hands.’
‘You haven’t even started on that caper, Sean.’ Donald’s smile was knowing. ‘You’ll have to step up that chair-side porcelain work to keep the bank manager happy.’
‘We’ll manage.’ Sean’s smile was appearing frequently enough to ease Kathryn’s familiar tension. ‘Cosmetic dentistry is booming.’
‘So you are planning to have children?’ Dorothy Harrison couldn’t help herself. ‘That’s wonderful, Sean.’
‘About time,’ Donald concurred. ‘You don’t want to be booking into Hillsborough by the time they get to university.’
‘Kathryn’s promised it’ll only take a year to get this new craze out of her system. Then it’ll be ‘‘bye-bye paramedic’’ and ‘‘hello parenthood’’.’
Kathryn’s smile felt pasted into place. Of course she had made that promise. She would have made whatever promises it took, and that had been the one that had finally persuaded Sean not to make her new career an impossibility. Sheer desperation had pushed her to actually agree to undergo IVF and produce a child so that Sean would have visible evidence that success in his private life matched his considerable professional achievements.
A lot could happen in a year, though, couldn’t it? He might even get used to her working shifts. Kathryn tried, and failed, to quell the seed of hope that had taken root over the last few months of her training. A year could give her the time and a new career could give her the base to find a way out.
Out of her promises.
Possibly even out of her sham of a marriage.
Happily, Sean had no hint of the direction of Kathryn’s thoughts. He finished his wine before using a starched linen napkin to blot his lips. ‘This has been a most pleasant evening but we’d better make a move, Evelyn. Kathryn has to get up at the crack of dawn to pursue her new career and I suspect she’s falling asleep on us already.’
‘Oh, but you haven’t eaten your dessert, Kathryn!’
Sean was ready to make excuses on her behalf. ‘I’ve eaten enough for both of us. It was absolutely delicious.’ He pulled Kathryn’s chair back. ‘And when you’re vertically challenged you do need to watch that the pounds don’t pile on.’
Everyone except Kathryn laughed politely, but the party was over and the Mercers weren’t the only guests to head out into the chilly night.
‘We’re not through the worst of winter yet. Feels like there’s going to be a frost tonight.’
‘Just think of Madrid,’ Donald reminded his wife. ‘It’s not that long till October and we’ll have some autumn in Spain instead of the usual rubbish that spring throws at us in Wellington.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Dorothy enthused. ‘We’ll have such fun in the shops, won’t we, Kathryn?’
‘Kathryn won’t be going to Spain.’
‘What? But you’re a keynote speaker at the conference, Sean.’
‘I’m on a six-month probationary period with the ambulance service. I couldn’t take time off halfway through.’
Meaningful glances were exchanged around her and Kathryn sighed inwardly. The good humour engendered by the dinner party had just been negated by the reminder of yet another point she and Sean had argued about. Climbing into the sleek BMW convertible, Kathryn tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Only six hours to go and she would be heading back to the only place she wanted to be. It didn’t matter that she felt too tired to think straight. She’d cope.
She had always been able to cope.
It was patently obvious that someone wasn’t coping.
Kathryn heard the muffled sound of sobbing coming from the back of the ambulance parked beside her own vehicle as she came out of the emergency department. One of the back doors was slightly ajar, as though someone had tried to close it but hadn’t latched it properly. Kathryn paused, creating a tug on the end of the stretcher being pulled by Tim.
She tilted her head towards the sound. ‘Is it a patient, do you think?’
Tim’s face creased into the lines of concern that Kathryn could recognise so easily now. She knew that the concern would be genuine and that Tim would not share her own reluctance to intrude. When he pulled the door open far enough for her to see the young ambulance officer hunched on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance, Kathryn’s hesitation also vanished.
‘Jo—whatever’s the matter?’ In a second, Kathryn was sitting beside the woman with her arm around the heaving shoulders.
‘I can’t do this job,’ Jo sobbed. ‘I hate it.’
Kathryn looked up as Tim climbed into the ambulance and pulled the doors closed behind him. ‘This is Jo, Tim. She was in my class.’ Her hold tightened on her colleague. ‘It’s only been a few shifts, Jo. Is it really that bad?’
‘Yes!’
‘You’re working with Bruce Stanton, aren’t you?’ Jo nodded as Tim pressed a wad of tissues into her hands. He sat down on the opposite stretcher, still holding the tissue box. ‘And you just had an unsuccessful arrest case?’
‘You heard him, didn’t you?’ Jo blew her nose vigorously but her tears hadn’t stopped. ‘Telling that doctor how useless I am? Saying how he expected a few more trips to the morgue if he had to keep working with someone like me?’
‘What a jerk,’ Kathryn said indignantly. ‘As if it was your fault!’
‘But I did everything wrong,’ Jo said with a fresh sob. ‘Bruce expects me to know what to do and then he gets angry when I’m not fast enough and I get flustered and make some stupid mistake. Like putting the leads on wrong, like I did this time.’
Kathryn caught Tim’s gaze and a corner of her partner’s mouth quirked ever so slightly. They could both remember the day Kathryn had made precisely the same error. She had stared in consternation at the peculiar rhythm on the screen and Tim had said, very mildly, ‘You might like to swap the left arm and leg leads over when you’ve a second, Kat.’
His tone was just as mild now. ‘Bruce isn’t known for his tolerance, Jo. Don’t let him put you down.’
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