The night shift, p.18
The Night Shift, page 18
Violet put her hands on her knees to steady herself and rose to stand. ‘Thanks, yes,’ she said. ‘I need to be with Dev, I…’ Her bleep started to go off and she looked at it for a moment as if completely mystified as to its function or purpose. Gus reached out and unclipped the offending item from her pocket, his hand brushing against the waistband of her scrubs and resting briefly on her hip as if reluctant to leave her.
‘I’ll answer this,’ he said. ‘You go and sit with Dev.’ He picked up the chair from the corner where she’d been sat and carried it with one hand over to a position next to Marvin’s trolley while tucking her bleep in a pocket next to his. Dev remained in the same position as when they’d left him a moment ago, motionless, his face blank. He was holding Marvin’s hand so tightly Violet could see white indentations around the knuckles.
‘Dev,’ she whispered as she sat beside him. ‘I’m here. I’m so sorry.’
He shook his head miserably, unable to speak, and she put her arms around him, drawing him to her just as Gus had done, cradling his head against her shoulder as she told him it would all be alright, not entirely sure that she believed her own words.
Gus
‘He’s out of theatre,’ Gus said a few hours later as he pulled out a canteen chair and took a seat next to Violet and Dev. The pair of them looked pale and drawn; Dev’s face was an ashy brown, Violet’s grey eyes had lost their green sparkle and were sunken and circled with red. They both clutched their mugs like survivors clinging onto wreckage and looked up at Gus in unison, eager for any snippet of news.
‘He’ll be in recovery for a little while and then they’ll move him to the surgical ward,’ Gus said, speaking primarily to Dev now. ‘It’s ward twenty, up on the second floor. I can walk you up now, then you’ll be there when he wakes up properly.’
Dev shot out of his seat, knocking the rest of his coffee over the table. ‘Can I see him now?’ he said.
Gus put his hand on Dev’s shoulder. ‘Not while he’s in recovery,’ he said. But I could look in there for you on our way up to the ward, just to get another update if you like?’
He turned his attention to Violet. ‘You’ve got to get some sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s two hours since your shift finished. Marvin’s going to be fine and Dev will be with him anyway. You need to rest.’
‘God, yeah, I…’ She looked at him, bewildered. ‘But your shift must have finished the same time?’ she said, only now registering this fact. ‘And you’ve been holding my bleep the whole time. You should be at home sleeping too.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. Both of us need to be back here this evening and firing on all cylinders so you’re right, I need sleep as much as you do.’ He turned to Dev. ‘Let’s head up to twenty, get you sorted. And then’—he looked at Violet—'we’ll head off.’
Once they’d seen Dev to the side room on ward twenty, Gus, as promised, stuck his head into the recovery room to see how Marvin was doing. ‘Sounds like he had a liver laceration,’ he told Violet as the doors thudded shut behind him. She was sat on the floor of the corridor, overcome with exhaustion. He held out a hand to pull her to her feet, steadying her with the other. ‘But he’s been lucky, the blade missed everything else, and you know, the liver’s pretty good at repairing itself.’
‘Did they have to ligate any of the hepatic arteries?’ she asked. Her voice sounded distant, as if she was functioning purely on autopilot. ‘Because that would increase his clotting risk and up to forty-one per cent of patient with clots go on to develop necrosis – and then there’s the chance of bile leak in nineteen per cent of liver lacerations, was the injury near the bile ducts or…’ Her eyes were unfocussed, roving from one side of the corridor to another and yet he noticed she could still come up with facts and figures pertinent to the situation. She used data as a comfort blanket, he knew that. Unfortunately, in this situation the stats weren’t particularly comforting, and she was in danger of exactly the type of irrational overthinking and scenario-building that he usually succumbed to.
He turned her towards him, placed his hands firmly on her shoulders, feeling the thin fragility of her clavicles beneath the scrub fabric. ‘I don’t know, Violet,’ he said, keeping his voice steady, searching her face until she focussed on him again. ‘But the surgical team are very happy with him. They’ll be on the lookout for any post-op complications but he’s remained stable throughout, there were no lung injuries and his breathing is back to normal despite the cracked ribs. He’s starting to wake up and chat, so that’s a really good sign.’
He didn’t tell her that when he’d introduced himself, Marvin, still very groggy and disinhibited from the anaesthetic had been positively ecstatic, ‘Gushh?’ he’d slurred. ‘Yoush Gusssh! She looooves you. She does. Be nishe, be careful.’ He’d then said something about a shpeshial ice queen, or maybe, ice-cream, which made no sense and went on to tell every member of staff in the immediate vicinity that he loved them and Dev loved them and Violet loved them too, so Gus had wisely chosen not to read too much into his comments.
‘You need to sleep,’ he told Violet firmly now. ‘And I can’t in all conscience let you get back on your bike and cycle home. It just wouldn’t be safe. You’re coming to mine.’
She raised her eyebrows and went to speak but he interrupted her, worrying that she was going to turn him down.
‘I am literally a two-minute walk away,’ he said, ‘along a safe pavement that even you can’t fall off. I’ve got a spare room, there’s nobody else at home and you’ll be able to sleep properly. I expect at your house Dev will need to come back and get his stuff, the phone will be ringing once Marvin’s family know what ‘s happened, it’ll be chaos. Mine’s quiet and it’s nearby and I’m not taking no for an answer.’
‘I wasn’t really saying no,’ she laughed feebly. ‘You had me at “two-minute walk away”.’
He smiled into a deep exhalation, relieved that he didn’t have to push any harder. He also needed to sleep, and he knew he’d be unable to even close his eyes if he was worrying about Violet wobbling home on her bike in this state.
They retrieved their coats from the mess and made their way out into the stark white light of the wintery morning, their breath emerging in plumes of steam as they crossed the busy road and reached Gus’s apartment block.
‘Snazzy,’ Violet said as she eyed up the lift, the doors sliding back noiselessly to reveal a polished chrome and glass interior.
‘Hmmm,’ he said. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been in the lift before, but Violet was practically wilting in front of him. There was no guarantee she’d make it up four flights of stairs, however determined.
In fact, ‘snazzy’ was the last thing Violet said that morning. By the time they reached his apartment she seemed to have lost the power of speech and nodded mutely when he gestured for her to take the master bedroom.
‘I’ll be in the spare room, just through here,’ he said, indicating the side door off the corridor. ‘If you need anything just shout. I’ll set my alarm for four and I’ll call the ward as soon as I wake up, so don’t worry about updates, you won’t miss anything.’ He turned to leave the main bedroom. ‘Oh, and there’s T-shirts and stuff in the drawers if you want to borrow anything to sleep in…’
But she had already crawled into bed and pulled the king-sized duvet up to her ears, mumbling something that sounded grateful despite being incoherent nonsense. Gus crossed to the window and drew the heavy blackout curtains across, shutting out the pale grey sky and the view over the rooftops. For a brief moment he caught his own reflection staring back at him, the thin pleats of cloud in the distance superimposed on his face, the bed behind him with the once familiar shape of another person huddled under the covers. He felt a low thud in his chest, an emotion he couldn’t identify, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to simply climb into bed alongside Violet and put his arms around her.
He shook his head and saw his reflection do the same. He was too tired to think straight. He’d invited this woman into his home to keep her safe, to stop her cycling back to her own house exhausted, and to allow her to sleep undisturbed. Any thoughts of what else he might like to do now that she was in his bed were completely inappropriate and a violation of her space, even if all he really wanted at the moment was to cuddle up next to her and fall asleep. He wasn’t the predatory type and Violet was both exhausted and desperately worried about her friend. That made her vulnerable. He smiled to himself as he closed the curtain fully and the reflection of her shape in the bed disappeared from view – she would probably hate to be thought of as anything other than hard as nails.
Violet
Friday night
28th December
Violet woke up in an unfamiliar bed enveloped by darkness and silence, but the pillow that her nose was currently burrowed into smelled of something reassuring. As her senses acclimatised to her surroundings the events of the previous twenty-four hours trickled into her consciousness. Marvin, A&E, surgery, Dev, Gus. She was in Gus’s flat. In Gus’s bed. The thought jolted her properly awake and she reached out her hand to explore the area beneath the duvet, checking for the presence of another body or the heat that might indicate a recently vacated place of sleep. The cooler pocket of air convinced her that she was alone and had been for the duration of her slumbers – and of course, she remembered now, Gus was in the room along the corridor. It hadn’t made much sense at the time, she’d had a fleeting moment of concern about taking the master bedroom, clearly his bedroom, but he’d been insistent, said he slept in the spare room during nights, force of habit. And certainly, although the bedding smelled faintly of Gus’s laundry powder it did not hold the scent of having been recently slept in by anyone other than her. Maybe he really did sleep in the spare room during weeks of nights, even while the bigger bed lay empty. Who was she to judge – she had some pretty odd habits herself.
She stretched her arms out from under the covers and reached over to turn on the bedside lamp. The curtains were drawn but she could tell that it was already dark again outside, the only light visible filtering between the ceiling and the curtain rail was a phosphorescent glow of street lamps and car headlights. She imagined the busy street beyond, the shop fronts lit up with their Christmas displays, the clubs and restaurants gearing up for another evening of festivities. And further down the road of course was the hospital, the place she would again be required in a few hours, and also the place where Marvin was currently an inpatient. Thoughts of Marv propelled her out of bed in search of her phone where she was instantly reassured to see a string of messages from Dev on the home screen. She’d sent him a text as she walked back to Gus’s earlier that day – knowing that if he did make it home and found the place empty he’d end up in a blind panic. She couldn’t do that to him on top of everything else. His replies made her smile.
12.05
All fine, M in lot of pain but awake, nurses say he’s perfectly stable – news to me.
12.30
M asleep again
12.31
Is conscious though – checked breathing
15.32
Assuming ur asleep x
15.35
Hoping actually ur getting down and dirty with Dr Jovic xx
15.41
Is Gus in your gusset yet?
15.42
Apols, punning game poor as sleep deprived x
Violet laughed – Dev must be feeling better if he was worrying about her getting some gusset action. Thank God she hadn’t left her phone somewhere Gus would see it. Speaking of Gus, she wondered if he was awake yet. Her phone showed ten past four, but the flat appeared to be silent. Maybe it was just really well insulated, nothing like the house she shared with Dev where you could hear someone fart from a floor away. She tiptoed towards the door before realising she’d kicked off her scrub trousers while asleep and was clad in only a tatty pair of knickers and her crumpled green cotton top. Never mind, he’d seen her in in a swimsuit only yesterday.
The polished wood floor was cool under her feet as she padded down the corridor and opened the soft-latch door into what she thought was the main living area. The door opened onto a billow of steam before she realised it was actually the bathroom and that someone, presumably Gus, was very evidently using the shower. She shut it quickly, hoping he hadn’t noticed, and tried unsuccessfully to erase that all too brief glimpse of male body from her mind. The trouble was, she was now absolutely desperate for a wee and the sound of running water coming from the shower was not helping. She hopped from one foot to the other as she stood in the corridor and barely gave Gus a second glance as he emerged from the room with a towel wrapped around his waist five minutes later.
‘Violet?’ He sounded amused as she barrelled past him into the bathroom and slammed the door.
‘Sorry,’ she shouted from the toilet. ‘I was bursting.’
When she was done she washed her hands in the basin and drew a smiley face in the steam on the mirror, inhaling the aroma of freshly washed man coming from the shower. As she emerged into the corridor Gus called to her from beyond a newly opened door.
‘Sorry,’ he said, appearing in her line of vision as he put the kettle on. He was still only wearing a towel which Violet felt was quite unfair in the circumstances seeing as he was all toned and clean whereas she remained crumpled and decidedly messy. ‘I should have said, there’s an en-suite off the main bedroom. You could have gone in there. That’s why I didn’t bother locking the door. Lucky you didn’t try and come in a few moments earlier.’
‘Yes,’ said Violet. ‘Lucky that.’ She hovered by the side of the door. ‘Uhm, would it be okay if I had a shower too?’
‘Absolutely!’ He moved out from behind the kitchen island and crossed the room to meet her by the doorframe where she remained, uncertain whether to back up into the corridor or step aside. He stared down at her for a moment, their bodies close. His chest was bare, the droplets of water still clinging to his skin and she had to drag her eyes up to his face before they both moved to the same side of the doorway.
‘Sorry, you go…’
‘No – it’s uhm.’ Gus laughed as they both moved again to the opposite side, mirroring each other. ‘I was just going to show you where the towels and…’ He gestured back towards the main bedroom.
‘Of course, yes, I… Hmm, I’ll get out of your way.’ Violet managed to tread on his foot and knock her hip against the wall in her haste to allow him through.
‘Ouch,’ they both said. Followed by concerned looks and, ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m out of practice at having someone else here,’ said Gus lightly as he led the way back down the corridor.
‘You’ve probably never let anyone as clumsy as me enter the building,’ said Violet. ‘I’m always tripping over Dev when he’s home, nearly broke my ankle falling over his suitcase yesterday. He’s probably still not unpacked it, what with…’ Her voice trailed off as she considered how the past twenty-four hours must have felt for Dev.
Gus stopped and she bumped into him again but he didn’t seem to mind. He put his hand to her shoulder, a look of concern on his face.
‘You okay?’ he said. ‘I know you’re worried about him. Worried about both of them obviously. But Dev’s clearly very important to you. Can’t have been easy seeing him so distressed last night.’
‘You’re right,’ she said, determined not to get too emotional. ‘He does mean a lot to me and we both worry about each other. Dev’s been a part of my life for such a long time. We met during Fresher’s Week, been inseparable since. We are, as people often tell us, just like an old married couple.’ She grimaced, catching herself for a moment. ‘Sorry.’
‘Just because my plans for marriage have fallen by the wayside doesn’t mean you can’t mention the institution at all,’ Gus said wryly. ‘I know it still exists. Anyway…’ He gestured for her to follow him back into the master bedroom. Violet walked past the mound of bedding she’d recently vacated.
‘I’ll tidy up,’ she said quickly. ‘Once I’ve showered and got myself sorted. I really appreciate you letting me sleep over. I won’t leave the place in a mess I promise.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s fine. I pretty much insisted you stay and so far the only evidence of your having been here at all is a slightly rumpled duvet. It looks a lot more chaotic after I’ve slept there.’
They both stared at the bed for slightly longer than was necessary and then Gus reached into a cupboard and handed her a freshly laundered fluffy white towel.
Violet brought it to her face without thinking and inhaled deeply. ‘Mmmm, clean,’ she said appreciatively. ‘Most of our towels smell like mildew. That’s the trouble with living in a damp old house rather than a pristine pad with underfloor heating and proper ventilation like this.’
‘Yeah.’ His voice was ambivalent. ‘This place was Amelia’s choice. I’d have preferred something with more character.’ He looked surprised at his own comment. ‘Not that I’m blaming her or anything,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m not fussy. I like the flat. It’s easy to keep clean and—’
‘You don’t need to justify yourself to me,’ Violet said. ‘In fact you don’t need to always be justifying yourself to everyone. I know you’re not fussy. But everyone is allowed to acknowledge a preference.’ She looked at him closely. ‘Maybe you’re just used to having your preferences being ranked lower than other people’s.’
‘Oh, no it’s nothing like that. She didn’t bully me into renting the flat.’ He laughed. ‘it’s just odd that it’s me who’s been left living here, that’s all. Funny how these things work out.’
