Thwarted ambition
Pav shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned as he made his way back to the canteen. He’d been so distracted that he’d left his phone on the table. Yes, he was normally a disorganized bastard, but that level of inattention was rare, even for him.
‘What was all that about?’ Jamie asked as Pav approached the group. They’d all finished their lunches and were starting to collect their things together.
‘Is she okay?’ Libby’s face was awash with concern. To Pav’s knowledge Libby was the only other hospital worker who did not seem to hold any animosity towards Dr Morrison. Dr M. had even looked after Libby’s little girl in the past, which was a shock in itself, seeing as people in general did not seem to be the radiologist’s forte. As Libby was a medical student and a single mother (well, not quite so single anymore thanks to Jamie), Dr Morrison’s help had been a much needed lifeline – but it was still a bizarre choice of childcare in Pav’s opinion.
‘I didn’t mean to piss her off so much that she’d scald herself,’ Kira put in, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. ‘You know I can’t control my mouth sometimes. It’s just that she can be such a mega-bitch.’
Dr Morrison had an unfortunate but well-earned reputation around the hospital for her cold manner and her ability to make you feel stupid when you requested a scan. Consultants like Pav and Jamie took that sort of humiliation on the chin, but it was a bit mean-spirited when it came to students like Kira. There had been a couple of times over the last month when Kira had come back from the radiology department with a pale face and without her usual relentless banter. Pav knew that Kira’s confidence clinically had been knocked recently, when she’d failed an anatomy viva, so the last thing she needed was for Nuclear Winter to make her feel even more substandard.
Pav reached for his phone and tucked it into his back pocket.
‘Is she okay?’ Libby asked, a small frown marring her forehead.
‘She’s fine,’ he told them with a confidence he didn’t feel. His mind flashed back to the red burn marks on her hand and the bruises he’d seen on her forearm, and his stomach tightened. ‘Maybe you could go check on her though Libs? You seem to be the only one she’s comfortable with.’
Kira snorted in agreement.
‘You know, Ki-Ki,’ Pav said after a moment, ‘I’m not sure she means to be a bitch. Maybe she’s just … shy.’
‘You think?’ Kira’s forehead was creased in a frown and her head cocked to the side so that her long red hair fell over one small shoulder. ‘I have to say she’s pretty high up on my list of People Who Need a Slap With a Wet Fish.’
Libby sighed. ‘I’ve told you all before,’ she said in an exasperated tone. ‘You don’t know Millie. She’s got … issues.’
‘Yeah, well, you’re bang on there,’ Kira muttered, and Libby shot her an annoyed look.
‘She’s really good with Rosie, Kira. But you’ve got to be a bit less …’ Libby paused and looked up at the ceiling before she shrugged and focused back on Kira with a small smile, ‘… you.’
‘A bit less me?’
‘Yes. I think you intimidate her.’
‘I intimidate her?’ Kira rolled her eyes. ‘Her heart is carved of ice Libs. I doubt any human could intimidate her.’
‘Just give her a chance.’
Kira paused. ‘Well … I guess she did call me to sort you out when you were ill. She can’t be a complete robot.’
‘I think we should all make a bit more effort with her actually,’ Pav cut in. ‘I’ve certainly got to try and get her on side if I want to get her to present at the Grand Round.’
Pav needed to talk Dr Morrison around. So far she’d refused to even consider speaking about her research in public. Pav knew this because, as the Director of Surgery, he was the one who received the emails from conferences, when they had no luck with her. Apparently she’d turned down every one of them. Pavlos could not understand why anybody would turn down that opportunity. He himself would give his right arm to present his new surgical technique for minimally invasive prostatectomy. Knowing this, and desperate for Dr Morrison to speak at his conference, the organizer of the European Urological Association meeting had contacted Pav last week with an offer of a slot to speak to the main lecture hall, if he could convince Dr Morrison to take a slot as well. So far her study had only involved orthopedic and urology patients; both specialties were vying for who could convince her to talk first, and Pav’s assistance would give the urologists the edge. The conference was in six months. Pav had told the organizer ‘no worries’.
‘Millie needs genuine friends, Pav,’ Libby said with more than a hint of reproach in her voice. ‘Leave her alone if you’re just trying to get her to speak at that bloody conference you’re always on about.’ Pav had told them all about the stalemate he was involved in with Dr Morrison. Libby had been adamant that he not push ‘Millie’ too hard to present.
‘You’ve no chance, mate,’ Jamie chuckled. ‘Even the legendary Pavlos rays of supercharm won’t be enough to warm up Nuclear Winter.’ Libby punched Jamie in the arm.
‘Don’t call her that,’ she snapped. ‘And Pav, I’m serious about you leaving Millie alone. Jamie’s being a dick, but he’s right about the conference; there’s no way she’ll do that.’
We’ll see, Pav thought as he clenched his jaw in frustration. Thwarted ambition was not his style. We’ll just see.
*****
Millie’s body tensed as she heard the far softer knock on her door.
‘Millie?’ At the sound of Libby’s voice she sagged slightly in relief but also a little, tiny bit of disappointment. It was official: she was losing her mind. Her office door was pushed open and Libby’s head appeared around it, followed by Rosie’s underneath.
‘We’ve come to fix your hand,’ the five-year-old bossed as she pushed her way into the office and planted her little feet wide with her hands on her hips. Her bright blue eyes, so similar to her mother’s, were sparking with determination and she shook her dark curls behind her shoulders. Rosie had turned five last month. Millie knew that her party had been at Jamie’s house, as she had been invited – another surprise. Of course she couldn’t go. Apart from anything, she’d known He’d be there, and after the club incident Millie was avoiding Him at all costs. Something that had backfired spectacularly today.
‘You, young lady, have come to watch. I’ve come to check on Millie,’ Libby said, trying to gently draw Rosie to the side. The little girl, however, was not in the mood to be pushed aside. She shook off her mother’s hand and moved to Millie, climbing up into her lap and putting her strong little arms around her neck, before giving her a squeeze. Millie swallowed past a lump in her throat as she closed her arms around the warm curled body. Since she’d been babysitting for Libby (at first it was in the mornings so that Libby could go to the ward round before the hospital nursery opened, but Rosie had since started school, which meant Millie was now only allowed the odd evening babysit) she had become used to Rosie’s affection. The only reason she’d even become sort-of friends with Libby was because Rosie had marched into Millie’s office a few months ago after Millie had refused a scan request from Libby, and asked her straight out why she was ‘being mean to my mummy?’. Libby had been mortified – she’d been trying to keep the child hidden behind the door whilst she asked for the scan (as a single mother and restricted by the nursery opening times Libby hadn’t had much choice), but Millie had been enchanted by the child from the start.
In fact now she looked forward to the evenings Libby needed babysitting so much it was almost pathetic. The casual affection she found so difficult with other people came easily with Rosie. Maybe because the social cues Millie found impossible to interpret with adults were easier to read with this child; there was no artifice, no small talk, no double meanings. Everything was clear and on the table. Affection was genuine. Millie had no idea why the little girl had taken to her so much, but she was not going to turn her away. In the company of this child Millie almost felt normal, something she hadn’t experienced in a long time – if she was honest there was never really a time when the word normal would have applied to her.
‘Right, now you can fix her hand, Mummy,’ Rosie further bossed as she released Millie and slid off her lap. Libby rolled her eyes but smiled at her daughter.
‘Can I see?’ she asked Millie.
‘Listen, my hand’s fine. I don’t –’
‘That’s not what Pav told me, Millie,’ Libby said gently, and Millie let out a breath at the use of her Christian name. Everyone except these two and Don called her Dr Morrison. She absolutely hated it. It meant a lot to her that Libby called her Millie. Even her parents wouldn’t use the shortened version of her name, preferring instead the more formal Camilla.
Libby sucked in a breath as she prised Millie’s hand from her lap and turned it over. ‘Sh …’ Libby glanced at her daughter, whose ears had pricked up in preparation for a swear word, ‘… sugar, that had to have smarted, hun.’
Millie blinked. Endearments were not something she was used to either. From childhood they had been few and far between. Libby’s beautiful, make-up-free face was frowning down at Millie’s burns. Her short messy hair looked like she’d run her fingers through it about a thousand times already today. The way she looked and acted was so natural and carefree it made Millie feel stilted and repressed. No doubt Libby had a two-minute shower in the morning, brushed her hair, flung on whatever she had to hand and that was that. It made a mockery of Millie’s own ninety-minute routine: her obsessional need to be wearing the perfect outfit, for her appearance to be flawless, faultless.
‘Jesus, we need to get this looked at by plastics.’
‘No.’ Millie pulled away her hand and leaned back in her chair. Libby’s head tilted to the side and her forehead creased in confusion.
‘But I think –’
‘No plastics. It’ll be fine.’ Millie knew what would happen if she saw a burns specialist. They would dress her hand in such a way that it would be rendered pretty much useless. Her right hand. They would then tell her to contact someone to look after her whilst the hand healed: a friend, family – someone to stay with her. She wouldn’t be able to work.
‘Millie, please –’
‘No plastics.’ Millie stared at Libby, her mouth set in a thin stubborn line, and Libby sighed.
‘Okay, but let me dress it at least. I have iodine and gauze.’
Millie hesitated but caught sight of Rosie’s concerned little face. For a five-year-old she saw way too much.
‘Yes,’ Millie said, slowly uncoiling her hand and laying it back on the desk for Libby to see. Making sure a medical student left her free use of her hand would be a lot easier than a fully qualified plastic surgeon. ‘I … um, thanks,’ Millie muttered. Accepting kindness was not her strong suit, but then she hadn’t really had that much practice.
*****
Pav waited.
He could be patient when he needed to be and he got the feeling that with Dr Morrison he needed to be very fucking patient. That didn’t mean he wasn’t keeping tabs on her. Pav knew just about everyone in the hospital and he had his sources in the radiology department as well. Dr Morrison hadn’t taken any time off with her hand, which, whilst annoying, did not entirely surprise him.
What did surprise Pav was the tightness he felt in his chest when he thought of her using a burnt hand to click through her images, or the way his stomach had hollowed out when he’d seen her bandaged hand in the urology MDT and her flinch of pain when she used it to open up her laptop. He wasn’t quite sure why the thought of Dr Morrison in pain should create such a visceral reaction in him, but there was no mistaking it was there. He reasoned that maybe it was because he had indirectly been the cause of it. If he hadn’t propelled her over to their table and pushed her out of her comfort zone she wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place. No doubt guilt was playing a part then. There was a healthy dose of anger too, which also surprised Pav. He was generally a pretty mellow guy. But the thought of Dr Morrison pushing on to work through her pain and not resting her goddamn dominant hand made him want to smash something.
Normally if Pav thought that somebody was being stupid (and in his opinion working with your right hand after sustaining a second degree burn was right up there), he would make his view known fairly rapidly, and, more often than not, pretty loudly. But he’d already pushed Millie into a corner, not once but twice, with disastrous consequences, and for once in his life he needed to employ a bit of subtly. So he waited until he knew Don was back in the office from his holiday to approach her. That was about as subtle and considerate as Pav got.
‘Hey, Don,’ he said from the doorway of the office. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Dr Morrison jump in her chair before she settled back down and focused on the screen. At a glance she looked perfectly composed, but Pav could see how rapidly her chest was rising and falling, and how white her knuckles were as she gripped her mouse to click through the scans. ‘How were your hols?’
Donald turned in his chair and narrowed his eyes on Pav before flicking a concerned glance over at Millie. ‘I went to Bogner. It rained. What do you want, Stavros?’
‘Don, come on.’ Pav forced out a good-natured chuckle: the stubborn old man knew his name by now. Don just crossed his arms over his chest and raised one white eyebrow. Pav sighed. ‘Look, I’m actually here to talk to you if that’s okay, Dr Morrison?’ He watched her blink at the screen but no response was forthcoming. He tried again. ‘How’s the hand?’
‘Her hand is fine,’ Donald snapped. ‘Now, what is it you really want, son?’
Pav rubbed the back of his neck and then extended the journal he was holding in his other hand. Don glanced down at the front cover and smiled. ‘Millie? Why didn’t you tell me about this? Bugger me, it got into The Lancet! I can’t believe it.’
Dr Morrison turned in her chair and, still avoiding eye contact with Pav, reached for the journal that was now in Don’s hands. He passed it across and she laid it reverently in her lap, staring down at it and then touching the featured article title, ‘CBT and Surgical Outcomes: The Psychology of Recovery’. A very small smile tugged at her perfectly painted lips before she masked her expression. She looked up at Don.
‘I didn’t know it was coming out this month and I –’
‘You never said it was getting into The Lancet,’ Don grumbled through a smile so wide Pav thought it might split his face. ‘My Millie,’ he said softly, reaching for her hand and laying his wrinkled one on top, ‘changing the face of medicine.’ Millie rolled her eyes.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Don,’ she mumbled, a blush creeping up under her foundation. ‘It’s just an idea. Hardly groundbreaking. And Anwar had just as much credit, maybe more.’
Don snatched the journal away and started flicking through it. ‘Ha!’ he said triumphantly as he poked the page with his finger. ‘It says right here that this has the potential to be the biggest advance in post-op recovery in the last decade. It says that in the Editor’s letter. You can’t argue with the Editor of The Lancet.’
‘You would, Don,’ she told him, her small smile back in action and her eyes soft on her colleague. ‘You would argue if they hadn’t said that about me, if they’d said it was rubbish.’
‘Well,’ Pav broke in, and Dr Morrison flinched again as if she’d forgotten he was even there in her excitement, ‘the fact is that this is a breakthrough, and as Surgical Director I can assure you the hospital is fully behind you attending whatever international conferences or meetings you need to.’
Pav let that hang there for a minute as he watched Millie bite her lip. He knew very well that she had no intention of going to any international conferences. Over the last month he’d had more emails from organizers all over the world, and he knew that she was continuing to turn them all down flat, each and every one. One of them was to Hawaii, for fuck’s sake. Was she mad?
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Millie told him as she spun her chair back around to her computer monitor and started scrolling through images again.
‘Listen,’ Pav said, making a fairly rubbish attempt to soften his tone, ‘you can’t just ignore all this. At the very least you’re going to have to present it to the rest of the hospital –’
‘No.’
Don sighed. ‘Millie maybe you could just –’
‘Don, no.’
‘Dr M., look …’ Pav spoke to her stiff back. Other than a small flinch she did not acknowledge his presence. ‘You have to present this stuff. You –’
‘Talk to Anwar,’ she said, still not making any eye contact. ‘He did all the CBT. He’d be –’
‘You set up the study!’ Pav’s voice was raised in frustration. ‘Most of the CBT that the patients did was online in a computer program you created. I can’t just get the psychologist to talk about it on his own. That’s ridiculous. It’s your study.’
‘No!’ To Pav’s shock, Dr Morrison’s normal, controlled tone went up a pitch and she actually slammed her hand down on her desk. Unfortunately it was her injured hand. He saw her wince in acute pain as she snatched it from the desk and hugged it to her chest. That dreadful hollow feeling was back again as he watched her in pain. Why was she so bloody stubborn?
‘I think, Stavros, you’d better leave.’ Donald was out of his chair now and drawing himself up to his full height (which unfortunately for Donald only came up to Pav’s chest); but the steely look in the old man’s eye and the disapproval in his expression had Pav backing away to the corridor.