Questions Of Trust: A Medical Romance (6 page)

‘Okay,’ he nodded, straightening. He patted Jake on the shoulder and winked at him. ‘Up you get.’ He looked Chloe straight in the eye.

‘We need to get him to hospital.’

‘What?’
Chloe was disorientated. This couldn’t be happening. Half an hour earlier they’d been at home together in the peace of the spring afternoon. Now… her boy needed hospitalising?

Dr Carlyle was already reaching for his phone. ‘Jake has something called a quinsy. A peritonsillar abscess, to give it its full name. He needs an ear, nose and throat specialist to have a look at it, but it’ll almost certainly need draining.’

‘Surgery?’ She clutched Jake close.

‘Yes, but it’s straightforward. Very quick. It can be done with local anaesthetic, but as he’s just a little guy they’ll probably put him under for a few minutes.’

‘Will he… is it…’ The room seemed to Chloe to be spinning. Dr Carlyle had punched in numbers and was waiting. He raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s curable. He’ll be fine. Good thing you brought him in when you did, though. We’ve caught it just in time.’

‘Oh God. What would have happened if…’

The doctor gave a slight shake of his head. ‘Don’t think about that now. You did the right thing. The main thing now is to get him to the ENTs. Hello?’ he said into the phone, suddenly, as someone came on the line. ‘Chris, it’s Tom Carlyle here. Got a very brave little boy who needs your help.’

The next hours passed for Chloe in a fog of bewilderment, terror and, gradually, dawning relief. Dr Carlyle administered some more paracetamol to Jake while Chloe stripped him out of his clammy clothes. All at once the ambulance was there and she was bundling him into it and watching Dr Carlyle’s receding figure through the rear windows as the vehicle pulled away. The hospital was several miles out of town, a large district general facility with an elaborate façade. Jake began to cry as he was wheeled through the doors into the clinical-smelling corridor, and Chloe kept pace with the trolley, squeezing his hand.

The ear, nose and throat surgeon was kindness itself and put Jake at his ease quickly. Chloe watched the procedure through the viewing panel in one side of the operating theatre. She felt her own throat choke at how small her son was, draped in green on the table, and winced as she saw the length of the mounted needle the surgeon introduced into his open, unconscious mouth.

And at last it was over, Jake snoring in his bed in the children’s ward with Chloe sitting at his side, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest and the slow drip of the infusion set that snaked to his arm. He’d be on intravenous antibiotics for a few days, they’d said. Chloe had no intention of budging until he was ready to go home.

She kept up her vigil for three days, dozing in the armchair next to his bed, feeding off meals brought round for the young patients themselves. Mrs McFarland came round with clean clothes, sweets, fruit, picture books and balloons, but was careful not to outstay her welcome, Chloe was grateful to note. After initial howls of pain from his sore throat, Jake gradually regained some of his usual cheerfulness, and by the end of the second day he was exploring the rest of the ward and shyly interacting with his fellow patients.

At the end of the third day, Jake was awaiting his final dose of intravenous antibiotics before being discharged home. The doctors had pronounced themselves satisfied with his progress; the abscess had been drained, and it hadn’t recurred. Jake was having a nap, and Chloe, drained by fatigue, leaned back in her now-familiar armchair and closed her own eyes, relishing the peace and quiet of the late afternoon.

After the initial shock and panic, she’d had time to find out about the condition Jake was suffering from. He’d most likely had a low-grade tonsillitis for several days which she’d thought was a simple sore throat. The abscess had developed and grown rapidly, and according to what she’d read and been told, it might have progressed to cause obstruction to Jake’s breathing.

She might have lost her son.

For the first time the realisation of what might have happened hit her, and it was like a physical blow driving her back into her chair.

First Mark, and now Jake. She couldn’t have borne it.

Chloe thought about Dr Carlyle’s words to her in the surgery:
you did the right thing
. He was right, and yet he was wrong. The right thing would have been to bring Jake in earlier, when he first started feeling ill. Instead, not wanting to be a neurotic mother, especially aware that she was at risk of becoming one after what had happened to her husband, she’d dismissed her son’s symptoms as those of a minor illness.

The ENT surgeon had said something similar to her after the operation.
You saved your son’s life, Mrs Edwards.
But she hadn’t. In truth, Tom Carlyle was the one who’d saved Jake. He could have refused to see the boy, recommending instead that Chloe continue to dose him with paracetamol and call back if there was no improvement. Or, Dr Carlyle might have misdiagnosed the abscess, labelling it as tonsillitis and prescribing a course of oral antibiotics which wouldn’t have done the trick. Instead, he’d seen Jake’s condition for what it was, and his prompt action had worked.

Tom Carlyle had dropped in earlier that day, after his morning surgery. Chloe was gratified, and perversely not a little jealous, when Jake’s eyes lit up at the sight of the doctor. Dr Carlyle chatted with them both, took a quick glance at the charts at the foot of Jake’s bed, had a word with the ward sister. 

As he was making to leave, Chloe half rose from her chair. ‘Dr Carlyle.’

He turned enquiringly.

‘I…’ She faltered, emotion surging within her, the accumulation of sleep deprivation and delayed stress almost pushing her back down into her seat. ‘Just – thank you. For what you did.’

He grinned, eyebrows raised. ‘My job. But it’s a pleasure.’

He gripped her hand, and was gone.

Now, as Chloe relived the memory, she felt the pressure of his hand on hers again, and was surprised at how calloused his palm had felt, not at all how she’d expect a doctor’s hands to feel. Did he perhaps do carpentry or DIY work as a hobby? She knew nothing about him, other than that he had a nice manner, and a nice smile, and had saved her son’s life.

Mentally she shook herself. He was still, when all was said and done, one of
them
. One of the breed who’d killed her husband. His diagnosis of Jake’s illness hadn’t been in any way miraculous. He had, as he’d acknowledged, been doing his job. Anything less would have been a failing on his part. She couldn’t forget that.

Aware, through the fog of bitterness that had engulfed her once again, that she was being grossly unfair, but unable to care about it, Chloe began to pack up her son’s few items in preparation for his return home.

***

The first Tom was aware of them was when Jake collided with the backs of his legs.

Tom turned, surprised, and saw the little boy clinging to his trousers, his upturned face laughing and impish. Tom reached down and ruffled his hair. Beside him, Kelly rolled her eyes in disdain. She was four and unimpressed by the antics of a two-year-old boy.

Chloe came hurrying over, her eyes and smile flashing an apology. She really did have an attractive smile, Tom thought, though she revealed it less often than she might. He’d seen her around town over the last six weeks, here and there, though she and Jake hadn’t attended the surgery since that day four weeks earlier when he’d presented with the quinsy. Tom had exchanged perhaps ten words with her since then.

He hadn’t seen Chloe and her son in this playground before. It was somewhere he brought Kelly every Sunday before lunch, an activity that had become part of their weekly routine since they’d moved to Pemberham back in the autumn.

Kelly muttered a hello, then raced off towards the climbing frame she loved. Chloe prised Jake off Tom’s legs and hoisted him, but he squirmed so much she had to put him down again. He toddled to a nearby miniature plastic slide and began laboriously to climb it.

Tom stood beside Chloe, watching the two children in their separate locales.

She broke the silence. ‘It’s the first time we’ve been to this playground. I thought we’d try something different.’

‘A bit off the beaten track.’

He saw her smile at the reference to the title of her newspaper column. ‘You’ve read it?’

‘Everybody’s read it.’ And he was only slightly exaggerating. There’d been three columns from her so far, and already her style – a combination of whimsy, self-deprecating wit, and the mildest hint of an appealing loopiness – had won letters of admiration. Tom had always found the
Pemberham Gazette
rather a dull paper, parochial and bland, but he’d bought the last few editions with Chloe’s column.

She said, ‘I’m surprised the
Gazette
hasn’t roped you in to write a medical column or something.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not a writer.’

‘No publications in the medical literature?’

He shrugged. ‘A couple of papers in low-impact journals, that’s all. It’s hard to be taken seriously as an author with the name Thomas Carlyle. People think it’s a pseudonym.’

‘I did wonder about that,’ she laughed. ‘Were your parents Calvinist clergy at all?’

Tom pretended to consider. ‘They were probably the most irreligious people on the face of the earth.’

Around them the playground bustled with parents trying to maintain a semblance of control over children running riot in the May sunshine. Tom hoped Kelly or Jake wouldn’t need attention, not for a few minutes more. He was enjoying the closeness to Chloe, the companionability, and wanted to prolong the moment.

He said, ‘Believe it or not, I used to come to this very playground when I was a boy.’

Chloe turned her face to him, giving him an excuse to look at her. He resisted the urge to run his gaze across the contours of her face, the cheekbones, the curved lips. Her eyes held plenty of attraction themselves.

‘I thought you’d only been in Pemberham six months.’

‘I have. Working here, I mean. But I was born here. I’m a local boy. Went off to medical school in London and joined my first practice in the inner city. I decided to move back here once… well, once I became a single dad. I thought it was a better environment to bring Kelly up in.’ Immediately Tom regretted mentioning the “single dad” detail. She might think he was dropping heavy hints. Then again, hadn’t she already worked out that he was bringing Kelly up alone? Whenever Chloe encountered them out and about, it was always just the two of them.

But he’d created an opening into the conversation for her. ‘Whereabouts in London did you train?’ Chloe asked.

‘St Matthew’s. Tough, but a terrific experience.’

She nodded in recognition. Everybody had heard of St Matthew’s, one of the great teaching hospitals on the Thames, along with Guy’s and St Thomas’s.

Tom said, ‘Yourself? Are you a Londoner?’

‘North London, born and bred.’

And that was it. No further details from her. Once again Tom sensed Chloe retreating into herself, as if she’d emerged to taste the day and decided she’d had her fill. She wasn’t cold, wasn’t rude. Just self-contained.

He’d noticed, glancing over her registration form on the day she’d joined the practice, that in the section marked
marital status
  she had ticked
single
. Not
divorced
or
widowed
. Yet she titled herself Mrs Chloe Edwards. Tom was intrigued.

But you shouldn’t be
, he told himself yet again.
She’s a patient at the surgery. Nothing more. Don’t be so nosey.

His phone went in his pocket and he grimaced. ‘Sorry.’ He fished it out and glanced at the caller ID.

Damn. Not now.

Tom stepped away a few paces, keeping his eye on Kelly at the climbing frame. At the same time Chloe moved closer to her son who was still engrossed in the toddlers’ slide.

‘Hello, Rebecca,’ said Tom.

‘Tom. Have you got a minute?’

Which meant, he knew, that it was going to take considerably longer than that.

‘I’m in the playground with Kelly,’ he said. ‘Can I ring you back later?’

‘I’ll be out then,’ she said curtly. ‘This won’t take long.’

Tom listened. At first what she was saying didn’t register, and he found himself mesmerised by the pendulum rhythm of a child on a swing, back and forth, back and forth. Then Rebecca asked if he’d understood, and when he didn’t reply, she repeated herself.

This time he did take it in.

Despite the warmth of the spring morning, Tom felt a chill creeping through his limbs, his bones.

Chapter Four

Chloe increased the wipers’ speed a notch, but they were fighting a losing battle against the downpour. The weeks of brilliant early summer weather had broken, finally, and the slate-coloured skies of the last twenty-four hours had opened up.

She steered the Astra carefully, uncertain of the route. It was a part of Pemberham with which she was unfamiliar, the south side, more deprived than the chocolate-box old town. Drab estates squatted miserably, their greyness darkened by the rain.