The Doctor's Longed-For Family. Joanna Neil
a moment or two. The breath caught in her throat and she had to quell a sudden leap of her senses that threatened to overwhelm her.
It was very odd. This man was a total stranger to her, and her reaction to him was way overboard. She couldn’t imagine why she responded to his presence this way, but it must have something vaguely to do with her hormones, she guessed. They must be acting up, that was the answer.
‘So you think you might like to work here on a part-time basis?’ she murmured, indicating a chair where he could make himself comfortable. ‘Would you like to run through your CV for me while I hunt out your file?’
She began to search through the paperwork on her desk. There were four candidates for interview, and it occurred to her that she didn’t know which of them he was.
‘I don’t think I asked your name,’ she said, glancing across the table at him.
He hadn’t taken up the offer of a seat, but instead was looking around the room with interest, fingering the window-blind so that he could take a look at the view out onto the landscaped hospital grounds.
‘No, you didn’t,’ he murmured, letting the slats of the blind drop back into place. ‘Actually, I’m not here about the job at all. I was on my way to keep an appointment with the hospital chief when the accident happened. I was in the car behind the one that hit Adam and, as I said before, I stopped to see if there was anything I could do for him. I called for the ambulance and waited with him until the paramedics came along, and then I used their equipment to intubate him as he had slipped into unconsciousness. As soon as I could see that he was safely inside the ambulance, I followed him here.’
Abby stared at him. ‘Oh, I see.’ He had stopped to help the child and do what he could for him, and that was good to hear. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that he would act in that way. ‘Your intervention right from the start probably did more than anything to give him a better chance of recovery.’
Even so, she was a bit nonplussed about her mistake. She felt more than a little foolish now that he had explained what he was doing there, and she said flatly, ‘Did you manage to keep your appointment?’
He nodded. ‘One of them, at least. I still have to meet up with someone from Administration in half an hour or so.’
She blinked. ‘Oh.’ It occurred to her that she was beginning to sound repetitive, and she pulled herself together and sent him a puzzled glance. She said cautiously, ‘I can’t help feeling that I know you from somewhere. Your voice is familiar somehow, but I’m almost certain that we haven’t met.’
His mouth made a crooked shape. ‘Only through correspondence perhaps. I’m Matt Calder.’ He gave her a look from under half closed eyes. ‘From the TV programme Emergency Call. You are the same, “Abby Byford from the Chilterns”, who sent in the email about the show, aren’t you? Do you remember me now?’
She gave a sharp intake of breath. Her mouth dropped open and she quickly clamped it shut again. She stared at him in horror. ‘You,’ she said at last. ‘It’s you, of all people?’
She shook her head. This was the man who had splattered her email all over his website and read out her comments over the airwaves, and she had actually been civil to him. ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she muttered. It felt for all the world as though she had invited the devil himself into her office.
He must have picked up on something of her train of thought because he said in a dry tone, ‘I realise that it must have come as a shock to you to find me here, but I can assure you that I’m a perfectly reasonable man. We may have conflicting views, but there’s nothing wrong with airing both sides of the argument, is there?’
She didn’t answer him right away. Instead, she stood up and started to pace the room, more to work off her rising sense of irritation than anything else. ‘You ridiculed me,’ she said at last. ‘You talked about using the off switch as though I was a moron. I have to tell you, I just don’t believe that’s the answer. The problem goes much deeper than that. Your programme is an intrusion. You invade people’s privacy.’ She used the words as though they were weapons, stabbing at him.
He tipped his head slightly to one side, studying her as though she was an interesting specimen. ‘I don’t believe that’s so, and I wasn’t implying for an instant that you were lacking intelligence in any sense. I just feel that you can’t go on living in a time warp. This type of show is a regular on the media these days.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Then I have to say I think that’s a great pity.’
He frowned, but he wasn’t about to let up. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it would seem logical to switch off the TV set if you’re not happy with what is being shown. I happen to think that what we do is important. We keep people informed about what might happen in certain situations. We show them how the system works and help them to know what to do in an emergency. Knowledge is power after all, and you have to remember that the individuals we film have all given their consent for the footage to be shown on TV.’
Had they really? Abby sniffed in disagreement, a wave of exasperation rising up in her at his bland reply.
‘Have they?’ She scowled at him. ‘And how informed was that poor woman’s consent while she was struggling to cope with her labour? From what I could see, she was more concerned that someone would give her painkillers than what was going on all around her.’
‘You know, these programmes don’t go out live on air, and if it makes you feel better, I can assure you that I made certain that we had Megan’s full consent. We asked her again after she’d had the benefit of analgesics and time to think it through. I feel that we were very discreet in the way we filmed the birth, and I don’t think the finished product would upset many people. Nothing was shown that couldn’t be watched on daytime television.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion, though I’ll grant that some attempt was made to preserve her dignity. That’s something at least, I suppose.’ It was a concession of sorts, but she had to drag it up from deep within her. By now she’d definitely had her fill of Dr Matt Calder. ‘It still seems like an intrusion to me.’
She straightened her shoulders and went on, ‘I want to thank you again for what you did for the little boy…for Adam. I’m sure his parents will be very grateful to you for that.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then added, ‘As you’re not here for an interview, I hope you’ll understand if I say goodbye to you now and show you out. I have four other people to see, and when I’m finished here I have patients to attend to.’
Her green eyes flickered. He, on the other hand, probably had nothing more pressing to do than to keep a late lunch appointment with a TV executive.
He didn’t appear to be at all fazed by her dismissal of him. Instead, he reached for her hand, taking it between his palms, and said, ‘It’s been interesting to meet you, Dr Byford. Perhaps we’ll have the chance to chat again later today after my appointment with your admin department. I’d very much like to look in on Adam to see how he is doing after his surgery.’
‘I dare say that’s a possibility.’ Abby couldn’t think straight with him holding her hand that way, and she wasn’t about to commit herself to anything. With any luck, she would be engrossed in her work by then and well out of reach of this man.
He let her go, and slowly her senses began to settle down once more. She felt hot all over and her head was filled with cotton-wool clouds that only dissipated once he had taken a step back from her. It was just as well they did, because she had work to do. How was she supposed to conduct interviews with her brain in absent mode?
She saw him out of the room, but as she walked out into the corridor with him, she saw that Helen was hurrying towards them. The registrar stopped in her tracks, looking at him in wonder.
‘You’re Matt Calder from the TV, aren’t you?’ she said in an oddly breathless tone. ‘I can’t tell you how much I enjoy your programme…and your website…and I always try to catch your radio slot whenever it’s being