Limits Read online

  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.

  Chapter 4

  Safe space

  ‘Dr Morrison?’

  Millie’s stomach clenched, not only because, yet again, it was Him, but also at that formal greeting. Despite being used to it, the small rejection that the use of her surname elicited always cut her deep, every single time. The worst thing was the awful awareness that the situation was her own damn fault. She’d been too unfriendly to too many people for too long, and had never invited any sort of informality. And now she found it upsetting, as if the people around her went out of their way to maintain that extra distance by using the formality of her surname. No other doctor in the hospital, probably the whole trust, was as disliked. It was two weeks since he’d confronted her with The Lancet and Millie had hoped he would have given up trying to convince her by now.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, not taking her eyes off the computer screen.

  ‘Listen,’ the deep voice continued. ‘I know you’re busy but I would really appreciate it if you could afford me the courtesy of looking at me when I’m speaking to you. I might only be a surgeon, but I am a consultant at this hospital too.’

  Millie blinked at the screen and her hands balled into small fists. The feel of her nails digging into the skin of her palms helped to calm her racing heart and slow her breathing, but only just. She didn’t correct him. She knew that most of the hospital thought she was a consultant. It was easier for the management that way. At her last placement she had been acting as a registrar and it made everyone involved very uncomfortable.

  Millie passed the radiology exams before she even started the radiology training programme. Once the college found out that she was only a second-year doctor at the time they had wanted to take the exam away from her, but the fact that she achieved an unheard-of perfect score on all tests made this more that a little tricky. Nobody had ever completed the postgraduate exams without getting a single answer wrong. She was a phenomenon. At the highest level it was decided that the last thing they wanted was to lose Millie from their specialty, so they allowed her to count her exams but made her start at the bottom of the training. That had worked for the first couple of years, but as she became a senior registrar it became more difficult. She knew more about radiology than any of the consultants she was working with. She picked up errors in reporting that had been missed by the most experienced radiologists. Working beneath people she intimidated, if only unintentionally, had been very difficult; eventually the consultants couldn’t hack it.

  So a solution was reached. She would be transferred to a different hospital, instated in her own office, which she would share with a consultant who could supervise her and guide her, but who wouldn’t be intimidated by her knowledge base. That consultant was Donald. He was seventy-two, unfailingly calm, incredibly perceptive and ridiculously kind. He had seen through Millie’s cold indifference almost immediately. He was her only real friend.

  It made sense for the rest of the hospital to think Millie was a consultant. She did Don’s on-calls for him under his extremely loose supervision (Don had no intention of doing any on-calls any more). Without her, the consultant rota would fall apart. And she got through twice the amount of reporting as any of her colleagues, so they could hardly demote her back to first-year trainee: they needed her.

  She forced her hands to relax in her lap and turned in her chair to face Mr Martakis. Her eyes rose to meet his gorgeous, dark ones for a split second before she focused on the far safer territory of his shirt collar and heard him let out a loud sigh.

  She could feel the panic rising up to her throat and tried to swallow it down. Millie was not good with people, but this man … for some reason this man terrified her. It may have been to do with him being the most beautiful human being she’d ever seen before, or his manner: totally uninhibited, completely at ease with himself and others, quick to smile and laugh – the complete opposite of Millie. He fascinated her, although in much the same way a hawk would fascinate a tiny field mouse: with a good amount of fear and awe.

  Well, he wasn’t smiling now. In fact, his mouth was set in a grim line and a muscle was ticking in his jaw. Feeling the hostile vibes fill the room, Millie scooted back slightly in her chair and kept her hands coiled into fists to stop them shaking. Thankfully the burn had healed enough that she didn’t need the dressing on anymore.

  ‘C …’ she cleared her throat and swallowed down her anxiety. ‘Can I help you, Mr Martakis?’ For the last two weeks Millie had been successfully avoiding Mr Martakis. To the extent that at the last urology MDT she hadn’t even glanced at the coffee he’d put in front of her on the conference table (despite the fact it smelt amazing and she’d been having to survive on the terrible instant stuff in the radiology department for the two weeks before – there was no way she was venturing to the canteen again), and at the end of the meeting she’d raced past him without acknowledging his greeting. Millie was willing to admit that might have come across a little … weird, and a lot rude. She doubted Mr Martakis was used to being blanked by anyone. Donald had done a lot of the Mr Martakis fielding as well. Twice he’d effectively barred the man from coming into the office, and once he had managed to keep a straight face when Millie hid under her desk.

  ‘My medical student came to you to request a perfectly reasonable scan twenty minutes ago.’ He paused and Millie decided to keep her mouth shut, adjusting her gaze to the centre of his chest, then wishing she hadn’t when she took in the way his broad muscles filled out the shirt he was wearing, something she would never normally notice with other men. The sight gave her an unfamiliar swooping sensation deep in her stomach. Almost as though she was falling on a rollercoaster.

  ‘Hello? Dr Morrison?’

  Millie started in her seat. Her perusal of his chest seemed to have scrambled all functioning neurons. Which for her was an almost unheard of occurrence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice high and tight. She cleared her throat again but knew the tightening wouldn’t fade, not whilst He was here. ‘I don’t know whi –’

  Mr Martakis let out an annoyed huff and crossed his arms over his chest. More negative vibes filled the room and Millie shrank back into her chair.

  ‘I’m not surprised you don’t remember the request, seeing as you didn’t even spare the medical student in question a single fu –’ he looked away and took a deep breath in an obvious attempt to reign in his temper, ‘a single glance to acknowledge her existence.’

  Millie managed to stop herself flinching at the near-use of the f-word, but only just. It wasn’t that she was offended by swearing itself: only that the words were so harsh, so confrontational. Millie was not good with confrontation. Not at all.

  ‘I … Are you talking about the IVU that was requested?’

  Where was Don? Millie thought to herself. He should be back by now; she knew Irene had packed his lunch today. How long could picking up a bag of Wotsits (something Irene’s strict food rules did not allow) take?

  ‘Yes,’ he bit out, and it was clear from his tone that his patience was fraying. ‘And you know what: yes, okay, it’s not always appropriate for a medical student to request a scan but … Jesus, you could at least have the courtesy to look at her
when you dismiss her from your exulted presence. Maybe explain why you won’t do the scan for us. They do have to learn somehow you know. I presume you were a medical student once?’

  Yes, Millie had been a medical student once, but she’d been nothing like that girl. Kira was full Technicolor high-definition, to Millie’s dull, black and white persona. She always intimidated Millie and put her on the defensive. But this time Kira had changed tactics, being so friendly it was almost unreal: she smiled and chattered and sat on Millie’s desk, apologizing for the ‘coffee incident’ when that wasn’t even her fault; the strange girl had even offered Millie a custard crème in order to ‘butter you up, you cheeky badger’.

  Millie dreaded her on-calls more than anything. If you were the starred consultant for the day you had to be available to discuss scans and investigations for patients. Thankfully most of this could be achieved over the phone, but sometimes junior doctors (rarely medical students) would venture down into the bowels of the radiology department to actually discuss a scan face to face.

  Dr Morrison’s a.k.a. Nuclear Winter’s reputation as a stuck-up bitch was now firmly ingrained, mostly because Millie had a tough time making eye contact with the doctors that sought her out, and she often communicated non-verbally with just a curt nod if the request was reasonable. However, if the request was unreasonable or another investigation was indicated, she had to speak, and her anxiety normally made her voice tight, coming across as if she was angry and not terrified. Millie was good at her job, her suggestions were always correct; had they come with an encouraging smile, a bit of banter or a glimmer of friendliness, then the doctors she corrected would have thanked her. As it was, the fact she often changed requests and couldn’t manage casual niceties had earned her a pretty unsavoury reputation.