Bad Case of Loving You

It took effort to drag the quilt out from underneath Andrew and pull it over him, but I managed. I left him, already asleep, and did a quick tidy up, picking up the damp towels, getting rid of the condom, turning lights off downstairs, checking the security system was on.

I didn’t touch the wall, concerned that if I tried to wipe it clean, I’d disturb the colours.

Chapter Forty One

A strange beeping woke me, and it was Matthew’s turn to kiss me and say, “It’s just the alarm on my phone. I’ve got to get up, you go back to sleep.”

Going back to sleep… Now there was an unusual idea.

I didn’t go back to sleep, just stayed curled up comfortably under the covers, watching Matthew bring me a cup of coffee, wearing nothing but his shirt. If only all room service was this hot.

He let me pull him back down onto the bed for a smooch, then he said, “I have to go to St. Georges now. I don’t think that sleeping with all my supervisors, just to make sure I’m never in trouble for being late, is a viable option, so I’d better turn up on time.”

I let him go reluctantly and said, “The elevators at St.

Georges are well-maintained, so don’t plan on using that excuse either.”

He pulled on his trousers, no underwear underneath, and my eyes must have widened because he grinned at me.

“You’ve worked there?”

I shook my head and reached for my coffee. “No, but Tim, my ex, does. Watch out for a wandering vegan festooned in animal rights buttons.”

“Think my supervisor is a Dr. Clarke. That’s not him, is it?”

Matthew asked, sitting on the bed to put his socks on.

“Not him,” I said. “But you’ll be able to spot him in the cafeteria; he’ll be the only person eating a lentil sandwich.”

“Gross,” Matthew said, wrinkling his nose and making me laugh.

He came back into the bedroom a moment later, shaving cream on his face. “You are kidding, aren’t you? About the lentil sandwich?”

I shook my head. “Only person I’ve ever met who believed that you could make a pancake solely with rice flour and soy milk.

“You can’t?”

“No, that makes glue, not batter, and if you cook it, you have cooked glue,” I told him.

Matthew disappeared back into the bathroom again, making ‘yuckyunck’ noises.

It was quiet when he’d left, and I stayed in bed while my coffee cooled, enjoying my mini-holiday while it lasted.

At nine, my phone rang, and it was Human Resources at London, asking me to bring in my CV that afternoon, and passing on an invitation from Olivia Holland, the senior oncology consultant, to visit her in her office.

I’d met Olivia several times at Jackie’s house, and knew her well enough to know that she had a passion for dachshunds, merlot, and Monty Python, having spent more than one boozy dinner listening to her and Jackie’s wife tell scurrilous tales about when Jackie was a young and ill-informed house physician.

She barreled down the depressing grey corridor, dodging wonky chairs and abandoned trolleys of files, waving at me.

“Andrew!” she called out, her voice booming. “Good to see you when I’m not blind drunk,” she shouted, slapping me hard on the back.

“Thanks for seeing me,” I said to her, and she clamped her hand on my elbow and steered me down the corridor, whether I wanted to go there or not.

“Not a problem,” she said, pushing me into a great vault of a room and slamming the door after herself.

There was a desk in one corner, with the ubiquitous plastic chairs around it, and I sat down and stared at the ceiling with disbelief. Whatever the room had been before, the ducting, plumbing, wiring and scaffolding had been left undisturbed and merely painted white in a vain attempt to disguise it all.

“In the fifties they had some kind of hypobaric chamber in here,” Olivia said. “Not sure why they’ve never removed all the plumbing for it, just means I have the largest office in the hospital.” She grinned at me. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were looking for a job here. I even phoned that Jackson bastard to find out why he’d fired you. Turns out he hadn’t, admin had.”

“Yep,” I said. “Comes from being a union agitator.”

“That’d be the problems with that fuckwit Seagate, wouldn’t it?” Olivia said, and I just loved her for it. “Couldn’t quite believe it when the morons in admin here decided they wanted him on staff; the man is a lawsuit looking for somewhere to happen.”

“Perhaps they’re insisting he pays all his own malpractice insurance. Or perhaps it’s just that he’s the best damn nephrologist I’ve ever seen,” I said.

Olivia harrumphed. “Then the word comes down from on high that not only are we getting that aggressive little bastard, but he was bringing you and some other troublemaker with him, and that someone had found a secret supply of money to fund a new registrar’s position. I’ve been campaigning for another registrar for years.”

“It’s that simple?” I asked. “I’ve got a job here?”

Olivia leaned across the desk and held out her hand.