A Very Special Need

She wasn’t alone, Judith thought. She forced herself to walk down the corridor on legs like jelly. Please, God, don’t let this be happening to me, she thought. Let him be wrong.

He wasn’t. She found the woman lying on a comfy sofa, propped against one arm with her feet braced against the other—her face contorted with the effort of expulsion.

Judith didn’t even have time to wash her hands, never mind make any kind of preparation for a sterile environment. She squeezed Christine’s hand briefly, hitched up her dress and pulled down the tights and pants that the woman had tried—and failed—to remove. As Hugh came back into the room she was perched on the side of the sofa, the baby’s head cradled in her hands, with no time to worry about her part in all this.

‘Here,’ Hugh murmured and, hitching Christine up a fraction, he slid a thick, soft towel under her, put his arm round her shoulders and let her hang onto his hand as the next contraction seized her in its grip.

‘Aagh…’ she groaned, tucking her chin down and straining.

Judith smiled at her. ‘You’re doing fine, Christine. Nice and gently. Just take it steady. Well done.’ Heavens, was that her? She was talking on autopilot, functioning on two entirely different levels. God forbid that Christine should see the other level—she’d have hysterics!

Judith looked down at her hands. The baby’s head lay there, streaked and smeared, the mass of dark hair pressed damply against the tiny skull. As Christine pushed the baby seemed to squirm and turn and twist in Judith’s hands. Suddenly not only a head but a body lay there in her hands, tiny, dark red and utterly furious.

The blood-curdling yell was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard—second only to the siren of the ambulance which arrived at the same time, relieving her of the responsibility for the baby’s welfare and any further part in its delivery.

‘Thank God,’ Hugh muttered beside her and, releasing Christine, he went to let them in. Judith lifted the baby up and laid him across Christine’s now-soft abdomen. ‘It’s a boy,’ she said, her voice choked with tears, and as the ambulancemen came in she went over to the sink, washing her hands as if she could take away the memory of the last wet, squalling newborn she had held.

His cry had been the same. Her joy in a new life had been the same. It was only later that she’d discovered how different he was to be…

Hugh appeared behind her, his hands cupping her shoulders with a gentle squeeze of support and thanks and all the other tumbling emotions childbirth brought kicking and screaming to the surface. ‘All right?’

‘Yes.’ Surprisingly, her voice was steady. Now there’s a miracle if you like, she thought. ‘It’s a boy,’ she said unnecessarily.

‘I know. Thanks for your help.’

She looked up at him, her eyes still misting with tears. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, although it wasn’t. Not for her—and not for Woody.

Hugh looked searchingly at her for a moment, then his hand came up and brushed her cheek. She was surprised to feel a tremor in his fingers. ‘Do you want to go and make sure Woody’s all right?’ he suggested, as if he could read her mind. ‘He may be a bit concerned.’

She nodded, smiled absently at the busy ambulancemen and fled down the corridor. She arrived in the hall to find her son there with another woman behind him. She smiled at them both, a little stronger now she was away from the scene in the kitchen.

‘No Christine?’ the woman said.

‘No—she’s just had her baby—that’s why the ambulance is here.’

‘Here? She’s had it here? Oh, how wonderful!’ the woman exclaimed, obviously delighted. ‘Everything all right?’

Judith forced a smile. ‘Seems to be.’ Funny, she couldn’t share the woman’s enthusiasm.

‘Oh, do give her my best wishes. I’m Mrs Jennings, by the way. I’ll go through and wait, shall I? Oh, how exciting!’

‘Fine. Thank you.’ She turned to Woody. ‘OK, love?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah—much better. I take it the receptionist had her baby just this minute?’ he murmured.

She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. A boy. He looked so much like you—’

She broke off, unable to continue along that line of thought, but as usual Woody didn’t miss a trick.

‘Mum, it wasn’t your fault,’ he began, and then Hugh arrived.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said with a rather bemused smile. ‘Babies have a way of arriving when it suits them. Um—let’s have a look and see if we can make you an appointment for Monday, Edward—oh, excuse me—’ He picked up the ringing phone. ‘Good afternoon. Hugh Barber speaking. Can I help you?’

It took three tries before he managed to look at the appointment book without interruptions, by which time he was looked fairly ragged and Judith was wondering if they would ever get away.

‘This is ridiculous,’ he muttered when the phone disturbed them yet again. ‘Let’s ignore it.’

Judith reached out and covered his hand, stilling him for a second. ‘Can’t you get her replacement in early?’

He snorted. ‘What replacement? I’m so busy I haven’t even got round to advertising her post again yet. Finding someone of the right calibre to handle confidential information is never easy, and the last crop of applicants was dismal.’ He snatched up the phone. ‘Barber.’

A job. My God, she thought, it’s a job, right here in my lap!

‘I could do it for you,’ she offered quietly as he hung up the phone. ‘I’ve done a similar job before.’

He met her eyes, hope written ten feet tall all over his face. ‘Do you have the necessary skills?’

‘I think so. I can type, answer the phone, organise filing systems, use a computer or fax machine, do accounts, keep records—’

‘Stop! You’re hired. When can you start?’

The phone, which had been briefly silent, rang again.

She smiled and reached for the receiver. ‘How about now?’

Hugh was so relieved that he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Since just after two, when Christine and her baby had been handed over to the care of the hospital, Woody had been ensconced in the snug in front of the television, he had been seeing patients and Judith—well, Judith had the place running like clockwork.

It had taken her about fifteen seconds to ask the questions she realised she needed to have answered, and after following his patients out and explaining things to her a time or two it dawned on him that his contribution was entirely unnecessary.

She was a natural. She dealt easily with the patients, she was warm and friendly but brisk enough to keep things moving; she offered a choice of two appointment times at the most, where the majority of people would have asked when they would like to come and given the patients enough rope to hang themselves. Not Judith. ‘Monday?’ she would say. ‘Ten-thirty or twelve?’

And that was that.

She was wonderful. She was also very distracting. He found himself thinking about her in entirely un-employer-like terms and often, after seeing a patient out and exchanging a few words with Judith, he would have to drag himself away to the next patient, conscious of sporting a silly grin but unable to do anything about it!

Damn, she made him feel good. He found himself humming at one point as he went into the kitchen in a lull to tidy up after the pandemonium, only to find her in there, too, having already done it. ‘I was just going to bring you a cup of tea,’ she said with a smile, and left him in there with it while she went to check Woody.

And Hugh, sitting down on the now-cushionless sofa with his cup of tea, hummed cheerfully and thought that life was pretty damn good. He’d solved his maternity leave problem, Judith was employed and therefore able to support herself and Woody, Christine had had a lovely healthy baby and they had all survived the experience. And he had managed to end up working alongside the most attractive woman he had met in years.

Yup. Things were definitely looking up.

Judith couldn’t believe her luck. She’d got a job! And not just any old job, either. She was working with people in a caring profession, which suited her much better than being trapped alone in an office all day or stuck at a VDU screen, tapping in numbers in a noisy, open-plan office complex, and she was in such lovely surroundings, too. From her position at the gorgeous antique desk she had so much admired she could see out into the front garden, which was a blaze of colour after the dry summer. The recent rains had started everything off again and the flowers were picking up, ready for the autumn flush. The roses were lovely, the Michaelmas daisies were just opening with brilliant spots of rich purply-blue against the green and the plants in pots and tubs around the door were full and lush and tumbling down towards the ground. Just sitting there looking at it all made her feel so much better.

To be paid for the privilege seemed almost superfluous.

As for the job itself, she was really enjoying it so far, and once Hugh had time to show her the ropes and introduce her to the computer system he used for patient records she could be of some real use in the little office behind his consulting room.

It was a pity she hadn’t had time to grill Christine for some information, but she had no doubt that Hugh could fill her in. In the meantime she asked him if she had a query, dealt with the obvious and in the rare lulls she popped her head round the door of the snug and checked on Woody, lying stretched out on a big settee in front of the television fast asleep.