All The Care In The World

‘Of course you can. I sincerely hope you’ll refer to it frequently!’ Callum found himself smiling again as he watched her tuck the papers into a slim leather briefcase.

‘Oh, day and night,’ she promised, and clipped the case shut. ‘It will never leave my side!’

Callum’s eyes twinkled. In his opinion, a sense of humour applied to the working day wasn’t just preferable but necessary. ‘Most of the information given in the brochure about the practice is self-explanatory,’ he told her. ‘We are a semi-rural practice with a list size of just over five thousand patients. You really should become familiar with the geography and social class ecology of the practice area as soon as possible.’

‘Right.’ Nancy made a mental note to do that this very weekend.

‘It’s sensible to have a map of the practice with you at all times,’ he continued, ‘and to begin to become familiar with traffic flow dining weekdays, and in particular at rush hours—although our rush hours are pretty small stuff compared to what inner-city doctors have to contend with.’

‘I bought a map at the weekend,’ said Nancy eagerly.

He smiled at her obvious enthusiasm. ‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘As for the other members of the practice, I have two partners whom you’ll meet later on. One is male and one female and I’ll stagger the introductions as it’s your first day, otherwise you won’t remember anybody! We have a full complement of staff here, with a practice nurse, a district nurse, health visitor, midwife and community psychiatric nurse.’

Nancy nodded. ‘As well as all the usual ancillary staff of receptionists, typists, a bookkeeper and filing clerk, I suppose?’

Callum smiled. ‘For “ancillary” substitute “indispensable”! We would simply be unable to function without efficient receptionists who were firmly on our side. And we’re very much a team here,’ he added quickly.

Now was that an admonishment? Nancy wondered fleetingly. Had word reached him that within seconds of walking into the building she had clumsily been trying to explain an open-ended sentence to one of the receptionists and getting a rather stony-faced response?

But his face was resolutely non-judgemental, and Nancy inwardly reprimanded herself. She was getting paranoid, that was all. Too much criticism at home was making her normally strong sense of self-worth begin to crumble.

‘And a team is what I want to be part of,’ she told him firmly.

Her declaration seemed almost defiant, observed Callum thoughtfully. ‘Good,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ve drawn up a timetable for you, but this is flexible and will change as you grow in confidence.’ He pushed the neat chart across the desk at her, and Nancy began to study it.

‘At first, you’ll sit in on my surgeries and accompany me on my visits,’ he told her. ‘Then, when we both feel that you’re ready to see patients on your own, we will give you small, selected surgeries. But remember that I’m always next door if you run into any problems.’

‘I’ll do my very best not to,’ she told him with a smile.

‘Good. Every day we’ll have short tutorials on conditions we’ve encountered that day—influenza epidemics notwithstanding, of course! And once a week we’ll have a longer tutorial on a subject which you will be able to choose—’

‘Unless there’s a topic which you feel I ought learn about?’ she guessed.

Callum nodded, pleased at her perception. ‘That’s right. There is also an afternoon day-release course at St Saviour’s Hospital on Wednesday afternoons especially for GP registrars, which I think you’ll find very useful as well as providing an opportunity for you to meet some other people in the same boat as yourself.

‘And I intend to go lightly with you when I’m on call.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll make sure you get all the experience you need, but I’m aware that you’ll need to study for your membership exam so if I’m up all night, working, I won’t necessarily expect you to be!’ His green eyes glittered as he watched her eyes widen. ‘Any questions?’

Nancy gazed at him in a rather dazed fashion as the reality of just how much work she would have to do hit her. ‘It sounds frantic,’ she ventured.

Callum shook his head. ‘It sounds more daunting than it actually is, but most of the job you’ll learn as you go along. I often think that there is no finer tutor than experience, and in medicine this is especially true.’

‘And presumably I’ll be driven by a “need to know”?’ prompted Nancy. ‘Which will make me eager to learn?’

Callum nodded his dark head approvingly. ‘You’ve obviously been reading up on the subject.’

‘A bit.’ Not as much as she would have liked, of course. Steve, her husband, had made sure of that. Nancy had wondered lately if he saw her career as some kind of threat. Sometimes he seemed almost jealous of the time she tried to put into her background reading.

He’d complained last night when she’d been curled up beside him on the sofa after dinner.

‘Must you keep reading that?’ he’d demanded.

Nancy had been bent over a textbook, trying her level best to get to grips with its particularly stodgy content, her dark, shiny hair falling in splendid disarray over her shoulders. She had calmly lifted her head to meet her husband’s accusing stare head-on.

‘I must spend a little time on my reading, Steve,’ she’d observed, her voice determinedly conciliatory as she’d fruitlessly attempted to delay the row which would inevitably follow.

‘But I thought that the whole point of you going into general practice was to stop working unsociable hours so that we could spend more time together!’ He scowled.

Nancy laid her book down on her lap and tried to block out the whining tone in his voice. ‘Actually, I thought the whole point of me going into general practice was to have an interesting and varied workload, while mixing with the whole community,’ she corrected drily.

‘And while I’m training I need to do plenty of reading, which I would have to do whichever speciality I’d chosen. I have an examination to take at the end of this year of training, and general practice is a busy job, you know, Steve.’

Steve looked at her disbelievingly. ‘Well, our family GP used to spend three quarters of his time on the golf course!’

‘And you think that’s admirable, do you?’ Nancy challenged, thinking how glad she was that such unprofessionalism would no longer be tolerated in these hardworking times.

‘I think a lot of things,’ he said with a glower, ‘but I don’t think that you’d care to hear any of them!’

He stood up and poured himself another three fingers of whisky, a practice which had been occurring much more frequently of late. ‘And you can stop glaring at me like that!’ he declared as he gazed unsteadily into her brown eyes.

‘I wasn’t glaring!’

‘Oh, yes, you were! And I can tell you something else, Nancy Greenwood—that the amount of time you spend with your nose in a bloody textbook would drive a saint to drink!’

And Steve was certainly no saint...

* * *

Yet as Nancy looked across the desk at the approving face of her trainer she found herself thinking how wonderful it would be to have a partner who actually supported you, instead of undermining your determination to succeed.

But allowing her thoughts to drift in that direction would do no good whatsoever. There was absolutely no point in wishing for what you knew deep down you would never get...

Callum saw the apprehension that clouded her clear, brown eyes, but even if he hadn’t correctly read it there it would have been apparent from her demeanour.

Her whole delicately boned frame had tensed, as though she were uncomfortable in her own body. Those narrow shoulders—tiny shoulders, Callum found himself thinking with an almost protective pang—were all bunched up beneath that navy blue suit she was wearing.

He looked at her clothes properly for the first time.

Callum was not the kind of person who was particularly interested in the clothes that women wore. And whilst the man in him could recognise and acknowledge the sexual allure of a woman clad in a shimmering and clinging gown—with all its accompanying glitz—he nevertheless preferred women to look more natural. He liked the kind of woman who would climb out of bed and into an old pair of jeans to walk for miles, before tackling a hearty breakfast.

He sighed. Bit of a shortage of those women, really. And—here his eyes flickered to Nancy’s structured navy jacket—this woman wouldn’t fit into that category either. Not with a suit that must have cost most of a month’s salary. Callum couldn’t have named a dress designer to save his life, but he was enough of an aesthete to recognise and appreciate the superb cut of the finely woven material and the way it moulded itself so beautifully to the curving lines of her body.

Their eyes met, and something in his expression made Nancy’s cheeks grow faintly pink.

Callum shook his head impatiently. For God’s sake, man, he told himself, she was his trainee and she was married so he’d better stop ogling her right now!

He put on his professional smile, with a brisk professional tone to match. ‘We’ve a few minutes to spare so I’ll give you a quick guided tour of the health centre. Then we’d better get a couple of these visits out of the way before lunch,’ he said brusquely.

He stood up, and immediately dominated the surgery. ‘I tend to buy a sandwich and eat it in between visits. I hope that’s OK with you? That way we can talk in the car on the way.’