What was the point? He had proven again and again that he was a judgmental piece of work. She had to accept that until things changed she had other commitments.
Beg, borrow or steal, she repeated to herself in her head. She always knew that it wouldn’t be easy. The first two years in lecture theatres and labs were a world away from this – but she would not give up. She would do anything to achieve her goal, and for now shehadto leave. If this big idiot didn’t want to hear her explanation, then he could bugger off. She blinked away the stupid pointless tears that had gathered as she stood there. Before she could swipe one that had escaped, she noticed Mick staring at her. He frowned and shifted as if to make a move towards her, but she turned on her heel and was out of the double doors before she could see his intention.
*****
Jamie rubbed his neck as he pushed his way into the anaesthetic office. It had been a long night but the patient was stable, for now. The annoying jumped-up little twat shadowing him had made the extra hours particularly painful, and Mick’s inexplicably surly attitude had been bloody annoying. In his irrational, tired brain Jamie decided that he blamed Libby. If she had been there to dilute her compatriot’s arseholerly the whole thing would have been a lot less irritating. He also knew that the conversation with the patient’s family would have been smoother had Libby been there. Some people are like that, they have a calming influence, and they know what people need in those situations.
Only yesterday he’d been discussing the prognosis of a man with an ischaemic brain injury with his family, and the wife had started crying. Libby had leapt up – not to the woman but to the terrified-looking three-year-old sitting next to her. She’d asked him if he liked ice cream. This got his attention away from his upset mum and before Jamie knew it the child was following Libby out of the room. They came back to the family room twenty minutes later, the kid covered in chocolate and Libby with a smudge in the corner of her mouth. (Jamie very nearly reached up to wipe it away, totally inappropriately.) By that stage things had calmed down considerably and the lack of a high-energy three-year-old during the breaking of bad news had been a godsend.
Toby had been about as much use as a chocolate teapot when they’d talked to tonight’s family; he’d sat so far back into his chair he looked like he was attempting to fuse with it, and kept his gaze firmly locked on his huge, annoying feet.
‘Gah!’ Jamie shouted as a sharp pain speared his shin, then jumped back when he noticed a small child standing in front of him. She had somewhat familiar bright blue eyes, and dark hair in two uneven bunches with ribbons tied around each one, matching her purple and pink corduroy skirt.
‘Get off my Alan,’ she said, frowning up at him and pointing at his foot. He stepped back to reveal a now slightly squashed, large, fluffy toy … spider? What kind of little girl carried around toy spiders? The child snatched it off the floor and cuddled it into her chest protectively. ‘You,’ she said, pointing at him with the hand that wasn’t holding the toy in a death grip, ‘aretoo big.’ She made it sound as if this was something he should be able to remedy immediately, and the failure to do so was offensive to her and anyone else under six foot.
‘Um …’ he said, searching the large admin space filled with desks and computers for an adult and coming up empty. ‘Well, I just look big to you because you’re small.’ He watched with growing alarm as her face flushed bright red and she stamped her foot; if it was possible for steam to come out of her ears he was sure it would have.
‘I amnotsmall – I’m taller than Mary Reynolds and she’s atbig-girl school. So there!’ Jamie wasn’t sure what frame of reference ‘Mary Reyolds’ gave him for height, or any idea what age children were at ‘big-girl school’, but the little tyrant in front of him couldn’t have been much more than four years old.
‘Uh … okay, my mistake,’ he said, squatting down in front of the little girl and forcing a smile onto his tired face. ‘I’m sorry for stepping on … Alan.’
‘Humph.’
‘Right … so, are you here on your own?’
‘Course not, you wally,’ she told him, rolling her pretty blue eyes. ‘Mummy’s in the loo.’ Her voice then dropped to a whisper and she leaned forward as if telling him a secret. ‘She cwying; she hides in the loo when she wants to do gwown-up cwying.’
‘Oh.’ Jamie did not know what to say to this heartbreaking piece of news.
‘She’s sad cause Bwian is bwoken and her bossman is a big fat meanie-poo-poo head.’
‘Uh …’ Jamie muttered, trying to decipher some sort of meaning from what she was saying. They both turned towards the creaking of the toilet door across the office and, to Jamie’s shock, Libby stepped out. She froze when she caught sight of the pair of them, her red-rimmed eyes wide in her pale face.
‘He,’ the little girl said, pointing in Jamie’s face and scrunching her nose, ‘steppedon Alan with his humongous feet.’ Libby’s gaze dropped down to a now loosely held Alan, then moved up to Jamie’s face, and if anything she grew even paler.
‘She kicked me,’ was all Jamie could think to say as he straightened up.
‘Tattle tale,’ the little girl whisper-shouted at him.
‘Rosie,’ Libby said as she jerked out of her trance and strode across the room to them. ‘Say sorry.’
‘But … but hestepped onAlan! And he’stoo big… and … and … I’m hungwy!’ With that Rosie dissolved into floods of tears. Libby bent to gather the child into her arms, and then sat down heavily in one of the office chairs whilst the little girl buried her face in her neck and hair.
‘Okay, Little Louse,’ she cooed, rocking the little girl on her lap, ‘it’s okay. Mummy will take you home now.’
‘B-b-but we can’t go home cause Bwian bwoken,’ Rosie sobbed.
‘We’re going to get the bus,’ Libby told her in a voice laced with false cheer. ‘Won’t that be fun?’
‘I … I … I’m gonna cwyallthe way home.’
Libby looked up at the ceiling and blinked away the tears Jamie could see forming in her own eyes. She then shook her head as if to clear it and looked across at him over the top of her daughter’s head, giving him a weak, apologetic smile.
‘Dr Grantham, this is Rosie. She’s very sorry for kicking you;aren’t youRosie?’ The only response from the tear-stained bundle in Libby’s lap was a brief scowl in his direction and a small snort. As an apology it was not altogether convincing.
‘Is … ?’ Jamie cleared his throat. ‘Is she yours?’
Libby lifted her chin and tilted it at a stubborn angle, her eyes flashing. ‘Yes. She’s my daughter.’
