George Barnabas - 04 - Fourth Attempt by Claire Rayner Read Free Book Online Page B

came and chivvied them.
    ‘Sheila’s fine this morning,’ she reported. ‘On Ballantyne Ward, and they’re treating her like royalty. And as Peter Selby’s looking after her himself, she’s in very good hands.’
    ‘Ah!’ Jerry said. ‘Then she
will
be happy. She’s always wanted him to tickle her tonsils.’ And he grinned at Peter Claff’s shocked expression. ‘It’s all right, Peter. She only meant what she said. He’s the senior ENT chap you see, the
ENT
chap.’
    ‘I know perfectly well what you meant,’ Peter said. ‘And as usual it was disgusting. Dr B., what’s her prognosis? Has there been any permanent damage, do you know?’ He looked at George owlishly and she felt a momentary urge to snap at him to stop being quite so stuffed a shirt. But he always had been and always would be, so she contented herself with a crisp nod.
    ‘Not quite yet, but Peter Selby seems to think she’ll be finein a couple of days. That means she’ll be off for at least a week, if not longer, and we have a lot of work to do. Jerry, you take on Sheila’s stuff as well as your own, will you? And Peter, you take over some of Jerry’s histology to even the load. As for the cardiac stuff, well, Alan can do that when he gets back this afternoon — he’s in court this morning with that dosser they found under Tower Bridge. Now, let’s go through what else there is …’
    Quickly she set about reorganizing everyone’s workloads and to do them all credit they accepted the burden without a murmur, though they were usually very swift to complain if they felt they were being put upon in any way, which left her to deal with her own paperwork as well as some of the stuff Sheila usually handled, before going down to the mortuary to do a post-mortem on a traffic accident victim who had been brought in overnight. Danny Roscoe, her mortuary assistant, would do all the necessary preliminaries, so the job needn’t take too long.
    But it was difficult to concentrate and after a while she put down her pen and leaned back in her chair, trying to sort out her thinking. Last night, when she’d reached A & E, she’d found Sheila holding court in her cubicle, clearly rather enjoying her status as heroine of a Dramatic Event, and talking far more than she should, George suspected, for the pleasure of hearing her own voice, which was undoubtedly sounding somewhat sexy because of its new huskiness. Sheila was getting increasingly desperate to retain what she regarded as her allure as she reached middle age still unattached. Her evermore urgent search for a husband was something everyone in the hospital knew and joked about. An episode like this was one she would milk of all possible value for as long as possible. George foresaw some weeks of disruption in her department in consequence, and was ashamed of herself for even thinking about it in the face of Sheila’s undoubted misfortune. The fact that Sheila herself was less than warm in her reception of her boss didn’t help.
    She was all charm to Zack, who came to stand on one side of her trolley while George went to the other, but was decidedly distant with George herself. She responded to any attempt by George to be cheerful by looking lugubrious and producing another painful cough, but when Zack said something lighthearted she flashed him a vivid smile. Clearly, George had told herself grimly as she left A & E, Sheila was going to punish her for being so irritable with her last week. Good technician though Sheila was, there were times when George heartily wished her anywhere but at Old East. As she had told Sheila bluntly when they had their fight last week. Was that why she was being so hateful now? Or could it be that she in some way blamed George for what had happened to her car?
    George had stopped short in the middle of the department. What was it Sheila had said to Zack, carefully not looking at George when she said it? ‘It’s strange the way things happen,’ she’d murmured,