Emergency At Inglewood. Alison Roberts
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the rest of the Green Watch fire crew arrived back on station. New arrivals for the night shift crowded the space, introductions had to be made and suddenly it was six o’clock and time to go home and Kathryn hadn’t even made a move to say hello to her waiting husband.
Even then she didn’t rush away. She handed her pager over to one of the night crew and followed Tim to collect her bag from her locker. To her acute embarrassment, Sean was waiting for them as they emerged from the locker room.
‘It’s ten past six, Kathryn. How much longer are you going to be?’
‘I’m ready now.’ Kathryn put real effort into her smile. ‘Sean, this is Tim McGrath. My partner.’
‘Tim! Delighted to meet you.’ A hand was extended with alacrity and Sean smiled at Kathryn’s partner. ‘Nice teeth.’
Tim’s jaw dropped and Kathryn cringed. ‘Sean’s a dentist,’ she said hurriedly. ‘He notices teeth.’
‘Oh. In that case, thanks.’ Tim cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘Can’t say I think about them much. I haven’t been near a dentist for years.’
‘Tch, tch.’ Sean extended his hand to take Kathryn’s backpack. ‘You should see an oral hygienist if nothing else. You might develop receding gums and your teeth will fall out.’
Kathryn stifled a faint groan. She could only hope that Tim wouldn’t take this exchange as the kind of put-down it was patently intended to be. Sean clearly wasn’t intimidated by having Tim towering over his height of only five feet seven.
‘No kidding.’ Tim ran his tongue over his front teeth and Kathryn was sure she received another of those ghost winks, like the one sharing her distaste for porridge. ‘Know a good hygienist, then, Sean?’
‘Come and see Kirsty at my clinic some time. She’s the best.’
Kathryn looked pointedly at the door. So Kirsty was ‘the best’, was she? At least Tim couldn’t know that it wouldn’t be cleaning teeth that Sean was referring to. How many young hygienists had ended up in her husband’s bed over the last five years? It would probably be easier to count the ones who hadn’t, but Kathryn had given up counting a long time ago.
Why should she resent the perfect solution? The turnover was high enough to keep Sean happy because he preferred to employ foreigners with limited work permits. Sean was always very discreet and even if Kathryn did resent the ongoing situation, she was hardly likely to complain, was she? Sean might be using this opportunity to remind her of her failings but there was no way Kathryn was going to let it ruin her day.
‘I’ve had the most amazing day,’ she told Sean brightly as he nodded a farewell to Tim. ‘I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.’
‘We’re having dinner at the Gilberts’ tonight. I doubt that they will want to be regaled with tales of blood and guts.’
Sean strode ahead towards his car. Kathryn had considered his offer to provide transport a sign that he had finally accepted her new career choice. Now she wasn’t so sure. It was humiliating to be picked up like a child attending nursery school.
‘I’ve forgotten my jacket,’ she exclaimed. ‘I left it in the truck.’
‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’
‘No, it might get lost. Sorry, Sean, I’ll only be a second.’
She ran through the side door of the garage and promptly collided with Tim.
‘Whoa!’ he said, holding her arm to steady her. ‘It can’t be that urgent.’
‘Sorry. I forgot my jacket.’
‘I know. Stop apologising. I was just bringing it out for you.’ Tim had the garment draped over his arm.
‘Thanks.’ Kathryn took the jacket and then hesitated. ‘I’d better get going. Sean hates being late.’
‘See you tomorrow, then.’
Still Kathryn hesitated. ‘I just wanted to say thanks, Tim.’ She met his gaze and smiled. ‘It’s been a wicked day.’
‘We’ll have another one tomorrow.’
‘OK.’ Kathryn’s smile widened. ‘And I’ll try not to say ‘‘sorry’’ so often.’
‘I’m not sure I said it often enough myself. I am sorry I never rang you to tell you about that patient, you know. I hope you don’t think I break all my promises.’
‘It really doesn’t matter,’ Kathryn told him. ‘See you in the morning.’
Running outside again, Kathryn made a beeline for the black BMW. Apart from being delivered and collected and the subtle sniping Sean had indulged in, the day had been as close to perfect as she could have hoped. Even the tension of her meeting with Tim this morning had just become insignificant.
It really didn’t matter.
Not any more.
AS SABOTAGE went, it was subtle but very effective.
A glance at her elegant gold wristwatch told Kathryn it was nearly 11 p.m. She would have to be up at 6 a.m. to get to work on time and she was already so tired that large chunks of the dinner-table conversation kept turning into an incomprehensible buzz.
It was torture. Kathryn pushed her spoon into the overly rich chocolate dessert she knew she couldn’t eat and then looked up, hoping that the movement would make it easier to keep her eyes open. She was sitting directly opposite her husband, it was inevitable that their lines of vision would meet. When had Kathryn ever looked up to find Sean looking somewhere else?
‘You look tired, darling.’
The tone was caring but the hint of triumph in the green eyes was enough to make her blink and then force a bright smile. The sabotage was not going to succeed. She would not give Sean the ammunition of breaking her promise that her new career would not be allowed to interfere with their social life.
‘Do I?’ Kathryn managed to sound faintly surprised. She kept smiling but there was genuine amusement in her expression now. Even if her exhaustion had aged her twenty years she would still look young in this gathering. It was hard to believe that being drawn into such circles had once made her feel privileged. And special. The looks she could feel coming in her direction at the moment, as conversation around the table petered out, branded her the misfit they had all suspected she really was. Not that Sean picked up any undercurrents.
‘Kathryn started a new job today,’ he announced in the short silence. ‘She’s become an ambulance driver.’
‘A paramedic, actually.’ Kathryn couldn’t stop herself making the correction but hopefully she kept her tone light enough to avoid creating any ammunition for Sean to use later. ‘We do quite a lot more than just driving the ambulances.’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Evelyn Gilbert touched the rope of pearls at her neck.
Dorothy Harrison looked equally appalled. ‘How could you do that, Kathryn? All those dreadful car accidents!’
Kathryn could feel the satisfaction coming at her from across the table. ‘Blood and guts’ was most definitely an inappropriate topic.
‘Car accidents are actually a very small percentage of the workload,’ she said quietly. ‘Most of our emergency cases are medical. Things like asthma or diabetes or heart attacks.’ She smiled at the other husbands around the gleaming mahogany table.
At forty-five, Sean was by far the youngest of this group. Some of them were pushing sixty and they all looked prosperous and very well fed.
‘My first job today was a heart-attack victim, in fact. A fifty-six-year-old