Summer in Sydney. Fiona McArthur
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him ask what he possibly shouldn’t. ‘I’ll ring Ruby later—I just hope she’s in the right frame of mind to listen.’
He hoped so too.
He really hoped so, as he walked to his car, which had been parked overnight in the hospital. Cort ached, not just for a bed that was a bit bigger than the small one he’d shared last night but space and a shower and clean socks and underwear and some beans on toast and some lovely silence.
He’d done all he could, Cort told himself, turning on the radio, because silence actually sent his mind back to her.
It was up to her now, Cort insisted.
So why on earth was he indicating to turn left?
Ruby had walked along the beach, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, looking at the waves that kept rolling in. A little child was gone and there was no point regretting her decision to flee from Emergency because absolutely she could not have gone in to her, could not have laid a little child out.
And if that made her a bad nurse, then she was one.
If this meant she had failed, so be it.
And now she’d head home to her friends who loved her and who would try to talk her out of it, who would do everything they could to encourage her to go back, which they might have succeeded in doing had she told them everything.
‘What are you doing here?’ Jess looked up as Ruby walked in. ‘I thought you were on a late.’
‘I had to come home.’ Ruby saw them all carefree and smiling and hated what her work would do to their evening. ‘There was a house fire …’
‘I heard about it on the radio,’ Ellie groaned. ‘I never even thought … Did they come in to you? Oh, Ruby …’ Ellie stood, but Ruby didn’t want to hear it and shrugged off Ellie’s words and her waiting hug and just headed to her room.
‘Leave her,’ Ruby heard Tilly say, and was grateful for it as she went to her room. The scarf was still on her door, but she knew Tilly would ignore it and felt the indentation of the bed a little while later when Tilly came in and sat down.
‘I don’t want to go back,’ Ruby said.
‘I know.’ Tilly did her best to be understanding. ‘Remember when I helped deliver that stillbirth?’ Tilly said gently. ‘I knew the mum was coming in for induction the next day and I honestly didn’t know if I was up to it, but you told me the mum would be better off for having me there.’
‘It’s not the same,’ Ruby said. ‘Because you’re good at what you do, whereas all I did today was stab myself with a needle when I was pulling up the drugs and yesterday, when I sat with the relatives, I couldn’t say even one single word. I’m useless …’
‘You’ll be a wonderful psych nurse.’
‘I’ll only be a wonderful psych nurse so long as the patients don’t go collapsing or fainting or getting sick.’ She closed her eyes. ‘And psych patients die too … Just leave me, Tilly,’ Ruby said.
‘I’m not leaving you.’
‘Aren’t you all going to the beach for a barbecue?’
‘I don’t want to leave you—I’m going to stay home.’
‘Please don’t,’ Ruby begged. ‘I just want to be on my own.’
She heard her friends leaving and lay there quietly. Her room was warm and she pushed the window wide open then pulled the drape and stripped down to her pants. She turned on the fan and lay on the bed and tried to work out what to do, if there even was something she could do now that she’d burnt all her bridges with Sheila.
She heard the doorbell and ignored it, just not up to speaking to anyone.
She turned on her soothing music and lay there but it didn’t soothe. Then there was a knock at her door.
‘Tilly, please.’ She just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. ‘Go out with them …’ Her voice trailed off, as standing there was a man who shouldn’t be back in her bedroom again. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘God knows,’ Cort said, because she was lying on top of her bed in just her knickers with a fan blowing.
She’d been crying, her eyelids were swollen, her nose and lips too, and there was a jumble of used tissues by the bed. But there were two other things he noticed as well and he couldn’t have this conversation with them there. ‘Don’t you cover up when your friends come in?’
‘My friends don’t come in when there’s a scarf on the door,’ Ruby said with her eyes closed again. ‘And, no, Tilly, probably sees a hundred boobs a day in her job.’
‘Please,’ he said, and she opened her eyes and with a sigh leant over to a pile of clutter beside the bed and pulled out a very little top, but at least it covered her. She lay back and closed her eyes again and Cort opened the little purple sack on her bedside and tipped out her worry dolls.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Checking on them,’ Cort said. ‘And they’re looking a lot more frazzled than they did last time I was here.’
She almost smiled.
‘I’m a happy person usually,’ she said. ‘At least I was till I worked there. I’m not going back.’
‘Up to you,’ he said.
‘Anyway—I’m not your responsibility.’
And given twelve hours or so ago they’d been in this bed together, somehow he felt that she was.
‘I spoke to Sheila.’
‘Oh, that’s really going to stop the gossip.’
‘Not just about you,’ Cort said. ‘Emergency is a difficult place to work and sometimes the atmosphere and the people can turn nasty. It’s how they deal with it,’ Cort explained. ‘You see so much, you get hard, you get tough, and sometimes it just gets like that. People forget to support one another and they just need a little bit of nudging. It can be a very nice place. We’re a great team usually,’ Cort said.
‘I don’t care if they’re all singing and smiling and holding hands,’ Ruby said, ‘I’m not going back. It’s not just the staff, it’s the patients and the relatives …’ She closed her eyes and tried to explain it. ‘It’s the violence of the place.’
‘It’s not exactly a walk in the park on the psych ward,’ Cort pointed out. ‘If you’re talking violence …’
‘They’re sick, though,’ Ruby flared in passionate response. ‘In Emergency they’re just plain drunk or angry.’
‘You’re a good nurse.’
‘No, I’m not.’ She hated being placated. How did he know she was a good nurse? He’d seen her hold one arm. He didn’t have much to base it on.
‘You’re going to be a great psych nurse, but part of that means you need good general training.’
She knew he was right.
‘And that also means that you can be appalled and devastated by what happened at work this afternoon. That was a shift from hell.’
Finally she looked at him.
‘Are you upset?’
He just sat there, because he tried so hard not to examine it, he really tried to just get on with the job, but she made him do so and finally he answered.
‘I’m gutted,’ Cort said, realising just how much he was, and he closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a breath. ‘I guarantee everyone on that shift today is.’ He heard her snort a disbelieving sigh, and even if he didn’t go on paint-ball