Summer in Sydney. Fiona McArthur

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      ‘Someone will be in shortly.’

      ‘Could you not have been a bit gentler with them?’ Ruby asked when they were outside.

      ‘Why?’ Cort asked. ‘Soon they’re going to be approached to consider organ donation …’

      ‘Excuse me.’

      He watched as she walked quickly to the patient toilet and he thought of waiting till she came out, but it wasn’t his problem. Instead he went and spoke to Connor then gave ICU a ring. He then found Jamelia in tears in his office and dealt with her as kindly as he could. Vomiting nurses and emergency doctors who couldn’t deal with emergencies really weren’t his problem.

      He actually felt sorry for Jamelia.

      A temporary locum, she had worked mainly in the country and simply wasn’t used to the volume of patients that came through Eastern Beaches’ doors. She was filling big shoes too—Nick, a popular locum, was on his honeymoon, and though their paths had never crossed, Cort knew the energy and fun he had brought to this difficult place. Jamelia told him that after Nick, and with Cort now back, she felt as though she was a disappointment to everyone. So after a long chat with Jamelia he headed to the kitchen, where someone had made a pot of tea. He poured himself a cup, then frowned at the watery fluid and opened the lid of the pot, only to see a pile of leaves and herbs. He made a mug of coffee instead and headed for the staffroom.

      ‘Why is there a garden growing in the teapot?’ he asked, and sat down.

      ‘Ruby’s herbs!’ Siobhan, another nurse on duty, rolled her eyes. ‘Just in case your immune system needs boosting.’

      ‘I’ll stick with caffeine, thanks.’

      He glanced over to where Ruby sat, reading a book on her coffee break, her complexion a touch whiter than it had been in the suture room.

      ‘Where’s Jamelia?’ Doug, the consultant, popped his head in. ‘Hiding in the office again?’

      ‘Go easy,’ Cort sighed.

      ‘Someone has to say something,’ Doug said.

      ‘I just have.’

      ‘Okay.’ Doug nodded. ‘I’ll leave her for now.’

      ‘You know what they say …’ Siobhan yawned and stretched out her legs. ‘If you can’t stand the heat …’

      And Ruby couldn’t stand this place.

      They just spoke about everything and anyone wherever they wanted, just bitched and dissected people, and didn’t care who heard. She couldn’t stand Siobhan and her snide comments, and she really thought she might say something, just might stand up and tell her what an absolute bitch she was, that any normal person would be sitting in an office sobbing when a twenty-three-year-old was going to die. That laughing and joking and eating chocolate and watching television as the priest walked past the staffroom was bizarre behaviour.

      ‘Ruby.’ It was Sheila who popped her head round the door now. ‘Are you finished your break?’

      ‘Yes.’ She closed the book she had seemed so focused on, except she had never turned a page, Cort realised as she stood up.

      ‘Come into my office then—bring a drink if you want to.’

      ‘Sure.’

      He could see two spots of red on the apple of her cheeks, could see the effort behind her bright smile as a couple of staff offered their best wishes as she headed out of the room, then Siobhan called out to her as she reached the door.

      ‘Ruby, can you empty out the teapot when you use it?’ Siobhan said.

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Only it’s annoying,’ Siobhan said. ‘Perhaps you could bring in your own teapot?’

      Cort watched the set of her shoulders, saw her turn and look over at Siobhan, and for a second she looked as if she was about to say something less than pleasant, but instead she gave that wide smile. ‘Fine,’ Ruby said, and headed off for her assessment.

      ‘Love to be a fly on the wall!’ Siobhan smirked. ‘Sheila’s going to rip her in two.’

      Someone else sniggered and Cort just sat there.

      ‘What is it with her bloody herbs?’ Siobhan just would not let up and Cort was about to tell her to do just that, but he knew what would happen if he did—there’d be rumours then that he was sticking up for a certain nurse, that he fancied her.

      But Siobhan was still banging on and his mood was less than pleasant.

      ‘Her immune system probably needs all the help it can get in this place,’ Cort said as he stood up and headed out of the staffroom. ‘Given how toxic this place can be at times.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      THEY could fail her.

      Ruby tried not to think about it as she stalled the car coming out of the staff car park. There were new boom gates and the car was so low that, as she leant out of the window to swipe her ID card, it stalled and, grinding the gears in the shiny silver sports car all the way home she wished, not for the first time, that her brother had bought an automatic.

      Normally she walked or took the bus to work, but it was Saturday and she’d promised her housemates to get home as soon as she could and meet them at the Stat Bar, so had taken the car. But as she pulled into Hill Street, the temptation to change her mind and forgo the rapid change of clothes and mad dash out was almost overwhelming—a noisy bar was the last place she wanted to be tonight.

      Far preferable would it be to curl up on the sofa and just hide, but she’d had two excited texts from Tilly already, urging her to get there ASAP because she had some wonderful news.

      Ruby let herself into the house and could smell the perfume her housemates had left behind on their way out. There was a bottle of wine opened on the kitchen table and a box of chocolates too. How much nicer it would be to pour a glass of wine and sit in the darkness alone with chocolate than head out there, but then they’d ring her, Ruby realised, and as if to prove the point her mobile shrilled.

      ‘Where are you?’ Tilly demanded.

      She was about to say that she was going to give it a miss, but could not face the barrage of questions. ‘I’m just getting changed.’

      ‘Well, hurry. I’ll look out for you.’

      Ruby trudged up the stairs, had a rapid shower then tried to work out what to wear—nothing in her wardrobe, or over the chair, or on the floor, matched her mood.

      And it wasn’t just what Sheila had said that was upsetting her. As she’d headed away from her hellish shift and a very prolonged assessment, she’d passed the young man’s family, comforting each other outside the hospital—and worse, far worse, the daughter had come over and thanked her.

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