‘Now, this complaint… the first thing we need to establish is that Mrs Jennings is correct when she claims that her operation has been delayed on two occasions.’
David smiled coldly at Richard, obviously already sure of the answer.
‘Yes, it has,’ Richard agreed tersely. He was damned if he was going to explain or excuse himself to this jumped-up, undersized accountant, who didn’t know the first thing about surgery anyway.
‘I’m sure that Richard had a perfectly good reason for delaying the woman’s operation, David,’ Brian was saying palliatingly next to him.
‘Yes, I’m sure he had,’ David agreed smoothly. ‘And since the surgery is non-urgent there is no question of any lack of surgical judgement… fortunately…’
Richard froze. He knew damned well what David was up to, trying to suggest that he had shown a lack of good judgement, trying to intimate that he was getting too old to stay on top of things.
‘However, I’m sure we all have to accept that there was a certain degree of lack of perception, shall we say? Of course, we all know it’s easily done,’ David continued, steepling his fingers and looking at Richard over the top of them. ‘Pressure of work, strain, stress. All of these things build up and tend to lead to such misjudgements… Fortunately, as I’ve already said, in this case no one’s life was put in danger, but I shall have to write and apologise and I suspect from the tone of this letter that we’ll be very fortunate if we can keep it out of the local Press—and you know how the Minister feels about that kind of thing. I’m sorry to say this, Richard, but it only takes one mistake like this to prejudice people’s minds against the efficiency of an entire hospital.
‘As Brian said, I’m sure you had a perfectly good reason for this postponement…’
Angrily Richard stayed silent. He wasn’t going to risk saying anything to David. He had already come dangerously, disastrously close to losing his temper with him once today, and there was no disguising the elation in David’s manner towards him, now that he believed he had him wrong-footed.
‘Can we assure Mrs Jennings that her operation will now receive priority?’ he asked Richard. ‘And an apology from you personally, Richard, might not be a bad idea.
‘Oh, I’d like a word with you in private if you don’t mind, Brian,’ he continued, giving Richard a dismissive look.
As calmly as he could, Richard left his office.
The Health Authority’s area offices, he decided bleakly as he went outside to wait for Brian, had as little to do with the saving of people’s lives, with healing them and helping them, as the head offices of a bank. Money—that was what this place was all about. Money… not people…
* * *
‘Brian, I wonder if you’ve given any more thought to suggesting to Richard that he take early retirement?’
Even though he had been semi-expecting it, Brian felt his heart sink.
‘I doubt that he’d be interested, David. He’s a first-rate surgeon. We’re lucky to have him.’
‘Are we?’ David asked him drily. ‘Mrs Jennings doesn’t appear to think so.’
‘We often have to alter operation times to make way for more urgent cases,’ Brian appeased uncomfortably.
‘This isn’t just a matter of placating one angry patient; there’s also the problems of the budgets and Richard’s refusal even to try to stick to them. Quite honestly, Brian, if he can’t move with the times and accept the way things are, then he is just going to have to make way for someone who can.
‘I don’t like to say this, but I really think you do need to keep a closer eye on him… for the patients’ sakes if nothing else. I understand your loyalty to him, but I have to warn you that he could quite easily cost the General the new accident unit.’
‘Richard’s worked hard to help raise money towards it…’
‘Yes… I know. Oh, by the way, your hospital’s got someone to take over your psychiatric post. If he accepts you’ll be very lucky. He’s a first-rate psychiatrist, very highly qualified—over-qualified for the post really, but it seems he’s anxious to come back over here for personal reasons… He
’s been working in the States for the last few years. I shall be writing to him later offering him the position.
‘Now, about Richard… remember what I said, Brian. Quite honestly I think that, of all your options, persuading him to take early retirement would be the best… for the hospital’s sake…’
The hospital’s, or yours? Brian wondered cynically as he left David’s office. It was obvious that the young man did not like Richard, but Richard unfortunately didn’t seem to realise his own danger and exacerbated the situation instead of easing it.
From his office window David had a clear view of where Richard was standing in the car park waiting for Brian. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a thick head of strong dark hair, touched with distinguished wings of grey at his forehead, he was perhaps the epitome of every woman’s fantasies of what a senior surgeon should look like, and the epitome of everything that he, David, most disliked and resented.
He could remember quite clearly the day he’d realised that he was never going to achieve such an enviable height, nor such almost film-star male good looks, and the bitterness that realisation had caused him, the jealousy and resentment.
But the tables were turned now and it was Richard and his type who were outsiders, doomed soon to be as extinct as dinosaurs, unable to adapt to fit into a world which had changed too fast for them.
Uncanny how much of a resemblance Richard bore to that long-ago schoolboy who had taunted him with his small stature and lack of macho maleness. He was smiling as he turned away from the window and went back to his desk to pick up Sophie Jennings’ letter of complaint.