All She Wants for Christmas

‘You might have said that in the first place.’

‘I might.’ He grinned. ‘Truce?’

‘Okay. Truce.’ Just for tonight. While Josh’s condition was still uncertain and Beth badly needed Matt’s strength. Tomorrow she’d learn to stand on her own two feet again. And even if there were other doctors on call who could help Josh if his heart began to react to the taxine, with Matt here he would get the best.

It seemed that Beth, too, was getting the best. Although vastly overqualified for the job, Matt cleaned and dressed the grazes on her knees and smoothed antihistamine cream on the nettle rash, which ran halfway up her arm. Dressed in a set of scrubs that Matt had borrowed and a pair of sneakers from her locker, she began to feel almost normal, and the coffee and carrot cake that he fetched from the canteen finished off the job.

They waited mostly in silence, Matt sprawled next to her, his arm across the back of her chair. People came and went around them, a few of the staff stopped to smile and chat and slowly the time ticked by. One o’ clock. Two. Beth felt herself being gently shaken awake, and opened her eyes to find James sitting opposite them.

He was smiling. That had to be good. Before she could ask the question, James had answered it.

‘He’s okay. Stable. They’re transferring him up to the high-dependency unit now, and they’re finding a bed for Marcie to stay over.’

‘That’s great, James.’ Beth sat up, disentangling herself from Matt’s arm, which had slipped at some point to wind itself around her shoulders and didn’t seem to be responding all that well to her efforts to free herself.

James was rubbing his face with his hand, and Beth suspected that it wasn’t just fatigue that he was trying to conceal. ‘Thanks. Both of you. I don’t know—’

Matt cut in with a dismissive gesture, and James grinned back. ‘Yeah, right. You save my son’s life and then sit in Casualty half the night and that’s no problem.’ He winked at Beth. ‘This guy knows how to throw his weight around when he likes. I’ve never seen people move so fast as when he swept in here with Josh, issuing orders right, left and centre.’

Beth heard the smooth, rich rumble of Matt’s laugh. ‘It wasn’t all down to me. There were a few other people involved, you know. Anyway, what matters is that Josh is getting the best of care.’ Matt stretched and stood up. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going to wait till Josh is settled and then fetch Marcie a change of clothes. I’ll stay here as long as they let me then go back home so that I’m there when Anna wakes up in the morning.’

Matt shot a look of concern in his direction. The adrenaline that had been keeping James going had obviously subsided and left him exhausted. ‘I’ll drive you.’ He held out his hand for James’s car keys. ‘I can pick up an overnight bag for Marcie and bring it back here.’

Matt was looking at Beth for confirmation. ‘Matt’s right. You need to go home and spend some time with Anna. We’ll make sure Marcie and Josh are settled.’

James seemed unwilling to accede to the plan, but he could obviously see the sense of it and didn’t appear to have the energy to argue much. Finally, after hugging Beth so tight that he nearly added a cracked rib to her other injuries, he disappeared for a moment to say goodbye to Marcie then followed Matt out of the reception area.

It wasn’t long before Marcie appeared, alongside a bed with Josh’s small figure curled up in it. Beth’s hospital scrubs gained her entry to the HDU, and she saw that both Josh and Marcie were settled for the night, before she was shooed away by a pleasant but extremely firm nursing sister.

She supposed that she should go back down to A and E. She headed for the lift, and as she pressed the call button, the doors slid open.

‘Matt! How did you get here?’ He was standing inside the lift, an overnight bag in his hand.

‘Marcie’s sister dropped me back, and then went on home.’

‘I meant how did you find the ward? It’s a way away from your territory.’

‘Ah. You mean it’s not either the cardiology department or the canteen. I do visit other parts of the hospital from time to time, you know. One of my patients is in this ward.’ He looked as fresh as a daisy. How did he do that?

‘You’ve got Marcie’s bag?’

‘Yeah. I’ll just pop it in now, won’t be a minute. I think it would be okay to take your finger off the lift button now, if you wanted.’

Beth jerked her hand away from the button, suddenly aware of the muted ding that repeated itself every couple of seconds. A blush rose to her cheeks and Matt laughed, slipping out of the lift as the doors closed.

‘Stay there.’ There was definitely a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before. ‘I need to talk to Josh’s nurse for a minute, but I won’t be long.’ The last piece of information was hurled over his shoulder as he disappeared into the short corridor that led to the HDU.

He had seemed almost elated, but this was one occasion when Beth couldn’t share his optimism. There was still another little boy out there who might be very ill and they couldn’t find him. Now that the adrenaline in her system had peaked, dropped and then repeated the process a couple of times, she was heading fast towards an all-time low. She leaned back against the wall and slid downwards until she met the floor. Matt seemed to be taking his time.

He strode back around the corner and came to a halt in front of her. ‘I’ve got some good news.’ He reached down and grabbed her elbow, helping her to her feet, and for once Beth didn’t have to think twice about leaning on him.

‘What’s that?’

‘They’ve found Simon. The police were at Marcie’s when I got there and they got a call to say that they’ve located him and he’s okay. Kat took off with them, and they’re bringing him into the hospital just to make sure. I don’t know all the details but apparently he’s confirmed that they did eat berries from that yew.’

‘But he’s all right? Wouldn’t he have had some symptoms by now if he had eaten the berries with Josh?’