‘I want to go home,’ Amy whimpered.
‘I know you do. If I were you, I’d be on the first bus out of here,’ Riley told her. ‘But there’s the little problem of your baby. He wants out.’
‘It hurts. I want my mum.’
‘I wish your mum could be here,’ he said.
‘Mum thought it was stupid to come.’
‘So she did.’ Riley’s face set a little and Pippa guessed there’d been conflict. ‘So now you’re doing this on your own. But you can do it, Amy.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Can I check and see how your baby’s doing?’
Pippa didn’t need prompting to leave them to it. She scooted back to her bed and Riley gave her a smile of thanks as he hauled the dividing curtain closed.
‘You’ve been getting to know your neighbour,’ he said to Amy. ‘Have you two been introduced?’
Pippa was back in bed with the covers up, a curtain between them.
‘No,’ Amy whispered.
‘Pippa, your neighbour is Amy. Amy, your neighbour is Pippa. Pippa went for a swim after dark last night and came close to being shark meat.’
‘Why’d you go for a swim at dark?’ Despite her pain, Amy’s attention was caught-maybe that’s what Riley intended.
‘I was getting over guy problems,’ Pippa confessed. She was speaking to a closed curtain, and it didn’t seem to matter what she admitted now. And she might be able to help, she thought. If admitting stupidity could keep Amy’s attention from fear, from loneliness, from pain, then pride was a small price to pay.
‘You got guy problems?’ Amy’s voice was a bit muffled.
‘I was about to be married. I caught him sleeping with one of my bridesmaids.’
‘Yikes.’ Amy was having a reasonable break from contractions now, settling as the pain eased and she wasn’t alone any more. ‘You clobber him?’
‘I should have,’ Pippa said. ‘Instead I went swimming, got caught in the undertow and got saved by Dr Chase.’
‘That’s me,’ Riley said modestly. ‘Saving maidens is what I do. Amy, you’re doing really well. You’re almost four centimetres dilated, which means the baby’s really pushing. I can give you something for the pain if you like…’
‘I don’t want injections.’ It was a terrified gasp.
‘Then you need to practise the breathing we taught you. Can you-?’
But he couldn’t finish. Jancey’s head appeared round the door, looking close to panic.
‘Hubert Trotter’s just come in,’ she said. ‘He’s almost chopped his big toe off with an axe and he’s bleeding like a stuck pig. Riley, you need to come.’
‘Give me strength,’ Riley said, and rose. ‘Can you stay with Amy?’
‘Dotty Simond’s asthma…’ she said.
Riley closed his eyes. The gesture was fleeting, though, and when he opened them again he looked calm and in control and like nothing was bothering him at all.
‘Amy, I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said, but Amy was clutching his hand like a lifeline.
‘No. Please.’
‘Pippa’s in the next bed,’ he started. ‘You’re not by yourself.’
But suddenly Pippa wasn’t in the next bed. Enough. She was out of bed, pushing the curtains apart and meeting Riley’s gaze full on.
‘Amy needs a midwife.’
‘I know she does,’ Riley said. ‘We’re short-staffed. There isn’t one.’
‘Then someone else.’
‘Believe me, if I could then I’d find someone. I’d stay here myself. I can’t.’
She believed him. She thought, fast.
This guy had saved her life. This hospital had been here for her. And more… Amy was a child.
‘Then use me,’ she said.
‘You…’
‘I know there’s still water on my lungs,’ she said. ‘And I know I need to stay here until it clears. But my breathing’s okay. I’m here for observation more than care, and if you can find me something more respectable than this appalling hospital gown, I’ll sit by Amy until she needs to push. Then I’ll call you.’
He looked at her like she’d grown two heads. ‘There’s no need-’
‘Yes, there is,’ Jancey said, looking panicked. ‘Hubert needs help
‘We can’t ask-’
‘Then don’t ask,’ Pippa said. ‘And don’t worry. You can go back to your toes and asthma. I’ll call for help when I need it, either for myself or for Amy. And I do know enough to call. I may be a twit when it comes to night swimming, but in my other life I’m a qualified nurse. Good basic qualifications, plus theatre training, plus intensive care, and guess what? Midwifery. You want to phone my old hospital and check?’
She grabbed the clipboard and pen Jancey was carrying and wrote the name of her hospital and her boss’s name. ‘Hospitals work round the clock. Checking my references is easy. Ring them fast, or trust me to take care of Amy while you two save the world. Or at least Hubert’s toe. Off you go, and Amy and I will get on with delivering Amy’s baby. We can do this, Amy. You and me… women are awesome. Together there’s nothing we can’t do.’
‘You want me to ring and check she’s who she says she is?’ Jancey asked, dubious. He and Jancey needed to head in different directions, fast. Neither of them liked leaving Pippa and Amy together.
‘When you’ve got time.’
‘I don’t have time,’ Jancey said. ‘Do we trust her?’
‘She’s a warm body and she’s offered,’ Riley said. ‘Do we have a choice?’
‘Hey!’ They were about to head around the bend in the corridor but Pippa’s voice made them turn. She’d stepped out the door to call after them.
She looked…
Amazing, Riley thought, and, stressed or not, he almost smiled. She had brilliant red curls that hadn’t seen a hairbrush since her big swim. She was slight-really slight-barely tall enough to reach his chin. Her pale skin had been made more pale by the night’s horror. Her green eyes had been made even larger.
From the neck up she was eye-catchingly lovely. But from the neck down…
Her hospital gown was flopping loosely around her. She was clutching it behind. She had nothing else on.
‘The deal is clothes,’ she said with asperity. ‘Bleeding to death takes precedence but next is my dignity. I need at least another gown so I can have one on backwards, one on forwards.’
Riley chuckled. It was the first time for twelve hours he’d felt like laughing and it felt great.
‘Can you fix it?’ he asked Jancey.
‘Mrs Rogers in Surgical left her pink fluffy dressing gown behind when she went home this morning,’ Jancey said, smiling herself. ‘I don’t think she’d mind…’
‘Does it have buttons?’ Pippa demanded.
‘Yes,’ Jancey said. ‘And a bow at the neck. The bow glitters.’
‘That’ll cheer us up,’ Pippa said. ‘And heaven knows Amy and I both need it.’
Assisting at a birth settled her as nothing else could.
Amy needed someone she knew, a partner, a mother, a friend, but there seemed to be no one. Her labour was progressing slowly, and left to herself she would have given in to terror.
What sort of hospital was this that provided no support?
To be fair, though, Pippa decided as the afternoon wore on, most hospitals checked labouring mothers only every fifteen minutes or so, making sure things were progressing smoothly.
The mother’s support person was supposed to provide company.
‘So where’s your family?’ she asked. They were listening to music-some of Amy’s favourites. Pippa had needed to do some seriously fast organisation there.
‘Home,’ Amy said unhelpfully. ‘They made me come.’
‘Who made you come?’
