Consultant Care. Sharon Kendrick

specialist nurse manager inexplicably.

      ‘I’m sorry?’ queried Nicolette, not understanding at all.

      Miss Dixon gave an impatient click of her tongue. ‘I’m not completely stupid, you know, Staff Nurse!’ Her cool eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t deny that Dr Le Saux is a very attractive man—’

      ‘Miss Dixon, please!’ protested Nicolette, but the older woman carried on unabated.

      ‘And this won’t be the first time that one of the nurses has set her cap at him, but he is also a hard-working and a very serious-minded doctor, who is engaged in a very important piece of research work, and the last thing he needs is swooning young women chasing him round the ward. I’m afraid that another nurse here on Paediatrics made rather a fool of herself over Dr Le Saux—and unfortunately it got so embarrassing that she had to leave us.’ She glued a forced smile on to her bow-shaped lips. ‘And I have no desire to see the same thing happen to you, Staff.’

      Sure she didn’t! Nicolette couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was almost laughable—if it wasn’t so ludicrous. She was sorely tempted to point out to Miss Ice-Cube Dixon that the days in nursing where senior staff could dictate on the morals and behaviour of those junior to them were long gone. Well, she for one would not be bullied. Nicolette gave the specialist nurse manager a frankly considering stare. ‘And you’re basing this little lecture solely on the fact that when you walked into the office you heard me answering Dr Le Saux back?’ she queried calmly.

      ‘Answering him back?’ cried the older woman in disbelief, her grey eyes opening up like saucers. ‘What I actually heard was you being outrageously rude to Dr Le Saux!’

      ‘He had just been fairly rude to me,’ observed Nicolette blandly. Downright rude, in fact, even if you discounted the fact that they had only just met.

      ‘He is a very senior doctor!’ retorted Miss Dixon shrilly, sounding much older than her thirty or so years. ‘And if he decided to register a complaint about your insubordinate behaviour then I am afraid I would have no option but to back him up.’

      As Nicolette heard Miss Dixon’s triumphant words she knew that she’d be on to a losing wicket if she attempted to bring this matter to any kind of satisfactory conclusion. The nursing profession still contained women like Rhoda Dixon—although thankfully they were rare—believing that doctors were white-coated gods who could say and do as they liked and nothing you could say or do would convince her otherwise!

      She’s basically saying ‘hands off’, thought Nicolette with sudden insight as the other woman’s pale blonde beauty imprinted itself on her vision. And why was that? Did the neat specialist nurse manager have some prior claim to Leander Le Saux? And was her warning simply of a professional nature—or was it more personal than that?