Red-Hot Desert Docs. Carol Marinelli

he checked in on Phillip. He now had spare glasses on but there was a small cut over his eye and a nasty bruise on his back. He checked Phillip’s abdomen. ‘Any tenderness?’ he asked.

      ‘A bit,’ Phillip admitted.

      ‘I would like his urine checked for blood,’ he said to Janet, and then spoke with Phillip. ‘I would like you to stay in overnight.’

      ‘It might be better,’ Phillip agreed. ‘Meredith will get a fright if I come home in the middle of the night.’

      Tony, the security guard, was next and he wanted to get back to work but, having examined him, Zahir said that he should go home.

      ‘Adele.’ He came in to see her with Janet. ‘I’m so sorry that this happened.’

      She didn’t respond.

      ‘How are you feeling?’

      ‘Fantastic!’ Adele knew her sarcastic response was perhaps a bit harsh but what hurt more than the bruise was that, after a year of being ignored, now that she was a patient he was finally being nice to her.

      He went through everything and asked if she’d been knocked out.

      ‘No.’

      He went through all the allergies and her medical history and Adele answered him in a monotone.

      ‘Are you on any medication?’

      ‘No,’ Adele said. ‘Just the Pill.’

      She didn’t add it was the pill of perpetual hope, hope that one day she would be doing what seemingly every other twenty-four-year-old had already done.

      It really wasn’t the best of nights.

      He picked up the torch and checked her pupils’ responses. He tried not to notice unshed tears, but he could see her pain. Oh, his findings were not evidence based, but he could see that there were years of agony there.

      ‘I need to look at the back of your eye.’

      He picked up ophthalmoscope and Adele stared ahead as he moved in close. She managed not to blink and then thankfully it was over.

      She felt as if he had just stared into the murky depths of her soul.

      His fingers gently probed the swelling around her eye.

      ‘It’s a soft-tissue injury,’ Zahir said.

      ‘I know.’

      ‘It needs to be iced but you are going to have a black eye. Is it painful?’

      ‘No.’

      It was the truth. It didn’t really hurt, as such. What pained her more was the shock of what had happened and the indignity of Zahir now being kind to her.

      ‘I need now to look at your stomach,’ Zahir said.

      ‘I was just winded.’

      ‘Adele,’ Zahir said, ‘this will probably go to court and my notes need to be thorough. Lie down, please.’

      She did so and Janet covered her neatly with the blanket before lifting her gown. He examined her abdomen and she answered the question before he asked it.

      ‘There’s no tenderness,’ she said as he probed her stomach. And then she gave a wry laugh.

      She hadn’t just been talking about her abdomen—there had never been any tenderness from him.

      ‘Did I miss the joke?’ Zahir asked, and he gave her a smile as he covered her with the blanket.

      And maybe because she was hurting so badly she was allowed to be a little bit mean too.

      ‘I don’t need your small talk and your pleasant bedside manner, Zahir,’ she told him. ‘We don’t get on, let’s just keep it that.’

      She glanced to Janet, who gave her a small smile as if to say, You get to say what you want to tonight.

      Janet had seen for herself the way that Zahir was with her, though she knew it had nothing to do with them not getting on!

      ‘I would like you to stay in the observation ward tonight,’ Zahir said.

      ‘Well, I’d prefer to go home.’

      ‘Who is there to look out for you?’

      Adele thought of Helga and James and closed her eyes as Janet spoke. ‘I’m not putting you in a taxi to go home to those flatmates tonight. I’m not going to be argued with on this, Adele.’

      ‘Is Phillip going home?’ Adele asked.

      ‘Phillip is staying here tonight too,’ Zahir answered the question. ‘He doesn’t want to upset his wife by turning up in the middle of the night.’ His mind was made up. ‘You’re staying in and then I’ll sign you off for the rest of the week.’

      Adele would far rather have gone home but instead she had to lie there listening to Phillip snoring and Gladys, who was now in the opposite bed, first singing and later talking in her sleep.

      And then she too started to snore!

      As well as that there was a lot of chatter coming from the staffroom as people went for their breaks.

      Yikes, she would be quieter in the future when she took her break, Adele decided.

      A light was shining from the desk and Adele asked if the curtain could be pulled around her.

      Then, just as she drifted off, it was time for her hourly observations.

      And then, a while later, from the other side of the curtain came the balm of Zahir’s voice as he asked the night nurse for an update.

      ‘How’s Gladys?’

      ‘Sobering up.’

      ‘How’s Phillip?’

      ‘His obs are all fine, he’s sleeping soundly. What happened with Tony?’

      ‘He was discharged home.’

      And then he asked about her.

      ‘What about Adele?’

      ‘Her obs are stable, she’s not sleeping very well, though.’

      ‘Okay.’

      Zahir went off to see some more patients.

      It was an exceptionally busy night but in between seeing patients he made his it’s not you, it’s me speech to a very put-out Bella.

      Normally he would have seen her home, but tonight he could not leave the department and he could not string her along so she had gone home in a taxi.

      Now, as the day staff started to trickle in, Zahir made coffee.

      And he took one in to Adele.

      She was finally asleep, not that anyone took such a thing into consideration in the observation ward!

      ‘Adele.’

      He watched as she woke up and opened both eyes, and he was pleased to see that her eye had not closed over.

      ‘How are you feeling?’ he enquired.

      ‘A bit sorry for myself,’ she admitted. ‘And I’m sorry if I was rude to you last night.’

      ‘I get it.’

      ‘I doubt it.’ She sat up and saw that he was placing a mug of coffee on her locker.

      ‘Ooh, I really am getting the royal treatment this morning,’ she said, and then smiled at her own joke and Zahir found that he did too.

      ‘I’ve discharged you,’ he said. ‘Roger comes on at seven and I shall bring him up to speed with all that happened last night and then I shall drive you home.’

      ‘I don’t want you to drive me home, Zahir,’ she said.

      She