The Doctor's Longed-For Family. Joanna Neil

or, if you have the energy, there’s always the off switch on the television set.’

      Her jaw dropped. That was a total put-down, wasn’t it, and what had she done to deserve that kind of treatment? This man, Calder, was impossible. OK, so his television programme had disturbed her, enough to prompt her to send a carefully worded message his way. After all, he had invited comments at the end of the programme, but surely she didn’t merit that kind of sarcasm? Hers had been a perfectly legitimate query, but his reply was a pure dig at her expense in front of the thousands who accessed his site.

      Her appetite had suddenly disappeared, but it was replaced by a growing rumble of annoyance. She didn’t have time for any of this. She was supposed to be getting ready for work, and all she had meant to do was to swiftly check her emails in case any problems had cropped up overnight. Only her friend’s message had included a link to the website. ‘You have to check this out,’ she had written. ‘You seem to have stirred something up.’

      Now Abby was rapidly regretting the impulse that had led her to click on the link. Merely thinking about the arrogance of the man brought a red haze to sizzle in front of her eyes. Why had she even bothered to switch on the television the other night? If she had left well alone, she might never have caught sight of his TV show, but she had left it on in the background as she’d dealt with her emails that evening. As she was already online it had been all too easy to let her emotions get away from her and write in to the address given.

      They had all been talking about it in A and E, where she worked. ‘He has such a wry sense of humour,’ Helen, her specialist registrar, had said, ‘and when he’s on TV he’s absolutely brilliant as a presenter. Everybody’s watching his show, Emergency Call. It’s on once a week, in the evening, and he has a weekly slot that deals with different medical topics. It tends to throw up a controversy once in a while. He’s interviewed on radio and TV talk shows from time to time, and he writes occasionally, too.’

      At least on radio, Abby thought, the listening public wouldn’t have been drawn to watch the suffering of the poor young woman who had slipped and fallen down the stairs last night. She was heavily pregnant, and Abby had felt her pain along with her as she had been filmed being carefully transferred into the ambulance.

      ‘It looks as though Megan is going into labour,’ Matt Calder had said softly to the camera. ‘We’ll be by her side through every stage, from here to the delivery room.’

      The baby, though, hadn’t wanted to wait that long, and soon the presenter had said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it to the hospital before this infant is born.’

      Remembering, Abby felt her hackles begin to rise all over again. Why was everyone so obsessed with fly-on-the-wall coverage these days?

      Her fingers were already stabbing at the keyboard, and she banged out another message to Matt Calder.

      ‘I stand by what I said before,’ she wrote. ‘Isn’t your programme taking things a stretch too far? Do we really need to pry into every aspect of people’s lives, even stooping so low as to let cameras intrude on the special, intensely personal moment when a woman gives birth? It’s bad enough that the mother’s privacy is violated, but doesn’t it ever occur to anyone that the infant concerned is being exploited?’

      Fuelled by a growing sense of righteousness, she added, ‘What depths will be plundered next, I wonder? Will someone be filmed saying, “Oh, I’m sorry, but I really don’t feel too well. I think I might not be able to make it through the night, please excuse me while I suck in my last breath. Would you be sure and show the film to my mother? I did so want her to be here with me at the end.” How very sad that we have to live our lives through other people.’

      Pressing her lips together, she hit the ‘send’ button and flung her diatribe out into cyberspace. She stood for a moment glaring at the screen, and then she switched off the computer and went to finish getting ready for work.

      Her cottage was in a valley at the edge of the Chilterns, and she had a half-hour drive ahead of her to reach the hospital, which was on the outskirts of London. She would need all of that time in order to calm herself down.

      It was only when she was sliding into her car a while later that she realised that she had done it again. She had acted without giving herself time to stop and think things through. Had she gone too far? Maybe that sarcasm had been a tad over the top, but something about the show and the website, along with Matt Calder’s all too persuasive manner, had managed to ruffle her feathers. Was it possible that she had overreacted?

      Perhaps the truth of the matter was that she was beginning to feel stressed and overworked. Her working life was very different from that of Dr Calder. She had spent long hours the previous day in A and E, doing her best to help the children in her care. She was the doctor in charge of the paediatric emergency department, and it was a responsible job, one that weighed heavily on her at times. She would be the first to admit that it sometimes took its toll on her.

      Maybe that was the reason she had responded so badly to the programme. The truth was, Dr Calder, the latest hot new doctor out there enjoying celebrity status, had managed to graze a raw nerve with his bright and breezy invitation to watch events unfold on TV. His role as lead presenter was to comment on events as the trauma team went on its travels attending to casualties. What did he know of hospital targets and patient throughput and the daily anguish of dealing with severely ill patients?

      His was a light and fluffy job, involving nothing more than going out and about with the paramedics, or taking part in chat shows on the radio, writing a blog on his website or spouting his own type of wisdom on a variety of health issues. One of them she’d even glanced at briefly, a magazine article on whether or not parents should let their children be vaccinated, and that was a subject guaranteed to put her on edge.

      Not that she had seen or heard any of this up until now. She only had Helen’s version of what his work entailed and Helen appeared to be heavily biased in his favour.

      ‘He’s incredibly good-looking,’ she’d enthused. ‘Those lovely blue eyes…and his voice…He has such a deep, warm way of talking that he makes me go weak at the knees. He can come and assess my symptoms any day.’

      In spite of herself, Abby had laughed. ‘You’re totally smitten, aren’t you?’

      Helen had nodded. ‘Me and most of the women who work in A and E.’

      For her part, Abby hadn’t paid much attention to the way he looked. She had only watched the programme in passing as she’d sat at the computer. He had been doing a voice-over some of the time, and mostly her gaze had been riveted to the young woman, Megan, who had been going through the throes of labour. The poor girl had been asking for painkillers, and a film of sweat had broken out on her brow.

      Abby had switched off the TV set in a fit of annoyance. Was nothing sacred any more? She had been so fired up by the whole set of events that she had rattled off her comments without a second thought. It was only now, a couple of days later, that she had begun to regret her haste. She was a paediatrician, for heaven’s sake, a specialist in A and E, it ought to be beyond her to behave in such an impulsive manner. Why had she even bothered to write in? Hadn’t she anything better to do with her time?

      And to send off another message at breakfast-time today, well, that had to be pure folly, hadn’t it? What on earth was wrong with her?

      She pulled out on to the city road and flicked on the car radio so that she wouldn’t have to listen to her own thoughts any longer.

      ‘We’re glad to have you with us for our twice-weekly programme, Morning Surgery, with Dr Matt Calder,’ the radio host was saying in reverent tones, and Abby’s breath hissed into her lungs. ‘Before we open the door to the first patient, we just have time for a few words with our amiable physician.’ He paused. ‘Dr Calder, I see you’ve been going through your post in the last few minutes. What’s new for today?’ Abby’s fingers were poised to find the ‘off’ button, but she had to negotiate traffic and for the moment she let it ride.

      ‘Medical ethics seem to be on the agenda right now,’