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else, a man, came on the phone and asked me to put two fingers in her mouth, lift up her chin and stare hard at her chest…
    Rosa followed my instructions at first, but then she rebelled, even though I assured her it was what I’d been told. So I reported back to the man on the end of the phone who sounded quite startled when I told him that Rosa was cool with the chin being lifted and her nose being pinched, but was refusing point blank to let me blow into her mouth and pump her chest to the rhythm of Nelly the Elephant. And that was about when the paramedics burst through the door.
    ‘At least the hospital’s not far from your office.’ The traffic lights turn green and Declan speeds off again.
    True. Just a tube ride away. I’ve managed to spend every lunchtime with her and am also dropping in after work each day. Pimple, my cleaner, is being really sympathetic and stepping in as a temporary childminder, just for the hour or so before I arrive home. In fact I’ve visited so often that some of the patients mistake me for one of the staff.
    ‘Not great for Alec, of course, having to work his way through all the jams.’
    ‘No,’ I agree. ‘Indeed if you counted the times
I’ve
visited, with the times
he’s
visited, I’ve probably visited her far more – and probably stayed longer.’
    Not being sexist or anything but women are probably better in this type of situation anyway. The motherly role. Looking after Rosa, bringing in little luxuries, encouraging her to drink my flasks of home-made chicken soup (well OK, Campbell’s Condensed, but I added the milk), ensuring she takes her medicines at the right times.
    I chuckle as I think about it. ‘Yesterday, this old lady in the bed next to Rosa asked if I could fetch her a bedpan.’
    ‘You weren’t wearing that blue striped tunic dress with the starchy white bib in front, were you?’ Declan grins.
    ‘It was blue striped, but there was definitely no bib.’
    ‘Come off it, Cath,’ he squeezes my hand. ‘I know you always held a secret desire to be a nurse.’
    ‘Or rather
you
held a secret desire for
me
to be a nurse.’
    ‘Hold that thought,’ he winks and pinches my thigh in a meaningful way.
    The doctors gave Rosa some injections and found her a bed. Then apparently the bleeding stopped. She has to stay in though, just for a while longer they say.
    Isobel, when I told her, thought it seemed slightly overkill but when I said Rosa was on BUPA, another of our firm’s little perks, she nodded knowingly. ‘Ah, that’ll be why. They’ll be getting their money’s worth. It’s all a big insurance fiddle.’
    Personally I don’t care if it is. All I care about is that they’re giving Rosa the best possible treatment so that the baby stays inside her and she’s fully recovered. Once she’s released, she’s going to recuperate for a few days at home before coming back to work.
    Thank God, because, although I’m trying my hardest at Younger’s to hold the fort and ignore any back-biting by keeping my head low and concentrating on work, I’m still managing to get behind and the pile waiting for her to sort out when she returns is growing ever larger.
    ‘You were lucky with Josh and Sophie, really, weren’t you?’ Declan taps his fingers on the steering wheel to Mumford & Sons. ‘Both straightforward pregnancies.’
    ‘Although I did have caesareans…and adhesions,’ I say indignantly. Part of me is proud as Punch that I sailed through such a momentous thing as childbirth and popped out two robust children, but part of me still doesn’t want to miss out on the sympathy that I did have
some p
ain, even if it wasn’t the same kind of pain as a natural childbirth.
    ‘It’s not a competition, Cath.’ He pulls into a parking place and we both climb out. ‘I know you suffered, I just meant…in the pregnancy you know, you weren’t sick like Rosa was, and you had no false alarms or anything.’
    ‘I might have done.’ I trot behind him. ‘I