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Marnie seemed to think about it for a moment and then shook her head. ‘Imagine trying to have a row with that...’
    ‘So you like a good row?’ Harry asked.
    ‘Of course,’ Marnie said. ‘Can you imagine trying to row with Juan? “No, I don’t want my shoulders massaged...”’
    Yet as funny and as intriguing as she could be, Marnie was also, as Harry had guessed she would be, completely immutable in certain areas.
    ‘Marnie...’ Harry approached her after taking a call. ‘Day care just rang and Adam’s not feeling too well. There’s still a bit of a backlog and I thought I might just pop him in the staffroom—’
    ‘Harry,’ Marnie interrupted, ‘the staffroom really isn’t the place for a child that is not feeling well.’
    ‘I know that but it will only be for an hour. I’m just asking if the nurse in the obs ward could pop her head in now and then.’
    ‘Sorry.’ Marnie didn’t look remotely sorry as she shook her head. ‘She’s got post-op patients to keep an eye on. If Adam is unwell, he needs to be at home.’
    ‘You know...’ Harry gritted his teeth and stopped the words from coming out as they reached the tip of his tongue.
    ‘Feel free to say it,’ Marnie invited.
    Instead, he chose a different tack. ‘Fine, if no one can keep an eye out then I’ll ring my seventy-year-old babysitter and ask her to drive over...’
    ‘Grand.’
    Except, when he rang Evelyn, Harry received the worrying news that she had just been to the doctor. The rash that she hadn’t told Harry about just happened to be shingles and she wouldn’t be able to help out with the children for a few days at least.
    ‘Don’t worry about the kids, you just get well, Evelyn,’ Harry said. He didn’t want to worry Evelyn with the places his mind had suddenly gone to—namely the twins contracting chickenpox. They had been immunised, surely? But, then, Jill had seen to all that. As both a doctor and a parent Harry’s mind was racing through several scenarios even as he put down the phone. ‘She can’t come,’ a rather distracted Harry told Marnie.
    ‘Then you’d better get Adam home.’
    ‘You know, you really are inflexible at times,’ Harry snapped.
    ‘Oh, but I’m very flexible, Harry,’ Marnie responded. ‘In fact, if twenty critically ill patients came pouring through that door at this very moment you’d see just how flexible I can be. I know exactly where my staff are and what they are doing, and I can call them at any given time because they are not keeping an eye out for a sick child.’
    She made a very good point; unfortunately, Harry was in no mood to see it. He was trying to do the best by the department and do his best by his children too. He was worried that an unwell Adam might be in the early stages of chickenpox, which meant, if he was, no doubt any day Charlotte would be too. Marnie just didn’t seem to understand.
    ‘You just don’t get it,’ Harry said, picking up his jacket. ‘You’re not a mum.’

CHAPTER FIVE
    I T HURT .
    And it still hurt as Marnie drove home but she did her best to push it aside when there was a knock at the door a little while later and it was her youngest brother, Ronan.
    He’d just started work and was frantically saving up to move out from home, but every now and then he came and stayed for a couple of days with Marnie.
    ‘How’s the new job?’ Ronan asked.
    ‘Frustrating,’ Marnie said. ‘It would be a great department if there were enough staff and people didn’t keep using the place as a drop-in crèche...’ She stopped herself from elaborating. ‘Don’t mind me,’ Marnie said, but Harry’s words were still smarting and, in no mood to make dinner, she suggested that they eat out. ‘My treat,’ Marnie said. ‘On the condition that you have dinner waiting for me tomorrow when I get home.’
    It was nice to get out. Marnie drove along the beach road and into the small town and they soon found a gorgeous pub and sat outside, overlooking