St Matthew's Passion - By Sam Archer Page 0,30
and made things worse. Melissa stumbled down the corridor, not caring if he was staring after her, not caring about anything, unaware of anything but the choking in her chest and throat and the stinging in her eyes and the sense of being sucked into a vortex and spiralling down, down.
Chapter Seven
The thin rain, just short of sleet, flicked against Fin’s cheeks. He deliberately wore no hat or scarf, wanting the cold to scour him.
He strode along Millbank, the Thames to his left, Vauxhall Bridge looming in the distance ahead. He had no destination, needed simply to walk, exposed to the elements. It was midnight and most of the cars passing him were taxis. Some of them even slowed as if the drivers thought he must be wanting a ride, that nobody could possibly choose to walk in weather like this if other options were available.
Fin’s legs worked rapidly, compelled to keep on the move by the cold fire burning in his chest. He forced himself to play over and over in his mind Melissa’s expression as he’d seen it a couple of hours earlier, utter devastation and confusion mingling on her lovely face. He’d searched her eyes for contempt, wanting it because he deserved it; but there’d been none. Just bewilderment and unhappiness.
What a fool I’ve been, he thought, his teeth gritted so tightly his jaw muscles began to ache. What a spineless, inconsiderate fool.
Like all surgeons, Fin had made mistakes in his career, especially early on. You didn’t become a master at trauma surgery overnight, and inevitably his developing skills hadn’t always been enough to save patients. It was easy to dwell on your errors, easy to allow them to define your internal image of what kind of a doctor you were. The trick, and the challenge, was to focus ahead; not to avoid looking back entirely – that would be pig-headed – but rather to learn from your errors and as best as possible avoid repeating them.
He needed to adopt a similar approach now. He’d harmed Melissa by leading her on, by allowing things to develop as far as they had between them. And he’d harmed himself in the process, though he hardly deserved any sympathy. What Fin now needed to do was carry out damage limitation. And that meant a resolute commitment to ensuring that the personal barrier between him and Melissa – between him and any woman, come to that – remained unbreached.
As of tomorrow, he’d re-establish their relationship on a professional footing, where it should have remained. He’d be friendly with her, if she’d allow him. He’d praise her where praise was due; they couldn’t return to the standoffishness of the early days, too much had happened for that to be feasible. And above all, he had to treat her fairly. Not overindulge her in an attempt at compensating for his behaviour, but not go to the other extreme either and make life hard for her.
Fin raised his face to the winter sky, remembering something he’d told himself about Melissa in the early days of her time at St Matthew’s. She needs to toughen up… How wrong he’d been, he thought bitterly. He was the one who needed to toughen up. Self-pity was pathetic, and counterproductive, as was indulgence of one’s feelings at the expense of doing what was right.
As a child, Fin had always wanted to be a doctor. His parents had of course encouraged him, and when he’d got a place at medical school he’d seen it as no more than the inevitable first step in the fulfilment of his ambitions. As a student he’d set his heart on surgery and had applied himself with single-minded dedication. He’d always had a vague notion that he’d be a family man one day, with a wife and two or three children; but there was nothing vague about his professional vision of himself. He would be a surgeon, there was absolutely no doubt about it.
Well, he’d failed to become a family man, which meant that he must recommit himself to the goal which had always been his guiding light. He was already a leader in his field. He aimed to be the very best. And he had some way to go yet.
In which case, why was he wasting time walking in the cold at midnight when he could be learning something new, writing up a research paper, attending a web seminar with fellow surgeons on the other side of the world?
Forcing all thoughts and images