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Mondays you're mostly alone between times.'
    'You can always bleep us if you need advice or help,' Douglas told her, munching his way through the French fries he'd brought up from the McDonald's restaurant in the hospital's foyer. 'Occasionally one of us has to go out to one of the other hospitals or to the medical school— Wednesday afternoon next week, for instance, we'll both be over at St Joseph's for a clinic—but mostly we're about the place somewhere.'
    'Profs office is on the top floor.' Lindsay pinched one of the registrar's chips. 'He's got two secretaries and if he's not answering his bleeper or mobile one of them will always know where he is.'
    Douglas peered at Merrin's notebook and the notes she'd been taking. 'Has Lindsay given you a timetable?'
    She flicked through the pages and showed him the outline she'd drawn. 'Theatre all day tomorrow and Thursday mornings, day surgery Friday mornings, clinics Wednesday morning, Thursday and Friday afternoons. On call every Tuesday and one Friday and one weekend a month. Do I get to go to Theatre?'
    'If you can manage it,' Douglas told her, speaking with his mouth full. 'When we're running two lists we normally need you to help with one, but other times you just come if you want to. It's worth it if you're keen. Profs a terrific teacher and you'll learn a lot.'
    'Unfortunately your main job for the next six months is going to be the ward work,' Lindsay told her. 'We'll help, of course, but the bulk of it falls on you. How much else you can fit in depends on how efficient you are as much as how keen you are.'
    'I'm keen.' Merrin vowed to work hard at efficiency. She'd stay till midnight every night like her boss if it meant that she earned herself enough free time during the day to get to Theatre. As a student she'd scrubbed a few times but had never been allowed to do much more than occasionally hold a retractor. She was eager to learn more.
    Douglas had finished his chips and he checked his watch then picked up the phone on the desk beside him. 'Four o'clock,' he told them, dialling a number. 'I'll let the on-call team know we're leaving early. There's nothing brewing, is there?'
    'All quiet,' Lindsay confirmed.
    'What about the late ward round?' Merrin asked.
    Lindsay had told her that they did a routine round every evening before going home but now the other doctor shook her head. 'We always finish early after a weekend on,' she explained. 'Prof will come in later and go around with one of the nurses. He knows how tired we are. He said this morning that he's not expecting us to wait around.'
    But after falling asleep with her feet in his lap Merrin knew for sure that she'd had more sleep than her consultant the night before and she felt terrible. 'I'll stay a bit longer,' she told Lindsay quietly, not wanting to interrupt Douglas as he was speaking to another doctor now and handing over their patients for the evening. 'I could start in on that list of things we'd decided to leave till tomorrow, and that'll mean I might get to Theatre in the morning.'
    'Up to you.' Lindsay stood up. She yawned. 'And as much as I admire your enthusiasm, you're on your own. I need my bed.'
    'Me too.' Douglas, having finished his telephone conversation, also yawned as he replaced the receiver. 'I'm out of here. Merrin, you need a lift anywhere?'
    She shook her head. 'I'm living in at the hospital until I find somewhere else.'
    They both pulled faces and Merrin realised that they must know what sort of standard accommodation that entailed. 'Poor you,' Lindsay crooned, on her way out. 'See you tomorrow. Don't work too hard.'
    Lindsay and Douglas had told her that the evening round generally started some time between five and six, but it was nearer seven before she finished her chores on the ward and there was still no sign of her consultant.
    One of the nurses suggested she try his office. 'He won't mind,' she told her sympathetically. 'Otherwise you could be waiting hours. If Profs on his