Her hands, smooth and glossy and amber-coloured in their sheaths of rubber gloves looked alien to her, though she could see her knuckles shining whitely through them above the glitter of the chrome instruments, matching their appearance to the strain she could feel in them, and she stared at them, thinking: that’s me, they’re my hands - but she didn’t really believe it. On the far side of the pool of light in which those almost disembodied hands were so visible McIndoe’s own hands moved, swift and sure in their stubbiness, tying each minute bleeding point with stitches so fine she could hardly see the silk in his needle, and handling the instruments with such assurance it was as though they grew out of his fingers rather than being held in them. ‘Concentrate,’ McIndoe grunted. ‘Your hands are shaking and that’s a bloody nuisance. Concentrate, woman, and be still -’ Obediently she concentrated, consciously shifting the tension from the muscles in her hands to those in her wrists and forearms and her fingers, which had indeed begun to tremble with their efforts, steadied and held the retractors firm.
