He turned on Harry. 'I always thought you were stupid, but now I know you are mad as well!'
'Fine words, but you're the sexual inadequate who can only get his kicks by jacking off into his ex-girlfriend's underwear!'
'For the last time! I don't know what you are talking about, you lunatic!' Jake clenched his fists. The anger was turning to a red rage, which was surging through his veins, telling him to stick one of those fists right through Harry's expensively capped teeth. But he knew if he started he might not be able to stop. His first priority was to find out where Mr Blair lived and then grovel to him, and he couldn't do that from a police cell on a murder charge. Visibly, he forced himself to calm down. But this only enraged Harry further. He leaped forward, grabbed Jake by the shoulders and drew his arm back, ready to plunge it into his nose.
But Jake was quicker and lighter on his feet. His fist connected with Harry's nose in a deeply satisfying way. As the blood spurted out Jake knew a moment of pure pleasure. Then he thought, shit, he's going to hit me back and he's heavier than me!
Everyone had been rooted to the spot. Everyone except Godfrey. You had to be quick on your feet when you were working with sheep. It was surprising how nasty those creatures could turn at shearing time. He grabbed hold of Harry's arm just as it was moving forward to knock Jake into unconsciousness. Harry slipped and lost his balance. Both men staggered and fell awkwardly to the ground, Harry on top of Jake.
Despite the scuffling and swearing, everyone could hear quite clearly the perfectly horrible noise of Jake's head meeting the steel side of a very hot oven.
Moving as one, Tess and Kirsty rushed forward to pull Harry away from Jake's scarily inert body. He lay half on his side, deathly pale, unmoving.
'Ohmigod! Ohmigod!' cried Tess, leaning over and, with a shaking hand, feeling for his pulse. Her heart was beating so loudly it seemed to be drowning out all her other senses and for one awful moment she thought he was dead. But when she put her face near his she could feel his breath, shallow and faint.
'Don't touch him!' shrieked Kirsty, who had seen far too many episodes of Casualty for her own comfort.
'Well, we can't just leave him there,' Godfrey pointed out, and raced out into the street, where they could dimly hear him shouting, 'Is there a doctor round here?'
'We must cover him up with something,' said Kirsty.
'Why? He's not dead – yet,' sobbed Tess.
'Yes, but he'll be in shock. His body temperature will be dropping.'
'Believe me it won't – it's about a hundred and ten degrees down here,' muttered Tess, her face inches away from the hot oven. 'Jake, Jake! Please wake up!' she sobbed. Everyone had forgotten about Harry until he started moving. He had landed on top of Jake so he wasn't hurt but when he heard that sickening thud he knew things had gone too far. He would have been delighted to see Jake permanently out of action, but now the red mist was clearing and he suddenly didn't care for the pictures that were dancing his mind – pictures of him going to gaol for having murdered his rival.
'Stay where you are – you've done enough damage!' yelled Tess.
'I'm getting my mobile to phone an ambulance,' said Harry, trying to sound calm, though his hands were shaking.
Godfrey hadn't been able to find a doctor but a very old lady in the bun shop next door had done a first-aid certificate so he brought her instead. She was thrilled to be involved in such a drama. 'On no account must he be moved until the paramedics arrive but we have to keep talking to him so he doesn't fall into a coma.'
'But what do we say?'
'Anything.'
No one felt like chatting so Godfrey said: 'I'll read him the prep list.'
This was utterly surreal, thought Tess as she held a towel to Jake's forehead to stop the blood, which was gushing out at an alarming rate, while listening to Godfrey solemnly reciting: 'Peel and dice spuds, wash and dice carrots, make stock,' and on and on until she was itching to knock him out as well. She turned round and was about to shout: 'Where is that fucking ambulance?' when Jake stirred slightly, groaned and said to the old lady: 'Where am I and who the hell are you?'
Oh God, he had amnesia as well as concussion, thought Tess. Though, given the events of the last few minutes, this might be no bad thing.
'What is your name, dear? Tell us who you are.'
Jake blinked at her. He seemed to be lying down, wherever he was, and everything was shifting in and out of focus like a television on the blink. Who was he? It seemed a perfectly reasonable question, except he didn't know the answer. He felt he should know but his head hurt and it was warm and sticky. That wasn't right, surely? The old lady didn't look like his oma, but he didn't know any other old ladies. Maybe she had got a makeover in heaven, but hazily he decided it would be rude to say he preferred her old look.
'I am doing my best, you know,' he said weakly, but someone must have switched off all the lights because it was getting all dark . . .
Tess tried to stifle a sob and then thought, what the hell? This is as good a time to lose it as any. Her shoulders started shaking and she was about to throw herself across his prone body in a paroxysm of grief, when the paramedics arrived.
They were very professional and kind, but she found their scientific talk more frightening than reassuring. She was determined to go in the ambulance with him but then the old lady tried to get up but couldn't because she had arthritis, so they had to cart her off as well and there was no room in the ambulance for anyone else.
'Follow on in your own cars,' advised the paramedic.
'He will be all right, won't he?'
'He'll get the best possible care.'
'That's not an answer!' yelled Kirsty after the departing ambulance.
'Oh God! I'm going to sick,' muttered Godfrey, and was. It was only a small comfort to know that he was throwing up all over Harry's two-hundred-pound Gucci loafers.
Tess stood on the pavement, trying to get her head together. What would Jake want her to do?
'Right. I'm going on to the hospital. You lot stay here and try to open up. Put on a simple menu and leave out anything you don't feel confident about tackling on your own, Godfrey.'
'That'll be everything then.'
'Pull yourself together. Jake is going to wake up soon with a very bad headache and we don't want to make it worse by telling him the restaurant is closed. Kirsty, you need to ring round every hotel in Cumbria to track down Mr Blair. Tell him – oh God, what do we tell him? Tell him there has been a misunderstanding and Jake will get in touch as soon as possible. Don't all look at me like that – he is going to be all right, do you hear?'
Kirsty ran after her. 'Do you think we should tell Kate what's happened?'
Tess tried to think about this. 'I don't know. Do whatever you think is best.'
Alone in the car, she gripped the steering wheel and shut her eyes for a moment. 'Dear God, if there is one – and I really don't care if You are Christian, Jewish or some New Age white magic Wicca woman – make things right, please!'
She drove off, still with the sound of the ambulance siren ringing in her ears. They probably have to do that for every minor emergency, she tried to tell herself. And please let him be in A & E and not in intensive care, she added.
He was in intensive care and they wouldn't let her see him. She endured two hours of terror and boredom during which she bought several cups of tea, but didn't drink any of them, paced up and down the corridor so many times she got a blister on her foot, read all the notices on the walls without taking in a word, and clamped her lips together so tightly so as not to scream that they went quite numb. It was a relief when she looked up and saw Kate striding down the corridor. It might help, a bit, to have someone to share this torture with.
Kate took the situation in at a glance. 'You haven't heard anything yet then?'
Tess shook her head, dumbly. Kate sank down next to her, took one of her hands and gripped it fiercely. Part of her was bursting with all the stock journalist quest
ions of 'What, why, who, when and where?', but she couldn't bring herself to speak them. She had been profoundly shocked when Kirsty rang her with the news, tearful and incoherent. It all sounded complete gobbledegook, apart from the 'Jake is unconscious in hospital' bit. Some time in the future she would have to answer for all the red lights she had driven through, but only if he was all right and there was a future.
'Is either of you a relative of Mr Goldman?'
'I am his fiancée,' said Kate, and dared Tess with her eyes to contradict her.
'Well, he's suffered a nasty concussion and needed quite a few stitches. There's a bit of retrograde amnesia but we don't expect it to be permanent.' The nurse smiled kindly. 'You'll be able to take him home in a few days.'
Wordlessly Kate and Tess hugged each other.
'Can we see him?'
'Well, you can, seeing as you are his fiancée, but only for a few minutes – he is still very groggy.'
Kate panicked. 'He might not want to see me!' Then when the nurse looked puzzled, she said, feebly: 'We had a bit of a lovers' tiff.'
'If your name is Kate, then I think he does. He's been talking about you.'
'Give him my love,' said Tess. 'I'm going outside to phone the others.'
Kate tiptoed in. Jake was lying very still and pale. There was blood seeping through the bandage on his head and his eyes were closed. She sat down by him, took hold of his hand and looked at it closely because she didn't want him to wake up and see her crying. His hand was warm and covered with scars. She thought she had never seen such a beautiful hand in all her life.
He moved slightly and opened his eyes. 'Kate,' he whispered. 'I was dreaming about you. I – I can't remember what happened.'
'Don't worry. You are in hospital but you are going to be fine.'
'Oh. OK.' He frowned. 'But there was something I had to say to you.'
'Just rest now. You can tell me later.'
'No. It's important. Ah, yes, of course. I love you, Kate.'
'I love you too.'
He smiled faintly and closed his eyes again.
One of the nurses came over. 'We are going to take him up to a ward now but you can see him again when he's settled.'
In a way Kate was glad to go. Despite all the trauma, it had been a perfect moment and she wanted to hold on to it for as long as she could, which would probably be until he got his memory back.
She was very glad she had said she was his fiancée because when they put him in a little side room off one of the main wards he suddenly became a magnet for what seemed like half the female staff at the hospital. It seemed impossible that so many young and pretty nurses all thought it was their job to come in and take his temperature or check his pulse. Jake was in a lot of pain but all the attention seemed to cheer him up.
'Talk to him as much as he wants but don't tire him,' said the doctor, also female, who was stroking the hair out of his eyes, quite unnecessarily, Kate thought.
Tess popped in during a lull and they conferred in whispers because Jake seemed to be asleep. 'They are all very relieved, of course, but that means they've gone back to their usual habits of cocking things up,' she hissed.
She had just spent a fraught ten minutes on the phone with Kirsty. What no one knew was that Mr Blair had gone back to his hotel and rung his old friend Louis to ask plaintively why the great chef had sent him on a wild goose chase to a madhouse populated by sexual deviants. Louis had then had one of his famous Gallic tantrums and had to be pulled away from the phone by his wife.
'I do not understand a word of this. You start off this conversation about cooking and then we seem to be talking about underwear! Louis has gone quite purple – no, Louis, you cannot have the phone back – I will deal with this. Let us cut the crap, as young people would say. We recommended you eat with Jake because he is a chef of sublime ability and we think you will look complete fools if you do not recognise this. I also have to say that I have known this young chef for years and he is one of the most honest, decent and straightforward young men I have ever met. Louis is incensed that you would think he would send you on a wild goose chase and is threatening to stop stocking that 1965 claret you seem so fond of. Au revoir!'
Mr Blair picked up the phone again, rang Cuisine, booked a table for that night and went out for a walk to build up an appetite and burn off some calories in order to make room for the several thousand more he intended to ingest.
He had booked the table with Godfrey, and Kirsty went ballistic when she found out.
'But I thought you would be pleased!'
'One of the most influential people in the world of cookery is coming to eat here tonight and our chef is twenty miles away in bloody hospital, you oaf!'
'But he's OK, isn't he?'
'Oh, he's fine, apart from the fact that he doesn't know what day it is.'
At the hospital Tess related the gist of this conversation to Kate, adding: 'Obviously Kirsty tried to ring him and cancel the booking but he went out and no one at the hotel knows when he'll be back. I think we are going to have to go back to the restaurant and try and get through this evening without Jake.'
'Oh God! Could today get much worse?'
'If I don't get out of here, it surely will,' said a faint voice from the bed. Gingerly Jake tried to ease himself up into a sitting position. He had been dozing until he heard the hideous words: 'Get through this evening without Jake'. He wasn't sure what they were going to try to do without him but it sounded like a recipe for disaster.
Both women shrieked: 'Lie back down again at once!' And then realised they were making his head hurt. Kate ran out of the room. Where were those bloody nurses when you really needed them?
A harassed-looking male doctor came in and said: 'You cannot possibly leave.'
'I can. It's called discharging yourself without permission.'
'What on earth is so important that you have to leave hospital?'
'You wouldn't understand,' said Jake, who didn't really himself, but would go to hell in a handcart before he let the doctor know this. The doctor got out an instrument and looked into Jake's eyes. 'How many fingers am I holding up?'
'Three,' and then when the doctor looked triumphant, he added kindly, 'the other digit is your thumb.'
'What day is it today?'
The doctor had a copy of the Guardian folded up in his jacket pocket. Jake squinted carelessly. 'Thursday.'
'And who is this?' pointing at Kate.
'That is the woman I am going to marry.'
'Is that right?'
What could she say? It was another of those occasions when it wasn't the right time to tell the truth.
She looked at Jake. He was smiling at her and there was a look in his eyes that she wanted to keep there for ever. 'Yes,' she said. When he got his memory back it would all be over, so she might as well make the most of this moment.
'You are of course entitled to do what you like but you will have to sign a form taking all responsibility for this foolhardy action.'
'Absolutely,' said Jake cheerfully. Blimey, he hoped he could remember how to use a pen. Now a knife, well, that was a different matter. That was engrained into his subconscious like breathing.
'He will have a headache but if he starts talking nonsense or acting erratically, get him back here pronto.'
'The trouble is, Doctor, how am I possibly going to be able to tell the difference?' said Tess drily.
Several nurses were very eager to help Jake get dressed but Kate shooed them away. 'I am perfectly capable of helping my boyfriend put on a pair of trousers,' she snapped. But she was very tempted to go and snaffle some sedatives for him. It was quite obvious, watching him move so slowly and painfully, that he was in no state to go home, let alone cook.
'This is ridiculous,' she said eventually, when he'd had to lie down after managing to get one sock on, and he was looking so pale she thought he was going to pass out. 'The doctor was right. You are in no state to go anywhere except back to bed.'
Jake didn't say anything but his face took on that familiar look of stubbornness. 'I am going back to my restaurant, with or without your help.'
'Just for the record, I am doing this against all my better instincts,' she grumbled as he had to lean on her to walk out.
Tess took his other arm and the nurses watched them go with regret. They had been drawing straws as to who should be the ones to give him a bed bath.
Jake got in the car and shut his eyes but the world still felt as if it was spinning.
'Just how much do you remember of the last few weeks?' asked Tess.
He thought, but even doing that was painful. 'We had a flood and I am going to that stupid television competition, aren't I? And then there was shouting and fighting, wasn't there? What am I missing?'
Tess raised her eyebrows and looked at Kate. Over to you, she seemed to be saying, but before Kate could open her mouth, Jake said: 'Oh God! Sorry, guys – think I'm going to be sick,' stumbled out of the car and threw up down a drain.
Kate rooted around in her bag, found some tissues and a bottle of water, got out and hovered anxiously.
'Sorry,' he muttered.
She took him in her arms. He was shaking like a leaf.
'Oh, Jake, I love you so much. You have nothing to apologise to me for, ever.'
'Can I have that in writing?'
'Why?'
'Well, I admit I am pretty confused at the moment, but I feel absolutely certain I was going to propose to you in the near future and it would be kind of handy to know I could skip ever having to say sorry.'
Joy surged through her. 'I will let you know when you do propose then.'
'Well, I'm certainly not going to do it here. Those people across the road at the bus stop think I am a drunk who can't hold his liquor.'
'Let's go home,' said Kate happily, because that was exactly what his restaurant felt like to her.
They were met by Godfrey, who told them that he had cleaned all the blood off the kitchen floor.
'Have you disinfected?' asked Jake.
Recipe for Disaster Page 31