‘Patrick Moore? He still alive? Jeez!’
‘I think so.’
‘Well that’s all pretty constructive stuff,’ he said, smiling and gesturing to the heavens. ‘And you’ve got plenty to gaze at tonight, for sure.’
I tipped my head back and gazed along with him.
‘You know, It often occurs to me what a stupefying concept it is that it doesn’t matter if I’m home or, say, here, or in France or in Spain, and yet the sky I’m looking it is the very same one. Gives you a real sense of scale, doesn’t it? Is the night sky the same in America?’
‘In the North, I think. But San Diego’s on a different latitude of course, so I guess the stars would be in different positions at different times.’ He tucked a hand behind his head again. ‘Been a long time since I’ve looked at this patch of sky.’
‘Is that where you live, then? Why did you go there? Was it work?’
He nodded. ‘Sort of. I got a post- grad exchange after I finished my MBA. I couldn’t wait to leave Britain. Which led on to the offer from Drug U Like. I’ve been with them fifteen years now.’
‘And now you’ve been sent back here again. Full circle. Does it feel strange?’
He continued to stare at the sky. ‘It feels very strange, as it happens. I mean, I’ve done a lot of travelling in the States with my job, and I get back here once or twice a year. Family visits and so on – my mum lives in Reigate , but I dunno. Yeah, I guess. Strange. I feel a bit disconnected. I miss my son a lot. Though he’s at college now so I guess I’d be missing him anyway, huh? And friends, of course. But I’ve got a lot of difficult domestic stuff going on right now so I guess this placement was probably the right thing to do. For the moment.’ He shook his head then, not, it seemed, in negation of anything, but almost as if he wanted to shake some snow from his shoulders. Talk about something else, maybe. It occurred to me, right then, how lonely he might be. I thought I should trundle something bland and light and conversational into the silence in case he thought I was waiting for him to elucidate – hmm. Like Kate’s tattoo, maybe? Maybe not. Not right now. But before I could think of anything else he moved his hand, then thrummed his fingers against his chest and smiled at me again.
‘Boy, but this ground’s uncomfortable, though, isn’t it? And cold.’ He glanced across at me. ‘You’re shivering. And that wind’s getting up again. You think we should maybe move down the dune a bit? Sit on the sand instead?’
He hauled himself back up to a sitting position and cast around him, the wind, which was indeed getting stronger, carving furrows through his hair. ‘Down there, maybe?’ He was pointing to where the grassy summits of two dunes dipped to form a slight gully. ‘Guess he’d find us just as readily down there, wouldn’t he? And they’ll have lights. What d’you think?’
Sitting up again myself, I felt the full force of the strengthening breeze. It would make sense. It was a clear night. It could only get colder. ‘I think you’re right. Let’s go down there, if you think you can manage. At least there’ll be a little more shelter. Here, let me help you up.’
I took hold of his arm as he eased himself upright, wincing a little from the pain in his side, and again as he placed his injured foot on the ground. I could feel the hard swell of his bicep beneath his jacket. A solid, reassuring chunk of muscle.
‘Lean on me,’ I told him, bringing my arm around his back to support him. ‘That’s it. Let me take your weight. Is it very painful still?’
‘It’s a bitch. Yeeow! Shit, that was not a good move. That hurts!’
‘Then try not to put too much weight on it. Take it slowly. No rush.’
‘Sally, rushing,’ he said, making his first careful move, ‘is not on the agenda tonight.’
He lifted his own arm around my shoulder and we made hesitant progress over the crest of the dune, moving carefully down through the shifting sand. His weight against me made it difficult to balance. His jacket smelled woody and fragrant. I picked my way cautiously as the slope began to steepen, conscious of his warm bulk against my side. The dune here fell away sharply in great concave swathes. It was a curious, alien landscape.
‘This looks OK,’ I said, glancing around to pick out a suitable nook and scanning the ground for debris. ‘If we sit here we’re out of the wind, but we can still see some way back up along the valley. See a light, at any rate, when it comes.’ I helped him back down to a sitting position against the sand bank and climbed back up a few paces for another glance around. ‘If it comes,’ I added. ‘He has been ages, hasn’t he? I can’t imagine it took him that long to get back to the road. How far could it be? Three or four miles?’
‘Hmm,’ he said, leaning back against the dune and grimacing as he shuffled his back against the sand and straightened his leg. ‘I think that might be a little optimistic. More like five is my guess. Difficult to say. We were walking around lost for a fair while. Could be further.’
I slithered back down the slope and sat down beside him again, cosy in the lee of the wind. For all the manifest hassles inherent in our situation, I felt strangely content beneath this big sky. Strangely unperturbed by our predicament. Strangely disconnected from my own domestic ‘stuff’. Strangely calm. Strangely happy, even. Alive. ‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘At least it’s a bit warmer down here. Another wine gum?’
‘Steady,’ he said. ‘We might need to ration them.’ He leaned forward and rolled up his trouser leg a little. ‘God, but I’m not sure if I shouldn’t get this boot off my foot for a while. It’s really throbbing – and, boy, swollen some, too. Look!’ He carefully peeled away the top of his damp sock. His ankle underneath it was bulging inside the boot and the skin looked bluish and shiny. It was deeply grooved from the wet ribbing. I moved up on to my knees to look more closely at it. Even in the moonlight it looked livid.
‘God, I wish I knew the first thing about first aid. I don’t know. It really does look like it might be broken. And if it’s broken, shouldn’t you leave it as it is? Won’t the boot act as a splint or something?’
He pressed the skin gingerly with his finger. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that right now it feels like it’s on fire, and I can’t move my toes.’ His brows knitted a little. ‘I don’t think it’s broken, though. I broke my arm when I was nine and it hurt so much I bit a great gouge from my lip trying not to cry.’
‘Even so,’ I said. ‘I think you should leave it as it is. Just in case.’
‘You’re the boss,’ he said, and rolled his trouser leg back down.
‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘And you’re a potato.’
I needed to make use of the restrooms myself soon after, so I hiked a good way up and along the dunes, scanning the dark tree and seascapes around me for the sound of a car or a light.
But there was nothing. Not a thing. Even the light across the bay had now vanished. I imagined some elderly cottager retiring for the night. Switching off the telly, brewing cocoa or hot milk. Filling a hot water bottle. Creaking up the stairs to bed. Even then, with the elements staking their chilly claim on the spring evening, I found myself curiously excited by this state of affairs. The rush of exhilaration that had replaced my earlier anxiety was showing no signs of abating. I breathed deeply, the salty tang prickling in my nostrils. In the distance, creamy lines of foam nudged the foreshore, moving sluggishly under the moon’s rippling reflection and trailing glistening water trains over the beach. I turned and made my way back down the dune again, the sand sucking all sound from my movements and pouring in dark runnels down the slope ahead of me. What a strange situation to find myself in. How distant real life suddenly seemed.
I wondered if real life felt a bit removed for him too. What his difficult domestic stuff was. He raised his arm in greeting.
‘You know, you looked just like a prow maiden, standing up there. A mad one, naturally, but very statuesque. Any sign of life?’
I flumped back down beside him in the lee of the wind and gathered my hair into
a coil at the side of my neck, then drew my collar around it a little tighter.
‘Not a thing. What’s the time?’
‘Almost midnight. Time for another wine gum, I think.’
I fished in my pocket and pulled the packet out.
‘Six left. Black or yellow? Or, yep. There’s a red.’
‘No green ones?’
‘No green ones. You already had the last green one.’
‘Yellow, then.’ He took it. ‘God, Sally, look at the state of your hands!’ He took both of them, covering my cold fingers with his warm ones. ‘They’re so scratched and bashed up. And freezing as well. You’d better put my jacket round your shoulders.’
I had barely noticed. But he was right. They were. Criss-crossed with grazes and tiny red weals. And, yes. Very cold. ‘Don’t be daft,’ I said, feeling rather pleased with myself. Kind of blooded and tough. ‘I’m OK.’
‘But you’re freezing. I insist. I’m supposed to be looking after you, don’t forget.’ He let go of my hands and began tugging his zip down.
’Oh, no,’ I said, childishly pleased by this notion. ‘You’re wet. And you’re hurt. So you’re the one who has to keep warm. In fact, you should have my jacket.’
He forestalled my movement with a hand on my arm. ‘Come on! As if! Look, OK, then. Why don’t you move a little closer beside me instead? I know I really need to take a shower, but it’ll make sense, won’t it? Body heat. We’ll both feel a lot warmer if we huddle up a bit.’
So we huddled up a bit.
And huddling up a bit was not, I think, a terrifically good idea.
A silence descended. A very big one.
‘Well,’ he said finally, his awkward tone echoing my thoughts and his arm now heavy around my shoulder. ‘This is cosy, isn’t it?’
I laughed a nervous little laugh. I felt light-headed. I tried to imagine I was huddled up with Russell to see if it would feel tangibly different from being huddled up, as I very much was now, with Nick Brown. I thought it probably would. I thought my pulse would probably be slower. I thought I would probably be a little less heavy on the palpitations front. ‘Very,’ I agreed. ‘Ha ha. Is it somewhere on the Drug U Like teambuilding plan?’
I could feel him nod beside me.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ he said. ‘Teambuilding is what it’s all about, you know.’
‘Ri-ight,’ I said. ‘So do I get extra points then?’
‘Extra points?’
‘Extra points for keeping the group leader warm. Extra points for the selfless distribution of body heat in the face of orienteering injuries. I suspect I’m pretty light on points right now, what with being so bad for your health and everything, so I could certainly use a few.’
I don’t know why I said that. Firstly because it made no sense and was just so much stupid wittering, and secondly because it was a very flirtatious thing to say to a man of staggeringly good looks who has one arm around your shoulder. And who you are finally coming to acknowledge (domestic stuff away with the fairies by now) that you are attracted to in a fairly dramatic and overwhelming way.
I don’t think he knew why I said that, either. He squeezed his arm against mine slightly and laughed a little laugh. It rumbled between us in that peculiarly intimate way laughs do when you’re almost nose to nose with someone of the opposite sex. Then he looked at me. ‘Oh, you got those already, believe me,’ he said quietly.
I didn’t know how to respond to that, laden, as it clearly might have been, with so much ambiguity and unspoken sexual innuendo and implication and so on, but on the other hand he could have been referring to some other aspect of my orienteering skills altogether, which is why exchanges of this nature are such a very tricksy thing to negotiate. Hmm…
I glanced back at him, shy now. Hmm. Assuming, that is, that you were seeing them as something to be negotiated, as opposed to the exchanges of a straightforward chat between two people who have no agendas they want to negotiate conversations towards in the first place. In the end I just said, ‘Pardon?’
He blinked at me. ‘I mean, I mean… sorry,’ he said, looking embarrassed now. ‘Forget I said that. I didn’t mean to say that. But yes. Extra points. Righty-ho.’
But he did mean that. I knew he did. And worse, he knew I knew he did, so neither of us knew quite what to say next. God, how did this feeling manage to creep up on me like this? How did I not see this coming? I wondered if I should perhaps move away from him a little. Put a bit of distance between us. Because the only real difference between huddling and hugging is a clutch of consonants, after all.
On the other hand, if I moved away from him now it would be like confirming that there was a pretty important reason why we should avoid bodily contact with one another, which would not have done at all.
‘Good,’ I said instead, staying where I was and trying (if failing) to convey by means of body language that it was just plain old girl-guidey good sense to do so. The silence wandered back down to join us again and engage us in yet more wordless conversation.
‘Well,’ I went on, interrupting it anxiously. ‘At least it’s not raining. It would be pretty miserable out here if it was raining, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would, certainly,’ he said, nodding.
‘And colder, no doubt.’
‘And colder.’
‘And, well, wet.’
‘And wet.’
‘And miserable.’
‘And miserable. And…well….’ He turned away from me slightly. Looked up at the sky. Opened his mouth as if to speak. Then closed it again. Then took a deep, important sounding breath and turned his head to gaze at me. ‘Sally,’ he began. I took one as well, for insurance. ‘Look, it’s just that…’ he switched his gaze to the the sky again. ‘I don’t know if this is…well, what I guess I mean is that I don’t know if I should really be saying this, but…’ And then he stopped and then started and then said ‘Hey! Look at that!’
He was suddenly pointing. And I followed his gaze, relieved beyond belief to have a diversion from the scary seismic rumble that was beginning to undermine the foundations of our small talk again. My temples were thrumming. ‘What?’
‘That star up there. See it? The one near the horizon. Good God! Is that moving, or what?’
‘A plane?’ I suggested.
‘No, no,’ He dropped his arm from around my shoulder and pushed himself up a little. ‘It isn’t! It’s a star, for certain. And look! It is. It’s moving!’
I raised myself up on to my knees and stared up into the sky. ‘God, you’re right! And look! Look at the tail on it! God, it’s a shooting star! Wow!’
We watched, lapsing into an awed and, this time, less complicated silence, as the pinhead of light, with its fiery white tail, streaked fast, straight and sure across the night sky, till it was lost to us beyond the horizon.
‘Wow,’ I said again.
Nick whistled through his teeth. ‘Wow is right. That was something else, wasn’t it?’ His enthusiasm was child-like. He squeezed my shoulder. ‘That was pretty special, wasn’t it? Jeez. I wish Will could see this! What a thing! You know, I’ve never seen one of those before!’
‘Oh, ho! Never seen one of what?’ came a voice. Russell’s. Cutting through the moment like a well aimed machete. We both turned to look. His head bobbed on the skyline. I could hardly believe we hadn’t heard him coming. I was suddenly, belatedly, all flustered and shaky.
‘Over here!’ he called out behind him. ‘They’re down here.’
He crested the dune and slithered down to meet us, the beam from his torch bouncing before him. He looked very pleased with himself. I was pleased for him. And pleased, no – relieved, that he’d arrived when he had.
‘How’s the invalid?’ he asked, wobbling the beam at Nick’s face. ‘They’ve managed to get the four by four up to the base of the dune back there. D’you think you can hobble it? They’ve got a stretcher and everything if not.’
&n
bsp; ‘I think I can hobble it,’ said Nick, letting us both help him to his feet.
Russell was beaming too. Full of relief. We told him about the shooting star and then we all linked arms and heaved our way back up the sand dune, then over the other side, helped by two of the guys from the centre, and a local paramedic, who took charge of everything with reassuring bonhomie and back slaps all round. Were we feeling OK? Would we like some tea, maybe? Could they get either of us a blanket, perhaps? They fed Nick into the back seat and spent a few moments making a preliminary inspection of his injuries. Like Nick himself, they were pretty sure the ankle wasn’t broken, but there were still his ribs to consider, and the ambulance, they told us, had already been organised. No problem, they said. They’d have us back safely in no time at all.
So that was all right, then.
But just as they closed the back door of the Land Rover, Nick caught my eye and he looked carefully at me. With a curious expression and big, questioning eyes.
I got into the front seat, made mute by the sudden butterflies taking wing in my stomach. God. Didn’t know if he should say what?
Chapter 9
It had been all right when I went to bed. As I’d lain in my bunk, bathed in the wet flannel smell of the communal bathroom next door and listening to the faint rasp of Ruth’s breathing, I had everything all clear and sorted in my head. I loved my husband. Yes, I was attracted to Nick Brown but I did love my husband. Didn’t I? Yes. Of course I did. What a stupid question. I was happily married. The thing with Nick Brown – no, the not-quite-thing with Nick Brown, the could-have-been-but-wasn’t thing with Nick Brown was exactly that. An attraction. A flirtation. A very pleasant flirtation, certainly – it felt nice and right and life-affirming and good to be fancied by someone you fancied back so wholeheartedly, especially when you spent half your life being groped by myopic old men. But that was all it was. One of those grown up but basically insignificant encounters that proper grown ups are wise to. Everything was all right. No need to fret. No need to feel guilty. No need for the thought police. Perish the thought. Nothing – but nothing – had changed.
Straight on Till Morning Page 9