The Christmas Party

by Karen Swan

  Willow shrugged.

  Pip felt her fork drop from her grasp. ‘Christ, I couldn’t have a run-of-the-mill hero, could I? No, I had to get the shithead our family hates.’

  ‘Nobody’s all bad, Pip.’

  But Pip wasn’t listening. ‘Oh jeesht, isn’t there some Chinese proverb about this? He saved my life so now I’ll be forever in his debt till I can save his? Something like that?’

  ‘I’m afraid it gets worse.’

  ‘How?’ Pip laughed bitterly. ‘How does it get worse than that?’

  ‘. . . I kissed him. Remember the guy who’d come over to us?’

  The knife dropped from her hand too and clattered onto the plate as the mocking laughter turned instead to another coughing fit. ‘Him? Pretty boy?’

  Willow reached over and smacked her on the back. ‘It was how I came to see you going into the lake in the first place. We’d gone outside together.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Pip gasped and wheezed, trying to get her breath back. ‘You snogged Dad’s mortal enemy?’

  Willow looked at her. ‘I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that. I didn’t know who he was at the time, and he didn’t know who I was either. We only found out when he turned up today. He was every bit as shocked as me.’

  ‘Oh, I sincerely doubt that. I bet he thought all his ships had come in at once. Jeesht, this is a right sodding mess: you snogged him and he saved my life. What is this – some perverse love-death triangle-thingy?’

  ‘No.’

  Pip looked at her. ‘Have you told Mam?’

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘Any of it? All of it?’

  ‘No. That’s what the “erm” was for. She got into a real state when he turned up earlier and I was over here mucking out. She’s adamant that he can’t even come into the house, much less buy it.’

  ‘Because she associates him with betraying Dad right before he died? Yeah, fair enough! Come on Willow – wake up and smell the whiskey! Dad had his diagnosis, he was trying to get his affairs in order, to provide for Mam and all of us, and that tosser – sorry, life-saving tosser – came along and put a bomb under all his plans.’ She pinned Willow with a hard stare. ‘I don’t care how good a kisser he was, what he did was unforgiveable.’ She picked up her knife and fork again and jabbed them in the air. ‘There was no honour in his behaviour. Believe you me, he showed his true colours in how he dealt with Dad so don’t you be fooled by a single word he says.’

  Willow felt her chest tighten just a little bit at her sister’s words. Was she right? Pip, for all her rash, reckless, impetuousness, was an excellent judge of character.

  ‘Mark my words, anything he brought to you now would be about one thing and one thing only.’

  ‘I know. Buying Lorne.’

  Pip shook her head. ‘Nup. Getting inside your pants.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Do you run a loyalty points scheme?’ Ottie joked as she walked up to the nurses’ station again.

  ‘You’d be a gold member for sure,’ the nurse smiled. ‘The consultant’s just in with him at the moment.’

  Ottie glanced over towards Ben Gilmore’s ward and saw the curtain was pulled around his bed. She felt a shiver of relief as she rested her arms on the counter. ‘That’s fine. I don’t actually need to see him. I was just passing anyway so thought I’d drop by to see how he’s getting on today.’ That was a lie. The hospital was a half-hour drive away but she needed to know he was recovering according to plan. She had slept fitfully, her dreams filled with storms and cliffs, while she was always turning her back as a hand reached out to her . . . If his condition deteriorated, on her head be it.

  ‘Well, he had a restful night and slept through, although that’ll mainly be the chemicals still in his system. It’ll be several days before he’s fully clear of them. But everything’s looking pleasingly unremarkable so far. No complications. His strength and fitness has definitely helped.’

  ‘Really? Oh that’s so great.’

  The nurse smiled again. ‘We rarely see a pulse in the low fifties. It’s usually when someone starts crashing!’

  ‘Ha, well, that’s good.’ She felt another little weight lift off her. He was going to be okay. He was through the worst now, surely?

  ‘Could you contact Broad Oak again for me, please, Nurse Wilson, and see what they’ve got for Mr Gilmore.’

  Mr Gilmore? Ottie turned to find a doctor in a white coat standing beside her and entering something into an iPad.

  ‘Certainly, Ms Cunningham. For how long?’ the nurse asked, picking up the phone.

  ‘Let’s advise up to three weeks but could be out in two.’ She glanced back towards the ward. ‘Probably will be. I don’t think he’s going to be a problem for doing the physio. Clearly driven.’

  ‘Is this . . . is this for Ben Gilmore?’ Ottie asked – but really, how many Gilmores could there be on one ward? – twisting to see that the curtain had been pulled back again. She could just see his exposed, elevated toes from where she was standing.

  ‘And you are?’ the consultant asked.

  ‘Just . . . a friend?’ she suggested hesitantly.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss Mr Gilmore’s care with anyone except immediate family.’

  ‘This lady is the one who found him,’ the nurse said kindly.

  The consultant looked at her again – not in an unfriendly way, but not impressed either. ‘Then well done. You saved his life,’ she said briskly. ‘He wouldn’t have survived much longer in those conditions.’

  Ottie swallowed. There it was again, the crushing guilt; she might have helped save him but that didn’t count when she was the one who’d nearly killed him too – ignoring it when he wasn’t back on time, her being the reason the sign hadn’t been put out, hiding herself from sight as he’d come along the track . . .

  The consultant looked at her more closely, seeming to consider something. ‘If you’re a friend of Mr Gilmore’s, why don’t you have a chat with him? See if you can help in any way.’

  ‘Help?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t get involved; he’ll have to talk to you about it.’ The consultant looked at the nurse. ‘Just hold off making that call for a minute.’ She jerked her chin in the direction of the ward. ‘Go on, he’s perfectly lucid.’

  Ottie gave a faltering smile as she reluctantly headed over to the bed. Again. She really hadn’t wanted to see him, she had just wanted to be sure he hadn’t died in the night. Frankly, just the thought of him being lucid was an intimidating one. She clearly remembered his perceptive gaze. Would he be able to read the guilt all over her face? Would he know it was her fault he was in here, like this?

  His head was turned away as she approached. He was staring out of the window but there was nothing of note to see from this second floor – just the odd stray pigeon flying by. Yesterday’s clear skies were a distant memory already, thick clouds like cotton wool almost snagging on the treetops.

  ‘Hello.’ She stopped, still out in the corridor, not daring to get closer.

  He looked over and frowned as he struggled to place her, his eyes clear but cold, a far cry from yesterday’s limpid curiosity.

  ‘Ottie Lorne. From the campsite.’

  ‘Oh.’ His expression became even more distant. ‘Yes.’

  It was clear he didn’t remember yesterday’s visit. ‘I just came to see how you were.’

  ‘As you can see . . .’ he said tersely, trying to wiggle the fingers of his broken arm. ‘Not so clever.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Why? It’s not your fault.’ He turned his head and looked out of the window again. His face was impassive but his mouth was turned down fractionally at the corners, the sinews pulling on his neck.

  ‘Is there anything I can . . . do for you? Anyone I can call?’

  ‘No . . . Thanks.’ He kept his gaze on the window.

  ‘But there must be people who are worried about you?’

  He turned to look back
at her with an inscrutable expression. ‘No.’

  It was a firm rebuff, only just bordering on the right side of polite.

  She looked down at her hands, not sure what to say next. She couldn’t blame him for his curt replies. The last time they’d met – compos mentis – she’d treated him with scorn, kept him standing in the rain, forced him to pitch a tent in her garden. She’d been spiteful and vindictive, a toxic blend of grief and loneliness moulding her into someone she barely even recognized. How disingenuous it must seem to him to have her standing now at the foot of his bed with eyes full of concern.

  She glanced back at the nurses’ station – the nurse and the consultant were both still standing there, looking over and watching the encounter. She wasn’t sure what it was they wanted her to do.

  ‘So when will they let you go home?’

  ‘When will my tent be gone from your garden, you mean?’ he asked tersely. ‘Don’t worry, you can throw it. Throw everything that’s in it. I apologize for the inconvenience,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘No, I . . . I didn’t mean that. I don’t care about the tent. It’s fine.’

  He glanced over her once, as though looking for clues this was some kind of sting. He relented a little. ‘. . . They’re saying I can be out of here by tomorrow lunchtime if I get up on my feet today.’

  ‘Oh wow! That’s amazing,’ she exclaimed, genuinely shocked. She had assumed he’d be here at least a few weeks.

  ‘Yeah.’ He didn’t sound amazed.

  Her mind started buzzing. ‘Well, have you got your flight arranged? Do you need a cab to the airport? I could call Seamus for you.’ She felt desperate to be helpful, to atone in some way.

  ‘No. I can’t go home yet.’ And when he saw her shocked expression, he added, ‘Thrombosis risk.’

  ‘Oh.’ She felt another spasm of guilt. She’d done this to him. She had. ‘And where’s home?’

  ‘New York.’

  A transatlantic flight. There was no way the doctors would condone that a few days after surgery. ‘So when can you fly?’

  ‘Few weeks.’

  ‘A few weeks?’ She quickly calculated in her head. It was the tenth of December. ‘Can you get back in time for Christmas?’

  ‘They’re saying there’s a small chance, depending on my recovery. I’m going to have to have a lot of physio first.’

  She placed her hand over her mouth, the earlier relief that she was off the hook beginning to fall away, the weights settling back onto her shoulders. ‘God, that’s awful.’

  He gave a small shrug. ‘It is what it is. They’ve been telling me it could have been a lot worse.’

  He couldn’t know it but his words were like a kick, a direct blow to her stomach. She forced a tight smile. ‘So where will you go in the meantime?’

  He shrugged. ‘I can’t stay here; they need the beds, so they’re trying to get me into a rehab centre, I think.’

  Ottie stared at him, remembering the consultant’s directive at the desk. Broad Oaks? It was an old people’s home – and not a reputable one, either. ‘Surely there’s another option?’

  ‘Apparently there’s not much of a rental market round here for recuperating invalids.’ He looked at her. ‘Unless you know a hotel where I could get a room?’

  Hotel? No. There were rooms at the Hare but that was a rickety seventeenth-century building and the staircase up to them was narrow and perilously steep. She looked at his leg, suspended on the pulley, a bulky and frankly scary-looking brace with pins on his knee. There was no way he’d manage them.

  Another thought came to her but she pushed it away again immediately. There was simply no way she could—

  ‘Mr Gilmore—’

  She jumped as a voice carried over her shoulder and she turned to find the nurse standing at the foot of his bed. ‘We’ve spoken to Broad Oaks and they have a bed available for the dates you need. Shall I go ahead and confirm it for you? I’m sorry to press but as you might imagine, there’s more demand than supply.’

  He nodded bleakly. ‘It’s fine. Go ahead and confirm.’

  Ottie looked at him, and then at the nurse. She knew Broad Oaks. It had views over the bins, and food that even Pip would think twice about eating. The girl in McGinty’s, the grocer’s, had worked there briefly as a care assistant and left after four months as a whistleblower to certain care practices.

  ‘Okay,’ the nurse said with a nod, turning to go again.

  ‘Wait!’ The word had left Ottie’s lips before she even knew she was saying it.

  The nurse and patient both looked at her quizzically.

  ‘Uh . . .’ She felt her voice falter. What was she doing? This man was a stranger and poor company. He made her nervous with his cold, taciturn manner. She didn’t like being here visiting him; she certainly didn’t want to share her home with him. ‘He can stay with me.’

  ‘What?’ He didn’t sound happy about it either.

  ‘My place is all on one level – bedroom, bathroom, kitchen – he’ll be able to move about easily. Plus there’s a lot of natural light, which I imagine will make a difference when you’re stuck cooped up like this.’

  ‘How many bedrooms are there?’ the nurse asked, looking between them both.

  ‘Only one. But I . . .’ Oh God, was she really going to say this? ‘I can sleep on the sofa. It’s not a problem. It’s a big sofa, very comfy.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, I couldn’t allow that,’ Gilmore said firmly. ‘It’s very kind of you, Miss uh . . .’ He’d forgotten her name again.

  ‘Ottie. Ottie Lorne.’

  ‘Right. It’s very kind of you to offer but I can’t accept.’

  ‘Look, you don’t know what that place is like. Trust me, you would not optimize your recovery there. And if you want to get home in time for Christmas . . .’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s too much to ask.’

  ‘But you’re not asking. I’m offering.’

  He frowned at her, looking at her with bafflement, as though her words – and proposed actions – made no sense to him.

  ‘Besides, I’m only thirty minutes away from here if you need to come in for physio sessions. And I’m around in the day so I can help if you need to get to appointments. And things.’

  The nurse looked back at her patient with a discreetly encouraging look. ‘Mr Gilmore? It’s your decision.’

  But Gilmore was just staring at her. ‘I don’t understand why you would put yourself out like this. You don’t know me.’

  Was this it – the moment to come clean?

  ‘It’s the right thing to do, Mr Gilmore,’ she shrugged instead, not quite able to meet his eyes. ‘You were booked to stay at Lorne anyway. You’ll just be indoors instead of out, that’s all. And your stuff’s already there, so . . .’

  She felt he could see right through her, that her shows of kindness were a front for the guilt she felt and couldn’t shake: that he had nearly lost his life because of her.

  ‘It’s a generous offer, Mr Gilmore,’ the nurse prompted, and Ottie knew she knew the truth about the facilities at the care home too; it had been in all the local papers last summer. ‘You may well be more comfortable in a private environment, rather than an institution.’

  He was silent for another minute, regarding her critically as though waiting for her to suddenly turn round and say it was all a joke, a terrible mistake, a well-intentioned misunderstanding. ‘I guess it would be churlish to say no, then.’

  The nurse seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Great. I’ll call them and release the bed.’

  Ottie looked back and met his gaze. She felt suddenly shy, awkward even. What had she done – inviting him to stay in her house?

  ‘Well, I don’t know how to thank you, Miss Lorne,’ he said, even though the puzzled look remained on his face.

  She smiled stiffly. ‘No need.’

  A little silence bloomed.

  ‘– And please, call me Ottie,’ she added.

  ‘Ben.’
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br />   ‘Nice to meet you.’ She gave another awkward smile. ‘Again.’

  ‘I’d shake your hand but . . .’ He waggled his fingers from his cast.

  ‘Ha, yes.’ She looked back down at the bed again, at all the contraptions hanging from it and the way his broken body was firmly being held together. She was no nurse. She was no friend of his. She felt a burst of panic. What on earth had she done?

  ‘Pick your leg up.’ Pip patted at the foreleg impatiently. ‘Come on, boy, pick it up.’ She tapped it again but the horse stood stubbornly with his weight on all four legs.

  She straightened up with a huff, her hands on her hips. ‘Really?’ she asked, looking into his deep chocolaty-brown eyes. ‘How long are you going to keep this up for?’

  Magnus didn’t reply, just blinked slowly.

  She sighed. ‘Look, I miss her as much as you do but there’s no point sulking with me. It’s not my fault.’

  He tossed his head, almost connecting with her cheek.

  ‘Okay, yes, fine, you’re right,’ she groaned, reaching her hand up underneath his long head and resting her own against it. ‘It is my fault. All of it. I’m a bloody eejit and there’s no one for me to blame, no one at all, it’s my own sorry mess.’ She stroked the extraordinary curve of his cheek. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I hate myself for it. I’d do anything to get her back,’ she whispered.

  She closed her eyes, feeling the smooth warmth of him. She had slept poorly again, tossing and turning all night, darkness and oblivion something her body was fighting against at the moment as it prompted memories and feelings she wanted to deny. And now Shalimar’s absence in the stall beneath her bed was like a siren going off, making it impossible to rest.

  His head nuzzled into her and she stepped closer into him, burrowing her face in his neck as the tears flowed again, unstoppable though thankfully silent. He never minded when she cried on him, plus he kept all her secrets. He seemed to understand just how tough everything had been recently, how losing her dad – work buddy, mentor – made the days lonely and long; how even taking a bath was suddenly a challenging proposition, the sight of a body of water now menacing in its stillness . . .