‘I managed to keep my father going until we got to the hospital, and my mother was with him when he died, although he never recovered consciousness, and after she’d said goodbye to her husband, I had to take her down to the chapel of rest to say goodbye to her son.’
He broke off for a moment, reliving it, and beside him he heard Kate suck in a shaky breath. ‘Nick, you don’t have to do this.’
‘It’s OK,’ he said softly, taking her hand and squeezing it. ‘It’s time we talked about it, because otherwise it’s too damned easy to say we should have known better. Anyway, I took them back to the house, Annabel and my mother, and we had tea.’ He gave a shaky laugh. ‘It’s funny how tea always seems to come into this equation. I can’t tell you how much tea and coffee I’ve drunk in the last couple of days. Anyway, after a while Mum started to cry—that terrible sound of grief.’
‘Oh, Nick. Poor, poor woman. How on earth did she cope, losing both of them on the same day?’
‘She didn’t. It broke her. And on that night of course we couldn’t leave her, but I couldn’t stop thinking about James, and neither could Annabel. She told me to go and find you and see if there was any news of him. I think we both knew he was dead, and afterwards I wondered if she knew what she was doing when she sent me. I suspect she did. She wasn’t stupid.’
It had been a bizarre conversation, most of the words unsaid, he remembered. And he could remember, too, the look in her eyes. The understanding, the quiet resignation. The blessing. He gave a quiet sigh and went on.
‘The rest you know. I found you on the headland, with the wind and rain lashing your clothes, and you were so cold—chilled to the bone.’
‘I was waiting for you. I knew you’d come.’
‘I don’t know how. I just knew I had to.’
He’d undressed her and put her in the shower, and put the kettle on, just like the other day. And just like the other day, he’d heard her crying, like his mother, with inconsolable grief, and he’d gone to her. The woman he loved, the girl he’d fallen for. The woman, he realised, he still loved with all his heart. He closed his eyes and swallowed.
He paused, remembering that he’d already stripped off his saturated, blood-stained shirt, and he’d taken off the rest and gone into the shower and put his arms around her and held her, and she’d clung to him, just as she’d clung to him that morning, and they’d cried together. He had no idea how long for. Ten minutes? An hour?
He wasn’t really sure what had happened then. He hadn’t understood it at the time and he still didn’t understand it now, but they’d needed each other in a way so deep, so elemental that there had been no denying it. They were both angry, furious that something so crazy had happened to kill two young, healthy men with years ahead of them and an old man who should have lived to enjoy his retirement and instead had been snuffed out like a candle.
Maybe it was just defiance, and the fact that people they’d loved had died so senselessly, and it was almost as if they’d had to prove to themselves that they were still alive, but there had been no stopping it, no reasoning, just a soul-deep need that had driven them half-crazed into each other’s arms.
Afterwards he’d turned off the water and dried her and put her to bed and then he’d gone home and showered and changed and gone back to his wife. They’d never spoken of it again, but after that, nothing had been quite the same…
‘Nick?’
He started a little and stared at Kate, then shook his head to clear it of the unwanted, haunting images.
‘I’m sorry that night was so awful for you all,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for telling me. And I’m sorry the kids were hard on you.’
‘It’s OK. It’s over now, and I’m glad it’s out in the open. I think they realise now that it wasn’t a premeditated decision to betray their mother, or that Jem was conceived as a drunken result of some sordid little date, just two people, who had always cared about each other, on the edge of despair and reaching out to each other that night.’
‘We weren’t ourselves. No wonder we didn’t think about contraception, not then and not afterwards.’
‘I did, but not till weeks later, when you told me you were pregnant, and I asked you if it was my child, and you said no. And I accepted it without question, with relief, even, because I didn’t ever want to have to think of that night again. But you knew, didn’t you? You knew he was mine because of the fertility problems.’
‘Yes. Yes, I knew. James’s notes had gone back to the PCT when he died, so I’d had to ring the clinic and ask them for the results, and they’d told me that James was sterile. But I couldn’t tell you. Not then. It wouldn’t have achieved anything and so many more people would have been hurt. But maybe now we can move on.’
‘Maybe.’
He turned his head, and she lifted her face and their lips met in a gentle, tender kiss that made her heart skip a beat. He shifted, turning towards her, and their legs tangled, their bodies hard against each other.
‘Nick, we can’t,’ she whispered, and he sighed, his breath soft against her cheek.
‘I know. I just need to hold you.’
But he kept on kissing her, his lips tracing soft circles over her cheeks, her eyes, her throat.
‘Nick…’
‘Shh. It’s all right,’ he murmured, drawing her closer again and settling her head on his shoulder once more.
‘I’m going in a minute.’
Except he didn’t. He was asleep in seconds, emotionally exhausted, and although her arm had gone to sleep, she didn’t have the heart to wake him. So she lay there for an hour, until he stirred and gave a sleepy grunt, and she murmured his name.
‘Sorry—I didn’t mean to doze off. Are you all right?’ he asked, sitting up and shifting out of her way.
‘I’m fine. My arm’s dead, though.’
He tutted and took it in his hands, rubbing it briskly until the pins and needles had gone and she sighed with relief, and then he stood up. ‘I ought to go home. How’s Jem been? Did he go to sleep all right?’
‘Yes, he’s fine. And Sam and Gemma have a baby boy. They’re calling him Archie—Archie Nicholas, for you.’
She heard him suck in his breath, and then let it out again, obviously touched by the gesture. ‘That’s great. How are they?’
‘Well. Fine. The baby’s beautiful, and Gemma’s OK, it was a nice, straightforward delivery. It was lovely to see them. A bit of normality, really. They send their love.’
‘I’ll pop up tomorrow, take them something. And I ought to bring Jem in something, but I have no idea what. I don’t want to look as if I’m trying to buy him,’ he said with a wry grin, and she laughed.
‘So bring him grapes. He adores grapes, and he needs fruit on all these opiates.’
‘Grapes? Lucy gives him a games console that probably cost well over a hundred pounds, and you suggest I bring him grapes?’ he said, laughing softly.
‘Or you could look as if you’re trying to buy him,’ she said reasonably, and he sighed.
‘OK. Grapes it is. And I suppose the games console’s only on loan.’
It was, although of course he could always buy him his own, she thought, but she didn’t suggest it. Time enough later for extravagant gestures, and she’d rather he didn’t get into the habit of playing on a games machine as a regular thing.
He bent and kissed her cheek, then lifted his head slightly, stared into her eyes and slowly lowered his head again, touching his lips to hers once more. Just briefly, very lightly, but it was like being stroked with fire.
‘Sleep tight. I’ll see you in the morning,’ he murmured, and he went out and closed the door softly behind him, leaving her lying there with her fingers on her lips, and her body tingling with anticipation.
Chapter Seven
NICK didn’t arrive until ten the next day, to her surprise.
By the time he came in, Martin Bradley had been round, and as Jem seemed comfortable, the surgeon said he could try sitting u
p a little in bed, instead of just having his head and shoulders being propped up.
It ached a bit, Jem said, but Kate could tell he was happier. He was getting so bored lying down, and sitting up properly he was able to play with the games console to his heart’s content while she sat beside him with a magazine and let it all go on around her.
Her presence was less essential now than it had been. He was no longer in danger, and he was used to the staff, familiar with his surroundings and happier about being left.
She’d already decided the night before that it would be the last time she stayed, and she was getting desperate for her own bed.
Or at least one that didn’t have a plastic mattress.
If Nick would only arrive, she thought, she could talk to him about the barn. She hadn’t told Jem yet what their plans were, she wanted to do that with Nick, preferably before he signed on the dotted line at the letting agent’s, but when he arrived he dangled a bunch of keys in front of her with a smug grin, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
‘Your keys, ma’am,’ he said, dropping them into her hand. ‘You can move in whenever you like.’
She was at the nurses’ station, out in the ward, talking to the ward sister and Megan Phillips about what was to happen next, and she stared at the keys in slight consternation.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said, his voice dropping. ‘I thought that was what you wanted?’
‘It is,’ she said. ‘But—I thought we were going to talk to Jem first? What if he says no?’
‘What if he does? He’s ten years old, Kate. There are some decisions that aren’t his to make. This is a temporary fix, for a few weeks initially, to cover his convalescence. His friends can come and visit, he can treat it as a holiday—and if it doesn’t work out, if he doesn’t want me around, then I can go home. It doesn’t change anything. It’s just for now.’
He was right, of course—he was always right, she thought, except when he was wrong, and then it tended to be on an epic scale. But this—this was just common sense, and she let her breath out on a little huff of laughter and tried to smile.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry, it’s not as if it’s a permanent thing. I’m being silly.’
And she’d been letting herself get carried away with all the possibilities. A temporary fix, she reminded herself. Just that, nothing more, for a few weeks, and it might be a total disaster on several counts.
‘This might be more long term,’ he said then, pulling another set of keys from his pocket, and dropping them in her hand too.
She glanced down, and blinked. ‘Car keys?’
‘Mmm. I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I asked Chloe if you’d said anything. She mentioned a model you liked.’
She stared at the keys, confused. ‘You’ve got me a car on the PCT contract this quickly?’ she said. Surely she had to sign something…
‘No. I’ve bought you a Golf—a nice economical little diesel. They’re delivering it to the barn this afternoon.’
She stared at him as if he’d gone mad. ‘You bought me a new car?’
‘No. It’s not new. It’s two years old. I thought you’d shout at me if I got you a new one.’
She opened her mouth to shout at him anyway, and to her horror a little sob came out instead.
‘Kate?’
‘Sorry,’ she said, flapping her hand and blinking hard. ‘I—It’s just—Oh, Nick, you didn’t have to do that. I could have got myself another car. Renting the house is one thing, this is quite another. You’re doing too much, going too fast.’
‘No, I’m not.’ This one’s got a much better NCAP crash rating. I’m not trying to bribe you,’ he said grimly, ‘I’m trying—too late—to make sure my son stays safe.’
She swallowed, unable to argue, filled with guilt that her car had contributed to his injuries, but he misunderstood her silence and sighed.
‘I’m sorry. I know I interfere. It doesn’t matter, you can use it for the moment and once you get yourself the car you want, I’ll give it to Lucy or something, make it a pool car for the practice maybe.’
‘No!’ She closed her hand around the keys, reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you. I was just stunned, that’s all. I’ve had to rely on myself for so long, and—Oh, damn.’
Her eyes were welling up, and she rummaged for a tissue in her pocket. He got there first, plucking one off the top of the nurses’ station and handing it to her, and she blew her nose and sniffed hard. ‘Sorry. It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster.’
‘I know. How is he?’
She filled him in on the day’s events, and he went in to see Jem while she packed her things in the little room she’d been using and gave herself a thorough talking to. She handed the key back to the staff nurse and thanked her, and went into Jem’s room to find Nick perched beside him on the bed, leaning up against the backrest and watching him with the games console while he ate grapes.
‘You could put that down for five minutes, you know,’ she pointed out, but Jem just grinned.
‘Uncle Nick wanted to see how I was doing. I was just showing him. I’ve been teaching him how to use it.’
She stared at him, realising how easily these two had slipped into an easy relationship, almost as if Jem knew Nick was his father. He must have been so desperate for a father all these years, she thought, and he’d never said a word about it; perhaps he didn’t realise it, even now. She’d thought he was all right, that they were fine on their own, but maybe she’d been deluding herself and all the time there’d been a void.
A void that should have been filled by Nick.
‘We’ve got something to talk to you about,’ she said, determined to get the barn out into the open. ‘Could you put that down and listen, please?’
He looked up at her, his eyes wary, and then looked down again. ‘Oh, no, it killed me!’ he wailed, and put the console down on the locker, then looked up at her again a little worriedly. ‘What did you want to talk about?’
‘You. When you come out of here, you might not be able to walk up and down stairs for a while, and we’ve got no bathroom downstairs.’
‘Oh. Does that mean I’ll have to stay in here longer, till I can go upstairs?’ he asked miserably. ‘I don’t want to. I want to go home as soon as I can. It’s not the same here.’
‘I know. And, no, it doesn’t mean that. It means we’ll have to stay somewhere else for a little while. Uncle N—’ She broke off, met Nick’s eyes ruefully and went on, ‘Uncle Nick’s found somewhere for us, somewhere he can stay, too, just outside Penhally, near Ben and Lucy. It’s a barn, and it’s got a downstairs bedroom with doors out to the garden, and an en suite wetroom—’
‘What’s a non-sweet wetroom?’
‘En suite—it’s French. It means it’s a bathroom attached just to one bedroom. And a wetroom means it’s got a tiled floor and you just walk into it and shower, so you wouldn’t even have to step up to a shower tray.’
‘Wow. And we can stay there?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re coming?’ he asked, swivelling his head round to look at Nick, and he nodded.
‘Yes—so I can help out, and I can do stuff for you that you might not want your mum doing, like help you shower and so on, if you need help at first.’
He nodded. ‘Can the dog come?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. So was that all you want to talk about?’
She met Nick’s eyes and they were full of relief and wry humour. She smiled. ‘Nothing else. Just that.’
‘Oh. Well, can I try and get to the next level, then? I was nearly there and then it killed me.’
‘Kids.’
‘Don’t. I can’t believe he took it so well.’
‘Of course he did,’ Nick said as if it was obvious, and put the tray down on the table. ‘He trusts you to take care of him. You’ve done it—made it possible for him to be discharged as soon as it’s practicable. Why should he take it any other way?’
‘Because we always talk everything through. Before I do anything, we talk it through. We’re not impulsive like you.’
He looked at her as if she had two heads, and she thought of Lucy and Jack pointing out to him that he interfered, and stifled a smile.
‘Don’t laugh at me. I’m not impulsive, I’m decisive. It’s different,’ he protested.
‘Actually, you’re both,’ she pointed out gently, reaching for her coffee. ‘Nick, you’re going to have to get used to him. Jem likes to see all sides of a thing before he’ll commit to it. If I say jump, he doesn’t ask how high, he asks why. And I know it’s an alien concept to you, but it’s the way I’ve brought him up.’
‘It’s not an alien concept,’ he disagreed, stirring his coffee with huge concentration. ‘It’s just that some things are as they are. He has to know that there isn’t always an answer, that sometimes you have to take some things and some people on trust.’
‘And you know what he’d say to that?’
‘“Why?”’ they said together, and then laughed, reaching out and linking their fingers on the table.
‘Did you get anything for Gemma’s baby?’ she asked, and he nodded.
‘Yes. I found a lovely pop-up book of farm animals. It’s not for now, obviously, but I thought he might like it later.’
‘That’s a lovely idea, and it goes really well with my present. I’ve knitted him a little jumper with fluffy sheep on the front.’
He frowned quizzically. ‘Really? You can knit?’
She laughed. ‘Of course I can knit! All women can knit.’
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