by Jane Linfoot
From the corner of his eye he saw her make a lunge to retrieve them.
‘Ouch.’
Xander heard her sharp cry, and pivoted in time to see her jack-knife to the ground.
‘Okay, what now?’ This time he made no attempt to hide his exasperation.
She crouched, then slipped back to sitting and grasped one bare foot, and a mile of thigh slid into view as her skirt bunched-up.
Christ. Not what he needed.
‘Damn.’ Her fingers were dark as she pulled them away from her foot.
He leaned in for a better look. ‘Is that blood?’
Ignoring both him, and the scarlet smears all over the lemon leather, she rammed her shoes on, got up, and began to hobble past him.
‘Wait.’ Somehow he’d already stepped into her path, and was barring her way. ‘Let me take a look?’
As she screwed up her face and hesitated for a minute he suspected she was about to argue. Then she thought better of it, and stuck out her foot.
He’d take that as an okay then. Crouching, he grasped her ankle, and her weight wavered against his arm. ‘You might want to grab my shoulder if you don’t want to fall over.’ Given her scowl, he’d let her decide for herself.
‘Right. Now bend your knee so I can see the bottom of your foot.’ Brushing away the blood with his thumb, he closed his eyes to the view straight up her skirt and focused on the wound. ‘It looks quite deep.’
‘I’m fine, it’s nothing.’ She was rifling through her skirt pocket now, sending a shower of sweet wrappers past his cheek. ‘You don’t have a hanky do you?’
‘Sorry.’ He gave a helpless shrug.
‘I thought men in suits always carried them.’ She let out a snort of disgust, and yanked her ankle away. ‘In that case I’ll go.’
He was on his knees, her dress so far in his face he was breathing in the scent of fabric conditioner, and more. No matter how much he wanted her gone, no matter how fast his heart was pumping, he couldn’t let her go when she was hurt.
‘No.’ He was already on his feet. ‘There’s a first aid kit in the car, I’ll get you a plaster.’
She hesitated, then began to shake her head.
‘How about I’m not taking no for an answer?’ Part of his brain was telling him he should never have touched her, and another part was telling him he had to touch. ‘I’ll carry you so you don’t get more dirt in the wound.’
‘I don’t think…’
There were times when you had to overrule an argument, even if it made you look like a caveman. He sprang forward, and this time he grasped her under her arms and knees.
‘Hold on tight.’ A curiously strong, sweet scent drifted up from her hair. No way was he going to enjoy the feel of her body, hot and heavy, bumping against him with each stride. Judging by her squirms and squawks of protest, she’d decided the same.
He supported her easily with one arm, as he undid the tailgate, and slid her onto the carpeted floor of the Range Rover. ‘Can I smell bubble gum?’
‘Oh, it’s probably my tutti-frutti kiddy de-tangler, I use it when I’ve got paint in my hair, and I don’t have time to wash it.’
‘Right.’ That information dump left him none the wiser. ‘Lean up against the back seat if you like, pretend you’re in Holby City…’
He grabbed the green plastic first aid box and flipped it open. He rested her dusty calf on his hand and set about examining the base of her foot before tearing open an antiseptic wipe.
‘Sorry, this may sting.’ He felt her flinch with the first touch, then he began to clean away the blood, determined not to look above her ankle.
‘You don’t have to do this.’
Xander carried on wiping. ‘I’m responsible. You trod on my broken glass after all.’
‘But you’re a Range Rover driver, and by definition, Range Rover drivers don’t know the meaning of responsibility.’
He gave her ankle a tug. ‘And you’re more stupid than I thought, making comments like that when I’ve got your foot in my hand.’
She gave a snort and sank back down.
‘I don’t think you need A & E. There was a lot of blood, but I think an Elastoplast will do the job. Maybe a dinosaur plaster to go with the tutti-frutti?’ If he talked seamlessly there would be no space for her belligerent comments.
When she didn’t reply, he dared to look directly at her, taking in the flecks of freckles across her nose. Her cheeks were paler than he’d remembered, she almost looked…
Shit. He slapped the Band-Aid into place. ‘Are you feeling okay? If you’re going to pass out you need to lie flat.’ From back here she almost looked green. ‘Lie down, breathe deeply, you’ll be fine again in a minute.’
Her face was an unearthly white now. He needed to sound reassuring not exasperated, because exasperation would only prolong things.
He gently pushed her back flat, and began to fan her with a map he’d grabbed from the back seat, trying to ignore how small and helpless she looked. He winced as he caught sight of a slice of a bright pink bra between buttons, and rammed his spare hand firmly in his pocket. He flapped the map harder.
‘Don’t worry, just lie still, and you’ll be fine again soon. There’s some water here for you to sip when you feel better.’
Jeez, he spent his life avoiding women who were vertical, the last thing he needed was a horizontal one, in the back of his car. She gave a low groan. With any luck, she’d be insulting him again at any moment. He waited, and the silence stretched to what felt like forever. Perhaps conversation would drag her back to consciousness.
‘So did you bring anything out of the skip in the end then?’
‘I left it…’
A mumble, but at least she was conversing. That was a good sign.
‘You’re telling me you didn’t get whatever you went in for?’ He shook his head. All this for nothing. How stupid was that? ‘What was it?’ He leant in towards her to see if she was moving. The scent of tutti-frutti engulfed him again, but there was another, indefinable, delicious overtone, that set his heart on edge. Warm woman. How long was it since he’d smelled that?
‘I was rescuing a cherub.’ She was almost coherent again.
‘Save a whale, adopt a tiger, rescue a cherub…Would you like some water?’
Xander held his breath as she lifted her head, pushed back her hair, and stuck out a hand to grasp the bottle he was holding towards her.
‘Please…’
She lifted the bottle to her lips, and the way the column of her neck moved as she swallowed sent his stomach into spasm. As he waited, he counted broken window panes in the garage, and shut out the knots in his gut. She was sitting up now.
‘Stay there.’ He wasn’t sure that she had any choice about that. ‘I won’t be long.’
One impulsive thought, and he was heading off towards the skip. At least it was an excuse to put distance between himself and the girl, and good thinking on that. What he didn’t understand was the sense that on some deep and hidden level he wanted to please her.
He vaulted over the skip side, found the elusive cherub in the dirt, and twenty seconds later he was putting it into her hand.
‘Thanks for that.’ She examined the cherub, rubbing the dust off it. ‘But why throw it away in the first place?’ One coherent reply he could have done without, and, grateful might have worked better than an insolent pout.
‘I only hope you think it’s worth a cut foot.’ He wasn’t up for a wastefulness lecture.
She shrugged, and her mouth curved into an involuntary smile as she turned the cherub over in her hand. ‘He’s beautiful. I love cherubs. Are you sure you don’t want him?’
As her face lit up, Xander’s pulse raced, and he gave himself a hard mental kick for that. ‘No, rubbish really isn’t my thing. How come cherubs are always male?’
He watched her smile stretch further at this, and when she turned to look up at him, he caught the smoky blue of her eyes, and something about her raw v
ulnerability shot him through.
Shifting, she tossed him a grin. ‘Not sure, just a fact of angel life.’ She began to scramble out of the back of the car.
Result. Or maybe not.
Because now she was pointing at his thigh and wailing. ‘Oh no, I’ve got blood on your trousers…’
‘It’s nothing.’ He looked down at the splodge next to his fly, not sure he could stand the scrutiny.
‘I’m really sorry.’ Her eyes had locked onto his cock. ‘Can I pay for dry cleaning?’
‘Really, not a problem.’ Except there would be if she didn’t stop staring.
She raised her eyes at last and looked at him. ‘I’d better be going then. Thanks…for the stuff…and for looking after my foot.’
Was she hesitating? Fleetingly Xander wondered where she was going next, what she was about to do, who she was going to be with. Whatever, it definitely had nothing to do with him, and he really didn’t want to know.
‘Wait. Do you need a lift anywhere?’ He heard himself make this polite query, and was appalled by his sudden reluctance to see her leave. Any excuse to prolong the contact?
‘Thanks, but I’ve got my own transport round the corner.’ As she limped away she shot a grin over her shoulder. ‘In any case I’d rather have my finger nails pulled out than travel in a Range Rover.’
Xander watched her uneven progress across the site. Just as she was about to reach the gateway, he raised his hand, and shouted after her. ‘Just don’t let this happen again, okay.’
If a voice inside his head was insisting that he wouldn’t mind one bit if it happened again, he really wasn’t going to listen. Automatically he stooped to pick up the rubbish she’d scattered across the dirt when she’d gone through her pockets earlier. Tidying up was futile, but maybe someone needed to start. There was one tattered card in amongst the sweet papers. Vintage at the Cinema. That faded retro font might have come straight from one of his sister Christina’s colour boards. The address rang a bell, probably from a property alert. Due to his spending power, he was first in the agents’ email firing line when new properties came up. The card was in his pocket before he realised. To pass on to Christina, obviously.
When he looked up again, the girl had reached the tall stone gate post. She turned to give him a last defiant smirk, and then a second later she’d disappeared into the dusk.
6
Thursday Morning, 5th June
DIDA
On the school run
Lunch bags and swear boxes
‘It’s really important to go as fast as you can, please Lolly.’
There were many times when Dida regretted her decision never to use the word “hurry” in the presence of her children, and this morning was one of them. She just had that idea that if she did include it in her vocabulary she’d over use it to the point where no one would take any notice anyway, and somehow she wanted her kids to have the kind of idyllic life where they didn’t ever feel rushed or pressured. This early in the morning her high ideals were still in place for the day, whereas by six o’clock in the evening it was a whole different ball game. She’d barely slept the night before, kept awake by the double adrenalin rush of anger and anxiety about the cinema. Then at six am, just as she was dropping off, a text had come through from Aidie about the cinema sale, that had her wide awake with rage. The derogatory way he talked about Vintage at the Cinema as her “playing at shops” made her want to stamp on his head all over again. The only vaguely positive news was that it didn’t sound as if he actually had a buyer in the pipeline, which at least gave them a bit of breathing space. But however shite she was feeling, she must try not to pass her fatigue and irritability on to the kids. She was failing.
‘Who the hell thought it was a good idea, or even possible, to set off on a school trip at eight in the morning anyway. It’s bloody inhuman.’ Damn. Her swear box account for today was already long open and showing a large and unhealthy deficit. ‘Lunch boxes are your responsibility. If you forget them, I won’t be bringing them. Right, jump into the car, and make it snappy.’ Waving her keys in the air as she ran, she clicked the button, and heard the clunk as the car unlocked.
Eric was onto her as he arrived. ‘That’s your fifteenth swear word this morning.’
Dida bristled. ‘You’re counting well for someone who was barely awake enough to eat their Weetabix. Remind me what you’re doing on this trip?’
Eric gave a shrug as he clambered into the front seat, and pulled out an earphone. ‘How should I know, you were the one who was supposed to read the letter.’
Eye roll and head shake to that one. Dida hurled her bag and the lunch boxes onto the seat, then flung open the back door, and shouldered Lolly onto her booster.
Lolly’s squawk of protest left Dida’s ears ringing. ‘Hey mind my wings…’
‘Isn’t that tiara a bit ornate for school?’ Dida grimaced at the Barbie pink crystal clusters as she clicked Lolly’s seatbelt into place and made a dash for the driver’s seat.
Her daughter’s withering stare flagged up the stupidity of the question.
‘Hills and caves.’ Eric sent her a grin as she pushed the key into the ignition.
‘What…?’ Sometimes this boy was so random.
‘Hills and caves, that’s what we’re going to see.’ He fished a crumpled bit of paper out of his bag. ‘The impact of tourism on the physical landscape around Castleton. Remember?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Not entirely.
Dida swung the car around on the gravel drive, then, as it slid between the gateposts, she braked, flipped down her sun visor mirror, and whipped a lippy out of the door pocket. Regardless of how late they were, her first and last rule of the morning was never to leave home without lippy. While Marilyn Munroe said “Give a girl the right shoes and she will conquer the world”, Dida put her faith in lipstick. In her experience you couldn’t underestimate the power of a perfectly applied pout. Not so much of the perfect this morning, but it would have to do. This morning she needed every bit of help she could get. Pursing her mouth onto the red slick of Mac Ruby Woo, she flicked the sun visor back up, then glanced into the rear view mirror, for her second affirmation of the day – a flash of the front facade of Alport Towers. That glimpse of tall sash windows, the mellow coursed stone, and the gently carved parapet, never failed to fill her chest with warmth. This house gave her both a direction and an identity, and this one fleeting snapshot, caught in the mirror each time she left home, reminded her why she was carrying on, and somehow rebalanced her. Today more than most she needed that view, to remind her why she was still here, when Aidie was such a bastard.
She drew in a long breath, and then she nosed the car through the monumental gateposts, and out onto the main street of Alport. She’d scoop up Luce at school, and head off to Izzy’s to discuss the sale of the cinema. And together, they’d work out a fight strategy.
One lamp post later, Lolly was onto the next thing. ‘Mum, can I have a falabella?’
Dida accelerated through the village, momentarily blocking the thought of the local speed vigilantes, twitching their lace curtains. ‘What the hell’s a falabella?’
‘Sixteen swear words.’ Eric’s triumphant cry morphed to a whine. ‘If she’s having a falabella, I’m definitely having Black Ops…and a new pair of Vans.’
‘No one’s having a bloody falabella, okay?’ Whatever it was, Dida wasn’t about to buy one. Full stop.
‘Seventeen…and it’s not even half past seven. You may be heading for a swear record here.’
Dida took a deep breath, counted to ten, and reached to push on the stereo. She wasn’t used to being under fire from Eric. She viewed the weekdays as ceasefire time. Hopefully Radio One might shut them up. Calvin Harris, she could cope with. As for lyrics about falling in love and lying cheats…
Talking of Aidie, there was something niggling her which she needed to get onto as soon as she had a minute. So many of the names of the women Aidie saw were full of V
’s, and they all sounded vaguely similar. Logged on her spread sheet like some Soviet birth register, they were bound to become a blur. She’d have checked it last night if she hadn’t been so preoccupied, but thinking about it this morning, she had a feeling she might have seen one of the names before. Not that there was anything for her to worry about, it was completely feasible for two women in Lithuania to have the same name. But one area where Aidie was completely reliable, was that he always dated a different woman every time – that was his trademark thing – and she derived some strange kind of security from knowing that he wasn’t deviating from the norm.
Dida zoomed through the lights on amber, slowing down as she turned along Derwent Street. Snatching a sideways glance, and checking out the shop windows of Vintage at the Cinema gave her a thrill every time, but this morning the monster For Sale sign hanging high on the wall above the door turned her heart to ice.
‘What the hell…?’ Three shops further along the road she jumped on the brakes, and the car behind screeched to a halt inches from her back windscreen. The spray tan shop had changed overnight. Yesterday it was a plain shop front albeit one that was adorned with tacky ads for fast bronzing. Now there was brown paper on the windows, but, way, way worse, was the sign that said Heart your retro home? Watch this space!.
‘You need to learn more swear words Mum, Miss Raymond in English says repeating yourself is a sign your brain is stagnating.’
‘Thanks Eric, I’ll bear that in mind.’ Ball ache bastard fucking assholes to Miss Raymond. And ditto to whoever was taking over the tanning shop with what looked like more competition, right under their noses. That was all they needed, as if they didn’t have enough problems already.
Lolly piped up from the back. ‘A falabella would stop my brain smating.’
‘Definitely not proven, Lolly.’ Dida banged the car into first gear, and with a squeal of tyres that left the passing postman on the pavement open mouthed, they roared off in the direction of High Hills School.
Somewhere along the line, preferably later rather than sooner, Dida was going to have to find out for herself what a sodding falabella was.