by Carmen Reid
‘Nana,’ Minnie said, throwing herself down on to Lana’s chest and burrowing up against her.
‘Yes, I’m a good big sister, yes I am.’ Lana stroked the silky hair on Minnie’s head. ‘I’m going to spend lots of time looking after you both.’
Lana looked down and saw that Minnie had snuggled right down on her chest. As Lana’s breath rose and fell, Minnie’s body rose and fell too. Micky was still sitting up, in between Lana’s knees, making funny little sounds to himself and chewing on his fingers with a very drooly mouth.
Lana looked back down at Minnie and could see that her eyes were growing heavy, her lids were sinking and she was about to fall asleep in Lana’s arms.
Lana felt completely charmed.
Owen held the torch and walked beside his mum; the very faint beam of light not providing a great deal in the way of guidance.
With Ed’s help, Svetlana soldiered on under the weight of Morven. Annie had offered to stay in position, but Svetlana had insisted.
‘How far is it to the car park?’ Annie decided to ask.
‘Roughly two miles,’ Ed said. ‘Maybe less,’ he added quickly when this news produced a demoralized sigh from Annie.
‘We only managed two miles! With the DIY Zagliani shoes and everything!’ Annie was horrified. ‘Just two miles!’ she repeated.
‘By the time we get back, you’ll have walked ten whole miles though,’ Ed told her proudly.
Before Annie could even remind herself about how much money this would raise, she felt the ground under her boots turn crunchy.
‘Loose gravel,’ she warned the others; she didn’t want Svetlana in her homemade moccasins to land in any trouble.
All of a sudden Annie pitched violently to the side. She grabbed at the air with her hands and let out a cry which seemed to disappear into a gurgle.
In the darkness, she could make no sense of what was happening, but the rushing in the pit of her stomach let her know she was falling.
Before she could even think about where she might be falling – or why? How far? Or form any sort of question at all – she landed, hard.
In a crumpled heap, in disorientating darkness, at first all she could feel was pain: sharp, piercing pain travelling up through her stomach and into her lungs; low, grumbling pain in her knees, her elbows, her hands and a great burning pain right across both buttocks.
For several stunned moments, Annie didn’t move at all. She didn’t dare to. She waited, trying to gather her thoughts and wondering how the pains were going to develop.
Nothing seemed to be getting worse. Things were bad … but nothing seemed to be deteriorating, which was surely good.
Annie had landed on her bum. That’s why it was so sore. Her increasingly padded derrière had probably saved her from a really bad injury.
She sat up a little, breathed in carefully and realized that the pain in her stomach had a lot to do with being winded and with the video camera which was in her lap.
With growing waves of relief, she wiggled her fingers and her toes, then moved her knees, ankles and elbows. Nothing seemed to be broken. There must be huge grazes on her burning elbows and hands and her bum was going to be black and blue. But nothing was broken.
Now she just had to worry about the next thing: where the bloody hell was she? And how the bloody hell was she supposed to get out?
It was too dark to make sense of her surroundings. Looking up, all she could work out was that it was slightly lighter above her.
Taking a deep breath, she shouted out: ‘Heeeeellooooooo. I’m here. Heeeeellooooooooo!’
For a long, worrying moment, Annie heard nothing in reply. Then finally, from up above came the shout.
‘Annie!’
‘Ed!’ she shouted back.
She looked up and thought she could make out the outline of a head. Then came the beam of light from the torch.
‘Are you OK?’ he called down. ‘Are you hurt?’
She could hear the anxiety in his voice.
‘I don’t think so, I landed on my big bum,’ she called up towards him.
‘Why on earth did you …?’ he began but seemed to think better of the question.
‘Where am I?’ she shouted back.
‘I think you’re in a stream bed. Are you wet?’
Now, come to think of it, yes, she was.
‘Are you safe? You can’t fall any further?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied.
She looked up and couldn’t see the outline of Ed’s head or the torchlight any more.
Then, several moments later, they were back in place: ‘Here’s the plan,’ Ed called down. ‘We’ll take Morven down and get help. Morven has to go to hospital and … I’ll need help to get you out.’
Annie considered this. It was what Ed had to do. Get Morven down and then come back for her. It would take at least an hour … maybe more. She would have to sit in a stream on her bruised bottom in the pitch dark for an hour or more.
She wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect.
‘Annie?’ Ed called down, wondering if she’d heard him.
‘Could I have the torch?’ she asked, sounding embarrassingly wimpy.
‘Annie, I’m sorry but we need the torch.’
‘Could Owen stay and talk to me?’ was her next request.
‘We need Owen to carry the torch, and I don’t want him to fall in too,’ was the perfectly sensible reply. ‘You’ll be OK. I’ll see you very, very soon.’
‘See you, Mum,’ Owen called out a little too cheerfully. He was obviously enjoying every moment of this adventure.
‘I love you,’ she shouted back.
‘I’ll be right back,’ Ed promised.
And with that, they were off.
For some time, Annie sat in the pitch black listening hard as the little group went away from her.
Finally, she couldn’t hear their voices any more. Then all sorts of thoughts came to her in the lonely darkness. She remembered the time when Owen and his little cousin Billie had fallen into a dry well in Italy. Hours they’d spent in there, chatting, trying to coax a lizard to come out, eating the pears they had on them and never doubting for a moment they’d be found … while she, Dinah and the rest of the holiday party tore around the hillside like maniacs looking for them.
Annie wished she was in a nice warm well in Italy instead of a cold and soggy stream in the dark in Scotland.
Finally, she remembered the video camera in her lap. Feeling her way around the buttons, she switched it on. The lights came on and, although she couldn’t see the digital display, she hoped this meant that she’d broken the camera’s fall and everything was working fine.
She pointed it at her face.
‘Hello, it’s me, Annie. I just want you to know that I’ve fallen off the mountain, but I was wearing hiking boots at the time. So there! If you hillwalk in heels, bad things can happen. If you hillwalk in hiking boots, bad things can happen. Best stick to the pavement, if you ask me.’
She paused and then started up on a different tack.
‘I’ve fallen down into who knows what, who knows where, just as the man I love asked me to marry him … again. This time, I should definitely have said yes. This time, I think he got me when I was almost ready.
‘Now I am ready but I’m stuck down at the bottom of some horrible drop, sitting on my big sore wet behind in a stream, waiting for them to come back and rescue me.
‘Maybe this was Tamsin’s plan all along,’ Annie added with some bitterness. ‘She’s my boss, by the way. She sent me up the mountain in my heels, hoping I’d fall off somewhere, and she’s probably going to leave me here at the end of the series. If enough of you vote for me, they’ll come and get me out; if no one cares … then I’ll just be left here and you’ll get Myleene Klass instead.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Annie resting:
Pink vest top (Topshop)
Pink cropped PJ bottoms (M&S)
Witc
h hazel (First Aid box)
Bandages (same)
Total est. cost: £32
‘It was a nightmare, babes.’
Annie lay back on the small double bed she and Ed were sharing in the cabin. She was looking at her feet. Once Lana had heard all the hillside adventures, after the twins had been put to bed, once Owen had been washed, warmed and filled with cocoa, once Annie had showered and changed, finally she had been able to tend to her poor, battered feet and all the rest of her scrapes and bruises.
Well, Ed and his first-aid wisdom, not to mention kit, had helped. He’d dabbed witch hazel on to the burst blisters and deep, oozing cuts. He’d padded them with soft, sterile dressings, then wrapped both feet tenderly in bandages.
She looked at the feet now, down there at the end of the bed.
‘Shame about the red shoes,’ she said to Ed ruefully.
‘Some hillwalker’s going to get a bit of a surprise, coming across one battered red pair of heels halfway up there.’ He was sitting on the other side of the bed, in a makeshift T-shirt-and-boxers version of pyjamas.
‘Yeah, plus Svetlana’s Louboutins!’ Annie reminded him. ‘Not to mention cuttings from a coral-coloured crocodile masterpiece.’
‘You were all out of your minds,’ Ed said.
‘What else could we do? We couldn’t have left Morven up there. There was no way of getting help and we couldn’t walk another bloody step in our shoes, not with her hanging on to our necks. It was a nightmare, babes,’ she said, sighing with relief that she was actually back in a bed, warm and dry, with her feet off the ground. ‘Do you think I meant to fall down a fifteen-foot drop?’
The phone on her bedside table bleeped.
‘Flipping heck,’ she exclaimed, ‘a signal! The cloud cover must have cleared, or maybe the large deer standing next to the transmitter has moved.’
‘You’re not really a country girl, are you?’ Ed had to point out.
‘Not likely,’ was Annie’s decided response. ‘You’ve seen what people have to wear out here – and they still break their legs.’
She picked up the phone. She had a text. Opening it, she read out loud: ‘“Head fine, ankl brokn. Thnks 4 yr help. Lk forward to seeing it on TV. Morven x”.’
‘The final episode of the series?’ Ed smiled. ‘That is going to be a lot of fun. How much filming did you manage to do?’
‘Oh, I have all the crucial moments, don’t worry,’ Annie assured him. ‘I think I even got when Morven fell and I definitely got the cutting up of the bag. That was class. Svetlana broke a nail … it was a moment of very high drama. She cut up the bag with a hunting knife! It was terrible, women all over the country will be covering their eyes. They won’t be able to watch. She stuck her knife right in and made this terrible rippppppp noise, and that was it, seven thousand pounds’ worth of craftsmanship gone with a single stroke.’
Ed took hold of her hand and held it in his. ‘So are we going to stop off in Gretna Green on the way home then?’ he asked softly.
For a moment there was silence in the room; then Annie turned to face him. ‘Ed Leon!’ she exclaimed. ‘Is that seriously your idea of a proposal?’
‘Annie Valentine!’ he exclaimed right back. ‘Is that seriously your idea of an answer?’
She rolled on to her back and crossed her arms: ‘First of all, I’m not going to talk to you about anything wedding related unless you ask properly.’
Ed paused for a moment and began to blush. He got out of the bed without saying anything and, for a moment, Annie thought she had gone too far. Maybe she had refused once too often. As she watched him walk round the bed towards her side and in the direction of the door, she knew immediately that she’d changed her mind.
Up until today, she’d thought that getting married would be too complicated and just unnecessary. And there was, deep down in her heart, the thought that getting married might somehow bring them bad luck. She had once buried her husband.
She knew it was irrational, but she couldn’t help thinking that if she didn’t marry Ed, nothing bad could happen to him. If he wasn’t her husband, she could never be his widow.
‘Ed?’ she asked with a voice which felt tight.
Ed didn’t make for the door, he turned, as he’d intended to turn, and knelt down on the floor beside her.
‘Annie,’ he began, scooping up her hands and holding them firmly in his, ‘let’s get married … and not just to make Owen happy. Let’s get married because we want to and because it’s not such a big deal. We’re committed anyway: we have Lana and Owen, our babies, the house.’
She loved that he had put Lana and Owen first. That was very important to her.
‘Gretna Green would be fine,’ Ed assured her. ‘If you can just turn up, I have no idea, but if we can, let’s go there, sign some papers and we’ll be done.’
He was playing it down. He didn’t want to make it too romantic, too over the top or too momentous, because he was frightened that she would shy away.
‘Ed?’ she asked again. She propped herself up on her elbow and put her hand against this very kind face.
‘Shhhh!’ he insisted, perhaps wanting to stop her from refusing him again. ‘It’s OK, please, don’t worry about it.’ He put his hand over hers. ‘I know you’re worried, but I promise, it’s going to be fine. I’m going to live for a very, very long time. Probably outlive you by years and years,’ he twinkled, understanding and addressing her deepest fear. ‘Gorgeous young girlfriends will be swanning around me in the contents of your wardrobe when I’m very old.’
‘Shut up!’ she told him with a grin. ‘Have as many girlfriends as you like once I’m gone but the wardrobe goes to Lana and Minnie.’
The thought of Minnie being old enough to parade about in Annie’s Versace numbers made both of them laugh.
‘C’mon,’ Ed urged, ‘we’ll just stop off, sign the papers and it will all be done.’
‘No,’ she said gently.
His face fell instantly.
‘No, not no,’ she backtracked, confusing him now. ‘Just no to Gretna Green, babes. If I’m going to marry you … and I think I am …’
There was a pause here.
She looked right at him and let it sink in a little. She heard Ed’s sharp intake of breath.
‘If I’m going to marry you, then Dinah, Billie, Nic, Mum, Connor, your sister, Hannah, her little Sid … all the girls from The Store … everyone has to be there. Svetlana and her boys, Elena – I couldn’t get married without them. I just couldn’t. They’d never forgive me. And what about my girls? The regulars. The ones who watch the show every week, who email me and tell me the truth. Tell me if I’ve made a total pillock out of myself or not. They have to at least know that I’m planning to get married.
‘I’m not saying they have to be there, watching,’ Annie went on quickly, to Ed’s relief, ‘but they have to know about it. They’ll have to help me choose my dress …
‘Babes,’ she said finally, ‘if I’m going to get married again, then it has to be in a totally amazing dress. And look at my feet! I can’t hobble down to Gretna Green tomorrow and tie the knot in a pair of hiking boots or a pair of those terrible tragic hiking sandals! It wouldn’t be right! Would it?’
Ed shook his head. ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘it wouldn’t be right.’
‘I won’t be Annie Valentine any more!’ she said, the realization dawning.
‘Of course you will,’ Ed assured her.
‘No,’ she told him with a shake of her head, ‘that’s Roddy’s name. I can’t keep it.’
‘Well, you could be Annie Mitchell.’
‘God no,’ was her verdict on this, ‘that’s Mick’s name.’ Running her hand slowly and fondly down his cheek, she tried out: ‘Annie Leon. That’s nice. We’ll all get used to it. I want to take your name. It’s not PC, it’s not cool, it’s downright old-fashioned. But I want everyone to know just how much you mean to me.’
‘Thank you,’ he said and moved her hand
to his lips so he could kiss it. ‘You can be the one to tell Owen though,’ he warned.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You can tell him that we’re not getting married at Gretna Green. I think he’s going to be gutted.’
The phone on the bedside table began to bleep again, but before Annie reached over and looked at the screen, she held Ed’s searching look.
‘You’ve not actually …’ he began.
‘Said yes?’ She understood. ‘Yes,’ she told him but couldn’t help adding, ‘but don’t be thinking this is a guaranteed-sex situation. I am un-bloody-believably tired.’
The phone bleeped again.
‘OK.’ Ed smiled at her. ‘See who it’s from. You know, it’s just a proposal we’re doing here, nothing urgent, we can do this again some time.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, but reached over for the phone.
‘It’s from Tamsin,’ she began and read it first of all to herself with an increasing smile. Then she read it out to Ed:
‘ “Hv shown big boss yr Paris footage. He loves. Think u will be star of series 3. Txx”. What do you think of that?’ she asked him.
‘I’m very proud of you,’ he replied. ‘You so deserve series three.’
‘Yes, I’m very lucky. I’m about to get everything I always wanted,’ she said, feeling slightly shocked at the idea herself. ‘More than I always wanted, babes. I didn’t know how much I wanted the twins until I had them. And I didn’t know how much I wanted another … husband.’ She said the word carefully. It was still a loaded word for her. It was going to take a long time to be able to think of Ed as her husband, not Roddy.
‘Annie Valentine gets everything she’s always wanted,’ Ed said with his eyebrows raised. ‘It’s not possible!’ He bumped his nose gently against hers. ‘Within twenty-four hours, Annie soon-to-be-Leon will want something else. I promise you, at least a second cupola or maybe your own range of shoes.’
‘No!’ she insisted. ‘I have more than I ever wanted. This is all enough. Totally.’