Time Out of Mind

by Ruth Hay

  “Sign here, Miss.” As soon as a scribbled signature had been supplied, he handed over Caroline’s backpack and ran out to his van which was parked right up on the pavement.

  “Didn’t I tell ye it would be all right? Ye’ll be ready for a wash and change now, I’ll bet.

  Ye went out like a light last night. I think ye were on that balcony till it got full dark and then went right to bed. Did ye get a bite to eat at all? Ye’ll be starving by now, I’m thinking. Away up the stairs and I’ll bring you a cup of tea. I’ve a kettle here in the office for emergencies.”

  Caroline simply nodded her head as she did not yet trust her voice. She hoisted the backpack and did as she was instructed.

  The shower cleared away the cobwebs and washed her fatigue right down the drain.

  Clean clothes from her backpack completed the transformation and the welcome cup of tea alerted her stomach that a much more substantial meal was now required.

  Five minutes’ walk brought her back to Waterhead, and she soon found a table on the terrace overlooking the lake and ordered the ‘full English’. This arrived with a carafe of coffee and a tray of toast and Caroline did not even look up from her plate until every last delicious crumb was gone.

  “You made short work of that, my dear. The fresh air must have given you an appetite!”

  Caroline watched the waitress pile up dishes and carry them to the kitchen in the building behind her. For now, she was content to sit and survey the activities on the shore. There were several families around this morning and rowing boats for hire seemed to be the popular choice. The sun sparkled off the clear water and Caroline smiled to see dogs chasing the ducks off the pebbled beach and wagging their tails as the ducks rose into the air quacking protest and leaving the odd feather behind them.

  She felt renewed in spirit somehow. It seemed like an age since she had reluctantly boarded the train in London. Lake Windermere was like another world far away.

  An hour passed happily and eventually Caroline noticed more tables on the terrace were full.

  It must be lunch time already she guessed, glancing at her watch for the first time. I should go back and collect the phone from my jacket. Mum and Dad will be frantic by now, wondering what has happened.

  Caroline, the good girl, would have rushed off at that thought but, this new Caroline decided to stroll along the shoreline and perhaps buy an ice-cream cone to enjoy in the sunshine.

  For a second she hesitated between the two options then gave in to the impulse to ‘seize the moment’.

  She chose a vanilla cone with the chocolate flake inserted into it like a baton and sat down on the bench, equipped with cushions, which the little shop had thoughtfully provided for patrons.

  In the distance, at the head of Lake Windermere, she could see a squadron of figures in red float jackets set off in canoes, their paddles flashing in the sun.

  She was just biting into the chocolate flake when a shrill cry broke through the pleasant background noises of holidaymakers.

  Caroline saw a family in a row boat about thirty metres from shore and immediately grasped the situation that had caused the mother to cry out in such horror. One of the children had fallen over the side of the boat and was thrashing about in the water. The father was desperately trying to re-balance the boat using both oars, as the mother hung over the side in a vain attempt to grasp her child’s hand.

  Instinct and training took over. Caroline jumped up and raced down the wooden jetty nearest to the stricken family. She kicked off her shoes as she ran and dived into the water as soon as she reached the end of the jetty. The cold stopped her breathing for a moment but she knew the direction where the boat was located and swam underwater using her powerful breast-stroke and keeping her eyes open for the little figure of the child above her.

  The silence and cold focused her mind, and her life-saving training in the swimming pool at the college equipped her to surface behind the flailing child and grab him firmly from the rear so as to keep his hands from choking her.

  Through the churned up waves, Caroline could see the row boat now drifting further away.

  The oars were shipped, and the father was holding onto his wife and daughter and keeping them from rocking the boat further.

  Caroline swam on her back heading to shore. The boy, clutched to her chest with one arm, was coughing up water with every attempted cry. By the time she felt firm ground beneath her feet again, he was sobbing, and breathing, normally.

  Hands supported her shoulders as she struggled to stand upright while holding on to the child. A world of noise suddenly assaulted her ears. People were yelling, a motor boat was cutting its engines as it drew up on the other side of the jetty with the rescued family, and a cacophony of noises from ducks and dogs threatened to deafen her. As she shook the hair out of her eyes, a man appeared and took the boy out of her arms, saying he would get him to a doctor immediately.

  The warm hands on her shoulders did not move away when the boy’s weight was gone and Caroline turned to see who had waded out into the knee-deep water to help her. A young man wearing a plaid shirt and a baseball cap over knee-length shorts gripped her firmly and said,

  “I saw what you did. You were fantastic out there! No one moved except you. They were all paralyzed with shock. If you hadn’t dived in so fast, the kid would have drowned for sure.”

  Caroline detected an American accent and wondered who this idiot was. She did not need rescuing.

  “I’m fine thanks”, she said. “I can walk by myself. You can let go now.” Seeing his doubt reflected in a pair of ice blue eyes, she repeated, “Really! I am just fine.”

  There was a pause while the guy chuckled slightly. “Well, I think you might need some different kind of help.”

  Caroline looked in the direction he was indicating. A crowd was assembling on the shore by the jetty. Cameras, that only minutes before, had been trained on the view, were now pointing right at Caroline and there was a chorus of calls proclaiming her as a hero and a true lifesaver.

  One woman actually came forward as Caroline’s bare feet reached the dry pebbles and thrust a piece of paper into her face demanding an autograph.

  A local bus pulled up at that moment and the passengers joined the crowd pushing forward toward Caroline, asking why there was applause and what had happened.

  “Oh, crap!” she whispered, “get me out of here!”

  The young man was ready and willing. He picked Caroline up in his arms and forged a path through the crowd, stating in an official-sounding manner. “Make way, please! This young lady requires medical attention. Stand back!”

  Before Caroline could protest that he was causing her more embarrassment by making such a spectacle, he had sprinted across the busy road and rounded a hedge to a large public parking lot Caroline had not noticed before. He stopped beside a red, two-door car and gently deposited Caroline onto the tarmac while retrieving a key from his pocket and opening the car door.

  “Wait just a minute,” she yelled. “What do you think you are doing? There was no need for this. I am not an invalid. I can walk by myself.”

  “Look, I apologize if I went too far but that crowd was beginning to look ugly. Honestly, I’m not trying to kidnap you. My name is Jay Patterson and I’m staying in Ambleside. I would be happy to take you home so you can get into dry clothes. You are beginning to shiver, you know, and you won’t get too far on bare feet.”

  The bright sun seemed to have gone and in its place a chill wind was blowing directly at Caroline. She wanted to refuse his offer and march off with what was left of her dignity intact, but the truth was, she was beginning to feel the after-effects of her unexpected swim and her clothes were dripping wet and heavy, not to mention that her new trainers were lying in the mud at the bottom of Lake Windermere.

  “Well, I am staying at the hostel nearby. I suppose you could drive me there, if you don’t mind. I am feeling rather cold.”

  “Absolutely! Least I can do for a ge
nuine, if nameless, heroine!”

  “Now, don’t you start! I am Caroline Fenton and I just arrived here yesterday for a very quiet holiday, would you believe?”

  “Maybe tomorrow will be better? Here, sit on this car rug and put on my sweater for now.

  If you can steer me to the correct side of the road, we’ll be fine.”

  This did not sound too promising for a safe ride, but Caroline consoled herself with the thought that the hostel was only a few yards away. In fact, she had time to take a closer look at this American called Jay, since the right turn onto the main road was difficult in traffic, at a bend in the road.

  He was certainly tanned and she already knew he was strong. It was hard to gauge his age and his holiday clothes did not provide many clues. A quick glance at the rear seats in the car revealed a mess of papers and pamphlets scattered across the leather, and an expensive camera weighing down a book of large-scale maps.

  A genuine tourist then, she surmised. Too late, she was thinking what her mother would say if she knew Caroline had taken a ride from a complete stranger who could have taken her away to an undisclosed destination and God knew what ……..

  Just then a gap in traffic appeared and the car sped off to the left side of the road. They had hardly straightened out in the lane before Caroline was saying, “Turn right here. There’s a narrow driveway that leads to the door of the hostel.”

  Jay accomplished the awkward turn only because the car was a compact model. There was just enough room to turn the car around so he would be heading back to Ambleside, or wherever he was going, on the correct side of the road. Caroline got the impression that this American had not been driving in the UK for long.

  “Well, thanks for your help,” she said, as she squelched out of the front seat and tried to wrestle her way out of the borrowed jumper by pulling it off over her wet clothes.

  “Oh, don’t bother about the sweater!” he exclaimed. “Keep it on until you get right inside.”

  Caroline was about to protest but she sneezed explosively at that point and retreated into the open hostel door without another word to her rescuer, in search of a handkerchief before her nose began to drip down the jumper in question.

  “Well! What a state you’re in!” laughed the Scottish girl who was back behind the desk again.

  “Been swimming in the lake, have we? Just as weel yer claes frae yesterday are aired oot.”

  The more the girl laughed, the thicker her accent became, until a red-faced Caroline fled up the stairs to the sanctity of a hot shower for the second time that day.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Caroline was relieved that her sniffles did not develop into a cold, or worse, but she decided to stay close to base for the rest of the day.

  She was in danger of running out of clothes altogether, and another embarrassing episode like the one at Waterhead beach was something she could not risk. Two incidents of trying to help people had not turned out to her advantage recently.

  After the shower and a large mug of tea, made with a teabag filched from someone’s supply in the tiny kitchen, she stepped out onto the balcony to try to recapture the lovely relaxed feeling she had found there the previous evening. Unfortunately, a whole group of young Japanese tourists had arrived at the hostel for the night and camped down by the shore right below the balcony where they were excitedly, and rapidly, talking together. Caroline did not even have the compensation of listening in to their comments, as she could not understand one word of the language. She was forced to retreat to her bed and make the dreaded phone call home while the dormitory was comparatively quiet.

  As soon as she heard her mother’s worried voice, Caroline knew she would have to pretend all was well in the Lake District. The thought passed through her mind that she could tell the truth and ask to come home from this disastrous place, but a part of her still wanted to discover if she could survive on her own, and it seemed a shame not to see just a bit more of those mountains, from a low-level viewpoint of course.

  All references to lost luggage, strange young men and half-drowned children were expunged from the version she told her mother. She could truthfully say she had fallen asleep early the night before and forgotten to report in, before the hostel rule of no phones after nine o’clock had come into force.

  She promised to do better. As she said those words, Caroline vowed to herself that she would be much more careful about what she did and who she trusted.

  By the time she had spent an hour on her bed, reading through some tourist information from the front entrance to the hostel, Caroline was beginning to feel hungry again. The question of where to get food was solved unexpectedly when three of the Japanese girls arrived in the dorm room carrying paper bags with hot food that smelled deliciously of fish and chips.

  Caroline tried not to lick her lips and kept her gaze on her reading, but the girls insisted that she share their feast. When Caroline saw the quantity of food in the cardboard containers wrapped in layers of paper, she gave in and accepted the gift with gratitude.

  The girls were so excited to get this ‘national dish’ and asked Caroline how it should be eaten.

  Since the fish was certainly too hot to hold, Caroline fetched some cutlery and plates from the kitchen and showed the girls how to divide up the portions. They were astounded at the amount of food for each plate and exclaimed at the carton of mushy green peas which seemed to resemble something they ate in Japan.

  The English the Japanese girls spoke was of a highly stylized type but Caroline discovered that communication was not so difficult when good will and humour were added to the translation.

  She thought of Adam’s comment about interesting people she would meet in the hostel and smiled as she texted him about her evening meal.

  Caroline managed to decipher that the Japanese group were in the Lake District primarily to visit sites related to Beatrix Potter. It seemed the little books were prized in Japan and it was the ambition of every Japanese child to see the house and garden featured in so many of the English author’s works. Fumiko, Miki and Lily were anxious to set off early in the morning to visit Beatrix Potter’s Hilltop where they understood they could purchase many souvenirs for friends in Japan. They invited Caroline to join them but she said she had other plans for the day and the girls assumed she was off climbing. Caroline could not resist a quiet chuckle at this unlikely assumption.

  As darkness fell, clouds that had threatened rain all afternoon, finally decided to make good on the promise, and Caroline fell asleep to the patter of raindrops on the balcony.

  * * *

  Rain was still falling the next morning when she awoke. The dorm room was empty again and Caroline lay in bed wondering how she was going to occupy herself for the rest of the week.

  I can always walk to Ambleside and check out the scene there, she thought. I think I have had enough of Waterhead for now.

  She dressed quickly in her spare pair of flat shoes and pulled on her hooded waterproof jacket.

  Yesterday’s soaked clothing had been taken away by the kind Scottish girl who volunteered to wash and dry them at her home. Caroline’s backpack was locked in a cupboard behind the bed. The rather-damp jumper, Jay, the American, had loaned her, was draped over the metal bed frame. She doubted it would dry out in this weather but she could not worry about that.

  She didn’t want to be reminded of how foolish she must have looked yesterday.

  As she passed the reception desk she noticed an older man had replaced the Scottish girl.

  He asked her how she was managing and informed her that a group of hikers would be departing for Silver Howe via White Moss Common in half an hour and she was welcome to join them. When he saw the expression of concern on Caroline’s face he hastened to add that it was a short and simple climb on well-marked paths, adding that the weather promised to improve so that the group could get some very good views by the time they had made the ascent.

  Caroline shook her head, pulled up her h
ood, and made for the exit before he could try to persuade her further.

  Before she could reach the comparative safety of the narrow pavement, her way was blocked by a red car. “Oh, no!” she murmured to herself.

  “Hi! I’m glad I caught you, Caroline!”

  “Uh, I was just heading out for the day, Jay. I’m walking to Ambleside.”

  “Right. Well I wanted to make sure you were OK after yesterday and to show you something in the local newspaper.”

  “What?”

  Jay’s last statement stopped Caroline’s progress towards the road and made her look at what Jay was holding.

  “Tell me that’s not us on the front page!” she sighed.

  “I’m afraid so!” laughed Jay. “You are something of a celebrity Miss Caroline and nobody but me, knows your name.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” Caroline suggested, with more than a hint of pleading in her voice. She looked around to see if anyone had overheard Jay, and when he opened the car door and whispered conspiratorially, “Might be best to escape now while we can?” Caroline gave in and jumped into the passenger seat.

  “I’m heading to Ambleside, myself,” Jay explained. “I can show you a fabulous view of the town while we wait for the rain to stop. It’s the place I’m staying at for a couple of weeks. You’ll love it, believe me.”

  Caroline decided to trust this Jay Patterson and if things went wrong, she was sure she could make her way back to Waterhead on her own if necessary.

  Jay was driving fast on the road that skirted the Waterhead Pier area, scene of yesterday’s drama. Caroline felt like hiding her head in her hands as they passed but decided no one would be boating or walking there today, in the rain.

  A minute or so later, just as they reached what looked like a large garden centre, Jay branched off to the right and found a narrow lane parallel to the main lake road.