Miranda’s voice came through the door. ‘Dom? What happened? Are you all right?’
He took a slow, deep breath. He would cope. He really would. ‘Yeah, sorry, Mi. Had a bad dream and knocked my clock off and it frightened Crosswind. Give me a few minutes.’
‘OK, if you’re sure,’ she agreed, hesitantly. After a moment, he heard her move off down the landing.
He sat still, stroking Crosswind, still trying to orientate himself in a new day, taking comfort from the warm furry body snuggled trustingly against him. ‘I hope that she didn’t feel vindicated about the abortion, when I was finally diagnosed.’ Crosswind pricked up his ears and the ruff above his eyes lifted like surprised eyebrows. ‘We would have had to think things through, but we would have worked it out.’ Crosswind cocked his head, brown eyes thoughtful. Dominic sighed. ‘Guess we’ll never know. But it’s behind us, now. I can’t change history. I have to get myself a new life, get the adventure centre going.’ Crosswind pulled away and jumped down, running to the door to scratch and whine.
Dominic reached for his sweatshirt. This was reality. He had to let the dog out to pee.
Chapter Fourteen
PWNsleep message board:
Tenzeds: Conundrum: always want more energy. Never want more meds.
Girlwithdreams: Avoiding high GI foods and keeping hydrated helps energy levels.
Tenzeds: Whispers Wtf’s GI food? Something to do with American soldiers?
Girlwithdreams: Sighs but The glycemic index is a measure of how carbohydrates affect blood sugar levels. Eat low or mid GI foods for energy.
Tenzeds: Just as long as I don’t have to eat nettles and lentils …
Girlwithdreams: No! exasperated face Exercise should help, too.
Tenzeds: Happily, I like exercise.
Crosswind circled expectantly, tail quivering, eyes glowing with canine intelligence, as Dominic tramped across the village playing field beside Miranda’s husband, gentle, dreamy Jos. Jos had seemed happy enough to leave Miranda watching a rerun of Ground Force while he and Dominic braved the raw October afternoon, but being happy was Jos’s thing. He was colossally happy with Miranda and Ethan, judging by the undisguised worship in his dark brown eyes when he looked at either one. He was content to restore old cars at the village garage, and satisfied any need for variety in his life via his facial hair experiments, presently a goatee that ended in a tiny plait, echoing the thick plait that snaked down his back.
‘Hope you don’t mind coming to meet Ethe from this party at the village hall,’ Jos remarked. ‘He really wants you to show the other children Crosswind doing tricks.’
‘Crosswind likes playing, that’s all,’ Dominic reminded him, just as he had reminded Ethan. But Ethan had brushed such purism aside with joyful pleas for ‘tricks’ and Dominic, having helped Jos sandpaper and paint a window frame and Miranda to rake up leaves, had had a sad absence of better plans.
Helping to dispel any lingering bad feeling from his dream, this morning he’d received an e-mail from Kenny.
Doc, finished this coarse and im heading home how are your plans going because i need a job lol.
Heart soaring, Dominic had sent back: My plans aren’t finalised but they’re looking good. Can you come up and have a look at the premises I’m trying to get? I’ll get Miranda to let you crash on her sofa.
The reply: Cool ill ring you
The exchange had made him restless, raring to go but spinning his wheels. He shifted the diagonal strap of his long narrow black backpack to a more comfortable position and Crosswind danced closer, tail a blur, eyes eager. ‘In a minute,’ Dominic promised.
Kicking through the grass, as if reading his thoughts Jos turned the conversation to Dominic’s business plans. ‘So, who goes to action-and-challenge centres?’
‘Weekend Rambos. Weekday corporate teambuilding – you know the stuff, when CEOs think that their staff will soar to new heights if they learn how to build a raft together.’
Jos looked vaguely surprised. ‘Do they? Why would it?’ The closest he ever got to the corporate world was driving past business parks around the edges of Peterborough.
‘Teamwork,’ explained Dominic. ‘Problem solving, conceptualising solutions, planning, communicating. Or, sometimes, they send their staff out to have fun at a kart track.’
Jos’s eyes gleamed eagerly. ‘Are you going to have a kart track?’
‘No, it would be a bit hairy, considering the slope. Mountain biking would be possible … I’m still working on my ideas. But I’m going around in circles until I can get permission from the hotel to buy the lease – if Nicolas hasn’t decided not to sell, meantime. Or to sell to someone else.’
They reached the car park that ran around two sides of the village hall, presently more occupied by adults rocking buggies and keeping beady eyes on children racing around the tarmac than by parked cars. Dominic called Crosswind to sit by his feet so no parent would be nervous that he might turn out to be a frothing pitbull dressed up in curls and a square-faced doggy grin.
One of the adults was a woman almost hidden by a yellow bear-ears hat and a dark green coat that ended around her ankles. She was wearing something that looked like a backpack worn on her front, as if she were a London tourist wary of pickpockets. As Dominic watched, she dropped her face to the backpack and went, ‘Nom nom nom! Nom nom nom nom nom!’
For a startled instant, he wondered whether it was a nose bag, not a backpack. But then Jos laughed and the girl lifted her head and turned, the plaited woollen ties of the ridiculous hat swinging in time with the pom-poms on her suede boots. The ‘backpack’ had a baby in it, and the baby’s downy head was what she’d been pretending to eat. Judging by his gummy smiles and crinkled eyes, it had sent the recipient to baby utopia. He kicked and laughed, one tiny arm looped neatly around Liza’s left breast, the mittened hand resting on the flesh visible in the V of her coat. Dominic was reflecting that he’d smile, too, if his hand were so fortunate, when he realised that he was being glared at, reminding him of his new place in Liza’s life as The Competition.
‘Lucky little chap,’ he said, gravely, ignoring the glare. Then, ‘Lovely little chap,’ with exactly the same inflection, as if that’s what he’d said the first time. He took the baby’s hand – the one that was flailing loose, not the one that had possession of the smooth foothill of Liza’s breast – and shook it solemnly. ‘Good afternoon. I’m Dominic Christy.’
Liza defrosted enough to reply on the baby’s behalf. ‘He’s Gus, my nephew. Hello, Jos.’
Jos gave her his shy smile. ‘You on auntie duty?’ They fell into conversation about children that Dominic didn’t know, although it became apparent that one was another Sunday afternoon partygoer, Shona, Liza’s niece. Dominic unhooked his arms from his backpack and Crosswind immediately bounced, barked, and began to whirl on the spot. ‘Sit, Crosswind,’ Dominic murmured, and Crosswind did the excited-dog thing of pseudo-sitting, bum not quite touching the ground because his tail had become a propeller. His gaze was fixed on Dominic as he unzipped the sides of the pack to ease out a green-and-red, double-kick skateboard, battered graphics and pitted wheels bearing testimony to much use.
A sharp bark: Get on with it, boss! and Crosswind shuffled on his bottom.
‘Won’t be long.’ Dominic spun the wheels with his palms, then put down the skateboard. He straightened, and saw Liza watching, eyes full of questions, which was better than her glaring knives at him. Giving her his sweetest smile, he went back to examining his skateboard.
Then the double doors at the front of the village hall banged open and children spilled into the grey light, half into coats and clutching clown-strewn goodie bags, smiles outlined in chocolate and blackcurrant. A small partygoer in a black-and-red dress raced over to Liza, windmilling her arms. ‘Aunt-ee Lie-zah!’
Dominic watched Liza crouch down and scoop the excited child against her. ‘Hiy-ah, Sho-nah!’ And carefully present the baby’s head to be kissed.
Crosswind, forgetting his doggie manners, shot off to round up Ethan and escort him to Dominic with shrill barks of joy.
‘Stand still, then,’ said Dominic, quietly to Ethan. And, more sharply, ‘Crosswind! Quiet!’ He picked up the skateboard and, selecting a smooth and empty section of the car park, bowled it across the surface with a practised underarm. Yapping with glee, Crosswind raced in pursuit and sprang into the air, landing with three paws on the board, ‘scooting’ manically with the other, whilst the parents laughed and the children clapped, goodie bags spilling onto the damp ground. ‘The dog skateboarded! Mummy! Daddy! That dog skateboarded!’
Dominic ran after the slowing board, scooping it up as Crosswind jumped off and raced a circle, tongue out, eyes alight and tail an almost invisible indicator of waggy doggy joy. Dominic launched the board once more. Two sharp barks and a nail-clicking scurry from his bandy legs and Crosswind hurled himself back onto the deck, scooting furiously. ‘Yeah, yeah, see the doggie!’ squealed the children, while the adults laughed and clapped.
It generally took about a year for Crosswind to get tired of the skateboard and Dominic jogged relentlessly from one end of the car park to the other to retrieve and relaunch the board. He probably would have called it a day much sooner if it hadn’t been for Liza holding hands with the golden-haired little girl, dancing and laughing, clutching her bear-ears hat and baby Gus joggling like a doll.
Finally, parents began to turn children for home and Dominic paused, breathing hard, to rub Crosswind’s ears. ‘That’s enough, fluff face.’ Crosswind laughed up at him, panting, but obviously game for hours more fun.
Jos had fallen into conversation with a man with twin girls and Ethan, eyes beginning to puff with fatigue, had opted for a perch on his daddy’s shoulders. As Dominic prepared to slide the board back inside its carrier, a pair of black suede boots appeared beside him, pom-poms swinging, with a niece-sized pair of party shoes alongside. ‘Shona wants to know if she’s allowed to stroke your dog.’
Dominic smiled down at Shona. ‘You bet. His name’s Crosswind. Put your hand out for him to sniff, first.’ Opportunistic when it came to jelly and cake residue, Crosswind licked Shona’s fingers, making Shona giggle, and Liza crouched down to stroke his curls back from his eyes. Crosswind flattened his ears and half-closed his eyes in tongue-lolling rapture.
Liza glanced at Dominic. ‘Can you ride the board, too?’
‘A bit.’ He pulled the lead from the front pocket of his backpack and snicked it onto Crosswind’s collar, earning him a canine dirty look, and offered Liza the human end. ‘He’ll pull, so hold tight.’ Then he gave the nose of the board an expert nudge with the toe of his trainers to point it towards a clear area of asphalt, planted his left foot over the front axle and launched with his back foot, enjoying hearing the familiar whizzzzzzzzzuzzzuzzz, got both feet on deck, adjusting his stance with a tiny bunny hop. Then he put his back foot on the tail and popped it, keeping his front foot just behind the front axle to snap the nose from side to side. Dropping down, he got back to speed then, back foot on the tail, popped up into an ollie, caught the deck, ollied one-eighty frontside, popped it again and, using the side of his front foot, kickflipped and landed it several times, once with a double rotation.
‘Look at Dommynic!’ he heard Ethan roar. Crosswind yapped, Why can’t I play? One-eightying, Dominic raced back through a series of ollies and kickflips, until he popped it hard with his front foot, nollie flipped, and landed it in front of Liza.
Shona was clapping. Liza was laughing. She cocked one eyebrow at him in the last of the autumn light. ‘Not bad.’ She reached up, pulled his head down so that she could put her lips against his ear, her words no more than a breath, making the pit of his stomach judder. ‘OK, I’m impressed. But that lease is still mine.’ Then she produced a small pink bear-ears hat from her pocket and plopped it on Shona’s head. ‘Come on, let’s take Gus-Gus home and see what Mum’s made for tea.’
And she slapped on her own stupid hat and turned to march away across the playing field.
He watched her go, wondering whether he’d just met the real Liza Reece for the first time. She’d been fun. Dancing eyes and cocky comments, joggling the baby while she poked fun at him. No temper. No ungraciousness. No pain on her face, or strain. On the other hand, she hadn’t cuddled up and rolled her head on his shoulder, exposing the soft curve of her neck and making him burn to swoop on it, either …
He watched the swing of her coat, the turn of her head as she looked down to talk to Shona and cuddled that lucky baby to her breasts. It was a damned waste that a woman with such an obvious capacity to care should have thrown up so many walls between herself and men.
Jos, still wearing Ethan on his shoulders, grinned and clapped him on the arm. ‘Put your tongue away, skateboy. You showed off all your best tricks but it got you nowhere. It’s a serious bummer but let’s go home for tea.’
Chapter Fifteen
PWNsleep message board:
Brainwave: I need to change something. My office is so quiet and stuffy … even the normals are getting sleep attacks! I’m thinking I need a new job.
Tenzeds: I’ve got similar plans. Have hopes they’ll work out.
Girlwithdreams: I wish mine would.
Dominic claimed his spot at the kitchen table with his phone, iPad and notepad, as Miranda baked and talked and listened to the radio and Ethan eeked, whooped and eeeee-owwwwed his way through a game of ‘parachuting’ off a chair with a tea towel.
Dominic rang Nicolas and got straight to the point. ‘Now you’ve had a few days to consider, what are your thoughts about me taking over your lease? Do you have a figure for me?’
A hesitation. ‘I’m still talking numbers with my advisor, because there’s someone else interested.’
‘Liza Reece?’
Nicolas was clearly taken aback either by Dominic’s knowledge or his willingness to share it. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed, cautiously. ‘And in many ways, I’d prefer the place to go to her and to continue, however approximately, to be a treatment centre.’
It was a transparent attempt to play Liza off against Dominic but, though Dominic’s dream was fresh and compelling, he wasn’t about to be negotiated into paying unfeasible sums to make it real. He made his voice polite but bored. ‘Would you like me to withdraw my offer? If I need to start looking elsewhere, then I’d like to get that underway.’ Through the window, he watched the trees in the garden stretching their black arms to the clouds, summer’s green-leaf clothes turned to brown autumn rags.
Nicolas answered stiffly. ‘I’ll get back to you soon.’
Dominic ended the call with a casual acknowledgement, as if not fizzing with frustration at Nicolas’s indecisive, clumsy parrying.
‘Cheee-arge!’ Ethan bowled across the kitchen, ricocheting off Dominic’s chair. ‘Dommynic, can you play with me?’
For an instant, Dominic yearned for the calm atmosphere of the control tower and the relatively stress-free task of stacking inbound air traffic before clearing them to land, thousands of airline passenger lives in his hands. ‘A bit later, Ethan, OK?’
‘OK. Cheee-arge!’ Ethan screamed off down the hall.
Dominic picked up his notebook and pen. He was fairly certain that he could outbid Liza but he tried never to be careless when reacting to situations. He wrote Liza in the middle of his page. Her image flashed across his brain, blue eyes gleaming, blonde hair flying.
‘Cheee-arge!’ Ethan raced back in and paused beside Dominic’s chair, breathing heavily. ‘Got a sword, Dommynic?’
‘Sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t.’ Dominic ruffled Ethan’s fair hair, hoping Ethan wasn’t going to try too hard to drag him into a game, because he would
really rather think about Liza Reece. In fact, though he didn’t want to injure Ethan’s feelings by pointing it out, there were quite a lot of things he’d rather do than race around yelling ‘Cheee-arge!’
Miranda came to the rescue. ‘Dominic doesn’t have a sword because they’re not nice things, Ethan, because they hurt people. But if you wash your hands, you can paint the egg on the pastry for me. Then we can put the pie in the oven, ready for lunch.’
Ethan shouted, ‘Yeah!’ and began screeching a kitchen chair over to the sink.
Dominic turned back to his pad. When Liza laughed, all trouble vanished from her face. Her laughter was like musical notes tumbling from her lips, spangling her eyes, flushing her skin a perfect, palest pink. He enjoyed making her laugh. He began a spider plan around her name. How big a loan can she get? And, Is there family money? She’d said she wasn’t close to her parents, but it would be unsafe to assume they wouldn’t help her. And, for all he knew, her sister could be a closet millionaire. Does Nicolas want her to get the lease? Does Nicolas not want her to get the lease? There was definitely antipathy. Is she likely to chicken out? (Prob not.) Is she capable of running the centre? (Probably.) With more thought, he added, Probably capable of anything. And grinned, remembering her trying to face him down about the lease, as if she were big and scary. As if he hadn’t just held her whilst she broke her heart about Adam, her body against his, boneless with sorrow, her tears soaking through his sweatshirt. To his skin, making it hot and damp.
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