by Julie Caplin
The tour guide yelled and the engine cut out leaving the boat bobbing under the bridge and a shocked silence.
Avril lay motionless, face down on the floor, a vivid red pool already crowning her dark glossy hair, the bright scarlet stark in contrast.
I knelt down next to her, almost too scared to touch her, gulping in a breath as a hot flush followed by ice cold swept over me. Shit. The weight of responsibility almost floored me.
I needed to do something. Take action, instead of standing there helplessly looking useless.
I reached out a shaky hand towards her shoulder. I could see from the gentle movement of her back that she was breathing. ‘Avril.’
Ben came to kneel next to me and to my surprise put his hand over mine, giving it a quick squeeze as he whispered, ‘I thought I reached her in time.’ He bit his lip, his eyes full of worry.
I squeezed his hand back. He’d been amazing. ‘You did. She bumped her head on the seat on the way down.’
With a gentle hand, I touched her shoulder. ‘Avril. Can you hear me?’ I felt her body tremor beneath my fingers.
She gave a muffled faint groan while the guide stood over us looking terrified and equally useless under the nakedly curious gaze of the other passengers.
‘She’s conscious,’ I muttered to Ben, our heads so close together I could see a couple of beads of sweat on his forehead. ‘That’s a good sign … I think.’
‘Yes,’ he whispered back. ‘What do we do now?’
We exchanged a wry oh-shit-we’re-left-holding-the-baby-now look.
‘Stop the bleeding, I think,’ I said aware of the sticky seep of blood through the knee of my jeans. ‘And find out where she’s bleeding and how bad it is.’
‘Good plan.’ His approving nod gave me a much-needed confidence boost.
Ben shielded me from the watchful gaze of the others as with tentative fingers I pushed through Avril’s hair. No lumps or bumps.
With a groan she rolled onto her side, blinking up at us, confusion clouding her eyes.
‘Stay still, Avril,’ I said, immediately spotting the gash to the left of her forehead running into her hairline, bleeding profusely.
I dug into my bag and grabbed a travel pack of tissues, wadding them and pressing them against the wound.
She winced and closed her eyes. ‘It hurts like hell.’
I took her hand. ‘You’re OK. Everything’s going to be fine.’
Somehow the words reassured her which was just as well because I hadn’t a bloody clue. And then a slice of knowledge popped helpfully into my head.
‘Head wounds bleed a lot. They always look a lot worse than they are,’ I said it loudly hoping that it would reassure everyone including Avril.
‘However, we do need to stop the,’ I nodded to the gash, speaking to Ben in a low voice sounding like an extra in Casualty stating the bleeding obvious. Thankfully he nodded. The tissue wad had soaked through, the deep red darkening quickly.
Sophie was already on the case rounding up clean tissues from everyone and Conrad came up trumps, handing over two clean and pressed handkerchiefs.
I put them together, removed the tissues and pressed the clean hankies to her head.
We’d drawn quite a crowd by now, as the captain and the tour guide and a couple of other tourists stood watching. I asked Sophie to take over and went to speak to him.
Ben and I watched from the canal-side as the boat pulled away, Sophie giving us a little wave and a grimace of support as the rest of the passengers eyed us and whispered to each other. Avril sat on a bench sandwiched between us, Ben’s arm around her holding her up. Sophie’s wool scarf was wrapped around her head, holding my wadded-up scarf in place, Conrad’s blood-soaked handkerchiefs having long since been cast aside.
I would have faced torture before admitting it, but I’d never been so relieved in my life at Ben’s suggestion that he wait with me for Eva, who was on her way in a taxi.
Once we’d realised that Avril needed proper medical attention, I’d phoned Eva from the boat and she’d spoken to the boat’s pilot who had agreed that the best solution was to get us off the boat. The plan was to take Avril to Eva’s local doctor where they would be able to assess the damage.
‘Do you want me to call anyone for you?’ I asked Avril after looking at my watch for the ninety-fifth time. Eva had said ten minutes but it was turning into the longest ten minutes of my life.
Avril, understandably subdued, had barely spoken since the accident but I was so worried she might have concussion; I needed her to keep responding as much to reassure myself as to keep her conscious. With a dismissive pout, she lifted her chin and shook her head, immediately wincing.
‘No, there’s no point.’ Her lips thinned. ‘Christopher will be at work. There’s no point bothering him.’
‘But wouldn’t he want to know?’ I asked. Wasn’t that the point of being married? Having someone else to worry about you, care about you.
‘No,’ she said pulling up her handbag, pathetically poking into it, until she found a mirror.
‘I’m not sure you want to do that,’ I said, trying to ease it from her fingers. ‘Seriously.’
She clung on with limpet fingers, flicking it open. ‘My God, what do I look like?’ She opened another zipped compartment, revealing a slim leather bag from which she pulled out a lip pencil and two gold cased lipsticks, some expensive make I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess at, before checking the colours and deciding which one would light up her ghostly pallor. With careful, expert strokes, she took her time outlining her lips, wincing with every movement of her head, but kept going before applying a bold red, glossy finish, much to the horrified fascination of Ben.
He caught my eye and raised one eyebrow as if to say seriously?
With a frown, he got up and pushed his hands in his pockets standing awkwardly.
My heart went out to her. I knew what her painstaking make-up routine hid. It wasn’t about the lipstick or gloss – it was psychological armour, designed to help her deal with a situation that made her feel alone and vulnerable.
When I put my arm around her, to my surprise she leaned in putting her head on my shoulder. I gave her a squeeze and prayed the cavalry would get here soon.
Chapter 14
Thanks to Eva phoning her doctor in advance, she and Avril were whisked straight in as soon as we arrived, leaving Ben and I in the empty waiting room. We sank into seats looking around at the clean white modern room. Even the chairs were stylish and comfortable. A far cry from the functional, bottom numbing ones of the surgery at home which was always full and you had to wait hours to see anyone.
‘She seems nice,’ said Ben, filling the sudden awkward silence.
‘Mmm,’ I said.
‘Yes, very motherly.’
‘Thank God I had her number.’ I slumped in my seat, exhaustion seeping into every muscle, the adrenaline hangover leaving me wrung out.
‘Hmm, not quite what you were expecting.’
‘You can say that again.’ I sighed thinking how close to disaster we’d come. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ I put my head in my hands. ‘Shit. Can you imagine? Journalist decapitated in Copenhagen.’
‘Yeah imagine the headlines. Not quite what you were after.’
I looked up at him sharply.
‘Sorry,’ he grimaced and put out a hand to touch my forearm, ‘I honestly didn’t mean it like that.’
I wilted back into my seat, closing my eyes, feeling sick all over again. It could all have been so much worse. ‘Oh God.’
‘Hey, are you OK?’ He leaned over me, his eyes narrowed with concern and for a moment I was transfixed by the unusual colouring of dark brown copper tipped lashes framing those blue grey eyes. I ducked away from his gaze feeling a pony kick to my ribs slam of attraction. I sucked in a quick silent breath as his hand slid down my forearm, the hairs bristling to ticklish attention as his warm fingers skimmed inch by inch, before coming to rest on top of mine. I
fought the urge to turn it palm up and lace my fingers into his, ignored the beguiling siren suggestion that I could let everything go and let someone else take care of me for a change.
‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’ I looked up at him, into guileless eyes and bit my lip, all my fears suddenly crowding in. ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for this, after all.’
‘What super PR girl?’ His mouth quirked and he squeezed my hand. ‘Of course you are. All in a day’s work.’
‘You’ve been talking to my friend Connie,’ I said suddenly wishing she were here. ‘She says things like that.’
‘Do you organise her too?’
With a shaky half laugh, I said, ‘God no, she’s a primary school teacher. Organisation is printed all the way through her like a stick of rock. She wouldn’t have let something like that happen on her watch.’
‘I’ve come to realise that when dealing with children you have to have finely honed skills, octopus genetics and eyes in the back of your head. You couldn’t possibly have predicted that would happen. Avril’s an adult. Admittedly of the princess variety, so maybe the child thing should have applied, but you handled it.’
His soothing words carried a reassuring thread of quiet warm approval, like sunshine breaking through clouds on a grey day.
‘We handled it. You were really helpful. Thank you for staying with me.’
‘I didn’t do much.’ He shrugged, lifting broad shoulders in a dismissive gesture, but he’d done more than he realised.
‘Moral support goes a long way, when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.’
A gentle heart-tripping smile filled his face as he gave me a slow once over.
‘Super PR girl admitting that.’ He lifted a teasing eyebrow. ‘No one would have guessed. You do cool, calm and collected well.’
‘Really? Is that praise from the scary mad fox journalist?’
‘Scary? Me?’
‘Yes, when you bark a five second warning down the phone. At least with a nuclear threat you get a whole four minutes.’
He laughed out loud, a deep belly rumble of sheer amusement. ‘You caught me at a bad moment.’ His mouth quirked with wicked humour, ‘And I don’t like PR people.’
‘I think you might have made that clear.’
‘Sorry I should rephrase that. I don’t like PR people … in general.’ He flashed me a quick intimate just-between-the-two-of-us smile which made my heart get all silly and do some strange miss a beat thing.
‘Gosh. Should I get out the flags?’
‘Bit soon for that,’ he teased, mischief and amusement dancing in his eyes. ‘But I know plenty of people who would have wailed and screamed and made a drama out of the situation and wait for someone else to come to the rescue and scoop up the pieces. You didn’t.’ He looked down at the blood-stained knees of my jeans.
‘Mmmn,’ I wrinkled my nose looking down at the dark patches turning rusty around the edges. There was no coming back from stains like that; they were destined for the big clothing bank in the sky.
He shook his head and pushed his hands through his hair before tucking them behind his head and stretching his legs out in front of him. ‘Funny, I’ve had so much damn drama in the last forty-eight hours and this is the most relaxed I’ve felt.’
‘Sister still not found the stopcock?’
He laughed. ‘It’s not funny. Now she’s finished flooding the flat below, she’s complaining that I didn’t have the foresight before she turned up on my doorstep with baby, and demon spawn from hell five-year-old, to child-proof my one-bedroomed flat, which coincidentally,’ he adopted a falsetto, ‘isn’t big enough. Apparently, these free lodgings are too dangerous for the children. Little Teddy, aforementioned five-year-old Hell Boy got out into the corridor and took himself off in the lift.’
I couldn’t help it but I giggled and he raised his eyebrows.
‘I’m serious.’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. I don’t know your sister but,’ I lifted my shoulders, ‘that sounds may I say it, a tad unreasonable.’
‘You mean I’m not an insensitive bastard who never thinks of anyone but himself and his collection of football trophies.’
‘Well,’ I wrinkled my nose as if giving it serious thought, ‘Trophies, collections, you say? Ooh, yeah. That’s classic insensitive bastard territory.’ I suddenly grinned at him and added, ‘Bloody good job you got invited for an all-expenses paid trip to Copenhagen, then.’
He laughed.
‘You tell my sister, Amy, that. She thinks I’ve buggered off deliberately to inconvenience her.’
‘And won all those trophies, don’t forget.’ I wagged a jokey finger at him.
He laughed again. ‘I wasn’t bragging or anything.’
‘I didn’t think you were. Blimey, if my brothers had a trophy between them I’d be celebrating. We have a life size Sith Infiltrator in the garden, not to mention the replica Tardis dashboard with working reactor core in the shed.’
‘Pardon?’ He looked at me as if I’d gone completely mad.
‘I’m serious. My brother Brandon likes building sci-fi models. Look.’
I showed him Brandon’s website, a labour of love, scrolling through the gallery of pictures of his previous projects.
‘Bloody hell, that’s …’ he enlarged the picture on the screen, ‘mental.’
‘Yeah, people have said that about him before.’
‘No, seriously the detail is incredible. Is he a professional model builder?’
‘Is there such a thing? No, he works at a breaker’s yard, salvaging cars and bringing home stuff that catches his eye they can’t sell. He created this website and he has a whole following of similar weirdos, except they’re not. They all seem incredibly dedicated and supportive of each other.’
‘And the reactor core really works?’ Was that genuine interest on his face as he looked at the replica model, not quite life-size but near enough, of the inside of the Tardis.
For a moment, I wondered if he was one of them.
‘Yes, along with Star Wars, Stargate and Star Trek, he has a minor obsession with Doctor Who.’ I spluttered out a laugh. ‘He’s actually rather clever, the console of the Tardis works in the mechanical sense as in, it goes up and down and makes that weird wheezing train on acid sort of noise, but not in the real sense that the Sinclair family have been tripping backwards and forwards to Gallifrey on their summer holidays.’
‘I meant, he can do all the hydraulics and electrical stuff as well?’
‘Yeah, Brandon’s a genius at all that stuff and a complete numpty with absolutely everything else.’ I sobered. ‘He’s so smart in many ways but couldn’t pass an exam to save his life.’ I sighed.
‘Are there just the two of you?’
‘No, my other brother John, he’s not so smart but thinks he is. He’s got the gift of the gab and about as much work ethic as a sloth on go slow. His get up and go, got up and went the minute he started secondary school. He works in Debenhams and thinks he’s doing them a favour.’
‘So, you’re the driven one. The high achiever.’
‘Thanks. Hard-nosed bitch much?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘My mum wanted us to make something of ourselves. I was the eldest, I got the lion’s share of the message.’ I paused, before saying matter of factly, ‘Before she died. And I’ve no idea why I said that. You’re good at this journalist thing, aren’t you? Making people talk.’
His face softened and he tilted his head, considering me.
‘And I’d say you’re good at this PR lark, listening to people, communicating.’
For some bizarre reason, I turned pink and had to look away.
Luckily Eva returned bringing with her a very pale Avril, who despite everything, managed to appear ethereal and glamorous. Her hair was damp where they’d obviously sponged away all the blood but somehow she’d escaped any bloody stains leaving only me looking like I’d been in a fight.
&
nbsp; I jumped up.
‘How are you feeling?’
Avril gave me a wan smile. ‘Sore.’ She touched her temple. ‘Proper war wound. Five stitches.’ Her eyes sparkled with some of the haughty princess I was used to. ‘Dishy doctor though.’
‘Avril!’ I bit back a laugh.
‘He was.’ We exchanged a rare conspiratorial grin. ‘All Viking and blonde with very gentle hands. Made me feel all woman.’
And then she burst into tears.
Chapter 15
Looking small and rather defenceless, Avril huddled in one of the leather chairs in Varme, clutching her cup of coffee. She’d only just stopped crying which seemed to frighten her as much as it surprised me. Super-princesses like Avril didn’t cry proper tears or dissolve into heart-breaking sobs or so I’d assumed.
Ben beat a hasty retreat and had gone back to the hotel to update everyone else while Eva had once again swooped in and took us around the corner where to my horror she unlocked the door to the coffee shop. Bless her, she’d shut up shop to come and rescue us.
‘I’m s-sorry.’ Avril sniffed. Without her usual confident attitude, she seemed like an uncertain teenager.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Eva, leaning over and patting her hand. ‘You need a good cry, I think.’
‘I-I never c-cry.’ As soon as she said it, she dissolved into fresh sobs.
Eva and I exchanged quick frowns and then she moved her chair next to Avril’s and pulled her close in a hug. I sat watching, feeling a little awkward at witnessing her vulnerability.
Eventually her sobs subsided and she wiped at her face now streaked with mascara.
‘Oh God, what must I look like.’ Eva jumped up and grabbed a handful of napkins which Avril took, wiping her eyes with sudden angry strokes. ‘I’m a mess.’
‘Avril, you could never look a mess,’ I said gently, ignoring the gothic smears marbling her face. With her high-cheek bone structure and creamy skin she still managed to look beautiful if a little dishevelled. If I’d had a crying jag like that, I’d be piggy eyed and snotty.
‘I meant inside.’
‘You’re away from home. You’ve had a nasty shock. Of course, you’re all over the place.’ Eva handed her another napkin.