by Lily Morton
“His house is on the high street according to Google Maps. Where will you park?” Andrew asks.
“Zeb said you can go behind the house and park on his drive.” I see the turn up ahead and exclaim. “Yes, there it is!”
“So, this is a friend of yours?”
“Not really my friend. He’s Zeb’s stepbrother,” I correct him. “And we’re definitely not stopping for long. We’ll drop the papers off, watch him sign them, and then get off back to London as soon as possible.”
As I drive down the narrow lane, I see the big sage-green gates that Zeb mentioned in his instructions. They’re propped open, and beyond is a small garden and the back of Max’s cottage, all honey stone and windows twinkling in the sunshine. My heart picks up speed and my palms get sweaty. I wipe them surreptitiously against my jeans and signal to turn in.
“I’ll back into the drive,” I say nervously. “It’ll make getting out easier.”
“It’s very tight,” Andrew says dubiously, no faith in his voice at all.
I roll my eyes. “Said the actress to the bishop.”
I pull past the entrance and then slowly reverse. It takes three attempts while Andrew sits with a supercilious look on his face and I feel sweat dampen under my arms. Finally, I’ve got the car straight enough, and I start to back in.
“Well, that was interesting,” he says.
I finally snap. “About as interesting as some of your architectural stories, Andrew. Memo: the post-industrial vernacular and spatial composition are not conversational catnip. Maybe you could put a note in your Blackberry for the next time you pick up someone in a club.”
“You know, Felix, I think—”
There’s a dull thud as the car hits something on the drive.
“Oh my God.” I jam my foot on the brake and promptly stall the car.
For a long second, there’s silence, and then I jerk back to life like someone just applied an electrical current to my balls. “What the fuck was that?” I breathe. All I can hear is birdsong.
“Oh God,” he groans. “Has he got a dog? Have you run his dog over?”
“Shit!” I feel sick, and my breathing is far too quick. “Get out and have a look,” I say.
“No, you look,” he says, shoving me.
I get out of the car, sure I’m going to vomit. At the sound of a groan, I dash to the back of the car.
I’m expecting to find a dog, but instead I find Max. He’s lying on the drive, blinking up at me, grimacing in pain and cradling his right arm.
Horror rushes through me. I could have killed him. Instead, I appear to have maimed him.
“Oh my God, Max.” I drop to my knees next to him. “Oh my fucking Lord, I’m so sorry.”
“You ran into me, Felix,” he says through gritted teeth.
I feel stupidly and immediately defensive now that I see he’s sitting and capable of bitching. And that I haven’t killed him. The relief has fled and left only rage.
“What the hell were you doing lying on the drive waiting to be run over, Max?”
“I wasn’t exactly lying on the drive,” he protests.
“Then what were you doing?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at him.
The car door opens. Great. Andrew has obviously decided that it’s okay to emerge now I’m not about to be handcuffed and carted off to prison. “Babe?” he says.
Max’s face instantly clouds over. “Who’s that?” he asks sharply.
“Not your business and very much beside the point,” I advise him. “What were you doing on the ground?” I pause. “Were you drunk?”
“Felix, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon,” he says mildly, still staring past me at Andrew. “Even I wait until the sun has gone down. I was just lying on the ground to see the effect of a winter day on a dead body.”
My head is about to blow up like a kettle, steaming and rattling. “Couldn’t you google it like a normal person?” I shout and it’s very loud.
“Felix.” Andrew gestures to me and I get up, admonishing Max to stay where he is. He obeys with an angelic look on his face. Andrew pulls me gently to one side. “Babe, your snark is out of control. Maybe you should dial it down. You did run him over after all.”
“I’m just sorry I didn’t get his jaw,” I say loudly and see Max smile out of the corner of my eye.
I pace back over to him. “Is your arm broken?” I ask.
He gives a one-shouldered sort of shrug. “Probably just a sprain. I bumped my head on the car, and when I fell, I landed on my arm. It hurts a bit, but I’m fine.”
I wonder if that means he’s in agony. Max learnt incredible stoicism as well as good grammar while he was a journalist.
I groan. “Motherfucker. Look at you. Put your hand up.”
He smirks. “What for? Detroit?”
“You are not funny despite your numerous attempts at it.” I pull off my flannel shirt and fashion a sling from it, easing his arm into it gently. He lets me work with an entirely too innocent expression on his face. “God, you’re a fucking idiot,” I grumble. “Could this day get any worse?” I sigh.
“Why have you had a bad day?” Max asks immediately. His expression clouds over. “Did he do something?”
“Who?” I ask.
He nods toward Andrew.
“Oh no.” I wave a hand in rebuttal and turn to Andrew. “Andrew, this is Max,” I say. “Don’t shake his other hand. With my luck, his whole arm will drop off.”
“You know, Felix, what I really love about you is your ability to tap into your compassion at a second’s notice,” Max observes.
I glare at him. “Just be glad I’m not tapping into a nearby stick. Because I’d probably beat you over the head with it today.”
Andrew has been staring at Max, and he suddenly exclaims, “You’re Max Travers.”
Max’s humour dies away. “I am,” he says coolly.
“That’s excellent. I followed you when you were a journalist and Felix bought me a copy of your book for my birthday.”
“Did he really?” Max glances at me with a gleeful expression.
I blush. “It’s only right to help the older generation along,” I say quickly. “Money in your pocket, Max. You can buy yourself another Zimmer.”
Max chuckles. “Felix has a real feel for bookshops,” he says to Andrew in a conversational tone. How he manages it while sitting on the ground with one arm in a sling, is beyond me, but he does. Sometimes I envy his sangfroid.
“Really?” Andrew sounds offensively surprised.
The glee on Max’s face intensifies. “Yes, he gets so much out of bookshops. Why, when I met him for the first time it was in a bookshop and then he did this thing with his—”
“Oh my God,” I say loudly, drowning out his voice. “We’ve—” I falter for inspiration. “We’ve got some papers for you to sign.”
Max makes an apologetic face. “Darling, I’m sorry. I’m a bit out of commission at the moment as a result of you mangling my arm.”
“Mangling? You didn’t get it caught in a combine harvester. Put the pen in your mouth, then, and do it for England,” I snap. “And don’t call me darling,” I add as an afterthought.
“Felix,” Andrew says in a shocked tone.
At that moment an old lady steps out of the cottage and walks towards us, doing up her coat as she goes.
“See you tomorrow, Mr Travers,” she snaps at Max.
I gape at her. Does she not see what’s happening?
She gets a few steps down the drive and then stops and turns back. “The house is done and clean. There had better not be any more experiments in your study or I won’t answer for my actions. You’re resting on my last nerve since the incident with the gunpowder.” She looks at me and Andrew. “He’s nutty as a squirrel’s dinner,” she remarks in a warning tone.
“You have my deepest and most sincere condolences,” I tell her.
Andrew shakes his head. “He does seem to inspire strong emotion,
doesn’t he?”
“Mainly homicidal ones,” I snap. I look at Max and sigh. “Okay, get in the car,” I command. “I’m going to drive you to the hospital to get that arm checked out.”
“Isn’t that sort of a poacher turned gamekeeper?” Max asks, getting to his feet with suspicious obedience.
Andrew laughs and ruffles my hair. “He’s definitely not the best driver. I nearly had a heart attack being in the passenger seat this morning.”
Max stares at him coldly, all the humour leaving his face. “I’m sure he’d be brilliant if he put his mind to it,” he says stiffly. “Felix has an amazing brain.” I stare open-mouthed at Max, but he just carries on glaring at Andrew. “He hates driving though, and that’s not his car. So why was he driving in the first place?”
“Oh.” Andrew shifts position awkwardly.
I’m torn between glee at Max defending me and ire that he’s sticking his nose in my private life. “None of your business,” I say sharply.
At the same time, Andrew says, “I got a bit drunk last night and Felix offered to drive.”
I gape at Andrew. My open mouth gets even wider, when Max says primly, “Maybe have a bit more consideration for Felix and limit your alcohol consumption.”
“That’s like Marie Antoinette lecturing the guillotine operator on how to cut her hair,” I observe as I open the passenger door. “Get in,” I command.
Max obeys with suspicious obedience. I’m just about to start the engine when he says, “Wait,” urgently and jumps out and vanishes into the house.
“Where is he going now?” I groan. “Christ, this is like a long car journey with a toddler.”
Andrew opens his mouth to reply but then Max is back and throwing something through the open car window at me. “What’s this?” I ask, picking up a bundle of fabric.
“A jumper.” He climbs into the car and smiles at me. “You’re only in a T-shirt and you’re shivering.”
“Oh.” I hesitate for a long second before finally saying awkwardly, “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he says sunnily. “Now I’d better direct you to the hospital.”
We set off with a jerk. Max winces and I look at him in concern as Andrew groans in the back seat. “Fucking hell, Felix, try and be a bit more light-footed on the pedal.”
Max directs a glare back at him. “You’re doing fine,” he says gently to me. “Just ignore him.”
Andrew huffs, and I look gratefully at Max before remembering that I’m not supposed to like him. I focus on the road, instead.
The hospital is fairly quiet and Max is quickly whisked away to get an X-ray. I settle back on my chair with a cup of disgusting coffee and prepare to wait.
Andrew fidgets on his chair and sighs.
“Still hungover?” I ask, attempting to sound interested but probably failing dismally.
“My head is killing me. Have we got to stay the entire time?”
“You’ve changed your tune. What happened to, ‘Oh, you’ve hurt him, Felix. You must nurse him back to health’?”
He shrugs. “He opened his mouth.”
I start to laugh and then I shrug. “We have to stay.”
“Why?”
“Erm, were you not a witness to what happened? I ran into him with a car. It’s my fault.”
Andrew settles back, resigned.
I wish I could be as sanguine. The truth is that I’d have come to the hospital and stayed, regardless of any fault, because this is Max. The thought makes me cross.
With perfect timing, Max appears with his arm in a sling, wheeled by a nurse.
We get up and follow as she pushes him into a cubicle. After giving us a smile, she vanishes.
“What did they say?” I ask, sitting on one of the chairs.
“They reckon it’s just a fracture,” Max says casually. “Apparently they’re going to put a cast on it.”
“I am sorry,” I say awkwardly.
Max just laughs. Andrew eyes him disbelievingly, but this is Max all over. Easygoing and charming and stoical.
“I still can’t believe I hit you with a car,” I say. “You’re going to send me round the bend eventually, Max. I’ll be as mad as a hatter.”
Max laughs again. “Well, in my defense I didn’t realise you were coming. I’d have made sure to welcome you properly if I had.”
The innuendo is clear in his voice and Andrew looks curiously between the two of us. I sigh. “Try and answer your phone,” I advise. “Zeb’s been trying to get hold of you for ages.”
“I was writing,” he protests.
I roll my eyes. “And thus life stops.”
“You’re a thriller writer aren’t you now?” Andrew asks.
Max barely shoots him a glance in response. He seems to be actively trying to pretend Andrew isn’t here.
“Yes,” I insert quickly. “He’s a bestselling author. Crime and mystery. ”
“That’s nice,” Andrew says.
Max snorts.
Silence falls and then I stir. “I’m surprised that your young man of the moment wasn’t around to whisk you to hospital,” I say waspishly. “Aren’t they normally hanging about your house in their underwear?”
“Not likely,” Max says primly. “That would send my heating bills sky high.” When I snort and shake my head, he leans closer. “There aren’t any men, young or otherwise,” he says quietly.
Andrew’s eyebrows rise. He’s obviously straining to hear every word.
“Oh really?” I scoff. “Pull the other one. It’s got bells on it.”
“I hope they play a nice tune, then, because it’s true.”
More silence falls. Uncomfortable, I grasp for something to say. “Did you know where the term mad as a hatter comes from?”
Max sits back with a wry smile on his face. “Is it something to do with Alice in Wonderland?”
“No, it’s from the hatting industry in Bedfordshire. They used mercury in the felt and it led to symptoms of dementia amongst the workers.”
“Really?” Max’s eyes light with interest.
I used to love to come up with these facts when we were together, because he soaked them up like a sponge. I think I was inspired by Zeb, who seems to know everything.
Andrew laughs and, leaning over, ruffles my hair. “You and your little stories,” he says in his usual patronising manner.
“I like them,” Max says, glaring at Andrew and then smiling at me.
“You just like them because you want to see my cock again,” I say idly.
He laughs. “Well, it does so enhance all of your little stories.”
There’s a short silence. I realise what I’ve said at the same moment that Andrew says, “Wait. You’ve been together?”
“For a long time,” Max says.
I glare at him. “For a very short and eminently forgettable time we were together. Years ago.”
Max narrows his eyes, but before he can say anything, the cubicle curtain is whisked open and the doctor appears.
“We’ll wait outside,” I say hurriedly, spiriting Andrew out.
“You slept with him?” he hisses in the hallway.
“What feels like a millennium ago.”
“And you never thought to mention it to me?”
I stare at him in astonishment. “No, why would I?”
He opens his mouth to argue, but I jump in and say, “Max is old news. Such old news that the pages have gone yellow. It’s not important.”
The cubicle curtain opens and the doctor comes out. “I’m just sending him to get a cast on that arm,” he says, smiling at us before walking away to confer with a nurse.
I pop my head around the curtain. Max is staring at the wall with a very concentrated expression on his face. Wheels and cogs are turning at hyper speed in that big brain of his, and I’m pretty sure he’s plotting something.
“Everything okay?” I ask cheerfully.
He turns to me. “I’m afraid you’ll need to stay with me tonight, Felix
,” he says slowly.
“What?” I gasp.
He puts up his good hand. “Not my idea,” he says in a sanctimonious tone. “It was the doctor. He’s concerned about my head.”
“Why? Did you finally knock some sense into it?”
“Felix,” Andrew says.
I ignore him in favour of glaring at Max. “There’s absolutely no reason for me to stay with you.”
“What about my arm?”
“You’ve got another one.” Even I can hear the hysteria in my voice, but I can’t stop it.
Max looks pensive. “Well, I suppose I’ll be alright. You mustn’t worry about me,” he says with a sigh.
“Oh, okay. That’s great,” I say quickly. “We’ll just be off, then. Nice to see you again, Max. Let’s leave it a lot longer next time.”
“Felix,” Andrew says reproachfully. “You have to stay. He’s helpless.”
“He is not helpless,” I argue. “He got through Syria with a bullet in him. I’m sure he can cope with the taxi ride from the hospital.”
Panic rises. I can’t stay with him. I’ve developed a routine over the last couple of years. Get in. Snark at him. Get out. My method will take a severe battering if I have to stay in the same house as him. I haven’t been in this close proximity to him since we were together in Cornwall.
My thoughts are interrupted when the doctor comes back into the cubicle. “Ah, Mr. Travers,” he says cheerfully. “Nurse is on her way. Have you arranged for someone to stay with you tonight? If not, I’m going to insist that you stay here because of that bump on the head.”
Max turns what can only be described as puppy-dog eyes on me. Against my will I sigh and say, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Yes,” Max says loudly. When we all turn to stare at him, he immediately assumes a pious expression. “How extremely thoughtful of you, Felix,” he intones.
“Good good,” the doctor says. “Now, I’ll give you a list of things to watch out for. Mainly unusual sleep patterns.”
“They usually happen when he’s been drinking,” I observe. The doctor immediately looks at Max, his expression indicating Max has suddenly turned into Charlie Sheen.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “No drinking tonight, then, Mr Travers.” He frowns at Max. “Or drugs,” he adds.