Chapter 17
Once Jasper has driven away, I glance furtively back at the house. I’ll have to walk past the kitchen window to get to my cottage but don’t want to draw attention to my return. If I walk behind the stone wall, I can avoid the spotlight shining onto the lawn from the kitchen window. I pick up my case and carefully climb onto the low granite wall – oh, this is fine, easy as anything – I’ll just walk along the wall; I have the balance of an Olympic gymnast.
‘AHHHHHH!’
I stumble on a lump in the rock, launch forward like a bat without wings, landing splayed across the lawn with a THUNK. Pain alarms explode in my leg. ‘FUCKING OW! FUCKITY OW!’ I cry. I know I said I don’t swear much, but breaking my leg buys me some allowances on the language filter.
As I’m lying there, lamenting that my adult gymnast career is over before it even began, the kitchen door opens, and I see Ted’s broad-shouldered silhouette standing in the doorway.
‘Laura, what are you doing? Are you alright?’ he says, running down the hill and crouching down next to me.
‘My leg,’ I say, trying to sit up, ‘I think it’s broken. Oh jeez, is that my bone sticking out of the bottom? If it is, I’m going to be sick.’
I’m not good with gore. When I watched that movie about the guy who got stuck up a mountain and chopped off his own hand, I couldn’t look at my own hands for a week without gagging.
‘That’s your suitcase handle beneath your foot,’ says Ted. ‘Definitely no bone. Let me get you inside, and I’ll take a proper look.’
He helps me up, and I let out a wincing, ‘arrrghhhh-eeeehhh’ sound, like a fox with its tail stuck in a cat flap. Ted sweeps me up in both arms and carries me back to the house. I murmur protests, but he lifts me so effortlessly that we’re back inside before I can articulate any sort of proper objection.
In the living room, Ted deposits me gently on the only remaining chair. The furniture that was in here earlier has disappeared; only boxes and piles of objects remain. There are a few lamps on the floor, the side tables they’d once stood on, gone. They emit a warm, low light, giving the room an inviting feel. Ted kneels down to inspect my leg. A thin line of blood trickles down from a gash on my shin.
‘I don’t think we need to amputate, it’s just a cut. You must have fallen on a sharp rock.’ He fetches a first aid kit, cleans the wound and carefully applies a large plaster. ‘Did you twist your ankle?’ He firmly holds my foot in one hand, and then with the other, gently presses the skin. ‘Does this hurt?
Does it hurt?’ he asks again, and I realise I haven’t answered, distracted by the feeling of his hands on my skin.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I say.
Ted carefully packs the first aid case away. He’s being all serious and professional; this must be his doctor mode.
‘Dare I ask why you were dancing along the wall?’
‘I didn’t want to disturb you, traipsing across the garden,’ I say, weakly.
He tilts his face to meet mine.
‘If I wasn’t disturbed by the car-side flirting and giggling, I don’t think I would have been disturbed by you walking through my garden.’
Now I wish my leg was broken and I was safely on my way to hospital rather than having this brain-meltingly awkward conversation. Clearing my throat, I roll my ankle between my hands to distract from having to respond. Ted picks up the medical bag and his lip twitches with the hint of a smile.
‘Do you want me to help you down to the cottage?’
‘Could I just have some water?’ I ask, in an exaggerated, hoarse voice. Now that the leg-breaking emergency is over, I feel sheepish about how things were left between us, and I want to apologise before I go anywhere.
He gives me a compassionate look as if to reassure me he’s not annoyed or jealous or disapproving or – jealous? Why did I think that? Of course he’s not jealous. I gulp down the glass of water Ted hands me.
‘Ted, I’m so sorry about this evening,’ I say, putting the empty glass down on the carpet next to me.
‘It’s fine, I was up anyway.’
‘No, not now – well, now, too – but I meant earlier. You were only trying to look out for me, as any friend would. I was rude to you and I’m sorry.’
Ted smiles, a genuine smile that reaches his eyes.
‘That’s OK. So, did Mr McGuffin live up to expectations?’
My stomach twists into a knot.
‘He’s nice,’ I say, feeling my face getting warm.