‘Hey,’ I give her a gentle shove. ‘It’s not that I want to leave
you
behind, you know that don’t you?’ Right now she’s about the only friend I have left here.
‘I’m
glad
you’re still thinking of going, Rose. Glad for you. I think ...’ she stops as we reach the main part of the hill. ‘This is where we part?’
I guess I’d better head back home too. All this talk of marvellous dreams but where’s the opportunity to make any of them come true? In my pocket I can feel my phone buzzing, reminding me that Mrs P has already tried to get hold of me a couple of times.
As I round in on Clare Farm ten minutes later, something looks different. Something
feels
different. I hope everything’s all right? But out front, the crisp white snow shows evidence of several visitors having arrived. Three separate sets of footprints are etched into the drive; they’ve come up round the bottom of the ugly fire-escape my uncle Ty had put in as an emergency exit from Dad’s bedroom when he first became disabled. I quicken my pace.
Nothing bad could have actually happened in the forty minutes or so that I’ve been away, could it?
I watch Dougie as he stands up behind his desk and the wad of papers I’ve just brought him from Lestat on Sunny’s behalf slide untidily onto the floor. I resist the urge to pick them up, glancing at my watch. If the surgeon is going to alter how they operate on Sunny, then I promised the Registrar I’d get back to him by 12.30. We’re getting on for noon already and I’ve not yet made any progress with my boss. Right now it looks as if he might be about to dismiss me without giving me any further chance to speak. I’m feeling frustrated. At the same time I can’t help feeling bad for Dougie, that I’ve put him in this difficult position. He doesn’t want to fire me, I know that. I haven’t left him any other option. He’s the guy who took me under his wing when I first came here, taught me the right way to use the mosquito net, warned me what a military plane sounds like when it’s still over a minute away, pointed out which of the local ‘delicacies’ might kill me if they weren’t prepared properly...
He hoists himself over to the tent entrance, solid and imposing and just - steady, and it dawns on me that Dougie’s a huge part of the reason why I’ve stayed on here so long. I never knew that till this moment. Whatever happens now, I’m really going to miss him. I want to say something to him. I don’t know what, though. And I don’t know how. Whatever it is, it just stays stuck in my throat, unspoken.
‘I want you to go home, Lad.’ He turns to me at the edge of his tent. ‘I want to put you on the next available flight back to the UK. I’ll say you were due home leave and that’s true. Once you’re out of their reach …’
He wants me to go home. I don’t even register what the thought of that does to me inside. I’ve got other, more important, things to deal with right now.
‘What about Sunny?’ I bend gingerly to pick up Leststat’s wad of papers. ‘Can we get him on that Aid Abroad list?’ My boss just stares at me open-mouthed as if I’m some kind of idiot. Don’t I see what level of personal danger I’m in? I see him swallow, then, his face softening as it might for a well-meaning but misled infant.
‘Not a chance.’
I get up and join him at the tent entrance.
‘In that case, Dougie,’ the words come out before I even get a chance to think them through. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Tell that guy who rang you just now that you have me in your custody. Tell him he can send over some military police to pick me up right now.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Dougie’s face darkens again, and I know this is not just him being angry at me for being stubborn. He’s
scared.
‘Do you really know what you’re saying? Do you?’ He turns and I can sense all eighteen stone of him quivering now. He wants to help me. He needs to act fast and all I’m doing is standing in his way.
‘I think I have a fair idea.’
‘I’ve only ever had one member of staff end up in jail in this province and believe me, you do not want to go there.’
‘You’re right I don’t …’ My God, he’s no idea of the lengths I’ve already gone to, to avoid just that.
‘Then
why the hell
won’t you accept the Get Out Of Jail Free card that I’m offering you? You do realise if I get you out of here it’s not going to go down so easy on me, yes? There’s bound to be consequences at this end. Questions asked. I may go down on a disciplinary myself …’
‘I know.’ I bow my head, feeling humble beside him because Dougie really is a good man. ‘But I can’t abandon Sunny.’
‘You can’t help him, you young idiot! No matter what you do you’re not in a position to help him. All you can do now is save yourself. Don’t throw your life away, Lawrence. You could rot in jail for years here and nobody would ever come along to save you. This way, you could be home free by Christmas Eve …’
Home free? I don’t think so. Something on my face must warn him, and Dougie gives me a long penetrating look now as if something of the truth about me is trickling through at last.
‘If you let me get you home you’ll be free to go on and help
others
like Sunny,’ he breathes now. ‘Take my offer, it’s the best you’re going to get, believe me.’ I can almost feel him itching to get out of the tent. He wants to go and organise that flight for me. ‘Lad, understand this; we haven’t much time.’
‘If I go back to the UK,’ I say slowly now, ‘If I take that flight back home like you want me to - I could find Sunny some sponsors there.’ I hear his gasp of exasperation. ‘Dougie, I swear I could. All I need is for you to rubber-stamp all these forms for me. And use some of that same leverage you’re going to need to use to get me out of here …’
‘I should let you rot in jail
.
’
H
e snatches the forms right out of my hand and goes over and flings them down on his desk. ‘Do you know that? I’m sure Lestat already
told
you what all this would entail. It can’t be done. I’d need … I’d need signatures from a willing sponsor. Someone of the right standing. I’d need medical teams available to oversee his recovery … ‘
‘You’ll have that. All of it.’
He closes his eyes for a minute, as if it is too much, having to deal with a crazy, delusional young man like me.
‘I’ll have that?’
‘Sure. I’ll fax it out to you. Whatever you need. You do your bit at this end, that’s all I ask.’
‘You’ll have everything signed and agreed before the 31
st
December when the Aid Abroad flight leaves?’ It’s a rhetorical question but I answer it.
‘Yes.’
‘No!’ he says now. ‘You won’t. You can’t do, know why? Because it’s impossible to get people together that quickly, that’s why. Why can’t you just leave this Sunny to his fate, Lawrence?’
‘I can’t,’ I tell him softly now. ‘I can’t, and you already know why. It’s the same reason that
you
won’t hand me over to the military police. Instead you’re willing to put your own position at risk to get me out of here.’
My boss stares at me, dumbfounded for a moment.
‘And why is that, Lawrence?’
‘Because after all we’ve been through together, you
care
. If I get hurt, that’s going to hurt you too. I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t want to go back home. I won’t be welcome there when I do go back. I might well be arrested for something I did a long time ago and end up in jail anyway.’ I hear his sharp intake of breath but I carry on –
‘I know I can’t undo what I did, Dougie. I can’t change what’s still waiting for me back there but when I look at that kid with all the tragedy and the disability that’s dogging him now, I see a version of myself in him, I can’t help it …’
‘Listen. What was the very first thing I ever taught you when you came out here?’
‘Don’t make it personal,’ I intone.
‘That’s it. Take my advice now, I’m begging you. Just leave it be.’
‘I see a kid who was once gonna grow up so tall he was gonna knock that football moon right out of the sky. I see a kid who was deeply loved and who’s lost everyone who ever loved him. I see … a kid who’s still fighting for himself, Dougie, despite all the wounds he’s sustained and
I want him to make it.’
When he turns away, I catch a glimpse of the despair on his own face and I remember that he’s had his fair share of hard times in the world. Dougie’s been an unfailing tower of strength to me while I’ve been here. It’s easy to forget sometimes that he has his own vulnerabilities. He leans heavily on his desk now, not saying anything for a moment. When he turns back to me now, his face grey with worry, he seems to have made up his mind on something.
‘If I agree to try to save this lad for you -
try
, I say, you know there’s no guarantee here - you’ll get your things and take the jeep that leaves for the airport in the next half hour? With the checkpoints, it’ll take you over an hour to get there but you’ll easily get on the evening service down to Colombo. Then you’ll take the flight to Heathrow. I’ll organise it from this end. Just get out of here. You’ll do this - no quibbles?’
He wants me on the jeep that leaves in the next half hour?
I swallow.
‘I’ll be on it, sir. I’ll go straight away.’
And that’s it. I see Dougie draw in a breath. He looks at me, and his eyes are hooded but so sad I can’t bear to even look at him. If I don’t move now I’ll never give him the hug I so totally out of the blue want to give him. I won’t tell him what a great guy he’s been and to ‘have a good one’ or any of that crap. I’ve only got half an hour to get my shit together and I know the minutes are ticking down.
‘I guess this is goodbye then, sir?’
‘I guess it is.’ He gives a sad little smile. ‘And lad - when you go back home and do your Knight on the White Charger thing to save that kid …?’
He leans forward and clasps my hand warmly, hugs me close to his chest in a bear hug and for one small moment of joy and pain I know exactly how much I’m going to miss this dude.
‘You do it for me, too. Agreed?’
‘Definitely.’
Outside, it’s begun raining again. The fine, incessant see-through rain that’s been a constant over the last few months.
‘
Two hundred rupees, sir?’
The flier-pasting guy is like a pesky bluebottle zuzzing around again, sniffing out my desperation and I wave him away impatiently. Goddammit, I can barely even see where I’m going right now, this rain, why does this blasted rain have to keep on falling all the time like this place can’t stop crying?
It’s only when I’m racing across the muddy track to go tell the Registrar we’ve got the go-ahead for the new op that it dawns on me what we just said about this being Goodbye.
I really am never going to see Dougie again, am I?
I must be mistaken. Clare Farm is the last place on earth my family would turn up to on Christmas Eve. And yet … in the hallway there’s a pile of wet coats and melting boots by the front door - one’s a man’s big overcoat and the other two are dainty women’s ones. There’s also the welcoming aroma of fresh coffee brewing and I can’t remember the last time someone wiped the cobwebs off our coffee maker.
What’s going on?
‘But Mrs P - even if the car can’t be fixed… Mummy said we could take the
train
to Guiliana’s. We could, couldn’t we?’
That’s my cousin Samantha’s voice I swear it! Only it can’t be, because they always spend Christmas in Rome with my aunt Carlotta’s family and then push off for the skiing somewhere …?
What the heck are the family doing here?
I should be pleased. I feel a pang of guilt that I am not, a momentary shot of panic at the unexpectedness of their arrival, because all I really wanted, coming home, was to spend a little time on my own, regrouping. Guilt that my first thought is; w
hy did they have to turn up
now
, just as I’ve come in all white-faced and wobbly because of that nasty encounter with my pervy neighbour?
I rub my face with my hands, trying to bring a bit of warmth back into both. I didn’t realise that Pilgrim had affected me so much. While I was with Shona, I could put Pilgrim out of my mind easily enough but the minute we went our separate ways it struck me how much getting caught by him had shocked me. Frightened me. As I walked back down the lane, I could feel my legs shaking. Now I’m feeling sick. Those Macraes. Why does that same family always have to be the bane of our lives? I take my jacket off and throw it in the corner because that creep touched it. I am never going to wear it again. Not even if it’s been washed.
There’s no way Dad’s getting wind of what just happened, either. I know what it would do to him.
I swallow, catching sight of the note I left for Mrs P It’s still where I left it, on the mat. Didn’t she see it? Now the family are here - heaven knows why, but they are here - and everyone will be wondering where I got to, wanting explanations, no doubt, and I bet I look a mess. I go over and scan my face quickly in the hallway mirror, smooth down my hair a bit. It could be worse. Nothing actually happened, did it? I’m fine. I’ll tell them I went out to try and get my letter and I got caught out by the sudden turn in the weather.
‘Rose, you’re back! Wherever did you get to?’ My uncle Ty appears from the kitchen now looking tall and still handsome and so much like my dad did ten years ago that he makes my heart lurch.
‘I..um.’ I blink.
Never mind where I just got to… what the heck are you lot doing here?
I look at him, wide-eyed.
‘The Bentley broke down
.
’
H
e squeezes past the coats to give me a hug that’s both warm and distracted at the same time.
‘The Bentley?’ The penny drops. Uncle Ty must be the ‘posh guy’ Shona and her dad were up here to get the spanner for?
‘We were on the M20
.
’
H
e leans back to look at my face a little better and I get this sudden panicky thought that he’ll be able to do what my
d
ad always did - read me like a book, know that something’s up; I’m hiding something, and he’ll be able to coax it out of me, ‘It so happened Merry Ditton was the nearest place for us to come to,’ he says, more slowly now.
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘I know - it must come as a bit of a shock to find you’ve suddenly got three unexpected guests on your doorstep.’ He gives an apologetic laugh. ‘Hopefully we won’t be detaining you for too long …’
‘I’m not detained,’ I say stupidly, suddenly feeling a huge rush of relief just to have him here. ‘I mean, it’s
great
to see you!’ Suddenly, it really does feel great, the thought of having company. I only wish they could stay. If only they would then - me and Dad wouldn’t have to be alone over the whole of this holiday. We’d have people to talk to,
family
to be with.
‘Dad was just saying the other day - it’s been years since the family got together for Christmas …’ I stop, in case he thinks there’s any reproach in that. There’s not, but his eyes look sad.
‘I wish we could stay,’ he says, and I believe him. His comment makes it perfectly clear, however that they will not. I bend to pull off my Wellies, first one, and then the other, prop them up carefully against the hall radiator.
‘You’d be very welcome to stay on. If the car couldn’t get fixed in time …’ I look at Ty wistfully as he bends to pick up the jacket I’ve just discarded on the floor and hangs it carefully over the radiator.
‘We’ve taken up all your space on the coat rack …’ he apologises.
‘No, not at all. I’m just …’ I put my hand over my heart, aware that out of the blue and to my horror, I’m suddenly welling up. ‘I’m really glad to see you, that’s all.’
I wipe my face with the back of my sleeve surreptitiously. I don’t want to blub in front of my uncle, this is terrible. I turn away from him but there’s no way in this tiny hallway to avoid my uncle noticing.
‘Rosie, what’s wrong?’ The kindness in his voice only makes the pain in my chest feel worse. I’d rather
not
experience any of his kindness and concern. I’m okay now, anyway. I’m home and I’m safe and far away from the nasty Macraes. Better, by far, if we could gloss this over and carry on and drink some of that hot coffee they’ve got brewing in the kitchen.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Darling,’ my uncle takes hold of my shoulders, turns me gently to face him. Damn it, he looks so much like my Dad used to do, he’s got the same eyes, his voice
sounds
the same. ‘What’s wrong? Is it
your Dad
?’
I gulp. My Dad. Of course, that’s what they’d all think; that Dad’s having troubles and I’ve just been soldiering on and not said anything to anyone. If Ty thinks that, it gets me off having to confess I’ve just been a massive idiot and gone trespassing in the worst place possible and got caught. I nod my head now, sinking my face into uncle’s soft jumper. I’m going to get his jumper wet with my tears, I think. It’ll get wet and it’s probably one of those dry-clean only jobs and it’ll be ruined. There’s a strange satisfaction in the thought that my feelings are worth ruining his expensive jumper for. That I matter that much.
‘Rose
.
’
U
ncle Ty lifts my face to see my eyes now. ‘Tell me what the trouble is?’ His voice is soft and cajoling. ‘Come on. What’s all this about? I know we’ve turned up out of the blue but … your Mrs P seemed to be a bit put out when she couldn’t find you,’ he admits. ‘She didn’t seem to know where you’d gone. There hasn’t been any trouble?’ His fingers under my chin are firm, don’t let me turn away ... ‘An argument, maybe?’
‘No!’ I shake my head fiercely. ‘Who on earth would I be arguing with?’
He sighs, shakes his head.
‘I have no idea. Samantha argues with her mother all the time. She’s taken to walking out.’
‘Sam is four years younger than me. I have to look after my
d
ad,’ I remind him. ‘I don’t
walk out.
I went to … to fetch a letter that had been misdelivered, but …’ my voice betrays me and I stutter into silence before I end up saying anymore. I look down.
‘A letter?’ he prompts.
‘I thought it might be my Uni offer letter,’ I admit quietly.
‘You’ve re-applied?’ The significance of that filters through to him slowly. ‘And Jack?’ His brother needs me here to look after him. Yes, I know.
I give a small shrug. I don’t know how I’m going to fix that bit of the equation. I live in hope. I’ve been hoping he would help me. I shoot him a painful look but I can’t quite bring myself to say the words. He’s only just arrived. This feels like something I should be working my way up to and I haven’t got there yet. What if I ask him and the answer’s ‘
I wish I could help’
delivered in the exact same regretful tone in which he just told me they won’t be sticking around for Christmas?
‘I take this as a good sign,’ he says cautiously. ‘We’ve only been here twenty minutes - you’ve probably guessed,’ he makes a small joke, touching his own cold cheeks
.
‘I’ve barely defrosted yet. But from what I’ve seen so far, Jack seems … well, better than I’ve seen him in a long time. Years, in fact. He told us he’s been put on some new form of medication …?’
‘He has.’
‘Successfully, I take it?’ His eyebrows lift slightly.
‘So far,
u
ncle.’
‘But -
what?
’ He sucks in his bottom lip, frowning. ‘There’s a problem with it?’
‘It’s not that,’ I shake my head. I want to tell him. Standing here safe in the hallway of my own home I want to tell him everything; the whole story about where my missing letter has got to and how I don’t know what to do to get it back and how Pilgrim just accosted me. I want there to be someone on my team who’s strong and capable and brave enough to help me face our bullying neighbours and help me get back what’s rightfully mine.
But if I tell Ty …
I pull away from my uncle now because he isn’t my dad and I can’t expect him to fill that gap. No; Ty isn’t the one who’s going to make things all right for me. I have to do that myself, now. I draw in a breath.
‘The new meds are working wonders,’ I tell him. ‘They can’t cure Dad but they help control his symptoms just great. It’s not the same as being
well,
though, is it? Seeing you out of the blue just now - you reminded me so much of what Dad used to look like - it brought it all back to me, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Rose.’ His voice is heavy with sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s a lot to put on you, isn’t it? You’ve always coped so well and we all know how much my brother values his independence. You
do
know that if there’s anything you ever need …’
H
e rubs the side of my shoulder consolingly. ‘All you have to do is say the word.’
Is that really all I have to do? I shoot him a glance. I’ve never asked them for anything, that’s part of the trouble. Maybe they really do have no idea how much I need their help now?
‘There
is
something I need,’ I catch my breath now, surprised at how quickly that came out. Shall I just say it?
I’ll say it. Tell him that I want the family to help me if that offer does come through. I’ll do it. I pause for a moment, gathering the courage while the words catch and gather in my throat, reluctant as some heavy pebbles rolled along a slow river bed.