Winter Wishes (16 page)

But Morgan, who didn’t do deadpan, was confused.

“Why not? You know more about explosives than anyone else,” he said proudly.

“Not really, mate. That was a joke,” said Danny. “I’m not much help stumbling about in the dark with one arm.”

“It’s not a very funny joke,” Morgan told him. “A joke goes like this: a cowboy walks into a German car showroom and says ‘Audi’! Get it, Dad? Audi. It’s a car.”

“Ha ha,” said Danny dutifully. He caught Tara’s eye and smiled, a real smile this time. It warmed her far more than the heat from the bonfire. He rattled the bucket again. “Come on, cough up.”

“We don’t have any money. We’re poor. Fact,” Morgan reminded his father, to Tara’s mortification. Great. Now Danny would think she was even more useless and, worse still, not fit to look after their son. First thing tomorrow she’d swallow her pride, brave the gossips and trawl the village in search of a job. She’d take whatever she could find, even washing up or pulling pints.

Danny delved into his pocket and pulled out a handful of loose change. “Chuck that in,” he said. “And you’re not poor. I’m here to look after you.” He looked over Morgan’s head straight at Tara. “Both of you.”

Before Tara could reply or even think about how these words made her feel, the frosty night sky was filled with dazzling fireworks: golden stars, peacock blues and silver sparkles soared and fell as the sparks from the bonfire leapt into the dark. The ground beneath her feet shook with each burst, and beyond the silhouettes of onlookers the inky sea shivered with golds and greens and vivid scarlets. The crowd gasped and clapped, Morgan snapped photo after photo, and even Poison Ivy seemed to be impressed, although her hands were clamped firmly over her ears. Danny watched the display intently, but it didn’t escape Tara’s notice that every explosion made him start. She guessed that the horror of war was never very far away.

I wish I could turn back time
, she thought sadly. If only they could travel back two years to relive their lives before everything had gone wrong and the secrets had been spilled out in the hospital like blood. Was Danny’s heart as damaged as his body? Was he even the same man she’d first fallen in love with all those years ago?

She stole a peek at him but there were no clues in his expression; he was even less decipherable when he turned and she saw again, with the same jolt of shock that she never failed to feel, the scars and the brutal injuries.
Do I still love him?
she wondered. Perhaps it was just a ghost of the past that she was clinging to. After all, how well did she really know Danny Tremaine these days?

Tara was still deep in thought when the display ended, to rapturous cheering and applause from the crowd that was acknowledged by flickering torchlight from the firework technicians high up on the sloping land of Ashley’s garden. The crowds began to thin as visitors made their way back to the car park or into the pubs and restaurants. On the beach children were being given sparklers, while the WI were doing a roaring trade dishing up jacket potatoes that had been cooking in the embers of the fire.

“The volunteers running the stalls on the green will have a fit,” Danny remarked. “Alice was cooking all day for the barbeque. There’s enough honey-mustard sausages and coleslaw to feed my entire unit.”

“The money all goes to same cause, doesn’t it?” Tara recalled that every year the village raised money to cover the fireworks and then donate to charity. This year it was the air ambulance. The year Danny was hurt it had been Help for Heroes.

“Come on T, you’ve not been away that long. You know how competitive those ladies are over whose bucket has the most money in it!”

He’d used his old name for her and Tara was taken aback. He’d not called her T since… well, since he was in the hospital.

Morgan was down on the beach with the other children. He’d turned down a sparkler and a potato and was busy taking yet more pictures. Nothing else mattered to him, and Tara’s heart twisted with love. As long as he didn’t snap a photo of Ivy by mistake things should all be fine. Luckily the miserable old woman had left a few minutes earlier, but not before she’d complained bitterly about her ears ringing and told Danny she didn’t believe in charity. What a nasty piece of work she was.

“Morgan! Come and have some food!” Tara called.

“I’m taking a picture of the bonfire with everyone standing by it!” Morgan shouted back. He was fiddling with the lens as he spoke and heading across the sand as far as his little legs could carry him. “I’m using a wide angle!”

Now he was climbing up the rocks at the furthest side of the beach, still trying to screw the lens onto the camera. This was a dark and slippery spot and Tara’s stomach lurched. It was the hardest thing in the world, to give her child freedom despite seeing dangers lurking everywhere; it was a tightrope act of love, trying to balance both her instinct to protect him and his need for independence.

“Careful, Morgan,” Danny called. “Use both hands!”

But Morgan was so focused on the picture he was trying to take that he didn’t reply. Sometimes people thought he was deliberately ignoring them, when actually he was just very single-minded. When he had an idea, there was no stopping him. With alarm, Tara realised that this was one of those times. Morgan was climbing much higher than he usually did.

“He’s getting too far up,” Tara cried, clutching Danny’s arm. She was shocked anew to find an empty sleeve.

“Morgan! Get down!” Danny yelled. “That’s high enough!”

“He’s not listening.” Tara was heading towards the beach steps now with Danny at her side. “We’ll have to get him down.”

The next two seconds seemed to happen in sickeningly slow motion. One moment Morgan was scrambling over the rocks; the next he was tumbling down them until he lay at the foot like a rag doll.

Tara didn’t register running down the steps or tearing across the beach. Nor did she have a clue that Danny was right beside her, until they reached Morgan and he was crouching down next to his son. All she could see was her baby, in a heap and with blood running over his face.

Her body was cold all over. How was there so much blood? What had happened?

“Mum!” Morgan’s voice was weak but he was speaking. Tara’s knees turned to soggy seaweed with relief. “My camera’s broken!”

“Never mind your camera,” Danny told him. “Just stay there for a moment and don’t move. We need to check you over.”

Tara’s vision filled with ghastly images of broken necks and shattered bones. Her son looked pale and the amount of blood made her head swim. It was like a scene from Macbeth.

“There’s an awful lot of blood, Dan,” she whispered, not wanting to alarm Morgan, who was very white.

“That’s because he’s cut his forehead,” Danny assured her. “It looks a lot worse than it is, I promise. Cuts there bleed like mad. He’s had a bit of a fright and a few scrapes but he’ll be all right.”

“Let me through! I’m a first-aider!”

Sheila Keverne, clad in her St John’s garb, was elbowing her way through the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea. “Let me examine him! It might be a head trauma! He could be having a brain haemorrhage!”

Head trauma? Brain haemorrhage? The scene dipped and rolled like a fairground ride and Tara began to sway. Morgan’s blood became Danny’s blood, then became a burned-away face. She saw again the nightmarish injuries that still caused her to wake up in the night, her limbs shaking and her sheets soaking with sweat. She heard ragged sobbing from somewhere and then, appalled, realised it was her. The world had begun spinning so fast that she thought she was going to be violently sick. Doubling up, Tara retched onto the wet sand, before an arm pulled her close and her hair was gently pushed back from her face.

“Morgan’s OK,” she heard Jules Mathieson saying over and over again. “It’s going to be fine, Tara. He’s just cut his head.”

“My camera!” Morgan was exclaiming repeatedly. “Where is it? I’ve dropped it.”

“Never mind your camera, young man,” Sheila said sternly. “I need to look at you.”

“Sheila, he’s bumped his head, that’s all,” Danny pointed out. “I think we can take it from here – and Dr Penwarren’s only just up the road.”

But Sheila wasn’t having this. She was the First-Aider for the Polwenna Fireworks Committee, which was A Very Important Job. Drawing herself up to her full five feet three and puffing out her chest, she fixed him with a steely glare.

“Now you listen to me, Daniel Tremaine! I’m the official first-aider and I have to record any incident and decide if further medical attention is required.” Whipping out a medical kit and a torch, she began to peer into Morgan’s eyes and examine him – and before Danny could protest, she was enthusiastically mopping up blood.

“Dad!” wailed Morgan.

Danny shrugged. “If you will insist on climbing rocks, son, be prepared to take the consequences.”

Now that it was clear nobody was dead, the crowd of onlookers began to thin. Feeling better, Tara crouched down beside Morgan and winced when she saw the cut on his forehead.

“Oh baby,” she said sadly, kissing his head. “Does it hurt?”

“It may need stitches,” said Sheila hopefully. “I’ve called Dr Penwarren.”

“Cool,” Morgan said. “I’ll look just like Harry Potter.”

Harry Potter had been his previous passion and Tara laughed, although it probably sounded like a sob.

“Don’t hassle poor Richard. Morgan will be just fine as he is,” Danny said firmly. “The bleeding’s stopping and he’d not concussed. I know enough to spot any problems, so we’ll just take him home.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Sheila barked, pulling a wad of bandages from her first-aid kit. “This isn’t a battleground, Danny Tremaine. Now, let me dress that wound, young man.”

Moments later Morgan was swaddled up like something from the British Museum’s Egyptian rooms and Sheila was wondering aloud whether they might need a neck brace or X-rays, the mention of which sent Tara into a state of panic.

“Blood type?” Sheila barked, her pen hovering over her pad.

“Seriously?” Tara asked.

“Do you need his shoe size too?” teased Danny.

“You can mock all you like, young man, but I do things properly,” Sheila huffed. “There’s no point with half measures. I’ll also have to fill in the accident book. This is very important, I’ll have you know.”

“Maybe just hurry up a bit,” Jules suggested gently. “I think Morgan needs to go home.”

“Once this paperwork is done,” said Sheila firmly. “Who witnessed the fall?”

“You did,” Jules reminded her. “What’s next?”

Sheila checked her paperwork. “Name, age and weight, I have. Now I need to know Morgan’s blood type.”

Tara hesitated. “Why?”

“In case he needs emergency surgery, of course,” said Sheila, with evident relish. “Do you know it? Don’t panic if you don’t, dear. We can always find out at the hospital.”

“The hospital?” Tara echoed. She was feeling as though she was having a very bad dream.

“Don’t panic, T. Morgan won’t be going to hospital unless Dr Penwarren thinks he needs to go,” Danny told her. He was always so calm in a crisis, Tara remembered. It was one of the things that must have made him such a good officer.

“He might,” huffed Sheila.

Jules laid a warning hand on Sheila’s shoulder. “You’re doing a fantastic job, but I think Richard’s the only one who can make that call.”

“Fine,” muttered Sheila, looking mutinous. “We’ll see what he says.”

“My blood group’s A,” announced Morgan. He looked at Tara. “That’s right, isn’t it, Mum? That was what the doctor said when I had my appendix out.”

“That’s right.” Tara had the horrible sensation that the earth was moving beneath her feet, and not because of the shock. She waited for a thunder clap or lightning bolt, but the only sound was the gentle hiss of waves breaking on the beach.

“Do I hear somebody talking about doctors?”

Richard Penwarren had arrived, his black bag in hand. He looked as though he’d come running. He must run a lot, Tara thought abstractedly. If he wasn’t chasing dogs then he was tearing about after his patients. This evening his hair was standing on end and he was dressed all in black from lighting the fireworks up at Mariners. Seeing Tara, he smiled warmly.

“Hello again, Mrs Tremaine. I hear that Morgan’s taken a tumble. Can I see the patient?”

“I’ve cleaned and dressed the wound, Doctor,” said Sheila proudly, stepping back to reveal her handiwork.

Richard did a double take and the grey eyes behind his glasses widened. “Err, right, good job,” he said. He caught Tara’s eye, and his lips twitched. “Would you be so good as to remove the dressing, Sheila, so that I can see the injury?”

Once the bandage was unravelled and the cut had been revealed, Richard examined Morgan thoroughly. Tara watched, admiring the way he explained everything to Morgan, who as always had about a thousand questions. Richard was gentle and patient as well as kind, she thought, and those were great qualities in a man and a doctor.

He was obviously better at dealing with humans than animals!

“Fit and healthy,” declared Richard finally. “Just keep an eye on him, and if there’s any change or he looks a bit groggy then give me a call at once.”

“He’s OK? After all that blood?” Tara needed to hear this confirmed, because it had looked dreadful to her.

“Any wound near the eyebrow always bleeds a lot. It probably looked horrific but it’s not too bad. Keep it clean and pop some antiseptic on it again tomorrow and it’ll be fine.” Richard shut his bag and gave Morgan a stern look. “No more rock climbing with your camera, young man.”

“My camera’s broken,” Morgan said sadly. “It didn’t bounce.”

“Neither did you,” pointed out the doctor. “Next time you might not be so lucky. Mrs Keverne can’t always be here to bandage you up!”

Sheila was so busy puffing up with pride that she missed his swift wink, but Tara noticed and it made her smile. As Richard packed his bag and headed up the beach, Sheila was hard on his heels and describing in minute detail her every action.

“Even I didn’t get this much fuss when I was blown up,” Danny said to Tara. “Maybe Sheila ought to work in a field hospital? The Taliban would run a mile if she showed up armed with those bandages.”