by Nesta Tuomey
They circled each other warily, Miguel sneering and watchful with venomous eyes. Terry steeled himself to go in against the naked blade. The wind blew on their sweating bloody faces and their feet sought for purchase on the sliding surface of the cliff.
As the Spaniard rushed him again, Terry saw his chance. He twisted sideways and gaining purchase on the damp earth, swung his leg in a flying kick that caught the man in the small of his back, and Miguel toppled screaming into the gorge below.
Terry gasped at the suddenness of it and dropped weakly to his knees. He crawled to the edge, sobbing for breath, and looked over. It was too dark to see anything. The scream continued on in his head and then blackness rushed in and he fell senseless on the ground.
Two miles down the road the Mercedes was parked by the roadside. It had been Fernando’s intention to bring the Guardia Civil back with them to search the bar but Claire, conscious of Terry’s instructions, had persuaded him to wait. Now Fernando glanced at his watch and met Claire’s eyes fleetingly. A whole hour and still no sign of Terry.
Sheena lay on the back seat fretfully tossing and crying out. She was badly shocked and most of the time seemed unaware where she was or with whom.
Claire was conscious of the smell of her friend like a bad drain in the back of the car. She felt embarrassed for her before Fernando and was glad when he tactfully kept the air conditioning running. Claire was desperately worried but trying not to show it. She shouldn’t have allowed Terry go back, she agonised. If anything bad happened to him she would never forgive herself.
‘We will wait another five minutes and then we will go for the Guardia Civil,’ Fernando decided. ‘Terry has acted with great irresponsibility. He should not have tried to take Delgado on his own.’
Claire could contain herself no longer. ‘But all that will take too long. Oh, please let’s go back and look for him now,’ she begged, her voice coming out in a dry croak.
Fernando looked at her startled, and without a word set the car in motion. He turned it on the narrow road and drove rapidly back to Ronda.
Terry must have relapsed into unconsciousness for he came to with a start and peered into the darkness, trying to remember where he was and what had happened. Then he felt the warm slow blood dripping from his neck and he remembered.
‘The bastard deserved what he got,’ he whispered. He tried to struggle up but his legs were too weak to support him. He found he was lying in a puddle of blood and searched his pockets for something to wad against the sluggishly flowing wound. His handkerchief was too small to be effective, so he pulled his shirt off and wound it tightly about his neck, knotting the arms to keep it in place. He almost swooned with the effort and had to rest a moment because he felt so weak and his vision was breaking up.
‘Got to get back to the road,’ he told himself. ‘They won’t think to look for me out here.’ He tried to calculate the distance and direction but it was beyond him.’ If I can drag myself nearer the road maybe I can shout... they’ll see the car ...’ But his dizziness overcame him and he laid his head weakly on his forearm.
‘Terry!’ He thought he was imagining it but then his name was called again and he lifted his head and listened, his heart beginning to race at the sound of her voice.
He tried to call out but his voice was weak in his throat. He took a deep breath and with his remaining strength hollered as loud as he could then fell back waiting to see if she would call again.
‘Terry, where are you?’ He judged she was at the far side of the Puente Nuevo, and coming nearer. He could imagine her, slim and fair and determined, those grey eyes anxious.
‘Claire!’ He tried to shout, but it was merely a groan.
He imagined her giving up the search and turning back and he felt it was more than he could bear, and his heart shrivelled within him. He thought how much he hated his father and how much he had thought he hated her too - and realised he loved her far more.
‘I feel he’s somewhere near about. I know he is.’ Her voice was closer, stronger, only yards away. The softly spoken words, touched him deeply, and brought tears to his eyes.
‘I’m here, Clairey,’ he tried to say, and felt himself falling through space and darkness again.
Jane stared at the telephone, willing it to ring. It was two days since Terry had left for Spain and she could not understand why she hadn’t heard from him. Now she was convinced something sinister had happened and decided to ring Antonio. Jane had never rung his house before and she was as nervous as a girl as she waited for him to come to the phone.
‘Jane! Is it really you, Jane?’ Her name had never been one Jane particularly liked but on hearing it now spoken in Antonio’s resonant tones, it was suddenly charged with the most heavenly significance.
‘Yes, Antonio.’ She felt suddenly shy, then hurried on lest she should just idiotically keep repeating his name. ‘I’m very concerned about Sheena. Terry flew out yesterday morning to try and locate her and I haven’t heard from him.’ Jane’s voice faltered. ‘You can imagine how worried I am. I was hoping perhaps you might have heard something.’
Antonio did not reply for a moment and when he spoke his voice was kindly. ‘I intended telephoning you, Jane, but I was waiting to hear from my son. I have been aware of the situation and arranged for Fernando to drive with Terry and Claire to Gibraltar to try and find your daughter. Until this evening Fernando has kept in touch with me but I have not heard from him since he rang to say that they had found Sheena but regrettably lost contact with your son.’
Jane began to be really alarmed. ‘Has something happened to Terry?’ she cried.
‘Please do not upset yourself, Jane,’ Antonio said soothingly. ‘I am quite sure there is nothing to worry about. It seems he parted from the others, promising to catch up with them later, only he did not show up at the appointed place.’
‘But surely the police in Gibraltar could help find him,’ Jane said bewildered.
‘They were not in Gibraltar when they lost each other but had travelled on to Ronda,’ Antonio explained. ‘I am sure there is some perfectly rational explanation. Can I telephone you in one hour? By then I am certain that I will have something definite to tell you.’
Jane made a huge effort to control her fears. ‘Very well, Antonio. No matter how late it is, please ring. I won’t be asleep.’
She put down the phone and went to make a soothing cup of cocoa, thinking how many crises in the past she had seen through with cups of the stuff: the searingly lonely nights after Eddie’s and Hugh’s deaths, the troubled months following Ruthie’s attack and the worries she had gone through because of Terry’s involvement with Grainne.
Jane sighed and supposed it was better than taking to the whisky bottle like poor Annette Shannon. She cradled the cup in her hands and blew gently on the bubbling surface, afraid to think what news Antonio might have for her when he rang back.
‘He’s unconscious,’ Fernando said quietly, on one knee beside the slumped body. He had got to Terry a few seconds before Claire and immediately felt for the pulse behind his ear. ‘He has lost a lot of blood. We must get him to a doctor.’
Claire shuddered as she looked down at Terry’s scratched and bruised face. His skin was translucent in the light from Fernando’s flashlight and the bloody cloth about his neck terrified her.
‘How white he is,’ she whispered. She held the flashlight steady while Fernando gently removed the cloth from around Terry’s neck and wadded his own handkerchief over the oozing wound, before retying the gory cloth more tightly.
‘Claire! Fernando!’ Sheena’s anguished voice sounded in the darkness. ‘Where are you?’ They had left her dozing in the car and she had woken up terrified out of her mind of being recaptured by Miguel and followed them, tripping and falling on the dark cliff.
‘We’ve found Terry, Shee,’ Claire told her with more confidence than she felt. ‘He’s hurt but he’ll be all right.’
‘Let me see.’ Sheena pushed past the
m and threw herself down beside her twin. At the sight of the bloody neckcloth she became hysterical and rocked on her knees. ‘Oh God, no,’ she cried. ‘Please don’t let it be. Please God, please!’
Fernando signalled to Claire to go to her. ‘Take her back to the car,’ he whispered. ‘I will manage him on my own.’
He slipped an arm beneath Terry and lifted him to his knees, then hooked one of the wounded man’s arms around his neck and hoisted him to his feet. The movement restored Terry to consciousness and he stumbled obediently along on weak legs, with Fernando bearing most of his weight.
Claire guided her weeping friend over the rough ground. Sheena was almost unhinged by her period of captivity and the events of the past hours.
They arrived at Hospital Belen in the early hours and found the emergency team ready and waiting for them, Fernando having rung to alert them. At once Terry was lifted on to a stretcher and hurried away to the operating theatre. Nurse Lewis took immediate charge of Sheena, clucking in consternation over her filthy, neglected appearance and trembling wild-eyed stare.
To Claire, racked by worry for Terry and pity for Sheena, the drive from Ronda had seemed endless though, in fact, Fernando had made very good time, completing the 148 kilometres journey in a little over an hour. He had made Terry comfortable on the back seat, gladly relinquishing him to Sheena when she insisted on sitting with her twin and pillowing his head on her lap. Claire felt greatly relieved to see her friend restored, if only temporarily, to a state of near calm and sanity.
The swing doors opened and a white-coated figure emerged from the operating theatre and hurriedly approached the nursing station to speak to Nurse Lewis. Claire started up in alarm. Apparently, Terry needed a transfusion of blood.
‘Please take mine,’ she interrupted them eagerly. She knew that her blood group, O Rh Negative, was compatible with all other groups, but Sarah Lewis still refused to take it.
‘My dear, you cannot dream of such a thing in your condition,’ the nurse quietly reproved her. ‘But at any rate, he needs at least three pints; it will have to come from the blood bank.’
‘Oh, but are you sure there’s time? Oh, please, let me give you some of mine.’ But Sarah Lewis had turned away.
Fernando, who would have given blood himself if his had been compatible with Terry’s, watched, puzzled and anxious, as Claire wept in frustration. In an amazingly short time, however, to Claire’s relief the blood was delivered to the hospital entrance and swiftly taken to the operating theatre.
Terry was given a transfusion of three pints of blood and an anti-tetanus shot, and his neck was swabbed and sutured. Back in his room, he lay drifting in a blur of pain between sleeping and waking.
His throbbing wound woke him often that night, and when it did, there was another kind of pain: that of seeing Claire and Fernando sitting at his bedside and looking, somehow, so right together. Both, he considered in his fevered state, were privileged to possess that perennially summer look of fair-haired, golden-skinned people who seem to pass through life untouched by the hardships and misfortunes besetting darker mortals, even though, whatever about Fernando, Terry knew in his heart that Claire could never be so described. Once he opened his eyes and saw Fernando gently kissing Claire as she dozed in the crook of his arm, and felt again the shadow of impending loss.
Jane too, was beleaguered by visions of loss as she sat waiting for the telephone to ring, and when it finally did, she hurriedly set down the mug of cocoa she was nursing and ran into her surgery.
‘Yes, this is Jane,’ she said breathlessly..
‘Jane, my dear, Terry has been found but I’m afraid he has been injured.’ Antonio broke off at her gasp of dismay then continued strongly, ‘However, please do not worry. He is receiving medical attention and his condition is satisfactory.’
‘Are you quite sure he’s all right, Antonio?’ Oh God, not my other son too, she thought.
‘Yes, I’m quite sure. Fernando has spoken to the doctor and received his assurances.’
‘But what happened?’ Jane wished to know.
‘Your son was stabbed in the neck but by great good fortune the knife merely grazed a blood vessel.’
Stabbed! Jane began to tremble.
‘He is at Hospital Belen where you stayed after your accident, Jane,’ Antonio went on. ‘Believe me, I will personally ensure that he is given every care and attention needed to restore him to health.’
‘I do and thank you, Antonio,’ Jane told him gratefully, aware that the majority of Spanish doctors went off on holidays for the whole month of August, sometimes without leaving locums to stand in for them. ‘I am booked to fly out on Sunday but should I come sooner?’ she asked anxiously.
‘At the moment there is no need,’ Antonio said. ‘If there is any change, however, I will inform you at once. You need have no fears about that.’
No, she knew that she could rely upon him totally. He was a rock of support.
‘I am only too happy to be of assistance, Jane,’ Antonio was saying. ‘Oh... and I will make sure that your little daughter is also content until you arrive.’
‘Ruthie is with you?’ Jane said faintly. ‘Oh, I do hope she’s not in your way.’
‘Not at all. It gives me much pleasure to have her in my house. Christina is already her willing slave.’ Antonio’s amused chuckle sounded in Jane’s ear. ‘When I last looked in at them Ruthie and Stella, Fernando’s Labrador, were sitting in bed drinking hot chocolate.’
Had heard him correctly? Jane wondered, with an overwrought giggle. But when she put down the phone and remembered that Antonio had said nothing at all about Sheena, her amusement quickly faded.
Sheena lay in another room in the hospital, washed and tranquillised, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. All that night Sarah Lewis sat beside her, witnessing her restless tossings and turnings, hearing her pitiful moans with a troubled heart.
There was a tap at the door and Claire quietly entered. Another troubled child, thought Sarah. How well pregnancy suited the girl though. Even in her fatigue Claire had a glow about her that was arresting.
‘How is Sheena?’ Claire stared down at her friend.
‘A wee bit restless but she’ll be fine.’ Sarah pulled over a chair. ‘Sit in,’ she urged. ‘Take the weight off your feet.’
Claire obeyed but kept her face averted, clearly struggling with tears.
‘You are very fond of her, aren’t you,’ Sarah asked gently, ‘and her twin too?’
Claire nodded dumbly, her tears falling unchecked on to the back of her hand.
There is so much love in the girl, Sarah thought. She remembered the hours Claire had spent with Señora Gonzalez when the woman was dying, never sparing herself although she was falling on her feet. Gonzalez would be the lucky young man if he got her. Aye, but she would be lucky too, Sarah told herself, for clearly the young Spaniard was out of his mind about her.
Sarah felt sudden heartache and her face grew sad, for in her youth she had known a similar passionate love herself. God forbid anything should happen to this lass’s lover, Sarah thought with a shiver, but at least Claire would have his child to console her. She had been left with nothing but her memories.
Claire came back into the room and crossed to sit at Fernando’s side. Terry was sleeping more easily and, after an anxious glance at him, she leaned wearily back and let her own lids droop.
Fernando gently put his arm about her and was pleased when she rested her head against his shoulder. She had come through the ordeal well, he thought approvingly, exhibiting courage as well as common sense in the crisis. Claire had been very upset over her friend’s brother, but then, Fernando wasn’t really surprised, having already seen so much evidence of her soft-hearted concern for others. He glanced across to where Terry lay with closed eyes, his features once more twisted in pain.
He was a rather brash young man but brave, Fernando conceded, and had acted courageously, without concern for his own safety. On the other h
and, danger clearly excited the young airman.
Fernando was no stranger to danger himself. In his late teens it was what had drawn him to the air force, but he had grown undeniably soft since his flying days. His great wealth allowed him access to the most rigorous and expensive of sports, which kept his body exercised and supple, but willingness to confront and overcome adversity had lessened. His decision to involve the police rather than attempt to crack Delgado’s resistance when he had the man in his power showed this. Now Fernando sheered away from this unpalatable reminder of his own short-comings and dwelled instead on Claire. She was a loyal and gentle girl, he told himself, and that was the reason he loved her. He would never forget her attitude of utter selflessness towards his mother.
Beside him, Claire woke and sat up with a start. She leaned forward and eyed Terry with such a look of concern that Fernando experienced an unpleasant spasm of jealousy.
‘He’s so pale,’ she whispered. ‘But then he has lost so much blood. If we had only found him sooner.’
Fernando privately considered that Terry was lucky to be found alive. He squeezed Claire’s hand consolingly and at once she turned to him and said earnestly, ‘I would gladly have given my blood but Nurse Lewis refused to take it from me.’
Fernando was puzzled. ‘But why? I do not understand.’
‘She knows I’m expecting a baby.’
‘¡Caramba!’
The strength of Fernando’s reaction was lost on Claire as she recounted her own fears and feelings on Terry’s behalf. She had not thought before she spoke, and, even now, she was hardly aware of what she was saying.
Fernando stared at her passionately working mouth and brimming eyes and, his earlier shock subsiding, he was struck by what a divinely beautiful girl she was, so vital and caring. He was filled with a chivalrous longing to take care of her. Her pregnancy startled but did not dismay him, living as he did in a country with a high birth-rate outside of marriage. He imagined it was a youthful mistake, something like the situation he had found himself in while still at university when he had become casually involved with a young student and she had borne his child. He hoped that Claire might turn to him in her need. If he could only inspire in her an emotion that was even half as strong as his love for her, he would be satisfied.
