‘How is she, doctor?’
‘I wouldn’t want to move her tonight and I don’t see that there’s any need now that you’ve all done such a splendid job in getting her comfortable. She’s obviously had a shock and will need monitoring, but it’s the memory lapse that concerns me most.’
‘It’s been worrying me for some time now,’ Eleanor said. Frank put his arm around his wife and hugged her to him.
‘We’ll need to run some tests,’ the doctor said.
‘Of course,’ Frank said.
‘As soon as you feel she’s ready,’ Dr Ward said. ‘Give me a call in the morning, okay? Or sooner if you’re worried about anything.’
‘Thanks for coming so quickly,’ Frank said, seeing him out. When he returned to the living room, Sam couldn’t help noticing that his father looked completely drained.
‘I’ll get everyone some tea, okay?’ Polly said. ‘Grandpa?’
‘I’m going to sit with your grandmother,’ he said, shuffling out of the room.
Sam watched as his parents sat down on the sofa together, arms around each other.
‘I’ve never been so scared in my life,’ Frank said. ‘Well, other than every time you went into labour with each of our children.’
Eleanor kissed his cheek. ‘She’s safe now,’ she said.
‘I should have listened to you. You’ve been worried about her for a while, haven’t you?’
She nodded. ‘Her memory isn’t what it was,’ Eleanor said softly.
‘I know,’ Frank said. ‘I’ve been stupidly believing that it’s just part of the ageing process, but maybe there’s more to it than that.’
‘Well find out,’ she said, patting his hand.
‘I’ll go and give Polly a hand,’ Sam said, leaving the room.
His sister was arranging mugs on a tray in the kitchen when he entered.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You holding up?’
She turned and nodded. ‘That was pretty scary, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life,’ Sam admitted. ‘What if we hadn’t found her? What if she’d got herself lost in a wood or fallen into a quarry or banged her head on the road or–’
‘Shush!’ Polly said, approaching him and resting a hand on his arm. ‘She’s safe. Safe in bed and surrounded by her family.’
‘But what if it happens again?’
‘We’ve got to make sure it doesn’t,’ Polly said pragmatically, as if it was simply a case of her making up her mind that the incident would never be repeated. She moved to the kettle and began fussing over the tea things.
‘I’ll take Grandpa his.’
‘I haven’t made one for Grandma. She’s had some and I imagine she’s sleeping now.’
Sam left with two mugs of tea.
‘Grandpa?’ he said quietly as he entered the bedroom.
‘Sammy,’ he said, looking up.
‘Is she sleeping?’
‘Yes,’ he said from the chair beside the bed.
Sam handed him his tea and then took an appreciative sip of his own.
‘To think of my Nell out there alone in the dark,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘How could I have let that happen?’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘It feels as if it’s my fault,’ he said.
Sam pulled up a chair from his grandma’s dressing table and sat down next to his grandpa.
‘Did I ever tell you about the time we got lost in Venice?’ Grandpa Joe said.
Sam frowned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t even know you’d been to Venice.’
‘Ah, well, you don’t know everything about us, you know,’ he said, a little of his familiar humour coming back to him now. ‘We’d been shopping along the Rialto Bridge. Window shopping, you understand. Venice is horribly expensive.’
Sam smiled. His grandpa was a notorious skinflint.
‘Well, your grandma turned one way and I turned another and, before you knew it, we were parted. It was before the days of mobile phones, you know. Took us over two hours before we found one another.’
‘Couldn’t you have met at the hotel or something?’ Sam asked.
‘Nell didn’t know where that was. You know she’s the world’s worst map reader.’ He gave a little chuckle. ‘I’ll never forget the fear of those two long hours. I thought I’d entered the set of that film where the little kid in the red coat is running around the backstreets of Venice.’
‘Don’t Look Now?’
‘Why?’ Grandpa said, looking around the room.
‘That’s the name of the film, Grandpa.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, anyway, we found each other and your grandma had managed to buy three Venetian masks and presents for everyone. See what happens when she’s not under my watchful eye?’
Sam grinned.
‘Hold on to the ones you love,’ Grandpa Joe told him now. ‘Hold on to them tightly and tell them that you love them at every opportunity because you just don’t know when you’ll be parted from them.’
Sam looked at the great tenderness with which his grandfather watched over the sleeping figure of his wife. There were decades full of love in his eyes and Sam swallowed hard as he observed it. He felt as if he was a witness to a very private moment although there was little of privacy in the Nightingale family. Somehow, though, this seemed like an extraordinarily intimate moment.
Not wanting to intrude anymore, he gave his grandpa a hug and left the room. His family was gathered in the living room, drinking their tea in numbed silence. His parents still had their arms around each other and Sam couldn’t help thinking about how very fragile life was, and how quickly things could spiral out of control in the space of a moment.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said from the door.
‘Already?’ Eleanor said.
He nodded, walking into the room and bending to kiss his mother’s cheek.
‘You okay?’ she asked him.
He took a deep breath. ‘It’s been quite a day.’
‘Never to be repeated,’ his father said. ‘We’ve all got to make sure of that.’
‘We will,’ Sam said. ‘Call me if there’s any change, okay?’
‘We will,’ his father said.
Sam said his goodbyes and left Campion House.
As he drove back along the country lanes, he couldn’t shake the emotions that had been welling up inside of him at the events of the day. Nor could he forget the great love and tenderness he’d seen shared between his grandparents and his parents too. After so many years together, each couple still had such strong feelings for each other.
And that’s when it happened. That’s the moment when Sam realised something with such clarity that it stunned him: he had to tell Callie how he felt about her.
Sam knew that he couldn’t go on locking his feelings away from her or denying them. Grandpa Joe had been right; Sam was only fooling himself if he thought he couldn’t ever fall in love again, and he had been totally in denial believing that romantic love no longer had a place in his life. It was in his very genes and he knew that, even if he experienced a tiny fraction of what his parents and his grandparents felt for each other, then his life would be all the richer for it.
Sam slowed the car to a stop as he came to the junction. The road straight ahead would lead him into Castle Clare and home; the road to the right would take him to Newton St Clare and Callie.
He paused, hesitating, and then he turned right.
Chapter 22
When Leo entered the living room, he was wearing a towel around his waist.
‘Is this okay?’ he said. ‘I couldn’t bear to put those wet trousers on again. Mind if I dry them by the wood burner?’
Callie, who’d been laying the table, looked at him in silent surprise as she took in the long bare legs in the middle of her cottage, but what could she say.
‘Oh, right – sure,’ she said, feeling horribly certain that she was blushing.
‘They w
on’t take long to dry,’ he said, coming over to the little table and pulling out a chair to sit down. With his bare legs.
Callie turned away. ‘I’ll just warm up the legs.’ She paused. ‘Plates! I mean plates!’
She hid herself in the kitchen as she tried desperately to die from her mortification.
‘You need a hand?’ Leo called through.
‘No thanks,’ she called back. She didn’t want his hands as well as his legs getting in on the action.
You’ve got to tell him, a little voice inside her said. You’ve got to tell him to put his trousers on and leave. This has to stop. It isn’t fair on him.
Callie nodded to herself. She’d do that. As soon as they’d eaten, she’d tell him.
The lane leading to Newton St Clare was puddle-strewn and Sam had to slow down and drive in the middle of the road at one point because the sides had turned into little rivers.
He parked across the road from Owl Cottage, switched off his headlights and sat in the darkness, gathering his thoughts. There was a Land Rover parked outside Callie’s cottage, but he didn’t give it a second thought. He had other things on his mind.
‘You can do this,’ he told himself. ‘You should do this.’ And he knew in his heart that it was absolutely the right thing to do.
Getting out of the car, he crossed the road, opening the gate into Callie’s garden and pausing, just briefly, before knocking on the front door.
Time seemed to stand strangely still and Sam was acutely aware of the world around him from the coldness of the evening air on his face to the sound of the wind in the trees on the village green. He thought that the door would never be opened and so he knocked again.
And there she was.
‘Sam?’ her bright eyes widened and he swallowed hard at the vision of her. ‘What a surprise.’
‘I wanted to see you,’ he blurted without preamble.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘It’s been quite a night,’ he said.
‘What’s happened?’
‘We had a bit of a scare with Grandma Nell.’
‘Oh, no! Is she okay?’
‘She is now,’ he said. ‘But it made me realise something. Something I should have told you before.’
‘What?’ Callie asked, her eyes wide and expectant.
Sam cleared his throat. ‘Can I can come in?’
‘Well, I–’ she began.
‘What is it?’
‘Leo’s here.’
Sam frowned.
Leo must have heard his name because, all of a sudden, he was standing there in the doorway wearing a bath towel and a big fat grin.
‘Oh, it’s Sam, right? How are you?’ he said.
‘I’m fine,’ Sam said, doing his best not to look at him which wasn’t easy with the amount of bare flesh on display.
‘Want to join us? Callie’s just made some pasta,’ Leo said.
‘No – I – erm,’ he stumbled, noticing that Leo’s hair was wet and that he’d obviously had a bath or shower. In Callie’s Cottage. ‘I’d better be going.’
He glanced at Callie whose face had turned quite red and then he turned to go.
‘Sam!’ she called after him, but he was through the gate and across the road. ‘It’s not what you think!’
She was behind him as he opened the car door.
‘You don’t have to explain to me, Callie,’ he told her.
‘But I want to,’ she said, ‘and you wanted to say something to me too, didn’t you? Didn’t you?’
He paused, glancing at her briefly. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said quietly, getting into the car.
‘Sam!’ she cried. ‘Don’t leave like this. Please!’
But he had to and he did, with thousands of words tumbling around in his head which he knew would never be spoken now.
Callie watched Sam’s car disappear into the darkness and then turned back to her cottage. Leo was still standing in the doorway and she couldn’t help wanting to shout at him, but it really wasn’t Leo’s fault and she knew it would be wrong to blame him.
As she entered her garden, Leo left the door and, by the time she entered the living room, he was getting dressed – putting on his not-quite-dry trousers.
‘I think we’d better talk,’ he said, turning to face her as he did up his belt and she nodded.
He sat down on the sofa and Callie sat next to him.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. Callie had never seen him looking so serious and it upset her.
‘Leo, I’m so sorry,’ she began hesitantly.
He gave a deep, sad sigh that nearly broke her heart. ‘Were you ever going to tell me how you feel about Sam?’
‘Of course I was,’ she said, ‘I just didn’t get the chance. It’s all been so confusing.’
‘How? How’s it been confusing? I thought we had something special going on here.’
‘We did,’ she said. ‘You’re such a brilliant guy, Leo, you really are, and I’ve had the best time ever with you, but–’
‘You don’t love me,’ he said. ‘Is that it?’
Callie didn’t know what to say. The intense look in his eyes was so painful to behold and no words seemed sufficient to try and explain herself to him.
‘When I left London,’ she began, trying desperately to make sense of the situation she now found herself in, ‘I didn’t want to get involved with anyone. I really didn’t. I needed some space, some time. I needed to be alone. But then I met you.’
‘And Sam.’
‘Yes, and Sam,’ she said.
‘So, what’s going on now? He saw you first so he’s the winner?’
‘Leo – please!’
‘I’m just trying to understand what’s happening,’ he cried in frustration.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘and I’m trying to work it out too.’ She took a deep breath as if that might help to sort out the mess in her head. ‘Things sometimes happen that you’re not entirely in control of.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like going out with you,’ she said.
‘But you were in control of that,’ he said, obviously perplexed.
‘Yes, but–’
‘But what?’
Callie chewed her lip. How could she explain this to him?
As truthfully as possible, a little voice inside her said.
‘Remember my friend Heidi?’ she said slowly.
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘I think she was more ready for me to go out with you than I was,’ Callie said. ‘I think she was worried that I was going to lock myself away in this cottage and never see the light of day again let alone go out with a man.’
‘You didn’t want to go out with me?’ Leo said, rubbing a hand over his stubbly jaw line.
‘If I’m really honest – no, I didn’t. But Heidi made a very good case for you.’ Callie smiled gently at him and picked up one of his hands in both of hers. ‘I had the best time ever with you,’ she told him. ‘I really have.’
‘So you always knew it wasn’t going to last?’
She shook her head. ‘None of this was planned, Leo. I didn’t plan to meet you or go out with you or have feelings for you. And I didn’t plan to meet Sam or have feelings for him either. I really didn’t think I had a right to all this – not after the way my marriage ended. It’s all been so–’ she paused, ‘so overwhelming.’
‘And where does this leave us?’ Leo said.
Callie looked down at her lap. ‘I should have told you what was happening. I was going to this evening.’
‘You were going to tell me about Sam?’
Callie nodded. ‘I feel awful about this. I never ever meant to hurt you.’ She looked up at him again and the wounded look in his eyes nearly destroyed her.
‘It’s the books, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘This Sam’s really into books like you, isn’t he? And I don’t read much.’
‘It’s not because you
don’t read much,’ she said.
‘No?’
‘No!’
‘Then what is it?’ he asked. ‘Because I really want to know.’
Callie frowned. ‘I don’t know if I can explain it to you. It’s just somehow different with Sam. I’m different. Does that make sense?’ She paused, searching desperately for the right words. ‘He takes me out of myself. And right into myself too.’
‘That doesn’t make sense!’ Leo said, giving the tiniest of smiles.
Callie dared to smile back.
‘I think he has feelings for you too,’ Leo said. ‘He was going to tell you tonight, wasn’t he? That’s why he came over.’
‘I don’t know,’ Callie said.
‘I saw the way he was looking at you,’ he said. ‘It was the same that night in the pub. I interrupted you then too. I could see he hated me for it.’
‘He didn’t hate you.’
‘Well, he hates me tonight,’ Leo said, getting up off the sofa.
‘Are you going?’ she asked him as she stood up too.
‘I think I’d better,’ he said.
Suddenly, there were tears in Callie’s eyes and he moved forward, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her forehead.
‘You’re one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met,’ he said, ‘and I’m never going to forgive you for breaking up with me before I got to show you the bluebell wood.’
‘Oh, Leo!’ she cried.
He shook his head. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said, but she was quite sure she could see tears in his own eyes. ‘You’re right – we’ve had a really great time together.’
‘We have, haven’t we?’
‘And if you ever get fed up of that book guy, you know where I am.’
‘I’m not sure that book guy will want to see me after tonight,’ Callie said.
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ he said.
‘I really hope we can still be fr–’
‘Don’t say that,’ Leo interrupted. ‘It could never work out, could it? I mean, what do you think Sam would say if I turned up to take you foraging in the woods one day?’ He gave her a wink and then, without another word, he left Owl Cottage.
The Book Lovers Page 24
