Then another image: Freddy all grown up, in wig and gown, sneering, hectoring, lying, spitting at him beneath his breath. You’ve only yourself to blame. She was always too good for you, too beautiful, too clever. Justice? This is justice. What did you expect? He’d hated Freddy; he’d loved him.
Joe stopped, and took a deep breath. He was at the top of the hill, a mountain really. He loved the countryside here. Dramatic and wild, it stirred something inside him. The Celts, that’s what I’ll read about next, he decided. Warrior kings and queens, and tribes of painted savages. Fair-skinned redheads.
Shortly after ten he found himself overlooking Coed Mawr; the lower town cradled in the deep crescent of the bay, lights sprinkled before the sea. The straight line of the illuminated pier. He weaved his way down the hillside and through the back streets. At a junction he stopped. Wasn’t Y Castell round this corner? He shouldn’t pass by the pub; it was inviting trouble. But it was the shortest way and it wasn’t as if he intended to go in, sit at the bar and offer to buy her a drink.
He turned his head towards the window as he walked past, but the glass was frosted and grimy, impossible to see through. He shook his head, acknowledging his foolishness, disappointed all the same.
Before he reached the corner, he heard a choking sound, a retching. A drunk was throwing up in the gutter. But there was no sign of anyone. He heard a groaning. He stopped and looked to his right. In an alleyway, he saw a hunched figure. A shadow, female he guessed, stroked the other person’s back. The form was familiar. Plumes of smoke swirled from the alley.
‘Bloody hell, you weren’t kidding when you said you were a lightweight. You need some training, you do. Stick your fingers right down. Only way you’ll be sick.’
Female. Welsh. Hadn’t Saffron said she was meeting a local girl?
‘Saffron?’ he said, hesitant, taking a step towards the alley entrance, hands raised in surrender. He didn’t want to alarm them. Two women, one virtually incapacitated, in a dark alley at night.
‘Wait a moment, lovely.’ The Welsh girl’s voice again. ‘Know her, do you?’ The girl stepped from the passageway onto the street, took a drag on her cigarette, flicked it to the ground and stamped on it.
He nodded. ‘Her mother. And her. Yes.’
The girl tipped her chin, as if she wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not. One hand resting on her hip, she tapped a foot on the pavement. He wanted to laugh. What unlikely friends they made. A doctor-in-training and a Welsh Vicky Pollard. Saffron de Lacy was full of surprises.
‘I rescued her, and her mum’s car, from the bottom of Devil’s Rise.’ He thought mentioning the Standard might prove the veracity of his claim.
‘Joe?’ Saffron’s willowy figure emerged. She appeared elastic, without structure. A rag doll. She dragged a hand across her mouth. ‘You got a bottle of water on you?’
‘I can get one.’ He sprinted into the pub. It was almost empty – an old man sat at the bar staring at a pint of mild; a couple of men, boys really, fiddled with cues beside the pool table. He was served immediately.
Outside, Saffron leant against the wall which bordered the pub’s front ‘garden’: a couple of plastic chairs and a pot containing some kind of shrub. Cigarette butts littered the paving slabs. She took a gulp from the bottle, swilled it round her mouth, turned her back to Joe and the girl and spat it out.
‘You think she’s a lady at first,’ the girl said. ‘I’m Ceri. Nice to meet you.’
‘Joe.’
‘I know; I heard.’
‘Everyone calls him JJ,’ Saffron said, facing them again, the bottle half empty. She didn’t sound drunk. ‘Thanks for this; you’re a life saver.’
‘Except you,’ Ceri said to Saffron. ‘Very nice to meet you. Mind if I call you Joe an’ all?’ Ceri offered her hand. ‘Walk us home? I could do with a hand.’ She jerked her head towards Saffron.
‘I’m OK. Really. I’m not that drunk. I’ve not even been sick.’ She looked at Ceri. ‘Not for want of trying.’
She turned back to Joe. ‘It’s the best way to avoid a hangover. Get it out of your system, drink plenty of water, paracetamol before bed.’
‘On an empty stomach?’ Ceri shrieked.
‘Paracetamol does not rot your stomach. It’s a myth.’
‘I’ll walk with you anyway. I’m going that way,’ Joe said, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets to indicate he didn’t intend to prop Saffron up, make physical contact in any way.
Ceri dominated the conversation as they walked. She was a right motor-mouth, but Joe understood why Saffron liked her. Earthy, funny, and sharp, she was good company. Ceri’s house, or more correctly her mother’s house – her parents had divorced when she was thirteen, she’d told them, her dad lived on the other side of town – was nearer than the manse. A squat terrace of three-up-three-downs.
‘This is me then,’ Ceri said, before throwing her arms round Saffron in an expansive hug. ‘Been a great night. Let’s do it again soon, yeah?’ Ceri stood in front of Joe. ‘I’d like to give you a hug an’ all, but that would be a bit forward, wouldn’t it?’
As he laughed, he heard Saffron blew air through her nose, a small huff of surprise. ‘It would, but perhaps you do things differently here,’ he said, taking her warm hand and placing a kiss on it.
Ceri touched the spot with her fingers and said, ‘I’m never going to wash now.’ Then she disappeared through the front door, leaving Joe alone with Saffron.
Chapter Eight
It was the first time Saffron had been alone with Joe since the unfortunate incident at the manse. The whole episode had been embarrassing – crying like that, for God’s sake – and to make matters worse, she’d been rude to him. So presumptuous; telling him about Ben, stressing that he’d been her fiancé, as if Joe had made a pass at her, which he hadn’t. He’d only been trying to offer comfort.
‘I’m OK from here. Thank you. Thank you so much.’
‘Your place is on my way. I have to go right past,’ he replied, shrugging.
They walked in silence. Saffron’s mind raced with possible topics of conversation, each discarded within nanoseconds as boring. Although she hadn’t been anywhere near as drunk as Ceri thought, she didn’t feel great. Her tolerance levels were low and she really shouldn’t have had a second white wine. Certainly not a large one. It would have been so much more sensible to have a soft drink, or at least just a small glass. But it felt so good to be out and about, she’d forgotten herself.
‘Do you prefer to be called JJ?’ she said, at last.
‘Not really. I don’t mind either.’
‘That’s unusual. Most people are precise about their name, aren’t they? I hate being called Saff or, worse, Saffy. Only Mum gets away with it.’
‘What about your brother?’
‘Matthew? Oh, yeah, he calls me Saff too. We don’t speak much. Wi-Fi connections aren’t great in Burkina Faso. So Mum told you all about him?’ They turned into the road that led to the manse.
‘I like that you call me Joe,’ he said abruptly.
‘I’ll carry on then,’ she said, after a pause. She saw the silhouette of the cross on the chapel roof against the midnight blue sky; she was almost home. But Saffron wasn’t ready to face her mother’s questions about her evening, the eager-for-good-news glint in her eyes. Rain so wanted Saffron to be happy – and Saffron wanted her mother to be happy, to be well – but it wasn’t that simple. And Saffron wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Joe; she still hadn’t apologised. She searched for the right words.
‘Here we are then,’ he said, stopping. The chapel car park light clicked on and they both jumped.
‘Are you tired?’ Saffron said.
His eyes flickered from side to side; she’d confused him.
‘I’m going to carry on. Clear my head,’ she explained, hoping he’d walk with her.
‘By yourself?’
‘Why not? It’s not like I’m in any danger of being mugged!’
‘True.’
‘Right. See you then.’ She turned away. Bugger it.
‘Which way are you headed?’ he said.
Turning to face him again, breath held, she pointed at random, towards the sea she thought, hoping it was in the direction of his home. She had no idea where he lived. He said nothing, merely nodded, and on they walked.
She recalled him saying that the manse was on his way home. So, this direction was out of his way. She smiled to herself.
Questions rocketed, exploding in her mind like a firework display: how old was he, did he have family, how long had he lived here, where did he go to school, was he, as she suspected, from London too? But she didn’t know how to begin; she was so out of practice. She had forgotten the art of conversation, the delicate art of socialising, getting to know people. People of the opposite sex. She’d been a skilled flirt, once upon a time. Before Ben. During Ben, she admitted.
At medical school, she’d flirted outrageously with her classmates, and when they went out on to the wards she’d seduced patients too: men and women alike, and mostly the elderly patients. Those old and wise enough not to misinterpret her words and smiles, actions intended to raise spirits, remind them they were as valued and desirable and important as they’d always been; to remind them that their crumbling bodies and minds were not all that they were, that they were so much more than a condition or an illness; that they were people, first and foremost. Care for the Elderly wasn’t a popular area of medicine – the ambitious students wanted to be surgeons – but Saffron had known early on that it was where she wanted to be. She liked older people. Preferred them to younger people most of the time.
‘I’m sorry I was rude,’ she blurted.
‘Were you? When?’
‘You know I was.’ Why did she sound so clumsy, so gauche?
‘Forget it,’ he said.
They weaved their way downwards into the lower town. She smelt the salt on the breeze; felt the sticky grasp of the sea; they weren’t far. ‘I don’t believe in forgetting. It’s an excuse for repeat offences.’
He laughed. ‘You sound like a policeman.’
‘Really?’ She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked at the ground.
‘Though you’ve too many piercings for a copper.’
She touched the silver hoops running up the curve of her ear. ‘I’ve too many for a doctor. I might have to take some of them out again soon. Mrs Evans, the manager at Wynne’s, didn’t look like she approved. Only put them in to see if the holes hadn’t closed up altogether.’
‘When did you have it done?’ he asked, glancing her way as they walked, his eyes warm. She liked the flat cap he wore. Old-fashioned and idiosyncratic, it accentuated his youth.
‘At thirteen. Mum went mental. It’s amazing though, that the holes haven’t closed up. I mean, the body has this incredible capacity to heal …’
They’d reached the promenade with its line of trees and ornate lamp posts. The bay spread out before them: the sea dark and slick, like an oil spill. The tide was in and it was high, little of the beach remained uncovered by water. They stopped before the ornate railings at the edge of the promenade, underneath a lamp. The railing paint was chipped and the corners rusty. To their left was the pier, the crumbling ballroom at its tip stretching towards the ocean, like a lover awaiting a sailor’s return. Joe removed his cap, folded it into a pocket, and turned up the collar of his jacket, battening himself in against the sea breeze. It wasn’t done for effect, she could see that. He lacked artifice, seemed unaware of his beauty, or not to care, and she liked this. Ben had been vain. At first, she’d admired the way he cared for his hair, his skin. He owned more products than she did. Ben fussed and primped; the focus of his attentions commonly his hair, with which he was never satisfied. It was wavy, like Joe’s, but rather than letting it do its own thing or cutting it short, Ben was forever cajoling it into the latest must-have style.
‘You should finish your training. You said you might not …’ His voice trailed away, as if he thought he’d said too much.
Surprised he’d remembered such detail about her life, she gripped the railings and stared at the horizon. The iodine tang of seaweed on the air assaulted her stomach. Cold seeped through the metal and into her bones. Could she go back to London? She couldn’t stay here.
He found his voice again. ‘It’s none of my business. But we need doctors. People who actually do things, rather than pretending to do things, or bullying others into doing things.’ Saffron wondered who he was thinking of. ‘The ability to care for people, repair them, is a real skill, a vocation. I don’t know you, but something tells me you’ll be a good doctor.’ He laughed and rubbed his fingers across his brow, shaking his bowed head, ‘Jesus, I sound like a right creep …’ He lifted his head and turned from the sea.
She looked at him, his face illuminated by the lamp, one of many dotted along the promenade. They were less than an arm’s reach apart. She could see the stubble on his upper lip and chin; she longed to stroke it, to discover if it felt soft, or rough like sandpaper. She longed to touch him, the pull within her as unstoppable as the tide.
She moved towards him, then stood on tiptoes, cupped her palms over the curve of his shoulders, and pressed her mouth against his, eyes tight shut, frightened to discover what his might reveal. Like lovers in aspic, frozen in a moment of passion, neither moved.
His lips felt warm and soft, inviting, but he did not respond. She held him fast; he had not pushed her away. Tears stung beneath her eyelids. She remained glued to him. After long seconds, she felt his hands over hers, prizing them off him. She pulled away and opened her eyes.
To say he was taken aback was an understatement. And not only by the kiss. He’d been surprised when she wanted him to walk with her – she’d not said as much, but he’d understood her meaning. Why did he succumb? Because he’d fancied her from the minute he saw her kicking the car on Devil’s Rise. Who wouldn’t? She was gorgeous. The stroppy, kick-ass attitude fooled no one, not least him. But he’d meant to stay away, to resist her. All women. He had too much to sort out.
She was lovely. That was a problem. Now this?
I need to be careful. Keep still. Do not move. Oh God, she smells good. Stop. It. Right. Now.
It was a herculean act of restraint, one he congratulated himself on later, peeling her off him. It would have been so easy to respond, to kiss her back, explore her luscious mouth, rake his fingers through her hair, but she was vulnerable, grieving; she’d been drinking. He couldn’t bear to see the look of regret on her face next time they met. That would be horrible. She’d think he kissed her out of pity. This was classic rebound behaviour.
But the expression on her face, now – it was unbearable. Her ordinarily pale eyes dark and wide, her lips trembling.
‘I smell of alcohol?’ she said, clasping a hand over her mouth.
He shook his head, unable to find words.
Would I have cared if you did? Probably not. We’re not squeamish like women, not fussy. But then you’re probably not squeamish either, are you?
There was nothing sanitised about medicine, caring for the sick, festering, and dying. Not a profession for the faint-hearted. All that pus and shit. A messy business, not one he was sure he could stomach. Seeing people reduced to a mass of flesh and blood and bone. In pain, raw and exposed. It must be exhausting.
‘Bugger, bugger, bugger.’ She stared at the ground and clasped her hands about her head. ‘Sorry, I thought … I don’t know what I thought …’
He longed to take her by the hands, fold her in an embrace and tell her how beautiful she was. Instead, he coughed and said, ‘You might regret it. Your fiancé …’
‘Ben. His name was Ben.’ She straightened up, buried her hands in the pockets of her duffel coat. A gusty breeze from the sea whipped her hair across her cheeks, bringing with it a change in the atmosphere once more. ‘Let’s go back. It’s getting late and Rain will worry.’
Th
ere she goes again – the child within the woman.
The walk back to the manse was brisk, without the easy conversation of the outward journey. She was brittle, as was he, and Joe was glad when they reached the chapel.
‘Here you go,’ he said with forced cheerfulness.
‘Thank you,’ Saffron said.
‘For what?’
‘Walking me home. Not … you know …’ she shrugged.
‘No problem.’
She turned and walked up the path to the side gate, dragging her feet, the recalcitrant, insecure girl again. He wanted to shout after her: ‘It’s not you; it’s me. It’s complicated.’ But he knew it would sound crass and empty, like an excuse. He took his cap from his pocket, jammed it down over his head, and turned towards home, his guts heavy, like concrete.
Chapter Nine
The engine juddered into life. To feel the bone-rattling motion was such a comfort to Rain she didn’t put the Standard in gear and move off immediately; she sat there, seat belt on, and allowed the smell, sound, and sensation of the car to cloak her. She loved its noisiness. Not for her the gentle purr of modern engines, the sulphurous whiff of a catalytic converter, a dashboard shouting at her with its array of red and orange lights. She stroked the leather encasing the simple dials. How fantastic that the young mechanic had been able to fix her so easily.
She saw her neighbour wandering down the road in the mirror – he was giving the Labrador its morning walk – and determined not to get into yet another conversation about the car, she flicked on the indicator, slipped the car into gear, and pulled away from the kerb. She needed to get a move on anyway, she reminded herself, feeling mean. He waved and she lifted her left hand in response but kept on moving.
The hospital was half an hour’s drive away though she wished it was further. It was silly really, this reluctance to go today. She liked Mair Shawcroft; she missed her lively charm at church meetings, her perfume – Lily of the Valley – and her bright white trainers, incongruous with her favoured outfit of elasticated-waist trousers, floral blouse, and a single string of pearls. ‘Ever so comfy they are, bach,’ she’d said of her footwear. Mair’s hips were giving up on her and she’d had a replacement on her right side, and Rain wanted to check in on her. She knew Mair would be disappointed if she didn’t, though she would never say as much. Mair had never been critical of Rain, unlike some of her flock who seemed only too happy to point out her shortcomings. Or was that Rain imagining things? It was possible. She was over-sensitive. The previous minister, a man, and a local, had been extremely popular.
Redemption Song Page 7
