“No,” Jasper said. “I go to school in London. I’m just visiting for the holidays.”
“Oh.”
“I lived here till I was eleven, and I liked it,” Jasper said, a rather sad little smile on his lean face. “There’s a lot more countryside around here, and I prefer that. There’s a lot to do in London though, and one good thing is that there’s an Olympic-size swimming pool a couple of Tube stops away from where we live now.”
“Jasper’s a very accomplished swimmer,” Angela said, “as is his father.”
“I’m nowhere near as good a swimmer as Dad yet,” Jasper said. “But I’m working on building up some muscle. Dad says he was skinny like me at my age.”
“So will you be swimming much while you’re here, then?” I asked.
“I hope so. There are a couple of good pools here. When Dad isn’t working we’ll go together. It’ll make a nice change from revision, anyway.” He finished his tea. “I’ll take this escape artist home now, Mrs A. Thanks for keeping her for me.” He stood up and turned to me. “It was nice to meet you, Ms Keyte.”
“You too, Jasper.” I smiled up at him. “You know, as we are neighbours, please call me Rachel. Otherwise I’ll feel depressingly old. You may think I already am, but I’d rather not admit it.”
“I don’t think you’re old!” Jasper said, and I noted the flush that spread momentarily across his cheekbones. Ha, that’s exactly what he thinks! I suppose I am just about old enough to be his mother. What a sobering thought. Jasper muttered a word to the dog and bent down to clip the lead to her collar. As he straightened up he said, “Was that you I saw earlier, running on the towpath, Ms – er, Rachel?”
“Probably.”
“Would you mind if I ran with you one day? I’m training for a triathlon and I’ve got no one to run with here. I could bring Dulcie. She needs lots of exercise.” He hesitated. “Unless you prefer to run alone.”
“I don’t mind company once in a while,” I said. “I go pretty early, though.”
He smiled, and his dark eyes seemed to fill with light. “Early is OK.” He turned to Angela. “Thanks for the tea, Mrs A. I’d better be getting back now. Dad will be in soon.’
“Don’t worry, Jasper – we won’t tell!” Angela said.
“Oh, no, it’s OK; I’ll tell Dad myself,” Jasper said, quite serious again. “We tell each other most things. See you soon, I hope.” He gave us both a little wave. “Come on, Dulcie.”
Angela and I watched him and the dog trot across the lawn until he vanished through the conifers onto the towpath.
“Nice kid,” I murmured.
“Yes, isn’t he?” Angela said. “Clever, too. I often think he’s a bit lonely, all alone in the house while Michael is working. But he always comes down for a good part of the school holidays, and as far as I know he spends at least a month in the summer with his father. They have a place in France somewhere.”
“Nice.”
“I think it is, though I haven’t been there. Michael did show me a photo once. But don’t ask me where it is!” Angela sighed. “I feel a bit sorry for Jasper. I get the impression he’d much rather live here, don’t you?” I raised my eyebrows in polite enquiry – it was really none of my business – but Angela took it as evidence of my interest. “His parents split up when he was eleven, and his mother – Alison – took him off to London. I think she felt it was the right time – he’d be changing schools anyway then – but it must have been hard for the lad, separated from his friends and his father.”
“I suppose so.” Something more seemed to be expected from me so I said, as neutrally as I knew how, “Why London?”
“Oh, well, Alison remarried soon after. Obviously she had this new man in her life already, and he’s based in London. I don’t think it’s the easiest relationship for Jasper, though he says very little. He’s a funny chap, a bit old-fashioned, I always think. It’s not every teenager who’d want to keep company with his elderly neighbours! Whatever else, Alison’s brought him up well.”
“How well did you know her?”
“Fairly. She’s nice enough, not as bright as either her ex-husband or her son, I’d say, and perhaps a bit more materialistic, though I’m sure Michael isn’t poor; consultant surgeons earn a fair salary, don’t they? But who knows why marriages go wrong? Sometimes I think I’ve just been very lucky.”
I drained my mug and pushed my chair back. “Well, I’m certainly no expert! Thanks for the coffee, Angela. Now I should go and let you get on with your cooking.”
“Feel free to drop by any time, Rachel. It’s nice to chat.”
Head down, I strode back across the lawn, put the garden chair back in the shed, pushed open my front door that still stood ajar, and closed it firmly behind me. Chat? Not too often, if I can help it, nice as Angela is.
***
Time slowed. I tried to move my head, to see if there was a clock anywhere, but the motion made me feel nauseated and dizzy. I tried to persuade myself that I was actually dreaming, but there was too much evidence for reality: the tickling of a wisp of stray hair on my unbandaged cheek; the rucks and wrinkles of the sheet under my buttocks; the muffled voices from outside. I tried not to panic, to force myself to calmness, but terror rose up in my throat so irresistibly that I thought I would scream the place down. Instead a weak, shuddering moan was all that escaped me. I felt a tear leak from my left eye. When I realized that my right eye was in darkness another fierce wave of panic hit me so that I shook and juddered and felt my stomach heave. This time I shouted, but not in words – more an animal shriek; and then the door opened and a nurse hurried across the room and looked down at me.
“All right, Rachel, let’s sit you up.” She stacked up the pillows and looked at me closely. “What’s the matter?”
I swallowed, fixed her with my one eye. When my voice emerged it was a growl. I forced myself to speak slowly. “Why…” Deep breath. “What… am I doing here?”
“You don’t remember what happened? All right, Rachel. I understand you’re frightened. Mr Wells is here now. I’ll ask him to come and talk to you.”
She patted my hand and was gone in a rustle of cotton. I heard her speak outside the door, and a man’s deep voice answered, a voice that resonated somewhere in my fractured memory. The door opened again, and with a wave of relief that brought new tears spilling from my eye I recognized the man who came to stand at my bedside: Michael Wells, Jasper’s father. That momentary relief, at being able to remember something, was swiftly overtaken by a fresh spurt of panic. Why was he here? What was his connection to my captive state, to the dressings on my hands and face? Why couldn’t I remember?
His dark grey eyes, reminiscent of Jasper’s, rested on my face. “Rachel. It’s Michael Wells. Do you remember me? Or my son, Jasper?” I nodded. “Anything else about how you came to be here?”
My voice had shrunk to a whisper. “No.”
“All right. You must be very frightened. You’ve suffered a trauma that’s blanked out a lot of your short-term memory. But don’t worry – it will come back – probably quite slowly though, as it’s a kind of defence mechanism. Let me ask you something to test your long-term memory: we had a conversation about dogs – do you remember that?” I shook my head and winced: the movement had sent a shot of pain across my face. I was sure he noticed it, but he said nothing. “You told me about a neighbour’s dog you used to play with as a child. Can you remember his name?”
Immediately a mental picture leapt to my mind: a brown overweight dog lumbering along beside me through a summer meadow. I managed to mumble, “Bertie.”
“Good.” He paused, searching my face. Then he took my unresisting hands, turned them over so that they were palm up, and gazed down at them. “Rachel, you were attacked, yesterday afternoon. I was here, and we got to you very quickly. Thankfully your facial injury missed your right eye, and just nicked the top of your lip. I’ve put your hands back together as well as I know how, but we won’t know th
e exact outcome yet – it’s too soon. When you feel up to it there are people who want to speak to you – including a rather impatient police officer. I’ve told him you can’t be seen yet. It’ll be up to you to say when you feel strong enough, and when your memory starts to return. Meanwhile you’ll stay here. I’ll come and see you as often as I can, and I want you to know you are safe.”
***
I was in the kitchen of my garden flat, throwing together a semblance of an evening meal. I wondered if it was a bit weird that a sixteen-year-old boy wanted to hang out with me. Maybe Angela was right – he was just lonely. The light was beginning to dim on a fine spring day, and I was thinking about something I’d been reading. A light rapping on my front door startled me. I wiped my hands down the side of my trousers – I’d been slicing onions – and opened the door. I had never met the man who stood there, but he held a lead in his hand, and an innocent-looking Dulcie sat at his side. Even if he had been alone I would have known him as Jasper’s father. He had the same almost-black hair, though wavier and streaked with grey, and the same dark, intent gaze. He was taller and broader than his son, but there was an unmistakable family resemblance that gave him away.
I smiled. “Mr Wells.”
“Ms Keyte.” He held out his free hand, and I shook it. “I’ve come to apologize for my dog, and to thank you for looking after her.”
“I didn’t do much, but you’re welcome.” I remembered my manners. “Would you like to come in?”
“Thank you, but I see you are busy cooking, and so I should be too. It was lucky for me that you seem to like dogs.”
“I do. And Dulcie is a very lovely girl, despite her wicked ways.” I bent down and stroked Dulcie’s smooth head.
Michael Wells hesitated for a moment. “I gather my son has invited himself to run with you. I hope that’s all right.”
I straightened up. “It’s fine with me, if it is with you. Unless you feel it’s not appropriate.”
His eyebrows shot up. “That’s not what I meant. I just wouldn’t want him intruding on you.”
“I’ll let him know when I’m next going out and feel like company. But you shouldn’t worry about Jasper. He was very polite.”
He smiled for the first time, and the likeness to Jasper intensified as his eyes brightened. “That’s good to hear. Well, I’ll wish you a good evening, Ms Keyte. We’ll probably meet again, if only in the hospital.”
As he turned to leave, I said, “In which case, please call me Rachel.”
“Rachel. And I’m Michael. Or Mike. But not Mickey.”
I suppressed a grin. “No, I guessed not Mickey.”
That weekend, lounging on Rob’s sofa, a large glass of wine in my hand, watching Rob busying himself in his tiny kitchen as he prepared a meal for us, I idly mentioned I’d met the Wells family: father, son, and dog. “Do you know them?” I asked. I wondered how well thought-of Michael was as a surgeon.
“Wells senior, yes, vaguely,” Rob said. “A rather serious chap, I seem to remember.”
“Yes, he gives that impression. Maybe it’s something to do with his work.”
Rob bent and put a dish in the oven, closing its door with a clang. “Don’t plastic surgeons do boob jobs and facelifts? What’s gloomy about that?”
“I don’t think that’s all they do, ignoramus. They do all sorts of very serious stuff, like fixing people who’ve been injured or burned, or have terrible deformities.” For a fleeting moment I remembered Eve Rawlins and her birthmark, and suddenly felt cold.
Rob peeled off his floral apron – a joke present, he’d told me, from his older sister – and slid down beside me on the sofa. He put his arm round my shoulders and pulled me towards him.
“Hey! Careful, you’ll spill my wine!”
He took the glass from my hand and put it on the floor. He stroked my hair away from my face and kissed my eyes and mouth and neck.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Mm. I like that.”
“Shall we go somewhere more… comfortable?” he whispered against my skin.
“I thought we were going to eat.”
“We are, but it won’t be ready for, oh, at least an hour. I thought perhaps a little exercise might sharpen our appetites.” His hands were straying in all sorts of places, gently unbuttoning, and I began to feel warm and languid.
“Exercise?” I murmured. “What, something vigorous? Tennis?”
“Vigorous, very likely. But not tennis.”
He stood up, took my hand and pulled me to my feet so that I was held close up against him, his hands on my back. “Come with me.” His voice was low, inviting, full of laughter and promise, and I went with him like a lamb.
Some time later, as the shadows outside grew long and the curtains billowed gently in the early evening breeze, Rob yawned, stretched, and rubbed his eyes. He gently removed my arm which was draped around his waist and put his feet on the bedroom floor.
“I guess,” he said, “I’d better go and sort out this meal.”
“Mm. I am very hungry. And there are some delicious smells wafting in from the kitchen.”
He did not move for a moment, and then suddenly turned to me and took my hand. “Rachel, I’ve been thinking. About you and me.”
“This is a fine time to dump me, Rob. Can I have dinner first?”
“Be quiet, will you? Actually, I’ve been thinking about getting down on one naked knee and proposing.”
I opened one eye. “Ha, ha.”
“No. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I’m serious.”
Now both my eyes flew open, and I sat up. “We’ve only known each other for a few weeks – and carnally only for one of them.”
He had turned away from me for a moment; now he faced me, and his expression was endearingly solemn. He looked about fourteen. “I know. But I feel…”
“Better stop there, Rob,” I said, as kindly as I could. “I like you a lot too. But it’s a bit soon for cohabiting and commitment.”
He stood up and started pulling on his clothes, managing to button up his shirt all wrong. “All right,” he said. “But I’m not letting you get away. I shall ask you again. And next time,” he said with a knowing grin, “I shall ask you before we go to bed, when you are mad with lust.”
Over the next weeks Rob proposed marriage at least a dozen times, in all sorts of embarrassing places, so that at times I was speechless with laughter. But every time I turned him down – of course I did. I felt I was beginning to know him, but I was sure he barely knew me.
“All right,” he said, one Sunday afternoon as we idled by the river. I sat on a park bench, eyes closed, my skin warmed by the sun, and he sprawled on the grass at my feet. There were plenty of people about, enjoying the weather, but he took no notice of them. “Tell me: have you never thought it might be nice to be with someone all the time? Set up home and all that?”
I pulled a face, remembering Howard. “I did get engaged once, actually.”
He sat up. There was grass all down one side of his sleeve. “Well? What happened?”
“I decided against it.”
“Just like that? Poor bloke.”
“I don’t think he was heartbroken. He married someone else a year later. As far as I know he’s happily domestic.”
Rob looked up at me, his expression all sympathy. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I’m happy for him – and for me. Lucky escape.”
“Does that mean just an escape from him, or marriage in general?”
“Certainly from him. He’s a good chap, but not for me. As to the rest, the jury’s out.”
I heard him give a disgusted grunt as he flopped back down on the grass. “But Rachel” – now he sounded imploring – “don’t you think it might be time? I mean – how old are you?”
“You know perfectly well how old I am.”
“Yes – thirty-seven. And I’m thirty-four. I didn’t think I would feel this way, but I do. I’ve had loads of girlfriends, but you
–”
“Why don’t you tell me about those ‘loads of girlfriends’? I’m fascinated.”
He scrambled up and planted himself on the bench beside me. “There are far too many,” he said smugly, “so many I can’t remember all of them.”
“All right,” I said, “just the most recent.”
He sighed. “Oh, dear. Yes. That would be Sammy. I finished with her a few weeks before you came here. But she was a bit different – we’d been together two years, give or take.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Ah.” He suddenly looked pained. “That was me. I cheated on her. I’d been out with some friends, had a skinful. No excuse. She found out, we had a huge row, I accused her of being over-possessive, said I’d had enough.”
“Do you regret it?”
He turned to look at me. “Not now,” he said, taking my hand. “Not now I’ve met you. Rachel, you’re –”
I shook my head. “Rob, you don’t know me.”
“I adore you,” he interrupted.
I ploughed on. “You don’t know me, and you’d almost certainly dislike me after a month.”
“How can you say that?” he moaned.
“With absolute conviction.”
The next working week began with a long meeting with Peter Axton, preparing for the major operation which we were to undertake jointly the following day. The rest of the team were also there: people known to Peter, of course, people with whom he’d worked on innumerable occasions, but either unknown to me or only superficially acquainted. Some of them, I thought, seemed to eye me with scepticism, others with a grudging respect, or at least curiosity, but one with downright resentful hostility. This was no surprise. I’d breezed in, or so it must have seemed, all untested reputation and professional hype. This man probably thought the role of Peter’s protégé should be his; I was a usurper of unknown quality. I had everything to prove.
That evening Rob rang, wanting me to go with him to see a film he fancied. I declined, despite his protests that I worked too hard.
The Healing Knife Page 9
