‘This is lovely. It’s all yours?’
‘I own the land but there’s a public footpath which runs from the road, along this side of the millpond and through to the village. It’s a bit of a tradition that people come and fish here during the summer and I wouldn’t want that to change.’
‘That’s nice. A hideaway with plenty of people passing back and forth on the other side of the water.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I like about it. I lent the place to Evie for a couple of weeks last summer, and when the paparazzi stopped at the village pub and asked how to get here, they pointed them thirty miles in the other direction.’ He chuckled quietly.
‘Did they ever find her?’
‘No.’ He stopped halfway across the bridge, turning so she could see across the millpond. ‘This is one of my favourite spots.’
‘It’s beautiful.’ The water stretched out in front of them, moving gently. There were trees and a clear, dark sky, studded with stars. It was like being in the arms of a handsome prince, who was carrying her across a gilded lake to his castle.
Leo climbed the steps to the front porch, setting her down for a moment while he opened the door and flipped the light on. When she stepped inside, the hallway was bright and warm.
‘Make yourself at home. I’ll go and get the coats and bags and lock the car...’ He left her alone in the hallway.
Her prosthetic foot was angled slightly to accommodate the heel of a shoe, and Alex had to walk on her toes. It somehow felt right to be tiptoeing through Leo’s house, exploring it, like a lost princess. The kitchen was straight ahead, modern and utilitarian, much as she would have expected. But the sitting room came as a revelation. A stone fireplace, obviously used, from the pile of wood in the hearth. Large squashy sofas in powder blue and oak cabinets, full of books and ornaments which looked like an eclectic collection, made over the years.
The dining room was just as welcoming, wood-framed French windows with patterned curtains and a distressed wooden table. It was stylish but it felt like a home, and it was light years away from his London flat.
She heard him in the hallway and went back out to meet him. ‘So it’s your alter ego who lives here?’
‘Not really. I’m the same person here as I am in London.’
It was another piece in the puzzle. Just as Leo’s secrets had filled in the blanks, made sense of a complex and seemingly disjointed personality, this house did too. There was the Leo who loved the bright lights and the excitement of London, but that Leo needed a home and this was it.
He took her bag upstairs, showing her to a comfortable, elegant room with French windows opening onto a balcony and an en suite bathroom. It was clearly appropriate that he should make cocoa, since it seemed cocktails were reserved for the London flat. He took off his jacket, sitting down on one of the sofas while Alex curled up on the other.
‘I’m really sorry about tonight.’ A shadow passed across his brow. ‘Didn’t really go to plan, did it?’
‘I suppose not. But what were you going to do—let the man bleed to death?’
‘No. But if he had to chop his finger off, I wish he’d done it some other time. This Saturday was intended to make up for rushing off last Saturday.’ His phone was on the arm of the chair and he was turning it over and over restlessly.
‘You don’t have to make anything up to me, Leo. Is life usually so eventful with you, though?’
He laughed, shaking his head. ‘No. I seem to be having a busy period at the moment. Usually, I can go for weeks on end without people keeling over in my vicinity.’
‘That’s good to hear. I was beginning to worry that I might be next.’
‘You won’t be.’ A pulse beat suddenly at the side of his brow, as if he was going to prevent anything from happening to her by the sheer force of his will.
‘I know. I was just joking.’
‘Yeah. I wasn’t.’
How could she explain to him? She’d been proud to be part of the difference that Leo had made tonight. And somehow, when they were working together with a shared aim, it felt as if their connection was strongest. Work was his way of forgetting the incessant tug of the past, and living only in the present.
She drained the last few mouthfuls of cocoa from her mug. Leo was the best man she’d ever met. And the one she could never have because his attention would always be somewhere else.
‘It’s late. I should go to bed.’ There was nothing more that she could say.
‘Yes. I’ll be turning in soon. Sleep well.’ He reached for the slim leather laptop case that he’d brought in with the bags, and left on the coffee table.
If it wasn’t a patient, it was his phone. And if it wasn’t his phone, it was emails to read or papers to review. Leo just couldn’t switch off.
‘Hasn’t your battery run down yet?’ Alex suppressed the urge to snatch the laptop from him and pour the rest of his cocoa into the keyboard.
His lips twitched into a smile. ‘I always carry a spare.’
‘Too bad. Goodnight.’ As she walked up the stairs, she heard a quiet tone from the sitting room as his laptop booted up. However late it was, it seemed there was always one more thing that couldn’t wait until the morning.
* * *
Alex always knew when she was in the country as soon as she woke up. Even with the windows tightly closed against the chill of the morning outside, she could still hear the faint chirrup of birds, and still smell the clean scents that reminded her of home.
She’d left the curtains open, knowing that she’d wake with the dawn. As light began to filter through the windows, she rolled to the edge of the bed.
This was the time in the day when she felt loss. A new day, new challenges, the sun rising outside her window. But, instead of rising to meet it, she had either to crawl or do as she was doing now, lean down to reach the collapsible crutches that were stowed in her travel bag and snap them into rigid supports. Soon enough, she’d go through the morning ritual of rubbing cream into her residual limb, checking it for any skin abrasions or blisters and pulling on the thin fabric sock which acted as a liner for her prosthesis.
But, for now, there was something missing. She couldn’t tumble straight out of bed to face the bright morning that was outside her window without pausing for a moment.
It was a small thing. At first, she’d mourned her leg in the same way that she would have mourned a death. But that had eased, and if each new day brought a moment of remembrance then perhaps that was what it was supposed to do. A moment when she could remember how things were and how she’d turned that around.
She swung her body between the crutches, over to the window. The shadows she’d seen outside last night were now a deep balcony, big enough to sit on and have breakfast in the summer. When she craned round she could see that it ran along the whole of the back of the house, and that there were doors leading onto it further down. Leo’s bedroom, maybe.
She could imagine him walking along the balcony to tap on her window. Climbing up with a rose between his teeth. Alex grinned at the thought. Maybe not between his teeth—that was a little makeshift for Leo. It would have to be his buttonhole.
And on summer mornings maybe he sat out here, watching the sun rise. Coffee and orange juice, alone with the sounds of the countryside.
She stared at the frost-sprinkled fields on the horizon, allowing the balcony to drop into soft focus. Morning was the time when loss might be touched and then left behind. But she couldn’t touch Leo and then leave him behind.
The view from her window would still be here when she was washed and dressed. Alex made her way into the shining, white-tiled bathroom and opened the door of the shower enclosure, ready to contemplate her next move.
A non-slip mat. Good. A couple of grab rails. Not all that common in a private house, but even better. S
he leaned forward to test the rigidity of one of them, finding it firm and in exactly the right place. Then a little sprinkle of dust fell from it, red on the white tiles.
She leaned down to inspect it. Brick dust. The grab rail was solid and secure enough, though...
These were new. They were for her.
It wasn’t what he’d done, but the motive behind it. Leo had never shown any doubt as to her independence. This was his practical version of chocolates on her pillow. Freshly squeezed orange juice in the morning, or thick towels left on her bed. He’d taken the time to come down here and install a pair of grab rails. They didn’t have red ribbons tied around them but it was the sweetest thing he could have done.
* * *
Leo had hoped that working until his head swam with exhaustion would guarantee unbroken sleep when he finally did go to bed. But still he woke in the night, aware of Alex’s silent presence in the house.
He couldn’t allow himself to contemplate the short walk along the balcony, the idea of tapping on the glass and finding Alex awake and waiting for him. It might be below zero out there but he had a feeling that being packed in ice couldn’t cool the heat which seemed to draw him to her.
Breakfast was easier because he had something to do, to divert his attention from her smile. And this morning she was smiling, obviously enjoying the bright morning as much as he was.
‘Ready to go?’ Alex’s holdall was in the hall, the ruined silver sandals in a plastic bag on top of it. She was dressed in a warm fleece top and leggings, her hair scrunched into a ponytail. The one delicious reminder of last night was the delicate shine of clear polish on her fingernails.
‘Yes. You’ve got the coordinates?’ Alex had given him a set of coordinates instead of a postcode to enter into the satnav. Clearly, her father’s farm was relatively remote.
‘Yep.’ Leo decided that asking whether he could carry her over the bridge to the car was one step too far in wanting to recreate last night.
The morning was cold and crisp, seeming to hold all the potential of a new day. As he drove, the busy patchwork of villages and towns gave way to the more open landscape of the countryside.
‘Is this right?’ They’d reached the brow of a hill and, in the clear morning, he could see a smudge on the horizon which looked like the sea. In between there were just fields, dotted with clumps of trees and criss-crossed by narrow roads.
‘Yep. Turn off right there.’ She pointed to a track which wound around the edge of a field, leading to a large brick-built barn.
‘You climb in a barn?’
‘It’s been converted. Wait till you get there.’ There was a hint of pride in her voice which told Leo that the barn had been subjected to Alex’s endless ingenuity and energy. This he had to see.
As they drew nearer, he could see a battered truck parked outside. He stopped next to it on the hardstanding area and Alex jumped out of the car, obviously eager to show him inside.
Two sets of doors acted as an air lock. It was still chilly inside the barn but a good few degrees warmer than outside.
‘Dad...’ Alex ran over to a man who was sweeping the floor, greeting him with a hug. ‘This is Leo.’
Leo stepped forward, taking the man’s outstretched hand. Although his hair was salt-and-pepper grey, he had the same thoughtful brown eyes as Alex.
‘Howard Jackson. I’ve been listening to the programmes that Alex has been doing with you. I’m delighted to get the chance to meet you.’
A little shiver of embarrassment hit Leo. It felt as if he and Alex had been carrying out a very public exercise in intimacy over the last three weeks, and that had been okay up till now. Better than okay—it had made callers feel at ease and allowed everyone to talk freely. But at this moment it felt as if he needed to apologise for it.
‘We’ve been... Alex has been great. She’s a natural...’
‘Nice of you to say so.’ Howard smiled at his daughter. His daughter. ‘I detected a fair bit of guidance on your part.’
‘More than a bit, Dad. Leo’s taught me a lot.’
‘It’s just a matter of...’ Leo shrugged. This wasn’t just an exercise in seeing who could compliment who the most; it was suddenly important. ‘Alex gave us a lot of direction about what issues to cover. We helped her present them in a way she was comfortable with.’
Howard chuckled, apparently unfazed by the idea of his daughter discussing sex, thinly disguised as body issues, on the radio. ‘I like to call it direction as well. Even if she doesn’t compromise about exactly which direction she’s going in.’
Alex rolled her eyes, nudging her father in the ribs. ‘Where’s Mum?’
‘She’s descaling the urn. Should be finished by now; I was just about to go and collect her.’ Howard pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket and Alex took them from him.
‘I’ll go. You can show Leo around.’
And then she was gone, in a flurry of smiles and activity, leaving Leo standing alone with Howard. Somehow he got the impression that this had been some kind of plan.
Leo looked around the space, aware that Howard’s gaze was on him. The whole of one side comprised a set of climbing walls, ranging from very easy to what looked like pretty difficult. There was a play area for younger children and thick crash mats were stacked in the corner, ready to transform the area into a safe space where kids could try things out without fear of hurting themselves.
‘This is impressive. How often do you use this place?’
‘Only a couple of times a month in the winter, because of the cost of heating it. We put in a false ceiling, and partitioned the space to make it viable. This area’s about a third of the internal floor area.’
‘It’s a good size, though. And it’s warm enough in here.’
‘Yes, we have infrared heaters and they take the chill off. Once we get twenty or thirty people in here it’s fine for activities. And in the summer we can take the dividing partition down and do more.’
‘What kind of things?’ This was obviously very well thought out.
‘There’s a riding stable close by, and they come and do lessons from time to time. We have a picnic area, and Alex organises family days and different activities. She’s even got an eye on laying a proper running surface, but that’s all pie in the sky at the moment.’
‘At the moment...’ Leo grinned. That sounded expensive but, if he knew anything about Alex, it wouldn’t be pie in the sky for too much longer. She’d find a way.
Howard chuckled. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you get many down from London? It’s a fair drive.’
‘Two, maybe three cars full; the London parents take turns with the driving. There’s local demand as well, and we never have any spare places for our activities. Safety considerations limit how many people we can have here at once.’
‘This must all have taken a while.’
‘Nine years.’ Howard stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, looking around as if suddenly he couldn’t quite believe they’d done it all. ‘We started small. The barn was on some extra land that I’d bought, and surplus to requirements. Alex’s brothers and I built her the first climbing wall, in the summer after she lost her leg.’
A lump formed in Leo’s throat. ‘So this is where it all started?’
‘Yes. The number of times I saw her fall off that damn thing, and then get right back up and try again...’ Howard shrugged. ‘I don’t know where she gets it from. Her mother, probably.’
Leo doubted that was entirely true. He could see the same tough determination in Howard as he saw in Alex, and he couldn’t help liking him. Which made him feel like a fraud for hiding the way he’d failed Alex from her father.
‘I... I met Alex a while ago. At a party.’
‘Yes, she told me. Some fancy dress thing...’
&
nbsp; ‘Yes. It was actually the night before she had her accident.’ This was turning into a confession but it was one he should make. ‘We spent the night...just talking.’
Howard laughed. ‘Alex always did have a lot to say for herself.’
‘I meant...’ He felt like a teenager, telling his date’s father that he respected her and that he wouldn’t dream of doing anything more than holding her hand.
‘I know what you meant. I’m her father, not her gatekeeper. Alex made that very clear to me from a very early age.’ Howard turned as if that was an end to it.
‘I walked her to the bus stop in the morning. I didn’t take her all the way home... I’m sorry.’
Howard nodded, facing him quietly. ‘Do you know what I did? Alex used to call us every Sunday morning. I was busy on the farm and when she didn’t call that day, I didn’t think anything of it. When my wife got the call from the hospital, she had to run across the fields to find me.’
Leo stared at him. There were no words, but Howard seemed to be able to find some.
‘When Alex was born, her mother put her into my arms and I counted her fingers and toes. Then I promised her that I’d always keep her safe.’ Howard leaned towards him. ‘You only found out about the accident recently?’
‘I called her that day, but she didn’t answer. I thought she...’ Leo shrugged. ‘You know. You call, and they’ve thought better of it and don’t answer.’
Howard chuckled. ‘Yeah. I’ve been there a few times too. Look, you can’t blame yourself for something like this. Give it time.’
Leo wasn’t convinced of that. But somehow it was as if Alex had spoken to him. He wondered whether she’d put him alone with her father for exactly the same reason that she’d put Carys’s father with the other parents. He wouldn’t put it past her.
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me.’ Howard seemed just as aware of their places in Alex’s master plan as he was. ‘But you can come and give me a hand with those crash mats...’
The Doctor's Diamond Proposal Page 14
