Summer at Hope Meadows: the perfect feel-good summer read (Animal Ark Revisited Book 1)

by Lucy Daniels

  Emily nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘How do you think James manages to stay so … so normal?’ Mandy burst out. ‘How is he facing up to things so well?’

  Emily smoothed the seat cushion beside her, brushing the velvet nap in the same direction. ‘I’m not sure he has faced up to what’s happening yet,’ she said. ‘I get the feeling he’s trying to ignore it in the hope everything will miraculously be all right.’ Her eyes were steady. ‘Paul was very unwell today,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t get the impression James could see the difference. It can be hard when you’re with someone every day. You don’t always notice the changes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mandy felt something heavy inside her chest. ‘Did Paul seem really bad to you?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Emily said. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I just hope, for James’s sake, that I’m wrong. At least he has you.’

  Mandy was very still for a moment, then drawing in a deep breath, she stood up straight. ‘I’d better get on,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Mum.’ She leaned down and hugged Emily, then headed out of the cottage and drove back up to Lamb’s Wood.

  To her surprise, Seb had just arrived and was opening the back doors of his van.

  ‘Hi, Seb,’ Mandy said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you today.’

  Seb looked over his shoulder. ‘Hello,’ he called. Reaching into the van, he pulled out a metal cage. ‘I was thinking about the chickens,’ he said. ‘And just in case there were any other cats running around, I thought I’d set up a few of these.’ He showed Mandy the cage, which had an opening with a door that could be fastened out of the way, but would close automatically when triggered by an animal entering. ‘I think they should work for either,’ he said.

  Mandy was impressed. She remembered he had mentioned chickens yesterday, but she hadn’t seen any sign of them yet. ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘I should be able to come up here quite often to check the cages.’

  ‘I’ll be up every day too,’ Seb said. ‘We should keep in touch, co-ordinate our efforts.’ A Land Rover drew up. ‘That’ll be the farrier,’ Seb guessed. ‘Will you deal with him while I get these sorted out?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mandy walked across to welcome the new arrival.

  ‘Mandy Hope?’ A short, stocky man jumped out of the Land Rover and pulled on a tweed cap. He held out his hand and Mandy shook it. ‘I’m Mathew Morris. I understand you’ve got a Shire with overgrown feet,’ he said. ‘Sounds like a big job!’

  Mandy grinned. ‘It certainly is,’ she said.

  The Shire stood patiently while Mandy put on a headcollar and tied him to a metal ring. She watched as Mathew trimmed away the overgrown horn, cradling the massive hoof in the lap of his leather apron.

  ‘I’d just like to see how he moves before I finish,’ he said after about fifty minutes. He watched as Mandy led the old boy across the yard and back again, first at a walk and then at a slow, slightly ragged trot. In combination with the pain relief, the farrier’s work seemed to have eased the horse’s lameness considerably.

  ‘I’ll just take a bit more off the back to balance him,’ said Mathew, pulling his trimming knife out of the pocket in his apron.

  Once he was satisfied, he packed his equipment back into the Land Rover. As soon as he had pulled away down the track, another car drew up.

  It was Helen. Seb arrived back from setting his cages as she was getting out of her car. Mandy watched his face carefully. Sure enough, his eyes lit up as soon as he saw the nurse.

  ‘Hi, Mandy. Hi, Seb,’ Helen said. ‘Is there anything I can help with?’

  ‘I’m almost finished,’ Seb answered. ‘I’ve had a look around all the sheds and I’m going to have a walk round the cottage to check for any sign of cats.’ He paused long enough for Mandy to wonder if he was hoping Helen would offer to go with him. When she said nothing, he turned and strode off in the direction of the front door.

  ‘How about you?’ Helen asked Mandy.

  ‘I think I’m nearly done as well.’

  Helen sidled closer to her and murmured, ‘Actually I was hoping to find Jimmy Marsh here.’ She looked so hopeful that Mandy laughed.

  ‘Ever the optimist!’ She shook her head. ‘He was here earlier, but I’m not sure when he’s coming back.’ As she spoke, another car appeared. ‘Actually, scrub that,’ she said. ‘Here he is!’

  She laughed as Helen started pushing her fingers through her hair and rubbing her cheeks to put colour in them.

  ‘Hello.’ Jimmy marched towards them and stopped in front of Mandy. ‘I told you I’d come back to check the repairs were holding up.’

  ‘So far as I could see, everything looks solid,’ Mandy said. Seb reappeared, wading through the long grass at the side of the cottage. ‘I think Seb’s had a closer look,’ she added as the welfare officer came towards them. ‘Jimmy was wondering about the barn repairs,’ she told him.

  ‘Everything looks sound,’ Seb said.

  ‘We still need to get the animals moved elsewhere. They can’t stay here with no one on site to feed them.’ Mandy looked from Seb to Jimmy and back again.

  ‘I’m doing my best to find somewhere.’ Seb’s expression was apologetic.

  Mandy turned to Jimmy. ‘What about Jared Boone?’ she said. ‘Do you think there’s any chance he’d let us use one of the fields at Upper Welford?’

  Jimmy scratched his ear. ‘There’s an empty paddock I’m going to be using for the Outward Bound centre,’ he said. ‘If you need some space, I could probably wait a month or so.’ As he said it, Mandy caught sight of Helen’s face. She was gazing at Jimmy, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed. Mandy raised a hand to her mouth to hide the smile that threatened to give away her thoughts.

  ‘That would be great,’ she said after a moment. ‘We should be able to move the livestock tomorrow or the day after.’

  ‘Are we all finished then?’ Helen asked, stepping forwards. ‘Maybe we could retire to the Fox and Goose.’ She turned to Jimmy. ‘What do you think?’

  But Jimmy shook his head. ‘I have to pick up the children. This week is the start of their summer holiday.’ Mandy looked at him in surprise, but Jimmy turned and walked back to his Jeep without saying anything else.

  ‘I didn’t know he had children,’ Mandy said as the Jeep disappeared down the track.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Helen. ‘Eight-year-old twins, Abigail and Max.’ The nurse’s eyes were bright. ‘They live with his ex-wife in Manningford,’ she went on, ‘… and she’s married to Dan Jones, who’s a police sergeant in Walton.’

  ‘Wow!’ Mandy stared at her. ‘Have you been Facebook-stalking Jimmy?’ She realised she had hit the nail on the head when Helen’s face flushed scarlet. For a moment, there was silence, and then Seb spoke.

  ‘I’d like to go to the pub,’ he offered. ‘We could all go for a drink.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Helen sounded startled. ‘You’ll come too, won’t you, Mandy?’

  Mandy was about to agree when her phone vibrated in her pocket. Pulling it out, she read the text in an instant. Her knees started to shake.

  ‘It’s from James,’ she said. ‘Paul’s in hospital.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  For the second time in as many days, Mandy found herself concentrating on the speedometer. James hadn’t explicitly asked her to come, but he had told her which hospital Paul had been taken into. Arriving at the site, she realised she didn’t know where in the hospital she should look. She tried to call James, but his phone was switched off. Abandoning her car in the car park nearest to accident and emergency, Mandy jogged up the ramp and through the big sliding doors. Catching her breath, she approached the receptionist’s desk.

  ‘I hope you can help me,’ she said. ‘I received a message that my friend Paul Franco,’ she spelled it out, ‘has been admitted. I don’t know if he’s here or somewhere else in the hospital.’ She stood there, tension knitting her shoulders together as the woman consulted her computer.

  ‘Do yo
u know his date of birth?’

  Mandy shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, no.’ The receptionist sighed so loudly that Mandy felt the urge to reach through the open window and shake her. The surname Franco was hardly common. Clenching her fingers into fists, she forced herself to wait as the woman slouched in her seat, regarding the screen with apathetic eyes. Finally, she looked up.

  ‘He’s in the oncology unit.’

  Mandy waited a moment for instructions, but when none were forthcoming, she turned on her heel, ran back out of A&E and round to the main entrance. There she found a sign for oncology and took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor, knowing she’d be quicker than waiting for the lift. She burst through the double doors to the ward and walked briskly along the corridor, searching for her friends. She stopped beside a single room with PAUL FRANCO written on the whiteboard outside.

  Paul lay in the bed, his face almost as white as the sheets. His eyes looked huge and he was strung up to monitors, intravenous fluids, blood and oxygen, but he still smiled when Mandy entered. James was sitting beside the bed holding Paul’s hand. When he looked around, Mandy was shocked. He seemed to have aged ten years in the course of an afternoon. Walking over to the bed, she sat down, placing one hand on James’s arm and the other reaching out to Paul, who took her fingers in his and gave them a squeeze.

  ‘How is everything?’ she asked. She wanted to ask what tests they had done, what they planned to do, but it didn’t seem appropriate.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Paul wheezed. ‘They’re looking after me well. Waiting for an ultrasound.’ Despite the oxygen, his breathing was rapid and Mandy could feel in his wrist that his heart was beating fast.

  A nurse came in and spoke to Paul. ‘We’re going to take you up for your ultrasound now.’ They watched while she made everything ready for moving then, as she wheeled his bed towards the door, Paul looked back at Mandy.

  ‘Why don’t you take James for a cup of coffee and something to eat?’ he suggested. ‘He hasn’t had anything since breakfast.’

  ‘How about it?’ Mandy prompted once the bed had rolled out of sight. ‘Do you think you could eat anything?’

  James managed a wan smile. ‘I could try,’ he said, but once down in the cafeteria, he only chose a small flapjack and pushed it around the plate before shoving it away. ‘I can’t,’ he muttered. ‘I want to go back up to the ward to wait.’

  Leaving the cake and coffee on the table, he walked off so quickly that Mandy struggled to keep up. James sat back down in the chair beside the empty space where Paul’s bed had been. Reaching out, he lifted something from the bedside unit. It was Paul’s watch. As James turned the familiar object over in his hands, a tear suddenly dropped onto his lap and then a second.

  Mandy crouched down and put a hand on his arm and James turned to her, burying his face in her shoulder. His whole body was shaking and she held him tight until the spasm passed and he pulled away. There was a box of tissues on the table and Mandy reached over, lifted it, and held them out, before taking one herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ James said, swallowing hard. Mandy gripped his hand tightly. ‘I’ve been so happy these last weeks.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘I don’t want it to end. Not now. Not so soon.’ And then, sounding strangled, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

  Mandy clenched her teeth together so hard it hurt. Several moments passed before she could speak. ‘You can do this.’ It was a fight just to say the words, but she forced herself to go on. ‘Whatever you have to do to get through this, you will. There’s no right or wrong way. Paul trusts you and so do I.’

  James was still shivering. Mandy could feel the tension in his hands, but the raggedness of his breathing began to subside. She handed him another wad of tissues and he dried his eyes while she rubbed away her own tears. His hand was still in hers when the door opened and Paul’s bed slid through, pushed by a serious-faced porter. James managed a smile and reached out his other hand to hold Paul’s. All three of them watched as the nurse bustled in and reset the equipment, reattaching the wires, checking everything.

  ‘They didn’t find anything new,’ Paul reported when the nurse and the porter had gone. James lifted Paul’s fingers to his mouth and kissed them.

  Placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder, Mandy stood up. ‘I need to let my parents know where I am,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back in a minute.’ She jogged down the stairs and walked outside, taking deep breaths of clear, cool air.

  ‘Hello, Mandy.’ Adam picked up on the first ring. His voice sounded so normal, so disconnected from what Mandy was experiencing, that it felt like a shock.

  ‘I’m in York,’ she told him.

  ‘Oh yes?’ He sounded interested. ‘What are you doing there?’

  There were tiny stones on the asphalt car park. Mandy could feel their roughness through the soles of her shoes. ‘Paul’s been taken into hospital,’ she said. ‘James is with him. I came to help.’

  She heard her dad sigh. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Your mum said he didn’t look well this morning.’

  ‘Can I stay here tonight?’ Mandy checked. ‘Is everything under control? I’ll get in touch with Seb about the animals at Robbie Grimshaw’s if you can carry on with the small animals.’

  ‘Of course. Stay as long as you need to. Your mum and I will take care of everything back here.’

  Mandy felt a lump rise in her throat again. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Look after James … and yourself,’ he added. On the other end of the line, Mandy heard the telephone receiver go down. It had rained while she had been with James and Paul, and she found comfort in the dusky smell of the summer shower. The evening air was soft on her cheeks. With a last glance at the ranks of cars under the streetlights, Mandy made her way back inside.

  Paul’s eyes were closed by the time she got back. He looked so frail against the pillow amongst the banks of monitors. Mandy walked over and touched James’s arm and he turned to her and stood up.

  ‘They’ve given him sedatives,’ he said. ‘They told me he would sleep now. That I should go and get some rest.’ His voice was oddly calm, fuelled by exhaustion. Mandy took his hand, intertwining her fingers in his, and led him downstairs.

  ‘Where are you parked?’ she asked.

  ‘I came in the ambulance. I don’t have the car with me.’

  She helped him into her RAV4 and turned the heater up as they drove back through the quiet streets. A few minutes later, they drew up in front of the apartment James and Paul shared. When they went inside, Lily and Seamus rushed to greet them and, for a moment, everything seemed normal. James crouched down to hug them both and then stood up, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the hooks beside the door. Removing his shoes, he placed them on the rack.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ he said.

  Mandy understood. The scent of antiseptic had hung heavy in the heat of the car and she could feel it clinging to her hair and clothes. James returned several minutes later in his pyjamas, hair slicked back. His glasses were halfway down his nose and he pushed them up. He looked so young and vulnerable. Swallowing hard, Mandy smiled.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you into bed.’ She tucked him up, pulling the covers over him and sitting down on the edge. Lily and Seamus jumped onto the bed beside her. Seamus very gently licked James’s hand.

  ‘Try to get some sleep,’ Mandy said. Stupid impossible advice, but he seemed comforted.

  ‘Thanks for being here,’ he murmured. She gripped his hand one last time and then stood up and made her way to the spare room. The bed was unmade so Mandy found some bedclothes in the hall cupboard. Showering, she cleaned her teeth and then fell between the crisp sheets. The dim light of the orange streetlamps cast a gentle glow on the ceiling. Closing her eyes, she allowed her mind to drift.

  By the time she awoke, morning light infused the room. Climbing out of bed, she was greeted by the dogs. Mandy squatted down, enjoying the feel of the two lithe bodies pushing a
gainst her, tails wagging: the beating signal of friendship.

  The bed in James’s room was empty and there was a message on the kitchen table.

  ‘Gone back to the hospital. Help yourself to breakfast.’

  In typical James fashion, he had taken the time to set out breakfast things: cereals, bread for toasting, butter and marmalade. Despite the heaviness in her chest, Mandy forced herself to eat. Lily was lying under the table on her feet and, when she had finished, Seamus stood up and licked her hand. Bending down, she rubbed the soft fur beside his ear. Two pairs of bright eyes gazed up at her. She stood up, an outrageous idea scalding her brain. Calling the two dogs, she put on their halters, led them out onto the patch of ground outside the flat so they could relieve themselves, and then scooped them into the car.

  Outside the hospital, Mandy’s heart quailed for a moment, but she marched on, not giving herself time to think. The corridor outside Paul’s room was empty and she strode the length of it accompanied by the distinctive click-click of paws on linoleum, hoping against hope that nobody would come. They reached the door of Paul’s room. Peering through the glass partition, she could see Paul in the bed, James beside him on the chair. They were alone. Grabbing the door handle, Mandy pushed open the door and let the dogs go, and in an instant they were on the bed, frantic tails aloft, licking and squirming in delight.

  The look on Paul’s face made it worth the risk. Despite the strict hygiene rules, Mandy doubted the dogs, which until yesterday had been in constant contact with Paul, would present any additional hazard to his health. He looked at her, a grin splitting his face.

  ‘Mandy, you are going to get me into so much trouble, but …’ He paused and shook his head. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’ He buried his face in Lily’s neck and then reached out to hug Seamus. He looked so animated that Mandy’s heart was lifted. James, too, was smiling and he hugged her quickly before turning back to ruffle Lily’s ears.

  There was the sound of footsteps and the door opening.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ thundered a voice, and Mandy had to stop herself from laughing at the outrage in the woman’s eyes.