Miss South

by Kay Williams

  “Good morning.

  “How are you feeling?” He asked coming to take my blood pressure.

  Despite the first round of testing giving me the all clear my blood pressure had been low because of the blood loss. The hospital Priestess had been happy to send me back to my hotel with the proviso that I rested and drank plenty of water, though the doctor had agreed that the risks were extremely low that I would suffer any side effects I had chosen to stay in the hospital the day after the accident and another night to be on the safe side.

  I had travelled alone and it had hardly been fair that Rosemary, Jonathan or Heronsgate should have had to spend the day at my bedside in case something happened and I needed another ambulance.

  “Fine,” I said honestly. “Just a bit confused about what actually happened.”

  “In what way?” He asked, smiling as he looked at my new blood pressure result. “Much better.”

  “I know what happened up until the moment I hit my head and then everything is very in and out and hazy.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Like there is this memory when Henry is trying to open the carriage door so we can get out. This is after the carriage had fallen and we were in the water, but I wasn't swimming and neither was he. I am just stood there, up to my waist in freezing water but I have no idea what we must have been standing on.”

  “I understand. I'm going to prescribe you a mild memory potion,” he said writing out a quick slip of paper for me. Dilute it in any non-alcoholic drink and take it before bed. You'll either have a lucid dream of the events of the accident or you will wake up with the gaps plugged.”

  “Just like that?”

  “It's not that you can't remember, it’s simply the case that what you might have realised subconsciously hasn't slotted into the correct places yet. You might find that after the potion you realise you were actually standing on a chair that had been twisted during the initial crash, or that you actually had your arms wrapped around a nearby pole.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  He escorted me to the hospital pharmacy and I waited to collect my potion vial before heading to the reception where Rosemary wrapped me up in a hug. Through the doors I could see what felt like half the world’s press pacing in the car pack behind Jonathan standing by a car.

  “We have already issued a statement, do not stop, do not engage, you don't even have to smile. We get in the car and we get back to the hotel.”

  “Good plan,” I agreed, taking a deep fortifying breath.

  Rosemary opened the door and we hurried to the car, Jonathan opened the door for us and we climbed in, he shut the door climbed in the driver’s seat and we were free.

  “Henry said you had to change hotels?”

  “Yeah, we are only a couple of blocks away so call if you need anything,” Rosemary smiled.

  “Won't you lose money if I say let’s go home tomorrow?”

  “Please,” Rosemary complained with a smile, “Like you are going to go home early when Heronsgate has extended your stay by a week.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but the idea of refusing Heronsgate's generosity and wasting his money by going home when the hotel, food and drink was already paid for did not sit well with me. Especially when he had taken what was probably an exorbitantly expensive suite for me instead of a simple room. I knew that money was relative and he was unlikely to miss the cost of it in the same way that I would buy a chocolate bar knowing that I could afford it, and he had said that sharing what I could, when I could, was how our relationship would stay strong. I couldn't share though if I wasn't here to do it, I just had to think of something that Heronsgate would appreciate that I could give him.

  “So what's the plan?” I asked with a sigh.

  “We figure two more signings, one in Brooklyn and one in Jersey City. Help us to perfect our skills before going back to tour the UK. It will probably upset our UK readers a little that we are so much here so quickly but we have a good excuse.”

  “And most of the get well messages on the board have been local ones.”

  “I told you she was reading the board,” Jonathan chuckled from the driver’s seat when Rosemary looked surprised by my comment.

  “We'll do the organising,” Rosemary smiled. “You just get well rested up and be ready for next Tuesday and Saturday, we'll do them a couple of days apart and fly home on the Sunday.”

  Jonathan pulled into the hotel's under ground car park a few minutes later and handed me a new electronic room key. There were no press in sight and everything was cool and calm.

  “Would you like us to see you up?” Rosemary asked.

  “I can manage.”

  “Call if you need anything, okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  I got out of the car and headed to the elevator, scanning for a secure one to the upper floors and growing more nervous about what kind of room I should have expected. There were only four doors on the long corridor and when I scanned into mine I stood wide eyed on the threshold for a full minute before I could enter.

  Its three rooms combined was bigger than my house, expensive and beautifully decorated, the perfect little home away from home disguising the fact that one was actually in a hotel and not a luxury purpose built apartment.

  In the bedroom someone had unpacked my things into the draws and hung the rest in the closet while the bags themselves had been stowed neatly away. My computer and hard drive were in the safe which were protected with a swipe of my room key. There was a balcony with lounge chairs; I was on the same side of the hotel as I had been before but the view was even more breath-taking from this height and I snapped photos for Lucy, and remembering the conversation Heronsgate and I had had on the train before the crash I took a selfie with the view behind me, I looked tense but sent it anyway so he knew I had made it back to the hotel safe and sound.

  'How do you like the room?'

  I scowled at the question.

  'The APARTMENT is beautiful.'

  'Congratulations, that was American. I expected you to say flat. What did the doctor say?'

  I smiled as I put the memory potion on the coffee table and collapsed on the sofa.

  'My blood pressure is fine. They aren't worried about any post trauma swelling. I keep being told to get some rest but I actually feel alright and a little tired of being cooped up indoors.'

  'I would suggest one more day indoors. Go to the pool or gym by all means but if you are out on the street straight from the hospital the press will be likely to pounce because the train wreck is big news for everyone at the moment. Once the other injured victims are released from hospital all the media is going to be more focused on public interest stories and you'll be able to move about relatively unmolested.'

  That made sense and I did have an afternoons worth of hand-written notes to type up.

  'Will I see you at dinner?'

  'Sorry. I'm out straight from the office tonight, I don't think I will back until late.'

  'Don't work too hard.'

  'You too.'

  I looked out of the window, dark clouds were gathering and it looked like it was going to rain before lunch. My side of the bridge of our relationship was feeling unsupported but the apologetic text about his schedule gave me an idea what I could do to reinforce it. It would mean going out, but as it was going to rain I could get away with pulling on a scarf and a hat leaving me fairly sure that I would be unnoticeable.

  # # #

  Henry Heronsgate

  I could have worked from the comfort of the apartment I was paying for, but like South had earlier complained of being cooped up I was feeling the same way. I would have relaxed out on the balcony but the steady drizzle that had begun at lunchtime had become a heavy storm. I couldn't work from the pool so it was a large table in the bar where I had chosen to spread out with a glass of red wine.

  “Working late?”

  I looked up from my tablet computer. I smiled for South who was wearing a simple
outfit consisting of a pair of cotton shorts and a thin lace T-shirt that were at least a size too big and very unflattering, but as always, somehow to me she looked simply divine.

  “What are you doing up?”

  “I knocked on your door, the light was on but you didn't answer so I figured in this weather it was either here or the pool.”

  “Sometimes it feels like I'm either chatting to clients, in the room or in my office. I needed a change in scenery.”

  South reached for the tablet and I let her turn it towards her so she could see the several different floor plans for the benefit.

  “It’s funny,” South said softly. “I thought car blueprints would look different.”

  “They are a work in progress. You are looking better.”

  “I’m feeling better,” she agreed before continuing in a gentler tone. “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Feeling better?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” I lied instinctively and used my best intimidating tone to do it in.

  Apart from a few text messages we hadn't really spoken, so how she knew something was bothering me was mind-boggling. I was still occasionally brushing psychically up against her senses, I had been so tightly linked to her during the crash that finding her mental imprint even around the thousands of minds in New York was effortless. It was a comfort to do so when I hadn’t been able to be there to pick her up from the hospital, but maybe some of my own feelings had snuck through if I hadn’t been as careful as I thought I had been.

  “Henry,” South replied undeterred by my aloof brush off. “I haven’t known you long, and I’ll admit I don’t think I have any right to ask, but if you don’t want to talk it’s better you say so rather than lie about what you’re going through.”

  I looked down at my wine and pushed a frustrated hand through my hair. She shouldn’t have asked, not because we hadn’t known each other long, but because I wanted to tell her. It was strange to think that I wanted her in my confidence more than I wanted Ferris or Harcourt.

  “How did you meet Simon?” I asked.

  South blinked, a little fazed by the question but she honoured my evasion and me by answering.

  “My parents are landscape gardeners, Simon has been their land lawyer for years. I thought it was weird going to him with my acceptance letters. I assumed he was going to throw me out of his office, instead he seemed quiet keen for the job.”

  “He is a complicated man,” I agreed.

  I wondered if South knew just how much money Cornwall had, he certainly never flaunted it and his life-style didn't reflect it but he was an extremely wealthy man. We had first met at an auction of ancient Favlian artefacts, he had been preening the way only a predatory Wildling could in front of the organisers who were selling a small collection of treasures that he had brought to their door. They had wanted to know how he had got them and if there were more, he had in turn been tight-lipped on his source and made no promises other pieces, but even so during that one night had had made almost half a million dollars from the sales.

  “So why are you up so late?” I asked.

  “Because you are.”

  “Harriet,” I complained, the instant response shouldn’t have warmed me but after I hadn't been able to get back in time for dinner the fact she had waited up for me was lovely.

  “So why the long hours?” She shrugged unabashedly.

  “I’ve got a lot on at the moment.” It was defensive and dismissive and we both knew it.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  “I know.” So why did I feel as though I was letting her down? She gave me stories and honesty so quickly and trustingly. “But I am still sorry.”

  I winced and I knew she saw the momentary lapse; I knew she would get up and go back to her room and by morning any affection she had would end up packed away carefully. All the things I hoped to encourage she would save for someone else, all because I couldn’t put words to how I felt about what I had witnessed in Michigan and the uncertainty of Fallow’s state of mind that was to come.

  Common sense demanded I hold my tongue and not subject myself to further scrutiny, but the man South always seemed to bring out in me reached for her. I tangled my fingers through hers and held on because I had no idea if I would ever feel like this again and it was unacceptable to let her go away from me disappointed. I wanted to honour the faith in me she had, and I found myself telling her everything about what little I knew of Fallow, of Cornwall and their dominance fight.

  I confessed to every moment of blood and pain and fear I had experienced watching them tear into one another. I had hardly been aware of my turbulent thoughts at the time I had been so focused on them, but the insecurities had crept in afterwards, as I had held Fallow. I told South how tiny she was, I had always known she was small but aggression and confidence had made her seem larger.

  It had taken Fallow a good hour to shower and pull herself together. We had ended up in a nearby restaurant where she had eaten her weight in burgers and ice cream. Cornwall had explained that she had admitted to never shifting after high school and was unaccustomed to the drain in her energy but it had still been a shock to see her eat so much, so enthusiastically and seemingly without a care of her surroundings, and I finished by telling South how ashamed of myself I was that I had let her down.

  In the silence that followed I cursed my own stupidity for displaying my weaknesses so openly, then South made it worth the risk by wrapping her arms around me and saying four simple words.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Of course I had known that, I also knew there was nothing more I could have done for Fallow, but just having someone else say the words lifted a weight off my shoulders. I opened my mouth to thank her, but snapped it shut in favour of pulling her into my arms, closing my eyes and breathing in the scent of her soap and revelling in her ability to fill up the little gaps in my soul before she pulled away.

  “Harriet.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “In the carriage you told me not to call you sweetheart,” I froze at the bemused look on her face and continued more hesitantly. “Do you remember?”

  “No,” she gave a little shake of her head. “My doctor told me that a lot of what happened would have been clocked by my subconscious but that I won't consciously remember it.”

  “You said the word was special to you.”

  “My mum calls me sweetheart,” South explained. I couldn't hold back the sigh of relief and South laughed. “Did you think I meant another man?”

  “That was my first instinct; I thought you had chosen a really bad moment to break my heart.”

  Perhaps we weren't dating in a classic sense but as I made my small confession I also dared her to dispute our mutual attraction and shared kisses, thankfully she didn’t.

  “Why would I have broken yours when you were busy saving mine?”

  “Narcissism?” I teased.

  “Thanks for the compliment,” she chuckled. “Now I don’t want to give you your present.”

  I frowned when she teased me with a package wrapped in simple paper; she had hidden it so well I hadn’t even noticed her carrying it before. I took it; the weight and flexibility to one side immediately gave it away as a book and I pulled off the wrapper wondering if she was sharing one of her favourite reads.

  Instead I was presented with an unprofessional spiral bound book without a cover image. The first page had the title and gave it away as her second novel, I had just finished her first and like Ferris was now feeling quite impatient for the next instalment.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s against my contract to give it to you, so hide it and don’t go bragging to anyone, and it hasn’t been edited yet so be kind.”

  “It’s going to be torture trying not to tell Ferris,” I grinned. “Thank you.”

  “
I wanted to do something,” she frowned down at her hands. “If you do any more work on our bridge I’m going to have to start paying your crew's wages.”

  I bit back my instant angry retort, when I had said that our relationship would stay strong so long as we were sharing what we had I hadn’t meant for that to include life and death situations, but with her book in my hands my own thoughts of her career drifted back to me and I realised I had leverage to help her think of her writing in a different way.

  “You really want to do something to share?”

  “Of course.”

  “Alright. I don’t like the idea of just seeing you for coffee after you go home. I want us to have a more active relationship than that and if you don’t want to wake up mobbed by press every time we go to a party than it’s important to have some media presence. Even if it’s a small one with people who deal in short story magazines and writers' journals.”

  “You’re talking about staying relevant to the writing community if I don’t stay in the spotlight in main stream celebrity media.”

  “Exactly. I think the best way for you to do that is to go full-time as an author.”

  South paled and chuckled nervously like she had at the advertising talk when we first met.

  “That sounds petrifying.”

  “I realise that just stopping work is a big step for you. And I certainly don’t think that you should waste the cushion these last two weeks have given you, or accept that you’ll be living a less comfortable life on a lower income. I think you should sit down and work out how many books you need to sell a month to support yourself, and then ask Jonathan what the possibility of earning that figure is.”

  “How are they going to know? These last two weeks have been very sketchy and erratic because extreme circumstances.”

  “You might not have enough sales data to give you a plan, but you aren’t their only author. You might find that they have authors currently earning a steady living and that their data can be applied to your book. They’ll know not just a total sum of copies but when the copies were sold and more importantly where they were sold. They might suggest touring Italy because you have a large fan base out there and a tour out there would produce more sales then if you toured here or in the UK.”