Falling For You (21 page)

‘Take a look’ I step back and beckon her forward. She moves past me, goes and looks out over the edge of the ruins to see how much more of it has fallen in the night. She gives a quiet gasp when she sees how bad it is. Right now the landscape is completely obliterated; the hills and the valleys and the trees and houses … everything is hidden under one soft, uneven, undulating layer of white. Everything is
gone.
 

‘It’s … it’s so quiet,’ she frowns, and I sense the return of yesterday’s unhappiness, her restlessness to be out of here. ‘I thought mayb
e
…’ she breaks off. ‘Looks like we’re not getting out of here today, after all?’

I join her and I see what I’ve been avoiding looking at all the while that I’ve been digging - that my father’s jeep is still there. It’s covered in snow, but I can still tell it’s his from the size and shape of it. Damn him.
He’s still there
.
 

‘Not unless the forecast works out and it starts to rain.’ It isn’t raining, though. It’s snowing, and copiously now. It floats down in large lazy white flakes and lands gently on her uncovered head.

‘You should go in,’

‘I thought you might want to come back in out of the snow with me.’ We speak at exactly the same time and we both laugh.

‘You’re going to get wet,’ I say, lifting my eyes to the sky.

‘You already are,’ she points out.

‘Then I’ve nothing to lose.’ I watch her smile shyly again, pushing back her hair. She’s happy to stay out here with me, clearly. Maybe she was lonely in there, she wants the company? I bend to retrieve a little brass-coloured
object
she’s just dropped in the snow.

‘What’s this?’ I turn it over in my palm curiously.

‘Oh
that!
’ She feels for it unconsciously in her hair. ‘That’s my giraffe pin. I just found it again in my backpack. It’s a ... a sort of lucky charm.’ She looks a little abashed.

 ‘Is it?’

‘Look.’ She comes a little closer, her head bowed and I can see every breath as it leaves her mouth. She’s so close to me that in a minute I am going to be breathing in the same breath as she did. Just like we’d do if we were kissing, I think.

‘See the way he’s holding up his arms and he’s smiling ... you can turn him upside down and then his arms become his legs and he looks like he’s frowning.’

‘Clever.’ I hand it back to her, suck in my lips. ‘A lucky charm. Does it work?’

She shrugs, a little embarrassed as she pushes it back into her hair now.

‘I’m not sure. I’ll keep him pointed upright so he’s smiling; just in case.’

‘A wise precaution.’

She turns her head away now, a little embarrassed maybe at confessing to being so superstitious?    

‘You’d better go in, Rose,’ I suggest. ‘You could boil up some snow in that larger metal bucket for us. Keep the smaller one for boiling drinking water, yes? We can take it in turns to wash. I’ll carry on out here for a bit and then we’ll share some breakfast.’

She doesn’t make a move to go, takes in my intention to keep clearing snow while she knows there’s no way I can clear the whole path down. She looks pensive.

‘That child you told me about yesterday,’ she says. ‘What will happen … if you don’t get to his sponsor in time?’

I look away from her. The adrenalin that was pumping through my muscles earlier is still circulating. I’m itching to carry on digging. I’ve got every reason to.

‘Then - Sunny will most likely have his foot amputated,’ I tell her. She doesn’t move.

‘It’s a war zone, isn’t it – the place you were at?’

A war zone. The story of my life.

‘It has been, for a long time. The war is over now but casualties keep on coming
.
’

‘And you’ve been there - how long?’ she steps a little closer.

‘Roughly twelve months.’

‘You must have seen many amputations then?’

‘Too many. I’ve seen too many, Rose!’ I fling the shovel down at that, harder than I meant to and there’s a crunching sound as it slices through the snow. She flinches but she doesn’t move away as I turn to face her full on.   

‘I don’t want it to happen to him, that’s all. Sometimes you get to a point where you’ve got to say -
no more
. I have to save Sunny. You understand that?’

‘Of course,’ she says softly. ‘I need to get out of here too.’ I see her bite her lip. ‘But - the snow … there’s so much of it. I’ve never seen so much. We’re never going to get out are we?’ 

‘Not yet.’ I hold her gaze for a few seconds, fathoming her out. Then I add the obvious. ‘Not unless one of us rings for help.’ I see her gaze drop away.

‘Maybe ... we shouldn’t though,’ she falters. ‘Not yet. I mean, the emergency services are bound to be stretched to the limit right now and ... and we’re okay for a bit, aren’t we?’

 I see that she - for her own reasons - is reluctant to alert anyone and I am careful to disguise my own relief.  

‘We are
,
Rose.’ I lean forward and pat her shoulder encouragingly. ‘I’m going to help you get out of here and … I promise you, we are.’ 

She nods, slowly.  

‘I already melted some snow in the metal bucket like you did last night. I did it while you were digging. I hope you’ve got some dry clothes in that backpack of yours. You need to come in and change now or you’re going to catch your death,’ she turns and her small fingers reach out, brush the snow fleetingly, unexpectedly, from my shoulders and then, more hesitantly from the tops of my arms and my chest. Her eyes, though full of compassion, don’t quite meet mine.

I glance down towards the valley. That is so much truer than you realise, Rose.

Up here, I think, I probably will.

‘Tell me a little about your life, Rose,’ he says. We’re sitting on the canvas sacks by the fire, eating breakfast. Tuna fish on crackers has never tasted quite so good. Neither has sugared tea without milk. We’re eating our breakfast slowly, taking little bites and savouring each tiny morsel to make it last.

‘What’s to tell?’ He’s the guy who’s been off doing heroic things in foreign lands. Before he was in Sri Lanka he did a stint in South Africa, he told me. Just before that he’d spent a couple of weeks helping trawl through the rubble after an earthquake in China. What could I possibly say that he’d find interesting?

‘Anything. Anything at all.’ At least he’s got his clothes on again. He put on a t-shirt and a black sweater when he came back in, dry ones out of his backpack. I gave an inner sigh of relief when he got dressed. Having him walk around here half-naked was a bit disconcerting. Okay it was
nice
- but disconcerting.  He’s got a very nice body and I didn’t know where to look so as not to make it seem like I was looking at him.

Especially as I really wanted to look at him.

‘None of my life is interesting,’ I protest. ‘I lead the most boring life imaginable.’
Getting holed up here with you is probably the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a long time
.

‘You do not know how
good
boring sounds right now.’ As he says that he looks wistful, sad even.   In the morning light filtering through the chapel windows I can see the little tired lines in the corners of his eyes, as if his life has been too eventful, too busy, for way too long. I’m glad he let me persuade him to leave the path-clearing for now. He wants it clear, and for a good reason. He’s one driven guy, I can see that. But sometimes you’ve just got to give up and wait.

‘Boring sounds good?’ I ask softly. In the echoey silence where every tiny sound bounces off the chapel walls, a splash of water drips from the ceiling onto the flagstones, hisses into the fire, startling us both. His eyes come back to meet mine, smiling.

‘Boring sounds good to me.
Boring means that you are living a normal life,’ he explains. ‘One where you need not live in fear of what each day might bring; of what you might have left, at the end of it. Each day is … dependable, solid. It’s full of reliable breaks and beginnings and finite endings.’ Is he talking about his
job
, I wonder now, or is he talking about himself, and is there really such a strong line demarking them both?

He makes it sound as if he’s been living on hyper-alert for a very long time. Perhaps he has. Perhaps that’s why he was aware enough of his surroundings to realise I was in trouble yesterday, to come and find me. He saved my life, I have no doubt of that. What I’m still not so clear about is - what was he, really, even doing wandering around up here, himself? He’s on his way to get some sort of sponsor on board, he tells me. It’s urgent. It’s all come at the last minute. Okay, I don’t know how things work in war zones. When it comes to international humanitarian aid efforts, maybe sometimes it is all last-minute cobbled together life and death scenarios, who knows? Whatever the case, I’m still a little fuzzy about what this guy is actually doing
up here
.  Why didn’t he go directly to the person he needed to see? I know we both got trapped yesterday by the weather. But unless you were headed for Macrae Farm I don’t know why anyone would come by this way if they wanted to visit someone in the village? And - ha! - Macrae Farm is surely the last place on earth you’d go to find humanitarian aid. He must have lost his way.

‘Sounds like you might need to go on some sort of sabbatical,’ I offer. My tummy rumbles because I’m working hard on making my breakfast last. What wouldn’t I give for a nice piece of fruit right now? Or a slice of that luscious iced cake Mrs P left behind unopened on the sideboard yesterday … We’ve been sharing the tuna crackers off one plate. We’ve only got one mug, too, and they both came out of his backpack. The workmen who left us the tea bags weren’t considerate enough to leave us behind any mugs so we’re taking it in turns to drink our tea. I’m going first. I don’t normally take sugar in mine but I am today because I am ravenous. I don’t know if he is - after all that hard slog outside he has refused to eat a single bite more than me even though I told him that was grossly unfair, and he should. He doesn’t seem to mind.

I watch him curiously. I figure he’s used to putting up with a bit more hardship than I am, that’s what it is.  I wonder if he does ever get any time off? And if he does - where does he go to, how does he spend it? Even today - the day after Christmas day, he seems to be on a mission of some sort, working.

‘Maybe I do,’ he agrees now. ‘I want to hear about you, though. Remind me how normal people live.’ He says it like he really wants to hear.

‘I’m not sure my life is entirely normal,’ I fence. God, do I really want to go into all of …

‘Come on, surely you can tell me something. One little thing about you?’ He cajoles.

‘Like …?’

‘Okay; tell me about your family, then,’ he presses when I don’t immediately continue. ‘You told me yesterday that your mum was a hedgewitch?’

‘That isn’t exactly normal, is it?’ I mutter. I shouldn’t have told him about that bit should I? It always leads to more questions. I wasn’t thinking straight yesterday. ‘Besides, that wasn’t her job description. She used to help with the school dinners at the local primary.’

‘And Dad?’  Here we are on slightly safer ground.

‘He … well, when he was working - he was a loss adjustor for an insurance company, specialising in maritime claims, tankers, liners and so forth.’

‘Interesting combination.’ He raises his eyebrows a fraction.

‘You’re wondering how such an unlikely couple came to be together in the first place, right?’ He shakes his head slowly but there’s a twinkle in the corner of his eyes.

‘It’s what everyone wonders.  That’s why I said the background I come from isn’t entirely normal. Dad’s as strait-laced as they come, academic, middle-class. Mum was …’ I stop for a minute, wondering how to really describe her when she was always so difficult to pin down, a free spirit, an elemental
.

‘She was a total bohemian. Maybe it’s because she was an only child and her parents emigrated without her when she was still in her teens, left her with a friend. She never had any contact with them.  It’s certainly something Dad’s family have never ceased to wonder; what was it that bonded them? They never got over him marrying my mother.’
Christ, why am I even telling him this
? I don’t know why, but my mouth seems to be blabbing on all by itself, I can’t seem to stop.

‘She was probably a babe,’ he mutters.

I shrug. ‘He left his first wife for Isla. He left his lucrative job in his wife’s family firm and as a result relations with his own people have been strained ever since. I don’t think they’ve ever quite forgiven him.’

‘Difficult situation.’ He looks at me curiously now. ‘What
did
draw two such different people together, do you suppose?’

‘They fell hopelessly in love… or so they told me,’ I manage a laugh.

‘Romantic,’ he smiles.

‘You think?’ Maybe he’s a romantic too? ‘Falling in love with the wrong person can make life very difficult, you know. They may have loved each other but their life together was by no means an easy one.’

‘Nor yours?’ he offers softly, but I’ve said enough.

‘Your turn
.
’ I shake my head. I take a sip of my tea, relishing the sweetness of the sugar. ‘You were saying you might be taking a sabbatical?’

 ‘After this job, I think I’ll have no option, he says mysteriously. Lawrence has brought a tattered pack of cards out of his pocket, secured with a rubber band. He’s put them on the sacking we’re using for a mat. Is he going to suggest we play rummy or something in a minute?

‘So - you’re not planning on going back to Sri Lanka?’ The thought makes me feel ridiculously happy. ‘Will you stay on in the UK, maybe?’ I say it casually, like his answer is of no possible interest to me whatsoever. Like I’m not wishing fervently,
say that you will, say that you’re staying in the UK and staying somewhere near enough that we’ll maybe see each other again …

‘I’d love to stay in the UK.’

My heart sinks. He says it like he can’t.
Damn
. Why can’t you though, Lawrence? I’m getting the picture that there’s a lot more to this guy than meets the eye, a lot more than he’s letting on about … about
everything.

‘Well. Will you?’ I insist. I rinse out my drink, plucking another tea bag out of the box and fill the metal cup up to the top with boiling water for him. With all that snow outside the door, one thing at least we won’t be going without, is enough water.

‘I don’t know,’ he says infuriatingly. ‘Right now I can’t see that far ahead. I wish I could.’ He gives me a sudden smile and all my faint misgivings about him vanish into the air. If there was one thing Mum always drummed into me it was to trust my own judgement about people. And Lawrence - he’s a good person, I believe that. Right now there are a whole load of things I don’t know about him or don’t understand but there is something bugging him - I feel it - more than just his concern for that boy Sunny, that he isn’t letting on about. Call it intuition.

‘You mentioned your mum was a hedgewitch. Did she ever read people’s fortunes, Rose?’

I laugh, at that. She used to read the tea-leaves for people, if they asked her. Sometimes she’d look at her tarot cards and at other times she’d just pluck random information for them out of the air. She was spot on with it, most times. But you never really know how people are going to react if you admit to stuff like that.

‘Sometimes,’ I fence.

‘Did she ever do yours?’ Ah. I was right that he’s worried about something. He wants his fortune done. I glance at him a little anxiously. I hope I’m not about to learn he’s got
girlfriend troubles.
If he has a girlfriend then he’s forbidden territory. I really hope it isn’t that. I dab at the last few crumbs of tuna on my side of the plate. When it is completely and utterly clean, I admit;

‘No. Mum didn’t.’  I never let her, that’s why. I already had a pretty good idea what she would say and I didn’t want to hear it.

‘Have
you
ever done it?’ He sits up, suddenly, crossing his legs in front of him. I glance at his tattered pack of playing cards - is that what they’re for?

I shake my head, smiling.  Mum said I’d be a dab hand at reading cards if I ever took it up but of course I didn’t. That was all I needed, wasn’t it, on top of everything else, people round here calling me ‘
Gypsy Rose’
! 

‘Scared, Rose?’ he teases gently now.

‘Scared of what?’ I mutter in a low voice.

‘Scared of being wrong?’ He’s shuffling the cards in front of him expertly. ‘Scared of being
right?
’

‘I’m not scared by what my mum used to do.’ That isn’t entirely true. I lean forward on my arms now, peering into the teacup. As I stare into it the dark water swirls and shimmers in the fire light. She taught me how to scry in the water, too; how to see images on the surface where the shimmering light flickers into your mind.
It’s all about knowing how to look, she’d say
. Right now I can see the wind bending back some tall trees. Just there, on the surface of his cup, a bright day scattered with clouds; rain. The dark shadow of a man, running; the same man I’ve seen before. But I don’t want to see him again. I let out a breath, pull back. Lawrence thinks it’s all some kind of joke all this stuff; magic, predictions.