St Piran's: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday (6 page)

‘No, I was going to be an arctic explorer or drive a racing car.’

She laughed. ‘So it was always going to be something dangerous, then?’

‘Sort of.’ He sighed. ‘I think Dad was always a bit disappointed that I didn’t go to university, but I’m taking my firefighter exams and I’m ready to move up to the next level, so I’ve proved to him that it’s a career and not just a whim.’

‘So what made you decide to be a firefighter?’

He could lie and give an anodyne response, but he had a feeling that Flora would know. And she deserved better than that. He took a deep breath. ‘My best friend at school died in a house fire when I was thirteen.’

She winced. ‘Sorry. That must’ve been hard for you.’

His world had been blown wide apart. Until then, it had never occurred to him that people his own age could die. Stupid, because of course they could. But he’d never known anyone die who wasn’t really, really old and really, really sick. ‘Yes. I found it pretty hard to deal with. And I couldn’t help thinking, if I’d been a grown-up, one of the firefighters,
I would’ve been able to save Ben.’ He shrugged. ‘I know the fire wasn’t my fault, but I guess becoming a firefighter was my way of trying to make up for what happened to him.’ He’d never actually told anyone that before; he risked a glance at Flora, and to his surprise she wasn’t looking at him as if he was crazy. She actually seemed to understand. ‘Ben’s the reason why I almost never lose anyone.’ Why he drove himself past every barrier, no matter how scary. ‘I remember how hard it was for his parents, when he died, and I don’t want anyone else to go through that.’

‘It takes someone very special to be that dedicated,’ she said softly.

He shrugged. ‘I’ve done the work for long enough to have a fair idea what I’m doing when it comes to fires, even though they can be unpredictable.’ He probably took more risks than others, but he didn’t really have a family at home to worry about.

Until now.

And that was a real struggle. He’d been thinking about his job, whether he ought to change to something with more child-friendly hours and less danger so he could protect Joey. Yet, at the same time, being a firefighter was all he’d ever wanted to do. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And he found it hard to be a stand-in father; work was an escape for him. Which, he thought wryly, made him a really awful person. ‘But being a parent to Joey…that’s something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get right,’ he admitted.

‘Probably because you’re trying too hard.’

He frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s impossible to be the perfect parent,’ she said gently. ‘I see new mums breaking their hearts because they can’t get it right and everyone else seems to get their babies to sleep and eat much more easily than they can. But then they come to realise that you can’t be perfect and your best really is
good enough. And that takes the pressure off and stops them trying so hard, and then the babies relax too and it all works out.’ She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘And it’s even harder when you’re suddenly dropped into a parenting role—when you’re expecting a baby you have a few months to get used to the idea, and your confidence grows as the baby does. Joey’s four, already thinking and acting for himself, and you just need to give yourself a bit of time to catch up with him.’

He thought about it.

And, to his shock, he realised that she was right. He
was
trying too hard. Trying to make up for Susie and Kevin not being there any more, trying to be the perfect stand-in and getting frustrated with himself and Joey because the barriers between them seemed to grow every day; and then feeling guilty because he’d escaped into work to forget his problems outside.

‘You’re a very wise woman, Flora Loveday.’

She just smiled.

They sat in a companionable silence, watching Joey on the swings, until they heard a scream. They turned round to see a woman cradling her child on the ground by the climbing frame.

‘That’s Maisie Phillipson and Barney,’ Flora said. ‘Tom, would you mind if—?’

‘Go,’ he cut in softly, knowing exactly what she was going to ask. He was beginning to realise that Flora just couldn’t stand by and do nothing if there was a crisis and she knew she could do something to help. And he recognised that this was her way of dealing with her shyness, too; doing practical things meant that she didn’t have time to think about what was going on and to feel self-conscious.

‘Maisie, what happened?’ Flora asked as she reached the climbing frame.

‘One minute, Barney was climbing—the next, he was on
the ground.’ Maisie bit her lip. ‘I should’ve been watching him, not chatting.’

‘Even if you’d watched him for every second, you wouldn’t have been able to catch him,’ Flora said. ‘Do you want me to take a look at him?’

‘Flora, you’re an angel. Yes, please,’ Maisie said, giving her a grateful smile.

Flora sat on the sand next to the little boy. ‘Hi, there, Barney. Mummy says you fell off the climbing frame. Does anything hurt?’

‘No-o.’ Barney looked torn between braving it out and showing just what a tough six-year-old he was and bursting into tears.

‘That’s quite a big fall, and you’re being really brave,’ Flora said with a smile. ‘Did you hit your head at all? ‘

‘I think so.’

‘Did everything go black after you hit your head?’

‘No.’

That was a good sign. ‘Can I just look into your eyes with my special torch?’ Flora asked.

‘All right.’

She took the torch from her handbag. Both of Barney’s pupils were equal and reactive, to her relief. ‘Righty. And now I need you to do something else for me.’ She took a thimble with a bee on it from her handbag and slipped it onto her forefinger. ‘Can you follow the bee with your eyes?’

He did so, and she checked his eye movements as she moved the bee from side to side.

‘That’s brilliant. I haven’t got a sticker on me, but I’ll bring you one when I’m in school next week,’ she promised.

Barney looked hopeful. ‘Can it be a rocket sticker?’

‘Absolutely a rocket sticker,’ she said, smiling back.

‘Can I go and play now?’

Maisie sighed. ‘All right. But
not
on the climbing frame. And be careful!’

‘He’ll be fine, Maisie,’ Flora reassured her. ‘You can give him some infant paracetamol when you get home, if he says anything hurts, and just keep an eye on him. If he still has a headache in six hours’ time, or he’s sick or passes out, or he feels really dizzy or can’t see properly, or goes to sleep and you can’t wake him, then take him straight to hospital.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I really ought to keep a bumped-head leaflet in my handbag.’

After saying goodbye to Maisie, she returned to Tom.

‘Everything OK?’ Tom asked, standing up as she neared the bench.

‘Bumped head. He’ll be fine.’

‘You must see that all the time.’

‘Pretty much every session at the primary school,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘I know the advice off by heart.’

They walked over to the swings; Joey had slowed down and was just letting the ropes rock him back and forth.

‘Shall we go down the slide, Jojo?’ Tom asked.

The little boy shook his head. Before Tom could ask anything else, he slid off the seat and headed for the seats on a spring. He chose the one like a frog, and sat bouncing on it with his shoulders hunched and his back turned to Tom.

‘Are you OK?’ Flora asked.

‘Yes.’

She could see on his face that he wasn’t. And she knew that male pride would get in the way of him telling her what was wrong. But he’d confided in her earlier about his best friend as a child, and something in his eyes had told her that it wasn’t something that most people knew about. She was pretty sure that it was the same as whatever was upsetting him now; but he needed to get this out in the open to let him deal with it. Which meant pushing beyond her own boundaries, not letting
her shyness get in the way of helping him. She took a deep breath. ‘Don’t fib.’

Tom sighed. ‘I guess no, then.’

And now for the biggie. She forced herself to say it. ‘Want to tell me about it?’

He was silent for so long that she thought she’d gone too far. And then he bit his lip. ‘Joey used to love the slide. On Sunday mornings, if Susie was cooking Sunday lunch for us, Kev and I used to take Joey to the park for a kickabout with a football, and we always ended up on the slides and the swings afterwards. He used to love going down the slide, sitting on my lap or his dad’s, when he was really tiny.’

And she could see on Tom’s face how much he missed it. And how hurt he was that his nephew didn’t want to do that any more; what he could see was Joey’s rejection, not the scared little boy behind it.

‘He’s probably remembering that, too, and it probably makes him miss his parents, but he just doesn’t know how to tell you,’ Flora said softly, taking Tom’s hand and squeezing it. ‘It might even be that he’s scared to tell you, in case you’re upset too.’

‘Upset with him?’

She shook her head. ‘Grieving. Missing his parents the way he does. I can remember my grandmother dying when I was about four, and my mum crying, and I felt helpless because I didn’t know how to make things better for her. And because I felt helpless, I hid in my room and avoided her until she’d stopped crying and she was Mum again. I wasn’t rejecting her—I just didn’t know how to deal with it.’

He returned the pressure of her fingers and didn’t drop her hand. ‘You’re right, and it’s stupid of me to feel rejected because he doesn’t want to go on the slide with me.’ He swallowed hard. ‘It’s just that now he hates being touched. I can’t even give him a hug or ruffle his hair because he really doesn’t
like it—he pulls away every time. He never used to hate it. He loved playing rough-and-tumble games with me and his dad. He used to run to me and give me a huge, huge hug hello whenever he saw me. And now…’ Tom shook his head. ‘He’s quiet and still and… I just can’t reach him.’

‘It’s a hard situation for both of you, Tom,’ she said gently. ‘Give yourself a break. You’re doing your best.’

‘And it’s not good enough. I don’t know how to be a dad.’

Flora had the strongest feeling that Tom hated failing at anything, but this was even harder because he loved the little boy and wanted to make Joey’s world all right again.

‘You’re doing better than you think you are,’ she told him. ‘You spend time with him, you talk to him, you take him out—that’s a lot more than some kids get from their parents.’

‘I guess so.’ Tom looked haunted. ‘I just wish…’

‘Wish what?’ she prompted.

He shook his head. ‘Never mind.’

Obviously he felt he’d already let his guard down too much with her. But Flora also noticed that he was still holding her hand. Taking comfort from her.

Well, it was what a friend would do. Slightly less ostentatious than a public hug. And, if it made him feel better, she was perfectly happy to hold his hand.

As for the awareness flickering down her spine, the tingling in her skin—well, she’d just have to ignore it. This wasn’t about them. It was about Joey.

Eventually Joey stopped bouncing on the frog seat.

‘Shall we go and have a hot chocolate to warm us up?’ Tom suggested.

Joey nodded. Although he didn’t hold his uncle’s hand, he did at least fall into step beside him; and Flora noticed that Tom shortened his stride to make it easier for the little boy to
keep up. He was sensitive to the needs of others and she liked that. A lot.

When they’d finished their hot chocolates—which Tom insisted on paying for—he drove them back to the farmhouse.

‘We’d better let you get on,’ Tom said, before she had the chance to invite them in.

‘OK. Well, thanks for lunch. I really enjoyed that—and the park.’ She smiled at Joey. ‘Uncle Tom has a day off on Monday and Tuesday, so he’s going to pick you up from school. But I’ll see you on Wednesday for breakfast, and after school we’ll take Banjo for a walk and collect some eggs, yes?’

Joey nodded.

‘Thanks, Flora. You’re a gem,’ Tom said softly. ‘We’ll see you on Wednesday.’

‘F
LORA
?’

Even without the caller display showing the number on her phone, she would’ve recognised Tom’s deep voice.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you busy right now?’

‘I was about to go out,’ she admitted.

‘Never mind, then. I’ll catch you later.’

‘Tom?’ She paused. Why would he be phoning her mid-morning? ‘Is everything OK? I mean, have you been called in to work? Do you need me to pick up Joey?’

‘No—nothing like that. But I did want to talk to you about Joey.’

He needed her. And somehow that made it a lot easier for her to push the hated shyness away. She made a swift decision. ‘I’m going to the church to put flowers on my parents’ graves. I won’t be long. I could meet you in the coffee shop in half an hour, if you like?’

‘Are you going to the church at Penhally?’

‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘Why?’

He sighed. ‘That’s where Susie and Kevin are buried. I ought to put some flowers on their grave. I know I should take Joey with me, but I haven’t been able to face going to the churchyard yet, and I don’t want him to see me all choked up.’

‘The first time’s the hardest,’ Flora said. ‘Why don’t you
come with me? I’m putting flowers there myself—but, if you find you could do with talking to someone, I won’t be far away.’

‘Are you sure? I won’t be in your way or anything?’

‘Of course you won’t. Look, I’ve just picked some daffodils from the garden. I’ll split them with you.’

‘Really?’

The relief in his tone decided her. ‘Really. See you at the church in ten minutes.’

She drove to the church and parked on the gravelled car park outside the churchyard wall. It was such a quiet, peaceful spot, overlooking the bay; her parents had enjoyed sitting on the bench on the cliffs on Sunday afternoons.

Tom was waiting for her in the little lych gate, and her heart skipped a beat as he smiled at her. ‘Thanks so much for this, Flora.’

‘No worries.’ She handed him half the flowers.

He stared at the daffodils and swallowed hard. ‘Susie used to love spring flowers. The first thing she did when she and Kevin got the house was to plant spring bulbs. I remember she was so excited at having her own garden instead of just a window-box in her old flat in St Piran. I didn’t get it at all because I was happy with my flat and not having to bother with weeding or mowing the lawn, but…’ He grimaced. ‘I guess I still can’t believe she’s gone.’

‘I know what you mean. I find myself talking about my parents as if they’re still here,’ Flora said softly.

He rested his hand on her shoulder; even though she was wearing a sweater and a coat, it was as if she could feel the warmth of his skin against hers, and it sent a ripple of pure desire all the way down her spine.

‘I really appreciate the way you’ve been here for me,’ he said.

‘Hey, that’s what friends are for,’ she said lightly, and turned
away before she did something really stupid. Like standing on tiptoe, reaching up and brushing her mouth against his. ‘Have you got something to put the flowers in?’

‘No.’ He looked horrified. ‘It didn’t even occur to me.’

‘If Susie and Kevin are the first people you’ve lost, then of course you wouldn’t think about it. It’s something you find out the hard way.’ She’d guessed he hadn’t had a chance to think about the practicalities. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself.’ She produced a jam jar and a plastic bottle of water from her tote bag. ‘The local florist sells cone-shaped vases that you just push into the ground for fresh flowers, but this will keep the flowers nice for now.’

‘Flora, thank you.’ He looked surprised and relieved in equal measure. ‘I can’t believe you thought of that, too.’

She shrugged off his praise and patted his shoulder. ‘I’ll come and find you when I’ve finished, shall I?’

She took the previous week’s flowers from her parents’ grave, tidied up the area, arranged the new daffodils, and then went to join Tom. His face was set and she could see that his eyelashes were damp. She remembered the first time she’d visited her parents’ grave; she’d gone alone, and ended up bawling her eyes out on her knees in front of their grave, really wishing she’d had someone to hold her. Right now, Tom needed that same strength. And this was something she could do.

‘Come here,’ she said softly, and slid her arms round him, holding him close.

Tom closed his eyes, wrapped his arms round Flora, and rested his face against her hair. She smelled of roses and something else he couldn’t quite pin down. And something of her warmth and strength seemed to flow into him as she held him, to the point where he was able to cope again.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I’m not usually that weak.’
Though, for the life of him, he couldn’t let her go. He needed to feel her arms round him.

‘It’s not weak to admit you miss someone,’ Flora said.

Wasn’t it? He was a firefighter. He was meant to be in control. Someone who coped brilliantly in the worst kind of emergencies. Why was he going to pieces now, after putting flowers on his sister’s grave? ‘It feels it.’

‘It’s grief,’ she reminded him gently. ‘And it makes you feel all kinds of weird things. You might feel angry that the ones you love have left you, you might feel as if it’s your fault and you’re being punished for something, you might feel numb—and it’s all OK. You get through it eventually.’

‘It feels never-ending,’ he admitted. ‘Work’s easy. I know what I’m doing there. But home… I never would’ve believed it’s so hard to be a parent. How much worry there is.’

‘It’s not an easy job at all, especially when you’re on your own,’ Flora reassured him. ‘And what you’re feeling right now is perfectly normal. Give yourself a break, Tom.’

‘Maybe.’ He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Do you mind if we get out of here?’

‘Sure.’ She paused. ‘A walk on the beach might help.’

‘The sea always makes me feel grounded,’ he agreed. ‘I loved coming to the bay when I was a child. It didn’t matter if it was summer or the middle of winter—the wind would blow my worries away and the sound of the sea would silence all the doubts.’ And with her by his side, it made him feel as if he
could
do things. As if he wasn’t making a total mess of his life, outside work. Her warmth and her calmness soothed him even more than the sound of the sea.

They headed down the cliff path to the beach. The tide was half-out and the sea was calm, the waves rumbling onto the shore and swishing out again. They walked in silence for a while, and eventually Tom turned to Flora.

‘I’ve been thinking—you and Joey. Are you really sure it’s all right for you to have him for so long?’

‘Of course it is.’

‘I feel I’m taking advantage of you. And I need to sort out paying you.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want any money, Tom.’

‘But you’re looking after my nephew and you’re giving him breakfast and dinner. I can’t expect you to do it all just out of the goodness of your heart. That’s not fair.’

‘I don’t mind,’ Flora said. ‘If anything, it’s going to be nice to have a bit of company.’ She still found the house a bit empty in the mornings, half expecting her dad to come in from seeing to the chickens or her mum to come in from the garden with some herbs or some flowers. Not that she could tell Tom that without sounding needy, and she didn’t want him worrying that she wasn’t stable enough to care for Joey properly.

‘Then thank you.’ He bit his lip. ‘Poor Joey’s finding it hard to adjust to change.’

‘It must be hard for you, too.’

He nodded. ‘And I can’t even bring myself to go over to my sister’s house and sort out her stuff, even though I know I should. I did a kind of grab raid when Joey was at school, the first week. I went there with a suitcase and got his clothes and his toys from his room. I’ve probably missed something important, something that really matters to him, and I know I shouldn’t be so selfish—but I just can’t handle it. I kept waiting for Susie to walk into the room and she just didn’t, and it all felt so wrong…’ He shook his head, grimacing. ‘Sorry, I’m being really self-indulgent and you’ve had it harder than me, losing both your parents.’

She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘It always hurts to lose someone you love. Look, I could come with you if you like, and help you sort through the stuff. It really helped me not to be on my own when I had to sort through my parents’
things—Kate Tremayne from the surgery was really kind and helped me. It made a huge difference.’

‘I might take you up on that.’ His fingers tightened round hers. ‘Thanks.’

‘I’ve been thinking. Something else that might help Joey—you could try inviting one or two of his friends home for tea, when you’re on a day off.’

‘I don’t think he has any friends,’ Tom said. ‘He did get a couple of invites, the first week back at school, but when I tried inviting the kids back the mums made excuses, and there haven’t been any invites since.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know whether it’s because he’s so quiet and hardly talks, and they find that hard to deal with; or whether the other kids see Joey as being “different” because his parents died and they don’t like him.’

She nodded. ‘Other children can be cruel.’

Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘That sounds personal.’

‘Probably,’ she admitted. ‘My parents were elderly—Mum was forty-three when she had me, and Dad was ten years older than her. Everyone else’s parents were around twenty years younger than them, so the kids at school always wanted to know if they were my grandparents, and refused to believe me when I said they were my parents. Then they used to say I was weird because my dad had grey hair.’

‘That’s horrible.’ And that, Tom thought, was what was really at the root of her shyness. The way the children at school had made her feel like an outsider, rejecting her and mocking her; something like that would stick and make you worry about how other people saw you. And it would make you wary of others as you grew older. ‘And you’re not weird. Not at all.’

‘It was just childish nonsense.’ She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t bother me now.’

He wasn’t so sure about that, but held his tongue. ‘Did you lose your parents very long ago?’ he asked.

‘Last summer. Dad had a stroke. He was the love of Mum’s life and she just gave up after he died—I know physiologically there’s no such thing as a broken heart, but I honestly think that’s why she died. Without Dad, she couldn’t carry on. I buried her the month after.’ She dragged in a breath. ‘I hate just having a little wooden cross and a plastic pot I stick in the ground for flowers, but the stonemason says he can’t put the headstone on for another couple of months.’

‘So you understand exactly how Joey’s feeling right now.’ Guilt flooded through Tom. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to rub salt in your wounds.’

‘You’re not. And you,’ she said softly, ‘I know how you’re feeling now, too. What you said about your sister’s house—it was like that for me at the farmhouse. I guess I could’ve sold up, but I didn’t want to—it’s my home. So in the end I painted the walls a different colour and moved the furniture around and changed the colours of the cushions, just to get it into my head that things were different now and Mum and Dad aren’t coming back.’ She paused. ‘It’s going to take a while until you get used to it, Tom, so be kind to yourself.’

He was still holding her hand and he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the back of her hand. ‘Can I buy you lunch? As a friend,’ he added swiftly.

Not that he needed to say that, Flora thought. It was pretty obvious Tom wasn’t going to be interested in her as anything other than a friend; she was way too mousy and boring. ‘That’d be nice,’ she said.

‘If I follow you back to your place, we can drop your car off and I’ll drive us,’ Tom suggested.

They ended up at the Smugglers’ Rest, just up the coast; and over a leisurely lunch they discovered that they had a lot in common. They both enjoyed the same kind of music and
both were fans of historical crime novels—though Flora found out that Tom preferred action movies and hated the romantic comedies she enjoyed. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed someone’s company so much. When he’d opened up to her in the churchyard, it had made her feel close to him—to the point where she’d actually stopped feeling shy with him. They’d gone past that. She felt as comfortable with Tom now as she did with the people she worked with; and the fact that he seemed to listen to what she said, was interested in her views, made her feel more confident than she’d felt outside work since…since for ever, she thought.

Eventually, Tom glanced at his watch and gave a start. ‘I’ve got to pick Joey up from school in a quarter of an hour! I can’t believe how fast time’s gone. I’ve really enjoyed having lunch with you, Flora.’

‘Me, too,’ she said, meaning it.

He tipped his head slightly on one side. ‘Come with me to meet Joey?’

Flora pushed away the tempting thought that Tom might want her company for a bit longer. He was simply being practical; if he dropped her home first, he’d be late for school. ‘OK.’

Joey was the last one out of the classroom and, although several of the children were lingering in the playground while their mums chatted, nobody made a move to speak to him. Flora’s heart went out to him; poor little mite, he was having such a tough time.

Joey was silent on the way to the car, but when Tom strapped him in he asked, ‘Are we going to see Banjo?’

‘I do need to drop Flora back at the farm before we go home—but, if Flora doesn’t mind, we can stay for a few minutes.’

Joey’s faint smile said it all for him.

Tom stayed long enough to have a cup of tea with Flora,
and Joey accepted a glass of milk and a cookie; but then Tom called his nephew over from playing with the dog. ‘We need to let Flora get on, and I have to cook you something for tea. We need to go, sweetheart.’

Joey nodded, but said nothing.

Tom’s eyes were sad as he glanced at his nephew, and Flora’s heart contracted. If only she could wave a magic wand for them. But they were going to have to muddle through this together and learn to bond and talk to each other and trust each other.

‘We’ll see you on Wednesday morning, then, Flora,’ Tom said, and, to her surprise, kissed her on the cheek.