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‘Well, by all the saints, young Samuel. Come home to cause havoc, have ‘e, lad?’
‘Ignore him,’ Gemma muttered, but he went over to old Fred Spencer and shook his hand.
‘How are you, Mr Spencer?’
‘Better’n you, by all accounts. Why you limpin’?’
‘Fell off my bike,’ he said economically. ‘And don’t say it.’
‘Well, I ‘spect it was your fault.’
‘Why not? It always was, wasn’t it?’
The old man cracked a laugh and turned back to his companions. ‘Always had to have the last word, young Sam.’
Only not always. Not with Gemma. There’d been no chance to have the last word, to talk things through, to get to the bottom of it—and he wasn’t starting now.
Leaving Fred with his mates, they went over to the bar and ordered drinks and scanned the specials board.
‘The steak’s still good,’ Gemma said. ‘I think I’ll have that—just the small one.’
‘Rare?’
She nodded, surprised and yet not that he would have remembered. They’d always had the steak frites in here, and it had always been good, and she’d always had it rare.
Listen to her! Always, indeed. What was she thinking? It had only been—what? Ten, maybe twelve times in all, over more than a year? But it was all the time they’d had together, and it had been precious, every last second of it.
He ordered the steak for her, but to her surprise he ordered beef Stroganoff for himself—just in case she thought it was all too cosy down Memory Lane? She wasn’t sure, not sure at all, about any of it, and she didn’t really have any idea what she was doing here with him, tearing herself apart, when she could have been safely tucked up at home.
‘Ah, there’s a table here,’ he said, and led her across the room to where a couple were just leaving. He held the chair for her to sit down, and as he did so, his hand brushed her arm.
Dear God, he thought, desperately resisting the need to touch her again, to reach out and let his fingers linger over that soft, slender arm, to run them over her shoulder, to slide the lightweight jersey top aside and press his lips to her skin…
He retreated to the safety of the other side of the table and sat down opposite her, flicking his eyes over the menu even though he’d already ordered, staring out of the window as she shuffled in her seat, organising her bag, placing her drink carefully in the centre of the beer mat with great precision.
And then, once they were settled and there was nothing left to fidget with, there was a silence that was so full of unspoken words it was like a roar in his head. And he had to break it or go mad.
‘So—you came back to Penhally,’ he said, trying to find something neutral to talk about and failing dismally at the first hurdle.
She glanced away, but not before he’d seen a shadow in her eyes. ‘Yes. I love it here.’
Especially when he wasn’t there. His mouth tipped in a mocking smile. ‘I thought it was too small for you? Too pedestrian. Too provincial. Wasn’t that why you left to see the world and didn’t come back?’
Hardly. It was the place where her heart was, where she’d found a love she’d thought would last forever, but she couldn’t tell him that or she’d have to tell him why she’d gone, so she just gave him a level look and lied in her teeth.
‘You know why I left—to go travelling while I considered my career options. And you can talk about leaving to see the world, Sam. It’s me who’s living here now. You’ve hardly been home.’
‘Et tu, Brute? Isn’t this where you tell me that I’ve failed my mother and failed my brother and ought to move home like a good little boy? Well, news flash, Gemma. I’ve got a life now, and it’s not here. And it never will be.’ Thanks to her. His jaw tightened, and she felt a stab of pain for him, and for herself.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘It’s none of my business. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you should come home for your mother or your brother. You did more than enough for them, Sam, and you’ve got two sisters who don’t live a million miles away who could be putting more into this than they are. But maybe you should think about coming home for you.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, what is it about Penhally and everyone telling me what to do?’
‘I wasn’t telling you—’
‘Weren’t you? Well, it sounded like it from where I’m sitting.’
Or maybe that was his conscience, he thought, guilt racking him yet again for the hurt look he’d put in her eyes.
‘I don’t want to go into this. I brought you here to talk about my mother’s stroke, not me,’ he said after a moment in which they’d both taken a deep breath and regrouped. ‘I gather you found her last night?’
She met his eyes squarely, her own still reproachful. ‘Yes—she came in the day before yesterday to see me for a routine blood-pressure check, and she mentioned that she’d noticed her heart doing something funny in the evening a couple of times. I had a word with Adam—Adam Donnelly, one of our doctors—and he suggested we should do an ECG and then refer her to St Piran for some tests.’
‘And?’
‘I did the ECG yesterday, and there was nothing out of the ordinary at all, but I was just a bit worried about her. Her blood pressure was up again, and—I don’t know, she just didn’t seem right. And she looked a bit strained around the eyes. So after work I popped in. There was no reply to the doorbell, so I went round the back and opened the door because I could hear Digger whining, and I found her at the kitchen table, looking chalky grey and sweaty and feeling terrible. And she had a killer headache, apparently, and she said she’d had some kind of convulsion, but I noticed her mouth was drooping a bit and then she just lost her speech. It was a classic stroke, so I called Nick and got the ambulance on its way, and alerted the specialist unit, and—well, I don’t know how she is now. I went in with her last night because Jamie wasn’t around and I didn’t want her to be alone, but I haven’t had time to get up there again. I was going to go and see her in my lunch break but I thought you might be there, and then there was the careers evening so I just haven’t had a chance. So how is she? Really? She must have been so frightened.’
He nodded slowly. ‘I think so. But who wouldn’t be? It’s a really big thing, isn’t it, and it could have been so much worse if you hadn’t checked on her. I hate to think what would have happened if you hadn’t. It sounds as if your prompt action’s made a huge difference to the impact of her stroke, and if you hadn’t gone in—well, talking to the staff it’s clear that without immediate help she could easily have died, so thank you. She sends you her love, by the way. She seems very fond of you.’
Gemma gave a soft, wry little laugh. ‘I can’t imagine why. I bully her dreadfully.’
‘She needs it. So—about this heart thing…’
‘Mmm. I mean, obviously it hasn’t been investigated properly yet, but I was wondering—do you think she could have some kind of AF?’
‘Atrial fibrillation? Could well be. It would fit. I just can’t understand how she hasn’t felt it in her chest before, if she’s got AF and it’s sustained enough that she’s forming clots. You’d think you’d feel it if your heart’s not beating right.’
‘Not everyone does feel it, though, and atrial fibrillation is notoriously tricky to control.’
‘Especially if you OD on stimulants like tea and coffee and very dark chocolate. It’s always given her the odd palpitation, and maybe it’s just accustomed her to a funny heartbeat from time to time, and then the AF doesn’t feel so very different—’
‘Steak frites and beef Stroganoff?’
‘Thanks, Tony,’ Sam said, leaning back so the landlord could put their plates down. He paused to welcome Sam back.
‘Good to see you again. How are things? Sorry about your mother.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, feeling a little awkward because clearly everyone knew about her, recognised him and also recognised the fact that he’d been notable by his absence. Then he chatted to Gemma for a few moments, and while he listened to them, Sam watched her, her face attentive, her eyes crinkling with humour when Tony made a joke, and all the time her lips were moving, soft and warm, bare of lipstick but moist from the occasional flick of her tongue, and it was getting increasingly difficult to sit there and pretend that he felt nothing for her, this woman who’d torn his heart apart.
His wife, for heaven’s sake.
Then Tony moved away, and he turned his attention to his food, and for a while they were both silent. Then she lifted her head and said, ‘You know you made that remark about David having a death wish because he wanted to go to Africa? What did you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘It was just a joke.’
‘No. You meant something, and you said you’d told him not to go, and when you were talking to Fred just now about the accident—what happened, Sam?’ she asked softly. ‘Did you really just fall off your bike?’
He sighed and set down his fork. ‘Really? In a manner of speaking,’ he said, and then bluntly, because he still wanted to lash out, he went on, ‘I hit a landmine.’
Her face bleached of colour, and he caught her glass just as it slipped through her fingers. ‘Careful, anybody would think you still cared, and we all know that’s not true,’ he said with bitter irony.
She sat back, her eyes filling, and closed them quickly, but not quickly enough because a single tear slipped down her cheek and that old guilt thing kicked in again. ‘Actually I was thinking of your mother—how she would have coped if…’
‘If I’d died?’ he prompted, trying not to look at the tear, and she sucked in a tiny breath.
‘Don’t.’ She swallowed and opened her eyes, reaching for her glass. He still had it in his hand, and as he passed it to her, their fingers met and he felt the shock race through him again.
Damn. Still, after all these years…
She took a sip and put it down, then met his eyes again. ‘So what really happened, Sam? With the landmine?’
He made himself concentrate on something other than the little trail the tear had made on her cheek. ‘There was a booby trap—a car in the road. I swerved round it, not paying attention, and the back wheel caught the anti-personnel mine and it hurled the back of the bike up into the air. Luckily the panniers were rammed with equipment, which protected me from the blast, but the force of the explosion threw me forwards onto the ground.’
‘And?’
‘And I broke my collar bone and my ankle,’ he told her, grossly oversimplifying it. ‘Oh, and tore the rotator cuff in my left shoulder.’
She nodded slowly. ‘I’ve noticed you don’t use your left hand very much.’
‘Got out of the habit,’ he lied, and turned his attention back to his food, leaving her sitting there in silence, struggling with the image of him being hurled through the air and smashed into the ground.
She felt sick. It could have been so much worse, she thought, and set down her knife and fork, unable to eat while her emotions churned round inside her and the man she loved was just a foot away, his eyes fixed on his plate, obviously in a hurry now to finish his meal and leave. He’d only wanted to thank her for finding his mother, and he’d done that, and now he just wanted to go.
Fair enough. So did she, and she was about to get up and leave when Tony stopped by their table.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked, and she nodded and smiled at him and picked up her knife and fork again, forcing herself to finish her food before it was not only the flavour of sawdust, but stone cold with it.
‘So how long will she be in?’ he asked the registrar the next day.
‘Just a few days. We want to get her anticoagulation sorted and then she can be discharged.’
He felt a flicker of fear, the tightening of the noose of responsibility, and consciously slowed his breathing down.
‘Surely she can’t come home until she’s able to look after herself?’
‘But I gather you’re at home now, so that’s not a problem, is it?’
He arched a brow. ‘You want me to look after my mother? Attend to her personal care?’
‘Why not? You’re a doctor.’
But she’s my mother! he wanted to scream, but it was pointless. She would have done the same for him, and it was only because it made him feel trapped that he was so desperate to get away. And last night, with Gemma—well, it had been an emotional minefield every bit as dangerous to his health as the one he’d encountered on the bike, and he hadn’t been able to get away from the pub quick enough.
He’d used Digger as an excuse, and he’d gone back to the house, collected the dog and taken him for a long walk along the beach in the moonlight, right down to the far end and back while he thought about Gemma and how he still wanted her so badly it was tearing holes in him.
He couldn’t do it—couldn’t stay here. He just wanted to get away, to go back to Africa and lick his wounds in peace. Well, not peace, exactly, but anonymity, at least, without the benefit of the residents of Penhally telling him he’d deserted his mother and let his brother run wild and failed them both, with Gemma in the background reminding him that he’d failed her, too, or why the hell else would she have left him when everything between them had seemed so incredibly perfect?
But he couldn’t go back to Africa, because he couldn’t operate, because his collar bone hadn’t just broken, it had shredded his left brachial plexus and damaged the sensory nerves to his left hand, and his shoulder was still weak from the tear to his rotator cuff when he’d landed on it, and his leg—well, his ankle would heal slowly and improve with time, unlike his hand, but in the meantime he’d struggle to stand for hours operating, even if he could feel what he was doing with his hand, which he couldn’t, and he couldn’t ride a bike, not with his left arm so compromised and his ankle inflexible, so it was pointless thinking about it and tormenting himself.
And his mother aside, there was the problem of Jamie, who had come in last night at seventeen minutes past ten. Late, but not so late that he was going to say anything, and so they’d established an uneasy truce.
But the need to get away was overwhelming, and after he left the hospital he drove up onto Bodmin Moor and walked for hours with Digger over the rough grass and heather until his ankle was screaming and he wasn’t sure how he’d get back, his mind tortured with memories of Gemma, lying there with him in the heather and kissing him back for hour after hour until he thought he’d die of frustration.
Huh. No way. He’d discovered through painful and bitter experience that you didn’t die of frustration, you just wished you could, because that would bring an end to it at last.
He sat down on a granite outcrop with the panting Jack Russell at his feet and stared out over the barren, wild landscape while he waited for the pain in his ankle to subside. He could see a few sturdy little ponies grazing and, in the distance, a small herd of Devon Red bullocks turned out for fattening on the spring grass. But apart from that and the inevitable sheep dotted about like cotton-wool balls in the heather, there was nothing there but the wide-open skies and the magical, liquid sound of the curlews.
And gradually, as the warmth of the spring sun seeped into his bones and the bleak, familiar landscape welcomed him home, he accepted what he had to do—what he’d known, ever since he’d had the phone call about her stroke, that he would have to do.
He didn’t like it—he didn’t like it one bit—but he had no choice, and he would do it, because that was who he was. He would stay at home and look after his mother until she was better, he’d get his brother back on the rails, and then he’d look at his future.
Always assuming he could get off this damned moorland without calling out the Air Ambulance!
‘Lauren?’
The physiotherapist looked up and smiled at him a little warily. ‘Oh, hi, Sam. How are you?’
He pulled a wry face. ‘Sore—that was what I wanted to see you about. I don’t suppose I can book myself in for some physio with you, can I? I overdid it up on Bodmin this afternoon and I could do with a good workout. Maybe after you finish one evening?’
Her face clouded. ‘Oh. Um—evenings aren’t good for me. I’ve got RP—retinitis pigmentosa…’
She was going blind? ‘Hell, I’m sorry, I had no idea.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s fine, Sam. It’s progressing slowly, but I’ll take it as it comes and in the meantime—well, I can still do practically everything I did before, but I only work daylight hours now. I can’t see very well when the light fades, but I’m more than happy to fit you in at lunchtime—or if Gabriel’s not working late so he can get home for the dog, I can do it then if you don’t mind giving me a lift home?’
‘Of course not—but lunchtime’s fine if it suits you best. It’s just my ankle.’
‘Not your hand and arm?’
He hesitated, glancing down at it and wondering if it was so damned obvious to everyone.
‘I noticed you don’t use it,’ she said gently, ‘and you don’t use your shoulder much, either, but it’s not obvious, Sam. It’s myjob—I ought to be able to tell. But it doesn’t matter now. Just come and we’ll go through it all then, see what I need to do for you. Say—one tomorrow?’
He gave her a fleeting smile. ‘That would be great.’
‘Can’t you keep away, Sam?’
He straightened up and stepped back out of Lauren’s doorway, and met the older man’s eyes. ‘Hi, Nick.’
‘So, have you changed your mind? I sincerely hope so. We’re so damned busy it’s ridiculous. Dragan’s out today because the baby was ill and Melinda’s had a foul cold and he thinks he’s going down with it, too, just to add insult to injury, and everyone in Penhally seems to have realised it’s coming up to the spring bank holiday weekend so they’re trying to get in quick, and I’m desperately trying to find time to organise the lifeboat barbeque for Saturday. So if you want a job…?’
‘Organising the barbeque?’ he asked, surprised, but Nick gave a short laugh.
‘No, you don’t get off that lightly—the locum job.’
He sighed and rammed a hand through his hair. ‘Nick, I—’
‘Please?’
