Life as I Know It (5 page)

“Oh,” I said lamely, looking down at my hands, which were folded in my lap.

“If you don’t feel up to driving, I’ll drop you and Frankie at your home, then make myself scarce—if there’s someone there to take care of you.”

I knew it was a question rather than a statement, and I shook my head again.

“There’s no one, not at present. And my parents live miles away.” I hesitated. “But a lift to my car will be fine. I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can,” he replied with a smile. “And I know we’re almost strangers. It’s just that I feel I’ve known you for years. And I want to make sure you’re okay.”

I was saved from having to reply by Dr. Chin pulling the curtains apart and advancing on me with a slim flashlight. He peered into each of my ears in turn, then screwed an attachment onto the flashlight and asked me to look directly into the beam.

“Hmm,” he murmured, lifting one lid and then the other. “Everything looks good, Ms. Taylor, but I suggest you have an eye exam at the optician in a week or so. Sometimes sufferers of high-voltage injury develop cataracts at a later date.”

“Thank you,” I muttered, sliding off the bed. “So I can go?”

He nodded as the nurse arrived with a gray cardboard bowl
loosely wrapped in a paper bag. I took it gratefully, and Dan picked up the flowers, then steadied me by my elbow as we made our way down the ward. “Frankie’s waiting in the car,” he told me as we took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out into the autumn sunshine. “She’ll be pleased to see you back.”

We walked to the parking lot to see Frankie and the black Labrador peering out of the back window of a silver Shogun, both seemingly watching for us. Predictably, my precious terrier went mad with joy when we opened the door, and I spent the next five minutes having my face licked as I sat in the passenger seat waiting for her to calm down. Eventually, Dan lifted her off me and carried her around into the back, where she was unable to get to me through the dog barrier. She sat down resignedly next to the Lab with her tongue lolling out.

We drove carefully out of the hospital lot and Dan glanced sideways at me as I sat clutching the bowl on my lap.

“How are you feeling?”

“Relieved,” I said. “Glad to be out in the real world again.”

“Where am I taking you?”

“My car’s parked up by the grandstand,” I replied.

I felt in my coat pockets as I spoke, my fingers probing for my car keys, but I looked up as Dan rattled a bunch of keys at me.

“I found them when I was searching your pockets for your identity,” he explained. “I didn’t think of Frankie’s tag right away. I decided they’d be safer with me than in a hospital box with your things. I hope you don’t mind.”

Taking the keys from him, I thought about what he’d said. Did I mind? Couldn’t he have just left them in my coat pocket? I sneaked a sideways glance at him, taking in his handsome features. Was he as harmless as he seemed? My front door key was on the key ring. He’d found out my address from Frankie’s tag
and he could easily have been around to my flat to snoop since yesterday.

My silence must have alerted him to my discomfort, because he took his eyes off the road momentarily to return my look.

“Hey, don’t look so worried,” he said lightly. “I’m quite harmless, I promise!”

The Sunday traffic was sparse through the town, and we were soon heading out into the rolling countryside. I stared at the familiar landscape: the green Downs, the trees beginning to turn red, gold, and brown, the imposing white bulk of the grandstand dominating the scene.

“My car’s over there,” I said, pointing.

Dan navigated the short distance to where my small blue Fiesta was parked unobtrusively among several other cars and drew to a halt nearby.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you right home?” he said as he turned off the engine and sat looking at me with a concerned expression. “Do you feel well enough to drive?”

“It’s very kind of you,” I said, returning the look. “You have been great, honestly. But right now I’m feeling fine. I just want to go home with Frankie and lick my wounds, so to speak.”

Dan opened his door, walked around the back of the Shogun, and let Frankie out of the cargo space. She came leaping around to see me as I struggled upright, so I grabbed her collar and walked her toward our car. She jumped onto the backseat and sat watching me expectantly as I threw the sick bowl onto the front passenger seat.

Dan came up behind me and handed me the flowers, which I placed next to the bowl.

“They’re lovely,” I said smiling, and straightened up. “Thank you for everything.”

“Here’s my telephone number,” he said, pressing a piece of paper into my hand. “Please ring if you need anything, or just to let me know you’re okay?”

“I will,” I said. “Thanks.”

Still he hovered, until I went around to the driver’s side and climbed into the car.

I started the car and wound down the window.

“Bye,” I called, and drove out of the parking lot, leaving Dan standing watching after me, his hand raised in farewell.

Typical, I thought wryly, as I drove carefully onto the road. I hadn’t had a proper boyfriend in two years, partly because I’d been telling myself I didn’t have the time for romance with my hectic schedule and long hours, and partly because the last man in my life had turned out to be a two-timing cheat and a liar. It was almost as if my heart had been protecting itself from falling in love; every time I met a man who seemed attractive I found a reason not to date him. I didn’t have time; he wasn’t that good-looking anyway; he was married; or one of my friends liked him, too. I spent evenings in the company of men when my friends and I went clubbing, of course, but none of them had seemed worth the risk of opening my heart to the possibility of finding true love or making a romantic commitment. Not until now.

I pictured Dan as I had seen him on the Downs, and then again at the hospital, and smiled ruefully. At last I had bumped into someone who might actually be worth the time and possible risk of letting my guard down… just when my body felt bruised and battered and my mind was churning with confusing images and strange dreams.

Shaking my head in frustration, I turned the car into the parking space outside my flat. Once inside, the place was exactly as I’d left it the day before when I’d set out to give Frankie her
extra-long Saturday afternoon walk. No sign of intruders in the sitting room, where several pairs of my shoes lined the wall. Nothing seemed out of place in the small, homey area, with its profusion of potted plants and scattered books. The kitchen was as generally untidy as I had left it, with yesterday’s clean dishes still stacked on the drying rack and Frankie’s bowl of dog biscuits permeating the small room with the aroma of meat and bone meal.

I put the flowers in a vase, made myself a quick meal of scrambled eggs on toast, then sank down in an armchair to eat it on my lap, after which I realized I felt totally exhausted. Checking the clock, I found it was nearly half past two in the afternoon. I took a minute or two to change out of my jeans and sweater, donning a comfy tracksuit, then returned to my armchair. Frankie was stretched out on the carpet at my feet, snoring gently. I curled up in the chair, my feet up under me, closed my eyes, and nodded off to sleep.

I roused to the feel of someone pulling at my hand, and I stirred slightly.

“It’s all right, Lauren,” said a voice in my ear. “I’m only disconnecting the drip. The saline’s finished.”

My eyes flickered open, but there was nothing but a shadowy shape in the darkness. I shivered slightly and curled into a tighter ball, willing the dream to go away.

“There, all done. Go back to sleep, dear,” soothed the voice. “See you in the morning.”

The dream was still
with me when I awoke an hour later, disconcerting me. Frankie was curled obediently at my feet. I knew she wasn’t asleep, but just being quiet for my sake, and I reached down and patted her head. Getting up, I stretched, then went to the telephone and dialed my parents’ number.

Dad answered, and his familiar voice was somehow calming.

“Hello, Jess lovely; how are you?”

I found myself smiling at the warmth in his voice. He’d called me his “lovely” for as long as I could remember, and I was eternally grateful no one was confusing me with a mother of four called Lauren. “I’m fine, Dad.”

We chatted for a while about his garden and the village show, where he was hoping to win best marrow competition, and then I said hesitantly, “I had a bit of an accident yesterday.”

“What do you mean, ‘an accident’?” Are you all right?”

“I’m okay now. Did you and Mum have a storm down in Somerset on Saturday afternoon?”

“We had a bit of rain, not what I’d call a storm. Why?”

“I was walking Frankie on the Downs when a storm came up. There was thunder and lightning and I was caught out in it.”

“You are all right, aren’t you?” he butted in. “I heard on the forecast that there were going to be pockets of severe storms dotted across the southeast during the weekend. What happened?”

“You’re not going to believe this but I was actually hit by a streak of lightning. I’m fine now,” I added hastily in response to his exclamation of horror. “I was taken to the hospital but I’m okay now, honestly.”

I could hear Mum in the background asking what he was exclaiming about.

“Your mum’s trying to take the phone from me. I’ll hand you over and you can tell her all the details…”

“Jessica? What’s this about you being hit by lightning?” My mother’s anxious voice came through the receiver loud and clear. It sounded as if she was only in the other room.

“I was walking Frankie yesterday afternoon when a storm blew up,” I explained. “The lightning struck me on my shoulder but that old coat of yours took the worst of it, and although I ended up in the hospital I’m virtually unscathed.”

“‘Virtually’?” she repeated, picking up on the word immediately. “So why did they take you to the hospital?”

“I blacked out,” I confessed. “A dog walker who was caught in the storm with me took me to the hospital in his car. They kept me overnight, but apart from a sore patch on my shoulder, I’m fine. They let me out this afternoon.”

“That’s it. We’re coming up to see you.”

“You don’t need to, Mum, honestly. I’m okay. The doctors wouldn’t have let me out otherwise.”

“You always did have that independent streak,” my mother tutted. “I suppose you don’t want us cluttering up that flat of
yours. One day you’ll realize you need somebody else in your life, Jessica. You can’t always handle everything yourself. Your brother is as bad, going off to New Zealand like that. I don’t know why you couldn’t both just settle down locally and live quiet, ordinary lives.”

I sighed. The last thing I needed was a lecture from my mother about my working-girl lifestyle and what she saw as an inability to commit to a relationship.

There was a short pause at the end of the line, and then, “What about the man who took you to the hospital? I hope you thanked him?”

A picture of Dan popped into my head and I smiled despite myself. “Mum, I’m not a child. Of course I thanked him.”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t need us… I’ll put Dad back on to say good-bye to you. Take care, Jessica, and do remember that you’re not Superwoman. If you feel at all unwell, then call us.”

“Yes, Mum. Bye.”

Dad came back on the line, his voice gruff. “If you feel at all poorly, then ring us, lovely, won’t you? You know your mother and I would be there like a shot…”

“I know, Dad. I promise I’ll call if I need you.”

“Bye, lovely. Take care.”

“Bye, Dad.”

I replaced the receiver and went into my little kitchen to put the kettle on for a cup of tea. The conversation with my parents had churned up old feelings of needing to prove myself to them in some way, especially to my mother, who thought I’d failed if I didn’t settle down with a nice average guy and have 2.4 children on whom they could both dote. I just wasn’t ready for those things. I had a career to forge. I wanted to earn my law degree
and be someone in the world; a self-made someone of standing—not just someone’s wife or someone’s mother. Maybe Mum had been happy with all that, but I wanted something more from life.

The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly enough. I watered my plants, picked a few deadheads off the still-flowering begonias in the window box, made myself and Frankie some supper, and headed for the bath and an early night. If I felt okay when I woke in the morning, I told myself, I would probably struggle in to work. The office was always busy on Monday mornings and I wouldn’t want to let my boss down.

I settled myself as comfortably as I could in bed. It was difficult, since I liked to sleep on my side and the shoulder with the burns was tender, chafing against the soft fabric of my pajamas. I knew I was tired, because my eyes felt gritty and dry, but it seemed my brain was refusing to give in to sleep. I tossed and turned, each time having to allow for the sore area on my shoulder, picturing the images I’d conjured up in my mind the previous night, wondering where and how I’d dreamed up the phantom family. I suppose I must eventually have dropped off, because soon I was waking again and the dream became blurred and faded.

Opening my eyes, I sat up and stared around me in disbelief. The first thing I did was to glance down at my left hand. The thin gold wedding band gleamed back at me, just visible beyond the spaghetti junction of fine hospital tape holding the canula securely in place in the back of my left hand. The drip, I noticed, was no longer connected to the canula, which had some sort of rubber bung on the end, presumably, I thought, to stop my blood from running out of the open vein all over the crisp hospital sheets.

Shock presents itself in different ways, and with me it seemed
to manifest itself in a bout of hysterical laughter. I sat and giggled stupidly. The thing was, I tried to tell myself sternly through the shaking sobs, this was just the dream again. And it definitely wasn’t funny. Soon I would wake up and this place would disappear. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to return to sleep, but it seemed my brain was wide awake, and sleep wouldn’t come. I opened my eyes again and sat up, the nervous giggling starting again.