Unsure (28 page)

Firmly squelching any lingering pangs of guilt I lean over the stretcher, take her cold hand in mine, force my voice to level out. I need to be calm, confident, in control. For her. “Don’t worry, I’ll take him back with me. I’ve got the quad, we’ll be back home before dark.” I turn to the doctor who’s packing up her gear ready to be off. “Have you contacted Rosie’s father? He’ll want to meet you at the hospital.”

“No, we didn’t have next of kin details. Would you mind doing that if you know the family? Tell him we’ll be at Airedale A & E.” She looks at me rather doubtfully. “You don’t look so good yourself. Are you sure you’re not injured at all? Let me check you over.”

No flies on her—must be my ashen face and trembling hands—but I shake my head. “It’s just a headache, that’s all. Migraine. If you’ve got a painkiller that’d be helpful…”

Not taking my word for it she does a quick check of my temperature and pulse rate, but of course those are normal. She digs in her medical bag and hands me two white tablets. “Those are the best I can do without keeping you under medical supervision. Should hold you for an hour or so. Can you get home in that time?”

I assure her I can on the quad. She seems satisfied, and a couple of minutes later they’re gone, the helicopter disappearing over the horizon toward Keighley. The drone of the engine has hardly faded away before I’m back on the quad and headed downhill. Even though I don’t make any attempt to call or control Barney he drops into step beside me, easily keeping up with the bike, his long stride eating up the distance.

I manage decent progress for about half an hour, shored up no doubt by the good doctor’s medication. But soon enough the migraine is breaking through, the drilling in my head building again to excruciating proportions. My own personal cerebral pyrotechnics are also back in full swing, I can no longer see straight and the light is unbearable. I have to face the fact that any temporary reprieve I may have managed to buy myself has been used up. I’m ill, getting worse by the minute, and I’m still a long, long way from home.

I know I'm not going to get back to my cottage on my own, so I stop the quad and dig in my pocket for my phone. I could call Tom, assuming I can still see well enough to find him on my speed dial. Or even call out another ambulance. I grope around, unable to find the familiar solid shape. I try the other pocket, then the zipped one inside my jacket.

Shit, shit shit! No phone. No fucking phone!

I must have dropped it, maybe when I bundled my stuff together to start heading up toward Rosie. I try one last desperate search through my pockets, and my rucksack, but it’s not there. I’m on my own.

I start to move forward again, just crawling now as I continue to inch my way blindly down the moors. It’s mid-afternoon now, and although the gathering gloom is less painful for my eyes, the fact that it’s dropping dark and I’ll be still up here when the light finally fails is no real comfort. In good health, or more to the point with my eyes open, I can probably find my way in the dark. Feeling like this—not a chance.

I stop, think, try to come up with a plan. I need somewhere to shelter, to wait this out. The only reasonable candidate is Top Withens, the ruined farmstead usually thought to be the inspiration behind Emily Brontë’s
Wuthering Heights
. Although the actual house is in ruins, roofless, the barn alongside is watertight and weatherproof. I can shelter there, if I can reach it. It’ll be cold, bloody cold as the temperature drops below freezing. But I’ll be out of the weather. And at Top Withens there’s a good chance I’ll be found before too long. Tomorrow probably. It’s a landmark on the Brontë Way, all the hikers pass there on their Brontë pilgrimages. I reckon it’s about half a mile away, I can just make out the ruined structure some distance below me, through the gloom, and I can see the ancient tree silhouetted alongside the building.

I can no longer control the quad so I climb off, intending to stagger the rest of the way as best I can. I make it about a third of the way, probably, before I collapse to my knees, my eyes screwed up against the blinding pain in my head. Wishing I could just die now, I can hear myself whimpering, feeling as though my skull might melt. Or be crushed under the relentless pressure. Even my closed eyes can’t stop the flashing, dancing lights. I know I’ve got as far as I’m going to.

Barney knows better, it seems, and he’s pawing at me. He’s tugging at my arms, my legs, won’t let me be, won’t let me just lie down and die. Eventually I give in, make some sort of feeble attempt to get up. I manage to drag myself onto all fours, and he’s there, shoving his huge head underneath me. I latch onto his neck, shove my fingers under his collar, and hang onto him. I manage, somehow, to get my feet back under me and, clinging to the huge dog, stumble blindly after him. We don’t get far, a few yards at best. But it’s enough. Barney drags both of us to the relative shelter of a remnant of dry stone wall, about four feet high. Enough to get behind, out of the wind. I sink to the ground, curl myself into a ball, as small as I can become. It’s cold, bloody cold, my warm waterproof jacket well past its powers of protection. Barney’s there, though, curling up close by. I grab his collar again, pull myself up as close to him as I can get, tunneling into his thick fur, soaking up his warmth. It might be enough. It has to be enough. It’s all I’ve got.

Dimly, drifting in and out of consciousness, I consider my situation as best I can through the throbbing, pounding headache. It’ll be around twenty-four hours before I feel well enough to move under my own steam. That means I’m going to be out here all night, with no shelter to speak of, no food or water, no way of contacting anyone, and only Barney to keep me warm. And it’s starting to snow.

No doubt about it, I’m in a lot of trouble.

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

The Dark Side: Darkening

Ashe Barker

Excerpt

Chapter One

Don’t you just love Beethoven?

Well, I do. I always have, since I was tiny. I’m just drifting along nicely to his Symphony Number 3 in E-flat major and contemplating the heroic doings of Napoleon Bonaparte—apparently Beethoven’s inspiration for this particular symphony—as my mobile starts trilling. Definitely need to choose a new ringtone sometime soon—this din could be mistaken for a budgie caught in a car door. What could I have been thinking, choosing that? Napoleon never had ringtones to contend with. Neither did Ludwig van. And I don’t appreciate the interruption.

It’s not even seven o’clock in the evening yet, and I am curled up in bed. I am surrounded by archaeology textbooks although I’m not in the mood for serious reading, and I do have Ludwig for company. But still—in bed by seven and trying to teach myself about the mysteries of ancient Egypt out of sheer boredom is just pathetic. I so need to get a life.

The phone has somehow disappeared under the duvet. I know it’s there somewhere because the budgie’s still screaming its silly head off. It gets louder after a few rings. God, what overpaid nerdy whiz-kid thought that little gimmick up? A pushy phone—that’s all I need. I get enough nagging from my mother. ‘
I just want what’s best for you, dear…’

“Sod ringtones.” Now I know I’m losing it, because I’m actually talking to myself. I suppose the real danger sign is if I start answering. An uncomfortable thought. I shudder as I shove it brutally aside.
I’m fine, absolutely fine. Now
.

On that thought, I finally get my hands on the screeching HTC spawn of Lucifer and drag it out to face the light, punch the passcode into the keypad and answer.

“Hello, Eva Byrne…?” Always that expectant little pause, my name turned into a question as though I might not after all be me. Wishful thinking.

“Eva…? Evangelica, is it…? Ange, is that you? It’s Natasha…” A little pause, no doubt to give me time to remember who Natasha might be. It doesn’t work—my mind’s a complete blank. And no one I know calls me Ange. Or Evangelica—unless it’s my mother in a very bad mood.

“…from the agency.”

Right,
that
Natasha. The snooty bitch with fuck-me heels and killer red talons glued onto her fingernails who looked at me like I was a lesser life form when I called in at the Little Maestros musical tuition agency a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for some alternative way of making a living, and if I could find something I actually liked doing, so much the better. I love music, and I quite like teaching, so I dropped off my CV and qualifications with a few agencies, just in case they might have some temp work going somewhere. Natasha looked a fraction more respectful when she spotted my first class honours degree in music from King’s College, London, but rather spoilt the effect by asking me for proof of identity. Obviously she thought I’d stolen the degree certificate.

On reflection, I think her suspicions were aroused by my skinny black jeans, No Fear grey hoodie and psychedelic Converse trainers, topped off by a mop of wavy—or should that just be plain frizzy—red hair falling to the middle of my back. I’m not your archetypal music teacher.

My unruly hair is a constant nuisance, the bane of my life. It bounces, frizzes and waves everywhere, and short of shaving it off I have never found a way of controlling it. When I was a child my mother tried everything to get it into some semblance of order, and brushing it every morning became a war of attrition. The hair was winning, hands down, until eventually my mother had one of her Hiroshima moments where she takes decisive, drastic and usually disproportionate action. She marched me along to The Cutting Shop down on Stamford Hill High Street and had the lot chopped off. It curled more than ever in defiance after the vicious assault, but at least it would fit under a hat.

At five-four in heels and looking about sixteen—I am twenty-two, but like to tell myself I have worn well—I guess I didn’t fit the image of a serious violin teacher as I perched in a trendy little black leather bucket chair in front of Natasha’s pristine white desk, while she sneered down her aristocratic nose at me and suggested I was an impostor.

I wasn’t especially desperate to impress Natasha the super-bitch—other agencies are available—so she was treated to my scruffy, sullen teenager look. Maybe my unpromising first impression was why it took her so long to get back to me. Oh, well—I need the work so I’d better make an effort now. If humble and well-mannered is called for, that’s what I’ll do.

“Ah—hello, Natasha, how are you?” Always polite, that’s me, whatever the provocation. It’s my mother’s influence.

“There’s a job come up you might be interested in.” She pauses to let this sink in, make sure I’m listening. “Music tutor to an eight-year-old girl. She’s learning the violin.”

I am listening, and suddenly I’m very interested. I need to get a life, we’ve already established that, and here’s one that might just do. I really want a job as a musician if possible, at least for now. I’m not bothered about earning much, and I know that private tuition is hardly going to keep me in shampoo and tampons, especially with the agency creaming off most of the fee. But with my somewhat unique talents I can earn enough in a single evening to cover pretty much anything I might need. This job sounds just right, just what I’m looking for. I can play a mean violin—shouldn’t be too difficult to teach a little girl the basics. I put Ludwig on pause for a few minutes and resolve to be very polite indeed to Natasha.

Natasha rushes on with her explanations, obviously in a hurry and clearly desperate, which is probably why she’s ringing me. “Valerie was doing it.”

Valerie—do I know a Valerie?

“She’s been teaching her for the last three months, but she busted her leg skiing and she’s laid up somewhere in the French Alps.”

French Alps—all right for some… But still, she’s got a broken leg and now I’ve got her job, so I guess life sort of levels itself out.

Natasha is still gushing on. “Our contract with the client says we’ll provide a replacement, and you’re it. If you want to, of course… I need to know now, though, because we’ve already blobbed for two days and the client is not best pleased.”

No need to ask me twice—I’m sold. “I’ll do it. When do they want me, and where is it?”

“Ah, well, that’s the thing. You start tomorrow, at nine—the client is very definite about that. Doesn’t want little…whatever her name is…ah, yes, Rosie, little Rosie, missing any more of her lessons just because of a broken femur.”

Sounds reasonable.
“Okay, give me the address.”

“Black Combe, Oakworth.”

“Where?” Quick flick through my mental A–Z of London—nope, no Black Combe that I know of. Probably one of the new high-rises in the Docklands. Can’t place Oakworth either, come to think. But not to worry, that’s what satnavs are for.

“Oakworth. It’s in Yorkshire. It’s near Haworth. Where the Brontës lived. They wrote books.”

“Haworth!” I know where the bloody Brontës lived, and what they got up to. I’ve read all their novels God knows how many times, and I know Yorkshire is up in the north of England somewhere. How far up north?

Not too far, actually. I dump the London A–Z and start rifling through my mental UK atlas. I have a photographic memory for maps, as well as pretty much everything else I see or read, so I can visualise it perfectly and I know exactly where Haworth is. And what it’s like—I have a mental image of a
Wuthering Heights
rolling moorland scene. Windswept, dramatic wilderness. These images rush through my head as all goes quiet on the other end. Natasha wisely gives me a moment to collect my scattered wits.