Читать книгу A Father Beyond Compare - Алисон Робертс - Страница 8

FOR the second time that day, someone was suggesting that Tom Gardiner was not thinking straight.

His younger sister, Phoebe, was being even more unkind. She was laughing aloud.

‘Oh, man! This is great. What were you thinking of, Tom?’

He gritted his teeth. ‘I was trying to help someone.’

‘By babysitting? Night and day? For days and days and—’

‘Yeah, I get the message. Stop gloating, Phoebs.’

‘But, Tom…’ It took a moment for Phoebe to get real control. ‘You hate kids.’

‘I don’t hate them. I just don’t know what to do with them. They make me nervous.’

‘So you offer to be in loco parentis for an unknown length of time? You’re nuts!’

‘Look, I thought you might be able to help. I didn’t ring up for a dose of sibling abuse.’

But Phoebe giggled again. ‘Just wait till Mum hears about this. Oh…that wasn’t you we just saw on the news, was it? Dangling over some van that was getting washed out to sea in a river? I told Mum it probably wasn’t cos she was having kittens.’

‘It was me, actually.’

‘Holy heck! Just as well you’re OK, then. Mum’s gone to a lot of trouble making a roast chicken dinner for us. She’d be mad if you didn’t show up.’

‘I probably won’t be able to show up. I’m going to be looking after Mickey, remember?’

‘Bring him along. Mum could pretend he’s one of those grandchildren she’s got her heart set on.’

‘I don’t think so. He’s a tired, frightened four-year-old, Phoebe. He doesn’t need another batch of strangers to deal with.’

‘Where does he usually live?’

‘Wales.’

‘Oh…’ The penny seemed to be finally dropping. ‘Is this something to do with that van in the river?’

‘Yeah. I pulled Mickey out before his mother.’

‘Is his mother all right?’

‘She’s injured, but not too badly. She’ll be in hospital for a few days and she wasn’t keen to have her son handed over to Social Welfare.’

‘Hmm.’ Phoebe sounded very thoughtful. ‘So this mother—she’s cute, huh?’

Tom ignored the bait. The batteries on his mobile phone were due to run out any time. ‘Phoebe, I’ve got someone from Social Welfare turning up at the hospital to interview me any second to see if I’m acceptable as a caregiver,’ he said crisply. ‘I would prefer not to come across as a total idiot.’

‘Which you are, of course.’

‘Probably. Are you going to help me or not?’

‘Tempting as it is to see you try and pull this off by yourself, big brother, I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks.’ Tom let his breath out in a huff of relief. ‘What do I need?’

‘My friend Alice has got kids. Her little boy is three and her daughter’s just turned one. She’ll know what you need and I’m sure she’ll lend me some stuff.’ Phoebe laughed again. ‘She won’t be able to resist if I promise to fill her in on all the gory details later.’

‘How soon could you collect stuff?’

‘I’ll do it now.’ Tom could hear a heavy sigh. ‘Mum’s giving me the evil eye here, Tom. You’d better talk to her. She’s not going to be very happy about the meal. What time will you get to your house?’

‘I don’t know. There’s a bit to sort out here first.’

‘I won’t wait for you then. I’ll drop the stuff on your doorstep and then come back here. That way, at least one of us will get to eat dinner.’

‘I’ll make it up to Mum.’

‘You’ll have to. How old did you say this kid was?’

‘Four. Nearly five but he’s very small for his age. He’s got spina bifida.’

There was a moment’s shocked silence on the other end of the line, which was disconcerting. It was hard to shock Phoebe.

‘Tom…? Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

Nearly two hours later, Tom could almost smell the roast chicken dinner he was missing out on. He wished he had been able to attend the planned family gathering.

Emma was still in Theatre. The pleasant young woman from Social Welfare had been easily persuaded that Tom was up to the job of caring for a small, slightly disabled boy and had whisked him off to the nearest supermarket to help him purchase disposable nappies and other items deemed necessary.

Tom had collected Mickey from the care of the emergency department nurses to find his young charge was very displeased with the whole arrangement despite having had it explained to him by his mother before she’d been taken into the operating theatre.

‘I don’t like you,’he reminded Tom, as he was carried to the car park.

‘I’ve got a dog at home,’ Tom offered. ‘Do you like dogs?’

‘No. Dogs bite.’

‘My dog doesn’t bite.’ Tom couldn’t think of anything else to offer as an inducement. At least Mickey had been fed and toileted by the nursing staff while Tom had been at the supermarket. With a bit of luck, he could just put him to bed once they got home and then have a quiet beer or two while he thought about how to get through tomorrow. He tucked Mickey into the booster car seat the paediatric ward had supplied, along with a small wheelchair.

‘It’s only for a day or two until Mummy gets better.’ Tom was reassuring himself as well as Mickey, he realised. ‘It won’t be so bad.’

It was bad.

Mickey caught sight of Max—Tom’s elderly, long-haired German shepherd—and shrieked with fear.

He refused to be placated with any offers of food or drink and Tom’s delight in finding that Phoebe had left a bag of toys, along with a selection of clothes and even a plate of chicken dinner covered with foil on his doorstep, was rapidly diminished as Mickey hurled one offering after another across the floor of his living room.

Max obligingly picked the rejected toys up and brought them back, one by one, to where Mickey was sitting, howling, on the couch.

‘I don’t think you’re helping, mate,’ Tom told his dog sadly. ‘Maybe you should go outside for a bit.’

And maybe Tom should ring the appropriate authorities and admit defeat.

But how would he be able to front up and tell Emma he’d done that? What if she woke up in Recovery to learn that he’d betrayed the trust she’d put in him? Tom got a sudden memory of the look in Emma’s eyes when he’d taken Mickey from her arms in the van. She had known there was a distinct possibility she wasn’t going to make it out of there alive and she had trusted him to take her son to safety and do whatever was needed to keep him safe. The depth of love for her child and the desperate plea for help tugged at something deep within Tom all over again.

There was no way he could betray that trust.

‘Do you want to watch TV?’ he asked Mickey.

Mickey shook his head and kept howling.

‘Do you want to go to bed?’

The small face turned an even darker shade of red and the decibel level increased alarmingly. Small hands punched at Tom so he was forced to move further away. He stood there, looking down at the miserable scrap of humanity on his couch, and felt utterly helpless.

It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

No wonder he’d instinctively avoided having anything to do with kids. In terms of stress levels he’d choose dangling out of a helicopter or climbing into water-filled vehicles any day. Tom had had about as much as he could take.

‘I’m just trying to help,’ he told Mickey with a sigh. ‘But I can’t do this by myself, obviously. Do you want me to find someone else to look after you?’

‘No-o-o…I want Mummy.’

‘I know you do.’ So do I, Tom thought desperately. I want Mummy to come and scoop you up and make everything all right.

A thoughtful crease appeared between Tom’s eyebrows. The idea was a little embarrassing but who was there to see, other than Max?

‘Would a…a cuddle help, buddy?’

By way of answer, Mickey picked up a small, pink dog from the pile on the couch beside him and threw it at Tom. It bounced onto the floor a few feet away.

Max pricked up his ears. He looked at the toy and then he looked at Tom.

‘I wouldn’t bother.’ Tom sighed more heavily this time. ‘OK, Mickey. I’m going into the kitchen to get a drink. I’ll be back in a minute.’

A beer. Icy cold and refreshing enough to clear his head. Tom popped the tab on the can and took a long swallow. He wondered what price Phoebe might extract from him in order to offer some hands-on assistance. She worked with kids all the time in her job as a physiotherapist. She’d know what to do to stop a kid making himself sick by crying.

He took another swallow. Removing himself from the near vicinity seemed to have helped because the noise level had dropped considerably. It was silent in the adjoining room, in fact.

Tom’s beer can hit the bench with enough of a thump to send foam cascading down its side. Had Mickey rolled off the couch and cracked his head on the coffee-table? Was he lying unconscious on the floor while his carer was swigging alcohol in another room?

The panic subsided the moment Tom swung into the living room. He stopped in his tracks as he saw Max nudging the pink dog closer to Mickey from where he must have placed it on the couch cushion earlier.

Mickey was still snuffling and he still looked pretty miserable. He might have been trying to reject Max’s offering when he picked the dog up and threw it again but Max was giving him the benefit of any doubt. The dog waved a still magnificent plume of a tail and went to retrieve the toy.

This time there was no mistaking a game had begun. Mickey scrubbed a wet nose with the back of his hand and threw the fluffy pink dog with purpose.

‘Go!’ he instructed Max.

Max went. So did Tom, slipping back into the kitchen, still unnoticed. Who was he to argue if his dog could do a better job of babysitting than himself? If it was working, Tom was quite prepared to go with the flow.

He took another peep into the living room a minute later. Max, bless him, wasn’t even looking bored by the repeated track he was pacing on the living-room carpet. When Tom looked in again, however, Max had given up. He was sitting on the couch beside Mickey.