Читать книгу A Part of Me - Anouska Knight - Страница 14

APRIL HAD HAD a change of heart. It had decided it didn’t want to be a rubbishy month of late frosts and wet winds any more, it wanted to be daffodils and crocuses and bugs venturing onto the breeze for the first time since last year. I didn’t expect the sun would hold, but it was nice to see the lush green of young wheat fields rolling past the window.

I sat in the passenger seat, looking for signs pointing to Briddleton Mill while Hannah hummed along to the tune crackling from the stereo. It was pretty here. Just ten minutes’ drive south-west of Earleswicke, I’d enjoyed bike rides with my dad on the public footpaths near here before Jackson’s Park had become our agreed rendezvous point on the weekends Petra could spare him.

‘Is that it?’ Hannah called, slamming her brakes on. I lurched forward, the plush cheeseburger and fries toy dangling from Hannah’s rear-view mirror flapped into the side of my head. I batted them aside and read the sign.

‘Yeah, that’s it. Where the lane forks, we need to take it all the way round to the left, and the mill should be there.’ Trusting Hannah had enough information, I rooted around my bag for my compact. Sleeplessness took its toll on the over twenty-fives and I was starting to look like a panda. I swept a little more powder beneath my eyelids. Warpaint in place, I was ready to pretend to the world that I hadn’t stayed up into the early hours this morning, reading and rereading the messages James had sent me before he’d gone to bed. I was also ready to show Rohan Bywater that I really wasn’t a complete psycho.

‘Wow,’ Hannah said bluntly. ‘Welcome to my crib, MTV.’

I clasped shut the compact and slipped it back into my satchel. ‘Pretty beautiful,’ I agreed, taking in the tree-lined millpond stretching like a mini lake across the foreground. The mill itself, rising from the far edge of the black waters, seemed to double in size as Hannah pulled the car closer to the two VW vans parked out front. One was an old battered orange affair, a campervan like those I’d lusted after in my carefree student days; the other a very sleek and shiny truck you could easily imagine the A-Team exploding from.

‘Right then, you ready to measure this place up?’ I asked, cranking open the door.

‘It’s massive!’ Hannah laughed. ‘We’ll be here all night.’ Not if I could help it. I still wasn’t convinced Bywater wasn’t wasting our time but he’d booked the survey anyway, so here we were.

I climbed out of the car and reached for my things. ‘You all set?’ I asked, checking Hannah had hold of the drawings. Hannah nodded, agog over the grand design in front of her.

‘Okay, let’s do it.’ I said, slipping into my jacket, pulling my hair free. Dry weather was preferable for the artificially straightened.

Hannah followed me to the only obvious entrance. Further to the right of the door, the original water wheel was turning steadily – fed, I assumed, by the River Earle somewhere over the far side of the mill. We stood there expectantly for a minute or so before I tried the door knocker again.

‘They did say ten, right?’ Hannah asked, checking her watch.

I knocked again. ‘We’ll give it a minute, then I’ll call the office.’ Who was I kidding? That was the last number I wanted to call. I’d thought the sideways glances were bad enough on Monday afternoon, but the whispering had gone into overdrive after a large bouquet had landed on my desk yesterday. Sadie still hadn’t shown her face.

‘Wait,’ Hannah said, ‘do you hear that?’ I listened for the sounds of somebody approaching the door from the other side. I couldn’t hear anything over the gentle gushing sounds of the water wheel. ‘They’re round the back,’ Hannah said. ‘I can hear them yelling.’ Hannah’s bionic hearing led us from the stone path onto the timber walkway reaching out over the millpond where small clouds of insects hung like mist above the water.

We took the timber gangway wrapping itself around the mill’s water side, leading us over the pond into a gravelled yard the other side of the mill. I could hear it now: men’s voices, laughing from somewhere over the grassy ridge that ran a sweeping line around the yard here.

A crunching on the ground behind us and we both turned to find Rohan Bywater stepping from the mill’s rear double doors stained black to match the cedar cladding above them.

He looked less boyish today, pushing navy sweater sleeves up over olive forearms. ‘Hey. You found it then?’ He was already smiling. Hannah’s cheeks seemed to be getting redder. I cleared my throat, striding confidently towards him until I’d made it within hand-shaking distance. There was an approach that went with being female in this industry, forged by enough years of burly builders attempting to make me blush. Phil had never struggled but I’d had to learn how to show no fear.

‘Hello again, Mr Bywater,’ I said, offering my hand. Hannah ambled up behind me, perplexed by my sudden burst across the yard. ‘This is Hannah, one of our interns. Shall we get started?’

Bywater looked a little perturbed too. I realised I was probably overusing the power-walk.

‘Sure.’ He smiled, taking my hand. His skin was rough against mine, not smooth like James’s. We broke contact then, him reaching to casually muss the back of his hair. ‘Come on in.’

Inside this first room, whatever this room was, it was just as Adrian had described it, well-proportioned and spacious, but with nothing to punctuate the endless wheat tones of newly-plastered surfaces.

‘Blank canvas,’ Bywater said, walking in after us. His voice lost some of its smoothness as it echoed off the bare concrete floor. Other than protruding cables and the occasional socket fascia hanging off a wire, there was nothing in here to suggest anybody called it home.

‘Are all the rooms like this, Mr Bywater? Plastered, wired …?’

He folded his arms and leant back against the door reveal. ‘Pretty much.’

‘Electrics and plumbing all working?’ I asked, taking the papers from Hannah’s arms and opening them out on the dusty floor. Mr Bywater nodded. ‘Do you know if these drawings are accurate? Just the general layout, I mean.’

He moved to look down at the drawings beneath me. ‘They look right. But I’d like this and the next room to be knocked through,’ he said, crouching beside me. I followed his finger over the plans. Nearly all of his knuckles were grazed.

‘The kitchen is next door?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, but I’d like to open it out across the back of the building. I have friends over, they eat a lot. Makes sense to make all this back here bigger.’ I began scribbling notes on the drawing under us. Bywater watched as I wrote. I hated that. It always seemed to render my handwriting illegible for some daft reason.

‘Nice pen.’

As soon as he spoke, I scrawled kitten instead of kitchen.

‘Thanks. And upstairs? Are you planning any structural changes up there?’

‘I’m leaving the second floor as storage, for now. As you can see on the plan,’ I caught a waft of something faintly spiced as he reached across me to the second drawing, ‘there are four bedrooms on the first floor. The previous owners intended to make this bedroom the master, overlooking the river on the north side, but I’d like to take the south bedroom, overlooking the millpond. I know I’m spoilt for choice, but that’s definitely the best view in the house.’

I glanced over the general layout of the south bedroom. ‘Is the existing en suite in there sufficient?’

Bywater straightened up. ‘Actually, I’ve seen something I wanted your opinion on,’ he said, pulling a brochure from his back pocket. He began thumbing through it, finding his page then passing it straight over my head to Hannah. ‘What do you think?’

Hannah, surprised that he’d addressed her, studied the image. He watched her, expectantly waiting for her feedback. I hadn’t worked with very many clients who bothered to include the juniors. Often they simply looked straight through them. ‘Well, you’re on a private road.’ She shrugged. ‘Why not?’ She passed me the brochure. The room in the picture was some sort of alpine chalet, doors flung open revealing the snowy vista outside. In the middle of the scene a Nordic beauty lounged in her bathtub, looking out onto the views.

‘Showers are for office types. I’m more of a bath guy.’ Bywater smiled, burying his hands into his jean pockets. ‘So do you think we could do something like this up there?’ He lifted his chin towards the exposed beams arching like a ribcage above us.

James was definitely a power-shower kind of person, but I knew he’d drool over a bedroom tub like this. When I thought of bathtubs, I thought of rubber ducks and no-more-tears shampoo, but James was all about the lines. ‘I’m sure we could. Are we okay to go take a look?’ I asked, getting to my feet.

‘Sure. Would you like me to show you around? I can’t be in too much danger,’ he said, peered down at my shoes. I ignored him. I didn’t know why he made me so uncomfortable, other than acting like a total idiot in front of him at Cyan two days ago, which technically was my fault, not his.

It could be worse, I supposed. I could be back at the office.

‘That’s okay.’ I smiled passively. ‘We’ll come and find you when we’ve finished measuring up.’ Hannah gave him a warmer smile and followed me towards the door.

‘I’ll be in the back if you need to talk bathtubs,’ he called after us.

We’d soon found our way around the upper floors, each room offering its own astounding views over the countryside – the tumbling river, the still millpond and the woodland encircling much of the property. It was almost impossible to resist fantasising about what your life would be like to live in a place like this. Hannah had already given me the lowdown on what her friends would say if the mill were hers; I’d found myself imagining Anna here. Showing her around the endless lawns, and the playroom I’d put in next to the kitchen. It was a fantasy all right. Right now, I’d be lucky if I could show her a rational couple managing to stand in the same room as each other. And yet this was the only plan I had – pretending everything was fine, bluffing our way through it long enough to complete the adoption. We could work out all the ugly business afterwards. Simple. I just had to find a way to be around James again without wanting to kick him.

I could not lose another child. Not even a child I didn’t know yet.

*

An hour later, in possession of every measurement we could possibly need, Hannah and I stepped out into the back yard. Ahead of us, a grassy bank obscured the source of the commotion we could hear emanating from the other side of the hillock. ‘He said he’d be out back. Come on, I’m curious.’ Hannah shrugged, walking up towards the brow of the hill.

The sounds of men messing around grew significantly louder at the grassy summit. ‘Bloody hell!’ Hannah exclaimed, staring across the meadow. I watched them open-mouthed too, flying up one side of the curved structure, launching themselves into the air before careering back down it again. I counted three men, throwing themselves recklessly up and down the arrangement of ramps. A fourth person, unconcerned by the bikes whizzing past his shaggy head was sitting at the top of one vertical incline, legs hanging over the edge as if he were just perching on a garden wall.

‘Go on, Max, I can get more height on my hair than that!’ the shaggy one hooted. Max threw himself fiercely into the drop. He made it into the air next to his shaggy friend but miscalculated whatever it is that these guys with no sense of self-preservation are supposed to calculate when gravity yanks them back down to earth. Max left his bike in the air above him, crashing down onto the vertical, sliding all the way back to the bottom of the ramp on his knees. A heartbeat later, the bike followed his slipstream, slumping hard into him.

‘That is so dangerous,’ I murmured, but he was already scrambling back onto his bike.

‘That is so cool!’ Hannah yelped, edging closer for a better look. I followed, looking around to see which one of these big kids was Bywater. I knew he’d be one of them, despite his grown-up house, there was something distinctively adolescent about him. It was his eyes that gave him away, piercing beneath the shadow of his black helmet.

‘Mr Bywater?’

The shaggy spectator was still yelling his encouragement. Bywater’s black helmet whizzed past again. ‘Mr Bywater?’ I repeated, louder this time. I let him pass twice more before I felt the stirrings of irritation. ‘Mr Bywater! Could I just have a quick word, please?’ Still nothing. He manoeuvred himself through the air over above the shaggy one’s head. I thought I caught him looking my way, but still he didn’t stop.

I gave a small discreet sigh. ‘Come on, Hannah. We’ll wait for him at the mill.’ Hannah followed, reluctantly. We hadn’t walked far through the spongy grass when there was a sickening clatter behind us.

We both snapped around to see as Rohan Bywater let out a sharp cry.

The biker with the beard yelled something, skidding in on his knees beside his friend. We were still close enough to them that I could see what they were all staring at.

‘Oh no,’ I panted, hurrying to where Bywater lay writhing on his back. One arm shielded his face while the other grabbed uselessly at his left thigh. I tried to understand which part looked wrong, what it was that my eyes were struggling to process.

Hannah groaned as we came to stand, uselessly, at the edge of the ramp. The contours of Bywater’s left trouser leg suggested something was grossly broken. I followed those lines to his black trainer, realising with sickening clarity that his foot was completely misaligned with his body.

I wasn’t as squeamish as my sister-in-law, but this was pushing it. I felt the nausea growing. Blood I was okay with, but tendons and bones … not so much.

Bywater yelped again, skipping my heart along at a quicker rate.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ I tried, darting to the floor beside him, but he reminded me of a Barbie doll I’d abused as a child, his leg twisted spitefully past the point of repair.

Bywater began groaning steadily, unearthly sounds emanating from deep within his chest. The ashen expression on each of the other bikers’ faces galvanised me. Somebody needed to be in charge here.

‘Hannah?’ I yelled, turning to find Hannah wide-eyed and quite green beside me. ‘Hannah, call an—’ A clammy hand grabbed my arm.

‘Is it broken?’ Bywater demanded, his face filled with panic.

I was suddenly locked by desperate hazel eyes. I could feel the shock etched into my own expression and made a conscious effort to disguise it. ‘Just lay still, try to stay calm.’ Ignoring me completely, Rohan Bywater began trying to sit up. His foot tugged with the movement like a lifeless strand of flotsam not quite free of its mooring. I wasn’t convinced the nausea wouldn’t get the better of me after all.

‘Please! You need to stay still!’

Rohan looked at the bearded guy in the red helmet. ‘Billy, help me,’ he pleaded. Billy looked panic-stricken too.

‘What do you want me to do, mate? She’s right, you need to keep still until we can get you some help.’

Rohan hid his face beneath his arm again. ‘Have I broken it, Bill?’ Billy cast his eyes over his friend’s lower body.

‘It’s not looking good, mate,’ the shaggy spectator offered solemnly. ‘Bill, see how bad it is,’ he instructed.

Rohan put his other hand over his face too. He was coping remarkably well, considering. His pain threshold was incredible. I tried to second guess what the symptoms of shock were. ‘This has happened before,’ the shaggy one said calmly, casually nibbling on a stick of liquorice he’d produced from somewhere. I was processing that last statement when Rohan groaned again, clasping at the back of his knee while Billy began to cradle the twisted foot. ‘On three?’ Billy asked.

Still hidden beneath his arms, Rohan nodded.

I scrambled to my feet. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! On three, what? What are you going to do?’

‘Just do it, Billy!’ the shaggy guy said. ‘He’s ready, aren’t you, Ro?’

Rohan Bywater nodded again.

Billy took a deep breath. ‘One …’

‘Wait a minute!’ I squeaked. ‘What the hell are you doing? He needs an ambulance!’

‘Two …

I looked at Hannah for help of some kind but she was already shielding her eyes. She’d even shuffled back a few paces from the chaos unfurling in front of us.

‘Three!’ I snapped my head round as Billy sickeningly yanked hard on Rohan’s contorted leg. I watched, dumbstruck, as he pulled Rohan’s leg completely free of the trousers.

My stomach went into a death-roll. Rohan fell silent. Everything fell silent but the pulsing in my ears. So this was what shock felt like.

‘Good news, brother,’ Billy said cheerily, examining the contents of his hands. ‘You haven’t trashed it. But I keep telling you to watch the drops, man. It’s gonna hurt if you hyperextend.’

Billy was examining a metal prosthesis in his arms. At one end of it, Rohan’s black trainer remained neatly tied to its foot, the laces in a perfect bow. I eyed the scene. Rohan Bywater lay back, casually propped on his elbows. He was smiling at me.

‘You’ve … your leg,’ I managed. Hannah remained soundless.

‘Surprise.’ Rohan smiled.

His left trouser leg lay flat from the knee down. One of the others began to laugh. It was Billy, Bywater’s best supporting actor. The shaggy one with his mass of hair and Cat Stevens tee carried on chomping at his liquorice stick, Max – all blond and boyish – shook his head, allowing himself a smile. They were all waiting for my response.

I looked down at Bywater and couldn’t help myself. ‘You jerk.’

Behind me, Hannah gasped. I turned and stormed across the grass to where I’d discarded my satchel, somewhere near her feet. ‘Come on, Hannah,’ I snapped, stalking back towards the bank, trying to outpace the flutter of laughter breaking out behind us. Hannah caught up, laughing nervously beside me.

Bywater’s voice followed us over the meadow. ‘Oh, come on, don’t be mad. I was only pulling your leg!’

‘Ignore him,’ I instructed. We were nearly at the brow of the ridge.

‘At least I didn’t play dead!’ Bywater added. ‘You might have given me the kiss of life!’

He’d be dead a long time before then. I did not need this right now. I did not need joker clients adding to an already tense work situation. Who even does that? What kind of sicko thinks that’s funny?

‘I take it this means we won’t be giving him a fee proposal?’ Hannah enquired timidly, trying to keep pace with me. The colour had returned to her face. There was a very good chance that mine was somewhere past mid-pink too.

‘Oh, he’ll be getting one, Hannah.’ I was power-walking again. ‘First rule of business: if you’re client’s an asshole and you don’t want to work with them,’ I said breathily, navigating the soft earth in office shoes, ‘you price them out of the game.’