He’s a scrap of a lad, Helga thinks. Way too thin and too pale. He needs some sea air and feeding up. Maddy smiles at him as Helga lets them in. She hasn’t been expecting their visit and she tries to tidy up the pile of papers on the coffee table and sofa. Her breakfast dish is still on the side.
‘I love your place,’ Jamie says.
Helga has spent the last few days trying to work out in her head where she’s going to put everything when she moves. Mette, who is thrilled Helga has relented and is moving back to Denmark, is coming over to help her start packing up. She knows she’s going to have to start throwing things away, but, somehow, she’s not quite ready to make the first move to dismantle everything.
She regards her living space with the detachment she’s been feeling since she came home from hospital. The heart attack and the operation has rattled her in a way she couldn’t have foreseen. She doesn’t feel quite the same as before. It’s as if she’s lost her nerve. The slightest noise in the night wakes her and she lies awake worrying about people breaking in.
Mette has convinced her that she’ll feel safe once she’s at the retirement village, but it’s still unsettling leaving everything she knows for a fresh start. Mette’s sent her pictures of the giant pool with its steam rooms and saunas, but it won’t be the same as swimming in the sea every day.
Jamie and Maddy come to stand in the kitchen doorway, as Helga puts on the kettle. She looks up at the ceiling, cursing that the glass ceiling tile has started dripping. She’s been thinking of a way of getting up there with her grouting gun, but she won’t have to worry about home repairs in the retirement village. There’ll be people for that. And what will Terry do? Her seagull? Will the next people who live here let him into the kitchen? She doubts it.
‘Jamie,’ Maddy prompts, nodding towards Helga. ‘Go on.’ Helga can see her eyes shining.
Jamie takes something out of his pocket and thrusts it towards her.
It can’t be her notebook … can it?
She takes it from him and runs her finger over the cover. Then she opens it and there it is: Linus’s number. In his handwriting.
‘Are you OK?’ Maddy asks, and she realises she hasn’t said anything.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It means a lot to get this back. But how? How did you get it?’
‘We’d better sit down and then Jamie can explain.’
Helga sits down on the sofa, still amazed that she’s holding her book.
‘I found it in the squat,’ Jamie explains. ‘Where I was staying.’
Helga glances at Maddy. She can’t be happy that her son has been staying in a squat.
‘There’s this guy – Scully. He steals from people all the time. He’s a dealer and … well, you don’t want to know what he’s like. I went back to get my bag, you see, with Tor. He was there and he scared us stupid.’
‘You went back with Tor?’
‘She recognised your book.’ He glances nervously at Maddy. ‘I didn’t realise until we were on the way here just now, but I’ve been here before.’
He looks worried and Maddy takes over for a moment. ‘Jamie was there that night you collapsed.’
‘You saw it happen?’
‘I tried to stop Scully following you, but it was over so quickly. He was cross with me and he ran off with your bag, telling me to follow, but then you were on the ground and clutching your chest and I … I was so scared. I didn’t think you’d make it. So I … I did the CPR thing.’
‘It was you?’ Helga asks, aghast.
He nods. ‘Well, I tried. Then I knocked on one of the cottage doors and then I ran. I thought if the police found me I’d be in real trouble.’
‘I had no idea you knew how to do that lifesaving stuff,’ Maddy says.
‘What do you mean? You made me go to Cubs,’ he says, with sad smile. ‘Then Scouts. Then Duke of Edinburgh, then that cadet thing. I guess I was equipped to save someone.’
‘I guess you were.’
‘And it was this Scully guy who made off with my bag?’ Helga asks.
Jamie nods. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he trails out. ‘I thought if I stayed … I don’t know what I thought. But I was scared of Scully.’
‘You gave me CPR?’ Helga says. She tries to imagine him blowing breath into her body. ‘They said at the hospital that was what saved me.’
Jamie shrugged. ‘I felt bad I didn’t do more.’
Jamie and Maddy don’t stay long and, after they’ve gone, Helga stares out of the window, going over everything Jamie has told her. She has him to thank for her life, it seems. She could see the terror in his face as he told her about seeing her falling and clutching her chest.
Maddy insisted that they call the police together and Jamie bravely explained everything on the phone. The police are on their way to the squat now. She hopes they find Scully.
The light is coming in through the window and she watches the birds chirruping. There’s a pair of collared pigeons on the stone bird bath, rubbing their necks together, and she feels the decision rising up in her.
So what if Linus has a family, a wife? She made him a promise, didn’t she?
She turns and picks up her book, then her home phone and dials the number Linus has written down. She hears it connect. The ring tone seems to resonate right in her heart.
‘Hello?’
It’s his voice. The hairs on her arms stand up and she feels fluttery and light. She tries to speak, but the words won’t come.
‘Helga, is that you?’ He sounds cautious.
‘Yes,’ she manages.
‘It’s about time. I thought you weren’t going to call.’
‘There was … I had …’ Helga says, but she’s so glad to hear his voice, she can feel tears threatening to take her voice away.
‘Are you all right?’
She tells him about losing her bag and phone and how she’s been in hospital and how, thanks to a miracle, she got her book – and his number – back.
‘I couldn’t bear the thought that you might think I didn’t want to call. That was the worst bit of the whole ordeal.’
He chuckles softly. ‘Helga, I seem to have spent my whole life waiting for you to call. I’ve learnt to be patient.’
‘But what about your wife and—’
‘My …? Oh, Helga, I’ll tell you all about that later, but I’m on my own. I have been for five years.’
He’s single? But he was wearing a wedding band? Helga feels so much joy radiating through her that she can hardly take it in.
‘You’ve called me just at the right moment. I was meeting some people interested in buying the boat today. I thought there was no point in keeping it. I’m going back to Australia. Well, I’m meant to be—’
‘Don’t go,’ she blurts. ‘At least not until I’ve seen your boat,’ she adds, and Linus laughs.
‘Oh, she’s a beaut.’
Helga’s heart soars at the thought of seeing Linus on a boat. It’s like she’s manifested her most secret, treasured dream.
‘So, if I come for one last sail. Will you be there?’ he asks. ‘Will you come and meet me?’