‘I’m sorry,’ I said breathlessly, catching up to Jed halfway across the stretch of gravel in front of the tavern.
‘For?’ he asked, not stopping.
I fell into step beside him. ‘Ruining your New Year’s.’
‘And just how, exactly, was any of that your fault?’
It wasn’t, and I was annoyed both with myself for being unnecessarily apologetic and with him for pulling me up on it. I shrugged and swiped the back of a hand across my wet face.
‘Hey, don’t cry,’ he said more gently.
‘I’m not,’ I snapped. ‘It’s just – reaction, or something.’
He stopped walking. ‘Lia, I’m really sorry.’
‘For?’
‘Creating a nuisance. Disturbing the peace.’
‘’S okay,’ I said.
‘So, that must have been your ex-boyfriend,’ he said, after a small pause.
‘Yep.’
‘What in God’s name were you thinking, to go out with that sack of snot?’
I smiled. ‘He wasn’t acting like that at the time. Give me some credit.’
‘He’s got some serious issues. Maybe you should talk to the police.’
‘And tell them my ex-boyfriend said mean things to me so you beat him up?’
‘Nobody likes a smartarse, Aurelia,’ he said austerely.
We started walking again. ‘How’s your hand?’ I asked.
He held it up to the dull orange glow of the nearest streetlamp. In its light the blood looked black, just like they say it does in thrillers. ‘Must have just split the skin. It doesn’t hurt enough to be broken.’
‘How many broken knuckles have you had?’ I asked.
‘One. And it wasn’t from hitting anyone, I’ll have you know. I dropped a flywheel on it.’
‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Have you got anything to patch that up with at home?’
‘I’ll find something. It’ll be fine.’
‘Look, we’ve got a first-aid kit at the café. Why don’t you come and do it properly? My car’s just around the corner.’
‘Hadn’t you better go back in and see your friends?’
This continued refusal of my hospitality was getting depressing. ‘I’m going home,’ I said. ‘You do what you like – it’s your hand.’
Jed looked at me sideways. ‘Actually, the first-aid kit sounds good,’ he said.
We cut diagonally across the car park, rounded the corner of Ratai Plumbing and Gas and got into my dusty, middle-aged Toyota Corolla, Jed wrapping the bottom of his shirt around his hand to stop it bleeding on the upholstery.
‘Are you opening the café tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, backing the car around.
‘Busy?’ he asked at the same time as I said, ‘Have –?’
We both paused, and then I said, ‘Yes,’ as he said, ‘What was that?’
There was another pause.
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Can’t remember.’ And we lapsed into slightly uncomfortable silence.
The police had set up a roadblock just before the town boundary. They were helping an impeccably tailored and highly indignant older woman out of her car when I pulled up, which was lucky for me, because the officer with the breathalyser was distracted by her shrill complaints from checking my car’s warrant of fitness.
‘Phew,’ I said as he waved me forwards.
‘Why, how much have you had to drink?’
‘Hardly anything, but my warrant’s two months overdue.’
‘Your service is four months overdue,’ he said.
‘How do you know?’
‘I looked at the sticker on your windscreen.’
‘Do you always do that when you get into someone’s car?’
Jed smiled. ‘Only if it makes a noise like yours,’ he said.
‘Is it a terminal noise?’ I asked anxiously.
‘No, it’s just a loose fan belt.’ This was encouraging, until he spoilt it by adding, ‘I wonder if you’ve got vacuum issues too. The throttle’s a bit slow responding when you put your foot down.’
‘Is that terminal?’
‘Nah. It’ll probably get worse, though. Better bring it in some time.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring it down one night after work.’
We managed to reach the café without the car’s engine falling out onto the road. I parked by the back door, since I would have to take Jed home again, and limped up the kitchen steps to retrieve the key from underneath a terracotta pot of oregano.
‘Does your ex know where you keep that key?’ he asked.
I bit my lip. ‘Yes. I’ll move it.’
I unlocked the door and went in, turning on the lights. Putting my bag down on the butcher’s block, I kicked my shoes off and climbed onto the bench to retrieve the first-aid kit from its high shelf.
‘Something smells good,’ Jed said, going to the sink to wash the blood off his hands.
‘Slow-roasted pork for tomorrow’s sandwiches.’
Holding the first-aid kit, I sat down on the bench and slid awkwardly to my feet, landing with all my weight on the good knee.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘My knee just didn’t like dancing much. You know, you look like an axe murderer.’
He looked down at his blood-smeared shirt and made a face. ‘It’s amazing how far blood goes.’
‘Like milk. You spill a litre on the floor and it covers about half an acre,’ I said, handing him a paper towel.
‘Thanks.’ He wet it under the tap and scrubbed a trickle of dried blood off the inside of his right forearm. ‘Would you mind putting a couple of plasters across this thing?’
‘This thing’ was a cut an inch long, gaping open to show a gleam of white underneath and bleeding freely again after being washed.
‘Shit, is that bone?’ I said.
‘I think it’s only the tendon that runs down the back of your finger. It’s just under the skin – it’s no big deal.’
‘Oh, stop being so staunch and manly. It must be really sore.’
‘Yeah, it’s awful,’ he said. ‘A lesser man would have passed out.’
I attempted my mother’s Stern Look – with, judging from the reaction, about her level of success – and began to dry his hand with another paper towel. The oven’s fan hummed in the background and I could hear the soft, persistent thud of a moth hurling itself against the nearest window. I was very much aware of how close Jed was, and of the warmth of his hand in mine.
‘Have you talked to your son?’ I asked, gently blotting the wound.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Finally. I’m having him for the day tomorrow.’
‘Jed, that’s great. I hope you guys can sort something out.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Me too.’
‘When d’you think you’ll move back to Thames?’ I asked, keeping my voice carefully light and unconcerned.
‘I told Monty I’d stay till the end of January,’ he said. ‘He’s got a fishing trip planned.’
‘Of course he does.’ I found a little packet of Steri-Strips in the first-aid kit and used them to tack the edges of the wound together, then covered it with a gauze pad. ‘That actually looks quite professional,’ I said, taking the cellophane wrapper off a roll of bandage. ‘It’s kind of fun getting to use something out of the first-aid kit other than a plaster.’
‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it.’
‘You should probably go to A and E on the way to Thames tomorrow and get it stitched up properly.’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘You’re not going to, are you?’
‘Probably not,’ he said, smiling.
‘Men. My dad poked himself in the eye with a piece of wire once, and he wouldn’t even go to the doctor for that.’
‘I think I’d go if I got a bit of wire in my eye.’
‘You think?’ I finished wrapping his hand and stuck down the end of the bandage with elastoplast. ‘Is that too tight? It’d be a shame to cut off the circulation completely.’
‘It’s just right,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ And he bent and kissed my cheek.
We stood and looked at one another for a long moment. He does like me, I thought, and smiled at him in quick unthinking delight. At which he kissed me again.
It was an excellent kiss, breathless and urgent, and it lasted a long time.
Eventually we broke apart, and my common sense, temporarily detained by a pink haze of lust, caught up with me. ‘But you’re leaving,’ I said.
He took a long, slightly shaky breath. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Bugger it.’
I rested my forehead against his shoulder, and he put his arms around me. It felt very, very nice.
‘There are always weekends,’ he said at last.
‘I work weekends.’
‘What about in winter?’
‘All weekends, all year round, for the foreseeable future.’
He sighed. ‘Well, that sucks.’
‘Good kiss, though,’ I said into his shirt.
‘I thought so,’ he said, tightening his arms.
‘Jed? What’s your real name?’
He gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Jessamy.’
I looked up. ‘Really?’
‘Old family name.’
‘Does anyone call you by it?’
‘Only my mother, when she’s telling me off.’
‘Jessamy,’ I said thoughtfully, trying it out.
‘Please don’t.’
‘I will take your secret to the grave,’ I said, reaching up to kiss him again. Of course it wasn’t any better an idea than it had been two minutes ago, but it’s hard to focus properly on the future drawbacks of something so enjoyable in the present.
I enjoyed it for about three seconds, and then pulled back with a jerk. Something’s wrong, something’s going to happen . . . I felt suddenly taut and brittle, as if I’d been stretched too tight and was fraying at the edges.
Jed looked at me in surprise. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
His cell phone started to ring, and as he reached into the hip pocket of his jeans and silenced it my unease sharpened into panic.
‘You need to get that,’ I said tightly.
‘What?’
‘Answer it! Something’s wrong!’
Eyeing me with a certain amount of wariness, he took the phone out of his pocket. He glanced at it and his eyebrows snapped together. Half turning away from me, he pushed a button and held the phone to his ear.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, and the feeling of panic vanished in a flood of relief. Crisis averted, whatever the crisis was.
I leant back shakily against the bench.
The voice on the other end of the phone was female, shrill and excited, and I couldn’t hear the individual words.
‘Hey!’ said Jed. ‘Tracey! Slow down!’
There was another high-pitched barrage of words, of which I caught only, ‘– fucking amazing! Baby, you’ve got to try it, it’s –’
‘Where’s Craig? Tracey! Is he okay? Trace!’ He took a deep breath, and lowered his voice with an effort. ‘Are you at home? No, I’m – Yeah, okay. Yes. Is Craig still up? Okay, fair enough. Can your mum –?’
She must have hung up on him then – he swore softly and scrolled through the menu on his phone. I withdrew to the other side of the kitchen and rummaged unnecessarily in a drawer as he put the phone back to his ear, trying to give him at least the illusion of privacy.
‘Hi, it’s Jed, here,’ he said. Then, ‘Yeah, fine. Look, Rochelle, where are you? Can you go over to stay with Tracey and Craig? Just for a couple of hours. She just rang – she’s up. Bouncing off the walls. And I’m in Ratai, it’ll take me a while to get there . . . Thank you. You’re a lifesaver. I’m sorry about your party . . . Okay, see you soon.’ He ended the call and shoved his phone back in his pocket. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. Would you mind running me back down to the van?’
‘Take my car, if you like,’ I said. ‘It’ll be quicker. Unless you think it won’t make it that far?’
He bit his lip, thinking. ‘You don’t need it tomorrow?’
‘No, but – are you alright to drive? It’s New Year’s Eve; the roads’ll be crawling with cops.’
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘What time is it?’
‘Ten forty.’
‘Five or six beers since seven . . .’
‘You’re probably over the limit. I’ll drive you.’ He frowned, and I added, ‘I won’t come in. I’ll wait in the car – or just drop you off, if you like, and leave you to it.’
‘Lia, it’s nearly three hours each way, and you’ve got to work tomorrow.’
‘That’s okay. I’m sorry, I know I keep shoving my nose into your life, but you’ll be really screwed if you’re arrested for driving drunk.’
Jed looked at me with a small, crooked smile. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Again.’