7. Falling

If only the children had not been waiting for the Bedford. If only they’d stayed inside till Nell arrived. If only there’d been no ache under Nell’s primrose cardigan. If only she hadn’t known the best cure for such an ache is to hug someone you love. If only the world’s leading authority on tender moments had waited until her gallant son opened the door of his truck for her. If only the step hadn’t been so high. If only the soles of her elastic-sided boots were not so worn.

But Nell flung the door to the truck open as wide as the door to her heart. She leant her head around the corner so she could see Griffin, Layla, Perry, Blue and Barney Blacksheep running up the hill to meet her. All it took was a second when Nell’s heart was so happy her head didn’t think.

The queen of reading hearts slipped.

She tumbled down the step, hit her head on the door, landed crookedly on the hard red gravel and lay there as still and pale as a china doll.

Although Nell’s eyes were open, she stared as though she didn’t see the children who had rushed to her side, like chicks to a hen, shocked at what they saw. A scribbly red line in the shape of Africa marked the place where Nell’s forehead had hit the Bedford’s door. Her skirt was torn, her knitted red socks were bunched around her ankles. One leg looked like it was joined on all wrong. Like it didn’t fit, didn’t belong. Already it was turning the colours of a summer thunderstorm. It looked very much like a leg that would never be any good for dancing.

The joyful secrets drained from the children’s hearts. The blush faded from their cheeks. Nell didn’t look like Nell. She looked like an old, old lady.

‘Tell Mama to ring Doctor Larsson. Quick!’ Ben cried out and Layla and Griffin ran to find Annie, their hearts pounding against the thin walls of their chests, their mouths as dry as deserts.

Perry stayed. He knelt beside Nell, his bare knees pressed into the gravel. Ben spread the tartan picnic rug over the small, silent bundle that was his mother. Tenderly he brushed wisps of silver hair away from the sticky map of Africa, kissed her cheek and rubbed her hands between his.

Perry knew the feeling of Ben’s hands. Gentle hands that could smooth hard lumps of worry until they melted away like butter from under your skin. Strong hands that held you tight so you couldn’t slip into the tar pit of fear. Hands that knew exactly when you needed holding. Ben would know how to look after Nell just right, Perry told himself.

‘Stay awake just a bit longer, Mum. Doc Larsson will be here soon.’

Nell didn’t answer but Ben kept on talking.

‘Remember when I was a boy,’ he said, not knowing what Nell had been thinking that afternoon. ‘Remember how you used to read Anne of Green Gables to me, Mum. Do you remember? Remember how I loved it? Nod your head if you can hear me, Mum. Please don’t go to sleep. Mum, Mum, Doc Larsson will be here any minute. He’ll want to have a word with you.’

Annie came with arms full of pink and yellow checked blankets and a message from the doctor. Ben looked up at her and his face was a jelly mask, slowly but surely melting. It was clear to Perry that Ben felt like a boy again because his mum was hurt.

Perry remembered how he felt when he first came to the Kingdom of Silk. He remembered standing under the Cox’s Orange Pippin, seeing the other children happily playing up there in the tree house. He’d wanted so badly to climb up with them, to breathe in the milky blue sky until he was so full of it there was no room left for anything else. But fear nailed his feet to the ground and he clung to the handle of his small and shabby suitcase unable to answer. It was Ben who took his hand that day and smoothed the lumps of worry from under his skin.

Perry put his arms around Ben’s neck, knitted his fingers together and pressed his cheek and chest as close as he could against Ben’s back. He breathed in the familiar smell of the old cable-knit jumper Nell had knitted from Barney Blacksheep’s wool. He closed his eyes tightly.

I love you, Benny. I love you, Nell. He locked his teeth as tight as prison bars and said the words in a secret part of him. He said them fierce and strong like a spell that would keep them all safe. He said them angrily too. Angry with himself because he had made his one small wish too late. Now Nell and Jenkins might never dance together. Perry said the locked-in I love you words over and over so he would not cry.

Mr Elliott arrived in his car to take Layla home. He wasn’t very good at fixing things like vacuum cleaners or leaky pipes, but he was calm and kind and knew about first aid.

‘Nell’s not talking!’ cried Layla. ‘She looks at us, but doesn’t say anything. What’s wrong with her, Daddy?’

‘Sometimes when people have had a shock they can’t talk and they want to sleep. But it’s better if they stay awake. That’s why Ben’s talking to Nell.’

‘Can’t we take her inside where it’s warm?’ asked Layla. ‘Please, Daddy, the ground’s so hard and Nell’s so soft.’

‘Ben’s doing all the right things,’ said Mr Elliott. ‘It’s best not to move Nell until the ambulance comes, in case she’s broken any bones.’

‘Her leg looks very broken,’ said Layla.

‘Bones can be mended,’ said Mr Elliott.

‘What about heads?’ Layla asked, looking at the map of Africa.

‘It might just need some stitches, but I’m only a first-aid man,’ her daddy answered. ‘Let’s wait and see what Doctor Larsson says.’

Mr Elliott offered to take the Silk children back to his house, but none of them wanted to leave Nell, so he and Layla stayed too. Doctor Larsson brought the Rainbow Girls with him. They hugged each other and Annie while the doctor listened to Nell’s heart, measured her blood pressure and gave her an injection to ease the pain. Afterwards the doctor talked quietly with Ben and then telephoned someone at a hospital in the city far away from Cameron’s Creek.

The minutes seemed like hours. Zeus, Nell’s one-eyed crow, kept a lookout from the roof of Ben’s shed. He cocked his head to the side, watched the moon rise with his one white eye, felt the wind ruffle his blue-black feathers and listened to the quiet rush of the Milky Way. But it was Blue who was first to know the ambulance was on its way. He felt the sound of it come up through the earth under his belly. The old deaf dog crept as close as he could to Nell and lay down with his head on her chest, whimpering as though he knew they were coming to take her away. Layla kissed Nell goodbye when the ambulance arrived. Then her daddy drove her home.

Ben folded Annie into his arms then climbed into the back of the ambulance with Nell. Slowly, carefully, the ambulance eased its way between the potholes in the long gravel driveway. Red and blue lights smeared the gathering darkness. Annie and her children watched as they veered left onto the Silk Road and then right onto the highway towards the city. Then the sirens started and the ambulance was swallowed up by the folds of the hills. It was May thirty-first, the last of the golden days.