Chapter 19
19
Everything hurt. From his little toes to his hair. How could your hair hurt? And why was he even bothering to use his brain to ask himself that question when he was lying midway down the side of the gorge surrounded by rocks he really hoped hadn’t punctured any part of him. He should move. Because no matter how injured he was, no one ever got better from staying still. In this heat, if he didn’t move, he would most probably cook like a lamb on a panegyri spit.
‘Stay still! Did you hear me, Christos? Stay still!’
Molly. Still talking. And she would 100 per cent kick his ass with ‘I told you so’ the second she was close enough. How close was she? She wasn’t going to try to come down here, was she? Because that would be insane. Which was why he had been about to help her from the outset. Show her where the best foot placements were. Except, he hadn’t managed that himself.
He stretched out an arm and pulled himself around a little. Time to test if everything was still attached.
‘What are you doing?! I said stay still! I’m coming down!’
‘No!’ he yelled. His voice was scratchy and weak. Ugh, he hated that. He tried to clear his throat. ‘Do not come down here, Molly!’
‘Why not?’ she yelled back, sounding marginally closer if his ears were working right. ‘I was meant to be coming down here, right? To see the tree.’
‘But… not like this.’
He was going to get to his feet now because he could feel things moving beneath him that he hoped were just insects and not a pit of snakes. He put his hands to solid-ish ground and leaned some weight into his arms. Yeah, that hurt but it wasn’t unbearable.
‘Stay still! Please!’ Molly shouted.
He wasn’t staying still. He was getting up and showing her he was perfectly capable of sorting his own mess out. Slowly he got up onto his feet and stretched into a standing position. Now everything was spinning and he was struggling to stay upright.
‘You’re so stupid! Sit down!’ Molly ordered, arriving at his side and taking hold of his arm.
‘Did you call me stupid?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Good. You’re recognising insults. Sit down, you’re bleeding.’
Was he? Suddenly, the ground, even with the threat of wildlife, sounded more appealing than staying on his feet. He hit the vegetation and took a breath.
‘Well, your T-shirt is ruined. A lost Lacoste,’ Molly said. ‘So we’ll just take that off for the bin.’
‘What?’
Somehow, very quickly, his T-shirt was off and then, just as fast, it was pressed tight to his body. What was going on?
‘Trash,’ Molly shouted. ‘Look at me, not the T-shirt.’
He did as she said. Her light waves of hair, those eyes with grey amid the blue, a serious expression on her face. Hold on, why was she looking so serious? He dipped his eyes to his chest.
‘Why aren’t you looking at me, Christos? I mean, you do it a lot when you’re not sat at the bottom of a ravine. When you’re… pretending to be a waiter and… jumping aboard boats.’
‘I look at you a lot?’ He scoffed. ‘You look at me!’
‘In your dreams,’ Molly answered.
‘Not last night but the night before…’
‘OK, now I know we do need to move you because there is no way you would have admitted to that so easily. Do you remember hitting your head at all?’
‘My head?’
‘Large, hard thing that makes decisions for you?’
‘Are you sure you mean my head?’
‘OK, let’s get you up.’
‘Molly, you are heavy flirting with me.’
‘And you are possibly concussed. I would say hopefully but I don’t mean that. Come on, up.’
She was persistent. One hand pulling at his, the other pressing his top to his torso. He was hot and cold all at once and the sun was suddenly blinding as his body complied and he stood.
‘Do you think you can walk?’ Molly asked him.
‘I know I can walk, Molly. I have been walking for many years.’
‘OK, tough guy, let’s go.’
Every step was agony and so slow. It felt like he had aged in the time it had taken to fall down this section of mountain. And Molly kept talking at him. What were these flowers called? Were there any venomous spiders in Corfu? Did they need to take the truck to a garage to be serviced before they sold it? If there was a zombie apocalypse what would he do? Finally, she stopped talking and it was then he realised they were back up and off the harsh mountain terrain and on the roadside. Somehow she had navigated them across and upwards, finding a slightly less severe incline back into civilisation. He sat down on the road tarmac.
‘We’re still a walk away from the truck, I dropped a pin on Google Maps before I went to get you, but I can run to get it in a minute. I just want to put something on that wound first.’
‘Wound?’
‘Water,’ she said, offering him a small bottle she had plucked from the bag over her shoulder.
He was so thirsty. He took it and drank like a dehydrated camel.
‘OK, hold still.’
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, taking the bottle away from his mouth. ‘What is that?’
‘Nothing for you to concern yourself with. I don’t even know if it will do any good, but I know it won’t do any harm, and let’s call it product testing.’
‘What?’
‘Sshh. This is going to hurt a bit.’
He felt the sting of what he assumed was some kind of antibacterial wipe and then there was something else… was that a brush?
‘Is it herbal?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘Whatever you’re putting on me.’
‘It’s all natural.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Perhaps stemming bleeding and promoting healing of this kind wasn’t what I designed it for but, you know, possible new avenues and all that.’
What had she said? ‘Did you say you “designed” it?’
‘Did I?’
‘Did you not?’
‘I don’t know. But you did hit your head.’
‘I did not hit my ears. What is this thing you are wiping me with?’
‘It’s a beauty blender.’
‘It looks like an egg.’
‘Agreed.’
‘And this stuff smells like popcorn and lemons.’
‘It’s toffee and lime actually.’
‘And you made it? At your pharmacy?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘Right, you wait here, don’t move because we need the primer to set.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to get the truck. And then I’ll take you to the doctor.’
‘Wait, you’re going to drive Vaggelis’s truck?’ Christos asked.
‘Actually it’s ours, remember? Fifty-fifty.’ She didn’t wait for him to say anything more, she was off and running.