Chapter 28
The next day, the Tube was finally running again. She could have enjoyed a more leisurely morning, but she’d woken up far earlier than her alarm, and so arrived at the shelter before anyone else. She exchanged pleasantries with the night security man, a Nigerian whose broad smile and easy laughter she was sorry not to have experienced before. It was nearing eight, but barely anyone seemed to be up and about.
She’d intended to stop at a coffee shop on the way, but had wandered past all of them lost in thought. Instead, she made herself a cup of tea using the own-label offering in the shelter’s kitchen. Despite dunking the bag several hundred times and using only the tiniest dab of milk, she couldn’t get the drink to go darker than the kind of barely-there cream colour that Farrow and Ball would probably describe as Camel’s Wheeze.
She trundled over to the kitchen window. Hozan was in the front seat of his car, door open, reading a book. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his hair looked like you could no more pass a comb through it than you could find a needle in it.
‘Have you spoken to him yet?’
She started at Jasper’s voice, spilling tea all over her hand.
‘Fuck!’
The scald was instant, a split-second between the sensory stimulus and her brain screaming get this boiling hot fucking lava off me, you slow-witted imbecile!
‘Shit, sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump.’
The liquid had pooled in the place where her fingers were gripping the handle. She tried to take the cup in her other hand, but the rim was too hot. Her skin throbbed in protest.
Jasper grabbed it from her and placed it on the windowsill. ‘I really am sorry.’
She frantically shook the liquid off, trying to release its grip on her epidermis. ‘Wow, that smarts.’
He gently took hold of her wrist and examined the patch. It was already deep red, like a raspberry birthmark.
‘Come over here.’ He calmly led her to the sink, turned on the tap, ensured the water was running cold, and then held her hand under its flow.
Her pain receptors progressively numbed until only the faint echo of the original sensation remained. It was then she became fully aware of how closely Jasper was standing, his soft palm bearing the weight of her forearm, the water snaking over their entwined limbs. Their gazes locked.
She cleared her throat. ‘I think I can take it from here.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ he said, ‘but as a qualified first aider, it’s my duty to ensure you’re properly seen to.’
Hah. Properly seen to. She couldn’t stop the smirk that spread across her lips.
He tutted. ‘Good gracious, woman! Get your mind out of the gutter.’
‘My mind may be in the gutter,’ she said theatrically, ‘but at least it is looking at the stars.’
His eyebrows crept inwards. ‘I wouldn’t have you pegged as an Oscar Wilde fan.’
‘I believe it was Lady Windermere’sFan.’
She only knew this because of a production she’d been in at school.
He ignored the sass. ‘Let me see if I can find something to rub on it.’
She smirked again.
‘Jesus! Why does everything have to be about sex with you?’
‘Shouldn’t you be able to answer that?’
He strode over to the freezer and pulled out a bag of peas. ‘I don’t fancy my chances of getting to the bottom of it.’
She sniggered.
He realised what he’d said and threw his hands up in resignation. ‘I give up!’ He wrapped a tea towel round the peas and handed them to her. ‘Here. Hold this on for another few minutes.’
He went to fetch the first aid box. As he stretched to grab it from the top of a cupboard, she tried hard not to notice the two little pits where his back met his glutes.
‘So, just out of interest,’ he said, ‘what is it that you do when you’re not doing community service?’
She had a feeling Jasper wouldn’t approve of the whole reputation management gig, even the events part of it, so she told him how she was meant to be on her road trip.
‘Where should you have been today?’ He unscrewed the cap on a scraggy old tube of Savlon.
Hmm. Weird. For the first week that Ziggy and Nancy were away, she woke up every morning knowing exactly where she should have been. This week she wasn’t so certain.
‘Arizona, I think?’
‘I’m sure you’re not missing much. Isn’t it mostly sand?’
With exquisite tenderness, he rubbed some of the ointment onto her hand. A tingle of pleasure crept up her arm.
‘Followed by the Grand Canyon.’
‘Just a big hole.’ He looked up, eyes narrowed, daring her to find something lewd in the statement.
She contained all facial movement. She wasn’t doing anything to jeopardise the hand rubbing. ‘And then a helicopter ride over the Hoover Dam.’
The words big dyke were spilling out of his mouth when Gayle poked her head around the door. Jasper grimaced. Simone provided air cover by awkwardly pulling her hand away and saying so anyway really loudly. Yep, absolutely nothing to hear here. They exchanged a conspiratorial glance.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ Gayle’s nostrils flared. ‘You pair had better not be flirting.’
Had they been? She looked at Jasper. He was focussing hard on putting the cap on the tube.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She’s not my type.’
Clearly they hadn’t been.
‘Ouch!’ she said with forced levity. ‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll hurt my feelings?’
‘You have feelings?’
‘Touché.’
‘Simone,’ said Gayle, ‘if I find out you have so much as thought about Jasper in anything other than a professional capacity, I will haunt your dreams like Freddie Kruger, and I will tear you a new one with my massive knifey hands, do you understand?’
‘I’m not sure. By a new one, do you mean anus?’
She could sense Jasper’s amusement, which would have been more gratifying had he not just confirmed her he-doesn’t-fancy-you suspicions so audibly.
Gayle was staring at them both. ‘Get some volunteering done, will you? Steve’s gathered you a pile of sheets dirtier than the Holy Shroud of Turin.’
‘I just need to put this dressing on,’ said Jasper, ‘and then I will release her back into her day of servitude.’
Gayle stomped off, turning the air blue as she went.
He placed some gauze over the mark. She wondered if the skin would blister. He smoothed medical tape around the edge of the fabric, his touch as soft as a sigh.
Another figure appeared at the door. It was Hozan, holding his camcorder, but not pointing it at her this time.
Jasper let go of her hand and gestured to the device. ‘You need to put that away before Gayle sees you. She’s on the warpath.’
Hozan nodded mutely, then sauntered off.
Jasper gathered the first aid bits together. ‘So, as I think I was asking before I permanently scarred you, have you spoken to him yet?’
‘No.’ At least not since Hozan had said what he’d said at the funeral.
‘You really should. He’s a fascinating character. You won’t meet anyone else like him.’
‘I’m alright, thanks.’
‘Seriously. You can learn a lot from him. He’s a genius.’
‘Like I say, I’m good.’
‘Hmm. Oscar Wilde and easily scared. You are full of surprises.’
‘Is this reverse psychology? Because it isn’t working.’
He grinned, showing off his faint dimples. ‘I’d better get started. Busy day.’ He headed for the door.
‘I’m not scared of him!’ she shouted to his back.
He made the sound of a chicken.
‘I’m not!’
He waved over his shoulder. ‘I’ll catch you later.’
Ugh, he was so aggravating when he was being all superior and knowy. She gazed out of the window at Hozan’s car. Fine. When she’d done yet more laundry and helped set up for the gardening class scheduled for later, maybe she’d go and bloody well find out what all the fuss was about.