Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
T he slow creep of dawn had turned the Cotswolds countryside into a misty wonderland of spiderwebs glistening with dew, the warmth of the sun leaching into the day, and the promise of a heatwave ahead. Another late-night call-out had left me exhausted, and I sat alone in the car park, head leaning gently against my steering wheel with my eyes closed as I relished the quiet of this time of day.
I hadn’t seen Teddy for a few days, and had purposefully ignored his calls and texts, believing it would be better not to see him, even though there was a strange, empty feeling inside me now. Emptiness that had, I think, been there for a very long time, but had recently been filled to the brim with flirty banter and daft antics, a warm sort of friendship, and more laughter than I can ever remember having had before. But now I’d been left with an architect-shaped hole in my chest which I was refusing to dwell on, and I swallowed away the desire to call him or see him; or watch him squeal and run away from a goat, or fall on his backside covered in plaster. No, I was not going to let my guard down with the world’s biggest flirt, because falling for him was not on the agenda and would likely end up being a catastrophic pain in my arse. And in my heart.
Reluctantly, I got out of the car, forcing myself to face the day. Yearning for some toast and a strong cup of tea to fortify myself for the undoubtedly busy clinics that lay ahead, in order to try and be civil, doing my best to read other people and respond accordingly. Despite Ted’s preliminary training, the spiky hedgehog was definitely back. Perhaps it had even morphed into a poison-tipped puffer fish of prickliness. Even Giles hadn’t been brave enough to pick me up on my snappiness, and clients were, wisely, choosing not to complain. Not to my face anyway. There were a couple of worryingly titled emails in my inbox, which I hadn’t yet opened. Perhaps returning to academia was the right thing to do? Perhaps Jonathan’s declaration was the open door I needed. I could slip into the anonymity of research once again and remove myself from too much “peopling”. I could hide behind a lab coat and goggles… Could I give him another chance? I shuddered at the prospect, but the opportunity to be successful, to be respected, to get back to being the me I always thought I’d be was dangling like a carrot in front of my nose.
Locking the car door behind me, a glimmer of movement across the car park caught my eye.
“Agnes?”
Barefoot and clad only in a long white cotton nightgown, our elderly neighbour was bending over and examining the underneath of the hedge. She was muttering something I couldn’t quite catch from this distance, and her movements were jerky and agitated.
“Agnes, are you ok?”
But she didn’t seem to hear me. She only tugged at her loose grey curls with one hand and bunched her nightdress in the white-knuckled fist of the other.
“What are you looking for?”
As I got closer, she finally noticed me, the startled twitch of her body making her stumble forwards, but the stare that she returned was blank, glassy, and devoid of any recognition.
Slowly I reached my hand out towards her.
“Agnes, are you sure you’re ok? It’s me, Hannah, from the vet’s.”
She watched my hand creep towards her, fascinated and horrified all at once, and as my fingers brushed the crêpey skin on the back of her hand, she slapped me away, her palm stinging against my wrist.
“You’re not Hannah. She has dark brown hair like me.” Her expression was mulish as she looked into my face. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not my sister.”
“No, I’m not your sister, Agnes. I’m one of the vets. What are you doing out here at this time of the morning?”
She shook her head, confusion flitting over her features.
“I’m looking for Edward. He said he’d be back soon. He went to get me strawberries, but I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”
“Do you mean Ted?”
Agnes knitted her brows and folded her arms. “He doesn’t like being called Ted.”
“Oh, ok.”
“He said he’d be back. He said he wouldn’t leave me alone if anything happened to Frank.” A tremor was shuddering through her body, and I couldn’t tell if it was the slight chill of the morning air or anxiety that was making her tremble. “But he hasn’t come back. Where can he be, Hannah?”
“I don’t know.”
Slowly, so as not to spook her, I removed my jacket and inched forwards, draping it over her thin shoulders. She finally smiled at me.
“I love him, you know?”
“You do?”
“Yes, with all my heart.”
“Edward?”
I tried to manoeuvre her across the car park, back towards the lane, but she dug her heels into the gravel, yanking away from my touch.
“No! Frank! Why would I love Edward? He’s far too young.” Agnes tutted in disgust.
“Ok, I think maybe I should take you home.”
“I’m not leaving until I’ve found Edward!” she screeched at me, and I backed away, hands held up in defeat. I was out of my depth here, not really understanding what was going on. I needed help. And there was only one person I could turn to. Annoyingly.
“I could call him for you?” But Agnes had returned to ferreting around in the hedge, softly calling out into the undergrowth and completely ignoring me.
Reaching for my phone, I tentatively swiped Teddy’s number, keeping my fingers crossed that he’d answer. And he did, on the third ring, his voice breathless, groggy, and panicked.
“Hannah? What’s wrong? Are you ok?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I’ve found Agnes wandering about in the surgery car park.”
“Oh.” He yawned loudly.
“I need your help. She’s a bit confused. Can you come?”
“Confused? Just take her home. It’s 5.30am.”
“I know that, but she won’t come with me. She’s looking for a guy named Edward. I wondered if she meant you?”
“What? I doubt it.”
“I’m not getting anywhere with her and she might listen to you. Please?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep. You woke me up.” A pause. “Plus, I got the distinct feeling that you didn’t want to see me, Hannah.”
His words hung in the air for a minute. A little bit of hurt suspended between us. He was, quite rightly, not going to make this easy for me.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.”
This was true, but it wasn’t the real reason for ghosting him these last few days. I couldn’t let him know just how much he’d got under my skin though. How desperate I was to try and break the cycle of wanting him against my better judgement. I tried a different approach in response to the incoherent grumble in my ear.
“Listen, grumpy chops, I wasn’t going to call it in so soon, but after the great devil sheep rescue, you do owe me a favour…” There was a long sigh down the line, but I could almost hear him smiling, and I couldn’t help it as my lips quirked in response. “Please, Ted, I’m struggling here and I really need your help. Don’t make me beg.”
“I’d like to make you beg.”
A flush crept over my skin, a flock of butterflies danced in my stomach, and sweat broke out on my palms. All because of that one comment.
Rein it in, Hannah, for fuck’s sake.
My hand tightened on the phone as another tension-filled pause commenced, an instant in time where I wasn’t sure which way this would go, but he finally said, “I’ll just put some clothes on and be right there.”
About three minutes later, Teddy appeared in a pair of flip-flops, grey jogging bottoms, and a black fitted T-shirt. His hair was mussed and sticking up, he had a slight crease in the skin of his cheek on which he’d obviously been lying just a few moments ago. My heart stuttered and stopped. He had absolutely no bloody right to do this to me. No right, at all, to look like some sort of sleepy bearded Greek god. And definitely no right whatsoever to be staring at me like that. Like he might just devour me whole.
Agnes looked up as Teddy approached her.
“There you are, you monkey! Where have you been?”
“Asleep, in bed, the whole time. Why don’t we take you home?” The low, calm tone of his voice sent goose pimples flitting across my skin.
Agnes looked a bit melty and nodded, then inclined her head in my direction.
“You’ll have to excuse my sister. She’s only gone and dyed her hair. Silly sausage, isn’t she?”
“A very silly sausage indeed,” Teddy agreed, eyebrow arched as he glanced over.
“Although it suits her, doesn’t it? Makes her look pretty, don’t you think?” Agnes was gazing at me thoughtfully and I blushed under her scrutiny. I wished my hair was down so I could shelter behind it and hide my face from any further inspection, lest they start to notice and comment on my many imperfections.
“Oh yes, she’s very pretty. Really quite beautiful, in fact.” Teddy’s voice was raspy and had a toe-curlingly seductive quality to it. It was official – I was done for. I swayed towards him, but as quickly as the moment came it was gone, and he turned back towards Agnes. “She can help us get you home and tucked back into bed, can’t she?”
Agnes tutted at me. “I wish you two would get married already. He needs someone to take care of him. And I’d like an excuse to buy a new hat.”
Teddy laughed, threading Agnes’s arm into the crook of his elbow. “Come along now. If I married Hannah, how would I be able to look after you? She’s very demanding!”
“Tell me about it!”
They chuckled good-naturedly and Teddy led her just a few hundred metres down the country lane past The Old Rectory. We arrived at her small thatched cottage, set back from the road behind a beautiful garden alive with the humming of insects and the scent of honeysuckle.
The faded and peeling blue front door stood open and there was a winding dog rose trained around the frame that was swaying in the breeze, thorns hooking my T-shirt as I brushed past and into the gloomy interior. Where I promptly barrelled straight into Teddy’s stationary form, crushing my nose painfully into the firm muscles between his shoulder blades. He reached backwards to steady me, clutching at my hand and squeezing my digits tightly.
“Shit, Hannah. Look at this place,” he whispered.
Agnes continued on ahead, winding her way down the corridor, artfully avoiding the heaps of belongings that covered nearly all the available floorspace, while we stared incredulously about us. The house was packed to the rafters with stuff. Every available nook and cranny was crammed with knick-knacks, every shelf and cupboard overflowing with odds and ends, while sheets of paper and envelopes littered the floor like autumn leaves. Every tread of the stairs was piled precariously with things, and as the floorboards creaked beneath our feet, a tinkling of crockery came from teetering skyscrapers of boxes all around.
Teddy met my eye, and I shook my head in disbelief.
“What should we do?”
“What can we do? It’s her choice to live this way.” I shrugged, feeling helpless.
“But she’s obviously struggling to cope,” he said.
Before I could answer, Agnes called from somewhere deep inside the house, its Aladdin’s cave interior muffling her voice.
“Come on, you two. Let’s have a cup of tea.”
We found her in the kitchen, and she gestured to a small cleared area at the 1980s-style yellow Formica table. She was busy shuffling crockery to make space on the work surface and an ancient kettle began to whistle noisily on an old gas hob. I hesitantly took a seat on the end of a bench, pushing a carrier bag full of brand-new washing up sponges to the side to make room, while Teddy leant against the countertop, his head almost touching the low, sagging ceiling.
“Now, why are you here, at this time in the morning? I’m sure you have much better things to be doing than stopping by to see this batty old woman?”
The usual clarity and shrewd intelligence was back in her eyes, and there was no hint of the dazed and confused person we had encountered in the car park.
“We just wanted to check on our favourite neighbour, that’s all,” Teddy said kindly, reaching into the fridge and passing her the milk.
“Well, aren’t you just a sweetheart? You should hold on to him, Hannah.”
“That’s what I keep telling her, Agnes, but I’m not sure she agrees.”
“What a silly sausage!”
“Very.” He levelled an unbearably smug smirk at me.
“Who’s Frank?” I asked quietly, and she froze momentarily.
“He was my husband, but he was killed in action when he was in the army.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Agnes.”
“It was a very long time ago, when there were a lot of IRA bombings in the 70s. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She handed out the tea and then reached up to a shelf and pulled out a faded photograph of a dapper young man in a military uniform from behind a dusty teapot, his smile lopsided and mischievous. “He was very handsome, just like this one.” She leant over and patted Teddy’s cheek, who grinned in reply.
“And Edward, who was he?”
Agnes’s wrinkled face flushed, her brow creasing.
“Gosh, I haven’t thought about him for a long time. He was Frank’s much younger brother, and a very gallant young man. He came round to call on me when Frank died and made sure that I was ok. He was a good boy…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes misted over.
I sipped my tea and the oppressively crowded house loomed inwards. Agnes was momentarily lost to long-forgotten memories, while Teddy and I glanced at each other.
“Do you have many visitors, Agnes?” he asked, breaking the quiet. His deep voice was rich and warming after the pensive silence that had engulfed us.
“Oh no, dear, just me and my goats. No one much bothers with me nowadays.”
“Oh.” Teddy looked visibly pained.
“Anyway, nothing to be maudlin about. I’ve had a good life, and now I have some lovely new neighbours!” She smiled broadly at us.
“Too right,” Teddy murmured, looking at me again.
Agnes had no obvious recollection of the episode in the surgery car park, and she seemed to be happy gazing at us over the rim of her teacup once again.
“I should get going, I’m afraid. I was called out to a tricky foaling last night and I’ve got a clinic starting at eight.”
I stood, stretching my aching limbs, my fingertips brushing the cracked and stained ceiling above, before moving to the sink to rinse my teacup, where Teddy joined me, offering to dry up, our shoulders bumping in the cramped space.
“I have to head in to the office this morning too,” Teddy added, turning back to Agnes. “But pop in and see me when you feed Deidre later?”
“Oh yes, that would be nice. I could bake a cake?”
“I have a Victoria sponge with your name on it,” Teddy said, touching her arm gently.
“If you’re sure?” Agnes’s face was eager, her eyes wide with the promise of cake and company. “When do you finish, Hannah? I’ll come over then?”
“Oh, er…” My head whipped around wildly, looking to Teddy to help me get out of this, to tell her we weren’t together. That I needn’t be included in this social neighbourly gathering.
But he was just nodding his agreement. “We can wait for you to finish your evening clinic. When’s your last appointment?”
“Six,” I said weakly.
“I’ll rustle up some dinner for six-thirty.” Teddy was beaming triumphantly. “I hope you like salad?”
“Yes, delicious. I can bring some cherry tomatoes from my greenhouse,” Agnes said, and I nodded mutely, unsure how I had been coerced into spending time with Teddy against my better judgement. Again.
Yet inside me, a kernel of warmth bloomed, bright and hot. And horrifyingly hopeful.