Chapter 32
Sleepless Annie:
White sweatshirt with burgundy designs
Pink flouncy skirt
Long tan winter boots
Dark pink woollen coat
Cream, pink and tan mohair scarf
‘Owen!!’ She absolutely rushed at him, just could not wait to be hugging him.
‘Owen!’ she repeated, holding him tight and running her hand over his rough and tumble hair.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ she added. ‘I’ve been so worried!
And no wonder, you set your flat on fire!
And didn’t even think about letting us know! ’
‘Hardly,’ he protested. ‘I set my Clash T-shirt on fire and the air fryer got a bit melted and there was lots of smoke, but I put it all out, smothered the flames with a tea towel like a good boy scout. Honestly, they’ve made a total drama out of it.’
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking him over carefully. It took her a moment to work out what was slightly different. ‘You haven’t got any eyebrows!’
Owen gave a fairly casual shrug in response to this. ‘Oh yeah,’ he shrugged. ‘But they’ll grow back, won’t they?’
‘Hope so. And what about your hands? What’s the story?’
‘Yeah… they’re a bit burnt. Molten bits of plastic stuck to the skin apparently.
Some pretty impressive blister action. That’s why they’ve kept me in.
Well, A), I can’t do anything for myself and, B), they need to make sure when the skin grows back, it’s nice and stretchy or I could lose some mobility, which would obviously not be good.
I told them I was a concert violinist, just to wind them up. The doctor went a bit pale at that.’
‘Owen!’
‘Well, I wanted to make sure they’d look after me properly and they have. It’s a very nice hospital,’ he said approvingly. ‘And Glasgow nurses are super nice. In fact, Glasgow people are super nice.’ He gave a ‘How’re ye doin’ pal?’ in his best imitation of a Glaswegian accent.
‘Nice of you to tell me you’d had a fire and landed in here. I’ve been worried sick. Couldn’t you have phoned?’ She looked at his hand bandages. ‘Or asked someone to phone me?’
‘I forgot to bring my phone… I think it’s back at the flat. I hope it’s back at the flat. Couldn’t remember any numbers, not even our home phone.’
‘You could have got the uni or your halls to phone us. They have all the numbers,’ Annie told him.
‘You know, I just thought of that this morning,’ he replied. ‘So I was going to ask one of the nurses to help me do that. There was a lot going on yesterday,’ he said in his defence.
‘I’ve not heard anything from you for three days!’ she protested.
‘Well… I was locked in my room for two days doing an essay, then this happened… and they did give me some pretty strong painkillers. But sorry, didn’t mean to worry you.’ He put his hand on hers and gave his ‘please forgive me’ smile.
There was a comfortable pause as Annie smiled back, and neither of them needed to say any more.
Annie couldn’t help noticing how soft the bed was and how cosily warm this room was.
Now that she knew he was OK, all the adrenaline that had been coursing through her system, keeping her awake, powering her on through her long drive and the drama of arriving at his halls, seemed to have left her.
And here felt like a snug little cocoon away from the world, away from all the messages on her phone, the questions to answer, the one million things that had to be done, sorted and organised.
Couldn’t she just close her eyes for a moment and have a tiny little rest here, away from it all?
‘Mum… are you OK?’ Owen asked.
‘I’m very tired,’ she admitted. ‘I left London at 11 p.m. and I’ve been on the go ever since.’
‘An all-nighter?’ Owen asked, sounding almost impressed. ‘How did your show go? The big fashion thing?’
‘Nice of you to ask,’ she gave a big, wide yawn, ‘but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s tonight.’
‘Tonight?!’ there was no hiding the surprise in his voice. Even a daft eighteen-year-old who’d tried to dry his T-shirt in an air fryer could tell that being in Glasgow on the morning of the event you’d been planning for months was not exactly ideal.
‘I have to go back to London, but I don’t know if I can – I’ve had no sleep, Owen.
I might drive the car off the road. And you’re not going to be able to do any driving for me with the Teletubby hands.
You’ll have to come home,’ she realised.
‘At least until you can use a phone, not to mention wipe your—’
‘OK, Mum, but we’ll have to think of a workaround for that. I’m not having you or Ed—’
‘No! Definitely not!’ she agreed.
For a moment, she wondered how quickly a bidet could be installed. But would he be able to turn on the tap…?
‘There are trains to London,’ was her next thought. ‘We looked them up, to make sure you could come and visit us whenever you wanted.’
‘Yeah… all day long. But what will you do with the car?’ he asked.
She honestly felt too tired to even think. Owen was here and he needed help. The show was there, all the way back in London, seven hours’ drive away… four and a half hours on the train away and she had to sleep. She had to or she was going to just collapse under the effort of it all.
No, wait a minute. First of all, she had to go and speak to the nurse.
She of the striking lipstick. Annie felt she could count on a woman with such good taste.
When she was out of the room and spotted her target in the corridor hurrying to her next assignment, Annie went up to her.
‘Do you have just a second for a few questions, if that’s OK? ’ she asked.
‘No problem, come over to the station then we can look up Owen’s notes on the system.
’ Once the computer had been consulted, it was clear that Own could leave today, if he was going somewhere where he could be looked after.
He would need to be seen again in five days’ time.
‘And he has to do his exercises, keep stretching out the fingers, make sure that skin isn’t growing back tight,’ were the instructions.
‘OK… OK… we will go back to London on the train and then we’ll bring him back here on the train for his follow-up appointment. So, when do the bandages come off?’
‘Keep them on for the train, but they can come off at home and we’ll give you something lighter.’
‘And one more question, sorry…’ Annie could see that she was busy and needed to head off to the next thing on her list. ‘Parking here is free?’
The nurse nodded.
‘And can you leave your car in the car park overnight?’
She nodded again.
OK, Annie thought to herself, a plan is forming.
‘Just keep him exercising his fingers, make sure he understands he’s in for it if he doesn’t,’ the nurse added.
‘Yes, of course. Your lipstick, by the way, completely perfect on you.’
‘Charlotte Tilbury,’ they both said together.
‘It’s a dream,’ Annie added.
‘Wait… I know you,’ the nurse exclaimed. ‘You’re Annie Valentine from the TV show! You made me buy this lipstick!’
* * *
Annie and Owen took a taxi to the station.
They had to dash across the enormous concourse under a Victorian glass ceiling to get onto the 10 a.m. to Euston before it departed.
Once they were in their seats, she answered all the messages that could be settled with a text or a note and called to answer all the questions that couldn’t.
The news that she wouldn’t be at the venue until 3 p.m. at the earliest was greeted with disbelief.
But she tried to reassure Paula and Lauren that she would be right there at the end of the phone, fully tuned in and able to answer any question whenever.
‘We’ve made great plans, we are organised,’ she assured them in turn.
‘If you need anything from me, I am here and I will sort it. I will be right there, in the twinkling of an eye. I’m flying along on a very fast train.
Had something to deal with. I will be there, honest, I promise.
Sit tight, I’m on my way.’ But she did have to urge them, ‘Please no one tell Svetlana, just say I’m off doing something urgent for the show. ’
Then finally, it was time to phone Ed and explain everything.
He was in class, of course, so she left a voice note, a bit long, a bit rambling, but she had now been up forever and hopefully he would understand.
‘Owen is fine… apart from a pair of burned hands, which are going to heal up perfectly, but otherwise, he is totally fine. He put his T-shirt in the air fryer… I can’t imagine…
Anyway, we are rushing back to London on the train – don’t worry, I have it all figured out, babes.
Speak very soon. Call me right back when you can.
Love you.’ But it wouldn’t have been any use if he had, because as soon as Annie had switched off her phone and tucked it into her bag, her head fell against the headrest, and despite her promises that she would be available for every call and every query, she sank deeply into the comfy plush of the velour and was asleep almost instantly.