Chapter 23
23
Just over a week after the debacle at the regatta, Rick parked his SUV in the car park around the back of the hotel and let himself in the rear entrance using the key code. Anya had been understandably reluctant to spend time with him since the near miss with Freya, and he couldn’t blame her. Given how guilty he felt about persuading her to sneak away for a few minutes, he could only imagine how bad Anya must’ve been feeling. Not that she’d spoken to him about it. When he’d tried to raise the matter, she’d clammed up. At least she’d carried on speaking to him though, and he eventually persuaded her to go out with him for lunch.
He had a picnic lunch in a cool box in the boot and they were going to drive to one of the viewing points just outside the village. He hadn’t even thought about mentioning her offer to get Chloe to babysit again. It would take time for her to feel okay about leaving Freya for anything other than work, and Rick was prepared to wait as long as she needed.
He wandered along the back corridor of the hotel, noting how tired some of the paintwork was starting to look. Everything was spotlessly clean, but there was a slightly depressing air about the space. Might be worth mentioning it to Anya or Davy because it wouldn’t take much to brighten it up – a couple of framed prints on the wall to draw the eye up and away from the scuffed and faded skirting boards.
All thoughts about flaking paintwork shot out the window when he walked into Davy’s office to find him pale and clammy. Anya had one arm around his waist as though trying to hold him up, her face almost as white as his great-uncle’s. ‘I’m fine,’ Davy was saying, though there was no heat in the words. He sounded exhausted.
‘What happened?’ Rick demanded as he rushed over to take Davy’s weight.
‘I don’t know,’ Anya replied. ‘I just gave him the cushion I made for his chair and when he stood up to put it behind him he keeled over.’
‘I did not keel over, girl!’ Davy growled, sounding a bit more like himself. ‘I just stood up too quickly, that’s all. Let me sit down and stop fussing, the pair of you.’
Anya scowled at him. ‘Next time I’ll let you fall on your stupid face, you stubborn old fool!’ She might have sounded furious, but Rick could tell she was really scared for Davy.
Rick helped his great-uncle into his chair then stepped back so he could look at both of them. ‘What do you mean next time? Has this happened before?’
‘It’s nothing, bit of a blood sugar drop,’ Davy protested, though Rick didn’t miss the way he wouldn’t meet Rick’s eyes. Yes, you should feel bloody guilty .
‘He had a wobble last week when he was climbing down a stepladder after changing a lightbulb in reception,’ Anya stated in a flat tone. ‘Though that time it was down to him being a bit light-headed because he hadn’t had any lunch.’
‘Two funny spells in a week? Sounds like we need to take you to the doctor and find out what’s going on,’ Rick said to Davy.
‘No! I’m fine. It’s probably just a virus or something.’
‘A virus.’ Rick tapped his index finger as though counting off. ‘A drop in your blood sugar.’ He tapped his middle finger. ‘Light-headed from skipping a meal.’ He tapped his ring finger. ‘I think we definitely need to find out which one it is, don’t you?’ The foul glare from Davy might’ve scared off another person, but Rick was absolutely at the end of his tether, and sick with worry to boot because he knew it was none of those things. He turned to Anya. ‘Can you do me a favour and fetch Davy a glass of water while I try and talk some sense into him?’
She snorted. ‘Good luck with that.’ But she did at least leave the room.
As soon as she was gone, Rick rounded on Davy, who already had his mouth open as though about to voice another protest. ‘No!’ Rick snapped. ‘Not another bloody word from you. We are going to the surgery right now or I swear to God I am going to phone Mum and let her deal with you, because I can’t go on like this.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
Rick didn’t bother to answer, just pulled out his phone and began to scroll through his contacts for his mum’s number.
‘Okay, okay,’ Davy agreed. ‘But not a word to anyone else.’
Rick put his phone away just as Anya returned with a glass of water and a plate of biscuits. ‘In case it really is just your blood sugar,’ she said as she put them down in front of Davy.
‘I’m going to give him a lift up to the surgery,’ Rick told her. ‘We’ll have to give lunch a miss, I’m afraid. ’
Her look of relief told Rick he wasn’t the only one who’d been worried about Davy, and guilt was a tight knot in his gut. Well, once he’d been in with Davy to speak to Doc Ferguson – and there was no way he was sitting outside and giving Davy the chance to bullshit him afterwards – he would at least know just how bad things were. And then he and his great-uncle were going to have another chat, because Rick had told Anya she could trust him and being caught between that and his loyalty to Davy was tearing him apart.
Doc Ferguson gave a double-take when Rick walked into his office on his uncle’s heels. ‘Rick, good to see you.’ He turned to Davy. ‘And it’s good to see you too. I’m pleased you’ve agreed to be open with your family about your condition, because you’re going to need their support.’
Davy slumped into the plastic chair closest to the doctor’s desk, his mouth set in the same belligerent line it had been in since Rick insisted on coming in with him. Rick swallowed a sigh as he took the second chair and smiled at Doc Ferguson. He’d got through the door, which was a miracle in itself. ‘Thanks so much for giving up your lunch break to see us.’
Doc nodded like it was nothing then turned back to Davy. ‘I hear you’ve been having a couple of dizzy spells. Can you tell me in detail what happened?’
Davy shrugged, looking more like a sulky teen than a man definitely old enough to know better. ‘It’s like I’ve been telling the boy here: I stood up a bit too quick, that’s all.’
‘And you had a wobble on a stepladder last week,’ Rick reminded him, keeping his tone light. ‘And yes, we will be having a conversation later about you going up one in the first place.’
Doc huffed. ‘Good luck with that. I’ve been doing some shifts with the air ambulance team and I swear half our call-outs are to gentlemen in their, shall we say, twilight years, who have fallen off things. I had one the other week who decided to try and prune a tree in his garden with a ladder and a rented chainsaw.’
Rick shuddered. ‘I don’t think I want to know.’
Doc grinned. ‘Luckily the chainsaw went one way and he went the other, but it could’ve been fatal.’
‘I was only changing a damn lightbulb, not scaling the north face of the bloody Eiger,’ Davy grumbled. ‘Now can we get on with this farce, because I’ve got a hotel to run.’
Rick sat back and let Doc do his thing. He ran through the basics, taking Davy’s blood pressure, checking his eyes and inside his ears in case there was any sign of an infection or inflammation that might be causing balance issues. He kept up a constant stream of chatter with questions interspersed about how he’d been eating and sleeping. With the physical examination done, Doc began tapping away on his computer, noting down every grudgingly given titbit of information he managed to winkle out of Davy.
‘My hip’s been giving me a bit of trouble,’ his great-uncle eventually admitted. ‘But that’s to be expected, isn’t it, at my age?’
Doc stopped typing and sat back in his chair, no sign of his earlier good humour. ‘It could be, but we won’t know until we have a proper look.’
Davy shook his head. ‘What do you mean a proper look? I don’t want someone slicing me open!’
Doc smiled. ‘No slicing, just a scan for now. I know you have strong feelings about treatment, Davy, and while I don’t necessarily agree with your approach I cannot force you to accept my recommendations. I do think it would be wise to at least get a scan so we know what we are dealing with here.’
‘All right then, but only a scan.’
Rick gave a little sigh of a relief. ‘I can take you to the hospital when your appointment comes through.’
Doc Ferguson nodded. ‘And in the meantime I can write a prescription for some pain relief that should help you sleep a little better, Davy. How does that sound?’
‘Yeah, thanks. That’s probably what’s causing the dizzy spells: me being tired.’ Rick and Doc exchanged a silent glance.
Rick waited until they were back in the car before he turned to his great-uncle. ‘This can’t go on you know, keeping everyone else in the dark.’
Davy scowled at him. ‘Don’t start that again. I don’t need another lecture, just take me back to the hotel.’
Rick shook his head. ‘No, Davy, I’m serious. I know you want to enjoy what time you have left, but given your condition, situations like this are inevitable. You can’t keep acting like nothing’s going to happen.’
‘I know exactly what’s going to happen, boy, you don’t need to remind me!’
‘Then why won’t you tell the rest of the family? They love you as much as I do and they deserve the chance to come to terms with what’s happening too. You can’t keep shutting them out and pretending it’s for their own good. They’ll be upset when they find out, there’s no avoiding that, but if you leave it too long they’ll be devastated you didn’t let them support you when you need it the most.’
‘I don’t need their support, I don’t need anything other than to be left alone. Why can’t you understand that? ’
Rick rubbed at the tension headache building between his eyes. ‘And why can’t you understand that you are tearing me apart? I promised Anya I’d always be honest with her. Don’t you think she deserves that after everything Drew put her through? By forcing me to keep your illness a secret, you’re making me lie to her, Davy. She knows there’s something wrong, it was obvious earlier how worried she is about you.’
‘Well, if I tell her I don’t need her at the hotel any more she won’t have to be worried about me, will she?’ Davy snapped.
Horror flooded through Rick. ‘You wouldn’t do that. You know how much she’s relying on that job to make ends meet.’
‘Blackmail’s not so nice when you’re on the other end of it, is it?’
Rick struggled to process what he was hearing. ‘So that’s where we’re at? If I tell anyone in the family about you being ill, you’ll sack Anya?’
Davy didn’t reply, just turned his head to stare out the passenger window.
Disappointed, Rick started the engine and drove them back to the hotel in silence. He knew Davy was lashing out because he was scared and in pain, but Rick couldn’t let things go on like this. He didn’t really believe Davy would get rid of Anya, but if he did then Rick had plenty of savings in the bank. Living at home might not be ideal, but he’d been squirrelling away every spare penny that hadn’t gone into building his business and there was enough there to see her through until she could find something else.
He pulled up outside the front of the hotel and his great-uncle got out and slammed the door. Rick let him take a couple of paces up the path before he lowered his window and called out, ‘You’ve got until after Ma’s party to work out how you’re going to break the news to everyone. ’
Davy turned to glare at him. ‘Or what?’
‘Or I’ll tell them myself. Let me know when you hear about your scan.’ Without waiting for a reply, Rick pressed the button to close his window and drove off. He couldn’t face seeing Anya, not with everything bubbling so close to the surface. One look from her and he’d give the game away. All he could do was hold his nerve and hope Davy saw sense sooner rather than later.