Chapter 31
31
Finn had finished the indoor jobs and had started on a fence repair that needed doing in the horses’ paddock when he saw Aiden’s yellow jeep draw into the yard.
He’d planned to stop work and grab a sandwich soon anyway, so he went up to meet the vet. When he got there, he saw Jade had beaten him to it.
She was talking to someone through the driver’s window, who wasn’t Aiden, Finn realised. He recognised Kate’s coppery-red hair and remembered Aiden had mentioned he planned to propose to her in Venice. That must have gone well then. They were still together anyway.
Kate opened the driver’s door and got out. ‘Hi, Finn,’ she said, spotting him. ‘I was just saying to Jade here that we had a bit of a disaster when we were away. But you must promise me you won’t laugh.’
‘Why would we laugh at your disaster?’ Finn said, glancing at Jade, who just shrugged slightly, clearly as mystified as he was.
‘Because it’s kind of funny too,’ Kate said. ‘Right then. Are you ready? Prepare yourselves.’
The passenger door of the jeep opened and someone got out. At first it was hard to see who it was because the figure had a wide white bandage obscuring the top half of his face. He also had his left arm in plaster and he was leaning on a stick.
‘Aiden,’ Jade gasped in alarm. ‘What on earth happened to you?’
‘Broken dose, fractured elbow and a cracked big toe.’
‘Blimey,’ Jade said, at the same moment as Finn swore under his breath. ‘How on earth did all that happen? You didn’t have another run-in with a goat, did you?’
‘Not a goat,’ Kate said.
‘More of a boat,’ Aiden finished with a wince.
‘A boat?’ Jade shook her head in disbelief. ‘What boat?’
‘It’s a long story. If you want the unedited version, I may need to sit down.’
‘Sure. Come into reception,’ Jade said. ‘I’ll make you both a cuppa.’
A few moments later, they were all in reception, Aiden was installed in the visitor’s chair and Finn and Kate were both standing up.
Mickey had started barking as soon as he’d set eyes on Aiden so Jade had been forced to evict him. As she came back into the reception, she heard Mr Spock say something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Day of the mummy’. Luckily no one else seemed to have noticed and the parrot was quiet now, although he was gazing at Aiden with his head on one side, as though in deep thought. Jade hoped that whatever he was deep in thought about would stay locked in his little parrot head.
‘You might remember I said I was planning to take Kate to Venice and propose?’ Aiden began.
‘That’s right,’ Jade said. ‘We do.’
‘Did I also tell you I planned to do it on a gondola?’
‘I think you might have mentioned that.’
‘It was all going according to plan. I’d got the ring, I’d warned the skipper chappie what I was going to do and he was good with it. He told me the best place to kneel – you know, so I wouldn’t unbalance the gondola. So there I was clutching the ring box in my hand, on my knees…’
He paused for dramatic effect.
Finn and Jade leaned forwards in expectation.
‘The mummy returns,’ Mr Spock said, a little louder this time.
Aiden shot him an exasperated glance before carrying on with his story. ‘I got out the ring and popped the question – Kate said yes – as you can imagine I was over the moon and I, er, jumped up too quickly, overbalanced and fell out of the gondola.’
‘One minute he was there and the next he wasn’t.’ Kate took up the story. ‘He went right into the canal. I screamed. The gondolier was yelling. We were both looking around frantically for him.’
‘And that’s how you broke your nose?’ Jade murmured, shocked. ‘You poor love.’
‘No, it’s how I broke my arm. I landed on a pizza delivery bike in the canal.’
‘In the canal,’ Finn echoed in amazement.
‘Yes, in the canal. Complete with a soggy pizza in the basket. That’s how we knew it was a delivery bike. Presumably vandals had thrown it in fairly recently; the top half was still sticking up. Anyway…’ Aiden winced at the memory. ‘…I thought I was going to drown. That water’s deeper than it looks. And darker. I surfaced quite quickly luckily. Unfortunately I came up too near the boat.’
‘It was very unfortunate because we ran him over,’ Kate said. Jade could see she was desperately trying to suppress a smile.
‘Blimey O Riley.’ Finn shook his head. ‘That’s unbelievable. So is that how you broke your nose too?’
‘No.’ Aiden’s face was deadpan. ‘I did that the second time I fell out of the boat.’
Finn snorted. Jade dared not meet his eyes for fear of joining in.
‘You fell out of the boat again?’ Finn’s voice was even more incredulous.
‘Twice more,’ Aiden said. ‘I was kind of in the swing of things by then.’
‘The mummy returns. The mummy returns,’ Mr Spock yelled, clearly in the swing of things now too.
Aiden glared at him and touched the bandage on his head. ‘Enough of the mummy wisecracks, parrot.’
‘It wasn’t strictly Aiden’s fault,’ Kate put in. ‘The gondolier guy was a bit panicked. And I don’t think he’d been in the job that long. Those things aren’t that steady.’
A small chuckle was playing around her lips now, and Jade could see Finn biting his lip hard in an effort not to laugh.
‘That’s awful,’ Jade said. The effort of keeping a straight face was hurting her. ‘What about your toe? How did that happen?’
‘That was a bit later. We got back to the gondola station finally and I’d just stepped up onto the wooden platform and I thought I was home and dry, metaphorically anyway – as you can imagine I was soaked through and I’d lost a shoe, and somehow I slipped and… well, you can probably guess the rest.’
‘He fell in again,’ Kate finished.
‘Although I think I broke my toe when I was trying to get back onto the platform,’ Aiden added.
Finn exploded with mirth. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ His shoulders were heaving with the effort of trying to stop. ‘It’s just…’
‘A bit of an epic tale,’ Kate said, smiling broadly. ‘We are starting to see the funny side, aren’t we, Aiden?’
‘I guess.’ His lips quirked. ‘The main thing is that she said yes.’
He looked at Kate tenderly.
‘It’s a great story to tell the grandchildren,’ Finn said when he’d got himself back in control. ‘It sounds like the title of an epic film. But instead of Planes, Trains and Automobiles , it would be Moats, Boats and Broken Doses .’
Everyone except Aiden snorted with laughter.
‘Sorry. Too soon,’ Finn apologised.
‘No, it’s OK, mate. I suppose the story does actually sound quite funny when you say it out loud.’
‘But it has a happy ending because as you know I did actually say yes,’ Kate added, flashing her sparkly diamond ring at them both. ‘And I haven’t retracted it since – despite the fact I’ve found out how accident prone my fiancé actually is. Lucky I’m a nurse, huh!’
She went across the room and kissed Aiden on a bit of his cheek that was actually uncovered.
Aiden’s eyes softened. ‘I’m the lucky one. I’m the luckiest bloke alive.’
‘I think I might dispute that one if I was a bookie,’ Finn murmured, and they all laughed again. This time even Aiden joined in.
‘My insurance claim made interesting reading,’ he confessed. ‘I had to phone up the company and the guy on the phone kept putting me on hold because he couldn’t seem to speak. He said he had a frog in his throat or something. It took flaming ages, that call.’
‘Have you been in the Red Lion yet?’ Jade asked him. ‘I’m sure Mike would give you drinks on the house all night if you told him that story.’
‘Hmmm, I’m not sure free drinks for a night would be worth Mike ribbing me every time I show my face in the pub for the next five years.’
‘Ten at least,’ Kate said, and they all started to laugh again.
‘Congratulations to you both,’ Jade said. ‘Drinks are on us next time we’re at the Red Lion. In the meantime, can I offer you both a cup of coffee and a celebration chocolate or two?’ She glanced at Mr Spock and he burst into song at his favourite cue word.
* * *
‘Poor Aiden,’ Jade said as they locked up later that day. ‘He does get himself into some scrapes, doesn’t he?’
Finn smiled. ‘He does, and I know we didn’t see eye to eye when we first met, but I’ve come to quite like the guy since then.’
‘His heart’s in the right place. And I’m really glad he found Kate. They seem happy, don’t they?’
‘Yes, they do.’ Finn touched her arm. ‘You’re happy too, aren’t you?’ He sounded slightly anxious, and she looked at him, concerned.
‘Of course I am. Do you even need to ask? Why? Aren’t you?’
‘I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. And I know this probably sounds daft, but I think that’s why I’m asking. My life has changed beyond belief in the last couple of years. And all of it is good: falling in love with you; finding out I had a son; finding out I’ve got new family everywhere in fact…’ He opened his hands to encompass the enormity of it all. ‘Not to mention realising I could maybe make a career out of my dream job. I feel like my cup runneth over – if that doesn’t sound too biblical and corny. But I really do, then I look at you and I wonder how it is for you.’
‘Oh, Finn, I love that you’ve found a new family. I love all of that too.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Phew. When Aiden told us about his epic tale of a proposal gone wrong, I felt a little bit guilty that for us it had all been so easy.’
‘Was that before or after you laughed your socks off?’ she asked him, putting her tongue firmly in her cheek.
He looked startled. ‘I know. That wasn’t very nice. I did apologise.’
‘Finn, I’m teasing you. It was funny. Anyway, it wasn’t so easy for us in the beginning, was it?’
‘I suppose it wasn’t all plain sailing.’
‘Is that another reference to Aiden?’
‘No, it was a Freudian slip, I swear.’
She burst out laughing and caught hold of his hands. ‘Stop beating yourself up. It’s all good. We’d better go and get Carmelita ready for her big release, hadn’t we?’
‘Yes, what does that involve?’
‘Mainly it involves putting the animal transporter in the Land Rover and then getting her in it. I’ve already checked she’s ready to go – she can walk fine on all four legs. The injury to her side has healed nicely.’
‘I’ll get the transporter.’
She watched him walk down the yard to get it, loping in that easy way he had. Animal releases could be hard, and she was glad they were doing it as a family. She thought of Ben as half hers, even though he wasn’t and had a perfectly good mother already. Families were strange and complex things. She was thrilled that Finn had found so many of his.
His experiences in finding his own family had stirred a deeply buried curiosity in her that had become difficult to ignore lately. For a while now she’d wondered if maybe she should look for her own father, after all. Just in case there was an outside chance her mother had been wrong and that the man Jade had always thought of as little more than a sperm donor might want to know his daughter.
The idea, which at first hadn’t been more than a tiny kernel of curiosity, had grown until it was impossible to ignore. It would be great to get closure, if nothing else. After all, it had worked out for Finn. And although it had been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, there had also been a happy ending of sorts.
Also, unlike Finn, Jade had an advantage. She had always known her father’s name because it was on her birth certificate, and it was an unusual name too. There weren’t many men about called Hector Ajax Foster.
Last night, when Finn had fallen asleep, exhausted with the events of the day, Jade had reached for her phone and under the duvet she’d typed Hector Ajax Foster into a search engine. She’d only found one result.
He lived in Devon. Another slightly lengthier search had thrown up an address and this afternoon when Finn had been fixing fences, and before she could talk herself out of it, Jade had slipped out for five minutes and posted a letter to The Rookery, Ashton Point, Devon. She hadn’t been as tentative as Finn; she’d put one piece of paper in the envelope, which had said simply:
My name is Jade Foster, I’m the daughter of Elizabeth Foster, and I’m hoping to trace my father. Please can you help.
Like Finn, Jade had decided she wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d done until she’d had some kind of answer. Nothing might ever come of it, and Finn had enough upheaval going on in his life at the moment.