Chapter 5 #2
I glance at him and then scramble up the ladder to the bed and lean across the mattress that’s close to the roof – Jared’s idea to create extra storage space.
There’s a tall door in the campervan wall that would be easier to access from the back doors, but from inside, I have to reach down to open it, and finally, finally, there’s the green bag with the white cross on it, wedged behind a bottle of screenwash and some jump leads.
It’s not exactly reassuring that a complete stranger knows more about my campervan than I do.
‘What’s your name?’ the stranger asks as I wriggle back across the mattress and slip-slide off the ladder.
‘Dolly Lymford.’ If I wasn’t so distracted, maybe I’d have thought of giving myself a fake name, but it’s too late now.
‘After Ms Parton or the cloned sheep?’
A scoff of a laugh escapes. ‘Has anyone ever been named after a cloned sheep?’
‘You never know.’ His laugh sounds surprisingly good-natured for someone who might be about to lose his lower leg.
‘My parents danced to “I Will Always Love You” on their first date. They got ahead of themselves. They did not, in fact, always love each other. They ended up not liking each other very much at all.’ I realise what I’m saying and wonder why I overshared that with someone I met ten minutes ago. ‘You?’
‘Reece Sterling. R-double e-c-e. Not like the Welsh spelling, or the chocolate brand, or the star of Legally Blonde.’
It sounds like an introduction he’s rattled off many times. ‘Do you always introduce yourself like that?’
‘Only when I’m about to pass out from blood loss.’
I hope he’s joking as I kneel down in front of the table with the first aid kit and pull on a pair of disposable gloves from inside it.
‘I can do it.’ He leans forward and takes one look at his leg and quickly reconsiders. He leans back and turns his head deliberately away, and that guilt hits me again. He must be in agony and he’s clearly not feeling good, and I’m responsible.
‘I’ll do it, it’s my fault. You just try to stay conscious and not throw up all over the van.’
He laughs despite himself, although his face has gone a shade of green that makes it a distinct possibility.
‘Your trousers are ruined anyway, can I cut the material off?’
He nods without looking and I take a deep breath and get to work, trying to channel Grandma’s no-nonsense approach to a crisis and avoid my usual flapping. I use scissors from the first aid kit to cut his trousers off at the knee and get my first proper look at the damage.
It’s a big gash, deep in places, but the blood pumping out has slowed since he got it elevated.
It makes me feel nauseous, the sight of the wound and the thought of how much worse this could have been, and I clamp the inside of my cheek between my teeth and get on with it.
This is my fault and the least I can do now is sort out the wound without being a wimp at the sight of blood.
It seems to be free of splinters, but I get a wound wash out of the first aid bag and use it to flush it out, then pat it dry and spray it with wound sanitiser, murmuring an apology every time he winces or sucks air in through his gritted teeth, still looking very deliberately in the other direction.
When that’s starting to dry, I open a sterile pad to cover the injury and hold it in place by wrapping a bandage around his leg.
But I know nothing about first aid, and I’m pretty sure it’s deep enough that it should be seen by a doctor.
‘I think it’s going to need stitches. There must be a hospital nearby, I can take you? ’
‘Nooooo.’ He elongates the word like it’s the worst idea he’s ever heard and shakes his head vigorously. ‘I hate hospitals. It would have to be a life-or-death situation for me to need a hospital. Does that look life-or-death to you?’
‘Well…’ I say hesitantly. ‘Wounds can get infected. There could be splinte—’
‘Pfft.’ He cuts off my waffling and finally looks down at the leg now the injury is fully covered. ‘It’ll be fine. It’s just a scratch.’
‘Scratches don’t bleed like that.’ I half expect red to come seeping through the bandage at any moment. ‘At the very least, we can reassess in the morning. If it looks even slightly infected, I’m driving you to the nearest hospital, and that’s that.’
He raises an eyebrow and doesn’t otherwise comment, but I’m having visions of sepsis and leg amputations or worse, and if I have to get him to a hospital then I will do, no matter how much of a fight he puts up.
‘You’re very calm about this. Most people would be threatening to sue the stuffing out of me.’
‘Most people don’t spend their days falling off ladders and hitting themselves with hammers.
’ He sounds cheerful, even though both hands are on his lap now and both are still shaking.
‘I’m a builder. A bit of wood in the leg is practically a Tuesday for me.
I should have left my lamp on, but I’ve spent a lot of time camping out here this summer and you’re the first vehicle I’ve seen in the car park. I shouldn’t have become complacent.’
I’m surprised by his lackadaisical attitude. I can’t imagine being so laidback if someone had mown me down with a stolen campervan, but my heart has been thundering against my breastbone, and for the first time in twenty minutes, it starts to slow to something resembling a normal pace.
I look up at him properly for the first time. He’s around my age, tall and lanky, with sandy brown hair that’s sticking up at odd angles and the sort of face that looks like it smiles a lot. And those ridiculous pyjama bottoms…
‘I have no idea how I managed to miss you in these things.’ I give the cut-off part of his trouser leg a gentle tug. ‘You could offer them to a circus clown and he’d be like, “Ack! No, not for me, far too bright!” You’re practically luminous.’
‘Why thank you.’ His grin makes dimples dip in both cheeks and well-used smile lines crinkle up around his eyes. ‘Life’s too short to wear pyjamas that don’t make you smile, right?’
Clothes that make you smile. If I’d encountered him and his neon pyjama bottoms in some other situation, would they have made me smile?
You’ve got to admire the bravery of someone who could wear clothing like that in a public place.
I glance at my own wardrobe, currently spilling out of binbags that are even more battered than they were this morning.
It’s simple, practical, and plain. I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything for no reason other than ‘it makes me smile’.
‘Can’t argue with that attitude,’ I mumble, even though it makes me wish for a drop more of that attitude in my life. I meet his eyes and my heart speeds up again for an altogether different reason, and I feel something spark across the space between us.
He’s the first to look away. ‘Thanks for doing that. I never knew I was so… squeamish.’
‘I’m sure you could have. I was just trying to ensure no one threw up or lost consciousness in my van.
’ My van. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and it sounds odd.
It isn’t my van, but I can’t exactly admit to a stranger that I’ve stolen a campervan and driven three hundred miles in it.
He’d be straight on the phone to the police, especially given what I’ve just done to him.
He laughs, a bright sound that makes me feel better than I have all day.
‘Right.’ I sit back on my heels and pull my gloves off, mainly to occupy my hands because there’s an urge to slip my fingers over his shaking ones, which he’s clamped together to try and hide. ‘Tea. Good for the shock. A nice cup of tea can fix anything.’
The opposite side of the van has a little kitchenette area with all the mod cons.
There’s a tiny fridge, a tiny oven, a hob, and two plug sockets to make it all work, and I have to admit that I’d never appreciated Jared’s design skills until now.
Every door I open reveals some other hidden gem, and every drawer I pull out is hiding some clever gadget or shelving to maximise storage space.
I fill the kettle and plug it in and cross everything that it won’t blow the electrics. I know the van’s electrical system is powered by a battery, but I have no idea where it is or how I’m supposed to charge it.
Now, if I was a mug in a campervan, where would I be? I pull open door after door, hunting for mugs and teabags, and making it even more obvious to Reece that this is not just my first time in this campervan, but that presumably, I’ve never seen a campervan in my life before.
I make a noise of victory when I finally find a set of mugs, tucked safely into a corner of a cupboard and held in place by a pull-out stand, and I find teabags in the cupboard above the worktop, and I can feel Reece’s eyes on me, but he doesn’t say anything.
Fresh milk would have been preferable, but I hadn’t planned on making tea for men I’d recently mown down, so the carton of long life I discover in the fridge will have to do.
I make two cups of tea and lean over Reece’s leg to put one gently on the table in front of him, and he looks up and meets my eyes again with a soft smile.
He takes the mug and wraps his hands around it like he’s cold, but I get the feeling that he’s trying to disguise how shaken he is by what’s just happened, and I don’t know whether I should apologise again or try not to draw attention to it.
I take my cup of tea and sit down on the smaller seat on the other side of the van, across from him. ‘Can I offer you…’ I trail off. What can I offer him? I have no idea if Jared has any food in the van. The only thing I’ve uncovered so far is three out-of-date Pot Noodles.
‘I’d say yes, but I can’t bear witness to another hunt. Perhaps you need more time to get better acquainted with your van before having guests…’