Chapter 18
L ucas stared at his phone. His body had turned featherlight and his ears were ringing, drowning out all other sound, including Clem’s voice – she was saying something to him.
The messages on his phone were variations of the first one: call me when you can, Lucas, and We’re at the hospital now.
The third one elaborated: He had a fall. Can you come?
He was frozen to his seat. The ringing was growing louder in his ears, vibrating along his skin. He’d been here messing around, helping Clem with her baking, and his dad had been taken to hospital. What was he doing ?
This was exactly why he’d told Dwayne he wasn’t interested in dating.
His family needed him and no girlfriend had ever been okay with that.
On top of that, Clem was competing against him, and he needed that prize money for his family.
For his dad, who was now in the hospital; he didn’t know what state he was in or how badly he’d been hurt.
They needed a diagnosis, and a secure home.
What had he been thinking, helping Clem like this?
Her words finally cut through the shrill ringing in his ears. ‘Hey, is everything okay?’ she was saying.
‘I have to go,’ he said mechanically. He was talking as if from a great distance, like he was hovering somewhere near the ceiling.
‘Go . . . ?’ she echoed. ‘But . . . what about the dough? We haven’t tried it yet. You said you could help me get it right?’
Dough . . . That’s right. He rose to his feet.
‘Try using cold milk from the fridge, rather than warm,’ he offered. ‘It speeds up the yeast. And prove it once.’
‘Are you sure? The recipe said—’
‘Yeah, I heard it once from this renowned baker on TV.’ His words rushed out. His head was elsewhere, somewhere across the fells in a hospital room where his dad could be lying, hurt. He was speaking quickly, eager to get the words out and leave.
Clem nodded, and she got to her feet, too, her brow knitted in concern. ‘Okay . . . I’ll try it. But where are you going?’
His voice cracked when he replied. ‘My dad’s in the hospital. I have to go.’
*
Somehow, the call from his mum had brought whatever was swirling between Lucas and Clem like pollen into sharp focus, as if he were looking at things through an enhanced camera lens, and it was too personal, too intimate, suddenly.
She’d offered to come with him to the hospital but he’d said no.
He drove there hunched forward over the wheel, swearing at anyone who was meandering way below the speed limit.
It wasn’t uncommon for tourists or visitors to drive slowly, take in the views of the sprawling vistas, scatterings of sheep, immense lakes, and rough peaks extending to the sky. Today he had no patience for them.
It seemed to take hours to get there. When he finally pulled into the car park and raced inside the building, he was still pent up, shoulders aching with the tension.
He only unclenched his teeth slightly when he found his mother waiting for him at his father’s bedside.
Lucas drew the curtain around the bed after him and his mother hurried over to embrace him.
‘Is he okay?’ Lucas whispered. ‘What happened?’
‘He’s right here, and he’s fine,’ said his dad gruffly.
Lucas hadn’t noticed he was awake. He broke away from his mum’s embrace and turned to his father, who was sitting up in the hospital bed, propped up by a small mountain of pillows.
His father was in pain all the time day to day, but from the outside, he looked in perfect health.
Even now, in the hospital, he didn’t look unhealthy – just tired, the wrinkles etched more deeply around his blue eyes, though they still managed to twinkle with a mischief that didn’t reflect his age.
‘He fell earlier today,’ said his mum quietly.
She looked shaken and she’d spilled something down the front of her shirt, as if she’d been rushing around to get here quickly.
Lucas grasped her hand tightly. ‘I had to go out to run some errands . . .’ She took a deep breath.
‘I feel awful. Maybe I was gone too long . . .’
‘Rubbish,’ said his dad, waving an idle hand in the air. ‘You can’t stay cooped up all the time, Meredith, and I don’t expect you to.’
‘But . . .’ His mum chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Richie . . . You’ve always had the dizziness problem, but you’ve never fallen like that. What if you’d been on the stairs?’
His mum had a good point; it could have been much worse had that been the case. Lucas’s insides constricted at the thought. But his dad brushed off their worries.
‘I’m absolutely fine – no damage done. Just cuts and bruises. Stop looking at me like I’m about to drop dead, or I’ll have to come back and haunt you when I do.’
Lucas smiled, glad he was well enough to crack jokes. His mum didn’t, her lips pursing into a line.
‘Never mind me,’ his dad said. ‘I’m bored of talking about me – I’ve been doing it with the doctors for too long today. And Lucas needs to focus on the contest, not on my problems. What are you baking for the bread round? Have you made a move on that girl yet?’
‘Richie!’ his mum said, moving closer to the bed and poking him in the leg through the blankets. ‘Don’t ask him that—’
‘Hey, stop poking me, woman. No foreplay when I’m bruised—’
‘Can you save those particular jokes for when I’m not here?’ Lucas interjected.
His words drew a laugh from his mother, as if a dam had broken and all her tension had spilled out. Her posture visibly relaxed as she clutched his father’s hand and gave him a kiss on the side of the head.
‘I’m making a bunch of different bread for this round – flatbreads, muffins, all sorts,’ Lucas told his dad. ‘You’ll have to taste-test for me when you get out of here so I can get the flavours right. When can you go home?’
‘They want to monitor him in case of concussion,’ his mum explained to Lucas. ‘He banged his head. I’m sorry if I frightened you, Lucas. I—’ She cut off. ‘I was scared he might have hit it too hard, had a bleed—’
‘Mum, it’s okay,’ Lucas said. ‘I’m glad you got in touch. I’m sorry I didn’t see your messages straight away. I was . . . practising for the contest.’
‘If I’d known this fall would lead to an official taste-testing role, I would have done it sooner,’ said his dad.
‘Richie!’
‘I’m joking, Mer—’
A hard vibrating sound filled the air – his dad’s phone was buzzing from the corner of the bed. He pulled it towards him from near the pillows.
‘That’s probably your sister, Rich . . .’ his mum began. ‘I told her what happened.’
‘Why don’t you two go and grab a coffee?’ Lucas’s dad suggested. ‘This might take a while.’
‘Do you want anything?’ asked Lucas.
He shook his head, mouthing no, thanks and swiping to answer the call.
Lucas steered his mother away from the bedside, and together they weaved through the shiny hospital corridors, past a huge rainbow painted on the wall in honour of the healthcare staff, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the walls.
They soon arrived at a spiralling set of stairs that took them down to the ground level, and through past the reception desk.
The canteen was through another set of double doors nearby, the sounds of clattering drifting out, and the smell of food cooking mingling with the clinical scent in the air.
Inside, his mother sat at a table while he ordered them coffees and bought her a sandwich. When he set the tray down and sat opposite her, she’d hooked her handbag on the back of the plastic seat.
‘Thanks,’ she said, accepting the coffee gratefully and wrapping her hands around the cup. There were only a handful of other people here: a few elderly couples chatting over cups of tea; an old man leafing through a creased newspaper; a man in scrubs immersed in a book, probably on his break.
‘You should try to eat.’ He pushed the sandwich – chicken and stuffing, her favourite – towards her.
She nodded, reaching for the packet and unwrapping it, but she didn’t make any move to eat it, simply fiddled with the edges, crinkling them over.
The laughter and the joy brought on from his father’s jokes had vanished in the space of a few corridors.
‘I don’t know what to do anymore.’ Drawing in a great breath, she let it out again heavily.
‘I’m always in my overdraft. Your auntie suggested moving somewhere cheaper but we don’t have the funds to move, and even if we did, our entire lives are here.
My job. You’re here. I don’t want to uproot everything. This is our home.’
‘No,’ said Lucas quickly. ‘Wait a bit. You might not need to resort to that.’
His mum took a bite of her sandwich and raised her eyebrows. She swallowed and said, ‘Lucas, I hope you’re not planning on—’
‘Mum,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m going to help you if I can, so hold out for now.’
‘The competition money, if you win, is yours ,’ she told him. She gave him a stern look, as if she was telling him off.
‘Exactly,’ he answered. ‘Mine to do what I want with.’
She didn’t reply, instead drinking some of her coffee and shaking her head as she tucked into the sandwich.
His attention turned to one of the elderly couples in the corner, both eating a different slice of cake.
They each cut off a small chunk, swapping them with each other, so they could each try a different flavour.
With a sharp pang, he thought of Clem, and had to shove the thought to one side guiltily.
His family needed him. What had he been doing, anyway, in helping her?
If he got closer to her, he could let his guard down and spoil his own chances of winning. That would only hurt his family.
‘He’s struggling, you know, your dad,’ his mum told him. ‘I know he goes through cycles, but I think he’s really low right now. Fed up.’
‘He needs proper help,’ Lucas said. His phone buzzed but he ignored it.