Chapter 21
With weather conditions making it unsuitable to take the helicopter up, the crew had been out in the rapid response vehicle this morning on three jobs and by the time Bess and Noah got back to the airbase, they were both keeping everything crossed that that would be it. They’d stayed out in the field after the first call, not knowing where they’d go to next, but with a couple of hours left on shift and the cloud lifting, Maya had sent a message to them on the road – any other calls would be responded to in the helicopter – and so they headed back to base.
Luckily for them, the remainder of their shift wasn’t too demanding and it gave them a chance to give the rapid response vehicle a decent clean. It was seriously muddy and Bess explained their last job that had seen them trek into a farmer’s field to get to a patient who had had hay bales topple over onto him. He’d been trapped beneath. Noah and Bess had been there to help with more adequate pain relief using the stronger drugs; Noah had gone with him in the ambulance to the nearest hospital with Bess following on to pick him up.
Maya flicked water from the sponge she’d used on the vehicle’s windscreen in Bess’s direction when Bess moaned that she was too hot as she finished scraping off the last of the water from the glass with the squeegee.
Bess gave a squeal. ‘I shouldn’t yelp. That was nice! But roll on autumn; far too warm to be working in this weather.’
‘What are you on about, girl?’ Noah, who was using a chamois leather for the roof to buff it to a shine, called across the vehicle’s rooftop, ‘Make the most of it, won’t be long before we’re all moaning at how cold we are.’
‘Definitely don’t wish summer away,’ said Maya.
Bess emptied the dirty water from the bucket onto the grass beyond the parking bays. ‘I bet you can’t wait to see Isaac when he eventually gets here.’
Maya smiled. ‘I really can’t. It’s a shame he’ll be home for such a short period before his second year at university starts, but I’m pleased he’s got work; it’s good for him.’
‘Has he talked his dad out of the Ireland idea yet?’
She’d told Bess all about it and Noah knew after the other night, but it still felt weird answering the question in front of both of them. ‘What do you think?’
‘That Conrad is one stubborn man.’ Bess threw the pieces of heavy-duty wiping paper they’d used to clean the rapid response vehicle’s hubcaps into a rubbish bag. ‘Why can’t Conrad do something closer to here? Isaac will get to see you too then, catch up with his friends, everyone is a winner.’
‘But then Conrad wouldn’t get one up on anyone else, would he?’
When Noah stayed behind to vacuum the interior of the vehicle, Maya and Bess loaded up buckets, cloths and as much else as they could take in their arms and went back inside the hangar. Maya dried the bucket with wiping paper before setting it onto its rightful shelf.
‘Why do you let him do it, Maya?’ Bess asked. ‘Not just the games he plays when it comes to Isaac but everything else: the running around you do for him when he’s supposedly still suffering so badly, he can’t manage on his own.’
‘I don’t let him,’ said Maya. But at Bess’s look, she admitted, ‘All right, maybe I do. I need to start being firmer, I know that.’ She stopped what she was doing and took out her phone from her back pocket. ‘Talking of which…’ She held up a finger, meaning Bess should wait to see what she was up to.
Maya called Conrad. She told him she was stuck at work doing a double shift and he’d have to get a taxi to the hospital for his appointment.
‘It can’t be helped, I’m afraid,’ she said in her most regretful voice. ‘You could reschedule but I don’t think that’s a good idea; you know what it’s like trying to get an appointment.’
He grumbled but relented and when she hung up, she and Bess were smiling.
‘Well, it’s a start.’ Bess put her arm around Maya. ‘You need to do that more.’
Maya had deliberately left it until the last minute to tell Conrad she wasn’t taking him to the hospital. He was messing her around and right now, it felt good to do the same back to him. The small victory gave her a modicum of satisfaction.
But Bess wouldn’t let it go as they went into the bathrooms and washed their hands. ‘This needs to stop; he can’t keep you in his life like this when you’re divorced.’
Maya shook her hands over the sink before grabbing a paper towel. She could feel the usual exhaustion creeping up on her at having to try to explain away why she appeased her ex-husband.
‘I don’t want to give up on them,’ she told Bess. ‘Conrad and Isaac.’
Bess pulled a paper towel from the dispenser to use on her own hands. ‘You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t want the best for your son. But are you absolutely sure having Conrad in his life is going to be the best thing for Isaac when already they can’t see eye to eye? I mean, I get that you wouldn’t want them estranged, but they’re not; they still have contact. Why can’t Isaac tell Conrad to bloody well bugger off with this Ireland idea, tell him it’s somewhere closer to here or nowhere at all?’
If only it were that simple.
Bess moved the conversation on now she’d said her piece about Conrad. ‘So… you and Noah,’ she began.
Maya turned to head for the locker room to get a change of T-shirt. ‘We are colleagues.’
Bess closed in behind her. ‘You walking away from me tells me very much that you’re more than that.’
Maya knew better than to flat-out deny it. Bess had been shooting her looks for days now and Maya knew she wasn’t that great at hiding her feelings. She admitted, ‘We’ve been getting on well.’
‘I knew it.’
Maya undid her locker and took out a fresh T-shirt. ‘He’s so unlike Conrad, in every way.’
A slow smile crept onto Bess’s face. ‘You really like him. Anyone could see you were attracted to him, but I didn’t know your feelings were that strong.’
‘They’re not… or at least they can’t be.’
‘You mean because you’re colleagues?’ She dismissed the worry with a swish of her hand. ‘You two are professional; you’d make it work.’
‘It’s not just the job. He’s complicated, I’m complicated; it’s a recipe for disaster.’
‘Or…’ Bess grinned. ‘It’s a recipe with a lot of heat and spice. My favourite kind.’
And with her laughter ringing around the air ambulance base, Maya began to think about her own future and whether Conrad would ever leave it. But more importantly, could Noah be a part of it?
Noah admired their handiwork with the rapid response vehicle. It had been a busy shift but one he’d desperately needed to stop him thinking about Paul’s impending visit. His mind kept conjuring up his sister and the look he imagined would pass across her face if she was here to see him so much as considering handing over her daughter to that man.
Nadia arrived shortly after Noah headed back inside the airbase and into the kitchen. She was carrying a platter on one forearm in the way a waiter would bring the food to your table in a restaurant. ‘I come bearing gifts!’
‘I should think so too,’ Maya joked as she came from the office into the kitchen. ‘While you’ve been off living it up, Bess and Noah have been out on a job, we’ve cleaned the rapid response vehicle, I’ve been doing paperwork, and the admin is piling up.’
‘I’ll get to it, don’t you worry.’ She set the platter down. ‘I was at my friend’s daughter’s christening, where I laid it on thick, saying my poor crew, they barely get to eat on some days, they’re so busy flying or driving around the county saving lives. And so, ta-da!’ She gestured to the platter once again.
Bess must have sniffed the sandwiches out from the back room and joined them.
But Nadia didn’t let anyone at the food until she’d asked whether the posters for the upcoming open day had been done.
‘Remind me of the date,’ said Noah. ‘I’ll put it in my diary.’
‘Oh, there’ll be little chance of forgetting,’ said Bess, ‘and Nadia, the posters are done. Vik and I did them last week, loads of colour, you’ll be impressed. And the flyers are ready for distribution.’
Noah felt bad he hadn’t helped with any of it yet. ‘I can distribute those if you like.’
‘You’re on,’ said Bess. ‘I’ll give them to you next, it’s less than a month away, so if you could get them out to local businesses and homes pronto. There’s a few thousand of them.’ When his face fell, she laughed. ‘Don’t worry, each of us will take a bundle and Nadia usually has a plan of the streets we each need to deliver to.’
‘The plan is ready,’ said Nadia. ‘I’ll send the email out to you all soon so you don’t duplicate deliveries.’
‘Sorted,’ said Bess, one eye on the food.
Noah asked Bess about the open days, wondered whether it would be similar to those he’d been involved in before.
It sounded like it would be. As with his previous team and others in the country, this air ambulance received no direct government funding towards running costs and they relied on charity donations, wills and grants. The good thing about that was that they got to spend money on what they wanted, upgrade equipment as needed and put patient care first without a whole load of red tape. But it also meant that fundraising, including open days, was a vital part of what they did. On open days, the team here at Whistlestop River would open their hangar doors to welcome in the public. There wouldn’t be an entrance fee, but donations would be encouraged.
‘Folks around here are very generous,’ Bess smiled. ‘We’re very lucky in that respect.’
The open day would be a good opportunity to generate donations as they shared what they did with demonstrations of lifesaving treatment, question and answer sessions with the crews, kit demonstrations and real-life stories from some of the members of the public whose lives they’d saved along the way.
‘Those are my favourite,’ said Maya. ‘It’s lovely to have people come here not only to thank us but to know the difference we all made.’ She and Bess talked about Patrick, the amateur cyclist who came off his bike almost a year ago and was miraculously back to riding again. ‘He’s coming to the open day to give a speech about his journey since the accident.’
Noah could listen to Maya talk for hours, watch her, absorb her company. She was the other thing he had on his mind right now, when Paul wasn’t getting centre stage in his head. He really liked her, he couldn’t deny it, but as much as his life was complicated, he wondered, was hers actually far worse?
Noah squeezed in next to Maya as Nadia pulled the cling film off the platter of food. ‘It must’ve been a fancy christening. I don’t know what half that stuff is.’
Maya picked up something in an oval shape covered in breadcrumbs. She bit into it without delay.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
She shrugged as if to say she had no idea.
‘She’ll put anything in her mouth,’ Bess joked and immediately got a rebuke from Nadia, who told her to keep it clean.
Noah had taken a while to get the lie of the land here at the Whistlestop River Air Ambulance headquarters. Maya was strong-willed, the quieter of the bunch but absolutely no pushover, Bess was loud and confident and always up for a joke but damn good at her job and someone he’d want at his side on every shift. Nadia was the mother hen of the team, organising them all, which he supposed came as part of her job description, but it filtered into things like bringing them food or yesterday when they’d used the rapid response vehicle she’d made both him and Bess a little packed lunch. They’d joked about it and said they were like her children, except they were all roughly the same age. Nadia, Maya, Bess and himself were all in their forties, so perhaps that helped with the bonding and camaraderie. Mind you, there were no limits as to how friendly the likes of Frank and all of the Whistlestop River Freewheelers were either so that blew his own theory right out of the window.
Right now, Noah didn’t care about anything other than how hungry he was and how good this mini quiche-like morsel that he’d shoved into his mouth tasted.
‘Do you even know what it is?’ Maya threw his own question back at him.
‘Quiche,’ he said through a mouthful. ‘I think.’
‘Yes, but what quiche exactly?’
‘The quiche kind.’ He popped another identical one into his mouth.
When Maya’s phone went, she took it out, looked at the display and promptly shoved it back in her pocket. It rang three or four more times, while the whole crew enjoyed more food and by the time it rang again over an hour later, she finally excused herself to take the call and Noah didn’t see her until almost the end of their shift.
‘Come grab a slice of cake,’ Noah urged Dorothy, who came into the airbase to drop off more blood supplies after they called the request in earlier. ‘No quiche left, we ate all of that, but it’s almost home time for me so I’m sneaking in a slice first. It’s chocolate with a thick addition of buttercream icing.’
Dorothy wasn’t going to argue. ‘Better get it while there’s some left with Bess around. That one likes her chocolate.’
‘Heard that!’ Bess’s voice hollered from reception.
Maya finally came into the kitchen, uninterested in the offer of cake and Noah discreetly asked her whether everything was okay.
‘Not really, but thanks for asking.’
‘You know where I am if you want to talk.’
‘The beers and conversation the other night were exactly what I needed.’ She smiled. ‘Isaac called me when I was walking home from yours. He seemed to like hearing that I had a life outside of work. And outside of Conrad’s.’
‘Glad to have been of help. Come over again. Any time.’
‘Thanks.’ Her eyes held his. ‘How’s Eva?’
‘She’s good. Paul is coming over tomorrow.’
‘And how do you feel about that?’
He took a deep breath, searching for the answer, but it didn’t help. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Take your time; it’s a huge thing you’re dealing with.’
‘As are you.’ He wasn’t about to let her give him sympathy when she was very much in need of some too. ‘I mean it when I say that beers are always up for grabs. At my place, because of Eva, but it’s better than nothing.’
‘It’s way better than nothing, Noah.’ She cleared her throat when Bess came over with Dorothy extolling the virtues of the cake.
When the others moved away again, Noah took a chance. ‘How about tonight for those beers?’
‘I can’t.’ She seemed regretful which was something. ‘Rain check?’
‘Are you going to Conrad’s?’ He watched her shoulders slump. ‘I apologise, it’s none of my business.’
‘We’re friends, I appreciate your concern.’
Her response was way too formal and she’d lumped him in the friend zone, not a place he particularly wanted to be. He wanted so much more.
‘I’m going to see my sister,’ she said brightly, before adding with slightly less enthusiasm, ‘Then it’ll be on to Conrad’s quickly.’
‘Right.’ Well, at least it wasn’t an entire evening with Conrad then.
‘Go on, say it.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s easy to have an opinion, not so easy to be the person in turmoil; I should know given my situation.’
‘You must wonder what the hell I’m doing still going to see him given the divorce, his pretence at how bad he really is.’
‘Kind of.’
‘I ask myself that same question every single time I go over there.’ But checking herself, she added, ‘I need to make sure he and Isaac have a chance, you know?’
He kept his gaze on hers. ‘That’s what you told me. I’m not sure I believe it, though.’ He added gently, ‘There’s more to the story, isn’t there?’
She didn’t say a word, but he picked up on the almost imperceptible nod and it left him wondering what the hell this man had on her that meant she couldn’t shake him off?