SEVEN
SCARED AND DANGER AREN’T THE SAME THING
Oliver
I had watched her check her phone and hadn’t missed the look of unease sweep over her face. Only briefly, but I saw it. I wondered if it was a text message from a boyfriend. That bothered me more than it should. It also bothered me that I was bothered.
That had been last night. Shortly after that, she had gone to bed.
I’d heard her get up quietly in the night to check on Grainger, and I had watched her through half-open eyes from my spot on the sofa.
She, of course, hadn’t any overnight clothes with her, but I’d found her a t-shirt and a pair of cargo trousers from the other cabin.
Her hair was tied back still, with a few loose strands framing her face, but she looked comfortable in what was essentially ex-army kit.
When she had gone back to her room, I had drifted off, wondering what sort of injury I could inflict to warrant her medical skills.
I looked at my coffee in front of me. What the hell had that all been about? My subconscious had got far too conscious.
The satellite was out again. No phone signal.
‘I was out there first thing,’ said Paddy. ‘Must have been a strong gust of wind in the night. Took it right off the roof. It’s actually broken.’
‘Shit. Just what we need,’ I muttered as I dished up five plates of sausage, eggs and bacon. I put one down on the table for Noah and took one through to Grainger, where Alex was checking on him.
She came back out into the kitchen a few minutes later.
‘Breakfast is in the oven, keeping warm,’ I said. ‘Coffee is here.’
She joined us at the table. ‘This looks good. Compliments to the chef.’
‘How’s Grainger?’ I asked.
‘His ankle needs proper attention,’ she said. ‘What’s it looking like for getting out of here today?’
‘There’s been heavy snow fall in the night,’ I said.
‘I reckon we could make it down to Risk in the truck,’ said Paddy. ‘I’ve got snow chains in the boot.’
‘He’ll have to lie across the back seat,’ said Alex. ‘Can we get in touch with emergency services and have them waiting for us there?’
‘Comms are down,’ I said.
‘We really do need to get him to a hospital today,’ said Alex.
‘Weather update?’ I asked Paddy.
‘Snow has eased. The roads are tricky, but I reckon we could get him down to Risk and call an ambulance from there.’
‘Where’s the nearest hospital?’ Alex asked.
‘In this weather, about an hour’s drive,’ said Paddy.
‘You think you could get us there?’ she asked.
Paddy looked at me, and I nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s do that. Rather than calling out a crew. It will be riskier for them,’ said Alex. She looked at me. ‘If that’s okay with you?’
‘I’d sooner no one was driving out anywhere,’ I said. ‘But I take your point that Grainger needs a hospital sooner rather than later.’
‘The sooner the better,’ said Paddy.
I ran through the options quickly, weighing them up. There wasn’t much to work with, but there rarely was.
‘Right. Here’s what we’re going to do.’ I looked at Paddy and Alex in turn.
‘You two take Grainger to hospital. Paddy, while you’re there, get word to Aaron.
He needs an update. Check with the airfield as well.
If there’s a break in the weather we might be able to fly out.
If not, we could have a long drive ahead of us.’
I didn’t much like what I was about to say next, but there was no getting around it.
‘This place will have to take care of itself until I can get someone back up here.’
Thirty minutes later, Grainger was in the back of the vehicle, strapped in and ready to be transported, despite his grumbling.
‘He’ll be okay,’ I said to Alex.
‘I know. He reminds me of half the men I patched up in the field. All noise.’ She poked her head into the rear of the vehicle. ‘Isn’t that right, Grainger?’
‘You all need to––’
She shut the door before he could tell us where to go. ‘Right, I’ll get my bag.’
Paddy walked around from the other side of the vehicle. ‘Think he’s met his match with the doc.’
‘She knows how to handle him,’ I agreed.
‘Has she passed the test?’ asked Noah, who was standing next to me.
‘Yes. She’s passed.’ I looked at Paddy. ‘Got ourselves a new team member.’
He nodded. ‘Good.’
I took that as his approval. Not that I was looking for it.
‘I like Alex,’ said Noah.
‘I do too,’ I said, and realised I was smiling. I checked myself. ‘She’ll be a good team player.’
I avoided eye contact with Paddy and made a point of pulling up Noah’s coat hood and sliding the zip right up to his chin.
Five minutes later, I watched Paddy steer the vehicle away from the lodge, with Alex and Grainger on board.
I wasn’t one for nerves. I didn’t need to be.
Paddy was a good driver. Alex, a competent medic.
And Grainger, he was tough enough to endure a bit of discomfort.
All the same, I stood there longer than I needed to, watching the taillights disappear down the driveway of the estate.
I set about keeping myself busy. Fuck knows why I was tidying up after Grainger, I wasn’t his nursemaid, but it gave me something to do. The alternative was standing around and thinking, and I wasn’t in the mood for that.
I didn’t do anxious. Normally. But I was doing a good impersonation of it right then. I put it down to Grainger’s injury and the fact that Noah was here. And that we needed to get home before Christmas.
It had nothing to do with the other passenger on board.
Nothing at all.
Several hours later, and not a moment too soon, I heard the crunch of the tyres on the snow outside. I went to the door and stood on the porch like a parent who had been waiting up all night for their teenage kid to get home. My arms were even folded across my chest.
Alex stepped out of the vehicle. She looked tired but in one piece. The little ball of anxiety unravelled. I dropped my hands to my side and forced a smile.
Paddy came around the vehicle. ‘All good, Boss,’ he called out.
Alex joined me on the porch. ‘They’re going to keep him in for a couple of nights. Monitor him. Get his ankle sorted. But he’ll need someone with him when he comes out. He can’t stay up here all on his own. Has he got anywhere to go besides here?’
‘Not really. Leave it with me, though. I’ll think of something. If it comes to it, he can stay with me. Or I can come up here.’
She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Look, I’m happy to come back up and stay with Grainger when he’s discharged.’
‘You want to stay with Grainger?’
‘It’s no problem. I haven’t got anything planned. I don’t really do New Year,’ she said. ‘And you did say I could start whenever I wanted and here, if I wanted.’
I didn’t reply straight away. I looked at her properly then.
The cold had put colour in her cheeks, and she was pulling her coat tighter against the wind, but there was something else.
Some kind of energy she was trying to keep a lid on.
I got the feeling she wanted to be away from whatever it was she was running from. More than that––she needed to be away.
Next thing, I heard myself agreeing to the idea. ‘If that’s what you want, it’s fine by me. I expect Grainger will be delighted.’
‘Oh, he’ll be thrilled,’ said Alex.
The word from the airfield was if we wanted to leave today, we had to do so within the next two hours.
The drive to airfield took nearly twice as long as it should have.
The roads had worsened since Paddy and Alex had been out earlier.
Nobody spoke much. Noah wedged between me and Alex in the back, his head growing heavier against my arm as sleep got the better of him.
I checked my phone which had signal, albeit it weak. A message from the pilot.
Weather window closing faster than expected. Recommend you move.
‘Paddy. ETA?’
‘Ten minutes,’ he said from the front, picking up the pace as the road widened. We made it with minutes to spare, pulling through the gates at Easterton airfield as the wind hit the vehicle broadside. The plane was already on the tarmac, engines running, the pilot waiting at the bottom of the steps.
‘Cutting it fine, Mr Laker,’ he said, his tone carefully neutral in the way that meant we’d cut it too fine.
‘We’re here now. Let’s go,’ said Paddy.
We boarded quickly. Noah woke up enough to climb the steps under his own steam and took the window seat without being asked, pressing his nose to the glass. Alex slid into the seat across the aisle from him, and I took the one behind, where I could see them both.
The take-off was rough. The plane battled against the wind, hitting the aircraft sideways, hard enough to send Paddy’s coffee across the fold-down tray. Noah’s head snapped away from the window, and I saw his hands grip the armrests.
‘It’s fine, mate,’ I said, leaning forwards. But Noah wasn’t looking at me. He looked at Alex.
She turned calmly towards him in her seat, as if the plane pitching in the dark was a perfectly normal thing.
‘You know what it is?’ she asked.
Noah shook his head, his knuckles still white.
‘That’s just the wind. Just air. The plane doesn’t mind it, even if we do.’
‘Are you scared?’ Noah asked.
I watched carefully as she appeared to give his question genuine consideration. ‘A bit,’ she said. ‘But I’ve learned that being scared and being in danger aren’t the same thing. Right now, we are just scared. We’re not in danger.’
The turbulence eased as we climbed above the weather, and the plane levelled out into smooth air. Noah turned back to the window, even though there was nothing to see out there, just clouds and dark. Within ten minutes, his eyes were closing again.
I sat back in my seat. I’d flown in conditions considerably worse than this, in an aircraft considerably less airworthy, with men who’d trained for years to hold their nerve under pressure. And not one of them had ever handled it the way Alex just had.
Scared and danger aren’t the same thing.
I wondered if she knew she wasn’t just talking about the turbulence.
I looked at Alex. She’d pulled a blanket across from under the seat beside her and draped it over Noah without any fuss, and now she was looking out of the window at the dark.
I thought of at least six things I wanted to say.
I said none of them.