Chapter Twenty-Five
After seeing Kayleigh back to her hotel in Qawra and paying a pretty hefty taxi fare, Lucas arrived at the Shady Lady in the morning at roughly the time he should have been leaving for Dive Meddi. He would have to ring Vern, soon.
He felt as if he’d run a marathon. His legs, his everything, ached. His head buzzed with the spaced-out gritty-eyed feeling that came from lack of sleep. His hair was thick and tangled with dried salt water and his scalp itched under the morning sun.
His heart lifted to see that the Shady Lady ’s aft door stood open, meaning Elle hadn’t left to go up to the centre. He thought she’d said yesterday that this morning she was due to run some kind of workshop for the younger kids, but time seemed to have looped a bit in his memory in the stress of Charlie’s accident. Was it only last night? It felt like a week ago.
Yet the memory of fishing Charlie up to the surface and towing him between boats that shifted like enormous spooked horses was fresh enough to make him feel queasy.
In a haze of fatigue, he trudged over the gangplank and into the saloon. He paused by the helmsman’s chair, put down his bag of last night’s wet clothes, listened, and caught the sound of a door closing. Heart lifting, he followed the sound, treading softly down the steps, past the galley, all spick and span. He paused.
Inside the cabin, Elle had a suitcase open on the bed and was folding into it her clothes, which had only recently taken up residence in the stowage areas of his cabin.
‘What the fuck?’ He could hear raw disbelief in his voice.
Elle swung around, dropped the dress she’d been holding and flew across the room to throw her arms around him. She smelled of shower gel and freshly washed hair. ‘Are you all right? How’s Charlie?’
‘He got away with severe concussion and a broken leg. They’re keeping him in. What’s with the suitcase?’ He didn’t lift his arms to hug her back. Just stared at the scene over her shoulder. He’d surprised Elle packing. Again.
‘No spine damage? Fantastic!’ She heaved a huge, theatrical sigh of relief. ‘Come and sit down.’ She tried to take his hand to usher him along. ‘Shall I get you coffee or something? Have you eaten? Or do you want to sleep first?’
He made himself immovable. ‘First,’ he returned, implacably. ‘I want to know why you’re packing.’
She took a deep breath and pushed back her hair. Shadows darkened the skin beneath her eyes but she smiled. ‘Your parents are coming out to Malta. Loz says I can move onto Seadancer ; then they won’t have the nightmare of trying to find a hotel room in high season on top of worrying about Charlie, will they? They’ll want to stay here, anyway. It’s your dad’s brother’s boat.’ She wasn’t looking at him properly. He felt as if she were looking at the space between his eyes instead of into them.
He put up both his hands. ‘Whoa. My parents are coming out here? How do you know?’
‘Didn’t they ring the hospital last night?’
He forced his muzzy brain to focus. ‘Why would they? Did you phone them or something?’
Dismay fleeted across her face. ‘Your mum called your phone and I thought I’d better answer. I told her about Charlie because — because it would have been odd not to, wouldn’t it? I think they tried to ring Kayleigh afterwards but she’d left her phone on the flybridge.’ Her pale brows were still drawn down. ‘Have I done the wrong thing? Isn’t Charlie going to be all right? Do you need to prepare them for bad news?’
Relief began to trickle through him, relaxing his limbs, which, he suddenly realised, had tensed almost painfully when he’d seen that suitcase. He reached and pulled her against him, hoping he didn’t smell too much of hospitals. ‘Sorry. I haven’t slept. My brain’s not functioning. I came in here and saw you packing—’ He stroked the silken fall of her hair.
She pulled back to look into his face, properly this time, comprehension in her eyes. ‘Oh. Weird stuff from the past?’
He laughed. ‘Sorry. Yes. How about we start this conversation again? Charlie is going to be OK. He has deep concussion and a broken leg but apart from throwing up and sleeping a lot, he’s returning to his old self. I don’t want to eat, I can’t sleep until I’ve done some things, but coffee would be fantastic. Your turn.’
Her body shifted slightly as she relaxed against him, turning her head so that her cheek fitted comfortably against his collarbone. ‘Your mum rang your phone. I told them what had happened; Loz and Davie had turned up just as the ambulance left and Loz gave your mum the information about the hospital. Your parents are coming straight over so I’m vacating to give them room.’
‘Right.’ He tried to digest the information, aware of the thrust of her breasts against him, that his hands had naturally come to rest on the curve of her buttocks. ‘And you’re not at Nicholas Centre because . . . ?’
‘Because I wanted to wait for you and I’m moving my stuff. I called Joseph and he’s postponed my workshop.’
‘I need to make calls. My parents and Vern.’ He still didn’t move, just holding her against him, enjoying the softness. But he couldn’t hold back a question. ‘How did talking to Mum go?’
Her muscles tensed. ‘OK.’
‘OK?’
‘Yes. OK.’
If he hadn’t been so damn tired he would have tried to encourage more information out of her than that. ‘Don’t go,’ he murmured.
‘I have to. You know how hard it will be for your parents to find a decent hotel at this time of the year. All the last-minute holiday companies will have booked everything up.’
‘Then I’ll ask Loz if I can come with you and bunk on board Seadancer. ’
She sighed, her breath hot against him. ‘Look — let’s not upset your parents.’
Shit. Guilt filtered through the small part of his brain that was still doing its job. She was right. It was going to be tricky enough to manage the Elle/parents relationship without putting their backs up. He pressed his lips against her hair. ‘I bet Mum was pretty surprised when you picked up the phone.’
A small silence. ‘Little bit.’
He laughed at her unconvincing attempt at nonchalance. ‘Don’t worry about my parents this time, all right? I’ll talk to them and they’ll behave.’
‘Great,’ she said, so brightly that he knew she didn’t believe he could do it. Mentally, he cursed himself for not supporting her as he should have in the past.
But this time it would be no problem. He was aware and he was in control. He yawned, hugely. ‘There’s nothing my parents can say to change things. I hadn’t told them about us because you said you just wanted to enjoy what’s happening and let the future take care of itself, and that’s fine. So long as you know that I see my future with you in it.’
She didn’t reply. But her embrace tightened.
Elle set the coffee machine going in the galley while Lucas retrieved his phone from the saloon. Elle had thoughtfully plugged it in to charge. Kayleigh’s phone was lying next to it.
‘I’ll start moving my stuff over while you call your parents,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to find an excuse to give me privacy. I’m not going to say anything I don’t want you to hear.’ He dropped down at the dinette.
‘It’s not an excuse. It has to be done. The coffee will be ready in a few minutes.’ She vanished into the cabin and reappeared with two cases, one pink and one with the union flag on it.
He had a sudden vivid memory of her lining them up on the quay on the day she arrived, using them as a barrier, glaring at him from behind it. ‘I’ll carry them for you.’
‘They have wheels. Make your phone call.’ She gave him a wide smile and dragged the suitcases rapidly across the saloon and out of the door.
The boat dipped slightly as she swung each suitcase across the gap between bathing platform and quay. After a moment he heard the rumbling of the hard plastic wheels along the concrete.
He shook his head. This was not the way he would have chosen to cement Elle back into his life. Her tension every time the subject of his mother came up was palpable. He was going to have to make that stop.
He pressed the button on top of his iPhone and saw eight missed calls from his mother. There were also a couple of texts. The first, also from his mother, said: Ring me asap. Dad and I are making arrangements to fly to Malta. I spoke to the hospital and they said Charlie’s in no danger but we’re coming anyway. I asked the hospital to ask you to ring me but you haven’t and Kayleigh’s and Charlie’s phones go straight to voicemail. Are you OK? Mum xxx PS Surprised to find myself speaking to Elle on your phone.
Charlie’s phone had been in his pocket when he fell into the water, so its life was over, and Lucas already knew that Kayleigh had left her phone on the Shady Lady in the confusion after Charlie’s idiocy.
The second text message said: You have two voicemail messages. When he dialled in, his mother’s even tones told him that they were en route already, their flight number and an ETA of just after 1p.m. Malta time. He pressed a button on the phone to check the time. They must already be in the air.
Pushing aside his desperation for sleep, he sent a text for his mother to pick up when she landed. I’ll meet your flight. Charlie’s going to be OK.
The next message was from a ruffled-sounding Vern. ‘So, what’s up, Lucas? Why the no-show?’
He called straight back. ‘Really sorry, Vern. My brother had an accident and I’ve been at the hospital all night.’
Immediately, Vern’s attitude changed and he demanded details. ‘Good job from you,’ he concluded. ‘I’ll work round it, mate. See you tomorrow?’
‘I’ll let you know, but I think so.’
Then he texted Elle: Calls made. Parents arriving early pm and he went to throw off his clothes and get himself under the shower for a couple of minutes before crashing onto the bed. Before he could close his eyes, he set his phone alarm for noon. A moment later he heard someone coming on board and soon Elle stole into the cabin.
He held out an arm. ‘Come to bed.’
Her eyes sparkled. ‘You need to sleep.’
‘Give me a break, Elle,’ he groaned. ‘I’m going to sleep. I just want to hold you for a minute.’
She arrived on the mattress beside him with a bounce, warm, soft, brushing kisses on his shoulder and his jaw. ‘Lower,’ he suggested.
‘You’re supposed to be going to sleep. By the way, Joseph says he’ll take you to fetch your parents. If they want to go straight to the hospital he’ll drop you all and then bring their bags here. You’re to ring him half an hour before you want to leave.’
He settled her more firmly against him, stroking the roundness of her bottom through her shorts. ‘That’s really kind of him. It’ll save me a lot of messing around with taxis.’
‘So everything’s taken care of and you can sleep.’
‘Right.’ And he let sleep have him.
Later, when his alarm went off it took him several moments to locate his phone and switch off the alert. But only an instant to realise that Elle had gone.
* * *
Picking up his parents went without a hitch. They swept into the gleaming arrivals hall towing cabin baggage suitcases, Fiona’s short salt-and-pepper hair neatly styled, Geoffrey wearing an open-necked shirt. They were visibly relieved to be introduced to Joseph and find that he was to transport them to their erring younger son.
‘It was Elle who arranged it,’ Lucas pointed out as they shook Joseph’s hand.
Joseph drove them past palm trees and the pink and white oleander that lined the busy roads as Lucas filled his parents in about the accident. ‘Elle played a pivotal role. While I went to Charlie, she shot along the quay shouting for help. Sometimes, people just freeze, or they scream incoherently. But she made herself loud and accurate, told people exactly what had happened and that we needed help. Without help I wouldn’t have been able to get Charlie onto a makeshift backboard and out of the water.’
‘All because Charlie was showing off.’ Fiona shuddered. ‘Thank God you were there, darling.’
Lucas contented himself with a diplomatic ‘All’s well that ends well.’ The huge bollocking he had saved up for Charlie could wait until his little brother was well enough to leave hospital. That’s if there was anything left of Charlie after Fiona had had her say. He tried not to yawn as the sun beat down on him through the glass of the car.
Joseph dropped them at Mater Dei, a large modern building with a lot of blue-green glass. Charlie had been moved out of the emergency admissions ward, where Lucas had left him earlier that morning, and into an orthopaedic ward on the third floor. As it wasn’t currently visiting hours they had to explain about Fiona and Geoffrey having only just arrived in the country; then they were allowed to visit Charlie if they promised to be quick and quiet.
Charlie woke as they arrived.
Lucas was shocked by the black eye that had doubled in magnitude since that morning and seemed to be smeared halfway across Charlie’s cheek. Around this luridness, his freckles stood out against his pallor. But the big grin was reassuring and, after a few words, Lucas went to wait in the corridor to allow his parents time with their son. Fiona would need to give him a good scolding and then cry all over him.
In view of stern notices on the walls about mobile phone usage, Lucas snuck off into the Gents’ and texted to Elle, All OK? xxx before taking up station again in the corridor, trying not to give in to the fuzzy arms of fatigue.
It wasn’t long before Fiona and Geoffrey reappeared, leaving Charlie to sleep now they’d assured themselves that he’d got off lightly from what Geoffrey referred to as ‘his bloody stupidity’. They traversed the corridors to an exit where they could call a taxi.
As they waited in the shade of the building for the car to arrive, Lucas felt his pocket vibrate. A text from Elle. All OK. I’m at the centre . He wasn’t terribly surprised to learn she wouldn’t be awaiting them at the Shady Lady. The impending arrival of his parents had taken the joy out of Elle’s eyes. This uncomfortable situation occupied his woolly brain during the ten-minute drive back to Ta’ Xbiex. His parents were almost silent, probably thinking about Charlie’s narrow squeak.
His stomach gurgled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday evening, which might be some of the reason he felt so spaced-out. Once he’d got his parents settled he’d arrange something about dinner. Maybe if Elle met his mum and dad again over a civilised meal in a restaurant it would be easier than staring at one another across the Shady Lady ’s saloon.
The taxi pulled up on the quay and Lucas paid.
The boat was all shut up, as he’d expected. ‘Welcome aboard,’ he said, shoving the gangplank across, unlocking the door and leading his parents through.
Fiona and Geoffrey’s smart little cases had been left on the floor of the master cabin, underlining Elle’s determination to vacate. The bed had been changed and neatly made. He sighed. He’d had a lot of pleasure in that bed in the last week and a half. Not just awesome sex, but talking to Elle, sharing jokes, holding and being held, waking up with her golden hair tickling his face and her blue eyes sleepy. Tracing his way around the willowy body that had been haunting his dreams.
He shook his head to clear it. ‘You’re in here,’ he told his parents. ‘I’ll use the guest cabin.’
But he didn’t like his new situation. Shocked by Charlie’s accident or not, it was time he got a few things straight with his parents. ‘I need to talk to you about Elle.’
Fiona sat down on the edge of the bed with a tired sigh.
Geoffrey rocked awkwardly on his feet. ‘Actually, we need to talk to you about her, too.’
Lucas frowned. ‘Why?’ Then an image of Elle swam before his eyes, the wary, troubled Elle who had never coped with his parents’ attitude. A thump of his heart told him how much he liked the other Elle, the happy, open Elle. The Elle who had begun to slip from his grasp the moment that she knew his parents would be around.
He cut across Fiona, who had opened her mouth to speak. ‘Is it something negative? Because if that’s the case I’m not comfortable with discussing her behind her back.’
He watched Fiona and Geoffrey exchange looks, as if trying to communicate telepathically. ‘Maybe it would be best to have her there?’ suggested Geoffrey, to Fiona, not Lucas.
Fiona looked wary. ‘Would it really be “behind her back”?’
Lucas watched his mother curiously. She looked the nearest to shifty that he remembered seeing her. Firmly, he said, ‘I think that if you want to say something negative and we discuss it when she isn’t here, then she’d definitely have a right to feel that we were talking about her behind her back.’
Into the strained silence he added, softly, ‘And I don’t want to have to take sides.’