Oh God, thought Danny when he was driving home, his heart straining painfully against his chest. What had he done? How had he allowed this to happen? All because he cared! Because he cared that Mrs Maudsley wasn’t being looked after properly. How could that be turned against him?
All at once he felt weepy with tiredness and confusion. Confusion that he lived in a world where only the few could speak their mind; the rest of them had to shut up and jolly well lump it. Anger and misery nestled in close to his heart and squeezed it painfully.
The cardiologist who had treated him had warned him that often survivors of heart attacks suffered emotional swings, one day as high as a kite on the simple joy of being alive, and another plummeting to the depths of melancholy and depression. Was that his problem? Was he depressed?
No, he told himself firmly. All he needed was some time away and thank God that was just around the corner. Another week and they’d all be at Linston End with Alastair. Being there had always made him feel good.
But the thought didn’t help. Not when he was faced with the prospect of losing his old friend to a woman they none of them knew, and on top of that they would never stay at Linston End again after this summer.
All those happy summers they had spent together. Their golden years, that’s what they’d been. But not anymore. Orla was gone. He’d nearly gone, and now Alastair was abandoning them. Abandoning Danny … just like all those foster parents had who’d passed him around like an unwanted parcel.
The road became blurred as his eyes filled; he blinked hard, but it was no good. He slowed his speed, pulled over and switched off the engine. His heart galloping wildly, like a runaway horse, he got out and went and stood against a metal gate where a field of barley was gently swaying in the warm summer breeze.
Breathe in,he told himself.
And out.
In.
Out.
There, that was better. Was that a panic attack, he wondered? Was this something else to add to the list of things wrong with him? Something else to keep from Frankie?
Across the field of barley, way off in the distance he heard the sound of a church bell ringing.For whom the bell tolls, he thought,in the midst of life, we are in death…
‘No, not me!’ he cried out aloud, thumping the gate with his fist. ‘Not yet! Not by a long chalk. Still plenty of life left in this old dog.’ He just had to get a grip. That was all. No more maudlin twaddle from here on. Fighting talk was needed, not this overemotional wallowing in self-pity. If Suzie Wu wanted a fight, he’d give her one. He knew the truth of what he’d seen and he’d be damned if he apologised.
But what had he seen? Just a woman not really giving her full attention to what she should have been doing. There were worse sins she could be guilty of.
He sighed deeply. Should he take the easy way out and just apologise and say he may have overreacted? That was, after all, what the British were known for, apologising to someone who had just bumped into them.
Yes, he decided. First thing in the morning he would drive back to Woodside and apologise, and that would be an end to it. That way he wouldn’t have to confess anything to Frankie and reveal what a fool he was.
Chapter Sixteen
‘You should have told me! Oh Lord, what on earth were you thinking, getting yourself into a pickle like this?’
‘Are you using the word “pickle” to try and lessen the severity of the mess I’ve got myself into?’
Sitting across the kitchen table from him, Frankie’s heart went out to Danny. ‘Maybe I am, but only on a subconscious level. But, darling, nobody who knows you would believe what that woman is saying about you.’
‘But what if she carries out her threat to take her story to the newspaper, claiming that I picked on her because she’s foreign? She’ll have me painted as some kind of right-wing, frothing at the mouth racist. Those who don’t know me will be only too quick to believe every word and have me hung, drawn and quartered without ever hearing my side of it. All I was trying to do was look out for a vulnerable old lady who wasn’t being given the attention she deserved.’
Frankie sighed. ‘I know you were, love, I know that. But why on earth didn’t you tell me you were still visiting Mrs Maudsley?’
‘I thought you’d see it as a weakness in me,’ he murmured.
‘A weakness?’ she repeated, dumbfounded.
‘And maybe ban me from going, given my own health problems.’
Frankie sighed again. He was right; she probably would have seen it as an unnecessary stress and stopped him.
Without telling her where he was going, Danny had gone back to Woodside this morning to offer an apology and to admit he may have overreacted yesterday afternoon. Returning home, and visibly upset, he’d then confessed the whole sorry tale. It explained why he had been in such an odd mood last night, fidgety and unable to settle.
From what he’d told her, his apology had been accepted, with Matron suggesting he might like to curtail his visits to see Mrs Maudsley for the foreseeable future. While this infuriated Frankie – it implied that Danny was a danger to both staff and residents at Woodside – she could see that it was a sensible course of action. Especially as, according to Danny, Suzie Wu was threatening some kind of legal action if he ever approached her again, as well as taking her story to the local newspaper.
She was claiming, of all things, that Danny had been violent, that he had snatched the mobile out of her hand and deliberately thrown it on the ground, making her fearful for her life.
