‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not as sorry as I am.’
‘What happened? Or would you rather not talk about it?’
‘No, I don’t mind telling you. It was nearly three years ago. A group of us were away in Ibiza for my friend’s stag do and we were staying in his parents’ villa. The five of us, old school friends, had gone out in a boat after drinking too much. I’m sure you can picture the scene. Inevitably things got a bit silly and Robbie fell overboard. By the time we got him out of the water, it was too late. He was dead.’
He took another sip of his tea. ‘I’ll never forget how ashamed and worthless we all felt at Robbie’s funeral, especially when confronted with his parents’ grief. Robbie’s fiancée and family were there too and I’m sure she blamed us. After that, I swore I’d learn how to do CPR, so that if I ever found myself in a similar situation again, I’d know exactly what to do.’
‘I’m so glad that you did,’ Jenna murmured, ‘but I’m sorry about you losing your friend.’
Minutes passed when neither of them spoke, until Jenna said, ‘It’s none of my business what you were doing out on the river bank so late, but I’ll always be thankful you were there and that my father stopped for you.’
‘I’d seen the four of you going out in the boat and, given Robbie’s death, I just couldn’t settle, not until I knew you’d come back.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And I meanyouspecifically.’ Before she could say anything, he quickly went on. ‘Call it a sixth sense, or whatever else you want to, but when your father appeared, and was clearly worried enough to go looking for you, I had no choice but to go too.’
She turned and looked at him. ‘Right place, right time,’ she said softly.Or fate, she imagined Rachel sniggering in her ear.
He held her gaze, then suddenly, perhaps at the thought of Rachel, a shiver ran through her at what could have happened if Blake hadn’t been staying at the Mill. Or if he hadn’t been so concerned about her. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her mouth with a hand, reliving the moment when she had been convinced her friend was dead. She loved Rachel so much. She loved her for all her silliness, and for all her impulsiveness, but most of all because Rachel had always been there in her life. She also loved Rachel because she was everything Jenna could never be – she was the kind of girl who danced barefoot in the moonlight. When had Jenna ever done something like that?
Her eyes still closed, she felt Blake shift on the seat beside her, followed by his arm moving to go around her shoulder. She willingly leant against him, wanting to feel the solid assurance of him.
‘It’s okay,’ he said quietly, ‘it’ll be like that for a while; the shock will creep up on you. It’s quite normal.’
She opened her eyes. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget this night,’ she said.
‘No, you probably won’t.’
For the longest time they sat in companionable silence, drinking their tea and watching the sky gradually lighten with a glowing opalescence as the dawn heralded the start of a new day. A bird began to sing, followed by another, and another. Resting against Blake, Jenna was aware of a sense of energy coming off him, a sort of vibration. Or was it she who was vibrating, buzzing with some unknown force?
‘You ought to get back,’ she said, when she’d finished her tea, ‘your mother will be wondering what’s happened to you.’
‘She knows I’m here, your father let me use his mobile to text her.’
‘I like your mother, she’s nice.’
‘I’m rather fond of her myself as it happens.’
‘Look,’ she said, pointing to the sky in the east where the first rays of the sun were bleaching the indigo darkness of the sky.
‘And with the new day comes new strength and new thoughts,’ he said, leaning forward to see where she was indicating. She felt his warm breath on her cool cheek and very faintly something stirred within her. It’s shock, she reasoned, shock manifesting itself in another guise. ‘Did you make that up?’ she asked, straightening her back so that he was forced to remove his arm from her shoulder.
‘Being a lowly creative type which you clever lawyers so despise, I’ll take that as a compliment, that you believe I’m sufficiently intelligent to think of it all on my own.’
She tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘And just when you were doing so well, you spoil it in one small step.’
‘It’s actually something my mother says,’ he said with a smile. ‘Don’t hold me to it, but I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt who originally came up with it. It’s very apt though, and something I try to live by.’
Thinking how impossible it was to know what each new day would bring, and maybe it was just as well, Jenna said, ‘Do you suppose Rachel will suffer any long-term ill-effects as a result of what she’s gone through?’
‘Do you mean after her body was deprived of oxygen for the length of time it was?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, obviously the body will start to shut down when denied oxygen, but the speed of that process can vary from person to person. I’m no expert in these things, but I do know that it would happen a lot faster in a child than an adult.’
‘Could it be serious? Like brain damage?’
‘I don’t think you need to worry about that; Rachel seemed fairly with it when we got her back here. There could be a risk of water being trapped in her lungs and that’s why she should be taken to hospital, but from what I know, most people make a full recovery after nearly drowning. I’m sure Rachel will be just fine.’
