Diane was an old hand at not allowing subject changes as a question-avoidance tactic. Even blessed with what her mother used to term a ‘silvery’ voice, she wasn’t easily talked down. ‘What do you mean by “Gareth’s days off”?’
James shrugged. ‘Since Gareth took semi-retirement, he only works Tuesday to Thursday, right?’
Diane stared. ‘Tuesday to Thursday,’ she repeated, faintly, wondering how this could be when Gareth’s working week apparently also encompassed Monday, Friday and most Saturdays. Even the occasional Sunday. ‘So, Gareth’s taken semi-retirement, discovered his long-lost family and spends his spare time whizzing around in helicopters?’
A grin flashed across James’s face, filling his eyes with suppressed laughter. ‘It doesn’t normally sound quite so ludicrous – but, yes.’
She refrained from retorting that ludicrous was exactly what it was, because she so desperately needed to understand what the hell was going on. ‘And you know who I am, yet you’ve never met me?’
Smile fading, James acknowledged, ‘No. Owing to health issues.’
‘Whose?’
‘Yours!’
She made her eyes big and puzzled, a trick that could make even the bank manager responsive. ‘Oh dear, am I ill? What on earth can be the matter with me?’
James exchanged a look with Harold.
She pounced. ‘You don’t know!’
‘Of course I know! Gareth explained – that you have a nervous complaint, compounded by agoraphobia.’
‘Why didn’t he bring you to our house to meet me?’
Harold smiled a weary and gently perplexed smile. ‘But you don’t like meeting new people, Diane, do you?’
Diane studied first Harold’s helpful smile, then James’s puzzled frown. They meant it. They genuinely believed what they said. Her heart began to beat hard. She fought to keep her voice steady, the voice of a sane, rational person that everyone would believe in. ‘Have I behaved tonight like an agoraphobic with a fear of meeting people?’
James watched her. Eventually, he admitted, ‘I suppose not.’
Breathlessly, almost as if she didn’t know if her input were welcome, Tamzin added, ‘We allwantedto meet you. We wished we could.’
‘Meeting would have made everything clearer,’ Diane agreed, before picking up her now cold coffee and withdrawing into meditative silence.
PC Stone left the hospital, having gathered information for his report and satisfied himself that no one was about to die.
The corridors began to quieten.
James tried to relax, but the chair wasn’t made to loll in. He felt stiff and bristly. As first Harold and then Tamzin fell silent, he was able to watch Diane Jenner out of the corner of his eye. Her expressions, flitting across her face like a slide show, told him that her thoughts weren’t sweet. It had been an education, meeting her. Mindful of everything he’d been told about her precarious health, he’d made a huge effort to cater to her fragility – although the last thing he needed was an extra person to treat like china – and she’d reacted with the kind of outraged disbelief that she might reserve for an amiable drunk with a turd in each hand.
She made him want to laugh. And she made him want to throttle her when she gave him that politely scornful stare and demolished every statement he made.
A reassuring doctor brought news, first that Gareth had gone down to theatre to have pins in his wrist and fingers, a plate in his leg and an external fixation device – whatever that was – screwed into his pelvis, then of Valerie’s multiple leg injuries, a similar pelvic device and a collapsed lung. James received the news stoically. ‘On the whole, it’s slightly better than I expected. Gareth and Valerie have been lucky. Helicopters aren’t designed to bounce.’
‘Neither Gareth nor Valerie will be on a ward for some time,’ the white-coated doctor added. ‘You might be better going home for some sleep.’
‘I’ll stay,’ Diane returned, instantly, as if preprogrammed to rebut any idea she didn’t originate.
James looked at Harold, who looked as if he could sleep for a year. ‘I’ll take you home.’
Harold shifted. ‘I’m not sure … Valerie’s my daughter. And Gareth, I’ve only known him a couple of years –’
‘A couple ofyears?’ murmured Diane. James looked at her sharply. Harold was obviously shattered by the shock of having his child – his children – badly injured and he didn’t need Diane interrogating him, not now.
James tried Tamzin. ‘And I think you’ve had enough.’
Tamzin clutched her chair, her pleading eyes melting his heart. ‘I want to see Mum when she comes round.’
