Falling For You (15 page)

‘Your uncle already mentioned to me last night about your hopes to go off and study for a career.’ Carlotta’s finger is stroking the top of her wine glass now, going round and round in circles. For some reason, I can’t take my eyes off it. She’s been burning to bring this up with me ever since she got up, I think. I get the impression we are suddenly onto the real topic that has been eating away at her all morning, the reason why her mind was so distracted she’d burned the vegetables, maybe?

‘Ty and I spoke about it at length last night.’ 

‘Oh yes …?’ If they’ve come to any conclusions after talking at such length they certainly haven’t mentioned anything to me about it this morning. Not a good sign. When I glance towards the place at the table where Dad is sitting I see he has suddenly decided to have forty winks. It’s as if he’s opted out of this conversation. I feel a pang of regret wash over me, because here we are, all the family he’s got left, about to discuss him and his fate and he is fast asleep. If only I had remembered those tablets. They would have made all the difference to how he’s coped with lunch today. I know they would have.

‘If you’re serious about wanting that career then you’ll have to be realistic about what’s achievable and what isn’t,’ Carlotta is saying, her voice deadly quiet all of a sudden. She looks - stressed and put out and as if everything in her life is all too much. I can’t even begin to imagine why. She doesn’t work, as far as I know. They have no money worries. They seem to spend a lot of time away on fabulous holidays but here she is -
stressed.
 

‘I’m not sure what you mean, exactly,’ I mumble.

And then she says it. ‘A few years ago, Rose, your Mum could have saved a lot of strain on the family if she’d just gone into care when things went downhill for her.’ The family. Me and Dad, she means. They certainly never got involved so I can’t see what business it is of hers.

‘Dad doesn’t need to go into care,’ I flush.  And why did she need to bring
Mum
into the conversation here? ‘Uncle Ty?’ I turn to him for support but he seems divided. He picks up his glass and swallows down some wine.

‘We need to look at what’s going to be best for Jack,’ he says, infuriatingly non-committal. What happened to all that business of getting Dad looked at by more specialists?

‘You’ve already made up your minds then?’ I accuse.   

‘No,’ he says.

‘A loving daughter would be prepared to let her father have the very best care and be
honest
about things if she wasn’t the one who could provide it.’ My aunt looks at me solicitously and I find myself putting the plates back down on the table, an uncomfortable warmth spreading across my face. My cousin Sam busies herself scraping the last of the sprouts into a smaller bowl and then emptying the peas into the same container. She’s got enough collected to go into the kitchen but I suspect she doesn’t want to miss out on the outcome here ...

‘A loving daughter
...?’ I say, and my throat suddenly feels raw and dry.
You’re the selfish ones
, I think.
You’re the ones who won’t even entertain the idea of helping Dad out and you’d sooner put him in a stuffy old people’s home rather than take him into your own lovely one.
I swallow those thoughts down, though. Saying them out loud won’t help.

‘You need to make sure you don’t end up acting in a selfish way, too, Rose,’ Carlotta adds.
 
I blink. Selfish
too
? She just said.  Like who … my mum?

Not only can she not leave Mum alone, it sounds as if she - and maybe Uncle Ty? - have already made up their minds I am not doing a good enough job of looking after Dad. Even if I stay on here, doing the very best I can do for him, I would be being selfish,
like my mother.

Round and round her finger goes on that glass, it is like her argument, held in a loop with no way to break into it. Oh, the truth is, she is upset because their Christmas has been ruined, because they’ve had to sleep somewhere she hates; there isn’t enough festive food and drink here and my Dad is behaving unusually which has spooked her and maybe she senses her whole life is suddenly being threatened by the burden of caring for one of her husband’s relatives. I can understand that.

 ‘I am not selfish, even though it may appear that way to you. I’ve even come to terms with you taking over Mum’s room for your own use. Just please, Carlotta, don’t
ever
imply my mum was selfish because she didn’t go into a hospice, ever again.’

Her eyes open wider and Ty splutters out a cough.

‘Rose!’ Dad admonishes, coming in at the end of the conversation.
Fine time to come back to your senses now, Dad
! He brings his fist down somewhat mildly on the dining table but it is enough to make the wine-glasses wobble.  A little splash of wine jumps out onto the tablecloth and they all stare at it in shock.

‘Rose, apologise to your aunt at once
.
’

‘I’m not apologising.’

‘I was only speaking the truth,’
Carlotta
says, her head suddenly bowed.

‘
Your
truth,’ I say, my face burning. ‘Not ours.’ What is there to say after that? I leave them there, aware that the atmosphere at the lunch table has been utterly ruined and Dad has just woken up and has no clue why.

‘She misses her mum,’ I hear him making excuses for me as I leave them all and go up to my room. Great, that’s great. Now
he’s
making excuses for
me
. About half an hour later, I hear Sam sheepishly knocking on my bedroom door before she comes in. If she imagines she’s going to find me in here weeping and embarrassed she’s got another think coming. Actually I feel mad as hell. She sits on the edge of my bed tentatively, watching me shove a few undies and things into my backpack. Without even looking at her, I can hear in her voice she’s feeling mortified for me.

‘It’s Christmas Day. It’s snowing. The local news agencies are warning there’s a fugitive on the loose and you’re going …
where?’

I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, being this pathetic and childish. Twenty-four hours with the family and I am going mad. I’m not thinking straight. I know I am not but right now I can’t seem to stop myself.  I’m not really looking at what I’m packing. I’m not even
thinking
about what I’m doing I’m just shoving any old thing in, making a big show of it so Sam can be left in no doubt about my intentions … 

‘I am going to the crossroads post box where - as you know, I arranged with the locum over the phone this morning - I can pick up the meds Dad should have had yesterday.’

‘If you’re only going out to pick up your dad’s medicines then what do you need to pack up your
clothes
for?’ Sam insists.

The truth is, I don’t. All I’m really planning is to pick up the meds and then come back here.  I look at my cousin.

‘I am packing up my clothes in case … in case the locum didn’t make it this morning. Then I might just spend the night with my friend Shona who lives on the other side of the hill. If the tablets aren’t there
,
I assume they will be by tomorrow.’    

‘
Why
?’ She gives me a pained look. ‘Why not come back here?’ I arch my eyebrows at her.

‘I mean, we’re here,’ she continues. ‘We hardly ever see you and it’s going to be so boring if you’re not here ...’ but I’m not in the mood to be cajoled. I shove a box of chocolates into my backpack, so it looks as if I might be taking a gift for someone. I might as well go on to Shona’s for all the good anyone seems to think I’m doing here.

‘I’m sorry about your mother’s room
.
’ Sam glances at the black bags which I salvaged from the hall last night, now piled high at the bottom of my bed and she cringes. ‘And - what she said, But …’ she touches my arm lightly, ‘What about your dad? You can’t go and leave him on Christmas day, surely?’

‘I’m not
leaving
him. I’m going to fetch his meds. I’ll only go to Shona’s if the meds aren’t there.
He seems happy enough with his long-lost brother to talk to and my aunt seems to have taken over the whole household, so I’m sure Dad will be fed and watered.’

‘That isn’t the point. It’s Christmas.  Everyone will expect you to be here.’

‘Which I
will
be - if Dad’s meds are in that box. Otherwise - don’t wait up for me.’ 

‘Rose’
S
he stands up as I pull my socks on determinedly. ‘This is ridiculous. You can’t go out in this. At least wait and Dad will go with you. I’m going to tell my parents…’

‘I don’t want to wait. You don’t really think I want anyone’s company right now, do you?’ Sam takes my point. I have temporarily reverted to reacting like an eight year old in a huff and I know it.

‘Rose, don’t go,’ my cousin sucks in her bottom lip. ‘There’s a man the loose,’ she reminds me fretfully. ‘They’ll go spare if they know I saw you go out and I didn’t say anything.’

A man, huh!

‘He’s not going to be roaming around up here in the snow like Magwitch in the marshes is he?’ I give her a dismissive look. ‘Besides, how else are we going to get hold of Dad’s meds?’ I warn her as I shove my phone into my bag. ‘If you stop me now then you’ll be stopping your uncle Jack from getting his tablets.’

That seems to give her pause for thought. 

As I step out into the whirling snow and trudge down the lane it doesn’t take me all that long to realise I have probably made a big mistake. A bloody-minded stubborn streak makes me keep going instead of turning back and waiting for someone to come with me, though. I can do this by myself. I’ll show them.

Damn, it’s dark. I need to concentrate. Did I pack a torch when I was throwing all those things into my backpack earlier? It takes me a good five minutes to pull everything out of my bag and check and even in those few minutes it gets noticeably darker still. I didn’t pack one, but there is the tiniest of torches hanging on the end of my keyring. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I switch it on and the faintest pin-prick of light picks out a patch of ground at my feet. The ground is glistening and hard with the ice under the tracks I’ve just made coming up.

I expected to have reached the post box by now. Maybe I would have if I’d used the road but it’s too icy, I’ve had to trek up the grassy embankment which is now covered in snow. I stop and take my bearings for a bit. About two hundred metres further up, at the top of the hill I can spy the outer bailey walls of the old castle ruins. The ruin looks eerie in the half-light, strangely beckoning. They say there’s a chapel at the north end that’s still fairly intact, but the rest seems to be just a series of roofless walls all at various stages of crumbling away.  I screw up my eyes, squinting over at it curiously but I’m not tempted to go over there.

This whole site is surrounded by Topwoods, which was once part of my
d
ad’s holdings; the part Macrae stole on the pretext of doing his restoration project. I used to come up here with my friends as a kid, playing hide and seek in the dense undergrowth but we never played amongst the ruins.

All I want to do right now is find that post box and go straight home. I only brought this backpack to shake Sam up. I wouldn’t really have gone on to Shona’s
,
n
o matter what. I was angry with all of them but Dad needs his meds. I look around warily. Only half a mile to the west there’s a place the kids dubbed Dead Men’s Copse which was a favoured spot at one time for people who wanted to end it all. This place is too lonely and isolated. I don’t mean to stay long.

A bit further up the icy hill and my perseverance pays off. At the crossroads, I find the postbox. I lift the catch on it and sure enough, there is the blister pack of Dad’s meds, safely deposited by the locum and awaiting collection as promised. I let out a triumphant whoop of relief but my voice only echoes in a strange, spooky way, taking the wind out of my sails.

Suddenly, it seems all that much darker than it was a few moments ago. I take in a deep breath, as it dawns on me that the light has almost gone. Getting up here has taken me that much longer than I planned.

Still, I've got Dad’s tablets and now I’m going to take it slowly and carefully on the way down. Even if it takes me an hour. I’m going to get back in one piece and everything is going to be … I take another breath in because I can’t afford to go to pieces yet - everything is going to be
fine.

It feels like it’s got colder, even in the last half hour, and now, in the faint beam cutting through the darkness in front of me, I can see the snow has started coming down again. I turn my face upwards and I can feel the sting of little snow drops landing on my skin. It’s coming down quite fast. 

Maybe that’s why I decide I’d better pick up the pace and abandon my plan to take it slow and steady. Maybe it’s the strangest sense I’ve been getting, ever since I called out a few minutes ago, that I’m not alone; that somebody is watching me?

I mustn’t panic.

It’s important I keep my wits about me, concentrate on where I’m putting my feet, focus on the direction I’m going in but I can’t shake a growing sense that somehow I’ve lost my bearings. Without a path to follow, everything looks the same. I look backwards over my shoulder but that’s no help. This place looks so different with the sun gone down.

I keep thinking,
the last thing I want to do right now is fall over in this. Whatever I do I mustn’t fall over.
The more I think about it, the more the idea takes hold. I’m taking so much care and then… I don’t know how it happens but suddenly my feet slip out from under me and …
wallop
, there’s a sickening sensation of pain as the back of my head hits the frozen ground but it doesn’t stop there. The ground just beneath the surface must be sheet ice because suddenly I am sliding, half-plummeting, arms flailing out in an attempt to grab at something - anything - to stop myself but there’s nothing but chunks of snow and ice, nothing I can get hold of.  I just keep going and going and for a few terrible moments that feel more like hours the only thing I know for certain is the only way this is going to end is in a painful crash at the bottom.

Even as I’m falling, an even scarier thought is occurring to me; no one is going to know I’m here. Nobody will come and rescue me because if I don’t go back home they’ll assume I went on to Shona’s. Just like I said I would. By the time I stop, heart thudding with fear and shock, the only vague thought I can get my head around is that my backpack fell off my shoulders somewhere near the top. My backpack has my phone in it. My phone is my only hope of summoning help. I don’t think I can move, let alone crawl back up to retrieve it. Even if I
could
find it in the gathering dusk.

When I try calling out once or twice my whimpers echo into the muffled stillness on the hill because there is nobody to hear me, nobody there to see me. It seems a strange thing, in this world that’s so full of people, that anybody could fall in the snow and nobody ever find out till it’s too late. Is that what’s going to happen to me, now?

I cannot move.

I wonder how long it’ll take before the family realise that I’m not at Shona’s. Will they ring her maybe, just to make sure I got there okay? Maybe nobody will think to wonder what’s happened to me at all until morning?

Shit. By then I’ll be a frozen corpse. The thought dawns on me with an unshakeable certainty now. I made such a show to Sam about packing up the bag. They won’t know I’m here at all and by the time they
do
... The news teams will make their way up here and they’ll find the area cordoned off with that yellow police tape that they have while they search for evidence of foul play. I bet they’ll all jump to the conclusion I’ve been murdered by that guy that’s on the run because that’ll make the most exciting news story. Everyone will be riveted to the box over the Christmas period eating their cold turkey sandwiches while the commissioner of police comes out and says they are looking into every avenue.
Crap
. I don’t want to be a tragic Christmas news story. This is so unfair! I’ve got things to do yet. Whether or not I’ve got  that Downing College offer I wanted I’ve still got a whole life to live and I’ve still got to get those medicines back to my dad
.

After a while, I calm down, though. All those thoughts, they seem muted, less important. Vaguely, I’m aware of a searing pain in my right thigh that happened somewhere along the way down but even that isn’t worrying me too much. Slowly, I am getting this strange, overwhelming urge coming over me to just close my eyes for a bit and rest.

I mustn’t. I know this. Part of my brain is warning -
in these temperatures if you lose consciousness now you may never wake up again
. It is so cold, though. It would be so
comfortable
to sleep, block out the cold that way, and the pain …

Rose
- her voice in my head sounds just like it always did -
don’t sleep, Rose. Help is coming. Don’t sleep!
And now, instead of the comfortable numbing I was starting to feel, I get a prickle of extra cold like the trickle of frozen water down my back, on my face and arms, forcing me back into alertness.  And I hear Mum’s voice again; kind and loving just like she used to be before everything changed
.

Help is coming, Rosie Red. It’s coming soon. Don’t sleep, not yet!