Prima Donna (17 page)

She covered some more ground, savouring the feeling of being lost. Strangely, she didn’t feel as alone out here in the wood as she did in the house. And she didn’t feel foreign here
– she could be anywhere. Her isolation and friendlessness weren’t thrust upon her like they were in that bedroom.

Her idle dreaming was brought to an abrupt halt as she saw that, just ahead, the slope sharpened steeply. She put on the brake.

It was clear she couldn’t go any further. The path forked, turning right up a steep slope that she had no chance of getting up, and to the left it deteriorated into an unmade track. She
crouched low in the chair, trying to see beyond the tendrils of a weeping willow, and saw that the track led down to a shimmering freshwater lake fed by the stream.

A weathered grey jetty jutted out poetically into the still waters, as though pointing towards the lily pads floating out in the deep, and she could make out a dark green boathouse on the
opposite side, with a red-painted rowing boat tethered beneath it.

She gasped in wonder. A secret lake, hidden in an ancient wood? It could have been one of her stage sets – she could just imagine Chopin’s score for the fauns and sprites dancing in
the mists. Oh, if only she could get up on her feet. That little jetty was like a private stage.

She chewed her lip, her weight forward on her lap as she contemplated getting over to it. There was no way she could do it; although the track to the jetty was short, it was too steep. And even
if she did make it down there, she’d never be able to get back up again. Not on her own.

She would have to turn back. For all the freedom she’d bought herself today, she still wouldn’t be able to get any closer than this. The fun was over for now. The fun was over for a
long time to come.

Dammit! She smacked her hands down on the armrests in frustration. She just wanted life back to the way it had been – dancing
Giselle
on tour in New York and having sex in the
snow with Andy.

Taking off the brake, and with an angry backwards spin of the wheels, she pivoted round, only catching sight of an unyielding oak tree as she was spinning. She gasped in horror as her
outstretched leg on the support board swung straight towards it. She got her hands back on the wheels, to turn away again, but there was no time. There was too much momentum . . .

The plaster smacked sidelong against the tree and she screamed out wildly, hot tears instantly scalding her cheeks as crashing waves of pain rolled through her. Her foot flinched and clenched
instinctively on contact, and she felt the dormant, crushed muscles instantly seize and cramp, compounding her agony.

Pia wrapped her hands around the foot but she couldn’t manipulate it beneath the rock-hard plaster. Crying helplessly, she threw her head back, her body rigid and lifted like a board from
the seat, her arms pinned down to the armrests as the pain crescendoed through her muscles and ricocheted against her broken bones like a pinball.

She couldn’t stop the screams from coming and she sounded as wild as any creature that had ever lived in that wood. Nothing dared go near her. There was nothing
to
go near her.
She was in the middle of nowhere. No one knew she was here, and she’d been exploring for at least three-quarters of an hour. God only knew how far away she was.

She cried pitifully – with anger, with pain, with frustration – her hands balled up into fists as she screamed intermittently at the injustice of it all, willing it all to be
over.

Long, dragging minutes passed and the initial pain began to ebb, leaving in its place a throbbing, heavy, gangrenous ache. It felt like her foot was dying. Her hands covered her eyes. She
couldn’t bear to look. Was this it, then? Had she delivered the death blow to her own illustrious career? Had she undone everything Will had done in flying her to England and getting her seen
by the best in the bone business? He’d saved her career. No, more than that – he’d saved her life. Dancing was her life and without it she had nothing. He’d preserved it for
her, kept the doors open for her to make a full return . . .

For the first time since waking up in hospital, the realization of what he had actually done for her hit home. He’d saved her when she couldn’t save herself. And she’d behaved
like an absolute brat.

Peeling her hands from her eyes, Pia tentatively studied her foot. The toes looked purplish, and were already beginning to swell. She had to get back to him.

She looked around her cautiously, her temper gone. The roots of the tree protruded like gnarly claws on the right side of the path and the right wheel was wedged between two that held her in
position on the slope, even with the brake off. With a determined effort she gave a little jolt forward to release the chair over the front root, but it was too pronounced for her to get the wheel
over it from a standing start, especially as she was now facing uphill.

She realized she’d need to change direction, travel cross-ways over to the other side of the path where it was smooth, and then face back up the slope. Carefully, with her right hand
pushing against the tree, she used her left hand to turn the wheels and steer her to the left. She jerked forward in her seat, using her own weight as ballast to help the chair bunny-hop over the
root.

The wheelchair rolled over it easily – too easily – and she oversteered. Facing back downhill again, the wheels found traction on the smooth path and rapidly began to gain momentum
down the slope. Pia gave a short scream of fright. The tyres were following the grooves worn into the path and being steered, like a train on rails, straight down the unmade track.

Panicking, she grabbed at the bushes as she skittered past, trying to hold on to something, anything. It didn’t matter if she came out of the chair and damaged her foot all over again
– she just couldn’t end up in that water. But they were just twigs snapping in the cold as she bumped past, like a novice skier on moguls, unable to slow or avert her course.

Within seconds, the tenor of the crisis changed again as the low whirr of the wheels on the mud path was replaced by the rumble of the boards as the chair mounted the jetty. She was above the
water . . .

Pia slammed her hands down on the wheels, but they were going much too fast now and she screamed again as the rubber burnt her reddened palms.

For a long elastic moment, Pia felt the wind in her hair, the sun on her face. And then an almighty smack as the chair hit the green water and she was immediately separated from it. She screamed
and she heard her own voice above the thrashing water, animal-like in its screams as she tried to turn, to find a leg of the jetty to hold on to. But the weight of her cast dragged her under
immediately and the water was so dark. So, so cold. She couldn’t see . . . couldn’t feel . . . couldn’t break the surface . . .

She sank silently down, only the gently lapping ripples on the surface betraying that she had ever been there.

It was Biscuit who’d heard the girl first, defying her master’s whistle to race away from the path and down to the water’s edge. They’d been coming back
from the boathouse when they’d heard her first screams as the cramps took hold, and they’d watched – aghast – as she’d struggled, trying to dislodge the chair from the
tree roots. The path dropped steeply right behind her and it was clear that unless she could get the wheels moving with a burst of power, she’d be rolling back down it, towards the water.

Tanner had never moved so fast in his life, racing over the ground like a hare, jumping bushes and ducking branches, trying to get to her before she could free herself. But she was so far away .
. .

He and Biscuit heard the splash and knew she was in. He sped on, faster still, the icy morning air burning in his throat as his lungs tried to keep up with his heart, but it was no good. He knew
he’d never get to her in time if he followed the path. Just further on, it twisted away from the water’s edge, heading deeper into the bushes and up the bank, before emerging again at
the top of the steep slope down to the jetty.

Panting hard, he stopped at a tree. He could see the splashes at the end of the jetty from here. Christ! He was out of time. Without thinking, he pulled off his boots and jumper, and dived in.
It was only thirty yards as the crow flew – or rather swam – from here. It was the only thing he could do for her.

The water was so cold it almost knocked the breath out of him but his legs propelled him as powerfully as they had on land, and he cut through the water like a blade.

He got to the jetty and duck-dived down, finding her quickly. The water wasn’t so deep here – maybe fifteen feet – and the sediment that had been churned up on her entry had
started to settle again. She’d been under forty, maybe forty-five seconds, but as he dragged her to the surface she was already unconscious. He hoped to God it was from the cold. It might
actually buy her a little time if the shock of the temperature had shut her system down.

Resting her on his chest, he swam quickly on his back, Biscuit barking frantically from the bank, urging him on.

In spite of the wet cast on her leg, the girl was small and only light, and he pulled her easily from the water as his feet found the lake bed. He laid her out on the muddy ground, her legs
still floating in the water, and put his ear to her mouth. She wasn’t breathing.

‘Be quiet, Biscuit! Quiet!’ he cried at the dog, who immediately crouched low to the ground as Tanner searched for a pulse. He placed his fingers against her neck and counted against
his watch. One, two, three, four . . .

‘Okay, got it, Biscuit. Let’s pull her up and turn her over,’ he said, talking to the dog as though she actually had opposable digits and could do as he asked. She gave a
single bark of despair.

Tanner got the girl fully out of the water and shifted her into the recovery position, smacking her back. Eight, nine, ten seconds passed. Oh God, come on. Come on . . .

On sixteen, she started coughing up water, her eyes flickering open with the effort. He kept her in the position for a few minutes, until he was sure there was nothing left in her stomach. She
fell back against the ground, her eyes closed. She was conscious, but barely.

‘It’s okay. You’re okay,’ he said, reassuring her. ‘You’re going to be fine. You’re safe now.’

Pia remembered those words. Safe now.

She began to shiver uncontrollably. Tanner took in her colour. Her skin and lips had a bluish tinge but the shivering was good. It meant her core temperature hadn’t dipped below thirty-two
degrees. But he needed to get her warmed up and fast, or hypothermia would set in. He thought quickly. It would take too long to get back to the farm from here.

‘We need to get you out of those wet clothes now, okay? It’s vital we get you warmed up,’ he said, oblivious to the fact that he was shivering incessantly too. ‘I’m
going to put my jumper on you,’ he said, reaching forward slowly to untie her sodden dress, not wanting to alarm her.

‘Get it. Fetch, Biscuit,’ he said quietly to the biddable dog, jerking his chin towards the path. Biscuit barked happily, delighted to have a role, and raced off. She knew exactly
what was needed from her.

Carefully, he unwound the dress from the girl and, pulling her arms above her head, tugged off her thin jumper. She was wearing only panties underneath, and he kept his eyes up, firmly up, even
though her silhouette in his peripheral vision was setting off sirens in his brain. Biscuit scampered back with his jumper – now muddied – in her teeth and he quickly slipped it over
her head, swamping her tiny frame. The sleeves dangled past her hands, which he noticed had bad burns, and the neck was almost slipping off her shoulders, the hem hanging down to mid-thigh.

He rubbed her hands vigorously in his and blew on them. Her colour had improved a little but she was barely conscious and he quickly needed to get her somewhere warm. He looked at her broken
foot. She’d been in a wheelchair when he’d first seen her. She clearly couldn’t walk.

‘I’m going to pick you up and take you to the nearest house for medical attention, okay?’ he said slowly, again wary of alarming her.

The girl gave a tiny groan and he picked her up delicately, worried about hurting her foot further. It looked like she’d had a run of bad luck lately.

He tried to get her to clasp her hands around his neck, but the effort defeated her and her arms hung limply down, her head rocking against Tanner’s chest as he stalked barefoot through
the wood, knowing intimately every twist and turn and dip of the path. Biscuit ran ahead all the way, tail aloft, before racing back and circling him, herding him along, keeping him going.

He covered the ground in long, loping strides, his jeans clinging to his thighs, and within twenty minutes he had passed the solitary bank of snowdrops. He emerged from the copse dripping and
exhausted, and for once happy to see the primly manicured stripes of Will Silk’s lawns.

There was a full-scale panic in the house, even before Will caught sight of Tanner striding up the lawns with Pia, limp and barely conscious, in his arms. He flew out of the
drawing room and raced over to them, wresting her away instantly. She felt pitifully light.

‘Get the doctor!’ he yelled to Mrs Bremar, who was standing at the steps, wringing her hands. ‘And run a hot bath!’ The woman disappeared inside.

‘What happened?’ he demanded, the questions pounding around in his head, as he stalked up the grass.

‘I saw her down by the lake,’ Tanner said. ‘She lost control of the wheelchair and went in.’

‘The lake! What the fuck was she doing there?’ Will shouted.

‘How would I know?’ Tanner shouted back.

‘Well – you’re the one who saw her. Was she meeting someone? Having a fucking picnic? Trying to top herself? What was she doing?’

‘How would
I
know?’ Tanner repeated, furious. ‘I don’t even know who the hell she is. Do
you
know her?’

‘Of course I . . .’ Will looked at him and saw for the first time that Tanner – bare-chested and wet in the February morning chill – was in not much better shape than the
girl in his arms. ‘Christ, you’re blue, Tanner. You need to warm up. Get into the house and have a bath. And take some of my clothes. I’ll get a fire started.’