Maddie Please - The Mini-Break

‘You’d be the same in my place. And the one time we have a chance of someone getting us out of this place, you let him run off with the vague promise he might “pop back”. Why didn’t you offer to pay him? He’d have popped back a damn sight quicker if you’d waved a tenner at him.’

This thought had crossed my mind on several occasions but I didn’t need my sister reminding me.

I made a mature and considered response.

‘Oh shut up!’

‘You shut up!’

Jassy gave a furious scream and bit the edge of her blanket.

‘Hello? Anyone at home?’

Jassy yelped and we swung round to see the dark silhouette of a man standing in the doorway leading out to the hall.

‘Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but you didn’t seem to hear me when I knocked.’

It was him.

The man with the bright blue eyes and the tractor.

There is a God after all. I was beginning to wonder.

‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you,’ I said, trying to sound calm and measured and not as though I had been in the middle of a heated screaming match with my sister.

He pulled off gloves, which looked as though they had been constructed from old wet suits and held out a hand towards me. I shook it. His fingers were cold but his palm was warm and I felt an odd shiver of something. He reached over to say hello to Jassy who was busy being tiny and fragile and thoroughly irritating under her blanket.

‘Joe Field. I’m guessing you haven’t managed to fix the puncture?’ he said.

Trust me, if I had I wouldn’t be here talking to you , I thought, but that would have been rude and Joe Field might have been offended and left us to it. I wasn’t going to risk losing him again. I moved round a bit so I actually blocked his exit route.

‘I’m Louisa Darling, and this is my sister Jassy Sutton.’

I waited a beat to see if he realised who we were. He didn’t so much as flicker. Oh well. Perhaps he didn’t look at the gossip columns or read much chick lit or psychological drama?

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid we haven’t managed to fix it. Jassy has a very fragile knee and of course I have to look after her full time.’

I made it sound as though she couldn’t be left for even a second, which was far from the case. In fact I’d gone to bed leaving her asleep on the sofa twice and yesterday I’d refused to bring her lunch on a tray and made her come to the table. I don’t think Jassy had been out of her pyjamas for three days and she was beginning to fall into the helpless, dependent patient state of mind.

‘I see,’ he said, rubbing the warmth back into his fingers.

‘So can you fix it?’ Jassy said.

‘I expect so, if you have a spare tyre. Or some tyre sealant.’

Tyre sealant? What the hell was that? Something like massive Sellotape?

‘I’m sure we do,’ I said. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘That would be lovely,’ he said. ‘Just give me the car keys and I’ll go and have a look and see what I can find. I’ve brought my compressor in case you don’t have one.’

What’s a compressor?

We watched him go outside. I had a sudden leap of optimism.

‘You don’t think he’s going to steal your car do you?’ Jassy said.

For a moment I gnawed at a thumbnail and thought about the possibility and then gave an exasperated sigh.

‘It’s got a flat tyre, Jassy, remember? This isn’t London.’

‘Well watch him – that’s all I’m saying.’

I went out into the kitchen and switched the coffee machine on and got some mugs out of the dishwasher. Then I tweaked the kitchen curtains back a bit more and watched him. He was rather watchable too, if I was honest.

He was very tall and broad in a muscly way and he had an ideal profile of strong straight nose, lovely cheekbones and a full lower lip that is supposed to mean a passionate nature. Well, it does in my books anyway.

The rain had stopped at last and the morning was the best since we had arrived. There was a bright blue sky and even some sunshine, which was burning off the early morning mist that had been hovering over the river down in the valley.

It was cold though, and a brisk wind was ruffling his dark hair. He made me think of Cormack McDonald, hero of my third book The Life I Always Wanted . Tall and big and rather – oh, for heaven’s sake.

Joe opened the boot and rummaged around for something and then pulled out a weedy-looking tyre like a toy with a red middle. He looked up, saw me watching him and gave a big grin and a thumbs-up. I shrank back and began making coffee.

‘Can I have some?’ Jassy yelled from the next room. ‘And I think there are some KitKats in the cupboard over the sink. If they aren’t there they’ll be in the stone jar in the larder.’

‘How do you know? I thought you couldn’t move off the sofa?’ I yelled back.

Bloody hell.

Meanwhile Joe was messing about with the flat tyre and constructing something that looked like a giant tin opener whilst jacking the car up off the ground. In a matter of minutes he had replaced the real tyre with the toy one and put the damaged one in the boot. Then he attached some engine sort of thing and pumped the spare tyre up a bit. It was very impressive.

He came back in the back door, bringing a cold swirl of air with him and the faint scent of wood smoke.

‘Okay, should be fine,’ he said, ‘but get a proper one fitted as soon as possible and don’t go over thirty miles an hour until you do. Could I just—’

He went over to the sink to wash his hands and I waited with the kitchen towel like some sort of theatre nurse by his side.

‘Thanks,’ he said, drying his hands.

The kitchen towel had little embroidered vegetables along one edge and he had hands like shovels so the two weren’t exactly compatible. It looked like he was using a handkerchief.

‘So, I can drive? I mean I do understand I need to get a new tyre. Where can I get one from?’

‘Depends where you’re heading,’ Joe said, handing me the towel.

I gave him a mug of coffee.

‘London!’ Jassy shouted from the other room.

Joe went into the sitting room where she was still bundled up on the sofa in her nest of blankets and cushions.

‘Then your best bet is Okehampton,’ he said. ‘You know how to get there?’

‘We’ll find it!’ Jassy said with feeling. ‘We’ve been in this ghastly place for long enough. We’ll find it!’

It struck me that this desperate haste to leave could be seen as rather insulting.

‘I mean we’ve had a lovely break,’ I said, ‘but we have appointments in London we really should keep. So thank you so much.’

‘Lovely break? Are you insane?’ Jassy grumbled. ‘It’s been the longest ten days of my life.’

Joe sipped his coffee and looked thoughtful. ‘Well, you haven’t exactly had good weather, I’ll give you that. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to get out and about either?’

‘We were supposed to be working,’ Jassy said, calming down a little. ‘We’re both writers. We have deadlines to keep, with our publishers. We wanted to recover after Christmas and get back in the groove. But it didn’t quite work out like that. Technology failure I’m afraid, amongst other things.’

‘Ah, the MacBook Air cable. I see the relevance now.’

Jassy smiled up at him through her lashes. I could see a familiar pattern here. Now the car was mended and our escape route was established, Jassy could relax and stop being a stroppy cow and start flirting.

Jassy flirts with everyone; it’s what she does and being married doesn’t stop her. She’s been known to flirt with policemen, car park attendants and even our accountant. Trust me, our accountant is not the sort of man anyone flirts with – he might have the financial skills of a sorcerer on speed, but he also has halitosis, dandruff and a comb-over. She would find a man as good-looking as Joe Field irresistible.