Penny Vincenzi - The Best Of Times

“I bet you are. Thanks so much, Dr. King.”

“Emma, actually. Bye, then, Barney. Good luck. And… I know it’s nothing to do with me, but you should take it easy for a couple of days. You’ve had an awful shock. Don’t expect to just feel fine because it’s over.”

Thinking about him as she drove her car out of the hospital, she reflected that he was really rather good-looking, with his spiky brown hair and sort of hazel eyes with darker flecks in them and that gorgeous smile. She wondered if he had a girlfriend; and then mentally slapped herself. Emma, you’re obsessed. You’ve got a perfectly good boyfriend of your own. Get a grip.

Linda was just going to bed when she decided she couldn’t ignore the fact any longer that Georgia might have been caught up in the crash that had filled the evening news.

With some reluctance and a strong feeling of dread, she called the Linley household, bracing herself for the worst.

“Bea, I’m sorry to call so late. Linda Di-Marcello here. I wonder… if you’ve heard from Georgia.”

“Oh, hello, Linda. Yes, she’s arrived home safely. Bit weary. And very disappointed she didn’t get the part, of course. But I’ve told her there’s always another time, and I’m sure you’d say the same. She’s asleep, but I’ll tell her you called. It’s very kind of you, thank you so much.”

Georgia was lying under the covers, her pillow over her face to smother the sound of her weeping. It was a terrible thing she’d done: so terrible. And how was she ever going to put it right?

“Where are you going now?”

Laura tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice, but it was difficult. Jonathan had hardly spoken to her since he had come in, just after nine the night before.

He had walked in, white faced, his eyes dark with exhaustion, dropped his overnight bag on the hall floor, and stood there, as if he didn’t know where he was.

“Hello,” he said rather vaguely. “Sorry to be so late.”

“Don’t apologise, Jonathan. Come in and sit down; tell me all about it. What would you like, tea, scotch, water…?”

“Water’d be great. Thanks, darling. But could you bring it through to the study? I really need to check my e-mails.”

“What, now?” she said, surprise making her stupid.

“Yes, now,” he said. “Sorry, but it’s important. I’ve been out all day and I don’t know what’s going on at the clinic-or the hospital.”

“But I want to know all about it, what happened.”

“Laura, I really don’t want to talk about it. Not yet, anyway. I’m all in.”

His voice shook slightly; she told herself he had had a day of such horror that few people would be able even to imagine it, and that she must be patient.

She took a bottle from the fridge in the kitchen, and when she walked into the study, Jonathan was sitting staring blankly out of the window. The sun was setting, a great red ball etched out of the brilliant turquoise sky.

“Lovely sunset,” she said, setting the water down.

“What? Thanks, darling.”

“I said, lovely sunset.”

“Yes, very lovely. I’ll be finished soon, Laura. I’ll come and find you, all right?”

“All right. I’ll be in the kitchen, waiting to have supper with you.”

“Darling, I don’t want any supper. I still feel sick.”

“But, Jonathan, you haven’t eaten-or have you; did you get something at the hospital?”

“What hospital?”

“The hospital handling the casualties.”

“What on earth makes you think I’d go there?”

“Well… I just thought you might. As you’d been helping the… the crash victims.”

“Christ, no. Plenty of people to do that, once they got there.”

“I see. Well… what have you been doing all this time then?”

“All what time?”

“Jonathan, it’s after nine. You called me at five, five thirty. Said the ambulances were coming. Did you stay on after that, helping there? Or were you talking to the police or something?”

“Laura, what is this, an inquisition? I finally got under way at about seven. They had to check my car-”

“Your car? Why?”

“Oh, to make sure it’s mechanically sound, brakes OK and so on. Apparently it’s standard procedure these days, if you’re involved in a crash.”

“I thought you weren’t involved?”

“Laura, I was there, for Christ’s sake. And then the traffic was still appalling. And I gave some bloke a lift. Young chap, got caught in it all, desperate to get to London, almost in tears, missed some crucial meeting. I dropped him off in the Cromwell Road. There were a lot of people like that, lives just thrown into the air. Thanks for the water. I’ll see you later.”

At ten thirty he was still in the study. She knocked rather nervously; he was sitting staring at his laptop screen.

“Are you nearly through? I’d like to go to bed soon.”

“Well, go to bed. I’ll be up later.”

“I want to be with you. I’d rather wait.”

“Well, I’d rather you didn’t. Laura, you just go ahead. I’ll be a while yet.”

Finally at eleven she had gone up to bed herself, and stayed awake a long time, thinking that any moment he’d appear, saying, “Sorry, darling, sorry, sorry, sorry,” as he so often did when he knew he’d kept her waiting. But at midnight he had still not appeared and she finally fell asleep.

And now here he was, wearing his cycling clothes, for heaven’s sake, at seven in the morning.

“I’m going for a bike ride,” he said in answer to her question. “Try to clear my head. I’ve got my morning round to do at the clinic. I’ll see you after that.”

“Breakfast?”

“I still don’t feel very hungry.”

“Jonathan, you must eat.”

“I’m not one of the children, Laura; I can decide for myself when I need food.”

“Oh, please yourself,” she said, allowing irritation to break through for the first time. “And don’t forget we’re going to lunch with the Edwardses.”

“I really don’t think I could face a barbecue today,” he said. “I feel absolutely shattered, I’ve got a clinic to do, and it’s going to be bloody hot again.”

“Well, I think you’re going to have to face it,” she said. “It’s Serena’s birthday; there are several couples going, and-”

“If there are several couples, would it really matter if I wasn’t there?”

“Yes, it would. She’s my best friend and she’d be very hurt. Oh, just go out on your bloody bike, Jonathan. I’ll see you later.”

“OK,” he said, and he was gone.

“He’s being really weird,” said Charlie. He had come down the stairs and heard most of the conversation.

“Just a bit.” She went into the kitchen with Charlie and started doing the scrambled eggs he loved; she felt confused and upset. She needed to talk to Jonathan, needed him to tell her about it; and while they were about it, she needed to know why he had been on the M4 and not the M40. She tried to crush the notion that he was avoiding her because he didn’t want to tell her.

Russell woke horribly early; he hurt all over. Not just his heart, which felt physically sore, but his head, his stomach, his limbs. It was as if he had been beaten up.

He got up, walked over to the window, and opened the curtains. It was going to be another lovely day; at a little before six, the sun was shearing down through the trees; the sky was the slightly hazy blue that spoke of staying power. Russell sighed heavily and turned away; he would have looked for rain, for greyness, for cold: the weather of disappointment.