Practically Perfect (40 page)

Chloe brought the car to a halt. ‘Listen, even if it is a fire, we can’t go there.’ She nodded towards the back seat, indicating the reason.

Anna wiped sweat from her forehead. ‘No. We must call the fire brigade. See if they’re on their way.’

‘OK, do that.’

‘Damn,’ said Anna, a few minutes later. ‘No reception. We’ll have to find a telephone box.’

Chloe started the car again and pulled back out into the road. ‘We can be home in just over five minutes. I know exactly where we are now.’

‘OK, but if we see a phone box, I want to stop,’ Anna insisted.

‘All right. It probably is just a bonfire. The fire brigade will think we’re a nuisance call.’

‘No they won’t. If it is a fire they want to know about it, and if it isn’t, well, better a false alarm than not telling them.’

‘I’ll turn on Radio Gloucestershire and see if there’s any news,’ said Chloe.

Anna didn’t answer; she just sat in silence, willing Chloe to go faster along the lanes, concentrating on not being sick. The five minutes or so that it took them to get home could have been five hours in a torture chamber.

The moment Chloe had lifted the still-sleeping Harry
out
of the car, Anna said, ‘Look, you phone the fire brigade. I’ve got a driving licence, I want to borrow the car and go back.’ She paused, seeing the shock on Chloe’s face. ‘I know the car isn’t insured for me to drive, but if anything happens to it, I’ll buy you another one. I have to go back and see what’s happened.’

Chloe looked utterly bewildered.

‘I want to borrow the car!’ said Anna, desperate.

Chloe gulped. ‘Fine. But I could get someone to come round and look after the boys and go with you.’

‘No. No time. I can’t wait.’ But she did pause. ‘I mean it about buying you another car.’

Chloe shook her head. ‘It’s OK. It’s insured for any driver. It was in case I was ever stuck; but when did you last drive, Anna?’

Anna almost smiled. ‘The day I passed my test.’

‘OK,’ Chloe said, seeing that she wasn’t going to be able to dissuade her. ‘Here, take my keys.’

As Anna went through all the procedures her driving instructor had drilled into her (seatbelt, mirror, ignition, mirror, gear, mirror, and a final look over her shoulder) she realised that all doubt about the genuineness of her feelings for Rob had vanished the moment she saw smoke rising from his house. If Max had lived there, it would have been Caroline who would have been uppermost in her anxiety. While she was worried about her dog, she knew that she was even more worried about Rob.

She probably didn’t need to check her mirror so many times, but she was in such a state she couldn’t let herself take chances. She moved off, fractionally slower that a snail with a Zimmer frame. A little further on she realised that her tongue was welded to the roof of her mouth. There was a leftover bottle of water rolling round in the footwell. She pulled over and drank quite a lot of it and
it
calmed her. She set off again to Rob’s house, hoping she could remember the way.

The smoke and a sense of direction she didn’t know she had led her to the house. There were fire engines and firemen everywhere. Anna felt a moment of relief. At least it hadn’t mattered that they couldn’t get through. The moment she was spotted, one of them came over to her.

‘Keep out of the way please, love. We’ve got enough on our hands.’

Anna could see that he was right. Half the house seemed to be up in flames and the heat would have kept her back if the fireman hadn’t. It was horrible to see. She forced some moisture into her mouth so she could speak. ‘I just have to know. My friend lives there. Is he all right?’

There was a pause. ‘Someone went to hospital in an ambulance. Would that be your friend?’

‘Oh God, I don’t know.’ Anxiety was making it difficult for her to speak, and when she did, her voice was so croaky it was barely audible. ‘I’m not sure he was even here. And the dogs? There were four dogs at least, and one of them was mine.’

‘They’re all right.’ Anna sighed with partial relief. At least Caroline was safe. ‘That’s how the bloke got injured, rescuing the dogs,’ the fireman continued. ‘Apparently they were in the bit where the fire started. If only people would get their wiring fixed!’ He smiled at her, obviously aware she was in shock. ‘I’d be out of a job.’

‘Do you know which hospital he might have been taken to?’ Anna asked, her legs almost buckling beneath her.

‘’Fraid not, love. It could be the local one, or it could be Gloucester. I suggest you go home and ring round. Now, you’re just in the way.’

Anna turned away from the flames, frantic. Knowing that the dogs were OK was one good thing, but until she
knew
about Rob, she would be beside herself. And the house! Even if Rob wasn’t badly hurt, his house was destroyed and with it his dreams. As she walked towards the car she heard a great timber crash down and realised that her face was wet with tears.

She sat in the car and thought about getting it back to Chloe. On the way she’d had Rob to focus on: she had to get there to see if he and the dogs were all right. But now she had no incentive other than that she’d borrowed Chloe’s car and needed to get it back to her in one piece. The elastic seemed to have snapped in her limbs. She remembered hearing that on safaris, if a rhino or something was chasing a group of people, it was no trouble getting them to climb up the trees out of the way, but it was hell’s own job getting them down again. This was her version of climbing down the tree with no fear or adrenalin to help her.

Breathing deeply in an effort to calm herself down she sat in the driving seat with the door open. She finished the bottle of water and then had an overwhelming urge to pee.

‘OK,’ she said to herself. ‘Find a tree and go behind it. No one will see. They’re all preoccupied with the fire. You can’t drive if you can’t concentrate.’

Finding a place and getting herself organised seemed incredibly complicated. ‘If only I was wearing a skirt!’ she berated herself, and then went on, ‘Don’t be stupid! You hardly ever wear skirts. Just try not to get it everywhere.’

The mechanics of it seemed extremely difficult and she realised that this was where penis envy, if such a thing existed, sprang from. God obviously was a man. At last she zipped up her trousers, feeling slightly damp. As she walked back to the car she said, ‘If you can’t even have a wee without making a mess of it, how on earth do you think you’re going to drive a car?’

And it was so much more important that she got that right. Cars were dangerous beasts, intolerant of mistakes. And if cars would put up with the odd scrunch or scrape, Anna wasn’t sure that Mike would. It was only now that the impact of driving someone else’s car hit her. She really mustn’t make a single mistake.

She got back into the driving seat. It was properly adjusted. There wasn’t any traffic. Getting out of the wood would be easy. ‘You drove here all right; you can drive back all right. And there are no towns or anything between you and Chloe. It’ll be a piece of cake.’

Apart from having to do a hill start once, something she’d avoided on the way there, her journey back was surprisingly easy and it was with a certain amount of pride that she knocked on Chloe’s door, dangling the keys.

‘He’s in hospital. They don’t know which one. The dogs are OK.’ Then she burst into tears.

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘COME IN,’ SAID
Chloe. ‘I’ll get the Rescue Remedy. You’re covered in soot. It’s all right!’ She put her arms round Anna and steered her to the nearest kitchen chair. ‘I’m sure Rob’s not badly hurt. We’ll telephone all the hospitals and find out where he is. Sit down.’

Anna sat and, a moment later, obediently lifted her tongue while her friend squirted fluid into her mouth. ‘It tastes like brandy,’ she said.

‘I know, but it can’t be the brandy that makes it work because you’d have to drink a whole bottle.’

‘I can’t believe I drove your car. Oh, Chloe! Supposing he’s badly hurt! I love him so much. And his house. It’s all so dreadful.’ She looked stricken.

‘I’ve called Susannah,’ said Chloe, taking charge. ‘She’s going to pop over and mind the boys. While we’re waiting for her to do that, we’ll ring round and find out where Rob is.’

‘Can you do that if you’re not a next of kin?’

‘I have no idea! You’ll – I’ll have to pretend I’m his sister or something if they’re difficult.’

‘You’re a star, Chloe.’ Anna blinked at her friend, fighting back tears. ‘There’s no way I could be sensible at the moment. I expect the Rescue Remedy will kick in soon.’

‘Perhaps it already has; you’re sounding a bit more rational. It’s such a pity Mike had to go away again. Still, that’s the way it is. Now I’m going to go upstairs and
check
on the boys. They seem quite happy; they’re all exhausted. Then I’m going to phone. If I have to tell lies I don’t want an audience. Here, read a magazine. Chloe threw a copy of a gossip magazine at Anna and ran upstairs.

Anna looked at the magazine without seeing it. She couldn’t concentrate on facelifts, wonder diets and who was sleeping with whom when her mind was full of Rob. He was such a good, kind man, and incredibly sexy. Max had been sexy in theory, but in practice – Anna shuddered and picked up a pillow to hug. ‘Oh, Chloe, please hurry up,’ she crooned into it. ‘Let Rob be all right.’

Chloe came down the stairs really quite quickly. ‘I said I was his sister, and they said: “Another sister?” Obviously his real sister is already there. I said a man could have more than one sister. Anyway, he’s in the local hospital which is good because it means he can’t be badly hurt. Good news, huh?’

Anna blinked so she wouldn’t burst into tears again. ‘Excellent.’

‘And Susannah won’t be long. Her mother only lives next door and can pop over to look after her tots. Shall we make Marmite sandwiches? You never know what the food’s like in hospital. I never like to go anywhere without Marmite sandwiches.’

‘What?’ Anna stared at her friend as if she had gone mad.

‘It’ll give me something to do while we’re waiting,’ said Chloe, trying to instil calm in her friend. ‘And they might come in useful.’

Seeing the sense in keeping occupied, Anna said, ‘I’ll help you.’

Chloe valiantly refrained from saying she could have got on much quicker without Anna’s dubious assistance.
Her
concentration was all over the place and she kept putting the Marmite on before the butter. They’d managed about two between them when there was a knock on the door.

‘Thank goodness!’ said Chloe, flinging down her knife and rushing to the door. She flung it open. ‘Hi! I’ll babysit for you any time at all. I’ll have all your children to stay so you can go off on a romantic weekend.’

Susannah, who looked like a typical earth mother in an ankle-length skirt and slightly grubby T-shirt, shooed them out of the door. ‘You go and find out about this chap in hospital. I’ll take care of the boys. Do they need a bath?’

Chloe’s face took on an expression of extreme guilt. ‘Yes they do, they’re filthy!’

‘Supposing they won’t let us in,’ Anna said to Chloe as they drew near the hospital. ‘They might not, if he’s really ill.’

‘They would have told me if he was really ill and said he’s only allowed to see one person at a time,’ said Chloe matter-of-factly. ‘I’m sure it can’t be that bad. Do try not to worry. I know it’s difficult, but we’ll be there in a minute. Oh look, there’s the car park. Let’s see if there’s a space.’

Anna was so anxious she could hardly get her legs to work, but somehow she went up the steps to the hospital entrance. At reception Chloe asked which ward Rob was in, and Anna followed her along the corridors.

‘It’s just as well it’s a small hospital,’ said Chloe, chattily. ‘You can walk miles in big hospitals.’

Aware that her friend was making conversation for her sake, Anna attempted some sort of reply. Luckily they reached the ward and she could stop trying.

Her heart flipped when she saw Rob from the door to the ward. He was lying on top of the bedclothes and even
from
here she could see he was looking murderous. The kind, funny, teasing Rob she had come to know had been turned into the angry man she had seen a glimpse of when Caroline got away from her all those weeks ago.

Although she badly wanted to see him, at that moment Anna wanted to go home even more. Cassie was with him and she suddenly felt like an intruder. He wouldn’t want to see her in this state. She grabbed Chloe’s arm, about to tell her that they must leave, when Cassie spotted them.

‘Oh look, here’s that nice girl who helped at the fête. Anna, isn’t it? Come on in. Rob’s in a stinking mood, I’m afraid.’

‘Um, I think I’ll go and get a coffee,’ said Chloe and disappeared.

Anna walked across the ward to the bed. ‘Hi!’ she whispered, wishing his sister wasn’t there. She wanted to fling her arms round him, to check he was really all right, but she couldn’t because Cassie would read too much into it. And she wasn’t ready for that just yet. Denying herself a proper embrace made her feel she couldn’t even kiss his cheek.

‘Hi Anna,’ said Rob. He smiled ruefully at her. ‘This isn’t quite how I’d imagined seeing you again. I—’