The Accidental Guest (7 page)

‘Don’t eat all the glacé fruits while we’re gone, you two,’ Gina grinned. She seemed to have quite forgotten that she had been accusing Tom of being a potential axe murdering psycho only a short time before, and was now quite happy to leave her sister in his care. Without another word, the three of them trooped out and the house quickly descended into an odd silence.

Tom broke it first. ‘I feel as if this is all my fault.’

Hannah forced another smile. They were getting harder to produce as the day went on. ‘Don’t think that.’

‘But if you hadn’t been out looking for the ambulance you wouldn’t have been in the path of that car. And as the ambulance was for me in the first place…’

‘And George might have spun off the road into a tree, or some other more dangerous place, all alone, and anything could have happened to him. Who would have walked little Trixie then?’

‘Stop trying to make me feel better; I don’t deserve it.’

‘How do you know?’ Hannah said. ‘How do you know you’re not some saintly do-gooder always organising jumble sales for Africa at the local church? In which case, you would totally deserve it.’

‘I doubt that,’ Tom smiled. ‘But thanks. You know…’ he added, ‘the man these clothes belonged to was mad to mess around behind your back with the fitness instructor. He has no idea what he’s thrown away.’

‘Oh, I expect I’m a complete pain when you get to know me. Gina always says so.’

‘I can’t believe that. I don’t know you, but I’ve seen enough today to know that I’d like to.’

Hannah blinked at him. What was that? Was it a come-on? Was he asking her on a date? Or was he simply being kind; a courteous guest in her house? What was she supposed to say? She dropped her head and stared into her drink.

‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ Tom said.

‘Oh, you didn’t,’ Hannah said quickly, her eyes still on her glass. ‘It’s just been a bit of a strange day, that’s all.’

‘You can say that again.’

Hannah looked up to catch him studying her, and she felt the blush she had been fighting rise to her cheeks. The moment was charged, and the room was filled with expectation so real they could almost touch it. She wanted to kiss him…
God
she wanted it so badly… She could reach over… It didn’t have to mean anything; just a friendly little kiss … She could blame it on the brandy…

But then a knock boomed through the silent house, and the moment was gone. When she thought about it afterwards, Hannah couldn’t honestly say it had even happened. Perhaps it
was
the brandy.

‘It can’t be Gina already,’ Hannah said, trying to shake the intense disappointment that mingled with an almost tangible sense of shame at her lack of control.

‘I suppose it’s the paramedics,’ Tom replied. Was Hannah imagining that he seemed almost as disappointed as her?

‘I’d better go then,’ she said.

Tom didn’t reply, and she left him at the table, hands folded across one another as he watched her go.

The disappointment was cemented as Hannah opened the front door to find two smiling paramedics on the step.

‘Someone reported a head injury?’ one of them asked. He was very cheery for someone who spent his days patching people up, especially as he was working on Christmas Day. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he bore an uncanny resemblance to Santa himself. Hannah found herself hoping he hadn’t been called out to any young children today, because that would just be weird.

‘I did… well, my sister did… this way…’ Hannah gestured for them to follow her.

‘Are you alright, love?’ the man asked, ‘You don’t look so perky yourself.’

‘Oh, it’s not me. I’m fine.’

The paramedics followed her through to the kitchen where Tom waited patiently.

‘Got yourself a nasty knock there,’ the Santa look-a-like said, nodding at Tom’s head. His partner, a man who was as skinny as his colleague was portly and who had been silent up to this point, merely pulled in a sharp breath to indicate his agreement. ‘How did you do it?’ Santa asked.

Tom shrugged. ‘That’s really the main problem. My head doesn’t feel too bad, but I can’t remember anything.’

‘Hmmm… well, I’d better take some particulars while Jim here takes a look. What’s your name, guvnor?’

Hannah frowned. ‘He doesn’t know,’ she said, wondering at what point the paramedic had stopped listening to his patient.

Santa raised a perfectly white eyebrow and glanced between the two of them. ‘Blimey… when control said amnesia they really meant it. Do you have any details I can take at all? ID on you? Something with your address?’

‘Nothing,’ Tom said.

‘Well, that’s a new one on me,’ Santa said. He looked at his colleague who gave a silent shrug, presumably his own special sign language indicating that he’d never encountered Tom’s problem either. ‘I’m not quite sure where we go from here. We need something.’

‘But you can treat him?’ Hannah asked.

‘Oh, we can fix the superficial wound, of course, but we need to be able to log you and for that we need a name and date of birth.’

‘Well, what do you do when you find people unconscious in the street and nobody knows who they are?’ Tom asked.

‘Most people will have something on them to give us a clue. Are you sure you don’t have a mobile phone or anything?’

Hannah resisted the urge to screech at this man. How many times did he have to be told?

‘Not on me, no,’ Tom said with a lot more calm than Hannah felt she possessed at that moment. ‘What would you do if you found someone with nothing on them?’

‘I suppose we’d cart them in and let the people at A&E sort it. It’s not our problem once we drop off.’

‘Can’t you cart… I mean
take
us in then?’ Hannah asked.

‘Yes, but he’s not unconscious, is he? So we need to find out who he is.’

‘But I don’t know,’ Tom said.

‘Can’t you pretend he’s unconscious?’ Hannah asked.

‘But he’s not…’ Santa scratched his head.

‘
Us
?’ Tom turned sharply to Hannah now, two steps behind in the conversation.

‘Of course,’ Hannah said. ‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you go alone.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘There’s no point in arguing, my mind is made up.’ Hannah turned to the paramedic. ‘That’s ok, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so. Perhaps it might be helpful seeing as he doesn’t know who he is.’

‘That’s settled then.’

‘No…’ Tom said, ‘I’ve encroached enough on your day. I’m sure once we get to hospital there will be a record of someone looking for me so I won’t be alone for long.’

‘But you’ll be alone for a bit.’ Hannah chewed her lip. Perhaps it would be awkward if she was sitting at the hospital and some distraught wife turned up. She knew how she would feel if the tables were turned. She couldn’t leave him to go alone either. Despite what he said, it must be terrifying to be in such a confused state. At least one friendly face close at hand would make it better, even if it was a very new friend.
Friend
… was that what she was to him now? Were they friends? Would she ever see him again when all this was over?

Gina’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘You’re here!’

Hannah whipped around to see Gina and Jess at the kitchen door, hair wet and rosy-cheeked.

‘The front door was left open,’ Gina added, seeing Hannah’s look of surprise.

‘It’s not that…’ Hannah said, ‘How did you get back so fast?’

‘Some dude George knew was randomly out in his tractor,’ Jess put in. ‘I mean, who drives around in their tractor on Christmas Day? Unless he’s actually been given it for Christmas…’

‘So,’ Gina jumped in while Jess’s mind wandered off to some strange little world where tractors were the Christmas present norm. ‘He offered George a lift home. Saved us a job and got him home in half the time without breaking a sweat.’

‘And without Trixie peeing herself,’ Jess added.

‘Right…’ Hannah said, getting more confused by the second. ‘As long as he got home ok I suppose that’s all that matters.’

‘So, what’s happening with Tom?’ Gina asked.

‘Tom?’ the Santa paramedic asked.

Gina angled her head at the casualty. ‘Humpty Dumpty here….’

‘Gina!’ Hannah squeaked.

‘It’s alright,’ Tom laughed.

‘No offence,’ Gina said.

‘None taken.’

‘So, you’re Tom?’ the paramedic asked with a frown.

‘No… well, yes… Sort of.’

‘We named him Tom,’ Jess said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to name a stray man just like you’d name a stray cat.

‘Right…’ the paramedic said.

‘Well, we had to call him something, didn’t we?’ Jess insisted. ‘We couldn’t keep referring to him as
him
or
that man
.’

The paramedic shook his head. ‘I think we’d better get on with examining the patient or we’ll be here all night.’ He began by gently moving Tom’s hair to examine the wound. ‘Is it total memory loss?’ he asked as he peered at the cut.

‘Pretty much.’

‘What did you do when you got up this morning?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What did you have for dinner yesterday?’

‘Don’t know that either.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I hope I’m younger than I feel right now.’

‘Well, your sense of humour is still intact,’ the paramedic smiled. ‘What date is it today?’

‘I could hardly fail to notice that it’s Christmas Day…’

‘True. Who’s the prime minister right now?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘Well…’ Jess cut in, ‘I don’t know that either and there’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘Debatable,’ Gina fired back.

‘Rude…’ Jess said.

‘Like you then,’ Gina said.

Hannah sighed as she watched them bicker. Usually she found it funny, but right now her head was spinning.

The paramedic questioned Tom for a few moments longer. ‘You need some glue on that cut if nothing else,’ he announced finally. ‘And I expect you’ll need a nut scan too.’

‘What’s a nut scan?’ Hannah asked.

‘CT, to rule out brain injury.’

‘Do you think there is some?’ Tom asked.

‘It’s hard to say. We only patch you up enough to get you to A&E. It’s the doctors’ job to find out what’s wrong with your bonce.’

‘Are we going now?’ Tom asked.

‘That’s the idea,’ Santa said cheerfully. ‘Can you walk or do you need a wheelchair?’

‘I can walk,’ Tom said.

It was on the tip of Hannah’s tongue to say he could also run, launch himself heroically through the air and be generally pretty bloody marvellous. But she decided that it was asking for too much explanation. She stood up. ‘Will you and Jess be ok here if I go?’ she asked Gina.

‘What!’ Gina stared at her.

‘I’m going with Tom.’

‘Hannah…’ Gina angled her head at the doorway. ‘Can I have a word? In the other room?’

With a sigh Hannah followed her out of the kitchen. Gina waited until they were alone before she spoke again. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Why not?’

‘You hardly know him!
He
hardly knows him!’

‘It doesn’t matter. What kind of person would I be if I let him go alone?’

‘He’s got people. He might not know who they are but he has them, so let them deal with it.’

‘Not right away, he won’t. What if he’s alone for hours? It’s Christmas Day. Nobody deserves to be alone in hospital on Christmas Day and not even be able to remember who it is they’re missing.’

‘What about
your
Christmas Day? Or ours – mine and Jess’s? Don’t they matter?’

‘Of course they matter! And we can still do all that later.’

‘You could be gone for the rest of the day. You know how long accident and emergency waits are.’

‘I’m sure it will be fine.’

Gina paused. She seemed to be casting around for a solid argument that would persuade Hannah of her folly. And it was folly, even Hannah herself could see that. At least she would, if she could hear the small, sensible voice that was trying to shout louder than the totally irrational one that was yelling in her head right now. ‘There’s another thing…’ Gina finally said, with more than a little triumph in her voice, ‘how will you get home? It’s still snowing, and you don’t have a car that would get you half a mile down the road in this.’

‘There’ll be some public transport.’

‘What’s going to be running today, even without the snow?’

‘What about George’s friend with the tractor? That would get through…’

‘Hannah, that’s ridiculous, and if you don’t start talking sense I’m going to ask the ambulance men to look at
your
head for damage!’

Hannah pushed a hand through her fringe. ‘I know you’re right. But it just feels like I should be with him. Does that sound weird?’

‘Frankly, yes, it sounds nuts. You’ve done enough – more than many would. Without you God only knows what kind of mess he would have been in by now. Let the professionals take care of things; you need to think about yourself for once. You’ve had a bad experience with George and his car and you need to remember that. Relax, let me and Jess take care of you and enjoy the rest of your day. If you’re still worried tomorrow we’ll call the hospital to see if he’s been claimed.’

‘You make him sound like a lost puppy.’

‘When you think about it, the situation isn’t all that different.’ Gina gave Hannah an encouraging smile.

Hannah didn’t like it. In fact, every ounce of her wanted to argue, but even she could see how much sense Gina was making. She was getting far too involved in this man’s life and that would only complicate things in the long run – for her and for him. She already felt a connection, something that could be so right, but could also be very, very wrong. Maybe,
much as she hated the idea, her involvement should end right here, with Tom going off to hospital. It was time to let the people who did this for a living take over now.

‘You can call the hospital later tonight, get an update,’ Gina added, ‘if that would make you feel better.’

‘It would,’ Hannah said. ‘Do you think they’ll keep him in?’

‘I’ve no idea, but I suppose that’s something we’ll find out when we call.’

Hannah nodded. ‘Ok then. I’ll stay here.’