‘Oh, good afternoon, Mrs … Robbins, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry, I didn’t quite catch … did you say you’d seen my friend? She seems to have gone out.’
‘They come for her near on an hour ago, queen, and took her off … the ambulance men, I mean. She must ha’ fell down them perishin’ stairs; they’re that slippery in the rain. I heered the motor turn into the jigger and come round to see wharr I could do.’
‘My God!’ Caitlin said, grabbing James’s arm in a vicelike grip. ‘Oh, poor Dana. Which hospital, Mrs Robbins? We must go to her at once.’
‘It’ll be the Stanley, I dare say,’ Mrs Robbins said. ‘One o’ the fellers in the ambulance was me nephew by marriage, an’ he works there. Your pal were unconscious … ever so pale she looked, white as milk, poor gal. I heered one o’ the men say somethin’ about her leg, and then a bump on her noggin … he reckoned she were concussed. Me nephew said she were wet to the skin an’ deathly cold, so they thought she’d been lyin’ there some time.’
‘Right, we’ll get off then,’ James said, speaking for the first time since Mrs Robbins had appeared. ‘I wonder who called the ambulance?’
‘Oh, it were Mrs D’Arcy, from the post office,’ Mrs Robbins said at once. ‘I don’t reckon she were the one who found her, ’xactly, ’cos that were some feller from Ginsberg’s furniture shop on the Scotty. He ran to the post office ’cos they’ve gorra telephone …’
But already James and Caitlin were hurrying up the jigger, Caitlin calling over her shoulder that they were much obliged and would tell Mrs Robbins what had happened as soon as they knew themselves.
They were shown on to the ward by a brisk little nurse who patted Caitlin’s hand consolingly and said there was very little wrong with her friend apart from a bump on
the head and a suspected fracture of the tibia. Seeing Caitlin’s puzzled look, she explained that the tibia was just a medical name for the shin bone. ‘She won’t be able to work until it’s begun to knit … but don’t you worry, my dear, the doctors aren’t certain that it’s broken. They’ll do some more investigations when she comes round, which should be later this evening.’
At James’s insistence they had an interview with the doctor who was handling Dana’s case. He was young and friendly and very reassuring. ‘If the leg is broken, it’s not a bad break, more like a crack, so she should be able to get around on crutches once it’s plastered,’ he told them. ‘The bump on the head wouldn’t have been serious had she been discovered earlier, but the men who brought her in said she must have been lying on the cobbles in the rain for long enough to become dangerously cold. As you can see, we wrapped her up in every blanket we could lay our hands on and she’ll remain so wrapped until her colour begins to return. I’m sure if you come back tomorrow she’ll be sitting up and taking nourishment, but for the moment she just needs quiet and warmth.’
Caitlin would have liked to remain with her friend, but James thought this ridiculous. ‘She’s in the best possible hands, and since you aren’t a nurse or a doctor there’s no way you can be of assistance,’ he said. ‘Making yourself ill through not eating your supper will scarcely help Dana. Tell you what, we’ll go out and have that meal I promised you and come back in an hour. Will that satisfy you?’
Caitlin looked at Dana’s white face and motionless body, with the cage over her left leg to keep the bedclothes
from rubbing against it. Then she sighed, leaned over the bed and kissed her friend’s cheek. ‘We’re going to get something to eat, but we’ll be back before you know it,’ she whispered. Turning away, she tucked her hand into James’s arm. ‘Come along then. Now that I come to think of it, I could eat a horse!’
Polly had continued to take an interest in the two girls. She still neither liked nor trusted the dark man whose name she now knew to be James Mortimer, but she told herself she was prejudiced because he had removed the girls she so admired from her workplace. It must have been his influence which had allowed Dana and Caitlin to start their tea room. She had never actually gone into Cathy’s Place since the first day, but she had grown friendly with one of the waitresses so had been told all about the wonderful new restaurant which would be opened in the New Year. The young woman had explained to Polly that the flat above the tea room had been converted into marvellously modern kitchens and Dana and Caitlin had moved to a place in Wentworth Street. Polly was pleased; she often walked that way when visiting friends so was able to look up at the windows of the flat above the cycle shop and imagine the girls within. In fact, she had been heading for Wentworth Street when an ambulance, bell ringing and headlights blazing, had rushed past her. A couple of days later she learned from her waitress friend that the vehicle had been on its way to pick up the injured Dana. Horrified, she went straight to the hospital as soon as she finished work, and was actually sitting by the bed holding Dana’s hand and murmuring words of comfort when a hand
descended on to her shoulder and a harsh voice spoke in her ear. ‘Who the devil are you? I know I’ve seen you somewhere before, but you’ve got no right to be here.’
Polly jumped guiltily to her feet as the man’s hand left her shoulder. ‘I’m – I’m a friend, that’s all,’ she stammered. ‘Me and Dana – and Caitlin, of course – used to work together …’
Her explanation was rudely interrupted. ‘I know! You’re that kid who’s been hanging around the restaurant, trying to nose out what’s going on. Well you can clear out right now, do you hear me? Miss McBride is very ill, so it’s family only. Understand?’
Polly stared up into the dark and threatening face scowling down at her. ‘But – but Dana don’t have no relatives, not in England,’ she stammered. ‘She’s from some place in Ireland. Her dad’s dead …’
But this only seemed to inflame Mr James Mortimer more. ‘Never you mind about her relatives. Don’t go thinking you can butter up to the McBrides by telling them Dana’s in hospital,’ he said harshly. ‘Just get out of here and don’t come back, or I’ll tell the staff you’re a troublemaker and they mustn’t let you near their patient.’
Polly began to protest, to say that she would never do anything to hurt the girl lying so pale and still in her hospital bed, but James Mortimer caught her by the shoulders and almost ran her out of the ward. ‘I’m warning you …’ he began, just as they reached the swing doors and Polly saw Caitlin coming towards them. As James Mortimer thrust her through the doors and into the corridor she tried to say that Caitlin would vouch for her, but before she could so much as open her mouth
the man spoke. ‘Darling, I thought we were going to meet in the hospital foyer so we could see Dana together,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been telling this – this young person that Dana’s too ill for other visitors.’
‘Is she?’ Caitlin’s eyes lit on Polly and a frown creased her beautiful brow. ‘Oh, hello. Were you visiting Dana as well? You were at the Willows at the same time as us, but I’m afraid I can’t remember your name.’ She gave Polly a distracted smile, then linked her arm in James Mortimer’s. ‘Come along, dearest.’
The two of them disappeared into the ward but not before the man had given Polly the sort of look which turned her blood to ice. It was clear that if he found her there again he would do something really unpleasant. But I shall visit, Polly told herself, crossing the hospital foyer and going out through the swing doors. Only I’ll make bleedin’ sure that I do so when Mr Wonderful Mortimer is otherwise engaged.
Dana was dreaming. She was back in the yard behind the cycle shop; she felt the rain pattering on her face and the hardness of the cobbles against her back. She was cold, colder than she had ever been; in fact so cold that numbness was creeping up her body. When the numbness reaches my heart I’ll be dead and I don’t
want
to die, she found herself thinking. They’ll be so distressed if I die and I’ll be no use to anyone. How will poor Caitlin manage with the restaurant still not finished? I simply must move, try to sit up, call for help!
She turned her head a little and a sharp pain stabbed from the back of her neck to the top of her head, making her wince and long to cry out, but when she opened her
mouth no sound emerged and rain fell in. She moved her head again, more cautiously this time, and the pain arrowed through her, from her neck to the back of her eyes, and did not stop for some seconds after she had frozen into immobility once more.
Later, she could not tell how much, she opened her eyes, but saw only the grey sky above and the steadily falling rain. Then there was darkness, and a voice she did not know saying words she could not recognise; they might have been in a foreign language for all she could tell.
Later still, she woke again to a rocking motion, and to hear another unknown voice saying something about concussion. She tried to open her eyes, to speak, but her lids seemed glued shut and her mouth would not obey her command to open. Terror seized her. Where was she?
Who
was she?
Then the dream changed and she could feel sunshine warm on her body, and knew she was lying on grass, with someone shouting, footsteps thundering over the turf towards her. A new voice spoke and now she understood every word, even realised that the speaker was worried half to death. Daddy! It was her own dear daddy, on his knees beside her, patting her cheek, begging her to wake up. She tried to open her eyes, to say she was quite all right and didn’t he always say she was so full of mischief that when she fell over she bounced like a ball? But when she tried to speak all that came out was a little miaow, like a kitten, and Daddy was shouting for Mammy, sending Conan Devlin off to find her because ‘Dee may be hurt real bad, Con.’
Dee? Oh, yes, she was Dee. Her mind wandered. Her father had christened her Dana because he had wanted
a son, and Dana was a little bit like Daniel, the name they would have chosen had she been a boy. Her mother’s choice had been Elizabeth so she was Dana Elizabeth McBride, but no one ever called her that except her mother, who only did so when she was very cross.
Dana gave a little smile, thinking how inappropriate the name Elizabeth would have been. She was such a tomboy, so good with the horses, such a companion to her daddy, that Donovan McBride was wont to boast that she was better than any son could have been, better in every way, and wasn’t he the lucky feller to have such a child?
But now his worry forced her to reassure him, for she could never bear to see him unhappy. ‘Daddy?’ she said, her voice coming out rather high and frail-sounding.
But that one word made her father say: ‘T’ank God, t’ank God,’ whilst Con, who was the only son of Donovan McBride’s partner and her best pal, said gruffly that Mrs McBride was on her way and oughtn’t they to get Dee off the wet grass and into her own bed?
‘I’m all right so I am,’ Dana said, trying to sound offhand, proud even, but her voice let her down by coming out squeaky and thin. ‘I don’t want me bed, Daddy … only there was rain … I’m warm now, but I was mortal cold …’
‘You bumped your little noggin, Dee,’ her mother said, her voice reassuring, and Dana knew she must be looking poorly for her mother liked to use her proper name, Dana, and rarely called her tomboy daughter Dee. ‘Daddy will carry you up to your room and we’ll get Dr Cassidy to give you the once-over. Your leg looks as though it was doubled under you as you fell.’
Dana opened her eyes and saw her father’s strong, narrow face looming over her, his dark brown eyes anxious, a lock of red hair falling across his forehead. But when he saw her looking up at him the anxious look fled and he grinned reassuringly. ‘Aren’t you the naughty one? How many times have I told you not to ride the horses when they’ve just been let out into the new pastures? The grass is sweet, and full of sugar, so it goes to their heads like champagne, and even your own little Flame cavorts and bucks and wants to pretend he’s a circus pony. I suppose he threw you? Or was it the strawberry roan? You’ve longed to get your leg over him for many a day, and he’s grassed up and full of himself right now. Was it that ‘un?’
Dana considered agreeing, but despite being only six years old she knew that lies will always find you out, so she shook her head as her parent lifted her off the grass and began to carry her towards the crumbling castle which was her home. ‘No, Daddy, it weren’t Flame, nor the roan,’ she confessed. ‘It were the grey stallion, the one you call Thunderer. I fell off when he slipped on the mud by the paddock gate.’
‘Thunderer? You rode me best stallion, and him wit’out so much as a halter?’ Donovan was so surprised that he nearly dropped her. He slowed his pace as they entered the house, where he carried her across the kitchen and up the spiral stair which led directly to her room. ‘It’s to be hoped you’ve not broke both his knees, you imp of Satan.’ He gave her a little shake. ‘Your mammy’s away with a message for Dr Cassidy …’ he began as he pushed open the door of her room, ‘and when he comes, young lady, you must be lying flat in your bed so he can examine
you and tell us what mischief you’ve done to yourself this time.’ With the words he sidled into the small, eight-sided tower room and dumped her, though carefully, upon her bed. ‘Stay just there. I’m off to check on Thunderer; your mammy will be up as soon as she gets back. If she knew you’d been aboard Thunderer she’d marmalise the pair of us. That horse is a divil on legs; how many times have I told you not to go near him? And mind, you spalpeen, that if you’ve harmed a hair of his hide I’ll see to it that you don’t ride for a month.’
She reared up in bed, indignation making her forget her hurts for a moment, but he had turned away and she lay back again, conscious that she would be glad of some time alone, for her head felt addled and strange. She had a dim memory of cold rain on her face coming down steadily from grey skies, of cobbles beneath her body and an ache in her heart for … what? For Castletara and her daddy and mammy, for the dear familiarity of her beloved home?
Oh, but it must have been a dream, that cold rain and those grey skies; a nightmare, more likely. Best forget it, put it right out of her mind. She would concentrate on the reality around her instead. She moved her head slowly, taking in every detail of her small bedroom. Because it was in one of the towers it had eight sides, like a threepenny bit, with two long, narrow lancet windows overlooking the rolling meadows of her father’s land and the distant blue of the mountains. Beneath one window was a small bookcase containing a grosh of books, many about horses, others typical children’s classics: everything E. Nesbit and Patricia Lynch had ever written,
The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame
and many others, all old friends. Then there was a chest of drawers in which she folded her clean clothes when they were ironed and neat, and a rail for her skirts, jodhpurs and jerseys. On one wall were paintings of the surrounding countryside – her mother dabbled in water-colours – and on another a picture of Flame, head up to show the curve of his neck and his creamy mane, which brought the tears to Dana’s eyes. If her daddy were to forbid her to ride her pony …