Page 42 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

Ottilie narrowed her eyes. Was this mind games? Was this reverse psychology to get Ottilie to join in?

‘I’m pretty sure that’s not true,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘I’ve never heard Magnus say he’s off up the mountain to skinny-dip.’

‘Ah, but Magnus isn’t a true local.’

‘Yes he is. At least, he’s more local than me. This won’t work. I’m not getting in, and I don’t think you should either.’

‘Two minutes – come on, I dare you. Two minutes is nothing. I’m old; if I can do it, so can you.’

‘Florence, I hate to break it to you, but you are old, and that’s what worries me.’

‘That’s it, insult me. Ageist.’

‘There’s nowhere to get in safely. And even if you do somehow get in, there’s nowhere I can see to get out again.’

‘How do you think we got in all those years ago? We jumped in.’

‘Absolutely not!’ Ottilie yelped. ‘Your bloody heart will stop!’

To her annoyance, Flo only laughed. ‘Joking – your face! The stones over there make a step below the water.’ She pointed, and Ottilie could make out a rock beneath the surface a few feet away. ‘I’m going to get in there. If you’re scared you could just sit on there and dip your legs in.’

‘I thought you said it had to be all or nothing.’

‘If you’re Lakeland born and bred, it is. We’re a bit hardier around here.’

Ottilie’s arms folded tighter. ‘When was the last time you swam here?’

Flo pulled down her skirt and shrugged vaguely. ‘I don’t know…a few years. Heath brought me up.’

‘Heath?’ Ottilie’s forehead creased into a deep frown. ‘Heath brought you up here and let you swim? How long ago was this?’

‘I told you, I don’t recall. Before he married that witch but after his grandad died. We packed our costumes and towels one morning and came up here.’

‘Whose idea was that?’

‘I don’t remember.’

Ottilie suspected that Flo had nagged Heath to bring her here, as she was nagging Ottilie to let her swim. But she couldn’t rule out the notion that Heath may have suggested it, and if that were the case, it made him pretty stupid as far as she could see. As if she needed any more reason to think that this guy was bad news. For what it was worth – probably very little – she decided to say so.

‘Well, that was irresponsible of him.’

Flo didn’t reply. Instead, she lowered herself into the water. Ottilie was relieved to see that at least she hadn’t followed through on her threat to go naked and had kept her underwear on.

As Flo struck out across the pool, she smiled, a picture of absolute joy. Her breathing was raspy already, and Ottilie could tell that the water was very cold, but Flo didn’t seem to be hampered all that much. She looked so happy, so confident, the ghost of the teenager she’d once been breaking through, that as Ottilie watched her, she couldn’t help but replay her words. Did she really think Ottilie boring? Staid and sensible and far too predictable? Ottilie reflected on her own life experiences and had to admit that she’d never done anything remotely as daring as this. She’d never swum in a river or a lake, she’d never hiked a mountain, she’d never ridden a horse or a motorbike or paraglided on a foreign holiday or been down in a cave or…Now that she thought about it, she wondered if she’d spent her entire life in cotton-wrapped safety. Until Josh’s death, of course, but that had been a whole other sort of danger and not one she’d asked for.

Ottilie watched, and she saw how Flo was loving her life at this minute, and part of her desperately wanted to join her, but something held her back even as she recognised in her own soul a lack of an adventurous spirit. She looked at the water, depths unknown, captured by the rocks, more tumbling down from the waterfall above, and it didn’t look inviting to her; it looked cold and unforgiving. Stunning as the spot was – and there was no denying it – and as much as Ottilie wanted to prove to Flo and herself that she could be spontaneous and daring, she couldn’t bring herself to get in.

Aware, suddenly, that Flo seemed to be slowing up, and that she also seemed to be shivering slightly, Ottilie pointed to her watch.

‘I really think we ought to get back to the car before it gets too dark to see our way down the hillside.’

For once, perhaps because she was starting to feel what Ottilie could see, Flo didn’t argue. She swam with more obvious effort towards the stone step and tried to haul herself out. Ottilie saw immediately that she wasn’t going to be able to.

‘Perhaps it’s a good thing you didn’t get in,’ Flo said a bit sheepishly. ‘I’m afraid I might need a bit of a hand here.’

Ottilie bent and pulled. She was worried she might catch Flo’s legs on a sharp rock, but there were bigger worries than that, so she put it out of her mind.

With a grunt and a shower of cold water, Flo emerged and fell into her arms. She’d been heavier than Ottilie had imagined, and she was only glad her strength hadn’t failed her, because they might have been really stuck. Her own clothes were wet too, but there was no time to think about that, because she could see that Flo had been in the water too long. Ottilie cursed herself for not being sterner as Flo shivered, her face paler and her lips almost blue.

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