Page 21 of Summer at the Cornish Garden Café

‘What’s that got to do with it? Today I’m trying to be a friend.’ She winced at the pleading tone of her voice, but it was true. ‘I’m not here to dig out stories, Thomas. I’m here to write my book and to relax and to try to… to find myself.’

He looked straight at her then and she held her breath. It was important to her that he believed her. She wasn’t quite sure why it mattered so much, but she wanted him to.

‘You’re here to find yourself?’ His voice was low, his brown eyes so dark they seemed black. His left hand rose to his cheek and rubbed at the scar as if checking it was there.

‘I am.’

‘I… When I first moved here, I stayed with my sister and her family for six months. You might have seen me with them around the village. Marnie is pregnant with her third child.’

Lena tried not to show a reaction to the news, but it seemed that Thomas wasn’t with the pregnant woman; she was, in fact, his sister.

‘It was after the… the accident,’ he went on. ‘I came here straight from the hospital after months of being trapped there as I healedphysically. Bligh collected me and drove me from London, and I was… in a state. I was healing and yet I was broken.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Do you know how it feels to be broken, Lena?’

She sucked in a shaky breath. ‘I do.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Bligh and Marnie were amazing and this place… it was exactly where I needed to be. The beauty of it, the sense of history and belonging that I feel here. It’s like I should always have been here and then the terrible things wouldn’t have happened and…’ He pursed his lips. ‘I don’t know if that’s true. Perhaps we’re all destined to go in one direction from the moment we’re born. You know how some people smoke all their life and don’t get cancer yet others who never touched a cigarette do? And how fit young men in their twenties can be running in a marathon and just collapse because their heart gives out? And how others never exercise and yet they live until they’re in their nineties? Well, that all makes me wonder about whether we have any control at all over our lifespan or whether it’s all down to fate, you know?’

‘I do know.’ Lena inclined her head. ‘I get where you’re coming from.’

‘It’s all so strange at times. Such a lot to process and yet process it we must.’

‘We must,’ she agreed.

‘I was high on life when the accident happened. I thought I had it all. Glittering career. Beautiful girlfriend. Luxury apartment.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘And then in a moment it was snatched away from me and the life I have now is completely different.’

Lena scanned his face, admiring him for sharing, for surviving against all odds, for keeping on going.

‘You’ve been through a lot,’ she said, sliding her hand out with the palm facing upwards. It was brave or crazy to offer him her hand, but she didn’t care. She wanted him to know that she cared enough to offer comfort. They might not know each other well but she could be his friend, be there for him.

He looked at her hand and she saw his Adam’s apple bob but then he placed his hand over hers and their fingers laced together as if they did this all the time.

‘The night of the crash I’d been out in London. We were celebrating a win and I’d been drinking. I wasn’t going to drive because I’m not that kind of idiot, but my… my then girlfriend hadn’t touched a drop. She… she took the keys to my car, and we set off for home. There was a terrible storm and visibility was bad.’ A muscle in his jaw twitched and Lena knew how hard this was for him. ‘We were talking about something that had happened that evening and it turned into an argument. I thought she’d been flirting with another player. She denied it but I was angry and drunk. It escalated pretty quickly and because she was distracted and it was raining so heavily, she didn’t see the car approaching on the wrong side of the road. Some stupid idiots were racing and playing chicken, and then… it all happened so quickly.’

Lena held on tight to his hand and waited for him to continue.

‘She tried to swerve but there was nowhere to go. The car hit us head-on and after that, I blacked out.’

Blunt force trauma. Broken bones. Soft tissue damage. Career destroyed. Never play again.

The headlines came rushing back now as Thomas shared his story. They had been shocking, saddening, repetitive, as reports about Thomas and the crash had circulated. The tabloids had devoured the story, replayed it and made it sound as horrific as possible. And it had been horrific. Truly horrific. Lena knew there had been no need to dramatise what had happened but, of course, the media had. Shocking headlines sold newspapers, sold advertising, made money. All at people’s expense.

‘I woke in a hospital bed with some memory loss and a damaged body.’ He shook his head. ‘A body that will never be the same.’

‘I’m sorry, Thomas.’ She blinked as her vision blurred.

‘It’s OK. It’s definitely not your fault and you don’t need to be sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry for drinking and not driving that night. If I’d driven, then the crash might not have happened. I could have avoided the other car and—’ He sighed. ‘Who am I kidding? There was nowhere to go to avoid it.’

‘But your girlfriend wasn’t injured?’

‘Ex-girlfriend,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘No. She had a few scrapes and bruises but luckily, and incredibly, she escaped without serious injury. Me though… the impact crushed the passenger side of the car. It fractured my tibia and tore the ligament. It also fractured my pelvis and that took a long time to heal and is the most painful thing I could ever have imagined. The surgeons did what they could, but the injuries were severe and even with physical therapy, I’ll never be the same.’ He held up the cane that he’d propped against the bench. ‘I’ll probably always need this. And my face… the shattered glass from the windscreen caused a deep laceration. I could have cosmetic surgery now to make it less noticeable, but I figure what’s the point?’ He gave a small shrug then let go of Lena’s hand andraked both his hands through his curly hair. ‘I’m so sorry. How grim is all that?’

‘You’ve suffered loss, Thomas. Don’t ever beat yourself up for talking about it. You must talk about it.’ She reached across the table, and he took her hand again.

‘You’re not at all like I imagined a journalist would be.’

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