Page 48 of Escape to the Country

‘Erm, once or twice, to be honest.’

‘You silly man! Why didn’t you tell me?’ She took his hand and sat by his bedside as I sat the other side and took his other hand. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better for me to know, rather than to get you blue-lighted in the back of an ambulance?’

‘I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t want to spoil anything by talking about any health problems I had. I’d have felt a bit ridiculous, talking about my dodgy digestive system at such a pivotal point in our relationship.’ He turned to me. ‘I’m so sorry if I gave you both a scare.’

‘From this moment on, there are to be no secrets, Theo. There’ve been enough secrets to last us a lifetime. Please promise me, no more.’

‘I promise, Josie. I promise. No more secrets ever, girls. Perhaps we need a chat about my dodgy bowels at some point.’

Mum smiled through tears and snuggled into his shoulder. ‘I’d be delighted to hear all about them when you’re ready. I do love you, Theo Knight,’ she whispered into his hair. ‘More than you’ll ever know.’

I decided to leave them to have some time to themselves and went off in search of a coffee for Mum and me. As I turned away from the machine, I literally bumped into a big burly body and the hot coffee went everywhere, including all over my hand.

‘Ow, shit. That’s hot!’ I dropped the cup and the coffee splattered all over the floor.

‘Gosh, I’m so sorry. Let’s get that seen to quickly.’ I’d collided with Dan the physio. He walked me through to the A&E department, and when we reached the reception desk, he leant over and kissed the young nurse on the cheek tenderly.

‘Maria, sweetheart, I need your help. I’ve managed to make a tit of myself and spill boiling hot coffee all over this lovely lady. I’ve not made the best impression on her recently, so could you help her out?’

‘Of course, Dan, come through into a cubicle and we’ll take a look. Wait here, you lummox.’

Beth would be so disappointed that he was clearly in some sort of relationship with this young lady. You didn’t just call people you knew ‘sweetheart’. I knew that Beth really liked him too. She hadn’t stopped talking about him all the way home from hospital and I knew she was really looking forward to seeing him at her next appointment. She’d sent him a text later that day, thanking him for everything he’d done to help her in their session that morning, and he’d said how much he was looking forward to seeing her again. I did wonder whether I should say something to this Maria. Perhaps she should know that he had given his number out to Beth and I really didn’t think it was for medical reasons.

‘My big brother is such an oaf. He’s been a clumsy bugger since we were kids.’ The relief that flooded through me was immense. It was his sister. Beth was safe.

‘I just need to take some details from you: your name, address and date of birth type of stuff.’ When I told her that I lived at Giddywell Grange, she looked up and then looked at the form that she was filling in for me because she’d wrapped my hand in ice. ‘But your name is Madison, not Beth.’

I couldn’t quite work out how she would know Beth, and I looked at her inquisitively. ‘That’s right, I’m Madison. I live in one of the barns on the farm but Beth is my best friend.’

‘Ah, that explains it. Dan told me he’d met someone he really liked. He didn’t know what to do about it, because she was his patient. And he mentioned that she lived at Giddywell Grange. He probably shouldn’t have been discussing things like this with GDPR these days.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Bloody GDPR! The world has gone mad; we won’t be able to discuss anything soon. Please don’t say that I’ve mentioned anything, he could get into serious trouble.’

‘I won’t say a word, I promise. I know she really likes Dan, and she wouldn’t stop talking about him all the way home from her appointment. I do hope that something develops between them. I know that she’s my best friend and I’ve known her all my life, but she’s the most lovely, kind, generous, beautiful person in the world and any man who gets her is the luckiest man alive.’

‘Well, Dan is the same then, but in a male body. Again, I know he’s my older bro, but he’s awesome. He’s come all the way out here tonight to give me a lift home because my car is in the garage. He’d do anything for anyone. I know he can come across as being a bit brash at times but it’s to cover up for the fact that he’s actually quite shy. His army days are behind him now and he might learn that he doesn’t have to act that way. He’s definitely calming down and I would absolutely love to see him settled and happy. Maybe one day he’ll have a family of his own, too. He’s such a wonderful uncle to my two. They love him to bits and he completely adores them and spoils them rotten. In fact, that’s probably why they love him to bits.’ She laughed.

I thanked her for treating me and said that I hoped to see her again and went off in search of Mum and Theo who were apparently all sorted. Theo had been discharged and they were ready for a lift home. What a day this had turned out to be. I dropped Mum and Theo off at her house, kissed them both and drove home. It was 3a.m. and I was absolutely shattered. I let Baxter out for a wee in the garden and then we headed straight for bed where he curled up in a ball at my side, licked my hand and started doggy snoring within a minute or two, his feet twitching. I wondered if he was dreaming about running wild in a field having fun.

I’d done lots of thinking about Jamie and had finally made up my mind. I would get in touch with him soon. There was no rush. I smiled and felt that my life was pretty good as I turned out the bedside lamp.

* * *

It was a little weird, going on a ‘dad date’. I think most people thought that he was my sugar daddy, which tickled us both. We wanted to spend time together and get to know each other better, so two nights ago, Mum, Theo and I all wrote ideas down on pieces of paper, folded them up, put them in a jam jar and shook them up. We agreed that we had to do what came out whether we wanted to or not. Mum pulled out the winning date. Ice-skating. It was random, I know, and I hadn’t skated since I’d been at school, but oh, what fun it was. We did ask Mum to join us but she was adamant that she wanted us to spend time together without her. We needed to build a relationship of our own and there would be plenty of time, if things worked out, for us to do things as a threesome in our funny little family. The idea of being part of a family of three was so weird, after all those years of it just being me and mum. But the future was ours for the taking and we could make this into anything we wanted to. We just had to find our own way and not worry about what other people thought.

Theo held out his gloved hand and I placed mine in his as we skated cautiously to start, and then with each lap of the rink our confidence started to build. When Theo fell over, we laughed so hard that we cried. We weren’t the most elegant ice skaters in the world and we were sure that Torvill and Dean weren’t worried about us taking their title, but we should have definitely got eleven out of ten for effort.

We grabbed a hot chocolate from a stand outside the rink and sat on a bench outside huddled together for a bit of heat. I’d forgotten how the cold in the ice rink got right through to your bones, and we needed to warm up. We decided to walk back along the canal. It was a lovely autumn evening and Theo took my hand and tucked it snugly inside his arm as we walked, chatting easily about his life out in Spain and my life over here. What surprised me most was that he said that he’d like to ask Mum out on an official date but didn’t know how she’d feel or how I’d feel.

He knew that they’d grown closer since they’d been back in touch, but he wasn’t sure how she’d feel about making it more. And he also needed to know how I would feel about it, and if I had any doubts about it at all then he would take a step back and wouldn’t ask. He said that he wouldn’t do anything that I wasn’t happy about and that the most important thing in the world to him right now was to have a relationship with me. Knowing Mum like I did, I could clearly see that she was besotted by him, and I liked the person that she was around him. She was light-hearted, fun and flirty, and it was good to see her letting herself go.

It was with my blessing that I told him to go ahead and ask her. I was pretty sure what her answer would be. I knew that it would take time to find our way in our funny little three-way relationship, but we’d get there somehow and there was no rush. We’d waited this long.

When Theo dropped me back at the barn, he jumped out of the car and opened the door for me. He took my hand and looked deep into my eyes.

‘Don’t settle for anything less than the best in your life, Madison. Don’t look back and have regrets. I had a good life, don’t get me wrong, and Jean was a lovely woman, but she wasn’t the person I fell madly in love with and wanted to be with. It makes me so sad that I missed everything about your life, but I swear that I will spend the rest of mine, until my dying day, making it up to you. But for you I want the very best; I’d hate you to settle for something less than you deserve. And you deserve the world.’

An image of Alex flashed into my head and I pushed it away. I tried to picture Jamie instead, but I couldn’t visualise what he looked like right at that very moment.

‘I’m sorry that I’m a bit of a mess right now, Theo. This redundancy business has hit me harder than I ever thought it would. I have to be honest with you; I’ve gone through my life, pushing myself as hard as I could. I never thought for one minute really that I’d ever meet you, but I wanted to make sure that if I did, I’d be a successful businesswoman that you’d be impressed by and want to know. It was really important to me and I think somewhere along the way, I forgot to be myself.’

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