Page 10 of The Affair
He stared at her blankly for a second, then nodded slowly, indicating his canvas man-bag, lying at his feet. Luca lifted it and handed it to Connie.
‘May I look?’ she asked Walter.
He nodded again and she began to rummage, quickly finding a white plastic bottle of pills, which she handed to him.
‘I ought to take them three times a day,’ he said, with an apologetic smile, ‘but sometimes I forget, you know.’
‘Shouldn’t he go to hospital?’ Jared asked, his phone poised in his hand. ‘I can call an ambulance.’
Connie hesitated. Getting an ambulance down the narrow Varenna streets would be a nightmare and take for ever. ‘Hold off for a moment, Jared. Let’s see if he’s all right when the pills have had a chance to kick in.’
She could tell from his face that Jared wasn’t convinced. ‘There must be a doctor somewhere here. I could ask at the bar,’ he said, glancing around, as if he thought help might spring out from one of the low bushes bordering the café garden.
‘That’s very kind,’ Connie said, noticing for the firsttime his unusual eyes, almost turquoise as they caught the light from the sun reflecting off the lake.
‘No doctor,’ Walter said agitatedly. ‘I don’t need a doctor. Just give me a minute.’ He clutched Connie’s hand.
‘We can get someone to check you out at the hotel,’ she told Walter, then turned to Luca. ‘You’ll be OK with the others?’ She knew the last ferry didn’t go for a couple of hours, but she didn’t want the whole group hanging around until Walter had recovered sufficiently to be able to walk to the boat.
Luca nodded his agreement. They were a good team. She knew he was completely reliable and would shepherd the passengers onto the ferry, then the minibuses at Menaggio.
‘I can stay and help you with Walter,’ Terry said quietly. ‘You might need two.’
Connie was grateful, but she saw the frown on Sandra’s face. She obviously didn’t approve of her husband’s uncharacteristic bid for freedom.
‘Thanks, Terry. But I think I can manage,’ she said, although Walter was tall and heavily built. If he was still wobbly …
‘I’ll do it. You take Sandra and Dinah back,’ Jared told Terry, his voice firm, as if he were taking charge.
Dinah nodded her approval. ‘Yes. Jared can help you, Connie.’
Connie saw Terry’s fleeting look of disappointment and smiled at him. She would rather have waited with Terry than Jared – with whom she felt slightly awkward.But the decision had been made and she was not going to argue, with Walter still pale and silent beside her.
Connie watched the retreating figures of the group as they hurried back down the cobbled street and turned the corner towards the waiting ferry. Walter still appeared a bit vacant, clearly bemused by what had happened. But the colour was returning slowly to his cheeks, helped, presumably, by the pill he’d swallowed and the cup of tea – a pallid Lipton’s teabag, of course – that Jared had acquired from the concerned waiter behind the bar.
‘So what’s the company protocol in a situation like this?’ Jared sipped the double espresso he’d ordered for himself. Connie had asked for a latte.
She eyed him, trying to gauge if there was any criticism behind his words. But she couldn’t detect an edge to his question. ‘Well … company rules state that I should stay with the groupat all times,’ she replied, with a smile. ‘I’m not even allowed to pick up a passenger who’s fallen or put a plaster on a cut. Dear old Elf and Safety. But, finally, I’m supposed to use my common sense.’
Jared laughed. ‘A commodity in short supply, these days.’
As he laughed, his face lit up and he looked properly at ease for the first time since Connie had met him. It was as if he’d stepped out of the stiff, slightly diffident costume he’d been wearing for the tour.Is he cowed by his indomitable godmother?
‘It’s a bit like being a parent,’ she said. Which was true. You had to keep a constant eye open, be aware ona visceral level of the integrity of the group at every minute of the day. When she’d first started, she’d been so terrified she would lose the tickets, their luggage, even one of the passengers, or miss the trains, that she’d hardly slept, arriving home after a week abroad a nervous wreck. But very soon she had realized she was capable of sorting out most situations thrown at her with comparative ease.
‘Hear that, Walter?’ Jared nudged the American. ‘Connie’s your new mum.’
Walter smiled weakly. ‘Fine by me.’
There was silence for a moment between the three of them. It was getting chilly: the evening sky had clouded over and a breeze was filtering up from the lake.
Then Jared said, ‘Well, I think you’re brilliant.’
His words were delivered so simply, but with such feeling, that Connie was taken aback and felt an instant blush rise to her cheeks. She gave an embarrassed laugh, quickly looking back to the American.
‘How’s it going, Walter?’ she asked. ‘Do you think you’re OK to start walking down to the harbour? You can lean on me. We’ll go really slowly.’ She knew her tone was slightly forced, but she was confused by Jared and needed to shift the focus. He’d said nothing much, certainly nothing contentious. But it was the way he’d said it – and being in the beam of his strange eyes – that unnerved her.
Connie was glad when Walter nodded. ‘Let’s give it a go.’
