Page 123 of The Winter of Second Chances
‘Well, you weren’t supposed to leave your ratbag husband in those days,’ said Annie.
‘Unlike you,’ Maeve guffawed through a mouthful of garlic bread.
The women laughed.
‘And I won’t be rushing back to nurse him when he gets knob-rot!’ Annie said.
‘Ooh, but who is your Gilbert?’ asked Gemma, winking exaggeratedly.
Annie flushed.
‘Aye-aye,’ said Sally. ‘What’s all this then? Got a fella, have you, Annie?’
At that moment the cafe door crashed open; the wind caught it and slammed it hard against the wall. The women screeched and the candles blew out. John stood in the doorway, windswept and soaking.
There was a flurry of indignant curses.
‘Holy fuckwits!’ yelled Sally.
‘You’re not in my will, John, so it’s no use trying to frighten me to death!’ Maeve declared loudly. ‘And shut the bloody door!’
Gemma’s comments amounted to a series of unintelligible squeaks.
‘John, what the—’ Annie began. She could tell from his face that something was very wrong.Oh God, please don’t let something have happened to Mari, she thought.
John cut her off.
‘Have you seen Alfred?’ he asked her, ignoring everyone else. His voice was rough with desperation, his eyes pleading. Annie stood and looked at him, trying to read his face. John turned and, with some effort, shoved the door shut against the wind. The floor was soaking. He pushed his hair back off his forehead. Rain dripped continuously off his nose.
‘Have you?’ he asked, turning back to Annie.
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘I thought he was in the shelter.’
‘Sit down, my boy,’ said Maeve, wrestling him into a chair. ‘And tell us what the devil is going on.’
John ran his hand through his hair again; his other hand clenched into a fist on the table. Annie sat down beside him.
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘I should’ve known better. I’m such a fucking idiot!’
‘What’s happened?’ Annie asked. She put herself into his line of sight so that his eyes had to meet hers. ‘Tell me.’ She ached to take his hand but didn’t.
‘I got a call last night from the shelter. Alfred took off after a meeting with the counselling team and didn’t come back. I’ve been driving around looking for him ever since.’
‘All night? For Christ’s sake, John, you could have had an accident. Why didn’t you call me?’ Annie scolded.
‘I grabbed a couple of hours’ kip at a motel, but my phone battery died.’
‘You should have come to me!’ said Annie. ‘I would have helped you look.’
‘I thought I’d find him.’ John looked pleadingly at her. ‘I tried the town centre, then the wider town. I’ve been over most of Thanet. And then I thought, maybe he’d tried to get back here; hitchhiked or something.’ He glanced around the room. ‘I guess not.’
The women shook their heads.
‘What if he has come back and you just haven’t seen him?’ said Sally. ‘You said he’s got a kind of hideout.’
‘Surely he wouldn’t have gone into the cave?’ said Gemma. ‘He must know it would be dangerous in weather like this!’
‘Alfred knows the tides better than any of us, but we can’t rule out that he didn’t try and get into the cave when the tide was lower, thinking he could ride out the storm in there,’ said Maeve.
