Part five of our serialised story by Queenie Young
Guy Evans pulled into the driveway of the cottage at the end of the narrow lane. Spring had finally arrived; the hedges were vibrant with new leaves, and the fruit trees in Lucy’s garden were laden with heavily scented blossom.
He already knew nobody would be home, but it was a relief to see that Lucy’s car was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t need her to be home for what he had planned.
As he unloaded the boxes from the boot of his car, Guy thought over the events of the past couple of days since his meeting with Lucy at the bar in town. After she’d fainted, the bar had become alive with activity – people were galvanised into action, fussing around them, providing glasses of water and cold flannels. When Lucy did come round, however, her own wellbeing had been of little concern to her. Her priority was to get to the hospital and get to Jack who had been taken there following a fire at the cottage.
As Guy sped to the hospital, he’d looked across at Lucy, sitting in the passenger seat of the car. She’d seemed so small and vulnerable, and fear was etched onto her face. His heart had tightened and he’d wanted to reach over to her, to reassure her somehow, but neither of them knew how serious things were for Jack, and the gesture had seemed too forward. And, though he didn’t like to admit it, he had also been fearful that she might reject him again, which had made him feel thoroughly disgusted to be thinking such a thing at a time like that.
As it turned out, Jack had been taken to hospital as a precaution. The babysitter, who had decided to make use of Lucy’s hair straighteners, had forgotten to switch them off again when she had finished. They’d burnt through the carpet, and caused a small fire in Lucy’s bedroom, which has spread to the landing and filled the upstairs of the cottage with thick, acrid black smoke. Jack, who was in bed at the time but hadn’t been asleep as he’d been too involved in reading about Harry Potter’s latest Quiditch match, had noticed the funny smell and the smoke curling beneath his door. It was pure luck that the fire had not crept along the landing to his bedroom when he came to open the door, and that he was able to make an escape downstairs and alert the babysitter. Nevertheless, he’d been taken to A&E for a full check over, seeing as he’d inhaled quite a bit of smoke. They’d wanted to keep him in for a couple of days, just to keep an eye on him, and Lucy had kept a constant vigil by his bedside ever since. The cottage itself was fine – the landing needed a new carpet and the walls a lick of paint, but other than that the damage had been cosmetic.
Guy pulled the strings of bunting from the box, and unfurled the Welcome Home banner. It wasn’t much, he thought as he strung it between a couple of fruit trees in the garden, but it was something and he wanted Lucy and Jack to know that he cared. For some reason it was important to him. He wasn’t quite sure why. He liked Jack, he was a good kid. And Lucy? Well, he didn’t want to think about his feelings for her. For goodness sake, he’d only known her five minutes.
He’d just pulled the enormous picnic hamper from the boot as Lucy’s car came up the lane. He quickly spread out the blanket on the grass, to Suzy the Sheep’s bleat of approval.
“How did you know we were coming back?” called Lucy, climbing out of the car. She smiled warmly, shielding the sun from her eyes with her hand.
“You texted me, remember?” prompted Guy, suddenly feeling as though he might have made a wrong move and been too presumptuous in setting up this Welcome Home garden picnic for Jack.
“Are you sure you’re not the one who needs to see a doctor,” he asked with a wink.
“Oh Guy, you needn’t have gone to all this trouble” said Lucy, ignoring his quip, as she watched him laying out the food onto the blanket. “What a really lovely thought.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Jack, abandoning the football he was dribbling across the grass, to come and look at the food.
“It’s nothing really,” smiled Guy. “I could pretend I’d made it all, and get all the credit but I’d be rumbled at some point. Aunt Irene did most of it. Feeling better?” he asked Jack, ruffling his hair.
Jack nodded, pre-occupied with the spread of food. “Hey Mum!” he called across to Lucy, who was busy admiring the Welcome Home banner that Guy had hand painted onto an old white sheet and strung up above the front door. “Guy – I mean Mr Evans – has brought scotch eggs. You know what you say about scotch eggs?”
“Does she hate them?” Guy stage whispered.
“Ooooo,” exclaimed Lucy, coming over and launching herself at the plate of them.
“I’m guessing not, then,” Guy said to Jack with a smile.
Jack shook his head and took a bite of chocolate cookie “No, she loves them AND anyone who gives her them.”
Guy snorted with laughter, presuming that Jack was kidding. “Not roses? Not tulips? Scotch eggs?”
Jack nodded, laughing through his mouthful of cookie. “You’re kidding me?” said Guy, looking across at Lucy who had now turned a vibrant shade of pink and was refusing to meet his gaze.