I guide her over the boulders, round rocks, through the rough grass and she plods along, just putting one foot in front of the other. Her face has settled into a blank mask, which worries me the most. I don’t say anything because I know that she doesn’t want any fuss, but I’m watching her carefully. Every now and then the pain shows on her face and she’s limping. The journey requires all of my patience. If I didn’t have her sodding rucksack, I’d be tempted to try and carry her, except I don’t think that would ease her discomfort.
‘We’re nearly there,’ I tell her after twenty minutes of very slow walking. I’m just trying to encourage her. We’ve got at least another fifteen minutes to go.
‘You said that before,’ she says with grim humour.
‘We nearly are. See that road? It leads up to the house.’
Our progress is so slow, I think my back teeth might be ground to dust by the time we reach the road. Just the uphill bit now.
I point. ‘There it is.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ she whispers.
‘You’re doing really well, Lydia.’
We crunch our way across the gravel parking area. Still no one home but I lead her to the front door just in case.
As I knock again, to delay the moment I have to break a window, she leans limply against the porch wall.
‘Have you tried a credit card in the lock?’ she asks.
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s a trick they use in the movies,’ she says limply, tugging at one of the pockets of her rucksack.
‘Slight complication there. They took all our cards, remember?’ I’m trying not to be sarcastic because she’s done in, but seriously?
‘Driving licence?’ She holds one up in her hand, carefully shielding the front of it.
‘Smart.’
I try to take it from her because she can barely stand but she snatches it out of reach, with an almost furtive squirrelly look.
‘I won’t look at your picture,’ I say, again hiding my exasperation.
‘Okay.’ She’s clearly reluctant but hands over the licence.
Unfortunately, much as I try, the lock doesn’t budge. I suspect there’s a mortice lock on the door as well as the Yale one at the top. It’s no good. Time for breaking and entering. I suppose a police cell would keep us out of reach of our hunters.
‘There’s a small utility room round the back. If I break one of the windows there I can climb in and let you in.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ she says, but her eyes are glazed. There’s no real force or heat there. This hopeless resignation unnerves me far more than anything else we’ve been through. I’m no medical expert but I’m pretty sure it’s important to get her warm and dry as soon as possible.
‘You’d be better off staying here,’ I insist but she shivers and shakes her head. She’s literally on her last legs and I’m so anxious about her keeling over that I can’t bear to leave her on her own.
I can tell that she’s using her absolute last reserves of energy because she actually deigns to lean on me and lets me take some of her weight.
The window I’ve targeted is next to a back door and I look around to pick up something to break the glass.
‘Wait.’ Lydia grabs my arm. A spark of light glints in her eyes. The first sign of animation I’ve seen in a while. She peers in the window, tilting her neck to a sharp angle as if trying to see around a corner. ‘There’s a cat flap.’
‘I don’t think either of us are going to fit through there.’
‘Yes, but there’s a key in the door. Move out the way,’ she says and wearily gets down on her hands and knees.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, as she lies down on the floor, and slides her arm though the cat flap, her left shoulder up as close to the door as she can get it. Through the window I can see her arm straining up towards the key in the lock.
‘I don’t think this is going to work,’ I say discouragingly. Even though she can’t get any wetter, I don’t like the thought of her body lying on the cold wet ground like this, but she ignores me.
I just want to scoop her up off the floor and break the bloody window and get her inside.
Then I see through the window that her fingers are skimming the key. ‘Bloody hell, Lydia, you’re nearly there.’
She grunts and I can see her forcing herself harder against the door.
Suddenly the key is in her fingers and she’s pulling it out of the lock. Gasping with the effort, she withdraws her arm from the opening and rolls onto her back, holding up the key in the rain.
‘Fuck. That was amazing? How did you…’
‘Used to do it all the time at home.’
‘When you forgot your door key?’ I remember waking my parents – just the once though. I got into so much trouble, I never did it again. ‘My dad was livid when I had to wake him up to let me in.’
‘They let you in; mine didn’t.’ Lydia’s voice is so weak but matter-of-fact that I’m not sure I heard her properly. It takes a second for the words to penetrate and then she adds, ‘That’s how I perfected the cat-flap break-in.’
‘They wouldn’t let you in?’ If she wasn’t so obviously exhausted and her reserves hadn’t run so low, I might have thought she was joking, but it’s obvious that her barriers are down.
‘Yeah, they were shitty parents.’ Her eyes are closed as if she’s unable to face me. I’ve got an uncomfortable glimpse of her reality and I feel a fierce need to look after her. I take the key from her and slide it into the lock. The door squeaks as it opens and it’s the most wonderful sound.
