I hear Annette huff. ‘I can talk you through it but it’s not like the movies where it’s instant relief. The tendons, muscles around your shoulder, have been through their own trauma. It’s still going to hurt for a few days and you’ll have damaged the tissue around the joint. You really need an X-ray.’
‘I can get an X-ray when we get back to London,’ says Lydia, her mouth snapping shut with the finality of her decision.
My hands are slick with sweat on the phone receiver. I really do not want to do this.
‘Fine,’ says Annette, ‘but this is against my better judgement.’
I put the phone down again and follow her instructions. Lydia has to lie flat with her arm out over the edge of the bed. She grits her teeth and looks away as I follow Annette’s instructions.
Lydia’s low moan of pain as I move her arm strikes me right to the core. I know it’s dragged from her because she’s the most stoic person I’ve ever met. I pause. I can’t do this to her.
‘Keep going,’ she hisses through her clenched jaw. When I take her arm again, she closes her eyes and I can see her summoning all her willpower and taking slow, deep breaths. Even so, when I move the arm, a heartfelt groan escapes from her. I keep going. There’s a horrible crunching sound and then a pop. Lydia screams.
‘Sorry. Sorry. Oh God, are you all right?’ I feel sick.
She opens her eyes and there’s a slick sheen of sweat across her forehead. She nods but when I look down I can’t quite believe it. The grotesque misshapen silhouette of her shoulder is miraculously back to normal. I can scarcely believe it.
‘How does that feel?’ I ask, almost too scared to ask.
Lydia stares up at me, unclenching her jaw with great care and takes in a shaky breath. ‘Better,’ she whispers. ‘Still hurts. But not like … not like before.’
I cradle her face with one hand because I can’t not and stare down at her. At what point did I start to care so much about her? I hate that she’s in pain, that I hurt her even though I know I helped.
‘All done?’ asks Annette, I’d almost forgotten she was on the other end of the phone.
‘All done,’ I confirm, nausea still swirling in my stomach.
‘Well done, Tom. Want me to tell your dad what a hero you are?’ Annette’s teasing holds an element of sincerity.
‘No, you’re good. Thank you. What about Lydia’s leg?’
‘It’s just a cut,’ says Lydia, glaring at me and shaking her head.
‘I really need to see it, to see if it needs stitches. If you can’t get to a hospital, you need to make sure to keep it clean. Have you got any steri strips or plasters? And have you cleaned it?’
‘I washed it in the shower.’
‘No, it needs to be washed with saline solution. Boil up two fifty mls of water and add half a teaspoon of salt. Clean it with that. Have you got sterile dressings? Bandage it up and don’t let it get wet again.’
I tell her what there is in the first-aid kit and she congratulates me on what I’ve done so far.
‘The biggest danger is if it gets infected. Stitches will help it heal better and close the wound so there’s less chance of infection. Lydia, if there’s any sign of heat around the wound and swelling, you need to see someone. In the meantime, rest and keep the leg elevated. But well done, Tom, we’ll make a doctor of you yet,’ she says.
‘Thanks, Annette. I owe you.’
‘You certainly do. You can pay me back this Saturday at the party. We’ll nick a bottle and hide at the bottom of the garden away from the rellies, like we used to when we were kids.’
‘Oh fuck,’ I whisper.
‘You will be back by then, won’t you?’ says Annette. ‘Your life won’t be worth living if you aren’t.’
‘Fuck, fuck, shit, piss and derision.’
‘And there’s the Tom I know and love,’ she says and hangs up.
Lydia raises her brows. ‘You going to tell me what that was about?’
‘Shit. I’d forgotten. It’s my mother’s birthday this week and there’s a royal command invitation on Saturday to their house in Berkhamsted for the annual party. Presence is mandatory.’ I sink my head in my hands. ‘Like Annette says, my life isn’t going to be worth living if I skip it.’
‘It won’t be that bad,’ she says. ‘I’m sure your mum will forgive you.’
‘Yeah,’ I say vaguely. She has no idea.
‘She’ll get over it,’ Lydia says with a reassuring smile.
‘By the time she’s ninety, perhaps.’
‘How old is she?’
‘She’ll be sixty-two.’
‘She’s had plenty of birthdays already, then. Nothing special about this one.’ Lydia’s indefatigable logic makes me smile even though I don’t feel like it.
Chapter Eighteen LYDIA
There’s nothing like soft cotton and clean sheets and I snuggle into them, inhaling the scent of fabric conditioner. It’s only as I catch my sore leg that I come to properly, realising that I’ve been asleep.
To my surprise Tom is beside me, stretched out on the other side of the bed, propped up against the pillows and absorbed in reading a Jeffrey Archer novel.
