LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Two

      We waited with scarcely concealed impatience for another two days. Okay, the first day we concealed our impatience; the second day we weren’t concealing it at all. Jassy and I were at each other’s throats; snapping and snarling like a couple of barely house-trained puppies.

      ‘I mean what did he mean by pop back?’ Jassy moaned for the billionth time.

      ‘I have no idea, Jassy. Stop asking me. I would mean I’d be back in five minutes but this is the country, isn’t it? He might mean next week or next year – who knows?’ I said unhelpfully. ‘He might never come back.’

      Jassy threw back her blanket and stomped unevenly to the window to look out at the rain. It was still raining.

      ‘Come back, you sod,’ she shouted and then turned back to me. ‘Are you sure you don’t know how to change a tyre?’

      ‘No, I don’t know how to change a tyre,’ I snapped back. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

      Jassy slumped back down onto the sofa, her mouth drooping with misery. ‘Nor would I. Surely there’s an instruction book? We’re never going to see London again. We’re going to die in this bloody place, just die.’

      She sounded so mournful I went to give her a hug.

      ‘No we’re not,’ I said. ‘Don’t be silly. People don’t die just because it’s raining and they have a puncture. There’s plenty of food in the freezer and we have four bottles of wine left. And the green stuff if we get desperate.’

      She shrugged me off.

      ‘Stop being so bloody cheerful,’ Jassy said, huddling down into the cushions.

      ‘Well you’re being miserable enough for both of us.’

      ‘Oh, just shut up!’

      ‘You shut up, Jassy! We could have gone to Vanessa’s flat-warming party. This was your idea remember – your big drama about Ralphie and that woman, the draft that needed finishing. I could have done my editing anywhere—’

      ‘Don’t give me that! You wanted some time away from Benedict in the hope that he would stop taking you for granted!’

      ‘—I was expecting to have a lovely time with roaring fires and a restful few days before we went back to London.’

      ‘Well so was I! You agreed! I didn’t force you to drive here!’ Jassy shouted.

      I could feel my temperature rising.

      ‘Yes, but I didn’t expect to be still stuck here, listening to you moaning twenty-four seven!’ I yelled back.

      ‘I’m an invalid!’

      ‘You’re not a bloody invalid.’

      ‘I am!’

      ‘You’ve got a bandage on one knee. This apparently means you can’t cook a meal, wash up, tidy your stuff away, or do anything except sit on the sofa drinking wine and complaining.’

      ‘You’d be the same in my place. And the one time we have a chance of someone getting us out of this place, you let him run off with the vague promise he might “pop back”. Why didn’t you offer to pay him? He’d have popped back a damn sight quicker if you’d waved a tenner at him.’

      This thought had crossed my mind on several occasions but I didn’t need my sister reminding me.

      I made a mature and considered response.

      ‘Oh shut up!’

      ‘You shut up!’

      Jassy gave a furious scream and bit the edge of her blanket.

      ‘Hello? Anyone at home?’

      Jassy yelped and we swung round to see the dark silhouette of a man standing in the doorway leading out to the hall.

      ‘Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but you didn’t seem to hear me when I knocked.’

      It was him.

      The man with the bright blue eyes and the tractor.

      There is a God after all. I was beginning to wonder.

      ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you,’ I said, trying to sound calm and measured and not as though I had been in the middle of a heated screaming match with my sister.

      He pulled off gloves, which looked as though they had been constructed from old wet suits and held out a hand towards me. I shook it. His fingers were cold but his palm was warm and I felt an odd shiver of something. He reached over to say hello to Jassy who was busy being tiny and fragile and thoroughly irritating under her blanket.

      ‘Joe Field. I’m guessing you haven’t managed to fix the puncture?’ he said.

      Trust me, if I had I wouldn’t be here talking to you, I thought, but that would have been rude and Joe Field might have been offended and left us to it. I wasn’t going to risk losing him again. I moved round a bit so I actually blocked his exit route.

      ‘I’m Louisa Darling, and this is my sister Jassy Sutton.’

      I waited a beat to see if he realised who we were. He didn’t so much as flicker. Oh well. Perhaps he didn’t look at the gossip columns or read much chick lit or psychological drama?

      ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid we haven’t managed to fix it. Jassy has a very fragile knee and of course I have to look after her full time.’

      I made it sound as though she couldn’t be left for even a second, which was far from the case. In fact I’d gone to bed leaving her asleep on the sofa twice and yesterday I’d refused to bring her lunch on a tray and made her come to the table. I don’t think Jassy had been out of her pyjamas for three days and she was beginning to fall into the helpless, dependent patient state of mind.

      ‘I see,’

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