LITMIR.BIZ

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like his grandfather. That the little girl he remembered had had to grow up very quickly, and way too soon.

      “You remember now, don’t you?” she asked, laughing. “You remember my war cry?”

      She let it out again and he heard Scotty, Lily and Daisy join in in the background. My God! A whole family of them! Savages, one and all.

      “Okay, okay…I surrender!” he said, holding up his hands in the universal gesture of giving up. “I do remember now – but you can’t blame me for not recognising you. You have changed a bit, you know? You’re more…”

      He floundered, trying to find a word that didn’t sound lecherous, curling fingers against his palm in case they accidentally made the equally universal gesture for “curvy-woman shaped”.

      “Yes?” she said, hitching an eyebrow up at him suggestively. “More what, precisely?”

      He looked awkward, less self-assured and arrogant. The tiny lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled up, showing white beneath his healthy outdoorsy tan. She’d had a terrible crush on him back then, Pippa remembered. He’d been this tall, handsome, exotic stranger and she used to sneak around following him. Obviously, she barely registered on his all-grown-up radar. The scream-and-jump routine had just been her way of getting his attention. Her pick-up techniques had improved…well, not significantly since then, she acknowledged. It’s not like she’d had much practice.

      “Just…more,” he said, finally, gazing over her shoulder as though he was trying to avoid making eye contact with her. “Who’s that?” he asked, chocolate-drop eyes narrowing.

      “What? Who?” blathered Pippa, who’d been slightly lost in thought as she looked up at his face. How could she not have remembered him straight away? He’d been the first love of her life, and had broken her tiny heart by dunking her in the duck pond – which, she had to admit, she thoroughly deserved.

      She turned, following his gaze. Saw a plume of black smoke, then heard the bang. The scrape. The crash and grind of metal clashing on the gravel.

      “Oh,” she said, the fun fading from her cornflower eyes, “that. That’s Patrick. On his bike. Or off it, perhaps.”

      “Has he…just crashed it? Is he all right?” said Ben, watching as the gunmetal smoke funnelled up into the equally grey sky. This was all a bit surreal, as though he’d wandered into an episode of the Twilight Zone. And he’d thought his life was odd.

      “Yes, he’s just crashed it,” she replied, setting off at a fast clip towards the scene of the accident, “and yes he’ll be all right. He crashes it at least once a day, just to keep me on my toes. Don’t feel obliged to follow – he’ll just be a pig to you. You’ll want to thump him and I’ll feel embarrassed.”

      “Well, with an offer like that! How could I refuse?” he answered, striding to keep up with her. She seemed relaxed – if a little downtrodden – but he thought he’d better tag along, just in case this was the one time the crash-test dummy had taken his antics a step too far.

      The younger children trailed behind them and he felt a tiny hand creep into one of his. The little boy. Scotty. The kid looked up at him, the same glowing, healthy looks as the rest of them. They all looked like adverts for Scandinavian log cabins, with their shining blonde hair and big blue eyes. Thoroughly disconcerting.

      “Don’t worry,” said Lily – or maybe Daisy – as they passed. “Patrick’s just a bit of a mollusc,” said the other one, completing the sentence.

      The mollusc in question was sprawled on the path, one of his legs trapped beneath what looked like an old Kawasaki. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and his hair – predictably blonde, but a lot dirtier than the others’ – was splayed across a face that was scratched raw with gravel burn. It had to hurt and would be a swine to clean with all those tiny scrapes pockmarked with even tinier stones.

      Pippa paused, her lips twisting into a grimace, then walked over without a word. She leaned down, picked up the bike and threw it to one side. It bounced, the spokes whirring in the wind. Wow, thought Ben, she was stronger than she looked. Or maybe, he realised, it was just that she’d had a lot of practice – nobody was reacting as though this was an unusual occurrence, not even the younger kids. In fact, Daisy and Lily had their arms crossed over their chests and were mimicking the exasperated expression their big sister was wearing. Lord help the local boys with those two when they were older!

      “This,” she said, kicking her younger brother in his good leg with her mud-coated wellie, “is Patrick. Patrick, this is Ben Retallick. He’s staying in Honeysuckle for the week. If you could try and avoid hitting him with the death machine, blowing up his belongings or stealing his car, I’d really appreciate it. What do you say?”

      The teenager gazed up at them all, looking from his stern big sister to a confused-looking Ben. His sullen face, seared red by his scrapes, broke into a huge grin.

      “Wow, sis!” he said, brushing himself down and standing up. “Do you know who this is?”

      “Yes, Patrick, I do,” she replied, sighing. “It’s Ben Retallick. The boy who threw me in the duck pond when I was seven.”

      “Nah,” he replied, staring at Ben as if he was the only interesting thing he’d ever seen in his whole existence. “This is Ben Retallick – that posh lawyer who got sent down for beating the shit out of some loser who got off with it. You remember? Bad Boy Ben, they called him – it was all over the bloody newspapers! Put the bloke in hospital for weeks! You treat me like I’m dirt ‘cause PC Plod in the village has a whinge about me, sis, but you’ve gone and invited a proper ex-con into the family home – what will people say?”

       Chapter 3

      Pippa couldn’t sleep, for about a million and one reasons, not all of them involving caffeine. After he’d dropped his bombshell – thrilled that he’d got one over on her – Patrick had limped off to the village saying he was going butterfly-hunting. That was a lie, clearly, and not even a good one. He was going to the pub. Everyone knew he was under-age, but as his birthday was only a few weeks off, the eyes of the staff were well and truly turned. They didn’t see the harm – mainly because they didn’t have to deal with the fallout. She was lucky enough to have that plum job.

      He still wasn’t back and she knew there was a strong possibility he wouldn’t be – that he’d spend the night crashed out on a pal’s sofa, in the nearest hay barn, with one of the girls who seemed smitten by his small-town Steve McQueen routine, or even on the beach. At least he wasn’t on his bike this time, she thought. They’d played out this particular drama a hundred times before, and she knew it called for deep breaths and calming thoughts. He was a big boy – too big for a spanking. Too big for a cuddle. Although she suspected he’d probably needed both on regular occasions over the last few years, and she hadn’t been parent enough to provide either. Possibly because she was only a few years older than him herself – physically, at least.

      She’d tossed and turned so many times in her bed, worrying about him, about what he was doing. About what she wasn’t doing. About how she could try and reach him. About how she’d quite like it if he just buggered off and lived somewhere else.

      That last one was usually the final stop on the late-night train ride through her brain. She knew Patrick – she loved Patrick. She understood why he was the way he was – but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

      That’s when she usually reached the point where she had to try and talk herself down, get some rest so she could deal with the challenges of the next day. With the needs of the kids still young enough for her to matter to them – the ones she could still save, if Patrick was determined to plough his own destructive path.

      The calming thoughts, though, just weren’t coming that night. They were being chased away by all the anxious thoughts

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