He carried the dog’s crate, she carried her overnight bag and the bag of stuff for Saffy—food, toys, blanket. Well, not a blanket, really, just an old jumper of Joe’s she’d been unable to part with, and then when Saffy had come home she’d found a justification for her sentimental idiocy.
‘Can we leave the crate down here?’ she asked. ‘She’ll be fine in the kitchen, she’s used to it.’
‘Sure. Come on up, I’ll give you a guided tour. It’ll take about ten seconds. The house isn’t exactly enormous.’
It wasn’t, but it was lovely. There were doors from the entrance hall into the ground floor living space, essentially one big L-shaped room, with a cloakroom off the hallway under the stairs, and the landing above led into three bedrooms, two doubles and a single, and a small but well-equipped and surprisingly luxurious bathroom.
He showed her into the large bedroom at the front, simply furnished with a double bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers. There was a pale blue and white rug on the bare boards between the bed and the window, and on the edge of it was a comfy armchair, just right for reading in. And the bed, made up in crisp white linen, sat squarely opposite the window—perfect for lying there drinking early morning tea and gazing out to sea.
She crossed to the window and looked left, over the river mouth, the current rippling the water. The window was open and she could hear the suck of the sea on the shingle, the keening of the gulls overhead, and if she breathed in she could smell the salt in the air.
‘Oh, James, it’s lovely,’ she sighed.
‘Everyone likes this room.’ He put her bag down and took a step towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in.’
‘No need. I travel light. It’ll take me three seconds to unpack.’
She followed him back out onto the landing and noticed another flight of stairs leading up.
‘So what’s up there?’ she asked.
‘My room.’
He didn’t volunteer anything else, didn’t offer to show it to her, and she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to enter his personal space. Not under the circumstances. Not after her earlier speculation about his love life. The last thing she needed was to see the bed he slept in. So she didn’t ask, just followed him downstairs, got her walking boots out of the car and put them on.
‘In your own time, Slater,’ she said lightly, and he gave her one of those wry smiles of his and got off the steps and led her and Saffy out of the gate.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE PUT SAFFY on a lead because she didn’t really want to spend half the evening looking for her if she ran off, but the dog attached herself to James like glue and trotted by his side, the lead hanging rather pointlessly across the gap between her and Connie.
Faithless hound.
‘So, where are we going?’ she asked, falling in beside them.
‘I thought we could go along by the river, then cut inland on the other side of the marshes and pick up the lane. It’ll bring us out on the sea wall from the other direction. It’s about three miles. Is that OK?’
‘Sounds good.’
The path narrowed on top of the river wall, and she dropped back behind him, Saffy still glued to his heels, and in the end she gave him the lead.
‘You seem to have a new friend,’ she said drily, and he glanced down at the dog and threw her a grin over his shoulder.
‘Looks like it. Is that a problem?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said promptly. ‘I’m glad she likes you. She does seem to like men, I expect because she’s been used to them looking after her out in Helmand, but she’ll have to get over it when we go home tomorrow. I hope it won’t unsettle her.’
‘Do you think it might?’
‘I don’t know. I hope not. She’s doing so well.’
‘Apart from the thieving,’ he said drily, and she gave a guilty chuckle.
‘Yeah, well. Apart from that.’
They walked in silence for a while by the muddy shallows at the edge of the river, and then as they turned inland and headed uphill, he dropped back beside her and said, ‘So, how was Afghanistan? You haven’t really told me anything about it.’
‘No. It was a bit strange really. A bit surreal, but I’m glad I went. The facilities at Camp Bastion are fantastic. The things they do, what they achieve—for a field hospital it’s unbelievable. Did you know it’s got the busiest trauma unit in the world?’
‘I’m not surprised. Most of them aren’t in an area that has conflict.’
‘No. No, they aren’t. And I found that aspect really difficult.’
‘Because of Joe?’
She nodded. ‘Sort of. Because of all of them, really. I had second thoughts about going, after he died. I didn’t know how I’d feel facing the stark reality of it, but I realised when the first wave of grief receded that I still wanted to go. There was so much I wanted to try and understand, such as why it was necessary, why he’d gone in the first place, what he’d been trying to achieve.’
‘And did you?’
‘No. No, I still don’t understand, not really. I don’t think I ever will and I’m not sure I want to. People killing each other, maiming each other—it all seems so pointless and destructive. There must be a better way than all this senseless violence.’
‘It must have been really hard for you, Connie,’ he said, his voice gentle. ‘Very close to home.’
She nodded slowly, remembering the shock of seeing the first casualties come in, the realisation that this was it, this was what really happened out there. ‘It was. I’d seen videos, had training, but I hadn’t really understood what it was like for him until then. Seeing the injured lads there, though, fighting so hard to save them—it brought it all home to me, what he’d gone through, the threat he’d faced every day, never knowing when or if it might happen to him. That was tough.’
‘I’m sure. He mentioned you were talking about going. I got the feeling he didn’t like it much.’
‘No, he didn’t. I don’t think he wanted to be worrying about me while he was trying to do his job, and he’d tried to put me off when I joined the Territorial Army as a volunteer doctor four years ago, but I thought, if Joe can do it, so can I. Not in the same way, but to do something, to do some good—and I’m glad I did, even though it was tough, because it’s an incredible experience as a doctor.’
They fell silent for a while, then she went on, ‘It’s amazing what they can do there, you know, saving people that in civilian medicine we simply couldn’t save because we just don’t get to them fast enough or treat them aggressively enough when we do.’
He followed her lead and switched the conversation to practical medical aspects.
