she had to hold her ragged breath to listen. After a terrifying moment, she heard whimpering.
‘I’m stuck.’ A choking cough. ‘I can’t!’ Splutter. ‘Lea–’ More coughing.
‘I’m coming!’ Leah splashed into the water, shoving blindly at the reeds that, nightmare-like, grabbed at her arms and legs. Endless seconds of battling took her up to her waist in icy lake water and suddenly she could see Natasha’s neon green helmet bobbing frighteningly close to the surface.
‘Legs stuck– Bike–’ Natasha gasped, flailing bravely to keep her mouth above water.
Heart pounding, Leah fought her way close enough to scoop an arm beneath Natasha’s shoulders. ‘OK, I’ve got you. Breathe, sweetie. Just breathe.’ She took a couple of moments to follow her own advice as Natasha’s panic began to calm with a few last heaves and coughs.
‘Can you kick free if I hold you up?’
‘Think so.’ After a lot of splashing and ‘Ow! Ow!’ Natasha was able to slide her legs out of the bike frame and tremble her way to her feet. ‘I couldn’t br-breathe. I thought I’d drown.’ Reaction setting in, she clung wetly to Leah and burst into tears.
‘I know. You’re safe now.’ Leah closed her eyes and cuddled her niece close as she waited for the fear to subside. It was several moments before either of them felt strong enough to yank their feet free of the lakebed and turn back towards the dry land. Jordan was just striking out towards them through the reeds, looking uncharacteristically anxious.
‘Leah–’
‘I’ve got her. She’s had a fright but she’s OK.’ Gaining dry land, after a cursory check of Natasha’s person and finding nothing worse than barked shins and bruises, Leah pressed her niece’s hand firmly into Jordan’s. ‘Look after your sister for two minutes while I drag the bike out. Don’t move an inch.’
‘Leah, Dad’s hurt his leg.’
‘One thing at a time.’ Ignoring the fact that her elbow was beginning to throb fierily Leah waded back into the chilly water, slipping over painfully between the reeds. It took all her strength to haul the bike up from its watery bed and back to shore. When she allowed herself a moment to catch her breath she noticed that not only were Jordan and Natasha still holding hands and standing exactly where she’d left them, but Jordan was dead white. Her heart gave an extra thud. ‘Did you say Alister’s hurt?’
‘Really hurt. Curtis stayed with him and I came after you and Tash.’
The sun was beating down but Leah’s blood ran cold. She’d been so focused on her mission that Alister’s absence hadn’t hit her. For him to abandon his daughter in a lake he must have been physically unable to–
‘Right, let’s check him out,’ she said briskly to disguise the slimy feeling of apprehension slithering through her belly. Leah jogged back towards the track as fast as suddenly wobbly legs would allow, surprised to see how far she and Natasha had plunged after the mass collision.
She found Alister sprawled in the dirt, face an unpleasant grey-white, Curtis crouched beside him.
‘Oh, shit.’ Leah almost gagged as she saw the unnatural angle of Alister’s leg.
‘Hurts.’ Alister’s breath hissed through gritted teeth either side of the single word.
‘I’ll get an ambulance. The French for 999 is 18, isn’t it?’
Alister sucked in a breath. ‘But we left all the phones in the car to save them from getting damaged – my bright idea, I think.’
‘Right. We’ll have to …’ Leah faltered. The track, so busy just a little while earlier, was empty. Her mind hurtled through the possibilities. Which was closer, the ice cream place or The Pig? Should she leave Alister and take all the kids? Leave all the kids with him? She’d just made up her mind to leave the boys but take Natasha, who was wailing again at the sight of her dad’s leg, when, to her swamping relief, two men in Lycra shot around the corner on serious cyclists’ cycles. They swished to efficient halts with exclamations of ‘Merde!’
‘S’il vous plait,’ Leah stuttered, jumping up, ‘mon bon-frère est blessé —’
‘Beau-frère.’ Alister couldn’t resist correcting her, be it through white lips. He even took over the explanations, his French flowing impressively despite his agony. In moments one man was hunkering down beside Alister while the other flew back along the track, wheels whirring. Alister, grimacing all the while, translated these developments into English. ‘There’s a ranger’s station as well as a café. The gentleman’s gone there for help.’
Leah huddled with a shivering Natasha as the lake water in their T-shirts and shorts became too cold to be outweighed by the warmth of the sun. Jordan sat on the track with his father, and the Frenchman who’d remained with them introduced himself as Théo and chatted reassuringly with Alister in French and with the others in fair English. A few minutes saw the rangers bowling up in a pick-up truck with Garde Forestier on the side, the second Frenchman and his bike in the back.
Théo nodded approvingly. ‘Les pompiers come also, soon.’
It felt like ages before the red ambulance edged along the track. Les pompiers seemed to be firemen, to Leah’s surprise, in navy uniforms with red and yellow flashes. They took control with easy efficiency and when Alister was splinted and in the ambulance the rangers piled the rented bikes in their truck and Théo escorted Leah and the kids back to The Pig to guide her to l’Hôpital Civil in Strasbourg.
‘But you are cold, I think.’ He frowned at Leah and Natasha’s wet clothes.
‘I can put up with it.’ But Leah cast a worried glance at her niece.
‘Here, Natasha.’ Curtis gallantly pulled off his black T-shirt decorated with snarling wolves then turned to gaze out of the window while Natasha, thanking him shyly, pulled off her wet top and changed into his dry one, long enough on her to pass for a dress.
Leah, not wanting to pause to accept similar offers from Jordan or Théo, pulled swiftly away. Or what passed for swift, in The Pig.
Earning her undying gratitude, Théo located a parking place and the entrance to the correct hospital department – Leah wouldn’t even have known that A&E was called Urgences – bought them drinks from the vending machine, found them an English-speaking nurse and indicated the wet clothing and what Leah suddenly realised was a giant, sticky, gritty graze on her arm. Waving away thanks, he left to wait outside to be picked up in his cycling buddy’s car.
The nurse provided white scrubs for Leah and Natasha and Curtis took back his T-shirt. While the nurse bustled off on some other errand, Leah tried to ring Michele but could only leave a message.
Natasha, hoiking at her waistband to stop her hems trailing, declared, ‘I look like I’m in Casualty on TV!’
‘Wrong colour, gonk,’ began Jordan. Then he caught Leah’s baleful glare and subsided.
Grateful just for dry clothes, whatever they looked like, Leah dropped into a chair in the glass-walled waiting area and tried to assess their situation. ‘OK. We’re all together and in the same place as Alister. The lovely nurse speaks English, for which I’m
