provide any comfort this time.
He saw her sitting in her car as he walked toward his cottage, just two doors down from hers. Ali! She was the last person he needed to see. He’d tried to just walk past the car where she sat so forlornly, looking determinedly the other way...but when he heard a low moan he reluctantly peered inside. She was slumped forward over the wheel, her skin the color of alabaster.
A vague recollection slid into his foggy brain. They were searching for Bobby, scouring the surface of the raging sea with increasing desperation, when Mike said that he thought Ali might have dislocated her shoulder. It had hardly registered...until that moment. He’d looked again and knew he had to help her.
Unable to face the hospital where they’d brought Bobby a few short hours ago, he’d intended to just drop her off. But she’d walked so slowly toward the entrance, holding on to the wall for support, that he hadn’t been able to simply leave her until she’d gone inside and seen someone. As soon as the nurse came in he took his leave and fled.
He’d done what he could, he told himself as he’d driven away. She was in good hands, and if they released her she could easily ring a taxi. He needed to go home, to be on his own for a while to try and come to terms with what had happened. At the moment he felt as if he was living in a fog, a fog that held a nightmare he couldn’t quite face up to.
He knew that he had to go back before he was hardly a mile away from town; it felt almost as if Bobby was there beside him telling him that he had to help her. She’d looked so shocked and gray and scared that despite what had happened, be it her fault or not, he couldn’t just abandon her. With a lead weight in his heart he swung the car round in the road and headed back toward the hospital.
Mary, the A&E receptionist, told him to sit down while she went to find out what was happening. She came back after just a few minutes. “She’s dislocated her shoulder and the doctor is with her now,” she told him.
Tom couldn’t muster a response. He showed no sign of interest or concern. He simply felt detached. The receptionist must have noticed because she peered at him closely and asked, “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Yes...fine.”
Mary smiled encouragingly, but Tom could see in her eyes that she was alarmed by the lack of expression on his face. “Don’t worry, she won’t be long now,” she said.
* * *
THE DOCTORS HAD relocated and strapped her shoulder under anesthetic, and physically, Ali felt much better, but her head was in turmoil. She made her way back into reception with a packet holding prescription painkillers. When the nurse asked if she had someone to take her home and look after her she’d nodded. Bobby’s death was still too raw for her to feel sorry for herself. She could manage on her own.
Now, though, she wasn’t so sure; how was she going to get home? Feeling weepy and guilty and lost she stepped into the quiet waiting room where rows of people sat patiently...and there he was: Tom Roberts, waiting for her. With an almost imperceptible nod of his head he stood and she followed slowly in his wake, out into the red glow of the evening sun.
He drove slowly toward Jenny Brown’s Bay, staring straight ahead. Ali knew he couldn’t bring himself to look at her and she understood that. He pulled up on Cove Road, cut the car engine and climbed out. For a moment she thought he was just going to walk away but then, as if he’d thought better of it, he came round to her door to help her out. His hand on her arm felt cold and tight. “Thank you,” she said but he didn’t acknowledge her gratitude.
At the door he held out his hand. “Your key?”
She shook her head. “It’s not locked.”
The door opened with one push and she followed Tom into the kitchen, where he motioned to her to sit before walking across to fill the kettle at the sink. Neither of them spoke.
Ali nursed her arm, fighting off another wave of dizziness as the sound of the bubbling water gurgled inside her head. Tom just watched, grim-faced, as the steam rose in clouds, filling the room.
She wanted to reach out to him, wanted him to know how she felt. “I’m so sorry, Tom...so very, very sorry.”
He brewed the tea and poured her a cup. When he handed it to her she saw that his eyes were dark with pain. “Sympathy won’t bring Bobby back,” he said. “Nothing will.”
He left then, abruptly, and she just sat for a while with her mind in turmoil. What now? She so wanted to help, to speak to Bobby’s parents, to talk to Lily...and Ned. But what to say...what right had she to encroach on their grief?
* * *
FOR THE NEXT few days Ali hardly set foot outside. She watched Tom walk by the window every day from his cottage two doors down, staring straight ahead, his shoulders rounded. He never stopped though, never even gave her a glance or paused to ask her if she was okay. One day faded into another. She thought about Bobby, dwelled on if-onlys and remembered those pleasant evenings in the pub. She and Tom had chatted about fishing and life. She’d told him all about finding her dad just a few months earlier—that he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer and how they’d finally gotten to know each other. She’d felt they were almost friends then, she and Tom. She’d even told him about her husband, Jake, not the details of course, just that they were having a trial separation. It had meant a lot to her, their friendship—he realized that now more than ever. But she knew that it could never be the same. Because of her, his brother, her good friend Bobby, was dead. How could either of them ever get past that? And yet he’d taken her to the hospital; she clung onto that thought like a lifeline.
It was late afternoon on the fourth day when a knock came at Ali’s door, a knock so intense that it made the door frame rattle. Her heart leaped with hope but anticipation quickly gave way to dismay. Was it Tom? What would she say to him...?
She turned the handle just as the door burst open, almost knocking her over. Stepping quickly back she braced herself against the wall as Ned Roberts appeared in front of her. His face was drawn, his eyes so black with an icy anger that she felt her whole body recoil.
“Happy are you?” he asked, his tone harsh, “Happy that you managed to survive when my brother died. We’ve been making the arrangements for Bobby’s funeral today, you see, and all I could think of was you...living your life. He was just twenty years old with his whole life ahead of him and he’s gone, snuffed out because of you.”
Ali started to shake. “No... I didn’t...I didn’t mean it to happen. It was an accident, just an accident.”
“An accident that wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed away from him. Bobby was almost ten years younger than you, little more than a boy, and yet you used his feelings for you to get what you wanted. You should never have gone out on the boat that night. You had no right.”
“I’m sorry,” she cried, her voice rising uncontrollably. “I’d do anything to make things different.”
“Well, then, why don’t you start by getting out of Jenny Brown’s Bay and staying away from my family? No one wants you here.”
With that parting shot Ned pushed past her and disappeared out the door. Ali sank to her knees, watching him run off along the shore. Ned was right, Bobby had been little more than boy and that was how she’d thought of him. To suggest that he’d had feelings for her and that she’d used him in any way was so far away from the truth. Closing her eyes tightly against
