Heat flooded into my neck and cheeks with embarrassment. I struggled to my feet and found myself looking into the blue eyes of a man in his early thirties. I took a deep steadying breath, trying to pull my flapping coat together while keeping my balance against the buffeting gusts and Frankie’s insistent pulling.
A second flash of lightning crackled above us and we both flinched instinctively. Disjointed thoughts flickered through my mind, one of which was why did I have to meet every girl’s dream while being found huddled in a heap on the Downs with two muddy dogs in the middle of a thunderstorm?
‘Is she yours?’ I yelled, glancing at the black Lab, which was now bounding around the man in delight.
‘Yeah, she ran off. Thanks for stopping her.’
He seemed reluctant to walk away, and I found myself flipping wildly through possible excuses to keep him talking, but my lips seemed obstinately welded together. I watched helplessly as he clipped the lead to his dog’s collar smiled his thanks, and began to move off along the track. That would have been the end of it, I was sure, except that the rain started then: huge shimmering drops that smacked down, on and around us like small cannon balls, creating dark splotches on the dry earth where they fell. The man turned back in my direction, pulling up the collar of his jacket and bowing his head against the onslaught. As he drew level with Frankie and me the deluge increased in its ferocity until we couldn’t see more than an arm’s reach in any direction. It was like standing under a waterfall, and my eyes and mouth and nose were full of it. My sheepskin coat blackened and my hair was almost immediately reduced to stringy tendrils. We looked at one another, this stranger and I, and started to laugh. He had a lovely laugh, deep and throaty, and even with his short hair flattened against his head, and water dripping off the end of his nose, I think I realised he was someone special right there and then.
‘My car’s parked over there,’ he shouted, pointing vaguely in the direction he was heading. ‘Do you want to make a run for shelter?’
I nodded, and to my complete delight, he took my cold wet hand in his and pulled me along beside him, the two dogs, tails tucked miserably between their legs, trailing along in our wake.
Our breathing became laboured as we ran, increasing with the ferocity of the driving wind and rain. I could feel the blood pounding through my veins, and my fingers, entwined with his, were tingling in a kind of ecstasy that was something akin to pain.
We were almost at the car park when the lightning flashed again, illuminating the row of cars hunched in the mist ahead of us. As we drew closer I could see the sheeting rain bouncing off the sleek metal bodies and puddling on the ground beneath. The plunging drops created a misty upward spray, which was beautiful in its way, but not as wonderful as the feeling of belonging I had to this man I hardly knew, whose dripping fingers were burning holes in my palms. There was an electricity between us, something I’d never experienced before, a connection I couldn’t begin to put into words.
The rain pummelled our backs, pushing us onwards, our steps pounding in perfect unison, and as we neared the car, panting for breath, he looked into my eyes and a tremor of excitement ran through me. He dropped my hand for a moment to reach into his pocket for the car keys, and at that split second the whole sky lit up with a crackling roar. A shaft of lightning entered my body in a convulsive explosion of white noise.
The euphoria I had been feeling vanished as if someone had flicked off a giant switch. There was a searing pain through my shoulders. I watched, entranced, as the stranger’s eyes widened in horror. I could smell the sickening stench of burning flesh and knew with a detached sort of knowledge that it belonged to me. For a split second I felt as if I was hovering above myself, my earthly body engulfed in an aura of red. Then I shuddered and sank down onto the wet ground, closed my eyes, and knew only blackness and nothing.
As dreams went, it was a scary one. I snuggled deeper into my pillow, preparing to drift back to sleep, to try and recapture the feeling I’d had with the handsome stranger. But some alien scent or sound roused me, tugging at my consciousness. I opened one bleary eye and turned to look at the bedside clock. It wasn’t there. What was there was a stark Formica cabinet topped with a plastic water jug standing next to a white plastic beaker complete with drinking straw.
Pushing myself up on one elbow, I discovered that a needle had been taped in place on the back of my left hand. It appeared to be attached to a clear bag of fluid, which dripped into my veins via a thin line. I stared at it for a few seconds, then peered round at the small windowless side room. Apart from the cabinet and the bed, there were various monitors bleeping rhythmically against the wall. Wires led from them towards the bed. Running my hands over the starched white hospital gown in which I found myself, I located the sticky ends of the monitors—they were attached to my chest and sides.
I sat bolt upright and immediately wished I hadn’t as stinging pain fizzed across my back and shoulder. Gingerly, I fingered the gauzy material at the back of my neck and across my left shoulder. Bandages. My mind turned back to the lightning strike. It hadn’t been a dream then. For a moment I sat quite still, trying to regain a clear memory of what had happened: the handsome stranger in the storm, the two dogs cowering behind the car, the rain pelting relentlessly down. And what of Frankie? Who was looking after her now?
I lived alone in my basement flat on the outskirts of Epsom. My parents lived miles away, buried in a quiet hamlet in Somerset—a village consisting of a handful of cottages, a pub and a post office/general store—the sort you could drive through and never notice was there. No one would know to tell them I’d been hurt, or that Frankie was all alone somewhere.
Touching my fingers to the top of my head, which felt tender and tingly, I tried to recall if I’d had any sort of identification on my person when the lightning had struck. My handbag had been in my car, left in a different spot to the one where the stranger’s car had been parked. I’d had nothing in my coat pockets except a couple of tissues and a dog biscuit. Not much there to give any clues about my identity.
Letting my gaze wander round the whitewashed room, my eyes alighted on a card, partially hidden by the water jug on the bedside cabinet. It had a child’s drawing on the front, of a woman surrounded by small children, the heads out of all proportion to the stick-like bodies, the hair bright blue and standing up on end. I flicked it open and read the scrawled message inside.
Dear Mummy. Hope you get better soon, lots of love from Sophie, Nicole, Toby and Teddy xxxx.
I wondered vaguely how clean the room was if the previous occupant’s belongings were still here, and I had just placed the card back on the side table and leaned back against the pillows when the door opened and a nurse came in carrying a chart. She smiled when she saw me awake and sitting up.
‘How are you feeling this morning, Mrs Richardson? You’ve had everyone really worried about you, you know.’
I frowned and drew my head back slightly to look up at her. ‘You must have your patients mixed up, nurse. I’m not Mrs anyone. It’s Miss—Miss Jessica Taylor.’
The nurse, who was by now leaning over me ready to thrust a hand-held computerised thermometer into my left ear, straightened up and stared at me oddly. ‘Do you remember what happened to you, dear?’ She pulled up one of my eyelids and peered into first one eye, then the other. Apparently satisfied, she stood back to scrutinise my features, waiting for an answer.
I nodded but my throat felt dry. It was as if she hadn’t heard me tell her I wasn’t this Mrs Richardson person. ‘I was struck by lightning.’
‘That’s right, dear, and you’re in hospital. But do you remember what you were doing when it happened; who you were with, for example?’
It seemed like a trick question somehow,