‘Hey, man,’ he said. ‘I mean, hey … I’m sorry.’
He bent over her and offered his hand to help her rise. It occurred to him too late that if her purpose were offensive, he was laying himself wide open to a kick in the crutch or a blade in the belly.
But all she did was take his hand and draw herself upright, saying, ‘Bloody hell, boyo, they told me you were ill.’
Joe’s aches, temporarily anaesthetized by his chivalric guilt, came flooding back, and he sat on the bed with a groan.
‘Too late playing for sympathy now,’ she said. ‘Not when you’ve indecently assaulted me already.’
She had a voice like a Welsh stream, bubbling with gently mocking laughter.
Joe said, ‘Really am sorry. Thought you were a burglar or something.’
‘So it was just self-defence, not irresistible desire. There’s disappointing. Is it your back is hurting, then?’
‘Among other places,’ admitted Joe.
‘Let’s take a look, shall we?’
She came round the bed and before he could protest she had pushed his pyjama jacket up round his neck and her fingers were pressing up and down his spine, lightly at first, then probing ever deeper. He opened his mouth to cry out in pain, then realized there wasn’t any, or at least a lot less than there’d been a few seconds ago.
‘Going, is it?’ she asked. ‘That’s good. Let’s hope it goes to somebody who deserves it. Not a real hero. First time I got my hands on a real hero.’
‘You the district nurse or something?’ enquired Joe.
This produced a cascade of laughter.
‘No way! You try that wrestling trick on Gladys Two-bars and she’d snap you like a twig, hero or not.’
‘Gladys …?’
‘Two-bars. Gave her a lady’s bike when she started, but twice out and the frame buckled under the weight of her, so they had to get her a man’s, and even then she needed a double crossbar.’
Joe offered up a prayer of thanks he’d been spared that encounter and asked, ‘So who are you, then?’
‘Bron, that’s Bronwen, Williams. My da’s caretaker here at the college, and when your friends had to go off, they asked if we’d keep an eye on you. I would never have said yes if I’d known what sort of man you were going to turn out to be.’
Joe didn’t enquire what sort of man that was, but asked instead, ‘So where’ve they gone, my friends?’
‘Down into Llanffugiol, silly. Festival proper starts tomorrow and they got to register, see what’s what, more rules than a lawyers’ union these choir contests, my da says.’
‘Yes, but it’s the singing that counts,’ said Joe defensively.
‘You think so? Easy to tell you’re not from round here. Could sing like an angel and they’d disqualify you for not having wings if they felt like it. Here, lie down, will you, else I’ll be doing my own back in.’
Obediently, Joe stretched prone on the bed and next thing the girl was straddling him, her bum warm against his buttocks as she leaned her fingers deep into his back.
‘You trained for this?’ he croaked.
‘No. You complaining? Send you back to that fancy hospital if you like. But you won’t find any of those puffed-up little nurses can give you this treatment. Nothing but a bunch of skivvies, that lot, just about fit for cleaning bedpans. Chuck you out before you can hardly walk, too. ‘Spect they’ll be chucking that woman out you rescued any time now.’
‘Don’t think so,’ said Joe, wondering what experience of Caerlindys Hospital had given Bronwen such a jaundiced opinion of the place. ‘She looks to be in a pretty bad way.’
‘You talk to her then?’
‘Not me. Police are trying but she’s in no state.’
‘Police are useless,’ she said dismissively. She was, thought Joe, a very dismissive young woman. ‘So they don’t know who she is, then? What she was doing there?’
‘Not yet. What’s the word locally?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Back home, everyone would have a theory,’ said Joe. ‘Can’t be much different here, I shouldn’t have thought.’
‘Mind our own business round here,’ she said sharply. ‘Got enough to do looking after ourselves without wasting time on strangers.’
In the circumstances, which were that her bare thighs were gripping the bare back of a complete stranger, this seemed a questionable disclaimer, thought Joe. But he wasn’t about to raise the objection.
The massage, temporarily suspended, now resumed, with the girl sliding back and forth above him like a rower pulling on an oar, as she let her hands run in long slow strokes the whole length of his back from bum to shoulders.
‘How’s that feel?’ she asked
‘Lot better,’ said Joe, his voice now husky with more than just smoke damage.
‘Turn over and I’ll do your front then,’ she said.
‘No,’ he said explosively. ‘Front’s fine, really.’
‘You sure?’ she said, her voice husky as his own. ‘It’s all down to tension, you know, get rid of the tension and you get rid of the pain …’
She’s taking the mickey, thought Joe. She knows exactly what’s going on and she’s taking the mickey.
Before he could decide how to respond there was a sound like the polite cough well-brought-up folk use when less well-brought-up folk would shout, ‘Oy!’
The girl dismounted like a pro jockey. Joe turned his head to see what had made the sound and rather to his surprise, because being right first time wasn’t something he was used to, he saw what looked like the very model of a well-brought-up polite cougher in the doorway.
It was the silver-haired man with the eagle’s beak he’d seen in the group by the ruined cottage.
‘Mr Sixsmith, I presume,’ he said, advancing. ‘I’m glad to see Bronwen’s looking after you. I’m Leon Lewis, High Master of Branddreth.’
He approached the bed with his hand outstretched. Joe, though already gratefully acknowledging the deflating effect of the interruption, was not yet in a position to do more than flap his hand out sideways.
‘Please,’ said the newcomer, brushing his fingers against Joe’s. ‘Don’t disturb yourself. I just wanted to check that all was well, and of course congratulate you on what from all accounts must have been a spectacular act of courage, worthy, I would say, of one of our country’s official awards for gallantry.’
His gaze moved from Joe to Bronwen.
What’s he thinking? thought Joe. Medal or maiden?
He took the chance to pull the bedspread over his bottom half, roll over, and sit up.
Lewis was smiling benevolently at the girl, who was looking at the same time resentful and embarrassed.
Good, thought Joe. Bit of embarrassment won’t harm you, my girl.
‘Best be off now,’ she said abruptly. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’
She left the room without a glance at Joe.
Story of my life, he thought. One minute