‘Are you feeling OK?’
‘No,’ she said and put her hand to her head.
‘You fainted,’ Adam explained. Cara looked as if she was starting to remember. ‘Do you think you can walk to your front door?’
Cara nodded weakly. Great. He certainly wasn’t in a rush to carry her again. Cara might look like she’d blow over in a stiff wind, but Adam decided she must have very solid bones. ‘Wait there,’ he instructed and scooted out to rush round to Cara’s side to help her out.
She wiggled to the edge of her seat and let Adam ease her out. Cara looked pasty and her hair was plastered flat to her head.
‘Got your key?’ he asked.
Looking at him with eyes that were dead and dazed, Cara fished it out of her coat pocket and handed it over. Half propping her on his shoulder, Adam staggered down the path, wishing that the rain wasn’t still trying to swat them off their intended course.
The hall light was on, which helped Adam in his efforts to connect key with lock whilst precariously balancing Cara on one arm. He guided her inside, and headed in the general direction of where he thought the kitchen might be. Fortunately he was right. He sat Cara down on one of the kitchen chairs and flicked on the light. Adam winced. His friend was not a pretty sight. Mascara streaked her face and there was a horrible mélange of stains merged on the front of her coat – dirty rain, mud, vomit, blood.
Adam knelt before her. ‘Feeling better now?’
‘Yes.’ Cara’s voice was as weak and wobbly as she was, but at least she was speaking again.
‘Tea?’
Cara burst into tears, sobbing noisily.
‘Something stronger,’ Adam said.
‘Brandy.’ Cara pointed to the appropriate cupboard and he duly headed towards it. He pulled out the bottle of brandy and rinsed out two mugs that stood on the draining board. He splashed a generous measure into one and a smaller one for himself – after all, he had to drive back to the office.
He gave Cara the mug and gently folded her fingers round it. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Drink it. It’ll do you good.’
Cara took it, coughing as she sipped it. Adam tasted his. The hot, peppery liquid warmed his mouth. No wonder Cara was in such a state; the images of twisted metal and shattered lives still burned against his eyelids. When you were on a job like that, you just got on with it. It was only afterwards, when you were away from it and your brain started to digest the full horror of it, that the trauma began to sink in. He’d been through it enough times to recognise the symptoms. Cara shuddered and huddled her coat round her.
‘I think you ought to get out of those wet things,’ he said, noticing that she had bloodstains on the tops of her shoes. ‘Is Emily in?’
Cara nodded. ‘She’s probably in bed.’
‘Do you want me to wake her?’
Cara nodded again. ‘Please.’
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said tenderly and went off in search of Emily.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Adam stopped tiptoeing up the stairs when he realised that his prime mission was to wake Emily, and he stomped up the last few steps just for the hell of it. The first door he tried turned out to be the bathroom, so, in an effort to be useful, he switched the shower on in the hope that the initial jets of freezing cold water would eventually start to run warm.
The upstairs of Cara’s house continued the eclectic theme of the downstairs – challenging colours in a vaguely 1970s scheme that had ‘Cara’ stamped all over it. The next door he tried was her room. He could tell that by the incense burners, the crystal mobiles that dangled from the ceiling and the horoscope posters on the walls. The room had a naive, girlish feel to it and his heart went out to his friend in her suffering. Cara was so wacky that you couldn’t help but like her. She was so sweet too. He would love to be able to cushion her from the harsh realities of the world. What she needed was some woolly-jumpered, sandal-wearing vegetarian chap to take care of her. Why she insisted on sticking at this soul-destroying job, heaven only knew. But then he felt much the same about himself. Except for the woolly-jumpered, sandal-wearing, vegetarian chap. He closed the door and moved down the landing.
There was a deep steady stream of snoring coming from the next room, which he assumed must, in turn, be coming from Emily. Adam paused, his fingers curled ready to knock on the door. He hadn’t had her down as a snorer. This was weird. Adam had the feeling that he was going to walk in through the door to find her sitting around in her Saucy Santa’s outfit. It was the only picture of Emily he had. And a very pleasant one it was, too.
Adam knocked gently on Emily’s door. The sound of snoring remained unbroken. ‘Emily,’ he called softly. Then louder: ‘Emily. It’s Cara’s friend – Adam.’
He put his ear to the door. Emily slumbered on unhindered. The sound of Cara crying again drifted up the stairs.
‘Oh shit,’ Adam muttered and reluctantly eased open Emily’s door.
There was no sign of the Saucy Santa’s outfit in Emily’s bedroom, only a huge, shapeless lump in the bed with a duvet pulled over its head. A tiny white pair of feet with red-painted toenails peeped out of the bottom. The snoring intensified. Adam moved gingerly across the room. ‘Emily,’ he said and shook the sleeping mound. ‘Wake up. It’s me – Adam.’
Emily, if it was possible, snored more loudly. It could have been Jude Law dressed only in his boxers and she wouldn’t have cared less. Adam looked down and saw a bottle knocked over on its side; a puddle of red wine had seeped out onto the carpet. He righted the bottle and sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. ‘Oh, Emily,’ he said. ‘What am I going to do now?’
At which Emily stretched her legs, kicked him firmly in the bottom with one of her painted toes and grunted indelicately in her sleep.
Chapter Sixty
What Adam did do was go back downstairs where he found Cara sobbing more forcefully as she drained the contents of the brandy bottle into her mug.
‘Emily’s asleep,’ he said. ‘I tried to wake her up, but she’s out for the count.’ He turned another empty wine bottle upside down in front of Cara. Not even one solitary drop fell out.
‘Oh,’ she said pathetically.
‘I turned your shower on,’ Adam told her. ‘Do you want to go upstairs and get cleaned up?’
‘Yes.’ Cara hugged her arms round herself. ‘That would be nice.’
Adam finished his own brandy. ‘I’ll be off then.’
‘Don’t go, Adam,’ Cara said.
‘Er . . .’
She looked a pitiful sight. ‘I need to talk to someone about this.’
Adam glanced at the clock. ‘I should get back to the office.’
‘Stay a bit longer. I’ll take the rap if Martin kicks up a fuss tomorrow.’
It wasn’t Martin the Editor who was worrying him. This had a distinct flavour of intimacy; it was creeping round the edge of ‘getting very cosy’ and Adam had long-since forgotten how to do cosy.
‘I have no one else, you see,’ Cara admitted and the tears welled up in her eyes again.
Adam abandoned his mug and rushed to her side. Wrapping his arms round her, he held her to his chest until the wracking sobs stopped again. ‘Haven’t you got any potions and lotions you could rub on?’ he suggested helpfully. Whenever anyone injured themselves at work, Cara always managed to conjure up something to fix it out of her desk drawer.
‘I’ve got some Bach Flower Rescue Remedy in the bathroom,’ she said. Adam thought it might be a good idea for him to have some too.
‘Come upstairs.’ Cara stood on legs that were still wobbly.
Make that a double, Adam decided.
Cara stumbled slightly as she let go of the death-grip she had on the kitchen table.
‘Here,’ Adam said, offering her the support of his arm. ‘Let me help you.’ And he walked her up the stairs, step by painful step, as if she’d been crippled by the emotional scenes.
They finally reached the bathroom door and Adam hel
ped her inside. There was a fog of encouragingly warm steam seeping out of the shower cubicle. Cara peeled off her coat and let it drop to the floor.
‘Where’s the wotsit stuff?’ Adam said.
‘Rescue Remedy.’ Cara kicked off her shoes and whimpered a bit more. ‘Bathroom cabinet.’
Adam picked through the copious bottles squashed onto the shelves until he found the tiny brown bottle of Rescue Remedy.
‘Here,’ he said.
‘Three drops,’ Cara advised. ‘Under the tongue.’
Adam filled up the pipette, Cara opened her mouth and he squirted the entire contents straight in. It felt like feeding a helpless baby bird. Adam squirted some into his own mouth for good measure. It tasted bitter and, more importantly, as if it wouldn’t do very much.
Listlessly, Cara started to drag her jumper over her head. It was time for Adam to leave.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait outside while you shower. Shout if you need me.’
Cara’s lip puckered again. ‘Thanks, Adam.’
Adam slipped out of the bathroom door, closing it gently behind him. The snores still emanated from Emily’s room. That girl could clearly sleep for England. The sound of a heavy sigh and Cara getting into the shower came from behind him.
Adam settled himself down on the carpet, took off his jacket and leaned his back against the bathroom door. When he was in the shower he had a list of favourite songs to sing. They bore no relation to his usual musical taste, but were all good soul-cleansing, armpit-scrubbing, head-banging, joy-inducing numbers – Bon Jovi, ‘Living on a Prayer’, anything by Meatloaf, and the full-length version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen was always a good standby for a particularly long sloosh after a stressful day. All of which he performed loudly, trying to get at least every other note on key. It was the only type of therapy he indulged in. Shower-gel containers were the perfect shape to be pressed into service as microphones. By the time he’d Scaramouched, Scaramouched and done the Fandango a few times most of the cricks and knots had disappeared from his neck and shoulders and he was ready to face the world again. He wondered why no one had thought to make shower sponges in the shape of air guitars. What a winner! Adam closed his eyes and drifted. Poor Cara. She’d had a plateful. He didn’t think there’d be any singing coming forth from the shower tonight.
Chapter Sixty-One
‘Better?’ Adam said when Cara finally emerged from the shower and opened the bathroom door.
‘Yes.’ She tried a weak smile as she edged past him and stepped daintily over his feet. ‘Come through.’
With an anxious wiggle in his stomach, Adam pushed himself up from the floor and followed her through to the bedroom.
‘Sit,’ she said, indicating a sofa piled high with cushions glittering with silver thread, mirrored-bits and tassels. Adam sat.
There were sumptuous drapey bits everywhere. Swags of silk, velvet throws, plush rugs. Half a dozen different gauzy fabrics made up the curtains. It looked as if a Sheikh’s tent had collided with a New Age shop – and it made his own MFI-furnished place look very sparse by comparison. If he did ever manage to get Josh to live with him on a permanent basis, they’d have to do something about the décor. Perhaps Cara might help. Though only if he could tone her down to somewhere approaching magnolia.
Cara was wearing, he couldn’t help but notice, a Demis Roussos-style kaftan in a shade of pink that made your eyeballs vibrate. It swamped her, making her look like a vulnerable little girl. All the smudges of make-up had been scrubbed from her skin and some colour had come back to her pale cheeks. He didn’t think he’d ever seen one of his colleagues in their dressing gowns before and it was a strange feeling. A strange, nice feeling.
‘It’s a traditional Berber fertility gown,’ Cara informed him as she caught him studying her. She spread out the skirt of the kaftan so that he could admire the embroidery.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty.’ He might have known that she wouldn’t wear a dressing gown from Top Shop.
‘Mummy and Daddy brought it back from one of their many trips to Morocco.’
‘Oh,’ Adam said. ‘What do your parents do?’
‘Good,’ Cara answered. ‘They do good. All over the world. The more horrid the place, the better.’
‘That must be difficult to live up to,’ Adam said.
‘Terribly,’ she agreed flatly.
Cara padded across the room in her bare feet. They looked better without her bloodstained shoes, dainty and white. She lit some sort of incense stick and the heady scent of melting chocolate drifted into the room. It was relaxing and sensual and made Adam realise how tense he was himself. There was a great temptation to kick off his own shoes and stretch out on the welcoming bed of cushions.
‘Vanilla,’ Cara said as if she’d read his thoughts. ‘It’ll help us to relax.’
Adam sat up straighter and checked his watch. ‘I really should get back.’
Cara came and sat down next to him. ‘Adam,’ she said, ‘do you think I’m cut out for this sort of work?’
‘Well, er . . .’ Adam said, ‘no.’
‘You could have pretended to think about it,’ Cara said with a glimmer of a smile.
‘Sorry.’ Adam cursed himself for being insensitive. ‘It’s just that I’m not sure that I’m cut out for it myself. I guess it makes detecting another square peg in a round hole that much easier.’
Cara inched closer to him. ‘Sometimes, I think we have an awful lot in common.’
‘Mmm,’ he said, not sure whether he agreed or not. A mutual dissatisfaction with one’s chosen profession didn’t seem a lot to go on.
‘I’m too sensitive to be doing this,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘But I don’t know what else to do.’
‘Oh Cara,’ he said, patting her hand.
‘It’s horrible when you live alone; you’ve got no one to talk to about important things.’
‘What about Emily?’ Adam suggested. ‘Can’t she help?’
Emily’s snores permeated the convenient pause in the conversation.
Cara looked rueful. ‘I think she has enough to think about at the moment.’
‘I guess so,’ Adam said. He felt he knew Emily inside out by now. One day it would be nice to meet her – when she hadn’t been on a bender or wasn’t obscured by a mountainous duvet, and was wearing normal clothes.
‘No one else at work understands me like you do, Adam,’ Cara said. ‘Tonight was so awful. It made me realise the pointlessness of what we do.’
Here Adam agreed totally. Who would benefit from front-page pictures of a car crash? Not the victim’s loved ones, for sure. Would it help them to see how their son had died? Splattered on the tarmac like roadkill.
‘Chris would have been in his element, wouldn’t he?’ Cara said.
Adam nodded. She was right. Chris would have loved it. He wouldn’t be sitting here knotted up and tearful over some nineteen-year-old they didn’t even know. Chris was never happier than when he was ambulance-chasing.
Cara had tucked her knees up into her kaftan, snuggling up on the sofa next to him. Adam knew how she felt. There was a need to share a closeness, the need to feel skin on skin, a need to give thanks that they were both alive. Not that he could articulate any of it. But that was the good thing about Cara – you didn’t need to. Somehow she always understood.
God, Adam thought, she looked so delicious. Her tiny pink mouth pouted sadly. A solitary fat tear slid silently over her cheek and he resisted the urge to reach up and brush it away. Cara looked a million times better without the inch of colourful make-up she usually wore. She was a natural beauty and didn’t need all that stuff to obscure it. Her mad hair curled round her face, springy tendrils clinging damply to her throat.
Adam coughed. This was so difficult. He wanted to pull her to him and hold her until she felt whole again. It would be so easy to take advantage of her in this situation. Easy to run his hands over the contours of the silky fab
ric of her kaftan. Easy to tease his fingers through her hair. Easy to cover her mouth with his.
Cara’s hand was hot and dry on his chest, burning through his shirt. She eased herself nearer to him, her hand caressing his neck as his arms slipped round her. Their lips came together tenderly, and then more eagerly, searching, bruising.
‘Take me to bed,’ Cara whispered in his ear.
As Adam swung her into his arms for the second time that night and carried her to the bed, his only lucid thought was, how the hell did I manage that?
Chapter Sixty-Two
Cara was on the point of orgasm – Adam was sure of it. But then it was always difficult to tell when you didn’t know someone very well. It was always difficult to tell anyway, he’d found. Women were so good at pretending. You were never quite sure whether you were hitting all the right spots or they couldn’t wait to get it over with and were trying to hurry the proceedings along. This, however, definitely felt like bliss. Pure bliss. Losing yourself in the sheer delight of someone else’s body. Blotting out all thoughts but sensation, pleasure, softness. Adam realised that it had been a long, long time since he’d done that.
At that moment, Cara cried out. A startled little bird’s cry. He held her tighter. Her cry became more intense. Louder. Her fingers clutched at his back and he buried himself further inside her, welcoming the comfort of her warmth, the oblivion of making love. Cara’s cry turned more strangled. Adam opened his eyes. A sob caught in Cara’s throat. She was crying. Beneath him, she was crying. Cara’s face was contorted and he wasn’t sure it was with ecstasy. She was all red and screwed up. Tears spilled out from beneath her eyelashes, soaking the pillows, splashing on the duvet. Adam’s orgasm trickled out of him, cold, wet and deflated. He rolled over on the pillow.
‘What’s wrong?’ he murmured, pulling her towards him.
Cara wailed louder.
‘Is it something I’ve done?’ he asked, patting her back.
She clung to him and wept.