Page 14 of Teacakes & Tangos
My heart was thumping as I started running towards the scene.
That poor woman!
She was looking dazed on the pavement, people clustering around to help. I guessed she must be in her eighties. She’d have had such a terrible fright. But how lucky she was that that man had reacted so speedily, launching himself into the road to save her...
Her shopping trolley was lying crushed in the middle of the road.
Then I realised I couldn’t see the man. Was he still lying where he’d fallen after he pulled her back onto the pavement?
People were rushing anxiously over to him now, and when I arrived out of breath a moment later, people were clustering around him and a woman was on her mobile calling the emergency services.
Was he still lying there? I couldn’t see because there were people standing in the way. They were blocking part of the road and I could see that the dark-coloured van was having difficulty manoeuvring away from the corner because of the crowd that was gathering.
Then a woman in a pink sundress in front of me leaned down to comfort the child she was with, telling her everything would be all right, and that’s when I got a clear view of the scene.
The man was sprawled on his side in the road, his face turned away from me.
A cold hand gripped my insides.
He was wearing a pair of faded black jeans – and stitched onto one of the back pockets was a familiar orange logo...
My heart lurched with shock.
Dad?
Oh, my God, no!
The van finally got free of the crowd and accelerated away, disappearing into the distance along Sunnybrook High Street, taking the men in the black balaclavas with it...
Clara
CHAPTER SIX
It turned out that the leaking tap was just the start of Lois’s house issues.
She was having her kitchen and bathroom refurbished, and she’d decided to move back to the family home for now, away from the mess. So it was a bit like old times on the nights I wasn’t staying over at Rory’s, with both of us in our childhood bedrooms.
Rory had realised a long-held dream and bought stables near Sunnybrook, taking over a business that was thriving and which kept him very busy. The sale had included the old house attached to the stables and I’d become rather fond of it, despite its outdated kitchen and quirky heating system.
‘Hey, I’ve got some free time this morning,’ said Lois over breakfast. ‘Do you need any help at the dance centre, Clara?’
I looked at her in surprise. She’d never offered before. But opening day was galloping ever nearer, and as far as hands-on-deck were concerned, it was a case of the more the merrier.
‘Well, yes. Thanks, Lois. That would be really good of you.’
She smiled broadly. ‘No problem at all. I’ll just go and get a shower and I’ll be ready in ten minutes?’
‘Great!’
She bounced out of the kitchen and I heard her humming a jolly tune as she ran upstairs. And I sat there, feeling bewildered by the sudden change in her mood.
Had Mark been in touch?
Were they getting back together?
Because the switch from dark to light seemed to have happened overnight.
A few days ago in Rory’s car, she’d been so glum and snappy, she couldn’t even look at me when I was trying to tempt her intothe café for a chat. But the next day when I saw her, it had been immediately clear from her smiling greeting that her perpetually dismal mood had lifted. She’d actually apologised to me for being so irritating lately.
