Page 89 of You Only Live Once
‘I’m not sure. Jack’s had some sort of accident and Sanjid thinks he needs stitches.’
‘You don’t know where he’s hurt?’
‘No, I didn’t think to ask.’ My stomach was churning and my head was buzzing with a raft of emotions, some of which I didn’t want to give way to at the moment. I would deal with those later. First, I needed to get to Jack.
‘You go. I’ll get the dog food and lock up. Just give us a call when you know anything.’ Poppy gave me a huge hug then stepped back, holding onto my shoulders. ‘He’s OK, Lily. You know that, right?’
I didn’t know that, but I nodded anyway.
‘I’ll see you later,’ I said, hugging her back before bending down and giving Clive a kiss on the top of his golden head. ‘You be a good boy for Auntie Poppy.’
The dog looked back at me with a slightly befuddled expression, as if he didn’t know what was going on. That made two of us.
* * *
I pulled up outside Mrs Dorsey’s house and hurried out of the car around towards the back where there was a plethora of builders, building materials, and in amongst it all was Jack, sitting on a low wall with blood pouring down his face. I pushed back the wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me and headed towards him.
‘I told them not to call you,’ he said with a mixture of tiredness and spikiness.
‘Well, then, I’m glad that your apprentice has more sense than his mentor and ignored you. What have you done?’ I asked, bending down in front of him and gently pulling away his hand, which held a cloth soaked red with blood. A large, deep cut on his forehead showed underneath, still bleeding profusely. I quickly put it back and told him to apply pressure.
‘You should have called an ambulance,’ I said, getting Sanjid to help me get Jack to his feet. The young man was a much slighter build than Jack, but between both of us, and with one of the burly builders standing behind him in case he tipped backwards, we managed to get Jack to my car.
‘Sorry again, mate,’ one of the builders said, as we settled Jack inside the vehicle. ‘Bit of a freak accident.’
I put my hand out against the side of the car and closed my eyes for a moment as the words reverberated around my brain. A freak accident…
‘You OK, love? I’d have taken him myself, but he was kicking up hell of a stink about it all.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘And yes, I can imagine he was. Thank you anyway.’
I took a deep breath and hurried round to the driver’s side, got in and pulled away towards the hospital.
‘Why wouldn’t you let them take you to the hospital?’
‘Because they’ve got work to do,’ said Jack. ‘As have you. You shouldn’t be here.’
I pulled the handbrake on at a traffic light and turned to him. ‘And what exactly were you planning to do with that?’ I asked, gesturing at his bloody face.
‘It will stop in a minute. Everybody is just overreacting.’
‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous. There’s a damn great gash in your head. Stop being so stupidly macho about it all. What happened?’
‘I was walking under the scaffold and one of the blokes tripped over something. His foot caught a hammer that he’d just put down and knocked it off the edge of the scaffold. I looked up at the shouts, which is when it clocked me straight on the bonce.’
‘Why didn’t you have a hard hat on?’
‘I did. Well, I did have until the second before. It’s so hot, the sweat was running in my eyes, so I’d just taken it off to wipe it away. Bad timing.’
Another flash of memory ripped through me, and I pushed it away to deal with later.
‘Jesus Christ. Did you lose consciousness?’
‘Not that I remember,’ he said with an ironic smile.
I was failing to see the humour in the situation at this moment. I instructed the Bluetooth in my car to redial my phone’s last number. Within a couple of rings, Sanjid’s voice was on the other end.
‘Hi, it’s Lily. Does anyone know if Jack lost consciousness? The hospital will want to know.’
