TIME FOR A NEW EXCERPT
Darren Lindgren swore at his housemaid, whom he felt he could ill afford to keep on his accident pension. A pension which in his opinion was a meager pittance. As he wheeled himself out through the door she was saying something else about his drinking habits but he wasn’t listening. I don’t pay the bitch to nag me, he thought angrily, rolling down the pathway towards his parked jeep. If I want to get drunk that’s my business. He pulled himself into the front seat, folded his wheelchair and placed it on the passenger seat next to him.
As he drove, Lindgren let his eyes stray to the cliff edge on his left. He shivered slightly and his pulse quickened. He wondered whether tonight would be the night when in a drunken stupor, he would steer his car off the road and plunge himself into oblivion, putting an end to his miserable existence. These thoughts were not new to him and as usual he pondered on his own cowardice. Too cowardly to live and too cowardly to die, was the way he summed up his situation.
Lindgren sat at the small cloth-covered table and waited impatiently for his third whisky. His mind wandered to his past, as it always did when nothing else demanded his attention or when not yet fully dulled by alcohol. He recalled the devastation after the loss of his first wife in that dreadful airplane crash. And then, just when he had started recovering from the emotional trauma of his bereavement he’d met Joanne. Joanne was years younger than him. Vivacious, full of energy. He’d liked her very much. He recalled the accident. The young woman had as usual been driving much too fast. How often he had warned her of the dangers while laughingly she had taunted him for being chicken.
It seemed rather odd to him now to remember how in those days he had been so concerned about his own health. He remembered how he would go jogging every morning and how he neither drank nor smoked. How carefully he had regulated his diet. His thoughts returned to Joanne and he wondered about her carefree ways with her complete disregard for risk. She’d paid the price, but perhaps her life had been more enjoyable than his. He wondered how she would have coped had she lived and he had died instead. How he wished it had been that way.
The small pretty girl with the long shiny black hair set his drinks down on the table and he paid her without tipping. He gulped down his fourth glass of whisky and his thoughts returned to Joanne. How had he ever paired up with a girl like Joanne? His first wife had been nothing like her. She’d been demure and quiet, preferring to spend the night at home to going out on the town. And he’d been happy with that too. Then she’d died in the airplane disaster and his life had become suddenly empty.
A builder by trade and a carpenter in his spare time, he decided to make himself the yacht he had always dreamed of owning. The yacht project had given his life new purpose. He’d intended to enjoy a few years of freedom from responsibility, then find himself another wife, maybe start a family and watch the children grow. But Joanne was different. She never intended to get old. Life was for living, she’d often told him. Again he wondered how she would have lived, if instead of dying in the accident she had become a paraplegic as he had. How would she have spent the last two years? He downed another whisky and the accident, Joanne, and his useless legs all blurred into a dull haze.
Staring hard at his watch dial the numbers came temporarily into focus and Lindgren saw that the bartender had not been lying after all. It really was closing time. He started wheeling himself out, grazing his left arm on one of the tables as he went by. Then someone was wheeling him towards his jeep. For a moment he panicked and grabbed at his brake, thinking that he had been mistaken and was rolling freely down the drive. A girl’s voice told him to take it easy so he released the brake and fumbled around in his coat for his car keys. Then he was sitting in his jeep feeling for the steering wheel that wasn’t there. The light went on and he saw he was sitting in the passenger seat and the dark-haired young waitress from the Inn was sitting next to him on the driver’s side, examining the hand controls.
‘I can chrive myshelf,’ he said thickly, pushing Angie’s shoulder. She shook his hand away, flicked off the cabin light and started the engine. ‘Get outa my car or I’ll call the polishe,’ he yelled, vainly trying to undo his seatbelt.
Lindgren awoke with the sun shining through his window onto his face and found himself in his own bed. That was unusual. Normally when he came back from the Long Valley he slept in the jeep. He wondered how close he had come this time to driving off the cliff edge, then with a flush of anger he remembered he had been driven home against his will by the young waitress. He rang the bell for the servant to bring him some aspirin and swore when he remembered it was her day off. That also meant no breakfast, not that he felt like it anyway. With an effort of willpower and strength he pulled himself into the wheelchair the waitress had thoughtfully left next to the bed, then wheeled himself into the kitchen to get some aspirin for his hangover.
A couple of hours later he was feeling much better. He looked at the pile of magazines lying on the floor and having already read those, he decided to take a drive into town and buy some more to give himself something to do. Opening the bedroom cupboard, which like everything in the house he had built himself, he took out his wallet.
How he missed the feel of power tools in his hands. The smell of freshly cut timber. Since the accident he had been constantly at a loss for things to do. He pondered about his need to keep himself occupied. Alone in his own house he had too much time to think and feel sorry for himself. Yet he could not stand the company of other people with their inane chatter and useless sympathy.
On his way into town Lindgren stopped his jeep at Lookout Point as usual, and took his binoculars from their case. Even without the nocs he could pick out a few people on the beach. Old Mr Retzius walking his dog, some children playing baseball, the young girl whom he had often seen from a distance, swimming in the sea. She was the only one in the water. Who in their right mind would swim at this time of year? Then he started, quickly putting the binoculars up to his eyes and training them on the swimmer. He was fairly certain it was the same girl, the waitress from the Long Valley Inn. Well, he thought, starting his engine, he’d go down and give her such a blast that she would never drive him home again. He would teach her to mind her own business.
Wheeling himself down the dirt path to the beach Lindgren watched the girl toweling herself dry at the water’s edge, wearing a dripping tee shirt over her swimsuit. Then he stared disconsolately at the soft sand before him. He needed someone to push him onto the harder sand beyond where his wheels would be able to grip, but now the old man had walked on and the children had gone.
Annoyed at his limitations he turned back and started the difficult climb uphill. On the way up the path he met a scruffy-looking teenager with long straggly hair, a tattoo on his arm and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Normally he would not have spoken to such a person. It almost turned his stomach to have to ask him for help but he swallowed his pride and said the words. The youth smiled amiably and pushed Lindgren’s wheelchair across the soft sand to the firm, made some comment about the difficulty Lindgren was going to have in getting back to the path, and wandered off to where Angie was standing putting on her windbreaker. Lindgren watched the two talk as he wheeled himself towards them, guessing that the youth was making a pass at the young waitress. He admired her good taste as he saw that she was sending him on his way.
‘Hey,’ Lindgren called to her, slightly out of breath as he finally got within a few yards of where she stood. ‘Did you drive me home last night?’
She eyed him for a moment and being used to people averting their eyes since he had become disabled, he found the gaze slightly disconcerting.
‘Yes,’ she answered shortly.
‘And at the time did I ask you not to do it?’
‘You did, although I’m surprised you remember so much.’
‘Hey, don’t screw me around anymore. Next time I drive my own car, right? You stay out of my way or you’re going to be sorry! Got that?’
‘Sorry, no can do,’ she replied good humoredly. ‘We can’t let our customers do kamikazes. Especially a good customer like you. That would be very bad for business.’
‘Maybe next time I might not be as drunk as you think. You keep driving me home and one of these days I’m going to lay you!’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You try and I’ll lay you out.’
‘I see,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Because I’m a cripple you think I’m weak or maybe you think I’m not up to it. I might have some surprises for you, young lady.’
She smiled at him. ‘Crippled or not, I could deal with you.’ This was not a boast but merely a statement of fact. ‘Look,’ she said patiently, her voice becoming kinder. ‘Do you think I’d walk five miles home in the dark if I couldn’t take care of myself?’
‘You walked back to town last night?’ he asked, his surprise making him forget his anger.
‘I didn’t fly.’
‘Jesus, I hadn’t thought. And you’re going to do this every time I get drunk at the Inn?’
‘I might. Then again I might just give the police a call and let them book you next time,’ she teased.
The comment frightened him. ‘You wouldn’t!’ he said, thinking how dreadful his life would be if he lost his driver’s license and couldn’t get around anymore.
‘You’re right, I wouldn’t. I imagine your driver’s license would be pretty important to you.’ She picked up her towel from the sand. ‘Let’s go for a walk. To the rocks over there.’
He looked in the direction she was pointing. There was sand for about two miles and then a rocky outcrop from the cliffs, beyond which was another strip of beach. It was a long way, his arms would tire, he would miss lunch and he’d had no breakfast.
Angie noticed him hesitate. ‘What’s the matter? You don’t expect me to push your chair for you, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ he snapped as he started to wheel himself, secretly appreciating the lack of sympathy. ‘I’m just hungover.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
During the walk they talked a great deal. Thirty minutes later they were at the rocks. Lindgren watched as the girl clambered down from a boulder, as nimble as a circus performer. Although Lindgren had told Angie much about himself it suddenly came upon him now, as he rested, that she had completely avoided telling him anything about herself.
‘How old are you, Angie?’ he inquired as she sat herself down on a rounded rock next to him.
‘How old do I look?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he mused, noting her well-proportioned figure as well as her small stature. It suddenly struck him just how very young she actually did look. ‘Fifteen?’
‘Oo – insult. Seventeen if you please. But don’t tell anyone because I told the boss at the Long Valley I was eighteen. Although come to think of it I’ll be eighteen in a few weeks anyway.’
‘Do you live with your parents?’
‘Questions, questions. No, I live at the boarding house, a block down from the Inn.’
‘Mrs Gartlan’s?’
‘Yes.’ She tossed a small stone a few inches into the air and caught it. ‘Do you think I can get this into that rock pool over there?’
He looked at the small opening Angie was pointing at several yards away and shook his head. ‘Doubt it.’
Casually she tossed the stone, sending it flying straight through the target. She smiled. ‘Howzat?’
‘Lucky.’
‘Want to see the action replay?’ she asked picking out another stone. She repeated the performance without error.
He laughed. ‘And for my next act?’
Angie obliged and did a cartwheel across the sand, then walked back to her rock. ‘Enjoying the show? Good. Let’s see your ticket then.’
‘You’re crazy,’ he said pretending to search his pocket for a ticket. ‘Haven’t got it.’
‘Then I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to leave, sir.’
‘Oh please no. You couldn’t be so cruel.’
‘Such eloquence,’ she mocked. ‘You should have been a lawyer. Very well, you may stay.’
He tossed a couple of stones towards their chosen target but missed each time.
They talked for over an hour and although Lindgren tried to resist, he eventually found he had told the girl almost everything about himself and had even promised to show her his half-built yacht which he would never be able to finish. On the journey back across the beach he wondered why he had said so much. It was not because he wanted sympathy, for he had already seen that this girl would give him none. Perhaps, he mused, the old saying, ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ was true. Certainly today his heart felt lighter than it had since the accident two years ago.
Starving, his arms aching, Lindgren wheeled himself up the path from the beach. ‘I’ll drive this time,’ he said unlocking the door of his jeep.
Angie climbed into the passenger seat. ‘To Mrs Gartlan’s boarding house, driver.’
On impulse Lindgren invited her to join him for dinner at a nearby restaurant and was pleased when she accepted. He dropped her off at the boarding house to get changed, then sat waiting for her in his jeep on the opposite side of the road. She came out eventually with her waist-length dark hair combed, wearing blue denim jeans and a pullover. Then as he watched her, expecting to see her cross the road, he witnessed a most surprising scene. A car came rather fast around the corner, backfiring, and Angie dived for the ground, rolled a few yards and hid behind a parked car. A moment later she stood up, looking somewhat sheepish, brushed herself off and quickly walked over to his jeep.
‘How embarrassing,’ she said getting in. ‘Let’s get out of here. All those people are staring at me.’
‘Can you blame them?’ he asked as he pulled out from his parking spot. ‘Who did you think was shooting at you?’
She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. People shouldn’t be allowed to drive cars like that. There should be a law against it.’
He glanced at her and saw that she was quite calm.
‘Look, are you in some sort of trouble?’ he asked.
‘Nothing I can’t handle myself.’
‘You have to be the oddest girl I’ve ever taken out to dinner. Are you sure someone isn’t going to walk into the restaurant with a machine gun and shoot us all up?’
‘Is the food that bad?’
‘No. Actually it’s great.’
‘How do you like the pasta?’ he asked as they sat eating at the small round table by the window.
‘Delicious,’ she replied with her mouth full. ‘But I don’t know if I can eat the whole thing.’
‘I’ll have what you can’t manage.’
She nodded. ‘That’s okay as long as you get me to work on time.’
He checked his watch. ‘We’ve got another hour yet. Why not have some of the wine? It’s very good.’
‘I’m sure it is but I never drink alcohol. I like my reflexes to be perfect and anyway I’m underage.’
‘From what I saw outside the boarding house today I’d say your reflexes could do with some damping down.’
Angie just smiled.
Later at the Inn, Lindgren found he could not order his usual whiskies under Angie’s watchful gaze, nor did he, to his own amazement, have any desire to become drunk. His arms were already becoming stiff from wheeling himself on the beach and he felt pleasantly tired.
‘Don’t think I’ll have to drive you home tonight,’ Angie said as she passed his table with a tray of drinks.
He stopped her as she came back with the empty tray. ‘What time shall I pick you up tomorrow, Angie?’
‘I’ll walk.’
‘It’s no trouble, really,’ he insisted. ‘I like driving.’
‘So I noticed. Okay, ten-thirty at the boarding house.’
‘Right.’
The bar closed for the night and Angie trudged wearily up the steps of the boarding house to the landing outside her room. Well, she’d already established that Darren Lindgren wasn’t her father. She’d done that the previous night when she’d searched his house while he lay in bed in a drunken stupor. She’d found a box in the bottom of his wardrobe with several pictures including a wedding picture and an old newspaper article about the aircrash. However, he was a nice person and she didn’t mind seeing him again. She yawned sleepily and put her hand in her pocket for her key, then froze, instantly wide awake and alert.
The piece of paper she had wedged through the door had fallen to the floor showing that someone had been, or perhaps still was, in her room. She looked around quickly then listened against the door and heard faint sounds from within. Her first impulse was to get away from the town immediately but this would mean leaving all her money, her clothes, her tent, her pistol and knife. The bank was closed so she would also have to leave her false passport, pilot’s and driver’s licenses that she had previously placed in a safety deposit box.
Worried but resolute, she eased down the door handle and pushed against the door. It was unlocked and inside the room the light was on. Seeing it empty she stepped in, quietly closing the door behind her. She listened, then silently glided across the floor to the bedroom door that was ajar. Inside, a dark-haired youth, his back to the doorway, was closing one of the drawers of the cabinet next to her bed. As he bent to examine the backpack lying on the floor Angie grabbed him by the shoulder and hit him across the jaw, sending him sprawling onto the bed. Twisting his arm behind his back she searched him with her free hand, surprised that although conscious, he offered little resistance. If he was a mercenary he would know how to fight, she thought as she emptied the contents of his wallet onto the bed, and he looked too young to be police. She wondered if she was falling into some kind of a trap.
‘How did you find me?’ she demanded. When he failed to reply she hit him smartly across the ear. ‘Answer!’ she snarled still holding his arm firmly onto his back. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Mrs G-Gartlan gave me the k-key,’ he replied in a quavering voice which sounded as if he was trying to stifle sobs.
‘Why would she do that?’
‘I needed somewhere to stay. I paid for the room. Let me go please, I haven’t done anything.’
Angie began to wonder if she was mistaken in assuming the youth was an assassin.
‘What were you doing poking around in my things?’ she inquired, somewhat less harshly, allowing her grip on the youth to slacken slightly.
‘I-I don’t know.’
‘Don’t know?’
‘I mean, I wanted to see whose they were. Can you let me up please? You’re hurting me.’
‘Okay,’ Angie said releasing him but watching him carefully. ‘We’ll go and check this out with the landlady.’ She pulled him up from the bed by his arm. ‘Come on.’
Angie marched the youth down the stairs to Mrs Gartlan’s apartment and brought her out of bed by pounding on the door.
‘I found this boy in my room,’ Angie told the bleary-eyed woman who was leaning in the doorway, her hair in curlers.
‘You’re in room eleven, aren’t you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Oh I’m terribly sorry. I thought you were in twelve so I gave him the key to eleven.’ She scratched her head then yawned. ‘I was so tired when he came. I’m very sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ Angie said slightly crossly. ‘Can you give him the key to room twelve?’
They followed behind Mrs Gartlan as she went to open her office. Angie glanced across at the youth and noticed his lip was bleeding.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
He nodded without answering.
When eventually he was given the key to his own room, Angie persuaded him to come into the communal kitchen with her. She held his head up to the light examining the cut in his lip caused by his own tooth when she had hit him. She dabbed at it with a wet paper towel.
‘It’s not too deep. I don’t think it needs a stitch.’ She led him to a chair at the table. ‘I’m really sorry about hurting you. I just got such a fright when I saw a stranger in my room. Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Hot chocolate?
‘Hot chocolate please.’
Angie made two chocolate drinks and brought them to the table. ‘Are you feeling better now?’ she asked, sitting down next to the youth.
He smiled faintly. ‘Of course. Now I can tell my friends the girls really go for me.’ He picked up his drink and Angie noticed his hands were shaking. ‘Do you always attack first and ask questions afterwards?’ he queried.
‘Only when I’m startled.’
‘What do you do for a living, teach unarmed combat to army recruits?’
‘Not usually. I’m a waitress at the Long Valley.’
‘Do you double as the bouncer on Friday nights?’
‘Sometimes,’ she answered truthfully.
‘You’re a very strange girl. You know, I’ve always got on very well with girls – in the past. At least, no girl’s ever hit me before.’ He eyed her appraisingly as if to prove the point that he was a lady’s man. ‘Ah, I’m beginning to feel more like my old self. Would you like to go to a movie with me sometime? There’s a James Bond showing at the moment.’
Angie hesitated for a few seconds. She had no wish to become involved with any boys, but on the other hand she felt guilty about what she had done to him. ‘What’s a James Bond?’
‘What’s a James Bond?’ he repeated. ‘Boy, there’s something really lacking in your education. It’s about a spy. Plenty of violence. Should be right up your street.’
‘You reckon, do you? Okay, how about the day after tomorrow in the afternoon.’
‘Don’t you want to go in the evening?’
‘I’m waitressing in the evenings.’
‘In the afternoon then. That’s fine.’ He yawned. ‘Well, much as I’d like to stay here chatting to a pretty girl, I’ll have to go to bed. I’m tired and I’ve got a splitting headache.’
‘Sorry about that.’
‘Never mind, it may have been worth it.’
They walked up to their landing. Angie went into her room and came out with his wallet she had left lying on the bed, and handed it to him with a smile.
Angie sat on the steps of the boarding house the next day, the cool morning sunlight on her shoulders as she talked to the boy, Howard Spencer, while she waited for Lindgren. She found she quite liked Spencer. He was basically a serious person yet possessed a sparkling sense of humor. But he had problems. What these problems were she did not know, for he had merely hinted at them and she did not probe. She doubted they were as worrying as her own.
‘There’s my friend,’ she said as Lindgren’s jeep pulled up by the steps.
Spencer stood up with her. ‘Lucky friend. I could think of worse ways to spend a day than with you.’
She shot a look at his bruised jaw and swollen lip. ‘You’ve got a short memory. Didn’t last night put you off?’
‘It would take a lot more than that.’
‘Hmmm.’ Her smile faded. ‘You watch yourself.’
Lindgren enjoyed showing off the house he had built and enthusiastically answered all of Angie’s questions. Then she asked to see the workshop.
‘It’s not very interesting,’ he said in reply to her request. ‘I haven’t been in there since – well, not for a long time.’
After a little persuasion from Angie he found himself unlocking the wooden door that hadn’t been touched for two years. ‘What’s in here?’ Angie asked, running her finger through a thick layer of dust on top of a cardboard box with a picture of some kind of tool on the side.
He wheeled himself to his workbench and opened the box. ‘This is a router.’
What does it do?’
‘Lots of things.’ He pulled out some small metal pieces from the box. ‘You can do different things by using these different bits. See, with this one you can make a groove in a piece of wood and with this one you can make dovetails.’
She flipped through the owner’s manual. ‘Can I have a try?’
‘Sure.’ They clamped down a thin strip of wood to the edge of the workbench and Lindgren inserted a bit into the router. After donning a pair of safety glasses Angie held the machine to the timber and flipped down the on switch with her thumb. A few seconds later she examined her handiwork.
‘I suppose those ridges aren’t supposed to be there.’
‘No. You weren’t holding it firmly enough and you’ve got to keep moving.’ He took the tool from her hands. ‘Give me the safety glasses.’
Angie passed him the glasses and watched as he expertly demonstrated the correct way to use the router. Then he put in the different bits and showed her the other things that could be done.
An hour later Lindgren had demonstrated several of his tools when his housekeeper called the two of them inside for lunch.
‘Would you like to make something for yourself?’ he asked while they ate. ‘A little box perhaps?’
‘I’d like to but I can’t,’ she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. ‘I have to travel light. I can’t afford to carry anything unnecessary.’
‘We could send it to your home.’
‘No.’
‘Why not? You have got a home, haven’t you?’ He looked at her puzzled when she didn’t answer. ‘You’re not a runaway, are you?’
‘I’d give anything to have a home right now.’ She glanced at the housekeeper who she could see through the doorway in the kitchen and lowered her voice. ‘It’s like this –’
Lindgren leaned across the table to hear her better.
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’d be foolish to confide in a man who might become drunk and shoot off his mouth.’
Lindgren started to protest, then thought better of it. ‘Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know whether I’d confide in someone like myself.’
Angie brightened. ‘Never mind. Maybe we can make something for you. There must be changes you need made to the house since you became paralyzed.’
It was true. Lindgren had often thought about modifications that would make life easier for him but had never had the heart to get someone in to work on the house he had built entirely with his own hands. He had never considered making the modifications himself either, believing himself incapable of the task. But perhaps he could with help. After all he had shown himself today that he could still use some of his tools and he had seen that Angie was an astonishingly quick learner.
‘Well,’ he said, poking speculatively at a radish on his plate with his fork, ‘I could do with a bar above my bed, running along the side. It might take a while.’
‘I’ve got time.’
He stabbed his radish with his fork. ‘We’ll do it!’
‘Mr Lindgren,’ the jovial manager of the hardware store said with a wide grin on his friendly face. ‘We haven’t seen you here for a long time. What can I get you?’
‘Brackets and a bit of varnish.’
‘Well, the brackets are over there nowadays,’ the manager said pointing. ‘And the varnish is just there.’
Angie wandered around the shelves looking at the various bits and pieces while Lindgren decided on suitable brackets.
‘I can only come for the morning tomorrow,’ Angie said, helping carry some wood to the jeep. ‘A guy’s taking me to the movies in the afternoon.’
‘Right, what time shall I come and get you?’
‘I’m going for a swim first, so I’ll meet you at the shop near the beach at about nine o’clock. Is that too early?’
‘No, it’s fine.’
Angie finished loading the timber into the back of the jeep. ‘I’ll be off then. See you tomorrow.’
‘Wow,’ Angie exclaimed in amazement as she entered Lindgren’s workshop the next morning. ‘You’ve practically finished it.’
Together they carried the structure out of the workshop and into the house. In Lindgren’s bedroom the floor around his bed was covered in newspaper and his bedding was piled against one wall. He had already drilled the necessary screw holes in the bed, so now they propped the structure up against it. Lindgren, lying on the floor, squirted the glue on and screwed in the screws while Angie held things in place.
They looked at the bar situated parallel to the bed a few feet above it. ‘I won’t have any trouble papering and varnishing this,’ Lindgren said surveying his handiwork. ‘I might as well take you home so you can get ready for that date of yours.’
‘No hurry. I’m not dressing up and it’s not a date.’
He followed her to the kitchen where she helped herself to a couple of cookies.
‘What shall we make next?’ she asked through a mouthful of cookie.
Lindgren spent a few minutes outlining another idea, then drove her back to town.
‘Behave yourself,’ Angie whispered to Howard Spencer in the darkness of the movie theater after his arm crept around her shoulder.
Reluctantly he drew his arm away. They watched the rest of the film in silence.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ he asked when the lights came on.
‘Terrific,’ she smiled. ‘I don’t go to the movies very often.’
He laughed. ‘I’m not surprised. Bet you never get dated twice. It’s like sitting next to a little icicle.’
‘Thanks. And by the way this was not a date.’
He held up his hands. ‘Yeah, okay, okay.’
The two of them began the walk back to the boarding house. ‘So I can’t hold your hand then?’ Howard asked as they continued past a row of shops, not game to just try it.
‘No.’
‘What is it about me you don’t like?’ he asked.
‘I never said I didn’t like you.’
‘But you won’t even hold my hand.’
‘That doesn’t mean I don’t like you.’
‘Have you got another boyfriend? Is that it?’
‘What do you mean another? You’re not a boyfriend. You’re a friend who’s a boy.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I thought I did.’
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’
‘No, I’ve never had one and I never will have.’
‘That’s really weird. Aren’t you attracted to the opposite sex?’
‘I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re getting at.’ Angie was starting to become irritated with the conversation. She liked boys just as much as any girl. Howard didn’t understand what her life was like. How could she let herself get attached to someone she might have to leave at any moment? Besides, they’d want to hold hands and … She stopped herself.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she wasn’t normal. Well, he wouldn’t be either if he’d had her sort of life. ‘I haven’t found the right boy yet,’ she said hoping to end the topic.
Howard still wasn’t ready to give up. ‘You just said you never would.’
‘Well, that’s not what I meant.’ She stopped walking and glared at him. ‘Look, can we just drop it now? Okay?’
‘Yeah, okay,’ he reluctantly agreed, seeing he was getting nowhere.
During the following week Lindgren learned more about his own capabilities than he had done in the whole two years past. No longer having to drink himself to sleep each night he felt remarkably healthy. He began to talk again to people he used to know when he met them in the street. Then, for some unknown reason, perhaps as a reaction to the sudden changes in his life, he fell into a morass of gloom and stayed around his house all day doing little and thinking the old thoughts about his accident and his previous life. It was on such a day that Angie called round to visit him.
‘How’s things?’ Angie asked cheerfully, sitting on a bench in the backyard of Lindgren’s house.
‘Same as usual,’ he replied attempting a smile.
‘Haven’t seen you for a long time. Have you been doing anything interesting?’
‘Not really. You?’
The two of them talked for a while with Lindgren beginning to regain his good humor. Eventually Angie looked at her watch and told him she would have to start walking back.
‘Nonsense,’ he insisted. ‘You’ll have dinner with me and I’ll drive you back. You start work at seven, don’t you?’
‘Mmm. Well, thanks.’
They chatted over dinner, listening to the rain that had started to patter down and the occasional claps of thunder.
‘You know,’ Angie said after finishing her food, ‘I’ve been wondering why you don’t finish building your boat.’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘No, not to me,’ she said. ‘You should just do it.’
‘I should, should I?’ he replied icily. ‘Suppose I could. Just suppose by some miracle, some gift from God, that I finished the thing. Then what, eh? I can just see myself clambering around the deck in my wheelchair, in the teeth of a howling gale, reefing in the sails. Can’t you?’
His sarcasm annoyed her. ‘If you just stop your self pity and start using your brain …’
‘Self pity?’ he exclaimed interrupting her. ‘What the hell do you know about it? You sit here, with your perfect legs, telling me to do the impossible, then you dare to tell me I’m self pitying!’
‘And a damn fool.’
He lost his temper. ‘You little bitch! Get out of here! Go on get out! Get out of my house!’
‘Fine. See you later.’ Angie left quickly slamming the door shut behind her. Outside the rain was now absolutely pelting down and it was already dark. She checked her watch in the light from Lindgren’s house and saw that it was already six-thirty. Even if she ran she would not reach the Inn by seven. She ran anyway, becoming hot despite being drenched by the cool rain. Exercise always helped when she was angry or upset.
‘Where’ve you been?’ the head waitress demanded angrily when Angie finally arrived. ‘We’ve been run off our feet.’ She stopped and gazed at Angie. ‘And you’re soaked to the skin! Go and get changed, child. You’ll catch your death.’
Sometime after Angie left his house Lindgren began to feel slightly guilty. He had been hard on the girl. How could he possibly expect a healthy person to know anything about disability? And she probably knew nothing of sailing. A yacht that could be sailed single-handedly by a paraplegic would be a difficult thing to design. Of course, he had heard about roller reefing for the mainsail and a furling jib, but could these be operated entirely from the cockpit? What if they jammed? How would he get at them?
Later that night Lindgren lay in bed awake, his mind active. He regretted his earlier outburst. The girl was a fool but that was no reason to destroy a friendship. How could she know the impossibility of dropping an anchor over the forward end of the boat. Then he began to speculate. Why drop it forward anyway? With the aid of a winch in the cockpit he could drop it over the stern. He began to consider other problems and how they could be overcome.
The next morning he jumped out of bed, alive with ideas, and started making sketches of his yacht. He could talk to an engineer who knew about sailing, he could have hoists in his back yard to get around the outside of the boat while he worked on it. The prospect filled him with intense excitement. He thought of Angie. She had told him to use his brain and he had involuntarily taken her advice.
‘Seen Angie?’ Lindgren asked Howard Spencer whom he had met outside the boarding house the next morning.
Howard put his hand on the roof of Lindgren’s jeep. ‘She’s gone to the beach for a swim and she’s in a foul mood.’
‘I believe it. We had a quarrel last night and I let her walk to work from my house in the pouring rain. I wouldn’t be surprised if she got fired from the Long Valley.’
‘I don’t think so. They love her there. She’s a good worker.’ He touched his jaw where the bruise that Angie had given him had been. ‘And she doubles as a bouncer on Friday nights. You must have guts to pick a fight with that girl.’
‘Why’s that?’
He smiled wryly. ‘She’s very handy with her fists. I found that out when I first met her. I accidentally got into her room.’ He grinned. ‘If you’re heading for the beach I could use a lift.’
‘Hop in.’ Lindgren pushed his wheelchair into the back and watched as Howard made himself comfortable in the passenger seat. ‘Now tell me,’ he said, restarting the engine, ‘what happened when you accidentally got into Angie’s room?’
Angie, dressed and sitting on the beach combing her wet hair, looked up when Lindgren wheeled himself over to her although she had noticed Howard pushing his chair onto the firm stretch of sand several minutes earlier.
‘I was late for work because of you,’ Angie said evenly.
‘What can I say?’ he asked humbly. ‘I must be a number one creep.’
‘Maybe I was a bit tactless,’ she said after a few seconds.
‘You were just expressing an honest opinion. I’m really sorry.’
She smiled. ‘It’s okay. We all have our moments.’ She glanced at Howard sitting some distance away on a sand dune. ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’ she said to Lindgren.
‘Sure thing,’ he replied readily.
She waved Spencer to come. ‘Not working today, Howard?’ she asked as the boy sauntered towards them. ‘We’re going for a walk along the beach to where the cliffs start. Want to come?’
He grinned. ‘I’d love to.’
The three of them made their way along the beach, the sand dunes on their left and the sea on their right. For once the blue sky was more in evidence than the clouds.
‘Well Angie, what do you think?’ Lindgren asked after talking at some length about his plans for his boat.
‘Er, what?’
‘Have you been listening to anything I’ve been …’ he stopped, noticing her distracted manner. ‘What’s up?’
‘Don’t look,’ she said keeping her voice low, ‘but someone’s been following us in the sand dunes.’
Lindgren had to make an effort of will to keep from glancing to his left. Howard wasn’t as controlled.
‘Howard, I said don’t look round,’ she said quietly but angrily. ‘Please follow all instructions.’
‘What about it?’ Lindgren asked also keeping his voice low.
‘I don’t think they’re friends of mine,’ she whispered. ‘They’re most likely assassins. They’ll try and capture or kill me.’
‘Assassins!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re kidding!’ He looked at her face. ‘You’re not kidding, are you? What’s going on? What’re we going to do?’
‘Give me your car key. I’ll try and race them back down the beach or swim for it.’
‘Can I do anything?’ Spencer asked while Lindgren dug in his pocket for his key. ‘I might be able –’
Angie followed Spencer’s gaze towards the dunes where three shaven-headed, well-muscled youths were walking slowly towards them. Spencer grabbed her wrist. ‘They’re for me, not you.’ She glanced at him and saw he was quite pale.
‘You know them?’ she asked quietly.
‘Unfortunately. I better start doing the running thing, now.’
‘No. I’ll handle them,’ she said relieved she had been mistaken. None of them seemed to be carrying guns.
‘Howard Spencer,’ one of the skinheads sneered as he approached. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
‘What do you want?’ Howard asked querulously.
‘I think you know.’ He walked towards Howard menacingly. ‘Did you think you’d get away with giving up Johnno to the cops?’
‘I had nothing to do with that. You’ve got it wrong.’
‘No,’ the skinhead smirked. ‘You have.’ He signaled with his hand to the two other skinheads. ‘Hold him for me.’
They moved with one accord and grabbed Howard’s arms. ‘Now,’ the first one hissed.
‘Excuse me,’ Angie said politely. ‘Three against one isn’t fair, is it?’ As the skinhead turned, her fist came so fast that her opponent didn’t even see it. The blow to his jaw sent him sprawling onto the sand. As was usual for Angie in a fight, she smiled as she turned her attention to the other two skinheads, but with her there was neither fear nor anger. So relieved was she at not having to face her mercenary enemies or a hired killer, that all she could feel was a sense of relief bordering on elation.
She let fly with both fists and feet and was easily the superior fighter. However, even despite her skill, she could not watch all of them all of the time, and was just a second too late to stop one of them drawing a knife although she turned in time to see it happening. This threat was real and she felt she had no choice but to deal with the other two harshly in order to keep them out of the way while she took care of the man with the knife. Grabbing the skinhead nearest to her she brought her knee up into his stomach, hit him across the jaw and threw his unconscious body at her assailant with the knife. While the second man stumbled backwards under the weight of his friend, narrowly avoiding stabbing him, the third one made the mistake of standing up behind Angie. She turned and knocked him out with one solid punch.
‘Looks like it’s just you and me, buddy,’ she said approaching the skinhead who was holding the knife whilst looking slightly frightened at the sight of his two supporters lying unconscious on the sand. Angie watched both the man’s eyes and his knife, at the same time moving as he moved to keep him in front of her at all times, her hands ready to strike, parry his arm or take his wrist.
Howard moved to go to her aid but Lindgren stopped him by catching his sleeve. ‘Leave it to the expert, boy. You’ll only get in her way.’
The man slashed several times at Angie but she skillfully avoided the blade as he cut through thin air. Then as he made a desperate lunge, she gripped his knife arm with both hands, threw him over her shoulder, and kicked the knife from his hand as he landed on the ground. Lindgren and Howard both applauded.
‘You don’t know how to fall, do you?’ she said as she pulled his wallet from his shorts pocket and flicked it open. She threw it back to him and checked and searched the other two skinheads who, with a little bit of slapping from Angie, were beginning to show signs of recovery.
‘Okay,’ she said when eventually all three were sitting up. She toyed with the knife as she said their names out loud. ‘Now I know who you are and I’ll remember your faces too.’ She looked each one directly in the eye in turn. ‘I’ve got friends who play a lot rougher than I do. I don’t want Howard to have any more trouble. If anything odd should happen to him, which you better hope and pray does not, someone is going to track you down wherever you are, no matter where you hide.’ She threw the knife into a piece of dead tree that was lying several yards away towards the dunes. ‘Now get the hell outa my sight.’
The three scrambled painfully to their feet and headed, despite their injuries, swiftly towards the dunes, not even stopping to retrieve the knife as they went.
‘You saved my life,’ Howard said gratefully.
‘No trouble,’ she said as she massaged a sore hand. ‘I need to keep in practice. Anyway, I’d be less than honest if I didn’t tell you I enjoyed it.’
Lindgren shot her a worried look. ‘Are you telling us you like hurting people?’
She fixed him with a steely gaze. ‘No. I like to be in control. I like it when I can defend myself. When I can avoid being hurt by people who are trying to hurt me or my friends. There’s been too many times in my life when I haven’t been able to do anything. When I’ve been helpless at the hands of my enemies. And the only reason I could do something today is because of hard work and training. Of course I enjoy it when that pays off. Wouldn’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lindgren said. He was bewildered by the whole situation.
‘Don’t forget they pulled a four-inch blade on us. That’s a life threat. I take that seriously. And yes, I feel good when I can avoid getting skewered through the liver.’
Howard still looked nervous and shaken. ‘Do you really have friends who’ll help me?’
She laughed. ‘No. You two are the only friends I’ve got in this whole damn town. But don’t worry. Those baldies had a good scare today. I doubt they’ll ever give you trouble again.’
As they continued on their walk Angie questioned Howard about how he had come to be involved with such revolting characters. He explained that he first ran into difficulties at the college where he studied. He was offered drugs by a man who shortly afterwards was arrested and sent to jail. The man’s associates assumed Howard was responsible and had persecuted him with threatening notes and telephone calls. Faced with a problem he had no idea how to deal with, he turned to his parents for help. His father, a successful businessman who had made his way from the ground up, told his son that a man must fight his own battles and not seek aid from others. Soon after, someone in a car attempted to run Howard over. When he told his father of this, the man thought he was lying and there ensued a bitter argument. That night Howard packed his bags and ran away.
‘So how did they ever find you?’ Angie asked puzzled.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I never told anyone where I was going and I’m sure I wasn’t followed.’
‘Did you ever write or phone home?’
‘Yes, I wrote a letter to my parents to tell them I was all right but I didn’t give my address.’
‘And of course you didn’t post if from anywhere around this town.’
He frowned. ‘Yeah I did.’
She looked at him pityingly. ‘Have you ever heard of postmarks?’
‘Yes, but I don’t see how they could have got my letter. My parents have a post office box.’
‘There are ways.’
‘Oh,’ he said looking shamefaced.
She patted him on the back. ‘Cheer up, Howard. It should be safe for you to return home now.’
He looked at her aghast. ‘Are you kidding? My old man will be furious!’
‘Why? You took his advice and found your own solution to your problem. You ran away.’
‘Yeah, and I had to quit my studies to do it. Besides, running away isn’t the type of solution my old man favors. You know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said sympathetically. ‘You’ll have to try and be understanding. Your father probably had no idea what you were going through or the danger you were in, having never had that experience himself. I should imagine he thought it was just a case of school bullying of the type he had to put up with as a kid.’
‘You’re right of course. But that doesn’t make it easier for me to go back. I’ll never hear the end of it. I can just see his lectures about the way it was courage that got him to the top and all that junk. And if I told him how a girl defended me – oh boy!’
‘You do want to finish your studies though, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know. I was enrolled in economics and accounting – my father’s idea of course.’
Lindgren who had been silent for most of the conversation now spoke. ‘So what do you want to do? Spend the rest of your life behind a shop counter?’
‘No, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting behind a desk either.’ He flushed slightly. ‘I’d like to do something really great in my life. Something I could tell my kids about one day, if I ever have any. Perhaps some kind of adventure, you know? I’d like to get to know myself – find out my own limits.’
Lindgren wondered what sort of crewman Spencer would make in a yacht sailing around the world, but said nothing of these thoughts. ‘And after your great adventure, what then?’ he asked.
‘I know what you’re getting at, and I do see Dad’s point,’ he said sadly. ‘But if I go back to my studies I’ll be wasting the best years of my life. And how do I know I won’t lose my enthusiasm by then and become a stodgy old stick in the mud?’ He made a face. ‘Or die of something before I get a chance to do anything?’
‘You don’t,’ Angie stated flatly. ‘It’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself.’
‘Perhaps,’ Lindgren said slowly, ‘there is some way you could compromise. There must be plenty of careers which involve adventure.’
‘None that Dad would approve of.’ He scuffed at the sand with his feet. ‘Anyway, I didn’t say I wanted to make adventure my career.’
‘Well, you’ve always got the end of year holidays,’ Lindgren commented.
‘Yeah, I s’pose. But it may not be enough time to do anything.’
‘Bull,’ Lindgren said shortly.
They reached the rocks at the end of the beach and stopped for a rest. Lindgren questioned Angie about her reaction when she had noticed they were being followed, asking her who she thought was after her.
‘I’ve annoyed a number of people over the years,’ she said looking out towards the water.
‘Annoyed them?’ Lindgren said. ‘How annoyed?’
‘Annoyed enough to do this,’ she said turning and lifting up her top a little and showing Lindgren some of her scars on her back. She turned back to face him. ‘Annoyed enough to torture me to death if they ever find me again.’
‘And you think they’ll find you here?’ he asked, trying not to show how much she had shocked him.
‘Probably not, but I never stay in one place too long anyhow.’
Lindgren felt sorry for her. Someone so young shouldn’t have that sort of life.
‘What’ll you do if they find you?’ Howard asked rather stupidly.
‘I’ll run or I’ll fight. What else can I do?’
Lindgren gave her a searching look. ‘Would you kill them if you had to?’
She thought of her knife and pistol tucked away at the bottom of her backpack in her cupboard. Of late she had been carrying neither, possibly because she felt very safe in this small town. ‘I generally do what I have to do and search my conscience later. It probably depends on the circumstances. I could never kill in cold blood.’
Lindgren said nothing but secretly feared for Angie. She was obviously on the run from some very evil people. Yet despite the hardships of her lifestyle she had not lost her compassion. But perhaps in her situation, compassion could be a dangerous weakness.
She was silent for several minutes before speaking to Lindgren again. ‘The bad guys aren’t the only ones looking for me either.’
He nodded, understanding the implications, although the comment went over Howard’s head.
They rested for a further ten minutes before starting back. On the way back, Angie collected the knife she had thrown into the dead tree and examined it. She turned it over in her hand then held it by its tip. ‘It’s a nice weight,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘with a full tang. I think I’ll keep it.’
It reminded Howard of the skinheads. ‘Do you think those bald guys will still be after me?’
‘I hope not,’ she replied with a smile. ‘But remember I’m living right next door to you. I’ll help you out if things get difficult.’
‘I’m thinking more about if I go back home.’
‘Maybe you should go to a different college as a safety precaution anyway.’ She tousled his hair and grinned mockingly. ‘Or you could always learn to defend yourself. It might be a useful asset on your great adventure.’
Lindgren smiled to himself. Somehow Angie had a way of persuading people to do what was best for themselves without seeming to do so.
In his backyard three days later, Lindgren looked on from his wheelchair while Angie stood arguing with the engineer, Brent Steinberg. Steinberg, himself a keen sailor and one-time winner of the Nautilus Classic, was advocating a type of reefing he had designed himself, but Angie thought it would weaken the support structures too much. Borrowing a pocket handbook from Steinberg, she performed some rapid calculations showing she was probably correct. In the days when she’d worked with The Doctor, there were many times when they’d had to use stress and strain estimates. Furthermore, winches had been a frequently used tool of their trade.
Steinberg sat down and checked her calculations then returned somewhat shamefaced. ‘Can’t see why you bothered getting me here, Darren. If you ask me,’ he said glancing towards Angie, ‘you’ve already got an engineer.’
She met his look slightly amused. ‘You’re the expert. I have no confidence in myself in this field.’
Steinberg laughed. ‘What you lack in confidence you make up for with competence. Come over here and give me your opinion about these halyard winches.’
The group continued making plans for the rest of the afternoon and that evening they collected Howard Spencer and all four of them went out to dinner for Angie’s birthday.
‘You know,’ she said as she sat at the restaurant table with Spencer, Steinberg and Lindgren. ‘This is the first birthday I’ve celebrated in a very long time. You make me feel special.’
‘Just as every eighteen-year-old girl should feel on her birthday,’ Lindgren noted.
She enjoyed having everyone make a fuss of her. They had a cake for her and made her blow out the eighteen candles. Everyone stood up and clapped. Afterwards Lindgren took Angie’s small hand in his own large hands.
‘I can never thank you enough for all the help with the boat. And not only that, for making me see I can do things. If there’s ever anything I can ever do for you in return, anything at all, you will let me know, won’t you?’
None of the three people standing there knew, as Angie shyly nodded her head, how soon she would be in need of Lindgren’s assistance.
The hull of Lindgren’s boat had already been completed as well as the decking. All that remained to be finished was the fitting out and rigging. Angie, Steinberg and Howard helped build a hoist so that Lindgren could haul himself up from the ground onto the deck. Once this was done, Lindgren found he could do much of the work on his own.
During the following week Lindgren worked hard on his yacht, helped almost every day by Howard and sometimes by Angie on an occasional visit. As the days went by, Lindgren and Howard became firm friends and he had soon promised the boy that he could be his crew. It both saddened and amused Lindgren to see Howard in the grip of a hopeless crush on Angie. That he did have this crush on her was apparent long before he had chosen to confide in Lindgren, having witnessed the boy’s blushes, stammers and longing looks. Equally apparent to him was that Angie had no reciprocal interest in Howard beyond friendship. She persistently turned down his invitations for dinners, movies and dances, and never seemed to notice the way he followed her around in Lindgren’s backyard on the days when they worked together, hanging on her every word.
He could not blame the boy. If he were ten years younger he too would have been after her, and probably with as little success.
The weather still continued to be unsettled. After one particularly violent storm Lindgren found a small bedraggled dog, a mongrel puppy, sheltering under the hull of his yacht in the backyard. He carried this wet, shivering bundle of fluff into his house, much to the chagrin of his housekeeper. He fed it and dried it, then made a bed for it to sleep in.
The next day, Pooch, as he had chosen to name the puppy, was scampering around the yard, lively and full of fun. Lindgren laughed as Pooch tried to scramble onto his lap, gave him a hand then tickled him under the chin. The intelligence of the little animal astounded him.
When Angie first saw Pooch she made a great fuss of him and Howard who had formerly taken no notice of the dog, suddenly became very fond of him too.
The weather showed signs of settling down. The yacht was progressing extremely well and no problems developed with it that could not be quickly solved. On one particular day Angie, Howard and Steinberg got together to help Lindgren pour the lead into the keel. Afterwards the sun was still shining and they all went down to the beach. For the first time since he had become paralyzed, Lindgren, with Steinberg’s help, went swimming. Pooch stayed in the shallows, barking and jumping the waves as they broke on the sand.
Although the yacht was now more than half completed there still remained many time-consuming jobs to be done, mainly the installation of the internal fittings. Lindgren enjoyed this part the most, building cabinets with ornate brass fittings and hand-carved motifs on the wooden doors. He even dusted off the cobwebs from his lathe and managed to do some woodturning for the first time in over two years.
Howard decided that soon he would go home and continue his studies but promised he would return when his next long holidays began, to crew for Lindgren.
It was Friday morning and raining yet again. Having nothing better to do, Angie lay on her bed paging through a copy of American Aeronautics magazine she had bought from the local store the week before. Since she had already read it once after buying it, it did little to ease her boredom. There was an interesting article by a design engineer called Mark Conway. He had a regular column in the magazine she always enjoyed. She reread his article, then flicked the magazine shut and gazed at the picture of the airplane on the cover.
She wondered who else in this town would buy a magazine of such a technical nature. After all, much of the material would be of no interest to the average pilot, let alone a layman. Most small towns she had been in had not even stocked it. Come to think of it, none of them had. Not even this one until last week. She sat up feeling strangely cold.
What better bait to use in a trap? In an instant she had thought through the details to check their feasibility. Someone could, posing as an agent for American Aeronautics, contact small town stores throughout the country, sending them free magazines, probably with some story about wishing to evaluate consumer interest, and undoubtedly giving a telephone number to ring should there be any purchases. It would be an expensive and time-consuming way of trapping her, but it was an ingenious plan. For someone who had made a study of her habits and interests it would be a plan the perpetrator could be fairly certain of eventual success, she thought bitterly. She finished packing and after putting on a jacket and jamming her pistol in her belt under it, she hoisted on her pack and left quickly for the store.
It was possible there was no trap and that her fears were groundless, and if that were so it wouldn’t be the first time her paranoia had led her to the wrong conclusions. But in her situation she knew that paranoia was the key to survival. Even if there was a trap, she was hopeful the store may not yet have bothered to contact her pursuers.