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‘Thanks for the call,’ I say. ‘And for coming to find Dominic with us.’
Her eyes well with tears again. ‘It’s the least I could do.’
‘I can provide that stiff drink,’ Mike suggests, ‘if you want to come back to my place.’
There’s a slightly furtive glance between them. ‘Why not?’ Nina says and she links her arm through his.
Hmm. Why not, indeed?
As they go to leave, Dominic tries to stand too, but Mike holds out a hand.
‘You stay right where you are, mate,’ he chides. ‘Rest and relaxation for you until you get your strength back.’
‘Asante. Thank you, Mike,’ Dominic says, echoing my sentiments. ‘You are a very good friend.’ He clasps his hand and shakes it.
‘I’ll pop in tomorrow,’ Mike says. ‘Check that you’re both OK.’
‘Me too,’ Nina offers.
‘I’m sure we’ll be fine, but it will be good to see you both anyway.’
I kiss Nina too, and we exchange a look that acknowledges that our differences have been patched up without us needing to talk about them any more.
With that, Mike and Nina leave us to our own devices.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
When they’ve gone, a peace settles on the house that has been sorely missing. Dominic finishes his porridge and his hot chocolate.
‘I feel better already,’ he says with a wan smile.
‘It was very brave. Bringing down that mugger.’
‘It was nothing.’ A shrug. ‘I have wrestled lions, Just Janie.’
I laugh at that. ‘Sometimes I forget.’
Resting my head on his shoulder, much to Archie’s chagrin, we sit in companionable silence until my eyes start to roll. I don’t want to ask him too much, spoil the quiet rapture of him being home, but there are things I need to know, things he needs to tell me. ‘What happened, Dominic? Where did you go?’
‘I left because I thought it would be for the best. I did not want to harm your standing in the village. I was thinking like a Maasai warrior and not an English gentleman.’ He sighs. ‘I walked the fields for two hours and as I crossed the road, a man stopped and asked me if I was lost and could he give me a lift somewhere. I asked him where he was going? He said that he was going to work in London. Then I asked him to take me there.’
As simple as that.
‘He drove me to London and dropped me at Euston station. Then I did not know what to do. There were some young men wrapped in blankets by the door and I asked them where I should go. They took me to Kings Cross, told me where to get food and showed me how to live on the streets.’
‘Did you not want to come home?’ I ask him. ‘Did you not miss me?’
‘Every day.’ He hangs his head. ‘I did not know what to do. After one week, the pain was so great that I waited by the side of the road for someone to stop and take me home again.’ As they would have done so readily in the Maasai Mara. Perhaps, as he got to London so easily, he never considered how he might get back or how hard it would be. Or maybe he just didn’t think it through at all. ‘But they did not. After two days I had no money and did not know how else to get back.’
‘Oh, Dominic.’
‘The longer I stayed away, the more I was sure that you would not want me to come back.’
‘How did you survive? What did you live on?’
‘It was not easy to get work, but sometimes I helped to wash dishes in the kitchen of a restaurant. It was a very hard lesson for my pride, my Janie. There was nothing else I could do. I am used to having nothing. All the things that you have,’ he gestures around the cottage, ‘you can live without them if you have to. That part was not so difficult.’ Dominic smiles sadly at me. ‘Living without you was the part I did not like.’
‘I thought I might never see you again.’
‘I wanted to come home,’ he says. ‘I wanted to come home so much.’
We hold each other tightly. ‘Now you’re home,’ I tell him, ‘where you belong. I don’t want you ever running out on me again.’
‘No,’ he confirms. ‘I do not intend to do that.’
I stroke Dominic’s face. My love is exhausted, weak. His time on the streets has certainly taken its toll.
‘We shouldn’t be too late to bed,’ I say. ‘You need some rest. Come upstairs and I’ll run you a nice hot bath.’
‘This is one of the luxuries I have missed,’ Dominic admits. ‘Hot water! Already, you have made me soft.’
He hauls himself from the sofa and on wobbly legs, follows me, hand-in-hand, to the bathroom. Reluctantly, Archie allows Dominic to uncurl him from his shoulders and settles himself on the loo seat so that he doesn’t miss any of the proceedings.
