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This is none of your business, she said, steadily.
It was, though. It was all of her business. This was her brother. Will was her friend. And didn’t it always end up being her business, picking up after other people?
*
Tony and the others had come full circle back to the market square when Ian Dowsett came over and asked what all the commotion was. When they told him, he said he’d seen a girl swimming at the quarry and sent her home. The girl’s father described her again and Ian said yes, that sounded like her. He was insistent that he’d seen her heading back towards the village. I didn’t know her from Adam, he said; but I wasn’t about to walk away from her swimming in the blasted quarry. Place is a bloody hazard. They should fill it in.
Ian’s views on the quarry were well known. But he reiterated them at some length.
Tony took a phone call from someone at the other end of the village. Becky had been seen sitting in the churchyard, and was being walked back up to the pub now.
The girl’s father sat down suddenly on a bench, and his whole body went limp with relief.
There we go, he said. I did think she wouldn’t have gone far. I’m sorry about all this, he said, aiming his apology at Tony but awkwardly trying to take in everyone else. Tony told him there was no need for apology; they were happy to help, they were glad it had turned out well.
Someone brought a whisky out from the pub and set it on the bench next to the man. There was a feeling of people not knowing whether to applaud, or what exactly they should do. It felt ignorant to just walk back into the pub and return to the conversations that had been interrupted when he’d first appeared with Stuart Hunter. But at the same time they didn’t want to make it too obvious they were waiting to see him reunited with his daughter.
When she arrived, walking up the street with Gordon Jackson, looking taller than people had imagined and with her hair tied back in a damp ponytail, Donna realised she was bracing herself. She was expecting the girl’s father to be angry, or at least sharp with her. It would seem natural for there to be irritation mixed in with the relief. She imagined that he would feel humiliated, and have nothing to do with that humiliation but pass it on. As she watched, she waited for the girl to slow down, to be hesitant about approaching him; or even perhaps to be defiant in some way that would be new to them both.
But none of that happened. Her father stood up. The girl walked towards him, quickly, and said she was sorry but she’d lost track of the time. It was such a beautiful evening, she said. I was sitting in the churchyard and there were I think they were swallows everywhere. The man was soft with the sight of her. He opened his arms and drew her in. He had to lift his chin slightly so that she would fit against him. Donna turned away.
*
Later, once the man and his daughter had gone off with Stuart Hunter, and everyone else had gone back into the pub, Donna managed to get Claire away from her brother and start walking her home. She was quieter now, and finally starting to sober up.
There was the noise of a loud engine from the other end of the street, and then Will was driving towards them on his quad bike. Claire groaned, and started turning away, but he drove straight up to them and reached out an arm to pull her towards him. Donna watched Claire give in. Their foreheads pressed together and they spoke softly to each other. Donna saw Claire nodding at something Will was saying, and then she climbed on to the back of the bike. She held on tight, and they drove away without saying goodbye.
Once the sound had died down the street was quiet and still and Donna just stood for a moment. Night had fallen properly by then but there was still a blue tinge to the darkness and a damp warmth in the air. There were insects humming in the hedges around her. There were bats moving deftly overhead. She’d never liked the way you only saw them from the corner of your eye. It put her on edge.
A bedroom light went out in the house across the road. She brushed her hand through the box hedge outside the butcher’s shop and a scent rose into the air.
She supposed she’d have to get home.
11: Ian
When Ian Dowsett had gone up to the village to collect Irene and bring her back to the quarry, there’d been no need for explanations. She left her mop in the bucket and got straight into the car, peeling the rubber gloves from her hands.
Now then, she said; is it bad?
Well, Ian told her. It doesn’t look good.
*
Ted was still under the rocks when they got back to the quarry. Would have been a miracle if he hadn’t been. The rock fall was stacked halfway up the face.
Ian could see from the way the pieces were sitting that the weight wasn’t all on him. They’d have been scraping up the leftovers with a trowel, otherwise. But the way the rocks were stacked, it was going to be like bloody Krypton Factor to get him out safely.
It didn’t look good at all. His face was the wrong colour.
The men had strapped some of the rocks for lifting, but they were waiting for specialist equipment from another quarry. The equipment should have been on-site, but Tony had been cutting corners.
Tony Morrison, this was. Operations Manager. Health and safety had been on him. He was finished at the quarry, after this.
Irene didn’t hang around. She got straight in there, and the men stood aside to let her through. Knelt herself down on the dry limestone dust next to Ted. Found his hand, and held it.
She told him she had better things to be getting on with. The man managed a smile, just about.
Don’t tend to see Ted smile at the best of times, so that was something.
