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“I was about to say I don’t understand why one man would need six cars, but if he drives like that then I suppose that’s the explanation right there. He probably gets through one a day.”
Liza turned the wheel and Sean winced as branches scraped the paintwork.
“You’re a bit close on my side, Liza.”
“It was the hedge or a head-on collision.” She was shaken by what had been a close shave, her emotions heightened by the fact that Finn Cool had been laughing. “He laughed—did you see that? He actually smiled as he passed us. Would he have been laughing if he’d had to haul my mangled body out of the twisted wreckage of this car?”
“Relax. He seemed like a pretty skilled driver.”
“It wasn’t his skill that saved us. It was me driving into the hedge. It isn’t safe to drive like that down these roads.”
Liza breathed out and drove slowly down the lane, half expecting another irresponsible rock star to come zooming round the corner. Fortunately she reached her mother’s house without further mishap, her pulse-rate slowing as she pulled into the drive.
Aubretia clung to the low wall that bordered the property, and lobelia and geraniums tumbled from baskets hung next to the front door. Her mother loved the garden and spent hours in the sunshine, tending her plants.
“This place is a gem. She’d make a fortune if she ever did decide to sell it, leaking roof or not. Do you think she will have made her chocolate cake?” Sean was ever hopeful.
“You mean before or after she was assaulted?”
Liza parked in front of the house. She probably should have baked a cake, but she’d decided that getting on the road as soon as possible was the priority. She had stuffed the contents of the fridge into a bag, along with some basic grocery items and a loaf of bread, because she had no idea what her mother would have in the house.
“Can you call the kids quickly?”
“What for?” Sean uncoiled himself from the front of the car and stretched. “We only left them four hours ago.”
“I want to check on them.”
He unloaded their luggage. “I’ll call if it will make you feel better. But first take a deep breath. I haven’t seen you like this before. You’re amazing, Liza. A real coper. We’ll get through this.”
She didn’t feel like a coper. She felt like a piece of elastic that was about to snap. She was coping because if she didn’t what would happen to them? She knew, even if her family didn’t, that they wouldn’t be able to manage without her. The twins would die of malnutrition or lie buried under their own mess, because they were incapable of putting away a single thing they owned or cooking anything other than pizza, the laundry would stay unwashed, the cupboards would be bare. Caitlin would yell, Has anyone seen my blue strap top? and no one would answer because no one would know.
The front door opened and all thought of the twins left her mind. Because there was her mother, her palm pressed hard against the door frame for support. There was a bandage wrapped around the top of her head, and Liza felt her stomach drop to her feet. She’d always considered her mother to be invincible, and here she was looking frail, tired, and all too human. For all their differences—and there were many—she loved her mother dearly.
“Mum!” She left Sean to handle the luggage and sprinted across the drive. “I’ve been so worried! How are you feeling? I can’t believe this has happened. I’m so sorry.”
“Well, what do you have to be sorry for? You’re not the one who broke into my house.”
As always, her mother was brisk and matter-of-fact, treating weakness like an annoying fly to be batted away. She was wearing a long flowing dress in shades of blue and turquoise, with a darker blue wrap around her shoulders. Multiple bangles jangled on her wrists. Her mother’s unconventional, eclectic dress style had caused Liza many embarrassing moments as a child, and even now the cheerful colors of Kathleen’s outfit seemed to jar with the gravity of the situation. She looked ready to step onto a beach in Corfu.
Despite the lack of encouragement, Liza hugged her mother gently, horrified by how fragile she seemed. “You should have had an alarm, or a mobile phone in your pocket.”
Instinctively she checked her mother’s head, but there was nothing to be seen except the bandage and the beginnings of a bruise around her eye socket. Even though she’d tried to enliven her appearance with blusher, her skin was waxy and pale.
“Don’t fuss.” Kathleen eased away from her. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. By the time help arrived it would have been over. As it was, I made a phone call from my landline. The old-fashioned way, but it proved perfectly effective.”
“But what if he’d knocked you unconscious? You wouldn’t have been able to call for help.”
“If I’d been unconscious I wouldn’t have been able to press a button, either. And the police came quickly. A lovely girl, although she didn’t seem much older than the twins, and a kind man. Then an ambulance arrived, and the police took a statement from me. I half expected to be locked up for the night, but nothing so dramatic. Still, it was all rather exciting.”
“Exciting?” The remark was typical of her mother. “You could have been killed. He hit you.”
“No, he didn’t. I hit him—with the skillet I’d used for frying bacon earlier.”
There was an equal mix of pride and satisfaction in her mother’s voice.
“His arm flew up as he fell—reflex, I suppose—and he knocked it back into my head. That part was unfortunate, I admit. But the fortunate part was that the skillet knocked him unconscious. It’s funny when you think that bacon may have saved my life. So no more nagging me about my blood pressure and cholesterol.”
“Mum—”
