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‘She says that Matilde became very drowsy and suddenly just sat down. Then she flopped over onto her side...’ He spoke to Giulia again, questioning her. ‘She doesn’t know if Matilde has any medical conditions, she’s a proud woman and probably wouldn’t say if she had.’
It could be any number of things. Clara bent down beside Matilde, examining her carefully while Gabriel questioned Giulia again. In the dim light Matilde looked very pale and she was muttering, quietly but incoherently.
Clara checked Matilde’s wrists and throat, and found what she was looking for. A disc, bearing a symbol she knew well on a chain around her neck.
‘Gabriel. What does this say?’ She unfastened the chain, holding the medical alert disc out.
Gabriel turned it over in his hand, still comforting a weeping Giulia. ‘She has Type 2 diabetes. You’re thinking hypoglycaemia?’
Clara bent over Matilde again, smelling her breath and laying her hand on her forehead. ‘All her symptoms are in line with hypoglycaemia. Don’t suppose you have any sweets in your pocket, do you?’
‘Afraid not.’ He turned to Giulia, speaking quickly to her, and she shook her head. Apparently she didn’t have much of a sweet tooth either.
‘There’s nothing in Matilde’s bag...’
‘We need to try to get something sweet into her before she loses consciousness completely. You go and see if my father can send something down. I’ll stay here with her.’
Clara hesitated. Could she leave Gabriel here alone with the women? Might he suddenly begin to panic? But if she stayed, she wouldn’t understand what either of the women were saying to her.
‘It’s okay. Go.’ He murmured the words without looking at her, but they were enough. Clara hurried back to the bottom of the borehole, seeing Leo’s face appear in the circle of sunlight above her head.
‘We need a sugary drink. Can you get something from the house? Matilde’s diabetic...’
‘Sì, sì...’ Leo had lapsed into Italian, and there seemed to be other people at the top of the borehole now. Probably staff from the house, who’d been alerted to what was happening by the gardener.
There seemed to be some conversation going on, and Clara shifted impatiently. She needed some action. ‘Leo, we need to hurry...’
Gabriel’s father leaned over the parapet, looking down at her. ‘Someone’s going now. We have Matilde’s bag here, she left it with Alessia. Might she have brought something?’
Another bag. Of course. Clara should have thought that if Matilde was travelling here today she wouldn’t just have brought her handbag. ‘Send it down, Leo. We can find what we need.’
There was a pause and another rope, with a nylon shopping bag attached to it, came spinning down the shaft. Clara grabbed at it, looking through the contents. When she unzipped one of the side pockets she found a make-up bag, and inside was an injection kit and some sachets of what might be glucose, the printing on the outside in Italian.
‘I think that’s what we need. Send the drink down when you get it, just in case.’ Leo and Alessia must be sick with worry. ‘I’m going back to Gabriel now. Everything’s going to be okay.’
‘Thank you. Go...’
Clara ran back to the main cave, opening the make-up bag and taking out the contents. ‘Is this what we need?’ She handed him one of the sachets and he glanced quickly at the writing on the packet.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Matilde brought another bag, she’d left it with your mother.’ Clara reached for the first-aid kit, o
pening it and finding some hand wipes. ‘It’s glucose?’
‘Yes. Let’s see if we can get her sitting up.’ He took the hand wipe, cleaning his fingers quickly and slipping on a surgical glove from the box. Together he and Clara sat Matilde up, Gabriel supporting her with one arm around her back, and she muttered something.
Clara tore the packet of glucose open, and Gabriel dipped his finger into it. More talk, and Matilde opened her mouth a little way, letting him dab a little bit of the glucose onto her tongue. Then her head lolled to one side.
‘Matilde!’ Gabriel rapped out what sounded like an order in Italian. She opened her eyes and stuck out her tongue, and Gabriel fed her another small dab of glucose.
Giulia was still crying softly behind them, and Matilde muttered something in Italian. Gabriel grinned, turning to say something to Giulia, and she nodded, stepping back to sit on a smooth outcrop of rock, wiping her face with her sleeve.
‘She told Giulia to stop making such a fuss. I said that she must be feeling better.’ Gabriel was still feeding Matilde the glucose bit by bit so that she didn’t choke.
‘When she wakes up a bit more, she’ll be glad we did.’
Gabriel quirked the corners of his mouth down. ‘Yeah. However much she might want to stay here, she has some more things to do. On the outside...’
