‘No swimming, because pools are a germ factory and who knows what’s in the sea?’ he suggested.
‘That’s pretty much how it went.’
‘It must have been difficult for them to truly believe that you’ve made a full recovery,’ he said. ‘I imagine you never quite trust the fates once you’ve been through something like that.’
‘It wasn’t just my parents. I’ve got three older brothers and they lived through it, too. Tom, the eldest, became a doctor because of what happened to me.’
‘What about the other two?’
‘James is a vet; Harry is a sports teacher. He’s nearest in age to me and appointed himself my personal bodyguard when I started school. If anyone got too close, too rough, watch out.’
He knew he’d have been the same, but he could see it wouldn’t be much fun to be on the receiving end of that kind of protection. ‘How did you cope with that?’
‘I regret to say that I loved it. I was a proper little princess,’ she admitted ruefully, ‘and, with three gorgeous brothers, everyone wanted to be my friend. It was only when I was fifteen and Harry discovered that I had a crush on a boy in the lower sixth that it all got out of hand.’
He grinned. ‘I suppose he warned him off his little sister?’
‘Oh, it was worse, far worse than that. The poor guy obviously didn’t have a clue that he was the object of my desire. He always smiled at me in the corridor—probably because I was Harry’s sister—and I’d just built up this huge fantasy. As you do...’ He glanced at her and she rolled her eyes. ‘Teenage girls.’
‘An alien species,’ he agreed. ‘And?’
‘And my sweet brother asked him, as a personal favour, to take me as his date to a school disco.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘I wish,’ she said, ‘but Harry was captain of sport and played under-eighteen rugby for the county. A request from him was in the nature of a decree from Mount Olympus.’
‘So you had your dream date?’
‘Bliss city.’
‘But?’
She sighed. ‘There is always a “but”,’ she agreed. ‘I discovered what Harry had done, which was a total nightmare, but worse, much worse, I discovered that everyone else knew.’
‘Before? After? During?’
‘During. The classic overheard gossip in the loo... The girl he would have taken if Harry hadn’t stuck his oar in was giving vent to her feelings about the spoiled, fat little cow who’d got her brother to twist her boyfriend’s arm.’
‘Ouch,’ he said, flippantly enough, but deep down he was imagining what that must have been like for an over-protected fifteen-year-old girl. The embarrassment, the shame... ‘What did you do?’
‘I waited in the cubicle until they’d gone, then I slipped out of school and walked home.’
‘Of course you did. How far was it?’
‘A couple of miles. It wouldn’t have been a problem, but I’d abandoned my coat because I didn’t want anyone to see me leave.’