‘Coat? What time of year was this?’
‘It was the Christmas disco,’ she said, and he let slip a word that he immediately apologised for.
‘No, you’re okay.’ She held up her hand and began to count off the reasons why that word was just about perfect. First finger... ‘There was the no-coat thing, which on any level was pretty dumb.’ Second finger... ‘There were the sparkly new shoes which weren’t made for long-distance walking and fell apart after half a mile.’ Third finger... ‘Then it began to rain.’
‘Your date didn’t miss you?’
‘Not for a while. When a girl disappears into a cloakroom who knows how long she’ll be and I don’t suppose he was in any hurry...’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, my feet hurt, my dress was ruined and my life was over. Worse, I knew my parents would be waiting up for me, wanting to hear about my date. I couldn’t face all that concern, all that sympathy, so I hid in the garden shed.’
‘Oh, I can see where this is going. No one knew where you were. They organised a search party, called the police, dragged the river?’
‘All of the above.’
‘You’re kidding?’
She laughed at his horrified reaction. ‘Okay, not the river. Tom came looking for a torch and found me before it got that far. I was given a severe talking to by the local constabulary on the subject of responsibility and Dad grounded me for the whole of the Christmas holidays. No parties or holiday outings for me. Not much of a punishment, to be honest. I wanted to hibernate.’
‘He knew that. He was making it easy for you.’
‘Oh... Of course he was.’ She shook her head. ‘I never realised.’
‘You were upset.’
‘It got worse. School insisted that I had “counselling”,’ she said, making quote marks with her fingers, ‘because obviously anyone who behaved so irrationally, so irresponsibly, had problems and needed help.’
Hardly irrational, he thought. More like a wounded animal going to ground. Something he knew all about.
‘Not a Christmas to remember, I’m guessing.’
‘White-faced parents, Harry in the doghouse with everyone. A total lack of ho-ho-ho. On the upside, by the time the holidays were over there were other scandals to talk about.’
‘And the downside?’
‘I’m still trying to prove that I can put one foot in front of the other without one of them holding my hand. Proving to my brothers that their broken little sister is all mended.’
Darius, thinking that if they’d seen her laying into him they might be convinced, said, ‘Any luck?’
‘The nearest I came was last Christmas when I drove home in the BMW.’
‘Ho-ho-ho!’
She dug him in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Men are so shallow. If I’d known how easy it was to impress them I’d have saved my bonuses for a flash car instead of putting down a deposit on my flat.’
‘The fact that you didn’t proves how smart you are.’