To the Moon and Back

Chapter 49




Ellie leapt a foot in the air as the dog flap clattered and Elmo erupted into the kitchen. She heard Zack exhale with what could have been frustration. Or was that just more wishful thinking on her part? Mentally dragging herself back to the real world, she picked up a rag and gave the granite worktop a wipe down where she’d spilled the milk.

‘It’s not time to go out,’ Zack told Elmo, who was still barking and leaping around like a landed salmon. He shook his head at the dog, then gave in and said, ‘Oh, what the hell, come on then.’ He reached for the red lead, hanging on a hook by the back door. This was Elmo’s cue to stop fooling around and stand still, allowing Zack to clip it to his collar. As Zack bent down to do this, Elmo scuttled into reverse, did a speedy three-point turn, and hurtled back out through the dog flap.

‘What’s he playing at?’ Zack frowned and hung the lead back up.

Ellie went to the window. Elmo was dancing around in the garden, jumping up onto the wall then down again. The next moment, still yapping noisily, he launched himself back into the kitchen. Ellie picked up the phone and called Geraldine next door.

‘No reply.’ She looked over at Elmo, then at Zack. ‘Did she say she was going out?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Where’s the spare key?’

‘She asked to borrow it last week when her sister came to stay. Hasn’t given it back yet.’

‘Let’s see if she’s there.’ Ellie opened the kitchen door. The three of them jumped over the low wall. There was nothing to see through Geraldine’s kitchen window but Elmo was still yelping in a state of full-on agitation. Yelling Geraldine’s name provoked no response.

‘OK, I’ll give it a go.’ Ellie slid her arms out of her pink cotton cardigan, handed it to Zack and eyed the dog flap in Geraldine’s back door.

Think yourself thin, think yourself thin.

‘Can you get through?’ Zack was looking doubtful; it was a flap designed for a medium-sized dog.

‘Thanks for that vote of confidence.’ She took a swipe at him. ‘If I get stuck, it’s your fault for buying so many doughnuts. And no videoing this and putting it on YouTube. Right.’ She kicked off her shoes. ‘You’ll have to do the thing with the sensor.’

Was this wise? If she did get stuck, would the fire brigade have to be called and the entire door dismantled? Might she have to be crowbarred out? Ellie knelt down and waited for Zack to disconnect the sensor from Elmo’s collar. He held it right next to the flap, enabling her to push it open.

‘You’d better not be laughing at me.’ No longer able to see him, Ellie went through arms first and began wiggling her shoulders through the tight bit.

Above her, Zack said, ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

He was definitely laughing. She prayed her skirt hadn’t ridden up. OK, halfway through now. Hips and bottom next. It was going to be a tight squeeze. Bracing herself, Ellie said, ‘And if I can’t manage this, don’t go calling the fire brigade. Just leave me here until I’ve lost enough weight.’

But she eventually got through. Just. As she scrambled to her feet, it occurred to her that they may have overreacted. Geraldine had probably gone out to visit a friend. Either that or she was upstairs having a bath or an afternoon nap, and Elmo had been doing his Superdog-to-the-rescue impression for a laugh.

‘Geraldine?’ She raised her voice as Elmo dived in through the dog flap behind her. ‘Hello? Geraldine?’

And then she heard Geraldine, very faintly, calling out, ‘Ellie? Thank God. I’m up here.’

Ellie turned, unlocked and unbolted the kitchen door, and opened it to let Zack in. ‘She’s upstairs.’

They followed Elmo up to the top floor. Geraldine was lying in the doorway to the bedroom, a curled-up copy of World Medicine magazine to the right of her and her walking stick to the left.

‘The cavalry’s arrived.’ She managed a faint smile at the sight of them. ‘Don’t touch me. I’ve fractured my right femur.’

Zack was already calling an ambulance. Elmo licked Geraldine’s hand and she fondled his ears with gratitude. ‘Clever boy. Did you bark at them in Morse code?’

‘Put it this way, forcing him to watch all those Lassie DVDs really paid off.’ Ellie knelt on the carpet beside her. ‘How did it happen?’

‘There was a massive spider up on the wall and I tried to splat it with my rolled-up magazine. But it scuttled off to one side. So I went to whack it again.’ Geraldine sounded exasperated. ‘That’s when I lost my balance and came crashing down like a bloody tree.’

‘That’s karma for you,’ said Ellie.

‘You’re telling me. I’ve been lying here for the last twenty minutes and it’s been smirking down at me the whole time.’

Ellie followed the line of Geraldine’s gaze and let out a squeak; the spider was indeed up there, malevolent-looking and measuring a good three inches in diameter.

Zack ended the call. ‘Right, ambulance is on its way.’

‘Thanks for coming to the rescue. Oh Lord,’ Geraldine sighed. ‘They’re going to cart me off to the hospital.’ She looked at Ellie. ‘Could you be an angel and help me get a bag packed?’

‘No problem. Zack, kill the spider, would you?’

‘What, and end up like Geraldine? Let him live. I’ll go down and keep an eye out for the ambulance.’

When he’d left them, Geraldine murmured with amusement, ‘Just like my husband. Scared of them but would die rather than admit it.’

For a precarious moment Ellie found herself wavering; could she confide in Geraldine? Then she saw the mischievous glint in the older woman’s eye and came crashing back to her senses. Sharing her feelings for Zack would clearly be insane; Geraldine had no self-control.

‘Don’t worry about Elmo. We’ll take care of him.’ Rising from her kneeling position and mentally zipping her mouth shut, Ellie said, ‘Tell me where your overnight bag is and what you want me to pack.’

***

Zack accompanied Geraldine to University College Hospital and waited with her until she’d been seen in the ER, then admitted onto a ward. Surgery to pin and stabilize the intracapsular fracture was scheduled to be carried out first thing tomorrow and the pain was under control. As he made his way home, a text came through from Ellie:

Travel schedule sorted, meetings rearranged. Taking Elmo for a run, back by six. Give Geraldine our love xx





The kisses, needless to say, were for Geraldine, not for him. But that hadn’t stopped him looking at the text three times already. On a whim, as the taxi reached Primrose Hill and Regents Park Road, Zack told the cab driver to stop. The hill itself was bathed in sunshine and there were still plenty of people about. Heading up to the top, he kept a look out for Ellie. This afternoon he could have sworn her attitude towards him had changed; just thinking about the incredible longing he’d experienced brought it all back. He’d so badly wanted to kiss her, had been right on the verge of doing it, right up to the moment when Elmo had come crashing through the dog flap.

And then he saw her. Having reached the brow of the hill, Zack saw a flash of pink. There they were, Ellie with her long dark hair flying and Elmo’s tail wagging in joyful anticipation as she hurled his red ball into the air and he launched himself after it. Ellie waited until he’d reached the ball before haring off in the opposite direction. By the time Elmo caught up with her, she was lying on the grass pretending to be asleep. With a giant leap, he landed on her stomach and dropped the ball on her chest. She doubled up laughing and lifted him into the air, causing Elmo to bark with delight and paddle his legs furiously. The next moment Ellie had thrown his ball and the two of them were off again, chasing after it.

She had no idea he was there. Zack didn’t want to move. He could stand here and watch her forever; her complete lack of self-consciousness was irresistible. Gripped by a surge of longing, he made up his mind. After the events of today, surely he had the perfect excuse to invite her back to the house for dinner. They could talk about what had happened to Geraldine, discuss the care of Elmo in the weeks ahead, maybe recapture the moment that had felt as if it might have been about to happen before bloody Elmo had come bursting into the kitchen and interrupted them. When he’d checked with Ellie earlier that she could look after Elmo if he was held up at the hospital, she had said it was fine, she wasn’t seeing Joe tonight.

Which could only be good news. Wherever Joe might be this evening without her, it served him right.

***

‘Hey!’ Spotting the figure heading her way, Ellie waved wildly with both arms.

When they reached each other she said, ‘I can’t believe you’re making me do this.’

‘Don’t be like that. It’ll be great.’

‘It won’t be great! You’ve already told me it’s going to be horrendous. You just want me there to share the agony.’

But Ellie was smiling; she couldn’t help herself. Roo had called her twenty minutes ago, desperate for support. Brian, in his late forties and terminally dandruffy, was the kind of person you really hoped wouldn’t sit next to you on the bus. A fellow volunteer at the charity shop, he was a nonstop chatterer and somewhat eccentric; he also drove everyone insane with his misplaced enthusiasm for… well, just about everything you could possibly think of.

‘OK, it’s true,’ Roo admitted. ‘But he doesn’t have any friends. He joined this amateur dramatics society to try and make some, and it didn’t work. What could I say?’

It was the opening night of Brian’s first play, being held in a crumbling church hall in Crouch End. This afternoon he’d proudly presented Roo with two tickets for the performance. ‘They’re his friends and family tickets,’ Roo had explained during her begging phone call, ‘and there’s no one else he can invite. Please, please, say you’ll come with me.’

Vowing to become a good person was all very admirable, but Roo wasn’t above taking other people down with her. ‘Because if it’s just me,’ she’d pointed out, ‘Brian might get it into his head that it’s some kind of date. And he’ll insist on walking me home afterwards.’

Ellie shielded her eyes from the sun, watching as Elmo wrestled playfully with a pair of terriers for control of his ball and ended up rolling down the grassy slope. ‘What time do we have to be there?’

‘Eight o’clock, curtain up. But Brian says if we want good seats to get there by seven.’ Roo was tilting her head to one side. ‘Now is this who I think it is?’

Ellie followed the direction of her gaze and felt her stomach give a little squeeze. Seeing Zack unexpectedly had that effect on her.

Then again, it had also been known to happen when it wasn’t unexpected.

She nodded. ‘That’s Zack.’

‘I guessed. And that’s what I call a body.’ Roo raised a mischievous eyebrow. ‘Don’t look so shocked. I’m not going to do anything.’ She grinned. ‘Just pointing it out, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

In case she hadn’t noticed. Oh God, wouldn’t that have made life easier. ‘Hi!’ said Ellie over-brightly as Zack approached them. ‘How’s Geraldine?’

‘Pretty good, all things considered.’ He nodded at Roo. ‘You’re Roo? We meet at last. I’ve heard all about you.’

‘Same.’ Roo perched her sunglasses on the top of her head and beamed at Zack. The next moment Elmo came racing up, his tongue lolling and his tail going like a propeller.

‘You said you were bringing him for a walk,’ said Zack, ‘soI thought I’d meet you here.’

‘And am I glad you did,’ Roo exclaimed. ‘If you hadn’t made it back in time, Ellie might have said she had to stay at home and look after your dog. But you’re here, so it’s OK, we can go out tonight!’

‘So much for my get-out clause.’ Ellie looked at Zack. ‘Thanks.’

There was the tiniest of pauses. Then Zack said, ‘Where are you going?’

‘To the theatre. To see a play. It’s going to be awful.’

‘We don’t know that for sure,’ said Roo.

‘We kind of do.’ Ellie shook her head. ‘You said Brian was playing the part of a singing Spanish juggler. You also told me he’s pale blue, tone deaf, and can’t juggle.’

‘Well, we’re going and that’s that.’ Roo put her dark glasses back on. Taking Elmo’s lead from Ellie, she handed it to Zack. ‘We need to go home and get changed first too. Bye then.’ She flashed him another smile. ‘See you again sometime.’

‘I bet you’re jealous.’ Ellie rolled her eyes good-naturedly at Zack. ‘If only we’d had a spare ticket you could have joined us, but apparently they’re very in demand.’

‘It’s a sell-out.’ Roo called over her shoulder as she headed down the hill.

Ellie bent down to ruffle Elmo’s ears. ‘Bye, sweetie, see you tomorrow.’

And another plan hits the rocks.

‘Bye,’ said Zack.