Page 3 of Pyg

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SPRING HAS SPRUNG

A lice rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and hard-blinked when they came away black with the remnants of her mascara. The pink dawn glow backlit the hospital’s multi-storey car park, blurring the straight lines of its brutalist concrete mass. Even her shitty little Ford Fiesta looked almost pretty in this early morning light.

Searching for her car keys, Alice rooted around in her Tardis-like tote bag until her fingers latched onto the source of the jangle. She chucked her bag onto the passenger side, hitched up her coat, and folded herself into the driver’s seat. Condensation covered the windows from the late-night drive and the sweaty exertion of lugging the man into her car, but the heater would clear them soon enough and she’d be on her way. A hot cup of tea, followed by a shower. Then bed, where she could sleep away the rest of this disastrous weekend.

Alice turned the key in the ignition.

One false start.

Followed by another.

“C’mon, old girl.” Alice gave the dashboard a coaxing rub. She turned her head, squeezed her right eye shut and gently twisted the key again. The engine spluttered and wheezed… then nothing.

“For fuck’s sake,” Alice screamed and lobbed the keys across the car. She collapsed over the steering wheel as drained as the car’s dead battery. Exhaustion washed over her, leaving her too spent to even cry.

A light tapping sound roused Alice back to the present. She raised her head and could make out an outline through the steamy window.

“Alice, is that you? Are you okay?”

Doctor Khurana.

Alice groaned with the effort of manually winding down the window. The doctor’s face jerked into view with each turn of the handle. She peered through the gap at Alice with tired eyes that radiated kindness.

“I heard screaming and, well… duty of care and all that.”

“A spot of car trouble. Nothing to worry about. I’ll er, call my brother-in-law in a while. I’m sure he won’t mind popping out on a Saturday morning to give the old girl a jump.” Alice shuddered at the thought of having to call Markus. Prick. And Maggie would be annoyed that Alice had still done nothing about replacing her shitty little car.

“Where are you headed?”

Alice sighed. “Home.”

The doctor raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Leamington.”

“I probably shouldn’t do this, but I’m headed that way too. I can give you a lift, if you like? You look like you could do with some rest, and you could come back for your car later.”

“Really?… I mean about the lift, not the rest. I can only imagine I look a state.”

“Come on. My car’s over there in the staff car park.” Doctor Khurana tilted her head. “And you can trust me; I’m a doctor.”

“But can you trust me, Doctor?”

One side of the doctor’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “No idea, but I’m not going to leave you stranded out here after you helped that man last night. One good deed deserves another. Karma, right?”

Alice smiled, too weary to put up a fight, hoping karma wouldn’t come back and bite her in the arse for cracking the poor man’s head open. She fished for her keys in the passenger footwell and scooped up her bag. The doctor creaked the door open and offeredher hand as Alice struggled to her feet in her ridiculous heels.

“It’s Asha, by the way. Or Ash, if you like.”

“Alice.”

Ash grinned. “Alice French, I know.”

Alice had no idea what make or model it was, but unlike her car, which smelled like a damp dog even though she didn’t have one, Ash’s sporty little vehicle smelt of vanilla and leather. And unlike Alice’s car, it didn’t splutter and die, but roared into life when Ash pressed the ignition. Fran would’ve approved… of the engine’s roar, not of Ash.

Fran wouldn’t approve of Alice getting a lift from an attractive stranger, even if that stranger was a doctor and she was just being nice. But then, Fran had no right to know anything about what Alice did any more.

Fran can fuck all the way off.

Ash gave Alice a sidelong glance. “Are you warm enough?”

Alice nodded, even though she was shivering. Ash fiddled with the buttons in the centre console, andwarm air pumped through the vents. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you.”

Ash flicked on the stereo and a way-too-cheerful DJ’s voice piped through the speakers, which she turned down to a comfortable background hum. Alice blinked through her tiredness and fixed her gaze out of the window. Dewy mist rose from a patchwork of fields in the now orange light of daybreak.

“Looks like it’s going to be a nice spring day.”

“Mmm.” Alice didn’t take her eyes off the landscape rolling by.

“I think it’s my favourite season, spring. I love the way nature reanimates everything; all that fresh new life… and the longer days are always welcome.” Ash tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel to the soft beat of the song on the radio.

Alice turned and took in her profile; her straight nose, the soft curve of her jaw, her glossy black shoulder-length hair now hanging loose and tucked behind her pierced ear.

Ash glanced at Alice and grinned a crooked smile. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re way too full of the joys of spring for someone who’s just got off a night shift. Aren’t you shattered?”

Ash laughed. “I’m used to it. It’s my routine. The lighter days really do help, though. I’ve even been known to hit the gym before going home, especially if it’s been an eventful shift.”

“And was it?”

“What?”

“An eventful shift?”

Ash’s eyes flicked between Alice and the road. Her long, dark eyelashes fluttered as her lips twisted into a smile. “Yeah, it’s not every day a mysterious woman turns up with an unconscious man.”

Alice stifled a laugh. “I’m not mysterious.”

“Well, it was all a bit odd, you have to admit.”

“Mmm, I guess so. I honestly did just find him in the road, like I told you.”

“I believe you.” Ash frowned and bit her lip. “Earlier you said your evening had been disastrous. How so, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Alice drew in a deep breath, and released it through her nose. “I think I broke up with my… with my someone.”

“You did, or you just think you did?”

“Well, I left. I got into my car, and I drove away. I’ve never done that before. And I don’t feel the desire to go running back, so I’m pretty sure it’s over.”

“Had you been together long?”

“Long enough. I didn’t realise I wanted it to be over… but it really wasn’t going anywhere, so what’s the point?”

Ash’s face set into a frown. “Sounds like you’ve made a tough choice, but a good one?”

Alice nodded. “I think so. It must be, because I don’t even feel sad about it at the moment… I feel relieved, actually.”

“There you go then. You’ve done the right thing if you feel that way.” Ash flashed her crooked smile again, and it elicited a flutter in Alice’s chest.

Seriously, Alice? The first person who happens to be nice to you? She turned and looked out of the window, chewing the inside of her lip. “I’m forty-two, for fuck’s sake. It’s about time I got my shit together.”

“Well, your timing’s good; spring’s the season of fresh starts.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Alice gave the doctor a small smile.

“Change nothing, and nothing changes. Someone wiser than me said that, but it’s a good way to be. You know, take control and go after the things you want.”

“Is that what you do?” Alice asked and bit the inside of her lip again as a punishment for flirting.

Ash didn’t answer the question, but a smile flickered in her eyes, and she turned up the volume on the car stereo. “I love this,” she said and drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel in time to the beat of an Annie Lennox song.

Alice pointed at the windscreen. “You need to go left after the lights.”

By the end of the track, they’d pulled up on the road outside an imposing cream building, its rendered facade characterised by vast windows and a grand entrance.

Ash whistled. “Is this really where you live? It’s dead posh.”

“It looks fancy from the outside, but I only have a little one-bed flat in there. I don’t even get to use the front door. My place is around the back and up the stairs.”

“That’s Leamington for you, all fancy from the outside.” Ash turned to face her with eyes watering as she stifled a yawn in her palm.

Alice gathered up her bag and jangled her keys in her coat pocket. “Thanks again for the lift… and the chat. It was good to talk about it. I’d invite you in for a coffee, but I don’t have any milk…”

Ash raised a polite hand to decline before Alice had finished making an excuse.

“Or coffee.”

Ash exhaled a laugh. “Honestly, it was no trouble at all. I hope you get everything sorted with your car… and your life.” Her kind smile told Alice she meant the ‘sort your life out’ thing in a nice way. And there was that little flutter in her chest again.

Stop it, Alice. Get a grip.

* * *

Alice leaned on the front door until it closed behind her. She dropped her keys on the console table and gasped as she met her reflection in the mirror. Dark smudges circled her eyes, and her bedraggled blonde curls told the tale of a sleepless night. She turned her face to examine a gory smear of blood across her cheek; the man’s blood, not hers. Even so, she looked like she’d taken part in some sort of ritualistic ceremony, where she’d sacrificed a virgin or three.

It occurred to her she’d been chatting away to that nice doctor whilst looking completely deranged. Despite her internal chaos, Alice was normally well put together at least. She hiccupped a maniacal laugh, which added to her overall unhinged aesthetic.

What the hell must the doctor have thought of her? And how horrified Fran would be if she could see her now. For a split second, Alice considered whipping out her phone to send Fran a selfie, but she didn’t care about fucking Fran any more, so she set her phone face-down next to her keys.

Alice kicked off her heels and wiggled her liberated toes on the Victorian-tiled floor, relishing the coolness on her burning soles. She fixed her gaze on the patent heels; her beautiful, disgustingly expensive Louboutins. Ruined. Why had she wasted so much money on them? She had loved them — how they made her feel, how much they’d excited Fran. But now she had to admit they’d hurt her, too; they’d really fucking hurt her. A sob threatened to escape her throat, but she swallowed it down and looked her reflection in the panda-eyes.

“No. No more.” Alice snatched up the shoes and fumbled with the front door. When the lock sprung free, she flung it open and launched the heels outside. She pinched her lips together as the Louboutins clattered down the steps and, after one last sorry glance in their direction, she slammed the door shut.

“Right. That’s that then.” Alice picked up her phone, swiped past the red-dot deluge of missed calls and texts from Fran, and took a photo of her swollen feet as a reminder not to buy any more ridiculous fucking heels.

A reminder not to make herself uncomfortable for anyone else, ever again.

“Spring has sprung.”