Page 28 of Summer Escapes on the Scottish Isle (Coorie Castle Crafts #2)

Freya swallowed hard and tried to ignore the unmistakable smell that all hospitals seemed to have. For weeks after her mother’s death, she’d imagined she could still smell it in her hair, no matter how often she showered or what products she used.

‘Stop fidgeting,’ her dad hissed, and Freya realised her foot was tapping a staccato tattoo on the grey-tiled floor. She willed herself to keep still, and stared at the notices dotted around the walls, and then at a muted screen playing an NHS information video on a loop.

Her foot tapped again, and her dad elbowed her.

‘Anyone would think you’re the one who’s about to be prodded and poked, not me,’ he grumbled.

She prayed he’d get a good report. Despite being hopeful that her dad was making good progress, Freya didn’t have any measure to compare it to. She didn’t know anyone who’d broken their hip, and Dr Google had so much conflicting advice and information that she didn’t know what to believe.

Just then his name was called and as he struggled carefully to his feet, Freya leapt up to help him.

He shook her off. ‘I can manage.’ It had become something of a refrain, and one that she tended to ignore.

Hovering by his side, she was matching her pace to his as he made his way to the consultation room, when he stopped abruptly.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.

‘With you,’ she replied, bewildered.

‘There’s no need. I’m perfectly capable of seeing the doctor on my own.’

Hurt, she asked, ‘Don’t you want me to come in with you?’

‘I’ve got to do things for myself. When you go back to London, I won’t have anyone with me.’

‘But that’s a long way off.’

‘Hmm, we’ll see.’

‘And you still can’t walk properly,’ she pointed out.

‘No, but I can hear properly, so I can listen to what the doctor has to say without you being there. Stay here, I won’t be long.’

Freya remained where she was, feeling rejected. Her dad was taking being independent too far. If he were fit and well, she could have understood his reluctance to have her there, but he wasn’t. Then again, if he had been fit and well, he wouldn’t be here in the first place.

She watched as he went inside, then she returned to her seat, eyeing the door anxiously and wondering how long he would be.

When a nurse came out a moment later and headed in her direction, Freya didn’t take any notice, but when the woman came to a halt in front of her, she snapped to attention.

The nurse said, ‘Your dad says you can go in with him, if you want.’

Freya did want. Happy that the miserable old so-and-so had seen sense, she went into the consultation room. If there was anything wrong, or anything more that her dad could be doing, she wanted to hear it first-hand from the doctor, and not second-hand from her father.

‘This is nice,’ Vinnie said, looking around the restaurant. ‘It makes

a change to be somewhere different. I thought I’d go mad if I had to

stare at those four walls for much longer. I was going stir-crazy.’

‘If you wanted to go out, you should have said,’ Freya replied, before it occurred to her that maybe she should have thought to offer to take him out. He’d been home from hospital for over two weeks, yet he hadn’t left the house once, except for today.

After the consultant said she was pleased with his progress, Freya had suggested that they stop off for a bite to eat on their way home.

There was a pub where she’d eaten once, after she’d visited him in Broadford Hospital and hadn’t been able to face cooking.

The food was good, the portion sizes were generous, it was on the outskirts of the town, and she felt that they both deserved lunch out to celebrate.

Her dad wasn’t out of the woods yet, but the edge of the treeline was in sight and he seemed happier in himself.

So was she. Some of the anxiety and tension she’d been carrying for the past month had eased now that she knew the wound had healed well, and he was regaining some flexibility in the joint.

She had to admire her dad’s determination; he did his exercises religiously twice a day, every day, and made sure he got up out of his chair regularly to walk around the house.

‘Did you hear the doctor say that as long as I’m careful, there’s no reason for me not to use the stairs?’ he said.

‘I did.’

‘I’m to ask the physio to show me the best way to go up and down them, the next time she comes. Oh, and did I tell you that it’ll be her last home visit? I’m to go to the hospital for future appointments.’

‘Yes, you did.’

‘You’ll have to ask Mack if he can take my bed back up. I never wanted it in the sitting room in the first place.’

‘I know you didn’t, but it was safer and more practical, with the bathroom being downstairs.’

‘It’ll be nice to sleep in my own bedroom again, and to put the sitting room straight.’

She smiled. This was the liveliest she’d seen him since she’d returned to Skye, but when she said, ‘I think you should keep the riser chair for a while,’ his face clouded over.

She thought he was going to argue, but all he did was nod, and she guessed he would keep it to humour her then get rid of it as soon as she was gone.

If that’s what he wanted to do, that was his prerogative, but for now he still needed it.

The armchairs were too low and too soft.

Not only were they difficult for him to get in and out of, but they also put unnecessary strain on his healing joint, and having his leg at the wrong angle to his hip was a definite no-no.

Conversation dried up for a moment, as they perused the menu, but resumed again once they’d chosen.

‘This is nice,’ he repeated. ‘I haven’t been somewhere different for ages.’

A flicker of concern flitted through her: hadn’t he said the very same thing a couple of minutes ago?

Then she remembered friends and colleagues mentioning how repetitive their elderly relatives had become, and she let the worry go, especially when he said, ‘The pub in Duncoorie is the furthest I get these days, but I can’t manage even that now. ’

‘I’ll drive you there whenever you want,’ she told him. Then added, with a smile, ‘I’ll even bring you home again if you’re not too drunk.’

‘And what if I am?’

‘I’ll leave you there until the morning. You’ll have sobered up by then,’ she teased, then became more serious. ‘Promise me you’ll be more careful. I don’t think either of us can take you having another fall.’

‘I’ll try, but sometimes it just happens.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you telling me that you’ve fallen before this?’

‘I’m not saying anything of the sort. All I meant was…

’ He exhaled slowly. ‘I wasn’t exactly cavorting around the kitchen when I fell, and neither was I up a ladder.

It just happened. One minute I was thinking about making a mug of cocoa in the hope it would send me off to sleep, the next I was on the lino and couldn’t get up again. ’

Freya’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Dad, I should have—’

‘Hush, I know what you’re thinking. Even if you’d been here, it wouldn’t have made any difference. I would still have fallen.’

‘But I’d have heard you calling and you wouldn’t have been lying on the kitchen floor all night.’

‘Aye, well, that’s as may be, but you weren’t and you’re not going to be. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – you’ve got your own life to lead.’

She knew she wouldn’t have been able to prevent him falling, but the guilt continued to linger, regardless.

‘Could you have one of those alarms—’ she began, but her dad cut her off.

‘Pfft! I am not wearing one of those. I’m not old or—’ Glowering, he broke off, repeating, ‘I’m not old.’

The alarms weren’t just for old people, but there was no point in arguing with him. When he got something in his head, there was no budging him.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said slowly, fully anticipating him to refuse to even entertain it. ‘Why don’t you keep your mobile phone on you? Just think, if you’d had it with you when you went downstairs to make a cup of cocoa, you’d have been able to phone for help.’

He scoffed. ‘You’ll have me taking it to the toilet next.’

‘What’s wrong with that? You could have an accident in the bathroom just as easily as in the kitchen.’

‘I’ll never remember it.’

‘You will,’ she insisted, warming to her theme. ‘Just keep it in your pyjama or trouser pocket. Before you know, it’ll be second nature to carry it with you.’

‘Or an addiction,’ he grumbled.

She laughed. ‘I can’t see you being addicted to your phone.’

‘That reminds me,’ he said. ‘Are you feeling all right? I haven’t seen you playing with yours all morning.’

‘I put it on airplane mode before we set out for the hospital, as I didn’t want it going off in the middle of your appointment and I knew I’d forget if I didn’t do it when I thought about it.’ She often put it on airplane mode when she was working, or at the very least she switched it to silent.

Wondering whether she’d had any calls or messages this morning, she was about to reach into her bag to check, when her dad squeezed her hand.

‘You’re a good daughter.’

Freya knew that wasn’t true. She should have visited more often, phoned him more frequently.

And she definitely shouldn’t have felt as irritated with him as she had over these past couple of weeks.

She’d had to keep reminding herself that he was set in his ways and that however much he loved her and she him, it couldn’t be easy having her invade his space.

‘I’ll give it a go,’ he said, patting his shirt pocket and bringing out his tablets. ‘But you’ll have to keep reminding me.’

‘Don’t worry, I will!’

The peace of mind it would give her would far outweigh the amount of nagging she was going to have to do.

Mack knew a bawbag when he saw one, and the guy wearing an obviously brand-new and expensive Barbour jacket, and carrying a camera with a telescopic lens that was big enough to see a speck of dust on the moon, was clearly it.